My Humanities courses for 5 terms, will last till end of my 2nd year. Interesting? Intimidating? I don't know..

1. The Foundations of Western Civilization: Israel and Greece (6) Texts from the Hebrew Bible and from Greek epic, history, drama, and philosophy in their cultural context.

2. Rome, Christianity, and the Middle Ages (6) The Roman Empire, the Christian transformation of the classical world in late antiquity, and the rise of a European culture during the Middle Ages. Representative texts from Latin authors, early Christian literature, the Germanic tradition, and the high Middle Ages.

3. Renaissance, Reformation, and Early Modern Europe (4) The revival of classical culture and values and the reaction against medieval ideas concerning the place of human beings in the world. The Protestant Reformation and its intellectual and political consequences. The philosophical background to the scientific revolution.

4. Enlightenment, Romanticism, Revolution (1660–1848) (4) The enlightenment’s revisions of traditional thought; the rise of classical liberalism; the era of the first modern political revolutions; romantic ideas of nature and human life.

5. Modern Culture (1848–present) (4) Challenges to liberalism posed by such movements as socialism, imperialism, and nationalism; the growth of new forms of self-expression and new conceptions of individual psychology.

First, thanks to all those who smsed me, msned me.. Really appreciate it.

So, updates on my sad uni admission status.. they have received my results but they didn't know what it was and entered it into the system as 1 credit. Ridiculous, I'm supposed to get 48 credits for that.. Anyway that's out of the point. So they're trying to get everything sorted out, and they'll let me know the result on thursday. Hopefully everything will be fine then. So currently, I'm still stuck between being admitted and being kicked out.. And to top it off, they're irritating enough to send that "u're out of the sch" email to housing, which means I'll probably have to call up housing and explain to them again, that I'm still in the sch.. Sian diao.. it's a bad sign that the school is causing me so much trouble even before I've stepped into the campus..

Thanks again to all who care.. =)

I was about to write a happy bubbly post about my uni, and about the newly opened central library. That was before I checked my mail.

"We are therefore withdrawing your admission offer and canceling any classes you may have enrolled in for the fall quarter."

I'm really sick of this. They said that they haven't received my results but I sent my results by reg post and it was delivered on 31 May. Whatever happened??? I'm so screwed.. so so so screwed.. I'm sick of this dumbo time difference too.. I can't do anything now except wait till midnight.

Ok, I just blogged 3 entries, this is the 4th one, at one shot. But I changed the date of each entry. So it doesn't looked as if I did all these together. hee.

Yesterday
First day playing for ballet. Sihan wasn't there, she's somehow stuck in guangzhou. wonder why, flooded? Daddy said they had a blackout a few days back, cos lightning struck something, and there were like 10 000 lightning flashes in an hour, so it's almost like it's in the day, and you won't need to switch on lights anyway, imagine that. So played for Jasmine and the little girls. The girls are absolutely hyper. I would be so tired teaching them. i managed to pull through grade 1, there's only one piece which I absolutely screwed up, hitting any keys I can find. Haha. Then pp, hyper also. I love the claps and skips music. Haha, cos it's just a scale up and down.

Then jazz class, which I took a rest. Got a drink and went to 4th floor. MP bubble tea rocks. Amazingly Studio 4 was unlocked and empty and the door was wide open. So I invited myself in and played in there for a while. So shuang. love that place. Wrote a note on the board, but think it'll be erased before the right pple see it. Then I got bored and went to watch the jazz class. I saw their steps and I got a big shock. They did the arm up, arm front, step back thing that the dance pple did in their salsa dance. The step where jiamin looked so funny. But then maybe that's a standard step in jazz. jasmine is a good dancer. I wasn't really surprised when she said her teacher was ms lee. Somehow all the relief teaches are ms lee's students.

Screwed up my grade 4. Then grade 1 again which I had fun, cos I could play quite decently and played some music for stretching, which meant "make up ur own tune or play some nice tune".
So I still don't know who Sihan is..

Then Zpop concert!! Took forever for me to get there cos the closed nicole highway for NDP rehearsal, and the bus made a huge detour and got me all confused where I was. Overshot one stop and had to walk back. But luckily I didn't miss any big shot that I'm interested in. And wow, our view was FANTASTIC!! That's cos we sneaked into the $60 area which was right in front of the stage instead of our $20 area which is so far from the stage u can only see a small figure moving on stage. And we were at the back of the $60 crowd, so there was so much room, we could sit down, stretch legs and still have plenty of space to spare. I'm glad Bao, xh and siew are blur enough to get in there. =)

JJ was fantastic. He's so talented. Somehow he reminds me of Andoh. Don't know why. And the crowd loves him. Gigi Leung is so pretty!! I know xh's going crazy over her and she'll probably go J8 later to get her autograph. And during Gigi's song, the camera pointed at us and our faces were on the big screen. The benefits of having $60 tickets. The there's that korean guy which sat on a stool and sang and all the aunties went crazy over him.. There was this bunch of erm, more matured women beside us who were all his fans. So while they were screaming and jumping up and down, we sat down beside them and rested. Were so scared that they'll come bash us up or trample us. Then president came and Christine became so excited. Haha. Final singer was A-mei. She's real powerful. She's explosive. In her songs there were fire and sparklers and confetti.. And the whole entire audience knows her songs! except for the suaku us. We only know her Na-ru-wa part. Haha. She's damn good, the audience was so high.. Everyone was pointing and shouting and jumping and screaming. woah.

It's the first time I'm watching a pop concert too. $20 is definitely worth it. The singers can actually look at you and sing to you. And they're so big, as in life size, not tiny figures on a faraway stage. And if we tried we could squeeze to the front and get their autographs. And it's even for a good cause. For president's star charity. we didn't even know that when we bought the tickets.

Awards ceremony

Education minister is tall. He's so tall. Great speech he gave, cos I can actually remember what he said.
1. We'll be competing with talented pple from other countries. We'll be competing in a different environment, so it might be more difficult.
2. "Never assume that you'll be anything less than exceptional." His exact words, took me quite some time to figure out whether he wanted us to assume that we're not good or we assume we're good.
3. Stay updated about the Singapore R&D scene.

After a morning of lousy rehearsals, I don't think we did that bad. My mom's comments. The dance is very good, the girls' part especially. The drums were ok, she thinks there's not many ways u can screw up hitting drums. The song, well, erm, she can hear 2 girl's voices, and a few guys' voices. Sometimes the harmony wasn't that right, the acc volume dropped too drastically when the girls started singing, and I wasn't moving enough and I looked fat. Ok, I'm alwyas getting this comment that I'm not moving enough. The volume thing I believe is because both me and the sound guys turned down the volume, that's why it's so drastic. Well it's over. And the A* choir will disband.
Food, the reception looked great. Large variety. Cute glass stand on the plate that allows you to hold the glass and plate at the same time with one hand. Took some photos and went home.

Was real tired so fell asleep. By the time I woke up, it was 7+, my mom was too lazy and full to cook, she tried every variety of food at the reception lor. So she said to go east coast to eat. The moon was so beautiful, it's 16. Sea was calm, ships were forming a long long queue in the distance. Went to the hawker centre, and saw Xueqi. =) Haven't seen her since we went JC. She's having her NTU hall camp and they went all the way to east coast to eat, and then go back NTU at night. Crazy. Waste transport fares. She's doing Business at NTU, Wei Teen is going NUS med, Boon Kian NUS arts & social science. Wonder what he's taking..

Went school to buy stationery with Siew, yup, it does sound quite corny. Ate in the school canteen, yay 30c ice tea again. Bookshop pple saw us buying so many pens immediately know that we're going overseas. Apparently quite a number of ex-RJ pple go there to buy. Saw Mrs Lim, the maths teacher, think she could recognise us, or maybe she can just recognise Christine. Anyway I forgot her name. oops. Went J8 Popular and bought tiny star paper.. It's so tiny, it's almost impossible to squeeze the star into shape. But well siew and I managed to make a few decent stars. Haha.

So we took the train to the north pole, Sembawang. Can't believe xiaohui managed to get all us easties and qq the westie to go up to her northie home. Went shopping for food. Guess what we're eating? Steamboat again. Bought food, junk, a lot of drinks.. Not bad, 2 steamboat treats in 5 days. Might be having steamboat again on Sat with 4D. Went xh's house, her house is so neat. There's no junk in her room, and many pretty ornaments.. And her family loves jigsaws. There are so many of them, like how my house has many many photos. We ate, talked and sang karaoke. Sun yanzi, gigi, jay chou, jolene.. got quite bored with the jay chou songs. Christelle came and she started singing the erm, xh's dad's fave songs, some huan zhu ge ge song. haha. The karaoke is almost porno.. some woman at the beach wriggling around.. erps.

Oh we celebrated beefy's birthday. Very late, but it's the thought that counts right? So thoughtfully we smashed the last piece into her face and she didn't even struggle. Smart of her. If not it'll be all over her clothes.. But even though her clothes were clean, evil xh and bao splashed water all over her while she was washing the cake off her hair. so she's drenched and had to changed too. But somehow she managed to get bao and xh wet as well.. haha.. sang some more some more some more, sian diao, went to look at xh's photos.. Speaking of which, bandits and assers, can you please send me photos?? xh has skyla photos, wow.

Went to play badminton at 9+ cos we easties feel very stupid if we brought our rackets all the way to the north and not try out the north pole's courts. Played for a while and managed to blue black my arm with my racket. Gosh. Got a bit sian diao cos it's very late and we're kind of tired.

Rehearsal, got a Roland's synthesiser which nobody knows how to use.. Might have figured out what's what if they give me some speakers and let me try fiddling with the thing, there are some really cool sounds, like telephone ring and haunted house and crystal and so on, but can't try out cos the synthesiser doesn't come with speakers and the control pple shut my sound off. Awards ceremony rehearsals are a whole big waste of time, and it'll be an even bigger waste of time if we're not performing and only going up to the stage for 30secs. Sang, played and we actually sounded quite alright.. Listened to Thunder and Lightning on chinese drums. I went huh? Couldn't really tell what's going on.

Finished at about 2, wanted to go youwei's house straight but he's not answering his phone and we didn't have the sense to call jac or cling, so we went holland v to shop.. Holland V can be quite interesting.. Tianyi bought an antique-looking watch. Then we went youwei's house. It's my first time there. The house is huge, like beef's. Grand piano, mini movie theatre, pool table, table tennis table, foosball, darts, electone! Had steamboat, really full from it. Then tianyi played with youwei's huge dog which sheds hair everywhere. See, even the dog is huge. Went home with sweet messages from batchmates, with the beautiful cover made by jac. Thanks nu er! Thanks youwei, thanks jialing, and thank you batchmates.

been blogging quite a bit.. updates on my sad admission/ housing status.. It's not so sad now.

Ok so made a gazillion calls to UCSD yesterday, I mean today morning, got transferred here there everywhere, spoke to don't know how many people. No one can read my name. =( Anyway, I wasn't the only one with such probs, apparently some other person doesn't have a house too because of some admin screw up. So spoke to many people, then they started calling each other and working things out. By the time I woke up from my 5h sleep, their working day is almost over and well, they've sort of worked my prob out, or so they told me and the woman was considerably more friendly, a lot more friendly. I've yet to receive some solid confirmation on paper/ email. Will probably need to FedEx them some more stuff. Cost me even more.. That will be the 3rd time i'm using fedex..

Oh there's a new bus service, 48, I think, that goes from Buona Vista to Upp East Coast, that is from Holland through Farrer, Dunearn, Marine Parade.. wonder how long it takes..

This song suddenly popped into my head.. to my electone friends and a* scholars reading this..

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Lala kahle [Sleep well]
In the jungle, the mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight
In the jungle, the mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight

(Chorus)
Imbube

Ingonyama ifile [The lion's in peace]
Ingonyama ilele [The lion sleeps]
Thula [Hush]

Near the village, the peaceful village
The lion sleeps tonight
Near the village, the peaceful village
The lion sleeps tonight

(Chorus)

Ingonyama ilele (The lion sleeps)

Hush my darling, don't fear my darling
The lion sleeps tonight
Hush my darling, don't fear my darling
The lion sleeps tonight

He, ha helelemama [He, ha helelemama]
Ohi'mbube [lion]

(Chorus)

Ixesha lifikile [Time has come]
Lala [Sleep]
Lala kahle [Sleep well]

Near the village, the peaceful village
The lion sleeps tonight
Near the village, the peaceful village
The lion sleeps tonight

(Chorus)

My little darling
Don't fear my little darling
My little darling
Don't fear my little darling

Ingonyama ilele [The lion sleeps]
(Repeat to fade)

ok so i'm still alive.. sight read disastrously 2 pieces, one very simple one in Bb which i played brokenly and the other one with 4 flats, i just gave up halfway.. then playeda real simple twinkle twinkle little star, wasn't even halfway through when she said ok.. so i'm now a pianist.. gosh. I'm shocked too.
Anyway that sort of cheered me up a bit.. wasn't feeling so down after that, which is rather weird, considering that my problems are still there, I still have no accomodation, I'm still not sure what's my admissions status and I still don't know what to say to the admission pple.. I really have half a mind to give everything up...

Walking around, walking around, I was at Yamaha, and didn't go in and say hi to mr tan. Was in a real AS mood. Saw phyllis, dao-ed her.. Then saw qian ping's mom who had red hair, dao-ed her also. Then saw hui chuan's junior, some zhongruan girl who's 1 or 2 yrs younger than us, with her boyfriend, dao-ed them, they don't even know me so that's not really dao.. yup, ultimate ASness.

Ok, it's 12+, legitimate time for me to call SD..

screwed

i'm not getting a housing contract cos my statement of intent to register was lost in the mail when i first sent it and my second one arrived later than the deadline. I'm dead.. with their efficiency and my luck, I won't get anything settled before i get there.. Reading blogs, and some pple are already counting down to the day they're leaving.. and i'm here, struggling to get my I20, struggling to get housing, struggling to get admitted to the school.. Why can't it be more like Wisconsin? so much more efficient.. irritant
somehow, the emails I sent to a* are received as spam.. but at least they still get to read it..
getting myself killed tonight seems the least of my problems right now..

北京

Finally blogging about beijing.. Going to blog in themes instead of chronological order and going to blog in Chinese.. haha, cos i type super slowly in Chinese and won't write so much nonsense here.

天气
热，干热，摄氏38度的气温，实在受不了，空气比体温还热，只想躲在家里。相比之下新加坡凉快多了，不可思议。至少新加坡有凉风，一天还能下上半场雨降降 温。最重要的是新加坡有冷气，所有室内都差不多有冷气。北京可能因为人太多，所以总觉得冷气不够。北京人也不喜欢用冷气，路上的车多数窗户都打开的。公共 汽车，出租车多数没空调，地铁也没有。

市容
高楼大厦，主要街道跟其他大城市没什么两样，人行道旁还有草，看得出北京是在为奥运做准备。小街旁还是以前的样子，尘土飞扬，小平房，乱。去了据说是我小时候住的四合院，虽然还有人住，但已经是一片残砖烂瓦，又脏又乱。

人
北京人有礼貌多了，但服务态度还是有问题。去了一次KFC去买杯水，我们不小心叫错了，sorry, revert back to english, the cashier rolled her eyes at us and clucked her tongue when she repeated our orders and we told her the order wasn't what we wanted.. 看了篇报道说要是所有服务人员都服务得象空姐一样就好了。So if you have taken China planes before and witnessed the service by the chinese flight attendants, you can roughly get a gauge of the service of Chinese on the ground.

物价
东西标价都不低，不过所有地方都可以讨价。真累，到那里都要讨价。去了个批发市场，想买个皮包，老板开价180，最后卖价40块。如果让他180块卖了，不知道他能赚多少钱。买了很多很多的东西。

点点
小表弟，1岁半。太可爱了。看见我们打羽毛球，他也嚷嚷着要打，拿着拍子满院跑。哈哈。他非常喜欢鱼，给他买了个VCD里面都是鱼，他看得目不转睛。每天 早上吃完饭后就要下楼喂鱼，就拿他没吃完的面包喂。小家伙还特喜欢台阶，去了趟颐和园，爸爸忽然心血来潮要爬山，所以一家大小，包括小点点都爬了上去。点 点看见台阶就高兴，一边爬一边数爬了几阶，看见下一组台阶就跑过去。周围的人看了都夸他壮。看见另一个小孩都3岁了，还不肯自己爬，吵着让人抱。

Andoh in concert

First comment, lousy emcee.. anti-climax emcee.. only impt thing she said was that Andoh is single and available.. hahaha.

2nd comment, Andoh was great, funkily dressed, charismatic, entertaining, great player. His pieces all had very climax climaxes (great registrations), very stirring melodies (the kind that touches your heart and does strange things to it), and some complicated bassline (the elec bass kind, where the guy has 4 strings and 5 fingers to play instead of 2 feet).. He loves to use the 2nd exp pedal, think sometimes he just kicks it for fun, cos in some parts he kicks it once every bar i don't hear any difference when he kicks it, but in "Septemeber", the chorus part, he stepped on that pedal fully and transposed his notes.. Saw his little secret, there was a MD player/ Flash player/ some player added to his Stagea on the empty space besides lower keyboard.. guess that's where all the talking voices in his pieces came from.

There was this orienta piece where he made the audience do actions during the chorus, we must have looked so funny. Haha. He's good lah, he can play and turn and cue the audience and signal to the emcee at the same time. Amazing. It's always good to watch a pro. And yah, don't think his movements were exaggerated..

He was selling his CDs, all 3 of them at the concert. $48 for 1. Ridiculous. I should have brought my MP3 player and recorded his concert!! How dumb of me. Anyway, I got his autograph on my non-pirated, i mean original, scores. His personal album, so when I asked him to sign, he went "Ooh!" like, wow you bought my book! haha..

That NTUC place has a great view, I'm sure if we were on a higher floor the view would be even better.. Company to the concert was good too =) We filled up their survey form and asked them to lower studio rental prices. Hahaha. Really, Yamaha ought to give ex-students the same benefits as the existing students. It sucks to be an ex-student now..

One fine day, i'll go try out the sound effects on stagea.. never knew so many existed..

Lovely photo, so well taken


Here's another great photo


All taken at Mt Kinabalu.. I want to go there too some day

I'm back. Will blog about beijing when I have the time.

Just looked at the astar page. Found the press release on Danny and Dave. Even though probably many people have edited their comments, dave's comment still has his characteristic words.. "interesting", "nice"... haha. Also found out that Xiaoyang is a Astar scholar. What a small world. Wonder which school he's going.

The last time I accompanied singing people on piano was in Sec 1 music test. I suck at piano. Don't know why at all. Fingers just don't move correctly, wrong notes, accidentally hitting notes, tempo changing irratically. These don't happen when I'm sight reading on electone and I wasn't actually sight reading the piano score, played through it once the day before. Realise how much easier it is to have this electone player struggling to read the score but playing the choir part while the pianist accompanies everything with his flowerish notes.. hmm, was that what we did? pretty much. But it was the electone that controls the dynamics of the choir and i was quite bad at that.. ok, out of point. Anyway, today, today, back to today. Think we're sounding quite fine, the last time we practised BEFORE lunch. After lunch was another story. So add in the woo-ing from the guys and i go and practise my score, it'll be quite alright.

When I heard of the offer given to my friend 4 years ago, i wanted so much for that chance to be mine. But now the offer is dangling in front of me, I don't dare to take it up.. aargh.. If only I'm as comfortable on piano as I am on electone..

London won! 2012, that's 7 years from now, I'll still be studying..