Happy birthday blog!
and
happy new year to everyone else.
May all your wishes come true... may all my wishes come true too..

Teachers are Amazing creatures

I really think so. They can just give such inspiring advice so easily. And they are real good at summarising and recaping key points. Can I be an inspiring creature as well? I really don't know. It's scary, overwhelming, but, haha, it's not up to me now. What would I do with a bunch of Normal (Tech) kids? I wish I knew. She made them sound cute.
Gosh, I don't know anybody from Normal(Tech). Do you?
Imitate good teachers, learn from others, improvise, get everyone's attention!! Play and have fun..

And yay! I'm done with US essays!! Great achievement. And yay! I've finally put 20min of my playing on a CD. Yay!!

haha, someone said I have a sciency look. I wonder what that looks like.

I should change the template. It's outdated and user unfriendly and it doesn't look like something I'll use..

A Fisherman of the Air: I'm Definitely Better Than You.

A Fisherman of the Air: I'm Definitely Better Than You

I actually forgot to blog about Sleeping Beauty on Ice. It's fantastic. The costumes are so beautiful, I would feel like a fairy too in that fairy costume, if i can steal it and fit into it. The choreography is very good and the performers are superb. Even though I watched the cheap matinee show where obviously they won't use their best performers, the show was still fantastic. If you are still a student, please go and watch it. It's only $40+ for any tickets in the whole theatre, very worth your money, especially if you like watching ice skating.

Everybody in the region is talking abt the earthquake and tsunamis, it takes up almost the entire half hour of news, and almost every Asia-Pac blog i visit talks abt it, except for those teenage blogs tHaT lOoK lIkE tHis..

Tsunami

A tsunami is not a single wave, but a series of travelling ocean waves generated by geological disturbances near or below the ocean floor. With nothing to stop them, these waves can race across the ocean like the crack of a bullwhip, gaining momentum over thousands of miles.

The waves are generated when geologic forces displace sea water in the ocean basin. The bigger the earthquake, the more the Earth's crust shifts and the more seawater begins to move.
In a tsunami, waves typically radiate out in directions opposite from the seismic disturbance. In the case of the Sumatra quake, the seismic fault ran north to south beneath the ocean floor, while the tsunami waves shot out west and east.

Tsunamis are distinguished from normal coastal surf by their great length and speed. A single wave in a tsunami series might be 161km long and race across the ocean at 966kmh. When it approaches a coastline, the wave slows dramatically, but it also rises to great heights because the enormous volume of water piles up in shallow coastal bays. -- AP

Pictorial explanation of formation of tsunamis

The confirmed deaths in a mammoth Asian quake and tsunami soared to 58,000 on Wednesday as worst-hit Indonesia readied bulldozers to dig mass graves for corpses in a rush to ward off disease, which the UN health agency said could double the toll.
The earthquake occurred at a spot where the Indian Ocean plate is gradually being forced underneath Sumatra, which is part of the Eurasian plate, at about the speed at which a human fingernail grows.

Did RJ physics dept predict that a tsunami will form? It's something the physics teachers can brag about next year..

Haven't been blogging for ages, mainly because I didn't have the comp to myself for long last few days, sharing it with my parents. Not very convenient to write long stories then.

Massive earthquake affecting everyone, even Singapore, been raining non-stop ever since i opened my eyes today. Raffles has been a really good geographer, chose Singapore, an island at such a good location. Every country around us has been hit by the earthquake, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thai, Sri Lanka.. and all we felt was a little tremor and some rain, well, a lot of rain. Sad for those people who lost their homes and friends and relatives. Kind of strange because it's happening so close to us but we don't feel much, not that I want to lose my home or friends or relatives. Of course not.

I think interviews are useless, I won't go to any more unless they are compulsory.

I have a saturation point for good food, and the point isn't very high. Any food that tastes better than my saturation point, well, I can't appreciate it. Been eating a lot of good food recently, think they are wasted on my tastebuds..

Thank you all for the Christmas cards and Christmas greetings. So nice to open the mailbox and see so many cards. Haha. And everybody used that fish stamp. haha

I'm a cheaterbug, I peeped at a reference. Couldn't help it. Envelop was too lousy. I had to change the envelop, and while i was changing it, i peeped. Aiyah, they should all do it the way RJ seals envelops. Make sure that i can't open it. Anyway, the rec is so truthful and direct that it hurts. Ouch. So so true, so descriptive of me. Nothing fanciful, just me. No chance liao.. haha

After all the excitement on HKUST, i'm going to miss the application deadline cos I can't ask miss lee to write my rec now and send it within the month right? *sigh*, and for HKU, there's a personal statement, which is detering me from applying. Guess I won't apply hong kong after all. I'm sick of applications. Hope i get into UC, and solve most of my probs.

On second thoughts, the rec is not that bad lah. I like the last sentence. I hope he really meant it...

Talked to a stranger. I've known him for let's see half an hour and hear his wisdom:

唸書很辛苦, 我知道, 書永遠看不夠, 也唸不完, 但是唸對書確很重要.
找對老師, 進對學校, 考對系, 就是要念對的科系.
很多學校學的後來在社會上都派不上用場, 但最主要是去學習研究的方法和觀念, 會影響你將來工作的態度和作為.
人外有人天外有天..怎麼都覺得自己很渺小
加油囉!

Basically summed up all there is to an undergrad education.
My mom will freak if she finds out I'm talking to a stranger at midnight.

Found shane and renee's blog by accident. I won't read that again. Makes me a bit jealous of the talent and opportunities and friendship some people have..

Not in the happiest moods.. I should create a law of ups and downs, or more chim, it'll be law of elevation and depression. When you jump up, you land and dig a hole in the ground. The higher you jump, the deeper the hole will be, and the more time and strength you need to climb out of it. Yeah, life is a sine curve, it goes up a distance and goes down the same distance, only difference is that the x-axis has been adjusted, and you can't find out when you're going up or down..

The moment before dawn is always the darkest.

Do I look like I can be a good teacher? Why does everyone think that I can teach?

Yesterday, Sunny's party. Sunny's house is so huge, at least I think so, and there was sooo much food. Great food, her parents are, i think a bit too 热情, wonder how many days they'll need to finish up all the food. Parents should keep in mind that teens nowadays don't eat much, especially the girls, they eat pathetically little, maybe to save food for the African children..
It was supposed to be a sad parting, we won't see each other until, theoretically, March, when the results come out, but it didn't seem to end any differently from other class outings.. Haha, guess we know that we'll just meet up some day anyway.

Wish I got acceptance letters instead of rejection ones.. will feel so good to know that some school will take me next yr.

Today was less boring than I expected. Cos there was a lot of singing and the kids were really cute, and my teacher was nice enough keep me entertained throughout the long speeches. And as usual, there're lots of friendly people around who say hi and thnks to me, even though i don't know any of them. Sorry to say this but I really wonder how many people in there really understood all the words, their Chinese must be really good. And Beef, I met your secret good friend. Haha. Not a secret any more.

My teacher was talking abt the types of students that he teaches and i think I'm the type who's a bit 钱多没地方花. Sometimes i really wonder why i go on and on and on, sometimes i think i should just save up the little money that I have for uni.. since, i can't go far in music anyway. Well, at least he claims that he doesn't put me in that category..
I think that I have made 1 wrong move in my music career, and I've moved in that wrong direction for too long before correcting it, so it's extremely hard to get the direction back again, i'll have to start from the beginning again. Basically, I can't have a music career, even if i want to...... Sometimes parents are right

Imagine my shock when I heard that the woman who wears leopard skins is Iskandar's wife.. my jaw dropped, literally..

I'm lousy, i believe i'll get what i want if only i ask.. but i just 开不了口.. And there's so many things that i want now. Darn

extensive blogging today.
Will be playing at evelyn's church this sunday, if you are interested to come watch, contact me.

OK, my book's found. Yup MG's there and it's with her now. phew..

I am an absolute idiot. How could I have lost my book? Hope it's still there and nobody koped it. Great, now nobody i know can check if it's still there, hope no strangers use that place, pray that MG's there.. urgh, how careless of me!!

Hong Kong

Went 香港，深圳，广州 and my Cantonese has definitely improved. Think I've got my Pri 2 vocabulary back..

Hong Kong: everything is tall and narrow. Tall buildings, narrow streets. Although air isn't very clean, Hong Kong looks colourful, especially at night, not like China where everything is gray and gray. Christmas lights are more fantastic than usual, they actually move. The Avenue of Stars is well, a mini Hollywood Walk of Fame, for HK movie industry I guess, and a lot of the stars are already dead.
HK People are so 自动，on escalators, everybody just move to one side, leaving a clear passageway for those people who like to walk up escalators. Kindergarten kids look so cute in tiny blazers. Bet I looked like that when I was that age. =) People are really efficient, shops are super professional, even the tiny ones, like a 五金店 will sell every nail and screw and whatever you'll ever need. Went to buy jeans, and the shopkeeper knows exactly which pair will look good on me. I tried on a few other pairs and none of them looked as good as the one he recommended. Amazing people. Hong Kong immigration officers look real good in uniform, and they are actually very friendly. They smile and talk to you. Breezed through ID making the first day. Singapore immigration will never be this efficient.

Went 香港大学，科技大学，中文大学. HKU is well, rather old. It actually has architecture, not like NTU which in my opinion is just cement blocks plunged onto the ground. Was peeping into the rooms and actually saw an electronic organ in one of the music prac rooms. A really old one, one of those cardboard kind i used to play when i still had a single digit age.
HKUSTU is really new and looks so good. The view from the school is really breathtaking. The school is on a hill and overlooks the sea and 新界. The campus is on the slopes so moving from one block to another may means taking the elevator down 10 floors. Happy climbing if the elevators break down. It's a campus that I really like, it feels very welcoming.
Chinese U is in a real ulu place, actually i didn't notice much about the school cos i was quite tired then and it was some master's graduation there on that day so there were people wearing those graduation robes everywhere and somehow I always get asked to take photos for people.

i shall stop being cool and show more emotions, show that i'm enthu and excited when i am..

sunday, grad nite
Spent ~$250, compared to ~$70 for DHS prom.. grad nite should be renamed dress nicely and take photo night, cos that's probably what everyone did.

ok, yesterday, qq's outing
kboxing.. sang pretty much every nice song on the list, nice to have people who likes diff kind of songs, then get to listen to different types of songs.. Found out that qi qiong has such a great singing voice, she should sing more often. Too bad if you were not there yesterday. She's really good.
Then went Singapore River + Fullerton, Fullerton looks so gorgeous, all the Christmas decor made it look so elegant.

today,
found out so many things.. haha. Went NUS, walked around, got bored and went Jurong Point to meet xx and eat.. her logic was that since we're in the west, might as well go all the way to the very west, so we had a journey to the west to Jurong Point.
then went for music lesson, my first ever theory lesson in my life, can't believe it, how did i pass through all those practicals without theory. So nice of my teach, specially went mp to teach me. haha. anyway, saw ms goh again, so qiao, she was using his studio.. found out why they are such good friends, they were once classmates, interesting, which means he's really old, should hurry up get married. Beef, please go and ask him to choose a girlfriend and get married soon.

oh yes, i must not regret my decisions, no regrets, cos i made my decisions with my brain and not with instincts, so it's a human decision, not an animal one.. i'll probably know if it's wrong, few yrs later, especially if i take up a scholarship.. oh shit, really think i'll regret this..

sheryl was saying sth about singaporeans getting robbed and mugged overseas. I don't think I'll be robbed or mugged, I think I'll be cheated, badly. And I wouldn't even know that I've been cheated, will probably think I zhuan4 dao4. I must learn to say no. No, No, No.. Hope I wasn't cheated.

photos: http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=2134554628

or you can always wait for me to invite u to the album

Somehow I get this feeling that people expect me to say something in some situations and I stupidly not say them, like I don't get the hints.. and i get this feeling that people think I expect them to say something when I actually don't.. Went see my teach yesterday, and felt that we were talking in 2 levels, the spoken conversation, the "hi how are u, now very free" and so on, and the underlying, "i think u want me to say this, u think i want u to do this" conversation, actually I didn't really bother reading into his conversations, but I guess he read mine, though I actually didn't mean to say anything more than what I said. if I give hints, I'll give them openly.. I'm too lazy to think nowadays.

Don't understand how people can enjoy shopping..

Firefly interview. If I were the interviewer and I knew me well enough, I wouldn't give me the scholarship. Well, I'm glad I found out what they are looking for.. and I don't think it's me.

IEC 2004

Royston won IEC! Wow! Think he's the 1st Singaporean to win it in electone history.. Heard from everybody how great he is, wish I heard his performance.

Interview

Wanted to blog yesterday, typed halfway and my com crashed.

Interviews: they remind me of oral exams. Chinese orals especially, for some reason or another. When the interviewer asks a question, i'll just sprout whatver that comes to my mind first. If i only thought of 1 thing, then that'll be what i say, and i'll try to stall time to think by elaborating that 1 pt. But since I can't multitask, I either end up being incoherent or just stuck with 1 point. If I thought of more than 1 point, then I'll have to keep the points in my head while talking abt something else, and hopefully by the time I finish my 1st point, I can still remember what I want to say.. and say them without jumbling everything together. Well, 1 good thing abt interview is that you can always explain more if they don't understand, not like essays with word limits.. Yesterday's interview, i probably broke all the rules, all the yah, erm, aahs punctuating my sentences. Guess the interview didn't help me, but at least i got a warm up for Firefly.

Yes exams have ended and I think doing that Chem S paper would be quite enjoyable if I have more time, don't need to choose questions and not panicking. But no I didn't feel bad about exams ending, not like I did in Sec 4. Probably because I'm not a wandering spirit yet, I have 2000 things to do before I can be a free soul, which is really good. But there are other more interesting things I want to do, and actually, shopping for a prom dress is not one of them.. well, i guess they'll have to wait.

I don't think I can say that my birthday wish didn't come true if I didn't even make that birthday wish on my birthday. Was pretty crazy about it for a while, but guess it just doesn't matter so much any more, since I didn't even remember it on my birthday. I've found things that matter more to me, like friends, and maybe that's what I should write in my essays.. grr, stupid essays. and interviews, stupid interviews.. grr

Cochineal beetles and drugs

Cochineal is a natural red colour from the egg yolks and other parts of the dried female insect Dactylopius coccus Costa, a parasite of the prickly pear cactus. The insects occur in colonies covered with a fluffy wax that they secrete. The major regions of Cochineal production are South America, especially Peru, and the Canary Islands. It is an expensive colourant and is therefore not in common use: it requires 70,000 insects to make one pound of colour. The product, which in its processed form is usually called Carmine, is a crumbly solid or a powder.http://www.unicapinvitrosight.com/templates/Allergens.asp?id=2532

drug (n.)
1. A substance used in the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of a disease or as a component of a medication.
2. A chemical substance, such as a narcotic or hallucinogen, that affects the central nervous system, causing changes in behavior and often addiction.
~The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary

Commercially, barium is made on small scale by the electrolysis of molten barium chloride, BaCl2.
cathode: Ba2+(l) + 2e- --> Ba anode: Cl-(l) --> 1/2Cl2 (g) + e-
Barium metal can also be islated from the reduction of barium oxide, BaO, with aluminium.
6BaO + 2Al --> 3Ba + Ba3Al2O6

I was walking to MRT today and saw Clarence. I was on my way to school and he's going Aljunied to eat before going to school. VJ is just so near. Anyway, I nv knew he's a French genius, he said that he's fighting with Jaireh to get the top marks for French, wow. Unless they are the only 2 people taking French which shouldn't be the case, he's really good. Nv knew he became so involved in French, he's actually going France for uni. Other than the French part he's still the same I think, except that VJ suits him more than DHS perhaps, he sounds so much happier.. yeah, and we actually talked about a primary sch reunion instead of a sec sch reunion, how weird.

Somehow I think A levels are more enjoyable than O levels, don't know why but I remember that O levels were not fun at all..

went bedok to eat today, then realised that the hawker centre at the interchange closed down.. how lucky, so we went to the hawker outside TJ.. how interesting. Too bad didn't really know what's good there, so ended up anyhow buying stuff to eat.
I really think that if anyone saw us this week after papers, they wouldn't think that we're having exams.. Hanged (is there such a word?) around the post office at Ghim Moh the other day for an hour, then today went Bedok to eat.. Haha.. Anyway I have faith in us all, we will all get our As.

This week's Time is so good. It's a travel guide to so many places in Asia, Singapore has a swimming pool in Changi Airport featured as the best airport surprise.. There's a section on the worst of asia, and one of the worst things is summer: let me quote
"goes on way too long. In Singapore, it seems to never end. (The government has to do something about this.)"
I don't get it. What did the govt do? Someone pls enlighten me if u find out.

Education system is changing so much, in 5 yrs time when we are out of uni, we wouldn't be able to relate to the pri, sec, jc people any more, cos everything's so different. PW, science practicals, counselors in school, O level, A level, maybe they'll abolish S papers soon..

about my last post, i'm not sad or depressed or blaming anyone for anything, just typing down some stuff that i've been thinking about. so, thanks to those people who showed concern, but i'm fine. =) next time i write such things i'll put lots of smiley faces around. =) =D =Þ hee hee.

so funny, mole said he thought about me last week, hope it was during GP papers, and hope his powerful english telepathic messages reached me and i'll do well for gp for once. Haha. mole's a family friend from USA who's starting eng classes

so far, don't think i've had the chance to put my brain engines to high power during exams.. there's either not enough time (like bio today) or too much time (like maths today), either not enough time to think, or too much time so can take my own time working through the questions. Do I want it to stay this way? I wouldn't mind, but it's probably harder to get As like that.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
so what? so what if he claimed that I was his best student, it's probably all changed now, and if it's not, it'll change in a yr's time. I'm not talented. so what if i get a fantastic recommendation? i can't promote myself properly cos i don't have the substance to promote. My playing suck so badly, I'll have to reject invitations to play in public. How to make recording? So what if I take up composing? no one will ever see or play my scores, just like no one heard me play. Is there any point in doing things when nobody knows you've done those things? Are those things really done?

I was reading the Chicago U book, it says that U Chic wants to provide a uni education that's not just one which we have to go through, but one that gives students firm foundations and allow them to go on to the next step. Building foundations, haven't we been doing that for the past 12 years? What are we building foundations for? What are we going to put above the foundations? When is it that we stop building foundations and start building the real structure, or are we building foundations and structures at the same time? What are we aiming for? Is there a final building that we are aiming towards?

I'm running out of time. I'll nv forgive myself if i don't get an A for Physics, or worse don't get A for Chem.

Nvm, q sad, last time doing GP, not that I ever liked doing GP stuff, but as I was telling my TERP partner this yr before CT1, GP's the only non-science/maths thing we do, it's sometimes a good way to relax those science/maths part of the brain, act felt q lost when i came home and saw my GP stuff lying on my desk, kind of wondering what to do with them.. haha, my GP evaluation form was so negative, so unprepared for GP exam, the only positive thing was that i enjoyed the subject.. haha

Anyway, it's sunny's birthday!! Everyone's getting older.. ok duh. Had a great cheese/ yoghurt cake, went Mac to eat, ended up playing games there. Those games are really addictive. I bet if we didn't have to go back to sch the last time we went there with AS club, we would have played that PayDay thing for another month. Anyway, it's so unlike me, stayed and played with those people, sunny's friends, whom i don't exactly know well.. but well, it's fun. Then the stupid sky started raining, and we were trapped, so continued playing from lunch to dinner. Fantastic us, u would think we've finished our As or something.

Great, at least I got one decision made today. Will take music theory, finally. Don't know how high I can go though, hope my fundamentals and impros can take me up to a decent level.

"Singlish, has developed divergently to the point where, it has immense value as an identity marker. ...the Internet has become a way of using and promoting Singlish, since it is a medium that escapes the efforts by education and government leaders who wish to see the demise of the language."
~ Block, David. 2004. "Globalization, Transnational Communication and the Internet". International Journal on Multicultural Societies 6 (1): 13-28.
www.unesco.org/shs/ijms/vol6/issue1/art2

qq's pic

QQ's masterpiece. Don't tell her it's here, or she'll kill me.

few days ago was complaining abt how boring bio pract was, actually i'm quite glad it's so uneventful..
phy pract wasn't difficult, just that i stupidly can't count, and can't label nos. on an axis properly, ended up without a gradient or y-intercept, and of course no other values for calculations.. hope i pass that pract..
chem pract was ok, except that i spilled the purple powder all over my script and my bench, so my script had a purple cover, gross. then while I was heating that NaOH + FA5 thing, the solution spurted out of the test tube and landed all over the place, including on my finger (ouch, hot!) and on my calcuator and the script. Hope my paper don't corrode by the time it reach Cambridge and hope my calculator can survive through my entire A level. I don't have a backup.

walked around the staff rooms yesterday and they were so empty, the whole place was so evacuated.. well at least we got what we need to do done

was buying stamps just now at this shop near my house and the auntie saw my teacher evaluation forms and said, “你读RJC是吗？”“是啊”“我女儿在那里教书，不过她现在没有教，她刚生小孩”“你女儿教什么？”“她教数学” (sounds familiar eh?) “她是谁？”“Mrs Ou” or something like that. Haha, guess the world's not so small after all.

telemarketeers today are so friendly, guess it's hard to make a living nowadays. I'll be more than willing to do their surveys but, too bad, I'm underaged..

Some quotes:
"The future is already here. It is just not uniformly distributed." ~ science-fiction writer William Gibson

"Canned arrangement books (playing scores that are arranged by others) are like recreational drugs. They allow the individual to get instant gratification for a period of time. But then they need to get more and more in order to get that same satisfaction. While there are many other ways to find enjoyment in life, the addiction of this instant gratification is very easy to get lost in. Soon it robs the individual of experiencing anything meaningful in life." ~ Louise, attacking everything that i love to do

Almost fainted today.. so scary. Went out and got sicker on the bus, when i reached the stop i just collapsed onto the seats at the bus stop and threw up.. darn gross. Was feeling so horrible, and my stupid phone died as usual.. Ended up borrowing a phone fr some stranger and called mummy. Tried walking, but blood don't seem to flow to my head or my limbs, don't know where the blood went, almost went black.. Was soaked in sweat. Sat back down, thought that i was going to faint and if I faint, i'd better faint from a lower CG and not hit my head on the floor.. felt so terrible, hope it won't happen ever ever again.. got so many people worried.. and nice passers-by donated medicated oil, too bad i don't know how to use it, but if i use, i'll prob feel even more nauseous..

Hmm, how come people keep finding my blog and i don't seem to find anybody's? Strange..

Bio practical.. they shld change the name to Bio theoretical.. The only practical things we did were to grind a leaf and felt that i was cooking, chopping up the leaf, suck up the leaf extract using capillary tubes, fold some Al foil and cellophane and put everything under the lamp. And that can give probably 4 marks? The rest of the question were so theoretical, the results of the expt was already predictable, can ans the question without doing the expt.. Then the O level rice counting thing came out.. and kidney histo. Was hoping that mitosis or meiosis slides will come out. I mean, how many chances do we have of seeing beautifully stained mitosis, meiosis slides? The kidney was beautifully stained though, can see clear glomeruli, if there's such a word, and podocyte nuclei

Change of copyright laws nxt yr. Better go and download everything u need before the year ends..

Farewell RJ, mt sinai, 3f...

if they're trying to make us cry, they're not succeeding.. but it's quite a great day anyway.

assembly was luckily short enough. guess they know that we can't sit there for long, it's too hot and stuffy. that thing yingheng took from hodge looks really really special, i've never seen such a plaque before.. and it doesn't look like it weighs 6kg. They're really smart with the certificate of merit thing, just flash everyone's names, can just imagine the groans if they decide to read everyone's names. and band has the largest population getting the CM, more than even council. and the band photo is cool, it shows the whole band! instead of just 1 person. hee. John's speech is really good. He's a really good speaker. I wouldn't have minded if his speech was twice as long, I'm sure he would have something interesting to say.

lovely evening, night, with the class, taking photos, throwing lightsticks around, making shooting stars. Wish that the light sticks have some sort of magnet thing, then after throwing them, just walk around with a magnet and the lightsticks will be attracted back to us, no need to bend down and pick, so tiring. guess it's quite interesting to watch the class fr the canteen area, can only see light sticks flying around. haha

played until the school was evacuated, we were the last group to leave the sch, wow. and it's great to have a council vice-pres in the class, cos he has the keys to the gate, and we didn't have to climb out the front and walk all the way..

only blemish of the day, stupid applics stuff. wish i didn't have to go around and be pathetic to prevent the teachers fr killing me..
thank you people who persuaded me to apply. if weren't for you all, i probably wouldn't have the courage to apply early action.

My attention span is getting shorter, was so restless during yesterday's GP and that interview talk, nearly fell asleep during the talk, found it torturously long. Don't see why we hired such "interview professionals" to talk to us when the best interviewees we find around us are probably our teachers, they do the speech thing every day, with the right body languages, tones and so on.. if they're lousy speech makers, we would have spotted their flaws long time ago and try not to make them. I think that to ace an interview, it really depends on how practised one is for interviews..

Hate last min changes, it's Oct 14, Oxbridge dateline has long past, early d/a dateline is in 16 days, now he decides that i should go somewhere for the name and not for the major. How on earth am i suppose to make the dateline? i'll rush like mad and the teachers will kill me. Apply HYP on regular, might as well not apply, sure can't get in.. Doesn't he know that this won't work? I can't get in, so why don't he just save up the $60 applic fee?

Went for bio lect today, the attendence is pathetic, maybe that's gd too. It seems so easy to get full marks for an essay after u look at the ans scheme, but I've nv gotten one before.. Promos are over and J1s are starting CCAs again, sch has more life.. Spent an hr reading thru the mock paper essays, read almost everyone's essay, (sorry, hope u all don't mind) realised that I can't distinguish the bad from the good. Think essays are really subjective, a different marker would give a totally different mark. I didn't think my essay was good, but got a really high mark, or maybe it's that mark inflation before the exam thing. If I got my mark, bao luo should get a much higher mark, at least 40. Really don't know how they mark..

Happy Birthday!

Thanks everyone for a great birthday. Special special thanks to alex, jialing, telle, siew, xh, bao, eric, hk for making today so wonderful.

1st sms of the day was from Alex, though don't know what he's saying in the msg. 1st happy bday sms was fr wenwei. people who gave me bday presents really 精神可佳, went all the way to my hse, wow. The photo's really nice, will somehow stick it on the wall, with all my other photos above my organ hopefully. Oh don't know if you intended it, the Ireland had 2 letters missing, so it's rela d. hmm, interesting word. alex, nv know he's so nice, anyway his 好意我心领了。He's not a bad SL what..

thanks telle for staying with me all morning, thought I'll have to as to some TS but that classroom was great, not cold at all. =) GP was um, the usual, can't write well on paper and within that time limit, I believe that if I have a comp for GP essay, I'll do much better, I wanted to change this entire para, but can't cos too 麻烦. Compre had a lot of time left, maybe cos don't know how to do applics question at all. Q entertaining though, to watch ur teacher play with rubber bands.

Eh, supposed to talk abt birthday. So, after that went Ghim Moh, had a nice chocolaty cake thanks to all the nice people, they also 费心费力 to light those candles, at least the fan left me 1 candle to blow. Oh yeah, got birthday blessings from the Prima Deli auntie and the otah auntie who was so nice to give us 1 free otah.

To everybody: I don't need birthday presents. Thank you very much if you have given me one. I appreciate them. But if you didn't give me, don't worry abt it, don't waste money buying me stuff, I don't deserve ur niceness.

Thanks all again, and I need to go back to writing my dreaded essays and writeup.

SAT2day, SCH nice place, very conducive, huge table, nice swivel chair, not too cold, just that I was stupid enough to not find the clock until the last paper. Writing wasn't too good, don't think my essay's too convincing, Maths was surprisingly difficult, got stuck at the matrix question and another "i don't even know what kind of question is it" question. Chem was easy, finished way before time, and for maybe the first time in my life, I actually fell asleep during a test. Was really sleeping and woke up with a shock when the woman said time's up.

It's so easy to tell who are Singaporean students and who are not. There were abt 15 people there and there were 3 foreign students. Probably from international schools, cos they are the only ones asking questions aloud, Singaporeans either try to figure out everything themselves or call the invigilator to their desks and then ask.

Went DSTA openhouse and saw Wenwei. Had a nice chat on the way home.
I must start mugging soon.

Last official school day. Sad.

All the teachers are giving motivational speeches, all-the-best-for-your-future speeches, and so on.. Mr Hodge gave his "last time you'll hear the train move past during morning assembly" speech, and surprisingly. Mr Leong's speech was good, the one abt us being the last batch in Mt Sinai, the batch that can make history. Mrs Kwan's, is that her name?, timeline thing came at an appropriate time, it's time to go back to studying. Yes past S03Fs were fantastic, even when she was the CT, hope this S03F will be just as fantastic, or even better, under the present CT. I said in an earlier post that I think Alfie will make a better CT than Ms Lee, i believe now that mrs Kwan will be an even better one. She seems to know 3Fs better than my CT does.. OK, back to speeches, Mr Wong has been extra nice these few days, smiling and laughing a lot more than usual, giving marks to everyone, although he went back to his bullet train speed today. Brilliant guy. Mr Khoo came with a huge bag of junk food, had a great time pigging out, gave some life advice, but um i didn't really get any great insights from it.. heehee.. when he left he sort of wished us all the best and said things like we've been a great class and so on, and we were saying things like we really can't promise to produce great results but we'll try our best, was such an "aww" moment..

went on a phototaking trip around the sch and found people flying kites in the field, so fun. Found out that there's a huge deep drain near the fence next to the track, really deep, will break a leg if you happen to fall in. Talking about photos, Christine, I will take that photo with him one day, but don't like that call me over fr 1 side to the other lah, very paiseh and he'll think i crush him. On photos again, my camera has a really small screen, so whatever I thought was small on my screen turned out to be gigantic in my computer. Really should stop using the screen and use the viewfinder instead.

uni applications, it's a chore, really want to get it over and done with but can't even decide if i want to apply for financial aid or not.. irritating..

I am a selfish person, many or even most of the time. we were talking abt not leaving anyone in the class behind and i realised that that thought of pulling people up never ever crossed my mind. i should have been more open to qq's help calls, more responsive maybe, more encouraging perhaps, and not respond only when she sounds depressed... really really wish everyone can do well in As. It's the A level anyway, the level where everyone gets As.

Had a great break yesterday. Went Macs and played Payday! Such an exciting game, everybody trying to act pathetic and poor, as in having no money, so that they won't be asked to pay money. Haha, glad I didnt stay in sch and study SAT.

School's getting so boring, go to school, don't even learn anything much, just sit around, look through own paper, check answers, dig for marks.. BORING!

Great day!

seems like it's my birthday today, everything was going my way. Woke up and started on my database of organ scores i own, finished recording down 1 yr's worth of scores, had a great time typing the Jap words, trying to type those Kanjis which I don't even know how to pronounce, haha, so left quite a lot of blanks

then went airport to pick Daddy up, thought I was late, but turned out to be just in time, and he was so happy to see me. yay. Realised that I really don't know T2, always take planes from T1, T2 is so foreign, never knew they had such a localised shopping area, and it's quite flooded with students. Then came the best part, Daddy bought 10 Disney soundtracks, a collection of Disney classics DVDs (abt 15 movies), a Tom & Jerry cartoon collection, some other kiddie Chinese cartoon and Lion King 1 1/2 for me. A last childhood gift before i turn 18. So sweet of him, knowing that I'm a fanatic Disney fan. I was so touched, was crying when I left for the bbq.

The day remained good, i boarded this bus that was totally empty, I was the only one on the bus with the driver. How rare. Then went Bena's hse.. and got a really really nice postcard from Christelle! It's written in green! =) And got a bday present from qq, wrapped in green! Got a beautiful plate fr bena and sang. And a bday present from the class, not green but a cute white sheep. haha. Really like it's my birthday today. Then AS-ed with Christelle and Sunny to the pool and had a story-telling session of the Cinderella story by christelle, which was interrupted shortly by a cockroach trying to go swimming. glad I wasn't dunked, knew Christine and xh were planning it. evil people. Was really impressed with Andy's sparklers construction, spectacular with little resources. Was quite impressed with Evelyn's sense of directions as well, she's not so lost after all.

The End -- finally

It's all over!! Yay, for 3 more days at least.

Went sch yesterday and saw Ryan. That smart guy's going Cambridge today, so cool, wish I'm as smart as him.

Chem dept is as efficient as ever. They invigilated today's paper without any help from other teachers at all, all the invigilators were Chem teachers. And they'll finish marking by next tues and return us the papers. Fantastic dept.

Went to sch wanting to go out after Chem, was hoping to tag along with some people going out, then found Christelle! went Orchard, but all the Orchard people were so lazy, it was 12+ and so many shops were still closed. So didn't really do much.. but who cares, today's a day to slack

Hey, my photo's on Outlook again! Wonder why, maybe it's easier to take a photo of a standing person or it's easier to layout or something, can't think of any other reason why they always put a strings player at the band write-up.. Wonder if the outlook teacher in charge had anything to do with the choice of photos...

Talked to this guy on the MRT, ok, he talked to me and I replied. He's a currency broker or something like that, works with the exchange rates and helps others earn money, can't really understand the details, too many econs terms. Guess he saw that I was lost, anyway, he has a daughter who's in Crescent Girls and is in the choir. And he lives in Ghim Moh. Haha. What was I doing talking to him I don't know, think he's quite bored.

Dreams

Dream jobs:

1. Work in airport restricted area, like in one of the duty-frees shops. Then I'll be travelling out and in of Singapore every day.
2. Sound technician. The guy who makes recordings, mixes them, make sure everything sounds right. Or those people in VCH who adjusts the volumes of mikes and things like that and get to watch free concerts.
3. Tour guide. hmm, totally not my personality i think, but quite fun, visit places of attractions
4. Work somewhere to test the purity/ safety/ concentration or whatever of drugs, health products/ food.
5. Teach/perform electone? this one maybe I don't really want it that much, wrong personality again

Kind of make me wonder why am I studying so much. Haha, anyway 1, 3, 5 are short term dreams, as in things that i can do only when i'm young. Grow too old and no one will hire me any more.

Dreaming again.. things to do at least once in my lifetime

1. Watch an aurora, as in see one in real life, not those in tv, but that means I have to go to the north pole. cold. brrrr..

list is growing, it won't stay at 1 for long.

Star of light, star so bright
The first star I see tonight
I wish I may, I wish I might
Have the wish I made tonight

~ Pinocchio

refractory period = 3 days, next time factor for deciding will not be so much of the preparing time, or actual day time, but the aftermath of it..

find out how many calories and fats you are taking in
http://www.mcd.com.sg/OurFood/OurFood_Nutrition_Analysis.cfm?FoodCategory_ID=N
Oh I found out how what a calorie is, it's the amount of energy to raise the temperature of 1g of water by 1 degrees.

Yay! Prelims are over, pretty much, left 2 papers which don't really matter to me. Went to play badminton with my class instead of going Sentosa. Haha, very AS of me considering band people asked me first. Hee hee, but I'm glad I went badminton instead. 1stly, went Clementi to play instead of Ulu Pandan, so exciting! haha and xh wanted to visit Jacinth, oh Jac, can't believe you went for a batch outing, didn't know it was ur 1st, if not maybe I'll have been there to witness the historical moment. =) 2ndly, on the ride back home, we were so bored and mad as to count the no. of beeps the MRT makes before closing the door and tried to determine what note it's beeping at. Really fun but people around us must think we're some super stressed up RJ kids, beeping all the way and playing single notes on handphones. 3rdly, had a sort-of badminton coaching session cos I was too lousy. haha.

40% of Singaporean students think life is stressful compared to the average of 31% of white and blue-collar workers according to some survey by a healthcare company.

why can't i have fun? Every time after I truly enjoy myself, I'll end up in some deep dark depression state.. Some sort of inertia thing, the hyper state has too much energy, when i drop from that state back to the normal state, change of momentum is too big, end up hyperpolarising.. wish i could draw the graph here. so, have to keep myself busy to distract myself from myself. think it's a kind of psychological disorder. I hate it. Do I survive on dreams? QQ asked me once, I hope not. Think when I'm in this sort of bottom of the valley state not even dreams can pull me out... Need something to excite me, let me look forward to something.. don't know what will happen after prelims, after As when there's suddenly nothing to do, and don't know waht will happen if I really go overseas to study and leave behind everything that's keeping me alive..

Mummy just asked what I want for my birthday, which is still one month away.. sorry to disappoint her, but I don't think she can give me what I want. I need something spiritual, not really anything material. If it's sth material, there must be some meaning to it. I need something that can constantly give me EPSPs, sound like drugs, oh no. Let me phrase it properly, I need something that can give me EPSPs for a long time and no IPSPs. money cant buy happiness but $200 will probably keep me really happy for 4h a mth. I really need a cheaper hobby..

Credits

Thanks to everybody today, though they probably will never see this..
Thanks to jialing, supporting me and keeping me company
Thanks to Shane and his classmates and my teach, so hyper and so fun

Kind of made me wish I had such a class, so fun, they are really friends, not like my organ ex-classes, just acquaintences who are friends once a week.. sigh

"Can you keep a secret?" is playing in my head now, can't get it out. Had a fun time playing today, mostly because the people are so fun, and my teacher actually sent a girl to walk in front of me to tell me to play louder, so funny, she just walked one around shouting play louder play louder. haha
Was really enjoyable if not for my trembling, couldn't stop my leg from shaking, had to take really long pretending to get ready for a song to try to stop it from shaking, then decided that it can't be helped, so forget it, just whack.

I know I should be studying, but really not in the mood. Have a really lousy attitude this year, everything so heck care, don't care if do lousily for tests, now prelims also taking so lightly.. Not that I want to but I can't make myself sit down and study all the time. Can't make myself do 5 Chem paper 1s and 2 Chem paper 2s and other Maths and Physics papers. I can't do that. And there's loads of other things to do too that I'm not doing, like writing my essays.. Sometimes I really hate being a J2.

Believe it or not, I just agreed to play this weekend.
It's at Marine Parade MacDonald's, the one opposite Parkway, 2-4pm this Sunday
If you are sick of studying or crush me or looking for an excuse to get out of the house, can come and watch and listen to us playing music. I won't play in public again till after A-levels.

I'm sick of this mugger life, to think we have to do this all over again in Nov. urgh.

someone wrote this on the lift door:
"Curse be upon the one who urinates in the lift"
sound so chim, such a complex sentence structure, must really applaud the vandal for standing up against the urinator (who is a vandal too)

studying these few days, found out some interesting stuff:
GATTACA is a DNA code
I was looking through the GP arts notes, and realise that Vivaldi, Haydn, Liszt and Schoenberg are all in his list of famous composers of that age..

dug out my Sec 3/4 journal, the one that we were supposed to write every week and hand in. Just realised that I was dealing with complicated issues like education and terrorism when I was in Sec 4, I even wrote one entry on media or something like that. But I sounded so.. naive. Think that's how Goh Ai lan knew each of us so well, know all the scandals and stuff like that, by reading our journals. And yup, she's super sadistic. I was writing about how freaked out I was during the blood test for Hep B and she wrote that I'll get used to the needles if I need to go for the immunization.
Here's one more interesting para:
"We help trees. During forest fires, we are the ones that spray billions of galleons of water at them, putting off the fire. We are the ones who make artificial rain to enable them to survive. When there's a widespread diseases, we are the ones who study the disease and stop it from spreading insidiously. We increase their biodiversity by mixing genes in the lab. We prevent many species from being extinct by breeding them artificially. We give them better genetic traits so that they can survive better. Can you say that we are not trees' benefactor?"

Watched the 金曲奖, the Energy dance was real cool. 王菲 sang 天空! That's one of my fave songs. It's the first Faye Wong song that I liked.. That was when I was in P5 I think. and Sarah said that I liked all the songs that had something to do with the sky. Haha, I really did. and yeah, Sarah is that girl in joseph's class, hmm, that's jac's class too.

Mini concert at Yamaha today. Some people played some really nice pieces. Someone played Mononoke and Animation medley, I didn't even know Animation medley score exists, will go hunt for it. Then my teach's students played the usual nice pieces, like Voyager and Comical Train and Part of Your World.. realised that I know pieces like Voyager so well that I could probably play without the score too only prob is that my playing suck quite badly now. No one has played my Disney pieces yet, can play those nxt time. Played my pieces, wasn't as fantastic as they should be but hey, I got a cheer from someone. Thanks Shane, don't know whether you really meant it or just trying to boost my morale, but thanks anyway. =) Think I'm too loud and hit too hard.. my playing has changed so much, I used to be this timid little girl who plays her loudest at mf, now I stay at f more than at mp. Haha. Anyway I think I sounded nervous though I wasn't, and screwed quite a lot of the semis, the worst mistake was that somehow I forgot the last chord of my last piece, so ended the piece with some made-up chord. Bad way to end..

Well, think that these performances are really to train my improvising on the spot, when forget some chords, must quickly think of something to fill the gap and bluff everybody. hee hee. Next time will play something not so familiar then can make mistakes everywhere and no one will know. =) Was being super AP, studying Organic Chem when others are playing, then realise that it's quite bad and decided to stop after I finished the chapter. haha. Wasn't playing at a good time, it was a really ulu time when there was no one around. I was really hoping to play at a time when ms lee finishes her class and comes out to complain that we are too loud, really curious about what she'll do if she sees me banging away, maybe turn my vol down or switch the whole thing off. Bet she's cursing us inside the studio, poor girls, have to endure her lousy mood.

Went macs to study, overheard these few screaming kids saying that the fireman's no. has changed from 995 to 998, really?? There was a group of deaf people beside me and they were having a conversation with sign language, cool, but it's really hard to get each other's attention. Funny how the whole group can't talk but their kids can scream and shout.

Met Qiuyu on the way home, haven't seen her for a long long time. Heard that Parkway's sale is really crazy. So weird, triple science in VJ is like the best fac, the top always comes fr that fac and other facs are always lousier. Don't think there's this one fac always better than another thing in RJ.

If you have nothing to do this sunday afternoon or just want to take a break from studying, can come and watch my electone performance in yamaha marine parade, will be playing for about 15 min..

I am an extremely selfish person. I can't believe how selfish I am. If you pon school for no good reason and you try borrowing notes from me, most probably I won't lend you the entire set of notes. So bad right? So sorry qq, that physics design that I lent you had no details at all cos it's just the skeleton of it. Hmm, wonder if she knows I'm writing this, cos she just called me. freaky

Was getting all jittery before GP today, don't understand why, was so freaked that xuxu had to hug me to calm my nerves..

Went home with a lot of Easties today, haven't went home with so many east people for ages, since last yr or so, it's always only me and beef or me and eric or me and chris.. anyway, never realise that baoluo is so extremely funny, he is the joke, especially with andy around. haha. And yeah, I saw Gabriel on the MRT, as in Gabriel, the bass trombone guy fr DHS, xx's friend.. and he actually said hi to me, so friendly, should have went over to talk, but felt a bit weird and I was with the whole bunch of easties. I wouldn't say hi to someone unless I can confirm that he/she'll recognise me, so I didn't say hi to Anqi the other day when I saw her on the MRT. that's how AS I am.

Haven't been online for so long, many things to tidy up...

There's something wrong with Singaporeans and the MRT rail. They seem to have a strong attraction for each other. Maybe before the train arrives at the station, the rail will produce an extra strong gravitational field that exerts a great force on anyone near it and suck him down. 2 people fell into the tracks in 1 day. 3 in the past month. Great attractive force eh?

Some other ridiculous things I've heard in the news.. JB's giving a 50% discount on traffic tickets, as in fines, to encourage people to pay up. That's something like I'll sell you my goods for 50% the original price, you don't want? Don't leave, how about 40%? Who's going to pay fines in the future? Just wait until the market price drops lah, wait for the great Malaysian sale.

I've been screwing up everything lately, my practs, my tests and probably the demo this saturday too. Darn. Somehow I'm not looking forward to the demo, kind of wish I'd never agreed to it, but I know I'll regret if I don't go.

Physics prac, finally found out what's wrong with my L, I connected the switch and galvo in the opp direction, so couldn't get a reading when the switch was open. Stupid me, can't even follow a circuit diagram, if it was a SPA, I would have failed. Chem prac, at the last second, suddenly I was enlightened and realised that the green thing was actually blue ppt in yellow solution. Too late to change though. Anyway still can't figure out why I had this brown ppt thing when I first added alkali, wonder what it is. And still don't understand why Cu(II) can co-exist with CrO4(VII), don't they form a brown ppt?

Had a Physics prac discussion with my mum the other day in Chinese and I felt seriously verbally handicapped. I couldn't find the words for basic things like "plot a graph", "a set of data" and so on. But I could pretty much figure out what 电压 and 电流 are, though it took me quite a while to explain what a galvo is. Apparently it's so ancient that she doesn't remember what it measures.

Last day of formal lessons. So fast, end of JC life...... soon end of education under MOE

Some comments about the Queenstown police dept, inefficient and ineffective. The flasher on East Sussex has been there for so many years and he still hasn't been caught. Now it's the locker burgler, he's been striking every week, almost predictable when he's going to strike, and nobody's been caught, and they actually suspect students who go to sch to study on Sundays. That locker burgler is so untidy, at least he's a burgler not a thief, he doesn't steal, he robs, cuts the frail locks that we use, sweeps everything in the locker onto the ground and takes whatever he thinks is valuable. Jacinth claims that he's trying to make RJ ranking drop by stealing all the jackets and letting students taking exams freeze in the LTs. Haha. Anyway so there's a natural selection thing on the locks that we use nowadays, at least those on the 1st level, where the weak ones are selected against and die out. Then they are replaced by the strong ones when the locker users buy stronger locks. Lucky my locker has survived the attacks so on. Think there'll be another break-in this weekend. Hope the police are prepared.

1st paper tomorrow. All the best to everyone and to myself.

Great GP lesson!

some ridiculous facts first: price of eggs in Singapore are skyrocketing, $2+ for 10 eggs. Price of eggs in Malaysia is plummeting, going below the cost price of the eggs and they'll going to kill the hens to reduce the number of eggs. So why don't we just let the eggs in? I'm sure they're really careful over testing to see which farm has the avian flu, so if Malaysians can eat their eggs, why can't we? Are we being overly-cautious? Look at the last ban on food imports from Malaysia, pork. It's been almost 5 yrs I think since we've had Malaysian pork. Will the chicken ban last that long? So our egg price will remain high? Inflation is increasing.. we're all getting poorer. What should the new govt do? Lower living costs, lower food prices

yup, back to the gp lesson. Was studying after sch with xh yesterday, and she was having a hard time deciding whether to come to sch today or not. And an impt factor in the decision was whether Mr Khoo will sing in class today. So we decided to go ask him but couldn't find him. So we wrote this note that goes something like this:
"Hello Mr Khoo
Please remember to bring your guitar and lyrics if you wish/need tomorrow.
From your friendly GP class =)
PS It's been one and a half years
We're still waiting... =)"
When we went to quietly put it on his table, he was back at his table. So we panicked and sort of thrusted the note in his hands and ran off. Apparently it worked.

So it was a great GP lesson today, in the Band Room! Fooled around a bit with the percs, then it was a Paul Khoo concert. He has a great voice, and really sounds good when he sings. I think I've been trained to analyse songs when I hear them, normal 933 songs I can pretty much figure out the chords when I hear them, only a few weird chords here and there which I can't, or the songs written by someone weird like Jay Chou. Somehow today I couldn't figure out any chords he played at all. Maybe becaues it's a solo guitar accompaniment, so he had to change chords more often, like on every beat, I couldn't even tell when he returned to the home key. Gosh, maybe I'm losing my "chords recognition" ability. Or maybe or more likely, he's just too pro, and came up with all those great progressions.. Wish I could be that pro one day, and actually write something decent.. just the music part will do, the words part I'll nv make it anyway. So funny when he tried to weave GP in, like talking about his "social issues" song. Haha. Never thought he'll give us a concert, thought he'll just sing 2 songs and then go on to the Arts again.. One of the best GP lessons ever.
Should have brought my video camera

Athens

this is a really lagging blog cos have been too busy studying to blog

Opening ceremony was fantastic!! It really shows how much culture, how much history Greece has, the entire Western civilisation seemed to have stemmed from there. The scientists and mathematicians, the philosophers and astronomers, the sportsmen... the greek mythologies as well. Really fascinating. The fire Olympic rings thing was really cool, and the "lake" in the stadium was creative and the flying people!! They really look like they are flying, not held by strings. Funny how countries like Iraq and Afghanistan got the most applause during the march in although they sent all males..

On to badminton, Ronald Susilo was everyone's idol for a few days, especially after he beat the Chinese. Everyone in school was and still is playing badminton. Then it was fascination with Li Jiawei and people started playing table tennis. See the power of sports. Li Jiawei shouldn't have lost to the north korean, she was thrashing her, come on, 11-0, then wasted, panicked in the last game and lost 9-11. What a waste! If I were her, I would cry all night too.

On to gym, Khorkina didn't win individuals. She's real good, but she's a stick, only bones and skin. Too tall for a gymnast although she's just 4cm taller than me. So sad she didn't get the gold.

diogenesian discourse

quite a cool anti-war, anti-bush site that's easy to read
diogenesian discourse

Yay, a background finally. Can't believe it, i actually deleted part of the template in the process, so might as well, change the entire thing.. sigh

doing the band evaluation thing, realised that I have nothing to write about, especially the part about the contribution that I'm most proud of, hee hee, didn't contribute much, so nothing to be proud of. Can I write that? Seriously I didn't do much for band except play a weird non-band instrument and add noise.

Some idiot slammed onto my locker, it's now jammed. I can't open it at all. Will get someone to help me open tmr, maybe open from HK's locker.. and the whole column of lockers is standing on its own now, really tall and thin, low stability, if I yank hard enough on my locker door, the whole block will topple.

I'm motivated by everything around suddenly, everybody is boosting my confidence. So nice of everyone. Haha, someone said to me today that "I believe you can do it", woohoo, so I wish I can with all my heart. Ok, a bit duan4 zhang1 qu3 yi4 here, there's an "if" behind that quote. Conditional probability.. Hope I can overcome the "if" part, or rather, convert the "if" to a "because".

Important day today, swearing in ceremony of 3rd PM. But don't feel happy or excited or anything. The 3rd PM didn't look as confident or imposing as the mentor or the SM, maybe he's nervous.. Hope he'll be able to do a good job..

I'm going to get the birthday present that I want this yr, maybe it's a birthday wish granted! Yay! Actually I knew what I wanted since June, haha, just never told anyone. Nevertheless I'm going to get it, though it'll come more than a month late and I actually hesitated before accepting it. Weird me.

Prom, prom, prom, should I go? Waste money and look ugly. Any point in going? Maybe.. but that's the least of my worries now, 15 days to go.

recorded sch song on sat. Was tedious but the editing is going to be much more tedious. Wonder who's going to do that.. whether it's the recording people or Kah Chun. Whoever it is, I don't think we'll get to hear it next monday. Anyway, felt different during that prac, maybe because it's a so predominantly J1 prac, (1/3 of the J2 batch went), I felt da pai, like how people felt when they were sec 4s and kings of their CCAs. Oh yeah, and Christelle was in sch, haha, she always seem to be hanging around sch, every time I go somewhere to AS and study, I'll find her. Nice company though.

Then went to the Experiences thing at VJ.. Still can't believe how near that place is from my house, and I have to travel an hour plus every day back from my school. Anyway, the more schs i talk to, the harder it is to cross them off my list. So my list is growing instead of shrinking. sigh.

Watched fireworks yesterday with CB6. Doing stupid things to pass the time while waiting for fireworks like play "animal farm", or the band people will call it "concentration", whatever, it's the same game. Played 7up, boring, and played "terminal password", zhong ji mi ma.. haha. People around us must have thought we were mad, doing stupid animal actions and making weird noises, and shouting weird messages to Singapore. Played some snap game as well, and I have to say that Bao's reaction is so super fast, must be all the goalkeeper training during handball and the carnival games that we throw balls at her.. She's so super fast. Xiaowei was right, that was probably the last time we'll see each other before our 'A's, we should really treasure each other and stay in contact..

Glad that I didn't go out with CB6 today cos I managed to have a long long chat with Sunny and Xuxu today. So long. It's been ages since I just sat somewhere and chat for let me see.. 2h? Guess I'm not much of a chatty person. I'm composed? Haha, look at some of the more prominent people in school, they can scream, shout, jump, fly without getting a hair out of place. That's composed, in control. We were talking about people having a positive aura, interesting way to see people. And yes, the girls in our class are really nice, but I think the guys are nice too, even the person that most in the class can't stand. Well, maybe I haven't been interacting with him much, or maybe because I made my stand clear in the beginning, I didn't really have the bad experiences some other people in the class had with him.

I just have to say this again. You'd never know when you'll say something that you think is so insignificant that will impact someone else so much, in both positive and negative ways. So say more, higher probability of affecting someone positively.

Dunno why he have to do it this way, use the word "invited". He must have known that I can't reject it. The dates are really bad, one in the 10th week after the pracs, one after the last day of 'A's, so there's almost no time to practise unless I sacrifice my studying, but I really really want to go. Does he know that I want to go this much? i need a few days to think abt it...

Harvard, Yale, Princeton.. ever wonder why they arrange it this way? Is this some kind of ranking? Or just simply for the HYP? Anyway, these schools are too far out of reach. I'll never make it there. Even if I do, I don't think I'll like it too much, though Yale does sound fun, or maybe it's just the presenters who are good. I'll never know.

How would I ever know what I really want to study? Or want to be? Ans I got was "through mistakes, and hopefully your mistakes are not too serious". I never expected to get that advice, so it came rather as a shock. So the conclusion is "try everything and see what you like and don't like". Makes a whole lot of sense doesn't it? but is that the only way? What if I realise that I made a mistake only in my final year? What if I'm on bond and have to stick with whatever I don't like for another 6 years? But don't think that will happen.. The Warwick woman yesterday claimed that she still don't know what she wants to do when she "grow up", and she's surviving fine, with a great job travelling around the world, getting an overfilling LT of audience. Will I be that lucky and find a job that I really like? Will someone pay me for doing something that I like? What do I like? Glad I asked today, and got a really good answer.. so i didn't waste my afternoon, though effectively I did work for only half an hour.

QQ likes that "funny girl" so much. She's like her kai xin guo, to make her day so much better. But it's true that she's super funny, and disruptive too. haha

Was walking through that underpass leading towards MRT and the guy (the short one) was singing "Stand By Me". Suddenly all the memories flood back, the 8-bars repeat until you think that the song is about to finish, the score that you see for one practice and then can throw it away forever, the evergreen encore piece, the "bye-bye, go back and sleep, audience" piece. Or to a smaller extent, the Takano piece which I accidentally deleted.. Music stores memories definitely.

Identify KI(aq) in 1 step

I just realised how easy it is.. Fe(III) is yellow in solution. How could I have missed that? Just add everything to Fe(III), and the one that changes it brown is KI. Trust me to come up with some stupid answer like KI is stored in a dark bottle. Really lame answer.

Fridays are long days, guess it's pretty much as long for all our teachers, so they either come in as lame or as tired as us. Mr Wong was more interested in the Raffles cat outside the window than our overturning ships with high metacentres. Oh yeah, and hk and him were competing with each other to kill flying mosquito-like insects, and ended up wondering how mosquitoes can suck blood of different blood groups and not die. Last week he was giving lame reasons to why the radioactive substance should be kept in a lead container which is contained again in a wooden box, he said it was to let people draw a picture of the radioactive sign on the box. Mr Khoo as usual, got carried away while trying to explain something and ended up somewhere so complex that no one found their ways there. Oh, and Andy got a fishing game set for his birthday, so there was an intense fishing competition among the guys during the 10min break that we got. Not a bad Friday, just lots of work to do this wknd.

GP video was The Matrix! How rare to let us watch a movie for once instead of the usual documentaries..

Went for the Engineering talks. The NTU guy was really nice, although he was so biased towards RJ. He was putting ideas into our brains, trying to make us lobby for a casino to be built cos gamblers are the people who pay the most, paying for the building of Esplanade for example, and he was driving us to the overseas universities instead of staying in Singapore. But I agree with him, or want to agree with him, especially about the overseas part.

Went for Xian Liang's wake. Sad for his father, lost both wife and son, a son who was really smart. Anyway today was more of a sit around and chat with old friends than a sit around and remember him thing, saw quite a few people whom I'll usually have no opportunities of meeting, like Tsz Shan, Wan Yie, Miss Goh (our Sec 2 super pretty relief science teacher), Weizhu, Ruoya, Sabrina, Winnie and Ying Heng. Wow, they were primary school friends. Shows how small Singapore is.

Saying a big 'Hi' to you who's reading this, especially to those whom I have not spoken to for ages. Enjoy your life!

My personality

Got the PSC test results, quite inaccurate I think. But I'm no judge, so hopefully you'll tell me whether it's the results are accurate or not.

First on the aptitude tests, they say such positive things that it's difficult to tell what is really good and what's not. Is outstanding better than excellent? Or is it the other way round? I can't tell.
Personality test, the accurate part, I am very self-contained, I do not interact effectively in social situations. That is true, at least that's the way I answered the PSC questions. I am discreet and keep things to myself, in other words, I do not communicate my views and feelings, true, I do not participate in social situations, probably true.
Now to the inaccurate part, I do not consider other people's emotions and pressures?? I am able to defend my own views?? I do not listen to othe people's views and ideas? I never knew that. And I'm as imaginative and idea-oriented as the average person. I didn't know Singaporeans are that unimaginative.

Looking at my blog and at me, it's really hard to understand why I want to study Biochem, or Engineering, cos my deepest interst and things which inspire me clearly don't come from those areas. My favourite subject in sch is not bio, nor physics.. But I choose my fave subject according to how interesting it is and how well I do in it.. Maybe I should really forget about Singapore scholarships and go to a liberal arts school. But who'll know whether I can decide what I want to study even after a year in uni?

Class video is coming out fine. It's really so much better with the music.

Shocked

Received this SMS from Hui Chuan today during the UK briefing, Xian Liang passed away.. What? Was that a joke? Second time I got such a scary msg this year. This yr must be a bad one.

Picked up my phone this morning, and picked out 4 ants crawling on it. Get off my property, ants! Gross, how can I answer my phone peacefully any more, with ants crawling on it and eavesdropping on my conversations. Anyway, during that UK briefing, I found another ant trapped inside my phone, it was crawling in the display. Xiaohui said I found myself a new pet. Guess I'll have a microwaved pet ant soon. But the ant disappeared, so I assumed that it either found a way out, or found the inside of my phone too comfortable and decided to stay there and eat up the mechanics of the phone. Now I know why my battery's running out so fast, must be those ants sucking away the power.
Gosh, in a crappy mood indeed.

Got the UCAS form, suddenly felt nervous about the hurry, the pressure of the deadlines and applying suddenly sank in. The September 31st deadline. That's really not far away, considering the preps for pre-lims and pre-lims from now to Sep 31. A lot of things to do. Really.

HK was asking about changes in me. Hmm, learnt that GP homework need not be handed in on time, bad bad influence on me. Think i'll lag behind forever, conclusions, essay, compre.. all at the same time. Hopefully I'll finish them all. Learnt to rank the importance of things-to-do, though still dreadfully lousy at it, ranking things which I don't like doing last.. bad. Grew more grouchy and impatient with my parents, bad. Anything good? Probably, learnt how to ask for help when I need it, especially this year. (I didn't know before. haha) Tried to appear more friendly perhaps, know that I have an AP face sometimes.. hmm, don't really know what else.. will probably add on to this list as time passes.

I'm psychic!

vowed not to switch on my com today but well, since my mom switched it on, might as well use it.. must start studying soon, at my present rate and with my present schedule, I'll be lagging in tutorials by next week

anyway, after medicine talk today, I just had this nervous/ excited feeling, that kind of thing adrenaline do, but couldn't find the reason why. I can't be excited by the thought of doing medicine right? I don't even want to be a doctor. It can't be the thought of doing Normal Distribution tutorial also. Anyway, so I went home and opened the mailbox, and guess what? That letter of notification for me to collect my organ results was lying right on top of that whole stack of mail. Am I psychic or what?

confirmed that medicine is not my cup of tea. One major down, 100 more to go.

Came home with people that I don't usually talk to. Learnt that their relationship is really more than very good friends. They know so much about each other, care so much for each other. Really worry for each other. woa. It's going to be one longlasting relationship..
 
the last post was just to test the photo blogging function. Quite fun.. =)

editting the video, feel like some DNA splicing machine, cutting away the introns, joining the exons together
 
Anyway, found this picture of me the other day, didn't know it existed. I was young then, though probably slightly overaged in that competition, but I won! yea! I looked thin. haha.
 
 
上圖右邊為冠軍:薛拾楓; 亞軍:羅浩員; 季軍:朱廷軒

And here's my food, looks good. Gerard said that red plates stimulate appetite, remember?

冠軍之得獎之菜式

Inspired

oh cool, no more html formatting needed. They should have this function long time ago.
 
Be careful of what comes out of your mouth, as in words that come out of your mouth. You never knew which word will strike which person in which nerve. Sounds like an advice for people to choose their words carefully. Nope, I'm trying to say that something you say might just touch me in the right spot and I'll be inspired, or motivated to do something or to seriously think about something, whatever that might be. Was inspired today by one of the teachers during tutorials. Weird right? Cos I usually don't pay much attention in tutorials, functioning with only half of my brain power. But somehow I listened, and I'm glad I did.
 
Chem prac was a mad rush. Were we all so slow? Anyway didn't like it, what's the point of handing in stuff that's not the best that I can give? The answers were so not thought-through, just see and write, so mechanical. Didn't have time to do the parts which require a bit more thinking, like the part where you add alkali, and then add acid and get yellow solution, or the part about how to improve the thermochem expt..
 
still trying to find out who said the thing about everything is about perspectives in that philosophy video..

UIUC talk

learnt quite a few things abt US universities, cleared some of the flurry fuzzy misconceptions I had.. interesting trip home, talking about universities.. just wish I have a better idea of what I want to study and do in the future. Shall go for more of these talks, considering ponning pe next week to go for 1 of those talks..

for some reason or another, I can't stand lectures nowadays, they feel sooo longgg, almost never-ending. After about 50min of lecture, I'll be so restless and start looking at my watch every 5 min, so I'll have to look at my watch 5-6 times every lecture, even during post-mortem. This is such a lousy word, like someone died and doing autopsy on him. eew.

talking about eew, that milo + yoghurt thing during zhong ji mi ma was really eew, although it tasted quite normal, and I would know cause I kept losing.. Christine too good liao.

oh yeah, wish mr khoo will stop calling me during GP. Very irritating when half the time my brain don't function in tutorials. And I just had this feeling that he's going to call me today, and he did. And I gave a really rude answer. oops. Glad it's video tomorrow.

Doing some reflections.. found nothing spectacular about me that i can advertise about.. or am I falling into the trap? Found nothing good that no one else don't have.. Don't have 1 single event that changed the entire direction of my life. Everything's so gradual. No big issue that's so impt to me. How?

If there's anything that really helped build me, it's probably band, dhssb. That hierarchial, non-democratic system. The band music made me confident, in music and otherwise. How's that I don't know, probably because band's so loud, it doesn't really matter how I play.. Then bring it to other areas of my life, blasting on organ. Haha. The rising up the hierarchy thing probably helped too. Oh yeah, Mr Ng seldom pick on me, was able to ace throught indoor tests that I didn't take and get promoted, that's one morale-booster. Can't believe I only took 1 indoor test in my 4 yrs there.
Band landed me in that horrible time I had at the end of Sec 2, and also pulled me out of it. Escape from reality, band didn't really do that, but maybe stop thinking abt reality for a while when you concentrate from 7.45-6pm on music during camps.

might write on that.. but that's boring too..

Elan, so similar to the actual one. Andoh's so good at arranging. must learn the pieces..
anyway, here's what he thinks of the concert:
コンサートのほうも６００名ぐらい来てくれてて、とても
楽しかったー！
Come more often and you'll get more audience and enjoy it more!

Andoh Yoshihiro rocks!

Hmm, actually I predicted that will be my title today yesterday. Haha. Went for his concert on Stagea today. Great concert, made my day.. Got his photo and autograph!! Yay!! Haha, sound like some hua chi teenage girl right?

At 6.30, I was there already, but stupid me didn't dare to go play because of all the ushers there.. wasted chance. Anyway, Andoh san is such a good composer. His LAUDA was so beautiful, a nice tropical island with green mountains and native tribes, at least that was what I felt it was. So good, it was the piece that touched me the most. The concert was more of a Andoh concert than a Stagea promotion, wished there were more intro of the instru, but nvm, can always go for some free demo by that Mina woman.

Was wondering how many people are really touched by his music.. How many people really know how to appreciate it? There was this guy in front of me who was playing games on his PDA, and other people who left at interval.. I was moved, especially by LAUDA and Another Century.. guess I'm still an orchestra person, cos I liked the orchestra pieces most. Found the effects pieces too noisy.. Traditional piece was OK, quite realistic and interesting, with the monks singing but I found it too loud also..human voice can really draw everyone's attention.. Romantic pieces, I wasn't really paying attention, was trying to take good pictures of him.. Dance Pop pieces were very infective, was moving to the beat, and he was disco-ing on the bench. Haha. He's so thin and fair that he looked like a wriggling snake.

Understood why performers had to move. Practical reason: to shift weight around so you won't fall when you pedal with both legs. Perfomance reason: to show the audience what the mood is supposed to be, not just let them hear, but let them see too, cos they are this bunch of people who don't open their ears to the max, and need their eyes to help them get into the music. Andoh is good, great voice, though I didn't understand a sentence he spoke, amazing music, really techie, quite interactive too. MC was lousy, if she can't talk, should get a script. Used countless fillers, you know, you know, I don't know.. Interpreter was good, actually managed to show us what koto is. Haha.

The audience was made of kids and their friends, kids and their families. I'm overaged, as usual. Thought I saw Jian Wei there, the eupho guy from DHSSB who was a J1 xiao you when I was a Sec 1, with his girlfriend. Thought he recognised me, cos we just stared at each other. Really stare. Was waiting for him to say hi, but since he didn't, neither did i.

The concert really made my day, despite the lousy GP result once again for the CTs.. guess I'll get some single digit percentile again. *sigh* and I really don't wanna land in remedial.. Andoh rocks.

Get that guy outta my house!!!

Shut up man!! What are u doing at my house at this hour yelling at my mum, talking cock?? it's just a hundred bucks. What's wrong with u? Not like we're not paying u.. just paying u after the u've finished ur job. And stop that Singaporean/ Chinese people shit.. What rubbish discrimination! Shut UP!! Get OUT OF MY HOUSE, you agent!!

Sorry for the language.. This is gonna be a long night.. cops are coming i think..

2's company, 3's a crowd

Don't agree at all.. 2 is too little, 3 is the best size. when u're in 2s there's a pressure to respond to whatever the other party's saying, to come up with some sensible response.. when u're in a group, or just 3 people, the pressure is drastically reduced, 50% discount..

of course, in 2s, you get the attention that you need, the other person is forced to listen to you, and you'll get to know each other better

like those in that special 2-people long-term relationship. but people always get married and have kids, and it'll be no longer 2 people, but 3, 4, 5, 6... Then these parents will spend too much time and love on the kids and neglect each other or something, and they'll long for the 2-pple-world that they once had. So they look for the 2-pple world outside the home, and so on, and they go to the lawyer and sign those papers.. if they have 2 kids, each takes one and it'll be a 2-people-world with the kid.. Think of the kids, parents! Do they want to be alone with you? Have u ever asked them? Maybe they prefer 2 fighting parents to the total attention and love given by one parent. Would you have known? They might be too polite to tell you..

What's my point? I don't know either..
(um, i'm not targeting anyone, just to let you know, so don't be offensed)

quite disgusted with myself during bio paper, especially during that essay.. just vomiting out whatever i remembered from the notes, almost word for word.. eew, quoting my bio teacher.. gross, shows how little of that knowledge is really mine

there's supposedly a blackout all over Singapore in weird scattered areas now. Bedok, Clementi... strange

Messages

beef: welcome! I always thought u knew this place.. nv knew how anyone can "stumble upon" someone's blog, haha, and my tagboard is working fine..

annie: HI!! long time no see/ hear/ talk. How's life?

xx: under your 怂恿, I borrowed 达。芬奇密码 and am reading it. Some really radically different viewpoints, find it hard to believe that it's all based on facts. Dan Brown must have done a whole lot of research..

jialing: how's the white organ?

everyone else: shoot me questions please on any subject, I need the pressure to think and revise.. going really slow in revision..

Amazing Thailand

some more interesting highlights
Day 1, Changi Airport
took the travellator this way and that way twice to look at this huge poster on Singapore Arts, cos Mr Lee was in the picture, and mummy was trying to figure out why he looked so short (cos it's Esplanade stage and there are different levels and he happened to be on the lower level)
Oh yeah, Bangkok airport, there was this advertisement on some Thai cosmetic hospital that's advertising sex change.. rather strange to see this kind of advert in an airport

Day 2, Ayutthaya
lousy train was 1h late but it was really cheap, biked around the town visiting temple after temple, reading map on the bike, tired and burnt but quite fun riding bike again.. haven't rode one since Pulau Ubin last yr.. I need to learn how to get onto the bike, taking forever to start moving. They have spectacular temples, truly 金碧辉煌. And they buy these gold foils which they rub onto the buddhas in the temples, so every buddha is covered untidily with gold foils that are falling off, gold but not too sightly

Day 3, Bangkok temples
another day of temples, getting bored.. Taxi drivers, the most scheming people in Bangkok, always cheat us, either drive the long long way, or try to divert us from our original plans, telling us that the place that we want to go is closed for some reason and asking us to go somewhere further where they can make more money. It's not just one driver, it's a whole lot of them.. Gosh, if we believed them, we won't get anywhere.. Bargaining is a must must, a 100Baht thing can be bought for as little as 20Baht..
The cabaret show, if you see them as girls dancing, they are not the best dancers around; if you see them as guys, it's disgusting.. Shows that if you have to be different, be totally different, completely weird, and you'll earn quite well. Grossed by myself admiring the prettiness of guys and wowing at their figures. Disgustingly freaky.

Day 4, go home
Thailand has great fruits, really sweet, best pineapples I've ever tasted, maybe cos usually I don't eat them cos they sting my tongue and throat. Hotel has great breakfast, best soya bean milk I've tasted in ages, made fresh from real soya beans. Great pancakes and french toasts, and great yoghurt where you can add your own fruits or cereal or whatever..
Went Thailand, cos it's with my family, didn't do much shopping. In fact didn't shop at all, no souvenir shopping, nothing. Those Singaporeans we met were so shocked by us, no shopping in such a cheap place with so many flea markets? That's my family. Anyway if you want souvenir, I do have preciously few, get it from me.

Why must everything come to an end?

Why do I take ends so hard? Been feeling so miserable, thinking about all sorts of things which will nv happen, like going uni and learning teaching.. or just somehow going pro, making it a career. Things which won't happen cos I'm not cut out for it(?) or maybe cos I won't allow it.. Don't know which one. Feel like seeing a counsellor, how am i supposed to put any efforts into anything if I take the ending of everything so hard? Only thing which cheered me up today was the email fr Lui Kiang. Maybe my correspondences with her will clear up my life a bit, maybe I'll find the courage and opportunity to do what I secretly want to do. Maybe I'm hoping too much. Hope I don't scare/ disgust her away. After all, I'm no longer that 14, 15 yr old who just smile and listen to her gossips with MG.

Watched Harry Potter finally. Very smooth show, a bit long, great music (that's 1 bk I'm going to order), somehow not as exciting as the previous ones.. Not much magic making or fighting with the dark forces, maybe because I and everyone else know that Sirius won't kill Harry, so the part where Lupin and Black were arguing on whether to kill "him" wasn't scary at all. Only scary bit was that Prof Trelawny suddenly warning Harry in this man's voice. The kids are better actors certainly, Draco morphing into a typical sch bully, just losing out to Harry and friends a bit too much. Not fun any more. Dumbledore seemed to have taken some youth potion since last yr, moving so agilely. Trelawny was more talkative and aunty than I imagined. Dementors were smaller than I thought they'll be. Overall, a good movie with a great plot and acting, just not enough action.

Went PS yesterday to get Andoh concert's tix. Played on STAGEA. It's taller than the older models, everything is taller including the bench. It felt more like a toy than an instru, a very expensive one. The number of choices of voices and patterns are immense, and registration menu is once again built-in. A good instru for on-the-spot improvisation if you're familiar with it. For composing/ arranging/ playing, well, more sound choices, but as per normal, to be exceptional, you can't use the preset voices, so still have to make user voices. Maybe the technology is better now. Too bad they didn't have the MDR added on, couldn't try XG features and stuff. Realised that I still can't see the style and play sth decent, all I could play yesterday were dumb stuff like descending bass melodies (eg. Spirited Away). Anyway, guess I won't get to know this instru well since I'm out of the world already.. haiz..

oh yeah, forgot to mention, I love this Outlook issue.

Grade 4

can't believe myself, cried because someone critisized me, and the consolation was 3 hrs late? gosh, felt like a 7-yr-old.. feeling childish seems like the norm nowadays.

Exam, jittery all morning, don't know for what, didn't feel like I was going for an exam, just really restless. Guess haven't had such an individual exam for ages, no more orals nowadays, and i haven't taken performance exams for 3 yrs.. that's a long time. Guess i knew Clementi too well now, felt like I was just going for another lesson but really nervous about it.

Examiners' comments: (this is for my own reference, u might be extremely bored by this, so might as well don't read)
Impro: knew the requirements but choice of chords very simple, I-V-V-I, 1st round a bit shaky in the 2nd, 3rd line, didn't know the chords? (nope, just forgot what to do).. could have added more colour and made it more interesting. Ending part was a bit messy (yup, almost ended in wrong key).. (well, at least they didn't say that it was Grade 5 standard)

Motif: A & A': simple chords again, could be more adventurous, use IIm
B: memorised pretty much everything (hmm, wasn't i supposed to do that?), quite a contrasting usage of chords, so much more substance (well, I modulated to C maj, of course got more room to develop right?)
A'': again simple chords
generally: there were some slips but managed to catch back on and didn't break down (wasn't even thinking abt the possibility of a breakdown, slips yup, breakdown never)
maybe I should have chosen a minor key instead and show them my "more interesting" progressions

Sight-Reading: the thing had 4 flats, luckily it's not 4 sharps A few slips here and there, but ok (I thought quite a lot of mistakes, all the flats and naturals confusing me, even went to play Gb, haha) Sound change a bit sudden, yes the last part is f but the starting was already mf, so if you really want to change sound, change confidently and beware of your sounds, control your vol carefully, it was a bit too loud. (ok, so shouldn't have changed, and yup it's the confidence thing again, knew it'll come up in one of the comments, at least it didn't show up in impro)

JOC: Shooting Stars, strange choice, cos the girl before me played that too. Anyway can't believe what rubbish i did.. stopped the whole thing, silence, then flip page. Aargh! That was suicide! Shouldn't have flipped at all. Guess that's why they stopped me before I finished playing.. the 1st part was fine, but then stopped halfway, don't know is it musically like that or waiting for us to stop you or what? it sounded very strange.

Classic: not an easy piece because of the way it's written. The title is "From Heaven, I Come", it's stately, grand, but must have its soft parts as well. Do you listen to Bach music? (no) Maybe you should listen. You played all the notes accurately but although there are no phrase markings or dynamic marks but must observe the phrases and make them more distinct and not just loud all the way, noise all the way. It's very hard to explain, you should really listen to Bach's music. You didn't really understand the piece. (so I was creating noise.. wonder if i failed that>

Free Choice: Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, I played 5 out of my 7 pieces yesterday at the demo, and they have to choose this piece which I didn't play yesterday, nvm, I love this piece all the same Again, this is not an easy piece to express, quite realistic soundings, (of course, articulation has always been my focus of practice). Can tell that you spent quite a bit of time on it. Must take note that the loud part must go soft too, if not it's a bit overwhelming. And I noticed that you haven't really learnt to use the touch-tone, (yup, I can't control it well, always become horrible swellings, so i don't usually use it, especially on a EL90 where the keys feel so different). This piece is so melodious, you can use the touch-tone more and depend less on your leg. That's why touch-tone was incorporated into electones, (yeah, but I only found that out a yr ago and just started using A.T.) Just an area to improve on, but don't overdo it, or it'll sound exaggerated.
Generally: Can tell that you practised your pieces.

OK fine, so what's the conclusion? That I prepared well, memorised chords and so on, but musically/ "musical theory-wise" I was just not good enough. Can't fill in nice chords and so on.. Well, that's quite accurate. The probs pointed out, for impro and motif, I nv noticed those probs, as in simple chords, nv knew they mattered, thought as long as filled in sth correct will do, apparently they want more than that. Sightreading, I was "drawing legs on the snake", got a mark deducted or so. JOC, I was asking for it lah, doing such stupid things. Classic, should have made him check me on that, or pressed to understand what's going on, or asked for another song. Too late now. Piece, think I spent too much effort trying to be submerged in the last part, a bit too loud, and think i shouldn't concentrate so much on my timing, not so much of a prob

Learnt a lot today but sure hope that it's not a fail. No chance to ever retake it and no point either. If I were to take lessons again, shall really really learn how to impro pro-ly like he does, learn some theory, and arranging/ composing, and perform. Ambitious eh? That's only if and only if i take again. Till then, life moves on, and it's mugging time

Sunday = Socialising-day

Woohoo, met so many people today whom I wanted to meet, never had I socialised so much in one day, never had I practised so long, never had I felt that I belong so much there, like it was my school, my studio.. kind of like everyone knows that it's my last day, and appear before me to say goodbye or sth like that..

Did showroom demo today, first 2 pieces sucked, cos I was so nervous, I was trembling, luckily it's not EL900, or else can hear me vibrato-ing. haha. It was partly that Esther's fault too, intro-ed me as some senior student, put pressure on me lah, see i played quite lousily, uninteresting and the piano ad lib part was so messy.

Then Jason played after me!! OMG, he's so good. (gosh, i sound like some 12 yr old girl going crazy over a guy) but he's really really good. It wasn't perfect, but he's a great performer, got showmanship, and I don't find him too action any more. And I get to hear one of my fave pieces, Cowboys! The one which I had been struggling to play, still struggling actually. At least I get to hear one festival participant this year. =)

Then it was my turn again, gosh, play after Jason, anything will sound bad right? But I think cos I used XG, so it was q ok, got all the fancy parts to distract everyone. MMM was generally fine, mummy liked it, and Jurassic Park was great. At least to me. Maybe cos it was my last piece and the time was good, there was a huge audience. And I could blast all I want cos the background noise was so loud. Really enjoyed it. And Esther must say sth like "you can get the idea from shifeng that you have to keep away from dinosaurs" Is that a compliment?? Generally every piece sounded fine, not like breaking down, though every piece got wrong chords or wrong pedals, cos can't remember or accidents or sth, hope it won't happen tmr. Oh yeah, they gave me this Jerri Jinglebird soft toy, so if anyone wants a yellow birdlike soft toy, just ask from me..

OK, let's come to the socialising part. Saw Ms Lee again, luckily she didn't come and ask me to tone down. Thought she looked q pissed with us blasting at her door. Must be cursing us. haha. Saw Esther, the emcee, sorry but I really have sth against her, so can't socialise with her. Saw Ms Goh.. rare opportunity. She don't look like Mickey Mouse any more, think she look more like Lion King. Haha. Had a short chat with her and my teacher of course. I've almost forgotten how scandalous they are. Sunday is slack-day cum scandal-day for them, I think, cos they just go visiting each other in class and gossiping. I bet there are some gossips abt me, hope they're good stuff. =)

Had an empty studio to myself for 2 hrs, practised, fooled around.. Felt jittery, nervous abt tmr.. Also sad, in 20 hrs time, I'll be waving goodbye to this world, and I'll enter mugging land.. Forgot to leave my remnants today.. haha. Will suffer withdrawal symptoms, undoubtedly, hope they won't be too bad.. Can't stand this kind of "peak of my career" and then "no more such career" ever. Hope I get invited back for Christmas or sth other gigs.

Then I met Yuting, yup, er long de Yu Ting. Had a talk with her too. see, socialising day, I've proved my title right?