Saturday, February 23, 2008
i should have done this last night or this morning... it seems so late already.
ahhwells nevermind. i still must post it anyway :D
i think this will mark as one of the really hilarious, fun and memorable section outings for this year. erm. at least i think so. not so sure about the others but anwayyy on the whole, we all thought that the masterclass was a highly educational (in the context of the marimba) and entertaining. i felt that it was a miracle that i didn't fall alsleep. lol.
ok so the day went like this. at 3, yqp started to gather at m4 and then everyone was either slacking, doing homework or helping one another doing homework. and because the nyco comm was having a meeting in m401, and m402 was small and squashed and didnt have space to do homework, the people who were doing homework were lying on the floor on their stomachs doing homework. (the floor isnt very clean but who cares. comfortable can liao:D)lalalala for once, i thought doing maths on the floor was nice. YAY. and i realised jia ni is a really nice junior. she actually skipped talenttime prac to come and join us. so nice of her!! and i was surprised she already read the entry on the nyco diary about joy and et. she's cool.... haha :D and i also found out some interesting facts about pei er, like she say if she doesnt bathe, she would get a cold at night, so she went to bathe!
hmm. then after the comm came out, yqp went into m401 to xiang3 shou4 the air-con while sitting/lying on the table/floor to do homework. but i think the one hour in m401 was more like slack then doing homework.... (and i didnt know sheila plays basketball. you cant tell by just looking at her. o.0) a brief description of the scene in m401: imagine yqp in a circle with some lying down, some sitting cross-legged. space in the middle is covered with stuff like worksheets, files, stationery... there was somehow a pattern. for a few minutes, the circles was quiet. a few minutes later, it becomes noisy again, and the pattern repeats itself. lol!!
at about 5.45pm, we were outside the audi waiting for chewfei to settle some stuff. and then i dont know how it happened, wendy took a short few-seconds clip of yuka running around in a circle then facing the wall to 反省 (??). i was watching the video again during dinner just now and almost choked on my rice. HAHAHA so funny!!
eh. then yepp we walked all the way to poolside (lets skip the details on the way. not very interesting.) shawn and her 2 friends were there already!! ok so we sat down, then we went to change. YQP TEE!! we all ordered the same thing, sweet and sour pork with rice, and same drink, green tea. green tea is nicee xD but after ytd's experience, i realised something. going to hc for dinner on a normal school day is not a good idea. really. -.- in any case, dinner was ok :D
we waited for a long time for 151 to come, i remember. i keep seeing alot of sbs buses but none of them seemed to be 151. sheesh. so we entertained ourselves with gossiping about joy and et, telling jokes, and taking the chance to know more about each other. eg now i know cass likes her IH teacher and joy actually responds to her name mrs toh. but i still think the best part was the time on the bus. xinyi and joy were super hilarious!! HAHA ah ah and cass too!! she kept laughing while telling this funny story about how her friend eunice was obssessed with tamil in pri 5. LOL. though i didnt really under what the funny part was about but i was amused by cass' expression. HAHA.
something happened while we got off the bus and made me laugh reeeeeal hard. joy was like, "dont call me mrs toh!!" or something like that, then she nearly tripped on the steps and nearly fell. i dont know why lah, but i just started laughing like siao while trying to walk straight on the pavement. sylvia then tried to imitate me trying to tell her what happened, and that just made me laugh even harder!! i was on the brink or just plopping down to the cement floor to continue laughing. xD
one of the most amazing things of the day: chewfei and pei er look like older sister and younger sister when they are holding hands and walking together!!
i realised that they both:
- look tanned
- wear specs
- come from 109/209
- are enthu
- have the same face-shape
- play western instruments (piano, in this case)
- have spastic laughter/smiles when they are real high
and the most important one (i think)
- they're both from the honourable Yang Ching Dah Chee Association!!
ok wait. we all are. but anyway, i was just trying to point out some differences mah. YAY. credit sylvia for the photo :D
you know i actually imagined yongsiewtoh hall to be something much bigger. i never knew it was the size of the air-con room in third lang... and the sound-proof system hurts my ears. the moment the room is quiet, there's this ringing sound and the my ears start to hurt. its happens in the yangqin room too. i wonder why. i think its the pressure. ah sheesh.
when yunge and weishan arrived, they settled down beside xinyi. then xinyi told weishan that et might sit beside them when he comes, so they 2 of them shifted to the 2nd row. but when et came, he went to sit beside weishan. in the 2nd row. lol weishan was so gang1 ga4 her stomach ache intensified.
sylvia the crazy woman imagined this crazy thing. she was imagining us standing up and saying, "good afternoon mr toh!" in this loud and enthu voice. she is so damn ridiculous, so damn funny!! then she was saying that et would be putting one hand to his face, murmuring, "no i dont know them. they are greeting the wrong person...." LOL i thought it was very amusing :D
yes and finally at about 7.45pm the masterclass started!! the marimba is cool, the 4 players are cool, glifford howarth is cool as well!!
we learnt more about diff techniques used to play the marimba and how it actually can be used as an instrument on its own instead of just a percussion instrument used to accompany other instruments. we thought the class was interesting cause we havent heard someone play the marimba so pro-ly before and u cant admit that the songs werent nice RIGHT?! yea and we thought we would be hearing glifford howarth play the marimba himself but he ended up only playing bits and pieces of songs -.- lol. its really a different experience as this is our first time attending a masterclass and we get to see things done live and close-up e.g. u get to see how diff playing techniques work etc. yea. we're not exactly pros at marimba's so, thats about the overview.
after attending the masterclass, we learnt that different types of mallets produces diff types of sounds. the way we hit, the way we hold the mallet, where we hold the mallet, and many other diff techniques, all help to produce different sounds. we're really amazed by the skills of the performers.
we learnt that a better way or double rolling is to hit both notes at the same time first before rolling, and i rmb glifford howarth said it as something like an attack... this way the rolling would sound more even and clean. yay :D we also learnt that its not advisable to be aggressive throughout. we must know how to relax at the correct places. he also thought us that when a hand is holding 2 mallets while playing, we should know how to keep them from clicking together. one way he said was to put tape. we can explore the diffferent sounds produced when playing the marimba as different sound quality can create diff feels to satisfy the atmosphere of the song.
and of course, through the masterclass, live performance is important and thus the performers actually gave us the deeper impressions. all of them are pro - their technical skills being far beyond imagination, the musical sense being extremely natural.. so on so forth.
as the saying goes: practice makes perfect. the performers must have put in alot of effort in daily practice. their performance makes us wonder how much hard work had been put in to make their showcase a success. its was so good that each person only made a few not noticeable (to me and yuka at least) technical mistakes which could only be seen/noticed after they were pointed out by glifford howarth.
hahaha and i never knew the marimba could play so many different genres of music. LOL
and the taking photo thing was abit to sudden. like, i never knew they would want to ake photo.lol
on the whole, the masterclass rocked!!!
******
hee thats about all i wanted to say... hmm. its a very long post!! if you managed to read all the way down here, then congratulations!! xD
rachel the beetle on behalf of Why Kill Pee Sec 2s 2008.
Siao-ed 11:59 PM
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Tuesday, February 12, 2008
booyah! joy the poo here!
these are the people who ordered the snare drum sticks and need to bring their money to pay the poo
by this coming thursday:
TG15 - Yunge, Shawn, Wendy
TG16 - Jiani, Weishan, Shawn, Wendy
And Pei Er the super junior (i love calling her that. for no reason heeeh) needs to pay $24! if she even knows the existence of this blog D:
AND EVERYONE PLEASE BRING ALLLLLLLLLL THE NYCO/YQP-RELATED SCORES ON THURSDAY. we have to arrange! whee! ok see you all during xiaozu (:
POO.
Siao-ed 8:25 PM
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Yang Ching Dah Chee Association Monthly Edition:
THE PEE TIMES
Tuesday, 12th February 2008
THE PEE TIMES will bring to you today a highly condensed top ten list of the latest happenings in the Yang Ching Dah Chee Association, brought to you by handsome reporter Cockroachy Fei!
#01 - Orchestra practices also known as Dazu will be on Tuesdays till next week. Further notice will be given lest there be changes to the schedule again! Practices will be conducted by Lin Lao Shi.
#02 - Sha Di Er scores are finally ready. Would hereby like to apologize for the late dissemination of scores due to some missing links here and there for both Yangqin and Percussion parts. Please collect them from Cockroachy Fei's classroom before practice starts.
#03 - From now on, everybody is to sms Cockroachy Fei reporting times for practices before hand. E.g. Yun Ge smses her on Thursday morning indicating "Today I'd be late hoh, coming at 4.00pm due to home econs remedial. Lurrrb eeeuuu. Muacks <3"! Even if you are not late, an sms is required. Otherwise Cockroachy Fei might call and disturb you.
#04 - Calling Poo-Lover, Jamma, Cutie Chan, Cuttlefish and Messy-hair weasel. We will be involved in NYGZ's concert this year, details will be given at a later date. Just remember!
#05 - Compulsory, important! Glifford Howarth is conducting a marimba masterclass next Friday at 7.30pm. It will be held in the YST Orchestra Hall. Free admission. Both Mrs Ee and Mr. ET had strongly recommended everyone to go, and Mr. ET is attending it as well. Those who cannot go, please inform Cockroachy Fei by this Thursday with valid reasons (lessons not counted)! This will also be counted as a section outing (complete with dinner and incessant crapping along the way).
#06 - Drama people had been playing with our instruments very obviously. Cockroachy Fei went into M4-01 for a quick check today only to find her beloved timpani mallets put atop the marimba. Stop this, we gotta stop these insolent people!
#07 - Poo-lover must be having a hard time collecting snare sticks money. O$P$ ah.
#08 - Missing lunch practices?! You must all be suffering from withdrawal symptoms. Thus, lunch practices will be implemented every Thursday (xiaozu day) for the rest of the year.
#09 - We need to have fun too! How about re-implementing the weekly YQP lunch on Tuesday we had last year!
#10 - Integrating the new juniors in... Jiani and Pei Er! (:
THE PEE TIMES sincerely wishes you a happy academic year ahead. Cheerios!
Siao-ed 12:01 AM
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Friday, February 08, 2008
HELLO YQP!
i havent posted in a trillion billion years, so er, i shall post something!
er, wanted to share something rather amusing.
at least i think it's amusing.
----
an email i sent to mr jack tan (LA teacher):
hello Mr Tan,a very happy Chinese New Year to you! you might have found two (fake) mandarin oranges in your pigeon hole..i'm so sorry because i dont have real mandarin oranges but i just wanted to send well-wishes to you on behalf of 301. hope you dont mind those fake oranges (:*coughcassandra---
and an email he sent back which was rather satisfyingly pleasant:
Hi Cassandra, Happy New Year! Thanks for the synthetic oranges. Were they from you or from the class? It's a good gift because they can be kept longer than edible ones.All the best Mr Tan BTW we enjoyed very much the CO's performance on Wednesday. The percussionists all had such good rhythmic sense and er, presence of stage(?), which made the piece very exciting.---
whahaha. we were very exciting.
i dont know what presence of stage is, i think it's taifeng. i dont know. hm.
sigh.
anyway, THE POST BELOW THIS ONE IS NICE. taha i think i already commented that on the tagboard.
hm.
yay, we love yqp <3
for the coming year, yqp shall er, strive towards greater heights (ah so corny!!)
and we shall do well on the 18th of july.
whee!
Siao-ed 1:25 PM
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Wednesday, February 06, 2008
5 facts about Taiyang today:- How the audience roared at our playing... And clapped and cheered and ooh-ed and aah-ed and went crazy eventually.
- It was so exciting that some people, apparently some of my friends, tried to throw stuff on stage after the performance. They were stopped by a mindful Council batchmate. Lol.
- My friends commented they could see my arms and mallets but not my face /body. Apparently I was flailing them. They also thought the xylophone parts were "magical" because "it was nice but I don't know who played it". Haha.
- Mr Matthew Lim stood very close to me taking photographs on stage. It was so heng I didn't hit him.
- Sheila called to inform we left one yangqin and a few stands behind at the hall, almost an hour after the performance. (I was shocked!) Later she called again to tell that it was a mistake.
4 noises / sounds / remarks observed:
- OMG!
- Waaaaaaaaah!
- Where is that coming from? Who played that?!
- So cool (whoa)!
3 important people / groups to thank:
- Yourself! YQP! NYCO!
- Mrs Ee, Ms QQ, Mr ET
- Whoever helped shift instruments (:
2 wishes:
- Good job today! Although it wasn't the best attempt for all of us, it wasn't the best place for such a performance anyway. Many factors come into play, so we did well! Cheerios YQP!
- Happy Chinese New Year :) Come back with weight gain of 10kg next week!
1 NYCO, 1 Taiyang, 1 CNY performance, 1 FABULOUS YQP! :D
Siao-ed 6:13 PM
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Sunday, February 03, 2008
COCKROACH IS HERE AGAIN!
And this time it's a short update on some of the more troublesome issues everyone has to take note yeah!
1) For Monday lunch practice, we will not be going about our usual routine, but instead watching relevant stuff in 413 classroom! Oh yeah that's my classroom :D 3rd floor, science block. Please be punctual, it will be a fun and exciting session haha.
2) For Tuesday lunch practice, it's the last shot for practice. Extremely important and compulsory session. Bring all your tuners, metronomes, and muscular arms. Yangqin enthusiasts, please fine tune the two Yangqins used for performance. Wendy, Yuka, Sylvia, Jocelyn! For the percussion side, just do whatever we can... Yeah!
3) We are supposed to get black court shoes for the performance, but, HEY! It's only CNY, and people can't even see your face, you think they will look at your feet meh :D If you already have them, wear them for the performance! If you don't it's okay to wear your school shoes... However Yuka needs to get hers because she's sitting infront. Percussion people it's okay.
4) Please please please pay up $10 NYCO fund to me, and $5 YQP fund to Jaime by Monday.
5) Over the next few weeks Joy will be launching some new activities for score-keeping in the section. Keep watch! :)
6) Our YQP tee's not valid anymore, and Jiani and Pei Er deserve to get new shirts as well! It's time to think about our new section tee!
7) On Wednesday, who's not visiting their primary schools after the celebrations? Any one cares to have some mini section outing?!
8) Please try to confirm 3 people who can help us shift instruments on the actual performance day. This probably means those three friends won't need to do calligraphy! However, you must confirm this with me by Monday lunch because I will need their names for authorization etc.
9) Any money used for the CNY Party for the section, please claim from Jamma! Best claimed with receipts.
10) Apparently Mr. ET wants to watch the CNY performance. Hmmmmn :/
Alright that's all!
THE SHUAI ONE SAYS BYE! :D
Siao-ed 4:45 PM
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Saturday, February 02, 2008
Yo everyone, here's the fabulously cool and handsome Cockroach. Thank you Sylvia for that previous update on the YQP CNY Party (Haha I forced her to do it). Just wanted to fill in some details or observations that I felt was relevant to facilitate your understanding of this whole amusing affair.
Okay so while Benita managed to get Ms. Qu Lao (or we can use QQ for easier typing) to cease her fanantical Yangqin enlightenment, over at the Percussion side we were running out of time because Mr. ET was either clueless about the party or pretending to be so. Now, we know, it always seems fishy when i) the section's seniors come back altogether; ii) your students seem to be especially giggly on that day; iii) when your SL looks at the clock every two minutes. Let's hope Mr. ET never grows smarter and we can continue pulling such gags on him. We deceived that we will be practising the new SHA DI ER piece at 5.00pm, before he extended it to 5.15pm, then 5.30pm. Eventually everyone got quite anxious and fed-up so I could sense that Joy the poo was desperately wanting everything to stop (from her facial expressions). He still didn't get it. Sighness!Haha in case you didn't know, the speech was supposed to be a skit but due to the lack of time and practice we never got about to do the skit anyway! Throughout the skit we presented gifts to the different birthday recipients, of which I was most proud of were the colourful mushroom soft toys from More Than Words. A long time ago, Jaime Jamma Jackpot was in love with those mushrooms... Tada! XDAnd so we engaged in the paper purse game, which was supposed to be a TISSUE BOX GAME but we somehow forgot to bring that tissue box and I had to fold a purse out of paper to get this purse. It was quite exasperating! Xin Yi was also frantically tearing out the little pieces a few minutes before the CNY rehearsal commenced (before Mr. ET came). CNY rehearsal was not very satisfying as usual, but it was fascinating when my volleyballer friend recalled that she actually "stopped to look when the drum people raised up their arms, so I almost ran my face into the net". By the way, Rachel didn't come so it was still relatively spacious. Haha.
Alright back to the game, haha let's listen to the joke of the day, by Shawn. So I was briefly telling her about some of the questions we raised during the game over MSN. One including: "(Mr. ET) What animal would you be? Why?" To which Mr. ET refused to divulge, or rather he said he didn't know. Okay so deep in our hearts and Shawn's as well, we unanimously agreed he was an alien. Then Shawn added something like that: "He's not an animal. He's an alien. So (Ms.) Qu Lao can be predator. Alien VS Predator!" JOKE OF THE DAY WHOOO! So funny ahaha!Other than that Ms Qu Lao also told us about the story of how her percussion co-performer in Shanghai played on the wrong side of the glockenspiel. First burst of humour and unpreceded emotion we saw from her... QQ must seriously score fabulously well for her essays and oral communication because she most certainly managed to lengthen her speech to up to a few minutes to simple questions like "How do you think you were like at our age?". If she didn't go for the musical path, I would have advised her to be a Taiwanese Variety Show host. Of course, if you insisted, the educational type.Jocelyn brought some really yummy food while Wendy quenched our thirst by bringing packet drinks! The section thanks the two of you a lot! The CNY goodies Jocelyn brought were so good I actually ate a lot as my dinner and didn't consume much of the real solid dinner I had at home. Nevertheless the next day we also entertained ourselves with the remaining goodies during dazu (at the Percussion side). Yangqin people will not want to know how we went about with the entertainment...Alright, after the game ended some of us went off because it was rather late (tada you all missed all the fun). Some of us stayed back to crap, laugh or simply eat the delicious cakes from Bakerzin that Sylvia kindly bought! I liked the banana one, yum tum tum! So while we continued to coerce Yuka to say "I don't know..." Cassandra the Curly Cuttlefish also proceeded to tickle everyone with a few lame, funny, and DIRTY jokes. Okay not really! X) The situation was thoroughly strange because Mr. ET sat around to listen and sometimes crap along. Yun Ge said something funny which I forgot... alright -_-
Soon after we left (at almost 7pm), and Mr. ET revealed he took Chinese Literature in secondary school. To the unsaavy, that means he recited Tang Shi Song Ci and knew every detail in Shui Hu Zhuan like the back of his hand. Xin Yi, believe it! No wonder he gets along so well with Ms. QQ. Hmmn I think that ends off the very detailed CNY Party update!
Haha sometimes I feel amused when I realise I'm the SL who organizes all such parties and outings. In other words, I'm weird. Okay, sure :)- - - Fast forward to Dazu the next day! Mrs Ee was not present so we had Sectionals for one hour, then some practice with Elise after that. Elise, being the dizi manic, practised well with Guan Yue and Xian Yue most of the time so Yangqin and Daji both got some leeway.
During Sectionals we had a minor clean-up and instrumental shifting, so everything is much more organized and coherent. We devised new methods to counter those petty students who come in for Drama then end up touching our precious instruments. Including a spiky new barricade. Refer to below. POKE YOU! Yay :DCNY Concert really coming on Wednesday. Let's all jiayou for it because we're all in this together whoo! (HSM lol) Like Mrs Ee said, we'll make them (Nanyang girls) go "WOW"! In a good way, of course, not having your qin zhu fly into an audience's face or something.
By the way, that happened to me when I was in primary school. That guy hated me till P6. Haha. :)
BYE YEAH!
The shuai-ge waves farewell!
Siao-ed 8:32 PM
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Friday, February 01, 2008
YO PPL! hahahaha gonna post about thursday our PARTY =D ok yup so....i dunno if i can recall EVERY detail but i'll try!
OKAY. so first we managed to get qulao over thanks to benita!! who was very very straightforward haha. so then cause we *ahem* "INFORMED" et that we were gonna prac a new song from 5 onwards, we managed to stop him too! yup so THEN we offed the lights and told et that we were gonna prac in the dark. THEN the seniors all stood in a row and started their WONDERFUL speech =D
which was both in english and chinese =D
so then we started on the game, which was to pass this paper purse around, take out a slip of paper and read out that question to the..um...intended recipient of the question which is basically shawn, felicia, et n qulao! yea so MOST of the questions were (obviously) targeted at et...HAHA and then poor poor xinyi got this "Do u have a girlfriend? if so, can we expect to get ang baos soon?" and et's reply was YES and NO =p
haha ya then we asked alot of questions....and et i think he felt kinda awkward? o.O oh well! =D haha and qu lao handled all the questions with alot of...feng1 du4 (as usual haha). ya! then we started eating the cake, then qu lao had to go off. so she ate HALF cake and et was "pressurized" to eat a whole cake =D yup! mini cakes i mean. THEN we were crapping alot la...seriously. and the juniors think we're SIAO!! =D so cool!!!
haha ya then i had to rush off cause i realised it's wad...6.20 LOL. so dats all i noe =D sry for e short...i realli forgot detailed parts i just remember super funny parts =D
OH ONE MORE THING! et's birthday card had a dagu sticking out of it and it looks like a cockroach! =D which yuka calls xiao3 qiang2 =p
Siao-ed 11:22 PM
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