Andre Rieu Concert
Yesterday, I went to see Andre Rieu and his Johann Strauss orchestra play some awesome classical music. Coming from a 16 year old, that spells nerd, right? Maybe so, but I enjoy classical music as long as there aren’t boring vocal solos or too many wind instruments in them. During the concert, Andre claimed that music is the most beautiful thing we have in the world, but in reality is that true? I wondered this because during the performances, there were interesting light shows that amplified the mood created by the music – shouldn’t the beauty of music have amplified it’s own mood? I’m not saying Andre is wrong, heck, music is one of the things that has lasted over centuries, but it has been used and abused :/
There were a lot of interesting people going, too, not snoody old people like I thought there would be. I also didn’t imagine the trip there the way it turned out – little more than a rock concert, beer boozers were humming out a cantabile of Andre Rieu favourites, from Motzart to Strauss, on the train ride. The way back? Boring. I did happen to see someone with extremely large feet, and a lady with an upturned nose, but other than that, nothing.
P.S. About the light amplifyng the music, it really helped me understand the feelings of the tunes because I wasn’t exactly in the best seats. Which reminds me: I LOL’d when I noticed it was bucketing down with rain on the people who paid for expensive seats, while the rest of my lower class bretherin and I remained in the safety of the shelter. It was also funny to hear conversations around me… “Apparently, they bought the more expensive seats, a ho ho ho” “Yeah, and now look at them! Serves them right for being such smart alecks“
I agree, they deserved it for taking their time getting to their seats while Andre was lolling around waiting for them to wait, playing freebie fillers with his orchestra.
The Rubik’s Phenomenon
What’s old is new once more in my school, with the Rubik’s Cube taking it by storm, for want of a better cliche. This was only followed by the “scoobies”, card games, portable gaming consoles (ok, maybe that’s still in, because I have a DS crew that congregate every lunch time), and even notebook computers.
It was only a matter of time before I got caught up in the whirlwind, mastering the “T-method” (as I like to call it) of solving the puzzle. So far, I’ve solved it myself 3 times, which I feel is a decent achievement for some Joe Blow who thought he’d never see the thing solved unless it was bought brand new or broken and remade or even if the stickers were pulled off and replaced conveniently.
Now, my friend has brought upon a new challenge, destined to either entrance others into completing it, or making them cower in fear at the mere difficulty of the puzzle: a four-by-four. Some might find that laughable, having had solved pyramid, electronic and overall poly-shaped Rubik’s style puzzles. Whatever you may be familiar with, no matter how cooky it may be, maybe you’d like to share some of those crazy experiences witnessing others or yourself solve those seemingly imposible (and evil) pieces of plastic.
Improvements, Improvements!
Earlier on in the week, I introduced to myself a new goal:
…Strive to follow this method of planning assessments and getting things done on time!
I can finally say that I’ve successfully fulfilled this goal for this week, in regards to my Advanced English assignment, truly a great improvement… My FIRST improvement! Recently, the temperature has been really scorching hot, so I overclocked a few hours in my new routine for doing work and study. There is only one problem with the way I’m operating, and that is that I deprive myself of much-needed rest at night, replacing it in the afternoon. The consequence is that I lose the energy I have to use for school and it’s really annoying, feeling like drifting into a deep sleep in such a crowded place.
I felt absolutely drained by the time I got home yesterday after trying it out the night before. Another issue I have with this method of work is that people usually need me to do things for them in the afternoon, whether it be go to the shop or roll out the bins – something you just can’t avoid doing! Today, my state of consciousness was really noticable. One of my friends and teachers actually pointed out to me that I looked like I wasn’t feeling well, that I looked serious, “..like I wanted to kill someone,” as my friend put it. I certainly didn’t feel like any of those things, obviously! When I got home, I slept ’till pretty late, about 7 o’clock, and I still didn’t feel the temperature drop. As I type, the heat is hitting me at all angles, but I don’t really find that much of a problem because I like the heat: it’s nice and calming.
Back on track, there is one thing that I’ve noticed about my late sleeping, and that’s that I get up earlier, feeling better. Why? I wouldn’t have a clue, but it’s something I wanted to conquer throughout all of year 11! If I can somehow adapt to this manner of being active, then I can easily complete all of my homework because I have no distractions at night. I’ll keep this on trial and see how I go next week…
Goal: Maintain the late-sleeping strategy for a week, and observe any notable consequences.
If I find that negatives outweigh the positives, and that I can actually carry out this strategy without it affecting my school and overall life too much, then I can move on to other issues, such as how to manage nights before exams and so forth.
Now time to uphold my first goal and continue with my assignments!
EDIT: It’s quite sad that I have to address my progress in this goal so quickly, but I don’t think I’ll be able to carry it out. Personally, I’m performing fine, but my parents are worried that my new routine might just affect my health (as deedragon pointed out in her concerns) in terms of my eyesight. They were also worried that I might get so tired that I might not be able to do little errands when they want me to (I knew this would be a problem 
) I can’t really say how much it affected how I go at school thereof, because I never really got a chance to adapt to this way of doing schoolwork. For the record, my sleeping time varied over 12am-3am for the short trial period (about 2 or 3 days). I think their main concern was that I was using the computer desk during that time to do homework though, so they might have thought I was using the computer… hence the eyesight worries. I’m gonna try my luck at carrying out my little routine in my room (no computer there) so I might still be in the game to see how this’ll work out. Otherwise, this little project is done for, so I’ll have to create a backup plan…
A Lazy Day…
Today was such a hot day, but it was so calming and it made me really lazy xD After a 2 hour snooze when I got home, I got stuck into some homework for Japanese and soon found it was 7 o’clock, so I was working on it for roughly an hour or two. I felt like I did absolutely nothing though! Was it that I had to read and write or that I was just really exhausted? I’m gonna do a little experiment tonight: I hate mornings, I’m tired during afternoons and I can be the biggest night-owl in my house. So why not try and do all of my homework during the night? I’d just feel the way I always do in the morning, and I usually take long naps during the afternoon anyway, so as long as I can negotiate ways for regaining lost sleep, I should be able to be all good, right? Yeah, probably wrong, but I’ll try it tonight.
I’m a little disappointed in myself for not doing 30 minutes of work on my Advanced English assignment yesterday, despite the fact that I was totally out of it. This is a good why I made my work intervals short, though, to make my time flexible in the chance of unforseen circumstances. So tonight, I’ll be working 1 hour on my Advanced English assignment 
In any case, I finally received my Extension English assignment, and so I’ll have to plan out for that also. Busy, busy, but I haven’t even gotten into the true difficulty of my HSC courses yet, so I’m lucky to only have 3 assignments right now.
Self Note(s): I haven’t gotten stuck into the poster-making note strategy yet, something I should be getting into ASAP! Also, I should start the “Quiz and Review” method of study from Zen Valedictory!
No Slacking Off!
