The search for truth

I was watching a documentary today (documentaries are my guilty pleasure, I can spend all day going from one documentary to the next, assuming my automatic nag-to-go-practice button doesn't deploy) and it was about Galileo and his publication of his theory of a heliocentric universe. Galileo VS the Catholic Church is probably the most famous showdown of science VS religion. Many science advocates use this example to show that things that religious leaders say is rubbish, or at least not completely believable and their belief in their religion is often groundless. Of course, if you look at the Catholic Church today, everyone is able to see that they are very open about science. The Vatican has its own observatory and the Church even holds the view of theological evolution (there's a link to the wikipedia article on one of my older posts, but I'm sure you'd rather just look for it yourself) instead of creationism.

It seems that the Church has done an abrupt about-face when it comes to science, and some people have even said that this was a sign that, after bowing to the pressures of society to accept the truth of science, the Church would slowly come to accept other things that are socially acceptable but not necessarily theologically acceptable, for example homosexual relations. In my opinion, that is highly unlikely.

Long before Galileo (1564-1642), St Thomas Acquinas (1225-1274) was already teaching about the nature of truth... Truth is truth, and truths that we find cannot possibly contradict other truths. If you have two ideas that you think are truths but yet one obviously contradicts the other, then evidently, one or both of them must be wrong, i.e. not the truth. Up to here, commonsensical enough. The dicey part comes when you are trying to decide if the 'truths' that we already know are really truths or not. In the case of the Galilean saga, the Church believed strongly in the geocentric universe because it had always (alright, for 1500+ years) been the scientific truth that was taught by the Greek masters, Aristotle and Ptolemy. Compare those venerable masters to Galileo, and the poor guy must have seemed like a real upstart at the time. If that doesn't move you, try comparing any memorable composers of today to the music masters like Bach and Beethoven. No comparison. The Church took the science of the Greek masters, compared them to theology about how "Man was created only less than the angels", and felt that the geocentric model made sense because, how could we have been put on an Earth that orbits the Sun (thus making it 'inferior' to the Sun) if we humans were so exalted, so to speak.

The geocentric model was so common during Galileo's time that it is important to note that when Galileo wrote his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, the two systems he wrote about was the heliocentric and the geocentric. Galileo saw the geocentric model as important enough to give evidence for both sides, though he was clearly in favour of the heliocentric model. The Church saw this, and they knew all the 'evidence' for the geocentric model of course, and so to them it was completely unthinkable that this joker is trying to advocate something so different. In their eyes, because they saw the geocentric model as truth (they definitely had the 'evidence' to back it up), they saw Galileo as not only trying to undermine the authority of the Church (I have always seen this as a possibility, the Church was kinda corrupt back then) but also advocating bad science. The idea being that the Church saw geocentricism as conformant to Scripture, the 'truth' of science being confirmed by the 'truth' of Scripture (recall St Thomas Aquinas), and heliocentricism as not having the 'endorsement' of Scripture, so to speak. In other words, they saw Galileo's 'truth' about the heliocentric model as being contradictory to the 'truth' of Scripture, or at least what they thought Scripture was about. The Church, seeing itself as the moral authority, thus saw fit to step in and force Galileo to recant under multiple threats. The Church was wrong of course, but what it did at the time was not completely irrational nor based solely on Scripture, but rather grounded on scientific 'truths' that had held 'true' since the time of the Greeks.

As people, we are all on the search for truth, and almost nobody is ever completely sure that their version of 'truth' is indeed, the truth. Though we may find something that seems to be the truth, we owe it ourselves to still constantly search for the true truth. After all, if we just stubbornly hold on to our own version of 'truth' without exploring what others have to offer, can we really say that what our version of 'truth' is really the truth? If our 'truth' is untested, how do we know that it is true then? At the same time, if we find more evidence for our version of 'truth', will we not then be more convinced that we are on the right path in life?

On a side note... Galileo was also wrong. The universe is definitely not heliocentric. Two sides arguing vehemently about who is right... when both are wrong. Funny.

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About today... As a rule I don't really like to go out because travelling tends to tire me out. I do however enjoy taking the chance to observe other people's behaviour, especially kids, because they have the most uninhibited and unadulterated behaviour. I was going towards the Serangoon MRT when I saw a man giving out flyers. Two sisters, maybe around age 8 and 6, were walking in front of me and the younger took a flyer and the flyer guy said 'Thank you". I was trying to figure out why he had thanked the two girls in particular, especially because he was so black faced towards the other people who had reluctantly taken his flyers. I understood when I saw the content of the flyer... It was selling some condominium development. (Though why a condominium developer would advertise in an MRT station, I can't really figure, it's not exactly the right target group) When the two girls saw what was on the flyer, the younger exclaimed, "What do we need this for??" The older girl said, "Throw it away." The younger girl scolded the older by saying, "We can give it to mom! She buys houses, duh...." while pointing at her own temple to denote her own intelligence and imply her older sister's according lack of it. I couldn't help but smile. Aiyo, their mom is quite poor thing. She not only gets irritating flyers from those that she meets on the street, but now her kids are bringing home flyers too! Hahaha.

On a different side... though what the older girl said makes more sense to adults, they would probably think of the more articulate, if rude, younger sister as being the more intelligent. Mainly because she speaks more. When I used to go to primary schools for various purposes, like giving tuition to kids who can't afford tuition, or organising other activities like an educational talk, the more articulate children did indeed make me feel that they are more intelligent. This makes me think about the common fault that Jon, C and I all have, that is, we tend to talk too much unnecessarily and end up shooting our mouth off sometimes. Might it be that since young we were taught by experience that talking more gets us more comments from strangers or relatives saying we are smart, so when we get an idea we want to say it out straight away, in a display of intelligence, not knowing that true knowledge comes not in constantly speaking, but rather in listening to what others have to say and then learning from them?

Yet, a lack of expression is clearly not a lack of intelligence. Yuezhi would be the best proof of that. She's actually pretty quiet most of the time, and was definitely very quiet when she was in secondary school, because we have a classmate in the conservatory whose boyfriend used to be in the same class as Yuezhi and apparently in those 2 years, she was so quiet that the guy wasn't even completely sure that he was really in the same class as her. But she's definitely highly intelligent, something that we could tell, long before we even knew that she used to be from the gifted program.

I had a discussion about the gifted program on the Italy trip with a lady whose niece used to be from the gifted program. She said that looking at her niece, the gifted program kids tend to be more articulate, and the niece once confronted (yes confronted) the school principal about the behaviour of a pregnant teacher who was having hormonal imbalances, shall we say. Though the principal tried to explain, the girl wasn't mollified and in the end the principal had to get her mom to come take her home because she refused to leave until she got a valid answer. There is the implied meaning that the intelligent kids, especially those in the gifted program, are more articulate. But maybe being articulate, sometimes to the point of being irritating (my little cousin is like that), is a kind of learned behaviour that kids do because they learned at a young age that it earns them smiles and approval from the adults. When we look at Yuezhi, how we know that she is intelligent is from the way she responds to situations as well as questions posed by other people. But maybe kids don't have so many opportunities to exhibit their intelligence in that way and get approval from adults, so they learnt to speak non-stop instead, to show to others what they know. Hmm.

Whatever it is, I hope my little cousin grows out of it soon, for the sake of my other cousins who have to live with him. It really gets irritating. But his behaviour is kinda useful though... whenever I start to talk too much about rather commonsensical things to people, I use the image of my little cousin to remind myself not to be irritating :P

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In case you were wondering why I went out, it was to meet my junior Penelope (if you read the archives from way back you can see her being mentioned) who put all her eggs into one basket, "albeit one that I like very much" and after not getting what she wanted, she's now bereft. I thought about it myself and realised that we all do that sometimes. For me it was being with my first love. I thought that I would spend the rest of my life with him and for two years I planned every aspect of my future life around him, being around him and sometimes choosing not to go for options that would have been better for me. When the breakup came, I just felt as if my future (in a way) was ruined. My dreams were gone, because he had featured so prominently in them it seemed difficult to be able to dream again. I didn't know what to do with my life, I was lost because he gave my life meaning. The words of love that one speaks into a beloved's ears is not always just mushy fluff, as I found out the hard way. Looking at our couple blog from those days (it's private with a password, so don't bother trying to look for it) I felt the pain all over again and I couldn't take it in the end and I had to close the window. This was really someone whom I loved with all my heart. In some way I'm still scarred a little by it, but luckily for me I've always been able to be easily distracted, and I just pile on the ideas in my head until the things I don't want to think about are stuffed right in the very back of my head.

Anyway for Penelope I suggested a ton of ideas. Privately I was glad that I had gone to university so that I knew more about the system and could do more to help her. She didn't get the scholarship to go to France, so I suggested writing to French companies operating in Singapore (the only one I can think of offhand is Carrefour, but that'd hardly qualify?) or the Association Francais de Singapour to ask for financial assistance. The truth is, there are rich people out there who don't know what to do with their money because actually the vast majority of the self-made rich are hardworking people and not materialistic, so they often have excess and are really looking for a good place to put it in, and if you can convince them that you have a purpose and a passion... She was also worried because she had missed the application deadline for accomodation in France. I told her that even if the deadline is over she can still try her luck. It's just a letter or phone call away and if it works, then good, if it doesn't, you don't lose much anyway. Sometimes a deadline is just a matter of administration and well, if you get lucky, it's great. She mentioned getting a student loan but as a person I'm really not for the whole student loan thing. Getting into debt even before you enter the workforce doesn't sound like the most prudent action to me, but.... oh well, if you need it, you need it. Then she examined her dream of working as a French teacher/translator, and wondered if it might be possible to be something else. I told her that since she has both the passion and the ability, she should go for it as far down the road as she can. Well, she has the blessing of her parents for her dream, which I think is truly a great blessing. So many people have a passion that their parents didn't support, so they ended up going into careers that they didn't really want... and only being able to pursue their passion decades later. At this age if we can we should be chasing our dreams, because we have many more years to go and really if it doesn't work out, we just try another route.

Rambles again. Well it's late so here I go to bed.

P.S. I added some dividers so that the ideas are clearer. Hope that helps.

Demophobia

Hmm... I don't really have that much to say today, particularly because it's late... suffice to say that I went out (again) to Pitstop cafe which is really like a kind of Mind's cafe. After that they went to eat at some restaurant kind of thing, and they were drinking alcohol, which is really not my kind of thing. Other than being really turned off by the smell and taste, I really don't have a thing for consuming a substance that interferes with my thoughts. As I saw them just having fun drinking some drink called 'Waterfall' where alcohol cascading down a bottle is set alight, and having 'Flaming Orange' where one drinks the alcohol in half an orange skin, eats a section of an orange, and drinks orange juice after that. It was unnecessarily complicated and somehow after that I just kept feeling... is it really necessary for anyone to drink before they feel that they have a good time? Can't understand those people. My mom does tend to drink sometimes, and when I was 4 she tricked me into drinking some beer because I thought it was apple juice (well, it was the same colour...) and since then alcohol and me just don't mix. Just as well, because alcohol is expensive, an expense that I'm secretly glad not to have to make.

Well... after a whole day just playing games and chatting non stop and the antics with alcohol I just have... demophobia. A kind of feeling where if I'm around people any more I want to explode, and I just want to be withdrawn and not talk to anybody at all. Probably it has to do with the things that I've been doing since last week, with the rehearsals for OMM and then all the conversations with various people. I feel that I'm once again approaching the point where just one thing will throw me over the line and I will end up avoiding people for some time, and when I do that, I'm not even sure that I will update the blog every day because I don't really feel like talking right now. Didn't help that C came online and I sent the person 3 messages and C never replied... well okay. At least I can take it pretty well for the most part... I just need to practice more. To solve the musical problems, not the real ones...

Well, I am always reachable via email and sms. Cheerio for about a week, I guess.

Random musings about art

Btw... I finally understand why people use the word 'random'... because they, like me, are often unable to link the jumps in their ideas from one to another. And so, because there is no link, it is... Random! Well, anyways.

Today is the last day that I will be playing with the OMM for a long time. I will miss them because they are the greatest (the most passionate and musical) bunch of musicians I've ever worked with in my life. I enjoyed, truly, Making Music with the orchestra of the Music Makers. They are having another concert in august where they will be playing Don Juan, but I won't be involved because their 'regular' harpist, Laura Peh, will be having her holidays and coming back to Singapore from France where she is studying. Yeah I know I'm not a good orchestra musician... I'd be the first one to admit it. And as a conductor, naturally you would want the best players to play for you instead of having to train up a particularly panicky (yeah that's the word Jon used to describe my style of playing) player, right? I'm not resentful because I know that she IS better than me and if she is, she has the complete right to be playing with them, not me. It just gives me a greater determination to learn.

I wore all black today. My teacher Gulia (when we speak to her we call her 'Mrs Gulia' though Gulia is really her first name. Kind of like Mr Omar the teacher in charge of the Cedar AVA club.) would say, "Oh, please don't wear black, it's so depressing." In another conversation with her once during lesson, she continued and said, "I never wear black. Oh well, I did when I was in my early twenties, but that was because I was depressed." Thinking about it and fitting the pieces together, she had probably just gotten into Julliard at the time and had to work as a maid to pay her school fees (before she finally realised that she couldn't possibly go on like that and eventually found some other form of funding I guess) and lack of sleep probably made her grades go down, and lack of practice probably made her performance go down too. No wonder she was depressed.

Speaking of depression, I think that this may actually be the most productive period of my holiday. I just want to keep on practising, to focus my mind on things away from my own interpersonal relations, to solve musical problems that I actually can solve and not have to stare in the face and have it laugh back at me. *glares*

All of us in the conservatory are so extremely lucky to be able to be on scholarship and never have to worry for money. Especially me (in being accepted in the first place). I've always felt that Gulia accepted me just because it was the pioneering year for harp students. For the auditions, only two auditioned, one who actually qualified and the other who played badly (she actually said to me, "Remember the Handel Harp Concerto? The one you played badly?") but she felt compelled to just accept me because she didn't want to start a class with only one student. In one of the first few lessons, she stated explicitly that, "I took you in not because you were good, but because I saw that you had potential." Probably she saw potential in me in the form of my attitude because, in the interview, I showed so much joy towards making music and she came out and spoke to my parents and said that I was 'spunky'. First and only time I've heard that word being used to describe me.

Well, it sounds as if I feel inferior to other harpists but I don't really feel that in a pervasive manner. I know that technically or even experience-wise I can't match up to many of the other harpists. But what is within me is a certain purity of heart with life's experiences, some not my own, that have caused me to mature in a way I could never have imagined, the first time I produced a sound on the harp. In a kind of way, there's always been a show-offish side of me that comes into full view on stage. A kind of quiet, arrogant elegance. Not confidence, but arrogance. I'm the most important person on this stage for the next 30 minutes, and you better listen to me, because I have something important to say, and what I say will blow your mind. Well, something like that.

Whenever I get on stage, it's a different persona. Karen the solo performer is quite different from Karen the off-stage (lame) joker, or even Karen the orchestral harpist. It's like an actor's role. And yet... sometimes we get into the role so much that we actually believe it's us. Like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie becoming a real life couple after playing a reel life couple. Or the countless opera divas. When we play only happy pieces... at some point it becomes effortless to believe, or at least to trick our mind, that happiness is the only emotion we can and should feel. On one hand we draw from our own feelings to be able to bring out the feelings inherent in the music, but on the other hand, what music we draw from the notes on the page also become part of us. What is ours, and what is the music? Or have we become THE music?

I was wondering about Tolstoy's 'What is Art?', where Tolstoy believed that art (meaning all forms of art) was born to be a medium of self-expression for the artist, and art that is meant for money-making or otherwise commercial purposes cannot possibly be art. The first time I read his book so many alarm bells were ringing inside my head. By his definition, Bach's beautiful Brandenburg's Concertos are not art, because they were written as a kind of resume to seek employment with the count of Brandenburg. As far as I know, Tolstoy's aesthetic ideals were influenced greatly by absorbing all the influences of the Romantic period, especially the Late Romantic of his day, and so like Bach was able to absorb the entire spirit of the period he worked in. But obviously none of us still live in the aesthetic ideals of the Romantic period. And what if it is a piece of music that was composed by let's say the Bartok Viola Concerto to make money, but then was given true feelings by the performer? Is it art or is it not? I smile if I imagine Tolstoy in the world today. Art is so commercialised in a manner of speaking. What happened to spontaneous self-expression? Probably Tolstoy would be running around crying, when the truest 'art' in his definition may be those that is created by children and lunatics in art therapy.

As to regarding the absolute music vs programme music schism... I've always believed that absolute music won out because it's the only kind of music that you can project your own feelings onto and then imagine it to something that means something to you. In that way the music becomes personal. Programme music on the other hand gets boring when there's only one way to interpret the music. Well in a way it's kind of like the difference between books and movies. Movies are nice of course, but sometimes books are more powerful than you might ever imagine. Then again (I was thinking about this while in the patching session for OMM's CD recording), if absolute music won out in comparison to programme music, how come opera houses, which have a definite interpretation of music, are hugely more financially successful than orchestras? We have so many orchestras closing down or at least reducing in size (no Mahler for you), while business for opera houses is booming. Is this not another kind of absolute music vs programme music debate? Is it simply that programme music/operas are idiot proof, and that absolute music is the higher form of art? (I might accuse myself of being elitist but the truth is that I love opera, programme music and absolute music all equally) For more ideas, you can read here: http://101cds.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-everybody-hates-modern-classical.html

Speaking of movies, I've come to a new appreciation of them instead of just looking at the action/storyline, after taking the literature module and seeing literature even in movies. Yesterday night I was watching Ice Age 2: Meltdown, where there was a scene where Manny the mammoth went to the river edge to reflect on the possibility that he was the last one of his species, and there was a falling leaf that I thought was representative of the moment: the leaf tumbling to the ground pulled by the irresistable force of gravity was like the inevitable extinction of mammoths. As a person I pay an inordinate amount of attention to leaves. Maybe because I think they are so poetic. I hated staying at shears in year 2, but if there was one good thing, it was that every day when I was waiting for the bus, I could often see leaves falling. When I was reading 'Waiting for Godot' by Samuel Beckett, I observed these falling leaves, like the lives of people, short and falling constantly towards death, falling, floating in the breeze, flashing a few times, and then gone. I couldn't help but link them to a particularly poignant moment near the end of 'Waiting for Godot', where Pozzo says, "They give birth astride a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more."

Nothing that we have or create lasts forever, save for the human relations, the joy that we bring to others. Sometimes, I wonder myself why I practise so hard, and I remind myself that I can too bring joy to others by my music. Not just joy, but also peace and healing in the form of music therapy. So. Are we working hard to create things that last, or just to achieve things that will not stand the test of time?

Happiness is a choice

I was so morose today. The same things kept going round and round in my head. I just wished that I could practise more, but even then while practising I cannot fully control my thoughts, though the moving fingers diverts my attention and the music further diverts it. I felt hot, then cold, absorbed in my own misery until I walked outside and suddenly I woke up... and I thought to myself, "You've always said that happiness is a choice, Karen. Now is the time to prove it." To be honest, I did feel better afterwards.

I was thinking back to C and how morose this person is as well, and how this person does so many irrational actions. Then I thought again, that many things can make us irrational sometimes but the greatest culprit is romantic love. Somehow, that kind of love just makes us irrational, even a normally rational person like ... well, some of the most rational and logical people that I know of.

Love, love changes everything,

Hands and faces, earth and sky.

Love, love changes everything,

How you live and how you die.

Love can make the summer fly,

Or a night seem like a lifetime

Yes, love, love changes everything,

Now I tremble at your name.

Nothing in the world will ever be the same.

Off into the world we go,

Planning futures, shaping years.

Love bursts in and suddenly,

All our wisdom disappears.

Love makes fools of everyone,

All the rules we make are broken.

Yes love, love changes everyone,

Live or perish in its flame.

Love will never, never let you be the same

I recall why I was such a wreck after the breakup with my ex was because at the time I thought that he was my soulmate, no question, and without him, I would never find happiness with another person. When we got back together after more than a year, I thought that that would be the final destination for me romantically speaking... but then... I started to realise how little I knew this person. How what I had thought about him before, of various things that I felt just confirmed that we were soulmates, wasn't really true. I thought that being with him again would solve all problems and that it was the end point of happiness. Well obviously it wasn't. Also I'd realised in the year that we hadn't been together, both of us had changed so much that we didn't quite match any more.

When Jon and his ex broke up (alright not exactly that but anyway) Julian also shared his own stories, about how he used to be a shy guy, and now that he is a confident guy, he could easily have won back his 1st gf, but he wouldn't ever choose to. Because when he looks at her, he sees how different the both of them are now and well she's no longer his 'type'. Also, he also talked about (my characteristic sidetracking starts here) what women look for in a man. I still remember it. A little chauvinistic in my opinion but here it is:

• Provide

A woman looks for someone who has either money and/or ambition to basically be able to provide for a family. Ambition obviously goes here, as does a constant drive for self-improvement.

• Protect

A woman wants someone who will always be at her side protecting her from the world. Kindness, altruism and gentleness goes here.

• Seed

Umm well, someone that can give her children. I guess these are the indicators of fertility. I don't really have to elaborate on this, do I?

As a female... well these things are not completely untrue. Hmm. Still... I can't help but think back to what Sigmund Freud said about women... that after 20 years of studying them he still couldn't figure out what women really want. Can a person really find out what women want, when most of the time they themselves don't know what they really want?

Btw, I went to the optician to place an order for contacts today. I've been wanting to get them for years, ever since jc, but mom never allowed me to get them because she never believed that I would be able to take good care of them and I'd get an infection or something. Well, during the trip to Italy I managed to convince her to let me get contacts, without speaking a single word of persuasion. All I did was state, "When we get back to Singapore I want to get some contacts" and she agreed. How did I do it? Ah! (Bosco-style :p) Well... I brushed my teeth. Only that. Haha... if you're feeling mystified, well, basically after I got my braces, I've been spending on average almost 30 mins a day to clean my teeth (I asked the dentist about it and he said it was perfectly normal, just that most people don't bother) and I continued to do that every day in the trip, even when I was very tired, to the sometimes frustration of my mom who was tired of waiting for me, haha. So basically the care I took with my teeth convinced her that I would be able to take care of my contacts properly should I have any.

Wow... I've really changed since I got to university I guess. I'm a whole lot more organised now, with a determination and self-discipline that I've never known before (just ask my despairing maths teacher Ms Casey Goh, who always expected me to have my tutorials Not done). I get the feeling it's not just because I am doing something I like now... so what happened? It was not as if there was a huge heart-wrenching event that happened to me. Is it just the environment of intellect and impassioned learning? Or the constant self-pressure to become better because I compare myself to others and don't like the result? Or just things that happened to my friends, and in the circle of counselling (especially Jon Lee's issues) we all learnt something? To be honest I have no idea, just that I'm throwing out ideas. Perhaps some day I'll know what really changed me so much and use this factor of change to change my future life for the better.

(None of the things I mentioned actually have a proper link to each other, except in my head. I am trying to figure out how I can manage to think in a linked manner because right now the only way that I can get some linkage into it is when I actually go back, read and think about how to actually link them. Unfortunately I don't have the time for that because dad changed the wires so I don't have connection to my own laptop (not that I don't know how to connect them back because I sure do, but each time we do that the connection takes pretty long to be resume operations) and have to use the public computer. Plus, dad wants the computer now. Phew. I am beginning to understand why I'm not a good 'live' storyteller... because I add in so much nonsense in parentheses. And... more parentheses.)

Oh! Btw... some pretty pictures to look at... all of these are 2D paintings, none of them actually 3D, it just has that effect! http://bridge.skyline.net/illusions They look like the artwork in the churches of Italy, where a lot of the time it actually gets tough to see what is sculpted and what is painted, because the two are often interspersed.

Darkness shades me

The day of the OMM concert. Most of the orchestra played well. With the possible exception of me.

1. I forgot the last page of my score. Well that was still okay because it was all drowned out by the orchestra anyway so I air-played the last page, pretty much. Score -0.5, Total count -0.5
2. During the Cum mortuis in lingua mortua (With the Dead in a Dead Language) (the dead language being obviously, Latin) where I had a solo, I counted wrongly and came late. Partly because my mind wandered off to think about C, for whom my heart still hurts. The conductor showed surprise in his face when I didn't come in as I should have, which was when I realised something was wrong. It ended up, the last thing I played harmonised with the chord that the winds entered on. I was really supposed to end before they enter, but the harmonisation of the chord allowed it to still make sense musically. Heng ah. Still... Score -2, Total count -2.5
3. In The Marketplace at Limoges, it was pretty alright until I came in in all the argh! wrong places! I'm not sure if it can be heard but I suspect so. Score -2, Total count -4.5
4. My tuning was... still imperfect. Better than during the rehearsal because before the concert I had silence in which I could tune in peace (the tuner doesn't pick up sounds that are too high or low so I can't tune all my notes using it) and listen carefully. Previously I felt that listening to strings that were plucked hard (to be heard over the din of countless trumpets, violins, horns, etc practising) would be good enough to tune properly but the more I listened the more I felt that something is not right. So I managed to tune better but still imperfect. Score -0.5, Total count -5

Unfortunately, this is already one of my more successful performances. Still a real mess up. But even though I had these myriad problems, Prof Chan still just said 'bravo' to me as he was exiting the stage. That was painful. Knowing that he said the words just for the sake of saying it, for encouragement, instead of genuine appreciation for a job well done... That just hurt my pride in so many different ways.

You know what's the worst thing about being a conductor? Seeing your player flop bigtime in the concert and still having to say 'bravo' to them afterwards.

You know what's the worst thing about being a student? Getting a high grade for your jury (performance module) not because you were genuinely good, but because 'oh we wanted to encourage you'.

I feel insulted.

The title of this post is actually from the opera 'Dido and Aeneas', Act 3 by Henry Purcell, an opera that I love to quote from, not least because the opera, for once, is in English! The words go: 'Thy hand, Belinda... Darkness shades me. In thy bosom let me rest. More I would, but death invades me. Death is now a welcome guest' No, even though I'm not feeling my best, I do not mean all that is written in the lyrics, just giving a context of the section of the lyrics I quoted from.

Though... the way things were today, it was tinged so much by the idea of death. Almost as if the Sepulcrum romanum (Roman Sepulchers) and Cum mortuis in lingua mortua of the Catacombs had invaded our real lives. C's personal message on msn said: 'i'd like to fall into a deep sleep and wake up after 100 years. though not waking up at all works as well.' and a retort that I badly wanted to send to him, but didn't, was 'well, if you really want to die, you can do it in front of me. i don't know CPR.' Yeah I know... these kinds of comments might give me momentary smugness when I say it, but what's the point? It advances nothing. Like Margaret Thatcher said (in relation to not admitting the existence of the British secret service MI6), one should "never admit to anything unless you have to" Well, taking that and stretching it a little, I guess we should begin to not say anything unless there is a point. Alright I know the quote and the statement are not completely related, but cut me some slack. It's 3.22 am now and I'm still not in the best of moods. Still, hope within me hopes that "Tomorrow will be a better day!" - Chief, OAC 2005

Into the darkness

Well there. C has started talking to me again. I was having dinner with people from OMM just after going to Synwin at Marina Square, a shop that specialises in string instruments. I never even knew that shop existed until Jon showed it to me. Oh man that shop is phenomenal. It's like a wonderland just for non-string musicians, just imagine how much more it would be for string players! There's a harpsichord which I saw and then immediately recognised as the one that the school had rented for their symposium 'The Performer's Voice' in my first year. And that already made me excited even before I entered the shop! Then there was even a lever harp in the corner! I mean well I could see rows upon rows of violins and violas hanging from the ceiling, but below that the display had a wide range of CDs and other products with 'music' as its theme. Including a beautiful antique-style clock from Quartz that was in the shape of a lyre. (sorry I have a thing for antique-style clocks, and the lyre just makes it all the better) How do they even get this stuff! I had no idea Quartz had a beauty like that! Augh! A passage I found online about that kind of clock...

Lyre clocks got their name from the swooped style that the clocks were made in. This style resembled the shape of a lyre, which is a musical instrument similar to a harp. Thus, it was the shape that gave the lyre clock its name. Lyre clocks have been built by many different clock makers, and have been constructed in all manner of variations, colors, and sizes. Some are small table-top models, while some are big enough to sit on the floor like a grandfather clock. Some are very spectacularly designed, while some are very plain. The woodwork on most of these clocks was usually done to imitate some kind of theme, like leaves or vines. The clocks usually had brass or wood trim, and were decorated with all manner of different decorations on the front, top, and sides. These clocks are collected by people all over the world for their elegance and originality.

Lovely, isn't it? It was just all that I could possibly to to not run around screaming like a little girl around the shop because everything was just all so... Wow......... I examined their CD range, most of which was string of course, but they also had an interesting collection of operas and oratorios and orchestral works. I saw a harp CD that I was seriously tempted to buy because it had I think almost all the harp concertos in there. (okay, so there aren't that many, so they can all be put into 2 CDs) Maybe I'll go tomorrow because it's starting to sound better and better as I think of it. That's usually how I am when I buy something, really... I'll see it, then the vast majority of the time I'm not sure about it, so I think about it and get it another time. My mom gets fed up with me when I have to buy some clothes or something because I can never make up my mind. And then I decide not to buy anything at all and my mom says, "Go out shopping have to buy something what, or else not called shopping" and I'm going, "Whaaaaaaaat..." Funny. I just realised that that is also my attitude towards relationships. Interesting. Maybe I'll comment on that some time in the future.

Anyway, we went to Synwin in the first place because Jon and I were going for dinner with some other people from OMM and we had gone to that shop to meet David Loke, a violinist (Colin has mentioned him before because David used to be from YST before he disrupted his studies to go for NS) who was buying a shoulder rest. While they (the two string players) were discussing the merits of this and that brand of shoulder rests, I couldn't contribute anything to the discussion, so I was looking around the shop which was when I saw all the things I described earlier. And when I walked back to the two of them again, David said, "You look bored." I was not, not in the least. I was just completely fascinated and mouth agape like a child looking at the stars for the first time. It was completely unlike any music shop I'd been into before. I'd been to quite a number but they tended to be more on the selling guitar/other band instruments type. This was the first time I saw a shop specialising exclusively in classical instruments used in the orchestra. How amazing! I can finally understand how famous harpist Yolanda Kondonassis felt when she first went to the Lyon and Healy (famous harp brand) shop when in holiday in Chicago... It must have been breathtaking, to stand amongst such beauty and elegance. A kind of silent wonderment. No wonder she was inspired to learn the harp. Wow.

Anyway during the dinner after that I received the sms from C asking if I was free tonight, and then I replied, and then C said 'nvm i'm not'. When Jon asked about that aspect later on, I just said, "I dunno, maybe C is just weird. Then again, all my friends are" and it was funny watching Jon's reaction. Nah, I know the reason why. Just that sometimes we should just shut up and just think about what we say before we say it. C is at a sensitive time now and trying to help C I just feel like... well I don't feel like I'm in a mess, more like I have a bunch of wires tangled together. i know that I am going to get it straight sooner or later, but I look at the huge tangle and then I think (quoting Jon Lee), 'bloody hell', in that... I know that things will get sorted eventually, but now... is still a question of 'how do we get there?' Or if I were to use another way to describe it, it's as if I had walked into a very black cloud of smoke. I know that this cloud can't last forever, and that eventually I'll get out of it, but right now is like, "Okay... what now?"

Well. Into the the darkness we go! Onward and upward!

Il Vecchio Castello

Was reading the yahoo news about an Aussie woman who had killed her toddler by accidentally backing into him while trying to park in the drive way. I was about to close the window when I saw this comment which said:

A sad event. This Aussie lady has been in Singapore long enough to pick up a bad driving habit of Singaporeans, that is backing in when they do parking. This is a selfish behaviour of Singapore drivers. They hold up traffic when they reverse their cars just to save some seconds of their time when they get out from the parking lot.

I was rather mad at that (because we are innocent of that accusation) and made a comment that said:

the only way you are taught to park in driving schools in singapore, basically, is to reverse to park. the instructors don't teach you to park head in because they (meaning the traffic police) feel that in an emergency, it is always better to have been parked tail in so that you can get out faster.

besides, your point about them reversing their cars to save seconds is not valid, because the same applies even if they went head in... they still have to reverse their cars and hold up traffic when they exit, taking up the same amount of time they would have taken if they had parked tail in, and so i completely cannot agree with your comment.

this was a sad accident of course, but it could also have happened if the mother was exiting and reversed onto her toddler, not just when she was reversing to enter the parking lot

I'd say something about the death of the toddler itself, but often there isn't really anything to say except for feeling sorry and feeling sadness...

For no reason at all, I recalled what Prof Chan said yesterday after he told me not to be scaredy... He said that I had done a good jury which concluded a good year for me, and then he said that the judges wanted to 'encourage me' which was why they gave me a B+. So I suppose that means that I wasn't actually good enough for a B+, but they just gave it to me so that it would 'encourage' me. Gah. Just tell me I'm not good if I'm not! That actually motivates me to work harder because in some way I want to prove myself.

Well I'm back from the rehearsal with OMM now... today was good! I played everything well, I came in on time, followed the conductor well... I am really starting to like orchestra. Well, in fact, I do love orchestra because I love being buried in the midst of the surround sound (the best kind) and I love being part of the music that we are creating! The only thing that has really bothered me is that so, so often, I end up dragging down the whole group because I can't play well, or my nerves overtake me, or the pedals go wrong, or something other, and the conductor glares at me which really is very stressful. I get really stressed when I play with the orchestra even though I love it... what a paradox because we usually like things that we're good in, not things we are bad in... During the ChildAid concert I performed in last year, just before going up someone said, "Have fun!" and I replied, "I only have fun when I'm not playing" which I meant as a funny comment, but was absolutely true, I love sitting and listening to others play, but when it's my turn to play I simply get so panicky that I can't enjoy it at all. But how I've always wished that I could enjoy it instead of worrying no end! I guess I really have to thank OMM and Prof Chan for giving me this chance to finally enjoy orchestral music. Maybe this is the turning point, the point where I will eventually play in the orchestra with real enjoyment. Ah we can all hope. The optimist in me is working again. She works too hard as it is.

I finally wrote a really long email to C... and in response C's personal message was changed to 'searing pain'. Sigh. Now I have to dissect everything all over again. Cover all the bases (possibilities). Try to understand 'searing pain' simply for itself, then look for more possible explanations based on comparison to C's previous comments, the personality, the expected reaction to the email I sent... Gosh I feel like a military strategist sometimes. They have to strategise until everyone in the enemy is dead. Imagine that! (sure hope that doesn't apply in my case) Sometimes I just want to grab the person, shake the person and say, "What in the freaking world is your Problem??!! Why are you so depressed???!! You shouldn't be so depressed!!!! You have a good life!!! Stop whining!!!" but to do so would suggest that I didn't understand, and well to a pretty large extent I believe I do understand. If understanding a person is like completing a puzzle, then every time I received new information from C's blog I understood more about the person. And when I compared the way C talked to me and then what I know about the person from their blog... and then it's like inner pieces that were confirmed by the corner pieces. And each time I find out more, it's adding to the puzzle. The picture seems so incomplete sometimes, and unfortunately, more often than I like, I find myself looking desperately at the corner pieces for some kind of clue, that should just occur to me. Fitting in a new piece (coming to a new understanding about the person) is painstaking work... like any other puzzle, I pick up a piece (consider a different possibility) and see if it fits, plus it must also fit with the neighbouring pieces (what I already know about the person)! Whew. I've never been really good with puzzles mainly because I didn't really have the patience for it. But now I have a mission. A mission which gives me new strength and determination to not give up.

Head is failing me. 振作点 head! (Buck up (bad translation but Google Translate's version is even worse)) Awful that every time I come back I can't think. Must be the physical exertion. Today I did it again... I moved the harp and everything else, and packed my harp on the road. Actually I'm pretty proud of myself. Me and dad managed to stuff the harp in the car, yeah, only the two of us. That's what's great. I'm still working on being able to work the 36kg harp on my own. 做个女强人！(be an Amazon) (why in the world am I saying so much chinese? Must be head's fault.

Haha. It's so interesting how I'm observing my own behaviour. I believe all people who deal in the study of the mind do experiments first and foremost on themselves. The best guinea pig there is... I mean, you're not going to sue yourself if something goes awry for you, right? :p That's an assumption. Wonder what the judge would say if he saw a case being brought to him that read something like "Person X (the plaintiff) wishes to sue Person X (the accused) for damages caused by the accused experiments on the plaintiff." Probably have a good laugh, then throw the case out of court. You're so funny, Karen.

Seriously though, I've frequently had this sort of self-observation about talking about myself to myself in the 3rd person... when I was in jc, I remember that on the day that Nambi broke up with me, I cried non-stop for 3 hours. And yet in me, there was always this part of me that was saying, "alright, that's enough, stop crying!" and at the time I wondered if all my grief was just an act. I told this to Wong Dingjie, who was comforting me at the time (I knew him because he was in the neighbouring class 32/07, was a loner like me (which was why I talked to him, I think I have interests in loners, haha :p) but friends with one of my guy friends from 32/07) and he said that he experiences it too. (I've always been very grateful for having someone who comforted me and I've never forgotten my debt to Dingjie. An act of kindness is never forgotten.) It's actually surprising how many people there are who experience it, but don't understand it. It was only when I got to Year 2 in uni when I attended Greg's class, that I finally understood what it was. It was Self 1 Self 2 (Yeah I know I mentioned this in my first post but never got round to explaining it) where Self 1 is the part of you who gives commands, and Self 2 is the part of you that actually does it. In essence, Self 1 is like the Greeks, the thinkers, and Self 2 is like the Romans, the doers. Haha. True, it is really more complicated than that, and often there are more 'selfs' than just 2, but Self 1 Self 2 does provide a good model... at least it's something I understand easily, and the first time I heard about the concept I just felt... 'Ah! So this is what has been happening to me all along'.

Currently listening specifically to "Il vecchio castello" (the old castle) from Pictures at an Exhibition. That's how I feel right now. Not completely melancholy, but filled with a kind of ... sorrow, a kind of gravity, but yet, a kind of... peace. The music is so beautiful. Actually, when I am sad, and I hear or play a sad piece... I feel my feelings dissipate with the music and I actually feel better. When I play happy music actually... it just feels like a painkiller that masks over the pain but the feelings are still there if you look. Unlike sad and/or slow pieces which give me peace. Strange... what a paradox I am.

Hmm... I keep feeling that my posts lack analysis in a way and it's slightly frustrating. But if I manage to remember the ideas that I want to analyse... I would love to analyse them, instead of always just talking about things.

I want to be free

To be free not in terms of time, but... just to be unrestricted and uninhibited.

Moving the harp both today and yesterday has made me realise that I am quite independent. Instead of asking someone to help me take things, I always take them myself unless someone else takes it for me before I know and ask for it. Even when it's heavy, I always try to do things myself unless it looks like something is going to crash if I don't get help. Strangely I find this behaviour especially weird because I have an older brother, and most females who have an older brother are usually more dependent, in a manner of speaking. I guess part of it was because my older brother was never really very nice to me when I was young, and while other older brothers would be nice to their younger sisters, mine always expected me to do things myself. And he was scary. So I did. Plus being in a girls' school when I was in sec sch really helped... especially being in the AVA club... when we had to run around all the time, carry heavy equipment, and a lot of men's work... I liked the club because it taught me how to operate sound equipment, information that I still find hugely useful today, all the more because I use them frequently nowadays in my own performances. And well, wearing the pants (i.e. doing men's work) does tend to make one independent, I guess.

Perhaps being in the AVA club and starting to know more about technology (helped in part by my friend Emma whose parents were tech people and she taught me a trick or two) and so whenever I have a problem with computers, or just setting up some things like what we do with IKEA products, I always try to solve it myself first before looking to others. If I can't solve it, I look for advice on the internet. If I still can't solve it, well the last resort has to be someone else I guess, but even then I'd try to do a big favor for them in exchange. (I've always tended to overcompensate but alright that makes me feel better about asking for help) Perhaps you could say that I have a male pride in not asking for help but I just like to think of it as being independent. Does wonders for one's creativity and resourcefulness too. Can't remember all the times when I improvised... I do that so often.

Then... moving into the NUS hostel was yet another experience. The thought that kept recurring to me during that time was, 'if you're not going to do it, nobody else will' and that was precisely true. I remember in Year 1 sem 2, I fell sick in the very first week of school (which is Very rare... I only fall sick somewhere in about once a year or so). Obviously there was nobody else around, and I told no one, including my parents. Feverish me went back to PGP to sleep, got a small towel, bought some ice from the drinks shop, put it in the freezer, then wrapped that ice in the towel and used it in the night (didn't want to use the ice in the PGP freezer because goodness knows what's been there before, ouch). It was the first time I had taken care of myself outside of school. The next day I went to see the doc at UHC (University Health Centre) and got some medicine, but by that time I didn't really need it anyway because my fever was almost completely gone. (I like my immune system). Plus, doing other more mundane tasks like cleaning your room, watering the plant, changing the bedsheets and all that... I used to clean the floor by hand which was... ouch.

I like the fact that by being independent, I can be a free spirit. Then I can do what I want to do, without having to tell anyone, or having to ask for permission. To be free from the opinion of anyone, to be able to explore however and whatever I want, or even to be unrestricted in the sense that I am not following any specific plan. Even though I love my friends, a lot of the times I am still a loner who likes to spend time alone with myself, reading books. I like walking as well and just reflecting on the nature of things. To look up at the night sky alone, seeing the constellations and feeling the weight of the universe press down upon us. Absorbing the secret power of the universe (alright I over-poeticised it). That's how I know there's someone out there waiting for us. Hard to explain my feelings, they are more instinctive rather than logical.

Actually... going to work at a budget hotel in Geylang (in the HQ, not in one of the rooms...! :p) didn't actually make me much more independent, because most of the time they made me do accounting, which was really @#$%^&* !!!! It was a real bore and it was so bad that that period of time in my life was the time when I really started to drink coffee often because otherwise the work was just so freakishly boring that I would fall asleep. I wasn't the only one though... I observed the Indonesian woman to the left cubicle (hey, bored, right? :p) and every single day without fail I'd see her nodding off because the work was just so repetitive and boring. And she was just an just an intern! Imagine doing that for the rest of your life... the ultimate nightmare. I'm so glad that I can love the job that I have, right now. Luckily for me while at work, sometimes I was allowed to call external parties for favours or stuff like that, as well as to reply to emails from sometimes grateful, but usually irate customers. You might imagine that it isn't easy, and well the calls weren't easy. Often I'd get rather stressed before making a call, because calls require split second thinking, which isn't one of my strong points, but even so it was a great experience, and I also learnt that making a mental template/script usually helps a lot. As for the letters, I actually loved it because it was actually doing something that was not repetitive and actually requires quite a bit of skill to compose a diplomatic letter. That's when I learnt to keep re-reading the stuff I write (to official places) until I'm satisfied with it. Though I wish that at the time I had this book called "How to win friends and influence people" because it just makes being diplomatic so much easier. It's practically a bible for all people (because we constantly interact and have relations with others), not just those who have to be diplomatic though. I'd strongly recommend everyone to read it.

Jon Lee borrowed that book from me yesterday because he was still depressed (from the same thing as last friday) due to some things in his interpersonal relations and he asked me to read his sms and offer comment, so I did, and then after pointing out some things I suggested that he read this book. When I lent it to him, he said, "You know, I'm starting to owe so much to you that I don't really know how to repay it..." and I said, "Well you don't ever have to repay it... you deserve it simply because you're my friend" :) I only wish that C understood. I love making people happy, or feel better when they are sad. Oh well anyways... back to the book... I actually started reading it because it was recommended by Greg, and boy, was it good! I learnt so much from it. Jonny said after reading half of it that he already knew it, but just that he wasn't thinking about it while writing his smses, to the detriment of his interpersonal relations. He's thinking of making a list to put in his wallet or somewhere so that he can read it every day and be reminded of it. Also today while taking a lift in his car I learnt more about the nature of our friendship. Because we hadn't been close much this semester, while the horns knew things about him that I didn't, so I had started to think that he had just treated me as a 'pad' during his time of need (or a term Jon introduced me to, 'emotional tampon'. Just in case you're wondering, he didn't come up with that term himself, or I would have gotten out of his car at that moment out of disgust (joking :p)) and that I wasn't really 'his kind of friend'... In other words, a person that he didn't really want to be friends with. I thought that we were drifting apart because he didn't regard me as one of his close friends, and well, 'not his kind of friend'. I actually felt a bit of tears welling up in my eyes when I told him that, which surprised me because I'd never thought that I was that hurt by it. Well, I was glad to find out that that wasn't actually the case, and that he had not said some things to me because he was worried that I would blabber (quite true) and also that he had been occupied by his other interpersonal relations. Friends really mean a lot to me and I'd do a lot to make them happy.

I guess that's part of the reason why I don't really like to make new friends... A lot of times I just want to concentrate on the friends that I have so that I can give them my fullest attention... which was actually why, in my first semester at the conservatory, I sort of withdrew and hid in the harp studio all the time until Yue Zhi and gang (including Jon Lee) actively sought me out and gradually I realised what great friends they are. Though... we usually go in a group of 4, which is the horn couple, then Jon and me, so a lot of people in school just simply assumed that since the horns are together, naturally I would be with Jon too. Well, I don't think we're a good fit for each other and on top of that I don't have that kind of feeling for him. I am very fond of him though, in the kind of affection that seems to be specialised only for my close guy friends. Hmm. I like this kind of platonic relationship.

I was talking to Jasmine through offline messages, and I was telling her about how we should learn new skills because of the law of diminishing returns... because I find that a lot of the time when we keep on concentrating on a particular skill, yes it does get better, but as time goes by, the amount in which you improve gets less and less until it effectively becomes not really worth it to work on it that much. The exception, of course, being that you are really so good with this skill and you love it so much that you think it's worthwhile to use a disproportionate amount of time to get the increases in ability that you want. Just like me playing the harp... I don't really improve that much but I think it's completely worth it because even a small improvement means a lot to me.

On an unrelated note, once I went to a masterclass, and the speaker said something like... the further you go up the ladder of perfection, the more imperfect you think you are. Because you start being able to recognise more and more imperfections in yourself, areas that you need to work on... Well true in my case I guess. I start to see more and more areas I need to work on, compared to the time when I was just playing happily on my own without worrying about this or that technique that I needed to work on.

Today's rehearsal with the OMM was good. I actually managed to play all of the notes! Though Prof Chan asked me to move to right beside the conductor... I got a major panic attack in the first of the Pictures I had to play (the piece I'm playing with the orchestra is Pictures at an Exhibition) and oh it was awkward. Plus Prof Chan was not in the best of moods because he was worried we wouldn't get enough practice before the concert, and the look he gave me when I made that stupid mistake... well for most conductors it would be considered really mild, but knowing that he is normally a very nice person... when he does that look it would be enough to strike terror into any heart. Oh alright. Maybe it's just mine. The others in the orchestra feel more relaxed normally and some even laugh sometimes. When one of the violins accidentally played my note, Prof Chan said, "Sorry, harp is over here" and the violin section chuckled. On the music level, I realise that this panic thing is affecting my playing, particularly because just before the entry I panic and then I'm thinking, "should I play? should I play? oh no I missed my entry!!" so that's basically how I got a C for my orchestra grade, haha. Also the panic thing is affecting my volume because I don't dare to play out. After the rehearsal Prof Chan told me not to be so scaredy (funny how he used that word :p). It's really frustrating though... I don't have that kind of problem during solo recital... maybe I just need to play more, which is why taking every chance to work with the OMM is so important to me... it gives me more opportunities to learn to overcome my nerves in a less threatening environment. Oh btw I can follow the conductor better now, especially when I memorise my parts. Yeah... it comes down to that. But if it has to be done, it has to be done. I'm thankful this time that the parts for Pictures is easier so I can memorise and be able to watch the conductor better. So I am hoping that, for the first time, while playing in the orchestra on my own (i.e. 1 harp only) I will be able to play well and follow the conductor well.

Gosh, I can think of so many things that went wrong all the other times when I played... Chief among them was Hindermith's Sonata for Brass, Piano and Harps... well alright I was playing with someone who was on 1st harp. During the piano solo with only harps accompanying, the she entered a beat earlier than she should have and continued. The conductor tried to help by showing 2 fingers to tell her to continue only in beat 2, but nothing happened and I started to doubt myself and wonder if the mistake was really with me... Seeing as she kept showing '2' I thought she meant "Harp 2, Harp 2" and so I changed and then it was REALLY messy. Ouch. Then the other time I made a major mess up was when I was playing Harp 2 before the interval, and then playing as the only harp after the interval. During the interval the stage crew took out the Harp 2 stand, taking my scores with it too. When I went on stage after the interval, all I had was the scores provided there, which were NOT sufficient because harpists need to make their own markings on the score because of the pedals and all that. I didn't want to go out and get them because I was afraid it would look unprofessional and that I wouldn't have enough time. Also I thought it would be okay because I'd practised the harp part so often, I memorised a lot of it. Well... augh... it was horrible... we were playing Petrushka, you see, and in the Moor's Room there was a harp solo that was "D E F G A", and because of the pedal problem I had, it became "D E F# G A", changing it from minor to major! Gosh, you should have seen... her head practically just whipped up... oww, haha.

I just looked at msn and C said in the personal message, "just get outta my face". Sigh... unfortunately it's the school holiday and when I don't have much to occupy myself with... it makes my mind roam more and somehow I keep thinking back to C and the actions of this person. I wish for the freedom in practising, the comforting solace of the music, to let my spirit fly... but one can only practise for so long before risking injury. Alas!

First OMM rehearsal in a semester

Wow... It's been 1 semester since the last time I performed with the OMM for their ChildAid concert! Life's been such a rollercoaster since then. Not least doing well for my jury, which has effectively illuminated the crazily busy semester for all memory now. Though I still remember that during the semester, I kept saying that 'after this semester, I want to be human again' because the whole time I was practically 做牛做马 (having the life of a work animal). It was unbelievable how busy I was.

Sigh... I really would like to write more but my spirit is tired from writing a very long email to C. Not even sure if it will be read, be deleted immediately, or just go into the spam. Life is so difficult. I want to help but can I? May I? Maybe I'll just send it tomorrow. It's been waiting for a few days though... I've just been so crazy busy.

Really tired now... Goodnight

Lame jokes

2E-sion. Guess what that is.

Can't guess?

Well... it's...

Tuition! hehehe :p


Another lame joke that I was thinking about today while in the shower...

The conductor of a choir (or for that matter, the wind section of a band) is scolding his pupils and in the heat of it, he says, "You suck! You ALL suck! And do you know why? It all comes down to your breathing technique! Every time, you just open up your mouth and then... you suck!" (they suck in air, geddit? :p) Oh I love being lame :D


Speaking of wind section, when we were on holiday in Italy, someone was told that my younger bro was in the band so he asked what instrument my bro played. The cheeky fellow told him that he was actually in wind band. I said matter-of-factly (not without some evil glee :p), "He plays percussion." (not that wind band doesn't have percussion) and then my bro called me a kill blanket, spoil joy and wet sport :p

The first and only time I watched a wind band was when I went to watch the NUS Wind Band. Ordinarily I would never have gone, because I'm not really a person for the band. When I had my sec 1 orientation, during the CCA carnival my mom asked me if I wanted to join the band, because years ago, my mom had been in the Cedar Marching Band. I listened to their performance and I concluded that I was never meant for the band because it was Too Noisy! So more years of joining the choir. Haha. I don't regret it too much though. But more about the choir later while I talk about the NUS Wind Band. Basically, the reason why I went was because I happened to see a poster for their concert, which said that they were playing Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 which I'd played in my first sem at the conservatory. Well, of course I had to go and see what the wind band version is like compared to the orchestra version. So I went and... umm... well, ouch. Well, I guess it just shows how spoilt we get in the conservatory, listening to people who trained years and years just to get to a good standard. So we mustn't compare. Anyways back to Shosty. I was really disappointed that they (i.e. the wind band) only played the 4th movement of the symphony but then again, that one is the best part, so didn't really miss that much. I really take my hat off to them though. I watched that concert with Jon Lee (I realised later on that he was going as well and since it was free seating we decided to sit together) and he was commenting how the clarinets had such a rotten job playing all the repeated notes in the back from the point of the climax til the end. He complained that he already felt very tired from playing all those repeated notes on the viola, what more the clarinetists who actually have to breathe in and produce sounds. Ouch.

I was more impressed by the pretty, shiny, golden Aoyama harp though. The harpist was actually 'on loan' from the NUSSO and I got to know her. :D we are so rare in singapore, every time I get to know another it almost merits a dance, haha :D (you Know I would dance!) Hmm... about the golden harp... well it wasn't the best because Aoyama firstly isn't the best, even if it IS an Aoyama Monarch. Plus the one that the wind band had was rarely played even after years of arrival, so it never had a chance to mature (i.e. it has a really raw sound). Worse, it had once fallen off a stage and the neck broke and it got repaired. I mean well, just... wow. You'd think the harp would be gone and dead once it fell from that kind of height but well... lucky I guess. I'd have a Lyon and Healy any day though... :p and you know what? Today my mom told me that I'm going to get a Lyon and Healy for my 21st birthday! Wow what a present... it's just so...... I feel so goggle-eyed... that is Just Huge! And I thought that I would only ask for one when I got married! haha :) It won't be around by my 21st birthday though, because every harp is individually hand made, so from order to delivery takes 6-8 months. And I'm going to order a trolley at the same time so that I can finally transport my harp properly instead of putting it on a goods trolley that makes a whole lot of noise in motion, and more importantly, the harp is very unstable on it and is more likely to topple. Yay!

Whee. My cousin came to visit my younger bro and when I answered the door he said, "It's Xavier!" I said, "Oh, are you at the door?" "Yes." "Well, you can stay there" *absolutely evil laugh* :p

They (meaning the bros and cousin, I couldn't play because they only had 3 controllers) and they played Halo 3's Slayer. Younger bro called his profile 's' for 'stanley', and he soon got a killing spree. It didn't last though, as "Player 1 ended s' spree" S spree. Esprit! haha :)

Well. I guess I'm in a good mood because my concert today is over and I didn't have to go for OMM's rehearsal today (Jinjun told me that yesterday when I called him to ask about C, actually) and I was watching a funny show, so I'm rather giggly at the moment. Heh! :D I feel almost... drunk in a way. When I laugh too much my sense of judgement decreases and I just wanna keep laughing :p Then again, my friends always say that I look drunk. Specifically, drunk on nothing but laughter. Yeah that's me :p To test the 'look drunk' thing, once I Did act drunk even though I had had not a drop of alcohol, and they totally bought it, muahahaha :p

On a Slightly more serious note *smirk* I had a conversation with Jonny and we were talking about the difference between reacting and responding calmly. I told him that I still tend to snap rather easily but I really hate that because my mom tends to do the same thing and I get worried that I will become the same. Tough luck I guess. Most daughters end up becoming just like their moms. I really resent that. I am able to keep my cool almost all the time with my friends (at least I don't remember snapping at them) but when it gets to family or even Nambi when I was with him... I just got a bit irrational. Jon said that hating your own bad behaviour is a good thing because I will change.

Well I Am trying... on my younger bro at least... gosh he's so irritating, haha. But also with my mom because that's who I have the shortest circuit with. Especially when the situation is important... when she was driving she wanted to do some acrobatics on her phone or something and I snapped, "Can you stop doing that? You're driving!" I mean well, if you wanna endanger yourself, at least you shouldn't go endanger others, especially on the road, when there are always other cars, motorcyclists and pedestrians around. Though I was still quite rude. Actually I would be happy if I could reduce my snaps into only situations where it's so pertinent to respond immediately that I don't have time to think. I feel bad every time I snap and I will recall it even days afterward, so I suppose that's good in helping me to change. Jon said 'use that energy to your own advantage'.

Hmm... You know, I really love that I have such inspiring friends. They encourage me to be stronger, better, faster (wonder where that phrase is from, sounds familiar somehow...) by their example. I love that Jon is a true survivor and has the drive to keep on improving himself. I told him that I was proud of him and that I was always happy to have inspiring friends. He said I was a great person to be with too, always with excess positive energy. I like that phrase. Excess positive energy. Brimming over with it! Spilling over into others and bring light into their lives. I like that. Hehe. On friday when we went for that movie, he had started out being a little glum, but after a while after I had made him smile (with my excess positive energy :p), he said, "haha I picked the right person to go out with." Indeed. I like to think of myself as a survivor too like Jon, except in a slightly different way... other than the tenacity to hold on, I am also stubbornly optimist. Add to that many of my life's other experiences and I think that the building of my spirit is built on flexible enough foundations to withstand even a strong earthquake. (yes, the best foundations are those which are flexible and in essence, Sway with the earthquake)

You know the story of the carrot, the egg and the coffee bean? Perhaps it's best to be the coffee bean, but I think that I am a tremendous egg, always changing to the environment. Even when I read books... for a while afterward I will often speak in the same style as the words in the book. Maybe that's why I have so much empathy (not sympathy, there is a difference) for others. And after I adapt... I go out and change people's lives for the better :D

Hmm... sigh... I probably have to go rework some of what I said. I realise that Greg (my associate dean in case you forgot) (yeah I call him just Greg, haha) would take issue with a lot of my statements because they are not following the 'craft of thinking'. But when I try to think of it, I often 'hit the wall' as Tony calls it (another of my teachers, love him). How can I change that... this bears some thinking. It's really annoying though how I always run out of time just after these new questions come up, and I doubt actually, that they will actually be resolved.

P.S. I suspect the problem is that I just can't express myself well most of the time. Always had this problem in writing essays. Yet if I think enough, usually I can iron out the kinks in the line of thought... Well, an interesting link about the survivor personality: http://www.successfulschizophrenia.org/articles/nietz.html#questions

The question of love, romance and soulmates

Wow... I was looking at my previous post and I realised just how disjointed all my ideas were.. It was as if I was idea hopping, with the two ideas connected in a way only I understood. Probably shouldn't try to do serious thinking late at night. Then again, Jon Lee says that I do often speak disjointedly in class. Uh oh. Well hopefully I will get better with time as I start to put my ideas down in writing (figuratively) instead of just letting my mind fly wherever it will.

I would love to elaborate on my earlier ideas and make clearer connections but time weighs upon us. Once the day is gone, I'm not going to change my earlier posts. Call it a record and representative of time. I think it makes a good time capsule. The only changes I will make is to correct spelling errors and other basic grammatical errors.

Hmm... so about today... well it was pretty interesting. I slept really really late last night because for some reason, I couldn't sleep. And then, while I was sleepy and in the semi-conscious state I suddenly felt like I was hit like a bolt of lightning with the realisation that a guy that I had been looking at couldn't possibly be my soulmate, that he was just using me as a 'pad' (as Silvano calls it) to rest before taking off again. I had been wondering if he was my soulmate, because the first time we talked, I felt the connection. We do share a lot of the same opinions, even though we come from different backgrounds. And I liked the fact that he was a thinker. And a lot of other stuff about him. But he isn't (at least I'm 80% sure), so I go on looking.

I suddenly recall what Jonny said the other day about being single and I just thought (with a bit of a smile) that, hey, this brings me closer to being single for the rest of my life, then when I hit 41 I will become a nun :p Seriously speaking though, that is a promise that I made to God quite a long time ago. It is my personal belief that when we come into this world, some people have a soulmate, while others don't. And unfortunately if we all just married the first man/woman that came along, without the two of you knowing that you are soulmates, wouldn't we be potentially depriving someone of their soulmate? That thought haunts me. When I made that promise, I was thinking that if I had a soulmate and was meant to get married, surely I would have found him by the age of 41. And if I were not married, that simply means that I was meant for the Perfect Groom... to be the bride of Jesus Himself. There's nothing wrong with that. It's really a lot of discernment though, because romantic relationships are so convulated that it's not really that easy to find out if you really have a soulmate. Then if you do have one, you have to discern if he/she really is your soulmate or just someone that you have attractions to. Treat it as a responsibility to yourself, your partner and that other unknown person that you may be depriving a soulmate of.

How do we know who is our soulmate is? He/she could be anyone. This thought has been going around my head for a long time and a line from the theme song 遇见 (Meeting) of the movie 向左走, 向右走 (Turn Left, Turn Right) has been recurring, that "我等的人还在多远的未来" but I couldn't recall any more of the lyrics because I've never watched that movie. I never really went to search for the lyrics either, but when I did today... it just spoke everything. (proof that music is therapeutic :p)


阴天　傍晚　车窗外　未来有一个人在等待
向左　向右　向前看　爱要拐几个弯才来

我遇见谁　会有怎样的对白
我等的人　他在多远的未来
我听见风　来自地铁和人海
我排著队　拿著爱的号码牌


An overcast day, at dusk, outside the car window
In the future, someone is waiting for me
Look to the left, to the right, to the front
How many twists and turns will Love take before coming?

What kind of conversation will I have when I meet someone?
The person I'm waiting for, how distant is he in my future?
I hear the wind coming from the subway and crowd of people
I'm standing in line, holding onto love's ticket number


I still like it in chinese more. I love particularly the way the lyrics are made into a poem. Especially the first 2 lines, which are like a chinese couplet. I didn't actually take all the lyric though, just the ones that I identified the most with. Here's the youtube vid of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6VEkSab1bk I'm not a fan of Stephanie Sun's but we all know times when a song really speaks to you, and this one did.

Actually I'd like to speak more about yesterday's post about movies and romance... Those movies which I was talking about, and many others, start to portray the wrong impression of love (for that matter, romance novels are serial offenders of this). They advertise the initial attraction and sparks, marked by the instant gratification of sexual tension (usually expressed through a kiss) without the consideration of the after-effects. Okay. So you kiss the girl. Or the guy. Whichever applicable. Then what? If there is no substance in the relationship to start with, it's just not going to work out, and neither can you just go back to before and pretend that nothing ever happened, because well, too bad, it did happen. Everything that you had in the friendly relations before that, changes. By giving in to one's own desires and impulses, we may in fact lose a soulmate, one who is the best of us, but it didn't work out in the end because there was not enough preparation before one or the other decided to have that umm... kiss. The young couple in the 'Letters to Juliet' is a case in point. You don't even Know this guy! All the nitty gritty things of a relationship that are not sweet, but necessary. The pet peeves, the secret dreams... and a whole lot of other things that can seem minor at first but can become a real abrasion point in the relationship.

I just feel angry with these people (those who create media) sometimes, and you know, the effects of their actions go right down to the children. When I was P1, I was almost kissed by a classmate. Well, I had been doing class duty with 3 other classmates and I was squatting, dusting the books in the class library. One of my male classmates who was also doing class duty came very close to me and I was shooing him away with the feather duster (come on, I didn't know what he was thinking). When that didn't make him go away, I got pretty fed up and turned my back to him, standing up at the same time. And that was when the other boy doing class duty shouted out that he had been trying to kiss me. Argh. I was only 7 at the time! Such portrayals of romance in the media however, obviously do not just influence impressionable young children, nor heady young teenagers.

I have a friend who once kissed his friend's younger sister while they were watching tv. And he regretted it since then! Because after that the sister kept on coming after him, thinking that there was a mutual attraction when really it was just a moment of lust which destroyed any chance of a serious relationship thereafter. He only got his respite when she finally moved to Texas. When I first heard of it, I wanted to laugh and say 'this is what you get for doing something like that' but after that I did feel sorry for him because he got to a rather bad state when she practically stalked him. Then again, it's not all the fault of the media. They put those things there because society (well the audience) demands it, essentially 'voting' for it when they pay to watch these things. Does art influence society or society influence art? A Hmm and a sigh...

Anyway... when I woke up, it was a rush to go for rehearsal at ACS(I). At the rehearsal, during the praise and worship sessions, there were people (well, women) holding flags, on a 2.5m pole and the flag itself was about 1.5m long and 1m wide. It was a real 'what the...?' moment, because I couldn't really understand why they needed these flags for, other than for show. These women kept waving the flags in time to the music, for as long as they were singing! They didn't seem tired at all, even though that thing must be pretty heavy. What stamina! Maybe they are secretly from canoeing :p

Then mom and I went to pick up my younger bro from band practice. The bandit! Everyone in my family have been in music-related ECAs/CCAs, especially my parents, who met in the band. We passed a place called 'Marine terrace haven' and when I saw it, immediately I winced. Oh man! Anyway, when we reached VS (Victoria School) the gate was open for parents' cars to drive in, so in we went. On reaching the porch, I noticed that the roof of the porch was very interestingly decorated. They had large triangles and trapezoids in dark blue and light blue, and at first I thought that it was some kind of oversized mosaic. It didn't take me long, however, to realise that it was a constellation! :D It was really cool, between the dark and light blue shapes were white lines connecting the stars, and the stars were, guess what? The lights! When the lights come on, it will be like the stars lighting up! How beautiful! The best part was that the brighter stars in the constellation were differentiated from the dimmer stars, as the brighter stars had two compact florescent lamps in the socket instead of one. Sagittarius, the archer... I gasped. I asked my younger bro if he knew what the things on the roof were. He had absolutely no idea. When I told him it was a constellation he said, "huh... really..." and he's been in VS for 3 years! Leave it to the astronomy enthusiast :p

Anyway it was a real drag lugging the harp (literally and figuratively) back from ACS(I) so bro didn't really have a place to sit. I ended up sitting in the front seat with my harp stool on my lap and my younger bro in the back in an awkward position. Talk about awkward. Heh. Well, nothing much else has happened so far, except for dad disconnecting the internet to my room so that he can watch mio tv in his room. Yeah, some issues about the circuitry. It's alright anyways, I can still use the computer in my parents room. Just no late night chatting tonight, haha. Well, good night and the performance is tomorrow, followed by rehearsal with the OMM (Orchestra of the Music Makers), so it's going to be one rolicking sunday again :p

Duty, Movie and Evolution

Let's see... 4th day of blogging will be a failure because I have a rehearsal tomorrow at 11.30, so I will have to sleep early and wake up early to be able to play my best. Though I'm bursting with ideas because I went out with Jonathan Lee today.

Well, alright, maybe I'll indulge this one... today Jonny (it's funny how he doesn't like being called that in public, but then again, this isn't public :p) said that he was feeling a little down and emo about romantic issues so he was going to ask if we all wanted to go out, but the horns couldn't make it (just in case you were thinking that on his off days, Jonny is actually the Devil with horns, no, the horns mean 'french horns' who are a couple, Liang Cun and Yue Zhi), so I went out with him. Yeah it felt a little weird thinking about it before I actually got out the door, because we've always gone out together only in a group. Once I met him, though, I didn't feel weird any more since anyways we sometimes eat lunch together at Great Wall in NUS and it's fine. Before we went though, he asked me to put his viola (aka his wife) in my house for safekeeping. While on the way out, we met my grandmother and I told her in Teochew, "He's not my boyfriend, okay?" Haha. They'll probably still just think that, anyways.

The movie we went to watch was 'X-men: First Class' and before the movie started we went to top up his card at the OCBC ATM at their branch, and while we were there I saw an advert plastered on the wall that I took a picture of, which was of 2 credit cards with the name 'JONATHAN LEE' on them. I had to take a picture of course, and Jon thought it would be a nice idea too, so I took one of him. Hehe. Then we roamed around Nex, doing nothing but walking and talking. It was actually nice. I like talking while walking because somehow walking activates my mind better. Then we met the Other Jonathan, Jonathan Maximilian Wong, who were with two other people from the church choir, Emmanuel and Angela. The two Jons talked (which was inwardly amusing to me but I didn't show it) and Jonathan Wong asked Jon Lee about getting into YST because he's thinking of doing a course there. When they were done, I asked, "Do you want to exchange name cards?" because I know that Jon Lee gives his out, and also that Jonathan Wong has name cards too. So anyways. A little detour. I don't know if they think that Jon Lee is my boyfriend. That would be majorly funny. My relationship with Jon Lee is almost like that between me and Colin. Though the way I said goodbye to him after he sent me home with his dad's car (I gave him a hug, i.e. I opened my arms and offered one (a hug, not an arm...!)) probably will just make them think even more that he's my boyfriend :p but really I just wanted to comfort him and make him feel better, and he did say that he felt a lot better after this afternoon, so I'm glad I helped. I was rather amused though when I returned him his viola, because he stroked it, put his cheek to it and said, "Awww..... did you miss me?" Heheh :D

The movie was good, I'd say, but Jonny said it was less than 2 hours and would have wanted it to be longer to extend some parts. Well whatever that is, I think that it was really exciting and I haven't been so happy about watching a movie for a long time. The last I watched a movie in a cinema was 'Letters to Juliet' I think (and I wasn't so happy about watching it), which I watched with the choir people almost exactly a year ago. Yeah, that is how frequently I watch movies. Once a year. Haha... While I appreciated the romantic reunion of the older couple, I really didn't get the whole young couple thing. Although the plot Is centred around these two young people, they really make me feel as if they were just put there to provide the audience with some kissing scenes, the connection between the two I just felt was... missing. They were warring throughout the vast majority of the film and then right at the end (i.e. last 15 minutes) they realise that they are each other's true love (if that isn't a constructed fairytale, completely unrealistic ending, I don't know what that is) and tada, kissing! And they'd just known each other for a week! Honestly now... I was more impressed with the quasi-subplot of the old woman looking for her lost lover, even after decades of separation. That, is romantic. Constant pining even after years of separation, that even with other people around, the love never dies...

Then again, it's really irritating how movie-makers just throw in a female just for the... romantic action. Even in places where there are likely no females, they just throw in a female, like in horror movies like Anaconda... and then unfailingly at least one female Always survives the one-on-one picking off to make the kissing scene at the end. Those movie makers even stick a female into places (especially for movie adaptations of books) where they were never supposed to be, like Around the World in 80 days and Journey to the Middle of the Earth. Of course, more kissing scenes. Call that entertainment!

Well. This was a rather long detour, interrupted by chats and reading of wikipedia articles about different types of evolution. I went there to check up something that I'd read in a link that someone sent me. Here's the link: http://www.calamitiesofnature.com/archive/?c=525 and of course, I had to check what the different types of view about evolution were. I concluded that I was a theistic evolutionist. I'm surprised because I came to this view independently of people in the church but then after I discovered that the Catholic Church does hold this opinion as well. Haha. I can't help thinking of my first experience with Christianity after kindergarten (yeah my mom, a closet Christian at the time, sent me a Christian kindergarten where they taught us how to pray, well, really, gave us words to repeat, and most of the time I had no idea at all what it was all about, so it doesn't really count) when I was in P3, and we all had to do morning reading. A classmate of mine brought her child's Bible, and then she showed me Genesis I and the creation of the Earth. Then she insisted that creation was true. And I said, "Well, that can't be true, because we all know that evolution is how everything started." Or something to that effect. I have no idea how, but by P3 I had already known about the theory of evolution and all the rest of it (I was and still am a voracious reader, and used to read even recipes and ingredients list, which was how I got interested in nutrition, but that's another story (reading ingredients lists in other languages was also how I managed to learn some words in other languages, haha)). I guess my parents were right in letting me loose in the mountain of encyclopaedias that we have in our house. :D

Alright... wow it's so late... gosh. (Yes I know that I didn't fully develop the whole evolution idea thing, but time runs out *yawn*) Berate myself for letting myself up for so long. Hope everything goes well tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Isn't it wonderful how recalling old memories can give rise to new ideas?

Let's see... 3rd day of writing and I'm already getting tired, haha. I think it's because Colin kept talking to me for 2+ hours and he kept whining all the time. Literally, whining because he adopted that way of speaking on purpose, while pestering me for information.

On an unrelated note, I realise that some of us Christians may have a lot of head-knowledge when it comes to faith, because we can name this or that situation in the Bible, and we know why there was so and so action taken during so and so time and the meaning of a ton of Greek words. But not all of us have that relationship with God. I am meaning the almost passionate love that one can have for Him. Complete with the whole fireworks thingy. We sometimes get so caught up in learning about God that we forget to love Him. And then, by the time we realise it, we usually don't know how we can get that feeling. Well, maybe you might find it useful to know that when I meet with such a problem, I find that the best way is to sing a hymn. I feel it the most when I'm in the shower and I'm looking out the window (alright, the toilet wasn't constructed very well and I have to keep it to a slit most of the time in order not to be arrested for indecent exposure :p) at the bright beautiful world and then I just want to break into song. (11 years of being a choir member now). I can always get the tune but oftentimes I can't really remember the lyrics. So when I sing with the church choir, I take note of the songs that I particularly like, and then google the lyrics. There's some that I've never been able to find though, like the one that the choir at CTK (Church of Christ the King) sang, "For God so loved the world".

Chorus:

For God so loved the world,

that He gave His only Son,

That whoever believes in Him,

Shall never die, but have eternal life

God did not send His Son into the world

To condemn the world

But that the world might be saved through Him!

I only remember the chorus and the verse. It's the favorite song of Joyce and I when I was attending catechism there and we used to attend Mass together (we can't now because her mom forbade her from attending SFX (St Francis Xavier) because of the foreign worker's dormitory here. Yeah that might be a little overreacting but all mothers have their episodes, just have to live with them, they are our mothers after all). I tried to look it up but there were so many other different songs that I suspect only the choir at CTK sings it. A pity.

Speaking of CTK, while I was still in catechism I saw a poster asking for organists for the choir. I looked for the choir after Mass that time, and was told that they would contact me if they had a slot. I wanted to become one because I knew that I would receive training, and this training would help me advance creatively in my improvisation (I found myself doing the same things over and over again) not to mention that with the constant pressure on organists to play every week, improvisation will soon become second nature, at least I hoped. But the great news is that I am probably going to become an organist at SFX. Then I can hone my improvisation skills.

Oh, for those who are starting to feel weird about all the church hopping, well in the Catholic church every church is the same. You can go to any Catholic church in the world and you will receive the same thing. The order is always the same, and the words. The language may be different, but the words are the same. I particularly love, though, to be able to see the words of the Mass in another language. I've seen it in Chinese so far, as well as sign language. With more languages, you start to get the real meaning of it all. Because some words can take on a certain connotation in a language, or you may think that a word isn't literal because you thought it had taken a connotation when in fact it hadn't. So it's a new discovery. So far I've read the Bible in English, bits of it in Chinese and Italian (hey I needed a book to learn Italian, so what's a free Italian book you can get anywhere? The Italian Bible. haha) umm... I digress. Anyway you always get the same thing no matter which Catholic church you go to. Only the sermons and the hymns they choose to use are different, really. The others all mean the same thing. If you know the Mass well in English, you understand it all in Chinese as well. In fact, it starts to carry a certain poetic meaning, especially in Chinese which is a poetic language. The way Chinese is used, it's economy of words, conveys more in less words compared to English, and I think that just makes it so poetic. Chinese has always been the language of emotions for me. Yes I use English far more than Chinese and I always dream in English, but while English is the language of the head, Chinese is the language of the heart. Least, that's how I feel. I digress again. This Easter I missed the morning services and couldn't have time for the evening ones, so I went to one in the afternoon that I didn't know was in Chinese but that was okay since I understand everything anyway. The congregation was made up of a surprising number of singaporeans, even young ones. Well alright. I was the only non-oldie there other than a guy who was a son dragged along by his mom. Haha. (I knew because they were sitting just behind me)

Colin has been teasing me about my old 'Karen Potassium Hydroxide' moniker that was first given to me in sec sch by my chem lab partner because guess what, we were both KOH :D What that means, is that our surnames were both Koh. I had the interesting alliteration but I liked her name better because it had a special spelling (at least I thought it was special at the time) of Rebekah. She and I were part of a loose clique in our music/arts class, that I recall was made up of her, me, Lucie, Jessie and Yu Yang. Now that I think of it, we were pretty international. Only me and Rebekah were born in Singapore. Lucie in Czech Republic, Jessie (her birth name is Tran) in Vietnam, and Yu Yang in Shanghai, China. I haven't seen them for a long time. Organising an meetup is kinda difficult when you have to go across borders. The only one I met recently was Rebekah because she also studies in NUS, Business school and we met at arts the other time but she was in a hurry. I think fondly of her still . Her father was the pastor of the Calvary Baptist church just beside Cedar and she brought me there once and I felt odd. Haha. But still, her goodness, as well as the inherent goodness of the many Christians that I got to know over the course of my life, was one of the contributing factors of my own conversion. They had a real conviction about their faith, but it was never pushy, which I really appreciated.

Hmm... I slept really really late last night and was woken up at 11.30 am by my mom calling home, asking me to learn a language as my external module instead of taking biology last year (a waste of time, I agree) and literature this year (they say it's a waste of time, I completely disagree), but language is really not easy to learn and requires a lot of effort. I'd rather take another arts module or something. When I told my older bro and mom over lunch that I had taken literature this semester, their reaction was unanimously, "for what?". I resisted the urge to call them heathens because it would be rude. Sure, science and maths are important, and when I was young I had dreams of becoming a scientist (until my awful maths during sec 2 streaming made that dream pretty much impossible, which was why I went into music stream) but the older I get, the more I am realising the great value of the arts subjects. The government is so actively pushing for the science subjects it seems that everyone in sec sch and jc just wants to do something science related, and the arts stream in jc is very often laughed at for being the stream that people go to when they want to enter a certain jc but don't meet the cut for the science stream of that school. In jc, I always observed that the people chronically skipping classes were almost always those who were of the arts stream, which didn't do wonders for their reputation. But now I do understand that they were probably the first ones to understand the limitations of education, and not necessarily that they were bumming off. Laugh at the science stream fellows sweating over their H2 maths homework, memorising reams of equations and formulas that they will never use in their working life. I laugh myself at my utter stupidity at taking H2 maths (really, what Were you thinking??). That is a mistake that I might have regretted forever, but I no longer regret now because, that stupid subject is gone forever from my life *glares*

Hmm... I would very much like to write more but my brain is failing me. I'll leave a joke here as told to me by one of my fellow choir friends.

My friend described our ex choir conductor NK and said that he is someone whom, if you die and go to hell, you see the Devil there, and this guy with a pitchfork is saying to NK 'get behind me Satan!' and NK says 'ok!'. Probably only a person from ajchoir would get that joke, but well this Is my blog so so long I understand it it's alright :p