Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959).

oh i just love his symphonies. if i ever wrote music it would sound somewhat like that. a romantic force disguised by new harmony, and yet not all that new.

Brahms must be laughing at me from wherever he is now...

I stayed up to 4am writing an essay about his First Symphony and its Beethovenian influences and I could be wrong altogether.

Anyway, its sort of done... finally.

-

Lord i've written down my specific requests. Please do answer soon.

guilty.

Today was a rather weepy day. In Pursuit of Happiness, Will Smith asks himself why Jefferson included happiness in his declaration for democracy - it's a rather strange word to find in a formal document. But more importantly, he only mentioned the pursuit of it. Maybe 'it' cannot be attained, and we spend our entire lives chasing it; the 'it' that does not exist in this world.

Little kids. They can make or break you. Either that or i'm a sucker for those puppy eyes that kids have. Because i cried the most when the camera focused on little christopher's sad eyes.
Never cried so much in a long time.

Release of things inside.

I'm guilty. I'm the one who didn't give a smile, I'm the apathetic one on the bus. I'm the one who looks down at the road and walks, I'm the one who treats strangers like strangers and less like people. I'm the one you need to shoot. I'm guilty. I didn't dare make a difference.

the cause of all these issues?

our own insecurities.

our own unwillingness to understand.

our own pride.

our own rigid uncompromising mindsets.

or rather,

everybody's.

God bless you all. peace be with you

well so friday was cancelled...

but it was a fantastic concert! not perfect with manymany glitches actually, but the overall effect was there. many thanks to the current comm, mdc people, guest players, alumni, mr chan, teachers, winds, soloists etcetc....

shoujie and friends its been a pleasure to work with you!

well done to everyone, well done violas (though we ended up missing that bit int he 3rd mvt i doubt they heard it anyway) haha

now lets go make syf work!

=)

they had better not cancel friday.

after all the work we put into this.

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

ACS(I) Philharmonic Orchestra in Collaboration with SAF MDC and Central Band

March 9th and 10th

8pm, Singapore Conference Hall

Ma Hongye/Zheng Lu - Good News from Beijing reaches the Border Villages

Liu Tieshan/Ma Yue - Dance of the Yao People

Gerald Finzi - Clarinet Concerto [III. Rondo]

Chen Gang/He Zhanhao - Butterfly Lovers Concerto

Wu Houyuan - Red Plum Capriccio

Antonin Dvorak - Symphony No.9 in E minor, Op.95 "From the New World"

Ticket prices: $10, $16, $20

i still remember clearly the evening i first heard a recording of heifetz's playing, about two years back. i had gone to borders to look around and had come out with one of those naxos historical cds. at that time i didnt know much about music and had bought it because i had heard mendelssohn's violin concerto in mep class and it fascinated me. not for the violinist. i had listened to it in the car on the way home and it had a profound impact on me. the slides and phrasing, something unexplainable. the 'line' they call it. and the sheer speed and dexterity with pinpoint accuracy. it was the first time i heard music that had a voice to it. a message. that won my heart.

keeping the faith.

When the day was being rainy, bryan, losh and i were watching a show called "Keeping the Faith". You know, those kinda shows that u rent when u randomly look through the dvd selection in the library. It was quite random indeed - we just borrowed it cos ben stiller was on the cover. And we all know he's funny.

But one scene stays in my mind.

Jake the rabbi (aka Ben Stiller) goes up to the pulpit and addresses his congregation. It is the day of atonement, a special day on the Jewish calendar. He goes up and states that he is not going to cram a year's worth of sermons into these few hours like most rabbis do; he wants to talk about something more personal. In front of at least a thousand people, he confesses that he is in love with a non-jewish girl. There're gasps and exclamations among the congregation. The respect of a thousand people stands still and fragile in that moment. Regardless of this, he goes on to apologize. He apologizes for not being the rabbi the congregation deserves. For many months, they have shared their problems with him, but he has never related his problems to them. They had faith in him, but he did not have faith in them. And so he says sorry.

When i ended the brief phone call with my mum, this scene flashed in my memory. Then i thought to myself: maybe this is where the problem lies. The double life.

February - The big 2

February - Into the second month of the year, the pressure is on,the stress is coming in and I'm not really coping well.

Chinese New Year - First thing on the list, of course i wont forget about it. The meeting up part with relatives is the nicest, especially spending time with my cousin who came back from Australia. The visiting hasnt really ended yet, I guess Im lucky to have so many people around me now compared to some. Eating sucks big time for the first time, and i still dont like to explain how IB or rather year 5 is all about. Its so new to them. Main achievement for next year is to actually know who gave which hongbao since we always mix them up into one big pile (partly to know how much they put inside =P )

Orchestra - Something really bad happened at the start of the month, i cant believe its still in my head. I also have no idea if things got worst or became better, i just dont know. Of course im thinking of lots of retarded things now and then. 2 orchestra, 2 (or 3) groups of people, its like a super big gap in between, and i know theres something in the middle, just that they dont want to let me know about it. Apart from this, the new arrangement for college is nice, i like it. Secondary orchestra is so much better now. I think its us that needs to put in so much more effort. March concert's like so close now, the mood is so much different compared to last year. Hope everything will turn our fine.

Class - Compared to most of the classes we are counted as the least bonded (or something like that). I mean there will be groups of people, and these groups never come together for whatever reasons. Thats why i said i didnt like the fact that whole class is full of people with completely different subject combinations. We dont even have lessons together. In fact there are some people who arent in any of my classes. Max is 5, minimum - 0 (not even TOK or PC). Its just so sad, people usually graduate remembering their jc classmates and having them as friends for life. I seriously doubt that this will happen to me (only for some people). You cant really help it because you you dont even spent time with them at all. So close yet so far...

School - Math has definitely become the number 1 subject. I totally disagree to the fact that all subjects are equal. No way I'm going to think this way. Chinese oral has become so different from last year. Business class is nice. Music's just interesting. Also very different from last year. Learning lots of HL stuff in chem, I have finally concluded its actually a good thing, though our class is the slowest in the cohort. I just hope that some miracle will happen to my science.

Others - 2 main highlights of the month, 2 thats still stuck in my mind, but not necessarily worth remembering - the big two. O level results for music and higher chinese, a one and a six. Yay for the one, i dont know about the six. I was expecting myself not to do well, but not expecting it to be that bad. Not as if I never put in any effort in studying, since i would have forgotten completely about it if i didnt. Results always meant very little to me. I will most probably forget about it after some time, even if its very good... You can guess the second highlight for yourself. It was on the 14th, no more details. I still have no idea why you all like to do these kind of things.

My brother's 18th birthday just passed, wishing him all the best for his A levels =P March holidays are more or less gone due to the rehearsals. One done and one failed, 8 more resolutions in 10 more months, I still cant believe i failed. Thats all i can remember for the month. The rest shall either be kept to me and myself only, or they can be history. Haha.

Dreams do come true, always believe. "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams"