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From the archive: A Christmas Carol

I was going through my stuff on the computer when I discovered this video. I made it back when I was still podcasting, before I renamed the podcast, which explains the “Gallardo Family Newsletter Podcast” logo at the beginning and end. I thought it would be an amusing thing to pull out.

A Christmas Carol: The Breakup of Scrooge and Belle.

I was entered in a competition for a dramatic duologue at the time. The script required a lead actress. Being in an all-boys school, it wasn’t possible, so we found a male lead actress. Haha!

My holiday so far…

My exams ended about three weeks ago. School technically ends on the 13th of July, but it seems that I’m already on vacation.

When the exams ended, I though that since I was staying in Hong Kong, this summer would be extremely boring. However, to my surprise, I’m managing to stay active through the holidays. So far, I’ve had inventory to take, church stuff to do, a music project or two, floors to wax, books to read, blogs to redo etc.. I’m amazed at how life is still capable of giving me stuff to do during the holidays.

Of course, it is not unusual to have these kinds of tasks to do during the school year, but the advantage of doing them over the holidays is that you get to do them at a relaxed pace. There are no fixed deadlines (except for the end of summer). And you can choose to sleep through the entire morning without fear of being late for school.

I think I have enjoyed my holiday so far. Though, I’m wondering if I’ll still remain active when summer officially starts. Of course, you’ll never know until you try.

Half a year down…

… and half a year still to go.

A lot has happened since 2009. Some of the more notable events include, my solo singing competition, the inter-class soccer competition, passing my recorder duet competition, my grandfather dying, completing my Science project, and more recently, completing my Secondary 3 education.

Now, I am looking forward to the next half-year. Despite the many challenges I will face, including being a Form 4, being even more busy than I am now, possibly chairing the Catholic Society and the Library Team, more responsibility at church, etc., I hope I will enjoy the second half of 2009 as much as I did the first.

I will be moving this blog over to http://gabrielshorn.co.cc, because of the greater flexibility of WordPress.org over WordPress.org (Kudos to kran117 for tech support). It’s pretty much set up, tell me what you think.

In the meantime, happy Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Establishment Day! (ain’t that a mouthful?)

Post-exam activities (continued)

I’ve been meaning to change the theme of this site for some time now, but I can’t seem to find the right theme. I’m considering moving to WordPress.org soon, I’ll keep you posted. Can any of my friends out there provide me with technical support?

Anyway, the inventory at the library went smoothly. Our head-librarian set out beat our previous record for inputting inventory: 6 hours. We were meant to start at 9:30 yesterday, but due to network problems, we couldn’t start until about 11:30. We had lunch at 2:15. It was 5 pm when we finished. I was absolutely dumbfounded to see that we actually had beaten our goal!

After that, I went over to a friend’s house to work on the parish notice board with our Youth Group. The theme we’re supposed to be working on is Vocations. If you guys have any ideas, or questions about vocations, please post them in the comments section. Your ideas can be helpful to us.

I went back to the library this morning to sort out the problems that came from yesterday’s inventory. It was painstaking work because we had to find all the books that turned up with a question-mark. We had to count the number of books one by one to find what we were looking for. But afterwards, we installed this driving game onto the computers we used and we had a tremendous time gaming.

I was originally planning to attend a youth gathering tonight to prepare for a mass that our youth group was sponsoring. However, due to the presence of Tropical Storm Nangka, that won’t be happening. I was really looking forward to this, especially after working so hard on my final exams. It is extremely disappointing to hear that it was cancelled.

Next up on my schedule, I will be attending this overnight camp at Cheung Chau this weekend. But I’ll have to leave early as I have a church activity that I’d rather not miss. Something is telling me that I will be completely drained of energy by Sunday evening. Thankfully, I won’t have school on Monday.

To wrap up, I’m rather tired. But I think this will be nothing compared to how I’ll feel when I go to bed on Sunday (or wake up sore on Monday for that matter). Wish me luck!

You’ve Got a Friend

You’ve Got A Friend

I’ve been recording a cover of You’ve Got a Friend by Carol King over the past week. Tell me what you think, constructive criticism is much appreciated.

I do not own the song in any way. Copyright goes to their respective owners. The photo, however, is mine.

Post-exam activities

What in the world am I going to do now?

Because of the (completely unnecessary) paranoia about H1N1 (aka Swine Flu), my school has cut down completely on post-exam activities. Now, we won’t be able to check our exam papers for errors in correction. We’ll only be able to review our marks, and that’s it. This is undesirable for some, as they are very fussy about fairness and the such, myself in included. I think in this case, the best thing we can do is trust that the teachers know what they’re doing.

The annual inventory at the Library, however, will proceed as planned. I have been appointed captain of the English team. We will inventory all English non-fiction books. I have never been captain of an inventory team before, not even a deputy (though it probably is because we are lacking in experienced F4s this year), so I expect that this will be an interesting experience. In fact, one of the Monday people (my men) has also been given the position of captain, despite having been a librarian for less than a year. I’m proud to have been his commanding officer this past year. I was his motivation to join the Library Service and I’m glad to say that he is my best friend. Way to go Eric!

Anyway, aside from school, I have a whole list of summer activities to do. Here is a partial list:

• Read 4 Chinese Fiction books
• Understand Quantum Mechanics
• Read through all F4 books

Not very fun-filled is it? I agree. I need something(s) else to do, but it’s too hot to get anything done around here. Studio work, at this point in time, is out of the question. It is simply too hot. Staying in an enclosed room with no air-conditioning for a few hours is something I can handle in Winter, but I can’t do too much of that now. What in the world can I do this summer?

Exams…

Wow… Those three weeks almost feel like nothing.

Except for the fact that I am completely exhausted.

However, on the whole, I think this is my best effort yet (hear me blab about my exam results after the jump). Yet, I have to wait until Friday to hear only some of the results. Until then, I have a Catholic Society meeting on Monday, Territory-wide System Assessments (TSAs, the Education Bureau’s way of gauging how far we’ve come) on Tuesday and Wednesday, Library Inventory meetings on Thursday, and a bunch of church activities in between. This is going to be just great.

In other news, the third instalment of one of my favourite book series is coming out really soon. The series is called The Max Quick Series, which can be found here. I haven’t found any of the books in the local bookstores, but I have been able to listen to the books via Podiobooks (audiobook podcasts, more information can be found on the website). An excerpt from the first book, The Pocket and the Pendant, can be found here.

Final exams!

My finals are in a week (man, time flies). To help me concentrate on my studies, I will stop posting for about 3 weeks.

Until then, here is Paul McCartney’s My Love:

Something -The Beatles

I think I’m falling even more in love with song.