Post #140: Randomness

It is already my 140th post. Incredible. Waha!

This post is going to be filled with randomness so, you have been warned. Blah.

What is due…

… tomorrow??? Hmmm… 80% of the folksong arrangment. But mine is at present no where near that 80% mark. How???

… on Friday??? Counterpoint assignment 3C!!!

Is there anymore? Hmmm… Nope. Unless you want to include my little bit of conducting for CD&T tomorrow.

Something really funny happened today. Not to me, but it happened to Enx. Both the straps of her sandals broke off one after the other while was crossing the road to school this morning. Mind you, it was both straps of both sandals. LOL!!! She rang me up at home and asked to borrow a pair of footwear from me (I had to transport it to school, of course!). Tut tut tut… How laughable. Waha! During the time in between the end of composition lecture and Music Platform, Char and I accompanied the Neko to OG to buy a pair of sandals. Interesting…

Platform was another interesting one. The right side of the theatre cheered so loudly when Wunady came onstage to perform his piece. How sarcastic… Tut tut tut. There was a surprised encore piece; a first (second?) year student presented/performed his variation of ‘Twinkle, twinkle little star’. It was really interesting; the different ways, types and flavours of music present in his variations, like arabic, eastern, Chopin-ese, romantic, baroque, classical, jazz, blues, etc. You get the idea.

Evan and I did some birthday-present shopping yesterday at Bugis Junction. We ended up getting things to put in a box for the Birthday Fool. It was actually my idea of putting together specially thought-of things and then listing them and their significance. So, that is what we are doing. The box was made last night, at my expense. What is left is the “certificate” and the list. And maybe some sweets. That fella better appreciate it… -.-

I had to perform during last friday’s Piano Class. The interesting part came during lunch when we three found out who was supposed to peform that day from EL. It was me! Blah. Piano Class came and I had to play. So, just whack lah! Hahaha…! It was not that bad, considering the last time I did practice prior to it was the evening before.

Sunday’s Magnetic Band concert at the Esplanade Recital Studio was highly interesting. Tan Dun’s Ghost Opera was not meant to be scary at all. I liked the textures and effects created by the use of different instruments and the voice. I understood the Opera part; the entire piece was quite dramatic. As for the Ghost, did it refer to the pipa-player wearing white? Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King was, how shall I put it, entertaining? It was definitely interesting. However, I felt that the vocalist could had acted more. Like really coming up to the audience and sort-of screamed in their faces. That would had been really ‘mad’ considering the fact that the vocalist was acting the part of the mad King. Sadly, I did not have enough of the violin smashing part. It was so fast… Oh well… As compared to the last time I attended a Magnetic Band concert, I was wide awake through this one. Hee.

What else shall I add in? Hmmm… Nothing else.

Till next time!

Rubber Jumping Around on Strings

Well, well, well…

Another week of school has already zoomed-by, leaving us poor students spinning in its wake, trying to catch our breaths…

However, it has been a rather interesting week.

The SOP group had a meeting on tuesday where we brainstormed and came up with two rather interesting sort-of compositions based on John Cage’s ‘prepared piano’. We flimed it and uploaded it onto YouTube, with help from me filming one of two and with many thanks to Amy for using her camera and uploading it. Thanks, Amy! I personally like the first one, not because I helped filmed it but it is because I find it very interesting, especially when the rubber jumps around on the strings. The second video has its own interesting parts, like where Juls became totally ballistic in her own ’solo recital’. Lol! You have to watch it to believe it. Haha! Here are the 2 links:

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5lA3ovF3Ao

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-ZZIaiNXME

On monday, Ms. Lim went through the contemporary pieces before attacking my Haydn-piece. But before that, she taught me another way to relax; let the feet (soles) feel the floor, not gripping the floor, and sink your upper body (the torso and up) into the chair. Let gravity do the sinking. It is helpful and one can do it not just at the piano, but anywhere, like now, sitting before the computer typing this: I like Ms. Lim… She is a very interesting lady.

Another thing regarding ‘learning how to relax’ happened on thursday during CT&D2. We five, as part of an in-class practice, had to raise and then drop the whole of our right arm. Like doing a free-fall of some sort. Just (let it) fall, not fling (it down). The funny thing JT wanted me to do for Enx and Char was to act as some “referee” to their little arm-falling “contest”, which is actually a practice of how to relax the entire right arm, unfortunately, those two are having troubles with relaxation. Actually, most people have such a problem once they leave their childhood behind. They forget how to relax. That is why there are such places calling themselve ’spa’, ‘massage centres’, etc.

We went back to NIE on that same thursday, dusting out the cobwebs in our mind’s storage area, looking for and finally finding the recorder-related fingerings. Besides the recorder session with JW, we also had a “sharing” session which I shall not go into details. Lol! Blah.

Chamber choir today was quite a quiet affair because 1/3 of the members not present were involved in some brass and wind performance outside school. We did that mind-bloggling numbers excercise followed by that horrid ‘follow-the-leader’ type of rhythm-clapping. Tut tut tut…

Well, I better go off and do that history assignment now, and if there is abit more time, sleep!

Btw,

Happy 42 Years, 1 Week and 1 Day Old, Singapore!!!

Ms Lim is Home!!!

Ms Lim is finally home!!! I am saved!!! I do not have to die over those contemporary works!!! Right Juls? We are saved!!! Wheet!!!

Yup. I had lesson with Ms Lim on Monday at 8 in the morning and we dove straight into the contemporary set works; Tsunami and In Memorium, and did not resurface till 9 on the dot. Spare me a moment to relate my feelings when Ms Lim rang me on Sunday, while I was teaching. I was extremely pleased to hear her voice. Lol! Anyway, as I had already mentioned, we were solely concentrating on the set works during the whole lesson, therefore, the Haydn sonata was very much left aside. At the end of the lesson, Ms Lim gave me a box of Swiss chocolates. Actually, it is harden strawberry yoghurt coated with chocolate. Yum. And it is called Yogurette by Ferrero. It is nice, not only Juls agrees, but my dad too (he took up my offer on a piece of it).

On a more serious note, I am quite troubled by how most human beings can have dual personalities. All it takes to trigger such a thing is just something very small. Like an avalanche. Are we such petty beings? Since us human beings have been created in God’s own image, are we to say that God is also petty? Can we not let such small events go? Why bother making yourself and others around you troubled? The world is already a very troubled place, so why make it worse? It is already plagued with troubles since the beginning of time when Adam and Eve ate the Forbidden Fruit. Sigh… My bubble of the world around me had been burst, pricked by a sharp needle called pettiness. To borrow a line from The Bridge to Terebithia, “Keep your mind wide open”.

School in the morning. Better sleep now.

Ta!

Day 9: 14th October 2006, Saturday

ROADTRIP – DAY 5 END OF ROADTRIP

Cloudy.

We attended the morning mass where Fr. Jude introduced us to the small congregation present. After that, which was 20mins later, he kindly drove us to the local train station where we caught the city-bound train.

In the City. Queen Victoria Market.

It was about 1/2hr ride so, by the time we reached there, it was already approaching 11am. We headed straight for the Queen Victoria Market by taking a tram there.

Signage at the side of the market, along Queen St.

The facade of the market facing Victoria St.

The Queen Victoria Market is a huge market, somewhat alike to Geylang Seri Wet Market but bigger, neater and definitely drier. We spent quite a bit of time there, browsing the products on sale, especially in the clothes and souvenirs section, but not much of the fresh produce and delicatessen sections. I spent alot of money today, getting souvenirs and nougats, and on top of it, the train ticket cost $9.70 for the whole day.

We had lunch seated in a back alley of the market, eating a slice of pizza each as we all had no idea what to eat. Sian… And I bet Juls would like it. -.-” We took a tram and stopped somewhere near David Jones, where we went to look at the yummy cakes and sweets in their food section. Did I mention that David Jones is like our Marks and Spencer? We then hopped onto another tram and went up the road as Mum wanted to visit what she thought was a church, as we saw the spires of a building, which we later found out to be the old Melbourne Goal, where Ned Kelly was hanged. Shivers…

The State Parliament House

I have no idea where this is but I just realized that the palm tree is right in the middle of the photo. Waha!

St. Paul’s Anglican Cathedral. Opposite Flinders Street Station.

The dome of Flinders Street station.

Going back to Hoppers at the wrong platform.

We took the train back to Hoppers but not without another adventrue. Someone saw the platform number for the Werribee line to be on platform 10. So we waited there for almost 1/2hr. Enough of the waiting for we suspected something was amiss as we where the only few people on the platform, we went back into the main building where we saw on the screen the correct platform number for the Weribee line. We then went down to a very crowded platform 5 and waited for another 10mins. The train ride back took longer than the city-bound trip. When we finally arrived at Hoppers Crossing Station, it was already 5mins to 6, and Fr. Jude had to do mass at 6. So how was he going to pick us up as planned? Well, he did not and we found our own way back by taking a very empty bus. As Godma said, “Our own personalised bus.” The driver of Service #436 was very nice to stop at a little junction that turned out onto Derrimut Rd. We got off there and had a short walk to the church. How lonely. And so thus, for this trip, we travelled in a car, a vehicular ferry, a train, a tram and an aeroplane. All we had left was a helicoptor ride.