This is a reality ranting. You have been warned.

This morning, I reached the polytechnic earlier than my tutee. She turned out to be fifteen minutes late, for her cat was not ready to let go of her servant so early in the morning.

We sat at the canteen, where she showed me her assignment and together we pieced up her report that pleased her quite well.

At that point in time, our lecturer for that particular subject I was helping Serene with appeared. He waved to us and Serene and I greeted him.

He sat down next to us, and I took the opportunity to show him my report.

He gave me the all clear.

Serene listened to his short rant about some points that he expected us to put in, so she spruced up her report a little more and so did I.

Together the three of us headed to the studios, he to the lab.

When we entered Studio B, classmates Rain and Andre were handling the studios. They immediately informed us that their recording session was completely wasted, as they could not decipher through the many problems they had.

I sorted them out one by one, and after half an hour, a final take was done and Rain called it a day, but she stayed behind. Min Ru and Friend went off.

At this point in time, two other classmates Raymond and Teck Hui came in to claim the studio. Vickii, a fellow classmate gifted in Asian music, came by as well – with her pipa!

The pipa is a Chinese guitar, same tuning same all, save that it specialises with different effects that a guitar would not mimic so well. And it’s of different material compared to the commercial guitar, and it looks oriental.

As Vickii, Teck Hui and Raymond set up the control room computer for their recording, Serene and Rain ran off for something.

I, however, had other ideas.

I decided, just for the fun of it, to video-record myself playing the piano to the chorus of ‘You’ll Be in My Heart’ and gave it a go.

At that point in time, friendly Raymond stepped in to ask me a quick question.

I turned to look up at him – and disaster struck.

My lip bashed against the frame of the piano – the lid of the keys and the lid of the body – and the metal frame of my retainer cut my top lip on the inside.

I only felt a sharp sting, but no more than that. I did not betray my surprise and answered his question.

When he left, I tasted blood on my tongue.

I didn’t complain, and I thought it was wise not to. Blessed was I to have the hindsight to avoid a scene. Everyone else was so busy with their own tasks, doing up their own assignments or stuck at a computer handling their work, headphones on their ears. Most of the course is here, in fact.

It seems almost like a regular school day.

Except that I cut myself. Bad.

A hand covering my mouth, I slipped into the control room and grabbed a bit of tissue, not arousing the worry or attention of Raymond or Vickii.

Dabbing my lip, I realised that I would need to see the cut to assess the proper actions to heal it. However, I had no mirror.

Throwing away the heroic-gung-ho stature, I peeked into the other studio and whimpered, “Anyone has a mirror?”

The occupants, Zoë and Wan Yi, gasped at the blood. “What happened?”

Degrading myself most uneasily, I told them about the piano-lip-bash.

Andre in the studio noticed me too, and he echoed their question. I had to repeat the story.

Finally getting my hands on a mirror, Andre’s mirror, I had a look-see, and it did not look pretty. A nick the size of a juvenile worm was an angry red.

Applying topical cream on it, I tried to hide from the other’s concerned faces.

Serene and Rain came back from their little outing, saw the cut and the cream, and asked me what had happened.

Story time number three.

A moment of pity was given to me, and it quickly vanished as the cut healed.

When Mandric, the one whom had formally booked me to record his piece, came and looked at me, all he did was greeted me, and gave not a hint about a cut on my lip.

With that, I was able to endure the chill a little better (The studios = Artic) and settle myself down to deal with his recording.

As we were recording, suddenly our privacy was disturbed by the invasion of lecturers and… unfamiliar Caucasians.

The head of the party told me that they were five professors from the MIT!! I just gaped at that; literally let my jaw drop, and everyone burst into laughter.

So they went through the real light basics of the DMAT course – and handed the baton to me and the senior Mandric roped in to record. Mandric was still tinkling on the grand.

Gathering my words, I tried my best to describe the studios that we had, and the one that we were all in. Everyone listened, *gasp* even the professors!

They didn’t say anything about me after that, thank goodness, but listened to Mandric play. Thank goodness it was Mandric and not anyone else, for he was real talented at the piano and was playing some mad scales up and down.

And as we recorded, they watched. Truth be told, the senior looked more confident than I. I, however, was given the task of talking to our distinguished guests, and my senior supported that idea.

After they left, I felt like hitting my senior (not in a harmful manner), but didn’t do so.

When it was time to pack up and leave, I realised that I had stayed from morning to evening in the frigid studios (I had my jacket on so I wasn’t complaining much) and I had totally forgotten about lunch.

But I’m here now, refuelled, re-energised and ready to kick that last bit of homework off my list!

T: +5, -4

Things:

REMT (Recording, Editing and Mixing Techniques) = DONE

MIDI (MIDI and Synthesis) = DONE

EIC (Effective Interpersonal Communication) = DONE

MUST (Music Theory) = 2/5 done

ET (Ear Training) = DONE

ACTS (Acoustical Science) = yet to start

CRS (Critical Reasoning Skills) = DONE

SS3 Entry (You should know what this means!) = It may not happen.

Electone Exams Practice = Sight-reading is still down the drain.

And didja like the pictures?