A special moment spent with my family.

Hello everyone! I just love blogging as it really helps me relieve all my stress and let out all that happened during the day in my blog. Today I am going to talk about a wonderful time i had spent with my family at Bedok Central. My family consists of four people including me, i have only one sister who is 16 and my two dear parents. 

As Chinese new year is just around the corner, we had decided to go out and shop for some Chinese year decorations and goodies. I was very excited about this as we only do this once a year and we would spare no expense in buying the goodies which did i mention absolutely love?

Bedok Central is known to have the fuzzy Chinese new year atmosphere every year as it is always packed with goodies thirsty crowds lining up to get their hands on the items. To avoid getting caught in the stampede during the peak hour, we went to a nearby coffee shop to have our lunch first. We then headed to the famous ''Ba Kua" store more widely known as BEE CHENG HIANG in Chinese. This store has been around for decades and it still reigns supreme in the "Ba Kua" world. After buying some "Ba Kua", we headed over to another store to buy some Mandarin oranges.

 The Mandarin oranges were all packed in rectangular boxes which were all stacked up in numerous piles. It's a must to buy Mandarin oranges during Chinese new year and we would need them when we go visiting. However, we can't eat too many oranges as they can cause phlegm and we definitely wouldn't want to get sick during Chinese New Year! After what seemed to be days of careful choosing and examining the oranges, we ended up buying 3 huge boxes filled with oranges. With that done, we headed off to our final destination before going home as we were all already exhausted and our legs had turned to jelly.

 That's right, our final destination was the Chinese New Year decoration store. The store was practically covered in red and filled with thousands of pictures of bunnies and rabbits as the zodiac for this year is the Rabbit. We quickly browsed through the decorations and quickly threw a bunch of colourful decorations into a basket and went off to pay. Although this trip was a short and tiring one, yet i enjoyed it thoroughly and treasured it greatly as it only happens once a year. However, there are still many other delights that Chinese New Year has to offer other than shopping and i hope that we will all enjoy our Chinese New Year together and have a prosperous year ahead!

Something that took place at school

Well hello everyone! I am tremendously excited to be able to write on my blog again. To be honest, i used to think blogging was a huge waste of time, and took this English assignment as a chore, however after experiencing how awesome it was to share with others about your day and have all your thoughts and feelings in black and white, I've decided to continue with my blog even after this assignment has been completed.

 Today, i am going to share with you something that has happened in school. It's not something bad, wait, no, it much better than good, its wonderful! Unfortunately, i will not be able to share with you my joy with pictures this time as my school does not permit the use of hand phones within its premises therefore, you would just have to rely on your imagination skills and other pictures which i hope would be helpful to you so as to help you to reenact the event in your mind. For the O-levels in 2010, the top Malay student came from our school! Yes, my school is Victoria Secondary School, and i am extremely proud of my school. I presumed that the results of the rest of the students wouldn't be too far off, so i started hoping for the principal to declare a holiday.

 The school which my sister is in had its principal declare a full day holiday, and while my sister stayed at home the following day enjoying her beauty sleep, i had to wake up early to get ready for school. On my way to school, i thought, why didn't we have a full day holiday as well? My school's O-level standard was supposed to be higher than hers! I reached school fuming, planing to share my thoughts with my friends. I reached school just in time for assembly and had no time to leave my bag in the classroom otherwise i would be late. During the assembly, the principal announced that our school had produced the top Malay student and the story behind his success.

 It was said that his father had a heart attack and it affected him greatly, therefore, he wanted to study hard and become a heart surgeon to help more of those with conditions similar to that of his father. I had to admit i was slightly touched by his story and was also inspired to study hard. However, then came the really exciting and interesting part that everyone was was waiting for, here's exactly what the principal said " I am happy to announce that our school did fairly well for the 2010 O-levels and i have seen this year's batch of secondary 4 students strive to beat the 2009 O-level batch. Their efforts paid off and they managed to come to an almost equal average to the students of the previous year. Therefore, in honour of them, i declare a half day holiday on the following Monday." Yes! My wish that come true. At the mention of a half day holiday, the entire school immediately roared with happiness

 I could not exactly explain the eruption of gladness i felt at that point in time as a declaration of a holiday was quite rare in our school. Although it was not a full day holiday, yet i was already extremely contented with a half day holiday. I knew that i could not take this holiday for granted and should be entirely grateful to the principal. I really needed a break and he had provided the opening i needed. I had already started planning what i should do with my holiday.

 I reflected and knew that i shouldn't just spend it on fun and useless relaxation activities. So i decided to do some studying and go out with my friends for lunch too. I feel that we should always have some of everything, after all, too all work and no play makes Jonathan a dull boy! Hope my value will too spread to you fellow readers and hope you have too enjoyed reading this post! Goodbye!

An inspiring event that took place today

Hello! Today i am going to talk about an experience which has motivated and inspired me to improve. My friend from my church goes to Tanjong Katong secondary school and has joined its concert band. From what I've heard, their band has a reputation of being one of the best bands in Singapore. They have won the Gold Award in the previous Singapore Youth Festival and the Sliver Award in the Singapore International Band Festival as well. Their concert 2011 is the first to be held in January and they aim to start off the year with a big bang.

 The Tanjong Katong Secondary School Band, more affectionately known as TK Band is celebrating its 45th anniversary this year, thus i decided to both support my friend as see for myself the standard of the band and if all the praises given to this band were true. The concert was to be held at the Singapore Conference Hall at 7.30 and i arrived promptly at 7 with some friends to get good seats.

 I sat down at one of the best seats hoping to get a clear view and awesome music. And i was not disappointed at all, they played many wonderful songs with such energy and precision that the band i was in paled in comparison to them. The songs that played are a follows:

1.NAMASTE!

2.WITH HEART AND VOICE

3.PUSZTA

4.OCTOBER

5.VESUVIUS

6.OVERTURE NO.1

7.DISCO LIVES

8.ANCHORED LOVE

9.THE MUSIC OF THE NIGHT

  (From "The Phantom of the Opera")

10.TEGAMI

11.MUSIC OF THE BEAT

With so the pressurizing and stressful arrival of the Singapore Youth Festival coming up soon, i was shocked that they still managed to find time to practise and organise such a exclusive concert in the Singapore Conference Hall in addition to the preparation of the Youth Festival. Their uniforms are extremely smart and made them look very professional. Their instruments seemed quite new to me as compared to my band. They followed the conductor perfectly only with occasion slight blunders. I could see they were very well disciplined and they could even dance and move to the music!

 Seeing how much better were their saxophonists as compared to me made me feel quite ashamed, yet fueled me with a burning desire to improve. Their stands had beautiful cloths with their band's logo imprinted onto it, while our band only had naked stands. But to think of it, who am i to judge my own band. Before the intermission, only the Secondary 3's and Secondary 4's played, after the intermission the Secondary 2's came in and played two wonderful songs before departing the stage. Although it was only two songs, however they played it flawlessly and beautifully and they emerged again to sing along during the second last song TEGAMI.

 After the performance, i knew what had to do, and that was to improve! I started reflecting and doing some thinking on my way back home, I thought, this band has really lived up to its expectations! It really was as fantastic as it had been said to be for a secondary school standard. It has really inspired and motivation me to come down to the band room every single day without fail to practise hard so as to improve my skills to perfection.

 However, i can't be a one man band can i? I can only hope that my resolve would spread to others and that the whole band too would practise hard so that we would be the equivalent to the TK Band. I hope that the Victoria Secondary School Band and the Tanjong Katong Band would both pursue their passion for music-making, and scale to greater heights.

El Camino Real de Alfred Reed (Banda de Música Cultural de Mondariz)

A problem I encountered and how I solved it

Today, i am about to talk about a problem i have encountered during the day and how i solved it. That's right, it is also related to music once again. I stayed back for band today to do my individuals. If you are wondering what are individuals, it is when a band member come down to the band room to practise his instrument by himself. My objective for today's individuals was to memorise the first three pages of my Singapore Youth Festival piece. For me, i thought it would be pretty hard as i do not have very good memory, however i was determined to try.

 As predicted, it was practically impossible to memorise the first three pages in one day. I tried to take it as a form of enjoyment and knew that i would rather be playing my saxophone than studying. I had to memorise this piece by today as there was a test on the following day. It was a really big problem to me as i did not want to disappoint my seniors and wanted to get this huge burden off me. I was really in hot soup this time as i haven't really been practising as i was too busy still trying to adjust back to my schooling routine after a long holiday.

 I started off my practise with some simple scale exercises and then moved on the the real deal. My Singapore Youth Festival piece is named El Camino Real and is written by Alfred Reed (1985) and is six pages long. My saxophone is gold in colour and can still be considered quite new, i have used it only for 2 years so far, but it has served me really well. I tried looking for similarities among the three pages so as to relieve my workload slightly. I then working on the parts which i was still not so familiar so that when i start memorising later, i would be able to memorise without additional difficulty.

I started memorising 8 bars at a time, so that i would not feel so overwhelmed as compared to memorising the entire three pages at one go. Whenever i managed to memorise a set of 8 bars, i would the play the previous 8 bars that I've memorised including the recent one, so that i would not forget the notes and get my fingers to be more accustomed to the keys. After 2 long and tedious hours, i finally managed to finish memorising the three pages. Although there were some obstacles along the way, there was nothing that persistent practise could not overcome.

 I was tremendously delighted and proud of myself that i managed such a feat. As i packed up and took the bus home, i reflected and knew that i should not take such risks again and try memorising or doing not only scores, notes and homework or revision at the eleventh hour as far as possible unless the situation really calls for such a course of action. However, i managed to slip through this time although i should have started practising earlier. I hope to improve further and become a great saxophonist! I hope you have enjoyed reading my post! The video of the entire band playing the song can be found at the top of the page. Thank you.

A time spent doing something I enjoyed.

Hello everyone! I have finally found sometime to update my blog! This time, I am going to share with you a time during the day which I spent doing something I enjoyed. As you can refer to the pictures below, i had spent my entire evening practising the piano. Although many people may find practising the piano a chore, but I wouldn't say that as I love playing the piano and couldn't have spent my evening in a in a better way. I have thoroughly enjoyed every moment of my practise.  Although i am only preparing for grade 7, yet I waiting eagerly to spurt on to the next level, however, I have to admit that the some of the exam pieces that I have just started to learn are pretty hard. Today i practised Prelude in D flat, composed by Aleksandr Nikolayevich Skryabin. It would be the second examination piece that I would be playing for the exam in September this year. Here's a short background knowledge on him. The Russian composer (1872-1915) studied at the Moscow Conservatory from 1888 to 1892, after which he embarked on a successful career as a concert pianist, playing mainly his own music and that of Chopin. His music is written in a very personal and highly chromatic post- Wagnerian style. I would say that this piece is pretty hard but yet exciting. As I had spent my afternoon practising my instrument which I will elaborate on another post, I was drained by the time I reached home. However when I practised the piano in the evening, I felt relaxed as it is not like other instruments whereby you need a great deal of concentration and it was a way to shake off all my stress after a long and tiring day at school.

 Although not many people may appreciate classical music nowadays, but I still like it as I think of it a way to remember some of the famous late composers and know that their wonderful music still lives on. I felt really relaxed and happy when I'm played the piano today as it felt wonderful to be making good music. Today I also played some modern pop songs and it was really gratifying to watch them play in their music videos or concerts and know that I could do the exact same thing.

  Although I had much difficulty playing the piece, I would continue to practise until I am smooth and would be able to play it once through with the dynamics and with expression. There were times where I couldn't get a part in the music right no matter how hard i tried as my fingers just wouldn't obey orders, i took breaks and watched some television and did not let it get to me. I tried again later, as I know I would get it right soon as long as I keep practising and finally I managed to get my fingers accustomed to the rhythm and the movement of the keys.

Although I love piano, yet I know what my priorities are and will always put my studies and what more is more important before my other leisure's such as music first. I managed to squeeze out an evening of practise today as there wasn't much homework or revision to do. I really hope to be able to find time in the future to practise the piano. There is a video of the song above. I hoped you had enjoyed reading this post!

My Thoughts About Blogging

Hey people, this is my first blog and so far I've found it exceedingly entertaining and exciting even though this is a school assignment that is 50% of my CA1.Although there were some hiccups while i was signing up, there was anything that haven't already overcome.
I personally do not think it as a piece of work but rather as a form of enjoyment.

You can upload different pictures and music in your blog so that people can have a visual imagination to what you are saying and be able to relate to your feelings.It is also more convenient as your post would always be on your blog instead of on a piece of paper that could easily be lost or crumpled.  


Its tremendously interesting and gratifying to tell someone about your day on your blog or something that happened that day or about yourself or someone.

It somewhere you can express your feelings freely and everyone can see how you feel just by reading it and do not need to tell them one by one face to face. Its also something useful that can help you pass time instead of watching television. I greatly look forward to the next time i would blog and am really grateful to have been introduced to blogging.

Hope you have enjoyed reading my first blog entry and please do visit my blog again to reading the other blog entries that i would be posting in the time to come. Bye!