damn damn damn

globalisation didn't come out for gp wtf. when everyone was banking on it cambridge totally surprised the utter living shit out of all of us. wooo. and i ended up doing some crap qn about how music can't change the world but it makes it more beautiful wtflol. talked about jazz, bach, beethoven, sibelius, nirvana, forgot to bring in the mahler quote about how a symphony should embrace the world or universe or whatever.

so we were screwed once over cos out of the 12 essay qns none were globalisation. and THEN we were screwed over again cos the compre wasn't globalisation like we thought, but on GENDER ISSUES. wtfwtfwtf. thx a bunch cambridge. my confirm A for GP is certainly in doubt now.

now for maths, which is in 2 days' time. i've done a hell lot for maths. vectors & complex numbers yesterday, graphing, differentiation, maclaurins and integration today. what else is there? uhhh functions, ap/gp & mathematical induction, inequalities & the simultaneous equations matrix thing, and DE. and of course stats but i'm not touching that yet. i've already covered everything, just doing it all again.

well then. maths is absolutely crucial to me. if i don't get an A for maths my LSE dreams are blown - as are my PSC dreams - and then how am i going to find a job that pays enough for me to retire by 35? to the bahamas?

so: here goes

- dear cambridge setters
i suck at maths
real bad
but i have to bluff you guys into thinking i'm actually pro
at least for long enough for you to give me an A
plz plz plz dun guailan me with weird stuff
like nasty integration
or applying some fundamental nifty properties of complex numbers
or rearranging terms on the MI question to confuse pple
cos i'll be screwed
and if i screw up A-level maths
i screw up life
fuck
plz plz plz dun screw me over i really need an A for maths
so that i can go to some really pro uni
to get a really nice-looking BA or BSc or whatever
and land a nice job at wherever it is where people earn craploads of cash and retire at 35
cos that's what's impt to me right now
i only need 70 marks to live my dreams
but if you can give more that would be nice of you
kthxbye -

i think these rubbish prayers are going to become a pre-paper tradition =)

sth funny + thoughts on GP

lol this is rather funny.

my brother in america called (technically half-bro, but yeah, very long story). probably wanted to wish dad a happy birthday or something (that was a couple of days ago). my dad's out at NTUC - still traipsing about cos of the rain i guess - and i thought he called. so this is how it went

me: "hello papa?"
(long silence on the other side) and then "hello?"
me: "hello?" - i'm still thinking its my dad, cos
a) i'm bad at voice recognition,
b) their voices are very similar - similar to mine too, plus some age,
and c) my dad lags on the phone cos he can't hear too well
(other side): hello is this dad?

- realisation 1: people usually don't try to call themselves up at home if they're out -

- realisation 2: its adrian, not papa. whoops! -

now i was trying to not laugh... so he just asked if i was in the middle of A levels (yeah first paper tmrw, etc.) good luck, are you prepared, the usual, i'll call back later. yup. amusing & embarrassing. lol

when i tell me mom she'll gag and laugh. and i'll make myself an irish coffee with extra whiskey. oh damn i can't its GP tmrw. damn damn damn.

so now i'm waiting for the next humiliation to wipe out the memory of this one. i just hope my next humiliation will not be GP tmrw -.-

so for GP:
topics that i'm desperately hoping for
international relations (myanmar, sudan, zimbabwe, iraq, russia, france, the US & all kinds of other screwed up places, basket cases and failed states)
globalisation (200 million people live outside their country of birth, tariffs average 3.3%, anti-globalisation protesters in seattle WTO ministerial conference 1999, make up quotes from krugman, norberg, stiglitz etc. that sort of thing)
global warming/climate change/environment (ecological footprint 3.5 earths, US contributes 22% of the world's CO2 emissions but china is rising with 18%, by 2100 temperatures will be 5-6 deg higher under business-as-usual models etc.) <- if global warming comes out for compre (i think its pretty likely, like 20% chance mebbe) i'm home and dry
science vs. religion (just gimme a good question plz i can slam religion but then also talk about all the good things its done for lots of pple)

- dear cambridge setters
plz plz plz dun screw me over in GP
its damn demoralising
plz give me nice essay questions
so i can crap on about them
and have enough points to crap about
and use long words like gratuitous and predicate
and plz give me a nice compre
that i can understand and respond to
not some guailan thing like matriarchy in singapore
cos i know shit about family issues
and i'll start making up channel 8 dramas on random things just for the AQ
plz plz plz dun screw me over i need an A for GP 
(among other things)
for PSC to look my way
so that i can go someplace nice and cool
e.g. london or chicago or NYC or princeton
to fritter away my uni years in peaceful contentment
kthxbye -

oh yeah another gratifying thought. couple of days ago harvard sent me an email invite to apply to them, though its kind of late now since i've alr given all the teachers the recommendation envelopes... but still, its gratifying that they deigned to look my way =) anyway cool. feels good.

something interesting i heard on bbc radio 4 a few days ago:

My life has been a series of humiliations, and the one consolation of that is that the latest humiliation usually wipes out the memory of the preceding ones.
- Gyles Brandreth

lol. ok back to work!

hunkering down alr.

i guess with about 5 days to go before my first paper i should leave off blogging for some time. i have some macroecons, climo (phys geog) and the lit paper 4 left to cover, but will be doing the rest again over the next few days. nothing much to say, just have to go out and prove my worth, keep my sanity till 29th oct, watch YO concert (it'll be great... right...? of course) and party and live like there's no tmrw till 10th jan. so RJ days are well and truly over.

sic transit gloria juvenilis

fantasy

When (or if ever) I learn to play the violin, these are the pieces I’d love to play:

Sibelius violin concerto: the first movement is brilliantly haunting esp. the 4-note motif F-E-D-G# just before the end. and the second movement was written under the influence of a 3-day hangover wtf how cool is that;
Brahms violin concerto: don’t ask me why, but it sings straight to my heart. maybe cos of the recording i have. the Ginette Neveu recording is fantastic. yeah some awful intonation but what the hell it's fantastic spirit, lovely tone, beautiful phrasing. i listen to this recording (which comes with a brilliant Sibelius too) and the Oistrakh/Rostropovich brahms double almost every day, it sustains me through this a-level shit;
and Beethoven violin concerto: i think it's brilliant;
everything by Kriesler and Sarasate: because I like the image of debonair itinerant fiddler and their pieces sound right for the purpose. I like the sound of the word debonair. it sounds ×10 more sophisticated than sophisticated. if one day someone ever describes me as debonair i think i might just die happy after all;
the Bach Chaconne, and the Ysaye Ballade (is it a sonata, or movement from a sonata or sth? can’t rmb) because they are incredibly transcendental;
the Franck sonata because it's a lovely piece; 
and the Brahms sonata in G, see above.

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there is just something about the violin that is impossible to understand. it's a small thing but it's inspired some of the greatest work that this blighted species has ever produced. it's a fantastic instrument in the hands of a true pro, like shaggy. all my best friends are or have been violinists, which is crazy: what are the chances of that? and i don't play the violin, in the orchestral context i'm a bassist which i guess makes me a social climber lol. well i did want to learn the violin at some point, but i guess right now its at the back of my priorities. even behind learning how to play the cello.

which is another thing. the cello is a fantastic instrument. in the hands of a true pro, like rostropovich, or the chang. just slightly less glamorous than a violin, but it has some of the greatest melodies ever. i'm thinking of brahms double again.

playing the bass (at least in classical music) is a bloody thankless thing to do. sawing away in the background, no great melodies (don't tell me saint-saens' the elephant. i will kick your ass.) got to lug the firewood round the place. even if you play something halfway decent on it (thumb position, high harmonics, all that jazz) and put all you've got into the playing, it still sounds like a grade 6 noob cellist. i can safely say i'm a fairly competent bassist, but that doesn't mean anything, it's like bragging "i'm a grade 6 cellist". and any grade 6 cellists out there would probably take it as an insult to them, but i will kick your ass if you're one of them. screw off.

if i ever get the time and the money i'll get a good cello and learn brahms double. and find any one of my good friends and play it. i swear.

hint hint, nudge nudge

my headphones are kinda wearing out. and they're sucky. some screwy taiwanese shit. clipping, bad bass (or even non-existent bass) and stuff like that.

and -woah- check this out. coooolio... 

can anyone sponsor me a set? =) 

best melody ever

This is possibly the best melody ever in the history of music, though I'm sure at least 1/2 of the casual readers of this blog would like to challenge me on that:

For the clueless: Brahms - Double Concerto, III. Vivace non troppo (the second theme). ask me if you want a recording; it's sheer, utter and total bliss.

Maybe I should make the case for Brahms and for the concerto first, before I start enthusing about the melody itself. I didn't really like Brahms for quite a long time, kind of abstract, difficult to get a grip on, and (especially for the piano pieces) technical stuff that sounds deceptively simple but is pretty tough. But ever since we played the Brahms 2 (shorthand for Brahms' second symph) at YO I've changed my view. He has the most effective melodies: take the C major theme from brahms 1 4th mvmt for instance (the second-best melody ever?), which is really not very fancy or anything - and yet comes imbued with such deeply felt emotional content.

On a list of my favourite composers Brahms would be on the top, followed by Beethoven and Sibelius I think. Brahms' music expresses controlled, restrained but deep and highly-charged emotion. It's full of hidden meaning; why, for instance, does the last piece he ever wrote for the piano (the rhapsody op. 119 no. 4) start in E-flat major and maintain that key-centre until right at the end when it turns into E-flat minor for a particularly defiant ending? Considering that it's the last piece he intended to write (he wanted to stop after that), I think it's pretty significant. I think it's an old man, recording his thoughts on life for posterity. Brahms for me represents fundamental angst - not the kind of angst that you get on this and other worthless blogs but an intensely meaningful emotional strife.

As for the concerto... I think most romantic-era concertos have a personal message (not just capering about in the abstract). Fundamentally, you can see the concerto as soloist(s) against orchestra, man alone against society / world / universe / powers-that-be. Concertos have particular meaning, in a way that symphonies cannot convey quite as effectively. Sibelius said a symphony "must be the supreme expression of logic"; Mahler disagreed: "a symphony must embrace the world". Whichever way you look at it, a symphony isn't quite as personal; it's more calculated, structured, formal, has a large-scale or general message, as opposed to the personal and particular message of a concerto.

-----

Now for the Brahms double. It's very late Brahms, his last orchestral work. It's pretty idiosyncratic; the other notable pre-Brahms multiple-soloist concertos are... some baroque concertos grosso (what the hell is the plural, concerti grossi?) and some mozart (flute & harp, violin & viola) and beethoven (triple concerto, another of my favourites). It's pretty abstract compared to other romantic-era stuff, lots of arpeggios and scales weaving around melodies that are pretty no-frills for that period.

Going into the music, the first movement is at first glance pretty standard angry romantic-era stuff... a few defiant chords from the orch, a rhapsodic cello solo segueing into a more concillatory orchestral interlude, then another rhapsodic vln and cello bit... whirling synchopated chords (a Brahms trademark i think) that give the impression of pulsating rhythm and so on, good stuff but i guess probably not transcendentally good.

The second movement is something else altogether. It's based on this simple idea:

And yet it's unusual; the melodic contour is a rising 4th (A-D), a tone (D-E), and another rising 4th (E-A), then the D major chord down (A-F#-D) which is curious inflection. Then we get a plagal cadence in the second bar, very strange. Rhythmically, the second bar has an obvious 3/4 feel, but the first bar doesn’t have any obvious landmarks; it’s rather uncentred. The accompaniment in the first bar is in unison (i.e. everyone in the orchestra who’s playing is playing that same melody). Then we start like the first bar, but the chord down isn’t D major any more, it’s a B minor chord (F#-D-B), so it’s a sequence roughly a third down. And this time the cadence is II-V, an imperfect cadence. Significantly, the last time we approached the dominant note (A) from above (B-A); this time it’s from underneath (G#-A). The effect is electrifying, hypnotic, it’s slightly like a mystical experience; it’s hardly conventional at all.

The third movement of course starts with the famous melody... cool, suave, sneaky:

The cello has it, then the violin, over some light accompaniment; like friends bantering in the canteen over coffee and a doughnut, then the orchestra takes over with the same thing but ×10 more bombastic (the recording I have rather inexplicably but effectively ups the tempo here). The soloists come in with some huge chords (the effect of a bow heaving across 4 cello strings is incredible), and then we get a few bars of the V7 chord of C, in preparation for the Big Tune which pops in over a bass C pedal:

What can I say? The effect is magical; for a start focus on the top notes: G-E-G-C. Why not C-E-G-C a normal C major arpeggio? It’s a favourite technique of Brahms, skipping over one note in an arpeggio to make an impact, and here it’s particularly effective. Using the double stop you get from G to C&E at the same time; the aural effect is surprising because you’re expecting G to C, which you do get but you get the E note too, quite unexpectedly. The first 4 notes set the mood - broad and expansive. Then you might expect another E after that but Brahms pushes the envelope, takes it to F, and uses the long-short-short rhythmic idea from the opening. Other notable parts are I guess the tie from bar 4-5, and the sequence in bar 5-7 (F-E-D-A then A-G-F etc., particularly effective because the cellist just slides up *whoosh* to the A harmonic). THEN the violin comes in, over the cello and a triplet pizz accompaniment. The effect is lovely, brilliant; after the violent syncopated chords it feels like a struggle won (and all the symbolism of man vs. society, particular over general and so on). There’s another great melody after that but I think this one’s clearly the best.

I love the brahms double concerto; to me, it’s about dialogue - deep meaningful proper conversation with someone else you can relate to. It’s about friendship, not in the philo-sophie sense (heh) but just being with the people whose company you enjoy. You could read a romantic interpretation into the piece (cello: guy, vln: girl; 2nd movement: tender caressing in the soundscape etc. that sort of stuff) but I don’t think so; it’s not overtly romantic like tchaik or some of bruch (scottish fantasy?) or others I can't think of at the moment - at least I don’t think so.

-----

Reading meaning into music can look like quite a futile exercise, especially music as abstract as Brahms. But then, why read meaning into anything at all? It seems particularly absurd that I see an animate collection of atoms called Adam, or Eli, or Shaggy, or Remus, or Wen-yi, or Zhaohan, and I read the meaning “friend”. (Or that I see another collection of atoms called xy, and I think “ponce”.) Yet I persist in that.

People persist in seeing meaning in things that are fundamentally meaningless when you think about it... a collection of atoms strung together as a person, for instance. In that sense I guess my search for meaning in a collection of pitches strung together as a melody is no less valid and no more absurd than that.

Am I making sense? Guess not. I'm sounding like Kundera with his philosophical eternal recurrence crap at the start of the unbearable lightness of being.

chopin

i think i need to dispel the stench of angst that was left in the air after the last post. that was written under the influence of a particularly virulent bout of self-loathing and Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground. Read it; the sheer vehemence of self-hatred will shock you to the core. =) thx also to my loyal readership lol.

so, today's really bright and sunny, no point wallowing in depression, and i had waffles with ice-cream for breakfast (w00t) so that feels good. i've been wondering if my fitness is dying (esp. with the enlistment letter just in -.-) but went and did 9 pull-ups on the bar at home so that proves i haven't turned into a fat slob just yet. and i had a good run on the piano just now: chopin ballades 3 & 4 and some granados, in keeping with the cool and froody mood today.

-----

chopin is known for the rubato you're supposed to put into the music. like, stretch certain beats, rush thru others, give a lurching rhythmic sensation. if you do it properly you make the sound kaleidoscopic and funky. if you suck it makes the audience go seasick. it's quite common for most romantic-era music. and can be very funny when really overdone properly... like the time i screwed ike over accompanying him on sarasate's carmen fantasy.

but i had an epiphany while sightreading the ballade no. 4 earlier. about what chopin's rubato is actually for - it's for people to figure out the accidentals.

cos, get this, the ballade no. 4 is in F minor but starts in, i think, C major so everything is naturalised. then you launch into some exquisite F minor thing that is faintly reminiscent of B&W still life photos of early 20th century whirling turkish dervishes, don't ask me why. and then after that theres some modulations which take you to exotic keys, sharps flats all over the freaking place.

so the idea is, you linger over the previous note, pause slightly, artistically... while you figure out what the next note actually is. like there's a bar where chopin has an A-double-flat fetish or sth. that calls for a serious amount of rubato, and maybe a bit of deep breathing too to calm your nerves. see, when you pause and breathe it sounds musically authentic, when actually what's running thru your mind is "fuck how long more to the end? can't stand any more of this shit. damn you chopin." and stuff like that.

i stopped on the 3rd last page though. couldn't bear to sightread the chromatic semiquaver runs. lost my patience with the chopin crap. some people like chopin; i think the accidentals are a nuisance so i mostly can't stand the music.

soul monologue

i have a confession to make. i am – have been – an actor – for the last eighteen years. and a half, and what? four days.

time flies, but i’m not having fun.

this is a script you’re reading; it’s a script i’m writing and performing – it’s been an ongoing project for the last 18-and-a-bit years. this script here’s just an excerpt.

it’s titled soul monologue because i wanted at one time, five minutes ago, to make an oblique reference to the vagina monologues. it doesn’t work – technicalities: singular, not plural; i don’t have a vagina for a soul (nor indeed do i have a vagina at all, thanks for asking, adam) – and this therefore sounds like i’m faking intellectual depth.

in a sense i am doing that: trying to fake intellectual depth. i’m not smart, just confused, and my friends and teachers and classmates mistake my confusion for mental capacity. which is fortunate for me. i am lucky that my confusion has been perceived in the shades and tones of intellect – i am sly, crafty, ingenious, disingenuous.

so it’s not smart at all, it’s just because i wanted to pretend that i was being smart. or am i trying to pretend that i’m pretending to be smart, when i really am? no. humility forbids; i'm not that smart. i’m pretending; i’m pretentious.

my confusion has induced contusion; my brain's bruised.


if i clarified what i meant by ‘i’ perhaps things might be clearer. i said i am an actor; it would be more accurate to say i am an actor, a playwright and a character, all together – my (physical) body acts what my mind writes in my life’s script, and that’s interpreted by those around me. my friends: you see aspects of me; to you i am a character.

my character plays many parts; he’s a student, a lit-er, a humanz scholar, a rafflesian, an economist, a cynic, an atheist, a humanist, a musician, a pianist and bassist, a composer, a writer, a critic, a pedant, an actor, a fantasist, a loner, a misanthrope; a ‘just-an-ordinary-sort-of-guy’ guy.

Rubbish.

i don’t want to act any more. i’m tired, i’m twisted inside, i’m too confused. i’m a liar. i’ve constructed an image of myself, an image which is increasingly hard to live up to, because the image of myself is growing, maturing, developing, while i’m not; i’m shrinking, shrivelling, stagnating. sick. (me, that is.)

i guess some people look up to me – i would like to think that’s the case, but i might just be misguided – let’s rephrase that. i would like to guess that some people look up to me, and i would like to do that because i want to tell them that i’m not the character they think i am. the me, the real me, is afraid of telling that and exposing the reality, afraid like a small kid in a thunderstorm when the sky’s black and the lightning streaks across the sky and the thunder rolls deep and booming and strikes you off-guard and makes you want to hide.

i have nowhere to hide – i have cultivated an image, that i have to live up to. i need to talk to my friends, but i dread that when they see the small kid instead of the me-image, i’ll lose them. i can’t afford to lose the few i’ve got. I need to talk to them, but i need to keep them too. that’s like division by zero, somehow, in its twisted logic.

one other character knows, i guess, more than any other; that person probably won’t hear this monologue. if he does start he’ll have gone away by now, he’s not the sort who might bother untangling the rubbish i’ve been saying up there. but i hope he understands, in his own way; i’m comforted by that hope.


i hope your mind’s sprained already; mine certainly is.

-----

phew. writing that was seriously tough, i need a panadol now, got a headache. it's not fiction – if it was i might post it on writers’ blog – but it's not completely fact either. i don’t know, it’s my scream i guess. my identity-crisis-angst. 

well i felt good, what with staying up late listening to fantastic songs from The Hee Bee Gee Bees (parodies of the Bee Gees) and watching episodes of The Sketch Show, meeting my pals and giving stuff to some of my teachers (thank-you-very-much-for-mucking-around-with-my-brains gifts) who were sincerely delighted to get the stuff. i guess its great to make people feel appreciated, and i guess teachers really need to feel appreciated considering the crap they get and the lengths to which they go and the thanklessness of it all. 

so that made me feel good. then i felt guilty about feeling good and therefore i wrote the shit you’ve read above, so as to make me feel like crap again. it’s worked; i’ve restored mental equilibrium except for the splitting headache i’ve got. welcome to my world.

-----

What would you think if I sang out of tune,
Would you stand up and walk out on me.
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song,
And I'll try not to sing out of key.
Oh I get by with a little help from my friends,
Mmm I get high with a little help from my friends,
Mmm I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends.

and now for something completely different

In a welcome change from the normal wankst, we have some world history crap instead.

-----

Once there was a monster, similar to the one from Loch Ness, living in the Thames River in London. It terrorized the city's inhabitants until one day, those who were true and brave enough gathered their strength together and slew the monster. In order to deal with this landfall of suddenly available meat, they ground its carcass into spicy German sausages. Charles Dickens, at the time a reporter for The Times, wrote a newspaper article describing the events carrying the headline:


IT WAS THE BEAST OF THAMES; IT WAS THE WURST OF THAMES.

-----

I hope it made you groan =) theres a far longer version here. don't waste your time on the other pages though; that site's jokes are mostly rubbish.

self-whoring

fuck. i've been self-whoring for the last 3 hours, more or less, since 9, with diverting conversations with remus, shaggy and adam. its to do with scholarships, testimonials and whatever. the idea is that if i don't get a scholarship i can't go overseas for uni and if i can't go overseas that would suck. yeah there's always NUS but... see the world & all that jazz...

but it's so bloody sick-making, typing your own name again and again, trumpeting your own achievements, after all i'm just some middling mediocre dreamer-escapist who wants to go to LSE for the atmosphere and the london air and the sheer wootness of it. there's nothing i've done that's absolutely remarkable or fantastic or anything, i'm just, me. and a not very good me - a middling me - at any rate.

i'm sick, i'm tired, i've got revision lects in the morning, A levels in +/- 3 damn weeks, i've got enough problems as it is, i'm on my way to answering camus' ultimate philosophical question because life is taking a crap on my head.

i need brahms.

maybe i need some love too.

that would be nice.

another reason to take/like lit

heh. swearing in an essay gets you a tick and 20/25 =) how's that for cool?

from the piano / a thought

getting the thought out of the way first: my breakfast today was one goreng pisang (the fried banana thingy coated with batter) and one you tiao. this distasteful thought just crossed my mind before i could stop it - goreng pisang looks awfully phallic. i'll never ask my mom to buy it again.

lol ok so that's that done. playlist:
Debussy - Preludes, book 1, no. 7-12
Franck - Prelude, Chorale and Fugue
Granados - El Pelele, escena goyesca (the Straw Man, scene from Goya)

hrmm debussy. i sightread the 7th prelude, the rest i'd done before. i have a slight debussy phobia, because of the preludes. i did nos. 9 & 11 before, for my ATCL, and frankly my technique was ghastly at the time. i remember note-clusters being rolled over the keys because i couldn't be bothered to pract enough to hit all 3 notes at the same time... embarrassing stuff like that. but after handling Gershwin (Piano Concerto, esp. the 3rd mvmt) i thought the debussy was worth a second shot. been at it a few times and it's noticably better. besides i like the suite bergamasque (you can get a recording from the wikipedia link) especially the passepied... so i've been thinking of looking at more debussy.

franck i've blogged on before... Granados. i only discovered granados, i think last year, except for the danzas espanolas (spanish dances) which are fantastic minatures and which i've played before. granados' music is like musical paintings - which is why the goyescas (scenes from Goya - the spanish artist) are doubly apt. i've only played 2 from the actual goyescas suite, and el pelele, which is brilliant and less demanding. lovely piece, lively and stuff, restored my humorous mood after the depressing franck. (humorous because of the goreng pisang thought that started my day)

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other stuff: i tried the HCI pure maths prelim paper yesterday... it's not exactly quite as hard as it's made out to be, i came out ok in it (an A, if i marked correctly - not a shaggy A, just a bare A). what really pissed me off was that after i finished the paper and checked my answers with the answer key, it was missing qn 6 and 12. i felt my sense of achievement from 3 hours of mind-numbing work just fizzle out... fucking pissed. so i marked them right anyway (i think they are, so there).

self-delusion ftw.

tpo concert

concert yesterday (4th oct): social life + 1. dinner plans were foiled though cos shaggy pulled out. i didn't want to a) have dinner alone if remus & wenyi couldn't make it, or b) dampen the mood between them if they could make it. in the end i got to city hall mrt early, met them at NYNY then zaoed off to mph, reading merde happens by stephen clarke. utter trash but heck, it's funny. caught up with the rest of them at esplanade at about 7:15...

now for the concert review. sib 3rd was disappointing, i expected a lot more gusto and raw energy but it was too polished & shiny for its own good. the notes were rounded and nuanced, even the opening cello/bass thing, overdoing it really. and strings were too soft/restrained, a bit messy too. and the 2nd mvmt was excruciatingly slow. timpanist was good though, very enthu. lol remus fell asleep, i don't blame him.

sib 1st saved the day. i don't like the piece, it's too tchaik for my taste, emo Big Tunes and all, wallowing in romanticism... but its a lot more accessible and less abstract than no. 3. and i guess the orch responded to it a lot better too. all the Big Tunes were wonderful (except the violas were a bit overpowered - or was it sib 3rd? can't rmb) and the brasses were really effective. they put together a pretty impressive advocacy of the sib 1; i must revise my opinion of the piece.

chatted with miss wang after the concert - she was horrified to learn that i'm a sibelius fan lol. went to haagen-dazs after that and blew an obscene amount of money on 2 tiny scoops of ice-cream... granted it was good. but $11.90... ouch. ouch. an experience i won't repeat. should have eaten vicariously, like shaggy [i.e. not eating]. lol

sigh. now for the last stretch - probably the most mugging i'll ever do in my life. back to maths!

last day of school

yesterday was the last proper day of school, ever. notable only for the fantastic conversation adam, martin and i had over lunch. haven't had a chat like that since the old rigep days.

i started with my old chestnut about macademia being one letter away from academia, and aditi pointing out that it was actually macadAmia -.- pwned me and spoilt the joke, so much for linguistic pedantry. incidentally she's right, the nut's actually named after john macadam, some biologist i think (O.o is that mac-adam? lol son of adam)

yup we moved on from there. our conversation roughly proceeded along these lines.

martin (to me): If you and wally get to LSE the two of you should never go out on a double date. [double date: 2 girls, 2 guys. for people who can't face it alone. e.g. me.]

me: uhh why?

adam: the concentrated loserness from the 2 of you would probably cause space-time to fold on itself and collapse... the restaurant'd probably shut down... (more mutterings lost in the massive laughter)

me: (lost for words. somewhat like a goldfish.)

ok. objectively, brilliant insult. purvis was going on about the magnificence of language in antony's love for cleopatra; i could see a glimmer of the same magnificence of language there. it ranks well above the usual run-of-the-mill banter adam and i do. respect.

on the personal level: damn you, bastard...

anyway, after a few more inconsequential remarks adam had to go off and answer a call - instead of answering it at the table. so i alluded to sophie... and when he got back:

martin (to me): what's the greek word for wisdom?

me: oh i think it's... sophia... right?

martin: oh yeah.

me: that's why philo-sophia, love of -

adam: shut up.

(lol)

me (to martin): could one-

adam: (trying to drown me out) isn't the weather-

me: be said

adam: (louder) isn't the weather-

me: could one be said to be... suffering... from philo-sophie?

haha got back at adam there, thx to martin. neat. it was like a chess game with a random third player (martin) to increase the quality of gameplay. haven't had this much fun in a long time - even though lots of the fun was at my expense -.- we also had some innuendo about carrots and a reference to "drawing sweat" lol (i posted on that last week i think)

martin later commented that adam brings out the worst in me - i'm not sure if it's the worst or the best actually. 13A has made me an even worse no-life shit than i am already; i guess it's cos of the people there.

there's a tendency in many people - especially in 13A - to deride or belittle (or even be uncomfortable with) the stuff that they don't know or can't understand, not in a way that's meant for fun but in a ritualised way that alienates the people at which it's directed. presumably at one time it was funny but now it's just offensive, distancing... i guess i bear the brunt of it, david gets it too (which i sympathise with). things like elspeth's "ok, mr scientist...", or peck's "eh how come you know so much useless stuff" or wally's "okaaayy"... this kind of stuff passes as humour in 13A; as a result i'm sometimes alienated from some of my classmates. (alienated is putting it nicely) and my wit and humour has kind of taken a hammering. in 13A the personality trait i've cultivated the most is introversion - shutting up.

so, yeah, respect for people like adam and martin, i love the banter we get up to. pity my brain's so decayed though, i couldn't think of a halfway-decent comeback after the concentrated loserness gag wtf.

-----

in other news, dirk gently is on at radio 4! brilliant. heh if i ever pick up an accent in the UK (if i get there) i hope it's scottish.

watching a concert - sibelius symphs 1 & 3 - tonight with shaggy remus & wenyi. hope its good! pity zh has to mug though.

my headphones are starting to fall apart... specifically the skin over the headphones. i swear, my first pay cheque will be blown on a set of sennheiser headphones with sound to die for.

maths

just finished another jc's pure maths paper. i estimate that i'd have gotten about ~70 there. but it was a hard slog.

maths is utter, utter humiliation. the maths parts of my brain have withered away, and my brain's been filled up with lots of other pointless, useless crap. even the easiest integration and graphs stuff stump me. memories of past (i.e. primary school) maths glory just get in the way of recognising that i fundamentally suck at maths. never mind elegant/short solutions, i can't even get things right the conventional way. i know this just isn't right; maths should be a breeze...

shit. that was pure wanksting.

thought for the day

one uncanny coincidence is that all my best friends have at some point or other been violinists. am not entirely sure why, though.