First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!! May it be better than the last.

And since I haven't said it yet, MERRY CHRISTMAS! (It's only the 8th day, so we still have 4 more days of Christmas, technically)

I spent the last few hours of 2009 at my cousin's house where we ushered in the new year playing Monopoly. Almost. We were playing until approximately 23.59.40 on 31/12/2009 when my aunt sent my cousin an sms telling us to go downstairs for champagne. Please ignore all mentions of underage drinking. Thank you. Once the champagne had been popped and everyone had a glass, it was basically cheers all around and bottoms up!(I would like to point out that the only ones who actually did down the whole glass at a go were my 15-year-old cousin and my 14-year-old cousin and sister) Then we watched the finale of the countdown party of tv, which might I add, wasn't really anything worth an audience, and when Channel 5 began showing some old movie that I've never even heard of, us "young people" headed to the playground where we spent about another hour and a half, not actually playing, but rather sitting around and talking.

The point is, I didn't get to sleep until about 4am, but I still managed to get up in time for 9am mass. (: And after mass I went out for brunch with my parents and only got home about 45 minutes ago and here I am now! Meaning I'll probably sleep in tomorrow. Ah, Saturday...

Finally, because I simply cannot resist, to all the poor souls who have to go back to work/school on the 4th, while some of us still have about a week to fool around before results come out, have fun! :P

Sorry for spamming your friend pages, but I decided I might as well post the poem now. This is dedicated to all my wonderful classmates in 4/1 2009. Thank you for two years of unforgettable memories.

Memories in my heart

Memories which never fade

Memories to last a lifetime

Memories dear to me

To cheer you up when you’re down

To put a smile upon your face

To remind you someone cares

All the time, no matter what

For when you’re feeling alone

For when you can’t go on

For all the times you made me smile

For everything you’ve done

Thank you for being there

Thank you for caring

Thank you for walking with me

Thank you for the memories

I’ve had a wonderful time

With you there by my side

We’ve made it to the end

So it’s time to say goodbye

I don’t have pretty words to offer

I can’t give expensive presents

I only have my gratitude

For the time I spent with you

As we end this chapter in our lives

To move on and grow

I wish you happiness,

Success in all you do

Nothing lasts forever

All meetings come to an end

Yesterday is gone

Don’t look back and regret

Tomorrow is uncertain

I can’t guarantee anything

But I will be here

Praying for you

Live each day to the fullest

Take life a day at a time

You can always make a difference

Don’t ever give up

Steph

THE O LEVELS ARE O-V-E-R!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My four years in secondary school have been leading up to that dreaded exam and it is OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay, I shan't spend much longer on that because I can only repeat that so many times before everyone gets sick of it.

Moving on, I have a new nephew!
Baby Ryan was born on Friday, the 13th of November, which was also my last paper for O levels! Who said Friday the 13th was unlucky? He's just the cutest thing ever! Then again, I guess I would say that of pretty much every baby but hey, he's my nephew! Okay, technically he's my cousin's son which makes him my...I have no idea actually. It's just easier to call him my nephew. He's smaller than my cat!

Finally, last night was my school's Grad Nite, or Prom to others. We had an awesome time! It was held in the Grand Ballroom of the Hilton Hotel and lasted from 7pm to midnight. It probably would have lasted longer if the teachers hadn't chased us home though. In true IJ fashion, everyone was going around with cameras throughout the night, except when we were told to sit down that is. I took lots of photos but I'll put them up another time because facebook is being stupid and not letting me upload the pictures. The night started off with a lot of screaming because, well, we're IJ girls! Haha, I bet at least three-quarters of the cohort has sore throats/no voice today, myself included. After all the VIPs were seated and stuff, the chairperson and vice-chairperson of each class had to enter the ballroom in a procession of sorts, before heading up to the stage to "lead" everyone in the school song. After that was the presentation of the class rings. I totally love mine! I'll never take it off unless I can't help it. :D

We had some games before dinner. Is it just me, or are all MCs really, really lame? It's like almost a requirement to be an MC or something. Dinner was nice, though everyone was having too much fun to pay much attention to the food. We weren't at our table most of the time. XD I got a prize in the pre-drawn lucky draw. It's a voucher for some shop that I've never heard of so I'm gonna have to hunt it down so I can spend my voucher. :) Top prize of the night was a Tiffany bracelet which my classmate won! I think my class was really lucky last night. At least 10 of us got lucky draw prizes. Someone got a $50 Zara voucher and another got a Zara tote! Like, OMG I want that! *pouts* Also on the list of prizes redeemed by my classmates are two $40 Muji vouchers and a $15 Kino voucher.

Marrissa from 4/2 was crowned Miss CHIJ 2009, the equivalent of prom queen. I had expected Arielle from my class to at least get a position in the top 3 but I guess I can't always be right.

The class comm should feel very proud of ourselves because we gave Mr Tang, our form teacher, the most memorable gift he's ever received in his 6 years of teaching! Yay us! Everyone in class wrote a letter to Mr Tang and we put it in a pocket folder which had a cover made of a material similar to that of our report books, then our chairperson scanned and enlarged the front of her own report book and stuck it on the front. Tada! Mr Tang's very own report book. We even put a class list in. >.< All our other teachers received photo frames with one of our class photos inside as well as a card. We're probably the only class that gave something to all of our teachers. Even our PE teacher got something!

The teachers made a video montage for the graduating class. It was so sweet! I miss them already. :( I will definitely go back and visit next year. Quite a few of my class' photos were featured, probably because I gave the teacher 18 to pick from. :D I can't believe that was my last event as an IJ girl! I don't want to leave yet! If I could, I'd choose to be an IJ girl forever! Well I will be, in my heart at least.

The last one and a half hours were spent on the pathetic excuse for a dance floor. Well, I took a class photo and said goodbye to everyone first. I can't believe I won't get to see all of them again until next year, at least not as a whole class. Most of the international students are going home today, and they make up half the class! Hope you guys liked the letters! I apologise for any incoherence. Some of them were done past midnight because I was rushing to finish in time. The poem was a spur of the moment thing, so it wasn't all that great but it's what I wanted to say to all of you.

*sighs* Are all farewells this bittersweet? As ecstatic as I am at graduating, I can't bear to leave the school which has been my home away from home for 10 years. I'll miss you guys lots so keep in touch, okay?

I think I'll end here since this is already pretty long. I think I'll put the poem in my next post.

Steph

Okay, the ominous subject probably has more than one person wondering so I'm just gonna jump straight into it.

I went over to my cousin's house last night for dinner and had a brilliant time, as is usually the case everytime I go there. Apart from the usual free-flow of alcoholic drinks (I'm quite convinced that my family is trying to cultivate my interest in liquor before I'm legal but hey, you won't hear any complaints from me), the highlight of the night was probably when we began to hear shrill screams coming from upstairs half-way through our barbeque.

My sister and cousins had finished eating earlier and had disappeared into the house, so I went in to find out what they were up to. As it turned out, my sister had introduced my cousins to an online game called Hotel 626. The basic storyline is that the player wakes up in a haunted hotel and in order to get out, has to complete a series of tasks. Various characters in the game include a camera-shy ghost, a zombie infant and a psycho cannibal. My sister, scaredy-cat that she is, was the one screaming the whole way, despite the fact that my cousin was the one actually playing the game. Though I have to point out that my other 13-year-old, guy cousin was also pretty freaked out. I interrupted just as my cousin was at the last task, which guides the player to escape the hotel by following the instructions of a creepy voice over the phone, and evil, sadistic people that we are, we decided to give the other two a scare by pretending to scream. It was hilarious! They didn't even know what we were screaming about, they just screamed because we screamed.

So because I was curious to find out exactly how scary the game was, I decided to give it a go from the beginning. It really isn't that bad, unless you're the kind that freaks out easily. I think the ending of the game depends on how many tasks you fail, but so far we haven't managed to get anything really freaky. To be honest, some of my sister's screams were scarier than the game itself. Seeing is believing, so if you really want to find out for yourself, just follow the link above. Enjoy!

Till my next post,
Steph

It's been a while since I've posted something but then again, nothing much has happened anyway, besides school that is. Prelims are in 2 weeks!

Anyways, I went to a contemporary music concert by the Young Musician's Society today because my voice coach was performing and she had complimentary tickets. Unfortunately, because it was so last minute, I couldn't find anyone to go with me and the other 3 tickets went to waste.

Oh well, the concert was called 'SOUNDING' and it was this avant-garde thing so it's a little difficult to describe, but it really opened my eyes as to what "music" can mean.

The first piece was 'Silver Streetcar for the Orchestra' by Alvin Lucier and it was written for solo triangle. I mean seriously, how cool is that? It was played by Tamagoh, the jazz drummer, who also happens to be my voice coach's husband. Basically the whole piece was him hitting the triangle repeatedly for about 5 minutes? Sounds a bit stupid, but if you tune out all the striking and just listen to the resonant sounds in the background, it's really amazing how many different sounds a triangle can make.

Next piece was 'December 1952' by Earle Brown. I was dumbfounded when my teacher showed me the score for this. It just looked like random black rectangles on the paper. The arrangement included 3 voices, 1 recorder and a sheng, which is a traditional chinese instrument. I didn't really understand it but it was amazing to see what they got out of that page of black rectangles.

The third piece, 'Toss' by Christina Wolff, was one of the pieces I understood a bit better because my teacher had sort of explained it to me. The concept behind it was basically that the performers were tossing the sound around like you would a ball. I couldn't really make out the different groups though, it pretty much sounded like chaos to me.

I couldn't help but wince a little when the fourth piece was performed. 'Memories of You' by Cornelius Cardew is written for solo piano but it doesn't really involve much actual playing of the piano. The pianist, I shall call her that for convenience's sake, basically moved around the piano making different sounds using both the piano and other "instruments". The opening sounds were made by hitting the strings of the piano, it was a grand piano I think, with this brush-like object. In fact, a lot of the piece involved hitting the piano or its strings to create different sounds, the reason for my wincing. They were abusing a perfectly good piano! It was still pretty cool though.

The final piece, yes they only played 5 pieces, was probably my favourite. It's called 'Octet '61 for Jasper Johns' and is by Cornelius Cardew again. Although it's called an octet, there were about 11 performers - 3 singers, 3 pianists, 2 cellists, 1 guy on the recorder, another on the sheng, and  one more playing percussion. It was...indescribable. You really had to be there to understand. I think the most amazing thing was that even though there was no conductor, they knew who to take their cues from and were able to listen out for that instrument amidst all the other sounds. The fact that it was held in a pretty small space made everything seem so much more overwhelming.

That's pretty much it. I just wanted to share something about my amazing experience before I forgot everything.

Till next time,
Steph

4/1 '09 rocks! (I was going to say awesome, but that sounds like something my sister would say, so I didn't)

But everybody know's that already, so moving on...

Anyway, yeah, 4/1's bbq was yesterday and we all had a great time! Well honestly, it wasn't much of a bbq, everyone was too busy enjoying themselves and neglected the food, which resulted in lots of leftovers, though there were those who were having fun cooking everything. *coughs* Mr Tang *coughs*

On another note, Jayden is simply the cutest toddler ever! One year sure makes a lot of difference. Last year, he would start crying the minute we all started crowding around him; now, he even knows how to pose for pictures! Can you say "Beautiful Smile"? First toddler I've ever met who actually looks at you because he knows you're taking his photo. I wish my nephews/ nieces would do that. It would make it a lot easier for me at family gatherings.

Photos are up on Facebook here :http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=93388&id=697501585
If some of the angles look weird, it's because I'm sitting on this, well I'm not sure what to call it but it's supposed to used for knee lifts, it's in the photos. Climbing up was fun, and jumping down only slightly less fun because it brings about a sharp pain in my ankles. Despite Jane's predictions that I'm going to be limping 50 years from now, I would totally do it again if I could. Carpe Diem and all that.

Okay, I'm going to end here for now so till next time,
Steph

Ken came up to me after mass on Sunday and said "You have nothing on your blog!" so I figured it's about time I put something up here.

I haven't posted anything on LJ in a few years but I think I'll be writing both about how things are going as well as putting up my fanfic here. I won't write too much for the moment because I'm terribly behind on my holiday homework so I probably shouldn't even be on the computer right now.

Oh well, till next time,
blackshadow56