Even mules are not as stubborn as you

Look, if you have trouble accepting people’s musical abilities that far accedes your own or the simple act of taking up the non-leading role in the band for once would mean you being trampled by others, grow up. You’re too self-centered and big-sized to be Peter Pan. This is the 21^st century, for God’s sake, not your 70s Disco Era. You want to be the Disco Ball of the room? Go polish your surface first so that you could actually reflect enough light to think about shining.

P.S. Jia Wen, Quek, Joanne, be strong for another 3 weeks. I’m always here for you guys. Heck, ALL of us are here for you (:

Love, Love, Love

I can’t believe Juan said all 12 of us, with the exception of Derene, looked like potatoes on stage. Whaaatt. I WAS swinging my hips, bobbing my head and tapping to the beat with my free hand AND right foot…until I accidentally screwed up one of the chords. And then I spent the rest of the songs staring at the keys. But that didn’t mean I stopped swaying and nodding in rhythm.

Boo.

No, I’m not angry at Juan for mentioning that (one needs constructive criticisms, as the he put it himself, to improve, no?). It just showed how the combination of simply being on stage, having an audience and the acute awareness of being assessed could be lethal and could change the quality, tone and mood of our playing. At least compared to how we sounded during last night’s practice.

Worst was, I couldn’t hear my strings part, not even a sliver. And it was the maximum volume on the Korg and tuned to 70% on the gain of the amplifier. Then again, strings and pads had always been like additives in food, something you didn’t really hear and pay much attention to till you extracted it and the music felt hollow.

Oh well. But we did enjoy ourselves up there, regardless of the fact we appeared to be blocks of wood strewn across the stage. I, for one, certainly did, whether it was because I loved the song (one of my favourites by Beatles) or I was still riding high on the positive energy from the practice 15 hours ago, I couldn’t tell.

So, cheers, Band 11, we’re officially done with our 3 treacherous assessments! Let’s pitch (in both contexts) ourselves for the finals!

Hmmm. Funny I should sound excited about doomsday.

P.S. Line is kind of slow. Will load the video next time. So keep an eye out for it.

The Hills are Alive, with the Sound of Music the 9 of us.

- Morning are you up yet? –

Audrey, that is not a wakeup call, it is a text message.

In the light, or lack thereof, of the breaking dawn, I had to feel my way through everything, except Joanne, to the desk. It was bloody 5.45am. I had probably smashed my hips, bruised my arm and stubbed my toe by the time my fingers curled around my spectacles. All in the name of the hiking trip.

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Our form of warm up exercises was sitting the swings (toning our ham-strings), rocking the see-saws (bending our knees), looping through the monkey bar (stretching our arms) and slithering down the tunnel-slide (training our flexibility).

And we were squealing with all the joy of a 5 year old. I couldn’t blame the old folks who were staring at us with nuisance.

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“Eh, if the trail is not open or if raining, we’ll just go to McD for breakfast!”

We didn’t call him Chicken-Wah for nothing. Though it partially stemmed from his Chinese name: try saying Chew Kean Hua consecutively in high speed.

Anyway, 10 minutes into the trekking and half of us were already panting with exhaustion.

"Okay enough! Damn tired already!"

"I can't go on anymore!"

"I swear, we've walked more than we ever will in college!"

"Wait up! I need to rest!"

Probably our stamina simply lies in our fingers, where we store enough potential energy to power-run them across our instruments for hours on end.

We got to the rope-bridge in record time. And to freak Jie Ying out, all of us clamber onto the bridge and started stomping and swaying. For music students, it was amazing we didn’t move in rhythm. But thank God for that. Resonant frequency would be the death of any kind of bridge (Form 4 Physics, no?).

I hate my camera

Even though I kind of expected it, I was still perpetually horrified when we began the climb up the steepest part of the hill, the area where my family would never venture into for fear of overloading my, erm, condition.

But I plowed through, despite watching wearily as the colour beneath my fingernails flushed blue.

Bravado aside, I think most of us aged upon crossing the bridge. Seriously. Our treading became trudging, our stops grew longer to accommodate our longer intakes of breath, our ceaseless singing and crapping became silent puffs of exhaustion. Not to mention us letting trickles of people who were considerably older than us to pass through more than thrice because they would probably had grown a beard by the time we finished the trail. Aha.

Yet we still managed to maintain a certain level of noise, enough for some random stranger to shush us.

"You guys shouldn't make too much noise. Later you might disturb the habitants of the forest."

I supposed all of us understood what, or more like whom, he meant.

"Oh, you mean the monkeys?"

Why yes, Andrew. We WERE afraid of distressing the mammalian quadrupeds.

"Err...yes. Yes. You might disturb the monkeys. There are a lot of them in the trees here."

They guys seemed amused.

"Don't worry. We won't disturb them. They're our friends!"

Right. Speak for yourself.

Standing: Jia Wen, Karen, Kevin, Andrew

Squatting: Me, Yvonne, Hueyuen, Jie Ying, Audrey, Rachel

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Breakfast at Paandai’s (or however you spell it). Milo ice and Tosai. So much for the workout.

*Fast forward to the ‘stop time’ at Audrey’s place before Modern Band Ensemble*

Our resting period became cooing and cuddling her grandchildren instead.

They nibble my left sock!

Me loves this particular puppy the best!

No I wasn't strangling it. I was holding its paw to keep it still for the shot.

Don't they look alike?

Want to know what other 'activities' these 2 put the puppies through?

Bowling.

Carmen

Awww.... it could so easily be mistaken for a soft toy...

Rachel =]

Jia Wen =]

LOVE 'EM! (yes my camera was one of those retarded sound-PROOF kind)

Across the Universe

- Gotta go! Miss me! (: -

- I'll try. -

Sis is heading for some week-long Home Stay programme in Japan.

In fact, she is suspended mid-air on MAS as I type.

It is going to be sushi, blossoming Spring, Tokyo Disneyland and Japanese boys (not that she has a thing for them) for her and ASSignments, practice, more ASSignments and more practice for me.

Boo. I foresee a looooong and looooonely weekend.

At least I have my bro.

Pray I won't get buried by formulas and equations or all the lame, with the capital L, jokes he learnt from Olympics Maths camp. I just can't decide which is worst.

P.S. So I lied. I will miss you (: Come home quick! Screw gifts! I'll only demand for them if you're going somewhere exotic like Paris or Las Vegas. You know, I might want a blond or two, then.

When HAMM isn’t tasty anymore, we switch to eating SAUSAGE instead.

Have you ever noticed how strangely addictive onlining gets during classes? Especially ones that simply don't make sense anymore? It's like, the more boring the lesson is, the more status are updated on facebook. And I'm making a statement, not a hypothesis.

Anyway, all I could remember from this morning's HAMM are Mr. Willy self-syok with the piano as usual, Jia Wen screeching and beating Emma for calling her Funk Queen, Kevin taking a video of the scene, Wen Dee modelling her leg, loads of laughing from our territory of the room, and the 'Hu is the president of China' clip Andrew showed us.

Watch it. I'm quite sure the joke doesn't only hit save-me-before-I-died-of-boredom people.

Sigh. It's Tuesday again tomorrow. Going to brace myself for the loooooong day ahead. At least there is the band coaching to look forward to. If not just for this one time. Fingers crossed that all 9 guests we imported will show up (:

My life is kind of boring, I need something I can confess

HAMM – My input of knowledge for this subject ceased when last semester ended. It was as if someone simply flicked off the current of information and decided to leave us in the dark and grope our way to HAMM 3, should we survived.

If life throws you a Mr. Willy for HAMM, it is just reminding you what university is all about: finding answers to your own damn questions. Either that, or, like grammar in the art of writing (I’m saying this purely on the fact that I hate grammar), you don’t need deep HAMM insights to have mind-blowing playing skills.

“If you don’t C#, you will Bb.”

Ha. So said the lecturer who exclaimed, “And I shall repeat it again the second time once more!”

True words of wisdom indeed, Mr. Willy.

Ear Training – Both my ear are caked with blood. Blame my inability to differentiate similar-sounding 7^th chords, (never mind inversions), non hum-able compound intervals, muffled harmonic progressions and maddening rhythms. Which goes to saying my midterm results are… *coughs*

Popular Music History – “You see, class. In the olden days, the people were so poor that they had to notate their music on this…” Elliot solemnly pointed to the picture on the screen, a yellowish parchment-like thing with notes scribbled all over. “…human skin. They just couldn’t afford paper, you know.”

The class was a Mexican wave of looks of horror and disgust.

*3 seconds*

“HA! Got you! Man, you should have looked at your own faces! Human skin! I can’t believe you guys fell for it! HAHA!”

Screw the ‘History Is The Most Boring Subject On Earth’ statement. I’m preaching a new theory this semester.

P.S. Midterm was unexpected. But in a good way. A VERY good way.

Song Writing – Hah. My progress in becoming the world’s best hit song writer acquiring song writing skills is somewhat stunted by my lack of talent and creativity, which are now coupled with dulled interest and self-discouragement. Want to have an idea of the level I am at this precise moment? *Hand indicating a height at the ankle* Honest.

Modern Band Ensemble – A smooth sailing journey so far, minus the teeny weeny blunder of mine when I screwed up the practice time slot, which says a lot for this subject. Derene, Stephen and Fui Peng are awesome people to work with, despite me being freaked out by their seniority at the beginning. And Ashley is one of the juniors I could always learn something new from. Needless to say everything is rolling at a healthy pace, with 6 songs down and 2 more to go. Cheers.

Choir – The more semesters passed taking choir, the more I feel like I’m enduring some torture camp, and the more I miss Catholic High School choir. At least how it was back in 2007 (God, I sound old). Then again, I couldn’t really blame them. One, everyone is forced to sign up for the subject, so there’s a possibility of them despising singing in a choir out of rebellion. Two, have you ever heard the so-called SONGS we perform at the end of every semester? People probably thought we sang while trying to escape from bloodhounds. No wonder my sis swears she’ll never come to the choir concert ever again.

I still need my attendance taken though….

Student recital/Recital attendance – Mine was Dis.Speak.A.Ble. I’m blaming brain-freeze and numbed woody fingers. In other words, stage fright.

The latter…ha. All I can say is thank God they decreased it to 8 attendances. Imagine having to sit through extra hour-long performances just because you needed to complete the list, with the Medusa prying your every move. I wonder where she got her stalker skills.

P.S. With hair of thick frizzed coils like writhing snakes and her ability to immobilize you with her dagger stare, could you guess who Medusa is? A hint: Her name sounds very MANNLY.

Well, I think I’ve just about summed up my semester so far, excluding my major and minor instruments. Yeah.

Alright. Back to slaving.

Speak up, your silence is killing me

Dinner was damn awkward. Period.

Neither of us said more than 3 sentences.

Haha. No. Seriously.

Probably because he was hell tired. Wait. Why am I making excuses for him?