I watched as the scissors went snip, snip, snip.

Life is sometimes like a bad haircut. You can sulk, you can laugh it off, or you can just shave it bald in frustration. It doesn’t really matter. Coz life doesn’t give a damn about how you deal with the shitty situation and there is absolutely nothing you can do save wait for the hair to grow out and given the opportunity to trim up the mess again.

I need another story, something to get off my chest

I yearn for that release.

That familiar burst of words that gush from the mind, down the bumps and slides through the terrain of branching nerves and criss-crossing veins and out of the fingertips, crashing against the keypad like violent waves meeting the hard wall of a cliff-face.

I yearn for that relief.

That familiar feeling of spewing my ceaselessly churning thoughts onto a virtual paper, of dragging out buried emotions by the collar to face their barring teeth, of admitting fears kept hidden to appear less weak, of tending old wounds and scars, probably putting them all in the form of a story as cover-up. Yes. I am a coward. I want people to see the real me, yet I cower behind lines of prettified words.

I yearn for that recklessness.

That familiar attitude of not giving an effing damn about needing to take into account the feelings of the subject(s) of my hatred/vengeance/frustration. Negativity aside, I need not bother to restrain myself (it is not the author’s fault should your mind wander too far into the wild) on a CERTAIN topic concerning a PARTICULAR person either. Ha. Of course, these works would not in any way appear on the blog, unless I decided to switch to Wordpress and start locking up my posts.

I yearn for my writing juice.

Instead, I’m typing out this shit. Ugh.

I hate writing blocks. And I have tons of delayed posts in line. 

Which reminds me, according to the playwrights workshop I attended, I ought to write 3 pages of jumbled words or short sentences on simply anything that I could fish from my brains, first thing in the morning after waking up. Kind of like taking a crap, excreting excess and non-sensical ideas before your mind could come up with fresh and useful ones.

So I guess this is my first shot. My first mind's crap.

P.S. Yes, Jo dear, the most important post of the month is on the way.



L.O.V.E. this song!
WHEEEEEE I can't wait till band practice on Monday!

Autumn Leaves

It was a day of dares.

Well, technically, the first one wasn't really counted. It was merely a consequence of losing a game, stemming from the fact that my mom didn't encourage gambling (due to the news about some nutter getting fined by police for doing so in the assumed-safe-limits of his private home), which degraded us to using peanuts to replace cash. Thus, the driving force of the card games shifted from earning extra bucks to avoiding the penalty of having to eat ALL of the groundnuts pooled in to use as bets. And what do you know, both victims were the only people around with braces. Not to mention we hiked up the number of peanuts each to 7 for the second round and there were 6 of us... You do the math.

Firecrackers. Shhh. (Thank God our Malay neighbour was cool with it)

The mythical creatures in the form of bearded lions with tiered fur, painted mouth and manually-controlled blinking eyes. They literally crashed into the house.

I was just as shocked when they ambled their way up. What the heck. Privacy intrusion?

But apparently, they meant good. They went to bless dad's laptop and workplace.

And while one was doing that, the other was...

...hell yeah, shameless self-promoting.

Once they were done with their rendezvous on the upper floor, they continued to the front compound. They danced;

They 'ate' the food;

And they got high.

House blessed and audience satisfied, it was time for lunch!

Got away from the Summer heat for a while by lingering in a bubble of Autumn in a park, on our way to the Winter of One Utama.

It all started with Jia Wei fiddling with Mae Jin's iPod Touch.

A peaceful change, considering the slight madness back before the magical quadrupeds (it's the magical quadrupeds, Charlie!) attacked...until someone stumbled upon this evil application called Truth or Dare, luring the person to type in all of our names and 'spin the wheel'.

(The following dares are listed randomly)

Dare #1: Get down on your hands and knees and meow like a cat.

Victim: Jia Wei

He simply half-kneeled, half-sat and half-squatted on the seat. And squeaked. He probably got 'cat' and 'rat' mixed up.

Dare #2: Touch the toes of a friend's foot while singing to the song 'Red Little Indians'.

Victim: Ying Hui

Holy crap. It was barbarically disgusting and utterly humiliating, if you recall the fact that we were doing this in a relatively chic restaurant and in the presence of a live DINING audience. Miraculously, no one puked.

Dare #3: Lick your hand in a sensual way.

Victim: Ying Hong

All I can say was, you made me proud, bro, you made me proud. Like sister, like brother, and no one runs a tongue across a straw/cutlery/utensils better than I do disregarding the fact that I tend to end up having my tongue slashed

Dare #4: Sing and dance the Macarena on a chair.

Victim: Joanna

At this point, there WERE people staring at us. People with no life. I mean, they were just having lunch. WE were having lunch AND doing dares or spilling truths AND causing chaos AND attracting attention positive and negative alike AND having that much more to look back on. Jealous much, peasants?

Dare #5: Squirt tomato and chilli sauce into your mouth at the same time and swallow it.

Victim: Mae Jin

No one dared to sit opposite her, or venture near her for that matter, just in case she choked and painted everyone red. Or she might find it so ludicrously funny that she had to spit it out to laugh.

Dare #6: Fall back onto someone who could catch you.

Victim: Eu Chern

This wasn't as bad as the others. Though Jo could have just raised her hands in the air and break his fall with her legs instead. Just sayin'.

Of course, these were merely the tip of the iceberg of Truth or Dares. Most of which included less preposterous Dares like skipping and hopping along the perimeter of the place, singing the words to the Happy Birthday tune instead of speaking them, concocting a dish out of those on the table for the victim and the list went on. Not to mention we occasionally opted for Truths.

Too bad Jing Hua came late and missed all of this. But at least she didn't miss out on our caffeine-intake session and a certain shopping mission.

Black stripes, white teeth and yellow claws

It had been a hell of a Chinese New Year, in both ways. 

Weather had been preposterously hot. Like ME! a furnace.

And if there were a breeze, it would sting like a sporadic blast from a cuckoo hair-dryer, full in your face.

. 

Elements going wild aside, the week had been smooth-sailing, like a laid-back, relaxing ride on a magic flying carpet. No claustrophobic amassing of relatives, thank God. 

Of course, there was the couple of hours of spring cleaning. God forbid it should be my room at home. No. It was my hostel room. Joanne wiped the table tops and cupboards, I hand-mopped the floor

And the only constant hindrance was the screechy-microtone-filled-and-disgust-inducing festive songs. Might as well stuck thorns in my ears. 

Speaking of songs, I find Leona Lewis' new single 'I Got You' highly addictive. Though I was rather disturbed by her mumbling of lyrics during the choruses. Reminded me of Jay Chou, not bearing in mind her powerful vocal range, charisma and beauty, of course. 

Feels like only yesterday I had locked my heart away

She had a habit of bottling things up.

No, not things. Emotions.

And before long, the contents were jingling about in the sealed vial, colliding against the glass walls aggressively, not unlike particles of the Brownian motion, defiant to be unleashed and to spill their secrets to the world.

So, she retreated to a quiet corner of her heart, tugged at the cork that secured what was inside the glass prison and held her breath.

She tilted the bottle a little and a tiny blob of flickering light floated gently to her palm. She peered at it. Longing. Ah, she had stowed it well, that one. She didn’t like that feeling, the hollow, incomplete feeling, as if she were a coconut husk left to rot after being scraped of its meat and drained of its juice. Best friends tend to have that effect on people, don’t they?

She blew at it lightly and watched it drift away like a dandelion caught in a spring breeze before allowing another pulsating globule to trickle out. Autophobia. Despite the waves of heat that threatened to drown her every time she stepped under the scorching weather, despite the warmth of the bodies around her, she still felt the chill of knowing that no one beside her was a constant presence. No one was, and no one will ever be. But that did not explain why some people had to leave earlier than others. People she loved most. Chasing dreams had a price, she supposed. Or was it because time was being selfish, was jealous because all it had for friends were hour and second?

The next luminous orb made her smile. Belonging. A feeling that was like an island of peace and content while madness raged around her. A lighthouse standing firmly in the midst of thrashing waves of the sea. She sought it for so long, learnt so much in the course of seeking it, even changed her perspective on certain things along the way, but she finally found it. What used to be alien, was now familiar. What used to be foreign, was now home. There and then, she knew she was going to miss college life when she left it.

Excitement. Her stomach did a somersault at this, her features lit up, as if the illumination from the pellet was bright enough to set her face aglow. It was like queuing for a roller coaster ride, one that resembled her life’s ups and downs. She silently thanked the people who had made this feeling about the path ahead possible, short the period may be. She promised to polish herself to shine, if not just for them. After all, a good semester isn’t just about accomplishing feats and passing with flying colours, it is sometimes about doing a little less of that and more of living life and appreciating those who stand by you.

She poured the remaining contents into her cupped hand, where the mass of shining spheres throbbed in rhythm with her heart. They were too small to be read the emotion they each carried: feelings that had yet manifested. So she spread her fingers, relished in the tickling sensation as they slipped through the gaps and heaved a sigh of relief.

It wasn’t about letting them go, about being void of feelings, it was about sorting them out. Kind of like spring cleaning. Untangling the mess and chucking the emotions into proper shelves where they would stay put till taken out to mull over or savour in. And it was New Year anyway. She didn’t need to start 2010 with knotted wool of emotions in her heart.

She gave herself a satisfied nod as she placed the empty vial at the back of her mind once again.





P.S. I guess you can figure out which bubble you are linked to by now?

It's rising at the back of your mind

Congratulate me, for I had at long last managed to squish my whole recital piece into my brains after practicing for the umpteenth time.

Pray that my fingers do not fail me 12 hours from now.

That my playing would be flawless. But who am I kidding?

**********************************************************

By the time I was ordering dinner at 10pm, I felt so taut and my mind kept pinging reminders of tomorrow’s recital. Apparently it was ignoring my mental clicking of the ‘off’ button. Desperate to sweep the performance aside for a while, I hauled out my laptop.

I was in the midst of fiddling with it when my salad was laid on the table with a gentle plonk.

Three heads gravitated towards the heap of vegetables and observed it with a fascination of a marine biologist in a newly discovered species of fish. Then two of those crowns twisted and stared at me in bewilderment, though it was more like amusement to me.

“Are you on diet?!”

“Erm. No. I just prefer to be vegetarian for dinner.”

Blank faces. I had might as well been speaking Na’vi. 

“Coz I’m trying to--“ save the world. But I bit back the words in time. Since SOMEONE thought that Mother Earth didn’t need rescuing, that we would be old and crippled by the time the catastrophic effects of global warming shatter the planet, that the responsibility of ensuring the avoidance of the premature end of time falls upon the next generation, and not ours.

“Uh. It’s healthier. And it doesn’t kill lives.”

Answer accepted.

And then, as if it was the most natural thing to do, an arm stretched out and, not unlike the clamp in vendor machines, an index finger and a thumb plucked the topmost piece of cornflake from the mountain of green. And it was dunked into an open mouth.

I was perplexed.

“Did you just…?!”

“Don’t worry. I washed my hands…” Wei Kit seemed to decipher my lack of words as fear of diseases transmitted by means of dirty hands.

“…before the Dharma talk. Hmm. Not bad, the taste.”

I could only gape.

He took this as an encouragement and his fingers swooped down for another piece of cornflake.

Flabbergasted.

Oh, what the hell. I made him pay by taking a photo with me and Sudharma. Since the laptop was on, why not?   

Wei Kit, me, Sudharma

**********************************************************

Alarm set to ring at 7.30am.

Have got to run through the song a gazillion times before going up on stage. 

If that somewhat fails, I would have to succumb to DRASTIC actions.

Ask Sudharma if you really want to know.

Meanwhile, I'll just have to draw a keyboard on a long strip of paper to practice. 

Though I want to finish up that chapter in The Gift first... 

We had HAMM for breakfast

1) Write out a 4-bar progression for the following chords as secondary dominant (e.g. Eb7 as V7/II)
2) D minor mode: ?
3) D major7 / A7 / D major7 : replace the A7 chord with another chord from a parallel mode to make it a strong cadence

Scraping of nails across the back of the heads. Massaging of temples. Exhalation of melodramatic sighs. Banging of foreheads against the table. Scrunching of eyebrows in an effort to recall notes.

Midway through my blind scribbling and muted squeaks of desperation and panic, with smoke snaking out between the wheels in my brains...

"Well, you can always consult your neighbours..."

Heads shot up.
Minds grasping at what Mr. Willy just declared matter-of-factly.
Deciphering.
Processing.
Keying in data.
WHA-

"Or you can check with your notes..."

Blank stares.
Realization.
Frenzied squeals of delight/relief/alarm.

And so, the chances of us passing our first HAMM (Harmonic Analysis of Modern Music) quiz didn't seem so bleak anymore.
Honestly, that was the oddest quiz I, or all of us for the matter, had ever sat.
I could safely say we were utterly flummoxed.

TWO you, from me

How was TWO a significant number for the evening:

The UNs (Contemporary) and the UCs (Classical)

One table, TWO sides

Nerds (many thanks to the awesome senior David Chio for turning our questions marks of confusion to exclamation marks of understanding)

Weirdos Happy party-goers

TWO kinds of presents

One made of paper (The Last Concubine from me and the Shopaholic and Baby from Rachel, Kevin and Andrew)

One made of cloth

It takes TWO to dance the tango

Jia Wen attempting to shove the spoonful of chocolate cake with wasabi-spread into Andrew's itchy mouth

Of course, last but not least, TWO candles on the cake (:

Happy Birthday, Lee Jia Wen!

You know we love you (:

P.S. Darling, tell me if the rest of the book is as good as the first chapter, k?

Lullaby for you and me

The price of having to commute in a dress and killer heels (not that I was wearing stilettos but anything more than half an inch in height unnerves me) was worth paying.

What I loved about the concert were:

The crystal-like tinkling of chimes and bells.

The velvety-smooth lines of the strings section.

The light, springy feeling the pizzicato parts bring.

The gentle strumming of harps.

And the usage of various styles of playing to narrate the story (or in this case, the arrival of guests at Princess Aurora’s wedding)

The whole performance, at least the Sleeping Beauty Act 3, was so soothing and laid back. It was like sitting on a setting sun-soaked beach with your toes in the sand, the waves lapping around you, rocking you back and forth mildly. An exact opposite effect compared to my last concert here (Igudesman and Joo).

And guess who I bumped into? Johan and Liang! And some other classical seniors. They were probably puzzled at the presence of a Contemporary student in a very much classical concert

Anyway, we drugged ourselves with Starbucks before the concert, just in case we did not survive the drone of classical music (fine, I'm speaking for myself). A little overdosed though, of which the prove lies bare-naked in the photos beneath.

  

I'm blaming the caffeine and sugar

What intermissions should be utilized for:

Jing Hua, Eu Chern and I were enraptured by the beautiful sounds, Joanna was dazzled by the wall of glass cylinders.

Dolled up

P.S. I still can't believe we were actually late for the first third of the concert. 

P.S. If only that hot blond's dad wasn't there...

Teddies don't hug back, but sometimes they are all you have.

I felt like a live wire all day. In a bad way.

I doubt I am having PMS. Or maybe I am but it ain’t Pre-Menstrual Syndrome. It is probably Post Menstrual Syndrome. If that exists, that is.

I was so frustrated today. I still am.

I was frustrated at not being able to wake up earlier to follow mom to school, even if I knew I was sleep-deprived and needed that extra hour of snooze desperately.

I was frustrated at having to wait for a ludicrously long time before my check-up, even if I had my laptop, an internet connection and a thumbdrive full of my favourite tunes with me.

I was frustrated at the doctor for not finding a solution on how to treat the wound, for being inconclusive, for dismissing the tiny tear in the old scar as a SUPERFICIAL SKIN PROBLEM, even if I heard the very same line almost a year ago and half-expected him to recite it over again.

I was frustrated at mom for droning on and on about a topic till I nearly snapped at her, even if her nagging meant that my head was in the clouds never really bothered me and I would normally use it as a lesson to be patient.

I was frustrated that Modern Band Ensemble ended more than 20 minutes late, even if it would not have made a difference since I had to stay back for piano classes at 5pm anyway.

I was frustrated at not seeing my playing improved after banging on the keys for an hour and a half, even if I was acutely aware of my weariness and lack of mood.

God, help me.

I need a new book.

And an alternate, virtual world to lose myself in.

And now, right from the centre of the bubbling mass of frustration, for some inexplicable, rootless reason, I am resenting those who have, or had a taste of, a happy ending. I want mine.

“Silly gal…love doesn’t exist in reality, only in fairy tales. People are interested in another because of reliability.”

(Do not bother to ask who made the statement)

I had no idea how to counterclaim that. Words mercilessly failed me.

But I feel calmer now. 

How much do I need to fill me up?

Why next week would probably the worst week of February:

1 HAMM quiz – I still have no freaking inkling whatsoever is Mr. Willy trying to teach lecturing and he wants a quiz? Someone please pull the trigger.

2 Recital performance – Heck. I’m barely able to play the piece without much glitch, not to mention sound the additional jazzified introduction smoothly, and I’m to have it all memorized by next Friday? I think I’ve just dug my own grave.

3 Ear Training quiz – Hmmm. I can’t seem to recall the exact date but Justin did announce something about it. Either that or he was just saying a word that rhymed with ‘quiz’, which I doubt the existence.

4 Song Writing midterm project – I hate composing when I have no inspiration or mood for it. Period.

I’m hibernating. Wake me up when Week 7 ends.

*********************************************************

“Ying Hui, you should go to gym with us next time.”

Ugh. The last time I went to gym daily, which was back in Foundation 1 and 2, I became so freaked out by the INTERNATIONAL students who checked me out talked to me in that eerie manner. And I probably appeared like a freak to my course mates when I passed by the music school, hence them, to my hostel, drenched thoroughly in sweat.

*Winces at the memory*

And what makes Wei Kit think I would want to revive my weird image again?

Not in a million years. Then again…nah. Well, depends. My body figure is *ehem*.

Anyway, since my 3 cohorts could not make it to their Enticing Trip to the Taman Connaught Night Market, I went with Sudharma and Wei Kit instead.

Loitered around in Block A’s deserted cafeteria while we waited out the initial heavy rainfall. But the slashes of rain were just beginning to deplete when our stomachs could allow no patience. So we simply dashed out, with Wei Kit conveniently snatching my umbrella and shoving me to stand under Sudharma’s along the way.

Ended up in Richie’s for dinner. God, it was freezing in there, being half-soaked and all (why bother with umbrella to merely cross the road?). But at least it was comfortable and we didn’t need to juggle between holding on to our food and keeping the umbrellas up or worry about the sky raining harder.

“I want my chocolate drink.”

And I got it. After we finished eating, that is. The 2 of them walked me partially through the night market to buy it. Wei Kit wanted some apung thing but the stall wasn’t there, or at least it wasn’t at its usual place. Too bad. But the bubble tea was. Whee (:

*********************************************************

HOLY CRAP. It's 2am!

Two, four, six. Guess whose class we skipped?

I doubt I would have recognized him even if my brains weren’t fuzzy this morning.

“Eh Ying Hui, meet my new band member!” Carmen and Audrey were eyeing me expectantly, waiting hungrily for my reaction. What was up with them? I mean, not like we haven’t had new students before…

HOLY CRAP.

I did a double take.

“OMG Andrew!”

His hair was cropped short. Extremely so, at least for his standards. He looked like…like… 

*Shuffles through her files of photos*

Like when he did back in Foundation (the only one sitting on the table), add some fats weight and subtract the auburn dye.

The transition deserved nothing less than exclamations and choked expressions.

*********************************************************
None of us completed the assignment for Song Writing. Whether it was on purpose from the lack of interest in the subject or a result of a given-up attempt after a week-long procrastination, I had no idea. Don't shoot me that look. None of the seniors touched it either, with the exception of, perhaps, Sharon.

So, what do times like this call for? Class-ditching!
Escapees: Yours truly, Jia Wen, Audrey, Carmen, Rachel, Eunice.
And the refugee camp-base? Audrey's house.

An hour of cuddling Waggy, cooing at Micky's newborn puppies, Wall-E and Cornetto drumsticks helped keep us awake, albeit barely, till 7.30pm. Ah, the wonders of escaping the confines of a classroom and the droning of a lecturer, even for just 60 minutes.

*********************************************************
Funny how my time spend on searching for band songs would turn into discovering new songs/fresh arrangements for popular songs for my own entertainment purpose. Every single time, without fail.
 
The Duke's Men of Yale


(Recording version, for those who are interested for a clearer and better quality sound)

Please do ignore the weird umbrella photos.

P.S. "Even when my house burnt down, you were still my friend." HAHAHA XD
Seem to have forgotten the name of that show. Eunice?