andrey! and other stuff
Andrey was finally delivered to my house yesterday! And my goodness he's so big! Here's a photo I took of him a few minutes ago, pardon the poor quality because I took it with my phone...
(Check out my G1000 poster on the wall!)
And wow, playing on Andrey is really different from playing on Sasha. They also sound very different. Sasha had a very harsh sound and it was hard to control the volume of my notes, but Andrey... All I can say is that he sounded just like a grand. Really! And although he's 10 years old and he's an older U3 model, I don't mind it a single bit!
Oh and something awesome happened on Friday. My 14th photo got accepted on A.net!! ^^ Remember the photo of the Chinook and the flag? Yeah it got accepted!! :D But the more awesome thing is that it made it onto the front page!! Because of that, it got more than 3000 hits!
I've decided not to trash my photography blog! I've added some new stuff to it, like the Photo of the Week feature (updated every Sunday), and my new project, A Sunset A Day! Basically it's an album full of sunset pictures taken from my window. I aim to update it everyday, unless the weather is really bad and I cannot see the sun.
Check it out here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/53419441@N03/sets/72157624700076691/
Okay it's time to go now! Bye!
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remembering sasha
Today I met Andrey for the first time. The moment I played Rach 3 on him, I knew he was the one... Haha, Andrey is of course my so-called 'new' piano, but since he's 10 years old he can't be called new. But I have to, so to speak, find Sasha a new home first to make way for Andrey (who's no midget).
Ahhh... Letting go of Sasha is like losing a friend... He stuck with me from grade 2 (even earlier, methinks) to 8, and I learnt my first piano concerto (Grieg's) and Rach 3 with him, and even cried on him once. And he also put up with (a younger) me slamming the lid down in anger or hitting the keys in frustration when I could not perfect a piece. Oh yes, I also composed my song (which was later recorded into a CD and performed in a concert hall) on him, and you can say he was the first to hear it. In fact, I think that Sasha, of all the things that I own so far, contains the most memories, and is one of the very few things that still survives from my childhood. We have been through so much together.
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awesome!
Wah Mr Kong's concert was amazing! My senior said he made a lot of mistakes but it sounded alright to me! But overall he performed really really well. Half the time he had his eyes closed, haha! We sat right in front of him, at the second row, but when we met him at the autograph signing session he said he hadn't seen us! Yes I got his autograph, although I could get one anytime I wanted! Haha! We'll be playing Beethoven's sonatas next! He said that the Spring Sonata is fun to play! And it turns out I have the score! And since the next lesson is, like, 2 months away, I'll have time to practice! How exciting!
Dvorak's Symphony No. 8 was strangely familiar to me (maybe that's why they called the concert 'The Familiar and the Fantastic'??) and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Or should I say I thoroughly enjoyed watching the cute principal cellist. Hey, even my senior says he's cute!!!
At the concert we met some of our CCA friends and an alumnus. So it wasn't only us who were there to support Mr Kong! After that some of us left and the rest of us had supper and I reached home at 12.30 and went to bed, completely forgetting about the Arsenal match.
We won 6-0! I realise we like to score 6 against 'Black' teams. I still remember the 6-2 victory against Blackburn. I forgot when. And now 6-0 against Blackpool. Haha.
Off to look at pianos later! I can't wait!
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for the love of SG
I had the best National Day ever! Everything went according to plan. I reached MBS at 8am and at 10am, after buying the tickets, I set up camp at the Skypark. Part of the plan involved waiting up there for 8 hours and I'm proud to say that I did it!! Of course, the whole point of this mindless waiting was for the photos, and here they are...
Bye bye!
Soon after, one F15 roared above us and everyone scrambled to photograph it. This is the best shot I have of it though. D: So this F15 did all sorts of cool tricks like vertical acceleration, free fall, and even a high G turn around MBS! Damn I love those afterburners! Sadly, I don't have a good photo to show you guys!
Oh in case you're wondering, I've given up on my photography blog. Haha!!
My dad and I were expecting long snaking queues at MBS, but it turned out they hadn't started selling tickets yet. So we went to the nearby shops to look around. Half the place was still under construction...
(Click for larger size)
Interior of Tower 1.
The 'Beanstro' by Coffee Bean ♥
We walked about aimlessly for 2 hours and finally at 10am we got our tickets. Went straight to the Skypark after that.
I'd planned to take panorama shots from the Skypark but they didn't allow tripods... What the fuck!
Cool pool.
Having taken my fill of photos, I set up 'camp' at one of the seats facing the pool... and sat there for around 5 hours. The boring wait was made somewhat more bearable by listening to music and thinking of someone.
I made my way to the observation deck at about 4.30 and was dismayed to see that there were already many people there. But luckily I got a good spot at the front, with nothing between me and the view below. Because at some places you were blocked by glass and we try to avoid that kind of situation.
Another 2 hours of waiting ensued... If not for the sunblock that I had applied, I would've been baked alive. We were facing the sun directly and the heat was incredible.
I couldn't see what was going on at the Padang because of the huge screen blocking most of the performing area, but I had a nice view of the 'backstage'.
Check out that mass of red at the right of the picture...
Suddenly someone pointed at the sky and for a second I saw the outline of a Chinook helicopter before it disappeared above a cloud... then I saw moving specks in the sky and something red blossomed above them... Here come the parachutists!!
The sun was so bright I had to use a 1/4000 shutter speed to get this shot. And in the process I looked at the sun through the viewfinder... and yellow spots started appearing in front of me. It was scary as I thought I'd damaged my vision. Thank God they went away soon after.
First Red Lion...
Last Red Lion... Steering the parachute with a flag as big as a bed tied to your leg must be a bitch...
The Skypark was crowded!
I was lucky to have an observant guy beside me. Because he kept pointing to his girlfriend aircraft in the distance that I hadn't noticed. So it was thanks to him that I saw a flag-carrying Chinook hovering around behind the skyscrapers. It was quite far away and I expected it to take some time to reach the Padang.
Then suddenly there was the unmistakable sound of turning rotors and appearing from my left were 2 Apaches and another Chinook! I figured that there were 2 Chinooks with flags and the one I saw earlier was a backup.
The aircraft and buildings are dark but the flag seems to be glowing... I like it!
I had set my camera to continuous shooting mode and I simply followed the helicopters with my finger pressed firmly on the trigger...
Before I came, I already had in my mind a particular photo composition, that included the Chinook with the National Flag and the Padang. To see something in your head becoming reality... That feeling is indescribable.
I submitted this to A.net!
Then, it was time for THE MOMENT that I'd waited 10 hours for... The appearance of the F15SG!!!!!!
At that moment, everything was blocked out as I focused on photographing my favourite fighter jet. Nothing else mattered...
5 F16s followed closely behind the F15s but who cares about them, I'm here for the F15s only... I'm kidding, the truth is I didn't manage to get a decent shot of them...!
The whole thing lasted for less than a minute. I almost left when I remembered the Gulfstream...
Hello!
Bye bye!
Soon after, one F15 roared above us and everyone scrambled to photograph it. This is the best shot I have of it though. D: So this F15 did all sorts of cool tricks like vertical acceleration, free fall, and even a high G turn around MBS! Damn I love those afterburners! Sadly, I don't have a good photo to show you guys!
After I was sure there were no more planes coming, I left the Skypark for... the hotel room! My friend's dad booked a hotel room at MBS overlooking the Padang and a few of my secondary school friends were invited. So awesome! However, the downside was there was no balcony and not all the lights were turned off so there were some reflections in my shots...
I was pretty drained out at the end of the day and I didn't participate much in the games my friends played.
But it was awesome to see my friends again and I hope we could meet again soon. Thank you everybody for making this National Day so memorable!
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I can do this
Hello! I'm blogging from my Dad's iPhone here at the Marina Bay Sands Skypark! I've been up here since 10 in the morning and there are 4 hours to go... Wish me luck man I've been sitting at the same spot for around 3 hours already. Yes the view is awesome but it gets boring after awhile. The food is very expensive here, as expected, but I can't go down because I'll have to pay to come back up. Oh God I will never do something like this again. Or maybe I will if, say, the AN225 comes to town. I had better get decent photos of the F15SG or I will never forgive myself. Haha.
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haha
Was reading my previous blog posts dating all the way back to 2008 and found myself missing all those good times. And I realised that I haven't been blogging often nowadays. Haha. Who cares if no one reads my blog. At least I'll have something to read when I'm bored.
Well, I've said this many times, and I'll say it again... Poly life is awesome! It's the holidays now thanks to the YOG break, all the way until our exams on the 1st week of September, and after which we have 6 solid weeks of holiday! Now that's something you won't get in JC or secondary school because I never had more than 4 consecutive weeks of holiday in secondary school! I can't wait for the new semester, because we'll be learning new things!
And I'm finally rid of Computer Programming... I don't hate the module that much but doing the project was tedious, and programming isn't really my thing (it brings back bad memories). And I thought I'd seen the end of Idea Jumpstart after that Jumpstart Challenge day, when I found out that the Comm Toolkit module we've to take in Sem 2 lasts for 4 hours every week... And that there're modules called Idea Blueprint and Idea Launchpad in Year 2 o.O
One thing I'll miss, though, is Engineering Mechanics. Because it hardly needs any studying. Ha.
ETE... I will not be missing you anytime soon, bro. Now, time to tackle diodes and logic gates =.=
As for CCA... Haha I know what you're thinking! That's right, here I go again talking about my CCA like the best thing since football. Okay weird analogy. Anyway I'm losing interest in Piano Ensemble, haha! I can count the number of times I've been to CCA on one hand... Sigh, but I'll stay on until I get to perform at the Esplanade. Then I'll quit.
Totally different story for NPStrings though. Yesterday, apart from the ego-boosting exchange with Mr. Kong (see below post), my cello teacher, Mr. Ma, let me play a Grade 8 cello exam piece... I didn't play it extremely well, of course, but I managed to get the basics right. Okay, I admit that it's not much of an ego booster than a morale booster, but it made me feel good all the same.
Moving on to other things, I'm kinda looking forward to and at the same time dreading tomorrow. Because I plan to photograph the NDP planes from Marina Bay Sands's Skypark, and there're limited tickets available, I have to wake up real early tomorrow to queue up to buy mine. And the infuriating thing is that you're not guaranteed a place up there even if you had a ticket... so I'm planning to camp at the Skypark once I get my ticket... which is from around 10am to 5 or 6 pm. Scary thought. I don't know how I'm going to spend 10 hours 50 storeys in the air. I cannot go down and explore the resort because if I do I may not be able to go back up again.
Update: I just visited the Skypark website and it says that 'all tickets are scheduled and allocated a specific time-frame'... Okay I don't know if they'll enforce this rule tomorrow but I certainly have a mighty bad feeling about it... Time to scout for other locations as a backup I guess.
But after that it'll be awesome because I'll be meeting my secondary school friends!!! Oh how much I miss them! We'll be staying in a hotel room in MBS with a great view of the fireworks! And we'll probably be staying up all night talking about everything! Yeah I can't wait!
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Self plug #2
Hahahahaha... This is the 3rd post about me playing Mendelssohn's violin concerto with Mr. Kong! This week, I made quite a lot of mistakes, but so did Mr. Kong, hahaha!! But at least he didn't ask me to repeat some parts. After that, he said that he'd hire me as accompanist to his students when they go for their exams...!!!!!! And when I said that I'd done this before for $50 an hour, he went on to say that I could earn $60 to $70 instead..!!! I tell you, my ego went through the roof at that moment, haha! Wah!!! I'm so high now!!
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an update
So on Saturday I played Mendelssohn's violin concerto with Mr Kong, after practicing it for a week. And it was so fun!! I didn't make any major mistakes :D although I rushed at some parts and he told me to play them again. We will be playing again next week, until his performance on the 21st (I'll be watching it with my seniors! ^^)
Yesterday the wind destroyed my A380 model :( It was on my bookshelf and the wind was so strong it blew the curtain right up to the ceiling. And the curtain dragged my A380 down and it tumbled 3 metres to the floor D: It lost the left horizontal stabiliser and the second engine, and part of the stand got stuck inside the plane when it snapped off :(
Oh and I just found out Lubey has his own Youtube channel!! (L) (And he's soooo cute!! :D) His videos deserve far more than the couple of hundred/thousand they currently have. Lubey, ya tebya lyublyu!!! ♥
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