The phans of the Phantom are quite disapointed... to me, it surely is the most beautiful picture of the year. Anyone watched the Aviator? Man it won N awards this evening. It doesn't seem particularly attracting to me though, from the segments they showed and the trailer and all... But it was nice to see Emmy Rossum presenting Andrew 'Lord' Webber though, she looked as gorgeous as always. The Phantom DVD will be out on May 3rd, can't wait! Movies that I haven't watched but want to: The Chorus, Finding Neverland, Hotel Rwanda, Closer, and a very obligatory movie that I actually haven't watched: Shine. I'm so having all the fun after May 5th. =P |
I went to Eastman's website and saw the summer program for 2005, all of a sudden the memory from last year's experience just wooshed back. I remember using the words like 'life-altering' to describe that experience, but now, I've crawled back to where I was before I went to Eastman, nothing seemed to have changed. It's sad. I find I can practise for more than 6h a day in a musical environment than at home; wake up at 7, go eat breakfast, run to practise room, practise, come back for lunch, run to PR, practise, back for dinner, attend concerts, practise until 10, come back, sleep. So good. The surrouding is what holds me back, I'm just kept being soaked with triviality that I shouldn't pay attention to. I'll also have to blame it on my weak willpower. Sigh. I miss Eastman. The following is the story that made my day on Friday. Contributed by Parthi. (seriously though, you should get a blog Parthi;) ) Last Friday Mr.Moliostias (our school math teacher) was talking about an interesting event that happened at last Thursday’s parent’s night. This is how the story goes…… While Mr.Mo was waiting for a parent he saw a grade 5 girl who had nothing to do while her parents were having a conversation with a near by teacher. So Mr.Mo decided to have a small chat with that girl. So he questioned her about her name and asked whether she liked math. She said “Oh yeah I love math!” in a very excited way. Then he told her that there are much fun stuff that can be done in math and whether she would like to know some of them. She said yeah and was very eager to learn those funny tricks. So Mr.Mo said “okay we can draw a circle by rotating the paper around” and showed her the method. She said “oh yeah I’ve seen it somewhere.” Then he said okay in this school we can draw these circles in the blackboard using the same method. The girl was surprised and she asked him back “how can you do that?” So for that he said “oh in Woburn even the blackboards can be rotated!” The girl was highly impressed and stunned and finally said after a deep breathe “Oh well then I‘ve decided which high school I am going to….its going to be Woburn!” And we all had a great chuckle together! |
好久没有用中文写了，总觉得生活里缺少了一部分。 我的多伦多大学的面试是三月十八号，一点还零五分。但愿那天不会太冷，我想穿裙子。 昨天又下雪了，现在外面好像撒了一层巨厚的面粉。天晴无比，阳光照在雪上更加刺眼。 前几天随学校爵士乐队去比赛，那天也是很晴朗，蓝天像匹画布，白云被淡淡地末在上面。我坐在车里，一车‘同志’们在互相聊天，我一个人坐在角落里，望着窗外，吹进来的风显然有些初春的味道了。看着天，心里有那么一种广阔的，美丽的，且神圣的感觉。我想到当我站在雅典娜内城上，帕神农神殿边，天，肯定还会是这么蓝，这么神圣。一种前所未有的周游流荡感飘到我的脑子里。是美丽的。 下礼拜就能拿到毕业照了，我会发上来的。听说我的还不错。 |
Ouch my head hurts from practising. Dad opened the bottom section of the piano so that the humidifier can bring more moisture inside the piano, but it is too loud without the board. >_< I received the letter from UofT today, and my audition is on March 28th, 1:05p.m.. Time to work hard, girl. I saw my grad photo today, not so bad. Yay I'm getting them soon. Next week I'll be full of spares (no jb rehearsal on Tuesday I'm assuming, and no more concert choir rehearsal for me) - which is good, I really need more time to practise, a concert on Thursday.  Underwear model?
No, this is not a joke. This is just a girl you'd see everywhere on the streets, especially in Japan.  |
I was a little shocked when Mr.Farrow held up the gold certificate after the jazz band MusicFest performance. But I'm happy. Choirs did well today, boo to the fact I was getting ultra horrendous cramps (girls, you know the reason) and also had to wait about 1h for the buses afterwards. Way too fatigued, didn't practise. I feel like stabbing myself. |
My left eye has been pulsing for at least three days. There's this Chinese saying: left eye pulses brings fortune, right eye pulses brings misfortune. No such big fortunate events have happened so far, but the positive thing is that I seem to be able to stop sitting on my arse and start doing what I'm supposed to do. Uggs season is almost over. I'm happy. I really can't stand those anymore. I was reading this book on the way to my piano teacher's house today, supposedly it should enlighten me, but as much as I like the book, all I can say is it was quite hypnotic. Lesson learned: do not read Tao Te Ching on the bus. Today I got this month's bank statement, and I actually spent time reading it for the first time. As it shows, I've made a debit card purchase at The Art of Shoe - whatever that is - and nothing in my right mind tells me I've ever even been to any feet related stores in the past 30 days. I only bought 2 pairs of argyle socks from Old Navy, and that's all I can think of relating feet. Quite odd. Good thing is that I realized when I use bank card as debit card, BMO doesn't charge me. Heehee... this makes my life so much easier. JB MusicFest tomorrow, and choirs OVF on Thursday. G'luck folks. |
I'm sick and tired of getting hurt and pretend I'm a happy girl when I'm out. I'm living in this shattered dream, I'm just a deformed child, even though I've been cultivated to learn I'm not, I'm a happy little girl who has loving daddy and mommy, I'm so well off compare to so many other children, I should never complain because the only thing I deserve to do is to be contented. But my heart is engraved with the word 'deformed', because I am a deformed child. I try to run away. I know we all need to finish walking this path alone. I'm a loner, a freak; as much as I want to believe and want to find someone who can understand me, I have to teach myself to not to dwell in that beautiful hope. I'm mistaken, but I'm too feeble to explain everything. Words are so pallid at times. I look at the self in the mirror when crying, she looks so strange. She's beautiful when she cries, and only when she cries. Perhaps she's born to cry, born to live with tears. |
I want to just swing a knapsack on my shoulder with a few pieces of clothes, some useful tools, a digicam or a SLR and perhaps a few other rather light gears to journey the whole European continent - mostly by walking, occasionally hitchhike. There're so many places that I must pay a visit - Venice, Vienna, Florence, Paris, London, Rome, Athens, Russia, Egypt, just to name a few; Africa is okay.. just that I'd feel awkward enjoying myself while other people there are starving to death. There're so much of China I haven't been to, I'd also love to visit Korea and Japan. I've heard a lot of people saying they want to travel as well, seemingly it's quite a 'teen' thing to do. I'd travel alone or travel with one close friend. Really, it'd be awesome. And hopefully I'm not just daydreaming here. Zoe wrote me a letter and I received it a few days ago. Much of her thoughts are quite insightful, I'm glad that unlike a lot of other self-glorifying yet self-destructive teens in China - who call themselves 'decadents', she is quite enterprising. She mentioned something I thought was quite interesting: a few hundred years ago when impressionist paintings/music emerged, they were condemned by the public, 'devilish' they were called; however as time passes by, they are deemed as pieces of art representing beauty. Similarly, serialism apprears in the late 20th century with the clashing atonality and other self-mutilation centred performance art takes the mainstream, many are disgusted by them; but perhaps in the (not so) distant future, they will be accepted as arts to 'represent beauty'? Good thought Zoe. To be a somewhat inherent optimist or hopeful, I believe that no matter how the views of art shift from time to time, or from society to society, there're certain things that will not change; I know it's quite arbitrary to say that, because I personally dislike serialism in a great extent, and (hope to) believe that no one really enjoys listening to it as a form of relaxation. And that perhaps also, partially, contributes to the the emergence of such things like neo-classicism, neo-romanticism. We were discussing this topic at dinner, mom said even for neo-classicism and neo-romanticism, there're new things being added on the basis of the old one; the spiral theory never seems to fail. If new things don't appear, art then loses its peculiarity and identity. Dad replied: non-peculiarity and non-identity might also be a form of art. What is art exactly? I'm left scratching my head. I'm still trying hard to find a relatively satisfying answer to this question among many other unanswered things. "The conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects." -Merriam-Webster dictionary p.s. America's Next Top Model season IV screening March 2nd! |
Interview went alright. It wasn't very formal thus I didn't even get to display my well-prepared hand-shaking methods. =P The other two people in my group were all Asian girls, one was carrying humungous 3D works with a porfolio about 1.5 times bigger than mine; gosh these people were so well-prepared. It made me feel lighter though, knowing that I probably don't have much chance to get in in terms of portfolio preperation, I just did mine sort of at the last minute while these people must have been accumulating their works ever since gr.9 or somethin' with a clear aspiration of getting into OCAD for the program they desire. Oh well, if I do get in, I'm happy; if I don't, I don't, since I didn't even put much effort in it, hehe. It'd be cool to be surrounded with artsy people though, every interviewee dressed very innovatively, I like their style.  See that highly elevated square with black and white blocks? My interview room was up there; they've got great views. Lunch was big and great; I went to Chinatown for some Chinese food. $5.99 for a huge plate, I only managed to finish half of it (I stuffed myself as much as I could). Then I went to the book store got Eleven Minutes; after that went to Eaton Centre to drop off my resume for SmartSet. I took the resume out from my portfolio, I realized it had smudges of black chalk pastels on it.Hehe... good thing is that the super friendly salesperson said it was okay, she was so cute. Something I also realized is that today's concert choir rehearsal was probably the last one I've had during my high school year. =( 今天在唐人街吃饭的时候，那间餐厅里正在放央视新闻联播，kao，倍感亲切。老板娘告诉我说她花$180要得这个台，我也不知道她说的是一个月，一年，还是什么别的。新闻联播的主要内容说的是如何贯彻党的教育方针，我听了10分钟还是这点儿内容。从来没觉得新闻联播这么空洞；以前是如果听不到这些内容才觉得空洞。 |
So my OCAD interview is tomorrow morning at 10:45a.m.; probably won't be at school for othe whole day unless I come back early then I'll have to attend the concert choir rehearsal. OCAD informed me to be prepared to stay there for three hours, because after the 20-30 min interview, I'll have to write a supervised English test as well. If I do well on both, I'll have a good mood to go to World's Biggest Book Store, as well as Eaton Centre. Hm...I'll have fun with myself for the whole day in downtown, but of course, that's all based on how well I do for the interview. No I'm not nervous really (I expect myself to be nervous for the up coming auditions for piano...), just a little uptight. Walk in with confidence, shake interviewers' hands, grip tightly, smile friendly, know what I'm talking about, and present myself as who I am. I guess there shouldn't be any huge problems. =) |
Look, even google is full of redness.
Happy heart day everyone. Some people overly express their hatred towards V day, saying that it's only commercial, cursing the couples and stating how careless they are about V day. Actually, they do care, a lot, just because they can't get themselves a girl/boyfriend they are jealous of those who are in love. Chill man. Valentine's day for me, is a chance for those who are shy to speak out what their hearts desire. Couples who are in love get to find an excuse to push endless works away and spend time with each other. Plus the romanticism in the air is quite sweet and all. My best wishes for all who are deeply in love to continue the sweetness, and for others who are hoping to be shot by Cupid's arrow that the day will come soon. My parents are out spending the night, I'm here at home alone, eating the chocolate mom brought home. I spent the V day afternoon with Tim at the ref. library doing totally non-V day related stuff. Spending time with friends is always a good thing. /edit hehe, read this on SV's blog, decided to put it here since it's kinda relevant. women are too intelligent A woman goes to England to attend a 2-week, company training session. Her husband drives her to the airport and wishes her to have a good Trip. The wife answers: "Thank you honey, what would you like me to bring for you?" The husband laughs and says: "An English girl!!!" The woman kept quiet and left. Two weeks later he picks her up in the Airport and Asks: "So, honey, how the trip was?" "Very good, thank you." "And, what happened to my present?" "Which present?" She asked? "The one I asked for- the English girl!!" "Oh, that" she said "Well, I did what I could; now we have to wait a few months to see if it is a girl!!!" Moral of the story: "Don't tempt a woman, they are too intelligent" |
The thought of getting the uni offers last threatens me. I've been too deeply absorbed into triviality, I feel like I'm on the verge of falling into the abyss. |
I don't really like the weather; neither cold nor warm. It tantalizes my urge to wear skirts and to go wild shopping for springy clothes. I'll be at school for the only class I have on Valentine's day, then I'm off to the ref. library, I think. On Wednesday, I'll even miss the only class I have and be in downtown for my OCAD interview, I haven't planned exactly where to go afterwards, but probably Eaton Centre - or not, because I don't wanna carry the huge porfolio around. My boss gave me a red pocket today which contained $5. Hey it's better than not getting one right. 哪位同志想要一个gmail(google的邮箱，不能注册，只能内部发邀请，一个兆的超大邮箱...), 请速与本人联系，本人目前有五十个邀请等待被发出。  Since when did Hello Kitty start celebrating Chinese New Year? Urgh, fobbiness. The following is dedicated to Parthi, for sharing the same taste with me and for derivative (muahaha...=P). No, not really for derivative; Impressionism has always been part of my inspiration, I especially love Turner's few paitings in his sketchbook on "Moonlight". I am fortunate enough to have seen some of the original paintings by Turner, Whistler and Monet at AGO last summer. The paintings had certain charisma that really drew me in. Some of my favourites by Claude Monet:  Sunset In Venice (there're three versions of this I think, painted at different time of a day)  This image is on the cover of my Debussy score. And I think there're also 2 or more versions of this. Now my Turners...  Gathering Bait  Moonlight |
On the way to my piano teacher's house this afternoon, I brought the Phantom soundtrack with me and had been listening to it for the whole 1.5h travelling time. Most people I know who have an abundance of music knowledge just deem The Phantom of the Opera as an entertainment (both the musical and the movie) and see no deep artistic values in it. For some reason, I just love it too much. I find the story deeply touching, the love that profound is quite rare nowadays. I've never seen the musical, so the movie is the production that leads me to liking The Phantom. The costumes and setting are beautiful and flamboyant, not to mention the music is fantastic. Compare to other Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals, The Phantom is (nearly?) composed of all orchestral music, no modern electronic instruments invovled which is why it sounds more classy than others (to me at least). Beauty and love are my main inspirations, and The Phantom's got both. I love it, more than I can tell you; I don't have any logical reasons why I love it, it just somehow gets me. Call me idiotically obsessed. Although more people like the Sarah Brightman's version (eh Tim?), I think Emmy Rossum is absolutely fabulous. She has an innocent voice as gorgeous as herself. Every actor sang with such passion it's not just singing, it's speaking in music. I strongly urge you to see the movie (if you are lazy or don't wanna spend the money, I can lend you the DVD after I buy it when it's out... =P) It's all that. Clark and I were agreeing that if we were Christine, we would choose to be with the Phantom than with Raoul. But then when you actually come to think of it, the Phantom in real life probably isn't as handsome as the actor in the movie; he's merely a Quasimodo. If there were two people who love you exactly the same amount, and you love them the same amount, but one is devastatingly ugly and the other one is handsome, which one would you choose? Probably the handsome one? Or both.
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媛 我只是好久没有听到你的一丝消息 消失了 知道你还好 就不错 你也要18了 想起来我就兴奋 我还好 看起来我回北京的时候见你的机会不是百分百 给你拜个晚年 爱你 |
Tonight is Chinese new year's eve, mom's making dumplings. It's been long since I last celebrated Chinese new year officially (as in celebrating it in China), although I had celebrated Chinese new year in pretty much the same way for 13 years while living in China, they are now to me very familiarly distant. It's like reaching out a hand to grab something I see but I all I get is a wisp of nothingness. The fragments of my memory only flashe the image of me having two bunny rabbits on my lap while sitting in the car with my parents and my cousin's family on the way to my grandmother's house in another province every year. My cousins - I call them brothers and sisters in Chinese, because we are all only-childs (and I think most if not all Chinese teens still do that) - and I would sit around the table with our grandparents and our own parents, talking, eating, and watching the new year's program on TV. Oh it's been so long, while I thought it'd remain this way forever, my grandparents have passed away, my oldest cousin is getting married, our family is far way form everyone, the hollowness strikes me sometimes. Nonetheless, don't let my ambivalence get you for a supposedly festive mood (although I doubt if any of us will have time to actually get together with family and friends with all that work and uni stuff to worry about); I offer you my best wish for the lunar new year. =) And a few digressed things. A B |
I AM SO DARN HAPPY! *jumps up and down|squeezes my face|can't stop smiling* I received the original movie soundtrack of The Phantom of the Opera today =). Got it during last period, Ms.Chan told me there was a package for me in the mail room, so I ran there and got it. It was all nicely wrapped too, with green(!) wrapping paper and a cute ribbon. Thank you so very much I.S.!!!! *biiig hug* You have no idea how happy I am receiving this gift; I love gifts. (who doesn't? hehe) ^______________^ For being thankful to others, it made me feel that I should reveal the truth of a scam. Apparently, Sophie doesn't have a sister called Xiao Xue, in fact, she doesn't have a sister at all. She is totally an only-child. Gotcha! =P Now I feel bad, because others were being so nice congratulating me while it's merely a.. well, lie. It's just my April-fool scam broght in advance. Sorry! Heehee... Those pictures are mine; I took them in Beijing when I was 15. A lot of people don't recognize me when I show them these pictures, so I just posted it here to see if it really is hard to be recognized. Although they weren't recognized, nonetheless, thanks for those who commented that I look better than "my sis", it's always comforting to know the older we grow, the better we look. Heehee... Again, I apologize, feel free to throw tomatoes at me. I was cleaning my room yesterday, and I digged out tons of carrier bags; thus I made them into a collection. These are just a few of them.  Anyone who also collects carrier bags: I have a few extra blue SmartSet bags, ask me if you want one. |
Meet my sister. Her name is Xiao Xue, 15 years old, doesn't wear glasses, loves art. She also plays piano, same height as me, but prettier than me as you can tell from the picture. I'm really sorry for keeping the news from you guys, but because of the one child policy in China.. I didn't want to reveal anything "illegal". Now that she's about to come to Canada, I think it's time for me to tell you all. Last night I gave my first live Chopin piano concerto No.1 concert attendance to our talented young Ken Yang. Well played kiddo ^^ (despite the fact that the violin section was horrendously out of tune at times). |
If a stranger says hi to you and you don't reply, it is a bit disappointing; but if you reply with such enthusiasm, it is freaky. Yesterday I walked into Green Earth to check out some gifts for my friend's birthday, a salesperson (a friendly young lady) approached me and said hi, I turned around, dunno where I got the strengh from but a super bright "HI!" came out which presumably freaked her butt off. She looked bewildered and shocked; and I feel bad for scaring her... Anyway. What a nice day it was; blue sky, warm breeze. Learned a lot of things in vocal class (perhaps for the 1st time), read about stuff I didn't know in art, got exam back in calc, and discussed/learned ethical relativism in philoSophie =P. Never a friday as productive as this one. Hm. I think my dress for the banquet/formal will be either red, green, or black. |
A student of mine wanted to have a make-up lesson today from 4 to 5, so I got to STC at 4, waited for her for 30min and thought she probably won't show up so I told my boss to call me if the student does show up and wandered off. Eventually I went shopping for the last 30min and the best part is, I still get paid. Muahaha. Got a handbag and a cute top from SmartSet , very cheap. I'm happy. Guitar players, if you want a job teaching, you can bring me your resume sometime next week and I'll give it to my boss at Walter's. They are hiring. School tomorrow. I doubt if anyone's going. I have to go, Mr.H is moving on with calc. .. and then it's Chinese new year, and then it's Valentine's day. ... and then it's my OCAD interview, then... March break. =) |
My dad is the biggest sexist I've ever known. ..and the most grumpy person at times I've ever had to endure. Thank goodness I'm turning 18 soon. ----- SV asked me to spread the word to all who can read Guajrati that there is a first ever Guajrati blog. (how do you type Guajrati on a computer? or is there some other ways of doing it?) |
My exams are done, guess what that means? That's right. Shopping! I went to Eaton Centre after some mind-wandering practice, and OMG. I bought 2 skirts from H&M, they were $9.99 each (marked down from $3-). Also, I got the purple skirt I've been yearning to get from Club Monaco for $29 (marked down from $13-)... and of course, how can a shopping trip be enjoyed without a visit to SmartSet? Got some stuff from the "on sale" section for a really good price. If you like clothes, get your butt outta here and start shopping now! (sorry if my enthusiasm scared you, you have no idea how shopping stimulates me. hehe.) While I was waiting in line to pay for the stuff at SmartSet, this Cantonese woman and her husband were before me. She bought in total of $17- worth of clothes (that were on sale) - so that was about 7 or 8 items or more; and seemingly she didn't know how to speak English, hence the supposed native HK fob (also because of her parched-foliage-ish blonde hair). She was bossing around her husband, her friend, AND the sales reps; I've never seen a person acting like such a queen. Also, I kept on seeing her and her loyal group of supports in other stores. I feel sorry for the clothes that were tossed around after she tried them on without buying. (girls, if you like skirts, go to H&M; you won't come back unsatisfied.) sorry I just had to advertise for a second. Please don't laugh at this picture, this is probably the first and last picture you'll ever see me being taken like. I took it beacuse I was infatuated by the shopping excitement, but it turned out to be pretty good. Clothes I'm wearing are from SmartSet, but I didn't buy them. =P
Speaking of clothes, a friend of mine who works at Guess (full-time) has told me how he doesn't like the women's clothes there; "trashy" in his words. He said it really bothers him seeing girls walking around dressed as if they are naked. Nowadays sexiness has become one of the standard to evaluate a person's style, girls like to reveal their body as much as they can. To me, it really lowers her taste and class, because if she is beautiful, she is no matter what she wears. You know you can still look good (or even better) without revealing much of your skin. And guys, next time don't woo at a girl just because she's got nothing to cover up her body with - if she has too much to reveal outwardly, she usually does not have much to reveal internally. Most People (especially teenagers) in the present society seem to have no good moral anymore. I was waiting for the subway on the way home, a girl (about 17) didn't pay and just walked into the platform. The TTC worker got up and said "excuse me, you have to pay" and suddenly she just turned around started swearing at him. She was so loud that everybody on the platform started to look at her and the TTC worker, and because the TTC worker won't give up so naturally they started a verbal fight. What the girl said was so ugly I don't even want to recall. She was saying how "you TTC people get paid $25/h" is "pathetic" and such, and I remember the first thing she said was "how can you talk to a child like this" or something like that. Well firstly she obviously wasn't a 'child' and secondly, that really WAS childish for her to act that way if she deemed herself as a child. She disrespected the TTC people and not to mention by saying all those things she certainly made herself look nasty (or perhaps she deemed it as a 'cool' action to swear to a public worker's face). Eventually her friend stuffed a ticket into the worker's hand (ah, they DID have tickets, they just didn't want to pay) and that's how it ended. It's absurd to know how people do something wrong and when others try to correct them, they burst out on others as if they are the ones who made the mistake. Aaaanyway. Oh, girls, if you are looking for a job, bring a resume to one of the SmartSet stores in Eaton Centre, they are hiring. =) I so cannot wait to wear skirts, it's gonna be 9 degrees next week. Looks like spring is here. =) Hopefully this really is the beginning of spring. |
