Da Capo 2009

Back to the beginning again, how nostalgic. 1 year ago, I was new to NUSWS and performing for the last with Mr Tan on the very stage (fine, it was on the opposite side). But now back there, same concert series, different (slightly) people and different, but equally awesome, conductor.

Great bunch of sectionmates as usual, and kudos to all the year 1s! Weilian, huikoon, xueqi, chenghuat, chuanxin, xiuyu, kheenguen, yingrui, zhengyi, ian, yaju, lisu, jinxun, francis, huili, haoyi, marie, enghong. So many birthday celebrations, colour/clothing coordination (or not), sectionals, crapping sessions, photo-taking together.

This was not as tiring as InTempo, but still challenging enough to make me feel pretty tired, though not completely drained.

Curtain Up: Pretty good considering the drills we had for it. Was my least favourite piece initially but rapidly grew to become top favourite. heheh
Yamato: Was totally shiok. I think it was definitely the best we have played.
Phantom of the Opera: Sounded pretty good, though certain tunings could have been better. But it was definitely better than beautiful sunday’s rendition. And the harp solo was BLISS (love my seat next to her….)
Symphonic Dances: Most-rehearsed piece. But was worth it I suppose. We didn’t do everything that we were told to, but it sounded decent enough. I still prefer the orchestral version because the strings do a better job with the different textures I suppose.
An American in Paris: Played this since May, so I guess it was good. Staccatos weren’t perfect, but if fanella and ji go away thinking about french cafes and parisan men, I think we succeeded. haha
In the Miller Mood: I really hated this piece initially, cos I can’t swing. But now, it’s really easy once you get the groove. And it’s a real crowd-pleaser. haha
Princess Mononoke: All-time favourite band piece. We did do it justice and I think tuning was much better than during certain other times. So at least I can watch another Hayao Miyazaki film without feeling guilty.
Tintin: Sounded nice! And we didn’t screw up too many parts!
Tsubasa O Kudasai: Haha the voices were quite convincing according to the two choristers so I suppose the sectionals on them weren’t wasted! haha.
Hootenanny: The gay piece according to Emily. Well, it was uncontrolled, but if the audience liked it, who cares!
76 trombones: Embochures totally gone by then, but again, its encore so heck lah! haha

Thought it was a pretty good concert overall.

Though next time I need to make sure my concert goodies are more presentable. Biscotti was not quite thin enough, so erm paiseh. Next time when I can slice thinner and get a more consistent texture, then I’ll bring some over to the kukumalus ok? haha. Just need to reduce baking powder and practice slicing thinner.

And thanks to all who came! My two dear kukumalus, Lynette (yes, your first concert, but glad its mine and u enjoyed it!!), Sophia (yay!), Jingying, Tengwen, Xianwei etc etc. The concert wouldn’t have been as good without the audience!

Till InTempo!

Beautiful Sunday!

Woah long time since I’ve logged into wordpress and they’re changed the appearance! Hmm…must be a sign or something.

Anyway, Beautiful Sunday was quite shiok, though I think it was a mistake in getting us to report too early. Most of us were zapped and tired by the time we reached phantom and the energy level kind of went downhill after that. Marie’s bleeding tongue wasn’t a good sign. Oh well. It’s over, but it was quite fun. At least the hall was full, so that wasn’t a bad thing.

And Elizabeth from my short stint at nie was there too! haha. Quite surprising to see her. Of course not forgetting jeffrey, my njband junior, and lisu, nus band junior, who both gave flowers! And Xueqi’s home-baked cookies, Chuanxin’s tile keychain and the lolipops! haha. It was quite fun.

The bitching session during lunch was pretty entertaining too, though I was just a passive audience. But it helps to know I’m not alone feeling certain ways.

Unfortunately I was trying to hold back my coughing fits throughout the concert, so it was quite tough. Well, only goes to remind me to avoid falling ill before any performance!

Bleagh, better get down to my readings. :/ What an anti-climatic way to end the day…

Stars and Moon forever

Oh well, it’s once again that time of the year.

It’s odd how Yayuk is more patriotic than us true-blue Singaporeans, scrambling to hang up the flag 2 weeks ago when even the family behind us (those who know me well enough knows who stays behind us) have yet to; pestering me to record the NDP on Suria since 5pm; dropping by the TV to see the progress each time she goes up to check on my grandma.

It’s equally odd that while watching the NDP used to be  family event where all of us will gather round the living room TV has dwindled down to just my father and myself. Oh yes, and the two ‘patriotic’ house lizards who came out during the 8:22pm pledge-taking ceremony. Actually, they were much more patriotic than us humans who merely said the pledge; they put their words into action. You know the baby blues we’re facing? The two of them were passionately trying to solve it in their own way.

The NDP theme song was a bone of contention but I really wonder why. The melody sounds all right, just that it probably sounds a little angsty. The lyrics are nothing surprising. The first time I heard it, I expected more questions following “What do you see”, but the politically correct and rosy picture answers followed it. So no surprises there. Still sounds like the dairy product full of cheese. What is it with the faces shining in the sun? Reflection from the oily complexion due to the heat?

Apart from griping about these, the misaligned troops, the bimbotic converstion b/w Lopez and Chong, the guy who dropped his rifle when koh cheng mun walked through, the sad march during the President’s investigations (my dad reckons it’s to reflect the gloomy mood due to the economic downturn) etc, I must comment on yet another oddity of the Parade. Why tell the story through an evolution of popular music? I understand where they’re coming from, but none of the icons of the popular music throughout history have been Singaporeans. Not Elvis, and not Spice girls. If they had used it as a backdrop to a more local context, fine. But the Chinese lady, the rotund Elvis, the skinny 80s singer and the cannot-make-it Spice girls wannabes were all smack in the middle; the focus of it all? I’m not criticizing the use of popular culture to tell a story, just that I feel that the story they’re telling is a Western one, not something that’s suited for NDP, a time where we reaffirm our national identity (which is already difficult enough to find without throwing in Western neo-imperialism). How about indigenous Singaporean culture of those times? The exiled poets, the struggling artists, the unpolished songwriters of the day?

Despite all my complaints, I guess the NDP had achieved a pretty good ending what with the fireworks and interesting slow arrangement of Majulah. I guess it must have been pretty good to encourage so passionate biting of tails somewhere to the right of the TV. So oh well. No matter what I see, it’s still on this tiny island, so I better just shut up, enjoy my life while I still can, and stop thinking the grass is greener beyond the shores.

Summer is over

With only 8 days (= a week if you believe that particular magazine) left before I return to the drudgery of school, I thought I should wrap up what I have achieved slacking for the entire 3 months of holidays.

If words are infectious, then books are colonies of bacteria and viral particles ready to infect us all.

Indeed, I’ve been reading quite ferociously lately, some borrowed from libraries, some from my old collection, and more from my newly added collection.  The reason why I don’t quite like to borrow from libraries is due to the unkempt state the books come in. Coffee-stains obscuring the words, spines that are crackling, torn pages, the odd smell that makes you wonder if it has once been a companion in the latrine… Yet maintaining a collection is both costly and space-consuming.

Thankfully for the commercial press’s sudden closure of thir Cathay branch, that I managed to get some books at discounts. Also for amazon, that I managed to get another 3 Sandman graphic novels despite never even getting close to kino this entire break.

It’s odd that the more I read, the more I want to read other books. Very infectious indeed.

To find out more about those I have read and have bothered to review, check out the multitude of book reviews. Somehow reviewing books seemed much easier than reviewing my life. I wonder why.

If the silver screen is a reflection, then the golden screen is a distortion.

Have been watching some movies as well of course, but only one in a true cinema and the rest through a distorted computer screen.

Duplicity, which had received such high accolades from the Straits Times critics was the lucky pick, though I must say it was kind of draggy in the center. Thankfully the two leads saved my snoring with their spectacular performance, but it was quite a let down.

Then there are the historical movies that I watched streaming online, distorted and in poor quality. I was thoroughly bored by Valkyrie, slightly disappointed with Flags of Our Fathers, felt sad for the soldiers in Letters from Iwo Jima, and devastated by The Boy in Striped Pyjamas. I shall not spoil the plot, but the last two are definitely worth a watch. Flags is, only if you have the time. And don’t bother with Valkyrie.

I finally got round to watching the Studio Ghibli Collection that I bought maybe 2 years ago, and the one that really wrenched my heart was Grave of the Fireflies, about how a pair of siblings lived through the war. Yet another reminder that the casualties of war do not end with those at the battlefront, but those who neither take up arms nor have the ability to do.

If dreams provides an escape from reality, then dramas are the crystalisation of dreams.

Of course, how could I forget the multitude of dramas that have entertained me when I have exhausted my capability of reading and sought for something more light-hearted? In fact I have watched too many, so perhaps I’ll just cover a few which are more memorable.

Mystery/police/law/detective dramas seem to be what guys like, so no surprises that my brother had lots of them. Watched Kiina (which I caught an episode in Osaka actually), Triangle, Detective Galileo, Boss (really has the strongest cast and good plots), Unfair (a close 2nd to Boss and maybe only a little better than Triangle), Hero (that’s really nostalgic and old already), Hokaben (surprisingly good), Bloody Monday (which I felt was bleh, but my brother seems to love it), Voice (which had good plots but pathetic actors), Trick 1,2 and 3 (which was funny initially but lost its edge as it got repeated)

I didn’t miss out on the more mainstream romantic comedies, just spare me the tear-jerkers after 1 litres of tears. Haken no Hinkaku provided a great insight to the part-timers of Japan, a must-watch for people interested in HR heheh; Around 40 was a good forecast to how I’ll end up when I reach that age (if only I could age as graciously as Amami Yuki); Anego was similar to Dalja’s Spring so I felt cheated; Love Shuffle was an unexpected surprise from the relatively unknown cast (fine, at least to me); Kekkon Dekinai Otoko had great leads that carried out the humour and chemistry  well

There were many others that I just watched halfway and gave up, or some which I have forgotten, but do check some of them out if you’re interested in jdramas which end in less than 12 episodes.

Gaming is a science, not an art.

I finally completed FFVII!!! The only final fantasy series that I have ever completed. But I had stupidly formatted my memory disc and erased all evidence of that. No, I am not going to replay. But it does make me rather hesitant about starting anything new.

Friendships are almost like real ships; they’re hard to maintain, and once they set sail, you never know whether they come back to the same harbour.

It’s ironic how this holidays turned out to be totally different from what I had expected. Perhaps it was lucky that it was my holidays when my grandma had her fall and the auto-immune skin problem which got all of us involved. But that also meant I was bounded to stay home throughout this three months. I became a harbour, I suppose, doomed to watch everything sail away, remaining stationary. But surprisingly, I grew to the role and now, I think I kind of enjoy the life of a recluse. Now, if only I can find a source of income as a recluse, it’d be a perfect future job.

Generally, this holidays has not been a blast, nor did I do anything extraordinary. Sigh.

“Worst organisers”

Honestly the first time I have seen Mr Ho use such strong words and appear so agitated.

I was there by 1030am and sweating like a pig. Surrounded by concrete buildings and their refusal to turn on the fans for us wasn’t making the clear sunny day any better for us. Had a soundcheck through all the pieces, with some random families walking in and some angmohs educating their kids on the different instruments (how cool, I don’t even think my parents knew what the heck a clarinet was before I took it up). Then we ended by 130pm and went to Carl’s Jr to slack in the conducive (for what?) aircon environment.

That was one of the memorable and happy moments of the entire day I suppose. First time I had a meal with the section (cos I always ended up skipping all the section outings  acks) and sitting opposite Khee Nguen who is a perpetual source of laughter made it good. Had trouble finishing my only burger, but I didn’t want to offload it to someone else (i.e. abnormal pig cheng huat who helped 3 ppl finish their burgers) so I persevered on. haha. Our picnic was unanimously cancelled due to the heat and we ended up folding roses backstage. Point to note, it’s so damn difficult to do that, I gave up after two. Then we just ate some of the picnic food backstage and sweated it out again.

Oh and we were promised changing rooms backstage. But as KN replied to XY’s questioning about it, “can, open-air one. You dare to change here? I’m a shy boy, so I will go to the toilet”

After we changed into the black polo tee, it was TEN times worse. DAMN hot. I’m serious.

Finally we got upstage, in front of crying babies and incessant chattering. Think the weird screams at CFA by some unknown woman was bad during InTempo, this was worse. No silence at all. And the GOH, who had been at Eng Kong Garden 11am earlier on in the morning, was late as usual. My mum said she’s growing fatter. How to help it when she won’t even carry her own bouquet and walk down the stage?! I heard someone has to carry her handbag when she goes for meetings, perhaps that’s why she didn’t carry anything when I saw her seated downstage. So we started the entire thing late. And they had the guts to cancel Fantillusion and Hey Jude 2 mins before FFX ended.

Which reminds me about the pathetic cosplayer duo they sent up during FFX. It’s not FFVII, so I have NO idea why it’s Cloud and Sephiroth. And Sephiroth was clearly suffering the economic recession, which explains why he didn’t have money to buy conditioner. How pathetic. Even if they mixed up the characters, try to have a better fighting scene. But no… And shouldn’t they be fighting when we play the battle theme? Not when we’re playing Suteki da ne and all the lovey dovey stuff. Horrible. An insult. Thank goodness not many gamers were there or we’ll be drenched in rotten eggs.

So…apart from the sectionmates and the very filling long break, this was quite a flop.  I kind of agee with Mr Ho though it was a little blunt to be saying it in public. “Now we know, the way to work with them is not to work with them at all.”