sort of looking forward to the band concert... at least after that i would be free on wednesdays. probably not free yet until they hand over the posts, but still better than nothing. and after AMus exam, mondays would be free too... dun exactly end super early on monday but anything is better than reaching home at 9.30. finally bought a tuner on tues... ms kang wasn't in school and ms chew did a jazz lecture with the yr1s and she said it was optional for us. haha obviously we took advantage of the opportunity to go home early! and luckily she told us at 11+... if she only told us during mep lesson at 3... hmmm... then i guess i would have stayed. but the point is that since she told us in advance, we wanted to make use of the time. it's a nice change from having to wait 5 periods for mep lesson every tuesday! went to synwin with emz... she bought a double bass "rack", as she calls it, and had a fun time testing the synwin basses but she kept asking about higher range basses, which the lady insisted were not worth it because she claimed the basses in her shop were better but cheaper than those. i bought a tuner cum metronome... quite surprised that it was $38... was prepared to pay $50 at least. okay, not exactly prepared, the trip was an impromptu thing and emz had to pay for me first... cos we didn't expect to have free time on tues. tuned my guzheng... every string to approximately 5 cents sharp cos it'll go flat when i bring it to the super cold recital room. discovered why my guzheng is always flat when i tune it with pohning's... cos before i bought the tuner i used to tune to my piano and my piano is flat. wonder how long has it been since the piano tuner came? still a bit worried about the guzheng cos it wasn't that possible to tune every string to exactly 5 cents sharp... and some of the older strings are too loose to really keep it at the same tuning. everytime i play i would have to adjust them again. but it's too late to change them now... new strings are even harder to keep in tune.

was rather pissed today... hmmm... i'm quite amazed... suddenly many pple in my class just can't stand her anymore and suddenly everyone seems to be complaining about her, including her friend of many years. but i just couldn't stand the jealousy... i dunno why she enjoys doing what she does, complaining when others finish their tutorials when she's obviously ahead of us in most tutorials. but tt's still rather okay with me cos i've gotten used to that by now... what i was really pissed about was during chem lecture when she explicitly implied that certain pple were chubby. yaryar... that's not a language error... what i mean by "explicitly implied" was that she tried to imply they were chubby, but did it so explicitly that i'm sure even a 5 yr old kid would have understood. furthermore... the lecture theatre was relatively silent (a lecture was going on...) and also, her voice is not exactly what u would call soft. i think that's rather insulting. she may have meant it as a joke or whatever... but i dun think anyone saw any humour in it... the whole class just kept silent and ignored her. even if u were on very good terms with ur friends, u wouldn't go around teasing them about how they looked! i really can't understand what she's thinking... was she trying to prove that she's superior to the rest? trying to attract attention? or trying to get some amusement out of irritating others? what's the point in doing all that when it quite obviously makes you seem like a total snob?

just finished the indian music presentation... or rather, decided that it's sort of "finished". couldn't decide whether to put some of the points so might as well stop. must start studying vaughan williams... haha at theory just now there were two papers to choose from... couldn't make up my mind cos the brahms analysis qns was easy but i didn't know how to write the vaughan williams essay that came with it. the other one had a brahms essay that i knew i could write but it came with vaughan williams analysis qns that i didn't know how to answer. hahaha... decided to do the brahms essay... tough decision cos both the essay and the questions take equal weightage. and bleah... the vaughan williams questions came out to be quite bad... 11 out of 20... not even a pass (60% according to their standards). i also attempted the brahms questions when i was contemplating... it was better, 15 out of 20... just cleared the 60% mark of 14. it just shows how bad my vaughan williams is. =P

before theory we went shopping... emz wanted to get a birthday present for her brother and mother's day gifts for her grandma and mom. she bought a soccer ball... hmmm... not a good idea for me to buy for my brother ley. he won't have anyone to play with anyway. and i think he's more interested in computer or robotics stuff. sigh... 7th may... just a few days away... dunno what to buy! and then there's also mother's day... which happens to be band concert... oh ya... which reminds me i have to return the tix and money by wednesday. always forget to bring... super blur and forgetful. i tried to find a black blouse for concert but there just wasn't anything i would want to wear... maybe i'll just wear last year's fiesta one.

gotta go do my chem... or maybe i should sleep and then do it on the train tmr... hmmm good idea

today wasn't that bad... probably cos i wasn't dreading pe. quite hard to believe that i like aikido when i was quite reluctant to choose it as my elective in the first place. was eventually convinced that it wouldn't be as muscle-straining as things like tennis and bouldering... must keep in good condition for recitals! aikido is actually not bad for training concentration... though i wasn't completely concentrating during the lesson. quite hard to do that cos i'm rather easily distracted. =P

was quite inspired during mep to write for strings... bleah... not a good idea man, where will i find pple to play for me?! other than like shiyun on viola and emz on double bass? was thinking of writing for trumpet, tuba and 2 horns. haha convenient instrumentation... players conveniently available. not bad to have a yr1 batch full of non-piano pple! (or piano pple who are also proficient in other instrus) except that there seems to be a lack of string players in tj. tt's so sad... it'll be very shuang to write for strings.........

still quite tempted by the job offer emz received in her email... but then also reluctant to give up my limited free time on sundays leh. if it was a weekday then not so bad la. hmmm i think i'm super lazy... sundays are for me to hole myself up at home (except for guzheng lesson & dinner at grandma's... and occasionally going out with pple) sundays are for me to catch up on all the work i can't find time for on weekdays. more importantly it's for me to slack. no wonder i don't seem to get that much work done on sundays too... hahaha =P

yet again... really not enuff money... $10 for band tee, $6+ for past year's papers... $10 classfund... worse still is $6.50 for pipette filler. since when did pipetter fillers become so expensive?!!! still convinced the bookshop is making lots of profit out of them. another $30++ gone...

i'm lagging in all my tutorials and lagging in everything else! harmony exercise from long time ago not done... haven't started editing my 2 existing compos and writing a new one (what if i have nothing to show phillip tan when he comes for compo class?) never do chem and maths tutorial (still not tt bad cos it's not too usual for me to do those)... haven't started studying for Amus (which is 2 weeks away)... never practise enuff for june recital (3 weeks left for second instru and 4 weeks left for first instru!) issit cos of the mct or sth, cos usually there seems to be more time to prepare for the next recital? now it's like the previous one just ended and before u can catch a breather here comes the next... X(

still playing beethoven and sculthorpe night pieces... ravel and sculthorpe mountains cannot make it!!! i still can't change my colour in prelude and rigaudon is even worse. haha my le tombeau sounds more german than french! and now i got to catch up on bee and sculthorpe again... my teacher was horrified when i told her recital's on 25th may and tt i haven't touched bee (as in seriously practise) since march holidays. arghhh... school sux

my schedule is so "beautiful"... 2nd may, band concert. 8th may, AmusTCL. 18th may, 2nd instru. 25th may, 1st instru. *take a deep breath* ard 25th june, jct chem prac. july, "june" common test. (or does school start in june? ... watever...)

super broke too... 18th april... shared cab with vivian after band camp... $10... 20th april... took cab home after school... $18... 21st april... shared cab with vivian again after band prac... $12. total... $40!!!! $40 on cabs! *faint*.... could have used that to buy cds or scores or something more practical. hmmm... but isn't taking cab home sorta like buying time...??? X(

was quite a good day at band... at least it's now easier to play fantasy variations... playing those high notes so many times makes them seem like rather low notes now! of cos they'll still be high when i get tired... i'm finally not sharp! but i'm flat... and yeah right... as if tt's because i'm a pianist (tek xin's funny theory that cos pianos are 440)... hmm well that may be true only to a small extent cos i dun have perfect pitch. and i think my pitch memory is quite lousy.

spent part of the afternoon after band practising ravel... rigaudon is hard! can't control myself not to play an A minor chord... it's supposed to be a A minor 7th chord!!! keep reminding myself about that... maybe someday it'll become hard for me to play a A minor chord without playing the 7th. hahaha. then came the dizzy spell... so i went to sleep... and woke up feeling giddy at dinner time. imagine all the amount of time wasted!

was ripping jazz cds to burn and researching trumpet mutes for the compo... ms chew's suggestion. hmmm... found lots of other jazz things... quite interesting... except i dunno how to download those videos... can only watch. so i shall just put the url on my write-up. going to sleep, gotta wake up early to do work tmr cos i'll be meeting debbie, yiting, jiehui and shini at 12.30 and i think i shall go to borders before that to look at the barenboim box set of beethoven sonatas.