darn it

it's a really bad time to be in NS. that stance (for the lack of a more appropriate word) is getting reinforced in me now, and why that thought?

apart from the obvious reason that i'm serving NS during the prime of my life (on second thoughts NS is training me to be physically and mentally fitter, which i wouldn't have bothered to do unless forced, so i take back the previous statement teehee...), i'm missing a hell lot of good TV and movies this year! argh!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_in_film - how many good films can you spot?! all the threequels, animated films (the simpsons!), thrillers and etc.

and mediacorp channel 8 seems to be producing more interesting and less lame shows, such as 'kinship' （手足）*i'm rooting for malaysian jesseca liu* and...

'switched!' （幸运星）



the TV commercials and photoshoots (published by mediacorp tv) are looking good, no? i am secretly in love with jeanette aw *silly embarrassed grin*

but no time to watch, unless i attend B or C or OOC every day.

siiiiigh.

Play!

http://www.play-symphony.com/

watched Play! with huimin and jeff, who are like my regular concert-mates. anyway, it's the kind of classical concert that anyone who likes video games can go watch and not fall asleep (so fast), partly due to the visuals. stylistically the programme was understandably slanted towards simplistic but coherent, of course, medleys (not even theme and variation).

i found the super mario bros. medley very enjoyable, because i'm quite familiar with the game and the songs haha. and of course the final fantasy/kingdom hearts pieces too. i'm not too satisfied with the organist (who can't play at a constant tempo), the pianist (who is inaudible whenever the orchestra is playing loud) and the choir (which only sounded good for the final piece, when they decided to give their all at last). wah lau, can't even enunciate their words properly for all the other songs, thank goodness most of the text are simple effectual 'ah's :P i guess my standards of choral singing has increased tremendously since watching the bavarian radio chorus concert. and no chiobu in the chorus at all. that's sad.

the concert reminds me of 'symphony of voices 2004' by VJC choir, where they performed a FFX + spirited away (one of my favourite anime movies) medley arranged by mr kwei, complete with accompanying video clips of the game. i remember being enthralled by the experience :)

in other news, i'm adapting ok to my new training schedule + company :) phew! now my main worry is to pass SOC and i think i can get my 3SG rank and $800 and my (self-perceived?) virtually 100% confirmed vocation as a BMTC instructor oh yeah yeah yeah! this year is quite a blast so far, got money, can spend, so many happenings etc.

ok that's all for now, i'm looking forward to eat my marks & spencer cereal tomorrow for breakfast (bought it at $4.90, usu price $7.90!)

can't resist!

didn't want to post a 2nd time today, it would seem to be overboard going on and on about myself (worse that i proclaimed myself to be narcissistic my previous post) but who's to stop me? muahahahaX



thanks george, andrea, pei shan, senthil, dominic and yvonne for the CD! they (the gospellers) tout themselves as an a cappella group but i only hear 3 truly a cappella tracks on the CD - including the introduction and interlude -.- nonetheless, it's rather good ol' standard soul + RnB music (ken hirai?). liked their single 'Platinum Kiss', their only proper a cappella track on their latest album. although the music was of good quality, maybe a more varied lineup of songs would be sweller!

***

main reason why i want to blog now: just frustrated about my inevitable third phase in NS!!! although i have to rush tomorrow morning to make it to camp by 7am, my bags are still unpacked as of now.

why can't i get a stay-out vocation? why why why

ironically, reading the thread about how to downgrade PES in the Stomp! forum has made me feel better for a while. basically most people who advise either gave dumb advice "go fake mental illness! go get knocked down by a vehicle!" or something more reasonable. for example, one cited an incident whereby this guy who faked a mental illness could not gain a place in ANY university or college because of his track record of mental illnesses (btw the condition was reflected in his certificate of service in NS) :O holy moley. most agree it's totally stupid to injure yourself seriously enough to downgrade then live with your disability for the rest of your sad life (that i agree, of course)

therefore the best thing to do is to just carry on and do your best *sad smile* :) but hey, even the cloudiest day can clear before 5pm to reveal a beautiful sunset, like today. maybe i'll have a better life in NS eventually?

knowing that there's a good possibility i may fail the course doesn't help things, and then there's the overseas trip and millions of field camps and scaling high structures (and jumping off them, too) which are sure to cause damage to my body. argh, i don't want footrot or any infection or injury to any part of my body!

another (side) factor that is causing me stress is that i'm sure that my current abilities in the fields of aesthetics will land me in nowhere. e.g. i can't play scales or improvise on the keyboard properly, much less sight sing :O so no part time piano teacher for me when i finally ORD. or how i try to draw still life and it ends up disfigured :\ conclusion: i will be sad even after i ORD.

or maybe the cause of my troubles is that i'm staying at home doing nothing at all. it's IMMENSELY boring just idling around at home (no wonder i'm eating more), thinking of doing things but don't have the courage or perseverance to succeed in it (e.g. playing a performance-level jazz piano piece)

OR maybe listening to the same songs over again through the computer speakers adds to the monotony of my life (too lazy to rip my CD collection again after this computer had been reformatted).

now i wonder if i'm asking too much of myself or my life hm... i always asked my mom if she ever feels bored at home, and her reply is always 'no' :O she's unbelievable! i really don't think i can survive going through the same routine every other day...

if i had the freedom to do anything i want to do without regard to consequences, i would like to be in a mega mall chomping down food

i am a truly self-indulgent person, i realise :|

in a (not infrequent) moment of narcissism

http://www.myheritage.com

i think i really do, at least judging from the photos! HAHA!

astrology

a cute? reminder that astrology may oversimplify human matters haha

BAVARIAN RADIO CHOIR

this has got to be the BEST concert i've watched in quite a while! and only at 17 bucks omg~~~ huimin and jeff can attest to the choir's godly qualities...

the best thing i love about the choir? its homogeneity. and when i say homogeneity, it's really homogenous. the chords not only lock in perfectly, there isn't any spectrum of tone, even between the male and female voices :O how did they do that?! well, strong rounded altoes, no soprano divas, and unobtrusive basses (the invisible subwoofers, as i like to call them). my only complaint about the tone is that a few tenors can't help but belt at the high notes, compromising the homogeneity slightly. otherwise, there isn't any case of belting out. they're so controlled even at the loudest, they retain the same tone. it's pretty obvious that every member is selected partly on the basis of their tone i.e. most have the same voice qualities.

and - get this - they're wonderful at varying their tone in order to suit different genres of songs. their contemporary (20th century songs) are so dynamic (more on that later), their chinese songs (they sang qing jiang he haha!) are really damn chinese they put asian choirs to shame. just splendid. mmm the accompanying pianist was only so-so, not outstanding in any way :\

anyway, the choir actually prepared 2 contrasting programmes, one for each day of their performance. upon first viewing the programme list i thought the one i'm going to hear is going to be better, but after sitting through the first half, perhaps yesterday's programme is more varied and wouldn't have bored me through the first half. i mean, listening to one hour of mostly early romantic pieces will get quite tiring after some time. at least they incorporated songs which only require male or female chorus. (fyi, yesterday's programme was baroque/renaissance for the first half, and romantic the second half save for mozart's ave verum corpus)

having said all that, the first half songs were all wonderful in their own ways, too bad they all have similar textures and all that. would be nice if there were some 20th century or baroque piece in the first half to contrast, or even late romantic would be nice! first half was brahms' op. 42 and 44 (early works), schubert, mendelssohn and schumann - lyrical overkill. i'm sorry, i didn't listen carefully enough to their singing to detect much difference between the styles of schubert, mendelssohn and schumann :$

second half was awesomely moving. thomas jennefelt's 'warning to the rich' had the controlled dynamism and intensity required; composition-wise, it's just fantastic. britten's 'the ballad of little musgrave and lady barnard' tells a tragic romantic story about a poor guy who loved a rich married lady. i must admit it was really touching, my eyes were a bit moist at the end; the lyrics and music complemented each other. finally, brahms' op. 104 (a late work yay) which had the much needed polyphony to contrast against the first half songs. each song in the second half sounded better than the previous lol! it was such a treat...

speaking of treats, they treated us to 3 extra pieces during their encore, 2 of which are local chinese compositions and the third, a magical ave verum corpus that went permanently flat from the middle onwards but it was still magical (when they were still on key and didn't get a bit lost hahaha)

***

oh yea, visited the world book fair just before the concert. got persuaded to invest in a long term (25 years!?) insurance+saving plan. anyway, the selection of books is pretty good if you're a chinese reader, else, it isn't very wonderful la. however, i managed to get some piano scores at cheaper prices (parallel imports la). didn't find what i was hoping to find - nice books on contemporary design at cheap prices.

***

back to the concert: post-concert was quite enjoyable too, perhaps because of the 'ecstasy' effect the concert had on me. started to blabber quite a lot of trash at the amusement of ourselves heh. i think that's where i'm a bit similar to my dad lol. got sombre/ecstatic moods one, very contrasting.

ok, gotta sleep. planning to do something about body maintenance tomorrow :P

here's a quickie...

... but a sincere thanks to the people who somehow remembered my birthday even though i have virtually, nearly, going to disappear from their lives! didn't expect these many people to sms or call me or to even give me presents haha :$

in addition to my immediate family (in no particular order): dominic (you're the first!), teri (a close second haha), beow, shaun (my bunkmate), yi han, bjorn, kwan rui, jeff, xi xun, samk, ah yee and cousins, khairi, baldwin, huimin, chenjie, xavier, kevin ho, mat, george, bonkie, wendy, ryan, chang! sorry if i forgot to mention your name anywhere:(

a bit girly i know, but i <3 all of you!!! *attempts to bear hug and/or plant a smelly wet kiss on everyone*

anyway, stayed at home the entire day, because i'm on MC. sick but happy, ha! ok, i shall please Mr Tall by keeping my posts short and un-crappy! thanks for the pencils, btw! you've reminded me that i ought to be brushing up on my drawing skills :X hm that should be something i need to work towards for now (apart from clearing SOC) thanks to yi han, too, for wanting to treat me to a potentially sumptuous delifrance buffet *erhem* :P but of course i had to decline the treat, HAIZ! don't know how to reciprocate my dear friends' kindness, espeicially when i'm in camp :X

to please the plethora of people, i've also changed my display picture to a handsomer cuter me (taken 3 years back) :D *shameless smile*

ok, off to some leisurely drawing!