A speech

This is a video of one of my favourite speeches - Users Guide to Life by Don McMillan

I loved the way he did his presentation, by using the animations of the powerpoint to enhance his speech. He has managed to craft a successful speech as I felt his audience were all attracted to his seech.He did not stammer during his speech and paused only at appropriate parts of the presentation.

Also, he made the speech more interactive by using hand gestures. By doing so, it seems friendly to the audience and therefore does not bore the audience.

From his speech, I feel we can learn many things about public speaking.

#5 Something I enjoy doing myself

After a hectic day in school, I would relax by practicing some of my performance pieces on my piano. It's nice to just close my eyes listen to the music being played by my fingers. I'm currently a piece named Mariage d'amour by Richard Clayderman

My Piano :D


Richard Clayderman is fifty seven this year is still alive. One of his most famous pieces is Ballade pour Adeline which is a very common piece among us music students. However, that being said, I have not learned the piece yet as I wish to learn one song at a time.

As for the current song I'm learning, Mariage d'amour, it is more of a romantic piece than a classical piece according to my teacher. I'm hoping to make this piece have more of a floaty kind of touch. In the next few days, I'm going to work on the dynamics such as the increase and decrease in volume and the tempo (speed) of the music.

Other than this song, I also know how to play some mordern music like the song fetured in twilight and the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song, He's a Pirate.

Those two songs are the pieces I'm most familliar with having learnt it about a year ago and performed each song once before- one at my music school's recitals and another at Victoria School's lunchtime concert. These are my stongest pieces as well as my favourites. I would usually play these songs after practicing my to-be-learnt pieces over and over and over again. When doing so, I would experiment by using different fingering and playing in a different key by going down or up semitones (tunes).

Music is kind of my only hobby and I really do treasure my chance of being able to learn how to play the piano.


Song I'm learning now...

#4 The unusual choir practice :)

Usually, when practise starts, the seconday four seniors would already be the the music room and our chiarman would come out to calls us in. However, today was different from other days. A Secondary 3 senior had called us in instead. Upon entering the room, we did not spot a single Seconday 4 senior.

I learnt from my other fellow choirsters that they were havin their Higher Mother Tounge and for some, Express Mother Tounge mock exam, and will only come around the later part of practice.

So, that means that our immediate senior will have to stand-in for them till then...

First we started with warm-ups. One of the Secondary 3 seniors, who happened to be in the choir committe, led the warm-ups. Although it was his first time conducting warm-ups, he seemed as good as our current conductor. We continued warm-ups for another 30 minutes or so befor spliting for sectionals.

My section had two helpers to subsitute our section leaders. Both of them did a excellent job in teaching us the new song which we were supposed to learn for Chinese New Year. Although they were less strict, they still were still able to finnish learning the song with us.

After an hour and a half, we went back to the music room for combines, as the Sec 4s have returned, they took over from the helpers and resumed practice practice as usual.

We had a taste of what future practices will be like when the the Secondary 4s leaves the choir and with today's experience, I can tell that the choir would be just as strong even when they leave! XD

The song we revised today!

#3 CNY deco

Today, our class started on our Chinese New Year Class Decoration. As our class started rather late compared to other classes, there were many deco we had to put up and very little time as the deadline was set at the end of the week.

We did quite a good job today, considering the fact that only me, Glen , Lyndon, Hsaing Wei,  Tavis and Shao Qi stayed back to do up the classroom.

One problem we faced was the lack of red packets. We realised, without the red packets, we could hardly do any work! We just had to make do with the 30 red packets we had.

Then, while thinking of new and more creative designs and ideas, I came out with and idea of using the red packets to write our New Year resolutions, then pasting them on the board! We also hanged a chain of red packets which was already done since yesterday, at the back of the classroom to the windows at the side, so as it forms a triangluar shape.

We also put up some other decorations donated by some of our other classmates like firecrackers wall decoration etc. I've donated a piece of red cloth to cover the teacher's table, I think that thats the main decoration which differenciates our class form other classes.

At around 4 o'clock, we did pretty much everything we could do with what we had so we decided to call it a day. Although, the class does not look very finished and decorated yet, but I can see that the class progress is fast and we may be able to be one of the top 3 classes... just like we did last year for the lower secondary category.

Come on 2I! Let's do the best we can to surpass other classes and be the top calss this year! XD

#2 My Taekwondo Graduation Dinner

The day of my Taekwondo Graduation Dinner has arrived. My family have been eagerly waiting for this day too. Thinking how they encouraged me to take up my 1st Degree Junior Blackbelt grading, I feel that they are the ones whom I have to credit.

On days when my father was working, my mother, together with my little brother who is also learning taekwondo, would walk with me all the way from our house to the place where we train which is a few streets away. Therefore, I've invited them, like most of the other students have done, to attend the dinner with me



Placque for acheiving my 1st degree blackbelt (2nd poom) :D



At the dinner, the restaurant manager, together with the senior instructors organised magic shows as well as activities and games while waiting for the dishes to be served one by one.

After we had our dinner, the instuctors asked us to line up to receive our placque (as seen from the picture in the right) as well as our certifiticates.

I had to wait for quite sometime before my name was called as they were giving the piority to the 1st poom juniors. Luckily, I was called first form my cohort as the names were read according to alphabetical order of our sir names. :)

Also, in addition to the promotion certificate, I've also received my Unarmed Combat level 2 certificate. I still could remember my parents going though all that fuss and hassle just to get me to the location that the course takes place in.

After every one received their certificates, we had a group picture together. It was an thrilling evening and I'm sure my juniors would definately enjoy their fist graduation dinner. XD

Certificate

Another certificate

#1 Something that took place in school...

Today, when we, the Secondary 2 to Secondary 4 Choir members, came back to the music room after a long one and a half hour of PT, we noticed many shoes outside the room. There were more than the usual 15 pairs shoes (belonging the the committee members). There seemed to be twice the number of pairs of shoes.

Curiously peering into the window of the music room, we saw our Secondary one juniors being auditioned by our conductor, than being allocated different sections.

Everyone was feeling more enthusiastic about going into the choir room than usual. Then, our chairman came out, confirming that there were Secondary one members inside. He took our promise that we would set good examples.

The juniors were seated when we entered the room. There wasn't many juniors though, considering that my cohort had consist of more than 30 members. The juniors were only half of the number the number of people who joined togeter with me last year.There were only two juniors which joined my section. About half of the Secondary ones joined tenor, which was rather rare as tenor is the section which is hardest to get into. :)

Although they came in smaller numbers, some of them looked confident. Most importantly, they were serious, and that is the most important thing when they are in choir.

I could tell that the Secondary 1s were pretty impressed. We all had an enjoyable practice and I am absolutely sure the Seconary 1s enjoyed it too.

One of the songs we did today :D

Choir Life

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful." - Albert Schweitzer

Last year, around this time, we secondary ones were asked to submit our CCA choices. I picked choir as my third CCA choice. I wrote it down because Choir seemed to be attractive with its CCA Points. When finalisation of CCAs were out, I found out I have gotten into Choir. I was not really enthusiastic about attending the practices as practice hours were extremely long, considering the fact that my primary school CCA lasted no more than two hours a week.


As our concert, "Rapsody IX" was nearing, there were more and longer practices. There was once when we were released at around 7.30pm. With only one more month to Rapsody, we had to go back to school nearly everyday to pactise. Our seniors would even test us individually. Eventually, it was the day of the concert. Then I realised the joy of the success of the concert was worth all the effort.


The next event, was the Taiwan Overseas trip where we competed Orientale Concentus III. Again, four practices in a week during the June hoildays was no surprise. The "worse part" is the food ban where we were not able to eat fried food or any other heaty food. But in the end, it was still worth it when we erned a gold and a silver, being a category winner and grand finalist. Now, I am proud to be a member of VS Choir and I hope the new batch of secondary ones will have the same thought too 

Hi! Welcome to my blog! :D

This my first post on this blog and I will just be introducing my blog. I am 14 this year and study in Victoria school. My CCA is choir and its a awsome CCA!

My purpose of writing this blog is for my English Assignment for school. I will most probably be talking about school life and maybe choir as thats when I can express more. :D There is a chat box at the side for comments so feel free to use it for comments or you guys can just comment on the comments section bleow the post. Enjoy!