Bravo, Paganini!

I thought I was going to be late as there was a jam along Orchard! Thankfully, I reached the concert hall with about 5 mins to spare. Whew, If I missed the first bit half before interval, might as well go home already. The first piece didn't really leave an impression on me, maybe because all I was waiting for was the Paganini concerto. I think this is the first time I actually listened through the whole concerto. The concerto is truly crazy. I thought the caprices was crazy, but I guess he composed the caprices for people to practice so they can play this concerto. The jumping double stops, the DID I HEAR DOUBLE STOP HARMONICS? the generous sliding thirds and tenths, left hand pizzicato and all the other crazy stuff that I forgot the violin could do. Well, I would say it was awesome if not for the soloists' couple of mistakes... just joking. I hope he actually sleeps and not just practices all day. He indulged us with an encore of "Paganini's Duet for One Violin". I don't know if he made that up or it's really a piece but it was awesome with a main melody and alot of left hand pizzicato at the same time.

After intermission it was a piece by Bernstein (who I never heard of) which figured as he's a contemporary composer and I really don't enjoy contemporary stuff. They lack melody and that to me, gets them down many notches in music. The Prokofiev was a nice end to the evening.

It ended a little later than expected because of the encore so didn't get to meet Shufen. Anyway, had a beef and mushroom pie and THE AWESOME tiramisu from Prego so I'd sleep a very happy man today.

16/11/08

Today was our last combined service as Psalmist :( It was really fun as usual. Love how practices get all whacky and it always turns out great for service anyway and we still have a rocking good time. Many people came up to me to say they enjoyed my violin playing today which feels very nice *head swells* even though when I took out my violin this week it had like mold growing on the chinrest and termites.

After service it was off to Radzali's wedding in Group Leader's car. Pretty interesting, this being the first malay wedding I attended. It's alot more casual than chinese weddings and I dare say more fun.

When life hands you scrap paper...

Make a paper aeroplane!

This morning I got a surprise. My Team leader handed me a Commander's Award. It was surprising because - I attended the Commander's Parade yesterday and didn't even know I won anything; I don't even remember what is it for. Better still, THEY GOT MY NAME SPELT WRONG. GAHHHH WAD THE HECK IS WRONG WITH THEM!! But crap, I think I'm still an awesome police man.

7/11/08

Falling sick from all the burgers and ice cream this week :( It was great though going to Island Creamery for the second time this week (and the second time ever). Wilson was working there so I got like half a tub in 2 scoops :D:D Waited for him to knock off then Brian and his gang made it down to ECP hawker centre for dinner. Felt like crap so didn't catch a movie. Probably going to be my last outing before the flu bug totally gets me :(

'A' treat!

Today was quite a bad shift. Got drenched in the rain for one of the messages, then a super bad headache hit me like a sledgehammer at by evening I felt like I was dying. Iman my partner was really nice and took care of me and got me panadol and water and kept asking me if I was okay throughout the shift. Just when things couldn't get worse, had to chase after this silly "dark skinned man" for the last message of the day. He had a head-start of like 100m so when he dashed across the road into some flats it was basically unlikely that we'd catch him. The funny bit is that, he didn't even commit an offence and even if we got him there wasn't anything we were going to do to him. Oh well, the exercise actually made my headache go away.

Tonight was 'A' treat, which is a fund from our division for our team to go out for some "team-bonding". Didn't think I would make it with my achey head but it was okay by the time shift ended so we headed down to Swensen's Orchard and had a crazy time making a nuisance of ourselves and terrorizing the staff there. It's kinda like a few-in-one meal because we're seeing off our team leader to another branch, and one of our SCs who's going to ORD. But it was still great =)