Monday, November 09, 2009
Sunday, November 08, 2009
My first piano score~!
Hitting the piano keys are so not like hitting computer keys. So tough. I've spent 2 days figuring out the left and right hand of 不能说的秘密。。。 but half the song still sounds wrong to me. my ear really spoil man. so i finally gave myself over... no more struggling to figure out the keys by myself for self-achievement (read: pride)
sought out my first piano score~! :)
for the interested, get jay chou piano scores from here: http://www.jaychoustudio.com/jay-chou-music-scores.php
comparing it with what i came up with. the intro is perfect~! hohoho. cos it only consists of 3 notes. hahaha. the first bar is correct. my second bar got 2 errors and i cannot sightread further... need to write out all the alphabets on top.
i speak english, not towkay one. hahah. maybe that's why guitar will always remain my fave :)
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Let's talk about keys and family~ basically every song has a key, and a family of chords.
i love the G key/family. GCDEmBmAm. ?F#m?Fm?
today hai taught me when a chord is major and when it is minor. keep in mind that every set has 8 notes, CDEFGABC. Let's say it's the G key. so it's GABCDEFG. G is no.1. then, 1, 4, 5 are major. so GCD are all major. the rest are all minor. the most common is the 6th minor. Hence we frequently get GCDEm song~
say ORH~~~ :):)
Can I spare the rod & nags?
i want to ask him to eat lunch first, but he's a kid, cmon a kid must do what a kid does. he must play. he must enjoy his childhood. he cannot sink into the boring routines now. that's... boring. so i let him assemble his snow gliding machine. i told him it's to use in snow... he chirpily moved the machine around, towards hai and echoed "snow~~~~!"
i just love to see wei wen smile.
ahhs. so cute. then he ate his lunch :) :)
somehow i believe that kids know what they're supposed to do. just do with them a little more smiles, a little more encouragement, a little fun and indulgence. they will move. in ur desired direction. so, perhaps, i can, i can spare the rod & nags.
one day he'll grow up to be a great man who knows how to think for himself and more importantly for others. smth like isaac. or david. in God's hands, he will :)
...and so will justin, tian en, hovan and all. trying not to be so obvious in being bias :P
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a week ago, this time, i was certain i want to adopt him to be my godson. running crazy. but i dun dare to. it's too big a responsibility. at best, i can visit him once a week. at worst, i will just totally neglect him. it's gonna b a great sin to neglect a 7 year old. cannot afford it.
thinking of how to improve his maths. maybe buy monopoly for him. or start small with uno. flipped thru assessment books in popular and it's crazy. i nv remembered doing models in Pri 1. pity all the kids man.
that's why i am really tempted to spare the rod & nags, let him enjoy a little more childhood.
family day~!
the tigger inflatable bouncer was the first thing that caught my eye~! :)
theme: crazy olympics. hence many hurdles for the inter-div games - which i did not take part in. HOHO.
went around playing some basketball, hoops, take balloons, almost draw caricacture... basically funfair stuffs. it was so hot my candy floss melted and starting dripping la~ :/
just wanna feature a zai gal... she was so bent on breaking the 20min non-stop hula hoop record
and she does it! WOW. 21min 17 sec. crazy gals. so, now i know her name is evangeline. zai.
lunchtime entertainment by impersonator of phua chu kang. think budget cut ah... so cannot afford the real thing. but it was so good, daddy thot it's the real one and was guessing how much it cost... :P
he got 4 guys up to do that lie on each other stomach and take away all chair support trick. nice one.
wondergirls craze hit too. dso ppl are actually quite sporting :) :)
finally, me and my yellow flower balloon 'bracelet'~! only rem to take photo on the shuttle bus back... lighting v bad, my apologies :P
glad that i overcame my fears and brought daddy, mummy and hai down for the family day~! :) tho i wasn't really looking forward to it personally... it's like those meet the parents day that is so none of my business but i just hv to go. yet as long as it makes them happy, i'm glad :) well sortof. hah.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
消失地平线
of the only artiste i rave of. may sound like some 16 year old boy-crazy girl... beware :P
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behold, this evening i bought 晚报.
mother: 晚报？有什么特别的东西吗？
hoho. of cos la... i told her to flip to the last page. 不愧是我的mother... 一瞄就知道是thomas ong！ eh thomas ong on newspaper, 够特别了吧。。。why else would i buy 晚报。d'oh.
Yup! He'll be hosting a backpacker's show to places that don't even have road access. hv a feeling it's gonna b a special traveller's story, of humanity and diverse cultures. thousands of stories.
消失地平线 starts this wed, 11 Nov，8pm, ch u! :)
i'm so gonna be home every wed evening for the next 13 (?) weeks :D
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okays... a cute pix and convo of him :) :)
他一手卖茶 (organic green tea business venture)，另一手卖咖啡 (kopi kaki - ambassador for Toastbox)，难道没有冲突吗？
他笑说：“白天喝咖啡可提神，晚上喝绿茶可帮助消化，更好睡。”
cute ehh :D
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i wonder if it's even a good thing for thomas ong to be on crappy newspapers :/
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thinking of his sec 5 girls raving about him on their blogs in this way.... m.e.l.t.?! oh no... girls now should open their eyes bigger. where got han*some?! :D thomas ong then handsome much much la.
see music
the romantic tale of a secret with numerous hints of Jay's favourite Chopin
very powerful visualisations of the tunes
Friday, November 06, 2009
stock
Interpreting nature
i won't say a word start another post til i understand this and how it links to interpreting nature and even nature's laws.
6 nov. 10.38am. let me summarise the article. scientists (even textbooks?) said it's cryptic colouring, how the spider change colour depending on the flower it's on (to catch more preys?). but the videos show that changing colour - or not - does not correlate with the number of preys or the meat-volume. in that sense, the scientists have mis-interpreted nature. what's the nature's law here? i'm beginning to feel that i'm really dense. beyond the times i've felt like i'm the biggest idiot in the world. or my radar system has been so terribly jammed. shud i start subscribing to wired?
6 nov. 11.23am. nature permits the spiders to change colours. there was a comment "they just like to change colour... i would :D". as much as we would like to, we can't. it's nature's law. we were not made to do so. counted as nature's law? we don't know why the spiders change colours, but the truth is it does. and we don't. spiders may choose to totally not change colours at all one day. then they become non-camouflaging spiders. fine. it's their choice. just that they could but they didn't. they lose their potential - a pity. we can change colours tho we can't. michael jackson says black is white - logic error in my opinion.
6 nov. 11.09pm.
the fact that i'm still thinking abt spiders, behaviours, genotype/phenotype, mutation, random mutation, even during sauna shows that something is really wrong. aka i'm thinking too much.
some two months ago, rong en "scolded" me for my academic mind. how i just keep analysing things and putting theories into things. how i wanted to patch my knowledge and understanding. i was actually quite angry... tho it's self-denial. he's right.
peace.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Beware the perfect disguise
How long can a wrong stay right?
As it is, the caring, can bake nice roasted chicken, 'other' mother of Coraline is gradually exposed to be eating up the lives of the children she captured.
the other mother wanted Coraline to stay with her forever. HOW CAN?!!!!! she can rot and die for all she want. but she cannot grab Coraline's soul!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
If it's wrong, it's wrong. It's just wrong. The other mother can never replace Coraline's 'real' mother. As it is, the other mother was the greatest deception. while she disguised to look like Coraline's mother, she was really a (skinny scrawny) spider (?!). spidery fingers. eews. that wanted to suck her soul.
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liked how the story unfold of the parallel worlds.
how coraline's parents were so how oblivion to her.
pushed to the other world.
the choo choo gravy train, the father who can play piano keyboard (instead of computer keyboard) and does gardening, the beauty of a garden designed verily as Coraline herself. circus that had rats spelling her name. everything seemed to be tailor-made. Just for Coraline. charming la~
and yet.
everything that charmed her hit back. the garden laid traps of pitcher plants and other
biting/meat-eating plants (this sounds wrong... :S) the rats were also a disguise. not so cute now. all the furniture turned into disgusting creepie crawlies.
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another episode from the movie...
notice that the parents are patching a catalogue of "garden life" and yet their garden is a total waste. the catalogue photos and all is then just a fake, a disguise in a more trivial sense.
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i think of how this world seems beautiful at many dimensions. all the instant gratifications. how it keeps us happy and charmed. yet instant gratifications last but for that instant (or several few more instants when u think back upon it). it's temporal, sad to say. all things will not only fade away one day, but they will be destroyed.
the other mother really reminds me of the irritating devil who just wants to grab everybody to hell with him. away from our real home in heaven. with our heavenly Father. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, devil. get lost.
on a literal note...
before i went to aust, i looked through jordan's photos as he went just a
few weeks before me. there was this photo of the Erskine waterfalls, the water
was captured to be soft as silk. i was amazed. this and other photos, in a way
too nice to be true. i asked him, is the real place nicer or the photos nicer?
(as i did not want to raise my expectations too high only to be disappointed) he
revealed to me that the real place actually is not as nice... the photos need to
use some techniques to shoot or zeng afterwards then will look like that...
*burst hopes*
sometimes i really don't know what remains real in this world.
less literally, there are thoughts that can be disguised to 'psycho' us to believe in a lie. how we can somehow tweak the lie to be a half-lie and eventually accept it to be a truth.
Beware the perfect disguise, don't let it eat up ur soul.
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i thot the button eyes were impactful and symbolic. eyes is often referred to as the window to the soul. no eye, no soul, become ghost. the button eye helped to add an evil aura to the fantasy movie.
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all that said, as a fantasy movie, it scored. i'm so charmed :D the rats were even at points cute. there were many surprises. the button eyes were itself one of the main reason that pulled me to the catch it in the theatres :)
the sets were really beautifully awesome. there were so much details. very well designed.
it scored even more as a 3D movie!!! i loved the depths of everything. the tunnel. the web. oh the web!!! so nice. i loved how things were occasionally shifted to coraline's aspects too. the motions were really well done too. it was established even in the first few moments when wybie zoomed over and a few other times. the most memorable was when the guy just spun around. wa... chio~
in this aspect, it beat Up hands down. i rem there were times during Up when i feel that there's 3d but taking off the specs, there were zero blurness. there's hardly any diff btn 2d and 3d. the only 3d i rem in Up was the clouds.. which doesn't really amount to anything much. quite a disappointment.
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i suspect i asked the wrong person to watch the movie with when Gene wanted to leave when there were still 3D effects during the credits! ahhs. if usually want to leave during credits actually i'm okay (reluctantly)... but there's still nice 3D! like of the dogs playing with the eye and the eye bouncing off the lines! it's so synced with the credits... must watch la :P
Don't fight fate
I've been warned not to ask any more hypothetical questions, but just to begin the post....
What if your child has cancer? Terminal. dying.
a. make a design baby with the same genes as a perfect match, inject growth hormones so that her organs can "catch up" to be donated over to the elder dying child
b. do nothing (always my fave option in decision analysis haha)
the pain of the truth and anger. fighting fate. helplessness. letting go.
it's an understatement that Cameron Diaz delivered it all in My Sister's Keeper :)
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i wouldn't know what i would know. i really don't know. it's definitely difficult to accept. i wouldn't say i can understand how the mother felt... but it must hv been really tough to be dealt such a card.
there's nobody to fault in the show at all. everybody just felt what they truly felt. which makes it very complex (tho not complicated). selfish and unselfish decisions.
kate wants to die. the scrapbook page of "i'm sorry i let them hurt u", etched.
anna wants to grant kate's wish, risked the misunderstanding of her parents. what seemed like a real selfish decision turned out to be the least selfish.
the mum wants to fight on to give kate the kidney she needs to stay alive. i rem the scene where the mum and her sister are searching through piles of files to look for precedence to fight the lawsuit. the mum says if she's not this crazy bitch she is now to fight for kate, she wouldn't be her. she just has to do it. a parallel to sisterhood when her sister says that whatever she does, she's in it with her, smth to that extent.
i'm still trying to make sense of the whole thing. by far, i only know that ppl are really complex beings with multiple factors and uncertainty. in all this, there only remains the conscience that is consistent.
hence, my only conclusion is to live in accordance to my conscience. if it pricks me, it's wrong. if i don't want to do smth, but it tells me to, then i just have to do it.
yet there's a catch. cos sometimes we like to play our own conscience. we tell ourselves what to do. how this happens (psychologically or supernaturally) i do not know. it's like there are 2 or even more of each of us.
the caution is to find a quiet corner to be at peace with myself all over again. when i'm there, i know. there's no fighting fate.
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another qn for which i hv no answer for:
say, you're pregnant, and you itchy hand/mind go and check if the kid has down's syndrome. bingo. the kid has down's. then what? abort? keep and cry? keep and let the kid still shine?
tough.
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quirky, cute comments from mel after the movie:
(paraphrased)
did u see how the teeth of kate (the kid with cancer) changed? in the beginning her teeth was sooooooo nice... and it became uglier (?) as the movie progresses.
i say it's an occupational hazard. hahah.
mel also wondered how they shot the scenes of cameron diaz. she had long hair, shaved her long hair, and short hair at the end. though mel doesn't agree, i think the short hair is her long hair folded in. very not sure...
mel and wan discussed how some parts of the movie were not from the book. like the sex scene for kate and taylor. hoho. i didn't read the book also know hollywood just hv to put that in *yawns*
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don't fault me for using the word 'fate'. i'm not a language person to the details. fate, destiny, god's will, nature's law (of life and death) to me are interchangable. same same.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Knee's good for 3.8km
OH YAY!
As it was a beautiful evening, all cool after an afternoon rain, I hit the roads with my nike plus again :) did one round to hougang mall and back, 3.8km according to gothere.sg, took 25 minutes. which is not good enough - that makes about just over 9km/hour. good for a trial run tho, to test out the dying right knee. a little tight through the end of the run but no pain, no swell :) will keep doing this and stretch the distance a little over the month :)
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as good as gothere.sg may be, i need a better route calculator... dunno how to take back the nano from jt :/
maybe it's not that impt to know how far i've run... just really glad to have ran :) :) healthy and strong~! Thank God! :)
Echoes
Probably taken very very out of context, the thots of a close friend... but it really does echo some of my convos with my inner voice...
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i was prepared for many things but this was not one of them.
i need time.
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I want to know.
I want to say it's for self improvement.
Truthfully, maybe to appease my pride.
So, I really don't want to know..
Give me peace to accept my weakness, Father.
Thank you for showing mercy.
(sigh.. It still hurts..)
last (of the sem 9) LM
as the sem draws near to an end, it's time for the final weekly life meeting...
filled with thanksgiving for everything good in the sem :)
Jo was as usual able to chant out all the names of the post grad students PLUS their field of study. she's amazing.
Janice was thankful for Brina... and she prays for more Brinas (to which shifu gave a really funny enactment :D)
Wai teng & international students :) so thankful the efforts are so fruitful :)
movements everywhere! JUMP~!! :)
and now... my long rambling thots :D
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i dun like LMs to end... i feel that no fellowship should stop because of exams... throughout my course of studies, i've never seldom skipped my youth fellowships because i know and believe that when we honour God, he honours us. tho of cos there are times when i want to just be rebellious and go out to watch movie or slack or do project or just run away from church cos of the numerous responsibilities... whenever i return, i see God's faithfulness. he will not deduct our time and efforts if we seek him first... on the contrary, i feel that he multiplies my time, that i can do what he wants me to do, and even more, all the things i want to do. that i may not even do if i managed my time myself.
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it's great to see all the juniors again!!! ahhs. the crappiness of wilfred, the hospitality of anna who reflexly got me foods of all kinds! it's great to see new people, the year 1s, jonathan who misses joshua hahaha. the food prepared by our alltime patron, auntie rose~! pasta plus rice... only auntie rose will do it la. there's a new food item... what i thot was beef pie... anna said it's pudding -??? blueberry pudding. i dunno how to put it nicely, so if i may just quote shaun:
it's spreading blueberry jam on bread... take it to smash and blend... tada~
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while i saw many juniors, also didn't see many juniors, miss richard, joel, waiteng, genius,... was whining/lamenting on this point to makmak... he mentioned how while his batch were good leaders, they weren't community builders. hmm... beyond good leaders... there's an urgent need for community builders? community seems to be a recurring thot on mak mak's mind... can't wait for his crystallised thots..!
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as my workplace was the nearest to nus, i didn't think that it's a surprise that i reached first... but it's very sian when ppl keep asking me if shifu was coming... if pearl and howai is coming.. if josh is coming... haha. wrt shifu, i proclaimed if he jio and pangsei... wah... cannot lydat la... hahah. i dunno how to continue the sentence...
he arrived just in time for the leftover cookies. hahah. janice wanted to leave food for him de! but when we wanted to.... there was alr no food left to leave for him :/ oops.
we chose the seats near to a powerpoint socket cos he wanted to do work... later then he tell me actually he still got work to do, but he know if he jio and pangsei, i will definitely
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the last LM totally exhibited another gap between shifu and myself... the guitar skills. haiix.
weiling throw stunt suddenly want to close with a praise and amos didn't practise for the song, there were no chords, so want to play also cannot play. honestly, i believe with the chords, amos would hv really played well even without practise. so somebody went out to call shifu in (who should be on the phone with terence who was asking him to hurry up go over for loy kathrong :P) and in he come, strap over the guitar... and started playing and totally stirring up our joyful hearts. i hv to confess that it's so enjoyable that it became
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shifu happened to have Loy Kathrong celebration after LM with the Thais. so we didn't get to supper with the juniors this time round... which i feel is a pity... would have loved more time with them :)
Oh the warmth of Thais
sa wa dee ka~~
i really love the ending tones of the thai language. how the thais say it. it's filled with sincerity, warmth and friendliness. while at the loy kathrong celebration, i felt that warmth i felt while in khon kaen 2007. it was beautiful.
can i just add i love their broken english?
when it was about time for lucky draw, the ajarn (teacher) called out "please ask the people outside to come in, cos it's time to be... lucky"
HAHAH.
it reminds me of P' who was telling us she cut short her hair because "broken heart". she meant that she was heartbroken after a lost relationship. even when it's so emo time, they can still be so amusing.
hmm... can imagine shifu saying now "don't laugh at them.." hahaa. haunting. shifu also told me abt the 2 year girl he loved most at ban chang named Pan~cake. i really couldn't help laughing. i confess i'm even still laughing now. In a bid to stop me from laughing, he says there's a teenage boy named cake... at best, it didn't help. honestly, it made me laugh more...
but hey, that's the innocence and simplicity of thai. compared to Jovan, Nathania, Hovan which are complicated names which i have freaking no idea what it means, i really very much like Pan~cake already. (the tilda is because of the way shifu will add a tone to it as he pronouce it :P)
at this note, it seemed almost inevitable that the convo steered to how shifu longs to return to thailand... tho he just came back :S his passion for the thais is a well-known secret fact. the thais are indeed great people...
shifu asked me if i would return to thailand with him, i said yes. though i dunno how and when. (i still haven't go for taiwan shopping trip....) then he added it's not the kind... shopping and travel... for missionary work... (wa lao... feel so exposed... but yar~~ i know la! i want to return to thailand for missionary work... be it khon kaen or ban chang or some other new pastures)
i definitely need to brush up on my thai first. just as shifu says he want to keep improving :) siao liao... he speak to ajarn like so fluent still keep improving... i think i'll nv catch up man. and all this bcos in the sem we returned, my core module exam clashed with thai. next sem was time table clash. sianssss!!!!
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Loy Kathrong... thankful for the caution while chionging over to not have to participate with putting the lanterns as it's abt praying to dunno what gods.
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wonder what went in the convo that daryl says i must ask shifu about. i say it's ok, shifu will tell me later, and shifu turned around and said i will tell u later... but he didn't... hmm if it's impt think he would hv told me alr, so perhaps it's not impt. but that look in daryl's eyes. hmm.
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in anything, kob kun ka~~
Monday, November 02, 2009
gogogo
Lost all my go (围棋) skills lar. can i blame it on the 9x9 board? craving for the time when we get to go to the middle road 棋会。。。when we were in secondary sch. HAHA. shall bring my 象棋 set to work tmr. i'm so rotting in office... did the christmas caroling plan for half a day... the other half of the day was mixed between replying personal emails, facebook, and dozing off... i did try to open eadsim but i really dun understand it (and yixin gave up..)
Gogogo lazy soul.
