The Magic of Music

To me, music is magic. The ones that I like helps me when I’m emotional. Even modern hip-hop and pop music calms me through these emotional moments. Right now, my favorite songs are “Smack That” and “Lonely” by Akon and “Somewhere” originally by Barbara Streisand, but currently sang by Il Divo. Somehow, my favorite music always changes because I think I will listen to another song on the radio and forget my previous favorite.

When I was 2 years old, I could sing “Hanyalah Satu” by Nora, the whole song but out of tune! I think it was because my mother liked the song so much and keeps on playing it in the car. I even went to see Nora sing at the Sri Melayu Restaurant. When I got back from the SUKOM in September 1998, I sang that song and my grandfather teased me, questioning whether I had sang the song correctly. Then my aunty said “Dia memang out-of-tune Bah(Dad), tapi satu lagu tu dia hafal!”.

According to Mama, she used to sing to me when I was in her womb.

“Mama ada Baby, Baby ada Mama, Papa ada Baby, Baby ada Papa,”

When I was born, my mother would sing to me John Denver’s “You Are My Sunshine, My only sunshine, You make me happy, When skies are blue, you’ll never know Dear, How much I love you, Please don’t take my sunshine away…”

When I started to go to kindergarten, to wake me up for school, she would sing “Wake up Girl, Come on Girl, Girl, Girl….”

There was another song that would wake me up, it was “Pop Goes The Weasel”. Whenever Papa or Mama would play the videotape, I would be jumping up to the beat of the song. Even when I’m fast asleep, I would stand up and pay full attention to the song.

In fact, that was how I memorized the Sunshine Books – it was sung to me – all the verses in the books – “a banana for you, a banana for me, a banana for monkey, up in the tree.”

I remembered going for my ballet classes when I was 4 in my mother’s car, and we would sing about the things that we see all the way there – “I can see cars, I can see cars, hi ho the dairy oh, I can see cars.” “I can see Police Station,……….” then trees, and buses and so forth.

Even before I could speak, I remembered being in Papa’s car, whenever I see a bus, I would gesture with my hand in a circular motion and saying “uh, uh”, pestering any adult in the car to sing “The Wheels On The Bus go round and round, round and round, round and round, The wheels on the bus go round and round, all day long…..”

Music, music and more music. I’ll still think they’re magic no matter what!

The Joy of Reading

My passion for reading started even before I started to speak. Right now, the books that I’m reading are Nancy Drew Mysteries, Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabbit, My Secret Unicorn by Linda Chapman and Jacqueline Wilson books. I think that one reason I have a passion to read is because I was a calm and quiet little cat, even now. And maybe another reason is because the people around me also read books so I think that is where I get my inspiration from.

There was this one book, a count-one-to-ten teddy bear book that I couldn’t get enough of. I would bring it to Papa every now and then. Papa would read it. After a while, he began to grew tired of it and instead of reading it with enthusiasm, he reads it in a very lazy and boring manner. Mama actually didn’t have to tell me the story because I had already memorised the story about the bears. I must have read the book everyday. I can tell, because every page of it was torn and being taped back together and dog-eared.

I began reading Sunshine Books even before I entered my kindergarten, Sri Manja. I liked Sunshine Books because it has a wide spectrum and variety of topics. From Space to Weather Charts, from Rain, to Eggshell Garden, to The Face Sandwich. In fact, I made my own eggshell garden with my aunt. Then, I would plant some seeds into empty eggshells. Then, the seeds would become plants, which is the eggshell’s “hair”.

I think the importance of reading is that you can learn a new word everyday – that is, if you read a book everyday. Other than that, you can learn the spelling of words and it may inspire you to maybe write your own book later in the future.

Piano and Ballet Concert

I was very excited and nervous. It’s Jean Gan Academy of Ballet and Music’s charity event – Dance Galore 2005. This is not the first time I’m performing on stage infront of 800 people.

My mother sent me to ballet and piano classes at Jean Gan. I started ballet at the age of 4, April 2000 and piano at the age of 7, December 2003. Jean Gan organizes a ballet concert every 2 years. Th most recent concert in 2005, they asked the piano students to play piano at the start of the concert. I was one of the students who played the piano.

In that concert, I participated in three different items which is piano, ballet and choir. It was my first concert that i played my piano in. The title of the song that I played was “Swans in the Lake”. There was about 15 people that played the piano. Two of them played a duet and both also played a single. They were 16 then. They both played pieces along with CDs but 1 of them messed up and cried backstage because she was scared that her father would have scolded her.

While I was changing into my ballet uniform, there were a number of other ballets and tap dances. Then, it was my turn. My dance was called “Zip-A-Dee Doo Dah”. I had to wear a country-like dress and tie my hair into a half ponytail.

Between my ballet and choir performance, there was only one tap dance so I had to change quickly. My choir uniform was a white blouse, a white skirt, white socks and black shoes. I also had to wear a white headband and had to pin three blue ribbons on my blose and five blue ribbons on my skirt. That was the girls’ uniform. The boys had to wear a white shirt, white braces, white trousers and black shoes.

While we sang the songs, they dances before that had to go down the stairs to another room where our parents would come to bring us our clothes and give us some water.

It was a great concert and I am happy that i participated in it