Eyes on me

"I saw you smiling at me

Was it real or just my fantasy"

"I kind of liked it your way

How you shyly placed your eyes on me

Oh did you ever know?

That I had mine on you"

Castle in the Sky - Innocent (Piano)

Innocent

Music from 《天空の城ラピュタ》 (Laputa, the Castle in the Sky)
Taken from the Album 《Piano Stories》 by 久石譲 (Joe Hisaishi)


Basically this song is a rearrangement of the main theme song, 君をのせて (Carrying you), but is much easier. The main melody is the same, and I like this melody a lot. I also like the piano version of Carrying you, but that one is a bit harder to learn, so I learnt this one first. I should be moving on to Carrying you in the near future.

Again, it took me a lot of time to film it... The song is easy to learn, but filming it is another thing. After about 10 tries I finally got it right. The dynamics part somehow cannot be shown in the film clearly, or rather with this piano and camera it's very hard to catch the dynamics (not that I played it very well, though...).

I think this piano of mine is really old... I hope to get a better one if I have the chance.

And I just realised that many people have played this song and posted on youtube already... Many of them play better than me (of course), haha. But never mind since I've already posted it. It's sort of gaining experience, you know.

I've also watched the actual movie some time ago. I believe if I were a kid, I would be touched by it, but watching it now doesn't give me a lot of feelings. The idea of a castle floating in the sky for many many years is very interesting though, and the music is also very nice, just like all the songs composed by Joe Hisaishi. When he composed the Soundtrack for this film, I wasn't even born yet! LOL

Took IPPT today. For those of you all who don't know, IPPT is sort of Physical Fitness Test in army. Last year I got Silver, and this year I am aiming for Silver again. However, just after the test started to rain. And the rain got heavier as time passed... We still took the indoor stations, but the last station, 2.4 km run, had to be carried out outdoors. Hence we waited, and waited, and waited for the rain to stop... But God was so harsh that he didn't blow the rain clouds away... So, the IPPT today was void and I need to come back to take next time...My one day off and the $100 that comes with a Silver is also gone... for now.

Tomorrow I will be booking in for another round of 7 days. After this round a new batch of Sea Soldiers will be joining the platoon, so there will be more manpower and duty will be less siong. Yes, just a bit more to endure...

Ok, I shall go and tidy up my room now... I have not done that for...hmm, weeks? Haha...

Here's a funny video I found:

Konayuki - Piano

粉雪(Konayuki) (Piano Ver.) by レミオロメン(Remioromen)

From the Japanese drama 1リットルの涙(1 Litre of Tears)

This was really a tough one... It's the hardest song I ever recorded. I kept making mistakes, and I literally took countless times before I could find a satisfactory video...

Still, it wasn't played perfectly. I rushed at some parts in the middle, and some areas were not played correctly. But I guess at my level, this is the best I can get...

If I have time in the future maybe I will re-do this piece, because I really like this song. I like the drama also. It was very touching, and I shed more than 1 litre of tears from watching it...


Tomorrow I will be booking in again for my next round of 7 days... Time outside passes really fast. I still haven't finish doing what I need to do, and the next 7D is here... I guess I should cut down on the amount of time I spend reading manga.

I hope to organise a gathering soon, since my university friends are going to finish their exams. Preferably it will be before they fly off to other islands for their holiday.

These few days I've been sleeping really late... I know it's not good, but I just can't bear to see time being wasted by sleeping at home, especially when we already have so little time outside camp. I can catch my sleep in camp, but by not sleeping at night my health will be compromised, and my memory too... Haiz, let's see when I can fix back this habit...

And my poor camera Canny... I haven't been exploring your abilities and hence your potential have yet to be unleashed... Sorry... 

Rain

It rained in the afternoon today. Maybe, it is raining in my heart as well.

I really don't understand why I am so unlucky this year. So many unpleasant things have been happening to me, one by one. Is my 19th year supposed to pass like that?

Some miscellaneous stuff: On one of the days when booking out, I actually forgot to put my wallet in my bag and left it lying on my bed. By the time I realised I was already on the bus home. In the end I had to borrow money from my friend to take taxi, and ten plus dollars was wasted just like that...

That's not the end, actually. After I alighted from the taxi I walked towards the staircase as I held my iTouch in my hand. Somehow I flipped the pouch upside down and the iTouch just slipped down onto the floor. I quickly held onto the earphone cord, but it was useless. The cord was simply too long...:-( The concrete ground mercilessly hit my poor naked iTouch (I removed the plastic skin a few days ago...), giving its cheek a few scratches... Now I feel as though a permanent scratch mark is left in my heart as well... I've put on the blue skin again, but whenever I think of my iTouch I will think of those glaring scratches and I will feel very sad... ToT

Then there's also the issue in the army, regarding my platoon mates and within myself. I don't know why but it seems hard for me to communicate with people, sometimes :-|

My piano teacher also doesn't seem to be responding to my messages...

I sort of forgot that there's one more competition this year: the three country weiqi competition. It involves Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, and this year it's held in Kuala Lumpur. The selection tournament is on this coming Saturday and Sunday. I think this is too much to be a coincidence - both the selection tournament and the actual competition are on my book-out days! But, it is just a trick heaven is playing on me. I can't go for the actual competition because it's considered overseas, and I need to use my leaves if I want to go overseas... >_< I'm only left with 2 days of leave this year, and I need to reserve them for whampoa cup... ;_;

Maybe this is what I'm destined to go through. Get hopes and then lose them.

I have been thinking a lot recently, about my future, my character, my friends, my life... Where should I be, and where should I go? What should I do, and who should I care about? How should I lead my life?

How can I become a useful person?

However, my vision seems to be severly blurred by the rain, as I can't see the answer clearly...

Resolution

After many days of "rotting" at home, I have come to a conclusion that I have been to slack and at this rate my weiqi skills will be going nowhere, if not downwards. From now onwards, my resolution is to use the com for at most one to two hours a day for entertainment and devote the rest of the time to doing useful stuff, and weiqi will be the priority followed by piano. I know that this is a bit difficult now given the amount of commitments I have on the com and my ability to give myself excuses, but I can try to restrain myself from certain things that are not necessary or not so important. I used to spend too much time on meaningless stuff because I get easily distracted and was also personally lazy to get myself out of the chair. As a result a lot of time was wasted. In the end it still boils down to personal discipline and prioritisation.

Only about one month left before the Whampoa Cup... Whether I can go to Japan next year or not will depend on this... Will my Japan dream come true?