I am Sof.

Music banquet was definitely the best banquet I’ve ever attended in my four years. And now I’m looking forward to formal.

Today I cured my formal panic syndrome. I went to downtown with my mom today after work and after we got a cell phone for myself. I finally got a piece of jewellery to match my dress as well as a handbag. Mom and I went to Kensington, didn’t really see anything; then we just walked along Spadina. Then, mom advised us to go to Queen St. and she totally regreted it because I was going store after store.. after store.. after store; she just ended up waiting for me outside on the street.

Now all I need is a settled plan after formal and a ride to formal.

Cliburn competition has progressed to the semifinals. Among the 12 selected semifinalists, 7 are Asian, 6 are Chinese, 5 represent China. This is going to be interesting. Many people are playing La Valse this year, which is something I didn’t expect.

I don’t have much school work to worry about now, and I’m even getting lazy to study for tests. This really is not a good thing. Once I fall into the comfort zone, it’d be very hard for me to crawl out.

Banquet is tomorrow. Although I’ve borrowed shoes from friends, but they don’t really work one way or the other, so I think I’ll probably have to go to STC to buy some shoes tomorrow afternoon.

The lamp on my desk totally broke, and the lamp that lightens the floor is also broken which means the only illumination facility left in my room is the light on the ceiling - which I refuse to use except under extreme circumstances because it gives off green-white-ish ghostly lights.

I know this was last week’s news, but… yay, Naima won! I knew she could make it.

I think the last 4 girls were all very strong competitors, I was kind of shocked when Brittany was kicked out actually. Keenyah could take fabulous photographs but I think her personality was a downer; Kahlen is a great girl, but just not womanly enough. I like the fact that there wasn’t a lot of catfights in the house for this season, can’t wait for the next season.

Anyway. I hadn’t been able to use my student card to borrow books from the library since the beginning of the year becuase of some allegedly overdue books which I either did not borrow at all or I returned long time ago. I was warned by a friend that if I don’t clear my account, they won’t issue my report card. I paniced a little and decided to face my trial with the librarian and perhaps in hope to prove myself innocent. So I went, and when she scanned my card, she said:”You are Sophie, right?” “Yes….” “Your account is clear. There’s nothing on it.” “WAH?! she did not just say that…” It was good news, jolly good news.

Cliburn competition is going well, I listened to two La Valse performances by two Korean girls, they were stunning. They will be announcing semi-finalists this evening, and I’m looking forward to it.

TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF - The Survey
Name:	Sof
Birthday:	5.5.87
Current Location:	Toronto
Eye Color:	dark brown
Hair Color:	even darker brown
Height:	5′7″-ish?
Right Handed or Left Handed:	right
Your Heritage:	Chinese
The Shoes You Wore Today:	pucca slippers
Your Weakness:	too emotional
Your Fears:	dogs!
Your Perfect Pizza:	don’t really eat pizza
Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year:	play more music
Your Most Overused Phrase On an instant messenger:	hmm
Thoughts First Waking Up:	omg it’s 12:03
Your Best Physical Feature:	I dunno. body?
Your Bedtime:	11/12
Your Most Missed Memory:	too many
Pepsi or Coke:	pepsi!
MacDonalds or Burger King:	neither
Single or Group Dates:	single
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea:	both
Chocolate or Vanilla:	both
Cappuccino or Coffee:	none
Do you Smoke:	no
Do you Swear:	when I’m enraged, yes.
Do you Sing:	yes
Do you Shower Daily:	most of the time
Have you Been in Love:	yes
Do you want to go to College:	university, yes.
Do you want to get Married:	no. maybe I’ll change my mind in the future.
Do you belive in yourself:	sometimes
Do you get Motion Sickness:	sometimes
Do you think you are Attractive:	I’d like to. =P
Are you a Health Freak:	not really.
Do you get along with your Parents:	I have to.
Do you like Thunderstorms:	not particularly.
Do you play an Instrument:	yes
In the past month have you Drank Alcohol:	no
In the past month have you Smoked:	no
In the past month have you been on Drugs:	no
In the past month have you gone on a Date:	if you call it a date, sure.
In the past month have you gone to a Mall:	I work in a mall…
In the past month have you eaten a box of Oreos:	no
In the past month have you eaten Sushi:	no
In the past month have you been on Stage:	yes
In the past month have you been Dumped:	no
In the past month have you gone Skinny Dipping:	no (what is that?)
In the past month have you Stolen Anything:	no
Ever been Drunk:	no
Ever been called a Tease:	no
Ever been Beaten up:	no
Ever Shoplifted:	no
How do you want to Die:	suicide. either silently or resoundingly.
What do you want to be when you Grow Up:	what I’ve always been.
What country would you most like to Visit:	if only the world could be one country…
Favourite Eye Color:	depends on the person.
Favourite Hair Color:	depends on the person.
Short or Long Hair:	short
Height:	girls - same height or shorter; guys - taller than me.
Weight:	45-50kg? something like that.
Best Clothing Style:	don’t go by style. go with myself.
Number of Drugs I have taken:	0
Number of CDs I own:	n, 40< n<60. not a lot, really.
Number of Piercings:	0
Number of Tattoos:	0
Number of things in my Past I Regret:	either 0 or too many
CREATE YOUR OWN! - or - GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS!

Downtown frequency increased, homeworking frequency decreased. I think the Chinese saying “if you don’t use your brain, your brain will be rusted” is true, because I do feel as if my brains are concreted, and has a smooth surface too. I also haven’t practised piano for 3 days, while thinking that I should deserve some days of relaxation from incessant preparation for performances, competitions, etc. for years now, I still feel really bad.

I encountered 3 or 4 dogs on the subway the other day while heading downtown, they scared the hell out of me - man, why do they have to appear on the same day? I also got the Phantom DVD 2 disc special version this week, just watched it again. Ooooh, so good.

Right now I am watching (listening to, more like) the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition online while typing this entry. Just watched Grace Fong from USA, I hope she gets into the final round beause I wanna listen to her Mozart No.23 and Rach III. One of the competitors will be playing Chopin’s complete piano scherzi in the Final Recital round, so crazy. Chen Sa’s performance is tomorrow, at 1pm I believe. I think I’ll miss it because of work.

Now I don’t have much work to do. English seminar and philosophy seminar are all finished, essays are handed in, all I need to worry about is calculus tests and art summative. Banquet on Friday, formal in 3 weeks. I feel like I’m becoming a party animal.

I should pick up my diary-writing habit again, it’ll help me to consume some thoughts.

I really don’t have anything interesting to write about lately, my life is loosely compacted with essaying, seminar preparation, and apparently I only have 1 day left before I write my calc ISU test, and I haven’t even opened up the text book - not to mention not getting any questions done.

A lot of shopping was done though. Viv and I went downtown again yesterday, and we got her a dress for the banquet from Le Chateau. Wondered around in Eaton Centre, got a hot chocolate from Starbucks and came home.

Tomorrow is my 3-spare day, I’m planning to do a lot of studying and working. It should be fun.

- watched A Walk to Remember
- cried
- played badminton, learned some new skills
- did some hw, played some new pieces
- decided that I must have a cat and a set of telescope for my future home

I went gift shopping - for family and friends in China when my dad goes back this summer - with my mom this afternoon, mainly looked at cosmetics and perfume. We got some Elizabeth Arden Green Tea perfumes and mom also bought me one. I’m not a perfume person, but because I love that scent so much, I sprayed it everywhere in my room and right it is filled with that scent, I think I’m getting addicted to it; it smells so refreshingly sweet. In retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t ask for Burberry or Victoria Secret’s zodiac products. Mmmm…. green tea tastes and smells equally good.

I also got some makeup that are not expensive, and I was playing around with it when I got home and it made me realize that it is really hard to make my face look better with makeup. I don’t know what I’m gonna do for banquet and formal, I definitely can’t do it myself. I generally prefer my face without any makeup - 1/it looks better 2/it saves time and money 3/I’m too lazy.

I learned how to make a pentacle with an elastic band and my fingers today. I was fascinated by it during my philosophy test when I was supposed to write. I almost did not finish the test because I got lost in pentacle-making.

Hmm… my room smells so good with the flowers, I’m falling in love with them. Speaking of aroma, I went to Eaton Centre last week and was given a card sprayed with JLo’s perfume. I put the card randomly somewhere in my shopping bag and put my shopping bag in my closet after I got back, and I’ve been smelling the JLo perfume whenever I openned my closet for about a week now, so strong. I wanna take it out but I have no idea where I threw it. =S

Viv and I went downtown shopping on Wednesday, I got some good stuff and a top for music banquet. Then we went to Da Ma’s （大妈）place to eat, her stuff was as good as ever. Then, we headed to the Faculty for a concert of a student who’s studying for master’s degree in piano performance, I also saw my possible future piano teacher. It was a great day.

Because I’ve decided to go to U of T for piano, we decided to move to a place that’s closer to downtown and also close to DVP so my mom can drive to work. My dad will be going back to China and I’m not ditching my mom to rent a place right in downtown (although that is reeaaally tempting, but one of the advantages of living with my mom is that I get free meals =P ) and she might go back to China sometime in the future as well so renting is the best idea. So, my dad and I went to look for places yesterday and we went to many locations, eventually drove to this area near the Science Centre, there was fantastic natural surroundings, and we found this little apartment that almost looked like a hermit’s place - it’s as if you are living in a forest away from the human society. Because the building is kinda old and not very good with the sound proof system, so I can’t really practise a lot if I live in there, I will probably spend the whole day at U of T practising, attending classes, and then come home to this hermit’s place. I really do have to practise at school more than I do at home, because nobody can handle a few hours of consecutive pracitsing; but can’t imagine myself spend 12h/day at the Faculty/downtown without a place to stay other than the practice room. Maybe this is a good thing, it’ll force me to stay in the practice rooms to practise more.

The whole looking for a place thing really hit me. I consider myself a bit anti-social and I don’t interact with strangers unless I have to, but when I had to talk to the superintendents and to ask very practical questions such as how much it costs to rent a place, what is provided in the room, and asking myself whether I can afford it, what I’m going to do if I don’t get enough money, eventually led me thinking about what I’m going to do after I graduate if I study piano. It’s not that I’ve never thought about this question, I’ve just never really looked at it so realistically. I have to admit, it was really kind of scary. Now I’m only 18 and I have my parents here with me, I have friends I know well, I live in an area which I’ve been living four almost 5 years, I really don’t know how I’m going to cope with a completely unfamiliar environment. Unlike many people I know, CBC or new immigrants alike, they are here in Toronto and they know they’ll root here. For me, I know this is just going to be my second home country and I’ll be always drifting around. I’m not at the stage where I need to think about a place where I can always come back to and I don’t want to think about it either - because there’re so much of the world that I want to explore. However, it is quite hard to live without the feeling of security and without knowing there’s always a place you can go back to, where you can just live happily until you die. And personally, it is equally scary if I waste my whole life renting a pathetic place to live for the rest of my life without doing any of the things I want to do - and by then I suppose I’ll have to rely on God’s word if I want to live happily.

Yo-Yo Ma’s Bach music soothes me.

Following Stella’s footstep, I have also officially accepted U of T’s offer on the OUAC page. Ahh… I cannot wait to get my TCard on the 20th. Jing said that she also decided to go to U of T instead of Waterloo and she’ll be renting a place there as well. So nice, now I have two places to crush. Ha. Jing also said, she’ll be coming to the banquet. =)

I was just browsing people’s MSN spaces on my contact list and somehow I was redirected to the Chinese fob community - and mainly fobs from mainland China. Goodness, sometimes I’m just so very thankful that Woburn isn’t full of fobs, I can’t imagine what it’d be like if I were in.. say, A.Y. Jackson. I’d have long dyed yellowy hair, PMall as my permanent dwelling place, cut 3 of my fingers to always have the “V” sign, take lots of fobby gross narcissistic web-cam pictures with pouting lips, contrived ‘cute’ postures, speaking like a 4-year-old girl. Ah, I’d kill myself before I get killed. I don’t get some mainlanders, they come here and they wanna be like HK fobs. I mean, if you wanna be fobs, at least be mainland fobs; have some mainland pride. Geez.

Ken and I were having a good discussion on how a pianist can gain money. In a music school, piano major is very profitable because nearly all other instrumentalists need a piano accompanist for final exams and such. Heehee… A friend of mine who’s in such environment told me that the saddest major, in terms of spending money, would be the composition majors - if they compose a piano piece, they pay 1 person; a violin sonata, 2 persons; a quartet piece, 4 persons; an orchestral piece, a whole bunch of people. It’s general consensus that it’s very hard to earn a living from being a concert pianist, so I must prepare more back-up plans. After all, working is a means of getting money, getting money is a means to travel and to live the kinda life I like. I’m glad I wasn’t born to realize the ludicrous importance of money - although sadly I pine for it so very badly when I need to go shopping.

The hardest part of La Campanella? It is sitting through the waist pain when the body is leaning towards the right side for a few mintues to practise. Rach 2 is fab though, it makes me forget all the crap that I either consciously or unconsciously think about. Really, when you’ve got music, what more can you ask for?

收到了那么多国内朋友来的电邮祝我生日快乐；并且还告诉我，他们快要高考了。烈日炎炎的考场以及无边无际地复习，就这么来了。我远隔千里，什么也帮不到他们。只是想告诉他们，又一条路快要走完了，伴随是好是坏的一个尽头一定是3年的欢笑与泪水，我们都是会想念这段日子的。路，只是要走下去的；路的劲头就在那里，我们只是不知道它的样子而已。

想想自己，也是如此。想到5年前刚刚到这里，没有一个朋友；高中的第一天走在学校诺大的房子里，想这所学校怎么大的像个迷宫。一个13岁的小女孩，今天也已经18岁了；我走过来的日子，痛苦欢乐都有过。我要走进大学的门槛，还要对很多的事物说再见；就是这么快。

天晴了，花开了。又是一个迷人的夏季。有的时候走在上学的路上看着路边的景色，怎么也不能明白经历了一个残酷冬天，它怎么会变得这么美丽；它是怎么活过来的。

想念以前的，盼望未来的。一个悠闲的转折点。

本来还打算这个暑假回国的，可是想了想还是在这边好好挣点钱，练练琴，准备上大学的好。很想念国内的朋友，希望明年这个美丽的季节再回去吧。

I think it’s safe to say goodbye to V3.

So, this time, I made it really simple and journal-like. I do still have the ‘blog stuff’ at the very bottom. Font is super small now so if I type Chinese, it’d be very hard to read. I kind of wanna separate Chinese from this blog again, call me insane.

Hm… school feels so empty this week. I have yet to finish my philosophy ISU essay + presentation, and I need to study for philo + calc tests. Then, banquet and formal. Whee. Going shoppping in downtown with Viv on Wednesday, a concert to attend- man, life is so good.

Yesterday went downtown, finally felt liberated. Met up with I.S., gave Alan’s present to him, then went down to Eaton Centre checked out stuff, bought stuff and dropped off my resume. Saw Sin City without being underage and guild-ridden, but it grossed the hell out of me - the cinematography was good, but the movie was gross. Though it was kinda chilly after the movie when I was walking in downtown, but at least summer is finally arriving.

Today I got up at 8:45, still feeling a pang of emptiness and vomitness in my stomach, I felt weak. But I still had to get my butt to work and so I went. After I got back and had lunch, I was cleaning up my room and was sorting out the tonnes of clothes that I have. It was such a pain. I love clothes, but before I recently matured in this aspect and realized that I should only buy the clothes that I really really want or really really suit me to save money and save space in my closet, I had bought lots of trash. And when I came to Canada, I brought clothes I had from China which now, obviously, are shrunken. (although some of them still look pretty good and I’d still wanna wear…) I was having such a war with my clothes, they were e v e r y w h e r e. I had to sort out the good/new ones that I want my consins to have so that when my dad goes back to China he can bring them with him. (surprisingly, lot of the clothes are new… I never even wore them. I just bought them, realized that the size isn’t right or something, then ditched them) And reality proved that my size DID expand horizontally, whether proportionally or not with my whole body. So girls, I do have 2 pairs of pants and a jean skirt that are new and I can’t wear - I grew fat - if you want them just email me or something.

Clothes bring back so many memories. The dress I wore to the banquet, my recital; the first shirt my parents bought for me in Canada; sweater my parents got me in Hong Kong.. Now I’m going to say goodbye to them. =( It’s weird, after the spring concert, when my 4th year is going to end, I have to say goodbye to so many things. *sigh* It is sad but necessary.

I really didn’t know how to title this post. I’m really speechless.

This has been the most special day of my entire life so far, and I cannot express my thankfulness enough times to those of you who made it special. I was telling Mrs.Houghton before I went on stage that the concert was the best birthday gift I have ever received. You guys are wonderful musicians, and it’s been my pleasure to have collaborated with you all. For the record, I really meant it when I wrote the last sentence of my bio. =)

I’m really tired, but I’m too excited to sleep. I’ll probably write more as the night goes on.

————
Alright, so it’s now 2:27 in the morning. My prediction came true: I tried to sleep but couldn’t succeed. Physically tired, mentally excited. So I’m sitting on my bed with my laptop and writing more of my thoughts.

I was actually quite nervous before the concert. It’s not a matter of experience or logic, it just comes out naturally - think about Rubinstein shattering a glass before a concert due to nervousness and Horowitz had to be pushed onto the stage. My pre-performance syndrome is the feeling of throwing up - I can’t eat anything, if I do, I’d feel like vomiting; but if I don’t eat, where do I get the energy from in order to perform? My mom suggested that I should eat no matter what, and go throw up and come back eat again. I should practise that.

Parthi got very emotional after the concert, and I think I was still too into the performing mood that I did not really resonate. But now when I think about it, it’s been four years. I still remember the first day I stepped into the music hall wondering why all these people were so tall and I was so short; how I joined concert choir with Steph, Stella, Barbara, Jing and how much we used to laugh during the rehearsals. Feeder school tours, Madrigal Choir concerts, jazz band gigs, now the most memorable Rhapsody with Wind Ensemble. It all happened too quickly…. But I am ready to say goodbye, because only by departing can we realize the preciousness of one thing. I’m ready to put all these memories into a dainty box with a seal that says Woburn Music.

Oww.. now my stomach is hurting. I don’t know how I’m gonna drag myself to school tomorrow but luckily I only have 1 class. I’m a little tired now, and I think I’m gonna go back to lying on my bed and be awake for a few hours before sunrise.

p.s. I got the offer from Western Ontario U. 3/3, complete.

Ha, now Yahoo! email is 1GB too. Yahoo! vs. Gmail, Yahoo! wins with all those cute little emoticons.

So I’ve officially decided to NOT to go back to China this summer (sorry Michii, I’ll bring you the Mao hat next summer…), because i) I need to prepare myself before I step into uni ii) I have a lot of things I wanna do in Toronto iii) I need to get one more job - man I need $$ so very badly. Apparently Lang Lang, Evgeni Kissin, Isaak Perlman and all those big names are coming to Toronto as stated in the TSO 05/06 season program, and I wanna make a subscription to their programs. As well, I’m thinking of joining AGO and possibly ROM for their membership. AND I wanna subscribe to several magazines, like National Geographic, (Teen) Vogue, etc. So, to conclude, I NEED MONEY!!!

…

I find myself getting more and more fed up with speaking to people. Seemingly whatever I say, it’d come out the wrong way. It’s not so much of the fact that I care about how people think of me, it’s that I don’t wanna hurt anybody’s feelings when I don’t intentionally want to (I really wish we can live in a world in which people can read each other’s mind sometimes). And specifically, I’m fed up with the Chinese hypocritical way of being humble and nice when speaking.

I asked this auntie (she’s Chinese) to come to the Spring Concert on Thursday if she can make it because her daughter’s into music and also, I told her that it’ll be my 18th birthday. She did not look particularly happy and gave me this semi-screwed face, but eventually did agree to come. I was feeling weird and after I got in the car and told my mom about it, I realized that the auntie probably thought the reason why I told her the birthday part was because I intended her to bring me birthday presents. But hell, I so did not mean that. The reason why I told her that was because it’d mean a lot to me if she can just come, especially it’s on a special day for me.

In Chinese culture, if you don’t want something, you say you don’t want it; and if you DO want something, you still say you don’t want it - if you say you do want it, people would think you are greedy and not humble. So on the formal dinner table, when the host asks a guest whether he/she wants more of whatever dish, the guest is expcted to say : oh no, please, it’s so very nice of you, I cannot possibly ask for more (translation: oh yes, please, I do want more) and the host is supposed to say: you are such a welcomed guest, please take more, please. And then the guest is expected to say more crap like what he/she already said to refuse, and then the host does the same and after a few rounds, the guest gets it. Note: it’s mandatory to refuse it. It’s so friggin’ fake.

So, after I realized that I shouldn’t have told her the birthday part, I thought it’d be even worse to go back and explain it to her because if I say to her: please don’t take it the way that I want you to bring me presents for my birthday, because I didn’t mean it; please don’t bring anything at all. And she’d take it as: please do bring me presents, that’s actually what I meant; I just thought that I should come back and point it out to make it clear.

This is utterly hypocritical. Thanks to Confucius.

My English ISU presentation went well today besides the fact that I exceeded the given time. I always seem to do that for my presentations, it’s like I save all my babbles during spare time for presentations or something. I dunno, I just always have a lot of talk about when I’m relaxed up there. The topic of discussion was whether prostitution should be legalized in our society and when I was wrapping it up with the whole class, majority of the class (is brown) was just staring at me and said: no. No what? No opinion? Or it shouldn’t be legalized? “We are brown, so we’ll just say no.”

I can’t wait for university, really. I just looked at the courses UT offers both in the Faculty of Music and Arts and Science, they are intriguing. List of the courses I wanna take:
-Italian and English in vocal music
-classical Chinese music
-Art history
-Archeology
-Eastern Asian studies
…-standard Chinese/classical Chinese
…-Japanese
-Philosophy
…-Philosophy of Human Sexuality
…-Marx and Marxism
…-Aesthetics
…-Philosophy and Psychoanalytic Theory
…-many many more
-Architecture/design
-Fine art
-Anthropology

My goodness. I just freaked myself out.

C’mon, it’s May, let it be warmer and hailless. It IS going to be warmer next week though, and as tangential as it is, I’m gonna get a hole in my ears on Friday. I think. And so much shopping awaits, but right now I just feel the shiver when I thinking about spending money ever since I got my prom dress. Eeeek.

Some pictures of ladyboy.