MusICian

long long talk with the members, and we finally got the assurance we needed. now it’s about trust! today’s the start of the camp; i sincerely hope none of us went. it’s true we’ve been losing sleep over this matter, and we’ve been vexing over it night and day. but we feel that for their safety and well-being, it is something we must do, and something we must interfere. because after recieving an atrocious reply from the man involved, who attempted to shift all the blame to us, i finally understood that we should never trust that man ever again.

i hope all’s well. and i guess we also should let them go celebrate his birthday for him. after all, bandsmanship is a very human thing. we don’t want to grab the kids by their throats and make them feel so trapped.

still have lingering fears that further exploitation will go on. even if it isn’t our students. i feel it isn’t right to exploit anyone at all on this matter. not that exploitation of any sense is right in the first place.

verbal poisoning is a dangerous thing. but i believe in retribution. though sometimes retribution may come a little too slowly. whatever the case, i believe love and patience will guide the way, and i trust everyone will keep their promises and set their priorities right. this is the most crucial thing; with these in mind, there is nothing we cannot achieve.

let us not let other people break us from outside. we stand together, tall and proud, no matter how vertically challenged. we will rock the hall on dec 16th

ok, there’s no right timing anyway. but this is definitely bad. 2 days before my first paper, which coincidentally is CDA, i’m down with high fever. yesterday i was really struggling to get that high temperature back down to normal. it’s now 11am and i have about 26 more hours to my exam tomorrow. and i haven’t touched much of CDA! i can probably bluff my way through Literary Stylistics, but not CDA. maybe i can. i don’t know. right now i cannot concentrate, and i know it’s real bad. looks like i’m on my way to earning a crappy CAP for this semester!

hopefully German and Film and History will be ok.

been very troubled by a particular incident in my school band. however much i try to think of a solution, i just can’t find one, because i realised that each solution i have presents a counter-solution, one which will easily turn me into a villain. i’m just ashamed that such a thing should happen. well, i guess i better give it some real careful thought. i don’t want to jeopardise my current position, one which i’ve taken much time to earn.

anyway, please come to Con Fuoco, presented by the Nan Chiau Wind Orchestra, on the 16th of December, 7:30pm in Nan Chiau High School’s Kong Chian Hall! tickets are only $5 each. it’ll be my conducting debut (only 1 or 2 pieces) and it’s the first time the band i’m teaching is holding a public concert. please come! for more details, drop me a Friendster message or sms. other details will be posted on the bulletin

Con Fuoco is in 3 weeks. pieces are begining to sound in shape, technical details are begining to sound less suspicious, the confidence level of the band is on a crescendo; but along with all these newfound confidence comes newfound glaring mistakes. but it’s a good thing, because it is easier to correct something we can actually spot. so yup, we’re on good progress towards the concert

have been concerned about some issues and have been trying to handle them. some are ongoing ones, some are new ones, some sprung completely out of the blue. while handling these issues, i worry once more about my 3 papers; 2 of them will happen in the next 4 days. so void of confidence! i can probably crap intelligently through Literary Stylistics and hopefully Semantics and Pragmatics, but i’m quite dead for Critical Discourse Analysis. maybe i should avoid taking same modules as mandy; we seem to always hit the bad modules if we happen to take them together.

PRSS, NCHS and FSPS. 3 schools next year, hopefully. they shall be my source of income and also source of energy. GOLD! with HONOURS!

great weekend well spent! finished all my tasks for my semester, so i decided to have a good break. actually, it isn’t much of a break anyway, cos i had to go conduct NCWO at their open house. but it was quite fun, although at some points i was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. no, i wasn’t ill-prepared. just that at some points the band was dangerously on the verge of breaking down, and we had to carry on with the music no matter what happens!

anyway, sat was a day of NCWO and a night of birthday celebrations. i went early to NCHS, wanted to rehearse some gimmicks, but didn’t have the opportunity cos there were guests coming in already, and it wasn’t professional to rehearse on the performance ground during the event itself. so there we were, playing el bimbo, highlights from high school musical and sock hop tonight for many many times. the shifting sun forced us to migrate several times, and we were finally trapped in a corner of the parade square. after repeating the 3 pieces for over an hour, we decided to add in new ones to entertain the crowd. a music park and tribute and triumph were thrown in to the fray, and we played our final sequence with much spirit and enthusiasm. music park was really really good that day, despite not touching it for some time! tribute and triumph, and our finale ross roy left much to be desired, but overall it was a good performance; full of the right spirit!

i thought my arm was going to fall off as i gave each piece my all. and it was great that most of the time, the band responded to my changes in conducting!

afternoon was eventful. lunch at cp, travelled all over the place with a few students and then back to hougang plaza for a few games of pool! won everyone i played with but joe, who was so boastful about it. haha. well, i had good luck and good form, i guess! but it was quite a fun time spent with them. haven’t had such fun in a while!

sat night was spent at huifen’s 21st birthday chalet. met my old friend margaret from JJC! spent some time talking about our old friends, watching memento on tv, saboing huifen with beer (i had nothing to do with that part…) and singing happy birthday. and then taking a cab home because there were no more buses! expensive stuff…

could wake up late on sunday, but only to realise i woke up a little too late. rushed to prepare my stuff, gobbled my lunch before being dragged out of the house to go out with my family. ended up getting something i’ve been wanting to get for quite some time, and quite a worthwhile deal too! and then was called up for a survey which i went immediately after examining my new gadget eagerly. spent some time finding the place cos it was so hidden! anyway, i did a survey on beer (eeek… i never liked beer) and got $30. all that for $30. sigh. went for dinner at josh’s stall, and paid $3 for a worthwhile plate of wanton noodles and a plate of fried wanton! they’ve improved a lot now; the noodles are delicious now met jit and his parents, talked a little, then went home. great day spent! great weekend

so it looks like i have no more excuses not to study hard; i’ve rested enough. haha. all the way to exams man!

Semantics and Pragmatics – Meaning in ‘Lame’ Jokes

In what we call ‘lame’ jokes, we sometimes understand the gist of the jokes purely based on pragmatics, as the semantics of the jokes would not yield a funny reading. In fact, the word ‘lame’ in ‘lame jokes’ yields a totally different meaning (instead of lame: inability to walk properly) Here are some examples[1]:

1. What do you call a fly with no wings? A walk.

2. Why was the Tomato blushing? Because he saw the salad dressing.

3. A termite walks into a barroom and asks, "Is the bar tender here?”

4. When is a car not a car? When it turns into a driveway

5. What do you call a sheep with no legs? A cloud.

If we reconstruct the sentences, not all the meanings of the 2^nd part of these jokes would make logical answers to their previous questions/statements:

1. *A walk is a fly with no wings.

2. *The salad dressing made the Tomato blush.

3. *A termite asked for the bar tender in a barroom.

4. *When a car turns into a driveway, it is not a car.

5. *A cloud is a sheep with no legs.

1 and 5 might still be funny if we understood the images that were intended. But 2, 3 and 4 would be strange. Retaining their original structure, we now attempt to decode all jokes, with full reference to their imagery and our knowledge of words:

1. A fly flies. So if it has no wings, it would have to walk. Hence it is now a walk.

2. The tomato blushed because he saw the salad dressing (changing clothes).

3. The termite asked if the bar was tender there in the barroom.

4. When a car turns (morphs) into a driveway, it is now a driveway.

5. Clouds look like sheep with no legs: a large ball of cotton.

But why are they not funny anymore? These lame jokes have to retain their sentence structure in order to look or sound funny. Let us look at more lame jokes and evaluate the postulation above:

6. Why did the skeleton cross the road? To get to the body shop.

7. Why can’t skeletons play music in church? They have no organs.

8. What do you get when you squeeze an olive? Oliver Twist.

9. What’s the difference between a mosquito and a fly? A mosquito can fly, but a fly can’t mosquito.

10. A pork pie walks into a bar and the barman says, “Sorry we don’t serve food in here.”

Examples 6-10, if restructured, would lose their effectiveness as lame jokes, just like examples 1-5. Hence, lame jokes require pragmatic knowledge to decode, but at the same time require semantic structuring to be effective. To end this paper, I shall present a long, final lame joke:

            A young man comes into the doctors and says, "Doc, is it hereditary to lose your memory?" "No," the doctor replies, "Why?" "Well," the man says, "both of my parents are. For example, one day my mother wanted some Ice Cream, so she went out to get so me. But my father stopped her, telling her that he would get some. ‘Alright,’ she said, ‘I’ll write it down’. ‘no’, he says, ‘just tell me, I won’t forget’. ‘Okay’, she says, ‘I want some vanilla ice cream in a cone’. ‘Okay’, he says. He leaves; come s back half an hour later, gives his wife a bag. "What!" she screams. "This is a cheeseburger, you idiot! I wanted a hamburger!"

Try restructuring this and still make it as funny!

YES~!! believe it or not, it’s now 7:26am on nov 17th, and i’m DONE with all the assignments for the semester! the last one’s on lame jokes. haha. i’m not gonna post any of them here; if you want you can look at my next or next next post. i’m posting my assignment and michelangelo essay here for fun. haha. anyway, it’s so early in the morning, and i’m too early for school, so here i am, blogging. have to go teach band later. will be formally dressed for band tutoring, but i guess my classmates are kinda used to my formal dressing on fridays.

i’m DONE for 2 modules! and more than halfway done for the remaining 3! with German 1 and Film and History out of the way, i have an easier time with my 3 papers, and i can afford to spend more time teaching at NCHS. next year, despite the bleak news, seems like a good one; at least for the 1st half of the year. will be secured a job back at fengshan primary as a band tutor; and have quite high hopes of tutoring another school too. clarinet tutors are in demand, maybe? but of course, there are so many clarinet tutors around, but i’m optimistic

anyway, i think i’ve wasted enough time. can now go print my assignment and post the 2 essays here

talk about stress… by friday, i’ll be done with 2 of my 5 modules this semester. and that means i only need to worry about 3 exam papers. but the drawback is that i have to complete loads of work by friday. i’m thoroughly done with German 1, having only to attend the review lecture and tutorial on thursday. i’ll be thoroughly done with Film and History by friday, once i finish and submit that final 500-word individual project. meanwhile, i have quite a number of continual assessment stuffs to submit, like the final joint analysis for Critical Discourse Analysis (which is due today) and the individual 5% project and a 15% short test for Semantics and Pragmatics. Literary Stylistics is done for the semester! and surprisingly i think i did well, despite my lack of attendance and participation in class. the lecturer indicated a few times that he’s giving me good marks for forum participation, and i did relatively well for an ill-prepared essay. so there sums up my strange semester!

or ok, almost sums it up.

i have a joint analysis due at 6pm today, and i haven’t organised the essay, and my partner isn’t here yet. haha. so last minute man! but good thing is that we’re almost done. only need some organisation, an introduction and a good printer. a cool analysis on Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel paintings, particularly that of ‘The Creation of Adam’. maybe i’ll post the essay here for fun. haha. but our analysis should have a PG rating, and don’t take everything there for granted! that’s just our points of view

ok, about time i got to work. partner’s almost here. can’t wait till friday! can’t wait till 5th december too

firstly, before i go on my monologue, congrats to poh yih and yan ting on completing their NCO course! hope you’ve learnt a lot, and be sure to bring back all that expertise and use them well in NCWO!

in economics, i’ve learnt a few terms to describe commodities. i shall now use some of these terms in a slightly different manner. firstly, goods can be in the form of material things or services provided, for example, a clarinet and an instructor can both be seen as a good. some goods are superior, some are luxury goods, some are inferior goods, some are just substitutes, others may be complements. whatever the case, each good has a label according to its properties. for example, Mr Png may be a superior good, and i’m his complementary good (cos i also provide band tutoring services). at times, though, the complementary good is seen as an inferior good because of its lack of certified credentials. however, some inferior goods put their heart and soul into providing their services, regardless of what their value becomes.

inferior goods will always be inferior goods unless inflation is high, so the inferior good stays as such, no matter the quality of the good. once you think something is cheap, you will always see it as cheap, isn’t that the case?

so inferior goods should know their place. that might just be the cruelty of reality. one day, these inferior goods will be replaced by substitute goods which have better credentials. and it doesn’t necessarily mean that with the better credentials come the heart and soul service. but the replacement will take place anyway. and the inferior goods will have to perish. that’s how it goes.

i have a heart and soul, which i put into all the music that i do. i don’t ask for recognition; just hope that people will stop looking down on me cos i’m not as good as many others. i try my best. and even if i’m not technically there, or i don’t have a cert to prove it, i put my heart and soul into my music. that’s a fact. see me as an inferior good if you will. replace me if you will. but know that music IS about emotions and you can have robots doing music for all i care.

ps: this is not a personal attack on anybody. just something that’s been bugging me for a LONG LONG time.

i just wanna say, don’t worry too much if you see that i look stressed up when i’m working out the music. i’m stressed because i always want to find better ways for the band to play the pieces of music, especially if they are technical parts and can easily be worked out by going through over and over again. the truth is that i know you all have the ability to do it, so i’m always finding ways and means to make that happen. i enjoy the music we have made so far, along with all the fun. it’s really been a pleasure teaching you all, and i hope i won’t have to leave the band in the near future for any reason whatsoever!

a gentle reminder, concert is in 1 month’s time. there are a few pieces which we really really need a lot of work on, so i hope i have everyone’s cooperation in practising their own parts. if there are parts which you are unsure of, feel free to approach Mr Png or myself when you have the opportunity; we will definitely help! gladly too. let’s give it our best shot, and make such a big impact that next year we will be forced to hold our concert at a nice, public concert hall! somewhere like VCH or SCH

well of course, i don’t see this post as an invitation for you people to bully me. do still keep the discipline level at the very best, so that we can spend more time working out the music. we can have all the fun we want after the concert!

meanwhile, happy holidays, and don’t play too much!

i cannot believe it. German oral test is over! and my partner and i did quite ok! Frau Chen said we seemed to have prepared well, although my self introduction was not without minor hiccups. but well, it’s over! Wir sind sehr gut. means we are very good. hahaha.

am i used to being productive or what? it’s the first time i’ve finished the film and history project 22 hours before the deadline! i’m proud of myself. i’ll proudly hand this up later, and maybe i can finally take a break tmr and finish up my essay for submission on monday! not bad. and i think i wrote a more decent project essay this time round. the last one was quite a disaster which fetched justifiable disastrous grades as well.

well, but a busy and efficient me forgot something important. argh. i shall strive to be less forgetful! sorry sweetie >_<

ok, gonna go off. get outta my computer lab, submit my essay in the history department, bum around some more and then go teach fiona. and use some of my german conversational skills with them. muahaha. and there’s soccer tonight! this time i REALLY deserve to play, being so productive