Magic of Wind Band

⇑poster

My name is Steven. Both Wenny and I have stayed in wind band club for three years. This year is my third year to join the band. Although both of us are busy, we still take time to practice and enjoy every performance. On 19th May, it was our third concert in NPTU, and I think that it was the most tough concert in my college life because of the level of music works which we played are not easy and the number of members gradually decrease maybe because some people are busy for school works, others are busy for part-time job, they don’t keep participating in the club. Owing to the number of members, we must find many people who can help us to performance on the stage to make sure the performance better. When we organized the process of the concert, it is hard to find people from other band; fortunately, we finally found enough number of members to support our performance and most of them are from NPUST and Pingtung Senior High School. We all appreciate their assistance.

 <- playbill (節目冊)
My name is Wenny Hsu. As Steven said, this time is our third concert in NPTU. I still can recall that when Steven and I were freshmen, we just know nothing and feel everything was fresh and new for us. Someday, Steven asked me to join the first practice of this first semester in our freshman year. Then Steven was late. (HAHA! It was not the main point) Then, in a blink of an eye, we have been in wind band for almost three years. We used to be newbies, and we overcame many challenges and tasks, turning into “elders” in the club. In preparation period of this concert, some freshmen and sophomores reminded me of myself at their age. Some people invited dozens of classmates to take part in our concert and took plenty of pictures after finish, who reminded me of our freshman time. Some people were in the main working group and took the responsibility of organize the concert, who reminded me of our sophomore year.
This concert is a big change for me. This is my first time to play the French horn in a concert. I was a flute player, but now I am a horn player. The shape of the French horn and flute are different. The flute is about 67 cm long and light, not heavy. On the contrary, the name “horn” means the horn of animals. French horn used to be made from animal’s horn. But, now French horn is made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The weight of horn is about 2 kg. So those who play the horn get muscle on their arm. Just a joke. LOL. The way of playing the flute and the horn are extremely different. The flute makes sounds by the vibration of the air we blow in to the flute; one the other hand, the horn makes sounds by the vibration of our lips with the mouthpiece. In the beginning of playing the French horn, it was a hard time. I had to try to adjust my lips to play it. It’s needed to change the way of using our lips when we play the different instruments. After practicing for about one year, I gradually get to realize how to play the French horn.

This year, we chose several classical masterpieces and pop music such as Les Misérables, Perseus which was composed by a Japanese composer, Satoshi Yakisawa, and J-pop music, etc. These works are not easy for us, and we should practice more so that we can performance well on the stage. Take trumpet for example, almost every member has solo part and it was difficult for me to finish perfectly on the stage because of being nervous.

Both a freshman and I played the solo part in Les Misérables and the video is shown below:
2017 NPTU Wind Band – Les Misérables

In addition, we played Wenny’s favorite piece, The Cry of the Last Unicorn. This is adapted from Peter S. Beagles’ fantasy novel, The Last Unicorn. This piece describes the sad and dangerous journey of the last unicron to human world. The video is shown below:

2017 NPTU Wind Band – The Cry of the Last Unicorn

Although this concert is not perfect enough, everyone in the band devote oneself to this annual concert. From the administrative work to band practice, performance is a team work not an individual work, so everyone is important. We cooperate with others to finish many tasks and I have learnt the importance of cooperation. Not only do I enjoy the pleasure of playing the music, but I also learn a lot from the band, including communicative skills, interpersonal relationships and so on. I make good friends in the band because we enthusiastic about the music and we have created several memories. I am not sure if I will stay in the band because of being busy for graduation, but I still love wind band and hope the next year will become better than now.

Finally, if you are free, don’t forget to join our concert next year!

We are sure you will have a unforgetable night!

 

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Under Scars

Be yourself, don;t change for anyone. if they do not like you at your worst, then they do not deserve you at your worst.

I think most people know my healthy situation is not very well. I have a sudden twitch sometimes. Maybe it scares many people when happening. But, today’s topic is not twitch, it is the other thing that also scared a lot of people before. When I wear the shorts, you can see my legs and arms have some scars. People see my wound, frighten and think “How poor she is.” They may think I scalded or had a car accident before. The real name is called Atopic Dermatitis (AD, 異位性皮膚炎). And I would like to talk about the introduction of AD and some experiences I go through.

Why a person gets AD has different reasons. Maybe it is heredity or the air is too dry. What’s more, eating or touching something may cause the skin more badly. Someone’s allergic agent is from food, like seafood or milk. My main allergic agent is not food, but called dust mite (塵蟎). But, I am also allergic to some food, especially peanuts. I remember one time I ate a lot of peanuts, and next day I found my face swelled like an Anpanman. Every person who has AD is also accompanied by allergic rhinitis (過敏性鼻炎) or asthma (氣喘). AD can be cured gradually, but sometimes it may recur when growing up. The most important is it will not be contagious. Many people are scared to get close to us because of they are afraid of being contagious.

I am very sensitive while people ask me about my scars. When I was little, my AD is very severe. Sadly, people passing by me always pointed to me and had disgust faces. They did not know that it made me very sad. From then on, I hated to wear shorts or skirts because they showed my wounds. The most unforgettable is when I was in the elementary school. At that time, most the girls hated to go to PE class. However, I didn’t have to go to the PE class. Because the sun would make me sweat and feel itchy, I could stay in the classroom or in shade. And one day, I was suddenly edged out in girls’ group. Only few girls talked to me. Of course I was very hurt those days. But I looked back, I think they are very bored. Just because I didn’t have to be under the sun, I was hated by a group of nine-year-old girls. It sounds funny now. Gradually, my AD is getting better. Only one thing makes me irritating. When the seasons or weather change, my skin will perceive and feel itchy. My mother always says I am a weather forecast.

I appreciate to those who accept me and treat me normally. You make me feel like I am not an abnormal. Don’t discriminate against people who born with illness. If we can choose, who don’t hope to have a healthy body?

Only One Lifetime

Three years ago, on the graduation day, we thought maybe it will be unlikely for all of our high school classmates to ever get together again. Attending to all different colleges around Taiwan, all of my high classmates were separated from one another. At that time, however, almost all of us were looking forward to the upcoming college life; we dreamed that we were going to “grow up” and become an “adult” as leaving high school. As time went by, it comes to our realization that the unmeasurable time keeps pushing us to move, while the beautiful memories from high school often come up in our minds, yet no one could ever go back to the period of innocence once more.

After graduating from high school, thankfully, some of my good friends and I still hang out together very often, and we are still close, or even closer than we were in high school. Even though we aren’t studying those same subjects at the same school any more, we know how each other is going. However, compared with high school life, going to college was not a bed of roses to me at the beginning. It is the first time I live without my family and take care of every daily routine on my own, from eating to laundry. From time to time, it seems to me that this kind of “growing up” is so challenging that I even want to go back to my high school life, which is, I think, simpler and easier. Then, I come to the realization that maybe it is necessary for people to sacrifice something familiar in order to go into the unknown and someday, perhaps, enter the real adulthood.

Two months ago, I received a card which made me so thrilled. I got a wedding invitation from my high school friends! Though they have been dating since high school, yet it was the last thing that I have ever expected to attend my high school friends’ wedding at the age of twenty!

On the wedding day, I sat with other classmates and our homeroom teacher; none of us had expected that we would once again see each other on this kind of occasion! The last time we saw each other as studying fellows, but now we see each other as mature adults who attend the wedding for the first time without the company of our parents.

I didn’t feel true about the whole day until we finally saw the bride and the groom walking down the aisle among a round of applause. With every step they took, it dawned on me more what the change of time is all about.

Sometimes people believe the things they have been through are much more wonderful, while on the other hand, they might not be willing to accept changes because they feel uncertain about what is going next. That’s the way life is though. However, sometimes the most beautiful part about life is when people find out something beautiful as it comes up out of surprise and all of a sudden. As time goes on, we are going to enter different phases of life and also celebrate each other’s important moments. Perhaps during those celebrations, we will gradually find out we have been through many stages of life unconsciously.

Too often, people stick with what belongs to the past and get terrified by the unspeakable fear for the future days to come. How long have we forgot to take a look at the present? With its pace, surely, life will take us to every place where we are supposed to achieve on time; the unfamiliar will also become memories and be stored deeply in our minds waiting for us to recall and retrospect over and over again.

As the wedding ended, I waved goodbye to my friends and wondered when will be the next time we all come together again. Yet, I know, by then, we will all gradually become a bit different and mature; what’s more, on that day, we will all take pride in ourselves as looking back to all the way we have come!

Taiwan Three Babies(台灣三寶)

As we know that Taiwan traffic is very busy, and there has the Road Sambo(馬路三寶), it includes women, old guys and old women. Taiwan has a lot of these guys everywhere. Even if you how to pay attention, the accident will still happen, just like a curse.

And how these accidents happen? Let’s see. Those guys turn right when the traffic light was still red. I think they can’t wait the traffic light to turn green, they just can’t wait for everything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNr_AJ43aOI

And other example was reverse driving. Reverse driving, for motorcycles, I think it’s ok for me. But those people who reverse driving thought they were the boss. Reverse driving was wrong, but they didn’t look at other cars or motorcycles, they just drive their own way.

Taiwan traffic control was very bad, especially Ping Tung. We live in Ping Tung, and we see and meet those stupid drivers everyday. It’s very terrible, how can they drive like this? Is that they don’t afraid of dead? Or they want to dead? But, I will answer they that if you want to dead, please stay away from me, I don’t want to dead or crash on you, I don’t want to go into the prison. Please don’t framed me.

Waste-less Diet in Kaohsiung Rueifeng Night Market

Have you ever been to a night market? Have you ever feel annoying when both of your hands are holding TONS of garbage?

Well, we were inspired by a YouTuber called 台客劇場(Taiwan Taike Story).

In March, Chelsea, Tom and I and some of our friends decided to go to Kaohsiung Rueifeng night market without produce any trash.

So we divided into two groups: Wasteless team and Garbage team. The former includes Robert, Kevin and Felix. The latter includes Tom, Chelsea and I.

Let’s see the differences!

Waste-less Diet in Kaohsiung Rueifeng Night Market

The Journey to Tainan Deepblue Coffee Shop

Click Me

Heeeeeeello! My name is Jo. I think everybody knows.

Both Antonie and I like sweets, so we decided to do a vedio reacting to the most famous coffee shop which sells incredible thousand layer cake. (The thousand layer cake from DeepBlue is also known as the LOUIS VUITTON of cake world.)

We only bought two pieces of different flavors cake: one is “Ganache” and the other one is “Chestnut.” (Because one single piece of thousand layer cake cost us almost 200 NTD!) We didn’t order drinks because we had some nice coffee at my place. Both of us prefer the Ganache one.

Sorry for the voice problem, I’ll try to fix it next time. (If I have chance.) And sorry for my nonsence talking. (Because I was sleepy while shooting.)

Here is the address of DeepBlue Coffee:

701台南市東區府連東路55號 (Chinese)

No.55, Fulian E. Rd., East Dist., Tainan City 70141, Taiwan (R.O.C.) (English)

What is “Ganache”?
“from the French word for “jowl.” It is a glaze, icing, sauce, or filling for pastries made from chocolate and cream. Ganache is normally made by heating cream, then pouring it over chopped chocolate of any kind. The mixture is stirred or blended until smooth, with liqueurs or extracts added if desired. Butter is traditionally added to give the ganache a shiny appearance and smooth texture.” (from Wikipedia)