my bloggay!

2010-08-09T22:46:00.001+08:00

in the arms of Your mercy i find rest
'kuz You know just how far the east is from the west
one scarred hand to the other -

2010-06-13T20:23:00.001+08:00

Thou and Thou only, first in my heart
High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art!

2010-05-24T23:57:00.000+08:00

you offer hope when our hearts have hopelessly lost the way
oh we've hopelessly lost the way ...

2010-03-21T20:23:00.001+08:00

this my song through endless ages,
Jesus led me all the way!

2010-03-08T23:05:00.003+08:00

what can wash away my sin?
nothing but the blood of Jesus
what can make me whole again?
nothing but the blood of Jesus

oh! precious is the flow
that makes me white as snow
no other fount i know,
nothing but the blood of Jesus

:)

2009-12-16T02:45:00.001+08:00

off to ...

INFINITE :D
16th - 19th

camp camp camp! 4 days 3 nights of focusing on God and just spending awesome time in fellowship. loveeeee :)

2009-12-06T23:56:00.002+08:00

i love serving, i really do. i love knowing i'm doing sthg that pleases Him (hopefully) and bring others closer to God, in one way or another.

but sometimes things, and people, are so frustrating and disappointing i don't see the point. today was absolutely disgusting, yes tt's e only word i can use to describe it. it's almost amazing.
must remind myself who i'm doing it for, all the time. argh :/

strange, but nowadays my favourite time of serving is library duty :)

-----------------------------------------------

but at least the day ended well! with a trip to artfriend to top up on supplies for Christmas cards, & a lovely piaowu dinner at fiesta brizilia :D

2009-11-15T18:18:00.002+08:00

what is the point, then, of being the leader of a group of people you do not love, nor prioritize, nor care enough to spend time with?

what is your purpose of organising something for them, when you cannot be bothered to cast aside another area of your life for a few hours to get to know them and understand them and talk to them beyond what needs to be done for your event to be successful?

angry, yes i am, and very. because i love those people.

2009-10-10T22:53:00.003+08:00

today during p&p worship prac i was suddenly flooded & reminded of God's amazing blessings :)

for block test 1, i was chocked full with band pracs for syf, H3 test, & worship pracs (still leading p&p then); for block test 2, the weekend before the bulk of the papers, i was occupied the whole saturday and >half of sunday doing youth sunday stuff; for prelims, i neglected some subjects and slacked off quite occasionally doing things like going to the airport and camping in front of the comp to sound horns (mousehunt).

yet God has proven amazingly faithful, and while my results aren't stellar, they're more than i deserve and i truly truly am thankful beyond words.

throughout this year there's been so many times that i've strayed, so many things that i've been distracted by. i can't even begin to count the number of times i've led or played for worship and felt like a freaking hypocrite because i'm telling ppl to not do the very things i've committed. there's even some really shameless moments that i count the number of hours i spend in church a weekend (7-10 hrs) and calculate that if i spent it studying instead i might get more As.

but God is God, and He has pulled me through. He who sees all my horrible thoughts and shameful deeds, He has still showered me boundlessly with blessings and love. sometimes when even i can't stand myself, He reaches out His hand to hold mine, to touch my heart. He offers His embrace, and even His shoulder for me to cry on.

how do our human words: awesome / amazing / wonderful / magnificent etc even vaguely begin to describe Him? i think chris tomlin got it best when he said 'indescribable, incomparable' :)

i don't know what i will get for As, but above all, i know that He will be with me as i strive to run this last mile in my JC life. that He is the one who will cheer me on, offer me water, wipe my sweat away. whatever the wretched piece of paper that i get in Feb/Mar '10 says, i really hope that i will be at peace, because it is all in His plan, & because He knows my future.

thank You, Lord :)

'My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from Him. He alone is my rock and salvation; He is my fortress, I will not be shaken.' Psalm 62:1-2

2009-09-02T23:29:00.001+08:00

if i find in myself desires
nothing in this world can satisfy
i can only conclude i was not meant for here

speak to me in the light of the dawn
mercy comes with the morning
i will sigh and with all creation groan
as i wait for Hope to come for me

for we, we are not long here
our time is but a breath, so we better breathe it
and i, i was made to live,
i was made to love, i was made to know You
Hope, is coming for me
Hope, He's coming

-------------------------------------------------------------

c.s.lewis song, brooke fraser :)

2009-07-05T23:17:00.005+08:00

youth sunday's over :(

although it was really stressful & pracs took up a lot of time & everything clashed with blocks, but i guess i'm quite sad tt it's over! esp kuz after this i prob won't be doing much leading & playing for worship until after my As, so yeah. SWAN SONG WORH.

it was a really memorable youth sunday though and thanksgiving goes to:

1) God :) for everything!

2) my worship team!
i love you guys okay although i make a lot of noise when you all come late and throw tantrums at you randomly. but thanks for just sticking it out with all the pracs: ivan who has projects; hj who might have h1n1; samantha who has Os; elijah who ... aiyah you slack idiot. oh also hazel for harmonising amazing grace; and aletheia for learning 'Our Father' in Db when i forgot to sing it :/

3) the dancers for youth item
really touched by e effort put in :) and super pretty larh bet the church was stunned hahahaha.

4) choral group aka YF!!
for coming down for e long prac, for coming to church at 7.45 am, for sounding so gorgeous and making a beautiful song take on even more meaning :)

5) auntie vicky, auntie april, pastor wesley, pastor james, random old uncle who stopped me in my tracks to say 'it was very nice', damien, jaclyn, daniel's mum, uncle john <3
it was just really really sweet to get that kind of encouragement :):)

6) jon lau
for the slides and sorry for being so demanding! lol. publicity ftw!

7) congregation:
for singing and worshipping, it's really awesome to see hands raised and to hear voices overpower mine thank you :)

8) kaiwen/daniel/reuben:
hahaha the permanent youths! kw, for photography and just being you; daniel, for doing sound for me and being fun to jam randomly with; and reuben for running up and down to find out if the communion table and pulpit can be moved hahahaha.

9) you:
for the barley-buying & just being there w/ me for everythingggg. & i'll step down le i promise! :)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

now i have no excuse to not mug :/

2009-06-21T18:31:00.004+08:00

and the only time i ever saw Him run ...

was when He ran to me
He took me in His arms
held my head to His chest
said 'my son's come home again'

lifted my face
wiped the tears from my eyes
with forgiveness in His voice He said
'Son, do you know i still love you?'

- 'when God ran', phillips craig & dean

2009-06-07T23:01:00.006+08:00

amazing that the deepest joy and peace is found in the simple act of clasping my hands, closing my eyes and lifting my worries to You. that when nichole nordeman sang 'see the girl trembling by her father's side - she is why You must die' it felt like a thunderbolt because it is so awesomely unbelievable yet true. the King who became a servant, the lion who turned into the sacrificial lamb, the Creator who died for his creation ... the most beautiful paradoxes ever :)

2009-04-27T23:01:00.004+08:00

dawn; and the first vestiges of rays appear (beginning). with each expanding circle of light, the sleepy village rouses itself awake, gradually, gently (A). in the meadows, the flowers lift their heads in expectancy while the leaves spread themselves wider apart, fighting for the best space to catch the sun first, all this while the prisms continue streaking the sky, one by one, every colour revealing itself to be brighter, more beautiful than the one before (B). finally, the sun appears in full majesty, and all the people of the village open their doors and gaze out, awestruck, marvelling at the glory and power of the light radiating in every direction (C).

but the clouds and haze set in, hiding the sun from view, and in vain the children look upwards, squinting to see a glimpse of the light, but - nothing (D). faces downcast, the little village's population leave their houses to go about their daily lives, but rain starts falling, thunder cracks (E-M), and the village's in chaos as the storm threatens to tear down houses and uproot the plantations and fields that hold their livelihoods. in vain, the people run and try to hide. the sky grows darker still (N-O), and they try to fight, but the darkness overtakes them repeatedly (motif in P-Q) even as they put on their bravest fronts. in the end they collapse, dejected, despondent, desperate.

suddenly a ray of sunlight bursts through gently, like a miracle (R), and hope is renewed - the entire village falls on their knees, hands lifted as they pray in reverence and wonder (hymn). the clouds clear as a gentle breeze takes away the dust and remains of the storm, the sky turns blue again (S), the flowers turn their colourful faces upward to the light once more, and the people's faces are wet with tears of joy (T), even as they continue their praise and thanksgiving. Finally, the sun rises and makes its way to the highest point in the sky, illuminating the rest of the world, and the village sings its song of jubilation and victory (U-X).

hymn to the sun <3

2009-04-13T21:27:00.001+08:00

i need gp tuition :(

2009-03-13T20:12:00.003+08:00

O Christ my King of sympathy
whose wounds secure my peace
Your grace extends to call me friend
Your mercy sets me free

I can't explain this kind of love
i'm humbled and amazed
that You'd come down from heaven's heights
and greet me face-to-face

and i know i'm weak
i know i'm unworthy
to call upon Your name
but because of grace
because of Your mercy
I stand here unashamed

:)

2009-02-19T20:18:00.003+08:00

kuz You're my Jehovah Shalom :)

it's really been a while since i've felt peace like that, and it's an amazing amazing feeling.

' and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.'

- Phil 4:7

'peace i leave with you; my peace i give you.'

- John 14:27

'come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and i will give you rest.'

- Matthew 11:28

it's really awesome to know that despite the turmoil of everything around me, and for the past few weeks in me, God can still give me peace both in Him; and with Him yay : )

thanks to kaiwen for sharing philippians 4:6 and being online when i needed someone last night, and not being that 'someone', but showing me to God ;

& thanks to herman for everything else :)

2009-02-04T22:30:00.004+08:00

even the brightest-burning, most beautiful flame is bound to die, sooner or later.

and that's life.

2008-12-21T22:41:00.001+08:00

camp's over, but i'll do e full post & stuff ltr. for now, just to sum it up ...

our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
with wisdom, power & love

our God is an awesome God

2008-12-18T00:42:00.002+08:00

off for ...

YF CAMP '08!

love.

2008-12-12T10:26:00.002+08:00

i wish people didn't know.

makes it easier to take when it stops being true, eh?

-

6 days before camp, roughly when panic starts setting in :/

all e last minute changes, pracs, issues, printing, training. it's nice to know God's on our side :)

<3 bbpcyf to bits!

2008-11-27T22:05:00.001+08:00

' A robber and the Saviour walked hand in hand into paradise. '

- Every Day With Jesus, 15th Nov, Nov/Dec 09 issue.

:)

2008-10-24T05:04:00.001+08:00

TAIWAN.
251008 - 011108

contactable via hp @ a rather costly rate, i think. so smses only :)

<3

2008-10-19T15:16:00.002+08:00

phail.

if i didn't know what i meant during blocks, well, now i do. in every sense of the word.

holding on to 1 peter 5:7 for now, but that aside. i should write up giant 'FAIL' posters and stick them everywhere in my room. motivate me to mug harder i guess.

thanks to all who encourage :) i won't be very good company for a while i guess. sigh.

2008-10-10T00:19:00.003+08:00

when we've been there ten thousand years
bright shining as the sun
we've no less days to sing God's praise
than when we first begun

' you found God, sir? '
' i think He found me. '

- amazing grace (2006)

2008-09-29T21:10:00.004+08:00

if you need a direction in life;
if you want to be certain of your future ...

COME FOR

MENOMORE
bbpc yf camp 2008!

at the salvation army
from the 18th - 21st december '08
only $40 for earlybirds, non-YFers!
(if you're unable to pay we can help out somehow too :) )

yay e video's awesome. enjoy e last 2 minutes hahahaha.

find out what it means to be a family
figure out who killed who in who died
redefine the word fun
find true love :)

for more info, http://bbpcyf.wordpress.com/
or talk to me! i'm very friendly.

2008-09-11T00:18:00.000+08:00

i never cease to amaze myself by how petty & spiteful i can be.

you know, if i weren't me, i'd hate my guts.

-

it's at times like these i truly truly wonder how God would ever love someone like me. or why He would listen to me when i pray, knowing how i am deep down inside. why He's blessed and spoilt me so infinitely when i don't deserve anything, really.

guess i understand better now how magnificent romans 8:38-9 really is.

2008-09-06T23:22:00.003+08:00

to covet
to wish, to long, to crave, to yearn, to thirst for
to desire wrongfully, inordinately, immoderately;
especially something that belongs to somebody else

if covetousness is to want something that does not belong to you, then it's definitely the most committed sin in the world.

2008-09-01T11:17:00.003+08:00

sept hols. 23 more days til promos, 32 more days til freedom. i WAS going to announce a hiatus, but then i realised it's quite stupid kuz i hardly ever blog anyway. so i'm going to announce ...

BBPC YF CAMP 2008!

aren't afraid aren't ashamed
Lord we know who we are
we are Your people and we won't be silent
unifed hear us cry at the top of our lungs
You are our God and we will not be shaken
- my future decided (hillsongs)

i'll do a proper publicity post (which then and again is quite futile kuz nobody visits this place anyway haha, but i like) when signups start, i.e. 28th Sept. check out for details, but meanwhile, keep e dates free and SEE YOU THERE!

-

time
it took the most of me
and left me with no key
to unlock the chest of remedy
- higher than hope (nightwish)

nightwish makes good mugging music, though i get distracted by e awesome instrumentals & riffs haha :)

2008-07-20T16:13:00.002+08:00

9.7 on IMDB
94% on rottentomatoes
4 stars by roger ebert

LOVE nolan, bale, ledger, caine, freeman, zimmer, newtonhoward!

& nope i haven't watched it yet. should go gv max or gold to watch haha :) yay singles club start saving up money & we'll go watch when cinemas are a lil emptier whee! but omgosh SO KOOL larh.

meanwhile, killer term ahead with stupid PW & tests start like. this thursday what with SPA and all. annoying much. ahh well. just makes me appreciate weekends and the friday-night-jamming people / saturday-night-movie people / sunday-afternoon-meeting people much much more. <3

2008-06-29T17:06:00.001+08:00

yay i harth sundays muchly!

anyway, here's just a quote from reuben tan! which i felt i HAD to post kuz it was just darn funny larh the way he put it.

" yep that's life. you earn some ... and you spend it all. "

hahahahahaha :)

2008-06-26T19:01:00.002+08:00

today's end of blocks for me, but incidentally also the end of my social life, if i ever had one.

time to mug hard if i want to pass promos, kuz i ...

PHAIL :(

2008-06-19T17:11:00.006+08:00

eagles - third day

my pain and problems keep me chained
and my troubled heart makes me weak
i'll wait for You to comfort me
and in You i know i'll find my strength

i will soar on the wings of eagles
i will learn to fly high above this world
and i will soar on the wings of eagles
i will learn to fly
i will learn to fly high above this world

i tremble with this heavy weight
and i'm buried underneath my grief
i'll run to You and not grow faint
and i'll lay my burdens at Your feet

i will soar on the wings of eagles
i will learn to fly high above this world
and i will soar on the wings of eagles
i will learn to fly
i will learn to fly high above this world

-

:)

jiayou everyone for blocks!

and it's official, i've a crush on Tuomas Holopainen. ahhh such a kool keyboardist & shuai songwriter & brilliant band leader! & he's born on Christmas. haha super kool larh. seriously man he's like the awesomeness behind nightwish. where else can you find a songwriter who can

1. rearrange a musical into headbanging metal (phantom of the opera)
2. rewrite a ballad (over the hills and far away) into symphonic rock in triplet drum rhythm
3. incorporate the northamerican flute & lakota speaking (creek mary's blood)
4. have elements of fantasy novels (wishmaster) yet be power metal
5. include shakespeare's lines into an ode to the ocean tt sounds almost techno (deep silent complete),
6. be scathing to ex-singer (bye bye beautiful)
7. tell a sweet story about a lost little girl (eva)
8. include an orchestra in an epic (the poet and the pendulum)
9. use Bible verses (gethsemane)
10. use an 18-person choir and still feel it's not enough (ghost love score)
11. include a finnish painting of a wounded angel in the mv, of a song which name means a flower that never fades (amaranth)
12. use stories from the odyssey (nemo)
13. use an electric violin and a SITAR (the siren)
14. talk about the loss of innocence (dark chest of wonders)
15. dedicate a song to a solar eclipse (sleeping sun)
16. talk about environmental degradation & the end of the world (planet hell)
17. be so shuai :)

basically i can say smthg about any nightwish song tt makes it so much better than anything else. not to mention his keyboarding is like SUPER ZAI ahhhhh. & how every single song they have, has a really memorable & pretty riff. & i mean EVERY. guess that makes the difference abt nightwish, the fact that they really respect both instrumentation & melody :)

yay so much <3333.

2008-06-08T21:15:00.002+08:00

NIGHTWISH!

yay so so awesome :) :) for the unaware, they're a metal band that's not really metal, a mix of symphonic rock, altern metal, gothic metal etc etc. hard to explain, have to listen to a quite a few of their songs to understand, kuz they have such a varied musical style, but AHH SO MUCH LOVE.

here's one of their least metal songs, it's more of like. folk? haha can't classify, it's called creek mary's blood, it's about the extermination of Native Americans by e european settlers when they came over, & sang from the perspective of a native american, it's really amazing larh. made me cry when i first heard it.

lyrics here!

ahhhhh <3.

YAY THANKS REUBEN FOR LENDING ME THE LIVE CONCERT DVD! :)

-

2008-06-02T22:48:00.006+08:00

back from lep camp! okay shall do this chronologically.

CAPRICCIO XXIV :) :)

(okay the photo's a weird angle, kuz it's from KW who was sitting in a rather awkward position to take pics lol. so the entire percussion session, horns, trumpets etc are un-seeable. for more photos go band blog! & some other band ppl's blogs too. too lazy to copy & paste them here)

yay it was seriously awesome! super super nice. hymn to the sun was gorgeous, all the emotions that it evokes in ppl, peace at the beginning, excitement, tension, tears etc at e chorale / after chorale part etc. then shanhuhai & phantom which are the crowd-pleasers, armenian! which is lots of love too, especially the 5/8 part melody! anyway i've always had an obsession with folk stuff so armenian's really pretty :) & we didn't go too off for the last folk song, e fast one! so whee :) on main street's kool, though i think audience didn't understand, (and i wouldn't either if mrleng didn't tell us what all the different parts meant). yankee doodlin' was super kool! haha jackinthebox & e quacking. american graphity was funky, mostly kuz melvin's solo was FTW. couldn't control laughing while i was playing. & beatles to end off e day!

e whole day was really fun, going up and down e treacherously narrow steps up to e room e clarinets & trumpets were assigned, listening to e ppl around me talk crap while we were waiting for our turn to go onstage, and oh we elected new clarinet SL! was really quite amusing how weiyang did it, after section tuning before main band tuning, he asked us to go to the sofa area, asked who wanted to be SL, and only yiyi responded i think. so weiyang announced a walkover & yiyi's our new SL hahahahaha. but yep :) love band peeps!

haha let me zilian for a while - that's kw's photo of bassclars! :) oh dear why do we have different fingerings :/

so many many thanks to reuben, vanessa, kaiwen, daniel, herman for coming & e flowers, razo & quine for e gift, yay ma & pa & lorena who personally bought flowers & wrapped them for me, jaynechiangjieyi for coming, & e flowers too :) plus many many others i met on the way out like joanna, suikim & ruyi, yingjie, weelic, minzhe, annie! yay thanks muchly. ahh & i'm really sorry daniel!

after concert once we went back to school & moved everything back into salt band room, was major camwhoring session! was quite funny kuz when the j1s tried to take a batch photo the extra j2s kept doing stupid things like coming in and doing cartwheels right in front of us haha, then there were highsch & non-highsch (which once again the highsch ppl kept crashing) photos,
section pics, & all that. super kool yay :)

but sigh, this wednesday's elections & then we won't be e same band ever again, can't imagine how band will be like without e j2s around crapping. plus all e pro pro j2s who helped play all e solos & stuff. :( ahh well. jc life moves too fast for its own good. really don't know how i'll be like next year when it happens to me, kuz it'd be my last time playing bassclar i think? w/ my standard confirm cannot go to tertiary institute bands, & there's no way i'll ever be able to afford a bassclar. plus, who writes bassclar solo pieces? will be emoing away this time next year i predict.

-

after that was

LEP CAMP!

which was everything i expected it to be, aka absolutely sian. i realised it's partly my fault for going in with a darn buaysong attitude kuz

1) i HATE weekend camps. please take away family & church time from me ah.
2) i'm chao antisocial & am really not e kind to bond or make friends at camps, at all
3) attending lectures & talks & TRIPS TO MUSEUMS for goodness' sake sounds awfully kool
4) clarinets section outing & sweelee sale were on e 31st, both of which i missed thanks to camp

so yeah. talks were quite bearable actually, but e trip to SAM was super random, & they got us to come up with some performance (as with all other camps) on e last night, which was about e only time i interacted with my group. & i don't think i said a single word voluntarily actually, just listened to them and practiced what i had to. meals were good, had too much idle time in between stuff, it could actually be crammed into 3day2night larh! so i had a lot to write about in the feedback form, for once :D

the only good parts of the camp was the nights! yay thanks to KARENE YENPIN AND XIZI :) spent both nights hanging out @ yenpin's room & just talking crap - we seriously went extremes, like being chao shallow gossiping, then going into topics like death & spirits, with of course lighthearted stuff like ambitions & endless complaints about random stuff. & we ate an amazing amount while talking as well. then everytime we had free / idle time (which is a lot) during the day we'd head to the swings below the dorms & swing, sing stupid songs + talk crap even more. :)
LOVE YOU GUYS WHEE! haha karene says we can form our own clique already.

and here's the 08S61 ppl, minus zhangyan who didn't go for camp, and chunhing, renqi who somehow dashed off very quickly.yay really love the S61 CLL-ers! super fun ppl :) we only have 3 pure singaporeans amongst us, i'm the only one who speaks english @ home, we have more malaysians than prcs, & we rock!

-

okay enough of that, time to face reality & START MUGGING. compiling CLL / CSC notes which'll take like forever, considering how much we have to digest and memorise ahhh. but ahh well. am listening to e recording of concert to cheer me up while i type up the life stories of the tangshisongci writers :) love love love.

AHHHHH HYMN! admire the ppl singing during chorale (everybody except clarinet section + keyboardist) kuz if i were them i'd be crying too badly to make any sound.

2008-05-14T21:28:00.004+08:00

sometimes i wish, in that vast space between us, you'd talk to me.

& then i'd wish i'm like other people, who can start conversations so easily and continue them, that i'm funny, that i'm at least interesting to talk to somehow. that i wouldn't find it awkward to randomly start talking to ppl, even if i've known them for quite a while & see them practically everyday, that i wouldn't find it necessary to avert my eyes when i see acquaintances just so i can avoid saying hi to them, simply because i think it feels weird, that i'd take initiative to start msn convos, even if i don't have anything specific to say. there was a point of time i even considered (quite seriously) buying my own reeds because i didn't want to approach the QMs for new ones.

but oh well.

was emoing yesterday, kuz i realised how commonplace i am, inconsequential & insignificant; not that i want to be high-profile or even known by anyone else aside from classmates, ex-classmates, senior-class ppl, bandmates etc etc, but that i'm fading into the background & at the end of 2 years of jc i'm not going to have made an impact on anybody, or have changed anything for the better. oh not to mention my grades are absolutely dazzling at this point of time. sigh. sucks larh, until i saw this quote which cheered me up -

Our ordinary mind always tries to persuade us that we are nothing but acorns and that our greatest happiness will be to become bigger, fatter, shinier acorns; but that is of interest only to pigs. Our faith gives us knowledge of something better: that we can become oak trees. - E.F. Schumacher

:) :) confidence! majulah!

2008-03-26T20:16:00.008+08:00

I'M IN LOVE!

THE ROLAND GW-7 WORKSTATION :)

went out w/ kaiwen, herman, reuben, daniel (& later ezra) to eat fattening food + go to tecman + look @ keyboards @ sweelee today! & i fell in love. saw this gorgeous work of art @ sweelee selling for $1605, but they're having a 40% off sale for roland keyboards now so it's only ~$956! Sadly i still can't afford it :/ plus it doesn't have inbuilt speakers so i'll either need to buy headphones or an amp so that's another ~$150, sigh. & if i'm not wrong it doesn't come with a stand, so that's another $100 or so.

shall wait til end of the year when i've saved enough & sweelee has another sale! it's amazingly pretty larh. 61 keys, 64 voices polyphony max (!), 606+ tones, 51+ drumsets, 110+ drumrhythms, 3 bands (full band, drums + bass, combo), 47 types of Fx, 8 types of chorus, it's SO MUCH LOVE. best thing is, it's quite similar to e church one. and it's a ROLAND.

8 more months til end of year & sweelee's Christmas sale! apparently, they have 50% sales then so ...
save save save.

love, life, death & Good Friday

2008-03-21T18:25:00.004+08:00

now i've found
the greatest love all is mine,
since You laid down Your life
the greatest sacrifice

- Majesty (Here I Am), Delirious

people ask why Christians call the day their Saviour died 'good'.

- good, because it was the day God showed His ultimate love, agape, for us.
- good, because He fulfilled the promise He made long ago to Isaiah.
- good, because Jesus said 'Forgive them' to God, the 'them' being those who crucified Him
- good, because when Jesus cried 'My God, My God, why have your forsaken me', He experienced the pain & torment of Hell for the entire of humanity, so that we might find salvation
- good, because it was this day that allows us to be sinless & pure again.
- good, because all we have to do is believe, and we have life.
- good, because John 3:16 says it all.

good's an understatement.

-

God sat in silence while the sins of the world were placed upon His Son. Was it right? No. Was it fair? No. Was it love? Yes. In a world of injustice, God once and for all tipped the scales in the favour of hope.

- Max L. Lucado

I asked God how much He loves me. He replied 'this much', spread His arms wide open, and died for me.

- Anonymous

down the Via Dolorosa called 'the way of suffering'
like a Lamb, came the Messiah, Christ the King
and He chose to walk that road
out of His love for you and me
down the Via Dolorosa, all the way to Calvary

- Via Dolorosa, Sandi Patty

thank you again, Lord :)

This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us
and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:10)

2008-03-16T20:24:00.003+08:00

Your Name, is a strong and mighty tower
Your Name, is a shelter like no other
Your Name, let the nations sing it louder
'cause nothing has the power to save
but Your Name

chalet was AWESOME! after all the hectic-ness and busy-ness of the past months kuz of huangcheng & stuff, it was really a time to relax, slack, and come back to God :) had lots of fun, and learnt a lot too - my first time leading discussion haha! although i did a super lousy job. playing at least 30 rounds of polar bear, biking in heavy rain, mahjong with tiles that are about 1.5 cm in height, getting annoyed by the guitar-trio's guitaring, learning how to play the E-A-B thing!, eating non-stop, and not to mention frying satay lol! really <3 YF :)

hm, going back a bit more, huangcheng was really an entirely new experience. VT was super fun, xingzheng & piaowu rocks ftw yay! quite sad i guess, that i prob won't be onstage next year for xiemu, kuz of band and all i'm not sure i'm staying, so. thanks everyone who made it possible, for giving me the experience of a lifetime (major drama production lol) :)

meanwhile ... camp commandant this year? it's a huge responsibility, huge step to take, and if i take it up means casting aside a lot of other things, and don't know if i can commit, but deep down inside i think i want to. must praypraypray. YF exco + other people, do pray for me too kay!

-

Today you will be with me in paradise.

Luke 23:43, officially my favourite verse in the Bible :)

2008-02-17T19:41:00.006+08:00

ALL BBPCYF-ERS TAKE NOTE:

CHALET
at hometeamNS pasir ris
10th (mon) to 12th (wed) march
worship, prayer, quiet timecycling, frisbee, footballmovies, mahjong, cardscooking, BBQ!
$25 for staying over, breakfasts, BBQ, sport facilities
if only BBQ (on the 11th night), $15

putting aside the distractions of the outside world
FINALLY leaving the bukit batok - bukit gombak area
a time to draw closer to God,
& bond with your fellow YF-ers!

how is it different from camp?being halfway through the school semester,
it's about relaxing and finding God again despite our hectic schedules
Job 37:14 ' stand still and consider the wondrous works of God'
so lots of free time to do stuff you really want to!

signups!
get a consent form during YF
under 18, get your parents to fill it up;
18 and above, you can fill it up yourselves : )
hand it in with payment to Marilyn or me
(the sooner the better, so we know how much food to buy)
if you have any questions, contact Herman or Kai Wen

PS: for J2s or anyone who has tests right after march hols, you can still come! and bring work with you to do during free time. also, we'll probably be booking rooms in church for the rest of the hols (thurs-sat) for mugging.

SEE YOU THERE :)

all photos courtesy of kaiwen.

2008-01-24T00:37:00.000+08:00

he says, 'son can you play me a memory
i'm not really sure how it goes
but it's sad and it's sweet and i knew it complete
when i wore a younger man's clothes'

- the piano man, billy joel
(is it the world's saddest or happiest thing when a person has nothing left but memories?)

but anyway! recently am hooked on listening to classical gas, not the tommy emmanuel version but the original by mason williams (here), it's VERY NICE :)

2008-01-21T23:57:00.000+08:00

ahahaha, 3 weeks into the new year, new school, new everything!

it's been a blast :)

bbpcyfers in hcjc! well actually ruyi was supposed to wear her athena fac shirt yesterday too, but she pangsehed us so we're left with red yellow and blue. but so kool right, we have 4 people in hc, 2 in j1 2 in j2, and all four in different facs! DARN KOOL.

okay but anyway :) school's been great so far! orientation was awesome of course, quite like my CT too, everyone's really nice. ohoh btw whoever's reading this, watch our spastic class performance! click here. hahahaha it was super fun. and our AWESOME class flag yay, will upload a pic of it sometime, it's in my phone but i don't have the cable with me now, pffft.

birthday was kool, i feel ancient. you won't believe this, but xizi's birthday is on the 12th of jan, and suikim's is the 13th, so we have 12-13-14 in our class! really really kool right! thanks so much for the surprise (daniel, charlene, kaiwen, marilyn, ezra) and the fact that i had to carry around an embarassing orange balloon everywhere i went for the rest of the day haha, thanks marilyn for baking the cake, & for the class for getting a cake for all the jan babies, plus OG 4 for celebrating it! yay :)

anyhowdies, enough random talk, i'm not thinking straight lol. will post a proper one soon!

2008-01-01T01:50:00.000+08:00

in Christ alone, my hope is found
He is my light my strength my song
this cornerstone, this solid ground
firm through the fiercest drought and storm

what heights of love, what depths of peace
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease
my comforter, my all in all
here in the love of Christ, i stand

(in Christ alone, Newsboys)

(the obligatory new year post, especially kuz i haven't blogged for 1.5 months & so much has happened)

2007 in restropect

a year of countless gains, blessings, lessons learnt and relationships formed

today during the prayer meeting before watchnight service when we started sharing about ways God has presented Himself to us over the past year, i didn't know what i wanted to say. but it suddenly struck me to talk about my piano exam in april and how i flunked it, and was devastated from the moment i touched the keys on the steinway in the exam room kuz i knew i was going to fail. it took me a long time to get over it, and if you ask me when i got over it, i'd tell you 31st dec 9.30pm when i shared and bawled like an idiot to the YFers.

because at that moment i realised, that once i quit my fridays were free and i started playing regularly for worship, for p&p, and although i'm still super nOoB at it, i've seriously improved over the past half a year (keyboard). and how i've just drawn so much closer to Him; and to the YF through serving in music.

that's how God presented Himself to me most vividly in 2007, a revelation on the last day at 9.30 pm of the year, that He knows best and has His own plans for us.

for camp this year as well. i rmb kaiwen, ezra, marilyn & i fretting about how the camp committee was going, how we felt they were going too slowly, that there were so many things that were missed out in the planning, so many things that could go wrong. and they did; but with prayer, everything turned out great. weather during campfire was perfect, we were allowed to have noisy worship & open sermons, we weren't charged for the charred campfire pit cover, no spiritual attacks.

prayer meetings. when we started out, the first official one (15th Sept) with only kaiwen, marcus & myself. once there was only kaiwen & me. we felt like stopping e meetings until we'd gathered more ppl, but prayer kept us through, one of our constant supplication prayers being more people passionate for God and joining us in prayer. in november our average attendance was 6. just now, on the last day of the year, TWENTY-ONE people came.

my greatest blessing of the year? - BBPC YF. every single person in it. beloved Exco, for always being there for me and being the best bunch of people i've ever worked with; worship ppl, for always encouraging me in my keyboarding; camp committee; bubbleteaclub members, for being so much fun; CG people, for being awesome and making BS hordes of fun; sunday lunchmates (redside! yellowside!); for everyone else who're just there. thank you!

outside of church i've experienced and learnt so much more too. community service - from LDP to High Five to Creative Home; bass clarinet & playing for NYCB - SYF & Appassionata XI; culture & arts - watched the most theatre productions / musicals / etc i've ever done so in a year; life - started teaching piano; music - started jazz piano, played guzheng for hmp concert. can't finish listing them all, but 2007 has just truly been a year of so so much.

once again i look upon the cross where You died
i'm humbled by Your mercy, and i'm broken inside
once again i thank You
once again i pour out my life

(once again, matt redman)

2008 in anticipation

ezra keeps telling j1 will be the time of my life, so i'll take his word for it and look forward to the year ahead :) orientation, cca, 5 subjects only (assuming i pass HCL & including GP, excluding PE etc), all kinds of activities, camps and chalets etc, really hoping to enjoy what's prob my last year of freedom. kuz after this year it's A's, uni (hopefully), blahdidah.

also kuz of that, i really want to serve this year. whole-heartedly, in any way that might need my help - exco first and foremost, worship (music), probably camp comm, identifying and training new leaders, events, games etc. organising YF CIP yay! excited. i'm really hopeful for the YF for the upcoming year, the passion that camp has instilled in them, the huge variance of abilities and talents in all areas, the multitudes of ways they can serve.

really aiming for 2008 to be a year of true closeness with God, to have my life be a walk in His footsteps. in 2007 God showed Himself to me in so many ways without me even trying to get to know Him, the upcoming year i'll put in ultimate effort to love and obey with all i am. to control my temper, stop gossiping, stop being so money-minded, to smile more, to not procrastinate, to always prioritise. i believe He'll work in even more unexpected yet amazing areas for 2008 :)

the other 'new year resolutions' are:

- save up money to buy a keyboard ... hopefully by mid 2009?
- stop getting fatter. i've given up 'diet and lose weight' kuz i have to be realistic with my love of food and bubbletea and non-sport timetable, so shall make the goal ' maintain weight'.
- pass guzheng exam, pass jazz piano exam (if i take)

that's pretty much it for today! maybe i'll blog more often this year. MAYBE.

and i will run to You
to Your words of truth
not by might, not by power
but by the Spirit of God
yes i will run the race
'til i see Your face
O let me live in the glory of Your grace

(i will run to you, Hillsong)

2007-11-12T00:04:00.000+08:00

ULTIMATE LOVE!

camp photo from last year, but just suddenly felt like showing a little affection (which, if you know me, is a rare RARE thing).

spent almost the entire day with the YF today, from breakfast with KW at 8 to dinner with lots of people at 8, minus an hour in between for guzheng lesson, and it was AWESOME! lots of fun, and just want to thank you all!

<3 to GAMES FELLOWSHIP, for helping me lose a couple calories! though the next point completely defeats this purpose. today was only my 2nd time going, but had loads of fun making wild hits at the shuttlecock with someone's racquet and watching it fly in all directions except the desired one.

<3 to FOOD FELLOWSHIP, which is just a spastic way for saying everytime we meet up we end up having meals together. like before/after worship prac, before/after prayer meetings, before/after church, before/after random gatherings ... it's no wonder i'm getting fatter!

<3 to BUBBLE TEA FELLOWSHIP, another crappy comeup for ours due to mutual love of the oversweet, fattening, yet ridiculously addictive stuff. my ultimate weakness :)

<3 to everyone today who cheered me up when i was upset over the un-tallying funds for camp, for simply being there & being amazing amazing people. for reminding me that God's in control, telling me that it's not my fault & that it's their fault because they didn't help me out when i was the only one at the booth, & just being true friends, or family in Christ!

<3 <3 <3 to God, for letting us have THIRTY-SEVEN signups for camp today! for bringing us closer to You, for bringing me to BBPC where I truly know love of the deepest kind. for dying for me.

2007-10-07T19:41:00.000+08:00

yesterday was the day that I was alone
now i'm in the presence of the Almighty God

and yes, our God, He is a consuming fire
and the flames burn down deep in my soul
yes, our God, He is a consuming fire
He reaches inside and melts down this cold heart of stone

- Consuming Fire, Third Day

-

bowling outing pictures from 30.09.07!

koped from the forum, taken by reuben who was having fun with kw's camera.
couldn't take group pics kuz the staff at e bowling place were making a lot of noise lol.

my hwachong bro! being spastic as usual.

hazel & shirlynn

elijah, priscilla, various others.

haha the exco decided to take a lane within ourselves and razo,
so here we are cheering razo (our youth pastor) on!

terence! apparently he's very good. but he's still better at guitar :)
as kaiwen puts it, 'heartbreaking', especially when he plucks.

loves bbpc yf :D will make an official thanking post when exams are finally over ...
three more days to liberati!

2007-09-23T19:52:00.000+08:00

was working on nanyang's physics prelim paper 07, some question on current electricity, when suddenly i was reminded of they'll know we are christians - the hymn, for some unknown reason. click here to hear a song version, the hymn is actually faster & more positive, it's meant to be a spirited song for the church to show that as a family in Christ we're together.

but i like the slow version in all its emoness - we, as a church, are meant to stay together despite hardship, pain & trouble, not only in the good times. sometimes i wonder if our church is on track & whether non-believers view us as a group bonded by love, or simply yet another religion trying to extort money and energy from each other.

we are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord (x2)
and we pray that one day unity may be restored

we will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand (x2)
and together we'll spread the news that God is in our land

we will work with each other, we will work side by side (x2)
and we'll guard each man's dignity and save each man's pride

all praise to the Father from whom all things come
and all praise to Christ Jesus, His only Son,
and all praise to the Spirit, who makes us one

Chorus:
and they'll know we are Christians by our love
by our love
and they'll know we are Christians by our love.

thanks bbpcyf, especially exco and CG and other amazing people :) love you all - and thank you, Father of all of us, for showing us the truest, purest, and most beautiful love we'll ever know. Agape.

-

2007-09-10T00:42:00.000+08:00

18 days to EOYs
actually, music's in 7 days and bsp's in 5, but i choose to delude myself.

on a sidenote, i shall not be going on MSN on weekdays at anytime except 10 - 11 every night! might be at the comp doing work so email me (kuz gmail's normally open) if there's anything. if you see me on MSN before 10 or after 11 from mon-fri, CHASE ME OFF.

-

to cheer myself up, i've decided to list 10 things i'm super grateful for, & that i feel blessed about:

1. God :) need i say more? thanks for the revival Lord!

2. family! love.

3. BBPC YF - my 2nd family! haha can't wait for prayer mtgs, mooncake party, 5th sunday bowling outing, and many more good things to come - CAMP! and church's a gorgeous recluse.

4. friends - esp. all you lovely folks who're going through eoys too. we suffer together!

5. thai noodle house tomyam, coro fries, near-church bubble tea, shop n save sushi, breadtalk hokkaido dome, rojak, banmian, laksa, home-cooked stuff :) things that've sustained me recently

6. dvorak's 7th, 8th, 9th symphonies

7. piano, guzheng for being so understanding how i've been abandoning them. i promise i'll be back after the 9th of Oct!

8. the invention of the computer and the printer. internet too.

9. chirpy birds, laughing kids, disgusting bugs, disease-carrying mosquitoes, grumpy ahmas, underage couples, happy families, noisy dogs. life in general.

10. that 9th October, 10.31pm (date and time of liberation) is 29 days away!

-

meanwhile...

twas Grace that brought us safe thus far
and Grace will lead us home;

sometimes the simplest songs have the deepest meanings.

2007-08-17T21:52:00.000+08:00

today was worship prac for september's p&p, and this song that kaiwen chose was just gorgeous. made me realise that i really need to rely on Him more, especially during this time when so much stuff is pressing on me & my grades are dying & i'm disappointing everybody around me.

all i need is you - hillsong

left my fear by the side of the road
hear You speak, won't let go
fall to my knees, as i lift my hands to pray

got every reason to be here again
Father's love that draws me in
and all my eyes wanna see is a glimpse of You

all i need is You
all i need is You Lord, is you, Lord
all i need is You
all i need is You Lord, is you, Lord

one more day and it's not the same
Your Spirit calls my heart to sing
drawn to the voice of my Saviour once again

where would my soul be without Your Son
gave His life to save the earth
rest in the thought that You're watching over me

-

all i need is Him, truly.
maybe the reason why i feel as if i've been losing control over my life recently, is because i haven't woken up to the fact that i'm not in control, He is.
and thank goodness for that.

2007-08-05T17:14:00.001+08:00

a BIT of advertising before i begin.

if thou be free on the 10th of august ...
come to bishan home for the intellectually disabled! my group & i are organising a mini concert for AND performed by the residents there, also w/ games & other activities. we're looking for some facils who're willing to accompany the residents in games & stuff. it's a lot of fun & the residents are mostly cheerful :) volunteers get a nice tshirt, 2-5 pm.

if thou be free on the 12th of august (sunday), 4-6pm ...
come for HMP concert @ nanyang! i'm playing as 1/6th of a guzheng ensemble piece, only one of the super kool performances there are. other stuff includes acapella group, solo piano, solo electone (chanyi!), string ensemble, chinese orchestra, french horn quartet, trios, piano duets, & others like cello + piano accompaniment, etc. very kool repertoire, only $10!

tell me if you be interested in any of the above.

-

JULY '07.

decided to do a cumulative post again :) since a lot has happened in a month. quite interesting to sit back & realise that we actually have super interesting, colourful lives once we consider it.

010707 YOUTH SUNDAY!

haha my first time playing during service (normally only play for yf) & combined service some more. basically pr. razo wanted a team that was more youth & less young adults, so ezra led with hyun jun on guitar, ivan bass, kai wen drums, elijah & corrine backup singing, daniel on electric guitar, & i played keyboard.

twas quite fun, though practice times killed, like i could only go for nanyang primary funfair for an hour but managed to get good food anyways. am quite happy i didn't screw up for once, & managed to play e accompaniment with corrine's ' holy spirit rain down ' quite okayly, thanks to the Lord! jonathan said it was nice :) & my volume on the keyboard was quite weird so thanks to ivan for subtly pushing the volume level up and down when suitable.

from the rising of the sun,
to the setting down of the same,
the Lord's name is to be praised!

060707 YOUTH DAY FUNFAIR!

hahaha lots of fun, & i <333 410!

the ones we made for mrs wsh, even have name tag to make her happy :)

tankuocheang! forced to buy a mushroom necklace from us for 10 bucks HAHA.

070707 open house!

school's open house, which turned out to be very amusing, & also got me annoyed @ some parents who asked me directly 'are they very cheena over here?' and 'are the teachers good' and 'should my daughter go to rgs or nygh'. like diao, ask me for whad, i'll obviously give biased opinion right! but quite sad it was raining @ first, if not we might've had more people coming.

first went for a bit of band ( 8 - 10 ), then i hopped over to the science labs to help out with the fun experiments for the passing-by kids & their parents, basically there were two, 1) making a superball: with two liquids, forms a solid substance that can be molded into a bouncy ball 2) making GOO! as in slime. liza still has hers, which is covered in bits of disintegrating kiwi that's like. mouldy & super gross. had a lot of amusement trying the experiments out for ourselves until the lab techs told us to stop playing kuz there mightn't be enough for the visitors.

then hopped off to library for a short while to get the food & guard over the gep displays. promoted gep for a while to a random woman until jayne, gloria & i suddenly realised that she was sarah cheang's mother which was quite funny. after that went back for band for an hour more which was fun as well, crowd was super big when we played 'the eighties'! & i loved playing jericho again, good memories.

20.07.2007 (super cool date right!)

APPASSIONATA XI!

hey my first concert with nycb! well, that i'm performing in. did lights & stuff last year. it was super super kool & we completely rocked the stage :) thanks lynette, sarah, liza, joanna, jayne for coming!

haha the photos i took w/ jialun & band peeps are in other people's cameras.

would just really like to thank nycb for giving me the chance for performing with all of you guys (despite apparently having <75% attendance) & all the memories etc. my sectionmates for all e chocolates & stuff & sorry for being completely clueless! also thanks to comm for borrowing a gorgeous, working, bass clarinet from hcjc. :)

210707 SJIMB concert

not bad larh. just that alumni completely rocked so kind of overshadowed them? a bit. & omgoodness the alumni bass clarinetist is SUPER PRO. he play w/ e super pro tuba players, who have very nice tone btw, & e bass clarinet's tone just comes out somehow. can even distinguish him against e entire band if i concentrated hard enough! ahahaha. fangirleth. PLUS he has an extended bass clarinet, the kind that goes all the way to lowlow C. didn't realise until he sat beside a sec 3 bassclarinetist, then i saw how much longer the instrument was :) very very kool. fumblers were very funny too.

went w/ marcus, hazel, & marcus' ex-senior jiajun + his (now, but not at that time) girlfriend michelle. after that we went for prata @ this cheese prata shop marcus claimed was super famous which was quite good :) though i only ate like. one piece of roti john thanks to a super meat-overloaded meal cooked by marcus. 500g of meat for 3 people leh, that's thrice the amount of meat i normally eat.

280707 TAPESTRY!

thanks lots jayne for going w/ me, & sarah, joanna, lynette for coming down to support + hang out w/ us! basically for those who were unaware or didn't go to orchard over the 28th-29th weekend, there was a lot of busking @ ngee ann, wheelock, heeren, cine for tapestry!, an annual event to raise funds for different beneficiaries.

basically 2 of us were part of a LOT of people who went around asking for donations! am quite happy kuz @ wheelock we managed to get quite a bit of money. many kind people who gave $5, & apparently jayne had someone who dropped in 5 Euro coins! e music was generally really good too :) plus i saw ezra & hc MAD dancing @ ngee ann, was nice!

the lanyard! that comes free when one donates $2 or more.

290707 parents' 18th wedding anniversary!
(which means they only had 1.5 years before i was born. poor things.)

a picture of my sister's and my anniversary present for them!

-

so yep that's it for july :)

one king bringing his gold and his riches
one king ruling an army of might
one king kneeling with incense and candlelight ...

one King bringing us life.

2007-07-02T02:46:00.000+08:00

everlasting
your light will shine when all else fades

never-ending
your glory goes beyond all fame

-

"you proclaim that even the slightest change in the force of gravity or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless mist rather than our magnificent sea of heavenly bodies, and yet you fail to see God's hand in this? is it really so much easier to believe that we simply chose the right card from a deck of billions? have we become so spiritually bankrupt that we would rather believe in mathematical impossibility than in a power greater than us?"

"who is more ignorant, the man who cannot define lightning, or the man who does not respect its awesome power?"

haha quotes from 'angels & demons', a book that has a LOT i don't agree with, but the camerlengo's speech (though he WAS the villain), his speech is still truly incredible. science proves faith - the more we know, the less we realise we know, and the less we understand of the world. shrugs, don't know if i make sense, but oh well. even superman returns has a line that struck me, when superman talked to lois lane:

"you wrote that the world doesn't need a saviour. but everyday i hear people crying for one."

2007-05-27T18:16:00.000+08:00

ROLAND GARROS 2007.

go dementieva & vaidisova, ljubicic & safin!
(although we can pretty much guess the finalists for the male singles)

-

anyways, my rough timetable for teh upcoming hols so i can find a date to do random stuff and splurge hohoho.

2805 (mon) music extra lesson + test

2905 (tues) SMO, chinese lit workshop, band

3005 (wed) millenium issues conf @ smss, music extra lesson

3105 (thurs) - 0306 (sun) back to kuantan WHEE!

0406 (mon) - 0706 (thu) camp vivant

0806 (fri) band

0906 (sat) - 1406 (thu) malaysia roadtrip!

1506 (fri) band

1906 (tue) band

2006 (wed) photonics workshop @ dso

2106 (thu) chemistry talk @ vjc

2206 (fri) band, theatre production by caoyu

2506 school starts.

BUT ANYWAY! hahahaha jayne / sarah/ whoever - free on the 16th (sat) or 18th (mon)?

have to go on foodtrail. humdeeho. missing more than 2/3 of band pracs. oh well.

nothing interesting happened in may so far, so i'm not going to do an accumulative post like i did for april unless you want to know about chionging LA portfolio & doing a record number of sudokus/wordsearches during sabbaticals. well i suppose there was chinese midyears which were good :), horrible horrible assembly performance, spiderman 3, ne quiz (fun), midsummer night's dream, ldp celebration outing (minds cafe! love.), band demo, aldersgate youth seminar, lynette's birthday!, affective education, iHope eagles youth conference.

okay so there WERE quite a few interesting things. we lead such colourful lives don't we!

2007-05-23T21:23:00.000+08:00

HYPERVENTILATES.
sorry for boring you with this post, but SSO's performance calendar for 07/08 season is UP! and my gosh the repertoire is beyond amazing. so i'm listing all the concerts i want to go for :) ignore this post entirely if you wish. and OH if by some random chance you're interested tell me kay!

25th Aug 07 Clouds of Glory
conductor: choo hoey; soloist: li chuan yun
stravinsky's firebird suite !!!
mendelssohn's fair melusina
tchaikovsky's violin concerto in d
debussy's nocturnes: clouds & festivals

14th Sep 07 Pictures of Passion
conductor: nicholas cleobury; soloist: pierre amoyal
wagner's tristan & isolde overture !!!
berg's concerto for violin and orchestra
mussorgsky's PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION (OMIGOSH AHHH. <3333.)>

1st Dec 07 Messiah
conductor: lim yau; vocalists: SSC, SBCC, HC
handel's messiah, basically. yay!

21st - 23rd Dec 07 Christmas Concerts
conductor: lim yau; vocalists: SSC, SSCC
the usual christmas carolling with orchestra :D & children's choir singing this time!

12th Jan 08 SSO's 29th Anniversary Concert
conductor: lan shui; soloists: grace lee, zhang jin min
mendelssohn's symphony #4 (<3)>
razel's tzigane
weber's andante and rondo ongarese
stravinsky's pulcinella
elgar's romance for bassoon

26th Jan 08 What the Angels Tell Me
conductor: lan shui; soloist: nancy moltsby
mahler's 3rd symphony in d minor! with choral, solo mezzo-sop, & orch. :)

2nd Feb 08 The Persistence of Memory
conductor: lan shui; soloist: SARAH CHANG WHAT MORE CAN I SAY!
sibelius' violin concerto in d
ravel's rapsodie espagnole
hersch's ashes of memory

14th/15th Mar 08 Turkish Delight
conductor: christoph poppen; soloist: vilde frang
mozart's 35th symphony 'haffner'
mozart's 41st symphony 'jupiter'
mozart's violin concerto #5 in A, 'turkish'

4th Apr 08 In the Shadow of Beethoven
conductor: claus peter flor; soloists: zhang manchin, ma yue (our ex clarinet tutor!)
wagner's tannhauser (WHEE!)
bruch's concerto for viola, clarinet & orchestra (mellow instruments PWNAGE.)
brahm's 1st symphony <333.

19th Apr 08 Echoes of China
conductor: lim yau; soloist: tang junqiao
ORCHESTRA PLAYING WITH DIZI SOLO. drool.
- repertoire lots of chinese unknown modern stuff, so won't be listing but AHH. SO KOOL.

9th May 08 Sax & the City
nothing interesting, won't go. but thought the name was kool.

17th May 08 Masterful Mendelssohn (CAN MOOZIQUE GET ANY BETTER.)
conductor: ari rasilainen; soloist: daniel hope
mendelssohn's violin concerto in e minor (love love loved love.)
sibelius' 1st symphony in e minor
prokofiev's 1st symphony in c 'classical'

24th May 08 Day Dreams in G Minor
conductor: gennady rozhdestvensky; soloist: victoria postnikova (husband & wife!)
rachmaninov's rhapsody on a theme of paganini (!!!)
tchaikovsky's 1st symphony
schnittke's suite from 'dead souls register'

i foresee myself going broke. but then students can go at like $8. so heh :D

-

meanwhile, busy busy busy! lots of overdue homework, boring sabbats, random stuff grrr. update this weekend, i promise.

2007-04-28T21:47:00.000+08:00

APRIL.

haha it's 28th april today :) which officially marks the end of my month of death, kuz the remaining two days are rather slack. this month has just been super busy and tiring - mrs lim noticed and told my mum, & apparently she's going to "talk to me" about sleeping at unearthly hours - which is quite odd, because i've been sleeping early kuz i just zonk out once i pass the 12 o'clock mark.

IM FINALLY BLOGGING! hail, miracles do happen. let's do this in chronological order shall we.

___________________________

010407, Sunday

went for Ong Lip Tat piano concert! was amazing, 11-year-olds playing much much better than i can ever hope to.

030407, Tuesday

ny chinese orchestra = goldwithhonours! congrats :)

050407, Thursday

CG OUTING! hoho much fun. after band, met up with shandy, joy, marcus, jethro and simon at cineleisure to watch 'Sunshine' which was quite interesting. and really similar to "the core", i thought, just much more gory and touching on the whole. effects were amazing and realistic, and the japanese captain guy (hiroyuki sanada - he looks better here than in the last samurai) was cute, heh. except he was the first one to die, upsetting. lol simon claimed that he came to destress but the movie made him more stressed! ohwell.

060407, Friday

Good Friday.

070407, Saturday

WHEEL-ART IS REAL-ART!

hahaha or WAIRA as jayne puts it.

on the whole it was loads of fun although there were mishaps; but surprisingly quite smooth-running despite our obvious lack of preparation and stuff. the only thing was participants managed to stain the ground terribly so up til now we're still cleaning up and scrubbing the place, lol. i think i'll soon start naming all the tiles there are in the S. Raja block in RI if we dont get it done by mid-may.

winning wheelchair by noreen jasmine sarahcheang sarahng rachel

- WHEELPOWER WILLPOWER!

3/5 of the winning team and koh ah moi, one of the clients and founders of Handicaps Welfare Association, who also gave a talk on the difficulties she faced/faces. she's an awesome artist, too :)

080407, Sunday

Easter Sunday! - had evangelical event with the YF, was quite fun except there weren't many friends invited so yep.

110407, Wednesday

SYF!

hoho i dont have the group pics kuz mr matthewlim took them and yeah. i koped this from sabrina's blog, jialun & me :) the bass clarinetists rawk man. and we both played our 'solo's (okay actually mine technically isn't) the best ever. music was great; jericho made the audience feel every single emotion there was & safari made people feel like they'd set foot in africa.

we played our best and we got gold! i guess there's always a tinge of regret for not getting goldwithhonours, but considering 3 out of 150 bands in s'pore had that prestige ... we're okay, but nycb still has a long way to go i guess. WE ROCK ANYWAY man! thanks for all the cards, notes, the apple & toy from vera & yiting, the chocolates and sweets from juniors, etc etc, that's why band pwnz.

come for band concert :) apparently it's sometime mid-july so keep your calendars free for appasionata XI!

160407, Monday

nanyang chinesedance = goldwithhonours!

cheers joanna & sarah!

210407, Saturday

past the point of no return, no backward glances

our games of make-believe are at an end

past all thought of 'if' or 'when' , no use resisting

abandon thought and let the dream descend ...

past the point of no return, the final threshold

what warm unspoken secrets will we learn? ...

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA :)

oh man it was seriously gorgeous. the props, the setting, the vocals, the orchestra. the ambience, the atmosphere, the music. it was profound. it makes you cry, laugh, want to sing along yet sit back and enjoy the haunting singing, confused about the true meaning of love & music, yet tells you everything there is. no matter what you paid for it, it's definitely worth it.

thought the phantom had the nicest voice and the conductor (she conducts both the orchestra and the singers) had the most tiring but fulfilling job. it was just breathtakingly beautiful.

the final threshold, the bridge

is crossed, so stand and watch it burn ...

we've passed the point of no return

200407, Friday

nanyang string ensemble = goldwithhonours!

250407, Wednesday

nanyang choir = goldwithhonours!

nanyang guzheng = goldwithhonours!

260407, Thursday

nanyang moderndance = goldwithhonours!

270407, Friday

piano exam; im almost certain i failed. dont know if i want to retake - if i do it'll be in sept, but i've a good mind not to kuz it costs so much and well. i guess time's told me im not cut out to play piano. will learn to accept facts calmly :) and im over it already i guess. at least i didn't cry or anything! hoho.

280407, Saturday

LDP SYMPOSIUM!

team thisABILITY in blazer with mrs. ongtengcheong (or wongsiumay):

hahaha the end of LDP, officially and sadly. although it does free up a lot of time and now i have one less commitment to care about, twas really quite fun while it lasted. the bonds formed - even if not in our group - amongst the ny LDPers! and why do girls' schools blazers tend to be brighter? NY's banana suit and RG's green, for instance. were considering getting one ny, one rg, and one nj person to stand in a row, then they'd look like trafficlights :D

and eunice olsen is CHIO! yep she was the guest-of-honour.

after symposium we went to island creamery, a whole entourageof us lol. some ny people, and most of ShareWitty (sarah), Team Titanz (jasmine), Team Ag (jayne) and thisABILITY (mine!) as well. was super crowded haha and ate fresh banana flavour to complement ny's blazer!

then started getting reminiscent with annie & sarah about vietnam kuz euniceolsen talked about going to cambodia to do cip with kids, and it just reminded all of us about vietnam and how the children who had nothing material compared to us, but everything in spirit and heart that we as individuals in a technologically, communicatively advanced world can never hope to have. reminded me that cip gives what nothing else in the world can give, the simple basic lesson that

we never give more than we take.

__________________________________

yep so that's the end of april! and now it's back to studying, cca and stuff, my marks have dropped drastically over the course of the month and i have a pile of overdue work that's taller than me so urgh :( thank goodness for understanding, nice teachers though.

i reckon i should be blogging more regularly now, may seems like a fun-filled month (once math common test & chinese mid-years are over, that is), so there's:

- tea session with the youthcentral people

- chocolate date w/ gloria & some ldp folks

- assembly performance (okay thats gross)

- midsummer nights dream picnic dinner w/ 411 and other random people

- napfa 5 items (gah. i missed A for 2.4 by 6 seconds! weeps.)

- lynette's birthday celebration! affective education talk on the same day haha.

- millenium issues conference @ st marg's.

- aldersgate youth conference: science & faith! rawks man.

sounds awesome, no? time passes too quickly. i officially can concentrate on guzheng & go hunt down marimba scores as well!

2007-03-06T22:00:00.000+08:00

OHMYGOSH I HAVE A CRUSH ON MEDIEVAL & RENAISSANCE MUZIKA!

meanwhile,

lifeskills '07
'graces' @ costa sands downtown east
070307 - 090307

2007-02-11T23:18:00.000+08:00

beauty, in one line, is rachmaninoff's piano concerto #2 in c minor, opus 18.

2007-01-20T16:22:00.000+08:00

hoho, haven't blogged in 9 days : ) oh well. i think im gradually weaning myself off blogger & msn, which can only be good news, also kuz i haven't slept past one o'clock for the past week! AT ALL! am so proud of myself, but doubt i can continue with that for today and tomorrow, work list is mounting as high as bukit timah.

but ive been in an absolutely wonderful mood that even a ten-day-long-and-still-prevailing, showing-no-signs-of-stopping cough can abate. the effects of listening to piano trios by mendelssohn & brahms i guess. mendelssohn's the soul of refinity and brahms is understated passion, so it really rocks. & i absolutely harth chamber muzique.

didn't have a birthday post, but it was a great birthday all in all. thanks to everybody who gave me the sms-es and msn msgs and well wishes, & especially to my wonderful church friends! for the surprise cake (shared with justin & ezra kuz theyre jan babies as well) & many others. do refer to jayne's blog for pics of MOOLAH, the joyful cow she gave me :) YAY I LOVE BBPC YF AND EXCO AND COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE! sorry, being random.

-

my daddy & me @ seoul garden where we went for my birthday dinner!

seoul garden take-as-much-as-you-want ice cream! of course my sister and i took all flavours.

ronnie, me, and jasmine photowhoring. love you guys!

411's classroom! looks like it's taped off, but the deco's darn kool. for the unaware, they've even mopped and vacuumed the floor so now we have to take off our shoes before we enter the class. apparently even some teachers are conforming lol.
THE CURSE OF THE GOLDEN UMBRELLA! ronnie & msng.

a shot of sec 1's playing solitaire. tut tut, planned to be used as incriminating evidence against them, nyahaha. abuse of the school comps!

jayne has this pic as well, but thought twas too kool. this was before we went for ldp - rained quite heavily in the afternoon, and even the drain was protesting. most amusing.

hahaha more random crap another time, oft to start on the painful pile of work. sigh -

2007-01-11T00:21:00.000+08:00

from EDWJ, the devotions for Sept/Oct 2004:

The Greek language ... has four words for love. One is eros, meaning love between the sexes. Another is philia, meaning affectionate human love. Then there is the word storge, meaning family love. The most powerful word for love, however, is agape, which means unconditional love - the love that surges in the heart of God. Everything God does is motivated by love. ... This is not a give-and-take kind of love, a love that is recriprocal; it is a love that descends from above and is showered on the deserving and the undeserving ... agape love nver fails for, even though it may not always have an effect on others and change them, it most definitely affects us. - We are the better for loving.

2007-01-06T21:11:00.000+08:00

meet timon! from the lion king : ) am so happy i found the soft toy in disneyland hk.

okay sorry that was random, just thought that i should blog for the sake of it. thought for the day, am i very easy to read? as in. what im thinking and feeling and all that. like when im losing my anger or resisting the urge to hurl rocks at something. or if you know when im going home to weep (no, that's not possible, since i obviously can't control my tears). maybe it's time to start being placid again, makes things and life easier : )

2007-01-01T02:04:00.000+08:00

& thus, the new year came.

should auld acquaintance be forgot
and never brought to mind
should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne

for auld lang syne, my dear
for auld lang syne
we'll take a cup of kindness yet
and days of auld lang syne -

the testimonies during watchnight prayer service today were amazing. but one of the things that struck me the most was something auntie april said about blasts somewhere that killed and injured a considerable amount of people. we can only thank Him that we're living somewhere safe where we can worship freely without fear of condemnation, a place that hasn't yet been struck by terrorists or met with natural disasters, a country where people think of business successes, money, academics and not worrying about what little they have to eat.

perhaps this is a rather sordid way to start the new year, but it really got to me that we're living in the end times. for all we know, the oceans will rise and our little island will get buried beneath the waves this time tomorrow. for all we know, bombs could go off in crowded malls all over the country killing thousands, or a group of unknown people are plotting to commit genocide this very moment. it's fantastic, i know, and unbelievable to rational minds like yours, but who knows what the new year will bring in its coming - good? bad? destruction? joy?

we don't 'usher' in the new year, no, it bangs your door down, slaps you on your face and does as it like. i'll admit, im scared for a lot of things - from trivial matters like whether i'll cope next year with all the random commitments that pop up from nowhere, to more serious matters like the troubles of the world. ultimately, though, i fear for those who do not yet know Him. if it is the end times (which i believe), there is very little time for us to reach out and bring the strayed and straying to Him, and there remains so many people who're untouched. we'll have to start, now, no matter how hard it is - and it is hard, especially people like me who hardly know how to talk to people in a proper social sense (seriously, with most people i run out of topics to talk about by the 6th minute).

there you go, my new year resolution, spreading His love and His word. i like the way ezra puts it. " if you knew the cure for aids, would you tell other people?" obviously. " in the same way, if you know the way to eternal life and the cure for eternal damnation, would you tell other people? "
- i would. and that's what Jesus is.

wishing all a very happy blessed new year.

2006-12-22T01:51:00.000+08:00

HONGKONG
221206 - 271206

and

KUANTAN
TRIP'S CANCELLED. due to flooding in the lands of johore.

will be contactable via hp, but only for important matters like dimsum or chewing gum orders.

2006-12-20T22:19:00.000+08:00

yesterday was fun fun fun! ice skating. am definitely teh proz at falling & attaining wet pants & subsequently a wet arse, but yes. loves bbpc yf! photo koped from forum once more.

basically people who went:

gabriel (yang), corrine, reuben, vanessa, gabriel wong, jessica, kai wen, ezra, richard, marilyn, serena, beverly, catherine, andre, marcus, danielle, shuin jian, irwin, irving (my p5 crush! HOHO im paedophilic.), elijah, joyce, JAYNE and me!

yep, jayne went, hope you had a great time on your birthday girl! & upload the photos soon.

am finally understanding why chopin's considered a great composer, although i still dislike him muchly. he's seriously annoying - WHO needs a woman to take care of him?! his harmonics are entirely too rich. and rubato's just. slack. but nevermind, the nocturne my teacher gave me to play for the exam's quite kool. :)

2006-12-14T14:50:00.000+08:00

bbpc yf camp '06 was amazing! : )

it's truly wonderful that we touched non-Christians, & also that many of e youths got a revival! love. for me, i really got to know God at a different level, much thanks to the messages that Pastor Lawrence gave. and fellowship - the true meaning of fellowship & i've grown so much closer to everyone in the YF, woot! also how some people who were sceptical in the beginning were worshipping hyperly on the last night, it's really encouraging.

UNSWERVING FAITH.

" Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. Let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love & good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another all the more as you see the day approaching ... " Hebrews 10:24-25

one way. Jesus.

(haha kaiwen i koped e pics from e youth forum & put them here for e benefit of random people who're interested, hope it's okay!)

giant group shot, take 3. the only sensible one lol. in the first two the guys in front were being spastically obscene. :)

hahahaha so basically our camp was at changi moe adventure campsite, which is uberly near the landing strips and airport runways, so every 45 mins or so we'd see and hear planes fly past. was disruptive, to say in the least, but we had loads of fun going HOI HOI HOI HOI HOI HOI woooooo! with each plane that went by. (no wonder terence & reuben & gabriel all lost their voices, haha) also, we realised that SIA planes make the most noise. maybe because they're bigger.

we slept in 'common rooms', as in, guys in one dorm and girls in another, & all of us piled into these really long dorms with our sleeping bags in tow. reminded me of obs somewhat! thought it was pretty kool, especially because it was open air! as in, roof isn't completely connected with the sides so if it had rained too heavily some of our stuff would get wet. also, people outside can see whatever we're doing in our dorms.

my beloved group: BLUE! heh we're e youngest group & im sorry if i've failed as a group leader in anyway like losing my temper sometimes & being random, but yes. you guys rocked the camp experience for me kay!

so we did stuff like rope challenges, flying fox (zipline), and amazing race! a lot of fun but unfortunately i have no sense of direction. & my first experience at vivo was a 10 minute one where we went to GAP to take pictures of the ugliest women's clothes available. laughs.

(our rawkass camp commandant & cornflakes-on-banana.)

worship was great, i think for a lot of people God really touched them during the rock concert form of worship during the campfire! was really moving to see so many people being passionate and jumping for Him. & i still can't believe peter and simon are brothers.

teh guys doing mass dance. cheers to ezra & leanne for choreographing e entire thing & it's really pretty! unfortunately, i can't tell my left foot from my right, so.

THE YF CHEER:
We............................
come from YF
famous in BB
come from a very special family
HOI! (punch fist in air)
fight for forgiveness
fight for mercy
fight for our Lord God Almighty
YF! YF! all the way
we like it here we like it here
we've found ourselves a
home, a home,
a home sweet home
(clap times 9)
YF!

the GIRLS doing mass dance! :)

i quote from the devotions we had in the camp booklet:

If there is one thing believers in Jesus should be known for, it is love. The word love appears in Scripture more than 500 times. The essence of the gospel is love, as we see in John 3:16. "For God so loved the world ... " The epistle of 1 John 3:16 elaborates: "By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us." Christians are to serve one another in love (Galatians 5:13), love their neighbours as themselves (Galatians 5:14), live a life of love (Ephesians 5:2), and love with actions and in truth (1 John 3:18).

hahaha 2nd night was Bible re-enactment! some groups came up w/ e most spastic things ever. like andre being noah, shandy being eve, reuben being adam, peter being joshua, terence & ben au-yeung being Jesus, gabriel being a tree, etc. was darn amusing larh! especially e re-enactment of Zacchaeus, the short tax collector who climbed up a tree to see Jesus, the one whom everyone hated but Jesus loved. " Forgiveness of our sins - priceless. For everything else, there's mastercard. " hahahah was laughing like heck. :)

above here is ezra acting as daniel! Daniel 6:3 " Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps with his exceptional qualities ... " so basically ezra was daniel & his 'exceptional quality' was extreme nerdiness, ie, look @ e height his pants are pulled up to.

OOBLEK! basically this substance made of corn flour mixed in water. quite interesting actually, had to facilitate a discussion about what analogies we can think of to relate the ooblek & life. the 'main' one we started on was that the hand = problems, water = us, corn flour = God. when hand hits water, (problems hit us), the water will splash out and everywhere, which also means we break apart and give up. however, if we're in God and God is in us (corn flour mixed with water), the white substance formed doesn't splash out at all. it stays as one. :)

the sunrises were absolutely gorgeous! as was the night sky, some people could even identify a whole lot of constellations. the beauty of nature and life is enough to make people understand that the Earth doesn't just revolve around the Sun because it feels like it. somewhere, there's a more powerful person who is capable of creating these things, & i felt it really keenly that morning i was standing there watching the rising of ze sun.

then went for group outing after camp! went to cine & watched a movie, ate, took neoprints (haven't taken since goodness knows when!), & walked around + watching ezra play para-para. he is TEH PROZ @ it. seriously. so here are a couple of the neops we took :) basically e people who went are irving, elijah, hazel, ezra, gabriel, danielle, joyce, me, kaiwen. shuin jian & erwin went as well but they refused to take neops! oh well, twas loads of fun.

the first one's of my back, yes. twas this machine which randomly takes from different cameras & we weren't prepared for it! hahaha oh well. we all signed on it. & oh ezra was decked out in his blazer, gabriel in his magician's coat.

to put it simply, i love BBPC YF & all ze youths! :) truly, thank God for bonding us so much during the camp, the smooth running of everything, touching the hearts of almost everyone. even the weather - it never rained for more than half an hour, & even if it did rain it was only light drizzle, & once we prayed, it went away! God rocks all. i guess i really understood what reuben meant by " ... whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours ... " (Mark 11:24) throughout the camp. He truly provides!

more photos in my next post, once i've gotten them.

2006-12-07T23:40:00.000+08:00

off to YOUTH CAMP :)

081206 - 111206
will be contactable via hp!

love.

2006-12-02T22:21:00.000+08:00

no matter what people say, crying is STILL a sign of weakness, methinks. or a lack of self-control.
which makes me practically jelly.

on a sidenote, fellow youths are <3, & can't wait for camp! :)

ghost of a rose - blackmore's night
LOVE! gorgeous instrumentation, gorgeous voice.
if anyone sees blackmore's night cds anywhere, do tell me.

2006-11-30T23:36:00.000+08:00

odd how although im rather commitment-free, when things DO pop up they all occur at the same time!

december:
20th to 22nd - band camp
20th - relatives from malaysia are coming to singapore! <3
21st to 23rd - gep chalet
21st - feesh's coming to singapore!
22nd - we fly to hk.

heh, random picture! felt like putting it up. teaching materials from vietnam! :)

one day, when you're free (nyahaha i've been uber free these holidays, homework & whatnots untouched, binomial theorem has gone to the dogs & report for vietnam is as existent as rainbow coloured clouds), go on a quest for beauty! doesn't need to be intentional, just go about the day doing the things you normally do (for me, this includes cca, eating, sitting on a bus, strolling about west mall on the way home, practicing piano, reading papers and periodicals).

youll find out that beauty can be found really easily, anywhere & everywhere. in music, even if you keep going out of time and your bass clarinet squeaks, or when your piano pedal is spoilt and your brahms sounds detached. in the scenery around you, like the christmas tree in west mall, or the random birds flying overhead even if you know they're relieving themselves all over your dad's car.

but the most beauty is found in people themselves. giggling girls at a mac's table in kap, or walking down a bus aisle to notice that people of all shape, size, age, gender, race are sitting side by side, the laughter of a child when his mum buys him a packet of cartwheel chips from the uncle tidbits stall in west mall, a group of friends squeezing in a tiny neoprint booth, a wife waiting for her husband to pick her up from the mrt station.

& then you'll realise that all the beauty of this world - all the people, all their laughter and tears and anger and disappointment, all their joy and despair and successes and failures, all their love and hope and faith - was not created by something scientists say is a Concentrated Mass of Energy That Chose To Explode Randomly. there is no possibility that chance caused all of this to happen.

no, God did. :)

-

2006-11-25T23:48:00.000+08:00

listening to pictures at an exhibition again, performed by wind ensemble. much love!

a few more vietnam photos ahoy.

-

meet FOODIE BABY! one of the babies in the nursery in vietnam that i became particularly fond of. about one year old, learning how to walk, teething and hardly cries. the only time i remember her crying was when she just got an injection & they get injections near their temples, ow. do not comment on how bimbo the angle of the shot is, NOREEN'S IDEA!

charissa and her makeshift drums! creatively created using biscuit tins, paper boxes, empty bottles and lovely vietnamese wooden chopsticks. koolioz man!

meet Diep, our INTEPRETER for two days! otherwise known as lifeline, lifesaver, etc etc.

view from the second floor toilet, one of our group's favourite haunts. don't ask.

GROUP 4D! the group with the best dinner table conversation topics, oh yes.

one day, on the topic of what goes well with bread

alena: i don't like the nuts in nutella
noreen: but peanut butter also has nuts. everything also got nuts.
yuqin: tuna doesn't have, that's why i eat tuna!
charissa: actually, still got eh. spell backwards.
linette: then should be a-nut, not nuts!

- entire group diaos from the punnyness -

cleaning the toilets:

linette: we found a pearl in the upstairs toilet.
noreen: you should plant the pearl and see if it grows into a pearl tree!

us trying to bargain!

charissa: remember to bring our own singapore plastic bags, because vietnam plastic bags are slim, sexy, and see-through.

us, painting the mural! note half the group wearing plastic bags on their heads. :)

in the sleeping quarters, yingming jumps over noreen, hitting her leg
yingming: im sorry, i didn't mean to kill you.
noreen: i'm sorry, i'm too dead to hear you.

noreen: charissa's wearing green, yuqin and yuyue red, you black me blue.
alena: red and green. christmas colours!
noreen: so we're the odd ones out, black and blue. so SAD.
alena: who said that blue and black can't be Christmas colours!
noreen: unless someone beats you up on Christmas day or something.
yuqin: boxing day!

charissa's KOOLIO socks!

group 4d: what does deng mean?
miss soh: it means stand.
group 4d: OH so we've been asking the children to sit and stand all the while?!

miss soh: sit is ngoi-swong.
group 4d: HUH?! then what's choh? we've been using that the past few enrichments.
miss soh: in your pronounciation it means dog.

-

VIETNAM <3.

2006-11-24T21:47:00.000+08:00

so listen to our hearts

-

jericho is nice nice nice! & the bass clarinet part isn't that hard to play either! except for e first two bars where there's only bass clarinet & baritone sax & i just have the feeling i'll start squeaking all over the place once i try to play louder. but yep it's really pretty, as in, you can really envision everything happening along with the music, the desolation of Joshua as he led the Israelites, the seven rounds of marching, the crumbling of the magnificent walls, & the glory of the sacred trumpets! love.

finally got my premium membership! nyahahahaha tis time to raid the esplanade library, oh yes. whee! something i simply must horde first include the orchestral score of pictures at an exhibition, intend to compare it with the original piano one & learn more about orchestration, which is seriously darn kool. everyone should try it sometime! as in, even a simple G chord takes a LOT of effort.

like how if you want it to be soft, the bassoon can't play low notes because apparently its loud, violins and cellos and doublebasses cant play the G below middle C because it's an open string and it can't be softened with vibrato, flutes oboes and clarinets can't play high notes because they're piercing, and apparently muted horns have a soft mystical quality to them.

then, the notes matter too. if too many instruments play G, it gets too heavy and doesnt feel like a nice rounded chord. if the Ds are too obvious, it wouldn't sound like a G chord anymore. and so on and so forth, then take the different instruments into consideration, the number of instruments, etc etc. and compare that to playing a simple G chord on the piano!

okay fine, all that was koped from a book on orchestration i was reading a while ago. but it's darn kool right! which is why i want to do first hand research :) & pictures at an exhibition has got to be the best orchestration ever done. cheers to ravel!

am not making much sense. shall hop off now & continue being hyper over my premium membership. am entirely too lazy to upload photos, but meet the rainbow!

Many seek at a distance the God who stands before them at the door of their heart. They are waiting for a ladder to be thrown down from Heaven, while all the time Christ has descended the ladder and is right there beside them. - Every Day With Jesus ( Thursday, 23 Nov )

2006-11-18T12:53:00.000+08:00

imagine what it's like to be 16 years old, having stayed in the centre all your life, and having all your days fixed to the same routine of eating & sleeping. you don't go to school because a limited number do, so you do odd jobs around the centre, laundry because you're a girl, dishwashing. all you know about the world beyond the centre and the route to the market is from pictures and books and visitors that come to the centre - and you only have a few of those a year.

but you're happy. you can still laugh, and smile. your most precious belonging is a book full of songs that you've written the lyrics to, and you sing it all day long. you know them by heart but you keep the book and teach the other girls in the centre how to sing as well. you can dance, only a few steps that you repeat over and over again, steps that you learnt from some visitors a while back. but you're glad. you have three sets of clothes that you wear, wash and rewear, and you're satisfied.

visitors come, giving you things that are in fact, worthless to them. stickers, stationery that hardly costs anything, stuffed toys bought in bulk. in return, you give them all that you have - all your possessions you hold dear, the very few things that you have stored inside a single shelf. they laugh and talk to you, their extent of vietnamese being "what's your name", "how old are you", and "what do you like". but you laugh and talk to them as well, jumping up and down when they come to visit your dining area, offering them food even when you don't have enough. you love company, and you love people on sight. it doesn't matter what they think, or if they reciprocate the love you give them, as long as there are people there for you to love and be affectionate towards.

and you're happy.

that's what vietnam taught me, and what vietnam rcip means to me.

being satisfied, being happy isn't a goal or aim. it's a choice. it's up to you to count your blessings one by one and realise that you'll never finish. it's up to you to decide if you want to spend your life laughing with people you love and not contemplating whether they love you back enough for you to love them. i dont think it's naivete nor innocence that the children and youths in hanoi sponsoring centre #4 have, no, it's a rare form of maturity and sense of gratitude they have towards life.

gah enough heavy stuff. just a couple of photos, too lazy to upload them all. :)

OH YES VEE ARE AT ZE TOP OF ZE WORLD.

learn your numbers with the traffic lights!

namely yingming, annie & charissa.

ONE!

TWO!

THREE!

FOUR!

FIVE!

SIX!

SEVEN!

EIGHT!

NINE!

TEN!

ZERO!

more vietnam pics another day :)

2006-11-15T08:02:00.000+08:00

back.

you never give more than you take.

2006-11-03T01:24:00.000+08:00

VIETNAM.

Regional CIP.

031106 - 141106.

hoho i'll pretty much be uncontactable so don't sms me unless you want me to read it on the 14th when i get back. am being guai & leaving valuables at home!

went to marina south for bbq steamboat today with family, love. ate enough to last me for a few days, & i think i'll get rather homesick. but hope to come back a better person, having made a difference! whee shall treat it as a retreat of sorts as well.

OFF AND AWAY;

2006-10-30T09:28:00.000+08:00

advertising time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkTlogcmUtI
click! and watch the publicity video there, then

come for bbpc yf camp '06!

it'll rock. :)

-

yesterday was 5th sunday!

so basically in our church's yf, 5th sunday is set aside for games & outings because the other four sundays follow the routine of prayer & praise, BS, speaker, BS. so yesterday was games, was a facilitator & it was much fun. rained for about 20 minutes in between but after prayer it went away! <3.

the best part was the mass games @ the nature park i guess. i really like worship with a single acoustic guitar, and the rest of us sitting on the ground singing familiar songs, clapping along. guess the yf feels more bonded that way. for me, in a natural environment setting with lots and lots of grass, trees, water, it's much easier to cast aside all the distractions of the world and truly praise God wholeheartedly! also, when we're all crowded together like that, there's no more of the segregation between the younger and older youths that's painfully evident in the seminar room.

then was waterbombs! it's a tradition sort of, to always have a waterbomb game when there're games, except we used coloured waterbombs this time! so catherine ended up with pink-streaked shorts that were quite pretty actually. & the rest of it was just a lot of eating & having fun, hahahaha praise God for the success of the entire thing!

kaiwen & shandy are organising some marina south kite-flying cum seafood bbq thing this tuesday to celebrate the success of the games today, which is yay because i harth marina south a lot. the wide expanse of grass, grass, and more grass.

oh just a random photo i found the other day, i dont know where it is or who took it, but look @ the colour of the sky! pretty. :) nature itself is enough to prove God's existence isn't it!

-

song recommendation! I See Love by Steven Curtis Chapman, Third Day, & Mercy Me

some see a teacher standing on a hill
speaking words of wisdom,
some see a healer reaching out his hand
to give sight to a blind man,
some see a dreamer wasting his life
on what can never be,
some see a fool dying for his dreams

chorus
but i see love
i see love
light of heaven breaking through
i see grace
i see God's face
shining pure and perfect love
when i see You
i see love

some see a prisoner alone before his judge
with no one to defend him,
some see a victim beaten and abused
with all the world against him,
some see a matyr carrying his cross
for what he believes,
some see a hero who set his people free

chorus

with your last breath i see love
through your death i see love
i see peace in the eyes of the king
i see hope in your suffering
i see a calm in the centre of the storm
i see a Saviour

chorus

some see Him walking from an empty grave

-

2006-10-27T23:19:00.000+08:00

ldp launch today!

to put it short, cip rocks my life. :)

met with group members, nj-ip girl called cassandra (whom im talking to on msn right now and is darn cute!), two ri people (one with an interesting name, and one who's like very on and has already set up a yahoo group! gosh, efficiency.) , & two hc guys who didnt come because they're in taiwan on exchange, apparently. everyone seems quite nice, but we were pretty much stoning and being shy et quiet today, so. nevermind, ex-ldpians said we'll warm up eventually!

am quite interested in working with handicapped welfare associations, which we'll be visiting on wednesday. personally prefers working with the physically or intellectually disabled (although i dont like that term much), because it's more challenging and i guess it'll get me to be really thankful & appreciative!

off to memorise my two-minute long speech for hca hospice seminar tomorrow. talking of which, sarah/ym/whoever else is in rcip and reading this, when we bring our luggage to school the day before to checkin, and we take bus, HOW ARH? i mean. go onto the bus carrying a suitcase?!

succumbed to another taiwanese idol drama! so what if they're brainless? I LIKE. imo, movies should be intelligent because they're short, and so directors can be as artsy or unfathomable as they want to be as long as there's a meaning behind it that people can pick up. dramas, on the other hand, should just be dramatic. :)

6 more days before i whisk off to vietnam!

2006-10-23T21:07:00.000+08:00

love

the most famous quote on love:
1 Cor 13 : 4 - 8a Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preseveres.

love is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and comes hand-in-hand with the other fruits, namely: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Gal 5:22-23)

love is not a feeling. it is the desire for the wellbeing of another person, and when people treat it as an emotion to be nourished and paid back in full, it becomes obsession. love is unconditional, obsession is selfish. love does only good to the one who loves, the one who is loved, and the ones who can see the love. obsession hurts all who are involved.

perhaps that's why love has become so warped - for most people, it's turned into obsession.

love isn't two people holding hands walking down a beach, or the odd things that people do on mrts. it's a young baby born in a manger knowing that He is not of the world. it's a man on a cross carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders although he had done nothing to deserve such. it's the silent cry of the same man who saved the very people who killed him.

what is love?

Rom 8:38-39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

-

2006-10-21T02:04:00.000+08:00

whee -

past week has been quite interesting! strangely busy with regional cip stuff, not that it takes up a lot of time but rather, the times it takes up are rather odd & e organised EOY programmes for us are rather staggered so half the time people are wandering around with nothing to do. ahh well. i still find it quite ironic that we're going to do regional cip and we're taking SQ. not that im complaining though :)

okay anyway, today we had sia presentations/exhibits, & two groups from hwachong came over to present their projects and THEY ARE SO DARN GOOD. seriously, one year older than us and they're so much more pro! sigh. i thought the first one made a particularly strong impression on me, the autistic children and the expression in their eyes in some of the photos - dont know if rapturous would be the right word to describe it. but what the guys did was amazing, & toot i actually teared during their presentation! stupid, but it was touching & really got to see service learning in action :) cip's probably the best thing moe has made compulsory over the years.

temper's on a particularly short fuse these days, and i think i might have strayed along the walk with God. going to vietnam would help i guess, 12 days of isolation from media, the comp, the net, and the phone. yes, i need to be thankful for so many things which i normally fail to appreciate! as the verse goes, " Stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God. " from Job, i think. thus will go to vietnam so i can be still and know that He's God! :)

talking of which I REALLY MISS SHANGHAI AGAIN. not the ' i wish i could go back in time and never came back to singapore ' kind, but the ' i wish i had appreciated the time there more and i want to meet all the people there again '. sad thing about being in an international school, we all part our ways after a while and there'll never be a time when it's exactly the same as before, with all the same people present. hoho i know its annoying, me being reminiscent and all but now that eoys are over i've less to occupy my brain so i think about random things!

haha of course ny is much love but being here for 1 year and 2 months can't beat 4 years in s'hai right! thank goodness i snapped out of my vegetative antisocial state i was in when i came originally except now my vegetative antisocial loner state is reserved for during band. sad but true, the band people are darned nice except when people see my nametag colour and start discussing the reasons behind my er. lousiness pretty much, and it gets blatantly obvious, but ahh well. i guess i'd do the same if i were in their position.

twill prob stay this way until jc, or even beyond that, but being antisocial does have its upsides, gives me time to think and to observe people. anyways! malaria pills make me sleep. a lot.

shall go off now, i realise that i hop from topic to irrelevant topic like heck in one single post! that should annoy all who attempt to read my blog, yes. meanwhile, doubt i'll be blogging until next week, so til then, adieu!

2006-10-14T22:46:00.000+08:00

- He died for us, so we live for Him!

two days belated, but EXAMS ARE OFFICIALLY OVER :)
blatantly refuse to talk about the results here when i do get them back though.

lorena's (my sister's) birthday today! so the entire day was spent hopping around getting stuff for her. dad & i went to fix her laptop (which is my old and ailing one) at simlim, then went to plaza sing to get her present but they were out of stock! so we bought lots of snacks and i got RITTER SPORT <3 chocolate then off we flew to suntec and finally managed to get her present - electric drumpad from casio! it's quite fun but odd because the hihat is positioned on the right side of the snare. oh well.

bought a cake from swensen's for her with finding nemo icing! it's darn cute please. simon sooksook & auntie meiyee came over and they're still here chatting actually, it was loads of fun. i still think birthdays are best spent with family indeed :) since really, friends didnt play much of a part in your birth.

im in love with bach again! can't stop listening to his brandenburg concertos, which are absolutely awesome. am going to spend the holidays and my nov-dec pocket money stocking up on classical cds & i have a very looong list planned out which will take me a couple of years to obtain i guess.

baroque still remains my absolute love though, i mean isn't it more of an art if a composer is able to express every single emotion known to human through a piece of music that's so strict in tempo, dynamics, form and instrumentation? as compared to the romantic period, where everything's so dynamic and rubato and flexible and rules are flung out of the windows! which is why 70% of a list of famous composers consist of romantic ones, even though the romantic period lasted 2/3 the time of the Baroque period.

jayne! can check your classical collection to see if you have baroque period (corelli, bach, handel)'s trio sonatas? or classical period (mozart, beethoven)'s string quartets! kaythanks and hope you had a great shopping trip in kl!

time to munch more on rittersport HOHO. :)

2006-10-11T22:03:00.000+08:00

two and a half hours left towards liberation;

today after the practical exam which is now a gone case and im hoping to just pass, i had the sudden impulse to stop learning the piano because the way i played and let my nervousness take over my fingers is insulting not only to the composers but also to the listeners ( in this case mrs ee and mr lim), to the piano, and to all other people who are much more capable than i am.

ALENA WAN WHEN THE HECK ARE YOU GOING TO LEARN TO LOOK FAILURE IN THE EYE AND ACCEPT DEFEAT GRACIOUSLY?!

it's typical of me to blame everything on carelessness, people, nerves, un-conducive environments, etc. it's about time i learn to see that when i fail, the only one i can hold responsible is myself. therefore ...

post exam resolutions

1. practice piano 1 hr 45 minutes a day (if i play any later, the neighbours will hunt me down with parangs)

2. practice guzheng at least 5 hours a week.

3. practice bass clarinet with a vengeance!

4. get more involved in church somehow

5. figure out how to teach a 9 year old how to play piano

6. read both chinese and english papers like i would read a chinese compre during exams.

7. read qingnianwenzhai and chinese periodicals, chinese olevels next year!

8. more community service, must get rid of that arrogant et selfish streak in me

9. learn how to cook before going for rcip. YES I VERY SPOILT LARH DONT KNOW HOW TO COOK.

10. go and regain my long lost tennis skills. not that i had a lot in the first place, but at least i had SOME. now they're nonexistent once more. oh yeah, restring my racquet.

11. not to go out more than one day a week.

12. go to music essentials and SPLURGE. well, that isnt much of a good resolution it's just a want.

13. go see a doctor about my sinus.

14. spend more time in the esplanade library (LOVE!) which im certain is the most conducive library in singapore. beats even the natlib okay!

15. be less antisocial and less eccentric and less temperamental and less urgh.

16. watch WORLD TRADE CENTRE! and notre dame di paris! and phantom of the opera which is coming in march! and remember to go order tix for the 5 sso concerts i want to attend.

-

optimism has returned slightly, so back to figuring out the difference between a2 and divisi. grrsh.

2006-10-10T23:00:00.000+08:00

YAY ONLY MUSIC LEFT!

although tis bound to be the worst of the lot, i will maintain the optimism that has diffused its way into my brain thanks to certain gloaters that their exams are over! :) but nevermind, prata eating was much fun today.

to sum it up, chem was unexpectedly disastrous, ih was expectedly terrible, english and chinese were fun but average, math was okay, chinese lit & physics were much better than expected! hoho im hoping against hope that i get at least three A1s, although the prospect doesn't really seem to be too bright.

i like studying music though, especially reading about all the composers' scandals. makes them easier to remember! and stuff like how brahms liked mellow instruments like the viola and clarinet hoho. and goodness knows how the italian name for bassoon (fagotto) became a profanity.

and tomorrow's practical! i-am-so-going-to-die my beethoven sonata is completely out of tempo and im scared it's going to take more than 10 minutes and i always freak out under cold room conditions so my fingers freeze and i pretty much mess up the entire piece! but horh, even in normal conditions i can't play properly so i dont have any right to say.

oh well. back to muzique!

2006-10-04T17:07:00.000+08:00

i will hereby be thankful that im in ip, that my results in an exam won't affect my future as drastically as it would if i were taking my o-levels. sigh. go figure.

2006-10-04T03:19:00.000+08:00

3.5 down, 4.5 to go until freedom!

late night or early morning, whichever way you prefer to phrase it, because chem exam starts in 4 hours and 15 mins, gasp. quite obviously, my self-imposed exam bedtime curfew has gone to the dogs, but thank goodness chem involves a lot of regurgitating and slightly less critical thinking so even if im half-asleep while doing the paper at least i've memorised facts! although judging by the past year papers i've tried, there is a huge possibility of me flunking anyway.

chinese (yesterday) was disastrous, but not as bad as ih today which i REFUSE to think about. i've never known myself to be so capable of crapping through why welfare should be disposed of and how difficult it is to build national identity, or in the case of chinese why people choose to migrate and how service standards in singapore are dropping. sigh, well at least the written papers are over, and surprisingly it's not my hand that hurts after the exams, but my neck. probably something to do with my sitting position that i end up with terrible neck cramps after the papers.

math wasn't too bad, with luck i didn't make too many careless mistakes although i already have about 10 marks off & probably got the entire linear law question wrong in the process. - gulp - but what's gone is gone and i'll just have to jiayou for paper two on monday!

it feels quite ridiculous blogging about exams.

back to studying why most covalent compounds don't readily dissolve in water. i realise that although i dont like a subject, the more i study it the greater my interest grows! which means im starting to appreciate the finer details of chem. quite kool, except it'll never take the place of physics and math in my heart (aww)!

hahaha jayne you should be disturbed, im more faithful to subjects than i am to you, nyaha.

i hereby vow to stick to my curfew (sleep before 12.30) for the rest of my exams.

2006-10-01T14:19:00.000+08:00

just a random thought;
i need to do something about my arrogance.

got the email forwarded by jiawei, it's true about life i guess. keep all the sorrow, failure, hatred and disappointment in a box that has a hole - and as you go on in life, let all of that fall away and lighten your load. as for the joy and love in life, keep it in a golden net so the fragrance can be spread to everyone around you. and when the load gets too heavy, share.

:)

2006-09-29T17:17:00.000+08:00

one DOWN, seven to go.

so la exam was today! and it was actually quite fun to do in general, i must say, although im sure i flunked it with the way i was going on about how the yellow ribbon project is love and that convicts should be given multiple chances. markers are going to think im an idealistic little girl. then i was rattling about social inequality and jaded mistrust between individuals, which im certain has no connection with the unseen poem whatsoever, but oh well! compre was crap, i'd be happy just to passe.

got back ca2 and sia marks, am rather disappointed with the former and absolutely elated with the latter, remind me to remind our juniors to take smp in the future! :) love. then went off to cheronne initially meaning to go to bras basah to get stuff for ym, missed the stop and ended up at suntec instead so we went to CANDY EMPIRE! bought chocolate for ourselves, then went to suntec foodcourt (there actually is a foodcourt!) and met ym's sister.

on the whole, an interesting day of sorts.

2006-09-21T22:06:00.000+08:00

a long overdue picture which is much <3,
our teacher's day present for clee
done by jasmine with an ONION
photo courtesy of msng.

please tell me you can spot the resemblance!

NY FOOD AND FUNFAIR '06!
a heck lot of fun & being very busy.
here's a pic towards the end of the funfair, when we resorted to BUSKING!

(this was the initial setup but it expanded to about 10 people later on)
hoho, we earned 50 bucks from that okay.

-

enough rubbish. meanwhile, its quite sad that they're demolishing gep in sec schools in 2 years time, although i suppose it's understandable and most of the geppers have opted for ip anyway, but gep is still an identity! elitist if you wish. because as annie says, being a gepper is a BOND FOR LIFE! :) i'll miss having the gep tag (although i was technically only a gepper for half a year in primary school because i floated off to shanghai).

because we're kool.

also, i have found my new love - brahms. (yes he even pwns taiwanese idol dramas! which btw, i really like although they're brainless and all about goodlooking leads, with unrealistic storylines and exaggerated acting, but they're still nice.) see, brahms was believed to have an affair with clara schumann, and apparently he was seriously in love with her but clara was hopelessly devoted to robert schumann, so. in all his pieces there's this element of broodiness that's absolutely gorgeous and even in major-key pieces one can feel the underlying hollowness and that's what makes it beautiful.

& i am that pathetic - was practicing the brahms piece i've just been given, which i play at onethird the speed and have to stop every three bars and i actually cried. never knew i was that sentimental hahaha and although i was playing utter crap the melody and the meaning behind all the discords and harmony in all its temperamental, tempestuous moods was affecting and gah. feels ridiculous now, but just goes to show that there's magic in the world.

jiayou for exams! i'm against hiatus-ing during exam period, it RELIEVES STRESS. :)

2006-09-16T01:11:00.000+08:00

on bananas;

thursday after school on the bus, met kay yun & she told me this:

during lifeskills camp got 5 days right, mr ______ wore dark green on the first day, light green on the second day, yellow on the third day, white on the fourth day and black on the fifth day. which means raw banana, unripe banana, ripe banana, the inside of the banana, and a rotten banana!

today during the ysc rehearsals, while in the lt waiting for our turn to rehearse,

brenda: i think our slides and presentations are a bit boring.
me: yeah, but there really isnt any way to brighten it up.
brenda: oh we could do the banana in pyjamas dance - starts humming banana in pyjamas -
me: hahahahahahaha and that has everything to do with our presentation because?
brenda: because we're in our banana suits!

(for kristin and li-en, our school blazer's a banana yellow colour, so yeah.)

later, when mrs wong was looking for someone to get ny's certs,

me: brenda can you go please please please?
brenda: why? i dont want to!
me: but you have more experience!
brenda: but i've only worn court shoes twice.
me: i havent worn them at all! i just know i'm going to slip and fall on stage while walking up.
brenda: you could pretend you slipped on a BANANA skin!

then when i told jiawei all that & we were discussing possible future professions for myself later, he suggested if i can't be all the stuff i want to be i can go be banana in pj's voiceover, a female version!

i think im developing a prominent double chin, oh no. & i haven't studied with 100% concentration yet, exams are in two weeks' time ARGH. more pressing matters at hand however. shall go memorise script for ysc tomorrow if not liza will strangle me although i bought oreo wafer sticks for her! whee wish us luck for tomorrow's presentation kay. MUST PWN THE DHS/RI/SCGS groups who's in our concurrent presentation group! although they're all nice people :)

2006-09-08T22:29:00.000+08:00

& life has no promise but death;

to all those who are grieving or mourning over the loss of a loved one.

perhaps i have no right to speak, as an outsider; perhaps death has never touched me with its icy grasp as hard as it has for many others, but i do know that death is not a trigger for depression, rather, the loss is a stimulant for us to live life in its entirety, to breathe in the smell of earth and grass before we are lying in it, to smile & touch other people's lives so that your memory remains even if you are gone, to feel all the emotions in the world before we are numb.

please keep them in your prayers, both the lost & the ones who lost.

-

on to less morbid issues, today's been a wonderful day. didn't go to school, went out with dad & sis for the entire afternoon! bought another set of liang2 yu3 sheng1's wuxiaxiaoshuos, YES i'm going to be broke soon it's like the fourth i've bought in a week. gulp. & guess what i saw, bai2 fa4 mo2 nv3 zhuan4 selling at tsvision @ tiongbahru, the one i've been searching for for eons! hoho. love. will go buy sometime next week. :)

whee the potc soundtrack is gorgeous. except i really cant figure out why there is a WALTZ in it.

mum saw my musicessentials membership card and nearly fainted, apparently i look much worse in it than i thought i did. hoho just a reminder to all people taking photos never ever to sniff when you're posing in front of the camera even if you have a terrible cold. basically your mouth goes wonky, you look like you're crying, your nose looks skewed, your neck bones stick out in a very unnatural way and your entire head tilts. not good.

monster house is a cute movie! my gosh steven spielberg & his animations are the rock.

today's another one of the days i feel like hugging everyone i meet. which is very rare, but a nice warm feeling. shall settle with hugging my pillow for now while i scurry off to read. YES IM STILL NOT IN MUGGING MOOD YET. diediedie.

oh, i found this on a quotes website, said by henry scott holland, whoever he is, thought it was quite pretty, so here you go!

Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped away into the next room,
I am I and you are you;
Whatever we were to each other,
That we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name,
Speak to me in the easy way which you always used,
Put no difference in your tone,
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we shared together.
Let my name ever be the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect,
without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant,
It is the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near, just around the corner.
All is well.

-

2006-09-07T22:42:00.000+08:00

& we will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand;

holidays so far have been decidedly unproductive.

as i told lynette, my entire natural clock has been thrown completely off-balance rather like pluto's off-course orbit. (& as you can see, i've also become even lamer than usual. gah.) i sleep at all hours, all lengths, eat at strange times & with random amounts. i feel tired after a ten hour nap and energised after two.

the first mugging i've done in the entire week is today, five minutes ago when i decided to start working on some log problems. will continue later after blogging, i promise! see why i suck, it seems that every other soul except mine has started burying their heads in books, assessments & revision. oh woe.

someone tell me why even my tone of speaking has changed.

so far i've spent my week either in school, with extra lessons & cca, just stoning around, and reading wuxia books & watching qijianxiatianshan! which is still so much love. liang2 yu3 sheng1 really really rocks, his characters come completely to life in front of you! oh btw, shall introduce you to my bass clarinet!

yep, can't see from the photo, it's all quite battered & old with dents everywhere. but it's still a lot of love! except i have no idea where my mouthpiece fluttered to, so i've been borrowing jialun (my bass clarinet junior who is tonnes tonnes tonnes better than me & has like 3 years more experience) 's b-clarinet, and it's so sparkly shiny & new! really pretty too, except because it's new i need to keep cork-greasing it which is rather annoying because cork grease is PINK & it's annoyingly sticky. why can't people just use soap!

& playing with her bass clarinet really rocks man, i can reach HIGH HIGH C sometimes! WHOOPEE, considering i could only reach high C on my own bass clarinet it's quite an accomplishment. but still, i reckon i really suck & learn uber slowly, need to practice a lot more except i can't, because the mouthpiece is gone. GRRSH.

also, mr lee is officially teh rock. he's like so nice & patient & i dont know, just nice & patient? plus he really cared :) . meanwhile, i'm probably causing the band exco plenty of problems so yikes. still contemplating about ldp, am quite worried because im already this sucky i obviously need whatever practice i need for bassclarinet, & ldp will rob me of 1/3 of cca time from jan-april, that is if i get in but ARGH.

family day tomorrow! dad's taking half a day off so we can go watch a movie near my mum's workplace & then we'll eat satay for dinner yay :) was thinking of watching either devilwearsprada or singaporedreaming, but remembered my sister's 9 so decided on monster house! kuz steven spielberg is awesome.

-

back to logarithms, which is quite fun except for the graphs. GRAPHS BE THE WOE OF MY LIFE, & e only part of math i dislike. don't see the point in them. what's the point of knowing the asymptotes of a certain function i mean just WORK IT OUT algebraically & get an answer. a solid standard numerical answer not random lines drawn on random coordinates that nobody knows how to read or cares about.

2006-09-03T13:37:00.000+08:00

& they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love -

i know i've said this a million times, but church really beats all. music can make me cry and prance around in exultation or fall into a daze, but church changes me. perhaps it's the calming presence of God amongst us, or the power of worship & sermons, the silent meditation & prayer, but i love coming out from church knowing that a part of me is better, or at least, will strive to be better.

mostly i love knowing true love, the only kind of its sort that comes from our Lord, the love between the brothers and sisters in Christ, the love when the pastor shakes our hand, or when the speaker stands in the pulpit & talks. the love that's present when im walking alone on a road on the way home, the love that surrounds me when im sitting in my room chionging homework, the love that forces itself upon me when i see how God has touched the lives of so many, the love that scares me with its intensity and magnitude. the love that's always there for me, through tears, laughter, anguish, frustration, joy, anger.

and there's no way to repay Him for what He did, except to love Him as well.

:)

listen to our hearts - steven curtis chapman

how do you explain, how do you describe
a love that goes from east to west
and runs as deep as it is wide;

You know all our hopes
Lord You know all our fears
and words cannot express the love we feel
but we long for You to hear;

so listen to our hearts
hear our spirits sing
a song of praise from those You have redeemed;
we will use the words we know
to tell You what an awesome God You are
but words are not enough
to tell You of our love
so listen to our hearts;

if words could fall like rain
from these lips of mine
and if i had a thousand years
i would still run out of time;

so if You listen to my heart
every beat will say
thank You for the life
thank You for the truth
thank You for the way;

so listen to our hearts
hear our spirits sing
the song of praise from those You have redeemed
we will use the words we know
to tell You what an awesome God You are
but words are not enough
to tell You of our love
so listen to our hearts!

-

2006-08-30T23:04:00.000+08:00

& the sun has made a thousand nights for you to hold;

tea rocks :) its lime, lychee & passionfruit flavour which might sound odd but somehow lipton always manages to mix like all kinds of random flavours and make it taste dreamworthy.

teacher's day tomorrow! i've gotten pnah's & rkhoo's presents ready, we're giving them as a class basically & if there ever is an award for most creative gift-giving we'd totally claim it! but meanwhile im really hyper because today when i went to peps to tutor yiqun, ros and xiyun as usual, guess what?

THEY GAVE ME A CARD AND A PRESENT!
FOR TEACHER'S DAY!

its like so darn sweet can. & they said although i just peer-tutor them im still considered their teacher so they should give me stuff too. whee hope they jiayou for their psle's!

then i went home and practised piano for an hour or so, showered, decided to hop over to west mall quickly to get mr nah's stuff. (details will be revealed tomorrow after the gifts have been given!) so after i got the _____, saw that there was a terrible downpour & considering i just showered i didnt want to get wet again so i roamed the basement of west mall for a while, & bengawan solo's starting to sell their like flavoured snow-skin TINY mooncakes at obscene prices but it looks so nice - drools -. but, guess what i found?

BANANA MUFFINS!
yes all the while i've been obsessing over them i never knew they were available so near my house, because i used to go to like je library & mrs fields and all kinds of random places to eat them. so MUAHAHAHA i bought 4 muffins, the last ones they had left, $1 each and will be eating them for breakfast tomorrow! :) cant wait. (not all of them by myself, one each for my family larh!)

then i had to call auntie to come and give me an umbrella so i could go home! rush rush rush, ate dinner & then pa came home & sent me off to piano! theory first, 45 mins, then piano which gah i felt horrible about because i couldn't play anything properly & i tuo-ed so much time ybb couldn't finish the stuff she wanted to go through with me like more sight-reading & e duet thing she wanted to try. ybb is nice though, but i think she's really disappointed with me.

ALENA WAN JIAYOU PIANO EXAMS ARE NEXT FEBRUARY! gah i feel darn shibai up to now i still can't play one entire piece properly, how the heck am i going to survive 35 mins of repertoire! whee will take opportune of the holidays from today to next sunday to try to practice 2 hours a day.

then pa told me he had a conference call so i had to go home on my own, t which i wouldnt have minded at all if not for the fact that i had been carrying a carton of fruit juice, like those boxes which have like 24 250ml packets? was so bulky and inconvenient and quite heavy so yeah. oh well! at least we'll all have slighter healthier drinks tomorrow :) reached home at 9.40.

the glorifying exam timetables came out today. quite annoying that all our exams except the third lang, hmp, aep, music, art are in the hall which is NOT a conducive environment for er, calculating or writing or anything of the sort.

oh well, not too fluttered about that, rather, am more worried about music exam because i dont anything about what's going to be tested for practical! i mean technically we SHOULD be tested on our 2nd instrument, but the time allocation given isn't enough for testing both 1st and 2nd. GAH so i dont know what to practice.

and we wont be seeing mr matthewlim until, term 4.

oh well no point getting stressed over it now! tonight is clear-backlog-completely night, & i have herstory, math stats poster, math worksheets to complete. should get started now :)

i am convinced that the world is a beautiful place full of good people.
taking some info from the newspapers as an example,

the woman who looked after her neighbour who had a terrible accident. even the neighbour's own family had abandoned her, but the woman took her in as if she was her daughter and has been looking after her since then.

more touchingly, how some guy managed to raise funds for a blind child from Nepal or something to fly to Singapore to operate on his eye. in the newspapers it says "an anonymous eye specialist did the operation for free". i think its really gratifying to know that s'pore has people like that who're willing to do really amazing things and remain anonymous. <3, as opposed to certain individuals who announce to the world that they're UN ambassadors. rolls eyes.

2006-08-29T23:39:00.000+08:00

& the shadows followed by the stars have turned to gold;

hahaha nothing can beat my mood right now, because ...

bsp exam is OVER!
&
chinese sia is COMPLETED!

ladidums. :) i'm not going to think too much about bsp exam until the results are out because i was like uber stressing myself out during school today im just so glad its over i could hug everyone i meet! whee.

SECOND SON! you know who you are, cheer up okay! because you're a wonderful person & haha im so proud of you as my erzi because you're darn cute!

hahaha i feel spastic, using so many exclamation marks. meanwhile im very proud of myself because i managed to practice 1.5 hours of piano yesterday and today! if i keep this up it means 10+ hours of piano a week (more for weekends) which means i'll improve woot. gah exam's in march or something, and i MUST DO WELL, because apparently it costs a heck of a lot. always feel guilty when i ask pa to write a cheque or give me cash for piano, piano books, guzheng, theory, theory books and whatnot.

plus i think its very ignorant for people to think that ' oh, you practice piano and guzheng for more than 15 hours a week must be very free right. ' because that's like saying, " you go to school 35+ hours and cca 9+ hours a week, must be very free right! " it's about the PRIORITIES, honey. which is why i cant stand it when people complain about how busy they are & how many commitments ( or how frantically time-consuming these are ) they have. everything you are busy with, you obviously made a choice to do it, & therefore you don't have any right to complain!

whee, so pluto's being taken off the solar system. quite sad, i think i'll miss the cute little planet with a dog's name! will probably ask my sister to keep her science book and tell her descendants about how once pluto was a planet and not a random flying rock :) ahahaha. being hyper makes me lame. the effect of eating mooncakes! i went down to the kitchen and my dad had like a nice bowl of korean instant noodles in front of him and guess what he said to me when i saw him?

" NOT FOR YOU! "

evilpok! because i cant resist im going down to cook a bowl of instant noodles. nevermind that it's 11+ pm.

im certain debussy would turn in his grave if he heard the way i play his la cathedrale engloutie, and really, i cant blame him. PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE. and now i go off to do work, MUST stay up all the way today because tomorrow's the technical last day of term. overdue work still in piles on my desk, gargh.

progress reports, they're quite alright but a lot could be better. no matter though. whee my mums uber stressed with work she's still up doing work! when she's normally in bed by 10.30, so yep, pray for her kay!

2006-08-26T23:46:00.000+08:00

my internet is up again!
well twas only down for a day, but it feels like so much longer :)

just a quick post, i'll do a proper one tomorrow.

sarah, (i used orange for your name) yep you're spinached too, lol! i'll consider you as my very special cip partner from now on! but you're seriously good at it as in with oldfolks and children as well, i guess actually loving to do it helps.

got pretty pissed when some people want to join ldp because of reasons like " does it replace any sias ", " to add to my portfolio and make it pretty ", all the crap people don't say but we know actually mean. so yep community service rocks my life kuz it makes me feel useful & because im such a darned spoilt brat i need to help the community a bit more. =)

so i know syf's coming next year, and with ldp i'll miss about every friday's cca before syf. but judging by my current (dis) abilities with the bass clarinet i probably won't be involved so it won't be that bad. and even if by some miracle i AM involved, i'll still put ldp first, because the community is way more important than gold with honours right!

sure, i'd love a gold with honours for band whether or not im playing, but what can that measly award do as compared to community service? in a couple years, the old folks at a home might remember and thank me for raising funds for say a television set whereas who the heck would care or remember that nycb got gold with honours '07? getting GWH will bring all nycb-ers to cloud nine but it wont make a difference in their lives the way that i could make to the old folks or physically disabled or children.

because we have so much more than them. (physically speaking, as in we have material wordly goods. but they probably have much more in calibre than we do. )

i dont think any band people read my blog, but if you do, i love nycb and that's truth, but i love community service more. so i guess i'll go ahead with applying for ldp whether or not mr matthewlim & shimin & exco will approve. since im already causing so many problems with my attendance already, according to jialun. and i probably won't get into ldp anyways. plus if i do, i'll cancel my wednesday's cip - peer tutoring at peps! - to prac personally, whether or not im in syf.

right, i've rambled on too much, but my point is ,
YES SARAH, COMMUNITY SERVICE ROCKS ALL!

i dont even care if you call me a pretentious do-gooder. at least i bother to pretend.

2006-08-23T04:14:00.000+08:00

everyday, it's You i live for
everyday, i'll follow after You
everyday, i walk with You, my Lord

it's You i live for everyday (x 3)

- Everyday (i think it's by hillsong. not sure though)

:) seriously, God makes my day, week, month, whatever. maybe that's why i don't mind being alone & antisocial sometimes, when i remember how i used to HATE being alone and always stuck around with people, because i can feel His presence & i know He's with me all the way now!

-

MY CONCOCTION FOR STAYING AWAKE UNTIL UNEARTHLY HOURS!
(like right now)

- 2 tsps of STRONG coffee powder like arabica
- 4 - 5 tsps of milo powder!
- milk, or condensed milk (if you have a sweet tooth)
- hot water

mix in relative proportions, & you get a nice bittersweet coffee with tinge of chocolate. don't add too much milo because although it gives energy, experiments have proven that it also makes you sleepier and lethargic! of course, the best ingredient to add would be that you had plenty of sleep the night before, which i did :) & which is also why my overdue pile has stacked up to a few metres. but yeah, im serious, it WORKS! because it takes merely one cup to keep you to the highest of your energy levels! hahaha im convinced i won't make it in the advertising industry, just listen to me talk.

-

guzheng got changed to tomorrow (or today, rather, but i tend to treat "before sleep" as the day before and "when i wake up" as the next day) which means, busy busy day! after school go to peps and tutor until 4+, guzheng lesson from 5 - 5.45, go home shower change eat dinner, piano & theory lesson from 7.15 - 9. which means must finish my work by today, sigh.

JAYNE! I SPINACH YOU BECAUSE YOU'RE LDP-ING TOO!

regional cip meeting yesterday was good, except i seriously need to learn how to cook. YES, I CANT COOK, stop staring! i can hardly bake properly, i cant fry without burning myself. the only things i can do is cut & chop, decorate, wash dishes, and make sushi. hahahaha how very useful. but i cant wait til november 4th! especially because regional cip vietnam is like, swarmed with geppers, i counted, out of 24 of us, 10 or more are tenners/eleveners/twelvers, & i know tianyuan & shimin which means the group should be fun :) and cip rocks my life. makes me feel like im of some use to the general public instead of just being the selfish person i normally am.

nyahaha i love staying up the whole night because i feel very productive. was filling up my huodong about bsp camp & realise i miss it, ronnie let's go ask ymz if we can be facils next year kay!

should i start on my ih essays which are respectively 6 days and 3 weeks late? nope, shant bother. i will do other things with my time, like slack. & apparently eoys are coming REALLY soon so i need to pull up my socks and BUCK UP! :) ahh well enough for today, off i go to listen to random old songs on my mp3.

the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair -
i agree.

2006-08-21T03:23:00.000+08:00

(fine, jayne, you were right about me not being able to stay away from blogging)
thus, i am glad to announce the

END OF MY HIATUS!

nope, i haven't completed ALL my overdue work, since that is well impossible, but i have completed the most overdue piece of work, so im quite alright. my BSD essay is complete! done! finished! ready to be handed in and it's probably terribly written, but the most important thing is that it's FINISHED! albeit eight weeks late, nyahahaha.

shockingly, it was quite fun writing the essay. lit essays aren't too bad i guess, come to think about it, analysing is decidedly entertaining except i cant really analyse so i end up recounting the entire book. and i dont mind amy tan that much now, although she does write about the same themes all the time & whatnot, i must admit she's rather good @ capturing the mother-daughter essence, although it tends to be way exaggerated & rather erm. whiny.

DARN I MISSED NATIONAL DAY RALLY;
because i was helping my sister with her social studies assignment :) it was quite fun actually! going back to my primary school days of sticking information on coloured paper then mount onto vanguard.

guess what,
ldp is ready for applications early september!
i was practically announcing it to everyone who was online just now, probably much to their annoyance, but im so excited whee! found out just now when i was slacking online checking out the moe gep website for special programmes and am in a state of absolutely hyperness, although im quite worried i won't be accepted because it needs a TEACHER'S RECOMMENDATION. (which translates to me needing to hand up all my overdue work by the end of august, gulp)

-

quote one -
me: allow me to jump up and down for a while, ldp is ready for application in sept!
liza: gravity will not allow you to do so.

quote two -
liza: idiotic indices, sucky surds, lousy logarithms!

quote three (from long ago) -
mr lee: can someone grab the lights, so i can flash this on the screen
msng: LIZA, GRAB THE LIGHTS!
liza: (jumps up and flails arms in general directions of lights in it resource room) can't reach!

haha liza rocks man. thanks for being such great company on the days i have cca and having to listen to me play the same stuff over and over again :) i'll buy you one pack of speculoos, two packs of chicken in a biskit & two packets of the fish thingums plus lots of mamee for your birthday next year! yeah im very cheapo.

-

whee im starting to suspect im antisocial. today in church, imagine scenario: im reading a book, a friend says hi, i smile and say hi back, friend sits down beside me and asks me what book im reading, i tell friend, friend makes a random comment, i reply and continue reading, friend fishes out a book to read, AND WE LOOK SPASTIC THERE READING. most normal human beings would be asking questions like "how's school! having exams?" or be chatting, but nope, there i am reading my "history of musical styles" book in all earnest.

i will start talking to people of my own accord, i promise.

-

went to music essentials yesterday to get well-tempered clavier and klaviersonaten (beethoven) I, got a membership card because i spent above $110! so kool right, but i look ridiculous in the photo because the guy caught me just when i was sniffing, so i look constipated and my neckbones are like ... out of place. it's very amusing & if you want to see the photo you'll have to pay me $110 so i can destroy it and get a new card!

WILBER PAN CAME TO WEST MALL YESTERDAY AND I DIDN'T KNOW.

also yesterday, was the seminar @ hci (jc) which i completely forgot about and wasn't reminded of so when jasmine smsed and called me i was like AHHHHHHH and rushed over there when i could, except i was already two hours late. interestingly, ny was the only sec school there, the talk was quite kool, but i didnt understand part of the Q&A because i wasnt there for the earlier talks about bordellos aka brothels & fieldwork in researching chinese history, so i chose to study jc uniforms when the audience were asking unfathomable questions. i like ajc's blue & grey. gah i seem terribly shallow right!

-

enough talk for today, i've chittered on like a magpie. TELL ME WE DONT HAVE A BSP TEST THIS TUESDAY, i havent read through any of the material on the taiwan-china relationship & the three times they shook hands thing. nor the lit stuff like gui-sui-shou & all that, so im officially deaded for bsp. sigh.

haven't done music homework either, composing melody for a poem. AND the worst is, i reckon i flunked the physics test on friday which is horrible because physics is (meant to be) my best subject and i HAVE to a1 it, or die, and i've already lost i dont know, 7/8 marks out of 4o. muttermuttermutter.

read in the papers about the genius who plays like 7 instruments and speaks 12 languages & aces all his subjects and i cant help but jawdrop. SEVEN INSTRUMENTS, what i would do to be as capable as that :)

-

to end off with a completely out-of-point quote,

avoid alliteration and irony.

& off i go to do music homework! which is quite fun, & mr matthew lim is funkeh.

2006-08-14T12:24:00.000+08:00

im going on

hiatus;

until all my overdue work has been handed up, which is probably the ends of time.
i'll still reply to tags though, and if you're that bored, which i doubt, read my former posts :)

meanwhile, caffeine makes my day & so does the spiritual journal done by our youth!

2006-08-13T01:56:00.000+08:00

you can choose to ignore this post entirely.

pictures at an exhibition is entirely about vision - you see the images clearly in front of you. promenade - grand & breathtaking, majestic; an unpredictable gnome; an ancient castle in its ruins standing alone on top of a low hill; children lightfooted and carefree; oxen dragging a heavy cart leaving its imprints on the road; the innocence of chicks unborn, dancing and prancing on hay; the contrast between the rich and poor - you can see them, one in rags, the other in jewels; you can imagine the excitement as the big news is spread in a smalltown market, one seller gossiping and whispering to another; you see weeping people, coffins and mourners in black as the chords become heavy and dissonant; and finally the great gate of kiev - the manifestation of splendor, glory, beauty, and magnificence. untouchable, victorious, unworldly in its grandeur.

these images appear to the listener probably in the exact manner the pictures at the exhibition presented themselves to mussorgsky.

and that is genius.

2006-08-12T23:43:00.000+08:00

i want to watch world trade centre starring nicholas cage, directed by oliver stone, so badly! cant believe its only showing in s'pore in OCTOBER.

-

CONVERSATION BETWEEN MY MUM & ME
mum: look at these president scholars! (jabs finger at picture of president's scholars in newspaper) see, all of them have like leadership positions! see, if you want to get scholarship, you need to know how to be a leader.
me: you also need to be singaporean to be a president's scholar, & like get good grades & have three thousand cca points, while being student council president AND representing the school in something.
mum: that's not the point! you need to try to take a leadership position, even though you're obviously nowhere close to being qualified for a scholarship!
me: oh, i'm thinking of taking up LDP next year.
mum: national day parade?
me: no, leadership development programme, its only from january to april.
mum: (smiling) oh, good, good!
me: it's this programme, open to geppers, & basically we do community service stuff like raising funds and stuff.
mum: (smile widens) oh, good, good! go and join!
me: we work with people from other schools they randomly pick, so its ri, rg, hc, ac, etc and oh yeah nj-ip also.
mum: MEANS GOT GUYS? (eyes sparkle, and beams from ear-to-ear) GOOD, GOOD!

-

haha i love my mummy :)

so i went to the library book sale @ expo today, reached there at 9.30 am! not bad right, but it was so darn crowded already. and being neither thin nor flexible, i had quite a workout trying to squeeze through tons of people while being jostled around and hitting people with my plastic bag of books. managed to get 4 wuxiaxiaoshuos, 2 by gulong and 2 by liangyusheng, so im a very happy person.

chuling was uber funny today, hahahaha she bought a SALSA BASICS dvd & then called me to say she has "two left feet & neither can dance!" so im going to her place in the sept hols & we'll work it out because i have two right feet. so spastic! i remember the perc people wanting to learn salsa and liangzhen asked me if i wanted to (i do suspect they were being polite because i was sitting there just watching them) and im like HAHAHAHA NO WAYS i mean i cant even touch my toes, expect me to dance harh? maybe after i lose some weight.

and i just realised that im idealistic.

my sister's going to get an electric drumpad for her birthday! which is in like october. cheers! we're such spoilt brats seriously, me especially. heh.

what are the seven wonders of the world?

to see

to hear

to touch

to taste

to feel

to laugh

and to love.

heh very cute right! i got it in a forwarded email from charvi.

-

church tomorrow. i think i really need the sanctuary, to calm down & think & just pray, especially for the world, for Britain, for all the people who are living in doubt now (which is pretty much all of us, Christian or not).

i dont care what they say about me
it's alright, it's alright
i dont care what they think about me
it's alright, they'll get it one day

'cos i love You, i'll follow You
You are my, my life
& i will read my Bible and pray
i will follow You all day

i dont care what it costs anymore
'cos You gave it all and im following You
i dont care what it takes anymore
no matter what happens, im going Your way

anyone around can see
just how good You've been to me
for all my friends that dont know You
i pray that You would save them too -

please make me a pillar of Your strength, Lord. :)

2006-08-10T18:50:00.000+08:00

"you should really use your money wisely you know, save it for a rainy day?"
" the only thing i would need on a rainy day is an umbrella."

- quote from a random book i can't remember now.

on a sidenote, I GOT MY SCORES TODAY! YES THE ONES I ORDERED FROM SHEETMUSICPLUS.COM! :) life is gorgeous, everything's better than i imagined. except i've only done about 25% of the work i was meant to complete the past three days, so eep. no sleeping tonight at all or i'll get zero for at least four assignments, which are about two months overdue i think. heh.

so, kristin, i went to the post office and checked out prices for shipping stuff to norway and they're like WE DONT KNOW THE CHARGES FOR THAT so apparently i'll need to wait for a while more before i can mail you the random things i got for you haha. they're gradually collecting dust or rusting away in my wardrobe i think.

dont you just harth the urtext edition of piano scores? wonderful collections :) they're the dull blue ones that can be found in any piano school or music bookstore. quite expensive, but if one is going to get the classics, of course one'd buy those. went to musicessentials.com to check pricings, basically the prices are as follows:

Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier $35 times 2.
Beethoven's Klaviersonaten $50 times 2.
Debussy's Preludes $35 times 2.
Tchaikovsky's The Seasons $30

how the heck am i going to be able to save enough to get all of them! - commences whining - oh well. i guess i could ask my dad to sponsor but then i'd feel really bad because my piano and stuff costs him so much already :( so i'll have to jiayou & SCRIMP AND SAVE! technically speaking i could just borrow the originals to use for the exam, but those are like must-have-scores for people who HAVE pianos, pretty much. so yeah. which means, no movie-watching (lake house! sniff), no eating-out, no buying unnecessary stuff like the cute lime green beanie star i saw at popular's today. cries.

gah im feeling sick. all jasmine's fault for luring me out today to help her with math when in fact she understood everything without me even talking can! and she succeeded in making me overeat so badly as in, i met her for three hours and i ate more in those three hours than my regular intake in a DAY probably is. jeesh i feel like puking. glare. but jiayou for working on the nygh blog kay! hahahahaha GET YOUR 3G PHONE! :)

im going to name my instruments after trees. like cedar, birch, sandal. isn't very creative but WHAT TO DO! i cant think of anything better and all my instruments have some element of wood in them, so start suggesting nice kool interesting memorable fun names people, before the terribly boring names start to stick.

im a little teapot short and stout!

2006-08-09T22:34:00.000+08:00

imagine sitting at a desk, perhaps with a piano at one's side, and yellowed pages upon pages of manuscript paper in front of you. as time goes on, you fill up each empty stave with notes, chords, and cadences, then ornamentating it with expression, tempo and dynamics. singing each measure out to yourself, then trying it on the piano. and after countless scribblings, erasings and rewritings, to result in something that touches everyone who hears it? that brings tears and laughter and deep thought to the audience. rousing emotions and vivid images to all within earshot, and leaving such an impression that none forgets it?

to be able to do that is one of the greatest honours that can be bestowed onto mankind.

-

sorry, im in one of my ridiculous moods again. aftereffects of hearing pictures at an exhibition again :) i finally managed to borrow the entire thing, all 35 minutes of splendour whee! tis absolutely wonderful.

2006-08-07T00:18:00.000+08:00

a very long, rambly entry that only kristin or li-en would understand.

today i went to visit my jia1 zu2, its this yahoo forum-community that josephine, judy, annie & i set up before i left shanghai to come to singapore. basically we post stuff about what's happening in our lives, and reply on each other's posts, while discussing the most ridiculous of things :)

that's when the nostalgia really started to hit me. year 9. year 8. year 7. grade 5. all the people that whirred past like hurricanes. all the things that happened so quickly i can't keep track. and yesterday, while shopping in orchard & chatting with li-en, to be eating dinner together at subway when in shanghai we'd be chilling out at the starbucks opposite school. today, eating lunch after church with fish, when i used to hide from alan at the stone bench thingums on the grassy areas outside the church building, with fish and thomas and we'd be chatting about all the random things.

josephine's going to america. for good. as feesh phrases it, " we'll never be there together again, all of us, at the same time ". li-en and i are in singapore, kristin's in norway, carol and debbie are in sas which isnt so bad, jose's in america, jackson's in canada, and i could list this on forever. take another year, and everybody's going to go back to their countries, or to different schools.

lol remember our "how to flirt" list we compiled? i still have it. & the mafia rules, which consisted of stuff like:

- you must constantly mention the amazement of being able to play one string.

- you must praise other boys' hairstyles, sporting skills, guitar skills, coolness, good-lookingness, brains good complexion in front of him loudly. etc.

we were horrible people werent we, about as mean and bitchy and bimbo as we could get, and i regret all the things we did back then, but year 9 was seriously the best year in my life i've had so far. and i still have the joshua-li-en story! the one about her getting knocked down by a car. :) & my LETTER OF APOLOGY AND COMPLAINT. haha probably the most sarcastic letter given to mr fielding ever.

so here are some photos! They make me laugh and want to cry at the same time.

and i absolutely harth the THISTHATS!

the very intelligent us.

kristin jenni, li-en, jose, during drama, looking good! :)

on my birthday, dressed up very glamorously! i have the make-upd pictures but decided not to post them due to self respect hahahaha.

a whole bunch of us, oustide the art room. hahaha we used to be there almost every lunch just to like sit and chat and watch the guys play basketball for no reason at all, as in we weren't checking them out or anything (we werent that bimbo) we just had nothing better to do, so we'd sort of stone there.

fish! you get the honour of being the first guy picture! & i'll call on you next time they're looking for someone to cruelladeville in a 101 dalmations remix.

leo, albert and gabriel being rude. the chinese basketballer gang :) they were really nice people but well. i cant say the relationship between the thisthats and them were very smooth. lol kristin i think nearly all of them have either liked or like crystal. sigh. but they're wonderful people and great friends.

rasmus & jackson. havent managed to find a gokarting track in s'pore yet! and even if i do, i've nobody to go with. as in i dont know anybody who gokarts, i think.

cody, looking er. feminine for drama!

i think this was at frankie's. we were celebrating something, after gokarting. or was it some farewell party for someone. sigh. darren, wayne, josh k, jz, rasmus.

social one - hahaha the social where a lot of things happened. coughscandalcough.

social two - when our 'band' performed and ended up horrible. but the guys were really nice about it :)

9A '04-'05 take one!

9A '04-'05 take two

so many things and we can't ever have them back.

TO EVERYBODY WHO WAS IN YEAR 9, YEW CHUNG INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL SHANGHAI, 2004-2005:

i love you all.

2006-08-04T23:41:00.000+08:00

i think i love my bass clarinet :)
okay so technically it isn't mine at all, (tis the SCHOOLS!) & i can hardly play it, considering nobody's really taught me yet. mr lee asked me to practice on the mouthpiece & stuff, that's pretty much all the guidance i've gotten so far, but i've had lots of fun trying out notes and although i can only play like a few random notes here and there, its so kool. went to ebay for fun just now and saw GREEN and BLUE clarinets which looked really interesting. shall consider getting a red or white one if it's reasonable ... hm. but then i cant play anything! whee im just a money squanderer.

practiced quite a bit today. band was having national day prac which im not involved in at all, so i didn't go for band, but stayed in class to chill out with teh bass clarinet! liza was great company and i think by now she's probably sick of hearing the same tunes and scale over and over again, im sorry but thats all i know how to play haha! i actually managed to prac from 3 - 6, with about half an hour in between which involved looking for teachers and running around trying to avoid the band people (i dont know why i wanted to avoid them but i guess it'd be awkward). but we ended up strutting right in front of them when they were practicing on the third floor overlooking the hall, because we thought they'd be in the hall and stuff. twas really amusing.

my attendance for band is like going to become 0% soon. but the thing is i spend the band time practising my bass clarinet, i just dont go into the band room for national day pracs, and forget the time to go back to the band room when its time for announcements and stuff. quite stupid, really. met cynthia on 171 today when i was on my way to newton mrt station to get to city hall mrt station to get to vch to watch rgs dance concert! she's our drum major (and i have no idea what a drum major does, but its one of the exco positions) who plays the saxophone. she knew my name! which is strange yet kool, and she seemed really nice :) well actually everyone i've talked to in band so far is nice, lol.

meanwhile i absolutely cant wait for my ordered stuff from sheetmusicplus to come! SQUEE.

sorry this entry is so painfully boring, but im not very alive right now. dont like having to write a zuowen, do lang arts time trial and chem spa on the same day! sigh. have a nice day anyways! will try to be more engaging tomorrow :)

im trading my sorrows
im trading my shame
im laying them down
for the joy of the Lord

im trading my sickness
im trading my pain
im laying them down
for the joy of the Lord

:) i love You, Lord.

2006-08-01T21:44:00.000+08:00

i love love love blackmore's night again.

ritchie blackmore's (of deep purple) officially a guitar virtuoso, candice night's voice is the best i've ever heard. & the instrumentation -squeals- the instrumentation is just SO MUCH LOVE. they manage to sound medieval yet rather modern, but are so soothing and they sing like english traditional folk stuff & celtic tunes. hahahaha very few people like this kind of stuff but if you're bored i really suggest you go and listen to ( or find me to send to you )

- ghost of a rose
- shadow of the moon
- ocean gypsy

by them. or listen to their 'scarborough fair' which involves no singing, purely instrumental and its just gorgeous! now i trudge off to complete my staggering workload. and argh i dont know how to read the fingering chart for the bass clarinet!

oh, and allow me to extend my love to the person who's uploading the entire anne of green gables movies, the 1st and 2nd, onto youtube! YAY :)

2006-07-31T23:41:00.000+08:00

yay :)

so i finally got rid of my green layout which was nice but apparently on some comps its impossible to read, plus it was getting rather boring, so. was attempting to make my own thingum on photoshop but then i figured i didnt have the time, so its back to blogskins.com. its such a pretty layout i couldn't resist, although orange and yellow and all that brightness is not exactly my style.

oh well, will stick to it for a while until the colours start blinding me & i get bored of it. heh :D