RGGE <3

The holidays seem so surreal; we’re doing so many things with so many brand new experiences this week. First and foremost, we re-painted the house! Now the living room is pink, the dining room is bright blue, my room is yellow, my parents’ is pink and my brother’s is creme. The little piggy got his PSLE results back as well. I think Mummy and I were probably more anxious than him when we went to his school to collect the results. And no matter how lousy you think you are, you’re still the cutest and insanely genius brother in the whole wide world okay.

Then there was guitar farewell. It was…passive. It didn’t feel like farewell at all. Not everyone was present anyway. But no matter what happens in the future, the fact will still remain that guitar, or rather RGGE, is the one group of people who has made the biggest impact on my life. Like my turning point of some sort, at least till now it stands as that…maybe in future something else will happen. But oh well, it got me out of my apathetic emo state in the middle of Secondary 2, and it gave me tons of opportunities to perform, write, do what I like basically. I’d never meet awesome people like Emily, Mingfang, Zhongzi, Peaelle, Debs, Huan Chin, Zhizhi, Yingjie, Zheng Pei, YY, Xinmin, Jeanette, Hamtaro, Sheryl and the like. Superficially you could say that the way I benefitted most was learning how to play the guitar, but RGGE is a gazillion times more than that. It’s where I first made friends in RG. It’s where I learnt to lead, to love and to learn. It’s where I learnt about concerts planning, arranging and writing. It’s where I learnt that a song does not rely solely on the melody to sound beautiful; everyone plays a big and essential part. It’s where I learnt how to do things, purely for the greater good. How, your true standard and ability is reflected by your audience; awards and accolades are merely a bonus. How, you can never be the best forever, and the only way to keep up is to keep pushing boundaries. The best part about it is that it’s also a safety net, so you can just keep daring to go against the flow and experiment with new ideas and combinations, and even if it fails who cares? It’s where you can fall, and there’ll be people catching you at the bottom.

And it’s definitely strengthened and empowered my decision and path I’m gonna take in future.

There were also regrets, my biggest one being taking up a lot of stage time. I mean, I’ve literally played half of the 2005, 2006 and 2007 concerts. And I haven’t really been taking most of my performances seriously. I can’t really think of an excuse to cover for this, but oh well. In retrospection everything seems to have been so amateurish, how I could have done so much better. The only time I felt really satisfied was SYF ‘07. That ten minutes on stage meant the world to me. But it’s been a wonderful 4 years. I can’t believe it flew by so fast.

So! Juniors! Enjoy your time in RGGE, do whatever you like there, don’t be afraid to try new stuff, bring the CCA to greater heights, just have no regrets in whatever you all do, and treat every performance seriously! Treasure every single moment there, and everything else will unfold on it’s own for you all.

Sec 1s! Am not really close to your batch, but I deeply appreciate the fact that you guys know who I am. From what I hear you guys are a pretty talented batch so practice hard & RGGE will pwn in SYF’09, and in all our concerts. XD

Sec 2s! Aha. You guys are cute. I’m glad to have gotten the chance to know you guys better this year, you guys brighten up (and louden up) practices!

Sec 3s! Your batch is the batch I’m closest to! I am really really really proud of each and every one of you, and look how you all have grown since I taught you guys when you were sec 2! It’s your turn to take the helm of the the ensemble. As Nike puts it, just do it.

And to my wonderful batchmates, though our batch is quite separated, I’m still glad that we’re the ‘07 batch. I’ll never get the same experiences in any other CCA.

 And so here I leave my last words for RGGE. It’s time for me to move on.

Sickku.

The toilet and kitchen (for getting water) have become my second homes in my house. Mummy gave me 枇杷膏 for my sore throat but it seems to have totally killed my voice instead. So I’ve been banging at the piano and strumming my guitar the whole day to make up for the noise I usually make…which is also mostly by the piano/guitar anyway.

Watched two awesome movies over the past week – Secret & Rock School.

Secret’s about Jay and this girl, but I doubt the movie’s really about that. It’s more about Jay’s kickass piano skills. And that’s really the part that everyone enjoys, no? The whole storyline is more of a bonus thing, a really sweet bonus. It’s still really hard to believe that a guy can play the piano like that, especially during the battling part with Yuhao. Because no human’s ear is that sharp, and no human has that kind of reaction time. But it still looks cool, and you know that he’s the one playing it no matter what, so. And I started playing the piano again, seriously, thanks to him. SEE BIG IMPACT SO THAT’S LIKE 6/5 stars for the movie.

Rock School is a documentary-movie, like Mad Hot Ballroom. It features a rock school in Philedelphia, about how learning and performing rock has changed the lives of many desolate kids, how rock has pulled people together, and amazed many others. It also opened up Zappa music to me; Frank Zappa is a bit like Dream Theater, they do classic virtuoso rock, but Frank Zappa adds in a tinge of symphonic music into his songs, plus many other things. And the kids are pretty amazing musicians as well. Makes me wanna practice a lot harder. So now I will try to practice with Zappa and Dream Theater and X Japan, but I’ll perform the usual stuff the band plays. Then I’ll be pro.

痛い～

Sickku~ My immune system finally decided to take a break, after holding up for the past 10 months. I’ve been doing nothing but sleeping & drinking water. And it’s not really helping much.

We had a family gathering last week, to celebrate my grandma’s 80th birthday. Was pretty fun, seeing everyone again after so long. Monday was FAM, we had fun performing, food was too little, felt underdressed but it’s okay it’s okay! I’m just glad that it’s all over. We went to school to collect stuff on Tuesday, and on the way there my iPod died. Made my passport on Wednesday, and today I’m sick. So that pretty much sums up the week.

The house is getting painted next week! I GET MY YELLOW ROOM. So we spent the day clearing and packing the house and I fell asleep half way but you didn’t really need to know that.

She falls to the ground

Today is Mingfang’s 18th birthday. Tomorrow’s my grandma’s 80th birthday, so there’s dinner. Sunday’s Debbie’s 16th birthday. Yesterday was Chee’s 16th birthday, and the day before, Cyssel turned semi-legal as well. And I thought October was a happening month.

Mummy’s hooked on to Shihlin snacks, Daddy’s hooked on Rubik’s cube. Brother’s hooked onto Maple Story. I am…ennui.

E.T and Shii came over to practice this morning. For like fifteen minutes. Then we switched to “learning online” by showing E.T Mayday videos. Then I plopped down to Outram to practice with the other group. Sometimes you just gotta face things head on and things will probably turn out better. That applies to everything. Maybe we’ll be able to get through FAM decently man, big maybe. There’s practice tomorrow, again. Not really looking forward to it, but I’m avoiding it less than in the past.

I can’t wait for everything to be over – FAM is on Monday, cK’s O’s end Tuesday, Amanda will be back from the land of sushi and answer my Superheroes call and give me new powers, then maybe Louise can stop trying to steal my Rubber Body. Maybe I’m suffering from band withdrawal symptoms.

You see this is how life is without school, exams and such. It’s pretty empty. You can hear echoes.

To The End

Yep that’s D.ITN symmetrically presented to you. Mandy, Claire, Val, Louise and cK. And yep this was what we wore in contrast to the black & black theme that every other band there wore.

And we’ll go on, to the end.