Wow! The school year is over, and it's time for the month long summer holiday! Shall I tell you why this is the best holiday?
a) It's the longest
b) It holds Christmas
c) It holds the New Year, which means the best and most beautiful fireworks
d) Brilliant weather
e) Any holiday is a good holiday
I can't wait until it's warm enough to go to the beach everyday, and I can't wait until I can sleep in, but I'm doing a little exercise as well- about time :)
So this was just a short entry, just saying how fantabulous the holidays are,
Bon Voyage!
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
The Oxford Companion to Music
I know what you're all thinking. Wow. Hear The Harmony has been updated.
Anyway, a little while ago, I purchased a book called The Oxford Companion to Music.Tenth Edition. :)
Is it used? Rarely. Is it modern? Hardly. But is it loved? Duh.
This Tenth Edition was published in the early 1960's (yeah, because it's that cool) and has an ecosystem of love in its pages. No, literally. There's, like, mould on the edges of the pages and spine. *Shiver*. It's by a dear fellow called Percy A. Scholes and its cover consists of some very groovy musicians holding their violins with their left hand, seating their cellos on the floor with no spike, and I don't think their guitar/eukalale/thing can be tuned. I got it second hand for about $2 but apparently it's a very valuable book. :P
On the very first page, its previous owner Theresa McCarthy has written this in a purple calligraphy pen. Her handwriting is quite old school. Old school is cool by the way.
"This trusty companion I hope will stand by me all my musical years- especially when I have a rather large essay due in the next morning of which I have not begun... 1st term 1992".
Is that cool or is that cool? It's an absolutely brilliant book, its first edition published in 1938. This is a very special book. All 1189 pages of it.
It's basically got over a million terms on all aspects of music, including instruments and composers. Best of all? It's got pictures!
For example, who knew that Greensleeves was the tune mentioned twice by Shakespeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor? Apparently during the Civil War of the 17th Century, it was a party tune, and is also sometimes known as 'The Blacksmith'.
It's also got pictures of some of the earliest pianos, and wow. If only you could see the photos. Just Google Cabinet or 'Giraffe' piano (by Van der Hoef of Amsterdam). The book's also got a diagram of a dissected violin. Also, at the end of the book, Mr Scholes has taken the liberty of adding a section devoted to the pronunciation of words, ranging from 'Be' (which is actually pronounced 'Bay) to 'Pfiffig' (pronounced 'Pfif-ish').
And that is why you're all jealous of me now.
I hope that in the case of anything unfortunate occuring, I will remember to escape with this book. After all, it IS a companion.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
It's Just a Dream
Yes, I realise this is only my 5th post but at least I'm consistently inconsistent. We all love that.
So a few nights ago, I had an interesting dream- I wasn't myself, I was a little girl with fair skin and brown hair, and I had a different family as well but I lived in my house, on my street, in my suburb.
Anyway, in almost every house around my house, there was an alien. The aliens looked just like those stereotypical tall green, big-black-eyed aliens, and they had "bodyguards" who were human. I was very suspicious of these aliens, as you would be, but most people seemed to trust them. Then, I was listening in on a conversation between one of the leader-aliens and a bodyguard. The alien said 'We believe this is the number one cause of human deaths' and somehow, I figured out that they were talking about humans who had alien body parts or genetics (District 9-ish, right?), and then the leader-alien found me and told me that my left hand was that of an alien's. So I ran. I was hiding on my roof, and then I sprinted down the road. There were bodyguards everywhere, trying to stop me, but there was one bodyguard who felt sorry for me, and told me where to go. I ran to a sort of theme park/adventure ride place to try and ride their daily mini-plane rides. Unfortunately, it had already left and the next one was going tomorrow morning. Then, out of nowhere, my "brother" appeared. I remembered a little pathway though, towards a water slide. Epic water slide.
And that's how you run away from aliens. Look for your nearest water slide.
So a few nights ago, I had an interesting dream- I wasn't myself, I was a little girl with fair skin and brown hair, and I had a different family as well but I lived in my house, on my street, in my suburb.
Anyway, in almost every house around my house, there was an alien. The aliens looked just like those stereotypical tall green, big-black-eyed aliens, and they had "bodyguards" who were human. I was very suspicious of these aliens, as you would be, but most people seemed to trust them. Then, I was listening in on a conversation between one of the leader-aliens and a bodyguard. The alien said 'We believe this is the number one cause of human deaths' and somehow, I figured out that they were talking about humans who had alien body parts or genetics (District 9-ish, right?), and then the leader-alien found me and told me that my left hand was that of an alien's. So I ran. I was hiding on my roof, and then I sprinted down the road. There were bodyguards everywhere, trying to stop me, but there was one bodyguard who felt sorry for me, and told me where to go. I ran to a sort of theme park/adventure ride place to try and ride their daily mini-plane rides. Unfortunately, it had already left and the next one was going tomorrow morning. Then, out of nowhere, my "brother" appeared. I remembered a little pathway though, towards a water slide. Epic water slide.
And that's how you run away from aliens. Look for your nearest water slide.
Monday, October 25, 2010
I Met a Masterchef
This morning when I was casually walking to class with my friends, guess who walked past me? No, not Hugh Grant or Emma Watson. In fact, it wasn't even Ron Weasley. Even better! It was Gary, the judge from Masterchef!
We were just strolling by, and he happened to pass. So, now I can say I have walked about 93cm away from a television celebrity! On the topic of Masterchef, I've seen SO many yummy looking desserts that I would love to cook but haven't got around to yet. I don't have the time to cook a 4 hour 8-layer vanilla, caramel, chocolate, mud, icing, toffee and strawberry cake though.
The basic point of this blog was just to say that I had met Gary, so I'll keep it short and simple.
And next time on Masterchef...
Just joking, you're on my blog:)
We were just strolling by, and he happened to pass. So, now I can say I have walked about 93cm away from a television celebrity! On the topic of Masterchef, I've seen SO many yummy looking desserts that I would love to cook but haven't got around to yet. I don't have the time to cook a 4 hour 8-layer vanilla, caramel, chocolate, mud, icing, toffee and strawberry cake though.
The basic point of this blog was just to say that I had met Gary, so I'll keep it short and simple.
And next time on Masterchef...
Just joking, you're on my blog:)
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Shall We Dance?
Please don't stop the music, music, music....
But there isn't any music...
That's RIGHT! Only because we're doing Stepping in PD/H/PE.
Just in case you don't know what Stepping is (before this term, I thought we had to finish a really difficult obstacle course to different beats or something), it's a percussive dance where footwork is the most important part. Apparently, if you have a PS3, there's a Stepping game you can buy :)
So, everyone in my class, be prepared to be blown away by our stepping routine. And take note of Christine because she's SO hilarious when she does it. Hehehe... That's an open invitation to film it. Nah, I beg you not to film it. It's cool because it's spontaneous. If it's filmed, it's just not so spontaneous anymore. Yay!
Is anyone else getting red knees and palms? Our stepping group definitely is. It's terrible because it looks like we have really bad sunburn.
Still on the subject of dance...
SHINee!
SHINee is a Korean boy pop band and the guys are so fantazmagorical. Check them out on YouTube. You might want to look out for:
- Hello
- Lucifer
- Ring Ding Dong
Yeah, Ring Ding Dong might sound dodgy, but it's UBER catchy. RING ding dong, ring ding dong, ring diggyding, diggyding, ding ding..... Oops, didn't realise I had an audience...
ALSO I've been watching a Korean TV show called 'Hello Baby' with SHINee. There are English subtitles :)
It is absolutely hilarious and the baby is adorable. You'll want to eat him. He is seriously that cute.
My favourite SHINee boy is Taemin, whose name I learnt to spell in Korean today. He's got the cutest smily face.
:)
That is Taemin's smile. It's AAA*.
* AAA stands for Amazing And Adorable. A is a good mark, but maybe I should make Taemin's smile AAA+ because that's better.
You'll think the title of this blog is a little random unless you haven't heard of the movie. So I'm just explaining that Shall We Dance is a movie and I decided to put it as the title because I like cool titles.
Have fun Stepping and K-Popping!
But there isn't any music...
That's RIGHT! Only because we're doing Stepping in PD/H/PE.
Just in case you don't know what Stepping is (before this term, I thought we had to finish a really difficult obstacle course to different beats or something), it's a percussive dance where footwork is the most important part. Apparently, if you have a PS3, there's a Stepping game you can buy :)
So, everyone in my class, be prepared to be blown away by our stepping routine. And take note of Christine because she's SO hilarious when she does it. Hehehe... That's an open invitation to film it. Nah, I beg you not to film it. It's cool because it's spontaneous. If it's filmed, it's just not so spontaneous anymore. Yay!
Is anyone else getting red knees and palms? Our stepping group definitely is. It's terrible because it looks like we have really bad sunburn.
Still on the subject of dance...
SHINee!
SHINee is a Korean boy pop band and the guys are so fantazmagorical. Check them out on YouTube. You might want to look out for:
- Hello
- Lucifer
- Ring Ding Dong
Yeah, Ring Ding Dong might sound dodgy, but it's UBER catchy. RING ding dong, ring ding dong, ring diggyding, diggyding, ding ding..... Oops, didn't realise I had an audience...
ALSO I've been watching a Korean TV show called 'Hello Baby' with SHINee. There are English subtitles :)
It is absolutely hilarious and the baby is adorable. You'll want to eat him. He is seriously that cute.
My favourite SHINee boy is Taemin, whose name I learnt to spell in Korean today. He's got the cutest smily face.
:)
That is Taemin's smile. It's AAA*.
* AAA stands for Amazing And Adorable. A is a good mark, but maybe I should make Taemin's smile AAA+ because that's better.
You'll think the title of this blog is a little random unless you haven't heard of the movie. So I'm just explaining that Shall We Dance is a movie and I decided to put it as the title because I like cool titles.
Have fun Stepping and K-Popping!
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Welcome Weather
Ew, someone smells.
Ew, we're all sweating.
Ew, my eyes are squinting.
These are symptoms of the upcoming season. SUMMER!
Some people, like Emma, enjoy the rain. Emma, you're a bit odd :)
Somewhere I read someone saying 'People always look down when it's raining- that shows how bad we're feeling'. It's true- I personally DO look down when it's raining, but that's not because I feel miserable. It's just that I don't want raindrops covering the entire surface of my glasses. I don't know- having water drop into your eyes is kind of annoying.
So anyway, I actually can't wait for Summer. Spring is amazing too, because of my birthday, but those swooping, overprotective-of-their-offspring birdies are scary.
I remember in a class last year on one of the last days of term that we were in one of the computer rooms, and surprise, surprise, NO AIRCONDITIONING ON THE HOTTEST DAY! The fans don't do too much to help either. Especially when they sound like they're about to fly off the ceiling, spin at a thousand kilometres an hour around the classroom, cleanly swiping a few heads of their necks in the process. Not fun. On that hot, summer's day, I remember that there was some pretty epic B.O. clouding the whole room. I also remember that our uniforms were sticking onto our chairs because let's face it. Everyone was starting to... moisten. We couldn't open the windows because although it may have been 60 degrees inside, it was about 80 out there.
I miss that.
But I'll tell you the best feeling about Summer:
When you walk from an airconditioned classroom out into the 37 degree concreted playground. There's just something so movie scene-ish about that. It's like we're saying "Welcome to Sydney. We might not ride kangaroos to school, but we can enjoy the heat waves" and all the tourists are nodding to each other in awe and can't hide their impressed faces. I think that's pretty cool.
One more thing I like about Summer: the clothes.
Wow. I'm speechless. Tearing up here, I mean, wow.
Summer fashion is impressive. Ok, I'll admit that you sometimes see the odd grandmother who sort of outgrew the whole 'mini-skirt and floral singlet' thing about thirty years ago, but generally, I congratulate the world on their mostly innovative clothing during the hot season. You can wear jewellery so much easier as well. When you're wearing a jumper, no one can actually see that awesome forearm-long bracelet pile you've carefully fitted onto your wrist. To them, it just looks like you've got something wrong with your arm. Then, here comes Summer, and you can wear UBER bright necklaces, flowers in your hair, anklets, and as many amazing bracelets as you own. Now we're talking.
This is a bit of a longer blog than I first expected, but hey. Here comes the sun.
Ew, we're all sweating.
Ew, my eyes are squinting.
These are symptoms of the upcoming season. SUMMER!
Some people, like Emma, enjoy the rain. Emma, you're a bit odd :)
Somewhere I read someone saying 'People always look down when it's raining- that shows how bad we're feeling'. It's true- I personally DO look down when it's raining, but that's not because I feel miserable. It's just that I don't want raindrops covering the entire surface of my glasses. I don't know- having water drop into your eyes is kind of annoying.
So anyway, I actually can't wait for Summer. Spring is amazing too, because of my birthday, but those swooping, overprotective-of-their-offspring birdies are scary.
I remember in a class last year on one of the last days of term that we were in one of the computer rooms, and surprise, surprise, NO AIRCONDITIONING ON THE HOTTEST DAY! The fans don't do too much to help either. Especially when they sound like they're about to fly off the ceiling, spin at a thousand kilometres an hour around the classroom, cleanly swiping a few heads of their necks in the process. Not fun. On that hot, summer's day, I remember that there was some pretty epic B.O. clouding the whole room. I also remember that our uniforms were sticking onto our chairs because let's face it. Everyone was starting to... moisten. We couldn't open the windows because although it may have been 60 degrees inside, it was about 80 out there.
I miss that.
But I'll tell you the best feeling about Summer:
When you walk from an airconditioned classroom out into the 37 degree concreted playground. There's just something so movie scene-ish about that. It's like we're saying "Welcome to Sydney. We might not ride kangaroos to school, but we can enjoy the heat waves" and all the tourists are nodding to each other in awe and can't hide their impressed faces. I think that's pretty cool.
One more thing I like about Summer: the clothes.
Wow. I'm speechless. Tearing up here, I mean, wow.
Summer fashion is impressive. Ok, I'll admit that you sometimes see the odd grandmother who sort of outgrew the whole 'mini-skirt and floral singlet' thing about thirty years ago, but generally, I congratulate the world on their mostly innovative clothing during the hot season. You can wear jewellery so much easier as well. When you're wearing a jumper, no one can actually see that awesome forearm-long bracelet pile you've carefully fitted onto your wrist. To them, it just looks like you've got something wrong with your arm. Then, here comes Summer, and you can wear UBER bright necklaces, flowers in your hair, anklets, and as many amazing bracelets as you own. Now we're talking.
This is a bit of a longer blog than I first expected, but hey. Here comes the sun.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
TARDIS TIME TRAVEL
For my birthday, I was EXTREMELY fortunate enough to be given a TARDIS. Yes, I am a fantazmagorical fan of Doctor Who (and as charlieissocoollike said, don't judge me for watching Doctor Who, and I won't judge you for watching Skins, Wallace and Gromit, Teletubbies, or whatever is popular these days!) Now, if you don't know what a TARDIS is, I will forgive you. If you don't know what Doctor Who is, Google it. Seriously. You have no idea what you're missing out on.
Like I said, I was given a TARDIS for my birthday from my best friends because we're all getting one. You know how for some people, a car is very beautiful, or a phone, a bracelet, or a dress? Well, accolades to Character Options Ltd., who took the liberty to manufacture and distribute the TARDIS, because it's quite a magnificent thing. I don't know if it's the TARDIS blue, or the light that flashes, or the noises it makes, but it's fantastic.
If you'd like to know more about Doctor Who, keep reading. If you don't, why not keep reading anyway?
Things you should know before/while/after you watch Doctor Who:
1. If you like to be scared, watch the episode called Blink.
2. David Tennant was the tenth Doctor, and many will swear that he is the best (partly because he is), but Matt Smith, the most recent Doctor, does a brilliant job to fill in the role after such a perfect Doctor.
3. Maybe you thought that Doctor Who was a little confusing. That's ok! Just keep watching because I tell you, my dad used to watch it when he was little, I'm watching it now, and your kids will probably watch it, hiding behind the sofas, unable to tear their eyes off the screen.
4. The Daleks look like Power Rangers right now- ignore that. The bright red, blue, green and other colours are (hopefully) not permanent. Still, what they lack in style, they gain in height. Check them out!
5. Have a look at some of the older Doctor Who episodes. According to Wikipedia, Doctor Who premiered at 17.15 GMT on 23 November, 1963. Some of the episodes are slightly embarrassing, but come on. Give them some credit for the special effects- you can't beat coloured vinegar in water, eh?
So have HEAPS of fun Doctor Who-ing!
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Fancy Shmancy First Blog
Hi everyone!
I'm not really sure if even one person will read this, so greeting 'everyone' is a bit optimistic, but you know. That's a good thing.
I've never written a blog before. It's just exciting seeing 'Hear the Harmony' up the top left. In regards to that, it's just a random title related to my email, and everyone likes alliteration, right?
You wouldn't believe how exciting this is! I actually have my own blog! That's partly because I've been checking out some of my friends' blogs, and also because I watched Julie and Julia on Monday. If you've watched it, you'll know why that had a bit of an influence on me to start a blog. :)
I really want to see my first blog out there. On the internet, just squeezing past all the spam, viruses, Facebook pages and all the rest. Just remembered something about that. I can't remember who I heard saying it, but I thought it was odd how the www at the beginning of websites doesn't do very much, because if it stands for world wide web, by saying double-u, double-u, double-u, you've seriously made it 3 times longer. 3 syllables versus 9 syllables. See?
Anyway, pretty excited so I'll just press Preview and then (drumroll) Publish Post! I'm not really expecting any comments on this, because it's my first blog, and I'm only one in the millions of people who blog, but hey. Surprise me.
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