New year's always the cheerful time of year! It's when new hopes, dreams and goals are made, when there just seems to be endless possibilities the new year might bring. It's time to start anew again!

This positive outlook is probably the reason why lots of people make new year resolutions, whether they actually stick to them or not. But anyway, I'm just going to grab the chance and give it a try...

1. Stop procrastinating already! (This always fails, but no harm trying again.)

2. Save money, so that I can travel around sometime. (So that people won't go, 'What, you studied in UK but didn't visit France/Italy/[insert country]??!!')

3. Listen to more music. The amount of music I listen to here has been quite significantly reduced as compared to before... noooo how can?!!!

4. Practice more. (?) Or rather, practice more effectively.

5. Read more. Sadly, my reading material has been limited to essay-relevant books. Not a good way to gain more knowledge, I suppose.

6. Sight-read some pieces for fun. Just so at least I 'know' a wider range of pieces without having to learn all of them until I have the time to do that.

7. Make fuller use of free time (i.e. after essay submissions) to go explore places around Birmingham. Or places outside Birmingham, if possible!

8. Make fuller use of busy time (i.e. time management). I really need to master this essential skill.

9. Wake up when the alarm goes off, not press the snooze button!

10. Eat less chocolate when I'm doing work, or when deadlines are approaching, or any time at all!

Some photos of a freezing-cold, snow-covered yesterday...


What I saw outside the window when I woke up.


The ducks, geese, swans and whatever-the-black-fowl-is enjoying(? maybe not...) their frozen lake and leaving their footprints all over the place. Must be fun!


The 'artistic' shot...

Lesson learnt: never go out with hair still wet from a shower on cold days. Apart from the intense cold feeling it brings, damp hair also starts to turn into frost. I must have been a funny sight for all the people driving/walking past me on my way to the practise block. Heh

Didn't practise much anyway, my fingers were already half-frozen when I got there even though I wore my gloves. And they just got colder while I was practising. Waited quite some time for the bus to get to the city centre, shivering despite the fact that I was wearing a very thick coat already! It was really just a waste of time cos Allegro Music wasn't open again, because of some 'unforeseen appointment'. Sighs. No scores again.

Ok, I'm not just a little slow, I'm running out of time! I can't believe I barely have about one week and two days to finish my composition. Yet I'm not even up to the two minute mark, out of a 6-minute piece. DIE!!!! Hmm somehow composition is something that should be enjoyable, an outlet for expression, something that is created when inspiration strikes the composer. But I think that's just the romanticised image of composition. It has never been the case, at least for me so far.

In sec school and jc, compositions were always done last-minute, either cos there were other homework to do or it was just because I couldn't think of what to write and so I wait for inspiration to strike me. That's just another justification for procrastinating. Inspiration never strikes when you want it to. But working last-minute under pressure forces me to churn out something, no matter how ugly it sounds, just in time to meet the deadline. I hope this never fails, I dread the day when I'd wake up and realise that it's the deadline for some composition and I still haven't completed my piece.

Actually lots of composers didn't just sit around and wait for inspiration to strike, or they'd have starved to death. Especially those who had patrons. And worse, they had to compose according to the patrons' tastes. That's supposed to be the reason why lots of Mozart's and Haydn's works are in major keys, the 'happy' key. Hmm actually, it's not really true, there can be pieces in major keys that are sad sounding and pieces in minor keys that are happy sounding. Even worse, those composing under regimes. Like Shostakovich. Erm enough, I'm not going to comment on Shostakovich cos I never studied him in-depth, go ask Poot if you want, I'm sure she'll have lots to tell cos she did one of her essays on him.

I think I'm quite fortunate, at times I suddenly get ideas. Probably why my progress is so slow is because a lot of ideas are those on the bits I've already written. I will go back and tweak around a bit, change a note here, a rhythm there... sometimes I take a long time doing that, yet later I'd decide that the previous version sounded better. Or maybe I'm too fussy and critical. I often find myself looking back at what I've written and thinking of ways to improve it. I just wish I had more ideas on what's coming next. It's usually a forced continuation from where I stopped previously, and it sounds so fake. But so far I don't quite dislike the piece yet, maybe cos everytime I return to what I've written I'd rack my brains to improve the forced-sounding parts and when I'm lucky ideas take shape. Maybe by the time I finish the composition I will look at it with distaste though, that's always the case. I have never liked anything I've composed so far. Hopefully one day I'll write something I like.

Went shopping today, the main aim was to get some scores, but I also wanted to see how the post-Christmas sales were going. It was really busy, the city centre was crawling with people! Who said Singaporeans are kiasu?? I think people all over the world love sales. Considering that it's a weekday, I was quite surprised to see such a crowd. It's not even a holiday or weekend. Maybe some people here don't have to work on 28 December. I saw that the library was closed, and Allegro Music was closed too! So much for wanting to get scores. Should have gone tomorrow instead.

I didn't go crazy buying lots of stuff though, I didn't really see things that I'd need or things that I liked enough to justify spending on. Some things were still quite expensive even after the supposed 70% or 50% off, these shops are definitely not where I'd normally go shopping in. I went CD-browsing in Virgin, a suicidal thing to do normally, but this time I didn't buy any CDs. Saw some things that I'd really like to have but I managed to control myself. Sighs. I'm going to go crazy buying CDs when I finally get back to Singapore in June... if the Tower Records classical section doesn't close down by then. Don't think it will la hor, Emz and KK and Gerald, you guys better keep patronising it! =P But I discovered that the Virgin store that I went browsing in has a bigger and better-stocked classical section (although a bit dusty) than the HMV in Bullring.

I ended up buying a pair of boots in the Indoor Market... where there was nothing on sale but it only cost me 10 pounds. Compared to 15 pounds onwards that I saw in some shops. Maybe I'm just not a good shopper, I don't really like to shop and I only go shopping when there's something I want to buy in mind. Like scores. Sighs, shall go back to Allegro Music again tomorrow, it's going to be open! Hope the city centre won't be that crowded anymore.

I was very excited when I looked out of the window to see it snowing suddenly. Got my camera, braved the cold and ran out of the flat wearing my tee shirt and shorts. Few photos later I returned to the warmth of my room. Brrr... But the first few photos were wasted efforts, there was no hint of snow at all because it wasn't snowing very heavily. Later it became more snowy and I ran outside again but still no luck. Sighs. The snow stopped about 10 minutes later.

Only later in the afternoon did I manage to snap two photos that had any indication of snow when it started snowing again. Good thing the temperature had not gone up, or it might have been rain instead. Actually, in the photo it does look like it's just raining heavily! But this time the snow only lasted 5 minutes or so. Too bad. All the photos I took from behind a window (my room's, and the one in the corridor) didn't work too. No sign of snow at all.

Was listening to BBC Radio 2 online after dinner while browsing blogs and was reminded of Singapore. Imagine, listening to British radio still can think of Singapore?? Wells, one song certainly worked. It was 'Downtown', sung by Mathilda (if I didn't hear wrong). 'So go downtown, everything's waiting for you...' (or something like that). Remember the advertisement for Downtown East? That's the one! I'd always thought it was some silly jingle they made up for the ad, but now I know it's not. The version I heard was in four languages, 'a special version made specially for BBC', according to the DJ.

Haha don't ask me why I was listening to Radio 2, I just suddenly felt like hearing some oldies... and this station had some oldies programmes. I was going to click on one of them but the 'listen live' came on before I could do that and I got hooked by the oldies they were playing at that moment. Haha perfect! But later another programme started and this time it reminded me of band. Cos it was a documentary about some brass band composer or about brass band music(I think). So it had lots of not-very-short snippets of brass band music. Nice.

Last night I babysat overnight. Jack picked me up on his way when he drove the kids home from Chloe's house (I think the kids' friend or cousin or something). They went straight to bed cos it was past bedtime, so it wasn't that bad. No need for entertainment or looking after or drawing! Selina and Jack were going to be playing mahjong so they arranged for me to sleep in Teri's room, which had a bunk bed.

I just watched TV for a while and decided to go sleep at about 1. But just when I was drifting off to sleep at about 3, Teri cried. Cos she was having a nosebleed. Didn't take long to stop it, but she just refused to calm down and kept crying for daddy and mummy. Even faking that they were on the way home didn't work. At first she stopped crying but insisted on staying downstairs on the sofa to wait for them to come back. At last I got her settled comfortably lying on the sofa with cushions etc, then Nicholas came downstairs cos he was woken up by her crying. And refused to go back to sleep upstairs. I was still trying to get Teri to fall asleep on the sofa (thinking that I'd carry her upstairs later), but Nicholas spoiled it when he said, 'I thought daddy said they're playing mahjong and will be coming back very late?' So Teri started crying again, and dozens of 'They're driving back' didn't help... she started howling, 'I want NOW!!!' So I called Jack and he said he'd be back, which made Nicholas a guai boy again, he went back to his room to sleep.

While waiting for Jack to come home Teri was nodding off but she'd wake up at every small noise. I guess at 4 she's still a bit insecure, like Nicholas doesn't care cos he knows that his parents are just out having fun, or they are working (on normal days). But Teri will be a bit unsure and almost every time I'm there, she'll be asking for mummy by bedtime. When Jack came home she started crying all over again and spotting that Selina wasn't with Jack, she kept asking for mummy, to which Jack just responded, 'She's on her way.' He got her to sleep in his room in the end. Selina said she called at six in the morning when they finished playing mahjong, but nobody answered. Haha we were all sleeping. They are strong huh... busy with preparations during the days or weeks leading up to christmas and on christmas itself they still have the stamina to play mahjong till six! Take my hats off them man.

Later when I woke up at about 8, Nicholas got up shortly after and we went downstairs to watch TV and Selina called again. Haha so funny... they went shopping, cos it's sales time! Wah... superwomen liao. The kids and I had breakfast while Jack went to fetch Selina, and later they insisted on driving me back.

Actually it was not as tiring as usual, since they had to go straight to bed. Which means I practically didn't have to do anything at all. Just watch TV, do whatever I want, and sleep. Except that I didn't get much sleep. Somehow in my own room I can laze in bed forever but in other places I will automatically be awake. Sleeping on the top bunk was great, brought back memories of those days as a kid in the bungalow-type chalets near East Coast with my cousins. Everyone wanted the top bunk and we always had to take it in turns. Those were the days when both the eldest uncle or my dad's companies had chalets which employees could apply for, and if you were lucky you could get one. Now we're all so busy doing our own things, even with fortnightly dinners at my grandma's, sometimes we just can't make it. Actually I must admit that sometimes it gets really tiresome, especially when it used to be weekly dinners. Too much of a thing is not always good. Heh what am I complaining about, I'm now still quite a long time away from one of those dinners... and missing the steamboats already. And other food. But ok, STOP!!! Don't want to get those food cravings started again. Sighs but it's never too long, before I know it, I'd be flying back home again...

Heh no white christmas though... that was taken when it snowed one day in November. Or was it December? Late November I think. Before term closed.

Just came back from dinner with the Singapore Society people... it was fun! Or rather, it was funny! Very entertaining haha. I'm not the very-into-gatherings kind of person but still, it was good to get together with people on Christmas eve and stuff. Anyway I've been MIA from Singsoc activities for quite a long time heh. Always having other things going on during term time when they have activities.

Now waiting for my grandma and aunt to go to my house. Was supposed to wake up early to webcam with them but I decided that since I reached back at 1 plus, I might as well just stay up. Then sleep all I want after talking to them. Anyway tomorrow nothing to do also. Maybe I should go out on Boxing Day for the sales... or 27th? to avoid the crowds. What I really want to buy is some scores though, so I guess 27th would be better... I dunno when the shop might be open.

Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone! =) Sorry about the cards, hopefully they still make it to Singapore someday haha. Maybe they're on a ship instead of a plane...???

Cute right? The kids I babysit... Nicholas is 7 and Teri is 4. They were quite excited to get their photos taken, but were more excited to get their hands on the camera. So you get to see pictures of them with me.


I was actually quite reluctant to post the pictures with me cos I grew fat! =P
Hmm Nicholas was looking very sian and my smile was very forced cos Teri takes ages to snap a photo. But then, she's only 4 la... in the other photos she took, some were blur cos she doesn't understand that you have the hold the camera stable to take a photo.

Oh ya, I have become these two monkeys' copyist. I copy their chosen pictures from their books or whatever. I think I should switch from studying music to art or something! Today's was the most complete picture I ever copied... it was the cover of Nicholas' joke book. And Teri, being the younger sibling that she is, of course wanted anything that her brother had. She already had another picture I did for her before that! Hmph. But if I refused to draw one for her, she'd have kicked up a big fuss and cried (her way of getting what she wants and also getting attention). So I had to do two copies of this:

Nicholas had already coloured the belt of some girl in the picture. =)

Later when both of them were colouring in their pictures, they wanted me to help. Argh. In order to be 'fair', I did both at the same time by colouring all the things that were of the same colour at one time on both their pictures. And I did both copies in the same colours cos that was what they were doing anyway, they were copying from the book. But Nicholas was a very smart older sibling. He kept nagging at me to use different colours for his cos he could predict that Teri would like his picture more. Cos his is more well-coloured... Teri's colouring is not as good as his of course, and he knew that Teri would eventually try to own his copy. He wanted something in his picture to be distinct, so that in future he could argue that it's his! Hahaha so smart.

Hmm sorry to all younger siblings, but I quite sympathise with him when he has to give in to her all the time. And Teri is not stupid too, she's a bit spoilt in the sense that she'll cry to get what she wants. But I think her parents realised that already, there was once she got scolded for crying when she got rice instead of noodles for dinner cos she prefers noodles. Selina just shrugged and went like, 'Take it or leave it.' And when Teri continued crying even harder, she just took the dinner away. It's like, ok, if you cry it means you don't want it. Fine with me. Haha way to go man!

I hate it when they play-fight and you tell them not to do it, but they still choose to do it. And when they accidentally hurt each other, they cry. Maybe today I was a bit pissed with telling them too many times not to play-fight under the table, I just ignored them when they cried. It was like... I told you not to do it, but you didn't listen, so don't come crying to me when you get hurt. Was I a bit mean? Maybe... but not like they had serious injuries that bled and stuff, it was just hard knocks that hurt for a while and after that subside. Anyway if I started comforting one party, the other will also come up with some scrapes like, 'Look, she scratched me, you can still see the marks.' Heh I've learnt quite a bit from watching how Selina deals with them, like when I reach there early and she's not rushing to go out. After watching how strict she is with them and stuff, I can take the cue from her and not feel too bad when I do such 'evil' things.

Haha enough about the kids... here's a colourful sunset I snapped from outside my flat when I left to go babysit them. Merry Christmas! =)

I took a detour by the lake on my way to the practice block today. Cos I've seen many beautiful moments but haven't gotten a chance to capture them cos I don't usually bring a camera with me when I go to school, or go to the city centre even. But this morning I finally remembered and though it was quite disappointing not to have a nice sunny day like yesterday, I still like this picture. At first when I looked at the picture in the preview mode of my camera I was disappointed, but luckily I didn't delete it! When I put it on the computer it looked so much nicer, the preview mode just doesn't do justice to photos. I'm glad I kept it.

If I didn't tell you, maybe you'd have thought I went sight-seeing somewhere? But now you know, it's just the lake on the vale, where quite a lot of the accommodation sites are. The fact that the lamp posts on the other side of the lake can't be seen makes the photo look even more like it was taken in some scenic spot too, I think. If only the ducks and whatever other water-fowls were more scattered about the lake... but then I suppose the lake wouldn't have looked so calm with too many of them around. This morning they were at the other end of the lake, cos a lady with her two children and a dog was feeding them. That's why you see this white thing swimming towards their direction. But a sign on my side of the lake says not to feed them cos it attracts more birds than the lake can support and they might get diseases. *Gulp* no bird flu, please!

Merry Christmas! =)

Heehee cravings are quite subdued after a satisfying bowl of tang yuan. When I took the tang yuan out to defreeze, I thought the picture on the plastic wrapping looked familiar, so I turned over and realised that it's made in Singapore. Haha so patriotic huh... support Singapore products man. Hmm then I realised that it's probably the brand that we used to have at home. Not sure, but it really would seem too coincidental that two different Singaporean brands of tangyuan might have the same picture on the wrapper.

But commercial tang yuans, nice and sweet as they are, can't be compared to the homemade ones. The ones that my grandma makes are small and they come in white or pink. Usually those that are offered to the gods/dieties/buddhas(???) will have small pieces of... er I dunno what it is. It's hard and light brownish, like the colour of light brown sugar, and when the tang yuan is cooked, it melts to become a sweet syrup. Yumz. The others will usually have either nian yong or dou sa, depending on what my auntie gets to make the tang yuan with. When I was young I used to help and it was really fun. But sometimes it would be disappointing to eat cos the size of the tangyuan is so small that there's often not enough filling inside, so there are like a lot of tang yuan that have no taste. I used to prefer the pink tang yuans, weird preference haha.

I'm also missing the peanut soup(?) that we used to have at home when we cooked our own tang yuan. It comes in a can and is not as nice as those that are sold in hawker centres la, but it's nice enough. I couldn't find anything like it in the canned food section of Day In, too bad. Actually, usually we don't cook our own tang yuan at home on dong zhi itself. Cos in addition to eating tang yuan at my grandma's after dinner, there will usually be a lot of left over tang yuan to be ta pao-ed home... my grandma doesn't exercise quantity control!

Merry Christmas! =)

Not again. =X

Had delicious noodles at Selina's tonight, fried in black soya sauce. There were pieces of pork, and some of them were just fats even. There was also vegetables and prawns in it. Prawns! How long has it been since I ate one of those?! Wah... one would think that after eating such mouth-watering food, the cravings would stop. But no! It just has to hit me even harder. Haha spurred on by the good food perhaps.

Now I'm craving for... char kuay teow, zai mi fen, omg curry vegetables!, cai tow kuay, yu pian mi fen, laksa, curry!, rojak, chicken rice, char siew rice, century egg porridge, roti prata *slurp* I better stop before I start drooling hehehehe.

Imagine how fat I will be once I set myself loose when I come back to Singapore next June. If it were August, it would have been more appropriate... Hungry Ghost Festival!

And I don't care, I will be very delighted to go shopping. That's like the first time in my life you hear me saying that hor? Totally miss shopping with you guys!!!! Oh ya, I think I know why I suddenly thought of shopping... cos every time I go shopping with KK we will inevitably eat somewhere, and I think quite a lot of times we ate out for both lunch and dinner! More incredible was that time when we were at Plaza Singapura and we ate BK for both lunch and dinner, plus, it was mushroom swiss both times. Hahahaha BK was also our comfort food after piano lessons... hey we need those carbos after all that adrenaline k. =P

I miss Christmas, squeezing in the crowds on Orchard road for no particular reason. It's just another opportunity to meet up! And the inevitable empty feeling that hits us later when we're about to go home. Cos everything just seems so... I dunno, empty???

Now I start missing Singapore... miss ya guys!!!

Merry Christmas! =)

It's another ranting post again... it's going to be a yawn etc etc so skip it if u want. I've just been having such thoughts in my head nowadays, I dunno why. But I just can't help thinking that studying here is pointless. Told you it's going to be a bore. It always is with such topics.

It's not like I'm not happy to be studying music, and overseas somemore! I'm really contented with what I'm doing now, really. Just that the other voice always reminds me that so what if I'm contented with this? It's not going to last forever, it's only three short years that will whiz by soon enough. And then what am I going to do after that?

Obviously, I'll have to go back to Singapore and earn money to repay those loans. And I'm well aware that the few job options open to me would be a) teaching in some school (if they still need music teachers by then) or b) teaching privately. Wow, what a wide range of choices! Of course, I forgot to mention I could also choose from a variety of other jobs like waitressing, administrative stuff etc. But that would be defeating the purpose of studying music in UK. I might as well get on a plane now, fly back to Singapore and start looking for a job. But then again, if I actually decide to teach privately one could also argue that I might as well have not studied in UK. I could just have started that after As, and at the same time just do all the diplomas that Trinity and AB offers. Or at most just settled for the much-less-expensive choice of studying in NAFA. Back to the point: I don't think I'm justified to be studying here, though it's probably going to be the best time of my life... something that will give me great memories to treasure forever.

I think it all sort of boils down to money. Just imagine, if I was sponsored, I probably wouldn't be going through this i'm-feeling-guilty-for-wasting-money crap in my head. I think I wouldn't have minded being bonded to some company or whatever. Ya, I know that's a really selfish notion, but still. Don't tell me everyone who was sponsored to study overseas really had the company's interests on their minds. In the first place they probably applied for scholarships because that would help pay for their courses, and even if they were rich people... in the employer's eyes it's probably still more prestigious to have been a scholar right? Anyway, no offence meant to scholars here, it's purely a ranting session.

Actually, come to think of it, I think I have totally no sense of direction in life. I have no goals and aims and things like that. Unless you count hoping to go on a tour around the world... but I think that's more of a dream, and quite an impossible one too. It probably won't come true for me but whatever, it's still a nice dream to hold on to. Heh you just got to have that something that at least cheers you up a little sometimes, even if you know it's too ambitious. =)

Haiyah... I really don't know what's the point of life. We just study, work, retire, and then ultimately die. It always makes me think, why should we be here at all? Why don't we just not exist if all we do on earth is to slog on and on yet in the end we'll all just die? But there are also beautiful things in life to appreciate, like sunsets, sunrise... great friends... sweet little kids (sorry, I've just been reading a mr brown post on his children)... and so much more. It's always a bit of a bittersweet thing when I think of how life is beautiful yet it's also transient.

Kaez, I shall stop here before this post sounds too despondent. Anyway, I've put some of my photos on shutterfly... you can view them at www.debussy.shutterfly.com.

Merry Christmas! =)

I'm craving for char kuay teow!!!! All thanks to you poot, why did you give me your leftover chicken thighs??? See larh, I went to put one of them in the oven zhi bao ji style (erm ok, i meant aluminium-bao-ji style) and I dunno why after I ate it, I started craving for char kuay teow. Hahaha k la, not your fault... don't be angry arh :P There are countless other things that I crave for from time to time, so I guess it's really not your fault! Heh. But I'm definitely going to Day-in (or Day In?) to buy tang yuan for this Thursday. My parents just informed me on webcam this morning that Thursday is dong zhi. Nope, not to tell me to eat tang yuan, but to tell me to call my grandmother! *Horrors* What am I supposed to say to her on the phone? 'dong zhi kuai le' ??? Yikes... *shudders*.

I had an enjoyable day in the practice block today! It's funny how quickly time passes when you're practising... I forgot to bring my handphone with me so I had no sense of time. But I sort of glanced through some parts of each of the new pieces, and then I practised the Bach. When I was done fussing about with the Prelude I played through the Allemande twice... and then I decided to stop. For one, the colour of the sky suggested either that it might be sunset soon... which would start about 3 plus nowadays? Or that it might rain soon. And anyway my arms were a bit tired and I was a bit sian by then. Haha it was so amusing, when I looked at the clock tower, it was two o'clock! Which was the time I originally intended to stop practising. A bit freaky also.

I finally decided I've procrastinated long enough and washed the pair of sludge-splashed jeans from that snowy day. And now I've got brown sediments in the bath area. Eurgh.

Merry Christmas! =)

I sent the Christmas cards yesterday... but I can't guarantee they won't be belated. Actually I can't guarantee that they might even reach Singapore. The stamps stuck on the envelopes fine enough, but then the 'par avion' ('by plane') labels she gave me just refused to stick. Argh. I hope the people sorting out the post will have enough common sense.

I made great progress in my compo today. In total, I changed 5 things and added 4 clashing notes, one to each 'chord'. Yet it still sounds remotely tonal and cliche. Great progress indeed. Sighs... back to work!

If you don't get the Christmas card, let my daily 'Merry Christmas'-es make up for it. Merry Christmas! =)

I woke up super late again. Argh. I have this nasty feeling that I might be suffering from that disorder from psychology... called 'seasonal affective disorder'. I have the symptoms of excessive sleeping, excessive craving/eating, weight gain. Ahhhh! How?! Fortunately, the only symptom I'm lacking is depression. Anyways, I found this article describing how scientists investigate this disorder using hamsters:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Health/story?id=1385037

I found it quite amusing that they actually use such funny methods to determine whether the hamsters are sad and depressed. Please don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not a cruel person and I definitely love animals. In any case they're not torturing these hamsters, since according to the article hamsters don't sink in water. So that means they can't possibly die cos they can float. Oh wells, I guess the test might actually just make them more depressed huh. Want to give up but still cannot die. Poor things...

But then, I realised something contradictory about the article. Cos you're supposed to be craving for foods that are sugary, but how come the hamsters 'decline to slurp up tempting offers of sugar water'? And the scientists say this shows that they are depressed. How weird.

If only my desk lamp's fluorescent bulb hadn't fused, I might have gotten some light therapy. And it doesn't help that I can't find a replacement bulb! It's quite lame, but Tesco stocks bulbs in all sorts of shapes and sizes except one that can be used with this lamp, which indicates that the bulb should be a maximum 11W G23 fluorescent one. It was the same in the indoor market when I went there with Poot last Friday too. Even more lame is that Argos, which sells this model of desk lamps, does not sell the bulb for it... despite selling all sorts of other bulbs! -_-''' Unless I want to buy a new desk lamp, which comes with the bulb. Diaox... Okay nevermind, maybe one day I'll go to Homebase and see if they actually sell bulbs, since I got my desk lamp there.

I'm just a bit glad that I'm currently craving for things that I can't really get here, like chicken rice... sighs. Oh actually I could get it, if I cook it. But nevermind, I'm just trying to ignore the fact that I could cook chicken rice here too... I don't need to gain any more weight. Unlike some people in Singapore, cos I just saw this advertisement for weight gain in TODAYonline. I thought there was something wrong with my eyes but on closer look it really was for weight gain... generally targeted at men who want to look muscular, it seems.

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

Heeheeheehee hahahahahahaha I think I'm just going mad.

My first school holiday out of Singapore. Erm, ok la... if you don't count those holiday trips when I was younger. This is just different from having holidays in Singapore... I dunno why, maybe it's just because it is!

Last night I went for Andras Schiff's recital, he played Beethoven's sonatas, Op.31 Nos. 1, 2 & 3, and Op.53. First half was a bit boring, except for the few interesting parts. Eh, duh... if it's not interesting then it's boring right. But the first sound he made stunned me. Cos it was so... I dunno how to describe it... focused? Ms Ching used to say my sound is too scattered, I must learn to concentrate it together. Complicated, intangible, cheem theory for me. I think if not for the futility of repeating things again and again, she'd still be telling me the same thing now. But now I can understand what she meant, although I still dunno how to achieve that sound. Another thing that impressed me was how clear and delicate his playing was. All that fingerwork!

For some reason I've always been a bit biased against Andras Schiff, whether cos records by other pianists were recommended or cos I get influenced by people who don't like his playing. But yesterday I think he wasn't that bad, other than for the boringness of the first three sonatas. The Waldstein was so much better than the other three, which makes me wonder whether it was because of the change of pianos? He played on a Bosendorfer in the first half and for Waldstein he played on the Steinway... haha just a random thought cos otherwise why did he have two pianos on stage for? He could have played all the sonatas on either one of the pianos. Pity he didn't choose other interesting things to play, cos the Waldstein was really good. His encore was a bit of a yawn again, he played something which he introduced as the original second movement of the previous sonata. By 'previous sonata', it's a bit ambiguous as to whether he meant the Waldstein or the Op.31 No.3. *Shrugs* I dunno anything... I'm really really just an ignorant student.

I wanted to wake up early today to go to school to practise. No, I'm not mad ok... I'm having piano lesson tmr that's why I'm practising. Cos my Bach totally cmi. Actually, I didn't do much to improve it today either. Bummers. I woke up super late, like 10 plus? Cos some drunkards (or if they weren't drunk, then they are irritating fools) were making a huge din last night/this morning at 2am. I dunno how long it lasted but it certainly seemed very long to me. Surprisingly there were still people left to make such noise... but anyway, at the beginning I thought my flat was empty cos it was super quiet on Friday night. But at 2 plus one of my flatmates came home. So I thought there were still two of us left in the flat. But I was wrong again... last night, I heard another flatmate and her boyfriend come home. Weird. I haven't got to speak to either of them so far, somehow I don't bump into them... we seem to live on totally differen't time schemes. But I assume their terms just haven't ended? Especially the flatmate doing pysiotherapy.

Ok, I'm going to catch an early sleep tonight. I don't want to wake up late again tomorrow.

Oh ya, I forgot to mention, I vacuumed my room today! Yay! I celebrated this by walking around my room without wearing my slippers -_-''' Heehee. See poot, I'm not lazy k. And I'm determined to keep my slippers off in my room. As a motivation to keep the floor in its clean state, and as a motivation to vacuum the floor whenever it gets dirty. =) Anyway, the clean floor does wonders! Last time whenever I was thinking of tidying my room I'd always procrastinate. But now with the floor so clean, I actually FEEL like tidying up my room! Yay.

Wow this few days have been quite busy. Hah not as in the i-need-to-hand-in-my-essay way though. So that's good.

Yesterday was rather hectic cos Pohning's French flatmate, Celine, invited us for crepes in the afternoon... and some of her friends too. And we readily agreed to help her make the crepes, so fun! But there were other things to be done, like Poot had to get her laundry done since she's leaving soon... and I had to help her carry them down to Shackleton cos the laundrette there is bigger. And after that, we came back and helped Celine mix the crepe mixtures for a little while. Then I had to go over to Shuying's place, cos she cooked things and invited people over (on the day she was flying!). Plus I owed her money and I wanted to return it to her before she goes back. Then I went with Poot back to collect her laundry... and then I went back to get some things from Shuying, like left over potatoes, onions, cucumber etc. Oh ya, and a banana... cos I was telling her I haven't eaten any bananas since I came here cos it's quite ex. So she was determined to keep one for me... from the bunch that she bought from the open market, where it's cheaper.

After that, I went back to Poot's/Celine's... where they had started cooking the crepes and some of their flatmates and their friends were there. Oh and one of Celine's friends. Now I can see what Poot meant when she told me that when they cook dinner, the British flatmates would just sort of talk among themselves so Poot and Celine usually talk to each other. Cos even if they tried to make small talk with the Brits they would feel so awkward and excluded. Cos Celine's French friend was sitting at the table with the flatmates, and they just kept talking among themselves. Oh wells. I guess it's actually normal la. I mean, if one foreigner sits among a table of Singaporeans it's quite likely that everyone will talk among themselves and not talk to the foreigner also right. Even Celine said that her friends all happen to be international students cos since we're in UK, of course the Brits will mix together and in France she would do the same as well.

Anyways, back to the story. So... after some time more of Celine's friends arrived. In total there were two French guys, one German guy, a Taiwanese couple and Poot and me. And Celine of course. Later the flatmates and their friends left the kitchen and the rest of us were just chilling and talking. I can't believe it, we managed to do this until like seven plus!!!! And the main topic was actually movies. Me and Poot, and I suppose the Taiwanese as well, were a bit diao with the German guy cos he kept like having the impression that we're from China. Just because we look Chinese. As in, he kept slipping when he said things. Like, blah blah blah so is it also like that in China? Then like all of us will be like... ermz... speechless... then Celine would be like, they're from Taiwan and Singapore. But then the conversation will usually just like steer in another direction. But then I don't actually blame him la. I guess it's a slip of tongue cos we all look Chinese to them. Like if you asked me to identify a French, German and Brit without letting them speak, I'd probably not know the difference too.

After Celine's friends left, the three of us started clearing up the kitchen. Hmmz... teamwork really makes the chores get done faster and less boring. And me and poot wanted to cook dinner for Celine. We cooked fried rice with mushroom and chicken, baked potatoes, stir-fried wu gui dou ['tortoise' bean??? haha they call it fine beans here] with mushroom and chilli, and soup from the chicken bones, onions and carrots. We sorta overcooked by a lot. Cos potato, plus rice... super filling! And we cooked super a lot of rice too. I already ate like triple my normal portion for that dinner, and in the end there was enough food left maybe like for two meals. And the whole pot of soup was untouched cos by the time the three of us finished eating a lot of the food, we had no space left for the soup. Bleargh. Me and Poot ta pau-ed half of the left over food each, and I was left with the whole pot of soup. Celine was like, 'Happy New Year Jessica!' And we all burst out laughing. Heh... I was telling Poot I can drink ten servings of soup for ten dinners from that pot. I think I'd probably be sick of onions by the end of that.

And guess what time we ate our dinner? Nine. Cos we took one hour to cook everything. Yes... one hour. Actually ok la, that's about the same amount of time I take to cook a proper meal back in Singapore too. Just that here it's much easier. 'Aiya, sui bian la, just everything dump into the rice cooker and eat lor. No time! Need to do essay!' Hahahaha. Wells by the time we finished eating and cleaning up everything it was eleven plus. I think? Then I went back to my flat to borrow the vacuum cleaner (or hoover, as they call it here) for Poot and Celine, cos their flatmates somehow threw away the bag of their flat's vc cos it was very dirty. We were like huh... so where are we supposed to get another bag from? And Celine was leaving this afternoon so she really wanted to get her room vacuumed by yesterday. By the time they finished with the vacuum it and came up to return it, it was past twelve. Actually it was quite convenient, since their flatmates were at the flat next to theirs for Christmas dinner/party. Which started at nine.

This morning, me and Poot were actually supposed to meet downstairs as usual at 8.30 so that Poot could go for the Psychology lecture at 9. Ya la, I haven't gone for Psychology since the first lecture. But whatever. Both of us ended up oversleeping! I suddenly woke up and when I looked at the clock, it was like 8.35 or something. I quicky called Poot on her handphone cos I thought she'd be like waiting for me downstairs. But it turned out that she was woken up by my call. Hahahah we were damn comical. Cos Poot was doing last minute tidying up and packing and stuff last night, and also doing a write-up for her studio composition which she was going to hand in today. So she slept at three in the morning... aiyo poor thing. Apparently she wanted to call me at two but she thought she better not. Hahahah. In the end we went to school quite late to hand in her studio. And yada yada...

Then we took a bus down to the city. Yay! We went kai kai-ing! Hahahahah. I think I'm becoming crazy under Poot's influence leh. How... someone save me. Yepz, anyway, it was really fun cos finally we could (window)-shop to our hearts' content without the thought of some assignment lurking in the corner of our minds. Lots of nice clothes in H&M... hah but then, no money. I settled for some Primark stuff, like track pants for me to wear in my room... I've been wearing knee-length shors and actually it's not really cold. It's only cold when I go into the kitchen. And anyway I decided not to make my flatmates too disgusted with my hairy legs by wearing something long. Hahahaha.

One bad thing about shopping today was that, there was time constraint. Cos my flatmates were doing Christmas dinner tonight and they invited me and of cos I told them I'd be there. But I forgot that I'd be babysitting. So I decided that I'd just cook baked potatoes for them and like leave it in the oven and leave them a note before I go off. So I had to be back quite early. In the end, just as I was adding herbs and salt and oil to the potatoes before baking, my flatmates came back from Tesco's with chicken etc. So I told them I'm not going to be able to make it yada yada. And I think maybe cos I haven't really joined them for anything since start of term, they weren't really surprised. But they were like, 'oh you shouldn't have done the potatoes'. But then I felt bad cos I told them I'd be there yet I pang seh. Haha. When I came back home they had slotted a card under my room door.

Yay! Holidays holidays holidays... hehehehehehe.

Eh... dunno what to say leh. Wells super glad that term is over, not so busy anymore. But that's also a ninth of my time here gone too :(

Christine said I could try to ask Sue whether I can sign out the harpsichord and its room's keys for the holidays so that I can practice. But she said it might not be possible so I may just have to practice on the pianos. Funny, ZM said that she isn't really keen on Bach but today she set me stuff from Bach's French Suites. Ah very nice! I like them better than the English Suites! Yay... think of having all the time in the world to practice! Ok, not all the time in the world I guess. But still, it's going to be so empty or emptier cos people will go home. :D

Need to do my compo though. I did churn out a few bars for individual tutorial but then I didn't like it. It was too cliche, pastiche... pentatonic! Daria said it wasn't very pastiche cos the 'gestures are different etc' but then I still don't like it so she suggested that I add dissonant notes to it. But the few bars of the middle of the compo that I churned out was ok, at least I didn't hate them that much. Just that I think it's not really effective to think of a beginning and a middle and work out what goes between the two. I need to rethink!

Need to find a job too. Hopefully one that can still be continued after the holidays. But if not, at least for now. There are so many things I want to buy! Yet at the same time I want to save money for next year's fees. Bleargh.

My flat's going to feel like the first few days when my British flatmates haven't moved in yet... empty again! Good in some ways but then again, I might not be used to all the silence after they're gone. We're going to have Christmas dinner this Thursday... heh they invited me but then I thought I should still cook something and chip in. Otherwise super bad. Hahaha this works on the reciprocity principle of the recent psychology test! :P Anyway I've been quite bad to them la, so dao to them. Never join them for anything, the most I do is say hi plus a bit of small talk when I bump into them. And my alarm clock's snoozing every morning! Hahaha somehow the people here don't seem to need alarm clocks to wake them up. I've never heard anyone's, and Pohning doesn't seem to have heard anyone's too! Hope they're not too pissed with me and my snoozing...

On Sunday Shuying and I went to Selina's house for Christmas dinner. Very yummy! Hahaha Shuying was in heaven :D We bought two big lollipops each for the kids, and a box of chocolate. (Hahaha reciprocity again!) Cos we couldn't really decide what toys to buy for them and anyway toys are expensive. But guess sweets as large as what we bought aren't very practical too. Though they look really attractive, kids can't finish all of it at one go right. Selina was questioning why I chose to borrow money and come here to study if all I wanted to do next time was to give private piano lessons, reasoning that I could have done that long ago. I was like ermz... dunno what to say. Hah but she did set me thinking lah. It's quite true that since I came here, there must be something I can gain that I can't get in Singapore right... I just dunno what that is. Heh obviously the course isn't what I'd be able to get back home. But then like she said, I can still do the same things next time even if I didn't come here. I was totally o_O Dunno la... I need time to think!