Thank you, Band.

P.S. Japan trip photos can be found on facebook. Fun stuff.

by Stuart Townend

There is a hope that burns within my heart,
That gives me strength for every passing day;
A glimpse of glory now revealed in meagre part,
Yet drives all doubt away:
I stand in Christ, with sins forgiven;
And Christ in me, the hope of heaven!
My highest calling and my deepest joy,
To make His will my home.

There is a hope that lifts my weary head,
A consolation strong against despair,
That when the world has plunged me in its deepest pit,
I find the Saviour there!
Through present sufferings, future’s fear,
He whispers ‘courage’ in my ear.
For I am safe in everlasting arms,
And they will lead me home.

There is a hope that stands the test of time,
That lifts my eyes beyond the beckoning grave,
To see the matchless beauty of a day divine
When I behold His face!
When sufferings cease and sorrows die,
And every longing satisfied.
Then joy unspeakable will flood my soul,
For I am truly home.

“Fathoms Below” from the Little Mermaid is bouncing in my head.

May day, despite its rather dubious origins,  is always a welcome holiday; and I realized its actually rather pleasant to have a holiday on a Thursday, skipping the last long day of school to go to Friday where we don’t really do much anyway. Missed out on the class Iron Man outing, partially due to a lack of funds carried over from We Will Rock You. No regrets there, though. My pants are still vibrating from, well, “We Will Rock You” – awesome stuff.

In any case, staying cooped up at home on May Day didn’t sound very appropriate, so I went for a swim in the late afternoon. I had 30 laps of alternating freestyle and treading done before the repetitiveness got to me, and then I just hung around floating on my back. And I realized that the sky was blue. Not the normal kind of cloudy-sunny-blue, but a clear, cloudless, deep, blue, something I don’t remember ever having seen in Singapore – it kind of reminded me of the summer-autumn sky I saw in North Dakota during Music camp last year. The sheer purity of colour gives you a feeling that you can’t really describe with words; some may say “breathtaking”, but it’s a much deeper stirring felt than that word implies.
If you looked at the sky yesterday afternoon, you may know what I mean. Beautiful.

w00t! Finale night was brilliance; I’ve never seen the Esplanade Theatre rocked so powerfully before. The music, the acting, the hilarious quips, the last 15 minutes spent standing and rockin’ – priceless, and definitely worth more than $52.00 (and hours spent not mugging Econs).

Heh.

Yep. I’ve just been taking a nice little break from writing. And catching up on some work. As usual.

NAPFA is finally over (well actually it only took two weeks), and I think I should be able to get a Silver. I need to train running though, or I’ll completely burn out doing it everyday in NS.
Repeat TOK Presentation is also done, and I hope it was better than the last time. Really couldn’t tell; I’ll just leave that in the Lord’s hands.

Meanwhile, a new member has taken up residence in the house. This is Stanley, my brother’s skull (No, not his skull, his skull); say Hi.

Stanley:

Inside Stanley’s head (you can see the holes for the brain stem, carotid arteries, etc. Coolio.)

Stanley with Jaw removed:

I suppose Med school has its benefits.

The riff from Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Snow (Hey Oh)” has been running through my head for a week now, simply can’t seem to stop hearing it. Highly addictive.

The past two weeks have been one long pileup of sleepless hours, a debit which I intend to resolve over the next two nights. And days.

It began last week with Maths Portfolio, which in spite of all resolutions after previous sleepless Portfolio nights, caused another one. Well actually, I kind of cheated this time – I slept two hours on Thursday night, probably the post-MUSE fatigue kicking in. Some of the debt got repaid on the night following, when I finally decided that a functioning brain for the next week was more important than talking cock in Parlia- in YLS. That was, in retrospect, an exceptionally intelligent decision considering my state of mind at the time. If it had gone the other way, half of my brain would probably have been in an unpleasantly sticky state today.

So, somewhat recharged, I crunched my TOK presentation’s quality control up a notch on Sunday night, throwing regard for time limits to the breezes. After all, if it was an A-grade presentation – and I have ample reason to at least hope so with half a class of fellow TOKkers, some teachers, and a 45-point brother who agree – well, the audience wouldn’t really mind, would they? Assuming, of course, that they were actually listening in the first place. Note to self: bad assumption. I don’t know, but I find it highly disrespectful when certain people, when 1/3 of your TOK grade is at stake, appear to start conversing audibly in the middle of your presentation, and then at the end ask you certain questions that seem – well, nevermind. Its nothing personal, but especially when you as a presenter have given 110% to prepare it, and are trying your utmost to engage them, and it doesn’t work, and you’re probably not to blame, you get quite annoyed. People in my TOK half-class would know what I mean. Just because it wasn’t explicitly on the slide, doesn’t mean…oh well. In any case, I’ve worked most of that irritation out of the system over the past few days (that was probably the last of it), and now simply hope that my marks don’t reflect my perceptions (oooooh TOK pun!).

So the nights following TOK presentation were spent agonizing over the EE draft which I finally handed up this morning for internal marking. Its funny how, when you first see “4000″ words, your eyes bug out at the number of zeroes. Then, you decide to ignore the word counter and just get on with it, and over a few months your essay grows. And grows. And Grows some more. Until it starts to get slightly worrying and you do a word count, but then its too late – the EE has become a research paper. To give an idea, this was my word count (without any selection, but for the whole essay) dialog box this morning:

Did someone say “whoops”?

Whatever it is, though, thanks be to the Lord that I’ve finally managed to finish TOK Pres and my Extended Essay(/Research Paper), the latter of which only needs to be cut down to proper size ASAP, and the former of which I leave the marks in His hands. For now, I’d just like to conclude this somewhat erratic post, to savour the feeling of a huge weight lifted off my atria, and capture that ever-elusive resident of the land of IB, sleep.

Just imagine Homer going: “Mmmmmm….sleep…”.

A Night to Remember may not have been the subtitle on Monday night, but all things considered – subtitle or no – that was exactly what it was. For me, possibly and probably my last MUSE Concert and performance at the Esplanade Concert Hall; and yet possibly and probably the best one so far. A bittersweet feeling it gave me this morning when I fully realized this – I guess after six years, many of us have come to regard her as something of a second home, becoming attached to everything from the backstage labyrinth, to the acoustics that make every note you play beautifully/horribly conspicuous, to even the passes that somehow manage to have a different permutation of your name on them every time (got a little chain of them in my cupboard). Good times.

The order-of-the-day began at 10am, at which point I squirreled up to the Band Room photocopy machine to get it printed for the IB Band – which saved a lot of breath at the 10.15am turned 11.35am briefing. Buses were loaded efficiently, and passes distributed; the printers didn’t disappoint, cutting nearly everyone’s English name out this time (mine raised particular hilarity for reasons not to be disclosed).
At the Esplanade, I took care to savour each all-too-familiar moment, from soundcheck to backstage wandering and phototaking. The professional photoshoot was done by Jono outside Circle 3; during which numerous less professional photos were taken in the background, Pyung brought back Chocobo, and at one point we just sat on the stairs and absorbed. After which Justin and I received a summons back to the backstage, and on passing through the Concert Hall and realizing we were the only ones in it, carried out a little acoustic test of our own (which involved much foot-stamping) as something we’d probably never be able to do again. Dinner out of styrofoam boxes outside the Artists’ Lounge was followed by a return to the dressing rooms for wardrobe adjustment (Ge’s hair suddenly popped out and John looked professor-ish for 20 minutes); and then, 40 minutes before the concert would start, we meandered out of backstage to finally do Max Brenner’s.

Then the concert began, there was frantic tuning in the dressing rooms, and we stepped on stage at around 8.10. It was a nice feeling, leading the section onto that stage. Blue Shades went alright, not as clean as it should have been, with quite a number of squeaks, but impactful nonetheless. Persis was probably the most technically sound of the ACS(I) pieces, and it was great accompanying the (pwnag3) oboe solo, not to mention good ol’ running at 174! I left the stage with what can only be described as a good feeling, and many others did too.
Then it was back on for the IB Wind Ensemble; more tuning in the corridor before that, and a reed upsize. While we were seated, Teow said “Eh, Turandot ending must move k”. And so we did – and probably wouldn’t have been able to help not doing it anyway, the emotion of Nessun Dorma was that overwhelming. Interestingly, I was not as drained as I thought I would have been after, with just enough left for With Heart and Voice. It was a fitting last piece.
MUSE ended with Charming Asia and Feng Yang Hua Gu, and the combined band did a fine job. I relaxed and had fun for these two, just enjoying the music that was being made.

A tranquil feeling of great satisfaction stayed with me after saying goodbye to the Esplanade stage, and continued all the way through the bus back to school and then home, till sleep at 1am. It was the ineffable feeling of having done justice to the conclusion of six years at the Esplanade. Nice.

(edited 27 Mar 2008 ~ Whoops, confuse. thanks Amos. back to Math portfolio.)

Despite an increasingly persistent pile of work including Maths Portfolio, EE, and TOK Presentation, plus practices for MUSE, I happened to have time to observe this the other day.

What with all the rain going on, some bird decided to take a shower: