Goodbye 2011… Hello 2012!

The year 2011 has flown by so fast. It has been an interesting year for me and my family. We learned that through sickness, we valued our health. I often reminded my children that bad experiences made us appreciate the good ones and through exertion, we valued the importance of rest.

To me, each day is a gift because there will always be something new to learn from. I believe there is excitement (good or bad) in life that we have to be a part of it. Yep, in a blink… the year 2011 has come to an end and it’s time to say, ‘Have a healthy & happy New Year’ once again. Thanks for visiting

 

What! November already?

Wow, almost Christmas again: I thought the calendar skipped a few months there! The year 2011 has been amazingly interesting. Meeting new people and taking on new challenges is indeed rewarding. As of today, my calendar/daily planner is still full of activities and endless ‘to do’ list for both my family and myself.

These days, my two boys (14 and 10) are so busy with their school activities, music practices and performances. Sometimes, I really wish that I could ‘clone’ myself so that I can attend those events which are held at the same time, but at different places.

My teaching job also requires as much attention, but I have to prioritize my kids’ schedules first. There are times when unexpected/urgent deadlines must be met, so cutting down on certain online activities which are NOT so relevant to my current responsibilities is the only way.

I may sound like a workaholic, but if you are like me (a housewife with two school going children and a part-time job), you will sure understand why I tend to fill my daily life with full of purpose and plans. You see, besides school and the music classes, my boys have nothing much (productive) to do. During their free times, they choose to be online (forever…if I don’t stop them) rather than stepping outdoors for some fresh air.

That is why I have to plan healthy activities for the boys so they can have somewhat a ‘balanced’ lifestyle. Believe me, planning the so-called ‘healthy’ outdoor activities for my boys requires a bit of ‘coaxing’.

Fortunately, all of these responsibilities of mine and being with kids in general are the types of jobs that I love to do! I have just realized that when you find happiness in everything you do, time flies by so much faster. In a blink, now it’s November again!

 

New Experience @ APJOC2011

Vincent was very happy representing Malaysia at the Asia Pacific Junior Original Concert 2011 in Bangkok, Thailand. Since the APJOC2011 was his first prestigious International event, he felt a little overwhelmed whether his composition and performance would meet the International standard.

So, he worked very hard on his composition, Flight of the Gargoyles. He told me he couldn’t wait to play his piece of music at the beautiful Aksra Theatre in Bangkok. Looking back, it has been a challenging journey for Vincent since he started writing Flight of the Gargoyles. It was called something differently back then. As the music changed its moods and styles, a gargoyle’s image seemed most suitable for his composition. He had decided to write a character piece because he wanted to tell a story through his music! Sometimes Vincent wondered if he had brought something new and interesting to the world of music. He said he wanted to continue writing music when time allows. How his second composition will sound like and when will it be ready, we have to wait and see.

Through his musical journey, Vincent has become more disciplined and determined when doing anything. He may seem too serious for a ten year-old boy, but he actually loves reading and telling some jokes (if he’s in the mood ha..ha…) After the Concert was over, Vincent told me he felt great as he has achieved something cool. Finally, his Gargoyle could fly!

As a parent who has to go though all the ups and downs with my little composer, I really hope that my boy’s achievement will be inspiring to everyone around him; to work hard, to persevere and to believe that everything is possible!

I’m deeply grateful to Vincent’s Teacher, Mr. Ricky Lew who has guided him throughout the journey of Flight of the Gargoyles. Vincent has learned music with Ricky since he was four years old. He has a wonderful experience learning different interesting pieces of music. I wasn’t aware of that before until after six years learning music here in the Digital Music Academy in Penang. It seems like Vincent’s musical knowledge has increased so much and he learned to appreciate all kind of music too.

That’s why Vincent couldn’t wait to hear the compositions from other performers at the APJOC2011! Meeting with the fellow performers from different countries was really fun. Our time-table was tight before the Concert, but we managed to get acquainted and learn about each other. Although the performers came from different cultures and speak in different languages, they had one thing in common; they love music!

I also would like that thank the APJOC2011 Organizer Committee (Pix. Below) for the memorable experience. Your generous hospitality really made our stays seem so short.

Last but not least, Thank you, Yamaha Music Malaysia (Pix Below) for giving my little boy the opportunity to express his musical creativity to the world. We can’t wait to attend the APJOC 2012 in KL.

Thanks for visiting. Have a great day!

 

Me@41

Me @ 41 is as same as Me @ 21. Ahem…not the look of course, but the same old ME who never ‘sit still’ or let time passes by without making a point to live my life to its fullest and to fulfill my purpose in life. Well, I don’t want to sound too philosophical here, but it’s true; I feel that the older I get, the faster time flies by.

I don’t normally make New Year’s resolutions because I know I can’t keep them, but I do ‘promise’ myself every year that I will achieve certain goals before my next Birthday.That’s the most ‘special’ thing I do for myself

By doing so, I can roughly tell how much I achieve the goals I have set. I do go with flow and try to be as flexible as possible, but I’m too serious sometimes. My kids told me so and I proudly admitted that! Ha..Ha..

I think that by setting goals and working to achieve them I can actually have control over my life. It’s because I am who I am, I tend to nag (in different sorts of ways) my children when they spend too much time doing things online that don’t benefit them much. Somehow, the technology that we have today can easily steal our precious times away without us realizing it.

Please don’t get me wrong, I do allow my children to play those online games ‘everyday’ provided that they finish homework and practice piano properly. In fact, we all need to rest & relax at the end of the day, right?

Teaching my children Time Management is one of the toughest goals for me. After 14 years of parenting experience, I still feel like an ‘amateur’. Well, the post is getting longer. I’d better stop here. Bye!

Have a wonderful day

 

Unique Mix & a cool project for charity

A cool project for charity!

I can’t believe that my last blog post was dated back in May! The so called, ‘Cool project’ really kept me away from this comfort zone of mine (writing). I’ve got to admit that all the experience my family and friends had gone through while preparing for the Charity Music For Life Concert was simply astonishing! My hubby instantly became our boys’ manager who had to keep up with the music practice schedules and making sure the boys practice their music at home. That job was usually mine, but this time all my energy went into this Fan Dance,  the item which was specially created for a group of parents!

Here’s a recap of how we pulled this mission off together…

The Recruit

It’s a long story of how my dancing troupe got together, but I won’t elaborate on that. The only thing I can say is this… NO AUDITION was required! That’s right, the interpretation is up to you, readers   I thought I was crazy signing up for this mission. Really!

Don’t get me wrong, once in a while I like to make some donation for good cause, but I had never donated my energy in this way before. Anyway, I managed to ‘recruit’ six busy-dedicated moms to join me and whaa laa, the Unique Mix was born!

The Choreography

Unique Mix met once a week for practice; usually every Sunday 5-6 pm. While our children had their Strings Ensemble Practice, us (moms) had to get our groove on. Working on this project taught me to be more patient. Coaching six moms who had never dance before was challenging. The Fan Dance was supposed to be a little more traditional, but we had to improvise our dance sequences and made them work well for all of us.

As time went by, we successfully wrapped up the dance just in time we completed our costumes. The music from our consultant, Ricky was so beautiful. It is a mixture of traditional and modern tune in Balinese style. It’s playful melody and rhythms from various Indonesian and Western music instruments created such a unique tune.

Our Fan Dance seems short, simple and relaxing, but one could never imagine how many times we had to revise the choreography. We even had our ‘contingency plans’ just in case some of our members drop out! Luckily, everyone was a fighter; NO one dropped out.  Yay!!!

During the weekdays, I had to come up with the fans and the costume designs to suit our Fan Dance. I felt that my ‘fresh and weird ideas’ kept coming nonstop and this ‘ritual’ went on for four months! I even practice my dance (mentally) in the shower. It sounds so ridiculous, does it?  Honestly, I had never put so much effort and commitment like this when I studied ha..ha..

The Sarong Story

However, I don’t remember feeling stressful at all although I spotted more gray hair and fine lines. I really enjoyed the activities with Unique Mix members, who are now my dear friends! I think we learned quite a bit from each other. Our similarities and differences truly kept this project fun and memorable, especially the Sarong Story. We all agreed that this ‘piece of skirt’ caused us so much trouble. The amount of time and energy we spent on it was… Can I say, ‘ridiculous’ again? Believe it or not, ‘someone’ even stayed up till 4am sewing the sequins on her Sarong. Well, but she loved it though.

The Precious Weekly Meeting

The two-hour meeting on every Friday morning was so precious. We had to get things done as much as we could, be it the practice, the discussion or the shopping because we knew,  in a flash, it would be time to fetch our kids from school again. Yep, this mission was indeed a tough call for us, moms who have all sorts of responsibilities and the weekly deadlines to meet.

Sometimes, we wondered why we started all these at the first place. We could have just made some donation to the charity and enjoy the shows the organizer put up, right? Nah…that would be a different story, I’m sure.

The Practice

 See our poor broken fans (above pic)? We had a few new pairs standby and those were quite costly too. However, I think the fans are the most special invention Unique Mix has designed!

The Fans

From just plain white paper fans, they are now 14 gorgeous golden fans! Sorry, we cannot reveal the secret of this magic

The Hard Work

Putting everything together has been such an amazing experience  for all of us. Sashi (above pic) has already proposed a new dance for the group! When asked where did she get such energy, she said, “Absolutely, it’s the teamwork that gave me the power turning me into a dancer! “ She even suggested that we should make use of our ‘creations’ often or they will become just collective items. By the way, we just had an up close and personal interview via Facebook.  Now, please click ‘like’ if you agree with Sashi 

The Sewing

My apology is this post is too long. I update my blog once a year anyway ha..ha..

I’ve got to tell the world about my sewing experience. Frankly, I found that stitching beads and sequins on the Sarong was quite therapeutic even though I had never liked sewing. Oddly, the more I stitched (no matter how ugly it looked), the less I wanted to stop. It was such a weird experience, indeed.

Below: Our interesting mix between Indonesian Sarong and Indian Saree

The Costumes

Our costume was also carefully designed to compliment the dance steps and the music. Trust me, this was one toughest task I went through because there were tons of  fabrics and colors to choose from and I don’t like shopping, by the way. Fortunately,  my co-designers have sharp eyes and a very good taste. It took us a few hours to find four beautiful pieces of Saree that matched our Sarongs. So, there you have it… the Fan Dance by Unique Mix

Thank you for visiting!

 

Déjà vu

It was in 1988 when I left my high school. My major was Thai Classical Dance, which I didn’t particularly like it. My mom chose that field for me. I told her I wouldn’t be able to do ‘anything’ with it in the future. She brushed it off and said, “You will learn to love it.” (I would probably do the same to my kids these days when they say they don’t like to do this and that.) Well, my mom was right, I did enjoy dancing  eventually. Those little dancing skills I learned were put in good use after all.

I remember coaching a group of International students some Thai traditional dances when I was in college. It was such a fun and memorable experience twenty-five years ago! Today,  in my 40s, I’m about to wake up my stiff bones and give them some gentle nudging, “Hey…it’s time to dance again!” It feels like déjà vu and I can’t help thinking that ‘everything happened for reason’.

If my mom didn’t send me to that Dancing School, I wouldn’t have ended up here in Malaysia (another long…long story) coaching my friends dancing for a charity event. Initially, I was doubtful whether I can pull this mission off comfortably. Now, I feel ‘confident’ as I plan and practice the dance routines at home. I don’t feel ‘stressful’ like I used to when working on certain projects. Perhaps, I really enjoy dancing!

I think…everything is going to be okay. I’m grateful to my fellow friends’ support and advice when some dance routines don’t seem to work. I’ve got to admit that I don’t really know HOW to teach dancing heh..heh…  I’m sure the girls must have had that ‘awesome  potential‘  already, so dancing with them is absolutely enjoyable. Cheers!!

 

“…but it must be a homemade gift, mommy.”

Flowers give much pleasure to anyone who look at them. For Teacher’s Day celebration (today!!), I thought I could just buy a small bouquet of flowers for my 10 year-old, Vincent to bring to school.  Yesterday, the boy told me (last minutes…again), “…but it must be a homemade gift, mommy.”  “HOW are we going to make a bouquet by using recycling and organic materials within three hours?,” I asked myself and couldn’t help feeling frustrated. You see… I had to get this project done before American Idol starts heh..heh..

I was pulling my hair and thinking so hard of some raw materials that we might have available at home. I ain’t a florist, but luckily my virtual garden in Farmville gave me some inspiration. Besides, our condominium has a lovely garden, so we went for a walk and picked some flowers & weeds for our little bouquet of flowers (on the left). Three hours was easily ‘killed‘  Ho..Ho..Ho.. and we managed to finish our project just in time before my favorite show, Yay!

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The Nerves…

Yamaha Piano Course Launching

I know…I know…being nervous is a natural reaction, especially before my little boy, Vincent’s piano performance. I was so jumpy (as usual), but this time my nervousness was intense. Partly, it was because I knew how little time my boy had to master his piano pieces for this special event. And…I knew ‘who’ would be the audience.

Yep, every single person attending this event, Yamaha Piano Course launching is a music teacher!!  So, mama Sue had all the right to be nervous, right? Well…of course, I tried my best to look as ‘calm’ as possible. I’m glad everything went really well. I was amazed by Vincent’s co-performer, Her Yong’s remarkable musical talent and her ability to learn/memorize/deliver the piece professionally. Her mom told me that she stayed up til midnight (on her own) memorizing the piece the day before the sound check. Wow… great job, Her Yong! Looking forward to working with you again

Thank you, Digital Music for giving my boy the opportunity to gain another exciting experience while on his musical journey. Last but not least, special thanks to both of Vincent’s piano teachers, Mr Lew and Mr Yeoh for your advice and guidance. As long as Vincent displays his confidence, I won’t mind going through a  certain degree of that ‘healthy stress’ again. Ha..Ha..

Have a great day to you all!

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JOC Concert 2011

 

Vincent plays his JOC piece, Flight of the Gargoyles

 

We had a wonderful time at the Junior Original Composition (JOC) Concert on Sunday, March 27th.  Although I appeared so calm and relaxed, I was actually more nervous than my little pianist.  I felt that my heart was pounding and racing even faster than the tempo of Vincent’s music. My hands were as cold as ice; they were too shaky to hold a camera. I thought I had stopped breathing for 3 minutes and 50 seconds!

This particular JOC Concert was the most challenging experience ‘ever’ for Vincent, not to mention the composing process where I had to fork out extra ‘patience’ and ‘energy’ so that I could give my boy necessary supports. I’m glad everything went through smoothly even though Vincent wished he could have done better. I told him he’d shown his best and his performance could be felt by the audience. I’m sure.

Usually, on our BIG day like this, I prefer hanging around with Vincent  just to make sure he’s comfortable and relaxed. However, this particular JOC Concert, I left him with his teacher and the concert coordinators  the whole time backstage. I was a little worried about his emotional state as he usually get very jumpy before the show or exams. I knew Vincent  had to learn to go through this on his own somehow. In fact, he was  ready for this mission, but there were so many ‘accident-prone spots’ in his composition that often gave him some frustrating moments whenever he practiced Flight of the Gargoyles on the piano.

After the concert, we had to rush to the airport and head to Penang right away. We got home quite late and had to wake up very early for school the next day. Our next musical missions are, the ‘usual exams’ in May and June. Until then, I guess… my boys and I still have to keep up with the school routines and do the best we possibly can. Thank you for visiting. Enjoy the slide show of our journey to the JOC.

Have a nice day

 

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Cool Creature…Cool Experience

Don’t be scared… I’m not writing a horror tale today. Just wanted to introduce and welcome this  cute and cool creature to my family. This fellow on the left is not our pet, but he was handpicked to feature in my 10-year-old, Vincent’s first music composition that entitled, ‘Flight of the Gargoyles’. It’s a long story how this gargoyle caught our eyes and now he’s going to be a center of attention!

We have decided to adopt Victor Gargoyle after Vincent finished his composition. Victor may look weird and ugly, but we’re going to make him a star because of his strong determination in learning how to fly for the first time…

Flight of the Gargoyles depicts some peculiar experience of Victor and other baby gargoyles during their first flying lesson. Victor felt uncertain whether he could hover and caper in the air skillfully. Victor experienced both fun and dreadful moments while trying to leap and frolic from one building to another. Being a persistent kind of guy with strong determination, Victor managed to land on the ground confidently and gracefully. A happy ending, that is.

This post is just a glimpse of  the story ‘Flight of the Gargoyles’ . It’s 5 o’clock in the morning now, I thought I should have my train of thoughts recorded down before my imagination and ideas run dry. Honestly, fiction is NOT my cup of tea.

While our little Vincent is getting Flight of the Gargoyles’ sound track ready, I am going to prepare a charming costume for him on his BIG day. Vincent will perform Flight of the Gargoyles at the Yamaha Music Junior Original Composition (JOC) Concert on March 27th at MATIC (Malaysia Tourism Center) in Ampang.

Working on Flight of the Gargoyles has been a cool experience for us, indeed. Thank you all for your support and encouraging words for Vincent, a boy of few words and emotions as unpredictable as those of Beethoven’s!

At times, Vincent seemed confused saying that he didn’t like his music, but his firm sense of purpose is what keeps him going. I really hope it’s worth ‘adopting’ Victor Gargoyles into the family. I’m sure this imaginary friend will definitely help Vincent  bringing out Flight of the Gargoyles with a dramatic touch. Until then…please stay tuned for our updates.

Thanks for visiting

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