Monday, December 29, 2008.

I guess it's the time (despite my previous post) to post the customary end-of-year post, despite it only being the 364th day of the year (I doubt I'll post much anyway, seeing I'm going out to codA 4 tomorrow and countdown-ing the day after.)

Yeah 2008.

On a more global level, I guess this passage by Miyazaki Hayao (director of gosh - Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea - I WANT TO WATCH! IT'S SO KAWAIIIII NEH!) sums up this year globally:

"2008年夏、日本だけでなく世界の人々が自信を失い、経済政策の行き詰まり、食糧や原油価格の高騰、地球の温暖化問題など、解決の糸口さえ見つけられず、不安を抱きながら漫然と生きている現代。"

erm for the non-japanese people you can roughly read the chinese words to get a general feeling.

true enough, 2008 hasn't been a good year globally, what with milk powder, nargis, 512, mugabe, south ossetia, kosovo, shoes, palin and subprime (how can anyone forget?!).

but it has been fun. that 1/2-month respite from all the crap we had in august (Olympics duh.) showed the limits (or lack of) of the human body, and many stuff (like Rudd's Lost Generations speech) showed that 2008 was an unforgettable year. and of course, barack hussein obama.

but of course, on a more personal level:
erm the following extract was taken from a post nearly 1 year ago, at the start of 2008:

cheers to us surviving a year full of crap, bullets and bombs.

now to the gruesome year: 2008.

to think that even b4 we start, i'm feeling stressed out.

test (on 红楼梦) like soon. more crap, double Os.

i look forward to this time next year, much more than looking forward to tomorrow. well, that's with preparing $10 this time next year.

Bolded line for emphasis.

Yeah it's truly amazing how I could even think about skipping 2008 (as i remembered), how i even dared to wish that 2008 would be totally gruesome.

it has been magnificent.

what with 4B'08, all my friends, RISE, chemRA/maffRA/4ABCH/J4.11 etc. and a whole string of stuff which happened to me, I would willingly repeat 2008 again, do the same 红楼梦 test again and over again, relax and let free in the company of my friends.

True, it has been gruelling, not least because of all my commitments (which are to be honest significantly less than some others), not least because of one terrible mistake, not least because of all the horrid weeks I spent, either with one or 2 friends in RI at 11pm pushing timpanis back to band room, or term3 week9-10 (which was downright the worst fortnight ever in my life).

But without 2008 I wouldn't be that close to a lot of classmates, a lot of CCA mates, a lot of other batchmates and people. And the experiences I have had with them are (as MasterCard puts it) priceless.

So thanks, and thanks so much, to everyone that I have known this past year. I don't wish to mention names lest I miss some deserving people, but I guess you know what you did to someone insignificant like me, and when you think I'm referring to you it's definitely you I'm referring to.

This whole year, without some people, would be a bore. Some people made friends, and very good ones now (I hope), with me, hanging out without fail with us, having fun gossiping and bi*ching, from a coffeeshop to a house. Some people helped me so much, being there for me whenever I needed slave labour, and willingly chatting with me whenever we went home together. Some people guided me many times, even in the bleakest of times, through all the demands placed on us, giving us advice, some nuggets of wisdom here and there. Some people, even if I didn't really know that well, chatted and gossiped with me, sometimes for hours on end (be it face-to-face or MSN), making my life more bearable especially during the boring times and the nasty times. Some people just brightened my day each time I talked to them, be it about buzzers or out-of-tune notes.

thanks. really.

2008 was wow.

here's hoping for a BETTER 2009!

(and my $10 too.)

Labels: Life

{ 9:29 PM }

Sunday, December 28, 2008.

i was planning to do either a post on patrick's house and/or a wrap-up on the year 2008 yesterday night, but something else happened which affected me rather much, and because of that i had some problems falling asleep.

there's perhaps a good reason why i like shostakovich so much despite how his music is not easy on the ears (indeed, his VC no.2 is very hard on the ears on 1st listening).

an excerpt from a nice book (Shostakovich: A Life Remembered) i'm reading now:
"But what struck me most was his (Shostakovich's) parting phrase: 'Be yourself. Don't be afraid of being yourself. My wish for you is that you should continue on your own, incorrect way.'" - Sofiya Gubaidulina, composer

Indeed, Shostakovich was really one person who was truly himself, and I admire his 5th symphony, not only for its musical merits, but for his real courage and bravery. There's something blatantly honest about his works (especially his quartets) that just cries out to everyone out there.

Despite the Soviet Party's threats (and defying them usually meant death) he managed to stay true, honest to himself and his own ideologies, not bending down to what others demanded of him and be a lackey of the Party (unlike many other disgusting composers), and produce a wonderful piece of music.

Guess you can read it up here.

Shostakovich is really wonderful, really. A pure soul amidst the evils of society.

Labels: Life, Music

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Tuesday, December 23, 2008.

ok yeah christmas is coming, and really guys we should just ignore all that's going on in our egroups.

that's my stand.

err anyway on a more sombre note, juxtaposing christmas carols with shostakovich is NOT a very good idea. it makes you feel very lonely and sad and whatnot. seriously.

in fact shostakovich alone does that. but putting the carols in heightens that feeling by a lot.

anyway.

you know, christmas (as in the gift-giving tradition) is a season of wishing and getting your dreams right?

yeah there's this wonderful story i read about (i know i'm most probably lagging behind, but well.) and heard, about this wonderful guy called paul potts.

he won the 1st season of Britain's "Got Talent" contest last year SINGING OPERA.

really, for someone like him who dreamt big, and was so passionate in achieving his dream (he spent £12k on vocal lessons!), he really deserved this victory.

his rendition of Nessun Dorma (None shall sleep tonight - an aria from Puccini's Turandot) isn't the best (of course Pavarotti gets the honours) but seriously, he has talent and the heart.

wow.

Labels: Life

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Sunday, December 21, 2008.

ok to be honest there were possibly only 2 great things this week:

1 - kenneth's birthday celebration

2 - bush and the shoe.

since i've already talked about (1), i should now talk about (2).

(rant)
for those who have been on a plane for 7 days and counting, bush *nearly* got hit in the face by 2 shoes, and for the record: bush: "it's a size 10."

anyway i was o.0 when i heard it, and i must say the responses throughout the world were quite cool.

whenever such a political event happens, there's bound to be:

1) a game/website set up based on it, which sells very soon and sells for VERY high.

2) protests. who doesn't love them?

3) abuse. errr it's quite straightforward right? poor journalist.

i was trying to argue with kc when we were walking back to kenneth's house on tues about bush, and AS USUAL kc tried to defend him, albeit vaguely and not very strongly (in light of kc's habit of being politically-correct i shall credit jerald han for his wonderful translations BACK to english.)

it's an interesting thing, the few minority who actually support bush. somehow they seem blinded by whatever he did during 9/11 and 9/11 ONLY. indeed, he actually has one of the craziest approval ratings, ranging from nearly 90% in the direct aftermath of 9/11 to approx. 20~% now.

who wants a world leader who:
1) Destroys the earth.
2) Lies to his countrymen and kills 2000+ countrymen
3) Made enemies with practically half or more of the globe
4) Actually brought America into a net deficit
5) Can't even speak properly.

well credit goes to him for having cat-like reflexes.

really that journalist is gonna be made a hero, a nationwide, even worldwide hero for what he has done.

pity his shoes were size 10. if it were smaller it would have went faster and it might have hit bush.

(rant/)

Labels: World

{ 10:16 PM }

Wednesday, December 17, 2008.

ok this post is fragmented.

but before that, for the nth time, happy birthday kenneth!

anyway i just spent 20 wonderful hours (+3 more if you count sleep) having fun and being mad (which i always am, so.) celebrating kenneth's birthday (which slowly turned into us being treated by kenneth's family -.-)

doing this in chronological order:
16 Dec, 1.30 pm - 6.30 pm

YES I WENT KBOX. ok? fine? (it's against my own morals but so.)

(imagine lumpy with a mic and singing pop.)

but to be honest i didn't really have much of a choice did i? so we went to marina square kbox, the 8 of us (edward jerald jieliang jinghui junsheng kengchee kenneth me), and went to SING POP.

evidently i faked through a lot of songs i was forced to sing, and yeah the experience wasn't as bad as i thought it would be (although at some points in time i was quite bored but well.), cause i did have some fun too.

and i realised that the 8 ppl's music tastes are quite skewed. at least, there were clear chinese-pop people and english-pop people.

so those in the chinese-pop club (edward jieliang junsheng kengchee) had fun while the english-pop people (jerald jinghui) stoned, and vice versa. kenneth was singing both like crazy and i was stoning there like crazy.

actually recognised some songs there (and could even sing too!) cause it was like super-old (stuff like Chasing Cars, 木乃伊 etc). to be honest it's VERY easy to sing pop even if you haven't heard it before. by the 2nd chorus i could sing the chorus like some normal guy with sub-par singing (and anyway it's easy to guess notes/harmony), and since lyrics are provided it wasn't difficult unlike what i thought.

just that im sorry im very unlikely to step into a kbox room ever.

(yeah and did i say i left in protest of one song? it was s.h.e.'s 不想长大, the song that plagarised and vulgarised mozart's 40th.)

6.30 pm - 9 pm

dinner at crystal jade la mian xiao long bao, which was downright the cheapest location near there. each of us (excl. kenneth) paid at most $14, which really makes cafe cartel look like money-grabbers in comparison.

yeah the food was not too bad lah, just that patrick the greedy (who came for dinner and stayed onwards) decided that his tummy needed more and saw food around him, and thus he ate. whether or not the food was someone else's didn't really matter. (or did it?) =D

9 pm - 11.30 pm

went to kenneth's house for stayover, and didn't do much here, except for 1/2 a round of jieliang's board game - Citadels (WHICH IS VERY VERY VERY VERY fun i tell you.)

11.30 pm - 5 am

Oh all the fun started here lah. 1/2 an hour of eating fondue (kengchee was like "WOW" cause he saw bananas.), and as usual patrick helped himself to quite a bit of marshmallows. while eating we were bi*ching like mad, about teachers, students and whatnot.

while doing so we learnt something:

politically-correct translation courses, proudly sponsored by chew keng chee, the EVER-SO-POLITICALLY-CORRECT guy.

it was VERY funny, on one hand we had keng chee, and on another we had jerald+jinghui doing all the rebuttals, so it got quite hilarious at times.

then when we got bored we played cards (standard.) and edward won the exciting game with 3 As! o.0

then jieliang and i played 2-player citadels, and mind you it was like the BEST THING EVER.

citadels is essentially this game where you get to pick characters for special abilities so that you can build more districts and get more gold. the very very fun part about it is the mind-reading and the psychological battles/mind games, which jieliang and i played like crazy! ohhh i love that part, cause you have to come up with many strategies to make sure you are foolproof, and to guess what your opponents are gonna do.

immediately after the match both of us were like, WOW. cause the game was freaking good!

kengchee joined in to play 3-player citadels and he also went off saying his brain hurt like mad cause of all the mind-reading he had to do. really this game should be played more often.

then was a 2nd session of bi*ching all the way till 5 am, which was quite fun actually.

sleep came and I GOT THE REINDEER! (for only a few seconds before kenneth snatched lumpy away from lumpy - get it? =D)

5 am - 8 am

sleep.
just like what patrick always does.

8 am - 12 noon
breakfast and cake cutting (my stomach was pmsing as bad as junsheng's voice). and wow kenneth's house actually has the whole (WHOLE.) set of beethoven's piano sonatas! i was like *staring in shock* when i saw it.

jerald joined us for 4-player citadels, yeah wasn't that taxing on the brain but still very fun.

some random games before we left, including polar bear.

with these kind of stuff it's not a surprise everyone wants another outing soon.

and i'm looking forward to it!

Labels: class, friends

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Saturday, December 13, 2008.

hmm my house is in a big mess now. painting works making my house smell (ok not really), but anyway i don't have a laptop so i might disappear for a few days as i proceed to demolish my comp.

ok not so drastic lah.

anyway we kinda decided on some changes to this tuesday's schedule which left me quite pleased, as in really pleased, unlike yesterday's post. yeah although i accidentally think i leaked a bit out to kenneth though, so don't scold me ah.

anyway i've been caught up with the idea of flying and going overseas (anyway eugene bon voyage to uk!).

something interesting:

do you know singapore is in fact in the wrong timezone? quite a few years back s'pore had GMT+7.30, and since malaysia changed to GMT+8 (because of east malaysia), singapore followed suit as well.

anyway that kinda explains why the sun is hottest at around 1 and not 12, and how the sun rises at >6 and sets that late too. we're in actual fact supposed to be GMT+7 (refer thailand and sumatra eg.) so it's quite weird.

but then again it's nice to be 1 more hour ahead of the rest of the world! =D

and anyway that time to newyork jeremysia asked me whether we were going to newark or jfk.

now i see the significance.

apparently singapore airlines' flight from changi - newark is the LONGEST in the world! 18hr 45m i think, and it flies you above the polar bears! so cool, you get to see the midnight sun if you travel in june! (pity we went sin-fra-jfk and not sin-ewr, or else. but then again frankfurt is quite nice, i had quite nice memories of that airport.)

ahh i want to travel.

Labels: Life

{ 8:46 PM }

Friday, December 12, 2008.

yeah and 1 week has come to a close, and i'm not proud at all that this has been my least productive week of the whole year.

in fact the only day even near productive was on Wednesday, where we (the 4B peeps) went out for badminton + lunch + mind cafe.

you learn a lot about people when you play badminton. for one, you NEVER like pairing up with keng chee. he owns it so badly you just sit there and sulk at how much you suck compared to him and think that you are a waste of resources and space whenever you cause kc to lose a point.

for two, kenneth is a big bully (at least towards me). he hits v. high back court shots that cause me to backpedal/jump and still miss, and gloats at my demise after that. even shneg isn't that bad - he at least hits quite a lot of front court shots. yeah just because you're tall doesnt mean you can bully others -.-

and then mind cafe (don't talk about lunch, or shneg will start emoing and crying o.0) was a generally nice place. my 1st time! anyway settlers of catan is really a nice game (pity people were rushing us to finish the game, cause it took easily >1h).

anyway i spent a good portion of today finding out the good games in mind cafe, and seems like there are 2 games i quite fancy - scotland yard and shadow over camelot. pity both take an eternity to play i think (never tried them before, but went to read the rules - it sounds quite good!).

anyway yeah now that i think of it, i kinda dread next tues (no offence, serious!). i hope i'm not releasing too much here, but the thought of it really puts me off. period. then again if the rest (esp. kenneth) enjoys it i'll be fine with it, although i much rather scoot off to esplanade library to do the "same" thing.

yeah i mean if it's for supporting my friends i really don't mind going for it you know. on grad nite when xD was performing i know of some people who left the hall. i didn't. only because it was my friends (yeah eugene) who were performing and i could feel them performing with effort, so i chose to be excited, although i'm not too sure whether the music was agreeable with me.

the more i think the more i feel that i really can't stand pop.

(and i'm listening to brahms' piano concerto 1 now.)

hmm maybe i MIGHT just sing on tuesday, in an effort to become more tolerable towards pop. but seriously it's ok with me i think. anyway there's always a 1st time.

Labels: Life

{ 6:59 PM }

Sunday, December 7, 2008.

WHY OH WHY MUST MY 200th POST BE ABOUT THIS.

fine.

anyway as per ALL foreign language certification exams, the listening only serves to kill.

so.

jlpt listening was pure bliss, hearing the wonderful phrases gliding over my mind blissfully, as I sat there enjoying the wonderful chat and being oblivious to everything that went around me.

INCLUDING THE TEST.

so.

maybe a dice would score better than me.

=(

Labels: Life

{ 7:05 PM }

Friday, December 5, 2008.

ok seems that i do need to post.

1. i got the RA call, and got chemaff. but that's not the point. seriously. the point is

a- there are 87 slots for both chemaff, so some people who claimed that they screwed up/thought they found it too difficult even when they're from ra and go for some national competition WILL get in i assure you. if you don't get in i'll camp outside rjc ra office tmr with you with my jap textbooks =D

the 2nd point, and the happiest point, is that they will be adopting the standard RI way of grouping classes. There will be the ABCD classes (just that it's more), and within the ABCD classes will be the RA peeps + the godly non-ra peeps. WHICH MEANS, 4B'08 won't disappear! =D=D=D=D=D

ok i'm mad.

2. i see that this long post of mine below (read please!) has garnered quite a lot of views and comments. that's nice. anyway the point was that I have tried out some certain forms of music, and personally I chose classical since I saw weaknesses in pop music, some of them too much for me to bear. Anyway note that many classical pieces are absolute music, meaning that they have no other meaning OTHER than music, so a lot of them don't have love in it (in fact very few have it, besides the odd schubert and schumann etc.).

Just recently got addicted to vaughan williams' symphonies (i love his 5th!) and I read this comment VW had to say with regards to some people's comments that his symphonies had an extra-musical meaning in them:

He says, in the preface to the score of his 6th symphony, that "it never seems to occur to people that a man might want to write just a piece of music."

so, in short, many pieces of classical music have no extra-musical association with it, which indeed pulls people off. but i beg to differ.

case in point #1 - brahms.
look at him, the eternal classicist that believes that liszt and wagner's idea of tone poems/music dramas were crap. he wrote absolute music, or so he said.

now raise your hand if you don't like A SINGLE PIECE OF BRAHMS' MUSIC.

i'll feed klieber's symphony #4 and/or oistrakh/klemperer's violinconcerto and/or gilels/jochum's pianoconcertos and/or oistrakhrostropovich/szell's doubleconcerto to you and see whether you still say no.

i'll feed you to the pigs if you still say no.

=D

to be honest, all forms of music evoke feelings. even if they don't portray something extra-musical (which was supposed to be the case till liszt had to come, but thank him for Don Juan and the Ring =D), and it's just i hear the SAME BLARDY FEELINGS IN 90% of pop music.

i'm sorry nearly every of them talk about love.

whereas in mahler's 9 alone you hear billions of stuff. how life goes to death, then rebirth, then death again, then sardonic humour, then ghostly music, then tender outpouring of love, then acceptance. within that 70+ minutes you hear something you CAN'T ever hear in pop.

that's just clarifying matters.

anyway more healthy discussion please! i'm bored of mugging jap. and anyway DON'T WORRY YOU PEEPS I EXPECT TO SEE YOU IN RA NEXT YEAR OR I WILL COMMIT SUICIDE AND NOT TAKE JLPT ON SUNDAY =D

Labels: Music

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Thursday, December 4, 2008.

ok breaking apart from my past (x) posts on blogging on events, i have decided to do a little de-stresser ahead of my jlpt 2 (which i will fail anyway.).

constructive criticism always welcome, and NOTE: this is in no way insulting the genre of pop music, merely stating its flaws. hope you give some comments on this post.

a discourse on pop music.

I guess many of the readers of this blog (not much, it seems) would know that the owner of this blog has a, should I say, very intriguing selection of music he listens to. Refer to the right, and you'll see weird names like prokofiev, mahler, whom you perhaps may never have heard of (or do I underestimate my audience?)

I am here not to label everyone else as mad and crazy and that I am the only correct person and that you should all convert to classical-music-ism (do I look Stalinish? =.=). Rather, I am here to defend my reasons for not listening to pop music, and give reasons (not rubbishy ones I hope) for my very intriguing selection of music.

I am a very logical person (sometimes my brain breaks down too, so I am very crazy at times), so I decide on everything after thinking it through carefully. So, if you ever get the (mis)fortune of going out shopping (CDs duh. what else? besides the chem textbooks.) with me, be prepared to kiss goodbye to like, at least 2 hours of your time.

That's why I decided on classical music.

OK to cut the long story short, I was an avid fan of pop music in my early Secondary School days. I remember vividly listening to some Jay Chou piece in Sec 1 and spamming it repeatedly on Youtube (dunno why I never bought one of those albums), and one piece I remember now was Linkin Park's Numb (correct me if I am wrong, because my RAM has been filled with Japanese.)

So, I was as normal as most people are.

I shall continue to shame myself more by announcing to the world that I never cared much for classical music in Sec 1 and 2. It seemed very natural to me then that I would take Japanese (AND STUDY LIKE CRAZY FOR A TEST THIS SUNDAY AND WASTE S$47 SINCE I AM GOING TO FAIL ANYWAY.) over music, but now even that ant crawling over the Mahler score I borrowed weeks ago can even tell that it isn't very natural a decision to make. I didn't know the difference between a symphony and a concerto then (I KNOW I'M DISGRACEFUL. anyway I still can't tell the difference between rachmaninoff's symphony 2 and piano concerto 2, other than the fact that they all sound equally beautiful.)

So, in short, I never cared a hoot about classical music then.

ouch.

Back to topic.

Anyway, now I am, with 20:20:31:01 play time on my iTunes, ALL classical. To be honest, I have not yet given up on pop music, and occasionally I do listen to some (as I would call it, forced listening), especially the ones with a certain meaning to the lyrics (which are mainly absent from classical music). So I do remember stuff like Graduation Day (who doesn't?) and some pop here and there, like Bleeding Love (is it? paiseh.)

Just that unlike many others, I have no copy of pop music in any format at all.

Why?

Maybe before I start, I should give a proper background to pop music. Pop music is perhaps the widest-selling music ever, featuring songs (voice + accompaniment which ranges, mainly piano/drumset/guitars) that are usually less than 10 minutes long, which usually has words which concern themselves with romance and feelings. Stemming in America during the 1940s, it is a genre rooted in rock-n-roll, and features an intro-verse-chorus-verse (with different words)-chorus-verse/chorus-outro format.

Its main purpose is to sell well, meaning catchy tunes, lyrics and rythmns (sometimes) are vital to the success of it. Most importantly, it is POPular, meaning that it reaches out to the masses. It eschews musical form and structure, meaning that it is very basic in style and there is little concern to aesthetics.

That's WHAT I don't like about pop music.

Often, people listen to music repeatedly (I'm very sure everyone here has a song in their iTunes that he/she has listened to at least 10 times). I myself am guilty of this (actually it's not something to be guilty about), seeing as my previous iTunes (before the hard disk disaster) had as #1 Brahms' Symphony #4 1st movement, THE Klieber recording, listened to >90 times if I'm not wrong (90 times for a piece that is 12 minutes long just means I'm mad =D).

Everytime I listen to a piece again I usually get new insights. The recent YO concert allowed me to hear Appalachian Spring once more, and I heard something very different from the version that I heard many times (and mind you the version I have is conducted by the composer.). That's the power of classical music that is obviously lacking in pop music. As many people have said before, pieces like Bach's Chaconne (from Partita no.2 in D Minor) can be heard so many times, yet every single time you listen to it you hear something new!

That's clearly something that pop music lacks. The lack of musical form and genius in pop music really warrants for less listening, simply because it wears off you. Yet many classical music pieces can be heard for millions of times and yet you never tire of it, simply because each listening is a discovery.

Another thing I can't stand personally, is the lack of innovation in pop music. Pop music keeps on using the same freaking harmonic progression (or at least very similar), just cause it sounds good. Confess, I'm pretty sure at least 1 or 2 top hits this year alone had a chord progression that reminds you of Pachabel right?

Yeah try hearing that same I V VI III IV I IV V chord progression anywhere in Mahler. Find it, and I'll pay you millions.

(maybe not.)

But you get the idea. Where is the Stravinsky in pop music? Where is the Wagner in pop music? Where is the Schoenberg in pop music? I hear no rhythmic inventions, no 3/16 5/16 2/16 bars unlike Le Sacre, there is no chromaticism (refer to bar 2, TWO, of Wagner's Tristan Prelude), there is simply little toying around with the whole idea of music! Where is 4' 33''? Where is Einstein at The Beach? There is really, A WHOLE LOAD OF REPETITION and no invention at all in pop music!

To be honest, a bit of a bad thing isn't really that bad, I acknowledge. But for me, I have chosen to not listen to pop music, and unless one can reply this with a convincing argument that can change me, it's more and more classical here.

Anyway, just a reminder. I am not against any other form of music per se, it's just that I am against pop. That's all. I don't mind jazz, blues, country, even heavy metal, because they all have more substance than pop. WAY MORE.

(Just that they don't fit me.)

Labels: Music

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