There's no two ways about it. You just have to mug like Evan and Benni.

The first 2 papers I received today killed all my spirits. E for GP and D for Music paper. Okay I cannot complain about GP because I did not study for it at all. But I did spend a lot of time on music and that grade almost brought tears to my eyes.

Almost..

So I wanted to vent my frustuation after that, and luckily there was PE x) I guess I just went all out and played to win, and I think our team doubled the other team's score hehe :P Okay but I need to stop being so violent and understand that RJ is different from RI. Like bruising Charlotte's knee the other time and knocking TingFang off her feet today.. ugh so sorry ppl! :-x Hope you guys are alright :)

I was in no mood to listen during GP lesson today. Entered music class without lunch, and endured that 3 hours barely surviving on the wafers that Mr Yu rewarded us with. Sigh, Mr Yu showed us 3 imba essays today. Willette's one was good, Mich one was impressive, Kiwan's one left me speechless.

I need to stop daydreaming and coming up with all sorts of ideas deviating from the norm. Fancy mentioning that Shostakovich sounds like Bach in the commentary, and then leaving out Bartok, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Kabalevsky and Khachaturian completely in the second essay on Nationalism, and finally arguing that Shostakovich is NOT nationalistic in the last essay. Hong Rui, if you want to be creative, you do it in your compo, don't do it in your papers.

Sigh.


Results have been disappointing, but as Benlow said, I did justice to myself and my own desires and ambitions. I chose to spend the entire September on my compo, I knew my promos will be screwed, and I chose to do it that way.

And I don't regret it.

I know that ten years from now, I will look back at my compo and smile to myself, being glad that I have composed such a work ten years ago. It's something that having 4 As cannot replace.

Notating my compo on sibelius is hell.

Musical pick up lines

General
1. I'm a fermata. Hold me.
2. Our voices are more than an octave apart. Let's get a little closer.
3. You must be augmented cause my love for you just won't diminish.
4. There is nothing accidental about your body, baby. No sharps, no flats, all curves
5. You can treat me like an ad lib solo, and play with me any way you want.
6. I'm to you as A minor is to C. We're natural ;)


(This part onwards is rather wrong)

For Strings
7. I just broke my G-string. Can I borrow yours?
8. How many positions can you get into?

For teachers:
9. Baby, Im gonna make you go up an octave

For trombonists:
10. If you rub lubricant on my slide, it moves faster and gets longer, wanna see?


ok enough.

dad wants 97.2
mum wants 95.8
sis wants 93.3
bro wants 91.3
me wants 92.4!

D: one radio how to share with 5 people

btw, Lion King is coming to Singapore next September! Omg must catch but its like prelims period zomg D:

Happy Birthday Around the World :D

Yay :)

For the common test compo, I was the last to perform. This time, I was last again :) Initially when I finished writing the compo I already told Dennis that I wanted to be last hehe, but when the order came out I was just like okay I'm fine with anything. But maybe its fate, I ended up last again as I hoped haha :)

The performance was quite okay I guess. In the Malaysia variation, my hands fumbled and couldn't reach the high B, and all the notes after that were out of tune. Transition to Uruguay was a little disrupted. I came in one bar late in the entry to Scotland cos I couldn't fasten the peg properly on time. (Okay I was supposed to take everything out from my pocket at the start but I forgot) India variation is the best i think :D And the China finale was like totally wrong, cannot pluck at all eeyer D: But I think overall it went quite well :) The interest that the techniques generated helped to mask the agony of the mistakes and bad intonation haha

Special thanks to
1) Laiweng, for her opinions on playing pizzicato on the cello, and her suggestion of using the 拨片 which I eventually did :D And thanks for your MUFFIN! I ate it this morning it was great haha
2) Hubert, for lending me the 拨片 :)
3) Evan and Mich :D Awesome friends who helped play for my compo
4) Benni, for helping me move the piano chair back to the music room :)
5) My family, for putting up with my crazy antics throughout the course of the entire composition. Trust me, its no pleasant experience.
6) My neighbours, for the same reason as #5
7) My family again, for coming down to watch me perform. For once :D
8) All friends who came down to watch
9) All music students, I love you guys whorx :D

P.S. Oi Chamber mates, where were you guys! >_<
I'm sure I emailed the whole Chamber and the only person that turned up was Mrs Yeo T_T

I'm mutilating my cello so badly now that it really hurts my heart. Every the peg flies off in the third variation, sratching the fingerboard in the process, or the rod misses the strings and strikes the body of the cello, I'll cringe in pain. :S

Okay that probably doesn't make sense here. You'll have to check out my awesome compo tomorrow to understand :P

Music Compo Concert
Tuesday, 5:30pm, LT2
Admission is free :)

See you there!

August Rush

AUGUST RUSH! <3333

I am supposed to be doing song writing now for pw op.. but I just visited Hannah's blog and I immediately got distracted for one hour by her latest post on August Rush. (sorry tingfang!)

I thought Jay Chou's secret was my favourite movie because of its awesome music. But August Rush just beats it hands down.

A movie that involves a cellist, a guitarist, the entire new york philharmonic, a child music prodigy, and lots of awesome music. What else can you ask for?

I haven't watched the entire movie yet, but I've been spending the last hour getting hooked on snippets of it on youtube. Follow through the entire synopsis and the videos below, you'll be captivated as well :)

(Spoiler warning)

The story goes like this. A female concert cellist and a male guitarist met at a party and spent the night together. The usual things happen, the cellist got pregnant, but her father didn't want that to ruin her music career and did things behind her back. After giving birth, the cellist was told that her child is dead, but in actual fact the son is still alive and grew up a home for boys.

(Opening of the movie, featuring the cellist and guitarist. Interesting combination of classical and rock music)

The child can hear music in everything, the light, the wind, the air. He believes that he can hear the music from his parents. He thinks that they always wanted him and would come and get him someday.

(The child trying out a guitar. This scene gives me goosebumps!! <3)

*fast forwards till the last scene*

August Rush conducts the New York Philharmonic Orchestra featuring his composition (which includes short snippets of the Bach Partita No. 3 Prelude heard in the first video, played in a musical dialogue between the cello and guitar <3)

The music here is really nice! Features some very cool instruments and techniques like the glass harp, bowing the glockenspiel, and some wind turbine thingy. I love the music at around 2:48, where the father rushes to the scene. It has modern rock influences together with Classical elements, and its very pulsating. Nice cello melody at 4:36, and at 4:50, the melody is accompanied by the guitar (the father's instrument), before the Partita opening motif comes back in at 5:40 again as a ostinato accompaniment (signifying the mum's role)

And so the family is reunited :)

It's quite touching... I want to watch the entire movie someday. Whoever composed the music for this movie, you rock! =)

P:S: I want to compose for a movie and/or musical someday!!! :D

I really hate it when the entire joke is destroyed just because of a spelling or grammatical error. It just sucks.

On a side note, I hope it rains every morning now

There are a lot of nice scores on IMSLP but I don't know how they sound like cos there are no recordings available D:

Today is not so bad judgement day.

Again, I had to be in school by 10am for Huiyan's free compo. I left home at 9:25 and the sky was overcast. But I had to get to school by 10am, and there's nothing as reliable as the circle line :)

Met JonKoh on the MRT and we walked out of Marymount together, only to witness another thunderstorm when the escalator brought us up to ground level -.-

Haha why does it always rain when we're going to practise for Huiyan's free compo! x)

Ok anw, there are already a lot of people camping at the Marymount exit looking at the rain in despair. So now, Jonkoh and I had 2 options.

#1 Go back to Bishan station, take bus 156 to RJC

#2 CHIONG! x)

Okay anyway for the sake of my precious cello, we decided to take option #1. (Hehe anticlimax, I bet all of you were thinking I'm going to do option #2 xP ) Thanks Jonkoh! Actually I can see that you would rather chiong haha. Under normal circumstances, or if I'm carrying my hardcase, I would have went on with #2, but aargh the rain was really super heavy, and it didn't look like its going to subside anytime soon. I know my soft case can't take it D:

As usual, bus 156 took super long to come T_T We reached RJ at 10:30. By that time, the rain has already subsided to a level that would have allowed for #1. Sigh, another failed judgement haha, but not that bad compared to Thursday.

---

I like stephanie's compo, sounds quite nice :) But zhiyi could have worked on his harmonics better hehe x) Peikhee's one was quite random, but still quite cool.

Anw I felt very shitty during Huiyan's free compo because I knew I played like crap and kept rushing/slowing down/missing entries. After the recording, I wanted to redo a section actually, but Huiyan said it was okay. Oh well, but I feel super bad anyway D:

And huiyan still imbursed $5 off for lunch after that, which I don't feel like I deserved it at all :(

Anw, thanks Huiyan! It's been quite fun and fruitful playing your compo :)

Went swimming today :) It felt good.

Haven't swum for a long time. I love swimming haha! Its one time when I feel really really free. And it >> running cos you won't actually feel sticky and sweaty.

Haha must start to train and exercise to get in shape. I'm on like a 2500 calories/day diet now, and if I don't exercise, I'm going to look like another zhiyi :P

And at 6 meals and 2500 calories a day, if I still don't gain weight I can just go bang my head on the wall.

Must hit 60kg by next year. I can't believe I was so stressed that I lost 2kg over the promos week wtheck.

Today is bad judgement day.

I had to go to school to practise for Huiyan's free compo. The practise was supposed to start at 11:30, and since it takes around half an hour to get from Buangkok to Marymount, I left house at 10:50.

Then I heard a clap of thunder. And rain started to fall.

And it wasn't a drizzle, it was a thunderstorm, a downpour.

So now, I have 2 options

#1 Take bus 27 for one stop and go to Buangkok MRT station. Take MRT to Marymount

#2 Take bus 156

I judged that the rain isn't going to stop or subside anytime soon, and so even if I managed to take bus 27 to Marymount, I wouldn't be able to get from Marymount MRT to school in that heavy rain without getting my cello soaked.

Reached the 156 bus stop. Time was 10:55

Usually bus 156 would take about 45 minutes to reach school, but during late mornings/early afternoons, where the bus is practically empty, it would take around 25 minutes, so I gathered that I could get there on time.

I waited. Bus 159 passed

I waited. Bus 109 passed

I waited. Bus 161 passed

I continued waiting. And bus 43 passed

And that was the last straw.. The time was already 11:15. I have another 2 options

#1) Continue waiting for bus 156, tell Huiyan that I'll be late

#2) Take a taxi

I decided I cannot make Huiyan any more stressed because today is A-level music prac too. For the first time in 3 years, I decided to take a taxi. (The last time I took a taxi was during my screwed up sec 3 year, where I took taxis in order to get home half an hour earlier so that I can complete a DotA game before my mom comes home.)

I waited. And one million taxis bearing the red "HIRED" and "BUSY" sign passed.

I waited, and I FINALLY saw a taxi bearing a green "TAXI" sign.

But freak, the taxi was travelling behind a bloody bus. And since the bus had to come into the bus stop, the taxi swerved into the middle lane instead and the big bloody bus blocked the taxi from seeing my desperate waving arms.

I waited. And Bus 156 finally came. But it was 11:20. No point taking

I waited. And another one million taxis bearing the red "HIRED" and "BUSY" sign passed.

I waited. And by this time, the rain has subsided into small drizzles, which means that I would be safe if I had taken the MRT in the first place -.-

I waited, and finally I saw another taxi with a green sign.

I reached school in less than 15 minutes. Hehe the taxi driver was quite efficient. I told him I was rushing for time and he chionged 2 red lights for me xD

The fare was $7.40, so I gave him $7.50 and asked him to keep the change.

I ran up into the music room, and my other 3 quartet mates: Jonkoh, Benwee and Zhiyi were all there.

But Huiyan wasn't -.-

She came at around 12noon, which means that if I had taken bus 156 (for 45cents), I would have made it to school at the same time too.

Sigh.

(PS:

I'm not going for Nina Kotova's concert anymore D: I couldn't save enough money for the ticket.

Actually I did, but I had to pay $49 dollars for pw and another $7.50 for taxi fair today. Sigh.

Oh well, Nina Kotova, I'll catch you another time. And theofanides cello concerto too.

Dang, actually I secretly still want to watch it! Ugh. She's playing on Jacqueline du Pre's cello!!)

D:

I'm bored.. So i'm here blogging again.

I have 6 msn windows open now, but half of them are inactive, and the other half have reply times of mean 30sec variance 2minutes.

Anyway, another reason why my physics paper is so screwed is because of my routine today. I woke up at 7, started mugging half an hour later while eating breakfast in the process. After 4 hours of mugging, I felt super unprepared and decided to continue mugging, forsaking lunch in the process..

Left home at 12, reached school at 12:30, mugged in school for 10 minutes with guowei, and went into the exam.

2:15, stomach started grumbling

2:20, stomach grumbles x10

Okay i give up, I went to the toilet and ate a bar x)

When I came out of the toilet, a physics teacher stopped me.

"Oi boy, come over here. Next time you go toilet can you please ask for permission first?"

"Sorry sir, I forgot. Urgent."

Haha, at least the second part was true xD But I didn't do the first part because I cannot risk the teachers checking my pockets.

Okay I've sinned.. but no one says food is a banned item in exams haha xD

Everything went wrong today, and I realised how much I treasure my sister now x)

After spending the entire august-september on music prac - compo - paper, the first time I actually sat down and mug chem was during the weekend after the GP/Music paper.

2 days, 9 topics. With my awesome sister around. No problem :D

Then after my Chem paper, I had 1 day to mug Math. I already covered statistics during my Chinese paper day, so I only had pure math left to cover.

1 day, 5 topics. With my awesome sister around. No problem :D

Math paper ended. Had quite a few questions blank, but it wasn't too bad. Went home and started mugging physics.

1 day, 8 topics. But my awesome sister takes H3 Chinese Lit instead of Physics T_T

So I was all alone. And I had to learn gravitation and oscillations practically from scratch too.

Result = Epic fail

Section A, I practically guessed like 80% of the questions

Section B, last 2 questions on dynamics and oscillations blank.

Section C, I didn't mug collisions, but I hope I got the equations correct. I spent a lot of time deriving them T_T And I'm going to lose a lot of marks for the gravitation also.

After the exam, I approached Dennis.

"So how was it?"

*Dennis beams* "Felt like sec 3" (Referring to the time where he improved his GPA from a 3.53 to a 3.82)

T_T Yeah it felt like my sec 3 too (Referring to the time where I crash and burned the entire year and GPA dipped from 3.6 to 3.23)

At least I managed to answer all the definitions which I promptly read on the MRT trip to school. I kinda love my memory x)

Sigh I need a Physics study partner.

(PS: Prediction. Music B. Chinese B. Chem B. Math B. GP C. Physics DDDDD:)

okie, people have been posting about their exams so i shall join in too :)

GP was crap. I didn't study at all cos I was busy studying music. When paper 1 came out, I immediately just whacked the environmental question because I cannot do anything else. But due to lack (or should I say absence) of mugging, I couldn't remember anything at all. All I had in my head were very vague flashes of the past 2 essays that I wrote and I even quoted all the stats wrongly. Sigh.. Okay apparently Charlotte mugged my essay (wah first time someone studying my work, I'm quite honoured xD) so our content should have some similar points. But she'll definitely do better than me because her essay is concrete and mine is just a piece of crap that I feel like tearing up after the exam.

Paper 2 was supposed to be manageable, but I didn't complete the stupid AQ because of lack of time. And I didn't write the word count for summary despite reminders from the examiners wtheck -.-

Music was better than Common test in a way that it wasn't so unexpected. But I still screwed up quite a lot of parts. Right from the start, during the CD testing and upon hearing the 2nd track and I was like "wtheck. I'm sure, why Leningrad! I mugged Bartok for commentary!"

Commentary was screwed up. Even though I have heard this particular extract before, it was done when I was multi-tasking pw at the same time so I didn't know what was going on other than the fact that it was Shostakovich's 7th Symphony. I was just staring blankly at the commentary lah T_T like how to "draw attention to important and relevant details".

Then I remember Mr. Yu said in my CT that I need to show Aural perception. Ok fine, you want it, I show it. Then I really went into super random points like how the symphony it sounded like Bach -.- and so that represents the Germans. Then you have the opening March theme placed on top of the Bach-ish accompaniment somewhere later in the extract and if the March theme represents the Russians, then this shows that Russia was "superior" to Germany, and thus is was Nationalistic. Like wtheck right? -.- Really, it was super random. I was like half daydreaming and half sleeping. Just writing all sorts of crap popping out from my head.

Then I gave myself 2 slaps and woke up in time for the 2 essays. The essays should be better I guess, but my stand and conclusion to the 3b essay was very weak. And the 3a essay was very rushed. (In my initial half-awake stage, I saw the ending time as 3:04 instead of 3:34 -.- Which means that for my entire 2 essays I was just chionging like a mad cow)

Gamelan was stupid. Period. I hope I can get all the structured question marks. But I'm so sure they gave 6 marks for identify the bentuk melody -.- Thanks ah, yes I know I'm one of the 2 people in the entire class of 16 who don't have perfect pitch. 6 marks down the drain sigh, which is a free giveaway to the other 14 members in the class.

Chinese

I woke up today morning feeling irritated because my sleep was disrupted. Read through the 课文 summaries and proceeded to do a bit of Math before going for lunch and off to school.

Then on the mrt i was trying to read a bit of 作文 and that was when I realised that I forgot to bring my freaking dictionary.

Called Evan to ask if he was at home, nope he wasn't.

And then the first figure I saw when I stepped into school was Evan.

Hahahaha... x) Anw Evan then went home and back and got me his Chinese dictionary. THANK YOU EVAN! YOU REALLY ROCK! Really, this big guy is someone whom you can depend on anytime. Really almighty.

I entered the hall feeling restless and sweaty because I was running around in RI looking for Zhang Laoshi to borrow a dictionary (in case Evan couldn't make it in time). But when I saw Zhang Laoshi, that was when Evan called me, and so I ran all the way back to RJ again.

Chinese compo was screwed. I wrote for half an hour, and felt pissed with my essay and so with one hour left, I started with a new compo. Obviously I couldn't finish (and it was really super crappy in quality) and so I ate into the Paper II time a little to finish my compo. In the end Paper II also cannot finish.

Sigh.

2 days and one quarter of a night left to mug 3 subjects entirely from scratch. Win.