oh laurier.

ah, school is back but this time things will be different. crack out the books, and get out the glasses because this year, sharon is gonna be a geekface. ;)

phew, what a weekend.

taken at the MIAC show at the international centre in sauga on sunday and monday

this weekend was hectic, but so fun. i was asked to play synths for a composition being played in a Special Gala Concert at the Living Arts Centre in Missisauga. it was a night to celebrate the dipomatic relations between japan and canada, as well as pay tribute to the great Canadian jazz pianist, Oscar Peterson. anyway, it was nice getting a chance to play with professional musicians (mark kelso - drums, the madawaska string quartet - strings) as well as Francis Li (the composer of the piece.) The piece, Winter Colours, had a kind of europop feel to it, which i thought sounded pretty cool. different, but cool. and it was fun to play - which made it even better. :)

the first half was mainly compositions from Yamaha students (from Canada, Japan and the US) as well as other musicians/pianists from around the Toronto area, but the second half was just...WOW. i met the jazz pianist, Hiromi Uehara, back in 1996 when we were both part of the Yamaha National JOC concert held at the Glenn Gould theatre in TO. she was amazing and blew me away then, but this weekend she made me wanna quit piano altogether. geeeez. so amazing. her style has definitely progressed and developed over the years and...wow. "Hiromi fuses jazz and classical with traditional Japanese music, and injects an element of techno funk with frequent helpings of electronic keyboards. Somehow, she makes it all jell—brilliantly." couldn't have said it any better. the cool thing is that she immediately recognized me as "Liz's sister". :P (apparently we look like twins?) and after telling her bassist, Tony Grey (who was also amazing), that Liz was a Berklee graduate from the same year as them, he realized that he knew her too, from being in some brazilian harmonies class together at berklee. haha. such famous, talented people knowing my sister! wooot! go liz! :D small world. crazy berklee kids. ;)

after the gala concert on saturday, i also played in 4 other mini concerts at the MIAC show held at the international centre on sunday and monday...and it was pretty great getting to talk to some of the other musicians that were there as well as seeing some people from the Yamaha Canada Music Head Office - they actually remembered me! i didn't even think that they knew who i was. :)

anyway, there was one thing that i learned in a big way this weekend:
the music world is frickin big. i knew it was big, but it is so much bigger than i originally thought. as with everything, connections are key.

olympic fever...

ah, so the olympics are here again and they're as exciting as ever! too bad canada isn't doing too great. (hopefully in the days to come, the canadian team will make me eat my words *crossing fingers*.)

so instead, i've been focusing on australia. their swim team is so impressive, but my favourite has to be ian thorpe. for me not the best to look at (haha), but he's definitely great at coming back at the end of races. gooooo thorpedo! AND he's an OCTO baby!!! (which is an added bonus. haha.):D

yay thorpedo!!! the 200m freestyle was great! loved every second of this race! yeeeeah! it was good swimming action. :D haha.

COME ON CANADA. we gotta get another medal. one bronze is just not good enough. :P

peaching picking pictures are up! yay fun times with adrienne, will, judy, ian and steph! click here for pics. :)

kangoojumps

during my lunch break last friday (i spent the day being an rcm theory proctor) i was sitting down on a bench by a waterfountain enjoying the nice weather when all of a sudden this guy gave me a flyer (which i realized after reading promoted the new revolutionary fitness industry product that he was wearing.) at first i thought they were rollerblades, but when i saw him bouncing away (like literally) i knew that they were something else. it was quite a sight, seeing a grown man bouncing along yonge st...

anyway, i checked out the site and they're actually supposed to be really beneficial for your health. plus, it looks fun! :P

new york pictures are up! click here to view them! :)

summer conference 2004

my church's summer conference has come and gone...again. i can't think back to a time when i haven't gone (though they weren't always held every year)...and since i've been going to etcbc my whole life, i've been to quite the number of summer conferences...and my have they changed. maybe it's me. or maybe a bit of both.

anyway despite the fact that we're all getting old (forget about staying up late, we were gone by 2-2:30am), this year was a good one. 5 hero messages (Kent Edwards rocked) and plenty of good times. :) from breaking almost all the rules with adrienne, moving jo's bed onto the desks in our room (good talking times!), and being "good samaritans" by cleaning egg crap off the carpet (haha. silly little girls.) to being one of the first few to hear "the news" ;), seeing joshers again (don't think he reads this, but it was nice seeing him nonetheless - haven't seen him since like high school.) and seeing anita again (yay! my first year laurier heroine!)...this summer conference has been a success.

oh! and i went peach picking! (i'll upload pictures soon hopefully.) :)

(wow. i use a lot of parentheses.) :P

such an eventful weekend. so much to think about and reflect upon...

i'm back!

we came back yesterday at around 11:30-12am. :) so nice seeing the metric system again. there was a beautiful sunset yesterday night, and there were even fireworks that we saw from the highway. (i wonder what the occasion was. so illegal. haha.)

anyway, new york was awesome! fun times! (even though for most of it i had to walk around the city all by my lonesome.) but no complaints here, because it was a great experience - exploring a huge city alone - and i got to do all the things that i wanted to do and more! AND i didn't get mugged. OR shot. haha. i guess new york city isn't as bad as i thought that it was. you just need to be careful.

things i accomplished (this is more for me than for you. haha):
- walked times square (the real one.)
- went to guggenheim
- went to the met
- saw a cinderella story
- went to century 21 (even if only for 10 mins)
- went to the new york public library on 5th ave
- walked in central park (so beautiful. even saw sea otters!)
- saw maxine and auntie juliana
- rode the subway and only went the wrong way ONCE (there are like at least 25 different subway lines! i'm not even joking. or exaggerating. :P
- walked around like there was no tomorrow

i had so much fun. thanks so much liz for being so nice to me and trying to make me feel at home at your apartment. thanks for all those dinners (even though you wouldn't let me pay. :P) thanks for your subway map and for just being the best. we didn't get to go to the brunch place or the museum of modern art...but...we'll go next time!

i remember a time when i used to not like nyc at all, but now i actually miss it. quite a bit. (there's nowhere to walk around here.) but most of all, i miss my jeh jeh.

p.s. liz, hope that you remembered to give my metro card to someone! there's still 2 days left on it :)

mid-trip update

i think out of all the days here in NYC, today has been the most unproductive. so far it's been spent sleeping (got up at around 11 something), listening to liz's music, surfing the internet, and trying to decide whether or not to splurge in an ipod. i've been calculating the cost of buying one in canada and buying one here like there's no tomorrow. i even went to find out what the exchange rate for today was. it's 1.3131. :P haha. it's so tempting. it would save me some money to get one here rather than buy one in canada...and they just came out with a new version! i'm still going back and forth with the whole idea. *sigh* we'll see.

i went to the metropolitan museum of art (aka "the met") yesterday. i took lots of pictures. but i'll have to upload them back at home. i forgot that usb cable thing at home. piece of crap. ;P i originally intended to go to guggenheim as well (it's just a few blocks north on 5th st.) but it was closed. i walked all the way there in the blistering heat and found out that it was closed every thursday. probably for the better though - i walked the met for 2.5 hours straight (with a 30 sec sit down) and my legs wanted to fall off. ah well. at least i'm getting cultured. haha. so hopefully i'll go to guggenheim today. :) it's raining here anyway so it'll be good to spend it inside...

saw a cinderella story with liz at the amc yesterday and i really liked that movie. it was really cute. i want to buy the dvd when it comes out. :) hahaha oh and then afterwards we walked around times square for like an hour trying to find somewhere to eat. when we finally left the restaurant it was like a little past 12 and there were still so many people in times square. i was pretty suprised - i always thought that when people called new york city the "city that never sleeps" they were just exaggerating. silly me.

anyway, i'm meeting up with my cousin maxine later tonight after she gets off work. then we're gonna hang out and later on meet up with lizhead and eat together! (something about a rice pudding resaturant. hmmm. never tried that before.) i haven't seen maxine since Christmas so it'll be nice to see her again. hopefully i'll get to see my "dai-eee-ma" too. :)

okay! so that's the update so far. i'm hungry, so i'm gonna go make my swiss cheese and turkey breast sandwich for lunch. (i've had one everyday for lunch since i've been here.) ha! you laugh now, but i'm saving a lot of money on lunches by making my own! and food is bling bling here. :P anyway the bread, meat and cheese are calling me now. bye! :)

muggy, humid and super hot.

i'm writing this from new york city. if you think that toronto is hot, omg. it's so frickin hot here. it's gross. ewww. but oh well. the trip with anna and alfred was really fun! and i slept for most of it i think. haha. i saw a deer in new jersey. it was like, running around in the neighbourhood like it was nobody's business. kinda wierd.

anyway, tomorrow i'm off to central park (hopefully) and i'm going to bring a book. hahaha. yaY! can't wait. hope it's not TOO bad with the hotness though. alright. there's the update. more to come later. :)