After Lit 1

Ooh fusion Indian music owns! Was down at Esplanade desperately trying to cheer myself up after E Hist on Saturday, and went down to catch the free performance. They have this Indian arts fest thing going on now, which is really quite cool, especially their music offerings. As it happened this fusion Indian band from KL was playing. Prana, they're called, which allegedly means "Life Breath" in Sanskrit. And wow that was a really cool show! First time I saw a sitar played live, and it was a real sight to behold...the magnificence of such a tall instrument, the dignity of the cross-legged player, and the magic of those quick, lithe fingers. All really impressive.

And the songs themselves...strange blends they achieved, with Indian sounds but Western, Malay and even Arabic rhythms. They had a guitarist who was really pro with the fingerstyle feats, but I was extremely impressed with the sitar imitated those finger acrobatics. All in all a really delightful performance, really surprising at every turn. Fusion makes you look at music from different perspectives; you're like examining the conventional familiar sounds that make up a standard musical style (like country or Chinese) through the refracted perspective of unconventional instruments. Every style tinged and made compelling by by the Indian flavour.

Heh was impressed enough to immediately pick up their CD on the spot. And you could tell they made a great impact. The audience warmed up quickly this time (maybe cos the sound was so intrugiung, and it wasn't rock =P), and the CDs were snapped up really quickly.

Anyway I love Esplanade...never fails to cheer me up whenever I go there. For forty-five minutes you can forget who you are and just enjoy the sea breeze and the evening air and the music. Being among people who are unselfconsciously on holiday and enjoying themselves is therapeutic in itself =P Anyway was also dabbling into Atonement on Saturday...determined now that I should memorise part of my books, because I simply have no time to hunt the quotes down on the spot.

In fact am really looking forward to the end of Thursday...with the end of I Hist there won't be anything left but Lit and the S Papers. Can start to indulge in the reading for Hist S again...revisit the faithful old Annales historians who have carried me safely through two S Paper tests. And of course can reopen Atonement and Gut Symmetries, and feel happy again doing stuff that I want to do. Not that normal A Levels aren't entertaining. But the exams are really becoming such a drag. Heh, especially Econs...really can't stand to study it anymore. Which is why I'm here, though I probably should be taking deep draughts from the Holy Grail of Ray's models.

Heh we were saying that we should go out and watch a movie on Thu, and I for one am all for it! Can start feeling like part of the real world again, start to feel all that Christmas cheer and all =P And HP5 comes out on Thu, conveniently.

Well...shall see how it goes tomorrow. I hope my econs skills hold out. Essays are always rather shaky. And today one of the sch's econs teachers delivered a delphic prophecy that we should expect the questions tmr to be phrased strangely. I wonder what that even means. I mean, the prediction is vague enough to be almost certainly true, and thus inherently useless, but the source is so important that this can't really be dismissed out of hand. And so we end up in the position of thinking something important is up, but without the peace of mind of knowing exactly what we should expect. Heh the main effect of the prediction, I think, is to heighten our stress without giving us a real outlet for it.

Oh btw Lit today was fun. Did 2 essays, one on Hardy and the other on A&C. I feel accomplished! As if all that work memorising had finally paid off in my first Hardy essay ever. It occured to me that perhaps it wasn't a good idea to try out Hardy essays for the first time in the actual exam, but in the end I think it went off well enough. And by a strange twist of fate (for providence is nothing if not coquettish!) for the first time in my life I spotted correctly - the PBQ I was doing yesterday with Soph actually came out today! Was rather surprised, then happily plunged into it =P

pondered by phoenican @ 14.11.05