For Today

I've just come back from Rutherford's school production 'For Today', which is a musical based in New Zealand with New Zealand music and similar to High School Musical. Yeah when I first heard that too I cringed as well, and the more Aonghas talked about it the more weary I was of seeing the production, but it actually turned out to be pretty good! Oh and for you guys who think I'm still too attached to my old school, believe me this was the first time I had been back at Rutherford this year! Yep pharmacy sure does occupy a lot of your time! My excuse for going to see this production as well is also because Aonghas was playing the trumpet in the bad ;)

The main leads were Janet and Ganin (for those who know them!) and they were quite good. I have to say compared to a few other schools' musicals I've seen lately (won't mention any names....) at least these guys could sing in tune! The storyline too wasn't that cheesy and at least was not an exact rip-off of High School Musical.

And as for the band...wow they were pretty good! They had a maths teacher who has his own electronic saxophone (even though it looks more like a clarinet!). The group wasn't too big but they definitely sounded cohesive! I had front row seats but I had to spend the entire time behind a camera filming close-ups of people on stage for Aonghas! By the end of the I had sore legs and a back from constantly sitting too far forward and leaning forward during the production!

It sure does bring back memories of past productions at school and being involved in them, especially the Wizard of Oz that I did a bit of a time back with all the cool guys (I was the lion!) Sadly no one filmed that production so we don't have any footage of that, just photos! I caught up with Troy and Christine, who went to Rutherford last year and were heavily involved in performing arts then, and they were wishing they could just jump on stage and join in!

But anyway, as for the rest of the day, one of my recorder students is leaving for Taiwan which is sad. He was probably my most advanced student this year! He's also in my youth group at church and so we had a bit of a shared supper/meal thing for him as a farewell on Friday night at youth group.

This is just the new promotional video that Aonghas and his friend Carey produced for the school, that I had to spend one night staying up to burn onto 200 DVD's (thank goodness we had four burners though which saved some time!) for him before they went to intermediate schools. They had this evening at Rangeview Intermediate where each of the high schools had to set up stalls in the gym to promote themselves (looks like more schools are doing this...I know Bruce McLaren Intermediate did it back when I was at school) and so they tried jazzing up their stall to outdo the other schools! I'm not too sure how they went but Aonghas took our stereo system and LCD monitor and they turned the sound up on the looping promo video so I'm sure they must've driven the other schools crazy!



(I did the music for it ;) I didn't play any of it as you Apple people probably have already realised!!)

And it's all over

Finally the looong exam period is over! I've had five exams spread out across the past three weeks and I have to say these past three weeks have been prit-tee depressing, going by the way I've been performing in my exams. No results yet, but I know they won't be great and would be happy with any pass mark!

 

My first exam was for a first year paper way back a few Thursdays ago, which probably will be the best one I'll do in...and yes I know it's a first year paper. That's probably why I'll do a lot better in it than the second year papers! That night after my first exam my youth group went on board this visiting ship the 'Doulos', which is part of this worldwide Christian organisation that spreads the word or...something like that...I was planning on doing as much cramming for the next day's exam and then join my youth group to visit this ship at night.

 

I probably shouldn't have gone but oh well...one good thing about going onto the ship was we caught up with this lady who used to teach us way back in primary school! She led this after-school group that we were a part of. We were watching this show on board the ship when at the end she came up to make a few announcements. I thought she looked familiar, and when she mentioned her name I was sure it was her! After the show we went over to say hi to her and it turns out it was her! She didn't recognise us at first but I think...or hope...she came round a little later...

 

As for my second exam...badbadbad...I only had a weekend before my third exam which I thought would be my worst. I started to give up hope halfway there but thought I might as well make an attempt, and so I wrote a whole lot of ..stuff in the exam that I'm sure only 1/8th was correct! I started laughing at myself halfway during the exam, thinking of how stupid my answers looked!

 

I then had a whole week before the next two exams, which were yesterday and today. I can guarantee you I did study! In between I fitted in a dinner with the cousins, which was cool because we haven't caught up with each other in a while. Two of my cousins from the same family have gone overseas since, and I didn't find out till a few days after they had left! One of my older cousins is planning on establishing a political party, named the 'Anti-Zombie Apocalypse'. I'm not too sure what it'll stand for (apparently nothing?) but I offered my services to him if he ever needs a spokesperson or a candidate for his party list!

 

And finally...the last two exams. Yesterday was shocking. I thought it'd be better than the exam before it, but I have a feeling it wasn't! Today's exam was chemistry, and that was my best paper last year, so I thought I'd have a decent stab at it this time round as well. We were allowed to bring a 'cheat sheet' with us to the exam, which meant we could write absolutely anything on both sides of one A4 paper, and so I stayed up all night trying to type the whole lecture guide onto the computer and reduce it down to two A4 pages. It ended up being 12 pages, but fortunately it was still legible after being squished down to 6 pages per side!

 

Now it's finally the holidays. I'm just going to waste my time in the city and do nothing productive for a change! The only thing hanging over my head will be exam results, and things won't be looking too pretty! Not that holidays will last long...three weeks cut short by one because of Maori Health Week!!

Where is the Food?

It's just me and the cat at home while my dad has gone cycling somewhere. I'm supposed to be studying but boy am I starving! There's hardly anything I can eat in here. At least the cat has cat biscuits and meat that I've tried feeding her - it's just that she's really picky and won't eat any of it and just keeps meeowwing! Sometimes I wish I was a cat..just sleep and eat, sleep and eat and puuurrrrr...The cat slept right up till 4pm the other day beside me as I was studying which kept me company!

As for the food crisis in our house, I feel tempted to just jump in the car that's left parked outside and drive down to the takeaways to get some chips, but 1) I'll be wasting precious petrol and 2) I really think I should be eating healthy. Last night I tried running all the way to the shops at the last minute before they closed to buy something for Aonghas but got puffed out after several hundred metres! That's a lot worse than back in my early days in high school! I haven't done much regular exercise since I stopped doing PE at school. Then again I've always considered myself as a short-distance runner (very short)! The thing with trying to eat healthy is that healthy food tends to be more expensive, and with food prices continuing to rise, it's even more difficult to afford. It just happens that a lot of the greasy, oily food is cheaper and will fill you up easier, but I shall resist the temptation!

I haven't actually commented on my studying yet. I've got an exam coming up tomorrow morning and another on the following morning (a Saturday!!). That means I won't have to...I mean I won't be able to teach music, so I'll have to get Aonghas to fill in for me. I only remembered that after my last class last week and so my students won't be expecting him! Hopefully they won't treat him too badly, or like him too much! hahaha

I'm not too sure how ready I'll be for these first two exams coming up, but I'll be a whole readier for them than I am for the other three coming up in the next two weeks! Those ones are the ones I'm really really behind in. I've already started thinking what to do should I fail any of them, but let's not jinx things! Life just keeps going on no matter what happens though, so all I can do is just be as prepared as I can and hope for the best!

Just before I go back to looking for food and studying, two videos I've come across recently:

- This is the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra performing Mambo from Westside Story by Bernstein (aahhhh bring back memories to the school production!). The link to the BBC article provided on the page makes their performance even more inspirational:

"Called El Sistema by its members, the programme is celebrating 30 years of making classical musicians out of half-a-million young Venezuelans, and it has transformed the lives of many underprivileged and at-risk youths in the process."



- I saw this Ford Focus commercial on TV with music being played on musical instruments recycled from old Ford car parts and didn't think it could possibly be true, and that it was probably just another one of those car commercials. After looking around though it turns out those car parts can really make music!



It's quite clever isn't it!

Big Sing

I took a little break from studying yesterday to go travel in to the city to watch a big of the Big Sing Auckland Schools Choral Festival, mainly because my brother was singing as part of his school's choir. I managed to get there in time to sit through the whole session which lasted about an hour. There were only a few school choirs during the session, including Selwyn College, Diocesan (Senior choir I think) and Rutherford.

While Diocesan was quite good (as expected!), Rutherford didn't sound too bad! They looked better in one colour as well, compared to some juniors wearing that lighter blue in past years. And boy has the choir grown since I was in it! I'm sure it has at least tripled in size!

If only the school orchestra experienced similar fortune, then they would be able to perform at the KBB Schools Festival and show those Westlake schools how to do it! (hahahaha...yeah sure.....) Right now they don't even have one! Aonghas is trying to re-establish one though, so hopefully they get something going!

After the performance there was some China thing going on outside at Aotea Square where these Chinese people were taking photos of random people and sticking their photos onto a large map of China on a giant board. I took a photo together with Aonghas and two of his friends Rose and Caragh, and we got our photo put around Hong Kong! <3 Hong Kong!!

Anyway here are their performances:

Semester One Nearing the End

Finally all our lectures and workshops have finished for semester one! No more CHEM240 lab reports! Yesterday our lectures were pretty much a waste of time as they were all review lectures. In our chemistry lecture in the morning, the lecturer asked if there were any questions, and after several minutes of silence, someone raised their hand and asked

"Can you tell us how to make things explode?"

The lecturer went on to tell us a little about making rockets and how she did it with her child without going too much into the specifics. She asked for more questions and got

"Can you put up instructions on CECIL?"

That's how pointless the lecture was! Why did I even bother going to uni then? Well we had to finish off semester one with a pharmacy test! It wasn't as bad as the first one earlier in the semester but my test booklet was stapled on the wrong side so I kept getting confused about which way I was going and where the questions were!

So anyway it's the homestretch now, just study study study! I tried doing quite a bit after the test yesterday which involved looking for kiddy animations to help me understand stuff. Haha oh how dumb can I get!

This week I've had to spend quite a bit of time working on this pharmacist profile assignment where I have to interview a pharmacist and write up a profile on them. I did this lady at church and initially I was going to interview her at church but then she asked if she could just email the answers to me. I then ended up having an hour long conversation over the phone which was really good! I finished my profile in time and the next day I was sitting in Albert Park eating my lunch when I thought I might just double-check to see that I have my assignment. Thats when I found I had the wrong version of it! My mum had switched my assignments! I had to quickly catch a bus home to grab it and then my dad took me to Grafton just in time for my last lecture for the day. When I went to hand it in though, I saw that everyone else had just typed theirs as an essay while I designed mine on Photoshop to try make it look like some magazine article! Hopefully I haven't done things too wrong!

So just ajst to finish off the semester, here's a yay for:

- how well-mannered some of the homeless guys on the street are! They call you sir when they ask you for money!! I would've given some to one guy who asked me but all I had was my Eftpos card and I....sorta need that!!

- more and better lighting at Albert Park, there'll be less chance of me being raped at night! (hopefully!!)

- cool bus drivers who are friendly to you!!


And a BOOOOO for:

- those people who walk up to the intersection and stand there beside you waiting for the walk sign, and then decide to light up, not giving a rat's behind that all their cigarette smoke is blowing right into your face!

- Craccum which, while having a few articles of interest, has been very underwhelming this semester. For a start what happened to High Horse Rodeo on the back page?! Motor-racing and (while I don't mind this) technology-related articles are over-represented, along with articles on politics. We need some humour in it too!

- Borrowing a library book and just getting into it when it gets recalled! You put the effort into trying to find another available copy of it to borrow, only to have it recalled once again!

Can't Handle the Jandel

Oh that's really mature:



When was the last time you (if you're Asian) were called Ching Chong? I don't remember being called Ching Chong since....primary school! Whoever wrote that must've been feeling preeetty left out, especially now that we're taking over the place! :D

Accordion Competitions

So the accordion competitions rolled around again this year at the Raye Freedman Centre at Epsom Girls Grammar School. Each year they seem to lose just a little bit more importance to us as other things going on seem to take greater priority...such as EXAMS!! I stupidly entered the top class at the competitions, which is supposed to mean going up against the best accordionists in New Zealand and the South Pacific (well...those who enter anyway). For the class we have to prepare a 15-20 minute programme of music made up of at least one Baroque piece, one lyrical piece and a technical piece. I was so underprepared that I only had my programme sorted moments before posting the application form off, and I had no lyrical piece and my programme was less than 15 minutes! I ended up going with this slow 2nd movement of a Mozart sonata I had to play for grade 8 back in the days (like 3 years ago now???) Apparently the three page piece would be about 8 minutes if I repeated both sections twice! I really wanted to pull out to avoid embarrassing myself and my teacher but he wouldn't let me!

Annnnyway our trio was first up on Saturday morning. We were performing our teacher's composition, one he wrote for his music paper at university which was supposed to be for erhu (Chinese musical instrument), flute and accordion. It went OK I guess, but what you hear on stage usually sounds different to what people hear in the audience. I found it difficult to hear my brothers playing on stage and they were only a couple metres away from me! There were a few slip-ups and mistakes here and there, like me focusing too much on whether they were in time to realise I forgot to come in! We managed to come first again though, and so we got our cup back for the Open Trio/Ensemble class for the fourth year.

My open solo class was a completely different matter! Not only did I fear not being able to complete my programme without a serious screw-up but now after hearing a girl from China in another class playing the same piece as me earlier there was added pressure on me not to play too bad!

I also never knew, but each competitor gets twenty minutes to warm up directly before their performance. I had my twenty minutes to quickly go through my performance and then try rest my strained arm before time was up and it was my time to go on stage! How fortunate was it for me to be drawn as the first to play too! I guess at least I could get mine over and done with and then everyone could forget about it while watching the other more impressive performers!

My performance didn't actually go toooo....bad. I got to the end which was most important. I did have stuff-ups in the middle of my pieces, but what helped me ease the nerves and save me from screwing everything up was I kept staring at the corner of the theatre where there was no one there, and just pretended there was no one in the audience and it was all just a practice, so even if I made a mistake I should just keep going.

As for the results, I got commended which I suppose is better than being singled out as coming last! haha It's the second year the guy who came first has won, and so he won't be allowed to enter next year which has given me a bit of motivation to start early this time round and try work harder for next year! What makes next year more important is the World Championships is coming to New Zealand. I'm not too sure if my teacher will get me to enter yet, but it would be a good experience to!

Aonghas performed his piece in the Junior Virtuoso (for 17 years and under) the next day and by his own admission it was shockingly bad! OK...well not that shocking as we were all expecting it. He's had a lot of distractions this year like going to America and uni, but we shouldn't be looking for excuses!

The upside of these competitions was getting to talk to quite a few of the other competitors and others more this year than usual. Usually because everyone else is from North Shore or somewhere else and we're the only ones from West Auckland, there's a bit of a divide as they don't know us as well as they know each other, but we managed to socialise a bit more with them this year which was really cool!

Now time to look forward to the competitions next year...

Car Chase!

Since it was the fifth Friday of the month it was supposed to be the night we celebrated people's birthdays in the past couple of months at youth group, but we spent the first half designing our noticeboard thingy for the church foyer. They have a noticeboard for each of the different groups on the wall and we still don't have one, so we've got to put something together! We had two groups working on two different designs. Aonghas and I, along with a few others were in one group and ours was a mock of the High School Musical poster (which Aonghas came up with!) while the others were working on something spaceship-related...although I did hear someone mention something about cutting out pictures from Farmers mailers....talk about cheap! haha

 

Once we finalised our designs we got to go down to The Warehouse (because one of the youth group leaders works for The Warehouse....higher up the food chain that is!). Aonghas, Hamish and I went in our own car while the others carpooled in other cars and we got to the Lincoln store only to find it locked up and staff vaccuuming! They were probably thinking what are all these Asians doing turning up to the store now once it's closed!

 

Next attempt: West City Warehouse! We got there, spent some time looking around but didn't really find any materials that suited us so we just mucked around a bit while the other group went on a spending spree. When it was finally time to go, that's when the excitement started. I jokingly challenged the minister's son, who was going in another car driven by one of the church pastors/missionaries, to a race back to the church, and he accepted! So I quickly jumped in, thinking it would be a not-too-serious thing, and we left first. They were following us for most of the time until we got the round-about where they turned right and we turned left, which was stupid because that would be the longer way, plus we had to pass the police station which meant NO SPEEDING!!! So despite some erratic driving at times Aonghas had to keep it pretty legit! We got to the church to find that the other car had just pulled into the carpark ahead of us. As soon as we parked we got out quickly and thought that was the end of it, until the minister's son started sprinting into the church! I thought what they hey time for a chase! and started sprinting after him! But....he pipped me and got to the room just before me! 

 

What we found out later though was that the pastor/missionary who was driving the other car had been doing 80km/hr just to try beat us! We never thought he would have taken the challenge seriously too!