Jill Vidal, the twin sister of HK pop singer Janice was finally released from Tokyo, Japan.  She was charged and detained during her Japan trip on Feb 24th and then it’s officially announced that she was booked for using marijuana and possessing heroin.   She admited she has been using drugs over 100 times for the past year.  She pleaded guilty. The judge believed she was genuinely remorsely and asked her to promise her family not to do drugs again - she was sentensed to 2 years imprisonment, with 3 years suspension on April 24th.  She flew back to HK after.  Jill spent her birthday in jail this year.

Prince Shin of the very popular K-drama Goong, Joo Ji-hoon, a young Korea actor was reported to be charged for using drug on April 26th.  For details, refer to DramaBean’s article and her sources.

Damn those who lured young people to do drugs.  I hope the police follow the line thoroughly and crack down those who damage the lifes in the celeb circle.

Jill and Ji-hoon, regret and repent.  No one needs to give you a second chance - you need to earn it yourself and this is going to be much more difficult because you broke the trust of others in you first.  You  silly girl and guy throw that away yourself.  You have really done wrong.  

Do good.  Do better in the future.  People may accept you again, or they may not.  But you need to prove yourself to be trustworthy again first and this is not easy.  Be prepared.  But even if people don’t accept you again, accept yourself again.  Your family and real friends love you.   Love yourself first.  Then let others love you again.

I feel sad.  Say NO to drugs!

This made my 11th cello class and my first class with my Sandner (my new cello!).  I can’t tell you enough how pleased I am with my Sandner. 

I preferred Etude to Rigadoon.  Etude has very nice drops to the G string and I deliberately played the base notes “longer” (by 1/16 time longer).  (No I was just exaggerating; I was just enjoying my base notes.)  A flute teacher was standing outside my classroom and he was applauding (via the tiny peek window) after I played Etude to the teacher.   :)  But hey… my teacher said, “he didn’t know how long you’ve played…” so perhaps he was making (oh “save me”) faces while I was playing, and just be “courteous” when i turned over to look at this “guest” – I noticed my teacher was looking at the peek window and making lip speech while I was playing…  perhaps I shouldn’t be overly excited.

Anyway, my next song will be Minuet No.2 by J.S.Bach – hey!  This is a nice song.  This is my first song playing over 3 strings in a bar.  I was afraid that my notes wouldn’t be on so I hesitated, and that broke the flowing phrase quite badly.

This is also my first song playing slurs, my first song playing two subsequent notes apart more than one string, and my first song having 2 up-bows on the same note with a slur – which is a stop bow after each note.  I first thought it’s going to be played with one up bow, then a quick circle-back and make another up bow with the same note.  So I asked the teacher how it would be transcribed on the music score if that’s what the composer intented.

Do you know?

Carolyn 家誼, rest in peace.  You have fought a brave battle.  Your life is finished but your work on earth continues – http://savecarolyn.wordpress.com/.

Auntie, Partick and other supporters,  my deepest condolences.   I am so sorry for your loss. 

Reader, please sign up as a bone marrow donor.  Register with the Unrelated Bone Marrow Donor Registry (UBMDR) program.  Visit http://www.onematch.ca/.  Your may become someone’s donor one day.  Or you or your loved ones may need a donor one day.

Death, Be Not Proud.

* you can leave your condolence message at Carolyn’s FaceBook group for her family and supporters.

There is a new poll posted on Yahoo!Korea asking whether you agree with or disagree with CODA’s ban on Park Shin Yang: 

 http://kr.news.yahoo.com/nuriwl/poll/view.html?list_id=1&poll_id=44668

• first option “찬성” means agree with
• second option “반대” means disagree with (this is what all counter ban force should select!!)
• third option “기타” means other

Please go vote now and every day- the second option “반대” (one vote per IP per day); click the left blue button to submit your vote

Poll runs from April 16 to to June 16, 09.

Vote and tell people this is an unjust and an unfair ban.  Vote and show people the power of justice in unity.  Thank you.  Help spread the news please.

To help lift this ban, please join the Counter Ban for Park Shin Yang.   Thanks.

I had my 10th cello class last week.   

The weekly exercise:  my first two songs playing with the middle finger (in cello, this is called the second finger (BTW, the first finger is the index finger – this is the “first finger” after the thumb that plays on a string) - Rigadoon, and one song is the first that plays over all four strings - Etude.

This week I didn’t have any because my teacher was sick.  Now then what do I do?  Hubby and I planned to bring the new cello to the class for assessment…. the new cello has to be returned this Saturday – would I be able to get an extension?

I played this piece using the Sandner cello.   

If it sounds bad, it is because… hm…

coz…  the cello hasn’t warmed up yet…  hm…

coz… the phone which was used to record this wasn’t very good…  hm…

coz… oh blame the sound card… hm…

coz… hm… hee hee hee…

… doesn’t fly?…  really… ?

With lots of love~~  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!  (Show Mom the video too, ok?)

Well, my 6 months cello rental is almost up for its term.   I have to reply to the rental store if I want to keep the cello in about 10 days for an early bird discount of an additional 5% off the final purchase price.  Since I rent from this store, if I also buy from this store, I will have a certain portion of the rental going towards the final purchase price as well.  It’s time to start looking again.

So today, Hubby and I went to a store I visited before I started learning cello.  There then I saw a really nice-looking cello of about 3 times more expensive than what I’m currently looking at.  Then, I haven’t started playing cello, and the sales only plays violin, hence I didn’t have a chance to give it a run.  I was thinking if I would meet it again… this time I can play it!   But you know, that nice looking cello is not longer on the floor for display.  It’s gone.  (phew… otherwise I might be tempted!)  This time, I tried to play on 3 different beginner’s cellos.  2 German made – both Sandner.  1 assembled in German by Chinese material and craftmanship – Gewa. 

Gewa was an easy decision – it was the cheapest, but it sounded worse than my current Knilling.  Immediately, this was off my list.  I won’t pick something to discourage my practice. 

The 2 Sandners have a price difference of $400.  The cheaper one sounded quite nice.  The timbre was a bit dimmer but the overall tone was even.  The more expensive one gave a more “solo” feel – it was bright and upward.  It filled the music store easily.  I was amazed by how easy I could make them sound “louder” – if you have read my previous cello postings, you should know how often my teacher asked me to play louder.  These cellos sounded louder without much effort!   (Cheating…)

After switching back and forth between the Sandners several times,  I took the more expensive Sandner home – for a week for tryout.  (No charge, just had to fill a form with credit card info.)  At the store, I had the A string from the cheaper Sandner replacing the original A on the more expensive one – somehow that original A was more “pinchy” – a little too metalic to my taste… 

I just finished the at-home practice.  Hubby asked me to play the two cellos back to back and we both listened to the sound these two cellos produced.  While I have the Knilling since a couple months ago and have been playing on it “diligently”, I think it’s sounding nicer than in the beginning.  It has been warmed up a bit.  Not the Sandner.  This is brand new from the store.  It hasn’t had the same play time on it yet.  And I notice I have to play it differently to make it sound nice and smooth.  (Funny that the nice sounding quality sounds so different at home…)   Hubby said the Knilling doesn’t actually sound too badly compared to the Sandner.  Without any discount, I think the Sandner is perhaps $500 more expensive than the Knilling after all the discounts and taxes. 

The Knilling doesn’t come with fine tuners (it’s halirious to see how the teacher reached for them every lesson and found that this Knilling doesn’t have them every time).  The Sandner comes with them.  The Knilling comes with a hard case (hence heavier).  The Sandner comes with foamed /padded case – it has the shape of a hard case.  Its outer shell is made of tough canvas – like those used for most carry-on luaggages.

If I could use a metaphor to describe the two cellos – this Sandner is like a woman – she is sensitive.   She is vocal.  She is crisp.  If you play it wrong, it is more noticeable.  It doesn’t hide your mistakes for you.  The Knilling is like a man – it drags a bit.  Since it is not as decisive and responsive, it is therefore more forgiving when you don’t play too well, and if you play it fast, the notes come together “phrasier” (is there such a word?) – they seem to resonant together more.

One thing I discover I don’t like – the C string is not as “focused” as it should be on the Sandner.  It plays like a bowl of pebbles even on the open string … it’s “sizzling” – a deep hiss type of sound and it feels like the C is all over the place.  If I would end up taking this cello, I would probably ask for a change on the C string as well.  But if I ask for the C to be replaced, must I also change the G string?  The G string sounds good now.  Actually I think the G string on the Knilling sounds slightly better!

The color of the cellos are similar – dim orangy, but the Sandner has a glossy top and the Knilling is matte-finished.  The tree rings on the Sandner are clearer and more dsitinctive.  Those on the Knilling are a little blurry.  The distance of the grains are about the same tho and both are equally even.  Appearance-wise, I am ok with either.

I am gonna bring the Sandner to the coming lesson and let the teacher listen to and comment on it.

Guess I’ll have to decide next week?  Any suggestions?

Sorry I was quite busy with my other things these days.   I did have many dreams recently but I couldn’t find the time to put them here.

Here’s one which I called my elementary school teacher in Vancouver up and told her about (she laughed a bit) that I think it may be interesting to write here.

In the dream, it was a school exam day.  I just finished writing one exam (forgot which subject tho).  The classmates were of the secondary school but the exam inspector was my elementary school teacher (whom I met in a recent trip to HK – she was co-incidently vacationing there).  Then the whole class was getting ready for the next exam, Chinese penmanship, including the students taking French (whom I also met @HK).  Don’t ask why French-taking students were sitting for Chinese penmanship exams.  O-M-G… I actually forgot about this exam completely i.e. I didn’t know I had to write this exam (this is perhaps one of the most recurring themes in my dreams – not knowing I had to write an exam).  I didn’t pack the brush calligraphy book with me in the school bag…  And – I didn’t have a brush nor an ink pad (or container)!  I browsed around and was trying to see who would have a spare, but honestly who would have a spare of such when these items were considered stinky and ancient nowadays!  My heart sank… Oh dear… Oh no!!  At the end, I had to report this to the inspector.  She basically “blackened” her face, and asked me seriously (read: scolding):  did you turn in the calligraphy exercise book after you turned in the Earth Globe model homework!!!  I hesitated and somehow I knew I probably didn’t, and I told her “you know me… perhaps I didn’t”.  I remembered I rated this response as “daring” in the dream.

I forgot what happened next , but that gave my teacher a good laugh and she told me that the exam theme was one of those recurring ones for her as well (and akham…  should I write this… would she kill me… the other recurring theme was being late for school… hee hee!).  I had that (running like crazy coz I was late – the road to the school etc) once in a while (and it was a big thing then) but I guess not as frequent as my teacher’s!

CODA, please let Mr. Park return to the Korean TV drama industry fast.  How long will his fans need to wait?

Mr. Park – please don’t give up! 

‘Counter Ban for Park Shin Yang’ - fighting!

If you can read Chinese / can understand Cantonese, I’ve added a new blogroll entry 講台上下 (tho it has some postings in English as well!).

I’ve listened to this 無知的論斷/mp3/ last night - self inspection time.  Check it out if you dare.