As promised, pics from me


The cute doggies 

Below are pics taken out of my house window which is 11 storeys high:)


Nice scenery 

close-up on the bridge on the extreme left of previous pic 

Deng, there was no need to remind me..... bother about ur own blog first. Yo shan, long time no see, and yeah... "tears" rocks.

Unknowingly, 2 terms have passed and we are into the June hols, the first substantial break since term 1. Where should I start blogging from?....Guess I'll start with the last week of sch.

Oh..b4 tht, just remembering that I overlooked something in my concert entry, the concert was my first performance with the timpani, I've never touched them in RI, okay I did, but left them to Bing Liang once I found out that my roll sounded digusting. Quite amazing that I could actually play it in 5 months, though with screw-ups here and there of course. On the first night, forgot to change tuning from G to A for chun1, so I was playing G halfway b4 tuning it too high to A#. lol.... For the second night, I remembered to change the tuning but in the end, I stopped my roll 2 bars early(I had to play while changing the tuning) bleah...other than those i guess it was a quite sucessful performance on the timpani.

okae...on to sch. as usual i have nothing much to say bout school, I'm de-sensitised by everything already. I didn't even react when I got full marks for physics test and failed my econs DRQ by 1/2 mark. Guess I'm utterly worn out mentally by concert and SYF. Even the prospects of failing GP common test seems to be too trival a matter to bother myself with. In the end, wrote on a repeat topic that we did in class, rather the only essay we did in class and comprehension wasn't that bad. Went to kevin's house after the test to do partnership bidding with xl. Yes, precision is accurate, but it also gives you a massive headache with all the artificial bids. Well, I'm glad that it's simpler than symmetric relays already.

Thurs was handover and zj took top position, expectedly(hmm..is that such a word?). Interesting facts to note, one, all guys in the comm were from RI comm as well, two, zj would be wielding great power now as a majority of his fan club members are holding high positions in the comm and three, percussion can claim to have the highest representation in the comm with 3 members of out 6 in the comm, thts 50% representation. lol, so thts me as perc SL, barbara as treasurer and Minjie as QM. Daiyu was damn nice, he bought stuff for everyone in the section, including a cuu....te soft toy of a big cute doggie protecting a small cute doggie. lol, if i have time, i'll take a pic of it and upload it. Barbara and Mingjie each got a dog too but they were complaining that theirs couldn't stand whereas mine could. They even contemplated separating the small doggie from the big doggie so that they could each take home a doggie which could stand. Luckily for both the doggies and me, they dropped the idea in the end. Well... congrats to all who got a position in the comm and thank you J2s for the wonderful 5 months.

Friday was interesting enough because of the "selection test" for NUSS bridge open. I arrived there early, anticipating the 16 boards tht we were about to play. Me and xl were trying out the modified precision system to get some practice of it in competitive bidding. Unfortunately, bong placed us in E-W which in the end only had 32% HCP. There was only 1 board where E-W HCP > than N-S HCP, the rest was well... u knoe. Therefore, our plan of practising bidding was warped into a test of defending contracts. We only declared 2wice in the entire "test" and both were "sacrificial contracts". Bleah...after the test, went to eat at S11, b4 settling into the cosy cube in the playground to do a re-enactment of Deng and someone. Talked till around 10pm b4 heading home. Sorry zj, missed another jing ying prac again.

Heading into the holidays, the contrast is really showing. From a state of mind where there was always something undone and something that needs to be done, to one of contemplation and reflection. The thoughts that were suppressed due to the hectic life are now returning to haunt and taunt me. The things that I should have done, the things that I should not. The people whom I've let down and the people who let me down. The words that should not have been uttered and the words that should have been screamed. I fell sick this morning and thus the whole day today was spent either sleeping or watching TV which provided me the much needed time to think through the aftermath thoughts of term 2. My conclusion at the end of the day was that JC life is much more dynamic than the sec sch one. Every split-second decision you make would have far-reaching consequences that you would not have imagined at first. Just when u think that I'm about to push the point that one should think through his decisions, no, it is generally observed that the most rational decision need not necessary produce the most rational outcome, often it is the opposite. The worst case scenario comes when u make a rational decision against your heart and then everything turns out the wrong way, then u'll be rooted in self-despair and regret. Thus, my advice at the end of the day, trust your heart, seldom would it go wrong, even when it does, the consequences aren't that hard to bear.

To honour those who had sacrificed so that others could reach the stars

In my whole life, I have believed in logic. But what is logic? What is reason? I spent my life trying to find answers and even sidetracked into delusions and hallucinations. When I regained my sanity, I've made the most important discovery of my life.

It's only in the mysterious equation of love that any logical reasons can be found. I'm only here tonight because of you. You're the only reason I am... you're all the reasons I am.

Quoted from film A Beautiful Mind(2001)

I just love this quote.....

10am

I opened my eyes to a new day...

Dazed...

My mind in a blank..

Hangover....

State of denial....

Something was missing...I felt empty....




Concert was over. The reality finally sunk in...

Concert can be likened to an alcoholic drink. Even when knowing that there would be a hangover, one would still drink it to get that "feeling". The only difference would most probably be that this "drink" is much more beneficial than the conventional one. Indeed, lao zhou's constant lament of "How to feel" can be used to a totally different effect here. "How to feel?" Happy because of the sucessful perfomance or nostalgia because last night was most probably the last time the 100 of us there would perform together?

I tried blogging this morning....this afternoon too... but I never got pass the first sentence b4 flashblacks of practices and performances would distract me from the task. There are currently 3 unreplied sms-es in my phone, dun feel like replying coz they seem too irrelevant. I tried to catch up on my tutorials too, but again my mental abilities failed me. For the whole of today, I seem to be sucked into my own whirlpool of thoughts, rendering me brain-dead and unresponsive.

Concert was a sort of success. For the first night, yeah, i admit we screwed up chun1 and taiwan and chang2 hen4. lol, but for the 2nd night, who would have expected us to reach that kind of standard in 2 weeks. Chang2 hen4 mian2 mian2 was really moving. I could feel tears welling up when we played the main melody near the ending. haiz... just wanted to say that every note I played for the last 2 night was for u, though u weren't there, just like last year.....

We always seem to want to put a full stop to every sentence, a final chord to every song, yet there would be cases where it is better to leave the sentence hanging in the air and allowing the music to fade into the background. Why trouble yourself to define when something stops when u knoe that whenever u define it to be, u would be wrong? Just like a hangover, drinking lots of water or tea would not help in any way, so just let the thoughts run and run and run until the effects gradually wear off.

Imagine a video cam postioned such that all the activities of the 2 days of concert were recorded. Running the video on fast forward, u would see an empty stage, to one that is filled with instruments, stands and chairs, to a brightly lit stage where we performed our hearts out, to finally back to an empty stage. When I walked into the PAC after clearing up, the empty stage stared back at me. I contrasted the feeling at that time with the one when I first stepped into PAC 2 days ago. It was so surreal just like a dream....

When a true performer clears up the stage after performing, he/she not just takes away his instrument and scores, instead, he/she takes away all the memories, the efforts, the good times, the bad times, the laughter, the tears, and he/she goes away a truly different person.

So dry your tears with love.....

Council what?

RJ continued with its signature high-handed way of making a mockery of things with the just concluded council investiture this afternoon. With all due respect to the councillors, I do not see the point of this event cept for it maybe acting as a photo-taking session for the parents who are here for a "once in a lifetime" glory of their children. Just exactly what is so significant about their handover that they must make the whole J1 cohort and teachers stay back and watch them do it? Not to mention that they took like 1 hour of CO prac when concert is like in 2 days.

To make matters worse, they started off a long string of speeches that began interestingly enough but soon became long monotonous droning. the principal made a comment that goes "Leadership is not a zero-sum game". lol, let me first explain a zero-sum game, it basically means that ur enemy's loss is your gain and vice-versa. A simple example of zero-sum games would be chess, checkers and so on. To lead on from the point, I don't see how leadership in RJ(at least in the sense of Council), do not fall under this catergory. Just look at the election process, would you say not that if a candidate did badly for the interviews, it is not to your benefit? would you say that if a candidate screwed up his/her campaign speech, it is not to your advantage? Then wouldn't the enemy's loss is your gain condition stand and thus classifying leadership under a zero-sum game.

The other speech that actually made an impact was the opening speech by the new council presisdent. Note: It was an openng speech. I was basically whiling my time away when suddenly, the opening speech of hers turned into a thank-you speech and caught my full attention. She started thanking the AV club ppl and so on for doing up the investiture but lol, aren't you supposed to set the direction and inspire the ppl in the opening speech? I mean, if u really want to thank them, the emcees can do it for you or u can do it next year, when the council is dissolved. Anw, thts besdies the point as her speech was I could only say "well-rehearsed and articulated". From the voice, the passion to lead and serve was sorely lacking and a great turn-off. I foresee a stable council in the next year, but it would be one that would be satisfied with the status quo and do things by the book, but well, "tried and tested methods" are often more effective.

The last part of the investiture was 2 item put up by the new council to impress the student population, but well, I was indeed impressed. I so sincerely believed that their dance is choreograhed in such a way that a wave effect is constant throughout and there would be a canon, u knoe like the normal canon u hear in music, playing a variation of the meleody or the melody itself behind the same melody by a certain time. After the dance, they sang a song, another self-composed batch song. Again, like all other times i hear ppl singing in mics in Rj, the mics seem to have something against the lead singer, keep making it sound off-tune and pathetically soft and weak. At the end of the day, my conclusion: the artistic abilities of the council is far beyond mine that I couldn't understand a thing. Likewise, they wouldn't understand(or choose not to understand) a thing I say.

To have an irrationale sense of hope,
To draw inspriation from small things and to inspire great things,
To take risks when no one else dares and to not take risks when everyone else does
To understand that change is the only constant....
and.... to not give up when u find urself back at square one

Yes, to be back at square one, my bg music has been changed again to the first bg music i've ever used on this blog. The name of the song insignificant, for it would not make a difference if i stated it explicitly. The most important thing is for u, the readers to be moved by the music....

There is no emotion
There is peace
There is no passion
There is serenity
Quoted from the Code of Jedi

Disillusioned? I dun knoe......

You know how life works? From the second we are born, we are thrown into a world of infinite complications that makes u forget how to live. As a child, we follow our instincts and live for life, but as we grow up, we become more entangled into this complicated world that we lose our focus. Sometimes, we just need to remind ourselves that while we are living every second, we are indeed too dying every second. The notion indeed should jolt u awake....

It was in the afternoon. The sky was overcast, the corridor was dark as a result. There was time to spare, thus I walked to a glass window and stared out at the sky. Feeling bored, I suddenly thought of an idea. I leaned forward and whispered through the glass window to the sky, " send me a raindrop". As if answering my prayers, it started to drizzle. Then the first raindrop arrived, splattered on the glass window. I placed my hand over it as though catching it and traced its descent down the window to the edge. Then, it started to fall again, away from the window. I watched helplessly as the raindrop fell......down into the hand of a person scurrying for shelter. When i looked up again, the glass window was filled with raindrops. My vision was blurred and the glass window slowly dissapeared, allowing the raindrops to fall directly on my face and into my hands...

Sometimes, it takes more than just courage.

A crazy Sat

hehe, I was in sch yest for a total of 14 hours and outside home for a total of 16 hrs. thts two-thrids of a day. lol, but it was quite fun yest. Prac in the morning, sectionals first. bing liang came over and i was playing chun1, dong1 and taiwan zhui xiang on the sound system, Slacked thru sectionals, only to practise some parts occasionally. Guess everyone is still suffering from post-SYF syndrome. Orchestral prac was quite okae and lao zhou managed to finish chang2 hen4 mian2 mian2 somehow.

In the afternoon, there were interviews. While waiting for my turn, watched the publicity comm do up the banners outside the CO room. There was an flurry of action at first as they couldn't get the paint cans open. In the end, we used the hinge of a door as a lever and a hammer and a screw as battering ram to get it open. lol, talk about creative and innotive solutions.
Next, went in for interviews. The qns asked were quite okae, it was smooth-sailing for me at least for most parts of the interview. It was only nearing the end tht i start to shoot myself in the leg. lol, in layman terms, making contradicting statements and being unaware of wat u are saying. lol, it's amazing tht words can at times provide the magical touch to an expression and yet at times fail you and make u look stupid.

After the interviews, continued helping the publicity comm with the banners as I was staying for the chinese drama production at night. lol, as I was pointing out to kevin, the daji banner looks like it consist of an abacus, an orange apple (the irony) and a triangular glass evalator from Roald Dahl's Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. Well...not tht I'm complaining but..... In any case, kudos to tbe publicity ppl for putting the effort and doing such a great job.

At night, went with shan, deng, vin and zj to watch jing4, mirror in direct english translation. Deng came with his lion dance ppl which include..... So, we were like choosing a seat quite a distance away from him. U knoe, we were trying to cut down sg's power consumption, but deng insist on sitting rite in front of us, making us guity of excessive power consumption. lol, he better help us pay our power bills.
The play was damn funny and rather meaningful. Talks about this two ppl who were unhappy with their present life, so they "swopped lives" thru the mirror. Lawrence, Rich and Tan Long were seriously damn funny as they cracked one joke after another. I believe everyone would agree that Tan Long's impersonation of an Indonesian maid brought the house down. The play finally ended at 10.15pm, and i finally reached home at 11.45pm, obviously drawing disapproving stares from my parents. (Not to add tht I skipped a family function to attend the play)

THe rains and thunderstorms keep coming in these few days tht I reckon nature has caught a flu. lol, in any case, rain seems to be able to add colour or just a different perspective to RJC. RJC looks more beautiful in the rain, just like how it looks nicer at night than in the day. The feeling is just totally different...

Just wishing that u were here with me....

There was a thunderstorm today. The rain was indeed harsh, the wind merciless. Nature has its own ways of doing things that I seem never able to decipher. Just like today...

i am lagging terribly behind in tutorials and essays that these few words that I type can be considered miracles. 2 hr of math tmr and trigo tutorial not done yet. Go there, stone and die if get called. lol, i need some motivation to do tutorials and PW is indeed a waste of time. Just came up with my part of gpp just now, totally crappy as i really didn't knoe wat to write. Not the topic's fault, not my group members' fault, it must be the deadline then. Indeed, ask me to wrtie when i'm totally unispired and tired only results in crappy work. For now, lets stop here and continue with my trigo......

Everyone was on the edge of their seats as the emcee ran down the list of results.

Orchestra no.11, RJC....





Gold.


Yes.... we were beaten, but we're not dead and still very much alive indeed.

We walked out with our heads high knowing that we have done our job.... We celebrated like true winners in Cafe Cartel, Crystal Jade and Swensons...

Other schools can take the 2 words off the results from us, but they can't take away our dignity, our pride and most importantly, our memories....

In my previous post, i mentioned something of not losing urself in this complicated world. Similarly, we must not forget why were we at the SCH. For GWH? Never. All the orchestras congregated there to celebrate music. Everyone who had put in effort in preparing for the event would walk away as true winners, regardless of the award. Yes, GWH would have added some euphoria, but such euphoria are short-lived. What can compare to the friendships, memories, spirit gained from this event? Nothing....

Only when one is able to see that the significance of results is paper-thin, then will he truly be happy.

thrid time blogging todae.... just added xue li to the links and changed my bg sound yet again... this time it is I Will Come To You by Hanson, a song tht i think i promised to put up some time ago. Lead singer was 12 yrs old when he sang this, lyrics are below...

I Will Come To You by Hanson

When you have no light to guide you
And no one to walk to walk beside you
I will come to you
Oh I will come to you
When the night is dark and stormy
You won’t have to reach out for me
I will come to you
Oh I will come to you
Sometimes when all your dreams may have seen better days
And you don’t know how or why, but you’ve lost your way
Have no fear when your tears are fallin’
I will hear your spirit callin’
And I swear I’ll be there come what may

(repeat chorus)

’cause even if we can’t be together
We’ll be friends now and forever
And I swear that I’ll be there come what may
When the night is dark and stormy
You won’t have to reach out for me
I will come to you
Oh I will come to you
We all need somebody we can turn to
Someone who’ll always understand
So if you feel that your soul is dyin’
And you need the strength to keep tryin’
I’ll reach out and take your hand

(repeat chorus)

Just watched ice age on channel 5, such a meaningful cartoon... Manfred and the baby are so cute.... the whole movie was just so moving... The filmmakers captured the true feeling of innocence.... When Manfred looked at the cave paintings and was reminded of the time when the humans hunted his herd, his eyes were big and sad. His situation contrasted ironically as he was helping the baby find his parents. While he was deep in thought, the baby or "little one" came up to him, stared at him with innocous eyes, and hugged his trunk as though trying to comfort him. It was just so touching....the beauty of innocence...

Sometimes, we are just too caught up with complications in the real world that we forget our fundamental selves. Just like Diego, the tiger who was too caught up with serving his function in the society tht he loses his true self. Humans too, like u and me, must not lose our basic selves in trying to define ourselves in society. It is just so hard nowadays to look into a person's eyes and see only innocence, cept for maybe the babies and young children.

It finally rained todae, drawing a closure to the recent heat wave. Had 8-5 prac yest. practising in the amphitheatre reminds me of RICO prac under design block and the numerous perc sectionals tht took place in the un-air-coned hall, behind the hall, in the canteen and under design block......SYF in 2 days, got to start believing even at the extent of being delusional, coz crazy ppl do crazy things.... and if we are lucky, we might go crazy:)...