Darius Lim

www.dariusmusic.org

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Finally its the end of the day for the first day of new year man! hah.. typing my blog now and its 1.23am in the morning. with all my relatives playing mahjong beside me in my room. its damn cool. hah.. i won about 50 bucks today at mahjong! =))

this morning woke up and my family went for 12.30 mass at trinity. collected the blessed oranges from the priests and all. then went to my grand parents place for another spill of reunion lunch. hah.. this time the food was much better and after lunch we started playing card games like black jack and in-between. was damn fun man. but at that time i lost about 8 bucks man jeez!

then we went visiting some of the relatives.. although i wasnt really close to some of them. but wells there were red packets to collect! hahaha.. and it was fun catching up with some relatives whom ive not seem for ages. after that went back home for another reunion dinner with my relatives and family members. was a really nice evening =)) played mahjong and card games AGAIN! but this time i won about 50 bucks man.. hahahah.. at least it adds to the little ang bao money i got this year.

all in all.. quite tired now.. but i guess gonna go back to playing mahjong! hahaha. once again happy new year!!! "PonG!!!" =)P


"Missing the girl in Manhanttan..."

Its the eve of chinese new year! but it aleady feels like its chinese new year. hah.. anyway got up this morning and went to grandmothers place for a reunion lunch with all my other cousins and relatives etc. my aunt cooked sharks fin and we just ate all up.. haha.. nice man. although a lil fishy..

after that my family and i went home to do some last minute spring cleaning and i redid my entire room. it really looks damn gd now. hah.. did new drapes and rearranged all my furniture etc etc. loved my 'new room' so much i fell aslp on my bed as soon as the air con was turned on and everything looked and smelt so nice. hah..

when i woke up alfred called me to meet up for a drink. so i got changed and met him at tm starbucks. for once i was earlier.. MUCH earlier. hahaha... havent seen him for like almost 3 weeks lar that bugger.. great drinks they have there at starbucks.. always enjoyed his company. one of the best buddies man...

then i rushed home for my family reunion dinner with my uncle and my grand mother. the chicken was super salty man. think my mother forgotten to talk away the salt or something.. hahahaa.. i almost vomit the whole chunk out the first time i ate it.. ops. lol.

played mahjong after dinner and i won 33 bucks man! jeez.. its one min before the new year!!! HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!!!

Todays the last day of nafa's so called third school term. this term only lasted less than four weeks. hah.. next week will be a one week break! finally. but dont be fooled man. We don't get any March Hols at all! jeez.. don't know how we're gonna last after this break till june.

Went for Chamber Choir today, there were only like Ten odd of us! However mysteriously we sounded even better with the few around, rather than having the full strength. even jen agreed! hah.. werid huh..

All seems so confusing now after our Choral Direction Lecturer Dr. Simmons suddenly left Singapore and flew back to New Orlns. on urgent matters, not sure if he'll even come back. And now our lecture module has NO lecturer one to take us! Thankfully jen was really kind enough to help out, and together with toh chai, i think things are starting to piece together again. Because we have not had choral lecture for 2 weeks, jen decided to give us a class next week to make up for the loses! (although its the hols!). but i think it'll really help us quite a bit. Even shi hua seemed a little lost today about everything that was going on!? hah..

After chamber, had lunch with shi hua at sunshine's wan ton mee stall. think their servings bcoming from small to smaller. shi hua looked kinda blur. but having whatever shes thinking inside, we managed to fill our stomachs in 15 mins, in which i had to rush off to temasek chorale for rehearsal.

Tms chorales had many many new additions this week, and even more came in today (maybe one or two more). Taught them the pieces for the musical and the other works. Improving. Then went to mac tampines with henry, chewy and pam to have a drink and we ended up playing some really lame "guess-the-number game and who loses you have to eat some disgusting stuff" kinda thing. hah. and you'll never guess what my forfeit was. argh.!

Chinese New Year is here! and my house looks so... R.E.D. o_O Guess what. my mother bought a huge TREE and put it in the balcony! Those trees that pandas like to eat i think. jeez man.. (can just imagine the funny scene of her carry the Whole Tree into the house. lol! ops)

Happy new year to you all! =D

Its night time and i've just reached home from tampines mall. Went to meet Danielle and Ky for a drink. Jeez its been weeks since i last saw them! Could see that we all were really exhausted at starbucks today. Sitting in the open air and sorta dazing into space. hah.. Its amazing how Dan's just finished her A's and is now working in a Law Firm! jeez.. a big one too!.. and kyrins with some association i cant really remember what the name was. hahaha.. DSA isit? they looked like working women today man. hah.. talked about stuffs and could really understand how one is feeling man given particular situations. don't worry yea.. all these will pass and soon we'll just be looking back and laugh at it mans.. =)) the three of us'll always be here for you pal.

I've just been offered AnoTher school choir!! And frustratingly as much as i wanna take them, i simply have no time to. My balance between sch work, choirs and piano is slowly tipping out of control man! Was thinking of splitting it with shi hua but i'll hafta see what our schedules have to say. So yea.. from now i hafta been extra careful with plans and schedules.

This morning i walked into the music tech lab.. didnt know Watson was having a lecture with the dip access students and he started crapping with me asking me to 'get out!'. haha... only to realise after a few seconds that he was joking with me. (music tech students Are allowed to do work during lecture in tech labs ok. lol). Haven't seen the diploma access course people before. don't know a single one of them. Hoping to hear the pianists play sometime soon. hah..

Finished composing the dance piece for the dance sch choreographer. Am damn glad its done and she can rehearse her piece man.. hah.. although toh chai said that there was one part which sounded like a buddhist CHANt can!?!?! hahaha.. ops. dr goh can really imagine (although what he said is quite true. lol) oh wells, edit it later. hah.

Kinda wondering what shao jun's cny gathering will be like mans.. hope the whole gang doesnt start some block catching frenzy like our lower secondary school days! hahahhaa.. crazy bunch. haven't seen the rest of the gang for a while though. miss suat although shes back in malaysia. Will see the rest soon. =)) Havent even seen Ron for ages! jeez stop mugging for once and come out and enjoy life just a bit will ya?! hah.. Also really cracking my head on what to buy for fred's birthday man. Promised my bro a meal and a present? hahahah.. jeez might as well go clubbing or something. (although he hates it. hahaha) i'll come out with something soon yea?

Spoke to Adams, Elenor Tan, John Sharpley and Ben Loh after the competition that night. And now have to really start working my arse off for the B.big things to come. Thanks for all the inspirations. hahahha.. =)) gtg slp now mans.. really miss playing with shao suan.. sigh.. wondering when we'll have that chance again.. till then. gd nite and ''xin nien kuai le!!'' =))

Just had the Concerto Competition yesterday. Well for one i didnt get into top three spot. hahaha! (only one pianist got in. the other two instrumentalist were a clarinetist and a yang qing player.)

Hafta admit that initially i was a little disappointed i didnt get to top three in the semi-finals. But at least i had the consolation of being top two for the piano catogary. haha. really thankful for that. Also felt that my performance yesterday night was one of my best performances! =)) was damn pleased with myself man. although some of the cadenzas were not very clean and a little over pedalled.hahaa.. not mentioning that my opening chords had 'dissonances' in them.

I think all the top 8 competitors last night really played so fantastically man! hahaha. couldnt believe how far we have come to be here. Not mentioning the competitors' accompanists Shao Suan (my FANTASTIC accompanist who did a faBBBulous job), and all the other great pianists Sophia, Min yu, Natania and Yun qi! jeez man... they should be awarded prizes for the horribly difficult piano accompaniment that they had to do!! hahaha.. really cheers to them! =))

Was so touched when my school mates were so supportive of me.. and really grateful for the outcome of the competition. I think everyone was happy with their performance. lifeng and alan and gang actually metioned about giving me a plague because they tot i played well. hahahhaa... i was really so touched by that (not that i like plagues or anything) hahaha.

Also spoke to the judges of the competition after the competition and they really gave me great pointers and words of advice to work on.. including some really encouraging comments there. All in all, this competition was such a fantastic experience man.

Went with Shao Suan and Jae Sern to holland village after that and stayed till like the wee hours of the morning! hahhaa.. went like post-midnight shopping at cold storage also! hahaha.. my first ever experience. lol! guess who we met at the restaurant!? big daniel, aaron, desmond, louis and all the brass players for the competition! ha.. jae sern also met his yong siew toh conservatory students sitting RIGHT beside my nafa schoolmates.. jeez man how smaller can the world get!

Would like to thank Shao Suan and all my really really great friends for their support =)) love u guys.. cheers~

The Concerto Competition is just Tomorrow! haha.. although its not my first comp, it still sends shivers down my spine by the thought of it.

Practiced until my back hurt today. So by 2 i went with ting to bugis junction for a walk. Then went to this new place called Icon just next to Bugis Junction. Its this little building filled with 6 floors of teenage shops!! hahaha. a haven for all teenages and young people to go to (i sound like im advertising for them. hah).

Today's commuter was not bad. Mr Schnied. played the Liszt really well mans.. although his Beethoven was a little dry and his second chopin ballad was a little uneven. but over all a quite nice concert. his flight of the bumblebee was really nice and facinating to watch. short and sweet. some technique craziness there. hah.. hmm.. im wondering why the audience screamed so loudly throughout the concert. Anyone can tell me? hah..

All the best to all the Concerto Semi-Finalists!

Its my first post for this new online journal. had one actually, but decided to move to blogger.. tripod is kinda toublesome for some stuffs, especially with the log ins and all.

The Concerto competition is just a day away! Kinda starting to feel my nerves rattle already. Thankfully the past few days have been quite relaxing and fun, all thanks to Shao Suan and Jae Sern for all the crazy times. haha.. its crazy how the both of them scare me sometimes (in a pleasant way).

Learnt the third and forth movement for the Liszt Concerto in 2 weeks, so not really expecting anything out of this competition. Just gonna go for the fun of making music, like ''ah suan'' said. hahaha.

Had a listen to prokofiev's third piano concerto that day played by Simon Trpcesky with the SSO. He had amazing technique man! jeez, esp where the part where painists would usually do a gliss, he impressed the audience by playing out every note of that section (instead of a gliss!?). jeez that was how fast his fingers ran. haha. hope to do that someday?.. Someday. =))

"Missing Manhattan..."