Stephen Hawking Movies and Concerts

So recently I had this opportunity for a one day job stint as an assistant to an auction event! Never mind the stifling office wear, walking quite abit in flats and being bored to death whilst clicking "next" on Powerpoint for like 419 times (I had to navigate the slides which contained photos of auction items - can you imagine the auctioneer going through EACH of the items one by one?!), for the hourly pay exceeded normal rates YESSS. To be honest I thought it was good exposure because never in my life will I ever step into a swanky ballroom, spending MILLIONS (SGD, wth) on some ancient oriental pottery/spittoons/random animal figures). I really don't understand how some collectors can go so far as to spend MILLIONS on collectibles?

My knowledge of Physics in the cosmology branch is extremely limited and to be honest, I don't know much about Hawking and his contributions to the field, other than the fact that he's a damn smart handicapped physicist with a computer translator muscle detector thing. I first watched Hawking (2004) last year. The Theory of Everything seems to be a hit so:

The Theory of Everything

Amazing movie! Emotions run high in this one, it being a family-drama cum love story. The Theory of Everything gives us a glimpse into Hawking's (and Jane's) private life, directing us away from his intellect, depicting the struggles of the Hawking family as he succumbs to Lou Gehrig's disease (the famous ALS one, the famous Tuesdays With Morrie one [don't tell me how much you like the book, because I don't]), falling in love, and subsequently out of love. This movie gets in touch with his personality and is so emotional at times I won't be surprised if the movie or the actors get an award in the upcoming Oscars.

Surprisingly, there was the whole "God VS Science" notion underlying this movie. Attention is given to the conflicting beliefs between Jane and Hawking, and together with a waned passion for each other, they eventually split up which also meant tear-jerking scenes (I was so affected by Jane's "I had loved you" and Redmayne's anguish in response). A great deal of screen time was also devoted to family-drama, what with having a fatherly figure addition halfway through the movie and Jane's atrophied willpower in the face of a growing incapacitated husband (who happened to be surprisingly virile for his condition, with children coming one after another; No wonder Jane couldn't take it anymore). I thought that part, the in-between part, was abit too draggy, extremely unlike his sudden physical deterioration from a well-bodied man to a walking stick user as shown in the film.

Great deal of subtle hints were made to give us a prelude to his ailing body; how he's slower than his friends (start of movie), his awkward gait, a trip at the stairs. His eccentricities and his intellect was present but I feel not so much especially the latter?  

Even though I probably know little about him, it's so amazing that geniuses like him actually still walk (or er roll, in this case) among us today.

"10 questions, each more impregnable than the last. Good luck, you'll need it."

"I could only do 9"

Overall, an amazing emotional movie fit to acknowledge the humanness of a genius!!!

^ Also check out the resemblance between the real SH and the movie's. I was thinking about how he was already rocking the hipster glasses in his prime at the start of the movie. 

Hawking (2004)

A BBC televised film. From what I remember, this film was not as brilliant. It focused on his path towards his brilliant break-through (which I forgot, and still don't quite comprehend after 2 movies), so it was very physics-jargon laden and therefore equipped with a patchy knowledge of H2 Physics, I don't understand. Jane played a relatively minor role in this one, and it was a happy ending for all.
The film was interspersed with scenes of 2 scientists being filmed about their recording of 'hissings' , which I initially don't quite get the point of, but felt that they were entirely appropriate when the film ends with them.

Hawking's disabilities portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch was pretty inconsistent, I feel. I think that Eddie Redmayne was the better Hawking though.

Well it takes hell lot of recognition and respect to have two movies centered on your life, non-posthumously, under your belt. The best thing about these biographic movies is that they remind you that amazing people do grace the planet, and are remembered for good reasons.

鼓筝风采  Strumming and Drumming Concert

The last SCO concert I attended was probably a few years back. I felt really good to see some familiar faces of my previous instructors on stage. 

There were several pieces played that made me want to Youtube the song just so I can hear it twice, but some songs we quite unrelatable to me and there was one called <<律动>> (The Rythm) that I was unable to fathom the style it was going for. According to the concert booklet, it was about the tiding and ebbing of the energy of the orchestra, with highlights on the guzheng and percussion.

I was too fixated on the percussion because they had a variety of instruments every now and then but on the whole I thought it was an odd messy cocktail of perc instruments playing at untimely moments and therefore didn't fit into the entire song. Idk it seemed weird to me.

<<印象國樂-大曲>> (Impressions of Chinese Music) was an interesting one, I couldn't help thinking it was some OTS for some grand Chinese period drama (seriously, go Youtube it), but it was nice.

 

^ There was <<秦王破阵乐>> (The King of Qin in Battle), a duet featuring my previous perc instructor who got SORELY overshadowed by his duet partner. Love the build up and the absolutely on sync, suave ending between the two of them and the orchestra!!! Favourite piece of the night!

^ <<急急风>> festive Chinese new year type, alot of percussion everywhere-kind (急急风 is a rousing percussion technique)

Percussionists duets

We wanted to take a photo with our instructor only, but I don't know why the other half of the duet was roped in, lol so extra.
As per Quek Ling Kiong said, the 2 perc showcase songs pit Western and Chinese perc instruments against each other, and I thought that was a very interesting concept.

The New Tomorrow - A Benefit Concert for Children Charities

During rehearsals

Mercilessly ripped off FB

I fumbled alot for a few songs especially <<愿>>, For Good and most of all, Le Encore. But you can't really blame me for Le Encore (lol so pretentiously french) because Mdm Chin insisted LAST MINTUE that EVERYONE should be on stage for our encore, when we (perc) hardly have the correct scores. That meant that my first time playing Le Encore (according to a WRONG, slightly different version of the score ) was during the actual concert. Of course I panicked when we were at parts of the song that was not reflected in my version of scores, but thankfully, other than spacing out during the last long note of the song (by convention, timpani should roll), I did not 放炮 anywhere.

I didn't like any of the songs we played for this concert, because they were "modern" music, ("East meets West" music, "Fusion music", fusion fusion fusion). But I signed up for this because I thought it was an opportune break from my deadly SEDENTARY and aimless lifestyle (think pringles and movies), and to do something for a good cause.
Other than the fact I have to travel back to school twice per week, it was good experience as I've never played along with some seniors and juniors who are probably 5x more musically prodigious that I am.

Most importantly, cheers to the organisers for actually making things work!

:-)

VJCO in Taiwan

The 6D5N trip is probably the best school trip I've been on so far! Taiwan is an amazing place, not too dissimilar to Singapore (I did not miss home, lol), I was constantly surrounded by fun people, and most of the local food were great. It was a music exchange trip with 中國文化大學 in Taipei and 延和國民中學 in Nantou, for initially 3 days, but it was cut short to just a day for each school, so I felt that our interaction was too brief to glean anything from. Oh well but the food and shopping and fun times with VJCO compensated for it. I've been to Taiwan back in 2008, but I felt that my family didn't get to do much sightseeing as we only toured Taipei! In this trip, I got to explore abit of Taichung and Nantou County in addition to the capital. 

Day 1

At 淡水漁人碼頭 (DanShui Fisherman's Wharf), on 情人桥. We were supposed to watch the sunset but, er, there was no sun. It was rather late into the evening and the winds were strong and I only had a light cardigan and was freezing to death.

2012, 2013, 2014 Perc SLs

Percussion!!

淡水老街 (Danshui Old Street) for free-and-easy dinner of local food. I think I ate the most here, for there weren't stupid long queues given that it was a weekday.

^ The fried mushrooms were THE BEST! It's SGD$1 plus and in retrospect, it's not worth for a small packet of mushroom bits but it's really good 

The is the famous 阿婆铁蛋 at the old street. I was eating a few wondering what kinda eggs they were and felt perturbed by the onset heart diseases I would probably experience because they were QUAIL eggs, which contain higher cholesterol levels than that of chicken. I thought the braised flavour was strong, and the rather hard texture was abit unique. It was cold, though, which kinda ruined it. 

酸梅湯 (Sour plum juice)

淡水阿給!!!

Some of us went to 阿给老店. I didn't know it was famous until I googled it just now. The specialty 阿给 dish is actually just generous portions of 冬粉 wrapped in tofu, and topped with special odd-looking gravy. Its light pink tinge sort of put me off abit and the entire dish looks unappetizing (together with its cheap orange plastic bowl) in my opinion, but I liked it!! Their fishballs were like typical 福州鱼丸, just harder and oblong shaped, and were a let down.  

臭豆腐

糖葫芦 - I was pretty sure I'll get diabetes

Day 2

The morning was rather uneventful as we had a 2 hour practice in the hotel's conference room. Some of us didn't have our instruments so we formed an acapella CO instead

Omg fangirling

We went to 誠品書店 (Eslite Bookstore) in Taipei, which is its flagship store. I love the ambience even though it's abit classy especially the first storey where there's coffeehouses and branded stores. The bookstore is 7 stories, I think, but they organised all books according to genre, regardless of language so I couldn't find books I wanted since the shelves were dominated by Chinese books. I got the above book as requested by my mom, it's about history and politics in Taiwan and China, and I felt abit intellectual carrying it about. Hope that my mom's pleased!  

We then went to 西門町! 

I LOVED the 阿宗麵線! It costs close to SGD$2 for a small bowl and there were hardly enough chairs for the customers at the roadside. I just ate while we strolled along. I had my first taste of nightmarket traffic at 西門町, which I totally hate because I have to fear for my life as vehicles sped past. 

^ This was the authentic Koi! It's like SGD$1 plus LESS than Sg's ugh why do this to us

甜不辣 - I took forever to get through 3 of these because I got so tired of chewing

After dinner was a Guzheng concert at Taipei 國家音樂廳. I loved the place, with its exterior so majestically oriental but the concert, 競箏 Transcendence, featuring only guzheng, might as well be the best SEDATIVE in the universe. My only experience with the guzheng was in primary school; it was an SYF stint and I was unfortunately picked to play it and I never liked it because the instructor smacked my hand once and I almost cried, LOL

I couldn't appreciate the songs played as I don't particularly like the instrument, and because they were rather boring (except for 2). I was initally all agog because I thought it would be an ORCHESTRAL performance. A solitary guzheng on stage lacks the grandeur and volume I anticipated. Surprisingly, there were quite a few young people among the audience. It was a sleepy 2 hour 15 min for everyone.

Day 3

Day 3 marks the start of our 2 day interaction with the Taiwanese at 中國文化大學! The university was situated at 陽明山 so it was rather cold. Our day started off with a lecture (conducted in the CO room) with the professor being one of the guzheng performers from the day before. I realised that the Taiwanese students were apathetic and rather disregardful and as he droned on on music competition and its history and its differences between the East and West. I could hardly keep awake. Some students actually just arrived for the last 30 min or so (lessons are 2 hours long - we actually sat through the entire duration) for attendance taking. 

Following that was another 2 hour practical lesson on music recording. They were using this complicated program called Cubase, and most of the Taiwanese students were quite blur about what to do (according to my friends). It's basically a program that allows you to alter the composition of a piece of music. The tutor was quite boring, the lesson was boring as well (obviously I'm not an aspiring music major), and I was pretty sick of hearing the same tune repeatedly (they were all editing this short music piece of "My phone is ringing"), and even now I still can remember its tune.

We had this short "music exchange" after lunch, whereby the university orchestra presented 2 songs and we just played a line-up of short songs. It was THE WORST, EVER. I don't bother to hide the fact that our performance were absolutely lousy, having our morale and esteem being completely destroyed by their above-average skills, and by being disproportionately dwarfed by the sheer number of people in their orchestra. They played <<秦兵马俑>> and <<天山狂想>> which were quite good pieces.

I just knew it when they started performing that it was no "music exchange", but rather a music humiliation, but I did not expect our standards to dip so drastically infront of a more skilled audience. I felt like death when we made obvious mistakes, and all our songs were extremely badly played. And no, I'm not exaggerating things, it was the worst, really. It was like we were sight-reading there and then.

The Taiwanese students were a good sport, clapping and cheering after every song, and dancing along abit, but the entire event completely demoralised me. But on the bright side, I'll probably never get to see them again!!!

We were to have our own free-and-easy lunch in the university campus but since we were being mercilessly BUFFETED by strong winds and cold weather, we just headed to the nearest shop we could find, which was the ubiquitous 7-11. My hair in the following photos can bear testament to the strong winds. I just wanna rave about their 关东煮 which was probably the most suitable dish/snack you can have on a cold day. The soup (or rather copious amounts of MSG + water) and the liao were really quite nice (actually abit unsure, my tastebuds might have been frozen). It was very comforting to eat something hot and spicy on a cold day!!!

关东煮

We had abit of time because sightseeing at 陽明山was called off due to the unwelcoming weather so we walked about at some random mall to kill time

Inception of the VJCO Complain Club

Then it was 士林夜市! It was so crowded my group lost Lingjing but thankfully she reached back in time!

Debrief with Ms Chong

Surprising birthday boy Kaihong! I can't be any cooler

Day 4

Made a 3 hour journey from Taipei to Nantou! Karaoke on the bus to keep us occupied before visiting 延和國民中學.

Though the school's exterior campus was quite scenic, its CO practice room was austere and rather sparsely furnished. I had the urge to get out of the room because it was asphyxiating given the windowless room was small and had high ceilings and was dark. The conductor mentioned that their bass was 20 to 30 years old, and indeed, it was visibly ancient, judging from its multiple scratches. He also mentioned how because the school lacked funding which explained the terribly ripped stage curtains.

We had mini ice-breakers with the secondary 2 students whom I thought were really shy especially the guys! My group consisted of only Taiwanese guys and Singaporean girls so it took abit of effort to start the ball rolling. I talked most to YouQuan, a cello player whom I think I'll probably have no recollection of soon (ok jk)

Note to self, the second from left is Youquan

I believe that we were all rather touched by the school's hospitality and how there was evidently, an immense effort on the part of the Taiwanese school in welcoming us, unlike the university, whose Vice-principal gave us a mere welcome talk and that was it. After our performances (both our performances went well!! :-) ) they presented us with gifts and local snacks which are specialties of Nantou County. I felt that our interaction was way too brief and it would probably be so much better if we could mingle with them more. 

Day 5

Day 5 was our laid-back, sightseeing day. It was 廣興紙寮 (GuangXing Paper Mill), followed by a boat trip on 日月潭 (Sun Moon Lake) and 921 Earthquake Museum. 

At the paper mill, we sort of learned how paper is handmade from plants and stuff and had our hand at paper printing.

Sun Moon Lake The place was filled with people and it was too crowded for a hill trek

Uniqlo siblings

Ms Chong

Ms Suriani

ChungCheng people were excluded and this is the "Miscellaneous" schools group of the dichotomy

J2 Excos

茶叶蛋!

921 Earthquake Museum It was quite an interesting place but such a pity that Mandarin seismic terminology totally confused most of us. I couldn't get hold of what the guide was trying to convey, because it's like geography but in MANDARIN. Unfortunately, the earthquake simulator theatre could not fit the entire 25 of us, and I was one of those sad people who had no choice but to walk around abit. But I felt it was probably more enriching because I had more time to look at the pictures of survivors and victims to the disaster. Each of them had a story (sad or happy) to tell, and from there I realised the enormity of the 921 quake. I was initially quite unsure how devastating the 921 earthquake was in scale, because in all honesty I didn't know anything about it.

Dinner, then proceeded to 逢甲夜市! Our tour bus stopped when we turned into a less crowded street so that we could alight, and when we got down, this traffic controller woman started screaming at us like a banshee "这里不可以停车!!" repeatedly in quite a mean way and we got really scared. 

During late night percussion gossip session

Day 6

It was the last day of our trip and we made the journey back to Taipei and visited 宝岛时代村 (Taiwan Era Village). To be honest I didn't learn anything much from there as most of us did our last minute souvenir shopping, so it was quite a uneventful day. We had our lunch at the airport, sitting around, eating our burgers and fries, which I think was rather unsightly and incongruous.

The tour guide who seems to have asthma whenever he talks/wheezes

^ I had too much quail eggs on this trip and halfway through the stick I felt really sick and decided to kindly offer these cholesterol balls to my friends

I'm just really thankful for VJCO for making this trip much more entertaining than ever. Come to think of it, my 2 years spent in the school revolved quite abit around the CCA, and to be able to participate in this trip concludes my 2 years in school on a good note. The 2 nights spent on reflection and debrief were also quite insightful, in my opinion, and I definitely learn more about myself (like how I should shut up more often, and be less critical of others etc all these aren't very new). 

Apologies if my eyes look terribly small in the photos.