.

I feel like a 败家子.

’nuff said.

We’re all turning and turning, and burning and burning

Things have been a little bit better; D.ITN’s finally getting down to some serious practice, so we’re finally getting somewhere. Louise has been the most awesome drummer, I am glad she is eating much. XD I still need to work on my riffs, and we need to get tighter.

My mom found the wonders of Daiso over the weekend, so she told me to grab anything I liked. So I got Japanese emoticon stickers, which are awesomely cute. And now I can’t bear to use them. >______< She also realized that there’s a gigantic Spotlight outlet at Plaza Singapura, where she can buy all her art&craft stuff. One (free) day, I’ll introduce her to Lin Tong and we’ll take a tour around Bugis/Haji Lane. It’s actually pretty fun going out with my family; I can’t believe that I hated it when I was younger. I used to bug my parents everytime we’re out with whines of “WHAT TIME IS IT ARE WE GOING HOME YET” every five minutes or so, but the situation has been reversed now.

I’m actually down with gastric now; it’s been going on for a few days already but I didn’t see the need to go to the doctor’s till today when I nearly fainted in the middle of Orchard Road. It’s a terrible, terrible, exorciating feeling as if your whole torso was contracting. Thankfully there was Maylyn, who accompanied me back to meet my parents. I need to change my eating habits – I need more meals! Because apparently it is really unhealthy to eat with 7-hour intervals between your meals. Doctor recommends to bring a food bag to school with snacks.

I’ve given up on my Mission 101, because I obviously don’t check the list everyday to see what I need to do/have done, so I’m totally lost at what I’ve been doing. Which defeats the purpose don’t you think? So I redid it, into a 2008 THINGS TO LOOK AT list (my OCD kicks in again). It helps to better put things into perspective.

Anyway, my brother seems to be growing into a really sensible, mature young male, I’m surprised he’s actually using proper english to blog now…don’t all thirteen-year-olds speak in l337sp34k?

Finally, HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONGRUI! Your age finally starts with a “2″ in front. Have fun counting down to ORD!

Lost or something

School has started. I’m happy, yet not happy. I looked forward to going back to school but when it has finally started I’m kind of lost, like the whole bubble of enthusiasm I had for school just broke or something. No wait actually that’s not very true. I’m mentally ready, but physically exhausted. And, like my purpose in life has just disappeared again.

Okay fine so I’m just quite lost with what I want to do in future since I sort of reconsidered my future and realized that it was a bit unpractical, so I thought out another path for my future, and discussed it with my parents, and got their approval. In fact it’s pretty aligned with my dad’s idea of what I should do in the future. My mom says just grow up and become a good useful person, and she’ll be happy. So it seems that all is well and good now but I’m having problems prioritizing everything now. Over the March holidays my love for composing things was rekindled, and I was all like, I WANNA BE A PRODUCER again but since my goal in life has changed I have to relook my priorities, which means STUDY > DOING MUSIC THINGS, which again is kind of wrong because I want to run my own studio and stuff, and still be a producer, and of course be with D.ITN. So it’s kind of a 50-50 situation now. Rawr.

And I’m totally lost on the project I’m supposed to be working on for McC.

Love Love Love with the Minimum Fuss

Last weekend of the holidays was spent at Weekend Trip! Four bands played 45-minute sets, but honestly I only enjoyed one – Leeson’s set. Man, they’re so good I have to plug them right here and right now.

Leeson is a five-piece pop rock/dance band which consists of Jamie(vox), Gerald(guitar), Thomas(guitar), Brian(bass) and Mark(drums). They’ve been around since 2004 and they play absolutely hot music, and they should totally update their websites with their other tracks. I’ve heard stuff like “Absolute Beginners”, “The King” and my all-time favourite “Some Girls” on Saturday night and I’m totally hooked on them now. They’re like my favourite local band. So go have a listen and catch them at Baybeats’08!

Right I plugged them.

Sunday was spent sleeping half the day away and doing last minute homework.

So it’s uh, back to school now. Term Two ‘08 let’s make it good. It’s been a good start today; I feel accomplished and happy albeit a little sleepy…the holiday mood hasn’t quite gotten out of my system, and it probably won’t till next week since Friday is Good Friday.

Guitar Camp; Dinner.

Went back to the alma mater for RGGE’s guitar camp 2008! Said hi to the juniors, koped the extra lunch packets, caught up with Debbie and played double whacko with the GE. It seems only yesterday that Xinmin, Yin Yun and gang were Sec 1s and now look, they are helming the ensemble. I’m especially proud of them, because they were the batch that I taught personally, the batch whom I lured into joining bass and the batch which I’ve been with the longest. I miss RGGE so much.

After that I ran some errands around Orchard and browsed through Borders…couldn’t bear to use my gift card yet because I’ve so many unread books at home I don’t feel the need to get new books. Headed to Clarke Quay to meet Fuzzy, where we then migrated to a conspicuous corner of Central to work on stuff and wait for Louise and cK. They arrived at about seven and we went to dinner at Long John Silver’s.

Then the fun happened.

So cK says there’s this guy who plays at the tunnel at the Singapore River. We adjourned to look for him after dinner, and evidently she was correct. There was a guy, busking with his acoustic guitar in the middle of the tunnel. It was a magic tunnel, because the acoustics were natural, due to the shape and architecture of the tunnel. The guy’s called David and he busks at different places all the time, but mostly at that tunnel. So I took out my guitar and hey we started busking.

We played a whole range of tunes from Bon Jovi’s It’s My Life to the Beatles, Robbie Williams, 3 Doors Down, to jazzy things like Fly Me To The Moon…so I learnt a few jazz chords from David. We stayed around for an hour or so, watching people walk by, some listening to us, some throwing coins/notes, some even singing along and dancing, some totally ignoring us. It was awesome fun I tell you, and David’s one unique busker that no one bothers to notice so if you go there do say hi to him and he’ll play you a few songs. Hopefully we’ll get to busk with him again pretty soon. I think we made him happy, and evidently he did make us feel happy too.

Anyway so things to note: Bring my acoustic when I go out, learnt to improv solos better, and SING LOUDER LOUISE.

Okay, recovered.

It’s not very wise to try to write scores for a Shakespearean play while listening to the Step Up OST.

I guess the previous post was rather cathartic. The sudden rush of emotions these few days…it’s magical, really. I haven’t felt like this since a long time ago. Secondary 2 maybe. That crazy age. But yeah I’ve been churning out things like the way blood flows out of a gash. Then soon the blood will clot and it will stop for a while, till I scratch the scab open again. Painful, yes, but pleasure.

I’ve reverted to instrumentals, for the time being. I should keep to it. Words mess my brain up anyway. Wrote a waltz of some sort, and leeyang521 says that it has a mix of Strauss and Beethoven in it. I don’t listen to Strauss. But Beethoven…hmm. Compliment of some sort? But yep. I am encouraged thank you very much. 

Apart from that, I’ve also nailed half of Sungha Jung’s version of More Than Words. But arr, I cannot catch up with that boy. He churns out songs faster than I do. And he’s eleven. That’s kind of like, when I wrote my first song. It was called “The Journey”. No idea why I titled it that, and I’m proud of it because it had a modulation to Eb major somehow. (you know that eleven-year-olds don’t play Eb major.) But anyway yeah, I feel accomplished.

I also saw the prettiest home studio today, on SOFT. Fibredrive’s is just way cool. But it’s $10k worth of equipment. So I have a lot of working to do before I get that, aye? I want – Headphones + Line6 PODxt + Cables + Microphone + Electronic Drum set + Amplifier + Good speakers.

Right, an update on More Than Words, I’m DONE with it! Yep. Shall um, play it for A03A when we meet on Monday eh? Shall move on to something else now; I’m in a I-can-play-everything-because-I-know-I’m-sekretly-pro mood, so I will attempt another three songs today.

Right again, I’ve gotten the skeletons of the Shakespearean thing nailed as well, so +5000 brownie points for me. Now it’s just how to make it spectacular by the deadline (which is….i-dunno-when).

And on a final note, tomorrow be good day because I’m going back to visit RGGE! (if I don’t get kicked out by the security guards first) and Debbie’s coming along as well, so I’m going to see my favourite-est chairperson again! Then after that Riverside + dinner with D.ITN so they’ll probably make my day. They always do.

To get irritated is to lose your way in life

I am lost.

Too many things caused by too many reasons by too many people all on this little island. Most of it comes from bad behaviour of the typical citizen, with other little matters being interim, but it’s really just a fluster of feelings lost within your heart and you don’t know what to do.

I sort of feel that I’ve completely ruined my future, by going to JC, by taking the subject combination I’m taking now. (I have a feeling of deja vu at this point. Have I said this before?) I checked out universities over the weekend, and the course I want to apply for requires certain subjects that I don’t take. In fact the only subject that I take, stated in their requirements, is Math. But everybody takes Math.

In fact I am completely lost, to the point that I have no idea what I have in plan for myself, I have no idea about my plans for tomorrow, what more in two years’ time. I have no idea if I should continue what I’ve been doing, attempting to carve out my little space in the world. Maybe that space doesn’t belong to me. Maybe it does but society doesn’t let me have it. They’ll allocate another little space in me. Somewhere at the other end of the spectrum.

I am sick and tired of trying to conform to other people’s ideas of success; the mainstream in general. I am sick of 拼-ing my life away to write things to fit other people’s requests. I refuse to damage my style any further. I don’t want my soul to get slowly eaten away. I don’t want to write things, and end up feeling horribly ashamed that I could produce such a sub-standard piece of work. In fact I think I was being like that the whole of 2007, and deluding myself that it was The Way to Go. You know what. Every single Chinese song I’ve written last year was c-r-a-p. Crap. Competitions drove me mad. People drove me mad.

Every second, some part of me is being chewed away. This isn’t the life I want to live. In fact I don’t know how much more of a life I have to live.

I don’t want to live under other people’s expectations. I don’t want to be a 9-5 zombie. I want my little space.

HAPPENING!

Holidays have been pure bliss so far.

Thursday. Slept in until 8 (okay fine that’s not really sleeping in) then I woke up to do some arranging and math. Then I had lunch with Mummy and we went to Takashimaya; Mummy went to Cold Storage and I went to Kinokuniya, where I blew 20 cents (and many vouchers) on Joplin’s Complete Rags, Haruki Murakami’s Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet. I need to catch up on my reading, and I’ve come to realize how beautiful Asian literature is. The translators at work are pure geniuses to be able to retain the mood and ambience of the Japanese settings and culture in English. Which is why I say Shii, がんばってください！Become the best translator there has ever been in Singapore! Mm. After I paid for my stuff, I walked out and bumped into Shii’s mom, who told me that Shii was in Kino as well. And Shii has the 20% discount card. Which meant that I could have saved a lot of money/bought more books. !!! So I wasn’t very happy. But anyway I went back and talked to her for a while before heading off to get Sebby + Louis’s birthday cake. Met the class at Billy Bombers for dinner and the boys’ birthday celebration. (Sidenote: Boys being boys, pretended to be totally nonchalant about the cake but I know DEEP DOWN INSIDE you both appreciate it a lot right. XD Happy Birthday you two!) So that was the night.

Friday. Met Shii for Macs breakfast! Something I haven’t eaten in a really long time so I was a very happy girl after that. Walked around and we bought matching Rilakkuma pencilcases! Hopped on a bus to SAFRAtampines after that, where we played awesome pool for once. I swear it’s due to the absence of Chowwie and Joanna. I managed to sink a record of three balls in a row so yay me. We played 6 games; I won three, Shii won three. But I lost two of the games due to the fact that I hit the black 8-ball in before the game even started. In fact my last game had me sinking in four balls in a row (but the last 8-ball was a total accident so let’s just stop here). I’m improving see.

Today. Guitarred in the morning before I met Barbie for Step Up 2. Awesome, awesome movie so go catch it when you’re free. Bought a bracelet and a necklace so I’m happy. I have no idea why but I tend to spend money ONLY with Barbie. But oh well. It’s not like we go out everyday or anything.

Blew quite a lot of money in the past three days, so I need to start saving!

(and mugging.)

God doesn’t throw dice.

Above title, said by Einstein. (heard this from Batman <3)

Everything happens for a reason. I probably don’t know why things are turning out like that now, but I’m sure the Up Aboves have greater plans for me.

So yes, with that, and Sowden’s order to PROVE THEM ALL WRONG, I will work very very hard.

The holidays have started !!! So amazings. I have like, 2349830948309 things on my To-Do list so I shall start now.

Because I’ve missed them out

On 4th March,

HAPPY 17th, SEBBY!

HAPPY 22nd, JERRY!

On 5th March,

HAPPY 17th, LOUIS!

HAPPY 17th, YONGSTER!

HAPPY 17th, TIM!