well well...

the first week of school has ended, and it's something like a huge sneak preview of what's to come.. with all the introductions to courses and tours of the campus and the tiddly little things that are associated with starting a term of education in any institute..

and it's all yea exciting!

if only people shared my enthusiasm haha..

well honestly i'm quite baffled how some people can be so jaded at this point in their lives when they're entering an institution that's starting afresh with new premises and all.. it's one thing to be admitted into an age-old, respectable, and thoroughly intimidating college, but how these people manage to sound so negative while looking around at the spanking new (so new it's actually only about 60% functional) college just baffles me..

so during the tour i had to content myself with smiling a rather silly smile instead ofjust going gaga over the place, and prospect of starting school..

but enough about school. i guess it's quite enough to be going on and on and on about it.

The Kim Seng Wind Sypmhony will be presenting its annual concert on the 23rd day of this December. Repertoire for the evening includes Asian music and popular showtunes. 

The concert will be held at the NAFA Auditorium.

Yours truly will be conducting, so all interested parties can email, sms, send a telepathic nudge, shout from the other end of the island, or use the good 'ol telephone to procure your tickets.

If you buy 7 tickets you get the 8th free!

also writing a musical for a private function, short 20-30 min affair that you all can't attend anyway so i shan't bore you with needless details..

LaSalle will be putting up a week's worth of performance somewhere in October, and of course you will all be informed when i know what's going on exactly when..

haha so that's pretty much what's exciting in my life. other than school of course.. 

haha...

oh my goodness gracious me school starts tomorrow!

on the way back home today i had a minor emo moment when the reality that i was really going to study music sank in. 

all the time when i received the news that i was granted an audition, and when i was auditioning for the place in LaSalle it didn't feel real..

and when i received the letter of offer, elated as i was it still didn't feel real, and the nagging feeling that it wasn't really happening still stayed at the back of my head.

and there it stayed while i stood day after day selling jewellery, meeting people, earning some money...

and i think just about half an hour ago was the first time it really hit me in the head.

finally, after so much dreaming, i'm here all ready to go for it!

i really have to thank those who along the way encouraged me even when i thought i'd given up on this dream.. and the other people i meet along the way who made it even easier because, through their words and actions, made it feel like there was no other possible way that i could have gone and this choice was the most natural one to make.

and of course i do think that someone special up there has been watching out for me..

thank you! all of you!

(yar very juvenile i know but i insist on doing it haha..)

yay!

in every complete sentence, there will be a subject and a verb.

when writing in passive voice, the verb is acted upon by the subject, and when writing in active voice, the subjects acts out the verb.

i am have discussed the use of passive and active voice in writing.

the use of active and passive voice in writing was discussed by me.

or, as i found was elegantly taught in the university of north carolina,

why was the road crossed by the chicken?

well well who would have guessed it.. i'm back here clicking away on my (very silent) Mac keys so soon..

the day today was spent with the folks, went out for a very heavy brunch (like i can still feel it now) and the day ended with a not-so-heavy dinner..

but that's not what i'm here for today. today we'll talk about something a little less frivolous.

i recently visited a friend who's very ill. we aren't very close, we see each other a few times a year, but seeing her affected me more that i'd have expected. i think the experience of seeing someone so close to death is a powerful reminder that we're all, after all, fragile and frail beings. 

i had an internal boulder-atop-precipice moment when my firmly rooted and Oprah-nurtured beliefs that life inherently has meaning came face to face with the ugly thorn of existentialism and i actually feared for a moment that it would all, at the end of the day, come to naught. it is after all quite a logical position to arrive upon when one looks at the fact that the notions of distinction and the things that we claim make one person worthier than another are constructs as weak and insubstantial as the fibre of our mortal bodies.

but, if only we care to see it (and that makes all the difference) we live beauty everyday. not just living in beauty, but living beauty.

and that makes it all worth. 

we live, and that alone is reason to live. because that's what we're here for.

when i was visiting my friend i noticed that her family members who cared for her looked more despondent than she did, and i was mulling over that the entire ride home. 

i think that perhaps, in some ways, she has the least to lose out of it all. the things that are of true value will always be hers no matter what, but for the rest of her family, they could have to face a real loss.

and then that gave me a second epiphany of the day. there's a clear line between what can be taken away and what can only be given up, and it's sometimes a tough call recognising what's before one for what it really is. but it's of so much importance to see the difference.

and so today became a rather introspective day, as opposed to the lazy sunday that i thought it would be... but i'm not complaining...

Global Issue

hello one and all!

it's been donkeynoodle timewarp light years since i last posted!

and now i'm back..
finally..

but i really don't know if it'll last. in recent days i find that, less and less, the urge to write volumes of verbose ramblings surfaces, and ergo, this place has seen no new inspiration since then.. and well maybe things will change when i move to a new environment, and take on a new identity as a student, but till you see three posts up in the space of a week, don't get your hopes up..

like seriously. don't. i don't want to break any more hearts and dash any more hopes.

bwahaha..

and please don't think it's a major life-change that has brought this on, or that i'm depressed and want to end it all, starting with this space in cyberspace that i call my own. 

raarbeesh.

i just don't see the need to update everybody (read: shout out to the whole WWW) on my comings and goings anymore, and actually, coming to think of it, it's a good thing i don't write here often.

after all, i write plenty and wax dramatic only when life is less-than-perfect and leaves much to be desired..

thus maybe it is true after all that thngs have taken a change for the better and thus i don't need to blog anymore.

having said that (ok everybody hold your socks it's clarification time)

firstly, the reason i'm writing so much now is not because i'm now depressed. it's cos i refuse to let this place just go to nothing without at the very least a final, fitting piece of prose to wind things up (not that this is that, but if Y comes to Z, then, well, it serves well enough)

and secondly, there is some thing to rant about. and it starts with an R too!

R353rv!5+

well i never thought i'd come to this, but well you know when you build your life's dreams around studying music and you finally get there after all that jazz, it is, you have to agree with me, a rather wet, soppy, soggy, and thoroughly stinky and unpleasant blankety prospect to have to, within the first two months of school, go back two and a half years ago and take up arms (oh bloody arms) again. 

it's in my words, raarbeesh. (which my class of sec 1s studying music theory under me have learned, is my favourite word to throw around.)

but thankfully, it has been pushed back (hopefully to oblivion and beyond; well nobody said I can't indulge in wishful thinking) and i no longer have to worry about it while in school.

kinda like how Harry Potter will be safe for as along as he's a student in Hogwarts, and calls the Dursley's his home. 

except, of course, that while i love school, i don't hate home; and most unfortunately, i do not have the ability to hex some people to oblivion.

lucky them.

but of course this fortuitous pushing back of said "duties" did not come about without sacrifice. and while i do not have any intention whatsoever of trivialising the death of dear Lily Potter, if we were to continue along this analogous line of thinking, i have to point out that i had to have the pleasure of wrangling with a rather friendly, keen, but unfortunately altogether inefficient administration to bring about this, well, for want of a better term (and in the interests of keeping this rant underground and my own self above blame and legal trussle) the said pushing back of said "duties".

well at least school's starting and things are looking good (goodness the new campus is just gorgeous!) and life's treating me kindly and well. 

well this about ends it all for now (or for ever, who knows) and all that's left for me is to tie up the loose ends and wait for school to open. it's jumping-butterflies-beans-in-my-stomach exciting and i really want to see what's in store!

and of course i do hope we will not start like my dear friends in another nearby varsity who have had the pleasure of seeing the school literally take shape, nuts, bolts and glass panes, right before their freshmen eyes.

but then and again, even if we do, i'm not going to complain. after all, what's going on now, was not too long ago just a fantastic dream. kinda like how Harry Potter hoped he was from another world.

but of course, this isn't fiction! 

(and i'm not some character living in pages earning elephant feeding-time buckets full of money for some writer)

gawd i wish i didn't have to admit this, but i envy that woman.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

hello world!

i'm blogging this with my latest toy............

i bought a MacBook!

one might be wise to expect more postings from me.. seeing as i can now bring my laptop around with me and blog from any wireless location..

but one might be wiser to not expect any postings at all seeing as i'll be tinkering with my latest toy the whole day long..

and thanks to my IT consultant who navigated with me that nausea-inducing crowd of people crammed into the fair..

The Two Sister-Moons

A very, very, long time ago, the Mistress Earth lived in endless space, surrounded by nothing but black emptiness and distant shimmering stars. The Mistress Earth was not as we know her today, for she was but a young woman with no cares to her years, and she lived with her two daughter-moons. These two daughter-moons, together, always shone in her skies, and thus there was always light, enough to make things grow, but never enough to make man sweat hard upon his brow when working in the fields.

The elder daughter-moon of the Mistress Earth was fair, and was handsome, and was full, and always she shone fully in the dusky skies of the Mistress Earth. The younger daughter-moon, however, was smaller, but was fairer by far, for she shone like purest silver, and thus lit up the sky like a spark of brilliant beauty. The two sisters lived together calmly for what was an age and more, and the Mistress Earth often looked at her two daughter-moons, and was happy.

However, in her heart, beneath her silvery smile, the younger daughter-moon was sad. Although fairer, she was jealous of her elder sister's fullness and roundness, and she wanted the sky to be for her alone, and for all the other children in the embrace of the Mistress Earth to look upon her and her alone. A very, very, long time ago, the Mistress Earth lived in endless space, surrounded by nothing but black emptiness and distant shimmering stars. The Mistress Earth was not as we know her today, for she was but a young woman with no cares to her years, and she lived with her two daughter-moons. These two daughter-moons, together, always shone in her skies, and thus there was always light, enough to make things grow, but never enough to make man sweat hard upon his brow when working in the fields. And so, all was good.

The elder daughter-moon of the Mistress Earth was fair, and was handsome, and was full, and always she shone fully in the dusky skies of the Mistress Earth. The younger daughter-moon, however, was smaller, but was fairer by far, for she shone like purest silver, and thus lit up the sky like a spark of brilliant beauty. The two sisters lived together calmly for what was an age and more, and the Mistress often looked at her two daughter-moons, and was happy.

However, in her heart, beneath her silvery smile, the younger daughter-moon was sad. Although fairer, she was jealous of her elder sister's fullness and roundness, and she wanted the sky to be for her alone, and for all the other children in the embrace of the Mistress Earth to look upon her and her alone. So one day, when everyone was fast asleep, she roused and stole to her sister's side, and watched as that fair, full face slept, the breath like wind and cloud rising and falling. Watching as that fair face slept, she knew in her heart what she had to do.

When day came again, and the sisters roused, and the Mistress Earth looked upon her two daughter-moons, a great cry was heard by all the land. For in the dark of night the younger of the two daughter-moons had sullied her sister's face, and caused it to be muddy and brown. Men and Mistress alike looked in horror at the once-beautiful face of the daughter-moon, and wept at the loss of such a fair face in the sky. The Mistress Earth turned her most barren deserts to face her scarred daughter, lest she catch sight of her own terrible reflection in a drop of water, and when she faced her younger daughter, she could only shed tears at the atrocity of her act.

The scarred daughter-moon turned her face to the stars and wishing upon that beauty of theirs that once she too shared, wished that she would no longer have to bear the burden of that sullied face. The stars, hearing her plea, brought together the brightest thousand amongst themselves, and turned their light into endless strings of glowing thread, and together they formed a veil, so that the scarred daughter-moon would never have to face all of creation with her once-perfect face.

And this is why, to this day, the two sisters never inhabit the same skies. The Mistress Earth faces her elder daughter-moon with the same unchanging love, but no man on earth may ever face her directly, for the brilliance of the stars masks her true, scarred face. The younger daughter-moon, however, only brings tears to her mother's eyes, and that is why the tides brim with the salt of the Mistress Earth's tears only when the younger daughter-moon's face shines full in the dusky skies. And that is why we have the Sun and the Moon, who were once sister-moons, but now cannot be together, for one is consumed by guilt, the other by sadness.