This morning I took a leg-breaking 35-minute brisk walk to New Street station to take a train to Four Oaks. I can only blame myself cos I was totally blur and groggy this morning when I woke up thinking it was 8 plus, when it was actually 9 plus. So by the time I leisurely got out of bed, bathed, ate breakfast... I realised that I was running a bit late. Bleah, sleep too early sometimes makes matters worse huh... too much sleep = groggy in the morning. Well at least the walk to the station gave me a thorough waking-up. I didn't dare to take the risk of waiting for bus no.46, cos I might have just ended up being even later. I didn't want to take a cab cos it would surely have costed more than 4 pounds... which is super expensive! And being the dumb person that I am, I didn't take the train at Five Ways station when I could have. Cos I didn't know the train to Four Oaks comes from Redditch, which means it does stop at Five Ways, a stop before New Street. So totally diaox... -_-''' I could have saved myself from quite a bit of walking.

At New Street station there were only three counters open for ticket sales, and there were long queues. This man got so impatient that he scolded the person at the counter when it was his turn. Apparently he missed his train and was late. The person at the counter was quite pissed too cos there are self-service machines, but the man said he didn't have change. And the man made the person behind the counter so irritated that he said something along the lines of 'You're abusing me.' I couldn't hear him but could sort of guess cos the impatient man then said, 'No, I'm just complaining about the inefficiency of the train service, I didn't make it personal.' Diaox again... isn't he just wasting even more of his precious time by nagging at the man? And wasting all the other people-behind-him's time. The person behind the counter finally gestured towards the customer service place (room?) whatever-you-call-it, and think he probably said something like 'If you're unhappy you are most welcome to complain to the people at customer service.'

I thought I was so dead when I heard an announcement saying 'Please note that the 11.45 train to Four Oaks will depart from platform 12a.' I was supposed to be at Four Oaks by 11.30! But luckily after I bought my ticket, I didn't foolishly go off to platform 12a and wait for the 11.45 train. I asked this man at some counter and he told me there was a 11.20 train at platform 8a. Whew... 5 minutes for me to get there, which was more than enough cos it was the nearest staircase to the counter. Wells I got to Four Oaks at probably 11 going to 12???

One weird thing I encountered was this man and woman getting on at Sutton Coldfield, which was one stop before Four Oaks. Both had quite obviously just ran to catch the train. The woman just sat down in front of me, then cos I thought the man was caught in the door I turned around to look. So he asked me whether the train goes to Litchfield (dunno whether that's the correct spelling). I didn't even know where that is, so I said, 'It goes to Four Oaks.' Haha as if it's so much of a help right. Then the woman told him that it most probably does. I was thinking to myself that I thought the last stop is Four Oaks? But I didn't say anything. For all I know, Litchfield was probably some place near Four Oaks. When we got to Four Oaks, the driver announced that the train terminates there. And the man and woman were like quite 'oops...' but luckily there was another platform at the station, where the train goes to Litchfield. So the train that goes to Litchfield also passes through Four Oaks. And at Sutton Coldfield they probably got to the wrong platform, seeing 'Four Oaks' and thinking it's just the next station on the way to Litchfield. At least they didn't have to take a train back to Sutton Coldfield! Confusing train network. But then again, can't blame them cos the place is so big!

My teacher picked me up from the station and I was most apologetic for being late. But she just said not to worry, just that she won't have that long with me cos she'd already planned to go to the bank etc later. Doesn't matter cos she originally intended to have a one-and-a-half-hour lesson today. Plus she usually loses track of time during lessons and ends up dragging each person's lesson. I'm quite ok with this, but I think Poot does get quite pissed right? Cos instead of starting at maybe, 11 o'clock, she'll end up starting at 11.20. Then your lesson will probably drag till 12.40 so the next person's lesson starts even later etc.

Her Steinway is quite an old one... she was saying it needs a complete haul-over etc, all the strings are still the original ones except one that someone broke. The keys were heavy but they don't feel like the 'normal heavy'... sorry, each time you see weird sentences like that it just means I can't describe what I want to say. Ironically, the keys feel like the loose kind of keys... you know, on super old pianos where the keys are so easy to press? Yet you only get a tiny, muffled sound. And to get louder it really did take quite a lot of effort. By the end of the third page of the Bach my hands were almost ready to crumble into bits. (See poot... I didn't use 'crumble to the floor'!) I must really strengthen my fingers! Maybe I should go back to doing those exercises that I used to do for Ms Ching. Sighs.

Piano lesson was really long. I think by right it should have ended after we were done with the prelude of the Bach suite. But she didn't know and was like, 'Right, so what else did you bring today?' And we went on to the Allemande! *faints* I'm so totally cmi. Cos I said we could either continue with the Bach or I could play Messiaen, but I told her I haven't practiced Messiaen since the last time I played it for her. Haha she was like, 'You didn't do much practising did you?' Oops! I must WAKE UP and STOP SLACKING already!!!!!! Hmmz but for Bach she did give me some useful ideas and comments. I also asked her what other pieces she would recommend. The funny thing is, she only wanted to recommend little pieces cos she said I already have so many big pieces already. It's a bit the ermz... cos with so little lessons per year and with each lesson spent only on one single piece (in the case of the Messiaen, only 10% of the piece!), it seems a bit impractical to stick to only a few pieces leh. Shouldn't we like move on? Like for harpsichord, where the aim is to explore more repertoire. Ok I still don't have a lot of harpsichord pieces but at least I can say I've played more pieces for harpsichord than I've played for piano lessons.

It was quite funny also cos she went to her score cupboard, and I thought she was going to choose things to show me. But she just took out some scores from the top of a stack and went like, 'Let's see what we have here.' Cos she said her cupboard was not organised. It was really just stacks of scores! And later when she suddenly thought of Schubert's Impromptus, she wanted to find the score but obviously she couldn't unless she wanted to look through all the stacks of scores in the cupboard. She said she was planning to go through the cupboard and organise it this holiday. Among the pieces she recommended were Kabalevsky's Sonatinas, Schubert Impromptus, Dohnanyi's Rhapsody, Liszt's 'O Lieb' from Liebestraume, Albeniz's Tango from Espana, Granados I-forgot-what-already. I went to the Central Library to borrow the scores... yes even Dohnanyi! Previously I thought I might not want to learn it cos it's a bit cheesy. But I thought maybe I should give it a second chance? Yay, one of these days I'm going down to school to have a sight-reading day! I really prefer learning new pieces or reading through new pieces to working on the piece :P

I had to wait quite long for the train at Four Oaks station. Cos when she and her husband dropped me off at the station, the train had just left. I didn't know that was my train or I might just have run for it. Only when I was halfway across the bridge and I asked this man which train I should take, then I realised my train was just leaving. But he said the next train would be in ten minutes. Crap lor. What ten minutes... exactly ten minutes later I was still standing on the platform wondering where the train was. And there were three other women who wanted to buy tickets but could not find anyone at the counter. When someone finally appeared, one of the women was telling him that if the train had come before he appeared, then it was not going to be her fault if she just got on the train without a ticket etc... nagging at him. Lol she was certainly pissed. But the man was like, 'There's a self-service machine.' The funny thing is, the woman told him she didn't have change. But later, she didn't buy the ticket from him and bought her ticket from the machine instead. o_O

To kill time and distract myself form the freezing-cold wind, I kept walking up and down past this poster that warns people not to travel without tickets and to pay their fines if they were caught travelling without tickets. If they don't pay their fines they will be charged in court and also publicly named and shamed. Oh wow. If they are so strict about tickets why don't they just install some kind of ticket barrier, so that people cannot get in without tickets? But then again, looking at the layout of these stations it seems a bit unfeasible la. Probably only the stations like New Street where there is a 'proper entrance'... where there are usually people stationed to check everyone's tickets. Heh I think 'freezing our butts', something I think Poot wrote in our birthday card to Kankan, was quite appropriate today. The wind was so cold I thought I'd huddle in a corner on a bench while I waited for the train. But the the bench was sooooo cold! I didn't want to sit on it anymore. So I resorted to walking up and down like some ancient Chinese scholar memorising his text. Hahahahaha