Now...

It has come to pass that I am fated to spend the Countdown alone! What a terrifying thought. Yes Surya, as in, alone alone. My dad went to a countdown party at some Serangoon Club. I refused to add to the bill or take a taxi, so I'm at home vacuuming the floor and watching Discovery Channel.

Had a bowl of congee for dinner at Bukit Panjang, I think I looked a little sad.

It was great that we managed to cook some pancakes this morning, didn't know it could be that simple. Better go and get some of the ready-made flour myself. Maple syrup, peanut butter. Honey? Urgh. Finished the chords for ‘？’, look through photos I took in China.

I plan to sleep the coming New Year away by pulling out that sofa-bed in the living room and listening to the Carpenters. My FIFA 09 skills have also improved, which is a cause for some cheer. Last room to vacuum, and that would be the study room.

Maybe I'll do a short walk down memory lane.

Rewind back to a few hours before 2000, and everyone was being stupidly panic-ky about the Y2000 bug, which never happened in the end. I remembered we were at Westmall doing shopping at around 9 (which was unusual because I should be practising from 8-10), and we were outside the Popular store. And my mum threatened me (sort of) that everyone would die. Woohoo, I was freaked out.

I stayed up till 12am to watch the countdown, and for the first time thought I had never seen the sky so dark before. You know, it's interesting when you're a kid, and the first time you woke up at 7am and saw the colour of sky, you go all googoogahgah.

Wait till you've stayed up for 24 hours, and you might have gone googoogahzzz...

At least that's what happened to me, lah.

Have I ever mentioned that 2008 has been such a topsy-turvy year? If you asked me to describe this year, I wouldn't even know where to begin. Exactly 1 year at this time I was invited to a count-down party at Trevor Sze's house, along with John Yu and some other String Ensemble guys. Sipped just a bit of the alcohol, and I was close to shutting down, couldn't even locate Lavender MRT. Got back home at 11.45pm, just in time to watch the countdown.

Now...[refer back to first paragraph and keep reading]

Happy New Year 2009, in advance.

The Text that got..whatever.

It's as if you all know that I wouldn't continue blogging about China anymore, which you all are right about.

But no, I just want to give special mention to the food there - it's been months since I tasted such good rice. Just refreshing, warm rice from the rice bucket, continuously scooped up by me and dumped into my bowl to be consumed. Ah, the rice-y rice. Yum.

At one particular restaurant they served a wine which was 50% alcohol [wondered how many people have died in that restaurant already], and all my cousins except for me and one cute other cousin tasted it. Imagine the scrunched up faces.

Whatever. It's fantastic to be back in Singapore, feeling the humid air and the breeze that (does not always) blow across my sunny island. I didn't realize my fashion insulation until I stepped out of the aeroplane into the connecting bridge - I was still wearing 5 layers of clothing. Sweat like a mountain pig.

We managed to watch Bedtime Stories yesterday night, what a hilarious show. Much wordplay and great comic timing from Adam Sandler. Had chicken rice and ban-mian before that, popcorn during the movie, done. Off to start and finish Twinkle in a day!

The Text that got reprinted more times than Monkey King Part 1

Back from China, and feeling the heat already, literally. I'm still bler-bler about when school starts, but I reckon it's next Thursday, where we start our orientation and holding hands with girls :O I hate orientation camps where they make us hold hands with girls.


I'm still waiting to upgrade after managing to make hand contact with my cousin's dog Cookie.

Ok China trip has its ups and downs, like how I made semi-friends with a hyper-active guy whom I couldn't stand (which must be a big deal seems it looks as if I'm hyper-active enough). I dao-ed him for the rest of the trip, because if I made any attempt to answer any of his questions, it would make it look as if I were INTERESTED to continue the conversation, and that would be that.


I would be stuck talking to him forever and ever, amen. I wouldn't mind if "him" started with a capital letter, but unfortunately, it isn't.

You see, you wouldn't really want to talk to a person who interjects in every conversation about the same soccer game (the game in question would be Arsenal's draw with Aston Villa). We could be talking over dinner about politics, and then suddenly this hyper-active kaki of ours would refer back to this game which took place years ago, and how he wouldn't mind sacking William Gallas for hacking down a player if he were Arsene Wenger.

You could have told me how you would wish you were white if you were Obama, and I wouldn't care.

But anyway yes, all the cousins came to a consensus that his intellect was questionable, and we left it to that. At least I was tolerant and I didn't scream at him when he told me how Arsenal drew the game with Aston Villa (for the 4th time) while I was taking a pee. Never should have told him I was an Arsenal supporter. Never should have told any of you! Haha now I'll be teased till the end of my days.

Our Kunming tour guide was fantastic, she was really strict and firm about everything, but she was funny and sarcastic, so we all liked her. The local tour guide (that is, the Singaporean tour guide) was so passive all the while, and the only thing he did was to tell us to watch our step everytime we got off the bus.

Us kids started betting on what new vocabulary he would add into his arsenal of greetings. Paddy Power gave us the odds of 1 to 2 that he would greet us with Merry Christmas on 25th of December, so that wasn't much of a big deal. He...never had much character development, although he played an important part in this Chinese theatre later in the show.

After Kunming we went to Dali, and as I had previously mentioned, all the rural town areas were turning out like ghost towns, with only a few scooters or motorcycles around, and the not-so-frequent cars being covered with sand, concrete and dust. Jolly, it sure did look like a war-zone, except there weren't any corpses around.

But there were roadkill though, and more often than not the bus driver (who was widely hailed as one of the best in the world) had to dodge stray dogs and carcasses that lined the road. And yes, throughout the entire trip I only managed to see 3 cats, and I reeally had to do my best to spot them - one was on top of a random roof, another one was maneuvering its way by a river bank, and another one camoflauged on the floor of a village house, by a fireplace, right in front of my feet. It took me a while to see it. Gosh, cats are sneeeeky.

We went to a dinosaur park in Dali, took wonderful wonderful pictures which I would (not) upload shortly, though I have a whole of a mind to show it to people. We also came to a stone forest.

Picture a forest of trees, but replace all the trees with huge stones, and voila! Stone forest. Keh.

Anyway it was a majestic sight, with stones lining the horizon at every turn. We finally managed to reach a pagoda built to allow people like us to take in the sights, and the results? Absolutely stunning. Managed to capture sun rays that cut through the clouds, casting a faint glow upon the random ranks of rocks.

But there was another stone of a different kind, and the tour guide mentioned to us that if we were to avoid the toilets because of the smell, certainly kidney stones would start to develop. Yeah, she told us about one woman who decided not to open her dam gates, and when finally knew could not pay enough rent to hold it any longer, took an opening ceremony at the side of the road, shielded with an umbrella.

She took a biblical time of half-an-hour, and the police had to be called. What a bizzare situation, an umbrella propped up in front of her and police surrounding her. Drop the umbrella, madam!

Yes, the toilets are notoriously fragrant, with a wall of pungent smell constructed at least 4 metres from the entrance. Anyone who was smart enough to talk would talk in short bursts, followed by a rapid intake of caustic air, with constant curses.

There was no lack of bad English, an itinary which showed the dance programme in the afternoon featured a "sheep her ding song". "Sheep her dong song" might have sounded more musically correct, but ding song takes the cake.

Ding.

We arrived at Lijiang, and I swear, the waters were so clear. That was when I had my first contact with a computer, a living room computer provided in the bungalow that was situated in a villa. Erm, picture a villa with like, 40 bungalows in a huge compound, and each bungalow has 5 rooms, a huge living room, cooking area, dining area, and a computer with Internet and MSN. Aaaand, a matron who would cook for the entire family.

The wide-screen TV featured ESPN, HBO, CNA, and all the channels you could think of, what a joy. Of course, I had to make full use of the MSN service provided. Heh heh heh heh *cough* *hack*.

The waters were not polluted, as previously thought, and when you could see movement of all the fishes, with flashes of orange, white, black and gold, in the sparkling water, you think life couldn't get any better. I took leave of MSN and decided to take a step out into the cold winter night at 11.30pm, dressed in long johns, sandals, and a bath robe. The night sky was peppered with stars of various brightness, and the icy breeze brought the robe gently off the ground, rooted by my shivering stature.

I managed to take another look into the pond that was directly outside the bungalow, with a mini bridge that was placed purposeless-ly across it. Ice drifted at the surface, and it was the first of the many icy encounters I had in China.

The road that let directly to the front of my bungalow circled around the pond and led back to the main villa, and staying opposite us were my other cousins. As kids would do what kids do, we would run over and prop ourselves up in front of the TV with a can of Pringles. Yum. Not forgetting KFC, [I think I mentioned this in my last post] double yum!

After two nights at the villa, we got ready for the 5 hour trip to Shangrila, and the latest fashion fad - oxygen cans - were all over the town/bus. But no matter. I sat at the back of the bus from the very first day, mostly by the window, with my dear cousins. The ride provided the sight that impressed me most. There were so many colours in play. As the morning sun rised over Lijiang, I took notice of a stream that stretched for miles which ran beside the road, running downstream. Silver rocks punctuated the waters, with huge ones on the banks, and sometimes in the water itself.

The water was unquestionably clear, shadowed by grey trees stripped of their leaves in the wintry weather. The stream was placed right below the hundreds of small mountains that towered over us along the way. Shades of golden, orange, green, silver and grey bathed the area, creating a view of fantasy-like picturesqueness.

Heavenly, and my small red Canon would never do justice to the sight I saw, except for the previously mentioned sun-rays-cutting-through-clouds picture.

We were reaching altitudes of 3000m above sea level, and already one boy had been completely left out from the Shangrila part of the trip, because he was suffering from high fever. Sigh, as Nigel mentioned, come to China pua-beh (Hokkien for sick), waste his parents' money. With much coincedence, this boy is the younger brother of our hyper-active-hugely-daoed friend.

The aunties were suffering from headaches and medical oil was in huge demand. I already had my share of health shit-tiness - right from the moment I touched down to Kunming on the first day, I was leaking (from the nose) so badly that it felt like a hell-hole. My eyes were constantly watering, my nose was clogged with blood (from the dryness) and mucus, and it looked as if I were on a commission to shiver as much as possible in the space of a minute. I awoke the next day with renewed vigour, and never looked back since - I sneezed only twice for the rest of my days in China, and my eyes never teared.

Back to Shangrila, it really started to look like Tibet - the stretching fields covered with golden sand and sparse patches of grass - a huge difference from what we saw leaving Lijiang. The temperature hovered at around -3 to 9 degrees. To much laughter but purely for my own health-wealthiness I wore four to five layers of clothing everytime I went out, and yes, a reason why I was healthy throughout the trip. Extremely good advice from someone to bundle up and drink loads of hot tea.

I'm good. We caught the first sights of the beautiful mountain cow, with its huge horns and long fur, and the mountain pig, also covered with fur, but less pretty in the sense.

A Chinese Christmas

It is only apt that I get to blog after 4 days in China, and another 4 more days to go, so it's sort of a blogpost in the middle of a holiday.

It's a near-freezing 3 degrees here in Lijiang, and I've been waking up constantly at 6 every morning. I brought along my manuscript books, which means that I've worked on Sonatina as per usual, but China has definitely brought in some new inspiration into my puny head.

I'm currently staying in a VILLA, where we are being served by a butler (what's a female butler called?) Altogether there are three storeys and 5 rooms, the living room is probably as wide as mine, and the TV is huge. There's HBO and ESPN and all the cable stuff you can think off. Pringle containers beside me, KFC remnants.

The rest of China other than Lijiang (which we've arrived today) as been terribly depressing, with the rural town areas basically looking like war-zones. Dirt, dust, mud, bricks, and worn paintings line the road. Road-kill, lots of stray dogs, beggars. Guess what, we haven't seen a SINGLE cat, or stray cat, throughout our entire trip in China.

And if you were to ask me to play Griffes or Mozart now, I might finish it with but a few slips. The weather's so damn cold, my fingers are rigid. Anyone drinking coke is probably looking for a cold, slow journey to sugar damnation.

I need to practise piano, I just realised. Damn.

But of course! Merry Christmas to all of you here, and let's hope next year will be a better one (although it never usually is, but I might prove myself wrong coming back next year).

Merry Christmas to you.

blahblahholidays.

Tottenham Spurs versus Manchester United probably is one of the nicest football games I've watched in recent times. The willingness to fight, the rivalry, the chivalry, hand-shaking and hugs at the end, and of course, its own share of good football makes it so pleasant to watch, amidst the cold London weather. Although the game ended up with a 0-0 draw, it was still engaging right to the end.

I'm sad that Arsenal will never play like that :(. They just don't have the...tsk, the X factor. One-touch football and things like that, but you still have to win trophies. But whatever.

Yesterday we prepared the vegetable salad, which we brought over to Miss Tan's house. Then after the potluck dinner (which consisted of mushrooms, pasta, chicken wings, vegetable salad and fruit salad - yum!) we finally got around to performing 'Heidi'.

Miss Tan has two pets - Heidi (the dog) and Twinkle (the cat) - and our Christmas present was supposed to be a two-movement work for both their pets, but unfortunately we only got around to doing the first movement.

I just realised how different the composer(s)' intepretation can be compared to the soon-to-be performer. Most of what Miss Tan mentioned after we played the piece didn't seem coherent with what I wanted it to be - the manner the motives should be played. Nonetheless we finished the piece, and also performed an earlier Tango that I wrote. Eh...we were sight-reading my messy hand-writing.

My dad brought back with him from work 9 softback books of manuscript paper, which I plan to use really effectively. So I'm probably reserving 3 of these for journal writing and studying composition techniques, and the other from solo, 4-hand, and of course, my final goal, concerto writing.

Started on the solo one already of course, and I filled in 3 pages of my Sonatina...which sounds super convulated and complex.

Mm. The Nutcracker ballet tomorrow, and then I'm off to China on Sunday 6am. I'm not looking forward to it! Have to pack...

I have a sudden fear that I've forgotten how to blog. Again.

class gathering 2. another boring blogspot. I've forgotten how to blog already.

Yes! The last few days have been great as per usual. I've been sleeping alot, to recover all the hours I've lost since September (while doing BCM), which meant that afternoon nap was 4 hours while my normal sleep hours have increased to 11 hours. I'm sleeping close to 5/8 of the entire Earth rotation.

Ok a few days back we went for another major class outing, and I realised my badminton skills were still there, had a good partnership with Surya. And then there was Risk, where Andai and I team-ed to make some people from Australlia pissed. With luck and a little tenacity, we dominated the whole of America and part of Europe and South Africa, with Yun Ching and first-time player Clarence stuck in the centre (Asia and Europe) of the map.

We...formed an alliance with Hanjing, which meant that we gave her part of Africa. And Henry camped in Australlia. Should we have played the game any longer, I'm pretty sure we would have gone on to...yes. Dominate the world. With all the yes-es, I'm starting to think I'm sounding like Jian Yang.

All this was played at Bukit Timah Shopping Centre, at some cafe. The aunty allowed us to play there, thank you aunty.

Previously was pool, I scratched fewer this time, and beat Clarence for 2 rounds. Great. I've improved. It was a good day. Followed Han Jing and Yunching to West Mall, where I met up with Kaveena! Mygosh haven't seen her in donkey ages but four of us sat down and talked at Burger King.

YunChing in...Aboriginal clothing, erm the rest in normal. Two of the girls were constantly giggling at my front tooth, which...I can understand why, unfortunately. Andai joined in later again, and then I went off. The end.

Dishing up salad tomorrow for potluck, and I finished my second piece in this December holidays! Which we're going to perform tomorrow during dinner. Ah, heavenly homecooked food coming my way again. Yum!

blogged.

When even my 6-5 class blog is more updated than me, something seriously wrong must be happening. I just realised Facebook has a 'Notes' section, which I find pretty handy. Simply because I realise, just like a blog, you can put anything you want in there and all of your friends can see it.

Which is interesting - at least to me.

Since Nigel asked me to blog, I shall blog. Here, blogged.

Looking forward to tomorrow's outing with 6-5 once again, I can smell Risk and badminton in the air, and I'll be bringing my size 3 soccer ball to play soccer with the guys. I hope it works out. Can't wait to see Andai too, especially since we all haven't seen each other since Primary 6.

Ok anyway yes I managed to complete 'Heidi' today! Need to transcribe it then. Good job :) After this would be 'Twinkle'. Nice. Maybe it constitutes one Opus.

The letter 'P' hasn't been working quite well on my computer in recent times, maybe because someone taps extremely hard on the keyboard. Wonder who would be so stupid and evil as to do such a thing. Or maybe it's an in-born thing, you know, when you start training at the piano by TAPPING the keys. Yes, tapping.

I'm hungry. I should go eat now. But I don't feel like walking to BPP again. So sian. Maybe I shall have the cookies.

Buffet dinner on Monday! Yes. And of course, potluck on Wednesday yum.

Life = piano + cooking + pool (the one with the balls in it) + going out

A short return

Yes, I don't blog that often now because I'm more interested in life. Lol, what kind of excuse is that. Anyway yes things happened and moved this week, but I'm not possibly going to write them all down here.

Managed to meet Yun Ching again today and we all went to eat Dimsum after my dad convinced me that my cousins would be there (which means I can help to introduce my cousins to some girls hehheh). But they all weren't. Stupid.

So both of us went to Meridian to go play pool, where I got semi-owned. I've improved. Great, I have to be honest though, that I keep attaching pool to gangsters and ahbengs. Why not, you can't fault me. You have people from every corner shouting/muttering "f*** this f*** that", and smokers hanging around outside. Why would it be allowed only for people above 16? Well it's probably one of the sports which doesn't need much fitness, not like tennis or badminton.

Truly, pool is one of the unhealth-improvingiest game ever invented. Just stone around, calculate the ball angle and strike, then hit the ball. Think, think, strategize your game, trap your opponent into a Chinese snooker situation, whatever.

But hey, if you grow too fat, you can't lean over and hit the ball! :O i was wrong after all.

Went to her aunt's house, where we all watched Step Up 2 with her elder cousin, who was damn cool. Apparently we're all connected, you know. Yun Ching is Cute Cheeks' cousin. And Cute Cheeks is from RI. Yeah, you can see how complicated things are.

Greek myths and legends time.

Jonathan Shin's holi Day.

The following excerpt from Hongrui's blog tells you everything about what happened today, where we performed for RJC Graduation Nite.


"Today was a complete waste of time.

Worse than the days where I just stay at home and read books in the morning, practice cello in the afternoon and watch TV at night.

Woke up at 8.Dilly-dallied until 8.30.
Went out to eat breakfast, came back at 10.
Played cello till 10.30.
Packed up, had a quick bath, lunch, and left house at 11.40.
Reached Serene’s house at 12.50.
Rehearsal until 3.
Played Bridge,etc.. and indulged in random gossiping until 5.
Reached Swiss Hotel at 5.35
Started performance at 6
Ended performance at 7.10
Dilly-dallied around until like 7.40+
Went to eat dinner, finished at like 8.30
Played bridge until 9
Reached home at 9.50

Basically me, jon shin, ben wee and 5 other people formed an octet and performed as background music during the RJC grad nite reception today. Initially the promised us “GOOD FOOD”.

So we actually thought we could join in a bite with the rest of the J2s also.Then suddenly, the “good food” disappeared, and we were told to have dinner with a “$5” budget as the payment for the day.

Right…I still owe Jon Shin $2 from dinner.

Jon Shin owes Ben Wee $50 because he bet that the girls will change their mind when they reach “The Pizza Place” and decide to have dinner at “Burger King” instead and lost the bet.

“The Pizza Place” is da ultimate scam. Lol the personal pizza is really personal man.

And Margaret doesn’t know how to use a knife properly haha.And you can be amazed by how girls can spend hours of their time away just by gossiping.

And Jinghui the imba seems to have a new girlfriend, and that girl apparently has a photo of two of them together in an interesting pose with Jinghui's arm over her shoulder.

hmm..Yeah but still the day is a waste of time, and the performance was totally humiliating and a complete flop.."


Thank you Hongrui for basically summing up the crap we did today. You save my time from an already bad trip back home dragging my cello case with everyone staring at me. What, Mumbai II return of the terrorist? Go away.

And yes, there were lots of major gossiping and bitching this whole afternoon, and I was just sitting idle at a chair shaking my leg and listening, with blackcurrent juice. Comfortable and fantastic. Otherwise at times it felt like an evening soiree in Serene's bungalow, which was just three houses away from SM Goh Chok Tong's house. Yes, Namly Avenue.

I sight-readed Bach the moment I reached there, until Xueqian finally arrived. Yes, it was Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier from Book II. I did the C major prelude and probably the B minor fugue, although I remembered doing a fugue, but I can't remember the key.

Erm, a little bit of Czerny.

When Ben Wee arrived he got me to accompany him on Bruch's Violin Concerto, which I failed utterly because yes, guess what, I was sightrea- ok, whatever.

The performance in the evening was terrible. My mood was already dampened much when I heard about the missing 'good food'. I could have watched an absolutely stunning (special eyewitness's report) concert should I have learnt earlier that the stupid performance ended at seven.

Yesterday was great though.

Bad Hair Day 3

The political situation in Bangkok is hopelessly humorous yet obviously tethering on the point of civil strife. I'm afraid, but not so, because I'm tucked away in a cosy corner of Singapore. I probably wondered how we were able to avoid such a situation like this so far, and my answer to that would be Singapore's economical and population size.

We have things to do, essential tasks to go about completing. We are simply, fortunately, too busy to occupy an airport and set up a fortress.

I have to admit, it was one of my early childhood fantasies, of what would happen and how I should defend it should I one day have an airport under my possession. I would think about all the policemen and things like that, and how I would defend my fortress. :P

Ok, now I've totally seen what happens.

The last few days were spent in a daze, taking a trip to Johor to visit my grandma again, bringing my laptop with me. I managed to finish engraving my transcribed Tango into Sibelius, which is great. Got back home the next morning, and I managed to print it out.

Not much great news, except that Arsenal won 2 -1 against Chelsea, which I accurately predicted, down to the score. "Either Arsenal wins 2-1, or Chelsea beats Arsenal 3-0." And thankfully, they did the former. Arsenal makes my day. Soccer makes my day.

I can't stand my dad. Now he's bought a new washing machine and a TV. I don't understand why he wants to buy so many things, even when one can just get by with the simplest items. I'm sure I just need one bed, one piano, one table, and one shelf for my scores, a toilet with a shower, and I can survive.

And besides, I've changed the blog music, which has turned uninteresting.

Newsflash: I cut my hair finally. Erm, buzzcut.