Press Conference : Check!
Thursday (23/02/2006)
6.00pm: reached Spectrum. Dada was making media calls (complete with a curler on her fringe..tsk!), Nadia making last minute changes to some documents. Waited for Peat to start on music selection. Peat brought a weird rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. hmm.
7.00pm: dinner at the cafe with Peat and Ian and 2 little kitties.
8.30pm: picked Net and Aizam from the library. headed to the hotel. utterly impressed - the ballroom was so much more than we expected! well worth the money we paid for it. was reeeally nice...6 chandeliers and uber spacious! got everyone excited thats fersho ;)
9.30pm: after everyone settled down, started on the technicalities first - the projector, music, mics etc.
mic chhheckk one twoo..one twoo..
10.00pm: rehearsals started. slightly disorganised, but still fun in the beginning.
me darlings Nadia and Aizam
panel rehearsal
mucking around with the sound system
11.00pm: wrapped things up (actually the hotel staf told me that we had to go hah!)
12.00pm: slept over chez Eliza.
Friday (24/02/2006)
6.00am: got up, got ready
7.20pm: reached the Hotel, managed to catch Nadia's interview on our event on Red104.9am..well done Nadia (eventho u forgot to mention sponsors *lolsie*..small matter, good 1st radio presentation all the same)!! everyone looked so professional..so nice! we all had meehoon for breakfast (that i brought from the caterers near Eliza's place).
power breakfast!
had another dry run rehearsal before i had to leave to pick Rebecca up from her hotel. i swear waking up early in the morning really makes you feel productive haha!
9.00am: one by one our VIPs started arriving. but where oh where were the press? panicked a little coz we only had 3 media who confirmed attendance. you're thinkin..what only 3? keep in mind that
i) there was another event at the same location involving the Ministry of Higher Education - so most of the media were assigned there.
ii) a MALAY university student project handling a book reading campaign? zzz surely! on that account alone we lose out on the Chinese and Chinese-owned papers.
iii) our event was prolly too early for most of them to want to come. THIS was our bad, shuda set the time slightly later - 10am would have been best. oh well now we know! :)
9.30am: STILL barely any media and i'm freaking out. entertained our VIPs for a little while. got Syibs to fill out the back portion of the seats with anyone - our excessive classmates for one. thank God Pn Noraini's hubby, daughter + friends decided to turn up. i heard that Bidin and Syibs went around the school asking if anyone wanted "TO MEET ASHRAF SINCLAIR" to try and get traffic into our hall. well if they didn't have classes (the reason they were in school in the first place??) i'm sure they would have loved to come - doh!
10.50am: we got 5 members of the press! we start our event..yippee!
ushering Datin Radziah into the hall
11.00am: event goes uber smoothly..no major glitches and the media really paid attention and did not look bored at all, all thanks to our greaaaaaaaat panel! i love our panel (yes i love me too hah :P )
..said the beaver *dudumdush*
Panel consisted of moi as Project Directore, Datin Radziah as Patron, Mr George Thomas - Exec Director of MAB, Rebecca Duckett-Wilkinson as Children's Book Author and Mr Ashraf Sinclair as hottie2scottie..i mean as the celeb who's supporting this event *sheepish grin*
Becky!
we deffo got the right people to be a part of this - they were all so passionate and gave the right vibe during their speeches. Datin Radziah rocked and saved our ass during the Q&A bit when no one asked questions, she sure knew how to break the ice! lets sing the chichak song everybodeyhh! Rebecca - Love herrrrrrr..she cooool (that coming from me..lets just say i hardly use that to describe a lot of ppl :P) expressed herself really well and Ashraf..well what can i say about Ashraf..Mr Handsome is not only pretty and nice to look at (made all the girls giggle and swoon), he's got charisma and a very likeable personality..kept his speech humourous (yes Mr Short-Attention-Span!), short and sweet..thanks 'Shraffy!
awwwwwwww..it's MrFlirtyFlirt <3
after all the speeches by members of the panel, we had the launching cake-cutting ceremony which went very well indeed (after the previous nites debate on choice of music - we eventually settled on Basement Jaxx's Do Your Thing (thanks Patrickus for this!), had our photo session with the cake, the buntings etc.
mmm...caake...homer simpson style!
proceeded to have light refeshments. had to do the PR thing and mingle with everyone - never in a million years would i have seen myself doing the mingling thing..i'm so not the type! but i think i did a good job if i may say so myself ;) aww c'mon give a girl a break eh?
got interviewed by Fairuz from i-kon, Berita Harian so that should come out either next Sat or the following Sat (i-kon is a weekly thing).
The goss:
i shouldn't really bitch about this but gah this one "celeb's" attitude just threw me off so bad! so we get her to be a part of our event right coz u know, she's a TESL graduate or summat and we thought hey she could sure use the coverage. so we sent her the proposal about a month back, we ask her hey are you free on this date, would you be interested so on so forth. she says yes.
a week back, we tell her prepare a short speech..not more than 5 mins, just a brief backgrounder on yourself, why you're interested in this. easy peasy yea? we didnt mind giving her keypoints even.
during rehearsal on Thursday, she sends a text msg to Eliza..i told you, no speech. i'm not even on the panel, i'm just there to support. there were other text msgs before, but the thing that pissed me off was her tone..uber rude! like what, just cause this is a student charity project, it gave you the right to act diva-ish with us is it? one minute telling us you'll do it, the next minute pulling out like that. so fine, i told Eliza, no need to reply..when she comes on Friday morning just sit her down and ask her nicely if she's sure she wants to do this cause its gonna look bad on her behalf if she's there n she doesn't say anything.
so the next morning, she texts Eliza and she says no speech and no panel if you dont give me your word i'm turning back now. what the hell was her problem? here i was freaking out about our media..i REALLY didn't need this sort of attitude from some two-bit 'celeb'. i told Eliza she was gonna bloody regret giving us the attitude once she set foot in the hotel and had a look at the place and the people that were involved in this event.
so Ms D-I-V-A comes late. but being the PD i had to be nice, but i really couldn't be arsed in giving her super great treatment.
anyhoo, you wanna hear the best part? after the photo session and all..Ms DIVA comes up to me and is absolutely positively GUSHING! she says OH THAT WAS A REAALLY GOOD SPEECH AUDRA WOW THIS IS A VERY IMPRESSIVE CAMPAIGN. OH I LOVE THE LOGO. CANTIK SANGAT! YOU GUYS PULLED THIS OFF REALLY WELL..by this time i nod, i say thank you, i smile but i sort of tune out her voice and excuse myself to accompany George for refreshments. the nerve! i knew what it was.. MS DIVA must've thought that a student project by UiTM was something irrelevant and unimportant and that it would be of mediocre standards. silly cow (literally.)
overheard at an interview with the media, MS DIVA says i'm really impressed with this project and am glad that they chose me to be part of it. really, its better than what some professional PR companies have come up with. yes we knew that all along, glad you're finally picking it up! oh and thanks for gobbling up all our cake. pft i had to stop her from cutting more cake by using the group photo session as an excuse..i mean SERIOUSLY is this woman for real?
Pn Noraini's hubby also came up to congratulate us, saying that our PC was indeed better than some professional PCs. George and Theresia also very kindly complimented on our event..so you can see why my head's up in the clouds now and is approximately the size of One Utama - new wing and all.
what upset me the most about MS DIVA's attitude was the fact that she had absolutely no confidence in us. look the way i see it, even IF our event was a small thing..you agreed to do it. be a professional and live up to it and sell the project..that is YOUR job as a celeb. Ashraf was great, he did everything we wanted him to do and more. he mingled with ALL our classmates (he did say we've got the hottest girls around..hellyea..23 superhot girls in suits, thats like every guys fantasy! who wouldnt want to be in our class lol). but no seriously, he did his part by supporting, giving the speech, mixing around with EVERYONE even Budi - shook his hand and all, said bye to each and everyone of us..tell me, how to not drool over this very FLIRTY gentleman..how? anyway yeah, i've lost any respect that i thought i had for this woman..she's not even half as popular as Ashraf and she's pulling that kinda attitude..UGH!
"we are not guys, we are hot chicks!" with Mr Ashraf, lucky guy ;)
so that was pretty much it, short and simple the way it should've been. i sent Rebecca back to her hotel and was on my way back home when i realised i left my handphone with Bidin and camera with Ian, being the absent-minded girl that i am. went back to our hotel but everyone had left. headed back out to go home but remembered i had a photo shoot at uni with the members of IPRMSA as Ex Officio. so went back to Uni only to discover no one was there. met some random guy at Spectrum and ask to borrow his phone to call Nadia who was at SACC mall. reached SACC and Ian decides to have lunch at the Sec3 McDs. so we head on there..bloody penat ok! i want a driver!! but seriously these things make you wonder..how did they do it without handphones?
spring cleaned the Spectrum a weebit before our 'Apprentice' photoshoot. all good fun. it was a pity Nadia and I were dead knackered. came back home, and was out like a light by 9pm..totally missed the Jose Padilla thing at Zeta. SOB!!!!!!!!!!! oh well...these things happen for a reason i spose. sigh..thats it fer now..gosh what a long post! wrapping this up with pictures from yesterday.
just wanted to thank my team again..you guys were awesome! wuvallyawww!!! oh and i'm supposed to say Dada is damn glam and thank you for introducing me to the father to my 2 kids *guffaw* :)
the media shot
the poser shot - Aqmar looking XXX :)
with the v.sexy lyndada!
with the luvly ikan-resah makcik Aizam!
with Peat-y Pablooo, my little technician boy!
with the rest of the gals!
