just another post.

oh my goodness! i just finished an anime 2 days straight!! i know.. it's crazy but i was really hooked! this is the second anime i've ever watched in my life. the first being hale nochi guu and i didn't even follow that through. but…. NODAME CANTABILE is sooooooooooooooooooooo nice!!!!! yipppee~

i really want to go buy the series. it's very very inspiring and the pieces are awesome!!! can i recommend all the music friends of mine to go watch it? please please please please please. haha.

anyway thursday just saw the end of an essay. PHEW. It was a crazy one. I never thought i'd put so much effort into something which I am not even given credits for. But i begged to be in the class despite not being able to get the Academic Units. I guess if you do something out of interest, you give it more effort. Rather than having to do something for the grades, your focus on the essay will start to change. =.="""

But now i have an Final Year Project to look at. and i've decided that i'm gonna channel the passion for my music essay into it. And i'll treat the FYP as something that W, C and I are going to publish in a journal or something. this means 120% effort!!!　ぎゃぼ！！！

there's so many things in life i have an interest in! like history, music and shipping (i guess). if only i could study history… the essay inspired me to go delve deep again into the roots of the world. and i am transformed back to 1615 when Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation and how the Lutheran Mass was adapted from the Catholic. And i'm insipired to study music too…  what with me and my perfect pitch too… *sigh* i believe i'm not pushed hard enough yet. 

and pushing the wrong way can cause me to lose my interest. failing me for two full years when i got an A1 in the end and your best students got B3 was not the way to go. history is subjective and not everyone has to write in your style. i lost my interest then.

scolding and using brute tactics to get your students to do something causes their love for something to wane. looking in retrospect, the students who dropped out are the ones pursuing music full-time and the ones who remained are not save one.

but here i am. in a course that will guarantee something i have longed to do for the longest time - travel. and yet while studying i get the best of all the worlds. i get to play my instrument still. and attend music classes.

and in the class on thursday we dissected CPE Bach's Symphony. And it got me pretty sad too. cos we made him seem so predictable. perhaps that's why i don't want to study music too? cos i love baroque, and when one breaks down the piece into its elements, like the theme, how it modulates, the key's relation to the original blah blah blah it becomes dead. the piece has no more life to it. and when you listen to it you are no longer enthralled. you just listen out very very academically how the piece is written. and that's sad.

it's akin to seeing a beautiful person and wanting to know how come the person is so beautiful, you decide to take her apart. and so you separate the heart from the arm from the eye. and then you realise, actually there's nothing that makes her so different. but when you put the whole person back together again, you realise she's dead. and that there's no more character and life in her.

what a way to think huh. 

musings

and suddenly i've been given so much time. and i am at a loss of what to do. i have so much to start on. but i have to overcome one thing first - inertia. then again, it may be the much needed rest from the horrors and battle of last night.

i (sometimes) dislike it when things don't according to plan. especially if they are things i look forward to doing. i guess if it's something i don't look forward to then i'm happy if it doesn't go according to plan.

i feel as if i'm deterioriating. i need to start an exercise regime once again. and i'll start by going for one of my infamous "pyschotic long walks" (inside joke) right after i blog this entry.

i'm tempted to head down to town, but town is where it's at. where it's crowded and i have to pass by a whole huge crowd at jp before i head to town where there is more crowd. i want to practise but i don't know when she's coming back. i guess i could head to the music rooms. i have logistics to do but ….. but.

have you ever had the feeling where you stand at the platform and thought what it would be like to just jump off as the train approaches? it's definitely a "once-in-a-lifetime" experience. like jumping off a 20-storey building, or off a bridge onto the highway below. but a stupid way of putting "once-in-a-lifetime" yah? *shudder* cos after that you have no more life.

it is nice to have the environment around you quiet. yet you long for companionship. someone to share that quietness with you.

today we took a walk with God. mine wasn't the same as C and X's experiences. i poured out my fears, concerns and worries to Him. and He knows.

Tagxe

HOLA fellow S'poreans…

i'm here to promote a service I just discovered!

YES! It's a taxi-sharing service…

I happened to stumble upon it while on facebook. So i decided to sign up for it.

So I'm just gonna spread a little cab love ♥♥ ♥ around and require YOU to go to http://www.tagxe.com and sign up for it too!!  Don't forget to quote me, "emerald" as your Referal-er (or whaddeva you call it)…

think about it - you get to your destination faster, you're guaranteed a seat, and it's cheaper than taking one whole cab by yourself… yes i know the name looks a bit odd.. but… a rose by any other name will smell as sweet… yah?? =PP

And especially those who go to the east from NTU/West on Sunday mornings…. I'm gonna love you guys! 

distracted

an example of how much i can deviate from my fyp

and so halfway i went down to get brunch, and there was my fav vege in store - lady's finger. and so i was curious to know about what's it called in mandarin. my roomie doesn't know cos apparently they don't have this in hongkong. 

then i went on wikipedia and found out that another name for it is okra… and i couldn't read the chinese version so i gave up, and the scientific name for it is Abelmoschus esculentus.

and yes blogging abt sth so trivial does constitute distraction as well. 

ok better get back to fyp.         

upset.

Before I share about my day today, I want to share about Wednesday night. I was super contemplating whether or not to go for Japanese class or orchestra practice. And then that very night I had a dream:

I dreamt that the ex-pres of NTU SE sent me an sms saying that it was ok if I cannot go for the practice, and that I should just go for my Japanese class.

So I decided to honour God and go for the Japanese class commitment. And I realised the next day that indeed I had to stick to my word and go for the Japanese class instead of my usual Bible Study with the Open Cell. So even if I didn't go for Japanese class, I would have been answerable to the cell group. yup.

 ————

anw… on to today: 

I was upset that
there was a jam that delayed A in coming to meet us for dinner

I was upset that
because of the jam we couldn't be early for band

I was upset that
I didn't get to warm up

I was upset that
I didn't get any useful practice done today

I was upset that
we were suddenly surprised by some visitors today

I was upset that
I was still not warmed up

I was upset that
we played a piece with a few bassoon solos

I was upset that
I was stupid enough to change from a new to an old reed.
(and so it couldn't sound…=\ and i changed it back thereafter)

but i'm happy that
I remembered the tune of a Thai piece I learnt 7 years ago during a TKGS MEP trip and I quickly ran out after band prac to ask one of the ladies the title of the piece and got it! yay!

Side note: I even remember that the Thai "Do" is our "La" i.e. a minor 3rd lower. (I sincerely hope I'm correct on this and would love to hear an affirmation…)

so overall………
I'm happy. =)

something from PnP

"…and to her (Elizabeth) it was equally evident that Jane was yielding to the preference which she had begun to entertain for him from the first, and was in a way to be very much in love; but she considered with pleasure that it was not likely to be discovered by the world in general, since Jane united, with great strength of feeling, a composure of temper and a uniform cheerfulness of manner which would guard her from the suspicions of the impertinent. She mentioned this to her friend Miss Lucas.

    'It may perhaps be pleasant,' replied Charlotte, 'to be able to impose on the public in such a case; but it is sometimes a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him. and it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in the dark. There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all begin freely - a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement. ..."

i love Jane Austen and Gutenburg!

Kstan

interesting!!

I was having dinner with S and D, and then we started talking about a group of people seated near us. They looked really strange! Like they were confused if they were Asian or White… and yet they kinda all looked the same! In the end, we guessed that they were most likely from Central Asia - I was guessing Kazakhstan or Ubekistan, the only two "-stans" i know besides Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I don't think they could be from Afghan or Paki cos my impression of ppl from Astan and Pstan is that they look pretty much homogeneous.  Plus, X just went on a visit to CA not too long ago, and she was telling me how mixed they looked…

So i did the next best thing - and went straight up to their table and asked them. And I found out that they were….. nope! not exchange students from Kazakhstan but full-time students!! On scholarship. Not sure about what they study here, but they're pretty new to Singapore. One sophomore and 3 freshies.

And then I called X and told her about it, and I was referring to them as Kazakhstanis and I googled it and realised i was wrong!!! they are Kazakhs!! oh well…. and i also finally took a good look at the map of Kazakhstan, and it does have a sea - the Caspian Sea - potential shipping opportunities… and Kstan is pretty big indeed!

It has CHINA!!! on its east border and Russia on its west - which probably explains why one guy in the group looked damn white and the other looked damn cheena.

i think it's really cool! to have so many different ppl around me in hall. v.v.interesting indeed!!

i'm glad i went to ask! cos if i didn't i'd be killing myself now for not having satisfied the curiosity of mine, for not being daring enough. also, i feel that i am a leeetle beet more knowledgeable now, at least i know where Kstan is. otherwise i'd be akin to an American who thinks Singapore is part of Japan. oh well…

hope to get to sit down and talk to them and get to know them better. i think it's really cool to have ppl of different backgrounds around. 

facebook rants

===QUOTE===
Facebook is a social utility that connects
you with the people around you.
===UNQUOTE==

A columnist in today's The New Paper wrote about how addictive facebook is. Personally, I don't find it so. It's basically just like another friendster. I treat it more of a resource than anything. In case I need to find information, in case I need to find an acquaintance. 

In any case, a stranger actually once approached me on facebook, just cos he was attracted by my picture. In fact, I just saw his name in yesterday's papers. Charged for an account of molest of an 8yo girl in church. I don't know what happened, and I don't want to judge. All I can say is that when I saw on his Facebook profile back then that he was a Christian, it actually came across as nice, and a little comforting, to know that someone has the same faith as you do. All I can say now is that I will pray for him. If he was misunderstood, that he will learn to forgive, and if he really wronged someone, that he will repent.

I felt kinda bad for actually writing out his name on my blog when I got his message. After all, he didn't write on my wall did he? So he didn't exactly mean to be public right? anyway, now it's deleted. oh well…

=\

ZI CHAR UNCLE DOESN'T DELIVER ON FRIDAYS!!! =(((((

of lecturers and emails

this associate professor keeps on sending us so many jokes. wish she would keep the final year students out of the loop… irritating.