Bernard 21st Birthday

Met up with Fuli and Weiming on sunday to buy a gift for Bernard who is meeting up with us later in the day. I suggested the Bugis shop selling watches and we got a nice analog Casio watch for him. We then headed to PS where we are supposed to meet up with Bernard.

Next up was the search for a cake shop and we got one at Carrefour. Bernard arrived late due to the pouring rain and we celebrated his birthday in the food court. Couldn't think of any other place to celebrate that has tables and chairs. It has been rather long since we met up due to our packed schedules and i guess the next time will be after our exams.



We stayed on until around 6 pm before we left for home. Was mugging throughout the night due to my physics test on monday and slept at around 4 am.

I need more sleep!

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Jimmy's 21st Birthday

School has definitely reduced our jc outings and i guess this will be one of the last gatherings before our exams. Ok, don't talk about studies, there is only around 2 and a half weeks more to my exams and i haven't really started revising.

After Clarence ended his lessons at 4.30 pm on friday, we set off in his parents' SUV to fetch Gs and Zewen at NUS to buy Jimmy's present. We headed to Bugis to buy a Casio watch and Kino vouchers. After spending some time deliberating over the design of the watch, we picked one that was not only budget-friendly, but also quite cool. Got vouchers worth $100 in kino as well.

We then headed to SAF Yacht Club at Sembawang where Jim had reserved a table in the restaurant for his birthday dinner treat. We spent a lot of time in the car travelling from one place to another and we were late by around 40 minutes. Luckily, almost everyone was late. We had our dinner just beside the sea and the view was quite good. There was also an indian guy singing classic songs in english, chinese and dialects, and the atmosphere was relaxed and cosy.

After having our very full dinner, we celebrated jim's birthday.

We then explored the area and found some outdoor jacuzzi tubs with adjustable temperature. We basically hung out near the yacht jetty and chatted til about 10.15 pm before we left for home.

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Comic + Horror?

Didn't blog much the past few days as i don't have anything much to talk about, unless anyone wants to hear more complaints of studying? Ha... I guess not. As usual, wednesday has arrived and it's my movie day! Clarence and i met up with Derrick and Jimmy at Orchard to watch The 40 Year old Virgin. Derrick was late and we had to watch a later timeslot of 9.45 pm instead of the planned 7.25 pm slot. Had dinner in the meantime and settled down on the tables and chairs on Lido level 5 chatting about studies, exams and holidays. Seems that all of us want to work instead of study, maybe when we are working, we will want to study instead?

The 40 yr old virgin is a humourous show with a heart. Besides the numerous jokes, the cast especially Steve Carrell, are natural in their roles and each character provides sufficient comic relief. The romance bit surprisingly works out although the movie focuses mostly on generating laughter. An effective show that can relieve stress.

After the show, Derrick couldn't find his car keys and we searched the area where we sat down for the movie. We proceeded to search the place where we sat before the movie with no avail. The cleaner and security guards also did not have anyone reporting anything lost. Headed to Wheelock BK where we had our dinner and it was a futile attempt too. While Derrick was trying to backtrack his memories of the car key before it was lost, he suggested that he might have thrown it away when throwing a plastic bag before going into the theatre. We headed back to Lido and decided to search the theatre or rubbish bin again. The escalators had been stopped as there are no midnight screenings in cinemas on weekdays. The security guard escorted us up to level 5 after activating the escalators. There weren't anyone else in level 5 except for a few cleaners and the security guard. The rubbish bin had been cleared of all its rubbish and we went to theatre 1 to make a final check again.

We pushed opened the doors and entered the pitch black theatre, realising how dark it was when the doors closed behind us. It was really really dark as the cleaners had done their job and no light was on. Adding to the scare factor was that the gigantic theatre 1 was dead silent. We could barely see our shoes inside and it was genuinely creepy. I tried hard to shake away the thought that i might see "something" sitting on the seats by putting effort in searching the car key and speaking continuously to break the ominous silence. My handphone helped a lot as it is equipped with photo light, or else we will be maneuvering blind in the theatre.

After about two minutes, a cleaner emerged from the entrance and asked whether we are looking for this, as he dangled a car key between his fingers. We were all very relieved to be able to leave the theatre. It was quite miraculous that the cleaner found the key as we had searched the area before we left the theatre the first time. Perhaps the key had dropped from his pocket and was accidentally kicked somewhere.

Got a lift back home in Derrick's car after the "ordeal". Going back to school later for two more lessons.

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A self-declared break!

Watched Dark Water with Ly yesterday night as i wanted to take a break from studying. The hollywood remake is not as interesting as i expected coz i knew the whole story from the original japanese movie already and the remake was much less spooky. It concentrates on the story and the characters instead, making it more like a tragic drama than a horror show. Perhaps director Walter Salles should stick what he does best instead.

Jim came to visit my roommate and i today as he does not have any lessons tomorrow. We planned to watch Corpse Bride at Jurong Point after having dinner at NTU. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we were slightly late but watched the movie anyway. When the movie ended, we were all wondering how come it's so short. The movie was a mere 77 minutes including credits and due to our late arrival, we watched only about 1 hour 5 mins of screen time. Although it was good when the movie was screening, the shortfall in the duration couldn't help but make us feel slightly cheated of our money. It's an entertaining and humourous animation had we overlooked its length.

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Sigh of Relief

Finally, my 30% econs test is over. Was fretting over it during the past few days. Spent long nights revising the entire microeconomics and half of the macroeconomics section. The syllabus taught in this semester is more than what we learnt in jc for 2 years. Slept an average of 4 hours the past two days. Time to relax now!

Countdown to exams: 29 days
Amount of notes and textbooks to revise: Uncountable

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Seminar

Went to sing ktv with Ks in the morning and went back to school in the evening for my cca. The activity today is a seminar by some songwriters in a local company, Vision In Music, and they are to teach us the basic skills in song composition and lyrics writing. The seminar started off slightly late due to some technical problems. The first speaker was knowledgeable, engaging and humourous, providing many insights on song composition, current trends in the chinese pop music industry and even a live demo of impromptu melody composition using a keyboard. We were all really impressed as not only he can play the keyboard very well, he thought of a melody and beat within a really short period of time.

The three important steps towards song composition are namely, one: we should have mastered a musical instrument, preferably guitar, piano or keyboard, two: we should know "ying yue yue li" or music theory, like notes, bars, etc, three: we must enjoy listening to music. He also described the chinese pop trend in recent years from David Tao's R&B, to Jay Chou's hip-hop rap, to Mayday's rock. Also ,he encouraged budding songwriters to listen to english songs more as they are of greater musical range and the number of "inspirations" will increase. Referencing from chinese songs is not recommended as they are often the second-hand goods after insight from english songs. He then listed some examples of chinese songs that have been referenced from english sources.

Next up was a video presentation of the company's achievements and another speaker teaching us lyrics writing. There is just one condition for lyrics writing, which is knowing how to write the language. Many songs tell the same story, eg. guy falls in love with gal, they break up, and guy feels sad and lonely. However, there are many different ways to convey the story, the subtlety and correct usage of words play important roles in writing lyrics. He also quoted some lyrics from Tanya's songs which are well written.

There was a song presentation after the talks composed by the second speaker and the singer's vocals is really good. It was an informative yet interesting talk although i doubt i will ever compose a song in my lifetime.

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