Goodbye 2005, Hello 2006

2005 will be over in around 8 hours. After that, 2006 will come in the door.

I'll be going to a friends house for a BBQ and some drinking to welcome in the new year.

I hope that 2006 will be The Year, but it is up to me to make the most of it.

Remember: the future is uncertain and vague. Unexpected things do happen, to as close as a few minutes, to as distant as the end of a year. Don't be too hung up on planning, but go with the flow. However remember your goals, and stick to them. Don't ever give up.

The Cerocstar is back!

Yesterday I went to a beginners Ceroc lesson, having not done Ceroc for nearly a year. I still remember all the moves and the names, so I wasn't in unfamiliar waters at yesterday's class.

By chance I met Jamie and Somi, two university friends, at the lesson. It was their first Ceroc lesson and they decided to attend classes in order to prepare for their wedding dance. Complications? He works in Sydney, she works in Auckland, so they have very little practice time together between now and the wedding in late March. Hmmmm?

Okay so I agreed to help Somi with her dancing, while Jamie can hook up with a Ceroc dancer in Sydney. They'll decide on the music, get a routine together, and just practice the routine until they are confident. Then when the wedding comes, they'll put their moves together and just do their stuff. How hard could it be?

Yeah baby, the Cerocstar is back!

A very special day

This Christmas day landed on a Sunday, the Lord's day. It has been 11 years since Christmas day occured on a Sunday. So I woke up at 9:00 am, went to church for an hour, just to see what it was like to attend church on Christmas day. Not too many people turned up and one of the elders resigned, oh well some Christmas day that was for the church.

But anyway, back to the subject at hand. I woke up and checked my mobile phone. Sure enough there were some text messages doing the rounds wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. I didn't send out a mass text just yet, because I needed to rush to church. After that, I got home and prepared for Christmas lunch. Then I found some time to send out the obligatory Merry Christmas via text message. I got a few replies, one of them from a girl who I will call "Maimai" (names altered to protect the innocent!). She was one of the few who texted Merry Christmas before I woke up. In her 14 year old reply, she inquired what Santa brought me for Christmas. I replied that Santa gave me nothing but the very best in health and happiness. Which was perfectly fine by me as I do not yearn for material things on the Lord's birthday.

So that was that. Around 30 mins later as I was busy preparing for Christmas lunch, my brother walks in and tells me that "Shazza" was at the door wanting to see me. I ran to greet her at the door. Sure enough there were the two sisters, Shazza and Maimai, standing expectantly at the door. They walked from their house, around 5 minutes walking distance. I was especially startled to see them. Maimai said she felt sorry that I received nothing from Santa and gave me a tiny gift, neatly wrapped in paper and ribbon.

I was instantly touched and humbled by their gesture. It made me realise how lucky I am to have them in my life, and I hope that they will continue to be a part of my life for many years to come. Just as important, their gesture towards me captured the spirit of Christmas, to give and share to friends and loved ones. I invited them in, but unfortunately they couldn't stay very long as they had their party to attend at their place. In return, I gave them a box of Macadamia nuts for the girls to share.

The rest of the day passed with good cheer and Christmas spirit. Friends, family and others came together to eat, drink, talk and share gifts around. In all, this was a very special day, especially to receive a gesture from two young kids whom I will cherish for the rest of my life. May God bless them always.

The year that is 2005

Well, the end of 2005 has come, and I'm in one of those reflective moods again. This blog is the perfect medium to reflect on my thoughts, so I'll write what's happened to me during this year.

2005 started with a catastrophic tragedy, with the Asian tsunami wrecking havoc across many countries and taking over 200,000 lives. It wasn't the way people wanted to spend their Christmas and New Year holidays. Up to now, the people affected are still struggling to cope. To provide aid, lots of fundraising took place. In particular, World cricket's response to the crisis was as swift as it was heart-warming. Within 15 days of the disaster, the first World cricket Tsunami Appeal match was played, with the greatest players taking part. It's great to see the game of cricket bring together people of difficult cultures and races and helping out those affected by the disaster. Old rivalries were forgotten and new friendships were forged. And since I love cricket, I watched every single game and got some entertainment while they raised funds. I knew I was watching something special.

For me, I set myself a handful of goals to achieve this year. And I was surprised at the way that I stuck to most of the goals while I still had energy. Here's a run down of what I've achieved:

Physically, I took up running and I've been running fairly regularly while the weather is good. I took part in this year's Round the Bays, and the Push Play Corporate Challenge, earning respectable times due to the training I put in. I hope to further my running next year, and maybe run a half-marathon or marathon soon when I have a few more races under my belt.

On my birthday, Orion coincedently gave me a BodyTech gym membership. As opposed to the normal subscriptions paid by regular patrons, I only pay $45 a month. Since then I've been going three times a week using the weight machines, and I have noticed some changes to my overall physique. The staff there are a great bunch of people, and I hope to continue going to achieve my fitness goals, that is to get fitter, get stronger, build muscle mass and gain weight.

I have taken up indoor cricket again. I haven't played indoor since 2000 and my friend James decided to get the same team together this year and play in social games every Monday evenings. Unfortunately we tend to end up on the losing side often, though there are times where we have dug in deep to produce some memorable games.

Unfortunately, I haven't been dancing since April since my parents went on their one month holiday. Part of the reason was the fact that I failed to secure a dance partner for the Ceroc champs in June. When I watched the champs I was certain that I could have placed if I secured a partner. I miss Ceroc, but I haven't felt the need to go and do it anymore. Hopefully I'll start taking it up next year. I dabbled in ballroom dancing after seeing many dance shows on TV such as "Dancing with the Stars". However, I couldn't sustain the interest, along with my other concurrent activities, and after a few lessons I stopped attending classes. I hope to put aside some time for ballroom dancing next year. It's hard when you don't have a regular partner to do it with.

Mentally, or academically should I say, I've gotten back into reading now, long lost from my days in high school. From the time that I received a library membership I've read six books: Pride and Prejudice, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and four of Dan Brown's books, the author of The Da Vinci Code. I hope to keep up reading in the new year and get into reading some "serious" best-selling literature.

After many months of procrastination, I finally earned my Sun Certified Java Programmer certification. Before I started at Orion, I decided to study for it in order to secure a developer role. However when I got the job at Orion I quickly stopped as I felt that I didn't need to study for it now. But since I bought the expensive textbooks I couldn't stand seeing them on my desk gathering dust. When my parents went on holiday I resolved to put in two hours a night and study for it. Eventually I finally got the certification. Now I have started studying for the Web Component Developer certificate. I hope to get this certification next year, as well as other Java certifications. And I hope to stay committed to the task, because it wasn't easy to stay motivated to study, especially when there isn't really a time limit.

I have rediscovered my piano side now. After a 7 year break from the piano, I have managed to learn several new Chopin works and hope to learn many more as well as improve myself. I believe that I have a lot to learn and that I can go even further than before. I also met up with my old piano teacher, who had turned 88 this year. We talked about my future with the piano and he believed that I have the potential to go even further, it's up to me to see how far I can go. Unfortunately he cannot pick up where we left off, so I'll have to find another teacher.

Financially, I think I'm pretty well off, considering my current situation. Instead of buying my lunches, I've took the time to prepare my lunches which has saved me a ton of money. With the rising cost of petrol, I've managed to spread out my petrol spending to around $120 a month. It came with changed driving habits, and some self-sacrifice such as not travelling around much. Not going to Ceroc certainly helped my finances. I hope to save a lot more so that I can buy a house or do some travel.

Spiratually, I haven't really grown. I am still attending church, and I still play piano week in week out for the service of the Lord. I imagine that I'll have to hand in my piano service in the forseeable future after having played for nearly 11 years. Though I'm not sure as to what my reason will be for doing so. Most likely travel or OE, which I haven't really thought much about but will definitely come into play next year. There's one thing that I'm glad to be rid of: I quit the church band. Sure there were some good times, but those were few and far between and I couldn't stand practicing with them every week. To be honest I didn't really want to be in the band but when I played a reasonably nice song with them I ended up being sucked in by them without any regard as to whether I wanted to join them. So I joined them and I stayed with them for two years. And it was just in the last few months that I felt incredibly frustrated after practice sessions, feeling that I'm just wasting my time with them and listening to them bicker about useless and trivial details. Just recently I walked up to the band leader and said I want out. He didn't appear disturbed, but then again I didn't hang around long to gauge any reactions. It'll be intersting to see how 2006 pans out for the band. Maybe I'll need to assist them if they need it; I can always assist (that's my nature) but I won't join them. I want to be free.

Relationships haven't been the focal point for 2005, unfortunately. I didn't really spend much energy in looking for that special lady. There were potential ladies but unfortunately they didn't eventuate. I'm not sure whether 2006 will allow me to focus on relationships since there are so many things that I want to do. Cutting back on social activity, e.g. Ceroc, also inhibited this as I devoted my energies into other aspects of life.

So 2006 will bring many challenges. It's just daunting when I start to think about the things that I'll endeavour to do. Time is precious and I've only started to appreciate its value; it must be because I just turned 26! Apart from trying to continue on with the good work that I have invested this year, there will be new and better things that will occupy my time in 2006. As always I will train for running events and go to the gym. I will continue to work hard and try to gain two or three Java certificates next year. I'll continue practicing the piano as there are so many Chopin works that I want to learn and get under my belt. I'd like to read more serious mind enriching literature and learn new things, like cooking, DIY, and take part in new activities and sports. I'll also be going on holiday to Malaysia and Singapore, which will definitely be exciting; so far April is the target month. While doing the travel, I'll consider the OE. And then I'll try and get back into dancing, which I must admit has made me a happier person back then. Hopefully I can find some special lady to share my interests next year, God willing.

Well I'll leave it there for now. You'll definitely be hearing more from me again in future. I hope that 2005 has made you into the best person you can possibly be, just as it has for me. And I hope that in 2006 you will continue to prosper and be challenged in what you do. Finally I hope that you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Destroy Me!!!

This morning I started on my new workout card, Superslow. Basically you push for 10 seconds and let go for 5 seconds.

My previous 2 workout cards had the comment Push Very Hard, written by Al, one of the supervisors. On top of the normal circuit exercises, if a person needs to be pushed very hard the supervisors can tell them to do push-ups, sit-ups, wall-sits, etc, if they are feeling a little sadistic.

So when I picked up my new card, J Dogg (the supervisor who took in my previous workout card) had written the comment DESTROY ME!!! WTF?!?! Does he think I'm some sort of battleship, or tank, or even an Ahnuld?!

Some post to fill up blogging void

I've been very quiet on the blogging front lately, not sure what the reason is.........

Anyway I've had a good week. Okay there was one thing that was VERY crap, but I won't go into further detail on it. Petrol prices have finally hit the $1.31 mark and expected to fall further, hopefully. I still remember the very high prices that I had to pay to fill up my car, so hopefully petrol doesn't soar to new highs. Experts said that petrol would reach $2/litre. Hmmmm..........

And I got a raise at work, woohoo! Guess that is good enough to offset the crap event that put a damper on an otherwise awesome week. Oh well I guess I can pay for my petrol more easily.

Run Run Run

Today I participated in the Push Play Corporate Challenge. There were around 15 from Orion who took part in the event. It was an enjoyable time, and I even scored a free T-shirt and some other goodies.

I didn't really prepare much for this, in fact I hardly trained at all. I did a few long runs (around 7-8 km) but I was completing them in 50 mins. Considering that I wanted to complete the run within the 25-30 min zone, it wasn't very comforting.

So I ran, and with the runners all around me this created more energy. By the end of the run I was absolutely shattered. The good news is that I managed a time of 23 mins 21 secs, which is better than I had hoped for. Overall I came third in the company behind the HR Manager and the Legal Counsel, who happen to be sports fanatics.

This race time, I'll use as a personal benchmark so that next time I can run the same distance sub 20! Yeah right........

EDIT: I managed to get a photo of the team in the carpark before we headed to the event. The poser is kneeling down on the left. I have to say the shades are cool but the hairstyle is not! Despite the bad tastes in fashion, courtesy of me and the dude in the John McEnroe jogging outfit, the atheleticism of the entire team was beyond reproach!

Return of the Cerocstar?

I haven't been dancing for about 8 months. I haven't had a need to go dancing, but I still miss it. Back in the days when I was doing Ceroc I was going up to four nights in a week! Somehow I must have burned myself out.

I just received an email from a lady who teaches ballroom dancing in the local community and who I acquainted myself with when I did lessons with her. She asked whether I'd be able to partner a lady who has just started dancing and is quite good. It's good to be kept in mind, but unfortunately I had to decline because of other commitments. Some people might say I have stupid written on my forehead. Maybe I have to agree........

Sigh, hopefully next year I will get back into dance seriously.....there will need to be a serious re-evaluation of my life for the new year as well if I want to go down the road of the dancefloor.

Slick Slick, Cool Cool

Last night I managed to score a complimentary entry to a private screening of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. One person's comments on the movie echoed my sentiments about the movie exactly:

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is like a wildly expensive hooker who looks like she's worth millions yet is actually worth a hell of a lot less, but when the ride is so damn good you just can't complain and you'll be telling all your friends. Put another way, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has a certain something which the murder mystery genre tends to lack - a sense of fun. So much so, that I was crying with laughter!

Go check it out, you will NOT be disappointed!

Guy Fawkes

I was lighting a whole lot of fireworks this evening with friends in the driveway. Particularly fun was holding the roman candles in the hand while it went shooting off in the sky. I combined about five roman candles together, tied their wicks together, lit a wick which ignited all the wicks, held it up in the air and let off around 50 rounds into the sky.

Unfortunately not everyone shared our enthusiasm. There was this old guy up the road who came down to us to see how long we were going to be! I looked at my watch. It was only 9:50pm, for goodness sake! Lots of people around the neighbourhood were lighting up too, and were expected to go on later in the night. Anyway we were all pretty high from the drink and the fireworks, so we offered him a wine, which he flatly declined. We asked him to join us but he wasn't interested, of course. Finally, we said that we'll finish all our remaining fireworks within 15 minutes. This seemed to be a satisfactory answer to the man. He politely thanked us, wished us a good time, and went back into his house.

Obviously he was pretty pissed at the amount of noise we were generating so he approached us with frustration, but upon seeing how many people there were, and we had around 7 small kids with us as well, his attitude changed a bit to hide his frustration. I mean, Guy Fawkes only happens once a year. It's not like we generate this amount of noise every night, and we certainly won't continue into the dead of night like a bunch of yobbos. Just grin and bear it and let some young people have their fun for once.

Get over it, man!

Running Man

I have gotten back into running now that Orion is entering teams to participate in the Push Play Corporate Challenge. It's a 5km run open to employees of businesses.

It's been a while since I ran; the last time was Round the Bays in March earlier this year. I trained intensely for about two months for Round the Bays and managed a nice time of 41 mins 15 secs over the 8.4 km course. Then for some reason I stopped. I started doing weights, and gained some body weight in the process.

Now I have started training since last Friday, running whenever I get the chance. And it's so hard, I start fatiguing after 1km. Perhaps it's the extra weight that's making me more tired? Hmmm, or more likely because I haven't been running since March!

At the moment I'm taking about 29 mins to run 5.5 km, which isn't good enough. I would like to get it down to 23 mins, which would be comparable to my Round the Bays efforts. Alas the race is on November 16th so I'm afraid there isn't much time to be fit enough to achieve my target time. Guess I'll have to take some performance enhancing substances, such as carbohydrate-rich foods. You thought I meant steroids, right?

Reunion

I went to my primary school reunion today, celebrating its 25th year. It was an occasion for pupils, past pupils, teachers, and committee members to come together and see all that the school has gone through. I have to say that much had changed during my time away from the school. It's definitely a lot smaller, of course, there are more buildings to cater for the increasing number of students, and rooms have been switched around. The one thing that hasn't changed, I felt, was the environment that made the school unique.

Speeches were done by the founding principal, the current principal and a few others. A time capsule, which was buried back in 1980, was dug up for all to see what was inside. It contained newspaper clippings, childrens writings, toys, and even a bottle of wine. I'd be happy to open it up to drink; good year that! One of the former pupils read out what he put in the time capsule, which happened to be funny and moving, amazing what he wrote as a kid back in the day.

Afterwards group photos were taken of everyone who attended. All the teachers remembered me, not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Unfortunately only one person from my year attended, the rest were mainly older folk who attended before me. However, it was a good time to catch up with people who were a part of my life as a kid, and I was happy to have attended this occasion.

Greenpeace vs. Dad's Army

Saturday morning, Renae's brother-in-law, Morné, and myself travelled deep into Riverhead forest for paintball. Morné's colleague from work, Ben, organised the whole event, and soon we had 22 guys and girls eagerly waiting to get into the forest for some jungle warfare. After a random process, two teams of 11 were formed: Greenpeace, which was my team, and Dad's Army, which was lead by Ben.

So we were all shown the obligatory safety demonstration, went into the forest, and soon enough we were straight into it. It was decided that a few of us would head through the middle and the rest up the flanks, just like in a game of chess. The first half saw rush attacks and stout defense as neither side was able to capture the enemy flag from the base.

But in the second half, it was Dad's Army who were hugging trees as Greenpeace stormed into their camp and stole their flag. With many brave souls sacrificing their lives to get the flag, it was up to me to grab the flag and run 300 metres back to base through forest, mud and bush, and to victory. The sound of the horn indicated that Dad's Army had been defeated.

Overall it was an enjoyable time and a time to remember.

Pride and Prejudice

I went to see this adaptation of Jane Austen's novel at the movies tonight with Renae, and Renae's sister and brother-in-law. And while it wasn't as good as the BBC mini-series version, overall I was pleased with the movie. Normally I'd complain that a movie is too long (e.g. Alexander, what a flop, can't believe I wasted my money!), but in this case I have to complain that the movie was too short! It was only 127 minutes. Perhaps it's because I'm accustomed to watching the 6-hour BBC mini-series version of Pride and Prejudice.

And the 6-hour version is really worth watching! The 19th century costumes, the crystalline dialogue, the endearing characters, the humour, the culture, and the English scenary are absolutely stunning. Kept me entertained throughout! Jennifer Ehle, who plays heroine Lizzy Bennet in the 6-hour version, really played the part well, and she is such a hottie too!

So if you don't have the patience to watch it for 6-hours on end, do check out the condensed version starring Keira Knightley. Keira is the more popular actress, but I prefered Jennifer's portrayal of Lizzy Bennet. It also contains the 19th century costumes, the crystalline dialogue, the endearing characters, the humour, the culture, and the English scenary, although in much smaller doses. Of course, because they have to fit the whole story in a 2-hour movie, it moves quite fast and you don't get to see everything that the 6-hour version offers.

Overall, a great movie and one I'd recommend hands down. Just avoid movies that are guaranteed to be bad, like Into the Blue and Doom; Pride and Prejudice is money well spent. If you don't want to watch the movie, at least read the novel. Try it, you might enjoy it!

Benefits

So we just had a company-wide meeting today in the neighbouring cafe, which took around 2 hours. Of course, the most interesting thing that transpired was the HR manager mentioning company benefits!

Here are a list of things that he mentioned:

• Health insurance
• Gym membership
• Wellness programmes
• Nutrition programmes
• Massages
• Cheap lunches and coffees, ranging from $2 to $5
• Fuel discounts and electronic goods discounts
• $1000 for those who successfully recommend new staff members
• etc, etc

I already have the gym membership and I always bring lunches from home and rarely drink coffees. But what really made me salivate was the fuel discounts and electronic goods discounts. Now that's a benefit.

And to top it all off, a special salary review is expected to take place next month, on top of the normal ones that happen at the start of every year..... Fantabulous

Your computer belongs to me now!

Here's a neat trick that apparently has been around for ages. Open up Microsoft Word (any version will do; I have Office 2003 installed on my computer).

Type =rand() and press Enter.

The mind boggles.........

New Wardrobe

My indoor cricket team finally got team shirts! James, the skipper of the Dirty Hackers, and now Chief Purchasing Officer due to an injury which would sideline him from all forms of cricket for 6 months, invested in the team's attire. They had a value of $4.99 per shirt from holding company, The Warehouse.

This is a timely investment as teams with no team shirts were docked 20 runs of their total, which is the difference between a win and a loss (we've been on the receiving end too many times due to no team shirts). While the return on investment isn't apparent yet, hopefully having a team shirt will yield healthy returns, a.k.a. more frequent wins.

Virtuoso? Yeah right!

I usually visit the local elderly resthome on Saturdays. Today a music teacher couple that I know (Bob teaches violin/guitar and Gail teaches piano) brought a few of their young music students along to perform for the elderly. Now I accompany one of Bob's violin students on the piano, so really I had to turn up. A couple of days beforehand, Bob asked me if I could accompany his violin student, as well as play a solo piece, to which I obliged.

For the piece, it was a toss-up between Chopin's Grande Valse Brilliante, with its virtuosic sparkle and witty appoggiaturas, or Chopin's Raindrop Prelude with its regular rhythms imitating drops of water falling on the roof in the night.

On the day there was a young guitar student, two young pianists, the violinist and me. They played their items and they were really well done. Finally it was my turn to make a fool of myself, as Bob placed me second to last on the list. Snap decision, I chose the Valse. It was more difficult than the Raindrop but I thought the elderly would like something uplifting. So I went for it. And I made a few mistakes, wrong notes here and there. Sure the appoggiaturas weren't witty enough, and it was far from virtuosic. But I thought I did okay. Despite the Valse needing more polish, I was pretty happy with it.

Looked like the elderly really enjoyed listening to all the kids playing their stuff so that was great to see.

Stronger?

I dread Friday gym sessions, because that's when Al the mean taskmaster is supervising the circuits. Lo and behold he was there pushing people very very hard. Near the end of the circuit he approached me and watched my form on the bicep curls, carefully, concentrating. Just when I was getting tired he asked me how many. I replied 15. He doubled the weight and told me to do two more and hold for 10 seconds, to which I struggled. Then he told me to do press-ups straight away! This time instead of doing three like last Friday, I managed 13! Al asked whether I was reaching failure (he meant momentary muscular failure, the point when muscles will fail after extreme effort). I nodded weakly. Al seemed satisfied with my efforts and marked my exercise card accordingly. I know he made a mental note that, come next Friday, he will push me even harder.

Push Very Hard

I go to the gym in the mornings before work. Now this gym is really top-notch. Because I work at Orion, I only need to pay a $45/month subscription compared to the $130 or so/month that other patrons must pay. Of course, my work has only a limited amount of special subscriptions it can give out to its staff. I think I had to wait about four months to get it. So I've been making a point to go to the gym religiously ever since.

This gym has plenty of friendly trained staff on hand to supervise your workout and even push you to work harder so that you can see results. However, I think this morning had to be one of the hardest I have been put through. One of the staff there, Al, is a nice guy but a mean taskmaster. While he has pushed me before in the past, I cannot remember him or any other person for that matter pushing me as hard as what I went through this morning.

On the circuits, Al supervised my lateral raises, bicep curls, seated dips and ab crunches. He was pushing me to do at least 4 more reps than I usually do. Especially on the seated dips exercise, I was set to push 160 pounds. After 12 or so reps, he gleefully set it up to 240 pounds and told me to slowly do 3 more while in a fatigued state. Just when I finished with that extra weight, he told me to do pushups, which was weird because I never had been asked to do so on the circuit.

The remaining strength that I had was used to get down on to the floor. I did about three, then collasped in a heap. He wanted more. I breathed for a few seconds, and pushed again. I managed only two. He still wanted more. This time, and with plenty of assistance from Al I got in another five, albeit incompetantly. Finally when he saw that I had enough, he wrote on my exercise card Push Very Hard. He explained that next time, I will be put through the same kind of extreme, gruelling, unsympathetic, uncompromising workout regime.

I know he isn't singling me out for punishment. He wants results, he knows I want results, and he is determined that I attain those results. I don't pay $45/month for an easy ride, you know.

No complaints

Weekend was awesome really. Had a big sleep in on Saturday morning. I didn't really have any plans for the day. To make it seem like I was doing something productive I sat in front of the piano for an unknown amount of time trying to get to grips with two Chopin Etudes. Sunday, I helped a friend for an hour with her job interview for Woolworths. Just a part time position to occupy her during the school holidays, nothing major, but apparently they required her to attend an interview. So as with all job interviews, we covered all our bases by making up all sorts of probable questions they could ask her. That went smoothly. Finally Sunday evening, I watched a film, Pamela's Prayer, regarding teens, dating, and abstinence coming from a Christian viewpoint. It was well acted and had noble intentions. My only gripe was that their portrayal of abstinence was too unrealistic and didn't pertain to the real world of today, even though the movie was made in 1998. Still, I'd recommend the film to any parent, Christian or not, simply to help open the doors for some life altering discussions.

Sometimes for those that always have tons of energy to burn over the week, a weekend where you just don't do anything significant can be great. That weekend was just one of those weekends. Fantabulous!

To play a two minute piece

One of the things that I really enjoy doing if I get the time is to play the piano. I enjoy playing a variety of music, but this year I've experienced something of a classical renaissance. I think it's because classical music is highly under-appreciated amongst young people so I preferred playing popular music. Yet throughout my time as a pianist I've always been fed a diet of classical music.

Anyway one of my goal pieces is to learn Chopin's arpeggio etude. It is a devilishly difficult piece, very fast at around 176 beats per minute. Even my heart rate can't get that high when I run! Some interesting points: if you want to play fast, you must practice slower. When practicing pieces, the great Rachmaninov spent 15 seconds for every note!! So if he practiced this etude with all 1233 notes (don't worry, I didn't count them all), it would have taken him over five hours to go over it once.

Argh, what one must go through to play a two minute piece!

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