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.

Making Money

“A banker? Me?“
“Yes, Mr Lipwig.”
“But I don’t know anything about running a bank!”
“Good. No preconceived ideas.”
“I’ve robbed banks!”
“Capital! Just reverse your thinking,” said Lord Vetinari, beaming. “The money should be on the inside.”

Moist von Lipwig, former masterful thief and swindler Albert Spangler, is soon to become former Postmaster in this Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett. Don’t be deluded by the title, it is not –  and I repeat, NOT — a self-help guide to making you rich. Instead, plenty of philosophical questions about money is hidden beneath the complex and wacky plot of how Lipwig is about to start his goal of making money.

“People who understand banks got it into the position it is in now,” said Vetinari. “And I did not become ruler of Ankh-Morpork by understanding the city. Like banking, the city is depressingly easy to understand. I have remained ruler by getting the city to understand me.”

Lord Vetinari, ruler/tyrant/dictator of Ankh-Morpork is the one who offered Lipwig a new life after a false hanging. Now he’s tightening the noose in an attempt to revamp the banking sector of the city, so as to ensure the government can get their hands on enough cash to carry out plans. Lipwig remains hesitant, however, but is nonetheless thrust into it by inheriting the ownership of the chairman of the bank, who goes wuff and doesn’t chair meetings but licks the legs of chairs . He also has to deal with the Lavish family, who owns the other 49% of the shares, and seem to be more than willing to ensure Chairman Fusspot dies of (un)natural causes as soon as possible. Within the bank, he has to deal with entrenched methods like coin-manufacturing which is inefficient (a farthing costs more than a penny to manufacture yet has less worth?!), the Chief’s Cashier’s undying loyalty to gold and a sexually liberated golem who drives him mad. With the return of his fiancee and the news that she has discovered some hidden golems, the city of Ankh-Morpork and the banking sector is able to face a crisis that only Lipwig can handle. And who heck is that reverend of Om who knows his true name?! Oh and did I mention the Igor who tries to transfer the note-artist’s brain into a turnip, the budding economist Hubert with his machine the Glooper and the 300-year old necro — I mean Professor of Postmortem Communications — Professor Flead who keeps trying to look up Lipwig’s fiancee’s skirt?

“But, you see, once you have made it, a penny keeps on being a penny,” said Mr Bent. “That’s the magic of it.”
“It is?” said Moist. “Look, it’s a copper disc. What do you expect it to become?”
“In the course of a year, just about everything,” said Mr Bent smoothly. “It becomes some apples, part of a cart, a pair of shoelaces, some hay, an hour’s occupancy of a theatre seat. It may even become a stamp and send a letter, Mr Lipwig. It maight be spent three hundred times and yet — and this is the good part — it is still one penny, ready and willing to be spent again. It is not an apple, which will go bad. It’s worth is fixed and stable. It is not consumed.” Mr Bent’s eyes gleamed dangerously, and one of them twitched. “And this is because it is ultimately worth a tiny fraction of the everlasting gold!”
“But it’s just a lump of metal. If we used apples instead of coins, you could at least eat the apple,” said Moist.
“Yes, but you can only eat it once. A penny is, as it were, an everlasting apple.
“Which you can’t eat. And you can plant an apple tree.”
“You can use the money to make more money,” said Bent.
“Yes, but how do you make more gold? The alchemists can’t, the dwarfs hang on to what they’ve got, the Agaeteans won’t let us have any. Why not go on the silver standard? They do that in BhangBhangduc.”

Welcome to the Discworld, where reality is so entangled with Pratchett’s fantasy world that you start to see parallels whether you want to or not. One of the key themes that screams out as you read this novel is that of the gold standard and what it truly means. Today, paper money is an accepted form of currency, and we treasure it as if it were real gold. Truly, it represents a promise that the bank will exchange the piece of paper for an equivalent value of gold should you want to. But why? What’s the value of gold that makes it larger than life? At least apples can be eaten, but can gold be? What is the whole point of tying the value of currency to gold? Why not potatoes? Just merely because it’s rare? Then why not diamonds? I don’t guarantee that you’ll get all the answers in the book, but at least it stimulates one to think about them. Very interesting indeed.

“An error, sir, is worse than a sin, the reason being that a sin is often a matter of opinion or viewpoint or even of timing, but an error is a fact and it cries out for correction.”

The Chief Cashier and suspected vampire Mr Bent, holds error to be worse than sin. And Moist von Lipwig’s idea of printing paper, in his opinion, is the worst mistake than could ever be committed! How dare he undermine the true value of the metal that never decays?!

“And we talked to some of the lads from the Post Office last night and they said we could trust Mr Lipwig’s word ‘cos he’s as straight as a corkscrew.”
“A corkscrew?” said Bent, shocked.
“Yeah, we asked about that, too,” said Shady. “And they said he acts curly but that’s okay ‘cos he damn well gets the corks out!”

Unfortunately, or fortunately (depending on your viewpoint), the other bank staff do not share Mr Bent’s opinion. With Lipwig’s previous sparkling records in reviving the Postal system, it is highly unsurprising that people were charmed by him and his ways. Oh, do read Going Postal too, preferably before Making Money (I have, a long time ago); it’ll clear up some plot questions about the man in the Golden Suit.

Making Money is a great novel to read and reread and I definitely suggest you start now. Lord Vetinari’s traps, Moist von Lipwig’s smooth talking, Cosmo Lavish’s pathetic obsession, the gold standard, turnips, golems… this book has them all. Enter the magical world of Discworld, where reality is reflected (maybe distorted) at almost everywhere you look, after all, angles are fractal.