Tuesday, December 25, 2007
National Treasure, 2 concerts and MARRY CHRISTMAS!
Here is a series of events that happened last week and this week.
First up, I went to watch National Treasure with Tae Hyung e hyung, Sae Hyung, and my brother. The movie was good. I say it was better than the first one. The first one had too much clues in the Declaration of Independence if I remember correctly... National Treasure 2 or Book of Secrets had some funny and "Oh my God" moments. One scene was when Ben Gates (Nicholas Cage) had to create a scene in the museum place to get himself detained by the security. His acting was damn good and hilarious. The other scene was at the end of the movie when Riley* got his Ferrari back. It was tax free and he drove it straight into another car. Heart breaking. Good thing they didn't show us the Ferrari getting damaged =D.
After the movie we went straight to E-Zone again to play Virtua Tennis 2 and Puzzle Bubble. In Puzzle Bubble, I got all the way to Stage 16 until Tae Hyung e hyung challenged me and took over my game. All of us wanted to go to the "?" stage and beat the game. But when I clicked on the choose button, the cursor was on the "X" stage and not the "?" stage. That like destroyed the gaming mood. We beat the game once then decided to beat it again just to go to the "?" stage. "?" stage was nothing much. It was just the same thing but harder. And the ending was different too. In "X" stage, the little dinosaur dude gets many friends which in the "?" stage he becomes the king.
Again after E-Zone, we went to Burger King. Its our routine. Movie, E-Zone, Burger King, bus stop then go home. At Burger King, Tae Hyung e hyung shared with us his NS stories again. How he met all these cool friends and some gay fag, dumb fuck racists during his BMT. I hope I get to meet lots of nice friends when I go there and not some dumb shits who insult my country. Good thing Sae Hyung's gonna go with me though. As well as all my friends who used to go to same Secondary school as me. I've never been hated (as far as I know) in any school I went to but I get the feeling BMT is gonna be different... Who knows?... Tae Hyung e hyung also told us his encounter with the supernaturals too. This clearly freaked out Sae Hyung and my brother. This didn't really bother me though since I always believed that there are spirits around everywhere and that they won't disturb me unless I disturb them first. Sae Hyung got freaked out so much by Tae Hyung e hyung's "HEE HEE HEE!" when Sae Hyung asked what'll happen if someone accidently touched the Red Tape that was around the forest. The "HEE HEE HEE!" wouldn't have been as scary IF Tae Hyung e hyung didn't describe the spirit he saw in the forest. Head only, red eyes, mouth super wide (as in the smile is from one ear to the other), and on some random tree. I wonder what'll happen if you shoot bullets at it though... Because I think that'll be like the first thing I'll do if I do encounter them with weapon in my hands.
Okay so moving on to the 2 concerts I went to. The first one was Tina's alumni band concert, and the second was Wei Lian's Kim Send Wind Symphony concert.
I went to Tina's concert alone since all my friends couldn't make it or didn't want to go. On my way there, the MRT was freaking crowded and this really sweaty man like walked past me when he was getting off... The smell was horrible... I'm never going on the MRT around like 6pm anymore XD. Tina was a MC at the concert and I saw a side of her I've never seen before. With thick make ups etc (from far away, the make up looked thick =D). The concert overall was good but I say the Primary school band performed better than the Secondary school band. The songs played by the Primary school band were also more exciting too. Tina's secondary school band played 2 exact songs our band played. 1 was Under the Double Eagle, and the other was Enka Medley. Under the Double Eagle was nice and it was the opening piece. When I heard it I was like "Wow this band is good". I took back my words though when I heard them play Enka Medley. The Clarinets were WAY too shy. I couldn't hear ANY Clarinets at all when they had like 13 Clarinetists. People said they could hear me and my section play at our concert when there was only 7 of us... Oh well they were probably afraid to play the high high D and E...
Next concert up the following day was the Kim Seng Wind Symphony's concert. This time I went to the concert with my section members Yvonne, Yi Zhen, Xian Hua and Liyana. We were late for the concert though... Since Xian Hua finished her work at like 4:55pm when the concert was starting at 5pm... We managed to hear only 1 song in the first half and it was Enka Medley 2. Their band was seriously good. The sound was balanced, in tune, and the soloists were damn good too. There were some squeaks though. Like those really bad ones. They didn't bother the music though. Can't believe such a excellent Clarinetist like Wei Lian had to play 3rd for the concert... He said he was too lousy compared to the other Clarinetists so he couldn't play 1st... Then where does that put me?... After the concert, We all decided to go eat with Wei Lian with his other friends. His friends gave him a brocolli as his present at the concert. It was supposed to be a flower. Wei Lian later dunked it in the trash can in front of their face XD. It was funny.
Finally for today's post... Hmm nothing much to write about actually since the its only 5pm... Well anyways, ITS CHRISTMAS!! =D. Haha Merry Christmas to everyone =D. I managed to send message to everyone in my contact list on Christmas Eve. The message sending took damn long. There was like a SMS traffic jam or something. Took total of 45minutes for my phone to send the messages to everyone. I even sent messages to people I've never messaged for like 2 years? I sent to Tiffany Fan, Hahneol, etc. Wasn't expecing replies from them but Tiffan replied XD. Thought her number changed or she deleted my number from her phone book for something. I sent messages even to Sunny, William, Wynn etc when I knew they weren't really gonna reply. Last year, I sent a message to Wynn and I think he said something like wasting his SMS and stuff XD. Haha but not disappointed even though they didn't reply though. I got a Christmas Tree message from Tae Hyung e hyung and a Merry Christmas message from Sae Hyung too =D. Takahide called me at like 1am to wish me Merry Christmas too. He wanted me to go out to hang out with him. I rejected immediately.
Haha I think I'm going out later for a family dinner. So I'm gonna stop here. MERRY CHRISTMAS PEOPLE!! =D
SHUT UP.
4:25 PM
Monday, December 17, 2007
MI Symphonic Band Concert
On 15th December 2007, my band, Millenia Institute Symphonic Band had our first ever band only concert entitled Sleigh Ride. Our band practiced VERY hard for this concert. The songs we prepared for the audience were Sleigh Ride, Disney Movie Magic, White Christmas, O Come O Ye Faithful, Last Christmas, Pop Culture, Enka Medley, and Jersey Boys. Songs like Disney Movie Magic, Pop Culture and Jersey Boys had short versions of famous movie themes making the concert a little more worthwhile.
The concert was due to start at 5:30pm but it started at 5:40pm instead. Probably to wait a little longer for the audience to come in. Due to last minute ticket selling, we couldn't get full house. All the VIPs I invited came though. All except one who went to a Japanese karaoke like a gay fag. When the audience was entering the Center Stage, my band mates spotted my brother immediately. They were like "I saw your brother James" or "Isn't that your brother?". Tae Hyung e hyung and Sae Hyung sat next to my brother too. While waiting for our conductor to start us off, I noticed that my 3 brothers were laughing uncontrollably while waiting for the concert to start. I kinda knew they were laughing at me since they made funny hand signs to me and looked at me straight in the eye. I thought they were making fun of the Santa hat everyone was wearing.
And so eventually our conductor, Mr. Lim Lip Hua, entered and started us off with Sleigh Ride. Our first piece started off nicely. So did our second piece, Disney Movie Magic. For this piece, I played 2nd Clarinet. And the last 2 pieces before the interval which were White Christmas and O Come O Ye Faithful, I played 3rd Clarinet. I came up with the suggestion that we, the Clarinet section, switch parts =D. It was to let my section mates have a chance at playing the 1st part which is usually more challenging. However, I still got the first parts for the more harder pieces like Last Christmas and Enka Medley. The Clarinet section was busy switching seats because of this though... Our conductor always wanted the first Clarinets to be seated at his left and the third Clarinets to his right.
So after playing those 4 pieces, the body percussion came... Basically, body percussion is something like self mutilation. Or if you put it in nicer terms, its to create music using our bodies. I had to beat my chest, belly, knee, and clap my hands along with 11 others. C.Y.'s and Tze Kiat's* solo parts were funny though. They really looked as if they were gonna fight or something.
So the interval came after that and I went straight away to meet my lovely parents and my 3 brothers. I found out that they were counting all the mistakes the band/body percussion made, making fun of me hitting my chest and how I cleaned up the stage and set up the stage again before the intervals. My brother took a video of me cleaning up the stage... He should have took video of the band playing so that I could hear what we sounded like from the audience's perspective. They also said they memorized the body percussion parts as soon as they looked at it XD.
Anyways, the second half of the concert started off with us playing Last Christmas. A familiar piece to most people who listen to Christmas carols/songs. I made a mistake during this song when I was looking at Tae Hyung e hyung and Sae Hyung. I forgot to watch the conductor so I went straight into Coda when I was supposed to repeat. Fortunately for me, the Coda part and the repeat part was almost the same so people couldn't really hear my mistake. This happened through out the second half because Tae Hyung e hyung told me to look at them when I'm playing. They said they were gonna do something funny. So in the next song, which was Pop Culture, I memorized 4 bars of Flinstones just to look at them. I think I made eye contact but none of them did anything... -_-.
Then my favourite song of the concert came. Enka* Medley. AKA Chinese grandma song by Tae Hyung e hyung LOL. This song was the song my section forced me to play since it was one of the more challenging pieces... I wanted Yvonne or Yi Zhen to play though... They didn't want to in the end, although they were able to play the piece... Enka Medley was my favourite because it had lots of running notes, and the tempo became fast for some time too. I love fast, catchy songs. The last song listed on the program booklet was Jersey Boys. We played this song without any mistake also (at least thats what I think...). After the song ended, our conductor smiled at us and went backstage. The smile was to tell us something like "Do you think the audience will shout encore?".
The audience, except a few people like my brothers, parents, friends and a few others I don't know, WERE ALL DEAD. Oh my God... They didn't even clap properly (according to my brother). So my brother had to clap as loud as he can to get them to actually clap. Even though the audience didn't shout encore, our conductor came out and told the audience that we prepared one last song for them. The last song was called Santa Rocks the House. This song was super fast too. I think the audience liked the song alot too since they clapped very loud after the song ended.
So that was the end for the concert. Friends I invited all left so early... I couldn't get a chance to thank them face to face... Tae Hyung e hyung, Sae Hyung, my brother, and my parents stayed all the way though and for that I'm grateful =D. Haha I got to give Tae Hyung e hyung his birthday present too =D. Hope he will like it XD. Haha now I'll like to thank everyone who came to the concert to support me XD. THANK YOU ALL!!
After all my supporters have left, I took lots of photos with my band members. Especially with my lovely, angelic, Clarinet section, and the guest players. I'm gonna miss them when they're gone... Especially Tina, Liyana, Derek, Edward and others. We will keep in touch though. Especially with Tina since we both support Thailand in the Sea Games XP and since she's my one and only TINA XD. For Liyana I'll see her whenever we have Clarinet section outting or barbecue XD. Derek and Edward, I can keep in touch with them through my brother in band, C.Y. XD.
Oh well, I can't wait for our next concert with them =D. People who came to support, once again, THANK YOU SO MUCH =D. Hope to see you on our next concert too!
JaMess out
SHUT UP.
8:41 PM
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Bali Trip
I finally went overseas after like 4 years! It was awesome going on a plane again. We went to Bali on Monday (3rd December) for 3 days and 2 nights. The plane we got on, was freaking small compared to other planes. And the plane looked old too so I was worried that maybe one of the wings might tear off or something XD. Before reaching Bali, we managed to see the most beautiful sunset. The whole sky was crimson red with clouds providing some more special effects.
When we reached Bali, our personal driver, Madae*, came down to the airport to escort us to our villa. We didn't sleep in a hotel -_-. The road to the villa was damn rocky and narrow. It reminded me of going back to my grandparent's place in Korea. The villa we stayed in (Sitara Padi Villa) was HUGE. 3 rooms, swimming pool, huge living room + kitchen, etc. Only bad thing about that place was that the annoying insects were everywhere... Especially in the toilets since they were outdoors behind our rooms. Had trouble sleeping that night because of some of the insects that managed to enter our rooms AND because of the gay skin rash on my feet.
Second day in Bali was all about shopping, looking at some tourist attractions and eating. Before we got started on the tour with our driver, I freaking had to go see a doctor because my feet were swollen and I couldn't even point my toes down... I had to get an injection on my ass because the doctor said it looked serious... Why on my ass? I told her to inject me on my arm but she said it'll hurt alot -_-. Psh whatever. I was gonna tell her I'm the type of kid that carves my name out on my arms and stuff but that would have given my mom a heart attack and my dad would have killed me XD. After the injection, I felt SUPER giddy, sleepy, and tired. I couldn't even stand up by myself for like 10 seconds after the injection. Probably because of lack of sleep, and light breakfast. BUT my parents kept on saying I'm weak blah blah blah. Wanted to tell them to stfu. 10 seconds after the injection though, I was perfectly fine. The rashes on my feet were immediately gone too so we proceeded on with our tour. First place we went to was this beach (forgot the name...). The rocks there had like volcanic features on them. They looked like cooled lava but felt like graphite... We didn't get to spend that much time there because of my dad... All he did there was step on the rocks, then walk back to the direction we came from. Next up were some random places where tourists go. One of them was a paint house and the other was the silver smith. After lunch, which was so poorly served, we went to another beach. People were actually swimming here unlike the first one we went. As usual, I did the first thing I do when I go to beaches; to look for hot babes. Lots of Western people were there but I didn't see that much hot babes. Both the beaches were damn freaking long. The third beach we went to, had the crystal clear waters. Wanted to swim but because of the freaking injection and the rashes, I couldn't. Last up was the dinner by the beach (again...). The meal they served kick ass. Finger licking good, cheap, good service. We did go shopping too but didn't buy much. Most of the things there can be bought in Singapore anyways. But difference between Bali and Singapore is that Bali has like 100 times more shops than Singapore. I saw wide variety of shops in the street like Zara, Bossinni*, Billabong, Converse, Nike, Adidas, Ralph Lauren, and etc. Women's paradise.
Our flight time on our last day was at 4:10pm. So we decided to just chill around in our villa until 1:10pm. Surprisingly, my dad, who can't even swim, actually got inside the swimming pool. I wanted to but the ass injection was still hurting. So we left for airport after saying thank you and goodbye to all the villa staff for their kick ass service. At the airport, my dad got so pissed off at the staff for being so "stupid" and asking him to walk through the metal detector again and again. He said the word "stupid" infront of the security guard too. They deserve it. What kind of dumb ass asks the person to walk through the metal detector over and over again?... My dad's anger didn't stop there though... We later found out that our flight was DELAYED because of some gay reason. So we were like 4 hours early for the flight. The airport in Bali was small, and didn't have that much shops either... No game shops there too (Maybe I expected a little too much?). Nothing bad happened on our flight to Singapore though. Overall, the Bali trip was fun but it sure was nice coming back to a more developed country XD.
Was gonna write about the pool game on Thursday with Tae Hyung e hyung and yesterday's band practice and the Phil Winds concert but I'm feeling lazy right now.
So shoppers, go to Bali to shop! XP
SHUT UP.
1:45 PM
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Hitman + 10KM Marathon
First up, Hitman. Watched Hitman with Tae Hyung and my brother at Westmall again. We seriously had nothing better to do on that day so we decided to watch the sneaks (again). Better than staying at home switching games from new computer to not so new computer right?
Anyways, we didn't talk much while watching Hitman. Usually we comment on the movie scripts, sound effects etc, and comment on the hot chicks that come out in movies (well at least I always do!). This time, we weren't so lucky... The action scenes were damn nice in Hitman though. The chick... I give her 6/10 for face and 4/10 for body -_-. I'm being nice here... Seriously! We all liked Agent 47 since all he cared about was to complete his job no matter what the cost. Another thing I liked about Agent 47 was that he wasn't like invulnerable. When the 4 agents fought with dual swords, Agent 47 got hit and stuff too WHICH I didn't expect to happen. So it kinda got me cheering for the "good" guy instead of the villans in this movie.
What really pissed me off was the mother f-ing detective... He said the f-word lots of times in the movie. Usually the effect of the f-word is to get the audience laughing or to create this really cool mood. Like I'll go like "Oh sweet, this dude's really gonna blah blah blah". BUT when the detective dude said it in his queer British accent or whatever his accent was, it has like no effect. Might as well not say at all... I think he wanted to look and sound cool during the movie or something... Some nude scenes too though. Thought the movie was M18 when those (I note, THOSE) scenes were shown. Oh well, the actress acted as a prostitute so... Yeah... Overall, its a good movie so go and watch it!!
Second up, the 10KM marathon I had to run today. Woke up at 6am to have breakfast then to call a cab so that I wouldn't be late. Decided to meet Siva at the Raffles MRT station first. When we were walking towards the starting line the race was about to begin. We were the last few to start. ALSO Siva had sprained his ankle and I had skin rashes on both my feet... Luckily, I applied Tiger Balm to the rashes so it didn't itch as much during the race. Haikal also joined us when we were crossing the start point. Around 500 meters into the race, Haikal AND Siva had to go to the toilet -_- ditching me to run alone all by myself.
The run was okay until those old uncles started to slow down like FISH (The f-word) because they were tired -_-. Mother FISHING slow uncles blocked my path like completely... How gay right? And some people cut across right infront of me then slows down almost immediately as if they were doing it on purpose... I stared into the person's eye whenever anyone did that until they chicked out and looked away while running. Dumb shits. Oh another thing... Whenever I ran behind a VERY VERY sweaty person, my nose picked up some nasty stench... Ugh... Gross. Sick. Nasty. FISH!
Other than the old uncles, the people who cut across right infront of me, and the nasty smell, the marathon was damn fun. It was like people everywhere. Certainly a challenge too, both physically and mentally. When I was passing the 2KM mark, I thought I ran at least like 4KM -_-. When I saw the 2KM sign, I was like "WHAT?! 2KM only?...". It was very discouraging XD.
The only times when I walked a little were when I wanted a drink at the drink stalls. Then it was constant run all the way till 9KM mark. The last KM, I managed to sprint it all the way. My breathing during the sprint was damn asthmatic -_-. When I breathed in it sounded like "heeeee" and when I breathed out it sounded like "hehhhh". Yeah, very weird XD. Towards the finishing line, saw this cheer leading group. And honestly, they were hot! There was the band performing for us too which gave me "powers". Was quite disappointed though. Since I never got to see the hot babes from our class! =(. Didn't know exactly when they were starting so didn't go to the starting line to cheer them on like Johnathan... John beats the flirty JaMess, wow!... Haha, joking! =P.
After the marathon, we (Siva, Kamal, Haikal, and I) headed off to Long John Silvers to have our brunch. Then I had to rush to church. I don't know why but when I got off at the City Hall MRT station from the shuttle bus, I lost all sense of direction and was lost -_-... I walked towards the wrong direction so I couldn't go for the Korean mass. Thanks to Haikal and his "shortcut" AND thanks to Siva's limping =P. Don't blame them though. It was me who lead them to the wrong place.
Anyways, I'm going off to Bahli tomorrow afternoon with my family. Hope I have a fun time there... Like FINALLY I get to go on the plane again! Tomorrow, Tae Hyung goes back to NS... If he goes back, then my life's seriously gonna be damn boring... Hope he gets the doctor to extend his medical leave period... Hyung nim, movies to watch: I Am Legend, The Mist, AvP2 etc! XD
Oh and P.S. Good job for completing the race my fellow 07S7~! Lets go for the half marathon next year! =D.
SHUT UP.
10:24 PM
