She's a lady

Whoooa!!! its been some time that I blogged. After Bandung, china and the mini house durian drama. Aduh, its been a real roller coaster ride for me and tomorrow I shall have some time for myself just to recuperate. Bandung was enormously fun. You can imagine a trip juz for shopping??? heaven right?? well that's what we had. To celebrate my mum's birthday, dad decided that we should go to the Paris of the east Bandung. With the limited cash I had to ask dad for some extra aid from dad. I guess you can imagine how the trip was for me hahaha.

The first day we went to Rumah Mode after checking in the hotel and some outlets outside of Rumah Mode. Good tip, don't go to Bandung during weekends. Jalannya macet or in other words you'll have to join the crowd of jakarta people shopping too.

wanna know why my bag has an x marks the spot??? the airport was so tiny that they had to check for narcotics in front of us so the narcotics doggy sniffed the cough syrup in mu bag and they ask me to open up my suit case for inspection...hehehe. Huge black doggy.

Some statue outside Rumah Mode that looks kinda cool

Tired Shoppers

I swear that is not meeeee, but you can imagine the happy buyers, well until the bill comes to the doorstep that's another story....

We were then faced with a problem...no taxis were coming and as the traffic jam began to get worse we made a deal with the mini bus (or van) driver to send us back to the hotel...and it was a reli cool to be driving in the angkutan kota these are some snapshots from the vehicle...hehehe

after a quick prayer break, we went for lunch and continued shopping till late night... continue for the next three days....weeeee, to good to imagine. Our hotel was on jalan riau aka jalan martadinata. Along that road was factory outlets like Heritage, cascade, the secret, terminal tas, branded club and many, many more. Well you can imagine the shops are like F.O.S and reject Shop like places. No bargaining involved and the prices are realy cheep. No cameras allowed inside so no pictures of the inside part. but here's outside branded club with the burberry design outside it....hehehe. Totally, comfy, they have nice changing rooms too, some like pavilion style.

The next day we woke up early and went to Pasar Baru. Its something like our pekan rabu in Alor Setar. Bazaar like shops where it'll test your bargain skills. Here is the best place to buy textile, telekung, blouses, wedding stuff, batik, and many bazaar stuff.

here is some pictures of my mum and my aunty shopping. Me and dad were more of the outlet people....XD

At the telekung shop next to a children's wear shop







The cool thing about pasar baru is if you're tired there these guys pulling food and drinks. So, you can actually sit down bargaining all you like then pick a drink and wait till the stuff come to you...heehee quite convenient huh???

The view of Pasar Baru from outside

after lunch we continued some of the outlets at jalan riau and then went to a cool place for dinner. It was ibu's birthday so we had a special dinner.

Food??? Gooooooood. Plus avocado juice....mmmmm.

Next day, we went to champlas walk. Nothing much but there is this good bag brand called Elizabeth. The building also looks interesting.

The bag quality is quite good, thing is people dont see it because its not available outside Indonesia. But the bags are really nice and price is a lil above average. After that we went to Jalan Dago where there is another road full of outlets too. Excited, excited....more shopping...by this time I had to rely on dad because I finished my cash already. *ooopppssss* hehehe

Then the next morning on the day we were leaving, we managed to go back to the branded club and stamp outlet to do some last minute shopping....yeahhh, spend-spend...this time I really had to cling to dad. *giggles* Gosh, am I that bad???

Well this is the hotel we stayed in. The location is good, beds are kinda too soft. Overall ok.

Well then it's time to bid farewell to Bandung. So we went to the airport via the hotel van...*coz we had many stuff* then were on our way back to LCCT. So wanna know what I end up in 4 days of shopping?? 2 T-shirts, burburry and A&F, 8 blouses mostly esprit, 2 Pierre Cardin jeans, one guess jeans, one D&G jeans, one A&F cargo pants, 2 sling bags and my baju raya material....weeeee, this is the true confessions of a shopaholic....hehehe. Dad has like 15 shirts and T-shirts, ranging from Tommy Hilfiger, burburry, and many brand names. My aunty??? heehee...I even lost count. I'm a lady that lurveees shopping....*happy dance*

All of me

In my few months of building fat instead of muscles, I thought some stimulation would do me good. So I went to petroscience on a week day when I wasn’t able to meet up with becky because she was feeling unwell. I did enjoyed the my time I had to play in petroscience. Call me a big fat kid that likes science centers, I realy enjoy science centers more than theme parks. Oh well, the first time my hair stood by the van de graff machine at COSI, I knew that it wasn’t the last time I went into science centers.

Leave the fun aside for the moment, before I went to petroscience, I went to the MPO box office to lookup the latest calendar and saw that there’ll be an upcoming event on jazz and there is also a Haydn piano concerto. So, I thought I could kill two birds with one stone. I bought tickets for both events and that I’ll spend the whole day at KLCC to watch the two events.

So I woke up early to catch the train in to KL central before changing trains to KLCC. I reached KLCC at about 10.40am in time to get a front seat that not many favored. (Typical Malaysians) so then the presenter, Joseph Pruessner, the assistant principal bassist led out the class.

We started out with simple chords: Major chords, Dominant 7th, Dominant 9th, flat 9th, Major 7th, Augmented chords, Major 9th, Sustained 4 (sus4), flat 5th, Minor 6th, sharpened 11th, and the list goes the same with the minor chords. Next were the modes. Modes were used widely before we had major and minor scales. If not I’m not mistaken, people use modes because there the system was not well tempered yet. Now, vocalist use modes widely. There are the Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aoelian, and Locrian. The modes are for example Ionian on C so you play from C to C in C major. Dorian in C is play from C to C in the key of B flat major. So you count backwards. Because the interval between C and D is a major second, and backwards major second is B flat. This calculation is done during intense practice during group keyboard class. Anyhow, screw the calculation, its confusing if you are not a musician. The point here is, in jazz, certain modes are used with certain chords. For example, the chord B flat in a bar, you could use all the notes in the Ionian scale during improvisation. If you have a dominant 7th chord you use the notes in the mixolydian mode.

The chart is as follow: Ionian- Major, Major 7th, and Major 9th. Dorian- Minor and minor 7th, Phrygian- Minor 9th, Lydian- #11, Mixolydian- Dominant 7th, Aoelian- natural minor, Locrian- diminished chords.

So we tried the chords on blue monk, a piece from Thelonius Monk from “The Thelonius Monk Story” so it kinda sounded like this:

It was good though I thought, then we heard the recording on by Monk and John Coletrain at Carnegie hall, the piece sounded great and that I found out that it has been rumored that Coletrain didn’t want to show up and that he needed to be dragged out from the hotel to the concert hall. From the recording too, I found out that different jazz musicians have distinctive motives that they liked to play. For example, Coletrain liked patterns of sequences in the melody, Monk liked chromatic dissonance, is a minimalist most of the time, playing sparse notes that change at a slow rate, and play whole tone scales. In a piece, usually the musicans would play the “head” which is the main melody, mostly twice before the improvisation takes place. Then after series of improvisations, some one would point at the head indicating the last improvisation and that the next repetition will be the main melody and that the music would end.

A highly recomended CD to buy...Thelonious monk and John Coletrain

Prepairing audio for us listen and jam

So we then played on All of Me. This is how we are taught how to improvise. Jazz is always about improvisations. Improvisations can’t be learnt overnight, and it comes through practice. However, you could learn to improvise by stages like improvise firstly by using chord notes. Then, you could use scale passages going up and down according to the chords used and you could use chromatic notes. Try them individually and mix them all together to make it your own. Then try using like Coletrain did which was using sequences and monk, using some dissonance. Razif once taught us a trick. If you played a wrong note, play it many times so that it sounds correct. Along the way you’ll pick up tricks here and there, main thing is you practice…heehee, something that I’m lacking at the moment.

So that ended my jazz appreciation class and that he mentioned a bit during his time in collage, John Cage was one of the lecturers there, he made them listen to the walls and you’ll be surprised on what you’ll hear. Not other peoples conversation, but as we know John Cage, everything is music. I didn’t miss a chance to take photos of the pictures of performers and conductors that had played at DFP.

My boyfriend Joshua Bell, heehee....

Riccardo Mutti

Lorin Maazel

Neville Creed

Other awards and trophies

Quiet office on a sunday

Initially I wanted to try to have lunch at Nyonya because; I always see the place full and guessed that the food must be good. When I went up, it was not only full but people were queuing up to get in the restaurant. Sigh, time wasn’t on my side so I went to the Lebanese and Persian restaurant and ordered chicken kebab. It tasted good, on the way back I saw baklava, my favorite, but it was with the buffet that I didn’t take. There’ll always be next time…I hope.

At 3pm I went to the concert. The first was Overture to La fedelta premiata by Haydn. The next was keyboard Concerto in D (Hob.XVIII:11). I like Haydn. He always pleases me. The pianist Cederic Tiberghien, played a beautiful encore piece by Bartok that I never heard before. Or I can’t seem to recall listening to a pleasing Bartok piece like this before. After the intermission, they played Bruckner Symphony in B flat. It was a bit heavy to listen at 4pm I guess. There were parts that sounded like Barber’s adagio for strings though that I liked. After the concert, I went to pray, and then I headed home.

It was raining as usual and on the way there was an accident near Kampung Dato’ Harun stop. Anyhow, KLCC was so packed that day, I think due to the PC fair and all the pathogen and the rain and the heat had left me with flu and a head ache. On top of that my wisdom tooth is driving me nuts again. I hope I could be back in good shape before I go to Indonesia at the end of the week. I’m so excited but the bad sore trough has drained my energy to get excited. I also would like to go to the International book fair. We’ll see.

Pomp and circumstance Op.2

The pomp and circumstance for me….finally arrived in a subtle way then the usual one. It was my time to receive my scroll from our highness the chancellor of USM. To avoid being given the wrong size for the academic attire, I came on the first day to collect the robe. It was on a quiet Sunday, Yaya was with me to collect the robe. I then went on to see what was going on at the hall room. There was the alumni booth, the custom frame booth so that you could put up your photos, a booth for DVD and souvenirs.

The next day we went to batu feringgi to chill out near the beach. I soo miss the beach. It’s a nice way to cool off after the whole month of searching on what to wear during my convo. It was terrible my god, it was like ransacking the whole Shah Alam, Jalan TAR, Subang Parade and Alor Setar. It was ridiculous. Everything I tried out was either too expensive, have fitting problems, the material was too thin, looks too cheep, in conclusion, It was juz not up to the standard of my mum. I did not know that a simple chiffon baju kurung would cost RM500!!! That’s absurd. It doesn’t have any beads or studs at all. Songket baju with scarf could cost up to RM1000. I wanna die during hunting for what to wear. In the end I told my dad that I was going to wear a shirt and coat. RM50 I can get a nice brown coat that fit perfectly and that I can reuse it during my interviews and stuff.

Yaya enjoying the waves crashing at her feet

Something I wanted to do but...not dressed to go up, so...next time la



A boat to go around the island i guess

Me and my wet pants

I feel quite sad because I really wanted to wear national clothing, It looks more Malaysian, but sometimes Its best to think on other options. Besides, the sash is made for clothing’s with buttons because it has a hook. When you hook it on your button, it looks neater.

At batu feringgi, I bought myself a nice pair of blue slippers and few DVD’s. My mum doesn’t like browsing and that she said to walk up first then come back to buy. However when I came back the shop had packed up and left…sigh, I really wanted to browse on the DVD’s, you never know what you’ll find. *regrets* Before that, in the evening me and my parents and Yaya, went to have dinner at the coffee house while watching the sunset after a nice walk along the beach. Yes I wet my pants…It would look weird if I were to wear my scarf and wear shorts…mum will disown me…

On the 24th I went for the rehearsal. It was telling all the dos and don’ts for the occasion. What not to wear, what should you say when you received your scroll and stuff. They told us to come as early as 7.30am the next day and be at the halls for inspection. Then, each graduate will receive a bar code to make sure that you name appears on the screen when you walk on the stage. So on the day itself, I came about 7.45am. I was getting ready, my mum was helping me pin up my sash to the robe, putting up my hat and pinning down so it doesn’t fall. It was chaotic but in a fun way, this is the time when my mum gets really grumpy and talks in a very “you know” way. Parents you may say…haha. So, pin here, pin there, borrowing pins from here, someone asking some other place and stuff…it was interesting.

Demo on how to put on the robe, sash and hat...then how to walk on stage....

the people exited for the next day...like me..heehee

Then I marched in the hall after attire inspection. I was seated at the last seat. Scary, but anticipated…and so we waited, and waited, and soon the hall begins to fill up. The alarm went off and soon the important people came marching in. I was beginning to feel nervous till the lecturers came out…haha, I saw Dr Linda, Dr. Marlina, Andrew Mr. Mickey Mouse bow tie, hehe, and last but not least Dr. Tye. Then, the awards starts…the Honorary doctorate was given to the Cuban doctor, the same one that talked yesterday during the official launching of the world TB day exhibition at arts school.

When it came to our turn to receive our scrolls, they actually called upon many students from the arts so it was quite long and not confined to arts school only. So there were the BFA students, some literature and many more been called together to receive our scrolls. Unlike the normal way, where they call upon the students according to course and not merging with other courses.

Me receiving my scroll by the Sultan of Perlis....he recently had a knee operation so he had to come with crutches...I pray that the knee heals quickly.

Then when its all done, I went to say hi to my dearie music friends. They to leave soon, so, I didn’t have time to chat with them. I then went out to look for my mum. No sign of mum so, I saw dad coming down the VIP room and frantically waving my hands to him. When I saw mum she was with a bouquet of flowers…heehee, I thought I would not get flowers. (the reason is because I don’t have a boyfriend…didn’t expect flowers from mum..XD) I was really happy..and now camera please!!!! Pictures babeh…yeah haha.

Jess loi, me, Kris and Peggy....like the flowers kris???

me and my cousin and her mum can cook the best gulai ikan, curry, and all the goood kampung food...nyum-nyum...

Me and erin

Me and erin and erin's friend from translation...haha... I like the pink sash...

Btw, my sash is dark blue....and all music students will use the dark blue for undergraduates

The view from my balcony...sometimes you can even see the canselori building

Inside the house

I can hear the light speeking to me....heehee ....so lame

Do I look like an owl??? Or juz stoopid...haha...this happens when tak cukup take pictures and later need to send back the robe to get the scroll

what are you looking at??!!! haha...this is beginning to look embarrassing....XD

And so the day ended and that the next day I had to return my robe to get my “real” scroll at DUP along with the hall pictures. Most students went to studios to take the book case photos. Dad just kept reminding me that “you’ll do that during your masters…” true though…not a big deal anyway…the important one is the receiving pictures rite?? Sigh, time was short in penang. I would love to spend time with all of youuuu in Penang. I sooo need live music, and good friends, perhaps some lame jokes but then it’ll have to wait…I hope not that long.