Sunday, March 26, 2006

some funny pics.


this was the poster on display at the busking performance, with that extremely terrible pic of the 3 of us. lol.


it may not be veri clear to u.. but these two bananas in the centre of the picture are actually stuck together!! lol. twin bananas. not B1 and B2 btw.

And wads this man. caught on camera ytd at some charity performance at acs barker.

Friday, March 24, 2006

busking perf

busking performance..

wasnt really a busking session.. more like exhibition. left just before PE started and went to music room 2 to practice.. and decided to include a new piece to our repertoire. woohoo. on the same day of a performance hahah. left for suntec at 12 and reached there at 12:30. set up and started performing at one.

i must say their sound system is quite good. can blast the whole shopping mall. or at least the suntec tower we were in. but not many pple were watching us.. kinda quiet actually. hahah the only pple who clapped for us during the first session were some pple from other sch. what we did was we played our 20 min repertoire once, then me and my sec 3 tiencai fren filled in with solos, then played the repertoire one more time, and solo again. today must have been the day i've performed the most solo pieces mannnn. first i decided to play the whOle english suite, then at the end i played recuerdos.

after a 2h break at NYDC to do homework, the second session started. this time, due to massss speeding up, our 20 minute repertoire suddenly shortened (and hence resulting in the need to fill in wif more solos). but this time there was this really nice man who was taking pictures of us, and who clapped and smiled for us after every song even tho he was the only one clapping at times, and stayed right thru for the 1h we were playing. he asked me to play classical gas so i did, and later i played koyunbaba, and played a fusion (or rather one after the other pivoted by an Am chord) of el negrito and a bossa piece. also accepted a request by an organiser to play a chinese contemporary, so i played some improvised qing tian ^^

so at the end of the two sessions, my left hand was absolutely numb, and i tripped over a stand causing a bit of a domino wif a mike, what an unglam way to end, but at the end the photographer came over to shake my hand and thank us, and he seemed really grateful and happy. hmm and that really motivates me as a musician. for these sort of pple who i believe really know how to appreciate guitar music, or just music performance in general, i am willing to play even more, even tho the whole shopping centre may not be listening.

went to church aft tt on the mrt quite tired, but really happy. today was a day i really felt 'complete' as a musician haha.

and shane needs to learn some solo pieces too. hmph.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

There are certain things in life that i consider to be important, and there always seems to be a problem in life in one or more of these areas:
1. Relationship with friends
2. Health
3. Guitar practice
4. Studies
5. Relationship with God
6. Family
right now, just after i have completely resolved problems and questions with number 1, new problems of 2, 3 and 4 have hit me. quite hard i may say. i really underestimated the scale of the maths holiday homework. or rather holiday homework in general.

perhaps it is this time that number 1 and 5 grows the strongest.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

el long essay - done but havent hand up
music compo - half done
tok essay - short of 700 words
MI tabulated analysis - DONE!!!
chinese - surprisingly done.
physics - not done
econs - not doing
maths - if there was anything, it isnt done.

woohoo. im in for some fun tml.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

back from guitar camp.

its been an exhausting 2 and a half days. came back and slept for 4h this afternoon. lol. to be honest, guitar camp is really quite a waste of time. if we had practice schedules like chamber we would play much better.

but then again, guitar camps are what define the guitar orchestra. slack.

anyways, during the camp i was recording for the mep scholarship, and this is the first failure i had for a long time in terms of guitar performance. i've seriously underestimated the time and effort needed to drill a piece to perfection for performance. and maybe my standards and drilling have gone slack. i tried recording lauro's 3 valses and ended up messing up like.. one note every 2 bars. so timms was like.. change piece lah!! so i revived koyunbaba in that nite which i havent played in like.. one or two months and recorded it. lol. thats how good a piece really needs to be for me to consider it performable.. ready to be produced from the mind at 85% on the first try.

anyway its time to rethink how i practice and what i play.. diploma is like a totally different level liao.

but for now.. its time to SLEEP SOME MORE. tml will prob be doing more homework and going out for dinner wif mingz yd fattz and timms tml.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

heyy.

yesterday marked the 'last' day of sch, and i also feel this week i finally managed to bond with my class, with the class outing on thursday, and also the orientation ytd (altho i ponned the wet games lol). i've finally learnt how to make frens again after spending 2 long comfortable years wif .15 nahum/noah.

pple like me confessedly dun talk a lot (waste energy lah u see) so find it a bit harder to socialise. but the trick is to slowly talk to pple person by person then u can get to know all the pple in a group or in class. just need some (or sometimes a lot) of courage thats all. also, timm's theory is that when ur class gets used to ur quietness they start to talk to u.

ironically, i've more or less loss my voice. my sore throat is sooooo bad i could hit the C 2 octaves below middle C ytd. lolol. need to rest.

Monday, March 06, 2006

hmm.

u really dun realise how much a person means to you when you see him everyday, week after week, month after month.

enjoy urself at acjc ming xuan!! im sure ur decision was well made. go own acjc maths. haha.

Saturday, March 04, 2006

heyy.

some updates. lately i feel i've been doing a lot of stupid things. like knocking my head while alighting off a bus on thursday. that was so -.- hahah but that happened when i was feeling really down, so perhaps it was to brighten up my day a little. and today. my guitar teacher told me about a guitar workshop at toa payoh CC on saturday (today) and that it was at 8 o clock. so after complaining twice about how badly it was scheduled, my father drove me there this morning.

like -.-

reached home at 9 and slept till 12noon. hahah got a call just now saying that the workshop was cancelled cos the guy's flight got delayed. ah well. at least i dun have to go back to toa payoh again ^^ yeap sometimes circumstances are so not in favour of us having joy. i surely dint feel too happy when i reached the CC only to find out that the workshop was in the evening. hmm but i got the see the early morning sun, which i like a lot and which i dun see a lot cos im either sleeping or in sch.

dint do much today.. finished the bulk of english long essay on Disabled, even tho steven ng hadnt gone thru it yet. had to do that cos i was too on and did swt for both dulce and anthem for doomed youth.. and i wasnt allowed to do my essay on either -.- so much for being on lol. wanted to do TOK and physics but dint have much energy left haha.

decided to look at the Triana score by Albeniz for musical investigation. hahah the more i look at it the more excited i get.. altho its so complicated. im quite sure he did not cut out a spanish flamenco scale and paste it into his piece. but theres tonnes of stuff and info i can pull out from no where, cos of his impressionistic style. :P quite happy my MI is more or less secure (i hope). okay then thats about it for now.

stuff to do during hols:
guit camp
tennis?
shop for clothes. lol.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

heloo again. was asked to write on this topic for LKY all round excellence award.. topic was The Greatest Influence in My Life.. so here is my essay. quite interesting to read i guess.. took me around 1h to do.


The greatest influence in my life has to be God. I see the hand of God in many ways around me. The very trees and plants that provide beauty and shade for us show the intricate work of a master creator. Our human bodies are also an art of perfection, and so are all the animals that roam the earth. Man can only study these living creatures, and perhaps clone them, but we will never be able to create anything completely new with our own power.

God has truly provided me with everything I possibly need. Good parents, who have good values, a place in a good school ACS (I), and many loyal friends. I am also blessed with much material comfort and with gifts of leadership, academic ability and musical ability. But more importantly, God has redeemed me from my sins and iniquities through his Son Jesus Christ. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” All of us, being human, are imperfect. Romans 3:23 states that “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. Even the good people of this world will not go to heaven, only the perfect will. Through the death and resurrection of Christ, all who believe and obey in Him are sanctified through His blood shed on the cross. This gift from God to all of us transcends all the other physical things the world has to offer. It gives me energy and strength for each day of my life, and also provides me hope of eternal comfort and rest beyond death.

God has not left me to search for all my answers to life’s questions alone. Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path”. The Bible is God’s word and I have found it to be true in every aspect. The questions that philosophy seeks to answer seem to have no end to their arguments, and when it boils down to the essential questions like ‘what is the meaning of life?’ or ‘why is there suffering in this world?’, we can neither find a true answer in our surroundings nor within us, we will only go round in circles. However, the Bible provides me answers that I feel are the most true and applicable in all situations. God’s word provides me encouragement when I need it the most. Colossians 3:23 encourages me to work at whatever I do with all my heart, as working for the Lord and not for men.

God has shown me love through all the people around me. This love is not romantic love between lovers, but rather brotherly love, or agape. 1 Corinthians 13:4 - 5 says, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” This is the love that has been shown to me by my parents, church friends and Christian school friends, which is a manifestation of Christ’s love for us, when he gave up his life for the world. This love changes lives, and it spurs me on to show God’s love to everyone around me. Finally, God provides me comfort and hope, as Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose”.