RISE concert

yup, so it ended yesterday, and with a bang too.

after weeks of long practices (i mean 1 week of long practices), we finally pulled it off! yay!

ok. so it began last friday with the first rehearsal in which i was screwed real bad in. But after that, it got better and better for me but not much for the percussion as a whole.

we kept getting screwed by Mr. Sze for our incompetence in counting... lol. looking back, i must say it really wasn't our fault. Given the little number of rehearsals and all of us performing in an english orchestra for the first time, it took us time to adapt, especially since the songs we were playing weren't exactly the simplest...

but i must say that it was a good experience.

I got to know a lot more friends like those in RISE. People like Jon Chow, Min Jian are really hilarious. lol. all that crap about selling the timp to the taxi driver, eating the timp and ahhh... all the dumb stuff. haha... really funny. den of course, i got to play with a lot of friends like Jinghui, Lumpy, Zhiyi, Ben Wee, Conan, Zhao Kai etc...

I got to play with RIMBperc people and Bernard! haha. all very fun and cool people. haha. all the fun we had chatting during practices and moving instruments up and down. seemed so tiring then but looking back, it was fun! (:

I got to play some pieces which i wouldnt even have dreamt of playing. haha. didn't even know that young person's guide to the orchestra is actually the name of a piece...

William Tell:




Prince Igor:


Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra:




mm.

hmm. a few photos?


JAMES! haha. he may look happy now but guess what happens if you take away the food...


Bernard! haha. really really nice guy. rather hilarious too.

"(2 in malay)" - Bernard
"What's (2 in malay)" - Jerald
"That's 2. Hey. hello. you malay or not" - Bernard

LAUGHTER!

haha...

during photo taking after concert

"I still don't believe he's chinese" - Bernard

lol... so begins another chapter of the list of Jerald jokes.


Yeah! the percussion SECTION! IMBA OWNAGE PWNZ!!! haha. a very nice and hilarious group.

Starting with:

James. haha. doesn't really talk a lot except about food. very nice guy to have around though, especially if you're carrying instruments.

Kenneth. YEAH! haha. very nice person who roars at people who touches RIMB instruments in the wrong way. VERY VERY FUNNY! starting with the zzz jokes all the way to the zebra jokes and what not lol... HAHAHAHA!

Benjamin. really pro guy and as Bernard says, he's really musical. and i agree. sight read the whole of variation M xylo part. totally imba. probably the best percussion player around in RI.

Jerald. (you know why it's coloured black) well, you know him well enough... funny as usual.

Bernard. imba guy whose profession is PERCUSSION PLAYING. lol.

and Gibson who unfortunately couldn't come for the concert.

and me.

and together we make up the IMBA perc section.


jon chow. lol. hilarious.


Conan. lol. CHANGCHUN qie zi.


Zhi Xuan (SECRET!) and Conan. haha.


Kai Cheng, Conan and Lumpy.


Kenneth looking surprised. David looking like his head is detached. Me looking dumb.


nice guy (don't really know his name though). always helps in moving instruments.


Min Jian (the joke) and Jon Chow (the joker)...


Ben Wee and Zhiyuan.

yup. so once again, a really great experience. in a short time, i got to know so many more friends, get to know so many more instruments, play with RIMB percussionists and Bernard.

haha i'm really sorry about the gong.

but overall, i think we all did really well. (:

a big congratulations to RISE and all guest players.

Patrick

end of term 2

this is coming a little late but i've been busy for the past few days and still am...

1/2 of my sec 4 year has ended... let's see how i've fared.

i remember vividly that last year was the best year i've ever had and i keep stressing that. im wondering whether this year will be even better but if you compare the first half of both years, this year seems no less worse than the last.

So many interesting events have been going on.

In term 1, there was all the PSL stuff that we had to do. From first day acitivities to the 3 day camp all the way to JRIC and PSGM. They were all rather fun and a very new experience for me. Then, I tried out new stuff like mentoring...

Term 2 was a quick term. I'm not sure why but i seem to have done nothing much except study.

My results have been rather good in term 2 with:
Bio: 40/40 yay
Phy: 30/30 yay
Chem: 31/33 yay
Math: 21.5/30 lol ok luh but could be better.
SS: 14/15 wonderful

but there were definitely the interesting parts of the term like:

SIMC 2008! which was super fun!

and now i'm going to perform for RISE tomorrow which i believe will be quite fun.

im gonna make a longer reflection of the first semester some time later when i have time...

but for now, there's much to look forward to.

1. RISE concert tml
2. RIGE concert
3. RICO concert
4. Astrophysics trip
5. possible Taiwan trip

and lots more.

SMO has been ok. could have done better for senior but i was quite happy with my open one.

overall, a good semester.

hopefully, i can achieve much in my june hols. esp. in RE.

Patrick

SIMC! (:

haven't blogged for 10 days.

doesn't mean i've been slacking...

in fact, i was hard at work... (except for a few occassions when i was ahem... watching man utd videos or playing miniclip games)... but anyway, all the hard work paid off in the end.

so it all started off on last friday when we went for SIMC briefing... it was the first time that Brian, Nic and I got together to discuss. but got a few bad news in the briefing like that of being unable to stay in PGP which was what we were all looking forward to. we weren't about to let this ruin our experience though and nic, brian and i started working on the on-site challenge which we found totally "unsolvable"... Well, at least that was a good start.

On saturday, i was about to go for CO practice (had to because i wasn't going to go for founder's day and had to prac with members) before mrs. ong called me to ask why no one was at the weiqi booth for open house. oops. haix. i think i have so many things to remember that i forget so many things. so i decided to go for open house instead... in the end, that went all right, had two games with a P6 which i thought was quite good and had a nice chat with some parent.

After that, went off to Bishan Library to work on our on-site challenge. woah. we did really well there, managing to come up with our very own algorithm in 4 hrs. (: yay... that was great.

then, sunday was book club day which was rather slack.

monday was chionging of on-site challenge again and we managed to chiong out the poster and most of the presentation. our poster was very cool! haha. shall show pics later.

tuesday was ok. quite boring cuz it was only an introduction session. There was supposed to be an AMAZING RACE but we all had to MISS IT cuz we were Singaporeans and it was only for foreign students, which i found quite dumb cuz this was supposed to be good interaction time between us. Missed lots of fun there but at least we got some time to work on our presentation.

Wednesday was the killer day. stood in front of our booth for 3 hrs and did our presentation 3 times in a cramped space. luckily we managed to pull through... then, in the afternoon we got the results and we were second place! ok. we were aiming for first place but in the end, we realised that there were very few first places and all were much pro-er than us so we were happy with 2nd... den it was the visit to PSA. can't post photos though cuz it's against the law i think.

Thursday was chionging of on-site. omg. that was damn difficult. we had to finish our algorithm and presentation and script in one day. WOAH. luckily, good work by the 3 of us allowed us to pull through and i actually manged to get some sleep.

Friday was 3 presentations again which was utterly tiring. after that, had a trip to I2R which was quite fun before rushing back to RI for RISE Rehearsal... ultra tired.

and so ends this 1 tiring week which has seen me skip 1 lunch, eat bread for 2 dinners and eat 1 dinner at 10pm. nvm. i can hope for better meals now.

oh. erm so the results were:
Barry's Team: 1st prize for pre-site
Huiyao's Team: Commendation prize for on-site
My Team: 2nd prize for pre-site.

not bad. one prize per team. i wasn't really expecting much anyway because of the fierce competition so this is rather good results although i would have hoped for at least a commendation prize for on-site...

hmm...

quotes from SIMC:
"Apathetic" (simultaneous and retardedly) - Nic and me during an interview with some NUSH student
"Be informed, Beefballs" - Nic and me during an interview with Brian
"WITH CLASS" - Brian, Nic and me on the first 3 days after we came up with "Cut Your Glass With Class" for pre-site challenge
"BEEFBALLS" - Brian, Nic and me on the last 2 days
"WITH SHIT" - Brian, Nic and me after we came up with "Fill your Ship with Shit" for on-site challenge lol.
"Make Your Dock Rock" - Brian, Nic and me
"I come from the Black Hole" - Ivan on being asked where he came from
"Would you like to come with me to the Black Hole" - Ivan

ok. ermm...

photos first bah.

first day:


first mistake we spot: Berry yummy.


Opening Ceremony with the passing of cubes. haha found this quite creative and fun!


The cube reaches the front. SIMC!


SIMC with big cubes.


The SIMC cubes

second day:



RJC imba poster. they got 2nd prize for pre-site but got the grand prize when it came to the on-site challenge. totally imba.


Thailand Poster


Thailand Poster again.


OUR POSTER! (:


SECOND AWARD!


SECOND AWARD!

third day: nothing

Fourth day: nothing

Fifth day:


cultural performance. quite cool. they played some cultural song and "Never take my eyes off you"


CO performance.


AND IT ENDS! (:

The Brilliant Trio:


Nic, Brian and me posing.


Brian after 3 presentations


Us with Mr. Kwa


Us with our poster!


Me as "THE BIG ONE"


Nic Chee looking like a star


Nic attempting to look fierce


Brian faking emo


Me faking sleeping


Nic Chee with the palms


Me with the palms.

AND some Pictures with Foreigners! (:


Us + Americans


Us + Vietnamese


Us + Americans again


Us + Japanese... haha very popular people there cuz they all looked soooo cool.



Us + Thailand people!


Me + ACS(I) guy. hmm nice guy! (: haha. had a fun time chatting and laughing during the PSA presentation.

Presenter: I work in PSA as...
Brian: ALGORITHM (cuz of post pre-site challenge syndrome)
Presenter: Algorithm developer (or something with algorithm)

LAUGHTER!


Us + North Carolina student. damn cool guy. saw him at bugis mrt too. haha.


Me + Taiwanese! very nice people.


Us + Beijing people.


Me + Taiwanese.



Me + Israel people. damn pro. >< 1st prize for both pre-site and on-site and almost grand prize winner for pre-site.


Me + Taiwanese.


Me + Taiwanese.


Me + Vietnamese.


Me + Taiwanese and Thailand people.


me + Taiwanese.


me + owanage RONALD. ><

Me + some cool thailand guy.

Random:


Ivan!


NUSH ceiling


RI sky.

ok finished with photos haha.

VIDEOS:



Spastic video of me and nic during an interview with an NUSH person where we are supposed to say Be Informed, Be Involved but instead said Be Informed, BEEFBALLS. LOL. Brian replicated this... ><



imba soccer that can be played just by thinking and directing the ball where to go. supposed to be technology developed for the physically disabled.



speech by Israeli and Australian during closing ceremony.



Some imba cultural performance.



CO performance...

anyway, SIMC was a really fun experience. got me thinking about the usefulness of Math. who would have thought that we could solve a glass cutting problem in 3 days and ship berthing problem in 1 day. omg. ok. we definitely didn't use the atomic model like the Israel team or even the graph theory of the RJC team or any programming. In fact, we used really simple primary school style of solving and maybe some application of secondary school math but our solutions came out to be rather impressive. Overall, the experience was really great. Spending hours in the library with friends doing a math question and playing when the time comes is just wonderful. Then, there was also interaction (although very minimal) with other schools and foreign students which was rather fun. developing algorithms is cool! (: haha. really really cool. SIMC 2008 ftw. (:

ok. anyway, on friday i had my first ever RISE practice which went rather bad. lol. but quite fun at the same time. the first thing the conductor said was "VARIATION M" and i went stunned. lol. rhythm was quite simple but somehow i feel like im disturbed by the strings. sigh. but quite fun also luh cuz i get to play with other band members yay! (: and errrr... yeah quite fun. hope i can do better in the next rehearsal.

hmm. guess that's all bah.

Patrick