Starting Holidays on a High Note

I've just come home from the Auckland Youth Symphony Orchestra performance in the Town Hall tonight, which is the first time I've seen them perform and it was really cool!  I even sacrificed going over to the neighbours to play some games to watch them! What made it even cooler was knowing a couple people in the orchestra, Eliza (who does pharmacy) who plays the French horn and Jenny Chen, the concertmaster! It was actually Eliza who told me about the performance, and who was I to turn a free performance down! Only my dad and I made it to the performance as Aonghas is preparing for America tomorrow with my mum helping him pack, while Hamish had to work on an assignment.

The orchestra performed three pieces, Roman Carnival Overture, Trumpet Concerto in A flat Major and Symphony No. 7 in A major Op.92. I haven't heard any of these pieces before, except for possibly Symphony No. 7 by Beethoven, but I got my symphonies mixed up, it turns out to be another symphony! Anyway the orchestra was really good, the audience was packed, which saw us having to sit on the ground floor and me behind some tall Asian man! Usually we sit up in the balcony along the side of the orchestra so we can be a bit closer to see the musicians playing.

It's amazing how far Jenny Chen has gotten and is going. She's about to graduate from uni and has already performed with numerous orchestras, won numerous competitions and will be traveling overseas! Now just to brag a little, I used to play violin with her in our intermediate school orchestra back at Rangeview ;) The last time I caught up with her though was probably some time last year outside the Music Centre after my accordion lesson. So it's kinda cool knowing (somewhat) the concert master!!

And it's equally cool knowing a French horn player in the orchestra too (Eliza!!). She's in first year pharmacy, and after chatting to her it turns out we know quite a few of the same people! But thanks Eliza anyway for getting me to come!!

So that marked a good start to my holidays. I didn't get to sleep in though as I had to teach this morning, but I managed to arrive early to class this time! Today wasn't as bad as last week. I hid all the highlighters in the classroom so the kids wouldn't be able to get them and waste all the ink by drawing all over the white board (especially since they're not my white board markers!). When I left and locked the classroom though, I didn't realise I still had the pencil case of highlighters in my bag! I had to leave them somewhere with a note to the supervisor, I just hope she found it or else I'm going to be in some doodoo!