YIPPEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

No more essays for the term!

I ate so much rubbish since last Thursday that I must have put on tonnes by now. In any case my face is already rounder :( And my hand's still too used to typing two spaces after each full stop. So spastic.

Although both Pohning and I tried very hard to do our essays as quickly as possible so that we wouldn't have to do the whole last-minute thing again... we ended up sleeping even later than last time. Guess the main reason is that this time the questions we chose were harder than what we did last time. And I think once we started on the essays we began to regret our choice of questions! After the chamber choir concert on Sunday I tried to finish up on Holst whilst Ruth and Zhuomin proof-read what I'd written on Vaughan Williams. So stressful! Their english is too zai already. After their suggestions the whole essay just sounds so much more convincing and un-amateurish. Wah... *shakes head and sighs* must improve on my english!

The Holst part of my essay was so obviously crap compared to Vaughan Williams. There was so little things to say about him... plus I only had two books on him, one of which is a biography by his daughter... which is quite unuseful for my essay. The only other book I speed-read at the conservatoire library was purely on his Planets. And it had lots of talk on his rhetorical gestures and less on the influence of English/French/German/Russian on his music. I think all three writers emphasized a lot on the influence of English folksong on his music so I ended with practically nothing about his influences from abroad.

So just when I was heaving a sigh of relief at finishing the essay except for typing out the musical examples... Zhuomin called and said, 'What where the foreign influences in Holst's music? You have written on the English influence but your question is on combining the influences of home and abroad.' I totally freaked out! And even in the end when I finally called it a day and went to sleep at 4am, the Holst was still crappy, lame sentences strung together in the hope of answering the question. Lame things like, 'Debussy and the Symbolists probably influenced Holst in his rhetorical ideas yet he created his own rhetorical gestures. Blah blah.' I'm so going to die.

Whatever. I'm just glad it's over!

Just lemme rant on and on and on and on.... everything's happening at the same time! Oh man... well in sec school or jc when there were lots of tests at the same time I could just pick one and sorta ignore the rest and hope for the best. But right now I guess I should have learnt the importance of time management back then.

Piano lesson's going to be on Thursday, chamber choir concert's on Sunday, after which will be harpsichord lesson. And Monday's THE deadline! And what am I doing now? Listening to some contemporary music cos I have absolutely no idea what to do for my compo homework due this Thursday.

Choir was terrible today... normally after rehearsal I'd be in a good mood and the songs will be ringing in my head. But today everyone was sian diao and we practically sang every song at the same slow speed. I've heard us sound much better than this... i.e. last week. Maybe everyone's loosing a bit of confidence cos the concert's round the corner yet we've only had about 7 rehearsals only? (And I still don't know how to pronounce the Czech words in the Dvorak, especially since today I sat next to someone who pronounced everything differently from the person I sat next to for the previous few rehearsals.) Or maybe everyone's too tired.

Guess I shall go sleep soon... otherwise I'd just be dead during text tomorrow, which is already sian enough to make me sleepy without me having too little sleep the previous night. Maybe I should check that I've finished tomorrow's homework first! It's going to be mayhem if I suddenly realise I haven't finished something.

Just came back from harpsichord lesson. It always makes me happier! But now that I'm back to my room and I start thinking about the essay again, plus getting Gareth's reply to my email... AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I'm regretting my choice of question now!!!!! How how... too late to change already, guess I'd just have to try to stick to it and try to get hold of some of their scores. I can't even decide which works to write on, now that Gareth says I should just focus on 2 or 3 of each of their works. Oh no!!!!!!!! Now I'm damn stressed... it's worst than last time. Cos I'm worrying about the previous essay getting second marked, and I'm worried that this essay is going to be as bad as that! And I haven't done my text homework for Tuesday... and compo homework for Thursday... and Sunday's the chamber choir concert, no more time!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARGH... I hate being stressed, makes me hungry all the time. I'm going to BALLOON to thrice my size! :(

Was listening to band pieces while I was doing my text homework (erm ok, I probably shouldn't have) and I just suddenly felt so nostalgic. Miss the music. It's so different. And listening to the music also brings back all those memories of being in the band! Sad to say that most of the memories are of sn band... haha. It was more memorable.

Sighs. Ok, back to text homework. I'm quite sian... cos I still can't figure out the form. Maybe I should leave it for tomorrow. But I know I shouldn't. Bleargh. =(

It's going to be busy again... cos the Chamber Choir concert's going to be on 20 November, and the next essay is due on 21 November. No more last minute pia-ing! *Sobs* Gotta start now... not much time left. Sighz...

At least this week I'm not going to have to change much of my compositions anymore. But next week will be another new piece again. They are just so good at making everything clash together. Oh wells.

Got to practice harpsichord tomorrow morning cos I didn't practise much when I was rushing for the previous essay deadline... and my lesson's on Sunday! Practised a bit today, was quite ok but I think it sounds rather clumsy. All the ornaments' fault la... hahahaha ok, it's my fault, still can't play the ornaments un-clumsily. Heh k, going to start reading all those books for the next essay, or I'll never finish on time!

Yay it's finally over! Whew. Slept for only 2 hrs last night trying to finish the essay. The last three days felt like those days before the compo deadline for As, everyday was just sitting in front of the computer and trying to finish all the work. And staying up till unearthly hours everyday... just that this time I wasn't that shiong to try and stay up two nights in a row. Anyway that didn't work during As, cos the second night I just couldn't take it anymore and I fell asleep in front of the computer. And woke up damn flustered! Heh it also felt like when we camped over in the mep room to do our compositions... cos I'm 'not at home', and it was just as cold, or maybe colder. Now I can understand why the Brits always leave their dishes unwashed in the sink, it saves time! But then their extra time is spent doing different things la. Still, same principle. Hahaha no la, I only allowed myself to not wash the dishes yesterday night cos it's absolutely the last night I had to finish the essay already. I'm just so glad it's submitted, no matter how badly I think I've done. Anyways, shall not go on and on about how irrelevant I was in the essay.

I'm in a real good mood! Despite a headache... cos I've just finished my TMP and text homeworks for tomorrow's lessons! All that's left now is to re-think my compositions. But that's on Thursday, I shall try to loosen up a little. I need sleep! My eyes have been bloodshot since yesterday morning. But I impressed myself by staying awake during context lecture today! It's no mean feat k, sometimes it's really boring cos it's 20th century stuff that sort of puts me in a trance after a while... really easy to fall asleep. I even did that once in the lecture on dear Mahler, who's not as boring. But after listening to so many of his works in the same lecture...

Anyway, I'm also happy cos I can go babysitting again this Wed & Thurs. Yay! Babysitting means income, plus fun with the kids. Hahaha looking forward to dinner there too. I guess I just have to make sure I don't leave all the compoitions to Wed, or I'd just 'crumple on the floor'. Heehee this was a phrase I suddenly said on msn yesterday to pohning while we were cheonging our essays and we both find it funny... don't ask us why, it just is! I think we're going a bit crazy after last night. On Friday and Saturday they are also letting me try out in Jack's restaurant, to see if I can manage... and if I can (hopefully I won't screw up!) they'll hire me as part-time staff. Finally a more stable source of income than the on-off babysitting!

Okay, going to sleep. Thanks anyway, to everyone, for dropping by my taggie. Definitely cheers me up to get msges from you guys! =)