My First Working Experience in KL

Dooms day is near, guess what? Jury is just around the corner.... ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! =.=

Yesterday had a unlucky day of spending so much on taxi fare just to go for a fren's temporary violin replacement class, just hope tat the amount earned yesterday enough to cover the taxi fare cost.

Just reminds me back 5 months ago used to taught in 1 of the music centers not far from Taman Connaught. However I quitted the job by lying to the boss tat i cannot coped with my studies.

My reasons of quitting the job?
1) Having a mere small number of 3 students after nearly 5 months of teaching, waste my time waiting taxi and then 2 hours later go back again, sien
2) Students giving last minute call of canceling the class due to sickness, mother not back from work so no transport (particularly 1 student who miss her classes at least twice or once per month due to tat), replacement school day on Sat (==)#^%. Yet have to replaced the lessons...
3) Small amount of income, wont mind for the first few months but c'mon, other teachers gained increament of students, mine didnt... Aside from tat, I get merely 55% out from the 100% and they deduct another 10% every month from my salary for the office charges, WTF
4) Unflexible job time... Plans on tat day (eg. outing with frens, my own lesson outside) hav to get cancelled or postponed. Aside from tat, for 2 or 3 lessons I managed to find my frens WHO ARE QUALIFIED to replace yet the boss make a big fuss out of it ==

Obviously I lost my interest in working for a center which has bad system management. Damn relief by the next month i quit =)

Lesson learned in KL from my first teaching job: Always set your own policy before-hand for the music studios or centers to take notice so you wont get short-changed

Teaching back in my hometown, stress-free and flexible although pay low during my sem-break.

Unexpected

Now accepting the fact gradually yet it gives a big impact on the confidence level. Proofs that I cannot have the assurance of getting through unless I surpass my previous performance by all means. Guess there are no any other options except to strive even harder this time =/

Up, up and away....

Usually I won't be rating or ranting how good movies are since I am not a fan in watching movies. Yet I take it as a leisure activity since now I am stranded in Sibu without much things to plan ahead within these two weeks semester break.

This afternoon went to watch the 3D animation movie"Up" (Pixar collaboration with Disney, woohoo) at our Sibu very own King's Theater (the one located around Premium Hotel, rather old and historical cinema). Thank God today is Friday afternoon in Sibu as there was hardly any people within the studio as I counted there was only around 17 people in a 200 seats cinema =D (no distractions as well)

To be honest, I was quite pleased as a whole after finish watching the show. Why???

First thing of cause is their well-planned plot. It just disgust me to see nowadays movie which have boring plots and does not give me the impression of having to watch for the second time. How I liked the movie was the way the scene of the old man and his wife from their younger days till their old age been clearly bought out which did not fail to amaze me.

Aside from that, the background music of the same tune applied within the movie just repeated throughout the entire movie yet depicted with different character also is a huge factor. The tune in F Major key easily creates different mood based on the change of tempo and instrumentation used. The 3/4 time signature of the music also creates the slow or fast waltz or something I bet throughout different scenes.

Moreover, I like how the straight-fowardness of the way they present the characters. If a person is good means good, bad means bad (black and white). No need all those complicated relationship between so and so... just only confuses people la == It brings back childhood memories of fairytales and fantasies which I would recommend to those who need a mental break from the complex society of ours =D Adults recommended, LOL

Anyway, it is still my opinion anyway on the movie. So if you happen to have the opportunity to go to the cinema, better not missed it =)

As Expected To Be

Tomorrow's my violin jury exam and guess what? My E string just snapped again as I have counted in almost every important event (exams)..... =.=



Thank goodness I just changed both t G & E string as 1 is broken and 1 is wearing off its outer layer. Just hope that they won't snap right on my face tomorrow =P



1 of the worst scenarios to happen within the performance, luckily it never happen to me....

Reflection on Today's Assessment

Just grant me a pass or more for my CME and I will be satisfied =.= Darn tat stupid dry recital hall and my poor bow control.... Probably not even a B or C+ for my grade..... -__-

Chocolate Analyzing XD

It is a blessing been a chocoholic myself whereby these chocolates that contain endorphins just boost my mood from time to time, all except after I am down with sore-throat due to over consumption.

I dun dare to consider myself a chocolate connoisseur, yet I got my standards in approving what is good chocolate and the lousy thing. Belgium offers the best by far, Hawaiian macadamia nuts coated in chocolate also rocks, Swiss Toblerone chocolate, Holland's Pastilles chocolate etc..... Ferrero Rocher still consider OK just because as everytime going back to my hometown, one of the supermarkets sell half price once their chocolate gonna expired within a month or two end up my father buy boxes of it thus end up getting sick eating the same thing, LOL.

Reflecting back the packet of M&M's that gave me sore throat for days, oh what an irony.... Anyway the chocolate is still great though. Mars, Snickers chocolate energy bars - an energy booster yet makes you thirsty at the same time for its sweetness. Cadbury - not my personal favourite though, still depense on where it is manufactured, New Zealand and Australia offers great varieties and even the packaging looks nice too, Malaysia on the other hand suck somehow because of their quality control probably and also too sweet for my liking ( The Black Forest flavor one still acceptable but I will only buy when there is promotion =P)

Beryl's, a Malaysian manufactured chocolate still beats our own local Cadbury fair and square. Reasons: wider varities, better texture, even exported to even other countries (quite obvious la the difference)

By far, the worst probably should go to one chocolate by the name of KokoJelly, I think. It brings back my past memories as a primary schoold kid whereby I ate during CNY or probably bought them from school canteen gua...
Reasons why it suck: Lousy chocolate texture with too much soy lecithin, unfresh peanuts (some burned, some got sour taste... -__-). Anyway, what I can conclude tat it does not taste like decent chocolate at all.

By the way gonna present to you, something not be missed: Daim, product of Sweden

There are probably like a thousand small chucks of chocolate contained within one small packet. I dunno exactly how to describe what ingredients used in producing it, yet I can confirm it taste like butterscotch or honeycomb like thingy with little bits of almonds, coated with milky chocolate. Although just 100g, it is more than enough to give you diabetes... So eat in moderation, haha

Now it is just half price only in Ikano. Normal price: RM9.90, Now: RM5.00. Get it while stock last =D

P/S: I am not doing any advertising nor gonna get any money out from this, just a little bit of my sharing though =P

P/SS: Dammit, I am now addicted to Daim

Final Exam Coming.....

Yet I have no idea why I am still in the mood of taking things easy and slacking about.....??? (-__-)Zzz

Days Worthwhile =)

Today is a day of relief, finally I just finished my last presentation for Piano Pedagogy as well as my Conducting Skill final =D Getting through this semester just boosted my self-confidence in delivering presentations and also doing improvisation stuff in front of everyone.


Basically I rushed my both my preparations till this morning around 5 a.m. or last minute work, but what I did not predicted for both my presentation and final is that it went on OK although I unconsciously dunno what the crap I blurted out in both my Piano Pedagogy presentation thus my Conducting Skill final whereby I just conducted hardly without any preparation before hand yet talk so much on the background and theory part of Tchaikovsky's String Quartet in order to 'entertain' the players.

So what actually happen yesterday that cause me to slacked and postponed my responsibilities???

Answer: Kepong trip =D

So actually it all started with lunch at Taman Connaught with Nicholas and Karen. Then Nic got the urge of savoring durians after lunch, so we all made plans on determine the location to find durian stores - SS2 Durian in PJ, Taman Desa, Cheras etc. End up, Kepong became our destination since Eliz, our Ms. UCSI School of Music Drama Queen lives there =P

The whole trip took us an hour to reach there around 1.50pm, so we spend our next few hours at one of the shopping malls in Kepong, forgot name lo... Karen had Marrybrown's Kid Set Meal ==ll and the rest of the time we went window shopping till 4.30pm (Eliz's work end time).

Then we went over to Eliz's house to play around her house compound thus harrass her dog, Twinkle =P


After that, we went to the street nearby Eliz's house where they have couple of durian stalls + pasar malam

Amount spent just on the durian: RM47 (due to its grade and species known as "Mao Shan Wang"), the flesh of it was golden yellowish in color, sweet, tender, creamy, melts in your mouth....(lost of words to describe) yet the seed is sunken and almost flat in shape.


Later, we went to Desa Parkcity, the place which I visited last time. Definately a high-class area as residents around the place bring their pure breed dogs to walk around the park or fly kites and nearby the park is a shopping area which Eliz also work there. We feasted on the mangosteens which we bought just before we left at the durian stalls. In no time, the whole 3kg bag of mangosteens was gobbled down by 4 of us.



Along the way, I (because I was sabatoging Nic's camera for most of the time) took of those dogs without the conscience of their owners.... (Maybe I think they dun even care lo) We also met Dave, 'qing mei zhu ma' (known each other since young), very, very good friend of Eliz to join us for steamboat dinner.


I know, the pictures above does not look insane enough, just one of the normal random shots we did there. We did a lot of stupid stuff there but probably the embarrassing ones are not even featured.

Steamboat ingredients, purposely focus on the prawns because it is the main highlight =P


After done with dinner then back home to Cheras again.... Total amount splurged that day, RM33 (lunch + steamboat + durian feast). Getting poor already by end of this month........ T.T

Getting Sick Is Not A Cool Thing At All

Guess I am caught up with flu + cough + running nose + throat inflammation + headache + fever for the past 2 weeks and just recovered a lot.... But still a bit of throat irritant tat causes me to cough especially during cold temperature. (Yet 100 times better as compared to previous week)
This is probably one of the "lame reasons" I bid my blog for a temporary farewell, LOL. You tell me where got mood one to blog when internet connection is like snail crawling while running down with fever at the same time =P
Anyway, wanna make a summary on the important events that occurred. First, 2 weeks ago probably... Stayed overnight at Winston, Karen and Nic's house since I was down with early stage of flu (Screw you people saying tat it's H1N1 ==) Had brewed Chinese medicine which I got after seeking the Chinese doctor. His advice, stay away from the fan and no shower for 2 days while sweating out all the heat from my body if possibly can.... Sticky and smelly if you can imagine yet still had to clad myself with the blanket feeling like a overheated-hippo.

Trust me, it taste like rotten sour with an aftermath bitter taste

Karen's medicine, more appetizing than mine, filled with bugs for the recovery of her throat before she go for the Jeju choir performance

OK, so I recovered from my flu then Sat was having bad running nose.... Monday again, sick again @.@ Down with fever... and it got worsen for Monday and Tuesday after going for classes while getting the chill from the air-con. So Tue night after KLPac rehearsal, went see the doctor nearby my housing area to get 2 days of medical leave. Wed and Thu, stayed at home having porridge and vomited after 1 of my dinner due to acid reflux. By Thu night, go attend the KLPac rehearsal again and performed the next two nights (Gosh, I coughed badly during the Four Seasons performance, luckily wasn't audible to the audience and had diarrhoea at the same time because of the side-effects of my medication I took). Sat morning, convocation performance somemore...
Switch on to news from what happened in Korea, apparently three of our coursemates landed in Jeju airport and got quarantined because of.... H1N1!!! What a bummer. Their whole trip which was to attend the choir masterclass went down the drain and only had one performance privately in front of the organizer during the last day before going back to M'sia. Actually the UCSI choir was supposed to be back on Sunday, 19 Aug, end up they post-poned their stay till Thu, 23 Aug just because of the quarantine thingy =P
In conclusion, to get yourself sick is so "CHEAP, EASY & CONVENIENT", to recover from "WASTE MONEY, ENERGY & TIME".... So, take care folks =)

P/S: Total damage of my medication.... RM95.50 (not included health food which I bought later, apple cider vinegar, vitamin C tablets, crude rice... etc. probably another RM100+.... Sobs T.T

=D

Hehe, today was a blast because I get to have the opportunity to watch live performance of Li Chuan Yun in Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. Anybody who does not know what the crap I am saying, click the video below here:

In common classical musicians' thought, they always think that Mainland China violinist have all the technique they have yet lack of musicality, yet what is reflected in today’s playing was completely the opposite as he play with great intensity and was refreshing with his playing that reminds me of bit of fiddle playing technique in his Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole. However, the main highlight was his encore piece, Paganini's 24 Caprice whereby he did all the improvisation with jazz half way through and his own bowing technique which as seen above hereby he play on all 4 strings of the violin creating sort of modern bluegrass fiddling.

After the show, there was an autograph session with him and the audience outside. During my turn, I personally asked for a photo but was rejected somehow because he told me he was in bad mood.... Partially his performance wasn't up to par in his standards probably. We purposely waited for the 10 min autograph session to end then he started having photo session among the small group of audiences who also waited.

Surprisingly he was then in a cheerful mood =) (change of mood so fast =P) and started crackling jokes with us, 'Hey, you look like Michael Jackson," (in Chinese) to a teenage guy who hardly even look like MJ =.=. Yet it gave me an impression of a down to earth performer that interacts with the audiences on stage and also off stage as well. Had quite a few shots up-close with him and I felt so ‘syok’ having to meet him as in real person =D

P/S: Mr Li, we are Malaysian Chinese, not Malays la =.=ll Of course our Chinese fluent lo since majority of us spoke and learned Chinese language

P/SS: Dun compare me with Edison Cheng or Michael Jackson, I hardly have anything resembling with any of their features…. Wahlao =.=lll

Update: According to what I heard from my peers, 1 of the reasons why Li Chuan Yun was upset because of the acceptance of his interpretation on music. Somehow in the classical field itself, some musicians can be very conservative which is the opposite of been open-minded and apparently quite a number of the audiences including the MPO musicians reacted indifferently or kinda unhappy with the way he presented his number.

Ouch!!!

O.o, apparently this picture was taken like almost nearly 2 weeks ago whereby Ling Yn got her finger pierced by the sharp plastic edge of her car door which caused her finger to bleed profusely which she told us. Anyway, I think her finger is almost recovered =)

Gosh, you can decribe this as a nightmare for every strings players or pianist etc. (Vocalist exception, Your finger doesn't directly affect your singing at all, lol)

Long Overdue......

Hehe, not so used to blog regularly as what others do. Sorry to everyone because of the tons of photo which I promise to upload yet are either still within my lousy laptop or my camera =P

Anyway, just finish my recital 12 hours ago cause I am blogging right now at freaking 1am XD Quite satisfying with the performance as compared to what I did in the past yet there are still more room for improvement. Thanks to my violin tutor for constant reminder on my mistakes as well as the sms in concern bout my recital although she couldn't make it today for my class. My friends too - seniors, juniors for the support =)

P/S: I know I look funny when I perform with all those big gestures or body movements, whatever you call tat dancing etc. == Tat's how I shake off the nerves (a bit) and move with the music =P

P/SS: Ms Drama Queen (Eliz), why guffaw so loudly right after I finish my recital ==lll

An Unexpected Encounter...

Haven't been updating quite a while cause a bit lazy recently and besides nothing much interesting to blog about daily routines =P Somehow tonight's dinner with a bunch of juniors proof to be different from usual. I almost get to watched a fight today with an unstable crazy guy holding a stick in his hand against the 2 hawker stall owners..... Gosh. Luckily nothing happen anyway because the guy somehow left after blackmailing those shop owners in Cantonese with customers and onlookers just watching the 'so-called exciting scene'.

P/S: Apparently that crazy guy was the same guy who just smash my junior's car window glass (Rachel) around the T-junction for no reason and also Kenny, my guitar major junior got hurt by those glass shreds last semester . The most coincidence thing is that both the victims were also having dinner at the 2 kopitiams near my uni ==ll

P/SS: What I can only describe this as 冤家路窄, how come KL so small till you will encounter the same 'criminal', Kenny did called the police and he got the info that this will be the 4th offense that crazy guy is committing.... Shrugs, what are the KL polices up to nowadays???

A Bad Decision.....

I regretted for what I did last Sunday by agreeing people on helping out with the 1st Asia Grand Piano Concert thinking that I might get to watch a show worth RM50 for free while carrying my duty as a crew.....

Yet what I didn't expect is that..... I can't watch the show completely just because I am the backstage crew, boohoo T.T Besides that, I just almost wasted 4 hours within the KL Convention Centre. At 1st it was exciting to see 8 or 12 kids playing their pieces on 4 pianos but eventually it bores me to death till I drowse off into slumber land after seeing them repeating like 4 or 5 times while knowing that our jobs are basically keeping the flow of the program while rushing here and there, behind the doors, up and down the staircase, within the lifts just to reminds those young pianists to be on the stage and GET READY for you show ==ll

Poor me, I gonna missed the showcase of our lecturers and my friends' performances which I had been looking forward.....

I also had wasted my time that could be put into better use by practicing my violin.... Hope what I had done is so far within my practices is enough for tomorrow's lesson =P

P/S: KLCC traffic jam is fucking crazy, my seniors basically took an hour and half to get their parking lots.... Time and money wasting, double damage ==SIEN

Can't Help Missing My Doggies So Much

By the way, those aren't my pair of short legs and I will not tell you either the person playing on the piano or whoever sees this will kill me for sure XP

Meet the bitch (QBee) and the son of the bitch (Ricco), pun intended

QBee napping at her sleeping spot in the pc room, under the book rack

Ricco caught red-handed sleeping on the chair. I caught him sleeping on the sofa and also the Chinese wooden chair usually around 1-3am while everyone except me is asleep. It happened last year during my sem break -_-ll

QBee luv chewing my smelly shoes

My sis will kill me for sure if she sees this but I think she won't be reading all these crap I had written anyway. Initially, QBee was bought by my sis in year 2002.


Till now, QBee has given birth to 15 pups by mating with another ham-sap, stubborn Shih Tzu of ours (Snoopy) which went missing last year whereby it ran out of the house one rainy morning and never came back. According to what my dad said, the belief of Foochows (the majority dialect in Sibu) is that stealing peoples' dog is like gaining a fortune which is one of the possibilities that happened to Snoopy. Yet the worst scenario is that he got eaten up by some the local natives in Sarawak or Ibans..... =(

Anyway, back to my topic again.

As you can see from the pictures, QBee is more camera shy and always look away from the camera while Ricco just act as nothing just happened so you can just conclude tat 'the son of the bitch' happens to be photogenic and I somehow managed to use him within some of my ameteurish photoshoots =D

1 of the best shots so far

我的青春小鸟一样不回来......

Haiz, it's already half a year not meeting my Shih Tzus and still got 2 more months to go before my sem break. Need something soft and fluffy to squeeze for now o.O..... Not my hard pillow for sure

Reflection for today's event

Finally realized that practicing alone at night in the uni practice room even for less than an hour creates better end result compared to my numerous hours of unproductive practice sessions in the afternoon with so many interruptions and temptations =P


A perfect example of an unproductive act in the afternoon,

Can't help been narcissistic at times XD

As quoted from my violin lecturer, "I rather want you to put away your violin and go to sleep rather than making more mistakes during practices and come for my classes every week just to work out with your mistakes."

So the moral of today's story - Go to sleep la and just do nothing if you can't practice properly, wakaka.... (I mean practice smart and this is applied especially to all music student, lol)

Pondering, wondering....

Hmm, what makes me think of writing this up? I also have no clue... =P

P/S: My QBee sleeping posture, anybody wanna imitate this act please consult your doctor