____T.H.E. .P.A.S.S.

____Yet Another Bash Gone Bad

Last Friday night was my Hall Bash. It was supposed to be a night of fun and enjoyment. But I didn't expect to see so many ugly sides of human nature on a single night. On the other hand, I do not see myself as part of the clubbing scene so maybe what I saw was part of the norm of clubbing. And if that is so, it sucks.

Hall One pageant preview started off slowly for the people who do not frequent clubs, myself included. The pageant preview was pretty much predictable with some of the contestants looking really gorgeous. But the initial excitment died almost as soon as it started. After the pageant preview, as the bulk of Hall One was ushered upstairs to the (miserably small) dance floor of Coco Latte , I could see the most familiar bulk of Disney non-clubbers sitting down and either looking really subdued or trying as best to look as though we were having fun. Pathetic.

I sat down along with the rest and it was really boring. In fact, it was so boring that it became funny to me. Crazy ideas then started popping into my head and as I thought about these ideas, I couldn't help but snigger to myself. The glum faces looked so comical. And if the glum faces were comical, the faces of those trying to look cool would have had me folded up on the ground, clutching my stomache and asthmatic with laughter - if not for the fact that I was desperately thinking of ways to get out of the stupid situation.

Soon, enough was enough. I decided that if somebody had to do something, that somebody would have to be me. The row of glum and act cool people sitting down was getting longer and longer. I looked to my immediate left, sitted there was Jingying, followed by Angeline, Andrea and surprisingly, Jyen. My immediate right was Junjie, his girlfriend, and the list goes on to the likes of Yating, Tomio, Justin, Junwei, Baka, Chris and Jocelyn. I needed no furthur self-equivocation - I had to carry out my plan no matter how stupid it may sound.

"You are not going to sit here the whole night are you?!" I half-yelled to Junjie. He looked amused by my question. I thought I remembered him shaking his head, then nodding his head and then looking even more quizzical than ever. I wasted no time in explaining. I just asked him to pass my question down and further down the row.

I looked at Jingying on my left again and contemplated as to whether I should ask her such a crazy question. But I took action as soon as I contemplated, because if my plan was to succeed, I had to carry it out whole-heartedly.

"You are not going to sit here the whole night are you?" I repeated my question into Jingying's ear. She too, gave me and amused look. I felt relieved as I was so afraid that she might have just dismissed my question with a "what are you up to?!" look.

Soon there was commotion amongst us and when the question reached Justin, he stood up and "challenged" me to stand up. I gamely took on the challenge and was chiding the rest to stand up with us. In a while, all of us were at the dance floor, making funny body jerks, and trying to jerk in tune with the music. The non-dancers may look funny, but the thing is to have a good time (or at least, a better time than just sitting on the sofa).

I succeeded in my plan and was really glad, but the night did not end in a happy note. I said earlier in my opening paragraph I witnessed some of the ugly scenes of clubbing and shall briefly tell about them.

As an ex-PTI, I am pretty much against smoking if one is in search for a healthy lifestyle. Smoking because of an addiction is bad enough. Second-hand smoking is even worse but sometimes things cannot be helped especially in places like clubs. Unfortunately, social smoking is totally ridiculous. Non-smokers probably know the bad effects as smoking and social-smokers are non-smokers to start with. Which makes things really incredulous because since you already know that smoking is bad, plus the fact that you are not bounded by addiction, then why smoke? Ridiculous, ain't it?

Next up, would be the stupid drinking games. Challenging each other to either drink, or do something stupid. Really dumb to think about it. Often the girls get challenged and the next thing would probably the girls getting really drunk. Also ridiculous, because, getting drunk means being vulnerable. Why do something to make yourself vulnerable and reliant on others?

Then there was this fight then went about towards the end of the night. Shan't go into the details of the quarrel as I wasn't really on hand to witness what actually happened. But the thing with quarrels almost always boil down to another petty squabble.

Even afterwards when we went for supper there were people gossipping about things that may not be true in the first place. And by spreading rumours, tendency is that parties involved get their reputations destroyed. But what was worse for me is that I was there with the rest who were gossipping about people who are also my friends - I did not know whether to agree with the people around or to stand up for those who weren't. Maybe I could have done better than just keeping quiet but hell, I was too tired to think of another brilliant plan.

So, that's about it to Hall One Bash cum Pageant Preview. But to me, it's a preview to the ugly sides of the beautiful people around.

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