I Believe In Miracles

Well, it's kind of a miracle that within a day, I found Matthea and Big Ben to join the super wierd arrangement. (Was the advertisement that effective? Guess not.) Hmmm, Matthea also mentioned that if Audrey could be roped in we would be a complete cell band of some sort. Nice...

Conclusion: I believe in miracles (sunday offering song, after the repetition of a stunt before which I told myself to be extremely careful not to pull it.)

Me Sis Made Me Do This Test

Your EQ is 140

50 or less: Thanks for answering honestly. Now get yourself a shrink, quick!51-70: When it comes to understanding human emotions, you'd have better luck understanding Chinese.71-90: You've got more emotional intelligence than the average frat boy. Barely.91-110: You're average. It's easy to predict how you'll react to things. But anyone could have guessed that.111-130: You usually have it going on emotionally, but roadblocks tend to land you on your butt.131-150: You are remarkable when it comes to relating with others. Only the biggest losers get under your skin.150+: Two possibilities - you've either out "Dr. Phil-ed" Dr. Phil... or you're a dirty liar.

What's" Your EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient)?

A Super Wierd Arrangement (Upgraded)

OK, if you thought the previous wierd arrangement was wierd (hmmm, sounds duh, but, never mind), it has upgraded it's status of wierdness (well, the upgrade is not in the positive sense). I was asked to scout for a guitarist and a drummer for the Praise & Worship session during the wedding. So now, some conversations run through my mind as I envision the scenario when I ask someone for help:

Me: "Hi! Would you like to help me out in a (wierd - but not stated to enhance success) band or something? We need a guitarist. Someone's getting married."
Someone: "Hmmm, who is it?"
Me: "Actually, I don't know. ="
Someone: "Erm, you're playing for someone you don't know?"
Me: "Well, yes." (at this stage, the feeling of I-don't-know-how-to-explain-it-all starts to creep in, let alone the feeling of impending failure of convincing the someone I'm talking to)

[Questioning and conversation about the above 2 lines skipped]

Someone: "Oh, ok. So your teacher asked you to help her scout?"
Me: "Yup."
Someone: "Do I know her?"
Me: "Well, probably not."
Someone: "Oh, ok. Who else do I know who are there?"
Me: "Actually, I don't know anybody in the entire arrangement other than my teacher who arrowed me =\"
Someone: "..."

The interesting thing that I found out (well, I was never married in Lighthouse though I do envision that it would be Lighthouse should I be married), though, was that Lighthouse have a rule. The marriage couple could only enlist musicians (if they wanted any) from Lighthouse. External musicians are not allowed or something. Hmmm... some bad experiences with external people?

So, in short... additional wierd stuff about the upgraded situation
- My friend would be helping his/her friend (which is me), to help my teacher, to help her friend's friend in the wedding. Man... I bet friendster doesn't even have such a big number of degrees of friendship

- My friend would not know my teacher, or her friend, or her friend's friend or anyone else on earth in that arrangement other than me

- I still do not know my teacher's friend, or her friend's friend (Although I was told that they will be my friends-to-be. I guess it's a formality.)

As if the above isn't bad enough, I heard from my teacher that she bragged about me (erm, I'm nowhere near 10% of mozart's level. Hey, that's classical. Whatever) in order to reassure her that she didn't pick a lousy one. And she'll actually hear me out during the practise. ARRRRGHH!!! And also, like someone else (i think you'll know who you are when you read on)... IdislikeperformingIdislikeperformingIdislikeperformingIDISLIKEPERFORMING! This is bad =\ People should play and sing for the Lord. Not zoom in on some poor student arrowed by his teacher. Hmmm... stage fright may kick in, my hands would go cold and harden (as if the sanctuary isn't cold enough to already produce a perfect deep freeze. Man, someone ought to fill up that suggestion form with me) and all my chord sense may be lost as my mind slowly goes blank (I noticed such traumatic experiences like the mind going blank do not occur instantaneously. It happens at a fast rate though).

Oh, oh, if anyone is interested in becoming a guitarist or drummer and if you do not mind the above wierd arrangement and on top of other considerations in my previous post about the arrangement (http://glasscookie.blogspot.com/2006/07/wierd-arrangement.html), could you please drop me a message or something? (Hmmm, sounds like an advertisement. A bad one, to be exact.) Thanks!

Thank You Everyone!!!

Here's a big thank you to the following people who treated me for my 22nd birthday:

Dinner @ Spagheddies
- Mum & Dad

A 'Giant Nugget' (private joke) for Dinner/Supper
- Audrey
- Elizabeth
- Li Yan (I seriously hope I got her name correctly. I'm really bad with names, new friends that is)

Lunch @ Swensens
- Eleanor
- Li Guang
- Nicolez

Thank you so much everyone, for the meals. I've never been treated so many times on a birthday period in my life. Hee =)

Some New Comic Strips That Caught My Attention

Operation Underwater

Loser crocs

Wordplay?

I'm Almost Immobolised

Today was a day of miracles and aching. In short, let me list down the number of miracles and aches that happened today - up till 40 minutes after I woke up:

Miracles of miracles list
- I got out of bed
- I WALKED when I got out of bed
- I managed to STAND up to brush my teeth
- I'm alive with all the aches

Suffering list
- When I woke up, I was aching all over
- I choked on chilli and that really pulled my aching side muscles
- Walking ached
- My body's still aching.

Conclusion: Oh well, that happens when you use your body to the max in the sit-ups and the 2.4 km run. Man, what a liability IPPT is. =\

ARRRGH... failed IPPT

Gone were the days where I did 15-17 pull ups. But then, gone not were the days where I scored 5 points for shuttle run, 4-5 points for sit ups and at least 3 points for the rest of the stations.

Sigh, pull up was a disaster. The PTI (Physical training instructor) cancelled 2 of my pull-ups, which caused my silver to drop from a pass to a fail. (Sob sob). Anyway, who cares? It's not like I'll get $400 for a gold since they deferred me from my unit against my will (In a phone conversation with that joker on the other line, I have totally no idea which part of "I AM NOT DEFERRING FROM MY UNIT" did she not understand).

Thought: What a day... whatever. At least I'm not liable for remedial training. Hee...

A Wierd Arrangement

Hmmm... my piano teacher asked me to help play the piano for an upcoming wedding in September. It seemed that her friend asked her to help out singing, and she in turn arrowed me to play. But somehow, there ARE stuff that are somewhat wierd about the whole arrangement:

- My piano teacher has no idea who the couple are.
- I have no idea who her friends are.
- I have no idea who the couple are.
- My PIANO TEACHER asked me to play the piano. (Erm, isn't she much better at it, for her to TEACH me?)
- And I heard the couple are from Lighthouse. What if they start to think that musicians provide a free playing service as part of the standard services of the church and the word spreads? ALL the musicians in M&D will murder me!!! Okie, one of the ten comandments should save me. I hope. I guess. I presume. I assume. I think. I suppose. I anticipate. I pray...

Thought: Well, I guess I'll give it a try just for fun anyway =)

Scary Examinations

Well, the scary examinations were so scary (hey, didn't I just used the adjective 'scary'? Who cares? It truly was and will always be scary. No quantity of 'scary's could over-emphasise that)

Almost Late
It all started with a nice bus trip to the building opposite fu-nan centre. It was about 3:15 p.m. The best part about such bus rides at such a time is that there would be plenty of seats on a long journey, which in turn results in a sleep induction phenomenen. When I awoke, the time was about 3:50 at beach road and I needed to be there BY 4:15 or earlier. I prayed for a cab. No cab. So I started running over the place in search for one. Still no empty cabs. Horror of horrors... there was a person opposite the road trying to flag down a cab. Suddenly, a cab came. To cut the whole story short (although it seemed like a long paragraph already. Oops), I reached the location at 4:10, only to know that I'll be in the examination room within 5 minutes.

During The Examination
Scales were first. First scale was in D major, followed by Ab major. Nice. Then the nightmare begins... F# major a third apart was ok. Then... F minor a 6th apart. I think on both tries I couldn't 'return' (ie. I could only play the scale up and not down) This is when the adrenaline starts to kick in and my feet started to shake.

Then the pieces came. For some reason I managed to calm down (In my mind, that is. Why only the mind? Read on =) ). So I started with my pieces. The playing was surprisingly close (about 90%) to the usual standard at home. For this I thank God =) During the pieces, my legs were trembling. That took some concentration. I was thinking, hey, I'm not stressed. My mind's not panicky. In fact, I know exactly what to play. Hey leggies, why are you shaking? Then I tried not to let them tremble somehow but to no avail (it's not like I could take my hands off to press onto them you know).

Then came sight reading. Well, the key was in Ab. And considering that I NEVER practiced from young sight reading, and I was taught/given/whatever-you-call-it the impression that it's a last minute thing, and my sight reading books were the most well-maintained books among all the music books I ever had (in short, clean)... etc. Well, I'm expecting a single digit/20 as usual. This is because that's what I've been getting all these years. Moreover, I know that the piece that was given was a CLASSICAL, MAJOR piece but when I played it, it kinda sounded like a modern (aka 20th century) piece. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, don't worry about it. It's nothing much (OK, it IS something but it doesn't affect you in any way, happy?). Man, the examiner must be super patient because he was still smiling to me and he said 'thank you' (which I believed was more of a formality) after listening to a 3-5 minutes classical-turned-modern piece of about 5 lines in length.

Then came aural. This was pretty evil. Singing by hearing was without any piano accompaniment to smoke my way through. He made my smoke grenades obsolete. Then came sight singing... I think my timing was a little off at the end, but I did hit the correct notes. Or at least I want to think so. As for deciphering of chords, it seemed he played a first inversion but he emphasised on the 5th note on the left hand. I think I said it was the 2nd inversion although my music sense told me it's the first. What a conflict. After that was the commenting of the piece he played. I was talking halfway when he prompted me for the period of the piece. Hey, there was MORE that I could say, though the thoughts refused to come any faster than the rate stuff was processed in my head in that deep freeze-cum-super quiet room (without any sound waves to vibrate some air molecules and kick out the constant 'eeeeee' sound). Sigh... but the good news out of all these is that I do not have that scary feeling of impending failure that would linger through the months till I got the expected dreaded results. =)

The Aftermath
After everything was over, I was pretty stunned. Met my aunt some distance outside the music studio. I never knew that she worked there. Hmmm, after that I just tagged along with my music teacher as she did some shopping. By then, my mind was pretty blank. So I just tagged along before meeting my friends for dinner. The experience was bad enough for me to tell myself that it's all over even after half an hour later. Scary stuff.

Thought: What a day! Scary, scary, scary =/ As what Audrey mentioned... I would rather give a public speech on why examinations are scary than to be stuck in a room with an examiner. What's with the constant 'eeeeeeeeeeeeee' sound that dominates and sets the atmosphere?

I've Got A Super Nice God

Well, it was the miracle service as usual. And once in a while, I would naturally start to feel a little tired and draggy especially when the distance is not too much in your favour. But then, after the Miracle Service, Melvin's parents treated me to supper. Hehehe, and as if that weren't enough, when I walked to the bus stop to go home, my aunt happened to be there too. Then everything happened in a flash - she insisted that I took a cab, passed me ten bucks in my hand and flagged down a cab in a matter of seconds (with her friends helping to detect the cab). I was like... "wow... what's going on". Somehow, this Miracle Service, like all others, is worth going to. And the Lord made me feel that way too through His blessings.

Conclusion: Man, it's great to have such a super nice God in my life.

Template Revamp =)

Woohoo... this template's finally edited to the way I hoped a blog skin could somewhat be!!! Giving me all the boxes that i want to throw chunks of list and lists and MORE lists. Hehehe. OK, I'm supposed to sound sick, so imagine the volume and tone to be somewhat softer than usual. Hahaha. Think I should be fine by tomorrow. Thank God!!! I see the light at the end of the tunnel. =)