playing the cello . . .

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

It was SYF. Everybody was tense. Had to wake up at 4.45 am, bathe, warm up and get to school. Put on tie, even had to apply blusher so as not to appear like ghosts on stage. Got our asses down to the auditorium and rehearsed. Hard. Nerves started to come. Got on the bus. Held on to two cellos for dear life. (I practically had to hug them)

Got to SCH. Saw plenty of interesting ensembles around. Mostly all girls or all guys ensembles. Saw a few hideous outfits but shall not comment.

Got to tuning room. Heard another ensemble through the speakers. Started to feel stressed. Lined up and waited. and waited. Ms Ku said that we sounded better than the speakers. We tried to believe that. She told the upper cellos to go for it.

Got on stage before we knew it. Tried to walk gracefully but was quite difficult manuevering the cello around the stands and chairs. Started playing. Started off a little shaky but recovered. Was over before I even knew it.

Got off stage, watched the other ensembles. Admired some, dissed others. Right, taxy?

Break for the judges. Taxy complained frequently that she wanted to pee.

Taxy: I want to pee!!!! (fidget fidget fidget)
Elizabeth: So do I!!!!
Sunny: I'll let my bladder explode if we don't get honours.
Nicole: *heh heh*
Elizabeth: I thought that was a toilet sign. Talk about mirages.
Aaron: HEY!!! SHHHHHHHHHHHHH-UMIN!
Taxy: *glares* DON'T EVER SAY SHHHHHHHH! oops i just said it.
Taxy: *messes around with court shoes*
Aaron: TAXY!!! PUT YOUR SHHHHHHHH-OES BACK ON!
Taxy: *tries not to laugh too hard*
Jincheng: AARON!!!!! AARON!!!!!IM SCARED DO YOU KNOW THAT OH NO WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO AHHHHH! *shakes poor aaron roughly by the shoulder*

and something like that. Continued the painful wait. By then even I felt like peeing. False alarms. Somebody would shut up and then say "SHHHH" (much to the agony of taxy) and then soon everybody will shut up and look around alarmed. Then somebody will laugh and then everybody will say "CHEH!"

The judges did arrive. and the silence was deadly. The announcer person who mispronouced numerous things (eg. edvard as edVARRRRD) started introducing the judges. Turns out one of the judges was shirong's violin teacher a few years back. Almost all the judges knew strings well. The announcer started thanking the people and stuff. By then everybody was like "GET ON WITH IT NOW! LIKE NOW!"

Finally it came.

Announcer: Now for the moment you have all been waiting for. The results.
Everybody: *shiver* *shiver* *melt* *whisper*
Announcer: The results will be announced in order of appearance. First, Ensemble no. ST 20, Dunman...
DHSSE: *GASP* No its not right it can't be its not us we were not first.
Announcer: Secondary School...Bronze.
Dunman Sec: AHHHHHH! AHHHHHHh! AHHHHHH!
DHSSE: *sigh*
Announcer: BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH silver! acs: gold!
DHSSE: uhoh. that's not good. is there even such a thing as honours? *whisper whisper*
Announcer: Nanyang Girls: gold with honours!!
DHSSE: oh there is. right. *shudder shiver*
Announcer: Ensemble no. ST 27, Dunman High School.
DHSSE: *pray pray pray*
Announcer: GOLD...
DHHSE: *deflates*
Announcer: WITH HONOURS!!
DHSSE: AHHHHHH AHHHHH AHHHHH AHHHHHH (basically we were just mad)

That's all i cared about. We got our honours. We proved ourselves.

PLAYING ON THE CELLO : 8:14 PM

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Hello everyone. WAIT THE FONT IS AP. oh right. this is nice.

First I want to thank (gosh i sound as if I just won some star award. But my acting really sucks everyone should know that. I can't differentiate a laugh from a cry) anyway I want to thank Linette and YingXian for helping me with my blog. Yingxian (who doesn't really know me but does know me and blah yea) for the template and Linette for helping me with the stuff. YAY!! It looks nice.

Benji the rich boy wants to do something with the tagboard. Oh whatever. NO YOUR FACE SHOULD NOT BE ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE AGENCY'S WEBSITE. Don't think I'm mad.

I kept nodding off during chinese today. I can't help it. Ask linette for details or something.

SYF IS TOMORROW. LIKE TOMORROW. OH NO I HAVE TO MEDITATE IN A FEW MINUTES TIME. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! GAHGAHGAHGAHGAH. Then time to practise the B-B shift. the bb shift. bbbbbbbbbb shift. I'm going nuts. Help. Wish me luck. And everyone else luck too.

PLAYING ON THE CELLO : 8:49 PM

Saturday, April 23, 2005

Hello everybody.

I just read a blog entry which made me realize how we must treasure everything and everyone around us. It might sound cliche, but I think it's really really true. I felt bad after reading it as I'd been rather short-tempered for the past week what with all the tests to study for. So I tended to get irritated about the most insignificant of things. Sorry to everyone I had offended or snapped at. I didn't actually mean it. And to that particular person, stay strong! I can't believe I'd been around this person all this while not knowing what happened. Really sorry to hear about it. =(

Well it's down to three days to judgement day. The nerves will start to come soon, I'm sure. I can't bring myself to imagine what could go wrong during those 8 short minutes. Sigh. But we must aim for honours! HONOURS! (sorry if i sound slightly deranged)

I just wasted the whole of today, really. Had full dress rehearsal this morning (nope still can't get that annoying B-B shift in tune, I'm afraid) And mdm low actually bought all of us macs breakfast okay. Right out of her own pocket. How nice of her. THANK YOU!!!!!

Have decided to work harder for the next three days. I must (i mean must) get that shift in tune. Or else it'd be disaster. I'm not trying to make myself seem like i contribute so much to the sound, but there's only 4 of us playing that part and if i go horrendously out of tune, then...

Oh yes and a message to Josiah's cello: STOP GOING OUT OF TUNE. DON'T BE SADISTIC. YOU KNOW THAT YOUR FINE-TUNERS DON'T WORK SO WE CAN ONLY USE THE PEGS. AND EVEN YOUR PEGS TURN BACK BY THEMSELVES. ROAR YOU.

I should go back to being sane. It feels slightly better.

Stupid chem test on monday. I hate you.

3 days.

PLAYING ON THE CELLO : 9:28 PM

Saturday, April 16, 2005

movies
( )Aviator
( )Assault on Precinct 13
( )Appollo 13
(x)Anaconda
( )Anaconda 2
(x)Anna And the King
( )Napoleon Dynamite (what is this. It sounds like a cartoon)
( )Saw
( )Spy Kids
( )Spy Kids 2
( )303
( )White Noise
( )White Oleander
( )Anger Management
( )50 First Dates
( )Jason X
(x)Constantine
(x)Scream
(x)Scream 2
(x)Scream 3
( )Scary Movie
( )Scary Movie 2
( )Scary Movie 3
( )American Pie
( )American Pie 2
( )American Wedding
(x)Harry Potter
(x)Harry Potter 2
(x)Harry Potter 3
( )Resident Evil I
( )Resident Evil 2
(x)Electra
(x)The Wedding Singer
( )Little Black Book
(x)The Village
( )Donnie Darko
(x)Lilo & Stitch
(x)Finding Nemo
( )Finding Neverland
(x)Inspector Gadget
( )Inspector Gadget 2
(x)Bring It On
( )Bring It On 2
( )Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original)
(x)White Chicks (a little. not the whole thing)
( )I Robot
( )Dodge ball
(x)Lemony Snicket-A Series Of Unfortunate Events
( )Along Came A Spider
( )Deep impact
( )Never Been Kissed
( )My Brother (sounds boring)
(x)Meet The Parents
( )Meet The Fockers
( )A Cinderella Story
( )The Terminal
( )The Rundown
( )The Lizzie McGuire Movie
( )Passport to Paris
( )2046
( )Deep Blue Sea
( )Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(x)Final Destination
( )Final Destination 2
( )Halloween
(x)The Ring (both jap and english) o.O
( )Hide And Seek
( )Harold & Kumar
(x)Hollow Man
(x)Practical Magic
(x)Pirates of the Carribean
(x)Chicago
( )Windstruck
( )Ghost Ship
( )From Hell
( )Hellboy
( )The Day After Tomorrow
( )Child's Play
( )Bride of Chucky
( )Seed Of Chucky
( )Ten Things I Hate About You
(x)What Women Wants
( )Just Married
(x)I Know What You Did Last Summer (erm this is the one with paddington bear-lookalike right)
(x)Gothika
( )A Nightmare on Elm Street (isn't this a goosebumps book?)
( )Sixteen Candles
( )Bad Boys 2
( )Sleepy Hollow
( )Seven
( )King Arthur
(x)Ocean Eleven
(x)Ocean Twelve
( )Flight of The Phoenix
( )Identity
( )Lone Star
(x)Bedazzled
(x)Vertical Limits
(x)Predator I (i think)
( )Predator II
( )Alien VS Predator
(x)Independence Day
( )Cujo
( )Golden Chicken -_-
( )Golden Chicken II -_-
( )A Bronx Tale (???)
( )Darkness Falls
( )Kungfu Hustle
( )Tokyo Raiders
( )Seoul Raiders
( )Christine
(x)ET
( )I Do I Do
( )Children of the Corn
( )My Boss' Daughter
( )Maid in Manhattan
(x)Moulin Rouge
( )Frailty
( )Best Bet
( )How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
( )She's All That
( )That Thing You Do
( )Calendar Girls
( )Sideways
( )Mars Attacks
( )Event Horizon
( )Secret Window
( )Forrest Gump
( )Big Trouble in Little China
( )Jeepers Creepers
( )Jeepers Creepers 2
(x)Catch Me If You Can
(x)The Others
(x)Freaky Friday (a little. on a plane to australia)
( )Reign of Fire
( )Shaolin VS Evil Dead
( )Cruel Intentions
( )The Hot Chick
( )Powerpuff Girls (WAHA)
( )Swimfan
( )Miracle
( )Old School
( )Armagedon
( )Ray
( )The Notebook
( )K-Pax
(x)The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
(x)The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
(x)The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
( )Hitch
( )Back Door Sluts 9
( )The Fifth Element
(x)Troy
( )Star wars episode I
( )Star wars episode II
( )Star wars episode IV
( )Star wars episode V
( )Star wars episode VI (i watched one of them. Duno which)
( )Nick Of Time
(x)Vertical Limit (is this a repeat?)
(x)Ace Ventura
( )The Babe (I don't presume u mean Babe like babe the pig?)
( )Blue Velvet
( )Sound of Music
( )Starship Troopers
(x)Parent Trap
( )THE BURBS
( )Mortal Combat
( )SLC Punk
( )Meet Joe Black
(x)Titanic
(x)Pearl Harbor
( )Wild Girls
( )The Pianist
( )The Order
( )Conmen In Vegas
(x)Love Actually
( )Second Time Around
( )Return From The Other World
(x)Spiderman
(x)Spiderman 2
( )Amelie
( )Mean Girls
(x)Shrek
(x)Shrek 2
(x)The Incredibles
( )Collateral
( )Collateral Damage
( )The Fast & The Furious
( )2 Fast 2 Furious
( )Sky captain & world of tomorrow
( )Closer
(x)The Sixth Sense
(x)Artificial intelligence
(x)School Of Rock
(x)Space Jam
( )Like Mike
( )Yesterday Once More
(x)Shutter
( )Ella Enchanted
( )Princess Diaries 1
( )Princess Diaries 2
(x)The Mummy
(x)The Mummy Returns

PLAYING ON THE CELLO : 6:32 PM

Thursday, April 14, 2005

It's late and I should be sleeping. But I'm not. Don't know why. Instead of doing this i could be doing something else more constructive instead. Like theory or studying for MEP test. But NO. That's so not like me to be hardworking. I'm planning to bring my theory along to MI tomorrow and hope it magically gets done tomorrow before my piano lesson. Which is rather unlikely, I think.

Mum VOLUNTEERED to host two taiwanese boys this friday evening. They'll be staying for a night. Which actually means I'll have to give up my room and sleep on a matress in the study room, as opposed to them sleeping on matresses in the study room. It's ironic, really. And I'm supposed to converse with them but I think that'll be a problem given my horrible spoken chinese vs their fluent chinese and my better-than-my-spoken-chinese english vs their probably-worse-than-chinese english. Confusing? Doesn't matter. Doesn't make much sense to me either. The only consolation is that I won't see them for any more than 4 hours. Because they'll sleep early (I think) and I have SE on saturday morning. Oh right we have to perform for them on friday.

So far I think 2 golds have been awarded to DHS, Choir and Chinese Dance. And just today (which is actually yesterday) EDS went for their Dance. And on Friday (which is actually tomorrow) Band will be going for theirs. And next friday CO will be going for theirs. And one day before us, Guzheng will be going for theirs and one day after theirs we will be going for ours. I just made myself sound so terribly stupid.

Hey all SE people reading this (probably little. I'm surprised that Zhuen reads this. He came to correct me that Nobert was Norbert and that he didn't name him. Maybe it was Elizabeth who named him) That's besides the point. At this point of time, we only have 13 days left to practise. That's... less than 2 weeks. Which is a really short time. So it's only right we put in the extra effort for the remaining 13 days and achieve what we want! =D

MI has been rather frustrating for the past few days. So much work to be done and we're only left with one day to piece things together. I'm rather proud of what I did today though. I'd say I accomplished quite a reasonable amount of work. And we're planning to split our group into 2 halves, one presenting in English and the other in Chinese. Thankfully I was classified under the 'english-proficient' half so that nobody will get to hear my horrible spoken chinese. But everybody will get to hear my horrid MEP composition because we decided to use it as one of the 4 multiple-intelligences. Talk about recycling.

I seriously need to find a new blog template soon. I'm sure you're agreeing right now. My blog looks chewed up. Everything's not updated. Except the posts.

Wish me good luck for piano lesson. And MEP test. Make that TESTSSSSSS. And Mep assembly concert. Gosh MEP is really eating up all of my time. Okay i'll stop complaining. Don't throw things at me.

PLAYING ON THE CELLO : 12:24 AM

Monday, April 11, 2005

Hello everybody. I am currently in the computer lab in school. During MI week. And we're supposed to be researching. But I am getting distracted. And I just witnessed a rather comical moment when jiayin couldn't log in to her edulearn account. Because she forgot what her preferred username was. HAHA and she just got in and it's not funny anymore.

How boring. Okay jiayin u can stop staring at the screen now. I'm not going to say anything more about you. SHOO. SCRAM. SHOO FLY DON'T BOTHER ME. HA it worked. Not fair jiayin got the geography survey. And i had to get the chinese one. Phooey.

Yesterday I was fretting because I had cello lesson today and I had originally wanted to bring the cello to show Mr Song whether it was advisable to buy it second hand. But I had MI meeting and I had thought that we'd be going to other schools to interview people. But we had to obtain permission. And we hadn't. So we're stuck in school. AND I COULD EASILY HAVE BROUGHT THE CELLO. GROWLLL. I'm hungry. Jamie has confided that she wants a LIFT in our school. And Lili konked his head in despair. This is going to be a hard task.

I'm getting bored blogging. Maybe I should play games. No I shan't be naughty. Back to sustaining DHP, people. Bye.

PLAYING ON THE CELLO : 10:10 AM

Saturday, April 09, 2005

Hello everybody. I'm bored right now. And that's why I'm blogging. Weird me, taxy, and wynne had this strange conversation about blogging just yesterday:

Taxy: When you're bored, you blog.
Wynne: and sometimes, when you blog your bored.
Taxy: NO...You're not bored when you're blogging.
Me: Sometimes I am.
Wynne: And when you're bored, you're blogged.

I think there were some stuff in between that, including some discussion about tongue-twisters. I don't want to make Wynne seem like someone who spouts irrelevant nonsense. Although that is sometimes the case. :) Talking about people who spout irrelevant nonsense, Josiah (who was recently given the nickname "Josie" by taxy) said that once somebody asked him how the weather was in an attempt to irritate him. And his reply?

It was salty.

Does that make sense or does that make sense? It's interesting, nonetheless.

Yesterday I was supposed to have pe but because I'm still sick, I didn't run. And as a result, I missed out on a chance to excuse myself from running during pe lessons until the test date itself. So I sat there staring at the stopwatch watching people zoom by. While Krystal sat next to me screaming out the timings as the girls passed. I had to do for the guys, which means much less shouting for me. And Yvonne had the rather unfortunate job of writing everybody's timings down. At first, you could keep track of how many rounds somebody has run. But after awhile, people like LiLi would zoom so fast that they'd be more than one round faster than the others. That sure made us confused. But to quote Krystal, "Aren't they counting it themselves? We just have to shout their timings."

So LiLi finished with a time which was faster than the time I used to take to run 1.6. And all the guys except Roy passed, cos he got stitches. Which means, the next time, the only guys running will be Roy and myself and I'd picture him to be way ahead of me and i'll be trailing behind coughing on the dust he'd kick off the ground.

Chem prac was horrible. Very horrible. Let's just say I did so many things wrongly and I didn't know how to fold filter paper. Which prompted our dear ms tan to say : SOME PEOPLE DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO FOLD FILTER PAPER. I'M VERY DISAPPOINTED. Oh ms tan, could you try to make your statements more subtle instead of booming it out in front of the class? And also: SOME PEOPLE ARE VERY GOOD AT LEAVING BLANKS.

Had SE yesterday and this morning. Not much to say there, but that we must all work hard if we want that gold. And YOU! GET YOUR SHIFTS RIGHT! They sound horrible. Oh Oh there's this cute little injured bird on the right exit of the mpr. Which ZhuEn named NOBERT. I asked him how he knew it was male, and he said that he didn't. So poor Nobert could very well be a girl who should be called Noberta or something. And lose some weight, yeah. You're round and fat and fluffy meaning Linette would love you. And you, reading this, would think that I'm extremely mad to talk to an injured bird. Who would not be reading this by ANY chance.

Amazingly weird quote of the day:
Taxy: Oh Josie! How's Rosie? Are her cheeks still rosy?

Or something like that. I was too busy coughing and laughing at the same time.

PLAYING ON THE CELLO : 3:30 PM

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

I'm sick. I have been since Friday. COUGHHACKSNEEZESNIFFLE. And fever to add to that too. Only I don't know what sound fever makes.

I went back to school today after resting at home on monday and tuesday. Thankfully not much work was given. If not I'd go to school with a butcher knife and kill the teachers that did. Just kidding. I can't possibly do that. If I really did that I'd be killing 3 teachers already.

SYF IS GETTING NEAR!!! I'm kind of freaking out. There's only 20 days left to practise, not including today nor T-H-E DAY.That's bad. It's not that I want to be critical, but I don't think we're in good enough shape to actually go for the competition in 20 days. We need to work harder! Oh. I just realized something. 10 practices left. UHOH.

So many things could actually go wrong while we're on stage playing our guts out.
1) The cello endpin could slip and you'll look like a total idiot.
2) The tuning peg could come to life and turn back by itself.
3) The bowhair could detach itself and you'll be playing with things flying around distracting you.
4) You could forget everything and stare into space.
5) You could send the bow flying and poking somebody's eye as a result, after an attempt to look stylish on stage by lifting it triumphantly after a decisive three note ending of a particular piece.
6) You could choke because of your disgustingly purple tie made from leftover gown material. Then you'll turn purple too. A darker shade.
7) You could trip and fall on your face while getting off the stage.
and the list goes on...

So you see, anything could happen. And almost none of them can be prevented if you are extremely unlucky and klutzy. Except the first, which can be prevented by getting a stopper, something that 4 cellists have yet to do. I being one of them. AHA!

I have cello and piano lesson tomorrow. I have not touched either. Nor have I touched theory. Nor have I touched the geog mindmap that we were supposed to do. I somehow find it incredibly hard to summarize ten thousand pages of tiny words into ONE mindmap. Not that I bother to read it anyway.

This is such a dull post. Oh yes. I remember something. I didn't do pe today because I'm still sick, right? So I watched as the rest of the class ran 5 rounds around the field and basketball courts, do shuttle-run in pairs, and lastly pull ups. One of the more memorable moments included Mr Siva sweeping the basketball court with a broom to get rid of sand that could potentially make them fall and flatten their faces. And Yuxin crashing into Jason not very politely during the shuttlerun. Boy am I relieved I didn't do it. I was supposed to run with him. I wouldn't want to get crashed into.

Then we had this fake fire drill which was so lame.

Mr Low (over the pa system): School, there is going to be an evacuation exercise. The bell will go off right after this announcement.

Just imagine. If this were to be a REAL fire...

Mr Low (over the pa system): School, there is going to be a fire in 5 seconds' time. In fact, the fire is in the general office, where I am making this announcement. Everybody, e...vvaa......................cccccc................u......a.....t..........eee *gets engulfed in smoke*

Doesn't anyone see how pointless it is to say that "the bell will go off after this announcement?"

I think I'll stop here. Certain people are pissing me off right now.

PLAYING ON THE CELLO : 6:13 PM