Signed in

That night, Cheston signed into MSN. Or rather, somebody signed into his account. It was weird, as if it never happened, as if he has never left, as if he was still with us. Hmm, perhaps in some way he still is.

It was good to hear of classmates going to pay their respects at Mandai Crematorium. It was good to read of Aimei going there to say a good-bye because she could not do so that time since she was in Korea.

It felt good to know he wasn't forgotten.

Quote

Olivia said,

My pi sai (mucus/nose shit) is nicer than yours ah!

Results day

Accidentally fell asleep while having supper last night with aunt and family. Finally had a good sleep and just woke up an hour ago. Anyway, results are finally out and as usual, I'm openly declaring them. Here, if you are curious:

2007/2008 Sem 1 Examination for ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES 2

Module Code	Module Title	Grade
PL3233	Cognitive Psychology	B+
PL3244	Adolescent Psychology	B-
PL3254	Introduction to Trauma Psychology	C+
PL3282B	Lab in Person and Group Cognition	B
SC2101	Methods of Social Research	B

CAP: 3.46

After so long, I'm still an ARS2 student, it's quite depressing. Surprisingly my lowest grade was by my own major module. And I didn't flunk SC2101 or anything else, which I'm glad of. Cognitive Psychology and Adolescent Psychology results are to be expected. So that's only 2 out of 3 modules whose final result are within expectations. Well, that's the bell curve for you.

The most depressing thing is my CAP dropped by 0.04 points. Ah, oh well.

Schedule

Possible pointless entry ahead.

Schedule:

5.15am Wake up
6am Waits for Roland or Damien's car at bus stop. Plaster my toes to prepare them for stuffing into shoes.
6.30am Reach airport, get pass for entrance
7.30am 1st show at Terminal 1 - Santa's Village (with its Santa statue that sometimes has a missing arm)
8.15am Finish 1st show. Pack and head to Terminal 2.
9am 2nd show at Terminal 2
9.45am Finish 2nd show at Terminal 2. Pack and return pass
10.30am Roland drops us off near our place on his way home and brings the handbells home.

From then on, either

a) Deal with ticketing/programme booklet for concert on 26th December until late afternoon, after which I get to have a nap (which is VERY lucky), or just plain late at night (or rather very early in the morning 2 am) before waking up at 5am again the next day,

OR

b)
11am Concert rehearsal at studio
1pm Rehearsal ends and start dealing with ticketing stuff or packing things for show later or resting for a while somewhere (usually at home)
3.30pm Head down to Esplanade for percussion show. Always good to be early.
4.45pm Report at Stage Door of Esplanade. Prepare things for show. Inside of Esplanade is a maze. Start doing rain dance in the hope that it'll rain and outdoor show will be canceled.
5.45pm Sound Check at the The Waterfront Canopy
6.15pm 1st show at the CourtYard - the area outside of Harry's Bar and Restaurant (some name or other)
6.45pm End 1st show. Head down to The WaterFront for 2nd show. Pray it rains.
7pm Start 2nd show. Community Drum Circle. Draining but fun; fun but draining. Either way, depending on mood and the number of hours slept the night before. Pray it rains.
7.30pm End 2nd show. Prays it rains for next show.
8.15pm Start 3rd show. Community Drum Circle. Some foreign worker tried asking for my number in the midst of inviting them to join us. Wah lao, why only foreigners interested in me! Pray it rains.
8.45pm End 3rd show. Might have 4th show at 9.15pm, if not, we pack up and Damien drops us off near our homes.

Reach home. Switch on computer. Watch one anime, falls asleep at the ending song. Sit on the bed, fell asleep sitting. Takes a bath, don't fall asleep while bathing. Lie down for a while, haven't brushed teeth... &#$%$... Fell asleep until next morning 5.15am when Kim gives me a wakeup call. Thank goodness for her wake up call, if not I will never be on time.

See why I always don't have time to blog. Today had time because only had airport show in the morning and ticketing stuff in the afternoon. Ignored my cousin and went for a nap at 4pm, only to be disturbed constantly by members calling to tell me they want to reserve tickets or something (I can't remember, I was sleeping!) and by the house phone ringing for my mother. Woke up 4 hours later for dinner.

Tomorrow is another one of those crazy days. Airport show in the morning, concert rehearsal in the afternoon and handbells show at Esplanade in the evening.

I wonder why I'm blogging about my schedule when I could have gotten 1/4 of the HK trip entry out in the amount of time I've taken to write this pointless entry.

Quote

Kim: I have very high expectations of myself in terms of music.

Hong Kong (Part 2)

Just a note. All hanyu pinyin will be replaced by Chinese words soon... When my computer decides to cooperate with me.

Ministry of Bellz (MOB) Educational Trip (Part 2)

Perhaps I have not got on a plane for ages, but I found the air stewardess' explanation of the use of life jackets and escape routes extremely interesting - the way they point to the card in their hands with the front facing us, showing us how to use the life jackets and fake-blowing into the mouth-piece that comes with the life-jacket.

Reached HK, first thing to do - put on jacket. Second thing to do - take picture:

Mel, Kim, me, Debbie (front)

(Mr.Udders asked who's the goondu posing at the back of the photo. That's our Music Director, the person who formed this Ministry of Bellz ensemble, the person who organized this trip and my percussion tutor in Secondary School =D)

I was amazed that their signboards had Chinese words on them

and their travellators had recordings telling us to be careful or something when we stepped on it. Paiseh, I have the tendency to be amazed about everything.

Anyway no matter how different things are and what are the different languages, there's one thing that is the same in most countries:


Since it was an educational trip, we had a coach bringing us everywhere. After a few days, I still could not remember where were the places we visited. I don't even know where our hotel is exactly at! All I know is we visited Tai Po very often (read: every day) and drove past that area where jiu shu died in some Brothers show which I don't know about.

This is some bridge there that's quite impressive, but I DON'T REMEMBER EXACTLY WHAT'S SO SPECIAL ABOUT IT. I know there are two layers of road, upper and lower, where the cars drive on different days or something.


There's the bridge in the background. Just realized something from this picture. Why does that car/van have two license plates?

On the bridge itself

Some of the places we went past, the roads we drove on, were similar to Singapore.

Kind of a random scene out of the coach window

Buses

Nothing special about them though. There are apparently a few companies providing bus services, unlike here where there are only 2, but I could not really differentiate between the different buses (because my eyes were glued on other stuff). Oh, if my memory serves me right, they also have TVs inside the buses. Did see those buses that are run by electric on rail-way like lines but did not have the chance to take a picture of them. Any idea what are the proper names for them?

We also drove past the trains, one of which links all the way into Mainland China. Our tour leader told us that the HK railway system is very efficient with a train every 5 minutes. However, the buses are still more popular than the railway because, like in Singapore and probably everywhere else, buses stop right at or closer to the passengers' desired place.

After which I saw these old, old buildings we sometimes see in HK dramas:

I was so amazed by them I took quite a few shots at other places when the buildings were spotted. There are newer flats but I'm not sure if the people staying in them are any different from the people staying in the older flats. One can often see the old and new flats standing side by side.

I suspect there are other styles of houses because we spotted one where the area that the poles are hung is separated from the apartment by a mere gate and the furthest end of the pole holder was so far from the gate that we were wondering how they manage to hang their poles there. Not to mention that there was no flooring underneath the holders where you can actually walk out to hang. It was pure empty space beneath the holder. Like the laundry holder in the picture above but the wall is a gate instead and the holder is further down at about feet level and much further out. Isn't it very dangerous then?

And watching some of the people, it was like seeing people from a HK drama serial come to life - the clothes! The vest-like sweater, long-sleeve shirts and sweat pants.

The first thing we did was to have lunch at a local restaurant. Their rice and food really a lot. I could still handle the food on the first day and we cleared a majority of the dishes.

A huge bowl of rice for everybody - the start of our first meal in HK

Do restaurants in Singapore serve rice this way? I don't remember it being so.

Some of the members then went to buy some pre-paid card that comes with a HK number so that they can call in and out of the country. Was surprised that my friends would call back home to assure their family of their safe arrival. I just needed to send an SMS and that was it. In fact I sent only an average of an SMS per night to tell them I am alright and going to bed, or perhaps a couple more when asking them if they want or need anything from HK.

Some of the girls chose to go shopping after that, but Kim and I decided to follow the guys for dessert at 许留山. I think it was the original one. It was fantastic!


Didn't try the famous one amongst all of the desserts in this place but it is similar to the one on the top right. The mango was seriously good. Have never thought that mango can be served in so many different ways.

Another one of the delicious desserts

Roland, one of the members, managed to dig out all of the flesh of the coconut in one go so that the entire piece was intact.

Then it was off to lesson at Asia Handbell Music Centre - Handbells Institute. The one we went to was a small studio in Tai Po Estate. It was really small but cosy enough.

Unloading from the coach

Yes, the bells were so heavy that we needed a trolley. See that guy in the beige jacket holding on to the trolley? That is Kevin, our instructor for handbells throughout the trip. He can play really well and has gone on the Chinese show Zong Yi Da ge Da. He's really young, only 27, but is already married and is darn accomplished. He is officially my new idol =D Oh, and I think he is good-looking too. Shit, will the other ringers from the group read about this. Oi, if you all read about this, pretend you never see it hor!

There were times during practice when I felt like a schoolgirl again with a stupid crush on some teacher =D Was rolling my eyes at myself throughout when my mind went "oh! The flutter of butterflies in my stomach!". See, it don't have to be men in uniform to make me hyperventilate.

First day's rehearsal was tiring. We learnt a lot of new techniques and it was only then that I realized how weak my left arm was and how clumsy I must have seemed with the bells. I could barely strike the bell properly, not to talk about any form of musicianship. It was like learning to walk all over again.

Then we had dinner at one of their erm..... is it called 茶餐厅. It's a small diner not unlike a single stall at a hawker centre with the seats outside the stall belonging to the stall, then put four walls around it, a door and a roof. Ta-dah! You have your 茶餐厅! Ok, why am I describing a diner...

Anyway I had their wanton mee! The noodles are completely different from what we have, theirs is a lot better, obviously. Which reminds me I have yet to try Malaysia's wanton mee too. Oh and their wanton mee is really only wanton and mee, no vegetables, no other sort of meat or whatever. Though it was nice, I soon got sick of eating it.

After which we headed to the Tai Po Baptist Church for a short exchange with the church handbell ringers.

Show you all how huge handbells can be. Compare the bells in the top picture to the ones in the bottom:

Damien and Roland with the bass bells

me, Debbie, Pearlin and Axils

At some point in time, Kevin told 4 of the girls, including me, to play the huge bells. I was horrified. I could barely hold it up, not to mention ring it. It was so bad we were basically plucking the clapper but holding the bell in its upright position instead of swinging it out and ringing has per normal.

Random picture of Kevin conducting =D

After which we finally checked into the Rambler Garden hotel at about 11.30pm.

Pearl, Kim and I shared a twin room. It was an extremely tiny room with an extremely tiny bathroom (which had no lock - blush). Once you enter the room, the bathroom is on the right,

wash basin and mirror (left), toilet bowl (middle), shower (right)

I could cross over from the basin to the shower in one step. And immediately in front of the bathroom is the bedroom. It was a decent room though. At least there were no cockroaches running around, for which I was extremely grateful.

I was standing in the small space between the toilet door on my right and the wall on my left with the front door at my back when taking this picture

It was a very small room with a very beautiful night view of the port:


I loved the containers and the light and the way the machines carried the containers around.

After a very exhausting day 1, we still had to sort out with the hotel people the number of towels, blankets and pillows. Then it was finally a bath and bed - at 1+ am. That's all for day 1 of the trip. Will talk about day 2 tomorrow.

If there are any wrong information about HK in here, please do correct me.

Part 1
Part 3

Quotes; Shows

Pearlin: __ is wearing maroon-coloured bra today! I'm wearing blue bra today! You are wearing biege-coloured bra today!
me: Pearlin! Why you so disgusting!
Pearlin: I learn from you one what! =D

Pearlin (to me): Yesterday I was talking to Yiang Shan, then she mentioned something dirty and Yiang Shan said "I learn from Stephanie!"

I really never teach them!!!!

--------------------------
I've been into Terminal 1 and 2 of Changi Airport more frequently in this week than I have in the past few years of my life.

Hong Kong (Part 1)

Let's see how much I can blog in half an hour while talking to Pearlin on the phone.

There is so much about the trip to blog about (mostly because I'm so naggy) that I have decided to split it up into several sections. Ok, day 1 - 6th December 2007, Thursday.

Ministry of Bellz (MOB) Educational Trip

The day before the flight saw our instructor giving me the task of printing 500 pieces of brochures to be brought to HK for the concert. Pearlin and I spent a hectic day searching for a cheap and good printer, buying clothes (which we ended up not needed to use in the end - waste my money!), buying performance shirt and getting soaked in the rain, we finally got to studio for practice in the evening. After practice at the studio till late, I finally reached home at about 11.30pm and proceeded to finish packing my luggage.

Then after 1 freaking hour of sleep, I was up and off to the airport (not after some hectic last minute packing). It reminded me of the time I went without sleep for about 24 hours or so before going off to KL. Only that this time the timing was ungodly - 4 plus reach leh!

Check-in took awfully long. Father stood there and waited until we finally went through the checkpoints. With all the handbells, luggage exceeded weight limit and was checked in as cargo instead. If you do not yet know, this was an educational handbell trip.

(from left) Pearlin, Axils and Roland after check-in

A first look at the place where we would be performing after our trip:

Melodie, Kim Peng, Debbie and Pearlin at Santa's Village inside Terminal 1

Then FINALLY, we were on the plane.

Pearlin and Debbie in front of us

Kim Peng and Melodie in the seats beside me

Axils

For some reason I ended up with the window seat though my seat number was not that. The view was beautiful! I like the clouds. =D


Mel kept asking me how's the view outside the window. After a while I told her it's just clouds.

Breakfast on board

Ok, that's it. It's 12.11am now and my computer is so slow it takes ages to load the pictures. Have to wake up tomorrow at 4.30am again for a show at the airport. Will do a bit more tomorrow when I come home. I'm not even done with the airplane ride can! Hope this little bit is ok for now. Not ok also have to ok =P

Part 2
Part 3

Concert

I need sleep.

I am flattered that a friend thinks if I advertise about the concert on my blog there are people who will actually order tickets through here. Not sarcastically flattered, but really flattered that he thinks that way. Truth is that it don't exactly work. This blog isn't famous or anything and I believe most of my readers are my friends (which is very heart-warming, knowing that my friends do read my blog still), whom I would have had bugged to no end about attending one of the (yet another) concert I'm performing in. So to those whom I have already bugged and bugged and now come in here to read about something else, I'm awfully sorry because here's another promotion for the concert! =D


Ok, the Anak Baba Band and Ministry of Bellz concert, titled Babas h'and Bellz, the former playing peranakan music, the latter handbells, will be on the 26th December 2007, Wednesday (the day after Christmas), at either 3pm or 8pm. Tickets are priced at $15. Concert is held at The Arts House (The old Parliament).

Ministry of Bellz is a very new handbells group, started only half a year ago. We've just came back from HK for an educational trip (which I have YET TO BLOGGED ABOUT). We have performed at a joint concert with The emBellishment Handbells Quartet in Hong Kong and also at Disneyland Hong Kong.

Anak Baba Band is primarily a band playing peranakan music. They use keyboards, drumset and some percussion. Should be quite interesting. I don't play in it though, so I'm afraid I am not very sure about the details of the band.

So there are 2 sections in this concert - The Anak Baba Band playing peranakan music using keyboards and percussion, and the Ministry of Bellz playing Christmas and other pieces using handbells.

If you're interested in attending this concert, do contact me at my email ng.wan.jing@gmail.com.
I've never stepped into The Arts House and it's kind of exciting to think about how it is inside there. By the way I'll be playing handbells in Ministry of Bellz. It's my first time performing as a ringer and I'd just picked it up slightly more than a month ago. It's a challenge, but exciting and very different from percussion. What I thought of as simple bell ringing did not turn out to be so simple. There are techniques, ringing motions, damping, coordination, gracefulness and other stuff I have to know. Crash course in 2 weeks and then show time. It's quite beautiful, though, playing music with handbells. I'd very much appreciate if some of you would come down to watch! I remember the last time percussion concert, my friends went down to watch then I was so nervous and during intermission they told me to relax because they could see that I was nervous. It's a lot better now though. Stage fright isn't so bad for me nowadays.

Ok, hope I can sell all 20 tickets. It might be my last concert with this group, if I can actually bear to stop playing handbells (the group has 3 octaves of bells - very expensive).

Don't know

I don't know why I still feel this way towards him when he don't.

Back but haven't blogged

All of you should smack me.

Touched down in Singapore 1.30am this morning, came back, finally had some semi-proper sleep till 12 in the afternoon when I could no longer stand the horrendously loud drilling. Had breakfast, relaxed and watched anime until now. And now I have to go back to studio for handbells rehearsal until freaking 12 midnight! Then tomorrow it's show at Changi Airport, at 7.15am and 9.15am and then another show at Science Park after that in the afternoon. Maybe I'll be able to finally blog when I come back.

Really apologetic! In the meantime go check out some other interesting blogs like Sibeh Sian's or chillycraps' or stickgirl's. All very nice!

Or you can come and check out my twitter and see what I'm doing/complaining/thinking about or just read that little red box on the right sidebar.

I miss Hong Kong.

Off to HK

I finished my exams on Monday and I haven't blogged since then! Extremely apologetic!

Stephanie. flying off later. says:
ok I'm going off

Stephanie. flying off later. says:
argh wait

Stephanie. flying off later. says:
I haven't blogged

Stephanie. flying off later. says:
argh!!!

Don't think you all want the sob story of how my exams are lah, hor? To cut it short and sweet, it was horrible, I told my parents I might very likely drop to a 3rd class Honours, if I still do Honours, and they are very upset but very encouraging and I'm very upset and pissed at myself.

Ok, if you all don't know yet (I don't remember talking about this - in fact, I don't remember what I blogged about because I haven't been blogging frequently! Sorry!), I'm flying off today at approximately 7am to Hong Kong for an educational trip and will be back on 11th December midnight. Am learning how to play handbells. Will be very busy and very tired.

As I've said before, if you all don't know what a handbell is, please refer here.

If you all don't know I'm playing in a concert on 26th December 2007, please refer here.

Sorry, no time to post pictures and anything because I have have HAVE to get some sleep before waking up at 3 am. That leaves me 1 hour of rest.

ARGH!!! I forgot to do Module Preference Exercise! That's for choosing modules for next semester. Cham. Ok, come back on 11th and do in the afternoon, before it closes at 5pm.

I'm so sorry I have been neglecting you all! Thank you for checking in here when you all can! I'll blog when I come back on 11th December ok! See you all then! =)

一点点

我，

有点。。。

想。。。



他。