Monday, January 28, 2008

personality

Given that people have been showcasing their personality on their blogs. I will show mine. Read on. Parts I really agree with I bold them.

Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving

by Marina Margaret Heiss

Profile: ENTP
Revision: 3.0
Date of Revision: 26 Feb 2005

"Clever" is the word that perhaps describes ENTPs best. The professor who juggles half a dozen ideas for research papers and grant proposals in his mind while giving a highly entertaining lecture on an abstruse subject is a classic example of the type. So is the stand-up comedian whose lampoons are not only funny, but incisively accurate.

ENTPs are usually verbally as well as cerebrally quick, and generally love to argue--both for its own sake, and to show off their often-impressive skills. They tend to have a perverse sense of humor as well, and enjoy playing devil's advocate. They sometimes confuse, even inadvertently hurt, those who don't understand or accept the concept of argument as a sport.

ENTPs are as innovative and ingenious at problem-solving as they are at verbal gymnastics; on occasion, however, they manage to outsmart themselves. This can take the form of getting found out at "sharp practice"--ENTPs have been known to cut corners without regard to the rules if it's expedient -- or simply in the collapse of an over-ambitious juggling act. Both at work and at home, ENTPs are very fond of "toys"--physical or intellectual, the more sophisticated the better. They tend to tire of these quickly, however, and move on to new ones.

ENTPs are basically optimists, but in spite of this (perhaps because of it?), they tend to become extremely petulant about small setbacks and inconveniences. (Major setbacks they tend to regard as challenges, and tackle with determin- ation.) ENTPs have little patience with those they consider wrongheaded or unintelligent, and show little restraint in demonstrating this. However, they do tend to be extremely genial, if not charming, when not being harassed by life in general.

In terms of their relationships with others, ENTPs are capable of bonding very closely and, initially, suddenly, with their loved ones. Some appear to be deceptively offhand with their nearest and dearest; others are so demonstrative that they succeed in shocking co-workers who've only seen their professional side. ENTPs are also good at acquiring friends who are as clever and entertaining as they are. Aside from those two areas, ENTPs tend to be oblivious of the rest of humanity, except as an audience -- good, bad, or potential.



A Functional Analysis -- by Joe Butt

Extraverted iNtuition

ENTPs are nothing if not unique. Brave new associations flow freely from the unconscious into the world of the living. Making, discovering and developing connections between and among two or more of anything is virtually automatic. The product of intuition is merely an icon of process; ENTPs are in the business of change, improvement, experimentation.

The attraction Extraverted iNtuition has toward the real and physical amounts to a cosmic non sequitur: theory is drawn to practice. Such encounters are clearly puzzling. Both parties--the intuitor and the realist--are aware of a xenic quality in their meeting, with reactions ranging from recoil to reverie.

Introverted Thinking

Thinking is iNtuition's ready assistant, an embodiment of the sort of logic found in laws, boards and circuits. Thinking's job is to lend focus and direction to iNtuition's critical mass. The temporary habitations of changeling iNtuition are constructed of Boolean materials from Thinking's storehouse. Ultimately, Thinking is no match for iNtuition's prodigiousness. Systems lie in various states of disarray, fragmentary traces of Thinking's feverish attempts to shadow and undergird the leaps of the dominant function. One can only suppose that Thinking must continue to work during REM sleep pulling together iNtuition's brainchildren into integral wholes.

Extraverted Feeling

To the extent that Feeling is developed, ENTPs extravert Feeling judgment. As a result, it is not uncommon to find affability and bonhomie in members of this species. Tertiary functions are potentially utilitarian. Their limitations appear in their relative underdevelopment, diminished endurance, and vulnerability. ENTPs may harness Feeling's good will in areas such as sales, service, drama, humor and art. ENTP loyalty often runs high and can be hooked by those the ENTP counts as friends.

Introverted Sensing

Like a tail on the kite of iNtuition, Introverted Sensing counterweighs these beings drawn to nonconformity and anarchy. These shadowy sensory forms, so familiar to SJ types, serve as lodestones which many ENTPs employ Herculean measures to escape. "Question authority! (then do exactly what it tells you)" sums up the dilemma in which ENTPs may find themselves by attempting to best the tarbaby Sensing. Occasionally acknowledging awareness of norms and abnormality could, in theory, be potentially freeing.

Ok. I am mostly ENTP, but with a difference. Don't expect me to a debater cos I can't no matter what. Some people see me as introverted, don't speak much. Ok, yeah. I have a hearing problem that probably affected my speech, so don't ask me to speak too much in public. It is this fear that makes me nervous on stage. Suddenly, ideas come slowly. I'm an instant unknown personality type when speaking in public. Perhaps I instead channel this through my writing. haha.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral by Richard Wagner

If intonation and balance are perfect, it's just beautiful.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

dead

I shall officially announce this blog dead for a while. From tomorrow onwards, this blog is dead till further notice. No more false alarms. This is final.

Random crapping:

Benjamin, what do you see in the blog title that sounds a bit you know? I don't get you.

Thanks for the support for the post: the state of acjc food. No thanks, YEL, I am not willing to do reviewing of the 2AA5 cupcakes and other food.

Oh, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Sheree Lieu!

Happy advanced birthday to Ryan Wan. Finally of legal age to drink in the plane (insider stuff). Ok, anyway I don't think you will ever read this.

lab session

1310. The best time to leave school. SO shiok. Leave school early like the scholars in my class. Cos I had to pon Chinese. Miss Shaun and I never told the Sim about it even though the Chinese teacher wanted us to. Acutally, even if we told him, he can't do anything about it. Oh, it's my first ever H3 lab session.

Miss Shaun went to NJC, while I went to HCI. We chose the same day, but different experiments. You know I just don't like HCI, cos the campus is colossal. The science research centre is so damn deep inside and imagine walking there in the hot sun. Sucks. So I was early, cos it was supposed to start at 1430. Over there, I made friends with my partner for the day, Apoorv from NJC. Indian scholar. Apparently, he knew all the Indian scholars I knew in ACJC. So today, we were doing an experiment on optical tweezers. Go Wikipedia if you dunno what the shit it is. If it's too cheem, I will simplify: A laser beam is used to trap a tiny particle. Details of our experiment is too cheem to simplify, so I shall describe it in all its glory.

The particles are attracted to the focus of the laser beam, trapping the particle. This restoring force (attractive force) is proportional to the distance between the particle and the focus of the laser. So F=-kx. k is the constant we have to find. Those who take physics will know that a spring system has the same equation. So accounting the drag force of the water which we float the particles on (some cheem equation), we get the equation of how the position of the particle is related with time. Ok blah. More boring bits. The woman there already set up the stuff for us. So we just whacked. She asked us to take 1 very very short movie of the laser beam attracting a particle and extract a few frames using windows movie maker. Find the distance of this and that and blah. So, we found k. Boring bits.

You know what happened? I actually clicked with an Indian scholar for the first time. No, don't remind me of bad memories with working with Adi during the Vietnam trip. So this guy did the tough microsoft excel bits while I watched and provided suggestions. Potent combination. Don't think I slacked ok? I fully understand what in the world was going on.

So the actual experiment got us screwed up results because the graph wasn't some straight line. Then that woman came over to see our results on the graph on the computer screen. Shit man, I was nervous cos that was our screwed up final results. Then Apoorv said loudly to me that we have made some formula error in the excel thingy. I knew it. Just as I have expected any sensible soul to do. The woman walked off. We had silent laugh behind the computer screen.

The most important thing that I learnt from doing science research: tampering with results. Slowly, our graph became linear. In the middle of our clandestine operation, the woman came again. I knew that to do. I pointed to the screen at the data and said:
"Hey! this formula looks wrong."
"Yeah." Apoorv starts to type a nonsense formula into where I pointed to.
A few seconds later, the woman walked away. We laughed until almost roflmao.

At last, we plotted the line of best fit. And holy shit, a linear graph without any outstanding anolamy. Near perfect results. We proudly let the woman look at the results. We calculated k from the gradient of the line. k was, according to her, a value within a correct range. phew... I thought she commented in the PRC kind of Chinese to another woman that we did it quite fast and the results were good.

Next came the viva part or the Q&A in other words. The woman gave us questions to answer and asked us to calculate this and that. From now on, believe me, Indians are damn good at maths. I was stumped while Apoorv just worked out the calculations. In order to look good, I agreed and commented here and there. lol. The questions which require elaboration I whacked them perfectly. I swear that without for him, I would have already quite a bit of my A level H3 marks. Seriously, a potent combination. One did the maths, the other did the physics. So there goes, 1/4 of the practical work done. 1 down. 3 more to go.

Monday, January 21, 2008

the power of the search engine

In one hour, I found 3 blogs of people I know by just typing one word "Vietnam OCIP 2007". The best thing is that they are active blogs. Then, by random chance, I linked to someone else's blog that I know through some blog which the writer went for the Saint's Vietnam OCIP 2007 in November. Type the same words and you will never find me because I have chosen to be hidden since that day of spies.

Never underestimate the entity beknownst to all as the search engine. Yes, those who remain to stay hidden will be unearthed one day - except me.

So eh Huimin, don't go and close your blog for nothing because active ones are relatively rare among the people I know, you know?

You, Zaneth, visits my blog but doesn't tell me what is your blog. No, you don't need to tell me anything now.

Hi Phuong. Regarding the cute erm, subject I took super cute photographs of, Tessa told me on Friday that she was violent enough to punch her spectacles off. So much for cuteness... -.-

Erm, btw, my blog is gonna my inactive from some time onwards, till dunno when. This is the NTU laptop I'm using. I have to freaking return it! Till I get a new personal computer, yes personal, this blog shall remain inactive.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

fun-o-rama posters

Have you seen the ACJC Fun-O-Rama poster? If you haven't seen them, you will see them all over ACJC. But why in the world does the student's council want to waste so much money on pointless posters pasted all over the campus? They take away our money from T-shirt and locker sales and use to print posters which are pointless being on the campus itself.

They may think that they are trying to get everyone into the mood from now to Fun-O-Rama. For goodness' sake, there's more than 2 months left to continue their impetus. How long can the good preparatory mood hold up? 2 months? That's ridiculous.

Didn't they read the damn mass media GP package yet? Don't many of them even take economics? Common sense tells you that in order for advertising to work, you need to target the right people. Given that ACJC students are the ones who are selling the stuff and running the fun fair, it makes no point to put up posters in the campus. Sure, they may agree that during the 2 months from now, many members of the public or other students may be in the college to see the posters. But the question is how many of these people are there? Not in the range of the thousands. A few hundreds perhaps. Of these people, how many will go the fun fair because of the posters? Not many. Most probably a 2-digit number. Given that it costs 3 to 4 dollars per poster and there are probably 50 plus around the campus, so it's more than 200 dollars spent. Each person brings in an estimated $20 and according to 50 people coming purely because of the posters, that makes up to about $1000. Take away the costs, and it amounts to $800 earned from printing the posters. That may sound a lot. Thinking in terms of economics, there is a thing called opportunity cost. So if you were to display the posters to the right audience, like secondary school students or other junior college students, where you think that one of them probably know at least an ACJC student, I'm sure the posters will work even better. That means pasting them in other schools. Since ACJC is fast becoming a college where everyone is like coming from everywhere, this can work. If I'm not in the know of this really happening, then I have nothing to say except stop wasting money on pasting so many posters in ACJC, even in the weird places such as outside the QM room that window. So counting in opportunity cost that the posters could be pasted in other places, $1000 in revenue is nothing. Too bad Singapore does not allow posters in public spaces where traffic is a lot, otherwise more eyes will see the posters and we will be rich.

So what do I think of the poster with the bus? Ok lah. But I prefer the 2006 shoe version. The 2004 smiley is classic. In terms of style, ACJC is declining. Seeing the Orientation 2008 T-shirt for the J1s, it paled in comparison to Orientation 2007. The back looks like so some random secondary school T-shirt. So unoriginal. So un-ACJC. Goodness knows what will happen in the years to come. Pictures will come next time. I'm damn lazy to upload anything for comparison.

Anyway, the bus in the poster looks like Elizabeth's father's bus/car. Some classic thing. Makes one wonder whether the student's council is really going to get a bus to put in ACJC for the occassion and paint it to look like the one in the poster. One will never know. When that happens, it will be the ultimate trip. For now, I think not.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

fugly but great

Surprise! The other E-flat clarinet that is filled with lots of algae and without paul goh's saliva (he hardly swabbed that one I have!) works much much better than the one I have. The tone is much much better, without the some faint weird overtone like in the other one. The tone at the highest notes are good and solid. And oh, it can play damn damn loud, but the tone is much more easy on the ears than the other one. YAY! So after band I went home to do a full key polish but sadly, there wasn't much difference. :( Nevermind, at least I poured the bore oil through it and the oiled the keys. The only problem is that the important middle joint pad is lost. Now the one of the clarinet keys is jutting out a lot.

Today's dinner with my aunt and my parents was freaking good. The Curry Wok near Coronation Plaza/Crown Centre is good sia. The pork chop was nice. The prawn omelette was nice. The lime juice was just right, not too sour, not too sweet. The otah was nice. The tofu and ngoh nia (?) was nice. The prices are reasonable (at least 10 bucks per person). Too bad I haven't eaten the curry yet. Ironic right? Curry Wok means that they sell good curry. Students get much cheaper cos of price discrimation :D. I really recommend this eatery. Did I say students get cheaper prices? SHOULD GO AND EAT AFTER SCHOOL ON WEDNESDAY OR TUESDAY!

I hate reading the GP Package cos its damn boring and long. Sadly, this mass media one I got to read by Thursday. Normally, I don't even remember 80% of what I read. Note that some of my classmates can say the exact location of an exact piece of text. Unbelievable? Well, believe it. No, I not so gay as to acutally know where everything is. And someone even gets 50/50 for the GP package text on a regular basis. wtf. Don't look at me cos the highest I got was 49/50 for the easy environment one and it was kind of one-off. Yeah, that is nothing compared to the word REGULAR BASIS.

Shit, I just realised I left my italian soda from dover market in the freezer in the QM room. Hope on monday it's still alright to drink. I'm expecting a totally frozen yellow drink with disgusting solid black pearls encased in ice.

Oh btw, my locker number is 55. Nice locker cos its at the side and I can paste things at the side in addition to the front. Anyway, I'm sharing it with allan cos I don't really need a locker to put my stuff.

Alright, back to GP package. Work is piling up fast liao. So much for chionging tutorials in-between breaks.

Friday, January 18, 2008

damn mini black stick

Shit la. The E-flat clarinet is screwed up. Just only, I was breaking in reeds in my room and went and change the reed. Then after I changed the reed, the clarinet became squeaky below and middle C or concert Eb and it may play the 2nd harmonics even though I wasn't pressing the damn register key. In other words, the bottom half of the chalumeau range is gone. Then the resistance of the clarinet increased a lot. Damn that mini black stick.

I changed the reeds a few times but still the same results. I swabbed the clarinet but still nothing happened. I checked all the keys and nothing was wrong. I took out the mouthpiece and barrel to check for leaks but it was ok. SO WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH IT?! I just freaking changed the reed and the clarinet died.

So only 2 possibilities left: The clarinet is still wet inside after swabbing or my embouchure screwed up due to tiredness (which is impossible because the lowest range should be the easiest to play). sian. I'm going to wait out till night. If the clarinet really died, I swear I dunno what to do. :(

Response to people with homework piling up: If you value sleep and the short time after school and weekends, do your damn homework in school lah. So much breaks must as well whack all the tutorials in school. People may think that you are a chao mugger, but trust me, who has the last laugh at the end of the year?

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

1337

The special number. Do you know what it means?

For starters, go read my tagboard. Anyway there's one mistake. Go spot it if you can.

Have you tried to figure out the spectra club's jacket? There's a frigging whole lot of 1337 there. Every day in assembly I stare at the 2 people with the jackets in the class in front (2sa2), puzzled about its meaning. Yes, I don't get it. Don't make much sense, especially the last part which goes like "11!!one!11!!!". Then a small "spectra ftw!" What the hell it is talking about? 11!!one!!!11!. Man, I just realised while typing it that 1 and ! are the same button lol, then that one is just extra. Okay, repeated exclamation marks! lol.

btw, in case you dunno, 1337 = elite. 50 _100 711\11< _100 1<1\10\/\/ 1-10\/\/ 70 2341) 1337? Just joking.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

the essay

I just finished writing my commonwealth essay for the competition. I wrote about my favourite place which happens to be somewhere. 33% of the essay is white lies. 33% is half-truths. 33% is real. I won't reveal anything more here for fear of muck-raking spies and such. GP teachers are the prime suspects for this case.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Death Cab For Cutie: What Sarah Said

Literature pros. Decipher the meaning of this video. I seriously don't get it totally. I only know it's damn emo. The meaning of the lyrics is much easier to decipher anyway, but still difficult.

And it came to me then
That every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU
That reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself
That I'd already taken too much today
As each descending peak on the LCD
Took you a little farther away from me
Away from me

Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines
In a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend
On a faulty camera in our minds
But I knew that you were a truth
I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground
As the TV entertained itself

'Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous paces bracing for bad news
Then the nurse comes around and everyone lifts their head
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said
That love is watching someone die

So who's going to watch you die
So who's going to watch you die
So who's going to watch you die

Saturday, January 12, 2008

yay the computer is still with me

It was just another day of band... Oh there's a pile of homework.. I haven't packed that piece of shit...
Let's cut the crap.

I love music. All kinds/genres of music, well almost, except heavy metal, chinese opera, tribal music from some ulu place and noise-related stuff that could be damaging to my already spoilt ears that can't hear above 13000Hz. If you wonder why I don't own an ipod, this is the reason. Yeah, I wear hearing aids anyway, in case you don't know. I think the best stuff is rock music, but I won't be going into any discussion on that and on Muse and other bands. Btw, the story of how ACJC Band's annual band concert has its origins from... you guessed it. Right, Muse. Apparently, that time when my brother's friend (probably the president, now J6) asked him about a name for the annual concert, my bro suggested Muse cos he listening to them at that time and so the name stucked. XD Anyway, the next best stuff is classical music, seriously, many are classics.

So recently I have been listening to quite bit of classical, some for listening to help in my expression for my piano pieces, some for the real version of the orchestral transcriptions that I play in band and some out of curiousity.

Just some of my random thoughts:
Brahm's Intermezzo No. 2 Op. 118 is nice and too beautiful to describe, and yup, I can play it on the piano.
The first listening of Chopin's 3rd Ballade in A-flat major makes you think its just great.
Rachmaniov's Rhapsody on the Theme of Paganini is ingenious, I have to agree with the damn nice Variation 18.
Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov minus all the repeats is a classic in an era when Russian composers sort of started to globalise.
Impressionist pieces by Ravel and Debussy like Chloe Et Daphis and La Mer are nice with the use of the pentatonic scale and other unusual stuff, but it's just that it's impossible to remember the melody.
When I heard my brother playing Bartok's Mikrokosmos, I thought that it was nice. When I heard Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra... yeah man. That was good, so good I want to play Movement 2, Game/Presentation of the pairs, where pairs of bassoons, oboes, clarinets, flutes and muted trumpets play. 100% possible to play for band as orchestral transcription.
Some of my classmates did a project on Igor Stravinsky for Project Work and they played only the more dissonant and juxtaposed parts of the Rite of Spring for the class to listen for their event. I didn't quite like it because it was wtf. After listening to the whole piece, it sounded like music.

My two-cents worth.

Saturday, January 05, 2008

muthu and other stuff

So anyway, I'm feeling quite ok although I'm supposed to be stressed. (I usually get back to normal cheerful self fast haha.) Actually, there's still a lot of work but nevermind.

I can't stand the monotony. Let's get started with super wols but still damn funny jokes...

*MUTHU & THE INTERVIEWER*
Interviewer : 'What is your birth date?'
Muthu : '13th October.'
Interviewer : 'Which year?'
Muthu : 'Every year.'

*MUTHU & HIS MANAGER*
The Manager asked Muthu at an interview....'Can you spell a word that has more than 100 letters in it?'
Muthu replied: 'P-O-S-T-B-O-X.'

* MUTHU & LONDON TRIP*
After returning from a foreign trip, Muthu asked his wife, 'Do I look like a foreigner?'
Wife: 'No! Why?'
Muthu : 'In London, a lady asked me, 'Are you a foreigner?'...that's why.'
Wife : ?????????

*MUTHU & TOURIST*
A tourist from U.S.A. asked Muthu whether any great man wasborn in his village... and Muthu said .. 'No sir, only babies were born here.'

*MUTHU & HIS EXPERIMENT*
Muthu was doing an experiment with a cockroach. First he cut off oneleg and told it to 'WALK! WALK!' The cockroach walked. Then he cut off it's second leg and told the same. The cockroach walked.Then he cut off the third leg and did the same. Finally, he cut off its fourth leg and ordered it walk! But the cockroach didn't walk. Suddenly, Muthu said loudly, 'I found it. If we cut a cockroach's four legs, it becomes deaf.'

*MUTHU & DRIVER*
When Muthu was travelling with his wife in a motorised tricycle, the driver adjusted the mirror.
Muthu shouted, 'You are trying to see my wife, eh? Sit in the back. I will drive.'

*MUTHU GOES TO HOTEL*
Muthu went into a hotel. To wash his hands, he went to the washbasin. Then when he had finished, he started washing the basin. Seeing this, the manager asked what was he doing. Muthu pointed towards the signboard '*WASH BASIN* '

*MUTHU & INTERVIEWER*
Interviewer : 'Just imagine you're in the 20th floor of a buildingand it's on fire. How will you escape?'
Muthu: 'It's simple.. I will just stop my imagination.'*

the funniest...*
At a political rally, Muthu was arrested. Why ????????????Because a lady journalist with a badge which read '*PRESS*' pinned on the right part of her blouse walked past him... and he did it!

On a more serious note, after this, I shall have to stop blogging for a few days/some while. I'm going to return the NTU laptop very soon and so it will put an end to the days when I have a laptop and I can blog in the privacy of my own room with the wireless. Wait till my brother gets the cheap and small US$400 Asus laptop which runs on Linux and can do everything I want it to do except play games. The sad thing is that, that may take quite a while because he's probably waiting for the next version pf the cheap laptop to come out before he buys it for himself to use in school and for me as personal use.

I shall go and gather some links to entertain you people.

Amazing drawings:
http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=1823488
At least 254 forum pages of jokes:
http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=1466190&pp=15
Ownage Who Wants to be a Millionaire video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr3tsMCrQgo
Singapore future MRT network (Second picture, first is fake):
http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=1831326
Rubik's cube solution videos and 3 year old girl solving cube:
http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=1792837&page=2

Anti-smoking pigs:
Bye for now!

Friday, January 04, 2008

random crap

Seriously, spies are everywhere. If you are one, please own up before you suffer a terrible fate. Even if you don't own up, you will die with a guilty conscience. You know who you are. Just admit it. I know what you did. I know the truth about you.

To Others: Stay out of this. Don't ask questions.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

am i nerdy?

Am I? haha.

6 proofs:

1. I solved the Rubik's cube recently!
2. I'm in 2SA1, so according to my brother's 2004 yearbook, those seniors in my class actually looked very nerdy and they all took further maths. yucks.
3. I go to NTU quite often to do my SSEF preparation.
4. I participated in the Singapore Physics Olympiad.
5. I got into NTU Contemporary Physics as my H3.
6. Sarah Lee said my new spectacles made me looked like one -.-

6 rebuttals:

1. My brother taught me lah. Not like I was eager in the first place.
2. The current 2SA1 is not very nerdy lor. Like only a few look nerdy haha.
3. No comments. =.=
4. No harm trying out. I never even got honorable mention.
5. I need a H3 to use up 12 credits, so I got into this one since physics is my best subject.
6. Others thinks it looks nice (:

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

a concert back 7 months ago

On Sunday, I was looking through the Life section of The Sunday Times. They wrote a feature called it's a wrap to name the best 5 and worst 5 of every genre in the entertainment/arts scene. So I was looking and then I spotted a familar phrase: Die Walkure.

Here's the proof... I was there!



Then I looked at the date that the performance was held: 12th May. Did I attend that? Die Walkure, Act 1 by Richard Wagner at the Esplanade. Then a flood of memories came. Yes, I did attend it. Now, here it was, the 2nd best concert in the classical section of the article.


Don't ask me how I got the tickets. I don't know how. It was just that I was brought along by my parents. We arrived late, and entered the concert hall at the intermission. Luckily, the first part was just a 18 minute prelude, otherwise we would have missed the main part.

We sat down. Then the SSO was coming onto the stage to warm-up. I heard 1 of the clarinetists played a chromatic scale up to damn high C (or concert B-flat) and down again. I was like wtf... That was high, if that was a B-flat clarinet. The normal range is up to high G and any higher than that is totally weird fingering. Wah, power sia!

The opera was damn good, but you know, damn boring and damn slow. They sing a lot of crap over a trivial matter and everything is damn emo. So like everything they do is exaggerated. Then, they were singing in German, which means I don't even know what was happening unless I looked at the subtitles on the screen at the side of the stage. This brings me back to the tough time I had understanding the Italian musical, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, that I watched not too long ago at the SIS. You know how retarded and tiring is it to keep flicking my eyes between the subtitles and the actors?

The story ah... damn boring lah. Just know that Die Walkure means The Valkyrie. And this Act 1 is something like this guy, Siegmund, got kena chased by his enemies and he came across a hut in the forest and slept there. Then some Sieglinde come in and found him there. Then Sieglinde's husband, Hunding, came and don't like the Siegmund guy cos he's the enemy. So he say they must fight in the morning since the wife persuade him to accommodate him for the night out of hospitality. The wife drugged the husband. Den dunno how, the Sieg people got together and express their love for each other and linde shows the mund to go and get this sword called the Notung... blah.. then I think it ends... So later on. The two lovers were found to be brother and sister and they had a child. WTF was that Wagner thinking when he wrote the opera... incest. Yuck la. Then some Valkyrie thing come in and dunno what liao.

THE END. So there was standing ovation and bravo and nonsense. I think I won't be going to a second opera soon. This kind of opera only teach people about nonsense such as incest and betraying relationships. Anyway, to sum up, good and strong performance, bad script.

first post of 2008

Happy New Year!

That's it. I've nothing to say. Just be happy.