Blogging at Robin's house.

Technician is going to come this Saturday to (hopefully) fix my computer.

These few days I have been sick, at first was sore throat, then running nose (probably mucus produced to heal it), now a bit of cough. Can't really sing high notes, could only reach a high D maybe. Well at least I managed to figure out some stuffs about my voice, head tone all those.

I feel quite sick (as in disgusted by myself). I have been trying to pull the mucus out of my nose now that they are quite sticky. I think it was Tuesday when I went to the toilet and managed to pull one whole long strand of mucus out of my nose, at first it was quite thin then I keep pulling and pulling, and the whole thing came out and I could breathe in better. Haha.

Reminds me of an incident in the Chemistry Lab earlier this year when Neng Wei and I were at the back (because our register numbers are one of the last) and I did the same thing, and he was feeling very disgusted by me. Haha.

I hope to recover by the Malacca trip. Oh by the way, I am conducting the choir on the 2nd night, when they will be singing Tantum Ergo, Wawaki and Wind Beneath My Wings. Not conducting on the 3rd night though, Mr Kwei would be conducting.

Woo scary!

Yesterday I was on the 31 bus returning home from school. Suddenly, Gabriel SMSed me and asked, "Are you on the 31 bus?" Well, looks like he saw me from his parents' car, like what he told me. I wasn't really surprised though haha.

Then after around 10 minutes of bus ride, Clement SMSed me and asked, "Are you on the 31 bus?" Walao, he told me he was on his way home after fetching Maung Myo home.

This morning, I was on the 31 bus going to school when Johnnie called me, the conversation went like:

[Johnnie]: Hey, are you on the 31 bus?
[Me]: Yah, why?
[Johnnie]: Ohh, ok, look to your right.

I looked and saw his round head sticking out from the crowd of people (it was during peak hour so the bus was naturally crowded). And he was smiling at me spastically. Haha.

I think I am being followed... =O

Computer still can't boot. Blogging at Bing Xing's house.

Have been quite busy with choir these few days. Hoping to try to raise the choir's standard by working on each member individually.

I'm not sure how the SLs and the members feel anyway. They dun seem to appreciate it, from what I see superficially.

I wonder how the choir is going to improve with such discipline. Like today the choir wasn't really focusing like as before. I really dunno.

Looking at Tuesday's combined workshop with 5 other schools on the set piece "Everyone Sang", looks like VSChoir's standard has dropped already. Plus somemore the 2 SYF choice pieces were not really very well done today during practice. Dunno why Mr Kwei did some of the expressions of the song while many of the basic techniques were not there yet.

Might not be blogging for some time. Computer cannot boot.

Computer crashed. Blogging at Jonathan's house.

Installed this driver for my speakers (I think) from Microsoft Updates website. The next thing I know after the driver is installed is that I can't boot my computer properly. It just keeps restarting and restarting every time the welcome screen shows.

Tried Last Known Good Configuration, doesn't work. Safe mode can't even load at all, I'm not too sure why. Maybe I can try booting from Windows XP CD but I can't find it yet. Haha. I see first.

Meanwhile, lesson learnt: Dun trust Microsoft Updates website.

Yesterday our choir had to perform at Victoria Concert Hall (VCH) for this workshop organised by Choral Directors' Association of Singapore (CDAS). I didn't know what the workshop was about earlier on until Miss Ding gave Pock Thong the schedule of choirs and I saw at the bottom of the list that it was organised by CDAS. No wonder I saw some of the familiar choir conductors' faces there... last time Jonathan, Edmond and I went for this choral workshop organised by CDAS as well.

Anyway, we met in school at 12.15pm to do some warm-ups and miscellaneous stuffs. I thought we had more than enough time but ended up that the time was just right because there were actually many things we had to do, like the entry and exit, positions and some other basic stuffs.

Reached VCH at 2pm, and asked the VCH lady whether we're allowed inside the concert hall. She was like telling me that we were late and the event was almost over already, after knowing which choir we are. Then this guy, whom I later knew as one of the conductors, said we were early and were allowed in the terrace as a place to settle down first. Woo scary, but how can we be late anyway?

Well, according to the schedule, Catholic High choir was first of the earlier session, then our choir was last of the later session. Like what Pock Thong said:

They want the event to start with a "bang!", and end with a bigger "bang!".

Really?

Okay so we entered the Concert Hall at 2.30pm, and listened to a few choirs sing. Mr Kwei came over and we asked him whether there will be time for warm-ups before our performance. He said no, then suggested that we move down after TKSS has performed. TKSS was very strong and powerful.

So after some warm-ups and some run-through of the songs we went up to perform. Well no more stage fright like last time, felt very confident of myself, plus it was not really a big event so wasn't really nervous. Hope this could give the sec 1s and some of the sec 2s some experience as to what it is like on stage.

Can you feel the love tonight - It seems like a warm-up song for us. The song was easy, but it didn't really sound very good. Unable to elevate our expressions over the 2nd part of the song and the part where there was a change of key.

Tantum Ergo - Sounded quite nice over my side. Not sure about the other sections, but the part where the Sopranos stick out was not really good, not powerful enough. Ended in tune, which I predicted wrongly: I thought we will go 1 semitone sharp.

Wawaki - Not good. Before we even completed the first page of the 3-page song we were 1 semitone sharp already. If I am not wrong it was the Sopranos and Altos going sharp while holding the D note. Also, we were rushing towards the last part, which I have emphasised quite a few times already.

At least it was sort of performance standard, but I felt it could be much better. This performance should prepare us for the Malacca trip, and ultimately, SYF 2007.

Hmmm, the subject combinations for VS Sec 2s this year are out on the School Website. Congratulations to the 15 choir members who get into 8/9 subject combinations.

I think my iPod Mini needs a change of battery. I think I just charged it recently, and only listened to it for a few hours on the computer. Then today the battery went flat. Haha. So now I am charging it and listening to it on iTunes.

I can't post anything on the school forums. They said that I am not logged in. Switched to Internet Explorer then can. I'm not sure why they are so prejudiced against Mozilla Firefox... no, just kidding. I think there's something wrong with their server, that cannot sign me in to the forums automatically after I've signed in to the school website. Or maybe this is something to do with Firefox's new update. Well, I think I will continue to only read the threads and not post anything, since I am lazy to switch to IE to post. I am also lazy to contact the school administrator about it.

I'm very sleepy. I slept at 3am and woke up at 6.30am, because I can't sleep. Funny human behaviour: when you want to sleep you can't sleep; when you don't want to sleep but yet you are sleepy, you fall asleep. That's what's happening now as well, I tried to take a nap just now but can't sleep.

Before today I spent some amount of time preparing for today's choir practice. Generally it went quite smoothly. After warm-ups today it was sectionals for half an hour, and Gabriel, Joshua and Justin were not here so I had to take the Tenors and Neng Wei had to take both SA. In the end Gabriel appeared some time later, but Justin didn't come because he was sick and Joshua because he had some China exchange programme that he needed to prepare.

Okay lucky Gabriel came anyway, because after sectionals, there was this practice for each level, and he's supposed to take the sec 2s. Pock Thong and I took the sec 1s, which is supposedly the hardest level to take. I started off with a simple singing exercise and I went "wah!", literally. Man, the sec 1s are good.

Ok so after some practice with them we went back to the Music Room. 10am exactly, on schedule. So each level sang Tantum Ergo and Wawaki, and what most of them did not realise is that I recorded their singing using Edwin's recorder that I borrowed. Thanks Edwin. I only told them after all 3 levels sang, and they were quite surprised. Haha, so evil. Well, practised with the whole choir. This time, they sounded much better. At least the level performance was quite a success, I would say, and I managed to achieve my aim for that practice. Ah well I recorded them again and they got surprised again. Haha. Well after which I told them I won't record anymore, which I kept my word.

Well practice ended quite early because I thought combines will take quite long but it didn't. So after some announcements and collection of stuffs we dismissed the choir and told them to be at Siglap South CC by 12pm. Then I sort of followed Ms Lau to have a sneak peek at the rooming list for Malacca.

Ok so after Mr Kwei's practice at SSCC I went to Jonathan's house to transfer the recordings into a CD, hoping to spend some time with the choir listening to the recordings and going through their mistakes on Tuesday before the performance. I'm glad the timings are quite good.

Almost fell asleep at Jonathan's house. Haha. We sorta chatted for more than 2 hours about choir... I think we should have recorded our conversation and let the choir listen or something like that, talked quite a lot on techniques and everything.

Just now I was ripping the recordings from the CD Jonathan burnt onto my computer. I was listening to them while I was typing this and I felt quite sick listening to different versions of Tantum Ergo and Wawaki over and over again. By the way, the 2nd most recent "rip" (and the only "rip" left) that was not deleted from "My Music" was exactly 1 year ago, 11th Nov 2005.

During yesterday's choir practice with Mr Kwei I sort of understood the meaning of warm-ups. As in I already understood the aim in the first place but there's something else that I understand... I dunno how to describe. Ah well. But thing is I still can't make warm-ups more interesting, I am just running out of ideas. So choir members, if you're reading this, please pretend to enjoy my warm-ups even if you find that it's boring. Haha.

Warm-ups is the thing I dislike most during choir practices. Not that I dun like singing during warm-ups - in fact, I love it - I dun like doing warm-ups. Haha. So if there's anyone out there who can just help me out a bit I would be most grateful.

Sometimes I wonder why the choir sounded so much better when Mr Kwei is around doing warm-ups. Maybe it's not because of the exercises he do, but because of his presence. But anyway, come to think of it, if I am able to do even to say as well as Mr Kwei, I would be earning big bucks already. Ha ha ha.

Okay so anyway, because I need the blood group tomorrow for the Malacca trip, I went to see the doctor today to get my blood tested. At first they say they need 1 or 2 days to get my blood tested, then when I consult the doctor he said by tomorrow 1pm. In the end they got it done in 4 hours and called me to tell me the results.

The doctor was quite surprised when I said I want to get my blood tested for ABO group. That's because
1) I was not feeling unwell, unlike many patients before me
2) I did not get my blood tested when I was born
3) I did not get my blood tested when I made my IC

It's quite scary because before he poked the needle into my arm, he referred to some medical book. This shows that he isn't really very prepared, or rather he has returned his knowledge back to his teachers. Haha. Okay that's not the scary part, and neither is the poking in of the needle scary... it's when he tried to take some of the blood and with the needle still in my arm, he removed my arm strap and stood up. Then he said, "I can't take your blood." Haha. He said I was too thin, and he poked onto my other hand as well. In the end I think he got some small amounts of blood only. Haha.

Okay so they called in the afternoon to reveal the results. My blood group is... did you think I was really going to reveal it here? Haha. But here's a hint: I predicted that I have this blood group.

Woo! Finally finished my Maths homework. Both E and A Maths! Combining both Maths together, I've used up 36 pieces of foolscap papers and 12 graph papers. What a waste man. Future generations would probably be doing all their homework on the computer. Haha.

I think I am quite slow, spending more than 1 week of the holidays to do both Maths. Deducting all the days where I am not in Singapore, and those days where I have choir practices, I think I have less than 3 more weeks to do homework. And to think that Maths, being the subject that I can do more productively, took me more than 1 week to do. Still left with the 3 Sciences, Geography AND SS, and the Chinese story book thing which I haven't even touched.

Talking about that, they seem to change the assignment now. Haha. Last time, it was plain boring, writing a few hundred characters on "Summary of contents" and few hundred characters on "Thoughts". Now it's more interactive, it seems. Haha. Okay I haven't really understood my assignment yet. I think I shall read that again next time.

The next assignments that I would probably (try to) do will be Physics and Chemistry, before moving on Languages and Humanities.

Anyway, to say, I haven't really finished my Maths. I left around 2 questions which I am stuck at. One of them is probably not taught yet, so I shall not attempt it. Another one is on Permutation and Combination. Have a go at it:

A garden centre sells 10 different varieties of rose bush. A gardener wishes to buy 6 rose bushes, all of different varieties. Of the 10 varieties, 3 are pink, 5 are red, and 2 are yellow. Calculate the number of ways in which her selection of 6 rose bushes contain at least 1 rose bush of each colour.

~ A-Maths Ten-Years' Series Pg 65 Qn 7 (iii).

Answer is at the back of the book but I dunno how to arrive at that answer, or maybe I know but I am not convinced.

Any solutions anyone? Please post as comments.

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Busily preparing for the 14th-November choral workshop. We're the last item for that day, and we might combine with AJChoir some songs, not very sure.

Today's practice was, I would say, better than Thursday's. Somehow after the exam break, I had a slight break-through and know how I can improve practices, as compared to practices before. Haha. I am somehow more optimistic during each practice, probably because I have thought over and over again the aims of VSChoir.

I've realised that the jump from being a Section Leader (sec 2 to sec 3) to a Student Conductor (currently) is very big. I had always thought that the SC is just another SL, just that instead of taking just a section, it's about taking the whole choir. But well, not really. Being an SC, besides having to correct each SL's mistakes during sectionals, I also have to take care of the well-being of the choir. So if a section screws up let's say during a performance, the whole choir will naturally screw up as well. So other than the SC, who is to be blamed? As for SLs, it might or might not be their fault, they'll probably only get told off by me.

When I was an SL, I didn't really care about how my section would sound in a choir - I just merely made sure that their notes were okay and dynamics observed. The rest should be left to the SC. But I was wrong. Now I noticed that most of the SLs are like me last time, and that I have many things to do during combines which can be done during sectionals by the SLs. Things like the tone and expressions can be done and rectified during sectionals.

So, it's easier to be an SL rather then to be an SC, right? Yes and no. Say, if the SLs work very hard such that during combines it's perfect, because each member knows their parts and stuffs like that, then being an SC is easier.

Sometimes I feel that I am very enthu in choir. I'm not sure whether that's how others think of me, and whether I am right to feel that way. Reason is because VSChoir is (unofficially) the top secondary school choir in Singapore as of 2005, because we scored the highest marks during SYF. It looks like I am responsible for the upcoming SYF. I can't imagine what the seniors would do if they hear that the choir didn't do very well for the competition... it's like VSChoir is good all along, there's no way our standards should drop.

Dunno why suddenly feel so emo. Maybe I just want to update my blog a little.