Friday, November 30, 2007.

SNYO concert was not bad.

Mr. Lim (conductor): We are going to play for you 2 encore pieces, one of which is called Overture to... what was it again?

*turns to 1st violin front desk and asks*

Anyway it was quite exciting, and Strauss' "Tod und Verklärung" (Death and Transfiguration) was quite nicely done.

Oh ya and cbw commented on the violin of the soloist being expensive -.-

Shawn is now officially known to all as the (insert particular girl's name here) guy.

Anyway today was library catalogue, where i shot myself with a gun and suffered an "identity crisis".

A certain person played with my phone and did something quite nasty. (Yeah, I know what the message was.) It's fun to play, but don't go overboard and waste $$$. Anyway just don't do it again ok?

RISE Library Cataloguing is very hard. Who ever said that it was easy at all? Poor librarians.

Labels: CCA

{ 9:08 PM }

Tuesday, November 27, 2007.

this is absolutely hilarious, i tell you. It's a video of dick lee singing songs at his 30th anniversary concert in '04.

warning there's some vulgarities, but it's all in good humour. and it's censored.

oh yeah watch the part from 1:18 onwards, its the best song ever written.

Labels: Life

{ 7:12 PM }

Monday, November 26, 2007.

i came across the biology and physics behind perfect pitch while reading the news today. It mentioned the words "perfect pitch" and mentioned that perfect pitch is rare-1 in 10000 people have it.

So being lumpy, i did some research on perfect pitch (i did the test for fun, since i knew i had perfect pitch-http://perfectpitch.ucsf.edu/ppsurvey.html). Anyway i found some interesting facts about perfect pitch-it actually can disappear.

and if you ever want to ask me about my perfect pitch test scores, it sucks. I'm below perfect pitch average, caused in part by people signing onto msn and causing me to listen to the wrong note. I'm generally not good at lower notes (since i'm not trained in lower-register instruments) and singing (arrgh choir. but they were good during REservED).

Anyway genetics is just that complicated. It's so uncertain, cause no one can actually tell for sure whether traits like this ever get passed down. Nature or nurture-that is the golden question in genetics.

Many other factors influence it too-speaking tonal languages like Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese gives one an edge, and learning an instrument before 6 years of age helps too. This should qualify the trait as continuous variation-affected by external factors.

But very obviously there is a big difference between perfect pitch people and non-perfect pitch people. Look at the range of scores on that site, and see the big gap. That clearly shows 2 distinct and different scores which do not overlap, and is a clear example of discontinuous variation (hah at least i still remembered stuff like that, after the crazy intensive bio-mugging i did before bio EOYs).

Overall, quite a fun thing to play around with-and anyway having perfect pitch is cool.

Labels: Music

{ 10:10 PM }

Thursday, November 22, 2007.

omg wtf haxorz.
294.
that's like darned sick.
highest in 17 years lor!

edit: in the list-

7. List of primary schools with at least one student with PSLE aggregate score of 275 or more (in alphabetical order of schools)

76 schools are mentioned.

compared to our year, where only 46 schools are mentioned (and that's a lot, compared to '06 and '05 (29, 22 respectively))., that is really insane.

Labels: Life

{ 5:51 PM }

Wednesday, November 21, 2007.

is infinitely cool.

cause you get to blog in there (like what i am doing now) and you actually get free coffee and milo(!). The NUS canteen food is cheap too, and this place just rocks.

OH YA and there's a wonderful characterization lab where they have AFMs, SEMs, NMR machines etc. etc.. Wonderful place!

Except for the fact that kuangnan and i had to take a taxi (twice) from rhsl.

I will most likely be changing blogskin (yes it's LONG overdue) to something quite cool. Rest assured there is no chem in the new blogskin (or so you think...). Hopefully the new skin will be up tonight.

edit: unlikely to change blogskin. can't find anything good.
double edit: i am feeling quite happy now-soaring! (hint-my choice of words)

Labels: Life

{ 1:07 PM }

Monday, November 19, 2007.

this is a wonderful piece. I PROMISE.

The Lark Ascending

George Meredith (1828–1909)

HE rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake,
All intervolv’d and spreading wide,	5
Like water-dimples down a tide
Where ripple ripple overcurls
And eddy into eddy whirls;
A press of hurried notes that run
So fleet they scarce are more than one,	10
Yet changingly the trills repeat
And linger ringing while they fleet,
Sweet to the quick o’ the ear, and dear
To her beyond the handmaid ear,
Who sits beside our inner springs,	15
Too often dry for this he brings,
Which seems the very jet of earth
At sight of sun, her musci’s mirth,
As up he wings the spiral stair,
A song of light, and pierces air	20
With fountain ardor, fountain play,
To reach the shining tops of day,
And drink in everything discern’d
An ecstasy to music turn’d,
Impell’d by what his happy bill	25
Disperses; drinking, showering still,
Unthinking save that he may give
His voice the outlet, there to live
Renew’d in endless notes of glee,
So thirsty of his voice is he,	30
For all to hear and all to know
That he is joy, awake, aglow,
The tumult of the heart to hear
Through pureness filter’d crystal-clear,
And know the pleasure sprinkled bright	35
By simple singing of delight,
Shrill, irreflective, unrestrain’d,
Rapt, ringing, on the jet sustain’d
Without a break, without a fall,
Sweet-silvery, sheer lyrical,	40
Perennial, quavering up the chord
Like myriad dews of sunny sward
That trembling into fulness shine,
And sparkle dropping argentine;
Such wooing as the ear receives	45
From zephyr caught in choric leaves
Of aspens when their chattering net
Is flush’d to white with shivers wet;
And such the water-spirit’s chime
On mountain heights in morning’s prime,	50
Too freshly sweet to seem excess,
Too animate to need a stress;
But wider over many heads
The starry voice ascending spreads,
Awakening, as it waxes thin,	55
The best in us to him akin;
And every face to watch him rais’d,
Puts on the light of children prais’d,
So rich our human pleasure ripes
When sweetness on sincereness pipes,	60
Though nought be promis’d from the seas,
But only a soft-ruffling breeze
Sweep glittering on a still content,
Serenity in ravishment.
For singing till his heaven fills,	65
’T is love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup,
And he the wine which overflows
To lift us with him as he goes:	70
The woods and brooks, the sheep and kine
He is, the hills, the human line,
The meadows green, the fallows brown,
The dreams of labor in the town;
He sings the sap, the quicken’d veins;	75
The wedding song of sun and rains
He is, the dance of children, thanks
Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks,
And eye of violets while they breathe;
All these the circling song will wreathe,	80
And you shall hear the herb and tree,
The better heart of men shall see,
Shall feel celestially, as long
As you crave nothing save the song.
Was never voice of ours could say	85
Our inmost in the sweetest way,
Like yonder voice aloft, and link
All hearers in the song they drink:
Our wisdom speaks from failing blood,
Our passion is too full in flood,	90
We want the key of his wild note
Of truthful in a tuneful throat,
The song seraphically free
Of taint of personality,
So pure that it salutes the suns	95
The voice of one for millions,
In whom the millions rejoice
For giving their one spirit voice.
Yet men have we, whom we revere,
Now names, and men still housing here,	100
Whose lives, by many a battle-dint
Defaced, and grinding wheels on flint,
Yield substance, though they sing not, sweet
For song our highest heaven to greet:
Whom heavenly singing gives us new,	105
Enspheres them brilliant in our blue,
From firmest base to farthest leap,
Because their love of Earth is deep,
And they are warriors in accord
With life to serve and pass reward,	110
So touching purest and so heard
In the brain’s reflex of yon bird;
Wherefore their soul in me, or mine,
Through self-forgetfulness divine,
In them, that song aloft maintains,	115
To fill the sky and thrill the plains
With showerings drawn from human stores,
As he to silence nearer soars,
Extends the world at wings and dome,
More spacious making more our home,	120
Till lost on his aërial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.

(Stedman, E. C. (Ed.). (1895). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895..)

after reading, now listen.



janine janson, bbc concert orchestra, "The Lark Ascending", Ralph Vaughan Williams, composed in 1914, a romance for violin and orchestra.

i hope you agree with me that ralph vaughan williams is a wonderful composer.

Labels: Music

{ 9:26 PM }

Friday, November 16, 2007.

Labels: Music

{ 9:53 PM }

I don't know how to start.

I felt it was wonderful, having been in camps planned by my seniors, and now planning a camp, and a decently successful camp at that. Thanks to all fellow EXCO guys for your hard work especially kai cheng who slept at 3 on the day before the camp.

Rehearsals were mass suanning sessions-which other section gets suanned? As usual the violas never fail to impress-during note-by-note tuning we could hear chords. And the devastating pair of Nicholas Hsien and Yeo Shang Xuan (as front desk) were too powerful-lame jokes flying about.

During practice for John Rutter's "For the Beauty of the Earth":
Mr. Sze: Now let's add the violas, for some comedy relief. (cups ears)

Night game 2 was nothing short of fun and pure massacre! Zhiyi's "The Lair of Illumination" was quite well-received, cause there were a LOT of killer tasks (which included sadistic "memory" games, evil sudoku running, and penalties, penalties and more penalties). And my final clue still won all-no one found "the Lair of Illumination" cause it was so abstract.

"The Lair of Illumination resides at the "peak of the mRNA"."

And after that, we had our usual rite-spam bridge till 3. Apparently people won 7 hearts which is insane. And luckily I had (nearly) a whole room to myself meaning i didn't have to worry about lights.

Using a chemistry textbook as pillow isn't a bad idea at all.

Labels: CCA

{ 3:26 PM }

Tuesday, November 13, 2007.

yeah. away for 14-16 nov for rise camp. hopefully we have some "fun, laughter, peace, joy and zhiyi" there.

{ 11:09 PM }

I realised I'm the youngest person at imre.

Nearly all are jc people lor, and they talk about IChO like so early. It's like 8 months away -.-

The instructor is real funny lor! He cracks lame jokes, and is really quite cool. Otherwise I would certainly have fell asleep (IT'S A FREAKING SAFETY BRIEFING LOR.).

Otherwise the day was quite badly screwed up. Due mainly to some stuff which i dont wanna remember.

Anyway kuangnan is quite funny!
"My instructor has liquid hydrogen, so if you hear a "boom" sound with flames you can guess what's going to happen to me."

He commented on strange people whom he doesn't know (from a CERTAIN cca, from a CERTAIN school, and in sec 3 this year) finding his hotmail address and adding him on msn. Ya if that person knows what's going on that person will realise why kuangnan never shows himself to be online (there's this function called "block").

Yay rise camp on wednesday-republican institute of sacred elitists!

Labels: Life

{ 8:40 PM }

Monday, November 12, 2007.

imre is seriously ulu. Took me 3 people (directions) and 10 minutes of running up and down kent ridge to reach the place.

why is it that whenever i go for an attachment, a girl (whom i would only meet once before the attachment, and not recognise, and when i met the person the previous time HY and Barry would be present) will come up to me and "tell" me something personal about me? life is that strange.

One girl asked me: "Are you from RISE?"
The other girl asked me: "Is your name Lumpy?"

"and there was also a random NUSHS girl who said that barry looked familiar and gay. erm. i beg to differ. especially the latter. oh. she also asked lumpy about his stupid blog name. which I agree is stupid."

(Tang, H. (2007, November 8). And nothing else compares. Retrieved November 12, 2007, from And nothing else compares. - designed by Daniel Web site: http://crazynut512.blogspot.com/)

Ask me more if you wish.

Labels: Life

{ 4:04 PM }

Sunday, November 11, 2007.

I need help, DESPERATELY.

I saw this CD box-set about a month ago at Gramophone (when cbw zhiyi jeremysia and i were out celebrating end-of-eoys).



This is priced at $99.90, but when my SSO Friends card arrive, it's gonna be 10% off, which means each cd is approx. $11.24, which is not bad for a DG recording.

But some of the CDs aren't to my liking, especially CD2 (seeing as i already have both dvorák and rococo-variations) and cd1 (except schumann). I don't enjoy chamber music that much, so CD 4,5,6 won't be that enjoyable for me.

The 2 CDs which I truly want are CD3 and 7 (i'm a big shostakovich fan like DUH). Both ran out of print, and I still lack Shostakovich Cello Concerto 2 (i dont have shostakovich's full concerto set, cello concerto2 is lacking). His "Nutcracker" is internationally acclaimed, and so is his Shostakovich-5.

So should I get this set, seeing as I am on a tight budget?

PS I'm looking forward to IMRE attachment, but NOT the safety briefing (which is tmr).

Labels: Music

{ 7:37 PM }

Thursday, November 8, 2007.

One day there was this plant, which somehow made its way to a plant tissue culture lab. That plant was far from ordinary, having being fed countless milligrams of plant growth hormones (auxins and cytokinins e.g.), and what was so special about it was that it felt extremely energetic and powerful, and wanted to grow, grow and grow.

Then a scientist came and looked at it. He thought it would do well in a Magenta jar, and carefully placed it in there. It realised it could NOT grow! It was limited by all the (C2H4)n fibers all around it, and it struggled to push and grow. And as it spent its life in that small Magenta jar, it complained and whined about its inability to grow, with the uncaring and ignorant chains of high-density polyethylene staring at it, not making way for it to grow. He felt as if he was being controlled by the polyethylene chains, and was angry with all the chains not giving way. Yet it seeked to push against the flow of polyethylene chains, and tried its best to grow although the odds were stacked against it.

But grow it did. One day the scientist left a hole in the cover by accident, and the plant smiled at this golden opportunity to grow like it never did before. So the plant delighted in growing, stimulated by the hormones. It grew, and grew, and grew, till it emerged out of the magenta jars.

The scientist realised his mistake and tried to stop the plant from growing any more, by squeezing it into a smaller Magenta jar. It worked. But not for long. Another hole emerged (the scientist's doing) and then the oversized plant grew and grew out.

But this round, it would not have a nice punishment.

A metallic sound. A crunch of metals.
BANG!

In its dying moments, the plant realised that it would always be limited by its surroundings.

(the OTHER) Moral of the story: Never go cycling at East Coast Park on a weekend or public holiday. You will get owned by all the noobs who take up the wrong side of the road.

Labels: Life

{ 8:42 PM }

Wednesday, November 7, 2007.

freak, i'm in love with rach 2!



now my thumb looks green. better than kai cheng, whose hand looks green.
yiyang kai cheng and i managed to spray paint 20++ stands within 3 hours. That's a Guinness world record lor, considering kai cheng took about 2 hours to create the template. It looks real cool.

i bought "college physics" since i lost my noob physics textbook and needed a better replacement, so might as well. I started mugging a little, but i STILL prefer chemistry.

anyway rach 2 is COOL. i finally relented after huiyao's endless persuasion, and started listening to piano music. To my surprise it is NOT bad. but no matter how many times tang huiyao persuades me to listen to pop music, i won't.

I shall shamelessly declare I do love Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #2.

Labels: CCA, Music

{ 11:21 PM }

Tuesday, November 6, 2007.

well, there SHOULD be such an RA, and we can all guess who's going to top the class.

shan't name who: "Me!"

shameless.

Today RI guys decided to be "a little" shameless at UNSW prize presentation, and we subsequently owned the tea reception.

The announcer was quite bored of pronouncing the words "Raffles Institution" over and over (seeing as we did make quite a sweep of the medals).

Watched a movie (Stardust) after maybe 1 year or 2 years. I didn't know how to rate it, I'm hopeless. Better than shameless people who claim to be able to rate movies (not directed at anyone in particular).

And some people are just so shameless to start a game based on someone's name. See?

Shameless people (like me) deserve an RA for them to be shameless.

Labels: school

{ 11:20 PM }

Friday, November 2, 2007.

past 2 days were a blast.

we pulled off some crap for octet and yet managed to sound great. I was certain my tone was sucky, I bet i missed a few entries here and there, and after our item all 8 of us were like "we gg, we screwed up". Yet we actually sounded good! maybe we can do shostakovich octet someday eh?

Alliance Française auditorium is CRAP. We pay a lot for rent, get only 236 seats, suffer from either hand/finger-numbing aircon or lack of aircon. Furthermore, their dressing room (note: 1 dressing room only) is small, their unused wooden furniture still remains in like a part of the hall, their acoustics suck big time (apparently this place was picked for National Piano+Violin Competition cause the acoustics here reveal mistakes easily) and worst of them all, THERE IS NO BACKSTAGE. so all the basses and stands+stand carts as well as other instrument cases+bags had to be left on the stairwell+whatever we had left of the backstage and dressing room.

gpa wasn't exactly pleasing, but well. 3.88 isn't really good since i wanted 3.92 and could have gotten that if not for SS EOY Question 2A. come on, 6/15 is like sure 4.0 gone. and as usual japanese and chinese are the 2 culprits (and an unexpected SS culprit). anyway it is a big improvement, although i think i'm like 6th in class. 3.88 isn't that bad lar. heck, i was failing math in april, and now i got 100% for EOYs, and i didnt exactly revise for maths (i recall slacking in front of the com for 3-4 hours). But for all the effort put in, i think i didnt deserve it. i should have gotten less, but i'm half happy half sad. oh well.

science symposium @ HCI was great. we were teasing barry for quite some while. the nobel laureate had quite a cool movie, and the 3 other speakers were great (although i couldnt understand the 2nd speaker).

at the bus-stop barry decided to be dumb and called me, thinking i went missing (when i was merely in front).
barry: hey where were you? I couldn't see you.
HY: speak for yourself lor.

HY and Vincent were like "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." There were very funny stuff about that, and it was ridiculous and funny.

When walking to another bus-stop i saw this sign which read "Elmira Heights" and i went LOL. Guess only people who listen to Shostakovich Symphony no. 10 will get it. In the 3rd movement, the solo horn plays the mysterious Elmira theme (E La MI Re A, otherwise known as E A E D A).

Fun tomorrow at cbw's house! Hope i don't fall down again.

Labels: CCA, Life, school

{ 8:37 PM }