Ok, to avoid not blogging for the whole term (although it would be quite amusing to see the next post titled 'Holidays!' again), I shall just write some crap here.

Been really really busy with school and work. But finally there should be someone working Wednesdays in a few weeks' time, yay! I'll have one more night to do work, hopefully I'll be less busy la.

I just went to watch Verdi's Aida on Friday with the rest of my classmates taking the Verdi module and our lecturer. It was not bad in terms of the singing and playing etc. But the acting was a bit wooden leh, and the dancers were so amateurish (uncoordinated, super untidy etc). Everyone were commenting about all these la, so it's not just me being picky. It was quite fun actually, and interesting to finally watch an opera live.

I had some fun accompanying two singers on the harpsichord at the beginning of this term. It's great experience! Die la, I'm starting to like the harpsichord more than piano... I will miss playing the harpsichord when I leave uni! The early small ensemble I'm playing in is not very good, it's quite sloppy, and I'm so glad I'm just an unaccessed member. But it's also good experience to play with more than one other person lor. Will play for one of the singers again in March, and I need to decide whether I'm going to accompany the recorder player from my ensemble. I want to, but because it's only three weeks away and she just passed me the score on Friday, I'm scared that I'll screw up! Will try it on the harpsichord tomorrow morning before I decide.

Glad to have a nice break.

But I should be quite busy working, because some of the staff working in the cafe will be going for holidays. So the restaurant people will be helping to cover since we are closed for three weeks. And then when we open again the week before next term starts, the head chef will try to arrange it such that I don't end up working from 8am to 11pm.

And then of course, I will try my best not to procrastinate and slack so that I don't end up with a pile of work to do last-minute before next term.

Merry Christmas in advance everyone!

It suddenly turned cold on Wednesday; I don't seem to recall it happened so early last year. But anyway, the sky was breath-taking when I stepped out of the house that morning. Sometimes I wish I bring my camera with me wherever I go, but I think some things are often missing from photos anyway (especially since I won't capture the whole experience as well as a professional photographer would be able to). And I'd rather not do an even worse job of describing it in words... the clouds were amazing. I don't know why, but either cold weather makes the sky more beautiful or I particularly remember beautiful skies on cold days because it's like a little ray of light shining through the grey moodiness of going out into the cold. It just makes me so much more optimistic about the rest of the day.

On this cheerful Wednesday I decided to give job-seeking another try. I always try for a short time, then stop, then start again, and so on. Really bad, but normally I begin to be convinced that I should just concentrate super hard on my studies and forget about working totally (ya right, if only I could be so hardworking!). So anyway, I went to the Jobzone and got the contact details for some job vacancies advertised there, and decided to call the one I preferred the most - cafe assistant, experience not required as full training provided - great, suits me perfectly!

'Sorry, the vacancy has been filled. But I'll just take down your details anyway, if there are other vacancies I will give you a call, is that alright?'

'Oh, ok.' (Downcast that this happens far too often)

But after taking down my name and phone number, the lady asked whether I was an international student, where I was from, etc, and suddenly, 'Would you consider working as a waitress in the restaurant at night? You do know we are a Japanese restaurant at night, don't you?'

Oops, I didn't even do any research on this place before calling! 'Oh, um, so sorry, I didn't know. But I'm interested in waitressing work...' (Cross fingers)

'Ok, would you be free to come down to the cafe tomorrow afternoon for an interview?'

Yes! Yay! (But reminds myself that interviews are usually the broken link between my looking for jobs and actually getting a job.)

I got the job, no big deal, cos obviously I was her only candidate anyway. The cafe-by-day-restaurant-by-night is small, during the interview she only asked a few questions, I got to meet her husband (the chef), and that was it. She asked me to give it a try on Friday evening. It wasn't that hard; keep all the stuff from the cafe and bring out the stuff for the restaurant and set up the place (most of which I've forgotten by now, but it's ok, cos both the chef and the other waitress teaching me were blur also), and then the usual waitressing work. I think the only hard part was not knowing the menu very well, but luckily most customers have the same problem so they will point to the menu when ordering.

I was lucky to have the other waitress teaching me; she was very friendly and helpful, trying to teach me everything cos she's going home at the end of this month anyway (she has finished her masters in I-forgot-what). I was also lucky that the other two chefs (uni students like me) have a great sense of humour and despite working really hard to get the orders out as quickly as possible, they try to have fun at the same time. And no one tried to slack off at closing time; we all helped to clean up the place and re-set up the cafe for the next day. Hmm... so the people working in the cafe have a good life huh, they don't have to set up the cafe or un-set up the cafe cos it's the restaurant people's job.

I'm also most fortunate that they didn't throw me right into the deep end by asking me to try out on a Saturday, which I've heard from the rest are very busy and I'll need to try to stagger taking customers' orders so that the chefs don't have too much to cook at once. And the customers won't be waiting too long for their food (but I wonder... they'll be waiting too long for their orders to be taken instead, isn't it still bad service?). Only after work when one of the other chefs was giving all of us students a lift home that he said last Saturday two waitresses were fired cos they kept rushing the chefs with lots of orders at the same time, and more importantly, they kept giving all sorts of excuses when the chefs told them to slow down the orders. I guess it's not just about doing things right or wrong; like any other thing we do, what's most important is the attitude. I will always remember that.

First week of school's over and so much has happened since last week that I sort of don't really know where to start. That, plus the fact that I've seldom been home (other than to eat and sleep) since last week, are quite solid reasons for not blogging I guess.

Classes are okay, at least for now I guess. And hopefully for the whole year, of course. I think I have to work really hard, and I will! I just haven't actually done any serious studying yet... only been practising more than doing anything else. Paper composition's going to be interesting, especially with all the different assignments ahead. At least they provide some sort of topic to get us going (i.e. this week's assignment was to write an invention, atonal one of course), unlike last year when they just told us to write 'something'. I'm going to be looking forward to Verdi too, although the thought of having to present a seminar (with another person) on someone I don't even know a single thing about (Meyerbeer) is quite scary.

But I'll definitely put in more effort soon. Right now I just have to concentrate on finishing my composition assignment, hopefully by Sunday, so that I can have some time to practise it before the play-through on Tuesday. And hopefully finish reading one of the recommended books on analysis for my Form and Syntax in Post Tonal Music module by the next lesson on Monday. Enough to get me going for now.

Something great that has happened is that I got one of the piano teachers I requested to have this year! And he is really good... constructive comments, suggestions and explanations on how to improve, demonstrations, not too laid-back (the most important, so that I won't start slacking again like last year because my teacher wasn't demanding enough).

Another thing is that I'll be playing the harpsichord in an early small ensemble this year. I can't wait! Really enthusiastic about it cos I don't think I'll ever have a chance to play in another such ensemble in future. Two people asked to have a harpsichord player but I guess I can't split myself into two during the module's sessions, so I can only play in one even though I was so excited at first that I could play in two!

And lastly, both Poot and I were asked by our lecturer to join the rehearsals for St. John Passion as continuo players. There would be a group of keyboardists being coached how to play the continuo, but only one person will get to perform. The point was that at least the rest of the keyboardists would have a great opportunity to learn something. I'm really glad I have chances like this and the early small ensemble.

Looking forward to the exciting (and no doubt busy) year ahead!

It's been quite busy these few days since I moved into my new house on Sunday. Warning, extremely long post!

Read the whole post, or read about: my moving and unpacking fiesta, getting fined 20 pounds, or spending 30 pounds on a T-shirt.

On Sunday Vicki helped me move my luggage to my house, and we were hungry so I wanted to treat her to lunch. Deciding on Adam's Place (a fish and chips shop near the university), we walked back to Selly Oak only to find it was closed. So we decided to go to Aldi's to get some groceries and cook at Vicki's place. Since we were really lazy, we bought instant noodles. I didn't unpack on Sunday, since I didn't have hangers to hang the clothes with, and I thought it might be more convenient to pack everything at the same time anyway. That night I slept for about 5 hours, waking up almost every hour because I was cold sleeping on the uncovered mattress without a duvet. I kept willing myself to sleep and willing dawn to come more quickly.

On Monday Vicki helped again, this time moving my stuff from Access Storage to my house. We went to Harborne High Street after that for some shopping (via Vicki's place, because we haven't yet figured out how to get there from mine. It was about 20 minutes to Vicki's place and another 20 to Harborne High Street, tiring after two days of moving!). I didn't really buy much groceries but instead bought quite a lot of essentials like shower foam, shampoo etc. I was glad to stop over at Vicki's place for a late lunch (at 3pm) of instant noodles and broccoli.

I generally unpacked everything on Monday evening and night, until everything was out of the boxes and luggages and I couldn't find anywhere to put them except stacked haphazardly on the table (there is absolutely no shelving in any of the rooms! The only furniture in my room are: a bed, table, chair, chest of drawers, and cupboard). Exhausted, sleepy and cold (the flooring is a worse insulator than the more commonly-used carpet), I went to sleep (this time on with bedsheets and duvet, fortunately).














I went back to Harborne on Tuesday (this time not via Vicki's place; I just walked in the general direction and managed to find my way there) to enquire at a stationery shop about a vacancy we saw on Monday, and got a form to fill in. I bought lots of groceries, essential stuff like a clock, rubbish bin for my room and food storage boxes, and a set of 'home office stackable cubes'. Dumping most of the groceries in my bag, carrying the stackable cubes in one hand and carrying everything else in the other, I had a tiring walk home. Basically it was only the hand carrying the cubes that ached, because I had put it in a plastic bag but since the bag was too small for me to carry it like people normally carry plastic bags, I had to carry it under my arm. The problem was that the plastic bag around the box made carrying it so much more slippery and my left hand was struggling to keep a firm grip on it. Stupidly, I only thought to take it out of the bag when I was left with the last quarter of the journey, of course. By Tuesday night all my things were packed neatly into the cubes.

On Wednesday I went with Lanx to Grace's house to collect things she didn't want any more (she's finished her masters' and will be leaving.) At first we went for some bookshelves, a vacuum cleaner and kitchen utensils (and oil, sauces etc), but she ended up giving us lots more, including an iron, a fan, her Play Station, indoor airing rack (I already have one of my own), laundry 'container' (?), extension plugs, and sold us her TV. After one trip to the train station with all six of our hands full, we still had to make another to get the TV. Fortunately, Felix agreed to wait for us at the University Station.

Unfortunately though, both Lanx and I got fined 20 pounds each on the train. It's a long story; when we bought tickets to get to Grace's house, we used the ticketing machine and bought return tickets that said 'Birmingham Stns' and 'University Birm', but we were going to Chester Road Station. So when we boarded the train at Chester Road with all the barang barang, we very unluckily ran into a group of three train conductors, standing right at the door where we boarded!

Once we had put all the stuff down, one of them commented, 'Should have got a cab, with all these things,' and proceeded to ask for our tickets. When he saw Lanx's and my tickets, he told us that it should have said 'Chester Road' instead of 'Birmingham Stns', which we honestly didn't know (I really thought 'Birmingham Stns' meant stations in Birmingham, stupid me), so Lanx tried to talk our way out of it by saying the machine made a mistake. The ticket conductor didn't have anything to say in argument against Lanx's explanation, but he spotted that our tickets were concession tickets and wanted to see our Young Person's Railcards. So just when we thought we'd be let off, he pointed out that both our railcards had expired. (Oh man, why oh why did I not check the date?! If I saw that it had expired I would never have bought concession tickets.) Conclusion: 20 pounds fine each. Sigh...

After we had brought all the things home, I embarked on a task I think nobody would have ever thought I'd do, especially if they knew me quite well. Basically, last year I signed up as a service checker with a certain company over the internet, and this was the first time they ever assigned a check to me. I was to check a shop in Selfridges in the Bullring. At first when I got the call on Monday I was really reluctant to go, because I've really not got the right personality for this kind of job! And the caller was quite incomprehensible, I didn't get the shop name and tasks I needed to do. Furthermore, I had to do the check within Tuesday and Wednesday. Such short notice.

However, after I checked my email on Tuesday and determined the shop name and task details, I thought, why not? It's a good chance to do something out of my comfort zone and I'd be earning money (or a piece of clothing) for it. The company was willing to pay up to 30 pounds for any item I buy, and I had to buy a minimum of 15 pounds worth of things. The difference will be paid to me in cash, of course. I thought it was quite worth it; I could buy something I like (hopefully) which was not more than 15 pounds, and get 15 pounds!

I was supposed to check the display/cleanliness, staff's friendliness/helpfulness etc, the usual, but more specifically, I was supposed to go in, browse around, and take note of how long it takes to be approached by someone (if it was more than 5 minutes then I have to approach them). After that, I'm supposed to describe/specify what I was looking for so that they can assist me, and try on the item. And here comes the hard part: I was supposed to ask about the price and act shocked at the high price, then seem undecided, then ask about a discount, then decide not to buy the item. All these were to test their reaction. I think it's quite weird, how many people nowadays actually ask for discount in shops where they actually know they wouldn't be given one?

I was really looking forward to buying a pair of jeans, but the pair I tried on (and liked very much; it was really comfortable), was 85 pounds (SGD 255)!!!! Actually, while waiting for the sales associate to get the pair of jeans for me to try on, I was browsing and saw other pairs up to 120 pounds. Most expensive pairs of jeans I've ever seen... or am I so un-shopaholic that I don't know the price of jeans anymore? But anyway, I came out of the fitting room and said it was comfortable but too expensive (I found it stupid to ask for the price when it was obviously printed on the price tag), so the sales associate offered to show me cheaper pairs. But he realised the cheapest pair was 80 pounds, just 5 pounds less then this one. So I declined.

I didn't ask for a discount because I just couldn't bring myself to say it; I felt stupid just thinking about it. After pretending to browse around the shop again, I finally picked up the T-shirt and asked for my size, then paid for it. I was already eyeing the T-shirt while waiting for my pair of jeans, after realising how highly their jeans were priced. I had sort of decided I'd buy the T-shirt instead, if it was cheap enough (or expensive enough, if you prefer... SGD 90 for a T-shirt, my god!)
















I've already submitted the report, now it's just waiting for them to send me the reimbursement.