A Space of My Own 我的空间

Blogging to escape from mid-term revisions. Help!

I should have started earlier. I should have focused earlier! Now I don’t know what to do. 😦

Even Choir practices are a form of escapism for me now. I feel stressed. Yesterday Jocelyn could see that clearly on my face during practice. Haha.

I don’t want to talk about mid-terms now. Since I started off about Choir, I’ll talk about Choir. It will be Choir and CME to Phoenix Fest.

Oh yes, I found Li Wei’s blog! Linked it on the left side of my space, go hunt for it and have a look-see, haha. She blogged about Choir too! That’s what made me compelled to do so.

My aca groups! Sukiyaki and Our Story (direct translation). Sukiyaki is progressing fine! It would be OK for me, I memorized everything and sing on tune, except for ONE snag. I need to sing in a NON-choir voice. And I can’t!

I’ve been singing with my tummy for ages. It’s hard to switch back. Poor Jocelyn was quite frustrated teaching me to do so yesterday. Usually people have a problem singing with an ‘choir’ voice. For me it’s the opposite. But I’m progressing. I really am. *Sigh* But ever so slowly.

And Our Story – the group I’m in charge of is having problems with the rhythm. It’s quite depressing, seeing us all progress so fast at first yet making the same mistakes over and over again and not yet able to perfect things. And there’s so little time left. We practiced so much! But each time we cannot make it. And the time we’re wasting just repeating rehearsed parts sometimes gets on my nerves. It’s quite discouraging.

Still, I love my group members and wouldn’t exchange a single one of them for anyone better. Li Wei described all her group members so I want to do this also! (Sorry for being such a copy-cat Li Wei, but I love your descriptions! Imitation is the best form of flattery.)

Our Story – my baby. Oh well it’s not, but I like to think it is. Or perhaps I’ll say it’s my adopted child (adopted from Shu Shan).

• Lead – Wayne! Big Kor-Kor (unofficially my granddad, don’t ask me the reason), if not for his help I’ll be dead la. Helps to train, gives good suggestions, helps in all the ways he can to make our group better, and constantly encourages too! His singing is nice too, haha.
• Sopranos – Zhong Yi and me 🙂 Well I can’t talk about myself, I sing other parts more than my own so I’m a bad Soprano I think. Haha, sometimes I end up remembering the wrong parts and singing tenor/alto when we drop scores! Zhong Yi doesn’t come much for practices, she has very heavy commitments outside, but I must say she’s a perfect member to have! No coaching required, even helps to point out people’s mistakes. Way to go, Zhong Yi!
• Altos – Swee Yee & Hui Yi. Their names rhyme! The diligent altos, especially Hui Yi, who always practices on her own. You can just see the effort when they sing! I like my altos, they are inspiring to work with because they work hard.
• Tenors – BoSheng & Yu Xiang. Yu Xiang’s a new member but he’s the only one (apart from Wayne I guess) who bothers to listen to the mp3 properly. Quite a good sight singer, voice quite prominent too. Bosheng’s quite quiet, the member I talk the least to, maybe, but can see he’s working hard too.
• Basses – Gant and the ever-grinning Hu Xiang. LOL HuX’s the high bass where Gant is the low one. Basses are the most difficult part (at first), can really see them straining to sing well, poor things. They try so hard and I must say they are making very good progress. Especially poor Gant who cannot reach some super high notes but really tries his best to reach it. He’s got a very nice bassy sound though, while Hu X is more sensitive to music notes. Working with them is fun!

Next up, Sukiyaki!

• Lead – Me, who desperately needs to sing in a non-choir voice.
• Sopranos – Hui Yi and Jocelyn. Hui Yi is as good as ever, learned all her parts by the 2nd week and is so familiar with them too! Jocelyn is cute and funny, so pro in Jap too! She taught me how to pronounce the ‘r’s the right way. 🙂
• Altos – Swee Yee and Li Wei. Swee Yee is the official group leader who talks and makes announcements. Quite nice to be working under her, she’s very encouraging too. Li Wei’s so hardworking with the …! (… = our secret weapon). I wouldn’t have been that hardworking myself. Hehe. I’m so glad her effort’s paying off.
• Tenor – Wayne. The solo tenor who got the Altos off the hook and took all the weird sounding notes. Lightens up the group atmosphere by his humorous Jap pronunciation and his being bullied by the girls (willingly of course).
• Basses – Jerome and Hu X. Jerome’s a fantastic bass! Self trained, just the right voice, adds rhythm and momentum to our song. He’s the official group leader who talks less and Hu X’s personal coach. LOL HuX’s making good progress too. XD

Working with these people is fun! But one year of Choir is quite enough I think. I have learned the MAX I could within this frame of time (will elaborate why later), so I’m retiring for next year.

Anticipating Phoenix Fest and Amplitude despite the training stress! If only I could have that kind of feeling for mid-term tests!

It’s not officially named that, the name is coined by me. 🙂 That was yesterday, by the way.

Yesterday I came down to Comm Hall at 5.00 a.m in the morning, the time you can really be sure that the comm hall piano is vacant, with my Biggest Fan (please note that this title is given by her herself, not me). We played and sung for two hours and a half, ending with breakfast past 7.30 a.m. All I can say was my Biggest Fan got really high and excited over the long-deprived piano therapy, and discovered lots of gold mines in random songs I brought up.

After breakfast I rushed to Science to hand in my lab report, a load off my shoulders! Came back to band room around 9.30 a.m. As I expected, only a small handful of people turned up at that time, Wei Bin sitting on top of the piano (looking bored) and a small group of tenor and basses practicing diligently. I was the only girl.

After 20-25 minutes, people started appearing and there were enough to start a reasonable practice (but the numbers were still less than half our members). We started warming up and practicing. All the way until lunch. There were certain new elements introduced in the practice though, that made me realize that Choir is more than singing alone. =P

We had lunch together at FASS, first time I had lunch there. The food was wonderful! And the canteen was really big. Enjoyed the food and company to the max. Got to know my fellow Sops a bit better! LOL being with the Choir group is fun. Made me suddenly inclined to join choir for one more year.

I had to go up to a makeup lecture after lunch. Again, I forgot to drink coffee in the morning, so I really had a torturous two hours nodding away in LT 7 while our bubbly and cheery lecturer explained about MATLAB. I really felt sorry about that, not because I missed parts of the lecture – it was web casted, but because I was within his sight and that wasn’t a nice thing to do while your lecturer is lecturing and trying to make the lecture interesting.

Went back to Choir practice and sang all the way until tea. Forced myself to take a nap afterwards though the piles of books looked inviting, the day was still long.

In the end I enjoyed my sleep so much that I slept too long and had to tapao my dinner in order not to miss CME practice. Saw Phea unexpectedly during dinner time, but then couldn’t chat because it was time for practice. The practice was a good one, for once; we didn’t have many good first-times. Everyone just looked at the score and played. We even discussed the arrangement among ourselves, and the arrangement was really nice. I think. =P

CME practice started at 7 and ended at 9.15. Good thing there was another group waiting to practice, if not it’d never end. Time for a bath at last, I thought. I went to the SCRC room to get it’s keys from Johnson who was practicing inside with Keith for Unplugged. He told me they’d take an hour plus or so, but it became more than two hours – and was still not done! I was surprised at the delay.

" Can you give us 3-4 minutes? We need your help," said Johnson. It turned out that he and Keith had been singing and playing in different keys for since don’t know when. Poor Keith was spending time tuning and capo-ing his guitar to find Johnson’s pitch, and my, it was hard to find, he kept on changing keys! So they changed songs again and again, with the same problem. We finally pinned down one song, and one key.

And the 3-4 minutes dragged all the way until 10p.m., which was time for my aca practice to begin. No bath for me. But at least that was when I had dinner.

Aca practice was satisfactory too, though far from perfect. The problem is finding a time to practice together next week. The only time available was Monday, but I have 3 exams on Tuesday! I’m sure that even if I was so self-sacrificial to put it on Monday, Gant would not consent! He is taking the same modules as I am too.

Reached my room around 1.30 a.m and took the long desired bath. Then had a nice long sleep, and woke up around at intervals at 9.30, 12.40 and 5.15p.m today! I just couldn’t help sleeping again and again. Was too sleep-deprived the past week, I guess. Poor Wei Bin might’ve came to find me to get the SCRC keys while I was fast asleep too. I don’t know. Now I’m holding both the band room key and SCRC key.

Another aftermath of yesterday was, I found out Wayne was not the only one in need of the extra-strong Strepsils I passed him. I woke up today quite dry in the throat and my cough worsened a little. Must take care of my voice – if not all this practicing would be in vain.

Had a very thought-provoking day. Wai Pheng and Chao Yian have returned home, Tirza’s in Thailand and Thierry’s in Hong Kong. That means there was only Jon, Nick and me who went to church.

Sat with Jon on the bus and had a nice long talk on the way to church. Won’t go into the details here, but it sort of spurred me on to think a lot. Even up till now I have issues swirling round my head, and I suddenly realize that I’m confused over things I never thought about before.

This semester I have been rather people-oriented. It has given me a nice feeling, I finally feel that I am actually capable of reaching out and bonding with people more. I guess, in my NUS life, there are a small number of people who have formed a integral part of my life, so much that things concerning them become things that concern me too. And this small number of people is slowly expanding, from day to day.

It is only today that I realize that I may actually not know them as who they are. No, ‘may’ is not the word. I do not know them, I came to find. Or most of them, at least.

People have a sense of self-protection that increases as they grow and mature, it’s like the rings of a tree you see when you cut it down, they increase every year. I know people who hide their inner-selves very well, some who used to be transparent, and easy to read. They were once vulnerable, but once bitten, twice shy; now they are so complex on the outside that you hardly know how to look into them to find the real them.

Between people who are naturally complex and those who try to make themselves hard to understand, it is the latter that gives me a foggy, uncertain feeling. It is not distrust, it is the feeling of not being trusted, perhaps. But trust is a very fragile thing, once it’s in the wrong hands, it’s hard to redeem.

I find myself trusting people more and more as I grow up, contrary to most of my peers. I used to remind my sister not to pour out all her feelings and trust to people; yet I find myself investing my own feelings and trust in friends around me more and more. I have been fortunate not to have been hurt by friends in the past; but then again, this is indeed the real world, and making oneself vulnerable is certainly not a wise thing to do.

But all the same, I suddenly feel reluctant to give more to people whom I don’t even know. I don’t know if they trust me, or if I should really trust them since I do not know who they are too.

The issue between putting on a mask or veil and taking it off is so delicate, and so complex on its own. It’s suddenly sort of frightening to think myself ministering to people that I do not know in the inside. Not that I doubt their integrity – but it’s kind of weird to say that, so-and-so is my friend, but I do not know him/her.

Human beings are such interesting creations of God, there is so much in them that are unexpected; there is so much to discover. And when you find something that’s genuine, that’s real and concrete, you feel that it is such a beautiful thing to discover.

Be trusting, and you make yourself vulnerable; be over-wary, you create invisible barriers that hinder your friendship into growing more deep and meaningful.

I do not demand any of my friends to be transparent, or completely opaque. It’s just that I never thought over this issue for quite a while, haven’t really sat down to do my ‘people-analyzing’ for some time, and time has moved on. The changes and new discoveries are just a bit overwhelming at the moment.

There are worries at the back of my head over other issues too, that do not really directly concern me. Should I just learn to let go instead of loading myself with unnecessary burdens?

I wonder.

All the same, it does give me a sense of security that although I do not know a person’s personality inside out, I do see that that person’s concern and love towards me is sincere. I suppose that is enough for me to trust and to love in return. After all, we can’t understand everyone, and it’s alright for people to have secrets to safeguard themselves. I think. My own personality is now more exposed than hidden, but I do have secrets of my own too.

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Oh yes, as a side-note, my entry on Blogthings has 60 comments, new record created!

This is totally unrelated to what I said above but I wonder why blogs I read nowadays have a very melancholic feel about them. Perhaps it’s because people view blogs as an outlet to express their pent up feelings, and after letting go, it just makes them feel better.

All the same, it would always be more refreshing to read something uplifting once in a while, songs of hope, instead of people constantly dwelling in depths of despair.

Not all are fortunate to be blessed with smooth sailing lives, but perhaps sometimes we forget to look out for that silver lining in the cloud. And perhaps when we’re smooth-sailing, the days would seem rather flat and monotonous to blog.

Or somehow, it’s tears, remorse, regrets and heavy thoughts that move people more? Take love songs for instant, I think the sad-themed ones are somehow more popular, than those who sing on how happy they are to have each other. More people can relate to them, those who are lonely, rejected, living with regret.

Is it the same for blogs?

Finding joy everyday can be tough, but I trust it’s do-able. I’m constantly trying to live a life of joy too, and sometimes, when you see that silver lining, the blessing it gives you far exceeds the burdens of the day. It may be in the form of a smile, a new experience, or some small, kindly gesture from a person you call a friend. It may be seeing someone you haven’t met for a while, it may be a word of encouragement, it may be a ‘jiayou’ from a fellow uni student who’s struggling along the same as you are, but actually cared to encourage you as he/she presses on. It may also be reading that someone is ‘trying not to disappoint’, that’s really a nice thing to know, LOL!

It takes so little to be joyful. Yet the effects are so profound.

Night cycling. I gave it up.

Believe it or not, this decision was a tough one. But weighing the pros and cons (I did think that a bit of outdoor experience would be good exercise too), in the end, academic matters rule. Especially after the CN1111 lecturers announced that we will be examined up till week 6, which I can’t understand!! I don’t want to fail BADLY in my exam, even though it’s a mid-term. We were warned that this mid-term is going to be tough. Worse still, it’s a Chem Engin bell curve. And I’ve yet to finish my lab report.

If it wasn’t for the Choir Camp on Monday, I would have gone for night cycling. But I prayed about it and decided that, no, it’s not a wise decision. I don’t want to mess up this time’s mid term results. And I don’t feel guilty for giving it up, just a tiny tinge of regret. Well, at least I got to cycle a bit today while accompanying Wing Mei to practice. I haven’t cycled since I was 10 years old. Sigh, Jon’s antics reminded me of the 10-year-old me.

I’m waiting for pics in Jon and Tirza’s blog k… hope you guys have great fun, and take great pics! I’m going to have a great peace of mind mugging here too, haha.

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Today’s BS topic was rather… heavy, if I could put it that way. Basically, Simon was using Paul as an example to remind us of the failing physical body of ours. As he read through Ecclesiastes, how the human body is wasted away physically, my thoughts were on the last funeral I attended. I remember looking at her face for the last time, looking at her body. And now, now my tears are flowing again, as I recall pastor saying ‘dust to dust’.

The physical form I once knew, was no more. I often try to imagine what it would be like if I were in her place. To watch the cocoon go away, and the spirit break free. I wonder if I was as accountable as she was. I fall short of the Lord’s standards, always.

NUS’s flying weeks reminds us that our lives depreciate day by day. Before we know it, we’re heading for mid-terms. Then the finals.

Before we know it, we’re headed for life’s ultimate test. The judgment before the Lord. What will he say to me on that day.

After I came back to my room when BS was over, Chao Yian was online and he showed me this. It’s so shocking. I have only been back to NUS for less than two months and here’s the second big case.

Even in NUS, I don’t know when it will be me. Or anyone of you. Who knows, when the day we have to face the Lord is. Will the Finals come upon you when you least expect it?

This year, I learn to cherish life so much more, and to prepare myself for death. All the same, looking at eternity doesn’t mean we have to neglect everything we have in the present. Exams – what has MA1506 got to do when we step into eternity? What has all this engineering knowledge got to do when the Lord judges us? Is it all that unimportant?

It is not.

I just want to say that if I’m an engineer, I don’t want the things I do to hurt, harm, or kill anyone.
I don’t want any cranes falling down or chemicals exploding just because I was slack for midterms or finals.
I don’t want the souls of people to be suddenly lost because I was irresponsible now.

I don’t want that. That’s why, I’m going to study hard. To be accountable.

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Uncle Ivan was present during BS today. I finally managed to see him in person, haha. He wanted to recruit people for the Drama team for Easter. It was a 3 week preparation. Very short. A rush, definitely but a short rush.

Imagine how bad I felt inside when I couldn’t commit even that. All the practice times clashed with Choir. And with studies to juggle, I doubt that I could even manage to do backstage stuff, the things I can do in my room.

I cannot describe the feeling I had when he actually personally asked me if I was able to join in the singing. He heard me singing during the Praise and Worship, that’s why. It was very hard, but I just had to say ‘no’. I wish I didn’t need to say ‘no’ but I thought it was better to say ‘no’ than pull out at the last minute like night cycling.

I never knew I thought singing was one of my talents before I came to NUS, but I still served in my church choir. Now I’m here, I know I could sing well (relatively), but instead of serving, I just sing in hall.

And after BS, I went to play a few pieces just for some pre-study de-stressing, and was heard by the whole group of them upstairs. Their praising my playing didn’t make it any better either. Again, I was reminded by the fact that I never used my musical talent in church either. I remember talking to Nick (and Simon) about it last time, but I just couldn’t commit that vast amount of time for practice.

What is the use for having talents that are from God, that I love, but not using them for His sake.

I used to have sing Praise and Worship songs together with Wing Mei on the piano this year, but those days have lessened considerably this year. Either she is busy, or I am.

I want to sing and play for God again, but time does not permit me to do so. But still, my only consolation is, my voice and my fingers are always there when I need a quiet time of playing and thinking before God.

Perhaps one day, I will play for the church again.

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One last thing to share.

I want to praise God for his grace in forgiving. And loving.

I skipped my quiet time, it was a rather ‘off more than on’ thing in the past week.

Jia Li (my room mate) was very stressed over her German test (and other things through the week). I suppose she didn’t want to burden me during the week, so she didn’t share much with me, but I could sense that she was so stressed that it was scary to see.

Before her test I offered to pray for her together with her (the least I can do). So we prayed together. But then, most unexpectedly, after I prayed for her, she offered to pray for me.

Jia Li is quite sensitive, she speaks in tongues and she is rather sensitive to the Spirit. I wondered if she sensed anything that was going on in my life. I do short, on-call prayers with God all day, but not the super long ones anymore, nor do I really put much into my quiet time.

I remembered XJ’s message to me last year, and I wonder if God would chide me again.

Imagine how aghast I was when she told me when she prayed, she sensed the word ‘delight’.

Her message to me was, God delights in my putting every little thing in prayer before Him. (Indeed, I do pray over all the trivial little matters).

To me, her message was, God still loves me and is still there to forgive me and love me although I didn’t take care of this relationship between Him and me. I have wronged Him so much that I feel remorse every time I turn to Him, yet He gives me the word ‘delight’.

To me, the word ‘delight’ was equivalent to ‘I still love you. So much’.

Hence, I want to turn back and start over. My life is full of start-overs, but it’s never too much or too late to do it again. I want to glorify Him in this fleeting life I have.

If the God who made the Universe and everything in existence is for me, who can be against me. How can the mini things in life compare to Him, so big and magnificent and full of grace.

And how can I be stupid enough to exchange Him for those.

Simon said if we do something to glorify God, in His name, and delight in Him whilst doing so, it is good, it is living for God.

I’m going to live for God, to study for God, to include Him in every aspect on my life. For He was so willing to love such an undeserving me. For in Him, and Him only there is such infinite love, forgiveness and grace for a sinner – me.

Mugging for God. Living for God. Enjoying and cherishing life and people – for God.

A new beginning.

Today (or it’ll be yesterday by the time I send this in), was another tiring day.

Yesterday night I meant to finish more work, but fell asleep instead. Sigh. Watched handball yesterday night and had Choir practice after that. "Our Story" is still very behind schedule. I don’t know why, in terms of attendance we’re doing quite OK, but when we learn things we always get stuck… and move on really slowly. The end result was really , quite depressing. Well at least EVERYONE more or less knows there parts now. I can see hours taken off my recess week because of this song. Sigh, sigh sigh.

On a side note, Raffles Hall male handball team managed to defend last year’s championship! Golly, I don’t know I could be so emo watching a handball game which none of my close friends are playing. There were times that I felt that I could cry, especially after they won, but I checked myself, haha. Maybe it’s the spirit of people working so hard for something and finally getting rewarded for it that struck me. All I can say is, they certainly deserve the win, and I’m happy for the final years to who won their very last IHG handball match.

I had classes straight from 10am-5pm today. Was sleepy through more than half of them. After that I had to rush to PGP for the MSL Chinese New Year reunion dinner. Attendance was surprisingly low, I didn’t expect many hall people but I did think that more PGP-ians will come. Well, $8.00 for a meal is certainly a turn-off for Malaysians when they could see MSL-ians any other day I suppose. The meal was good though. I think the few of us from RH were rather off in terms of participation, it is that we’ve suddenly found this gap between us and the PGP-ians… as for the seniors, I didn’t talk to any of them, just sort of waved to Eng Aun. Oh yes, I did, I talked to Jon Chan while he was serving my food. There were some other hall people there too – Kenny from Eusoff, Christopher from Temasek. And I did talk to many year ones, even those I didn’t really know well during orientation.

We left early from PGP because of Choir practice. Part of me was glad to leave because they were playing games, and I don’t really fancy these get-together games. We might have grouped to ourselves a lot and acted like wet blankets to some extent, but still, I’m glad I went. This visit returned to me a fraction of the feeling I found in MSL during orientation. People have grouped together and formed cliques and clans, and being in hall, I might be left out to some extent; but still, MSL has been my first family away from home, it gave me a feeling that I didn’t find during hall orientation, and to do that within just 5 days is certainly incredible. I still keep in touch with MSL-ians on and off all the time via MSN and when we meet, and I hope I’ll continue doing that.

Oh, tonight’s Choir practice was so satisfactory compared to the one last night. We actually managed to finish early and everyone learned their parts! Bravo! Now I only have the other song to worry about. After choir, Swee Yee, Li Wei, Wayne and I went to Shu Shan’s room to visit her. Her foot was still swollen. It was a rather funny visit because Li Wei was intrigued by the big King Kong on Nyein Nyein’s bed next door, and kept popping over to look at it. Her boyfriend found us amusing too, I think! LOL We even sang part of Sukiyaki for Shu Shan outside her door. Hope this wouldn’t stop the Block 3 people from attending Phoenix Fest and Amplitude!

After this I’m going to rush my IT lab report and my CM lab report. I know I should get sufficient rest for night-cycling, so if I can’t I’ll just have to deposit my camera to somebody together with it’s batteries and miss it altogether. It’s quite dangerous to cycle without rest I think, especially me not touching the bike for such a long time, and have been quite unfocused recently. So Jon, I REALLY mean it when I said I might not be going tomorrow. Perhaps the time will be more well-spent if I studied instead.

Well, I’ll start chiong-ing now and see how I do.

Didn’t blog yesterday because blogging would have been too much. Haha. I decided that it was more profitable to sleep and skip the 8-10 am lecture and watch web cast instead, because firstly, I need my sleep (really I do), and secondly, my lecturer lectures in such a way that without pausing everything in the webcast to absorb what he says, I’ll never know what he’s talking about and be totally lost in the remainder of the two hours.

Still, it was a long, long day. Had SSD lecture in the School of Design and Environment, where we learned a rather interesting topic about torts. Pity the lecturer couldn’t finish early although the slides were much lesser than usual, but still, I wasn’t late for the next class which was Physical Chemistry for Engineers. Then I followed Yew Hong to Science for short tour in the library block while waiting for my lab session to start.

It was my very first lab session in NUS, and I’m glad God granted my prayer – I prayed for a good partner and got one. She was a polytechnic graduate in Year 2, but taking the same modules as us. Anyway, it’s good to have a partner who has at least done experiments before, haha. The experiment was quite time consuming and although I heeded Yew Hong’s advice in doing the second one first, some of the others in my group apparently had the same idea, and most of them took ALL their test tubes to be filled at one go, naturally taking a long time to do so. Quite a selfish act, I think. I couldn’t even fill in the vacant spaces beside them, because they were all guys and were taking up a lot of space.

It didn’t help that a lot of them took a pretty long time to fill up their test tubes and conical flasks too. One would think they’re doing titration instead of measuring liquid into a container. Anyway, I finished the experiment slightly after time was due, but fortunately I did not have class directly after that, so I was able to complete my observation table leisurely. The lab assistant was very nice, and pretty too! My lab partner was prettier though, haha. I always get paired up with beautiful girls. I was glad to finally be able to take off my goggles, it made my nose itch and sweat.

After the experiment my day was far from over. I received an SMS from Chee Yong announcing that there was CME practice that very night at 10 p.m! I almost fainted when I heard that. In less than half an hour after the lab, I rushed to Life As A Complex System lecture. The lecturer was unexpectedly merciful though, he let us off before fifteen past seven, and the class was supposed to end at 8!

I was really tired by dinner-time, so I contemplated on whether I should watch the handball semis or not. It was quite a hard decision – the guys volleyball team MM was Wai Pheng, and there were a few people I knew playing, such as Cheng Zhi and Hu Xiang. In the end I went with the intention to take dinner for Si Jia, but in the end, somehow I didn’t need to… so just sat down there and watched the game, with my bag and all, I haven’t even changed out of my jeans! The first match was quite close, but the other for the other two, as described in the SMC article, Raffles ‘went tamely down’. Still it was a good game, and we do have very good male volleyball players in our hall! (OK, female players too, haha). Hmm… it’s a pity the SMC articles didn’t mention Cheng Zhi altogether except during the line-up, I thought he put up quite a good play, but still, I’m a sports noob, hehe.

After volleyball, I finally had my bath and went for CME practice. Saw Phea too, along the way and finally passed him that RH-Ed article I have been keeping for so long. It turns out that I’m going to perform for both Phoenix and Open House in CME. Sigh. I’m so going to die during recess week. Don’t get me wrong, I like CME, I like Farid, I like my Chinese Instrumental Group. But this is doing the things I like at the wrong time! It’s like being forced to play PC games during exam period, or something like that. Fortunately, there are only around 5 hours worth of practice during recess week, which is much less than Choir I think. This is going to be worse than last semester’s concert. I’m so NOT going to join two cultural groups at one go next year, especially during Phoenix Fest! I even offered to let other piano players take my place, and write their chords for them, but Farid said, "We prefer you." Zzzzz. What a price to pay for such flattering words, haha. I suppose it’s hard for other people to suddenly step into the job because we’re already used to each other as a group.

After CME, I chionged MATLAB theory with the hope that I could be able to do a bit of the next day’s lab, but in the end, I still have a few questions left hanging. Submission is on Friday, still have a bit of time left to figure them out. I fell asleep after 5 a.m… was too tired to study any more. Lab was at eight.

Oh yes, I haven’t started on my Chemistry lab report too. Nor watched yesterday’s web cast. I can foresee another sleepless night ahead.

This is going to be the entry that courses that particular
entry to be archived (finally). May I appeal to enthusiastic
commentators not to dig it out of the archives and continue
chit-chatting in there, there are a few potential record breakers that
aren’t archived yet. You can however, say your last words, haha.

Regarding that entry, I must say that this is the very first time I’ve
got 50 plus comments in one entry – though as The Ed has said – a big
part of it is my own, and the bulk of it is totally unrelated to the
content and by a few people only – it shows that my blog has gotten
more… interactive (as if that isn’t obvious enough). Stress and
school work might either cause people to be popping in here more often
as much as it could work the other way too.

And yay, people have finally updated their blogs – read Jerome’s the
other day, Tirza’s got a new entry in, Syen too, Xiao Chen, Tidus,
Sxiion as usual, Simon one, and then found three gold mines – Stacey,
Chew Wei and Sila’s blogs. Haha. Blogs for me to read, at last.

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Regarding the hostel price hike issue which was discussed in the SCRC
forum, I have surprisingly very few thoughts about it. My only
concern/feelings about it is, the hike is by A LOT more than before,
and that is going to be very inconvenient for those of us who have
thought out a four-year budget well and proper before entering
university. Of course we should be ready for last minute changes like
these, but this is a long-term one and it’s quite a big change.

I just emailed my dad about it today, and received his reply asking me
not to worry about that, we have enough to cover hostel fees. Still I
can’t help thinking about the fate of others who would not be so
fortunate – having not much time to adjust to the change, and the
uncertainty of the year ones next year who would probably have to stay
in single rooms next semester since demand for double rooms is really
high now. What will our hall be like in a few years time, when only
those who could afford could stay.

Oh yes, I’m going to stay in a double room until my final year, unless
I cannot manage to of course. Trading CCA points for good results
doesn’t seem a wise choice in the long run. It may be painful, but if I
have to make a choice, studies will always come first. There’s always
my uncle’s house to stay under the most desperate conditions.

---

I’m really lagging behind in
school work. Sleeping less doesn’t seem to yield very effective
results, I tend to over-sleep in the days after. Anyway, I’m still
sleeping late. My sleeping hours are getting weirder though. Most of it
is in the afternoon. Or at night, after dinner, around 8-10 p.m. Just
now somebody passed me the SCRC room keys when I was sleeping. I don’t
know who it is, but from my room mate’s description, it was a guy,
probably Wayne. It’s good thing Jia Li was around, if not, that
whoever-it-is would be listed down as yet another person who spoiled my
beauty sleep. I don’t know why, but I always sleep at the hours when
people suddenly feel like looking for me.

I don’t know why, but I don’t feel hungry for lunch any more, or
breakfast either. Not to mention tea. All the same, I do eat breakfast.

My first Physical Chemistry lab session tomorrow. Hope it will turn out
well. Now I’m reminded of the doc-like lab coat and the frog-like
goggles.
I’m also trying to anticipate an action packed 8 a.m to 8 p.m day. I’ll
be moving from the Engineering faculty to SDE , then back to
Engineering again and finally to Science. Well anyway, Science has a
nice Co-op that is good to explore. And Yew Hong is bringing me on a
tour to S5, S6 and the Science library. Haha, thanks Yew Hong, it’s the
second time you’re a tour guide this semester.

I really feel the stress looming up on me now (well it did quite some
time ago). Having a cough on top of it, and reading depressing MSN
captions doesn’t help much either.

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By the way I’m starting to miss The World Out There.

Haven’t been chatting with my sisters. My classmates. My church
friends. My virtual friends. Haven’t been visiting forums like CYF and
3C too. Felt bad about CYF, after all I’m a mod there.

I’m starting to be a hermit in RH. Later I might even be a hermit in my room, haha.

Is it really worth that all?

Sometimes people will just pop up, drop a line and say "Jia-You!" That
really helps a bit. I do that once in a while too. Thanks Joseph for
doing that occasionally.

And Wilson, if you read this, I’m really sorry about not talking to you for months, though I sort of sense you need to talk. 😦

K la, got to continue preparing for tomorrow. And thank goodness that irritating bug has flown out of the room.

Spent a very tired Sunday out yesterday.

After church I had lunch with my 14th-Granduncle (my grandfather has 14 brothers!) and his family at Singapore Island Country Club. Haha, it’s weird to have two aunts that are actually younger than I am. We and lunch together with another friend of his too, who was out with his wife and daughter. The daughter was two years younger than me, and my two ‘aunts’ were both aged 18 and 13, so we all got along quite well.

Oh, it was yee sang again! LOL, 3rd time I’m having Yee Sang in Singapore. After that the courses that followed were very well done indeed, and it was VERY filling. So filling that I did not have to take tea and dinner after that! Really, it has been a long time since I have had such a big lunch. It was a nice lunch too 🙂

After lunch I went to my granduncle’s house in Sunset Heights. I stayed there only one-hour plus, of my sleep debt, haha, and I have to go to watch Temptations at night. Had fun there playing his grand piano, it was a Yamaha and he got it second hand. So after several futile attempts to play from scores, I finally decided to play by ear instead. Haha, out came the usual songs I play – Miracles, Reflections, My Heart Will Go On, Somewhere Out There, a few more of these and some nice hymns. They said they enjoyed – hope that was true! Pity I can’t play jazz.

The time of bonding was fun, and I reached Raffles Hall very full in the stomach, and in the pocket as well!

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Temptations! Varsity Voices 2008 by the NUS Choir.

The seating was free so Swee Yee, Li Wei and me arrived a bit earlier to get good seats. In the end we didn’t get to go that early, but fortunately, we met a whole line of Rafflesians seated in two rows, so we just joined in. Everyone was dressed rather formally and smartly, and I felt really shabby in T-shirt and jeans. Haha. Anyway, I’m not the one who’s performing, so it’s easy not to be bothered by that fact.

I was delighted also to see a bunch of MSL-ians seated at the front row. They have come to support Pei Suen and Leo I think. Anyway, it’s always good to see long-time-no-see seniors! I had some very funny and weird sms-ing with Eng Aun while telling him I was around too, quite a lot of misinterpretations along the way.

The performance started with the first half featuring a song from Haydn – Imperial Nelson Mass, half an hour long! As the choir people came out, Swee Yee and I began searching for familiar faces at once. We recognized Chevy, Pei Suen and Xian Ling (couldn’t find Raffli at first due to his new haircut) and Shu Shan came out in a wheel chair! That was rather a shock, but it turned out that she sprained her leg or something so she couldn’t stand. Very unfortunate thing to happen before a performance.

The song was long and high pitch and rather monotonous. I don’t know, but I don’t really appreciate this kind of song, especially when the lyrics are not in English, haha. The singers were really good though, I couldn’t here any falter in the pitches anywhere (didn’t really pay attention to tenor and bases when they aren’t singing on their own though). Shu Shan was brilliant! She had quite a number of solo’s throughout this song, and she sat there singing all those high, high notes, which were quite draggy too! Her voice was lovely – and it’s incredible to be able to sing like that sitting down.

After the song, there was a 15 minute break – and I heard the people at the back praising Shu Shan – the quality of her voice and her being able to sing so well sitting down. Swee Yee, Li Wei and I went out for a few moments of aimless ‘window shopping’ looking around at the people and small stores set up outside. Saw the MSL seniors too, Kai Ling still recognized us, and Wai Kit too, LOL

The Second Half of the performance was even better. They sang folk songs from different nations, with different moods and because the songs were now vastly different, there was no fear of boredom because of monotonicity. The NUS choir were not only good at singing, it was also humming, and singing in other sounds (that so remind me of our vocal trainings), and even shouting and screaming and dancing (for the last song). They put together a really marvelous performance. As I looked at their numbers, it really struck me on how difficult it was to get such a large number of people to harmonize and sing together, without a single flaw. Getting 8 people to harmonize in aca is already killing me, as for this number, I could just imagine the magnitude of the task.

After the performance, the Choir gave tokens of appreciation to their conductors, pianist and voice instructor. One of them got such a lovely light blue dog! The pianist got a yellow bear, very cute too; but everything pales in comparison next to the blue dog with big head, and flowers! It was so big and so cute! Lucky guy who got it!

Hmm… after everything has ended, the audience shouted for encore but didn’t get it. We waited outside for the RH choir members to come out, and during that long wait, we got water bottles in exchange for survey participation, and crapped a lot. I managed to say hi to Eng Aun at last too. After a really long wait, the choir members came out, and last of all was Shu Shan, on the wheel chair with a whole garden of flowers on her lap. She took pics with all of us, and then again with everyone of us, individually! The night ended with most of the seniors going to Fong Seng with Shu Shan, while we juniors went back to our rooms to mug. As for me, I just fell asleep straight on the bed and woke up around 3 a.m.

On with my mugging! Haha. Fortunately my whole morning is free.

Blogthings is fun! Since I have zero inspiration to update my blog today, I’m going to paste these here.

And oh~ to those who are concerned out there, I AM SLEEPING! Haha. Just at weird hours of the day, k.

My pretty flowers are dying. That’s so sad.

One last thing: My most commented post is going to disappear into the archives soon, there’s 31 comments now, if you want to add in any last comments, do it before it’s gone (and that’ll be quick)! But still, if you actually think it’s worth the bother, you can still comment after it’s archived. No one’s probably going to read it though, with the exception of me.

OK, Blogthings! If you want to play about with it yourself, it’s at http://www.blogthings.com/, but I guess most people know about it. Just did a few random tests.

You Communicate With Your Body

This isn’t as bad as it sounds, it just means that you’re a "touchy-feely" person. You need a lot of affection in your life. And for you, this means both giving and receiving little touches. Warm hearted, you bond with people easily. In fact, you often feel a little sad when you’re not in the company of others. A little moody, you tend to be controlled by your emotions. But a bit hug always comforts you!