It's 5pm here and it's raining now. Looking outside the windows, whole scenery somehow turned greyish blue with little brown peach trying to steal the main character of the scene, not too strong, very light brown peach. Wanted to relax under the weather but the smell of the rain isn't the same anymore. Where has the smell of the rain gone? I missed the nice smell of the rain...
This afternoon I went to attend Joshua and Lee Yee's wedding, conducted 3 songs at the church wedding ceremony. During the last song, which is the most difficult one, I accidentally push off the score stand at a Fortissimo part. Definitely not the right time to steal the bride and bridegroom's limelight! But then, somehow the fall of the score stand creates loud bang and caught many attention towards my direction. Got panicky a little, thanks to the pianist, she laughed, that calms me down somehow.
I got back to the beat and continue conducting without the stand and scores. The memorization of the scores eventually put to a test! Choir members are steady. We manage to get to the end of the song smoothly. Phew! Now trying to recall, I didn't know what happened. A choir member told me my hand touched the score and the whole stand just fall off. So, I must have done the Fortissimo stronger than I thought!
Thinking back of my conducting experience, pushing off the score stand is the first time it happened during an actual conducting session. Some might thought that I do it purposely to create more "emotion"! Yeah, actually fortissimo can be quite intense but then ... it's not a bad idea too to be more expressive!
Definitely something to learn... either keep a distance from the stand or make sure I kick the stand real hard so that it fly away! No.. that can be dangerous. My teacher will sure scold me to have such thought! Well, anyhow, I'm glad that another story has added to my conducting life, a good one to laugh at too.
Lastly, I wish Joshua and Lee Yee a wonderful life together and may the life after marriage brings lot of stories that could bless others in their circle of life, continue to shine as a body of Christ...
Saturday 24 May 2008
I want to buy his album (if there's any out there)!
Amazing acoustic fingerstyle guitarist from South Korea, Sungha Jung - 11 year old kid!
With or Without You - Sungha Jung
Missing You (Thomas) - Sungha Jung (2nd time)
With or Without You - Sungha Jung
Missing You (Thomas) - Sungha Jung (2nd time)
Sign Language
Few weeks ago, a dinner brought me to meet the RC Deaf Missions Malaysia group at Amcorp Mall. At first I was attracted to the cards that they're selling. A few are in Batiks and very beautiful. All painted by talented Deaf artist. When further chit-chatting with them, found out that they conduct sign language classes as well. I was immediate interested and further find out more about the sign language class. Below is an email replied by one of the Directors of the group:
"The Deaf Tutors will be teaching BIM - which in English means Malaysian Sign Language. A fair bit of Malaysian Sign Language was adapted from American Sign Language. You can never really do away with the historical roots. 60% of ASL has its origins in French Sign Language. Alphabets are the same manual alphabets in most countries except for some differences in for example Japan or India (India uses British Sign Language). I only quoted two countries here but does not mean it is only two countries.
When Malaysian Deaf people meet Japanese Deaf people for example, they too will undergo some language challenges. They get around it by using more visual gestures.
There is one form of international sign language but it is only and usually found when there is an international conference. International sign language or gestuno incorporates some of the signs from each country. But it is not a commonly used language across the world. Yet, Deaf people who come to such large conferences would prefer still their own interpreter because it does not mean that if there is an international sign language, that all Deaf are able to follow.
Language and community and culture go together. There has been an evolution of signs over the past 20 years when Deaf people in Malaysia felt they needed to have their own identity. Singapore uses Signed Exact English. You can get by with BIM in Singapore, and possibly Philippines and of course throughout Malaysia. One point to note is that in the way we speak our national language in KL, the people of Kelantan speak the national language with different phonetics. So, within the countries itself, there will also be differences."
Needless to say, I've signed up for the 10 weeks course. Just like the excitement I have when exploring the underwater world, I'm looking forward to explore the Deaf world.
Check out the website if you're interested to explore in sign language area too. :)
"The Deaf Tutors will be teaching BIM - which in English means Malaysian Sign Language. A fair bit of Malaysian Sign Language was adapted from American Sign Language. You can never really do away with the historical roots. 60% of ASL has its origins in French Sign Language. Alphabets are the same manual alphabets in most countries except for some differences in for example Japan or India (India uses British Sign Language). I only quoted two countries here but does not mean it is only two countries.
When Malaysian Deaf people meet Japanese Deaf people for example, they too will undergo some language challenges. They get around it by using more visual gestures.
There is one form of international sign language but it is only and usually found when there is an international conference. International sign language or gestuno incorporates some of the signs from each country. But it is not a commonly used language across the world. Yet, Deaf people who come to such large conferences would prefer still their own interpreter because it does not mean that if there is an international sign language, that all Deaf are able to follow.
Language and community and culture go together. There has been an evolution of signs over the past 20 years when Deaf people in Malaysia felt they needed to have their own identity. Singapore uses Signed Exact English. You can get by with BIM in Singapore, and possibly Philippines and of course throughout Malaysia. One point to note is that in the way we speak our national language in KL, the people of Kelantan speak the national language with different phonetics. So, within the countries itself, there will also be differences."
Needless to say, I've signed up for the 10 weeks course. Just like the excitement I have when exploring the underwater world, I'm looking forward to explore the Deaf world.
Check out the website if you're interested to explore in sign language area too. :)
Thursday 1 May 2008
Sun Bear
On one of the weekends, I visited the National Zoo, just want to see how a sun bear looks like. Below are some pictures taken by my friend:
Sun bear is the smallest in the bear family and is classified as an endangered and protected species. They can be found in tropical to subtropical regions of Southeast Asia, for example, Borneo, Sumatra, Peninsula Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, and possibly southern China.
When I was in the zoo, I saw other bear species as well, but sun bear is really so small compared to the rest. According to the source, they could grow to approximately four and a half feet in length and average weight is less than 100 pounds. Most of them have a 'U' shape yellowish patch on the chest. In folklore, this yellow crescent is said to represent the rising sun and is apparently the origin of the name sun bear.
They are omnivorous. They eat small vertebrates such as lizards and nesting birds and fruit. They are also very fond of honey. The one I saw in the zoo however, very fond of peeling tree trunk skin. During the time when I visited them, one of it is biting the skin. Few hours later when I go back and visit them again, one of the bears already resting while the other bear still biting the skin. I saw the tree trunk is almost naked! Good jaw muscle and claws. It must be really enjoying its "toy" ... :)
To find out more about sun bear, visit this National Geographic link. Please help save this animal whenever you can.
Sun bear is the smallest in the bear family and is classified as an endangered and protected species. They can be found in tropical to subtropical regions of Southeast Asia, for example, Borneo, Sumatra, Peninsula Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, and possibly southern China.When I was in the zoo, I saw other bear species as well, but sun bear is really so small compared to the rest. According to the source, they could grow to approximately four and a half feet in length and average weight is less than 100 pounds. Most of them have a 'U' shape yellowish patch on the chest. In folklore, this yellow crescent is said to represent the rising sun and is apparently the origin of the name sun bear.
They are omnivorous. They eat small vertebrates such as lizards and nesting birds and fruit. They are also very fond of honey. The one I saw in the zoo however, very fond of peeling tree trunk skin. During the time when I visited them, one of it is biting the skin. Few hours later when I go back and visit them again, one of the bears already resting while the other bear still biting the skin. I saw the tree trunk is almost naked! Good jaw muscle and claws. It must be really enjoying its "toy" ... :)
To find out more about sun bear, visit this National Geographic link. Please help save this animal whenever you can.
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