If anyone’s seen the world news, the UK was pretty (badly) hit by snow the past week-or-so. It mostly settled in London, but later on, other parts of the country got to have some as well. Now because I “live” and study in Taunton, Somerset – located in the Southwest of the country – I don’t see snow because we don’t get much, and any snow that we get is usually on the hills; the “flatland” is too sheltered by the mountain ranges. Poo.

So you can imagine how happy I was last Monday when it started snowing halfway during my Drama lesson. Mr Evans (my teacher) just looked over and said, “I guess you finally got your wish then, Ari!” Yes, if you must know, I had never seen snow before up till that point. 020209 is definitely going down in my calendar as one of my brill moments ever.

It settled a bit – although less than an inch – and then melted away on Tuesday. But then on Thursday night, just as I was in the boarding house with everyone else having some hot cocoa (and watching “Paris Hilton’s British Best Friend” – of all things!), it started snowing again.

Heavily.

We went to bed that night and by morning, it had settled till it was (drum roll please…) over 2 inches deep.

If I was happy on Monday, Friday morning left me just plain delirious.

Thursday’s snow didn’t completely melt till the following Tuesday. It was a shame when it went, but hey, it was good whilst it lasted.

To cap it off, I leave you with this photo.

Not my best as it isn’t retouched by Photoshop – it’s only been cropped. And yes, that is me; my friend took that pic whilst I wasn’t looking I knew I shouldn’t have hunched; I look fatter than I am!

mood//docile
munchies//tiramisu – made it myself. =)
music//m-flo – A.D.D.P. / loves Monday Michiru

I’m pretty sure you guys will hear the name Leona Lewis at some point in your life (that is, if you haven’t already.) This amazing yet down-to-earth Brit singer was the winner of an Idol-type competition we have here in England dubbed The X Factor (if I’m not wrong, we no longer do Pop Idol here in England) – and yes, we’ve got your “friendly” Simon Cowell who’s involved in judging and producing some of the winners/finalists.

But contrary to what you may think, this post isn’t about Leona. Or her successor (Alexandra Burke.)

As part of our school’s efforts to raise funds for the girls’ hockey + netball tour to Australia and Singapore, the girls thought it would be a good idea to have our own smaller-scale “replica” of The X Factor. We did away with the auditions, voting lines, and the mentoring – it was just interested performers signing up to sing/do their own thing, with 4 “judges” on stage (they weren’t really THAT serious, although we did have a mock-Simon-Cowell in the form of a sarky history teacher). We got money by having spectators pay at least 2 quid (£2) at the door to watch the show.

Guess who was part of the line up?

Yes, yours truly.

Now although I’ve mentioned that I’m on a music scholarship at my school, 1) it was to do with instrumental skill and 2) I’m not known as a stellar singer. Don’t ask what went on in my mind, but I thought it would be fun to just go upon stage, and just sing. So I told Flo (the organiser) to put my name down, having picked Dido’s “White Flag” as my song of choice for the day.

Then the day rolled around, and whilst waiting for my turn along with some of the other performers, I’d realised that the song title beside my name on the runner’s list wasn’t the song I picked. It *was* a Dido song indeed, but it was “Here With Me” instead. Slightly shocked, I asked the runner to help me check whether it was just a mistype (Dido’s known to sing so many hits) – and it turns out that Flo had downloaded the wrong song. 0_0

There wasn’t any other option except for 1) pull out (BOO!) or 2) learn the lyrics of the other song. Let’s just say that I opted for the latter. =D The MC helped by swapping the order, putting my name second-last in the line up – so I had 10+ mins to learn up as much of the lyrics as I could.

You’re right if you thought that my heart was probably pounding in my chest when I was up on that stage. After all, this was the very first time where I was singing in front of a 300-400+-strong audience (there are over 500 students in my school)! True, I’ve performed quite a bit in musical + drama terms, but those were never solo; rather, they were group/ensemble performances. As for singing, the last time I sang solo was in 2006, in front of a more forgiving (Malaysian) audience during that year’s prefect dinner.

I might say that, ironically, though the Brits in my school were a less-forgiving audience (don’t ask!), this probably motivated me more, and I actually performed better than back in 2006. Considering the fact I only had 10 minutes to learn the lyrics (I knew the music beforehand, so that helped), I’ll say that was a pretty good run. =)

After it all, although I didn’t win (that went to a classmate, who’s been singing for years at Queen’s), the whole experience has made me realise that I actually enjoy music, and that I could possibly explore it as a career. No, not just as a plain ol’ singer, but more in the songwriting sense.

You see, prior to that performance, I had been getting these catchy music riffs off and on that would pop up in my mind, prompting me to log them down. This had been happening since I completed my GCSE Music Britpop-styled (think Oasis, Blur) composition, the whole “waves of inspiration for songs” thing.

“So what,” you say? “Anyone can just come up with a random string of notes, no big.”

They weren’t just “ordinary riffs”; the kind that people hear as a single-line melody and later add to it. Me, I would tend to hear them in “full harmony” – that is, with a full band (guitar, piano, bass, drums, synthesizers, the works!) Goodness knows why, but since then, I’ve just logged down these riffs by 1) humming them in a dictaphone or 2) keying what I hear “in my mind” into Sibelius + Cubase. None of them have been further developed into full-blown songs as I don’t have the means/technology/peripherals to yet, but I’m enjoying the rid so far.

Both my parents know, and they think it’s a good thing since I enjoy it – but I’m now torn as this means that my higher-education choice is gonna be a real toughie. Mum calls me her “all-rounder” since I’m (touch wood) academically strong in the sciences + maths AND in languages, but I’m also good at all the “technical” electives I’m taking (Drama, Food Tech, etc.) And it’s not like I hate any of the subjects I do, I actually have a keen interest in a lot of things.
To quote my music teacher, Mr Hedges, “you want to do too much, Ari!”

So yeah, I’m tres confused – as the Japanese would say, doushiyou? My friends say that there’s no need to worry about choices just as yet, but I feel time closing in – I don’t want to have to give up anything I enjoy, really.

EDIT// Changed the layout because I was getting fed up with the cross-compatibility biz. Additionally, coding seems to like screwing with my head – I can design, yes; but coding (for WP) is a pain. -_- I’ll relearn, of course; but I’ve got other fish to fry. //END EDIT

First off, I’ll start by saying this – I would never agree to meet someone online unless I’ve been great friends with them for aeons. More so if that someone’s posing as a stranger and begging for a meeting, when he/she is in fact just a dorm mate mucking about. “Infatuation” just won’t cut it either.

That aside, let’s move on. The annual Queen’s Visual Arts (Quartz) festival has just ended for the year 2008. It’s my 2nd one since I’ve been at this school, and I must say that while the last one was a bit “bleh” (nothing THAT stand-out-ish), this year’s Quartz festival was well interesting – needless to say, I went to a lot more of the shows on display!

I’ll summarize it so you know – the Quartz festival is a 2-week (somewhat) long period where an art-related show is given at my school every evening – it could be a comedian today, a dance troupe tomorrow, an orchestra the day after, yada yada. Last year, I only went to 1) a poetry recital by Matt Harvey and 2) a 5-man act taking on Thomas Hardy’s “Far From The Madding Crowd”. And that’s only because they were tutor/class trips; the other events didn’t catch my eye.

This year? I was at – uh, let’s see…
1) Dyin 2 B Drunk (an urban-dance theatre piece about the effects on alcohol on teens),
2) Orchestra West (need I say more?),
3) Rock Night (self-explanatory too),
4) Tom Poster (a piano recital – the guy is AMAZING!),
and finally, 5) Potted Potter (seven potter books in seventy minutes with a bunch of humour!)

I won’t bore you to death, so I’ll just give you a quick review of what happened.

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