Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Nodame Cantabile


Synopsis:
The story takes place in Momogaoka College of Music and revolves around the 2 main characters: Nodame Megumi and Chiaki Shinichi. Nodame is a talented girl who can play a song after she hears it once, although she cannot read musical scores. She is also unmotivated in her piano lessons as she dreams of being a kindergarden teacher after she graduates. Chiaki comes from a famed musical family and masters various musical instruments though his ultimate dream is to be a conductor. Both have childhood trauma which hinder them from fully maximising their talents in classical music. As the story unfolds, the two of them help to overcome each other shortcomings to eventually achieve their dreams of studying music in Europe together.

My opinion:
Few reasons on why I wanted to watch this initially were: a friend told me that it was funny and I knot that the story is about classical music, something that I like.

After finishing the whole series, I am pretty disatisfied with it. The jokes are more of 'lame' than 'funny' to me. And I hate guys who treat the girls rudely, be it with loud voice or rough actions, even though they are for humor sake. So the funny parts are a bit of no-no to me (the guy on guy jokes maybe quite hilarious but I have enough of that from the previous doramas I finished so it did not quite work this time for me). The classical songs featured in the movie are also not very grand to be performed (but that's only my opinion) though I pretty like the orchestra performance scenes.

As the title suggests, I would expect that the main focus of the story would be Nodame. But in the show, it seems that the main character is Chiaki. Most plots revolve around his orchestra and conducting. Nodame is sidelined until the last few episodes and the fact that piano is not featured in orchestra, it is not possible for Nodame and Chiaki to perform together. That is another minus point from me.

I hate the storyline to be honest. It was rushed towards the ends and the story just became weird nearing the end (Nodame sulking and the events leading to final performance was rather shitty). I feel that the S Orchestra part is nicer and serve as a better ending as compared to the Rising Star Orchestra. To me, a group of underachievers being handpicked by a famed Maestro to form S Orchestra (perhaps the only chance for these underachievers to perform in their whole university life) and to put up a concert is sweeter than watching a group of great students putting up performance just for the sake of money, fame, and gratitude towards Chiaki before he leaves for Europe. In addition, I like the S Orchestra performance so when it was repeated again at the final episode, it was boring.

I also hate Nodame's parts in the stories. It is just lame for her to procrastinate few days before her competition and she managed to do well. I know she is talented and all but it is just too good to be true. It becomes even more ridiculous that she went through the second round even though her first song was played horribly. And I absolutely hate her expression (moody, sad, emo) as she performs. Yuck yuck yuck..

The character development is rather pathetic too. There are so many characters but so few stories revolving about them. It seems that they are just there to fill positions for the orchestra and nothing else. I do not understand why near the end, they introduce another guy (who also like Chiaki) in the orchestra. Isn't one gay character to make the humours enough? But I have to admit that the long-haired violin girl is very pretty and feminine :) Hehehe...

A few good things which I can say about the show is: the Maestro Stresseman. I love his accent, funny but yet cool and classy. Lol.. Other than that, my favourite part is the S Orchestra performance. They put some 'show' which is not normally found in classical music setting. I always like the ideas of breaking the norms to inject novelity to the boring normal thingys :) So bravo for that.

Afterthoughts:
After watching this show, I conclude that I absolutely have zero talent in music. Furthermore, I think I can no longer think that those people doing music are happy, nothing much to do, and just doing what they like. I am absolutely wrong. I see the music scores and oh la la.. I wonder how they can memorise and play those complicated and fast running notes accurately. Wow.. Bravo bravo!!

The show is also trying to portray classical music in a fair way. From Chiaki point of view, he learns free expression and personal intepretation in playing classical songs. This eventually leads to beyond normal S Orchestra's performance. From Nodame point of view, she learns that there are certain 'normal' ways to present classical music so despite of free expressions etc, there are some basic things which she has to follow. I guess this is applicable not only to classical music, but also to all aspect of life. We always need a balance between "following rules/traditions/tried and tested ways" and "doing something new/creativity".

Watching this also made me recall few musical experiences from my life. Before I studied in Singapore, I went for organ classes and there were always annual concert. I remembered those early days when I had to play in ensemble (during "It's a Small World" I was daydreaming and thank God I was sharing the melody with somebody else, otherwise it would be empty at the start), own solo concert (I was so stressed and stiff.. so ugly to watch as compared to a friend of mine who expressed his song through his swaying and body movements.. definitely much more pleasurable to watch), to my messy "Lemon Tree" song (it was my very last concert before quitting the course and yet people still clapped for me lol). I also remembered the time I did harmonica in JC. As assistant section leader, I was quite nasty. I barked at people though not to the point of pinpointing error to the persons who made them like what Chiaki did lol.. I remember my juniors asking me why I hated the harmonica box so much because I always banged it like crazy during practice when I did the beatings. LOL.. and I was especially anal when it came to ZEROs (yah.. it was absolutely ugly and confusing when people did not stop at the rests). And of course I was glad to see the beyond normal small group performance went through successfully. Well, harmoc is damn cheenah and you know how cheenah people are: very boring, do the same things, and do not want to do new things. So it was great to successfully force my friends to play a song while dancing at the same time. Though perhaps it was done pretty desperately (like in the movie) to cover up our weaknesses (I admitted the song I chose did not come out as what I had imagined when being played in harmonica) by showing light hearted and fun performance to make people laugh (and thus they misheard our mistakes if there were any).

Aaah.. such good old days.. One desire that I still cannot get is to be a conductor.. Lol I almost wanted to apply as student conductor for angklung but then the state of the club made me think that it was wiser if I ran to be a vice president to rectify commitment and latecomers problems. Haiz.. but still, I think it is quite cool to conduct things :D

Pig

All I have been doing is just eating, sleeping, downloading, and slacking.. Sigh.. I will just gain weight :( especially since I ate really a lot this holiday while I exercised very little. Haiz.. Today was mad. A cousin of mine forced me to go for food marathon.. We started with Sushi Tei, which as expected, was disappointing for me. My sister told me that they served fusion sushi too. But I guess her definition of "fusion sushi" with mine is totally different. To me, soft shell crab and ebi tempura are normal, not fusion sushi. After sushi, we continued with frozen yoghurts. I find it a waste of money (a small cup of it costs the same as a plate of 8pieces sushi.. I rather have a plate of sushi). I managed to decline by saying I don't like. Haha.. Actually I just don't feel that the price is justifyable. Then we went to another "waste of money" kind of restaurant for me: Pancious. Basically, the restaurant serves pasta, western food, and the most crowd drawing food: pancake and waffles with various toppings. Since I can have waffles at $3+ in Singapore, I find it extremely ridiculous to spend double of that price. Sigh.. In any case, I decided to try something extraordinary: smoked beef waffles. It was disappointing too. Haha.. At the back of my mind, I thought smoked beef as beef patty like burger or steak. I was like OMG when I saw HAM coming out. Oh well.. Perhaps I am just too stingy lol.. or I am just too picky over food.. or to be more positive, I have high standard of flavour.

I do nothing much other than watching doramas so I have nothing much to blog about. So perhaps, I just write about those doramas I have finished watching LOL.. I shall resume my driving tomorrow... and choosing new module should only be worried after the new year. Hohohoho...

Friday, December 25, 2009

Ho ho ho!!!


MERRY CHRISTMAS 2009
May this Chrismas bring you joy, peace, and God's blessings

God bless you always
darkroseofsorrow

Thursday, December 24, 2009

sad T_T

Results were out yesterday and as expected, it was another disappointment.. Well, actually some were better than expectation and some were worse.. But my elective was really beyond my imagination. I expected at least an A-. Sad sad sad.. I decided not to S/U it.. Sigh.. I guess I just take an anyhow elective for next sem and S/U it.. I know my luck is always bad so if I S/U now, I will get a worse grade for next sem.. But if I don't S/U it, most likely I score better next sem and it would be a disappointment for me not to S/U my current elective.. Sigh.. Life always sucks..

I just had my very first experience in online shopping. I bought dvd (pirated of course) and as expected, some are bound to be spoilt. Sigh.. Now it is very difficult to exchange the spoilt ones because the person is not replying. I don't know how.. If really cannot exchange, perhaps that's my first and last time buying things online.. Very disappointing..

Today I went shopping for the whole day. And darn.. why does my sister's fingers have to be so itchy and touch this and touch that? Sigh.. now there is smaller (and cheaper) aquamarine bracelet! And I so regretted buying it last time.. I bought 1 last time (shared it with my sister) and now with the same price, we can buy 2 of the smaller ones. SAAAD..

It will be christmas soon and I cannot believe that I am this saaaaad T_T

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Go Tell It On The Mountain

I just came back from my holiday villa!! Wakaka.. it has been very long since the last time I was there. I cannot recall when but I am sure that I have not been there ever since I departed to Singapore. Thus, I was away for at least 7 years. It was just as what my sisters told me: it was no longer cold. Therefore, it might be my last time there. Afterall, if it is not cold anymore, what is the point of going for a holiday on a mountain?

I slept only wearing my pyjama top and normal shorts. It was impossible to wear such thing previously! Haha.. Not to mention that I did not cover myself with a blanket either. Though it got a little bit colder in the early morning so I woke up to put on my jacket and my pyjama bottom. Still, it was not cold enough for me haha..

After that I went to Bandung. Wuih.. the avocado juice there are damn bloody cheap and nice! Lol.. cannot go there too often or I will get fat and a lot of pimples. I continued on my search for my missing manga and to my disappointment, I had no choice but to buy the 'sample' copy. Sigh.. the condition was only like 70% new but something is still better than nothing so I decided to buy it. Oh well..

That's all for my weekend.. Next week it will be Xmas hohohoho..

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Many things

Wow it has been ages since the last time I blogged. I guess this entry will be very very long. Haha.. I have a lot of things to say..

Before Going Home
As usual there are not many things to do except packing and shopping. Haha.. But I wanna highlight about toy! Lol.. I managed to find the Final Fantasy Dissdia Trading Arts. Haha.. 1 set for $25 and after discount it became $17.20. With the ridiculous price, I obviously know that it is a fake. Sigh.. when I went home, I had 2 pieces which were broken. I had to go back to the shop to exchange. Haiz.. I was damn pissed because I bought it in between the pharmaco and dfd paper. I still had things to mug. Lol.. Even after exchanging, the new piece is not 100% satisfactory.. But oh well, $3+ per piece I guess I have no right to complain. Haha.. Lesson learnt is: open the boxes and check the toys at the shop.

I had problems with my emotion and mood. Haiz.. There was a day that I was super pissed to a friend. Promised to meet up for dinner but then sigh.. just over small things... my rage went beyond common sense and I just left the place to go home. Haiz.. Really attitude problem :( I missed the chance to see Ekin Cheng and Aaron Kwok who were at GV Vivo on that day. Sadness.. I am not a fan of them but then.. got superstars then must go and see mah..

I will never ever take flight with Valuair/Jetstar anymore. Sigh.. What a bloody fucked up carrier. My flight home was delayed from 845 to 1215. Upon arrival at the airport, it was further delayed until 0105. That's damn sickening. Lucky I had my aunt with me. It was her who got the message about the delay up to 1215. If I were flying alone, for sure I would rot at the airport since 6pm. The airport was under renovation so it was claustrophobic and made the situation more chaotic. Sigh.. Upon checking in, we got $8 compensation each for food. We had dinner already so we had to waste the $8 on some stupid sandwich and drinks.. Wanted to get subway but there was no way we could stuff more things in.

At Home
Gaming, downloading movies, songs, and reading comics. Lol that sums up everything that I do. My Dissidia is almost 100% complete in my own definition (lol.. for me it is 100% complete when I get all the level 100 weapons). Movies take forever to complete -_- sigh.. I should have just bought the dvd in Singapore.. I just downloaded David Archuleta's Christmas album but it is boring for me. Haha.. Oh well, I should know his style ever since American Idol days.. That means there isn't good christmas album for this year. My manga collection is getting fewer and fewer. Lol.. So I decided to buy new titles: Fairy Tail (yet to read what it is about) and Libero Revolution (I never read a manga about volleyball so I find this quite interesting although graphic-wise, it is pass-able only).

The big thing about my coming home this time was my cousin's wedding. Wow! It has been ages since the last wedding I attended. Thus it was quite fun for me. In the tea ceremony, I was appointed to open the door and bully the groom. OMG! I hope I do not get my karma when my turn comes. Lol.. anyway I was not expecting to do anything so I anyhow dressed for that.. I think it will be embarassing to watch that in the video or to see the pictures! Sigh.. In the evening, it was my first experience being a receptionist. It was quite 'interesting' experience too! Lol.. It was because the name list was disorderly. Some people were invited using their chinese names while some used their proper names. So when I asked for their names, they had no idea which to mention. The best one was a girl, she went to ask her mum "What is dad's name?" and after the dad's name was nowhere to be found, she asked again "What about grandpa's name?". I was like o_0 hahaha...

I was luck and a great coincidence that my friend who is studying in Korea was able to go to Indonesia. She is graduating soon and is looking for job so she had no intention on going home for holiday. But guess what, she sent a job application and the company asked her to accompany the boss to go Indonesia as a translator. Haha.. So lucky.. It was great to catch up with an old friend. And the better thing is she told me that it was a pharma company. Lol.. I really have to go Korea next year to see whether I like the living environment there. If I like, I can start aiming for Korea for my future too!! After all, the pharma industry there is pretty good. Hohohoho... While camwhoring, I also learn a new trick. When you are going to take photo with a tall object (eg: christmas tree), do not stand right under the tree. Stand a few steps forward so that your picture will have the whole christmas tree in it :)

That's all for today..