JESUS YOU ARE SO GOOD
JESUS YOU ARE SO GOOD
THERE'S NOTHING TO FEAR CAUSE I'M HERE IN YOUR PRESENCE
JESUS YOU ARE SO GOOD
JESUS YOU ARE SO, SO GOOD
I JUST WANT TO THANK YOU WITH EVERY BEAT OF MY HEART
The Lord has given us yet another
Gold with Honours award!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank You Jesus, all glory belongs to You! We played for YOU on Monday Lord! And we hope You liked them =)
Thanks to the following people/groups:
Mr Fong, for his dedication and passion for bells, for PL pri and sec! We made countless jaws drop (i saw them myself!), ventured deep into different genres of music with handbells, broke "rules" of handbells (aiyah you know what i mean!)! He told us to look beyond SYF, go international, "the gold with honours is yours already, go and take it la", and constantly told us that we are special, we have the 'X' factor. I shouldn't have doubted his words because he is really a professional, not Mr Fong but Dr Fong ok! Without him, there'll be no PL Handbells!
Ms Goh and Mrs Wong for their endless stream of encouragement during practices, helping us to improve, doing all the admin stuff, looking after our welfare. I tell you, their faces were black as soot (oops) on Monday morning and we were like, "wth, SYF day still look so pissed" but we know they have our best interests at heart and they love us alot alot a lot. They also took all the trouble to settle our Japan exchange program mess and write to companies/organisations for sponsors!
Ms Goh and Ms Tay for showing us what traditional handbell really is like, last year and the year before and the year before that. Without them, we'd even be thinking, 'huh, handbells got tao gay one meh?' *hint: i'm trying to bring out another point. happy cracking your brains. give up, then ask me!
SENIORS! I mean, the ALUMNI!!! Oh man they were so damn supportive and enthusiastic, they even made a banner for us! I bet our school was the only one with a banner ;) They come down to Lor Ah Soo for our practices, they nag at us, they cheer us on, they buy us chocolates (LOL), they come and are going to come for our mini SYF and Kaleidoscope, they video-ed and snapped photos of us, they did everything possible to make us feel blessed, and they ARE the bestest seniors anyone could have!
All our sec 1s and 2s, who were our helpers for the day. They worked VVVVVVERY hard, and they deserve more than just a pat on their backs! They will be the ones getting our next honours, and they will do a good job! I know that it can be quite boring to sit there for our last few practices and listen to us playing the pieces over and over again, but they did it anyway, and we must thank them for tahan-ing us!
Our families, classmates, friends in school and church or anywhere else, for their prayers and support, 'you can do it', 'all the best', 'good luck', 'congrats' etc etc. I've been saying "thank you" and shaking hands, it can get a lil' tiring, hehs. Those greetings on MSN, SMS and 'live' really were the icing to the cake. And oh oh oh, also for the little gifts! Fiona your chocolate is still in my bag! And Xi Ying can I have more cookies? =D
Finally to ourselves, the SYF team, we worked hard since last November. Ok maybe not that hard, it's only twice a week plus practice starts late because of our 'nice' timetables. Lessons end at 4 and 4.40. Nevertheless we did it! HANDBELLERS WE DID IT! Are you happy? haha. Duh that's a stupid question. We may have had disagreements here and there, but they're all worth it! We gave our best and we succeeded, much to our delight. I think we got a gold with honours plus distinction!
Basically everything was just a come-and-go. I thought I was dreaming.
We made our presence known when we arrived at S'pore Conference Hall. We made heads turn. Haha, who wouldn't, when they hear a sudden increase in volume! The facilitators or whatever they're called had problems getting us to stand in twos. We stood there for awhile, then got off our twos and started walking around snapping photos. My family camera spoiled la, and I don't have a camera, so I apologise if you found me a nuisance! Cos' I kept popping in to join anyone who was posing for the camera. Heh. So yeah, we were noisy! It was quite embarrassing as CHIJ St. Joseph's were standing next to us, in their twos, looking like a disciplined lot of students. And then we were acting like never see SCH before like that.
We were given some time in the tuning room, where we just sang our 2nd piece out and moved to our singing, getting high and all. We made sure we left an impression on the facilitators (?? then what, ppl in black?) with our highness. I don't think other schools were that high.
Everything just passed SO fast la!
The place wasn't all filled up as Mr Fong had promised. But we could see the other school handbellers at the front, and our seniors with the huge banner at the side!! Haha. Ok so, we bowed, raised our bells, started playing Lenggang Kangkong. (I believe this this the first time I'm typing out the titles of our pieces) My heart was pounding so fast I thought it was going to drop out! But then I remembered God, our main audience and after that I calmed down a lot more. We played our best, Lee Xuan insisted that was the BEST among all our other practices! Haha I only know that I expressed and played with a lot of feeling la.
Then for Crazy Little Thing Called Love, when we put up our collars nobody laughed lor! Wahlau! So unlike mini SYF, I think PL lites have a good sense of humour! But then again, it was a competition (though it seriously didn't feel like one) and everyone was anxious to hear how our piece sounded like. So ok lor, never mind, just continue. Ethel started her dong dong dong and we bounced and we started playing the deceiving intro 'London Bridge' combined with 'Ode to Joy' and when we stomped our feet, wah I think we shock the entire hall. I was looking at the first and second row, and yes we made their jaws drop! Just like Mr Fong predicted. Gosh I felt the satisfaction at that point of time. Haven't even finish the thing, and the audience was stunned already. I admit we were speeding a little, despite the countless warnings from Mrs Wong Ms Goh and Mr Fong. Precise and neat. Nah I think we were messy and sophisticated! neeway(new word), there were a few mistakes here and there but we covered them up, until "mistake also sound correct". Then for the clapping part, only our seniors clapped but that's better than nothing, they made all the difference! =) Before I knew it, we were bowing and walking backstage again. The end.
I still cannot believe it's over.
All eyes were on us when we joined the rest of the audience and performers in the hall. I wanted to know how everyone felt about our pieces so badly, I could have screamed! haha.
They made us wait for a long time for the results, announced in order of appearance.
RGS: Gold with honours.
[i thought, wth, 1st school already gwh?!?!?]
SHSS: Silver
CGS: Silver
[i thought they were going to get a gold or sth, they were so confident]
SCGS: Gold with honours
[my pulse raced again la, with adrenal glands releasing more adrenaline than ever. they got gwh? that's 2 schools! what about us man.. don't tell me we got gold. but it's impossible, we have something the others don't.]
ZSS: Silver
[ok so they maintained la not bad]
CHIJ: Bronze
[well at least not COP]
MGS: Gold
[all of us were about to fall off our chairs already, all that suspense! all i could say was gwh gwh gwh gwh gwh silently.]
PLMGS: Gold with honours
While the sec 3s were crying, most sec 4s weren't. I mean, we're so used to hearing Mr Fong say the award is ours, we just have to claim it, take and go, don't go SYF can go Japan already. The gold with honours was easy to get, now that I think again. Haha and I hope I'm not sounding like a peacock here, but we expected that man to say the 3 words "gold with honours" anyway, so it wasn't much of a surprise. However we did not expect the judges to give out 3 GWH awards to 3 out of 8 handbell ensembles. Look at band and all that la, where got so easy to get one!
But I don't think we're in any position to say, because we haven't heard the other school pieces! Not fair not fair I wanna hear how the other schools played. But I don't think anyone recorded. I WANT TO HEAR THE OTHER SCHOOLS!!!! hmph. And anyway we should share the award right, cannot be selfish! What makes PL stand out is, we arrange our own scores (wait we dont even have a dao gay score) and we're going to Japan in June! Not for some symposium which is opened to more schools but an exchange prog with with a performance in front of a 2000-strong crowd, and they invited only PL! haha.
I was blog-surfing, and I did not expect to read that we actually took the breaths of handbellers from other schools away with Lenggang Kangkong and Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Like really make them sit still and all that. They made it sound as if we're really that good, when our confidence level was dipping just that morning! But then again, we don't know and can't compare because we did not have a chance to hear the other ensembles.
I think we should thank them for their positive comments! So, thank you, other school handbellers! =)
It's over it's over it's over. So fast.
Honestly it's quite disappointing that our school has been getting silvers....
I hope the guzheng will bring back a gold with honours!
Man I spent like dunno how many hours typing this whole thing out.
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