Woke up with a shock today. Quite literally jumped out of bed. Hahaha it's weird, I know, but it just happens that I always feel better if I wake up early in the morning on days when I have things going on. (i.e. days that I don't get to stay home all day long) Lol. Today is Wednesday, piano day! So of course it's my 'habit' to wake up even earlier to do last minute practising, due to my bad habit of procrastinating during the rest of the week. Argh it's a really stupid bad habit, it's actually better now that I'm out of the school system and stuff, but I'm still not entirely rid of it.

However, I didn't wake up as early as I usually would today. Maybe cos I'm quite dead after many sleepless nights being provoked by an irritating (and presumably fat) mosquito. Both my legs are spotted with mosquito bites by this single mosquito! It must have a huge appetite. Though I didn't get to prove whether it was unusually bigger than normal mosquitos, cos I squashed it when I eventually managed to kill it. Hmmph I refuse to admit that I'm cruel and ruthless. Afterall, it tortured me for so many nights, making me wake up by buzzing near my ear, or finding a new spot to sting, just when I'm about to drop off to sleep. And then I'd try to hit it but fail, and the cycle repeats itself.

Anyway, as I was saying, I woke up later than usual with a start. And I was about to rush around trying to set my day back to normal by trying to catch up on the 'lost time' by speeding up the process of washing up/bathing/breakfast etc. Lol it's actually really silly of me. It was eight o'clock in the morning, I had three hours before it would be time to leave the house and still reach my teacher's place with ample time to spare for strolling there too. But still... I can't help it!

However, I got quite a pleasant surprise when I decided to check on my phone before the big rush. That was when I read the message from my teacher asking to cancel today's lesson. Haha it's actually quite ironic, cos when I replied she said, "Thanks for being accomodating blah blah blah" I didn't reply cos I didn't know what to say to that, cos I was actually glad to cancel today's lesson and make up for it some other time since I haven't touched the piano much ever since my one-day break from music last Thursday. Today's lesson would have been quite a waste of time and money cos I'm quite sure my playing would have sounded rather similar to last weeks', maybe except for some minute changes in the phrasing of Beethoven's Sonata Op.78.

Ok, so after four paragraphs of crap, the story is, today's piano lesson was cancelled. Lol. Heh why have I suddenly become so long-winded?! And so I had the whole day free. I was quite determined not to procrastinate because I knew, deep down, I was so tempted to slack off... cos for the next two weeks Ms Ching's on holiday, which means, no piano lessons! Leaves me ample time to practise a lot before lessons resume again. But in the end I didn't get down to much practising, because, after my very unhurried breakfast, the construction workers started work on the street just outside the window. Competing with the noise probably would have been quite good training for better projection of sound, but I couldn't concentrate with all that noise going on.

Did more clearing up of my room... sigh, I don't think it'll ever be neat and tidy! Decided to clear out a small cupboard under the window, something I've been putting off for eons. It's just some weird space below the window (ask the architect why it was built like that!) which the designer decided to turn into a cupboard in an attempt to disguise the ugliness of it. Actually it works quite well too! Walking into the room, if you weren't observant, you may not even realise that without the cupboard doors that space would have looked really weird. Found an old backpack, from years ago... or actually, I don't even remember when. I suppose it's one of those someone-bought-it-but-I-never-used-it things. It's dusty and stuff, but it'll be good as new once I've washed and cleaned it up. (Haven't gotten down to doing that though!) Shall use it as my hand luggage, since my mum is dead set on me using a backpack and nothing else as a hand luggage... "Aiyoh, sling bags so dangerous! Very easy to get stolen!"... but I can't use my school bag cos it's now my bro's school bag. (And he's totally ill-treating it, it's in such a dirty and sorry state now! Hmmph!)


The cupboard tucked away under the window.

Think bringing CDs and scores over is very expensive. My mum says SingPost does it at a cheaper price cos they ship it over, but I haven't asked them about the price and how long it'll take. My bro suggested using a CD album, which is actually a good idea, except that I'd really prefer that I have the CD booklets too. Scores... actually I guess I could pack everything into a box and check them in as luggage. But it isn't a very good idea either.

Yesterday night I went to an "information night for Birmingham students" thing, at the Oriental Hotel. Met Poh Ning in the lobby since her parents were going with her and of course they drove there. Later Wish (aka Shuying) sat in the same row as us, beside Poh Ning's parents. At first I merely turned my head for a glance at the new person sitting in the row, but then I realised it was Wish! Hmm, feels a little weird to be calling her Wish, since I've always associated her face with a chinese name. But I guess we'll all start calling her that because it'll be so much more convenient for non-chinese speakers too. Ok, just to side-track, Wish was from SN too, I think I never knew her name when I was there though. But we both recognised each other at the MOE scholarship interview some months ago, and started chatting while we were waiting for our turns. Oops, I forgot her name after the interview! But so did she. Wish is going to Birmingham on a MHA scholarship... sighz... zai! I think she was offered overseas scholarships by both MOE and MHA?? I really think so, or at least that's the impression I got while we were chatting last night.

The presentation was ok, actually the things they told us we've already known from their website etc. It was a little lame when the presenter asked those who have confirmed that they're going to Birmingham to raise their hands. Then she said, "Oh, you were the first to raise your hand, so we have a souvenir for you." Ermm... so lame. I was sure most of us raised our hands at almost the same time, she probably just had to anyhow pick someone or she was only looking in our direction at that time. It was a keychain, quite nice.

After some advice from the people from the Singaporean Students' Society (SingSoc), we decided to email the accommodation office and request that they put us in the same flat. Actually I doubt it may be possible, especially this late, cos Wish was told they were starting to sending out the accommodation packages when she emailed them about that some time earlier. That means they've already allocated rooms. But we still tried last night, haha by 'bombarding' them with emails... all three of us sent the same email to them, cleverly written by Wish. And cunningly titled 'Urgent - International Student Accommodation', another clever suggestion by Wish... lol Lit student, must be good with words! Yep, she says they reply to emails titled 'Urgent' more quickly, according to her experience.

Gerald told me Ms Chew says our portfolios are ready for collection... yay! Haha I want to keep it like a treasure. All that hard work! Maybe i'll go back next week, but i think that's matriculation for most people (aka Kan Kan and Emily lol who else!) so maybe this week is a better idea? But then Emily isn't back from Vienna yet.