V

"Remember, remember, the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason why the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot."

yes, for those of you who watched the movie, its from V for vendetta.. its probably one of the coolest and best movie i've watched.. i just bought the vcd this evening... its really really really good... well, its about a guy who's planning to overthrow the government that rules the people with fear and control with and iron fist... and this guy is called V.. you dont see his face for the entire movie coz he wears this white smiley mask.. why? apparently he was part of a government cover-up.. what they did was that they arrested people who arent guilty of anything, and used them as experiments for biological weapon research... of course many people died, 100,000 to be exact... and what did the government do? they made up a cover-up story, claiming it was a virus epidemic, and they follow-upped very well with it.. they had the situation 'under control' by giving the people placebo vaccines and claiming it did stop the virus from spreading... so, the facility that was holding all these experiments had an accident and was burnt down to the ground... only one experiment survived..

no, he did not have mutant abilities.. he was merely human, only a little much faster and stronger... but he was burnt very badly, so he wears a mask.. he goes around killing the government party members one by one.. and there was a part where he managed to broadcast tchaikovsky's 1812 overture on the streets with all the governement speakers, then at the exact right moement, the parliament building blew up with amazing displays of fireworks... oh yes!! i love this movie!!! its really good...

hahaa... when i was watching it, it keeps reminding me of the singapore government.. to be honest and blunt, i hate them... stupid propagandas and dumb people who just cant do the job properly, sucking our money to feed their wallets, as if they needed so much... what makes them so special, that they can earn more than 5-6 digits worth or pay? we chose them to help us! they should be serving us, not the other way round... i just cant wait for a certain guy to die and see what happens to the government... oh well... whatever..

anyway, snyo rehearsal has started since the day before yesterday... i didnt turn up on thursday coz i had to play for some peru independence anniversary celebration at shangri-la hotel.. all the big shots there, ambassadors and all... oh, we had good food there too.. we were allowed to eat with them after our performance, which was actually playing the peru and singapore national anthem... lol.. in the end, half the string ensemble went drunk, or rather high, after drinking some beer, wine and some super strong cocktail... i had a cup of it, and my face was a little red after that.. lol..... we were laughing all the way, and some guy actually tried to hook up with eva... hahaha.... he failed.. miserably...

back to syo.... i sat at 4th chair today coz i was late, so adriel was in pricipal's seat while wilbur was associate... weber's invitation to a dance wasnt too bad.. the cello solo looks easy... LOOKS... can be deceiving... adriel played the solo well... not bad... then mr lim came over during the break and told me to practice the solo part.. well.. lets just see how it goes this coming thursday... someone told me i should claim the principal's seat.. by right i should be principal since i was associate... well, now that i dont mind, but it is still mr lim's decision at the end... oh, and syo is confirmed for going to aberdeen next year... woooo... august i think... andris should join us man... we need all the help we can get.. prolly playing brahm's 4th symphony..

anyway, went to meet up with some of the guys i know at somerset.. leslie, you might know them very well... i dunno... i was thinking a lot then... i was disappointed, frustrated, irritated and prolly angry at the thought of it... these people are people i respect and look up to a lot... they are people who live lives of example, but they dont seem to understand certain things.. no, i'm not saying they are like worldly people who dont give a crap about anything.. i mean the way they do things... they are indecisive.. i just dont understand why they cant quickly decide on one thing and get on with it.. they have to stand in the middle of orchard road, blocking people's way with around 10 of us... yes, maybe its our numbers that makes it difficult to decide, but they are united, and it should be no problem doing so.. and one of them said i should mix around with them more often ratehr than sticking to him... well, i'm fine with that, but the problem is i have hardly any common topics with them... i'm a classical musician, and the only one there too.. who can i talk with about orchestra and conductors other than people in nafa? well, of course i have other things to talk about, but only seng fu is able to communicate well with me, if you know what i mean.. as in we have lots of common topics... too many, in fact we can chat the whole night long til the next morning, if we can survive that is... we can talk about matrix, army, classical music, concerts, jokes, why the earth is round, v for vendetta, blah blah blah.... but the rest just dont relaly get it... i dunno.. maybe its just me.. i'm not bonding well with the group.. there are other factors too.. i'm quite sick of the way they try to click with me, but it seems fake to me... it seems, doesnt mean it is, just to me... they said they want to watch my concerts... they never came.. everytime i see them, they ash when my next performance is, as if it was a ritual to ask me every week.. do they intend to come as they said they would? for the past few months, it didnt seem so... are they sincere? maybe.. prove me wrong...

enjoy#@$!%$

Pride Rock...

ooooh i just can't wait to be king........

ooooh yes... bought cds today... 5 disney soundtracks (orginal of course) for $19.90.. the catch? its from china, with chinese words on the cover... another catch? when i ripped them into my computer, all the titles are wrong.. so i have to spend like 10 minutes renaming them...

well, some of you were asking whats up with the conductor who pissed me off... he came to conduct my school's string ensemble.. he doesnt like people to write things on their scores, if it is already on the score... he doesnt like us to circle the dynamics... well, thats irritating... he always scolds us for not following the dynamics... why? because the dynamics are not catching our attention, and we circle them so that we notice them... and he doesnt want us to do so.. i mean, yes, he is training us to read the score properly, but sometimes if circling them works, why not? nothing wrong? he says that if we circle them, our brain will take more time to process the circle, what we wrote on the score, the given dynamics, bowing, etc, and by the time we did those, its too late to play it properly... i mean, come on!! even professional orchestras write things on their scores rite?? =.= there are other things about him, but i wont bother typing it out...

oh well, i'm over it anway... i guess i should apologise to the cello section.. i have been giving them the black face that day... but for those who knows me well, even when i have a black face, i wont vent my anger on anybody who talks to me.. so feel free to talk to me even if i look pissed... hahaa...

on lighter things, i went to kl with the new music ensemble on sunday til tuesday.. we were supposed to represent Singapore in some international music conference held in kl... i never really had that lots of fun since i went to america... we watched pirates of the caribbean there, and we were like checking our seats for HIV-infected needles just in case.. hahaa... the urban legend.. well, it goes like this.. there was a girl who went to watch a movie in malaysia, and when she sat on her seat, she felt a very sharp pain in her butt... she looked down and saw a syringe(?).. then the person sitting beside her said "welcome to the hiv family".... sure enough, she went for a check-up, and it was positive.. omg..... traumatising yea...

yea.. i loved that movie.. the plot is not bad, and the twist was really a twist.. cool... oh yea! we saw this car advertisement in the cinema... it goes like this...

BEAUTY HAS A NEW MEANING...
(CAR DRIVES BY)

LUST HAS A NEW MEANING...
(CAR DRIVES BY)

DESIRE HAS A NEW MEANING...
(CAR DRIVES BY)




PROTON 101

wah lau.. ahahaaaa... when we saw that, jeremy, jeremiah, yunqi and i burst out laughing like mad... hahahahhahahahaa.... oh welll.... our hotel was located just 5 mins walk away from the twin towers... cool? its less that 5 mins walk from where we are performing too... and its a 4 or 5 star hotel too... and i stole one of their tequila shot glasses.. haha... its free anyway...

my plan backfired to celebrate ee wei's birthday there... at first she was thinking of celebrating yunqi's birthday, which has already passed last week, and ee wei's birthday is on the 20th of july... so she planned to celebrate yunqi's birthday.. so i bluffed her that we are, and we are going to buy a cake.. so i told yunqi that we are celebrating ee wei's birthday instead... and i told her to tell the rest.. uh, apparently they didnt get the message... so in the end, they ended up singing the birthdat song for yunqi instead... actually for both, but yea.. the plan was foiled...

we only ate good food there.. mainly from the hotel's restaurant, which is 24 hours open... their satay is GOOOOOOD!!! juicy and tender!! omgomg... especially the beef one... wah lau!! cant find it in singapore la... the problem is their satay sauce isnt nice enough...

i didnt buy much there.. just bought a couple of mpo (malaysian philharmonic orchestra) cds and quite a bunch of tidbits... dr goh paid for quite a lot of our food.. it must have cost a bomb for him... well, he's one interesting fellow... funny too... should get to know him.. hahaa..

my mother bought me a pair of oakley sunglasses too... $400+.... well, i told her i didnt really need to spend that money to buy it, but she insisted.. she said as long as i dont lose it or spoil it, its worth it.. healthy eyes are more important.. so i gave in.. =p
but really, some times i think i've been neglecting my parents nowadays... should spend more time with them... will see what i can do...

the question still remains... to be or not to be... haiz...

enjoy^$@#%@

Performathon....

dsoraygvnosritgyvnuihrighbvklsdfhg..........

i thought i might blog since i didnt blog for such a long time now....

yesterday was hell for me.. actually, not really.. i'm surprised i managed to get through it without much difficulty... but thats an understatement... i had 2 performances yesterday.. the first was an afternoon concert, or rather music platform for my school.. i was playing modern music composed by Singaporean composers, namely leong yoon ping, kelly tang and zecheriah goh toh chai, who is also my school's lecturer... of all the 4 pieces i played, i think the first one was the most non-sensical... it was like, 'what is going on?' it was a quintet, with a double bass and piano.. in all, we were only given 5 weeks to prepare all the pieces, and it was madness... dr goh's piece was my favourite among the 4... the piano trio he wrote was interesting, although its technically a little crazy... it seems he likes to write in semi-quavers, and they are usually isolated in groups of 1 crotchet beat.. nvm.. too complicated.. nafa is gonna play one of his orchestra works called 'naunces' (?) lol.... he also wrote an arrange for a malay folk song 'suriram'.. thats probably the only melodic and lyrical piece i played with them... kelly tang's piano trio was the one we were most worried with.. the timing is madness, we had to count, sometimes in irregular beats.. and i got lost in the middle of the performance.. but at least i managed to catch it back... my uncle played this piece a few years ago too, and the recording was amazing... the group is going to kl on sunday and coming back on tuesday for some international music conference... i cant wait for it to be over.. i have to stop playing modern music and get back on track with classical pieces... gonna play tchaikovsky's piano trio op. 50 with yi kai..

the 2nd performance i had was the snyo concert at night... we played mozart's symphony 25 and shostakovich's 'gadfly suite'.. apparently the gadfly suite was written for a movie in 1955.. i should find it someday and watch it... i like that suite.. and i thought we did quite well for it, although we heard some comments about the cello section from some of my friends... well, i couldnt really hear anything from the front.. its quite a sad concert.. depressing... lots of people are leaving syo, and this is the last concert with them... ike, andris, charlotte, wilbur are all leaving... the cello section will never be the same again... it seems as though i'm the only one of my generation to stay behind, other than ruo lin... since andris is leaving, i MIGHT end up being principal cellist, but i'm not so enthusiastic about it.. i dont want to occupy myself with this kind of stress and responsibility, thats why i'm hoping mr lim will push adriel up and me staying as i am now... besides, they are gonna play weber's invitation to a dance, which has a HUGE HUGE cello solo in it.. i would rather call it a one movement cello concerto.. if mr lim ever puts me as principal, i will see if the piece is manageable, or i'll quit... well, i cant say i'm doing a good job as a sectional leader in nafa, and i definitely doubt it will be any better in syo...

well, really, syo cello section will never be the same with the people leaving now.. i thought i should write some farewell messages to those i know... cheesy or mushy? dont think too much...

well, first wilbur... he's probably the only person i hang out with in the cello section.. we always eat dinner after rehearsals, and start talking about people in the orchestra.. haha.. really crappy.. it seems we have a lot of common topics to talk about... well, he's migrating to hong kong in august.. there goes my toilet buddy...

charlotte... the person who seems to be always fighting me for cabs at the end of rehearsals... i knew her ever since i came into the training orchestra, and we went in to the main together too... so that means we have been in the same orchestra for the same amount of years... she's probably the most talkative, or 'attitude' person i know, but the cello section would seem empty without her....

last but not least, andris... probably one of the most talented person i know... plays the piano and cello sooo well... i would say it was my privilege(?) and honour to be playing with her for all those months... and i can tell you that she is indisposable for the cello section.. now that she's leaving, the cello section will never have another person as her to lead them ever again...

well..... thats it... i will definitely miss you guys.. all the best and God bless for your exams...

enjoy*)(&%^^%*#)*&^