Its not fair, when someone who started a blog later than you has more posts than you. -.- *points to suicidal person* EH yuxin dont commit suicide i still need you to play basketball with me D: please?

OH yes Beijing Gathering! =D Yah I must say this was our first successful proper meeting with a grand total of 6 PEOPLE! =D Kudos to Fiona, YanYu, Xiner, Charlotte and Cherie for coming. Did you know I originally reserved the table for 7 to 9 people? So pek4 cek4 la only 3 people turned up at first. xP

Oh yes before I forget Fiona YanYu and I met up first then went off for lunch, while Cherie Charlotte and Xiner came later. We met up at Mind Cafe (the Purvis Street one) and started playing various boardgames. =D We played a total of 5 games, which I lost ALL miserably at. I think I'll stick to gambling-inclined games thank you very much.

My favourite, was the Express it, Guess it game (like Fiona). Yah I cant believe girls cant tell the difference between 'determined' and 'threatened'. I did it the Russell Peters cum Yuxin way, so if Wang was there he definitely be able to tell. Really.

Try saying "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched" in a determined way and you get my point. -.-

----------------------------------
I couldnt believe what I saw on the news today.

1) All primary, secondary schools and JCs are supposed to have some olympics course, which means some physical course that we're supposed to be taught to prepare ourselves for the 2010 Youth Olympic Games. I dont have a lot of information because I was like O.o throughout the whole report, so I didnt get much of the details.

2) With the rise of the arts scene in Singapore, the government has aimed for Singapore to be a global arts hub by 2015. The thing is, VCH and VT will be renovated! =D In 2010 I think.

As I said, I cant get much details on these but it was definitely true because I watched the 10pm news on Channel 8.

AND I WANT TO PLAY CASHFLOW! D:

Labels: beijingohseven

28th Dec! 3 more days to new year, and 17 more days till ANY rj events start.

Which reminds me I need to check the rj website.

Anyway, hopefully the meeting tomorrow will turn out well. As far back as I can recall the only meeting we had was at Fiona's house like 3 days (?) after we landed. Tralala. Anyone has any fun board games to recommend?

OH yes since the new year is coming I better come up with some new year resolutions too but of course im not posting them on this blog because you're gonna COPY them. Sneaky ah you readers.

And yes I finally know the joy of having 2 sisters! Went out to get some stuff for the last 2 days without my parents (because my dad's busy and my mum doesnt want to walk so much) so I got my sister(s) to tag along with me. I must say that Yishun central really doesnt have much stuff to buy because they dont offer printing services, which suck. xP

AND someone update me on whats happening from 14th jan onwards. I'm so going to be lost like maybe 1000 other people? LOL. -.-

Yeah whatever.

OH MY GOD. =D

I think they say, "perseverence is the key to success". And I totally agree with that.

Anyway, a picture paints a thousand words, but I dont have a picture, so I'll try to tell the story here.

I was just playing Zany Bridge on viwawa, when my first bridge hand I got today was:

Clubs: K, A
Diamonds: 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, A
Hearts: 2
Spades: 6

What the crap?! Yah for all those who play bridge out there you know that this is a hand there never comes, or even if it does it only comes RARELY. 8D

Yah so I bid 5 No Trump and called myself as partner, and won. =D

The End.
-----------------------
Oh for the record this is my best bridge hand so far. =D

Labels: untitled

When you're really bored and there's someone as bored as you.

A classic game of Minesweeper flags! Yah 2 bored people playing this game.

Oh and MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY BLOG READERS =D

Labels: untitled

Is it true that you experience better fengshui in your own home? o.O

Sunday
As usual, I had piano lesson in the morning. The fun part came when I went to work at MOSIN (Mandarin Oriental Singapore) as per normal. Last night's dinner was apparently some big couple's wedding dinner because if i'm not wrong nearly ALL the managers were down at the wedding yesterday, even the big boss Ricky. :O

Work from 5pm to 12.30am then left. Along the way home I just realised that actually there are people in my neighbourhood that work at MOSIN too! =D Which is quite interesting. :O

Monday
Yay! After sleeping at 2.30am and waking at 8am I picked myself up to go to Joshua (foong)'s house for gathering. Haha it was quite fun considering we only did Basketball, Mahjong, Bridge and Texas poker.

I didnt particularly play well for bball because I suck, but I did manage a few shots xP Hongrui finally found his trademark basketball shot, which is jumping with the ball and just putting, not dumping or throwing or shooting or pushing, but putting the ball into the hoop. =D I'm just worried because not all the hoops in Singapore are of equal height. Serious!

Yah we (me joshua hongrui and yuxin) then went to joshua's house where we started playing mahjong. I only won 1 freaking game out of 8, where as Yuxin won 4 and Joshua won 3. What made it worse was the double fang4 pao4 I played in the end knowing that I would lose anyway. Argh everything has its first time, eh?

We then played bridge, which I won all the games, then Texas poker. Ahh it was fun because we used counters. Ended up losing to Yuxin because I screwed my own cash up. xP BUT I HAVE TO SAY JOSHUA I LIKE YOUR MAHJONG SET <33 It's SHINY! =DDDD

Ah hyper. Maybe that didnt come out well.

Yay i get to stone at home tomorrow haha =DD

I guess the number of posts you post is proportional to the number of tags you have. Hmm.

I earned a grand total of $75 dollars yesterday! =D Not as much as Yishu/Yifan can in one day, but considering I managed 2 jobs yesterday it was quite fun, but at the same time it wasn't tiring. I had a hard time trying to get to sleep at 3am. Rawr.

Went down to Orchard mrt to meet Hongrui to go down to MOE GE branch yesterday to finish up some work on TDI. I was given the task of sorting out certificates according to schools so that the staff there could just mail it to the schools. That took me about 2 hours or so, which was quite fast considering that there were a lot of schools, and a lot of certificates.

We knocked off at 11.30am, then proceeded to Food Republic where we met Zongyi and Andrew (and Gerald and his friend too, sorry I don't know your name ><) for lunch. It was coincedental considering we didn't arrange to meet. Quite cool having 6 RI guys meet out of the blue eh? =D

I then came home, played com, slept then went out for work. Now comes the best part. =D

I was supposed to work at 5pm at Mandarin Oriental. (yes if you didnt know im a part time worker there earning 6 dollars per hour, which is quite fair) It was my second time doing a chinese wedding dinner, but first time being stationed at Atrium (there are many many different places, this is just one of them). I believe that I like Atrium more because it's less hectic, and the jobs that I did were more fun.

I also managed to serve my table on my own! Big achievement for me. Thanks to my table partner Meng Jun who was tipping me on what to do even though I forgot at times. Yah my table was also quite friendly because there was this guy Richard who keep disturbing me and the rest at the table told him not to disturb me. Haha. =D

I also got to know more people, and it was my first time yesterday where I walked home from Khatib Mrt at 2am in the morning. The air was so cool =D but there were still too many cars for me to sit in the middle of the road. Zzz.

Yah ended up sleeping at 3am and waking at 10am, which is a decent amount of rest. Now let's see what Sunday has instored for me. =D
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Oh yes on a side note Joshua confirmed meeting at your house on Monday? What time to meet at cck mrt?

Labels: untitled

Got tagged by Hongrui. It's been a while since I did a meme right?
--------------------------
ten things about me
1. Are you single?
Yes.

2. Are you happy about that?
Mmhm. Why not?

3. Are you bored?
No, i'm trying to get this over and done with -.-

4. Are you sad?
Yah. Feeling sad because of my lack of musicality in my piano. I suddenly met like 5+ people with at least grade 8 or dip in piano or more than 1 instrument. Thats the truth.

5. Are you Italian?
No.

6. Are you plastic?
Sometimes.

7. Are you cool?
I don't know. It's really how other people define you right? Who goes around saying i'm cool?

8. Are you Chinese?
Yes.

9. What are you?
A 16 year old with 174cm, 57kg, skinny guy who gets below average GPA and sucks at playing the piano. Sigh. Life is unfair.

number 10..?

ten facts
1. Initials:
Uh HACD? what the crap. -.-
[edit]
2. Nicknames:
(fine fine) Uh Tinis (by Zongyi), Pen** (by Bryan Kum and the rest of 4D), Denise (I cant remember by who), Den (by Yifan and other choir people), and I can't remember the rest.
[/edit]
3. Birth Place:
Gleneagles Hospital. I know i know. =D

4. Hair colour:
Black. Occasionally got brown, red, gold, and white. NO KIDDING.

5. Age:
16

6. Eye colour:
Black.

7. Birthday:
1st August. Same as Wenyi =D I still cant get over it.

8. Mood:
Bored.

9. Favourite Colours:
Black, blue, white? lol. -.-

10. Left or right handed?
Right.

ten this or that
1. Love or money?
Both. But to choose I'll pick love. =)

2. Hard liquor or beer?
Never tried both. Liqour then. =D

3. Cats or dogs?
Cats. meow.

4. A few best friends or many regular friends?
Again I'll take both, but if i have to choose i'll pick few best friends.

5. Television or internet?
Television. Internet is like how anti-social. oops.

6. Pepsi or coke?
Sprite. I gave up on both long time ago.

7. Wild night out or a romantic night?
Depends. =D

8. Money or happiness?
Happiness.

9. Night or day?
Night.

10. IM or phone?
IM.

ten differences in a relationship
1. Smile or eyes?
smile. =D

2. Light or dark hair?
Dark, I guess?

3. Hugs or kisses?
I dont know. The latter maybe? >< be ="S"> looks. But still needs to look decent. (same as hongrui)

ten last
1. Last phone call you made?
To choir people I think about choir farewell.

2. Last phone call you received?
From Daniel

3. Last person/people you hung out with?
Yifan, Yishu and Guanwei at Yifan's house.

4. Last person to text you?
Rebekah. About yoiku. xP oh yah sorry i spelt it wrongly i haven't got the heart to change it.

5. Last person you tickled?
My sister. With Magenta.

6. Last person you MSN?
Rebekah. Suanning me about piano grades and scores. T-T

7. Last person you hugged?
I cant remember. Maybe during concert this year?

8. Last person you slept(sleep) with?
Jorel and Guanwei I think. At the sleepover at Yifan's house.

9. Last person/people you laughed with?
I think its with Yishu and Guanwei at Yifan about some inside Hearts joke.

10. Last dream you can remember?
I had a dream last night but I cant remember it. =S
--------------------

That took me a while. Oh well.

Labels: meme

Koped this from Yuxin's blog.
------------------
#1 Self-discipline
The common problem for all of us at this age is the inability to organize our time. But most of the time, you'll realize that it's not that we don't want to get organized. We simply lose control. For example, you might be surfing the Internet, and you'll find something interesting. And as you continue surfing, you seek more and more stuffs deserving your attention, and ultimately you might sit in front of your screen for more than an hour. Or you might be attending a meeting which is totally chaotic, and a simple agenda could be dragged to 2 hours. Yes, you lose a hell lot of time, but surprisingly you find yourself enjoying those times. That's because they are what you enjoy doing, obviously.

However, losing time shouldn't be what you enjoy. So, it's actually good to have a plan, and try as much as possible to stick to it. It might be very difficult at first because you could feel a loss of personal liberty. But in the long run, you'll realize that you have gained a lot of time! Gradually, you can be less harsh to yourself with your plan (most people tend to be very ambitious at first) and ultimately, you will know how to manage your time without even coming up with a plan!

#2 Breather
Remember those crazy moment when you were starting a late revision, and you tried to study for 6 hours straight? You might have succeeded in passing your test (or even doing well) or you might have not, but for sure, you felt like crap.

Everyone needs a breather sometimes. You just can't do the same thing for too long - you'll either get very bored, or very tired. Don't hesitate to take one when you need to. Give yourself a reasonable duration to, say, study. After that, take some time to do something which will help you relax and clear your mind from, say, those sucky math formulae which you've just memorized.

Then again, breathers usually involve things which you enjoy doing. That means you shouldn't get overboard. If you do, then breathers become pointless. They are just transitions to help you move on from one objective to another, or a short break to give you a rest. If you spend to long on a breather, then that should be considered part of an objective in your plan =.=

#3 Sports
Ok don't whine. I know that's a taboo for some of you, but don't deny the fact that sports are good for you. They keep you active, keep you healthy and keep you in high spirits. If you were to pick up sufficient sports, you can get rid of those bad habits which make you falter halfway whilst executing your plans. For example, sleep disorders (sleeping like there's no tomorrow), sloppiness, weird diet, etc.

BUT don't overdo any sporting activity, especially if you ain't used to it. You'll be prone to injuries (some of which can be quite serious) and even if you escape those, you'll suffer pains all over your body, which kind of sucks :P

On another more superficial level, sports do make you look better, really. Generally, people will have a more positive impression of people who are more active in life.

#4 Persistence
Every success requires persistence. If you can't perservere, you'll end up giving up before you can even see a slight result. It might sound cliche, but it is true!

Remeber those goal-setting lessons your teachers had with you? Most hated those, either because you already have your goal (which is good!) or you don't have an interest in setting one. Yet your personal ambitions are the ones which can stretch your perserverence . No one can get you to hold on unless you have something in mind which you want to achieve.

Therefore, think of what you want to accomplish, be it short-term or long-term. Now, it won't be early to start thinking about what you want to do in University, or after you graduate. Time flies and before you know it, you will be facing those choices. It's always good to plan early, and those goals will help you set your focus and get you to fulfill them by giving you the spiritual energy you require =)

#5 Study
You can't escape that, no matter how much you hate it. Thus far, I don't have any acquaintance who is a genuine genius, someone who can study for hours and thinks studying is FUN. Everyone I know who are doing well did it through hardwork. And one thing for sure - all of you who read my blog are not geniuses because otherwise, you won't be wasting time on my blog x)

So what's the point? Studying is hard but you have to do it. At the end of the day, people are gonna look at what grade you get. But if you were to get more organized, studying might become easier. Like many other processes, studying isn't instanteneous. In order to see the effects from the hours you've painstakingly put in, you need a reasonable time frame. That means you have to continue putting in effort over a long time.

Thus, throw those last minute revision works away! Study bit by bit every day. Homeworks are meant to help you by serving that effect, but they might be limited. Do more if you have the time and energy, or you are thirsty to see better results. Anyone can do it, really, as long as you have the determination to.

#6 Start this holiday!
Why? It's my damn holiday?!?!?!?

Exactly. It's a nice long holiday and you have a lot of time. You don't have school and you don't have homework. That means you can plan your time and stick to your plan without random hectic events popping up (1000-words essay due tomorrow!).

Regardless of whether you are working, or just sitting around wasting time, you will have some time which you can plan and make good use of. Start getting yourself accustomed to being disciplined and having a goal in mind. If you can pull through this holiday doing all that, next year will be much more smooth-sailing, really.

Don't believe me? Try it! It might be painful, but when you get it to become a routine, it won't be! Anyhow, I'm definitely doing it =)
----------------

Yah take it from the guy who got 3.94 in sec2. I'm definitely following in his advice.

Anyway, Daniel and Yuxin you still owe me the stuff from the bet remember? Especially you Daniel I want my free lunch =DD

tag replies =)

wenyi yay yay finally found someone with the same birthday. =D yah its so happening. O.o do you have a blog or msn so we can communicate via other means other than tagboard -.- or maybe sms? =D
joanne fag me what? i didnt do anything. not anything bad to you at the least. xD
xinyi hi! ill link you once im done.
xiner ah thats a problem because yanyu is never on msn. ok ok ill try to get her via some other means. remind me again thanks. =D
rebekah AH this is where our opinions differ. for me i prefer doing acapella songs and i dont care if they're not in english. yoik was so nice! =D yah to me songs with piano accompaniment are just like a level lower than acapella songs because they're so much easier to do. you cant go out of tune with a piano accompanying you unless you're not listening. =D

well this video probably means nothing to me but somehow i feel nostalgic even when im watching it. *sniff*

spent today watching j2s perform and then yifan's house. i must say that they sounded very soft today due to poor sound system. xP so note to self: next time if i ever perform at marina square must demand for better mics.

well well. back to msn.

Labels: chorale

I'm... tired.

I'll blog another time.




In any case, the chorale performance was good. Not great, but just good.

AND memorable.



I'll miss the j2s? I hope not. *sniff*

Tag replies

xiner ah but you still laughed. see how la i hope yanyu does a good job planning this thing our gatherings NEVER work out. oops.
josh as long as table can liao you want i can bring mahjong paper also.
joanne tralala. =D
rebekah wah must be nice if you're going to wake at 4am to watch it =D oh well wycf's over now. D: sad. i mean yay. =D
annie me! yah i told you liao la of course chorale performed much better than satb/combined choir today. not a great experience, just another performance. but the chorale one was DDD:
yuxin told him liao. dont believe.

OH YES.

HAPPY 12TH belated BIRTHDAY LITTLE SISTER.

yah you get irritating and even uncontrollable at times but still you're the youngest in our family so we'll forever teng ni. but not that much in case you go bad. xP

Was reading back on my posts from 1 year ago and realised I actually made a list for myself. =D

------------
my goals
- to aim to get a GPA of 3.8. if not at least a 3.7. i have my reasons.
- to get 3.6 for both English and Chinese.
- to maintain 4.0 for Math, Physics and MEP. achieve 4.0 for Chem next year.
- get my History and SS back up to a 3.6.
- to top the class for one subject? i dunno. any will do.
- to get a silver for napfa! *hopes*
- get gold for next year's trip! =) and hopefully a category winner and a special prize too.

what i want to do next year
- learn the highway code. omg i want to learn how to drive! x)
- learn penal code. its interesting.
- get my cube average down to 30s. =) i just need to learn all the olls. which i am not doing. - -
- oh oh read up on econs. i want to take at least a h2 econs in rj.
- start planning for my future. i still have no idea what i want to be. (like decide on a proper job, etc.)

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

lets see.
- to aim to get a GPA of 3.8. if not at least a 3.7. i have my reasons.
- to get 3.6 for both English and Chinese.
- to maintain 4.0 for Math, Physics and MEP. achieve 4.0 for Chem next year.
- get my History and SS back up to a 3.6.
- to top the class for one subject? i dunno. any will do. (sadly i didnt manage to get this. i came quite close for chem and math though. i did top a few tests in class though, but all small tests. =D)
- to get a silver for napfa! *hopes* (i ended up ponning napfa. pft.)
- get gold for next year's trip! =) and hopefully a category winner and a special prize too.

thats quite well done i guess. ill post another post on goals to achieve next year.

and this is what i posted on october 2008.

1) A1 for Chinese. Thats do-able considering I got quite decent results at both the midyear and the prelim. I believe I can do it. =D yes! (this will come next year. whats done cant be undone, right?)
2) Distinction for grade 8 piano. This one is harder to get because I only got a 100 for grade 7, and a 139 for grade 5 which is like a lot easier. Lets just hope I'll be able to do as well then. (this will have to wait.)
3) Get a GPA of 3.7! Its all in the hands of the teachers and moderation now. 3.7 is really do-able considering it was 3.73 before I went it for the EOYs. ><

i promise to post another post about goals nearing toward the end of this month. =D

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

i didnt know that typing < .s> in a new post would cancel out the entire text of your blog =DD

by the way its supposed to be just 's' not '.s'. you cant really post commands on your blog in case you all noobs out there didnt know.

Labels: goals

HAPPY 200TH post. =D Finally after more than 2 years my blog finally reached it 200th post. YAY.

WYCF has really been a great experience so far, but too bad I'm totally not committed to it unlike chorale. Its like I think I've been to less than half of the total practice hours. WHICH IS BAD.

Plus I didn't perform in the opening ceremony. Eee.

Oh well. I hope that chorale practice later will be really fun. It's never really so boring when you hear what comments Mr. Toh has to say about the piece and then redo-ing and redo-ing the piece over and over again even though it is repetitive. After all the songs are really enjoyable.

What a great way to pull sec4s into joining chorale.


BUT i beg to differ for the SYF song. xP Hopefully our choice pieces will be much better. =D

Labels: chorale

I promise to post about today, tomorrow and most importantly, FRIDAY.

OK now give me some time while I take a breather. *breathes*



Today
Started the day of by leaving the house and making the way down to VCH at 8.30. Being the pioneer in me, I decided to ignore my instincts and wear school uniform, while all the rest of the participants were wearing the choral T-shirt. Dang.

I got to meet Mr. Bob Chilcott and Mr. Eugene Rogers today. Surprisingly I have to say that I was really really wow-ed by the level of technical expertise they asked for from us even though we're just a rojak choir. (yah yah admit it we are) The former focussed more on interpretation being the composer of 1/2 of the songs we're doing, so he worked more on the way ehw anted it to be expressed, but the latter was more interesting because he was personally, very energetic.

I have to say that even though I got really pissed at the level of the songs being so easy and simple to learn, it didnt occur to me that Mr Rogers picked the songs. Well call it acquired taste, but I somehow managed to keep my comments against one or two of the songs that we were doing.

But the fun part came at the later of the day. Chorale prac was super fun, as usual. We ran through only Wade and If I Can Help properly; Lux was half done.

In case I haven't mentioned this before, I completely love Wade because it is the ultimate blasting-with-technique song for Bass 1s. seriously. Especially the last Bb which I so love =DD

Chorale prac ended at about 7.38 or so which then Mr. Toh, Guan, Shu and I choinged down to VCH just in time to watch 3 overseas choirs perform at the price of 11 dollars. =D It was somewhat worth it, considering that I heard overtone from the Malaysian choir =O and also a few of the pieces that I know like Elijah Rock, Jaakobin Pojat, etc.

Yah I'm being rushed to go off now. I shall elaborate more on this post should I want to come back to edit it. =S Hopefully tomorrow will be more enjoyable. xD

Tralala.

[edit]

yah i looked at the post and i didnt think it needed updating.

maybe next time i should reply to posts on blog instead. =D

[/edit]

Labels: chorale

WYCF! again.

Well today wasn't that bad. In fact I quite liked the way (Mr.) Lim Yau conducts because of his unique style and musical ability. =D Something like Mr Toh but he does it to the orchestra too. So he's twice as good. =D

Prac today was... ok. Child of Destiny didn't really sound like a good finale song, especially when I cant even be heard, or at least I wasn't contributing enough to the overall sound and volume. The latter matters more because we're behind the brass instruments again. Sounds familiar yeah? =D

Yes so the performance will be next week with intense practices for Chorale and WYCF. I have to start resting my voice well at prioritise which performance is more important to me to use my voice on. Hmm.

No comments on the choir standard. Split notes however is a serious problem which I think can't be solved unless we drill it during sectionals.

And SNYO is good. =O Maybe its just the strings. And timpani.

OK here's finally a post about WYCF. (That's World Youth Choral Fest for you)

Well as the saying goes, “见仁见智”，I definitely have my own opinions, good and bad, about it too.

The good thing is I finally know who Pearlyn is. -.-



obviously NOT. (yishu's so going to kill me when he sees this right? =D)


Nah of course there are good and bad points. Let's list some for example.

Good points, at least I managed to expose myself to choristers from different schools and backgrounds, get to know more about them, get to know their learning methods, their singing techniques, etc. Exposure to different things help you to learn more about what's actually in the real world, and so you won't be the frog living in the well.

Bad points... if you really want to know come find a suitable time to MSN me. I'll give you a short lecture on how things can be improved, or reverted back to the way they were in 2006.

Well I definitely missed the experience in 2006. Being able to only hear the concert, I must say that it was really a job well done, except for the fact that they tried squeezing 400+ people onto the VCH stage during the finale, which was dumb. Other than that I really enjoyed the music.

But times have changed. Tastes have changed. I don't know if its just me, but I really HATE doing songs that only change in chords. Like same lyrics same rhythm in SATB the only thing that changes is the notes which form different chords.

Oh well. Not that I'm being elitist, but blame the organisers for making this thing "world". (global in other words)

What I was looking forward to turned out to be something I want to get over with now. Real quick too. Sigh.

Let's hope that chorale tomorrow and on saturday will 'revive' that choral passion in me. And my voice too. -.-

Labels: choir, chorale, events