MusICian

in 2 days and 4 hours’ time, i will be my flight to italy!!

these few days have been really packed for me. always on the move, always working, always having band practices and sectionals, always meeting up with friends, always going out with my mom, always swimming! i thought i’d have a sad and uneventful holiday but looks like i was really wrong. after my graduation, i really did loads of things i’ve always wanted to do, and i’m really happy!

very soon, i’ll be in italy, and then germany, and then sweden

bought loads of stuff these days. i guess tourism can really boost a country’s economy. it doesn’t only reap profits from tourists coming to singapore; i guess when singaporeans go overseas, we’d buy lots of supplies and other things as well. looks like tourism is truly the way to go! no wonder the IRs. haha.

hope to get my pay from the 2 schools soon! the new system for pay claims seems to be very slow. but well, as long as we’re not short-changed, i’m ok

oh sharks, i’m gonna be late!!

alright man, i’ve been rather productive these days! did quite a bit of swimming; now i’m a bit more tanned, back to good ol’ NS days where i was quite charcoaled. nah, not that dark, just toned. haha. went shopping with my mom on a couple of occasions, prepared sweetie’s birthday gifts (while harnessing ideas and trying to work them out), taught at FSPS band, practised clarinet, cleaned and ‘repaired’ the mace i borrowed, met up with friends, planned itinerary for Stockholm, emailed the Venice Tourism Board. did A LOT. i feel so productive! a great feeling since i have a lot of spare time these days as band teaching days are so limited. next week’s gonna be a tough one, though! but after that i’ll be off to italy

i’ve been very productive since i recieved confirmation of my graduation, it seems

i want to study music! but it seems a distant thought and i should first do my grade 6 theory. i aim to get into the band directing course at NIE next year. take another step towards my dream! and of course, i must start looking for part-time teaching positions already! the ‘rice bowl’ ain’t exactly a very stable one when it comes to band directing. unless i really go all out and achieve results like nobody’s business. haha. i’ve gotta establish a name for myself!

i desperately need zonda reeds. my reeds are all practically dead and i sound horrible. my best reed has survived for many months now (since InTempo in march, it seems) and now it’s barely responding, although it still responds better than all my other reeds. maybe i should get a box of that french reed from Accent. but it’s expensive! and i ain’t exactly have a lot of money to spare for reeds and other stuff. looks like the costs i’m incurring in Europe are really really high. i’d probably need another $1400 for everything, on top of the $1389 i’ve already paid

looking on the bright side, the trip is in 13 days’ time!!!

and i must continue to be productive and swim more to build my fitness

this week saw a few things happening.

firstly, i went out with my mom on monday to fix some bank stuff. chatted about stuff, and in came an sms, which i replied to promptly and all of a sudden, my mood was a whole lot better! and i shopped like nobody’s business; bought 3 shirts, a jacket and a watch. think it’s all updated liao anyway. haha. then met sweetie for dinner and we had a good chat while walking along our favourite path to our favourite station.

so tuesday was a bad start. i was feeling super weak the moment i got out of bed. tuesday blues? i have no idea. i could barely teach the kids; my teacher was in hongkong and there were only 3 pathetic instructors to handle millions of kids in a puny band room. many kids started crying because they apparently cannot play their instruments well enough and they felt discouraged. oh well, most of them were primary 2s! anyway, when it finally ended, i was so relieved. travelled to NUS for sectionals, only to find no one there. called a few ppl; cloud was in JB, xianwei’s performing, khee nguen went to science library, ruixiang at ktv etc. so eventually song wee turned up and went off again to get dinner. to cut the long story shot, we did not draw the keys to the practice rooms and store rooms, and we didn’t know, so we didn’t have means to hold sectionals! so sectionals was cancelled, and we went off. i went to meet sweetie for dinner at outram, then had some cool desserts at coffee club.

wednesday was the day i finally removed 2 evil roots from my life! let me explain… in the morning, i was unable to get up for swimming. i eventually got up and accompanied my mom to her dental appointment at a very cool dentist place in city hall. decided to go clean my teeth; one thing led to another. and i decided to remove 2 wisdom teeth! the operation was super fast, even though the injections were really painful, but the aftermath was really… sigh. couldn’t stop the bleeding, even though i bit/chewed on 2 big gauze balls to apply pressure on the wounds. didn’t manage to do a lot after that; i did accompany my mom to the bank though.

on thursday morning, i managed to wake up early for swimming, but i realised i cannot swim because of my open wounds, so i decided to sleep longer. haha. met samantha at clarke quay for lunch, went to sim lim, bought my PSP! and i was so excited about it but i couldn’t play it, so i left it at home to charge. big investment! i’ll make sure i get back all my money entertaining myself. haha. went to NUSWS practice, was a little late so hurried my stuff a little. played Merry Widow! i like our version; we play it nice. haha. was so hungry though, cos i survived on only my filling lunch for many hours; only managed to eat at 9 plus! and some small misunderstanding happened, was feeling rather bad. so i ate, and then rushed into the auditorium for the elections. the elections took forever, partly because of some very strange questions and some very strange people running for unsuitable posts. a few nominees weren’t around cos they were overseas (lucky people!!!) on holiday. so eventually it ended very late, and i rushed back home for my precious sleep, which i didn’t get enough of, because i was rushing through some online booking. had to book an additional night’s stay in Venice! sounds cool right? haha. including the day we’re spending with NUSWS in Venice, my group (now conveniently labelled the hai sing group) will be spending a total of 3 days in Venice! cool, huh?

and this morning i set off to work early, armed with my PSP with songs inside the storage. luckily for that, cos the games didn’t work; for some reason i needed something else to make the games run! found out that the sound wasn’t too good, maybe i didn’t set it right. so anyway, taught the kids again in the morning, everything quite ok, went with mr ng to tanglin halt food centre for lunch. came home early, rested, then went to queensway shopping center to alter my jeans and buy that extra ’spare part’ i needed to play my games! and my mom happily shopped in my friend’s shop where she bought quite a lot of stuff she could be proud of. they were really good buys, in my humble opinion!

and so i’m finally updated. eventful weekend coming up!

thank god for a very courageous woman, the whole issue from last night was settled peacefully. and yes, it was a huge and unusual misunderstanding. but everything’s fine now and i’m glad for that! it just reiterates how much we mean to each other

on the other hand, my ‘retail therapy’ wiped out quite a bit of money off my precious bank account; 2 t-shirts from esprit and a fossil watch (i love them man)! not gonna say how much they are worth (they’re on good discounts btw)

all’s well! and i can sleep in peace. and try to wake up on time tmr, try out the ‘moving rubber’ hair wax again

and i must return song wee his scores!

of course, i am officially a graduate now. and i celebrated hard for a few days in a row i guess; friday with my mom at central shopping center, saturday was with friends in orchard, sunday soccer mania, monday at JB for cheap contact lens and a movie with ARX. after that was work and work. and had good talks with sir about my plans for the future. looks like i’ll wait for the next batch for the NIE band conducting course! will gain more teaching experience in the meantime. slow and steady.

the past few days were all pretty decent, even though i was really busy, but i spent good time with my friends and family.

but…

i had absolutely no mental preparation for the shock that i had to go through today.

totally unexpected from someone whom i care about. and it happened just when i thought all was fine; out of the blue, out burst a question. and another question which stabbed at my very pride, and it was one that pushed me over the edge of sanity, as i had absolutely no idea how i should answer that, or if i should even answer that at all. my pride was totally shattered; overcome completely by shock, i chose to walk away for a while. a while became a long while. then the call came and i went back.

and there came another horror. the walking away before i could even collect my thoughts properly. stupefied, i loitered in the airport for a very very long time, sitting completely dazed at the waving gallery for a few hours before i finally decided to snap out of it and looked for solace in an old friend. and reliable, this friend was indeed; he turned up less than an hour after i messaged him. and i couldn’t say much to him. didn’t tell him much of what happened. just had supper (tasteless famous tasty tau huay in geylang) and chat a bit about other things. and went home.

have things changed? have i gone overboard?

frankly, i still can’t understand what hit me.

and i heard absolutely nothing from this person after the incident. i feel so lost and defeated. to something which i absolutely cannot fathom. and this time, i feel that i really didn’t deserve what hit me. tell me i’m wrong, and i might just feel better. because i probably wouldn’t be able to take it if things have really changed…

cry me to sleep. or whatever works.