So, finally, a blog! And it will probably be a lengthy one...so for those interested in what I've been up to (since I obviously haven't been updating my site), here's a quick (well, maybe not so brief) rundown:
Where did I leave off? I believe I left off at the time when I was stuffing myself silly with food whilst blessing my metabolism. Ah me, I'm going to bloat once that metabolism slows down. Like the girl who turns into a round blueberry in
Willy Wonka! Well, hopefully excluding the blue part.
February involved a lot of piano playing, in preparation for competitions. Competitions! Woo, I'm a bit woozy from all those competitions (which I will describe down below). On Valentine's Day, I went to a play that my school put on to raise money for the New York trip that all the Art/Drama kids are going on. Lucky. It's called
The Distance Between eL, Oh, Vea, and Eee and it was really good--it was a one act with many different scenes, each describing a different type of love. There was the really cute/awkward first meeting, the relationship that was always being criticized, the simple friend love between two guys who just love playing video games, the attachment to one's pet (involving the girl passing through the airport security with her fishbowl, which was not allowed, so she ended up stuffing the fish in her mouth temporarily in order to pass...heh.), the relationship that begins to fall apart as one finds out the other partner is cheating (this one was really well done), a girl and her grandfather in his last few minutes, a man and his wife who dies while giving birth, a boy who tries to propose to his girlfriend who desperately tries to avoid the situation...that's all that I can remember at the moment. It was really great.
Other things I did in February...hm, wall climbing (which I am mediocre bordering on suckish at...whatever, it was fun).
March saw (which is "was" spelt backwards...ha. Good to know right? Well, I was just debating which word to use--was or saw...anyway...I doubt anyone is interested; moving on...) the first of my competitions. I played in the Rotary Music Festival, which went well. The adjudicator was French and had great facial expressions while playing. I also went to see some of the musical theatre competitors. Some of them were superb, including this one group who did "A Stud and a Babe" from
I love you, now change (I believe that's the title. Something like that.) It was hilarious.
I managed to get selected to play in
Rosebowl, which is basically one final competition for the Festival, where one person from each instrument is chosen to play against people from other instruments. So I was chosen from the piano players. It was good. A chamber group ended up getting first and a girl from speech was the runner up. Afterwards, I went with a couple of friends (Laura & Kathl) to another girl's house for a party. At around midnight, we decided to leave though. We ended up going to McDonald's instead (because that's just how cool we are) and picked up some fries through drive-thru. Then while driving home, we decided to stop at Tim Hortons to see if we could win the
Roll Up the Rim to Win contest. Kathl ended up getting a free coffee. It turns out that that Tim Hortons closed at 2:00, which was when they chased us out. I always love how if it's late enough, the smallest thing will seem funny since you're basically in a state of delirium (well, I was...it was quite nervewracking to play in front of a whole theatre of people--I was actually quite surprised by the turnout, since those type of things usually only had the theatre half full). It was a good night overall.
Apparently, lulls in conversation usually occur at :20 or :40. Hm.
Two days later was the awards ceremony night for the Festival. They had a bunch of performances, including a jazz choir, in which one boy took a solo for about the first minute of the performance, because he is just that talented (overtalentedness=grudge=impossible because they are just too nice(=James)). Well. This particularly boy is also annoying of course (other than the fact that he's overtalented). He's in my Spanish class and he and his friend one day were drawing each other's brains, obviously making the other's look terrible. He then proceeded to draw his own brain, describing it as "oozing out of his ears" because he was so smart. Ha. Wow...but he is still nice despite the slightly egotistic tendencies. Pfft.
So that was one piano competition done.
April...I went to see
17 Again which was quite good. I experienced one of those moments at the theatre where you see someone in the distance, but you're not sure if it's them, so then you try to edge closer, and then they wave at you, and then you wave back, happy to see that it is the person you are thinking of, except then they start to laugh, so you check behind you because they were probably waving to someone else and you awkwardly put your hand down, trying to disguise it as just brushing something off your face (etc.). Well, maybe (hopefully) none of you are that awkward (I certainly am.) It all turned out well though, because in this case, they turned out to be the people I thought they were--they were just having the same issue with trying to decide if it was me or not. Heh. I'm an awkward person over all. But I also love observing others' awkwardness (not in a mean way or anything (schadenfreude!)--no. I just find it really cute. Maybe that's just me.)
The 25th of April was another competition--this one the
Concerto Competition. In November, I auditioned to take part in the competition, which is where you play a concerto (a large long piece, basically) with an orchestra. There are 4 instrumental finalists chosen and one vocalist (who is not part of the competition, but they still get the chance to sing with the orchestra). I was chosen, so that's what the night of the 25th was. It was fun, and I was just relieved that I didn't lose my memory. The hall that you play in is also really nice and it sounds so cool to play there with an orchestra behind you. There was me, a violinist, a violist, and a cellist. The violist won and the cellist was runner-up.
My parents were also really busy in April. My dad is going on a business trip to
Russia (St. Petersburg) in July, so my mom and I are going to tag along. We sent off our passports to the Russian embassy to get our visas, but they got lost in the mail.
So my parents were dealing with that for two weeks. Then, by the end of the two weeks when it was confirmed that our passports were indeed lost, we went to get photos done for new passports. When we came back from the store, my mom found out that her father was not doing well. He had been in and out of the hospital and was back in. So she wanted to rush back to China to see him one last time. The next morning, my parents drove up to a city where there was a passport office and tried to get tickets for my mom. While they were sorting that out, I stayed at my school, going to Yearbook Club, eating dinner in the empty cafeteria (I find it so weird when I'm in the school late and the hallways are all empty--such a contrast to during the day, especially when they turn off some of the lights--if I'm in the school late with my friends, we usually fool around in the dark hallways, which is always fun), and then going to see a one act musical in the school theatre that some of the students at our school put on. This one, like the one I saw in February, was written by our drama teacher. It was about what people were thinking about while they were on the subway and it was really interesting. (called
Things Never Heard)
My mom got tickets to fly to China two days later. My grandfather ended up dying right before she arrived.
She stayed there for two weeks. My dad and I spent Mother's Day together with absolutely horrid luck. It was just little things that kept going wrong for us, but it was enough to exhaust us. Forgetting things, driving the wrong direction, me messing up in my piano recital, the internet not working, a laptop not working, a laundry machine that was being stupid and sounded like it was going to explode, and finally a plugged toilet that was probably from two weeks ago (since it was the basement toilet, and usually only guests use that one). So that was fun.
I'm taking
Spanish this semester, which is really fun, especially when we do skits. We had do one skit based on a Spanish story, and ours was
El Borriquillo, which is about a king and a queen who gave birth to a donkey. The donkey is a really talented lute player though, and he ends up marrying a princess. After the princess kisses him and tells him she truly does like him, his skin "opens" and underneath a handsome man is revealed...it was interesting. Literal translations are always really amusing too.
A great movie that I absolutely love--
Charlie Bartlett. I saw it again at a friend's house and it still makes me laugh. My other favourite movies are probably Penelope, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Stardust and Enchanted.
What would be your favourite movies?Remember the bothersome Russian visas? My dad will be going to Ontario for another business trip and will apply for our visas there next week. He's really busy recently...he went to Ottawa last week and tried to apply for our visas, but my photo turned out to be inadequate so when he came back I retook my photo, so he'll reapply when he goes to Ottawa again next week. He's basically been to 2 different places last week and will be going to Ottawa twice more in the next 2 weeks.
When he is back, he's been driving me back and forth to more piano competitions. On Thursday, he drove me up to provincials (6 hours away). I played at night in the Piano 16 years and Under category, and I tied for second, with a boy from Calgary winning first. The people from Calgary always win. They're just too good. More of my overtalent grudge will be discussed later as well, but there is also a boy (from Calgary) who's 14 I think, and he's just good enough to be playing internationally. Pfft. And winning competitions where there are people probably twice as old as him.
And if he hasn't changed too much from when I met him a long time ago, then he's also nice.
But provincials went well.
The next morning we drove down to Calgary (3 hours away) for another piano competition (Canadian Music Competition). There are 3 rounds for CMC, and this was the 1st round. (It's sort of like regionals, provincials, and then nationals.) If you get 80 or higher you can go to the 2nd round. For the past 2 years when I played in it, I usually got an 81...82...just barely passing. So I was really shocked (pleasantly) when I got an 85 this year. The second round is this Wednesday so my dad and I will be going back up to Calgary then. The venue was a piano store and there was really unique piano there that's based on a suspension bridge. I'll put up the picture I took of it when I upload it onto my computer.
Anyway, continuing with my overtalent rant...at CMC, there was this other boy who's 16 (from Calgary). If I thought I was busy, it's nothing--he was up in Edmonton too for provincials at the start of the week (winning first), then he was in Toronto for another competition (for 16-22 year olds, so he was the youngest one there...and he gets third), then he came back to Calgary for CMC (he tells me that he's worried about whether or not he'll get into the next round because the piano was so hard to play on (it was...everyone was complaining about it; but that's just what pianists have to deal with. Too bad we can't lug around our own pianos like the string players can carry their own instruments. Now that'd be cool. A portable piano (a real piano that was actually good to play on...so unfortunately not a keyboard) that you could just lift up by a strap and carry on your shoulder, lugging it around on your back. Haha. All pianists would be hunchbacks then.)) but I didn't think he needed to worry. He was good. (Obviously.) Which was true, because he passed to no surprise), then he has to go back up to Edmonton for provincials again, this time as part of a chamber group. Yikes. He's nice too.
Heh. I've noticed how many brackets I use, when I keep branching off from one idea into a different one...hm.
I'm listening to a really cute song right now...
I Want You by Kelly Clarkson.
So that's been my life this spring. I'm almost done...final exams are the end of June and then I'll be able to take a breather. I still have a piano exam to take in August. Then next year (my last year before I graduate--I can't believe it), I have so many things I still want to do. I guess I'll just take everything one step at a time. (I think that's the only thing I can do.)
I'll try to update this site more often.
Heh.
Which is also the reason why I had to squish all my exams in this week. It will be really fun...it's not like I have any chance of winning (see previous blog on overly talented Calgary kids), but it'll be a good experience nevertheless. I'll be going during one of their holidays (St. Jean-Baptiste Day, or something like that), so that should be fun. My parents can't come with me because they're really busy with work, so it'll just be my piano teacher and me. (Which reminds me of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, which I was watching last night on TV. Proper grammer! Those kids are so brilliant.) I'll be going for 4 days.
