These days 2

I'm cooped up in the study room once again, with no windows opened because every weekend, I wake up with a blocked nose and a sinus to cope with.

And the weather is bloody cold. I sometimes like to imagine there's an ocean right at my doorstep, and that the sounds of birds I hear would be that of seagulls.

Unfortunately there would be lots and really lots of 'boats' around, which just spoils everything thank you very much.

We've finished recording at Snakeweed Studios, marching up the wooden creaky stairs at around 1pm everyday from Monday to Thursday, getting inside. But of course, nothing's really complete without any pictures, so here they are.

The whole band except Marcus

Daniel - Drummer [F*** you]

Yisin - Guitarist [Bottomless Pit]

Lennie - Guitarist [Ischrael]

Eugene - Bassist [Collision System]

Me - Keyboardist (newspaper in front of me contains the chords), and the famous keyboard that Bottomless Pit bought for me to play a day before the gig. [Perfect Pitch]

Marcus wearing Martin's hat [Noisy]

Post more pictures next time. Anyway we managed to record three songs in the end, one less of the targetted four songs. Never did we knew that recording could be so tough, because we were recording one layer by one layer, which facilitates mixing.

As you can see, we all unfortunately have nicknames. Yisin's called Bottomless Pit, because EVERY instrument (except the drums) that is owned by the band is owned by him. Son of CapitalMall CEO, tsk.

Daniel's called **** you, I really don't know why.

I'm Perfect Pitch, that's self-explanatory.

Marcus is Noisy, which is also self-explanatory.

Lennie is Ischrael, because of the way he pronounced Israel.

And Eugene is Collision System, I just named him that way because we talked about it once. Or maybe he doesn't have one, and I gave him one because I liked consistency. Whatever.

I would like to sincerely thank Martin from Caracal, who was our producer from Day 1 to Day 4, and he's really hilarious. I got owned by him a couple of times though, to the band's amusement. Thanks Mart.

After Thursday's session I went to the Conservatory to catch a piano recital with a girl (yeah, the girl whose results are super super super super super super super super high one). Haha, who else? We went to have dinner at Munchie Monkeys and I absent-mindedly ordered 2 plates of spaghetti and one masala. Gosh, no wonder I couldn't pay -.- In the end we got the refund. Yes.

I know I'm being kinda evil here, but were they being a little sarcastic when they wrote that the performer played with "astonishing precision"? But it was a bit loud anyway, because of the nature of the orchestral hall. It was a good concert in either case, although I hoped for more accuracy.

Friday was another busy day. I woke up to find myself rushing to Paragon to accompany BenLow for his Trinity voice exam, spammed practised Debussy Etude, and took a cab to watch Yellow River played by its ORIGINAL COMPOSER with.....guess who?

Ok this game is failing because of its predictability already sorry...

BenLow's examination was a little mussed up because of my page-turning, which meant that some of the supporting harmonies went missing, otherwise it was fine.

Surprisingly my lesson went well. I thought I would die for lesson. I practised right before the lesson mygosh, and just thought of whatever things I could to put inside and organised. It turned out well. A sure-win method, that's why it's used.

The taxi driver that got me to Esplanade was agonizingly slow, but I got there in time. Thanks Chi Ling for packing Subway! Or else I would have listened to Yellow River with an empty stomach. Yellow River Piano Concerto was absolutely fantastic, it just got me thinking back to my old NAFA days, and anyway it was the final piece I played before I left NAFA, so they were good memories.

Wish I could take a photo of everyone listening to the third movement though, tears in their eyes. And the Fourth Movement was a blast, that was the plateau of sheer pleasure and nationalistic joy when the whole orchestra played the final theme, which is also the part where they turn around to salute Chairman Mao (I'm serious).

And I can't believe I dared to ask the question at the end at Boon Lay MRT station.

Thanks :)

[collapses into a hole of embarassment]

What happened since Saturday?

I'll bring you back to Saturday, in another one of my usual blogposts that talks about all things that has passed almost everytime I blog.

It's as if, my life were a novel, you know.

After 2 hours straight of Music Technology class, where we learnt how to splice and cut and paste sections of music together. Progress was kinda slow, but it was alright, just listen to instructions can liao.

I played for Akkra my 1/4 completed composition following the class, and YES! He gave a thumbs-up for the front part but gave me really good suggestions on some things that were, too sudden or too loud.



Took a quick bus to Music Essentials to meet Chi Ling, and we finished the cake that Dr. Hecht kindly brought for the yester-evening seafood 'soiree' that was mentioned in my previous post. [Just a few minutes ago I finished the last piece, and it was still as chocolate-y. ]

We 'window-shopped' for clothes at Centrepoint, met Clarence's dad :O What a small world.

Played piano together for hours, and then off to catch the latest James Bond flick, which had a super-thin plot. Only thing worth remembering was, yes, when the French guy attacked Bond with an axe. Ooh, hear le homme scream!

Walked to Rochor Rd Beancurd, had supper there, talked lots of great stuff, then back to Boon Lay, and then I went home.

12.30am, but enjoyable, though I'm leaving out a couple of details here and there.



The next morning was going to Church. As per normal, visited my mum at columbarium, what can I say. The entire experience was in all sense, holy. As in, including Church.

Boys' Town was next, because apparently my dad wanted to go there and look at their open house and see what he could help with. Yeah, right, he finished quite a lot of food!

But the destination to the car park itself was fun. At every corner there was always a guy with long hair and putting one leg on his chair, lifting up his arm non-chalantly to show us the direction. My dad's exclamation, "I love these guys man, this is the attitude!"

Absolutely.

I was sitting glumly throughout the long-winded trip to the heart of the Town, and when we finally got out there was loud music playing in the hall. The food wasn't really bad, but I remembered the muahchee tasted bad. It was cold, and practically, erm, tasteless. Right, I forced myself to eat something that cost $1. What a thrifty bastard.

Not so though, I'll spend when there's good food :} And erm, when I owe library fines and dinner costs.

When we were done we headed back home for a change, before going for Avenue Q. The songs were fun enough, but I entirely loved the part when Trekkie Monster said, "In volatile markets, porn is stable income!" And then he donated ALL HIS MONEY to the Monstersorri School (hahaha)!

Walked to Grad Ceremony, got a change of clothes from my dad, had an ok dinner.

Performance with XD was almost entirely impromptu, because I skipped the soundcheck, and learnt some chords on the spot on stage. Kids, what's the word of the month?

IMPROMPTU!

But it was raucous enough to get everyone at a high, and I could see two people crowd-surfing. (wth, first time ever in my life have I performed for a crowd-surfing audience, thank you very much, I would love to see Ryan Kwan crowd-surfing when I play a piano solo on stage someday)

The front of the stage was practically a mosh pit, and everyone was jumping up and down to the beat, with the audience response, "EH-OH-EH-OH" so loud.

Entirely crazy, although I didn't shed a tear. I must really hate RI or something like that.

Got home thankfully in one piece, and this gig was absolutely fun!



I will tell you guys about my escapades with XD at an Outram Park recording studio (70 bucks an hour) in a separate blogpost. Dimlit, smoke-filled, sleazy, shady. Recording different layers, and of course, the haunted room above that houses the drumsets and the mikes.

According to the Ten Rules of Martin's studio, it consists of 1) Don't litter the studio floor, 2) Do not wear shoes in, 3) Do not smoke inside the studio, 4) Be nice to the ghost upstairs, she's quite friendly...

No kidding. Tell you guys more in a few days time. As of now, I'm looking forward to Thursday and Friday.

two of the longest days ever

Isn't morning the best time to do a blogpost, except now I'm here in the Conservatory Computer Technology Lab again, done with my breakfast.

I had a super long day yesterday, after waking up at 7.30 and lazing around for 1 hour, before deciding that it was the best time I leave for school and go for GRADUATION CEREMONY, the most important day of my life in Raffles Institution.

It's been in a long/short 4 years (depending on how you really see it), but it's been great and a whole lot of åwesome fun.

Let's start from Thursday, where I shall attempt to my summarise my journey around Singapore for 2 days in half an hour.

Firstly after stoning here for 1 minute I still cannot remember what happened on Thursday, but I know that I performed in 2 concerts.

Oh wait, I remember it now! I was accompanying Benjamin Low for his Trinity exam, and we went to Mr Toh's house to let him listen to B-low sing while I accompanied him. The last song wasn't that good, (Gorge Ghershwin) so Mr Toh was like, uh ok goodbye cya. What do you think, we went off after that.

After several bus confusions and things like that, I finally got to Yong Siew Toh at around 3. Rehearsed, played piano games, played the game Who-Can-Hit-Your-Buddy-First-With-A-Table-Tennis-Ball-Using-Paddles. We broke the ball in the end. Sorry Kawai.

The first concert included a six-hand piece I played with Dr Hecht and ZAD, and the second concert of the evening was a performance at YMS, where I finished the night off with Griffes's Scherzo.

The six-hand Romance was pretty alright, although I didn't stay to listen to what Dr Hecht had to say about our Polka too (both by Rachmaninov), because I had to take a taxi straight to the YMS.

I did a heck of lots of things in YST, like before performing on stage itself, I had to go backstage and print out lyrics for Hey Jude so that we could perform it later in the evening as a bye-bye song for Miss Goh, who had been in MEP for years.

Also, being the cohort's sabotaged guy/'mascot'/shortie/imba I had to give a impromptu speech that talked about our 4 years in RI and our briefy it was.

Whatever. It was a long night, and when I was finally done with everything, I settled down with the pear my dad stuffed into the bag, which was what was going to become my one and only dinner.

Obviously I slept later than usual.

The next morning, I woke up all dreary and leaky, thanks to a Benjamin Low cold from the day before. Yeap, I waited for an hour, lazing around, before finally leaving for my Graduation Ceremony, without waiting for my dad to wake up.

Anyway he came along later in the car, because he said he didn't want to miss me graduating (thanks pop). Sat around and behaved like good students in the world's most boring speeches, including an advertisement to join the Boon Lay Youth Club from the female Guest-of-Honour, exchanged punches with Lay Shide himself, got hit a couple of times, survived.

What followed next was a really stretching time, because I went for XD practice at the jamming studio.

Well, you can really feel it's different, because most people who go there don't really do anything except to laze around and fool with the drums and everything, but we were really practising for Graduation Night itself on a sunday AFTEROON. (is it?) or maybe it's evening.

Yeah, we went through repertoire, and discussed about the segues, on how to shift between songs, different riffs that we could try out, modulations and everything like that. Throughout the whole thing we were attempting to fix the amplifiers, so we got all the tools we can from the Arts Studio and start digging into the input hole, so we could get some things out. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done, and there was not really much we could do about it.

We left it to that.

Practised for 2 more hours, from 1 to 3, and then 3.40, and we were off to Yisin's house across the road. Here's the stretchy part - they decided to bring me along to play soccer at the CCAB at Dunearn Road/Evans Road, and I changed into some really lanky England shirt and a pants that would only befit a freaking kangeroo.

Cabbed to CCAB, met a J2 girl there from HCJC, and we started to play 2v2 soccer. I wasn't that rusty yet, but I have always doubted my own abilities. Heck, we actually played well yesterday.

For one, when we actually played a match against SJI people, we had only 4 people while the SJI guys had around 5.

We pawned them 6-0 in the end, (Gabriel enters the room and says that I am an egoitic bastard, and then asks me what's my typing speed, which I answer 115 a minute, and he says, "Kanninehbeh".) No really, we pwned them 6-0, maybe because they were lousy, but they had good team chemistry, and people like me who,

1) stand directly in front of the goal and not score
2) stand directly in front of the goal without a keeper who has been beaten and not be able to stop the ball and score

I later redeemed myself by tapping in a goal, and providing an assist to Daniel, who did a freaking back flick to beat those guys.

Yisin said we should let them score (like genuinely) cos they were Sec 2-3s, and if we kept scoring then it wouldn't be any kick.

Erm, after that I scored one, so that makes the score practically 6-0.

Daniel did 4.

Yeah whatever. The game ended, and we made our way to Daniel's house, thanks to a lift from the girl's mum. Showered, played FIFA there, had dinner with those guys at Burger King, and then we went back to Yisin's house at Bishan, where my dad picked me at 9.45

Not to forget we listened to Anberlin.

To think I could go home and relax, but no, we went to Miss Tan's house after that to have extra dinner with Miss Tan, ST, and Dr Hecht. Talked lots of music crap such as the key of the Nokia ringtone, which I concluded to be a huge perfect cadence that was filled with suspension. Lots of lobsters and huge prawns on the menu, but we finished them all.

We got home at 1.

I made it past the 2 days. And no, I didn't worship on Friday, it was fun, but well, tiring.

Guten Tag!

Half Hair Day

Half-productive day, that is.

I added four bars to my composition, but I feel real damn glad because at least I have the main structure in my head already and all its themes, and I'm closing following Prokofiev's sonatas. I have also been practising Ravel, although I seriously have no clue on what to practise other than just seperate hands and then combine them together again.

Sounds pathetic right? Well, it really is pathetic.

I decided to skip the last day of school, because I will be meeting them tomorrow and on Sunday anyway. So, not much of a last day of school!

Thinking about why all the boys and girls in the world are intrigued about my hair, I think I found the answer. Well, maybe not, but interesting things have happened to my hair before.

Interesting, but super-stupid, and embarassing.

Ok this happened at my cousin's house when I was around 13 (when my hair started to go mutant on me). After a tiring swim and a heck of splashing and waterpolo, I decided enough was enough, and I went up for a shower. So as per usual, I showered, and guess what I saw on the metal shelf! A twenty-one dollar hair shampoo!

Looked freaking expensive to me, and it should to you, anyway.

The liquid inside it was beautifully brown and golden, honeyed-coloured and perfectly the softest liquid I've probably ever felt. And it was encased in this heavy, semi-glass bottle that looked like it contained a thousand Calvin Kleins, Dolce Gabbanas, Guccis, Lagerfields, Hiltons that could just make you smell like heaven.

So twenty-one dollars went in my hand, and I started massaging my hair in twenty-one dollars of glory, honey and caramel.

Never realised what it was, until later.

Unless my scalp was counted as a pubic region, I wouldn't think of sueing the Body Shop for causing me to scratch my head for the next few hours like I'm a rabies-infected dog.

I never found out until 2 rounds of rinsing, because, hell, it smelled so good and it felt so gentle. I'm serious! But anyway I felt really good after that until it started itching like a dozen crap. I asked my aunt what kind of shampoo would cost so expensive, and she shouted, "Which shampoo did you use!?!"

Gulp.

Erm, the $3 dollar one. The one outside white colour with the lion face smiling on it right? The cute cute one right? Yeah, err, that one, that one!

"Better be."

So much for a white lie. Otherwise I think I would be left with no hair at all already.

[Erm, the $21 dollar one. The one...
"NNBCB! *#@$*&@*!"]

Morale of the story? Don't shower at a house that is inhibited by women. Most preferably, use the public bath, where everyone uses the same shampoo and lotion. Yeah, the one outside white colour with the lion face smiling on it...

For those of you who don't know why my hair is powderful, I don't have an answer also. All I know is that it is so malleable and strong, that when I keep it long and manufacture a unicorn's horn, it's possible for me to knock down a correction tape on a table.

I try that personally, although my classmates have managed to see me of characters like a two-pronged err, demon. Or worst, Medusa herself. At best, the character from Dragon Ball-Z called Vegeta.

Then again a few say I look like a punk rock musician when I comb my hair to the left towards my eyebrow [like the one you see in my blog photo and occasionally my MSN DP], and I've heard cries of 'gay!' or as Wasin politely placed it, 'like a guy who goes out with older women'.

I aptly pointed to him the 'one way to heaven' sign.

But we both smiled, so it isn't really that a problem actually.

Ever since my hair gone mutant on me, life has been different. Well, you can touch my hair all you want, I wouldn't go Muslim on all of you and tell you to meet me after school so we can duke it out.

(Apparently, some guy actually touched this Muslim guy's hair and the latter arranged a fight after school. )

But you have to know that you're touching special quality hair.


You know, the twenty-three dollar one, that kind. Ah, that kind. :)



P.S Apparently a COUPLE OF PEOPLE already tried to highlight the empty space at my previous post at the end of it -.- Even I did myself hahaha. Kinda gets you thinking, wth would Jonathan Shin put there?

P.S.S Then again I would be to lazy to find the colour of my blogskin. Don't bother. Ain't it irresistable?

childhood scares

Where shall I start. It is the second last day of school, and I hardly feel any sorrow or despair.

Because 4L seems to be able to last forever, anywhere, anytime. Maybe it's because I've faced a couple of losses in my life, and all I think about everyday is today, and then tomorrow. Hardly think about the past.

Like, what I ate for dinner yesterday, or further back, what utensils I used for dinner.

Was it the SIA one, or was it the SilkAir one?


Just realised my parents used to take utensils from every airline they went on.


Today I'm going to talk about my childhood scares.

Erm...my earliest one was when I was just 5, and barely starting to read. My first few books were like, The Three Little Pigs, Red Riding Hood, The Three Billy Goats, yeah those.

I entirely remember the Three Little Pigs coverpage of the Ladybird book, because it was so damned scary ok. Like, really scary, it showed a profile picture of a freaking wolf, all dark and furry.

What, some criminal mug shot to scare kids? Go screw yourself Ladybird.

Anyway these books were always kept in the storeroom, so it was dark and scary, and everytime I wanted my dad or my mum to read the books, I would like, run in and take the books out, because the distance was especially huge.

I think I could cross the entire room today in probably 3 steps. Then, it felt like some dastard farmer grew couple of weeds in the room for me just to get the books.

Anyway I could never reach the lights, and often I just ran in and then out of the room just to get those books. Argh! If only there were Internet. I could just google and then read it.


My second biggest scare (6 years old) was a newspaper article I read about a game of tug-of-war which ended in a 'broken arm'. Those two words absolutely freaked me out, because I've never seen or heard any kind of mutilation before until that fateful night. I couldn't contrive how it could be possible that an arm could be 'broken', and I remembered myself sitting there in the living room with my mum, with just one light on and the TV dimly tuned to Channel 8.

I kept asking whether the whole arm came off, and whether IT COULD COME AND FIND ITS WAY TO MY BEDROOM.

I never managed to comprehend that it was just the bone instead that was broken, and I was constantly hearing from my mum never to play tug-of-war or tie the rope around the arm in order to gain more leverage.

Now I'm thinking, which human being will tie a rope end around his arm just to get leverage? Well, many. But hell, the other team was stronger, and the sudden force just made his whole arm pop.

I didn't sleep for most of the night, kept freaking staring at the doorway for that arm.

It never came.



And now, for the top of the list, my scariest childhood moment ever.

Watching Michael Jackson's album, Thriller.

Erm, you know the part where Jackson finishes the song, and then turns his head around to show those yellow wolf-eyes of his? Go find yourself a sink and drown in it, Jackson. You entirely killed my childhood sunshine the moment I saw those.

For goodness sake, what else could I have been expecting? I thought he was just going to smile at the camera, hell, he came up with some stupid wolf-eye that made me crap in my pants. I think I didn't sleep for days after that, it was all just memorising the multiplication time table and mumbling off till I actually fell alsleep.

Then again it probably felt like hours when I was young, but nowadays, keh, put it to minutes.

I have loads more actually, like how I ran around a table when my mum tried to cane me, and kept running and running around the table, until she sort of realised that the cane was long enough to whack me from that distance. How stupid could I be.

I remembered I always kept worrying about something under my bed, and I always forced myself to sleep UNDER THE BED just for a little while to confirm there wasn't anything there.

The journey to sleep on the bed to under was long and torturous, but through willpower, I managed something that I would find utterly stupid today.

Should I attempt to sleep under my bed, I would pray so hard that I don't get any bad dreams, or that I don't feel like taking a piss in the middle of the night.

Otherwise...

I'll be pissing blood from my head.



Today's Rachmaninov rehearsal was good enough, managed to memorise everything without screwing up anything. I'll also be preparing for Ravel on Wednesday. And Griffes on Thursday.

Oh shit (sugar!) oh shit. There's still Griffes. It's a fun piece to play, but that means I have to get ready three different pieces for this week. After Thursday, I'm free!

And free never fails to mean fun.

Fun and free is good.

Fun and free is the church.

I'll go worship on Friday.

If.

Another long day from Jonathan Shin.

This morning started with church ...-.- ok just after I started typing this my dad goes,

"I'm going to sleep now!" (9.43pm)"Huh so early?"
"That's why I have no pimples! Muahahaha"


You suck, dad :)

Ok ahem this morning started with church, and I was standing up the entire session with my dad because we came late and didn't manage to find any seats, so we stood at the back for the whole time. I was thinking about how Andrew said my church was so cool, along with the cross at the top of the building that could be seen on Google Earth.



Today was All Souls' Day, where they commemorate all the departed brothers and sisters just like my mum.

Originally upon entering the collumbarium I thought it was All-Chinese-People-Stand-In-Front-Of-The-Collabarium-To-Pay-Respects-In-Chinese-Language Day, but it was not to be, for my discovery that it was All Souls' Day would come later.



Yeah. After church I went back home just to relax and nap and watch Arsenal score one goal in the recorded match yesterday. Yesterday I totally went delusional, because when Arsenal was 2-0 down against Stoke, I switched off the TV.

This morning I was so praying to myself that Arsenal came back 3-2 against Stoke for the whole of this morning without looking at the papers. Lol. Of course we lost.

Two of us piled into the car before driving down Bukit Timah lane towards Henderson Road to get me contact lenses. In the end when we came out we didn't get anything, partly because contact lenses cost so freaking expensive.

We then went to Ikea just to eat, and we wanted to get light bulbs plus a floor mat, but in the end we didn't. Just ate and ate and ate.

Got to Serangoon, lost 3-1 to Nigel (my cousin) in water rugby/soccer/waterpolo, had dinner (THAT'S THE MAIN POINT, not the game), and then back home. National Treasure, then back here.

I've been trying to imitate Neil Humphrey's writing style for a super long time, except that I keep failing because in the first place the context is different. He writes on specific articles, while I write on days of my life. I'm better than me.

Well, we can start by writing on a certain topic. What topic shall we choose today? On why we borrow books from the library and don't read them? That's only for me.

What has caught my eye recently?


Y...


Seriously seriously seriously. Oh yes, on how messy my study room is.

It certainly has become much cleaner over the recent times, because everything is now placed in drawers and shelves and everything. But my end-of-years are still hanging around, red ink over green papers, blue ink over white papers with tons of lines on it. And then there's the usual manuscript paper filled with tons of scribbles and black dots everywhere, some of my sketches.

I hardly find the need to organize everything. If I can find it, then it's organized. If I can see it, then it's organized. But then again there's a limit to what my brain can do.

Then we're back to the need to organize.

Jump topic. To the process of composition:

I first start out when I'm in the shower. It's good time to sing melodies that sound worthy. Usually there are in Db, Ab, or A major, or Gb major.

After that when my hair is still wet and not dried, I rush over to any paper I can find and then write it down.

I have learnt my lesson, this time, I write the exact harmony along with the melody, and the rhythms. When I was younger, I couldn't be bothered, and thus probably half my output disappeared.

I think it's a gift, because I don't really need a keyboard to write basic ideas, so I can figure out harmonies and melodies with a kinda ease. But when things get complicated and sometimes you need a spark of inspiration, the keyboard comes to play.

Mostly, I find the keyboard as a tool of editing, because I write all my rough sketches through mind, when I shut out my ears and open up my mind and process the entire harmony and melody.

It takes up probably 2 gigabytes just to do this, and I only can do it when I use my hands to cover my ears, look like I'm praying really hard that the ground will open up and eat me, and then use my right hand to quickly write down whatever I just thought of.

After doing this, I'll probably at most come up with one page of music that sounds ok enough but definitely definitely not performable. That's when I bring out the keyboard, and do all the minor editings and the instances of magick.

Slowly but surely, each page is carved out, but the going really gets tough, because I struggle to make connections between themes. It really takes a smartass to do that. I'm not a smartass yet.

BCM took approximately 6-8 hours to complete, most of them done at night, under the cover of the study light in my room, with my dad sleeping. I was caught sleeping out with BCM still in my hand, TV still on, and dad back from work.

Never a good situation to be in, but the BCM never got a touch of drool, which is great.

I remember two months ago being a super crazy month, because I was like spamming cup noodles and practising piano (I don't know for what, maybe cos of Ibiza and Germany), composing stuff, and doing nothing else.

No wait, composing UNDER THE TABLE! oh yes. Bryan and Ian would certainly remember that.

I'm planning to submit my composition to ABRSM. Apparently there's a composition competition going on, and the top prizewinner gets 1000 pounds. No high hopes, everyone probably has their composition teacher, and I'm doing empirical methods still. I'll probably be laughing my ass off if I get anything.

If.

last minute crap

It's bad. Really bad. It's not good.

One shouldn't be doing this. Shouldn't be doing everything last minute, before-hand without preparation, and attempting to smoke the way through. Here are the last minute things I have done in very recent times -

Ironically, Rafflesian Spotlight is counted as one last minute thing, because we did it impromptu.

PM Lee was one red-hot last minute item, because we dragged along Nigel 3 hours before, and gave Joseph the lyrics the very morning. And called him to take the shirt and pants that midnight.

My exam studying were all last-minute, all the day before. Entirely not ideal.

I know I've done so many last minute things, even down to everyday life. Not preparing what to bring before going outdoors, just changing and packing down to the very last second.

I don't do that for music. I prepare everything quite beforehand. But apparently it's starting to affect the way I do music too.

We memorised Rachmaninov last minute. Like, one hour before lesson, we just forced ourselves to memorise the entire thing. This shouldn't be the case! I should have memorised it long ago.

This really isn't a post for you guys to read, just a contemplative post from me. About how impromptu some things can be in my life.

Then again, John Yu asked me a few moments ago about my favourite Beatles songs.

Contemplative: Here Comes The Sun
Moody: Let It Be
Funeral: In My Life
Love: Here There Everywhere
Happy: Drive My Car
Revolutionary: Revolution
Hyper: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Jealous: Jealous Guy
Crazy: Get Back


"So, what, are you going to sign up for your options in RJC 10 minutes before?"

what a thoughtful line.
I must change myself.

How? How? Let's start with the testimonial.

The journey ends without the slightest regret!

And so ends our journey in Rafflesian Spotlight, and participating in the Marina Barrage thing to sing for Prime Minister Lee. I was singing for nearly half the day, and by the end I think my lungs just gave out. But there was enough time for me to still go eat supper with Fiona at McDonalds.

We then took the MRT back home, but by the time we reached Kranji, the MRT station shut down.

What's the past tense of shut down? Shat down? Heck.

Anyway so we took a taxi back but my dad had to pay for us -.- super embarassing sial. Emergency funds not in my wallet. Crap!!

Ok that's not the main point. The main point is that we didn't even get any of the top prizes in Rafflesian Spotlight! That's such a sad thing but I'm not feeling too bitter or anything. Before that we got to perform for PM Lee though, so it kinda nullified the feeling in the end.

Again the PM Lee thing was impromptu, because we didn't practise until yesterday morning! And we roped Nigel in, to harmonise with him at the very last minute, right before we took the car trip to the event at the Marina Barrage.

How amazing can RI guys get.

Adrian Pang: Let me confirm, you guys are from RI?
Me: Yeah
AP: What are your names? :)
Me: Jonathan, Joseph and Nigel
AP: Ok thanks!
Me: And what's yours?
AP: Adrian.

Nigel: Hehehe....sneaky huh? Jonshin sneaky...

Yeah but we put up a good show.

We then rushed back to RI to perform the final show of the night, and that was the Musical Comedy Impromptu thingy that probably everyone here knows. If you don't know what we're doing still? We sing anything text you give us, including melodies, harmonies, and pure entertainment.

But the other groups deserve it lah, just that apparently one of the organisers told me that the judges were the one who decided, because we tied for 2nd place in terms of votes.

I don't understand why they did that, but I know I will someday. Probably cos "you guys were geniuses", and we got penalized for that.

Yawn.

I'm super tired really. All my muscles and bones are aching, and I'm not in the best of mood currently (as in not pissed), just not upbeat and smiling. TIRED. really tired...

Although I'm sure i don't feel an inch of regret, cos we did our best, and I'm damn sure there wasn't anything we could improve on. But I'm planning in JC we could add drums and lead guitar and bass, and then it would sound awesome.

You would need 5 people with telepathy already. That would seriously be fun!

phew. the last hurdle.

It's been three long days and I have survived.

First big news: I MADE IT TO RJC!!!

If this guy didn't he would be sure to go ACJC. Then again she asked, "is ACJC good?"

Never really thought about that.

Anyway a few days back this professor called Jacques Rouvier came to Singapore/Conservatory to perform for the Sun Festival. I got to play for him Griffes and Mozart, and Mozart apparently was a style disaster. I kept playing the left hand and the right hand in disconjunction, and everytime I did that his face would twitch and he would make the weirdest sound ever possible at my physical disability.

Yeah but anyway I learned quite a little and felt good after the lesson. Amazingly, I realised all pressure was gone after I found out that there wasn't going to be a lesson after-all on Thursday, because I haven't really prepared much for it, and it will not be good should I go for one.

But it made sense though, since I already had lesson with Rouvier for that week. Is that the reason? Well another reason was that Rouvier was going to perform that Thursday evening (which is yesterday), so there wasn't any lesson.

Thursday morning was a joyous morning, when I woke up to realise that my GPA was dead-centre 2.0, without any moderation. My worst-ever. After moderation, it'll probably be pulled up, so that so much affirms more my position of going into RJC.

I know it's stupid to put my GPA here, but I kinda feel vindicated. Sortof. This inner feeling that I finally got to RJC after all the crap.

And Choong told me that I would get to have less time in school (yes!) so that totally means I can concentrate more on my music (YES!)

Rafflesian Spotlight rehearsal was next, from 2.15pm. Finally got to rehearse at 5.00, after Leon's solo.

I swear I didn't know Leon Lau could sing, until a few days ago. He chose a really nice song, smart choice.

We did our rehearsal, and we had a couple of unbelieving people, but we drew little laughter. Some, but little :( I think we didn't tell them what we were doing. Yeah, we were singing from the textbooks itself.

NIGEL, we HAVE TO TELL THEM WHAT WE'RE DOING. We can't keep them in suspense.
Heck, he'll probably see this tomorrow.

The reason why I didn't go to school today was because I woke up late. So much for trying to sleep early.



After rehearsal I took a taxi to the Conservatory to meet Chiling for dinner, and then after that went to YIH, eat, talk, laughed, realised some really funny mistakes. Can hardly stop smiling -.-

We watched Rouvier's concert, took bus and MRT back, I went to Boon Lay to bid goodbye (what with the chauvinism!), and then back to Jurong East, then blah blah blah yada yada yada.

And home.

The cookies were heavenly! Thank you for the cookies lah. It was a nice supper to compliment the end of the day.


the end.

The next morning I woke up, and then I obviously came here to type my blogpost.

What else?

Oh yeah, I MADE IT INTO RJC!!!

Please wish me luck for the Marina Barrage thing, and of course, Rafflesian Spotlight. Culmination of all my dreams. Today's a big day.

My schedule, my week, my phlame

Ok let me give you just a little bit of what is going to happen in the next few days. As usual, my schedule is cramped up like the wires behind my computer, but I'll cope.

In fact, I've coped so well that I am still here and not crying somewhere, but anyway I'm not in the mood for crying nowadays so...let's start with tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'll be playing Griffes Scherzo and Mozart Sonata for Jacques Rouvier from the Paris Conservatoire (of Music). Apparently he's super esteemed and that I was one of the 6 from Dr Hecht's studio to get selected to play for him. Tomorrow, 4-5pm.

Status: Ready, going to (continue) working on Mozart after finishing this post


Thursday, I'll be playing Ravel for Dr Hecht.

Status: Entirely not ready, no recording, no one to take notes, just going to dig out from my brains what we discussed last Thursday

Friday, we'll be playing in this Clean and Green fair at Marine somewhere, and we totally haven't rehearsed at all, haven't touched the songs, haven't got the chords, haven't informed the people, haven't lived. And also there will be Rafflesian Spotlight, the day we've been waiting for for 4 years. I've been waiting for. Nonetheless I'm not putting much effort into it yet, because impromptu is as easy-come-easy-go, just damn worried about getting team dynamics together again after a rusty one week.

Status: NA. No status at all.

Saturday I have to do my homework for Dr Hess's class, which I'll dutifully do, and I'm already 3/4 done. See, I'm so 'on' for music. Damn the necessary crap I'm doing in RI. Also think through what Dr Edwards said in our discussion about 20th century music and the social diversity, plus its impact on the music of the time.

Really amazing stuff, I've heard from him. And I'm putting effort in it to use in my pieces!!! Yes.



Next week, I've got MEP High Scorers Concert and...Piano Duels.

Nope, not on the same week, on the same day, and within an HOUR.

I'll perform for Piano Duels first, (I'm playing in the second and third spot) with Dr Hecht and ZAD, before taking a cab/daddy-fetch over to YMS, and finishing the night off with Griffes Scherzo. And then sing in the finale song, of course. Ain't going to miss that.

But I'm going to MISS THE PIZZA!

Now that's a big deal.


Ok my days before today hasn't been that free either. I performed with XD yesterday night at a wedding function which was attended by CEO/chairman? of Mediacorp, CEO of CapitaMall, and some very big person from Esplanade.

We wore suits and ties, and were formally dressed up, before belting out 6 songs consisting of dance numbers and love ballades.

Anyway we got them all jumping at the start, like they were engaged in serious-jumping, a sport which never made it to the Olympics but looked like it would in the near future, but the libido sort of died down at the end cos all the guests were kinda tired.

And we were still pumping them. Heck, I screwed up in U2's Beautiful Day and Fly me to the Moon, cos the effects...couldn't change it fast enough on Beautiful Day and instead of getting the 'High Wire' sound I got a freaking CLARINET. . . . . . It could totally have been worse. It could have been a bassoon, then I die.

Anyway it was a real success, and plus my initiation rite as a member of XD!!! Yes...after 4 freaking years of trying to find for a band in RI to join (other than being asked by other bands to join theirs, I finally got to a credited band. Great. We're going to make it even better.) What an end to my four years in RI.

This whole performance thing was on Monday evening.

Monday morning? That was a different story.

(Scene transport to the scenic YST)

So I'm there, like, 9.45am, ON TIME for the masterclass that was to take place at 10am. Alas, it was not to be. There were around 8 people there, including an old man, and a couple of people. So I decided that I wouldn't be standing there and took a seat behind the box office, the one with the sliding chairs.

Immediately I got bombarded with questions as to what time the masterclass would start (I was later told it would start at 11am, much to my disappointment, because erm...XD rehearsal starts at 10.30am? Hm. Kinda late, ain't it.)

An old man pleaded with me to let him use my phone, but that day I wasn't feeling like I needed punches to my being, so I lent him my phone. Duh. Under any circumstances I would...but anyway he was like thanking me so much, and I was bombarded with couple of smiles around from this 'helpful student assistant who isn't even dressed in black, but HE IS because he's sitting behind the box office counter'.

Small world, small world, I met Chiling there again. So we were supposed to go watch at 10am, but now it was at 11am, so we went to the 3rd storey again and followed the Rachmaninov 2nd Piano Concerto score with my mp3 blasting its guts out with the Piano Concerto score. We were successful till the 3rd movement, when my mp3 couldn't continue playing.

What a dumb mp3.

As she saw, my nokia phone is kinda screwed, because the sliding thing in front of it just came off.

Eh, Fiona, you know right, that sliding thing that changes the screen to radio mode and music mode. Yeah, that one. Yeah yeah, yeah! That one. -.- Ok same phone lah huh, that's why I put here oops.

I would gladly exchange my new phone for Chiling's old Nokia. Really. You can type faster with that, and erm, my sorta legendary speed without dictionary can be improved. But of course, with all the calls able to continue without being cut-off. Hmmm...

Went down to watch the masterclass for a while, before me having to leave after half-an-hour because of the rehearsal. Amazing! I wonder how tight my schedule can get anymore.


Another amazing thing is that I have yet to talk about my RESULTS.

Ok I did much better than expected for English, I got 31/45!!! Liyoung top in class got 36/37? I think 37. You know, the key to success, (in Choong's voice), 'is never to study anything'. Works totally, especially, ESPECIALLY if you have a concert the day before. Hm. I wonder, when can we study?

I flunked Chinese as expected, and Physics as expected, and probably Mathematics and Chemistry as expected. And then the rest all were be with flying colours. The rest meaning Social Studies and Music!!! Wait. There's still Literature. Which this time, I seriously don't think I can pass. I did really crappily.

As in, not those kind of girl crappily, where they say they die like shit and want to commit suicide and drink some obnoxious potions and then they get GPA 4.0 (98% OMG WHY CAN'T GET 100%????!!!) those kind of crappily, but like.

You know, guy-honest, "I did badly for this, I think I'll get 0.8." And then come out, REALLY 0.8.

Wait, then Byap must be a girl. And Jeffery also. Oh no!

I can't wait to see my MEP marks, I think I'll do pretty well. I'm just a little pissed with Yuchen about him complaining about the MEP papers being copied word-for-word, note-for-note from the O-level papers of yesteryears.

As in, him complaning that he wrote serialism instead of bitonality and that he got it right last year and not this year is entirely nonsense! Just plain nonsense. If you studied, then obviously you know that two chords that are disjunct and are vertically placed is obviously a sign of bitonality. There's no pick between serialism and bitonality. In fact, the argument shouldn't even be about whether it was right last year or right this year.

If you know it, you know it. If you knew it was bitonality by understanding what bitonality is, then the answer is obviously quite clear. Who the heck mugs for examinations by memorising past year papers. Anyway, I don't think Dennis did anything wrong or 'cheated' by looking at the notes. He didn't even know those would come out anyway...it's just that he's lucky that he got the right paper at the right time.

Ok just to justify the fact that I think someone's like insinuating the fact that he cheated.

YES! I just did my first little flame post after many months. Forgot how to flame already. Am I flaming? I've shown both sides of the story and was fair in my judgement. Ok, not flaming.

Phlaming should be something that doesn't discuss the opposite point of view, and declaring all of them as facts without checking. I've talked to Yuchen. Yes!

I phail in phlaming though.

kwek lyrics shin music

naice.

simple two-step process.

'can write lyrics about best friend?'

'can.'

(two days later it comes out on livejournal)

'it's about best friend not lovers'

'oh, i forgot'

1 week later

'eh, i need three words, each with one syllable, for power chords as lyrics'

'ok'

(1 hour later)

'Here they are'

'Ok thank you'

'We have a song'

'Where Sparrows Go/Where the Sparrows Go"

I rented X-Men 3 two days ago and watched it at night. Really love the ending, the part where Magneto (assumed to have lost all his powers) plays chess with himself, and then he reaches out towards a metal chess piece, it quivers a little, and then ...

[ENDING CREDITS with LOUD MUSIC]

I've been going to Yisin's house for XD practice these few days - there's a wedding gig going on Monday at Sentosa. Songs include:

The Great Escape
Love Brings Us Through
Dare You To Move
Better Man
Fly Me To The Moon

And two other songs that I have forgotten and not bothered to go to my bag to check what the other two songs are.

We were thinking about what to say while I was playing the introduction to Fly Me To The Moon before we sang, like:
"Thank you for this great night, and we would like to dedicate this song, this song is a jazzy number, and we bring you "Fly me to the Moon!" ..Fly me to the moon, and let me..."

Here were some of my suggestions:
'I know the groom is drunk, but you forgot to zip your Fly me to the moon, and let me...'
'Oh my God, is this place dirty or what? There's a houseFly me to the moon, and let me...'

Yeah, the band stopped for 5 minutes to laugh.

After the practice session from 10.30 to 2.3o (time passes by damn quickly, trust me, when you're playing in an ensemble. oh wait, not RISE, yeah. Sorry Mr Sze...), and went straight to the Conservatory again, not wanting to repeat last week's sucky lesson.

I didn't repeat it, basically because I didn't play the same piece as last week. Some quick wits from me. AND FOR THE FIRST TIME NO SCREWUPS in scales except the VERY last chromatic scale.

So I was like, play play play, YES it's the last one now. So I play play play and then SCREW up.

What do you expect. It always happens to guys. Stupid adrenaline.

Anyway Chiling (Miss Tan's student) from NYGH came to watch our lesson yesterday, the lesson where Aidi came one hour late. After she finished playing I was half-crying. Andreas was there too, hope he didn't see my tears. Suanned.

Photo-taking session later with Rafflesian Spotlight band members Nigel and Joseph in RI, for now it's back to finishing the chords for a poem/song that Kwek had written. We're a good songwriter-lyricist team. He does the lyrics, me the song-writing. Simple as that.

My pop gave Dr Hecht and Chiling a lift, and then we were done for the day. Just, half-exhausted.

This morning has been a really cold morning - temperature should be around 22 degrees. If Singapore freezes over...well I know for sure Dr Hecht would be happy, but the Government wouldn't. Wonder what they would do.

Performance for PM Lee is in 7 days time, and we haven't even rehearsed ANY songs. Die already. Confirm die. Sianz. Maybe I should start today.

Yesterday...all my (cough hack hack hack)

Yesterday was a eventful day.

Once I finished Chinese paper (which was good for my standards) I went for the MEP paper...I think I lost 4 marks already, left one Stravinsky question worth 3 marks (the one that asks what happens directly after this section) and the pipa/guzheng one. I'm pretty sure it sounded like a peepa.

Damnit.

Then after that we went to go play soccer with my yellow-purple ball, everyone was laughing so much cos we were throwing the stupidest jokes around. Really isn't good when the game was tiring. Firstly the ball was smaller than a normal size ball.

Secondly, the court was bigger than the usual MEP size court. MEP size court being 4 metres by 2 metres. This court was erm....the basketball court.

Hongrui busted his ankle (signifying half-time), and we were panting so much that we made dogs cry. Second half resumed, I think I scored one goal (no one could remember anything under the 1pm Sun). I laughed the most when Hongrui was goalkeeper, and then he pointed to one spot before kicking and shouted, "Hongrui!" and proceeded to kick.

Then the whole world broke down in peals of laughter. Man, and we were throwing 'shit' insults around. "Can't aim your shit don't shit larh..." blah blah guy jokes.

The game ended with me. Yeah, I think Samuel Koh kicked and then I ran forward and blocked the shitball with my solar plexus. Amazing.

Originally it was headed for my chest, but I jumped too high (trying to grow taller) and it went below my sternum. The feeling is totally awkward, because first you feel a cold sensation in your body, and then suddenly the solar plexus is burning. BURNING.

Btw, for your information, the solar plexus is really vulnerable. On the bright side, if I jumped 40cm more, it might hit another vulnerable spot. Yeah, juust that close. :)

After that the whole world went to McDonalds (whole world meaning Dennis, Hongrui, Me, Jinghu...Imba, Samuel, Maximillian, Eugene) Leonard and Gerald Sng left early.

KFC being at J8, where almost all of the student world except for those in Tuas and Changi (Tuas Sec, anyone?) come to sometimes. We ate at KFC before witnessing a fight that took place outside McDonald's, our idea of a fight being 30 people gathering in a circle. Then they took it outside, before two policemen came, and I think they all diffused. And then suddenly the two policemen ran up the escalators.

A few minutes later they brought down a guy in school uniform, brought him outside, and the policemen started writing down some things on their notebooks (paper one lah, you got see policemen carry electronic notebook one meh? Suddenly fight fight then spoil how? You pay ah?).

Hell, don't know what they were doing, Blue's Clues maybe.

Ok after lunch was rehearsal and a 3 hour jamming session with XD members at Yisin's 3 storey house I think.

Apparently we're playing for a wedding gig so I practised with them. It really looked like musical heaven, cos the living room floor was full of wires and plugs, pedals, amplifiers, stands and mikes, one white solid electric guitar, another gold-furnished on the sofa, one electric blue electric guitar, one black acoustic guitar, one brown classical guitar, one solid Fender bass, and in the middle of it all, the drumset. And of course, beside it all the piano. The amplifiers were really huge btw.

I switched to the Fender bass after a while, and then....then...heck. It was undescribable. Played different songs together, improvised a solo in a bossa nova piece...

Tried out drums, succeeded and managed to play two full jams with them on drums. I sang a blues rock and roll song into the mike, lyrics being "I don't like your face" I think. Lennie was there, Eugene was there. We had a rolling time.

Played a bit of FIFA 09, and then my dad fetched Lennie back home, and Eugene back home.

What a long, enjoyable, rollicking fun day.

Yesterday was an eventful day.

Mr. Taxi Driver

Taxi drivers are really amazing. They are the drivers of Singapore, literally, the eyes and ears of the people. They are constantly seeing, listening, sharing about Singapore and its progress.

Today while coming back home from University I waited half an hour in vain for a taxi driver. I was so frustrated that I kinda walked on the road frontwards and backwards as much as Imma asked me whether I was planning to end my life.

[The second time of the day someone asked me whether I was - first time was when I showed Nigel my seventh-storey SR Block photo shot, and he asked me whether I was having any funny ideas when I went up there. Ur, hurhurhur. ]

Anyway when a taxi finally came along I put on a long face and stepped into the car. I was panicking, because of MEP and Chinese (which I don't give a shit about) that was being held tomorrow. The only reason why I'm blogging now is because I finished learning already.

The taxi driver soon realises that I'm a part-time NUS student and a RI student (after questioning about the badge and the uniform, and the venue he picked me up at). Then he realises that I'm a music student and I'm a piano major. We soon engage in a lively discussion about instruments (even though I was tired, and at first I was just trying to sorta sleep).


Then the question hit while we were reaching Bukit Panjang.

"What makes a good musician?"

Never has anyone (much less a taxi driver) asked me that except on the Internet, but someone asking me right in my face about 'what makes a good musician" was serious business. I was at a lost for some time, trying to put together all my thoughts and all my guts. To give my best shot at this question that I hardly ponder about.

Was I a good musician?

Well I proceeded to tell him that a good musician must be a good communicator, to be able to communicate with everyone around him to produce good music. So basically humans are good musicians (what a stupid way to avoid the question) - and then I used a philosophically-fallacied question by saying that no animals were musicians - only humans were capable of it(which I know is false to quite a degree).

But Mr. Taxi Driver said there's no such thing as a good musician. But there's such a thing called good music - and all good music comes from Mother Nature herself.

Well for most of the conversation he was talking about Mother Nature and the Chinese instrument (which I think is non-existent) called Guqin. Is there such an instrument? Please help me check if you're free.

Ok, Mr. Taxi Driver was partly/wholly avoiding the question, but his talk about all good music coming from Mother Nature is partly/wholly true also.

I managed to counter him back by saying humans were all part of Mother Nature, but he told me that he didn't mean that. He meant the rustling of leaves when they fall, the sound of rain when it hits the ground, the insects, the birds and everything.

Well, it's true. Look at what Messien did. Look at what Beethoven did. Look at what Mozart did. All walks in the parks and collecting and researching. Mozart, talking to people around him, making joy, music.

Yadayadayadayada. Point of the day is, Mr Taxi Driver is awesome.

When the trip ended, he wished me good luck and all the success possible in life, looking deep into my jaded eyes. Freaking rhyme not intended. And I bid him good-bye after that, profusely thanking him lorh. But after that I was pretty inspired again. I'll keep in mind about what he said.

My Week. Again.

I decided to delete my fantasy blog and write it in my own free time.


Like you know, in a book form. Ok, like in a book. A novel. A novellette.


There's Mathematics, Chinese, and MEP left. And I taught Bryan yesterday! Didn't know teaching could be so fun. Basically he played his ABRSM pieces and I only touched on the List A piece and assigned him a scale. And taught him a scale method. Probably coming around again next week.


I came to his house at around 4pm yesterday, taught him till 5.30, then after that did Mathematics before giving up because I didn't know a single shit. I missed the entire chapter of 'Vectors' while I was in Ibiza, which prompted LiYoung to say,



"Yeah, did you know we went to the Moon while you were away?"
KaKiong: "Yeah yeah!!"
Baskets...


Was originally supposed to play soccer today at 5.30 but totally didn't see Adriel's sms to meet at CCAB. I'll look like a noob in front of all his soccer pals, but heck. Maybe I'll play after Tuesday. After Tuesday, there'll be MEP soccer! Who the hell can't wait for that.


With played together for 4 years, since Sec 1 in the Junior Block, and now in RJC. We've used so many different kinds of balls - actual soccer ball, bottle cap (which would be crushed so much it looked nearly like a ball), bottle, tennis ball, floor ball, bowling ball. Yeah, right. Hurhur. 5 people play 1 person come out alive.

Anyway yeah anything that could be kicked and could pass through under 2 metres of space would be played. Yeah, so we didn't touch those balls.

This Tuesday we're playing again at the basketball court, so any MEPpers who see this, please bring thy PE T-shirts and your PE shorts and come play.


To sum up my bad week:

1) I have very bad time management.

2) I am constantly tired or yawning, but I don't like to complain.

3) My dad asked whether it's cos I'm short so I have very low self-esteem.

4) I screwed up for Chemistry but did better in Physics.

5) Literature was a total blank and mess.

6) Thursday was burn-out day after having a bad lesson of piano - what's the use of lesson if you play all the same mistakes you played last week?

7) Friday after that was fast heartbeat day, with trepiditions and twitches and constant yawning.

8) Saturday was Ear-Training with Dr Makarome and Music Technology with Dr Hess. And Dr Makarome showed us a Harry Potter replica wand he bought from 100 plus dollars. We pretended to be wizards for a bit, before going on a slow jazz jam. Dr Hess's class was great, did everything quickly and Finale is starting to become easy to use.

9) After that we went for Dr Hecht's Four Hand class again, playing Rachmaninov's Polka. Played the six-hands Rachmaninov Romance with Dr Hecht and Aidi ( I was in the middle). Dr Hecht says he plans to play it with us in the concert, after which he would leave the stage to allow us to play the 4-hands Polka.

The Romance entirely inspired me to write a Romance for Violin, Viola and Piano, which I was trying to conjure up a melody for while eating lunch.

10) Went to Bryan's house to teach and be taught. Met Bryan's tutor/cousin Norman (not Musclewari) and he taught us Mathematics. For once, Math was fun as Bryan and I rushed to complete a question, which took us half an hour, and never was solved. Constantly distracted by the Romance I was thinking about.

11) Bryan's brother Ben, who was 6, gave me a punch to the back, which I never recovered from.

12) I stabbed myself at one of the desk corners literally. Note: Not scratch. There's a hole with blood in my hand now. And it hit an acupunture point linked to my fifth finger. (I'm sure of that because that was where I have been acupunctured before.)

13) Typed out MEP Notes, and then walked to taxi stand while talking about GTA 4 to Choong. Met a gangster smoker who told us to 'queue up'. Well he wasn't standing at the taxi stand in the first place, he was standing ON the road.

Basically sums up my week.

Cool, 13 points, unlucky week. Lol, definitely a coincedence and not planned. I hope next week will be a better week...

For all the confusion

Ok just to clear things up the fantasy blog I created contains a concept and an alternate reality where selfishly I wake to find only ME and ME in it.

And what I will do if there's only ME in it.

And how lonely I will feel if there's only ME in it.

And who I'll miss if there's only ME in it.

And when will everyone be back if there's only ME in it.

And why there's only ME in it.

The idea itself is pretty scary, and I'm writing EXACTLY what I would do if the world suddenly disappears and I'm the only person left in it. Well basically I'm writing it from a blogpoint of view, which means like, how it happens in real life. Something happens and I blog about it. Yeap.

I find the concept REALLY APPEALING, and I'm very sure I can hold out till next year and years to come.

Yes, if there's only ME in it. Watch me degenerate.

Anyway I'm at the Conservatory now, 4 more hours to go before my lesson. Someone took/I lost the Ravel Sonatine book, which cost $22. Anyone who took it/or picked it up please retuuurn, all my details and notes are in there.

Secondly, someone took/I lost my Gulliver's Travels book. Ok I'm pretty sure someone stole this book this time, directly after I started dog-earing and annotating the book. Tomorrow's the test, will you please return it to me? Will greatly appreciate.

You guessed it, Tuesday was the concert, and Wednesday was the Chemistry Test.
Let's do some math. Let's say I get home at around...put it to 11pm. And my Chemistry is like, GPA 0.8. If I study and get full marks for the test, I'll still get GPA 1.2.

That's a huge difference! I should have studied so that I wouldn't fail. Oh wait, GPA 1.2 is PHAIL!!!

Well I did study in the end, but I slept with my glasses on at 1.

The next day, ho-ho-ho, 5 pages blank.

Called my dad after the test.

"Hello Dad?"
"Yeah boy just finish Chem Test?"
"Yeah"
"ah...ha, HA, HA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA"
"..."
"bad right?"
"yeah 5 pages blank"


I forgot his response, but he minded little.

Physics was better than expected. Expected WASN'T 80/80, damn it. If not I would have gotten 85. I really hope my expected was 35. Maybe I'll get 40. That's a pass. My expectations are super low - what do you expect from a guy like me? You can get me to write a novel, or even better, make me practise for a full day, but get full marks for a Chemistry/Physics/Math paper? Forget it.

Ok, I'm typing quite loudly in the Computer Lab now. You should see how loud I can manage to type. But the important thing is how FAST. ahhh....

Currently in a song-writing collaboration with Kwek. I'm really hoping my mind doesn't pop up with oldie melodies again, because that's probably all I can think of. So I'm listening to more modern and contemporary music now. Check out like, 1990s radio adult music. Yeah, that kind.

He finished the lyrics already, and it's really good. Good enough for me to think whether I should compose a piano fantasy of it or just stick to lyrics. I'll stick to the latter I think.

Ok, back to practising Ravel. Cya guys later. And wish me luck for my Literature and Chinese tomorrow. I'll be back at 10.30 tonight, so if I die for them tomorrow, just blame it a little on the Conservatory.

:X

Concept Story

http://i-talk-you-listen-fantasy.blogspot.com/

Concerto Extra Avangan Za

Yes, I can't believe I didn't blog for 3 days already. The unearthly hour of 1.38am and I'm blogging here.

Tomorrow there will be the Concerto Extravaganza, which ZAD will be performing Chopin's Fantasie in and I'll be accompanying her on orchestral reduction. I would also like to mention that I will be disappointing you guys with this blog post, because there isn't much to post and I don't have anything to post.

If you are wondering what kept me up so late, it was Jackie Chan's Rob-B-Hood, which I suddenly felt the urge to catch probably because it was one of the movies that my mum and I watched TOGETHER, and we were laughing out loud. Rare moments, but treasured indeed. So I decided to watch them again.

Am I too sensitive or what? I teared when I listened to Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto 3rd Movement 2nd subject. I hope it's nothing too scary, and I hope it's normal.

It wasn't even just swooning of the head, I was TEARING!!!

1) Rachmaninov is really a genius.
2) Tarin and Clarence play it so freaking well.

To see whether you're sensitive or not, why not just come down to watch us play tomorrow man. Apparently tomorrow's works are really big and powerful, and even Dr Hecht and Mr Tiu suggested that next time they should split it into two nights, because 'the audience wouldn't be able to take it.'

It's true. With all its glory and power.

I heard this rumor - apparently if you sleep late you get pimples cos of stress and you grow in your sleep so if you sleep less you don't grow. Ah, see, one hand up to deny that already.

Oh, look, that's another one. Alright alright, I know what you guys mean, it's NOT TRUE!

To a certain extent. I'm just kinda finding an excuse for my current predicament.

Fact of the Day: I'm hungry. I want to go IKEA to eat the spaghetti and meatballs now. Right now. I am going to take a taxi to IKEA, demand they open, and eat their spaghetti. All of them. Talking about interesting things to blog, I can only blogged that I went with Akkra and his family to Clarke Quay to have dinner and sorts.

You know, the way I look at Clarence, the way he presents himself on first impression, is really great. Like, check it out, I walk into his parents' hotel room where they're resting (and his 14yo sister is there) and I'm like,

Heck, put on a sullen face and look serious. That's it, that's it, look so freaking serious and hope they smile at you.

No wonder the parents smile at me (count all the years of experience in PR) and the sister doesn't.

Scenario 2:
Clarence walks up with all his perfume and all and gelled-up hair, gives a 1000-watt smile and the whole world smiles at him :)

No wonder I have to learn from Clarence. Heck, he taught me so many things in Germany. Good guy, good guy.



I hope you guys don't mind my titanium-plastic tooth when I smile,
Or the sound of nitrogen-popping when I flex my wrist,
Blah blah blah blah blah blah -ile,
blah blah yada-yada-yada-yada piss.

How's that for a poem, eh? Never know when they might call me up to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.

But then again, I should not start on the self-pitying crap and proceed to post emo messages on MSN. After all, the last time I did it was the last time I had a close-enough friend/girlfriend/fwen/gerlfwen (check Scotland, Ireland), which was in 2006.

Why not, let's go for this later in life and bother about having a stable financial income in this financial crunch NOW?

It's the best alternative plan.

Hope to see you people tomorrow!!!

tiramisu

No, in case you're thinking, there're no pictures or anything above the text. It's a scanning error. It's really a blank space.

Seriously.

Yes, this article caught my eye because of 'SOURCE OF STEM CELLS'. Do you know how helpful that can be to the human race, or even to animals? Damn, we'll be all healthy and no longer diseased!

No, we still need it. Please don't take it away from us.

Yeah, the stem cells part.

Absolutely.

And if I sound really like, sarcastic and smarting.

I'm a little drunk now (:O) because I took a huge chunk of alcoholic tiramisu while at a wine-tasting session with my dad and Dr. Hecht, of which I failed to taste any wine because I don't touch alcohol. Let's say I didn't, because I ATE SOME OF IT.

Damn. It's a sin to me you know, consuming alcohol. I feel damn dumb now because I never should have taken the tiramisu. Never...now I'm stained. Now I can't proudly say I have never consumed alcohol before to anyone.

Now, I'm a little dizzy. And nearly on the verge of letting you see what I had for dinner just a few hours ago.

Today's English and S.S were good. Near-good, near-very good. I felt good after that, which is good because I don't want to be bugged the whole of next week, when I really die. I'm the worst at Math, Physics, and Chemistry, which kinda you know, like, kinda tell you how I don't like the Sciences?

Yeah.

Dedicated to the prefects in our class

10.52pm, dirty, not showered yet, just back from piano lesson.

My dad is in the living room entertaining some guests, while I stay here and do a little blogpost before the EOYs begins. Tomorrow, we'll be having English and Social Studies! I'm pretty confident for SS, although I need some more practice on English and more familiarity with the essay sequence. I know I can do it.

Probably like how I did Ravel today.

Today started with lots of trepedition, because on the second period we were going to have our last PE lesson - and we were going to have our last organized soccer game.

We played two games, my team lost the first game 2-0, but my team won the second game 1-0, goal courteous of blogger. The first game was really a give-away, because Shang (our goalkeeper), while clearing the ball, passed it straight to Joseph, erm, the opposing striker.

If logic rules, I think the opposing striker would attempt to score straight from within 5 metres, which was what Joseph did. And he scored.

Couple of nice volleys,you know, nice moves and all that, nice things that girls will never be interested in reading. To cater to thy mixed-gender readers, I shall move on.

Well, interesting thing was that I broke my right ring toe-nail. Think I ripped it off when LiYoung used me as a pivot when he tried to tackle me. Which he succeeded. Suay.

I was feeling despaired for most of the day, because I thought I was going to die when I played Ravel later. I really feel great for the transformation that I went through - when I was young every minute at the piano felt like an hour. And every practice session (8pm-10pm) felt like years...especially when the clock was directly in front of me.

While practising at the Conservatory today I was feeling depressed how time passed by so quickly. It's not often that one gets to enjoy the sounds of the piano, and I think I took lots of time trying to listen and savour each note.

Cheers to Ravel.

Not much before that - when I read Zhongren's blog yesterday, I spotted this segment -

"out of the goodness of my heart.WARNING TO ALL. if you're not a judoka, please for your sake don't hit me unexpectedly.coz i WILL hit back and i found out i usually can't control it =(means it's already reflexive for meso take care around me =D "

I think it was for me, cos I jumped him while in class and he did some judo move on me which I tried to counter, but failed obviously. Not like professional ninjutsu student Chua Li Young (seriously. like, he goes for ninjutsu training every weekend). So basically he turned me upside down and nearly broke my ribs until I gave a shout. He stopped, luckily.

While, about the ninjutsu thing I saw it with my own eyes when Zhongren attempted to jump Li Young. Zhongren managed to bring Li Young down, but the ninjutsu guy dragged judo guy down and flipped over him, before nearly bringing down on free hand on his adam's apple/sternum. Can't remember.

All of us watching that day were really shocked, cos hell, who takes on a judoka student?

Today's last period was free for me, so I walked to the printing room with Leon and Benjamin Low, spoke to Enzhao and Theophilus for nearly an hour.

I had time to spare anyway, lesson was at 7.30.

Kwek! The heck about the meme quiz - obviously it isn't ZAD or Andrea. Yeah, just like to make it a point to all of you who have done the meme quiz and have the questions;

Question 26 DOES NOT refer to ZAD or Andrea. I'm talking about the freshmen and sophomore girls. Count third-year students in also.

For you people who are lazy, Question 26 is:
Someone you think you could seduce.

Ah-hah! Noobs. Oh no, I just revealed a question to those who haven't done the meme yet. Will I be cursed? Will I be ruined? No.



I would like to end this post by talking about our class prefects - Jun Sean and Matthias. Throughout these 2 years with them, I realised they're maybe a little different from other prefects. Like, they manage to keep discipline and enforce the rules through their working relationships with us, which is really good because they don't like, 'change face'.

As in, they don't like, be one person and be another in the next lah.

I feel great to have them as our class prefects. Taking Jun Sean for example, who allowed me to change my PE T-Shirt in class when I told him I had a broken toe nail and I couldn't walk to the toilet.

Yeah. Like he said, "The law is fair. If it's reasonable, then...(something something which I forgot)." Maybe he said then it's alright. Really understanding.

And Matthias also. For all the freaking times we eat in class. Well at least he understood we were lazy and I don't think he booked us that much. But he did book me once though. :)

Anyway the thing is that, they're nice and understanding people, ok? This post is dedicated to them, as I had promised Jun Sean earlier in the morning.



Good Luck to all people taking EOYs.

See you'll tomorrow.