Watching the stars till they're gone
Like an actor all alone
Who never knew the story he was in
Who never knew the story ends
Like the sky reflecting my heart
All the colors become visible
When the morning begins
I'll read last line

owaranai ame dakishimeta yoru ga asa o mukaeru
kokoro wa mada nuretamama
(Endless rain, embraces me. Night approaches morning.
My heart is not yet soaked.)

In endless rain I've been walking
Like a poet feeling pain
Trying to find the answers
Trying to hide the tears
But it was just a circle
That never ends
When the rain stops, I'll turn the page
The page of the first chapter

kizutsuku dake kizutsuite wakatta hazu no kotaeo
doshite mada toikaketeru
(I'm only hurt. Hurt me.
The answer I should have understood. Why am I still asking the question?)

Am I wrong to be hurt?
Am I wrong to feel pain?
Am I wrong to be in the rain?
Am I wrong to wish the night won't end?
Am I wrong to cry?
But I know, It's not wrong to sing the last song
Cause forever fades

kigatsukeba mata hitori yoru no sora o mitsumeteru
sukoshi tzutsukiete yuku our memories
kizutsuk dake kizutsuite wakatta hazu no kotaeo
doshiite mada toikaketeru
(lf I wake up again, I'll gaze at the night sky alone.
Our memories fade away little by little.
I'm only hurt. Hurt me.
The answer I should have understood. Why am I still asking the question?)

I see red
I see blue
But the silver lining gradually takes over
When the morning begins
I'll be in the next chapter

owaranai ame dakishimeta yoru ga asa o mukaeru
kokoro wa mada nuretamama
kizutsuku dake kizutsuite wakatta hazu no kotaeo
doshite mada toikaketeru
(Endless rain embraced me.
Night approaches morning, my heart is not yet soaked.
I'm only hurt. Hurt me.
The answer I should have understood.
Why am I still asking the question?)

[The Last Song- X-japan]

Translations of the jap parts are in brackets, i didn't translate it so dun blame me if it's not accurate. It is amazing how X-Japan captures certain emotions and feelings that we normally can't define or pinpoint with exact words. "The answer I should have understood. Why am I still asking the question?" shows the state of constant denial of reality. By rejecting the truth/reality, we have chosen to believe in an alternative delusion that is most probably less painful. "Trying to hide the tears. But it was just a cirle that never ends." shows how this delusion might just plunge us into this cycle that sucks the life out of us. With reality's constant reminders, the upkeep of this delusion would be more delusions and one would have to come up with more and more reasons to convince himslef that reality is false. Such an upkeep is likely to be taxing and the song offers reason for it in "Am i wrong to be hurt? Am I wrong to feel pain? Am I wrong to be in the rain? Am I wrong to wish the night won't end? Am I wrong to cry?" The above names the negative effects that reality is likely to bring. So, should we go ahead and delude ourselves then? No,"But I know, It's not wrong to sing the last song. Cause forever fades" shows why. Reality may be painful but it is not absolute certainty as shown from the phrase "forever fades". It can also be infered that pain, no matter how painful, will fade. Hence, the resolution.. "I see red. I see blue. But the silver lining gradually takes over. When the morning begins, I'll be in the next chapter" Sadness, anger, fruastration... If we can endure them, hope will become apparent to us. The reality that was so painful would be a thing of the past and with luck, reality might be moulded to our whims and fancy. Reality and delusion. There is a delicate equilibrium of how much of each to believe in, but in any case, it is not wise to leave out any one of them. In response to vin's quote of "Hope is the greatest liar", perhaps it ain't that crucial to know the truth. Anw, if hope is the greatest liar, than one is in no danger of the pain that comes with knowing the truth. (I'm talking as though the truth/reality is always soemthing negative, but isn't it true that for many of us, where the truth/reality matters, it is often negative.)
我真的累了....

On thurs, was loitering in sch after lessons to while away time coz i didn't feel like rushing home and rushing out again for chamber concert. At around mid-afternoon, a thunderstorm broke out. The rain was so heavy that more than half the amphi was flooded with water. While many other ppl in the sch were cursing away at the bad weather, i was silently pleased at the way the rain made the school seemed less cold and unfeeling. The rain swiped off the arrogance and superiority, and taught humility and respect in the face of nature.

Ge Zhuang concert

whoops... missed this out in the previous post. yeah.. it was held on fri night at LT2. The styles of their songs were largely the same (marcus commented that the chords were like similar throughout), i'm fine with that but it would be better if they had more variations. There were a few impressive performances though, most notably by one of the alumni, who played the piano and sang at the same time. The play in the second half was downright cliched. Pardon the sacarsm, but ain't all love stories the same? (hmm.... well on hindsight, i can think of a few that aren't the same) There were a few loopholes here and there but i shall not dwell on them. The "moral" of the story or at least my interpretation of it is that the person tht is left behind suffers more than the person who leaves. 离开虽然痛，但至少是一种解脱... 留下的却得一辈子背着这个包袱... lol, the thought actually came after watching the last episode of a U channel show (can't remember the name, but i think it was shown on sun and it has damn nice chinese music in the background) and watching the play reminded me of that. ha, at the end of the concert, me and vin were like commenting on the no. of sad songs they have and why certain ppl shouldn't be watching....lol

The world is getting quite sad.... It seems easier to pretend and lie than to say the truth... ( i sound gp-ish- "should the truth be told at all cost?", but well i guess tht's good for the CTs tmr eh)

bg music is changed to love story, played by tkwo. Harmoc played it for their concert. The sax solo at the start is extremely....how to put it?... sensual?.. ha, tht's why i was complaining at the concert that the feel wasn't there...lol

Bball finals

Went down to Toa Payoa Sports hall after gp on fri to watch/support the girls' bball finals. The atmosphere there was electrifying. The whole hall was filled with tension and excitement and the crowd was doing its job with relentless cheering. RJ was up against VJ and i heard that we were the underdogs. The match was very evenly matched, with the points difference kept within 6 for the first 3 quarters (most of the time it was kept within 4) The VJ team was technically superior to the RJ team but i felt that they lacked the desire to win, or at least they had lesser desire to win than the RJ team. The difference really shows in the defence. The RJ players defended as if their lives depended on it and VJ was limited to 3-pointers and field goals (there were very little drives to the basket and the conversion percentage of the fast breaks was quite low). In the end, RJ won 57-47, scoreline was a little flattering coz the VJ team opened up at the back during the last few minutes trying to chase back the 4-point deficit. Wanted to stay on to watch the guy's match btw HC and AJ, but had to go back to sch for bridge. It has been a long time since i last watched a competitive bball match and it reminded me not of victory, but of the feeling of flying. 似乎有一种冲动，想找回那种...飞的感觉...

Daji Outing

Yay! With the comm outing as precedent, the perc section followed in its footsteps and had our first outing on sat too. The meeting place was at Bugis MRT at 6pm. I boarded the train and expected to reach at 6.05pm, thinking that with luck, i might be the first one there. Strangely, it was the two guys(me and bl) that were the lastest to arrive. I tot tht girls are always "naturally late". lol, afterwhich we went on this long hike to get to the steamboat shop barbara and michelle had been to b4. There was not enough space and we had to move to another shop nearby instead. Dinner was fun with 4 cameras around the table. bl attempted one of the many things listed in kwan's guide to stupid stuff ( ie. Cover ur face with ur bag when someone tries to take a photo of u) while i was resigned to my fate of having candid pics taken while eating. Gillian shocked us with her voracious appetite for beef, finishing one plate by herself and then went to get another plate. We finished around 13 plates of food too, though this time we had twice the no. of ppl compared to tht time at seoul garden. After the meal, we went on another long hike (for digestion purposes) to get to esplanade to take pictures. At esplanade, mingjie unfortunately conducted an experiment to find out the depth of the small pool at the entrance. Tht aside, we managed to get a few good pics in esplanade and on esplanade bridge (esp the one on the bridge) b4 realising that it was close to 10 and the NYBH ppl had to go back to their hostel. Was a really enjoyable outing and as SL, i must say tht i had fun throughout the year working with u all and even if i'm given the chance to choose again, i'll be with u all as a section. Percussion unite!

不做考虑也没半点犹豫
我就说了这一句我等你
你眼中闪过了一些压抑
更多的是怀疑
所以你可以离去

不相信你还会回心转意
是我任性才决定要等你
我眼中的泪没掉过一滴
只是随你背影
慢慢倒流进心里（底）

我等你
半年为期
逾期就狠狠把你忘记
不只是伤心的还包括一切甜蜜 (你应该已经和他公开在一起)

要等你
要证明自己我可以纵容你在心里
也可以当你只是路过的人而已

[光良- 我等你]

只怕自己不够狠心.....

Comm outing
Yay.. The CO comm finally had their first outing yest..... after the handover.. lol.. Went down to Seoul Garden at Taka where zj and kwan treated the rest of us... Thanks a lot! Entertainment during lunch was provided mainly by kwan and her camera phobic-ness. While trying to prevent stupid pics of her to be taken, little did she realise that taking a pic with a bag in front of ur face ain't exactly clever too... Yixuan, on the other hand, was being the perfect gentleman, peeling prawns for the girls. zj, marcus, weixiong and me couldn't care as much and were busily gobbling up food in front of us. Our table finished a grand total of 13 plates of food, far more than the other 2 tables, i dare say... After the meal, took a few group photos b4 heading down to heeren to take neoprints. Old habits die hard, we almost got into a comm meeting oustide the shop to discuss and decide which machine to use.. lol, when we finally reached a decision, we had to squeeze 13 ppl into the machine. Tht's the easy part... the hard part is to fit 13 ppl's faces onto the neoprint. bleah.. but we did it in the end...though some of them didn't really turn out too good. When we left the machine, the temp was considerably higher. lol, we are hot... Shuyu and Khoo were given the job of designing the prints and weixiong got sabo-ed in nearly all of them. Finally, each of us took a print back and the outing ended after that. Comm rocks!

音，心 - 意
tone, heart - the one art

It's over. The last note of the concert was drown out by the thunderous applause, marking the end to 6 years worth of CO. The feeling was excruciating, but the euphoria due to the concert provided a soothing effect. The performance, though not perfect, was a fitting tribute to RJCO. On may 7th 2006, within Singapore's finest symbol for the performing arts- the esplanade, RJCO celebrated music, passion and friendship.

Memorable events(in chronological order)

1. Buying mineral water at 40 cents per bottle
2. Drawing out the master dressing room key which will cost $75 to replace if lost
3. Screw up in the labels for the dressing rooms
4. khoo + kwan + trolley(with packed food) + lift = comedy in the making
5. realisng that the caterer was revada and cost $3 per pack
6. percussion being told to tone down by lao zhou
7. Telling ppl they have 45 mins to shower, change up, have dinner and make-up
8. Posing as an orchestra for the photo shoot
9. Putting glitter on the hair for qin wang
10. Playing the first note of qin wang
11. Carrying spongebob up on stage.. (the esplande stage ppl were saying stuff like, "u ppl are from jc rite?" and "spongebob is so.....gay")
12. Photo-taking in the green room with the daji section
13. Trying to take a combined photo with the rg ppl. The timer of the cam was counting down as we hear the last few notes of zhan ma, ran off immediately after the pic was taken.
14. Playing the last note of the concert
15. Playing the encore piece (according to a few sources, it was quite cute and we pulled it off quite nicely)
16. Training for shuttle run as i ran around 3 levels chasing ppl out of dressing rooms and locking the rooms.
17. Reaching sch at 11pm and started to move the instruments back to the CO room at tht time.
18. Was 15 mins away from being the earliest in sch on mon

Some stuff to add on, playing with my section, okay not just my section, with the guest players and the whole orchestra was a wonderful experience. The acoustics of esplanade enhanced it further. Thanks to all the people who sent me messages b4 and after the performance, really appreciated them.

For this concert, I was more involved in the preparations more than any other concert i was in b4, partly due to the nature of the logistics post i got in concert comm. It started like 3 weeks b4 the concert, after i sat in a meeting btw esplanade staff, lao zhou and zj. From tht day onwards, there seem to be endless stuff to worry about and u wake up everyday having some problem that needs to be solved by the end of the day. Thankfully, the j2 comm showed character and resilence and ploughed through with no one shirking their responsibilities. It was kind of satisfying watching the events on concert day unfold despite the occasional hiccups. Knowing the effort put into making each and every part of the concert good allows a better appreciation of it.

Handover

Handover was rather light-hearted. Many of the j2s went out to J8 the day b4 to shop for present for the j1s. lol, i admit that i bought the turtle aka cute riceball/sushi on impulse and only thought about its significance after buying it.

handover started with zj giving his "final speech", in which he mentioned that RJCO to most of us is not just a CCA. It is instead defined by the beautiful music, beautiful friendships and the sense of belonging and connection that any orchestras/CCAs outside cannot provide. RJCO has gone beyond just a physical name for an organisation, it has become a spirit that is infused in our hearts. The current RJCO may cease to exist physically, but all of us are spiritually connected by the experience. This connection may wane and grow thin, but it would never break, for there is always hope that one day we would all come together again and relive that spiritual connection. It may not happen, but there will always be hope.

To the j1s:
Treasure your time in CO, there's only one year left for you to do whatever you want. After that, you'll have to put down your instruments and leave, just like what the j2s are doing now. Most of us dun even know when is the next time we will pick up our instruments and play again. Dun back down from challenges with the excuse that you cannot cope, cos u'll never know until u try. Anyway, it's jc already, if u are not going to try, there will be no chance left in the future. So, go forth and create your own memories.

To the new comm (if any one of you all would be reading this):
Just like to share my experience that allowed me to realise what defines the comm. Just a few days b4 the concert, me, zj, kwan and zihan were locked in a heated debate over make-up after night prac. I took a rather uncompromising stand on it coz i was rather fed up as the issue was dragged for weeks. As a result, the discussion went nowhere(obviously) and i left rather abruptly. As i walked out of the CO room, one question hit me: "What is the purpose of a comm?" As i arrived at an answer, i immedialtely sent out sms-s to apologise. My answer? The comm is formed to solve problems, not to add problems. If at any one point in time u find urself adding problems rather than solving them, u might want to question ur very existence as a comm member. My analogy of a comm is something very simple- a candle. U burn and give light, not to draw attention to yourself, but to illuminate others around you so that they can be seen...

To the j2s:
Very simply put, thank you. I dun know what else can i say.

It feels like an amputation.... a sinking sense of loss... But what's coming across is not sadness, rather it's a sense of victory.... akin to a soldier returning from the battlefield after winning a war......