baggage…

listening to:
Colbie Caillat - Bubbly

This is SUCH a turkey song….. but so nice…

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh EMERALD is struggling again with the same issue she's been dealing with for fourteen years…. MORE THAN A DECADE!! it's such a long time….
and yet she knows she just HAS to give it to God. She gave it back quite some months ago, but seems like she wants it back again. why does she want to carry this cross of envy she doesn't know, but it sure isn't a smart thing to do.

She realises that growing up is not fun, and with it come many many many things. and now she just wants to find her memory 10-verse buddy and recite 1 Corinthians 1…

..
wondering if it's time for me, and what it entails and how long more. 

high school ensembles…

phew… long day… had the opportunity to listen to a high sch ensemble (HSE) play today… it's seriously been a long time since i last heard one.. probably during my own syf days itself. 

had originally thought it was gonna be a total string concert. was a bit disappointed to find out that it was a combined-with-choir one. left a meeting early for it, should have stayed for the meeting… ignored mind over heart. argh. God must be trying to tell me something. i should trust Him more next time.

anyway the concert on the whole was rather… =.=… for the choir.. could tell the pieces which were very well-rehearsed from those that weren't. i liked the one abt the twelve tribes of Jacob… super interesting piece… would like to get a hold on the recording… the piece from the alumni choir was interesting! wow the conductor's singing was really good.. 

couldn't wait for the string e. cos that was what i was there for. hmmm… not v. impressive i would say… guess cos i was going there with a slightly different viewpoint… i wasn't there to support a friend in the orch… it was just to see what's the standards of HSEs are like…

the last time i heard a HSE was during my syf days itself.. and can say i was rather impressed with other HSEs back then cos i guess i was young and impressionable. heck, what i thought we played well during our jc concert, i cringed hearing it again two years later….

i wonder if it's cos the standards have dropped or i've just been exposed to better music and understand more abt intonation/ phrasing more now… i would believe it's the latter. 

hmmm it's made me wonder abt how kids are being pushed nowadays… not only do they have academia to contend with, but music too… some of the friends i have who used to play have been turned away completely from music. and only a handful remain playing, out of which a fingerful actually major in it.

syf - for the gold or for the betterment of the individual's musicality?

the sinf conc. was interesting. made me think a lot. despite soloists' lacking in some areas, they played with something that i never really had - confidence. my flaw is that i worry too much. worry abt what this person would think of me… whether there's a person in the audience who plays better than me… whether my notes are in tune… whether my phrasing are correct.. if i tongued it correctly… and then i get stage fright. even now. the only way to get over the SF is to pray. and so far all the time it has worked. the times which i didn't pray.. i just screw up. 

kinda felt that T's conducting was rather static during the string e. guess cos it was a comparison between the choir conductor and him. it's different, cos the choir had memorised their pieces and could look at the C always. whereas the SE had their noses in the scores and i guessed most of the shaping of the music was already done during the rehearsals.. 

all in all… i guess it's not bad for a HSE. after all it's quite an elite school… so should have standard one right? i wonder how my alma mater sounds right now… LOL.

wish i had a recording of my batch's HSE SYF… i wonder how i would sound to myself right now. 

 ARGH. exam tmr.

oh wow

it's exam time and yet………………………

i've had one of the best times ever! it's pretty surreal. thanks J thanks T…

and you wonder what’s it like to be ordinary…

this post will be a fact filled one…. and with a little big teaser at the end…

first up… presenting Marc Yu, who will be in Singapore on tues at the VCH for a talk on child prodigies.. presented by Nat Geo. click here for more information…

then… see a youtube on marc on the ellen degeneres show…
the way he talks is so matter-of-factly it's quite unnerving… i wonder what's it like to look into that mind of his…

after that… here are some facts from nat geo…

Only 1 in 10,000 people has perfect pitch, the ability to identify a musical note without reference to other notes.
yay.. so i'm slightly unique

The number of possible chess games is greater than the number of atoms in the visible universe.
This seems pretty mind-boggling!!

A skilled pianist can play up to 30 notes per second.
Anyone keen to take up this challenge? heh… 

Lastly, something i stumbled across.. for your Reading-Aloud pleasure.. go ahead try it! If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. it's from here.

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

fluff friends

ok fluff friends is too cute to be deleted. i shall just not up my level and leave it as it is. maybe now and then when its speed goes down . arrrgghhh….

speaking of fluff friends… this was my f.friend before i changed to this…

      ———>>> >>>

yup and tht's cos i really tried squirrel… first time…
thanks to J and T who drove across the border… i never knew T had such exotic cravings.. lol
he's a really interesting guy. glad J introduced me to him… 

exam time.

hi all! life's been really good so far.. despite it being exams now.. .there's so much to thank God for… our team's accomodation has been confirmed!! and we even have a room with a piano… PTL.. 

recently a brother has been really emo.. well.. he can switch between emo and unemo really fast.. but you know what they say abt musicians… it was a joy to catch up with him and i really do pray that he will really give it up to God.

so far 1 paper down and 4 or 5 more to go..  (i can't remember…)
exams this year is beginning to seem rather monotonous to me… maybe it's been 16 long years of exams every year. can't wait to graduate and start a new chapter of my life.

but i know i'm gonna miss some things.. like having my own place to stay in. ntu's so far from the world (it's $3.50 the moment you leave the school by cab and $5.10 when it goes on the PIE at the part where the PIE separates from the BKE).. .crazy… but it has a nice lush green campus… and it's almost self sufficient… with mama shops around the corner and lots and lots of canteens…

shifting back home will be hard.. for one i'm gonna miss the working aircon and bed in hall… i so HAVE to renovate my room at home… install new a/c buy a bed get rid of the tableS and install new windows so no one can ever pry them open and peep into my room early in the morning.

and also, now that i'm not home… whenever i go back, i don't argue with my parents as often as before. i guess it's cos we don't see each other so often they don't argue with me when i'm back.  but i predict it'll start all over again when i live with them. i so hope not. and my daddy will really lecture me on the most ridiculous stuff.. don't understand why he can treat a certain cousin of mine like a big adult when he was at the uni level. but i'm still a small kid to him. maybe he doesn't see me grown up yet? oh well…

practising has been going on fine.. i have a dream.. and shall work towards it. and as usual.. my practising becomes better during exam time than school term… cos no more classes! no more liabilities…

but there's so many things to worry about this year being a final year student.. final year project… is one big headache. don't know where to start. don't know how to continue. don't know what i should do.. that is why it ain't called no final year for nothing… (i wonder how many negatives will rule each other out…)

facebook is irritating more than anything. cos……….. besides fluff friends… i don't see the need to add on any other application and ppl keep on sending me invites… but then i really should delete fluff friends from my list too….. it's bad for the health… in fact i shall do right so after i end this post.

it's a box i'm carrying (referral to play "You Are Special" based on Max Lucado's two books "You Are Special" and "You Are Mine"). thanks again to A for telling me about the play… you were awesome! that's right ppl.. support the arts! =)) (and i got to know abt it through facebook… so i guess fbook isn't all that bad…)

ok back to studying… before blogging becomes another box.. 

argh

of beers and sharks.

came across this video….
reallllllly funny!!!

here's another one… to do with sharks… i can't wait for the dvd to come out or for it to be in singapore.

i remember my cousin rosemary taking a stand on shark's fin soup. and now it's my turn. especially after seeing the trailer to this movie. as much as i love shark's fin soup, i'm not going to order it ever again. it will not be at my wedding. but if i attend a wedding and it's on the menu, i'd just eat it in remembrance of the poor shark that died. but i will not order it myself.