Watching VCD with Dad and Being Onstage Once Again

Well, I did quite a lot of things yesterday and some of them are pretty rare and unusual for me.

Good Gym Session:

I was in the gym yesterday late morning, to work out all the excess junk food that I have stuffed myself over the weekend because I was too busy to have proper meals in between lessons. I suppose I'll just have to endure another couple of weeks before all those lessons ease off so I can eventually sit down for decent weekend meals. Gym was, in short, good and smooth, which means I managed to complete the intended routine without breaking or spraining anything. =P

Watching VCD with Dad:

My dad, a retiree, is usually busy with his share of household chores, strumming his guitar in his room, or visiting the community centre. But today, I managed to catch him in a vcd mood because I bought the vcd for Blood Diamond, which is actually an action-documentary movie about conflict diamonds. My dad, like me, is a junkie for action movies and he loves things associated with gemstones so he grabbed a chair to my room and both of us watched the first half of the movie, exchanging comments about the plot line of the movie as we went along. We intend to catch the second portion later in the morning. Family time can be fun too. =)

Good Lesson With A Student:

I had an afternoon lesson with a Primary 4 student and I was pretty happy with the progress that he has made with his English Comprehension. The kid is quite intelligent though careless but at least he is grasping what I was trying to teach and managed to absorb well enough. He is lucky to have a very caring mother who would get whatever he needs and never hesitated to enquire about how her son is coping with the lessons. Lucky chap. My mom, during my time in school at that age, was much more at peace with my progress. Her philosophy with my studies - If cannot study then quit school and work lor. -___-"

Onstage For Performances Once Again:

It's been so long since I was onstage doing live performing and singing again. Last night was two rounds of unexpected stage performances in front of a crowd of 20+ strangers. I was meeting a friend at MusicDreamer Live! Cafe to check out what its Audience Night was all about and I had originally intended to sit it out the whole night since I have heard from the singers there that their Audience Nights are usually very interesting. It turned out I could not escape performing either because the musicians onstage insisted a performance from every single table. My friend adamantly refused to sing onstage, citing that she is too shy to sing in front of so many strangers. Caught totally unprepared to sing, I managed to squeeze out two songs <彩虹天堂> By 刘耕宏 <寂寞的季节> By 陶哲 after much brainstorming. All the other members of the audience who went onstage to sing, seemed to be so experienced with the Audience Night, preparing their own song lyrics sheets and looking much more composed than poor Sean who was completely taken aback by their better-than-expected singing. Some of them really sang very well indeed.

My first song was, in my opinion, extremely embarassing because somewhere between a full stomach of chicken chop, a shivering voicebox (I forgot to bring my jacket) and the awkwardness of having to perform in front of a newly-met friend at the very first meeting, I managed to sing off key not just once, but at least four times through the song. After my first performance ended, I was prepared for the tomatoes to be thrown but thankfully, the keyboard musician, 坚立, who was helping me with the music accompaniment, smoothed out my frayed performance by saying that it was actually a very difficult song to perform. The audience was merciful and generous enough to award some applause at least. Nice people there last night.

My second song, accompanied by guitarist, 思悯, in my opinion, sounded better, because I deliberately picked something easier since I had done a terrible one earlier on. I could not really see the expressions of the audience downstage because I had to keep my eye on the lyrics of the song (I had not sung this song for two months) but I suppose the relatively more enthusiastic applause means I did okay for the second one.

I would like to make use of this opportunity to thank 坚立and 思悯 for their wonderful music accompaniment for both of my performances and also all those who managed to stay and listen to poor Sean croaking away last night. Last night, I had seriously underestimated the standards of singing on Audience Night at MusicDreamer Live! Cafe and if I am ever to find time to turn up for another one, I promise to make up to the people there with better performances. =D