The day has come!

Finally the school starts. A lot of things I planned to do can’t be finished cos the break is too short. But I am glad I have done useful things during the break, including tidying up stuff and shopping for new clothes, cos I knew I will not have time when CS3216 starts. Typical girls like shopping. But to me shopping is rather troublesome.

Before school starts, we were given an optional homework to do for CS3216. Though I had other things to do, I watched this video nevertheless. I brought back meaningful messages in the video.

The Art of Teaching Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Entrepreneurship is something I have never really thought of. Cos I thought it is sth impossible at this stage without enough capital. And was the “$5” I was limiting myself to. I am very impressed by the creative ways they used to solve the problems given.

Actually Computer Science is very much like Entrepreneurship. We are always asked to solve problems. The main different is the types of problems we have to solve. And creativity is important in both. Creativity is the element that makes our life interesting, yet many people are restricted by habitual and traditional ways in solving a problem. To me, creativity is something that relies on the moment of inspiration. Just that some people have more of that moments, some have less. So in order to get more of that, it is essential to always open your mind and interact with more people and things.

Besides creativity, I feel that entrepreneurship needs a lot of efforts to “put down face”. Just like those students who stood in the streets with a sign saying “Stanford students for sale. Buy one, get two free” and making your own business card calling yourself President. In other words, one needs to be brave and have “thick skin”. In addition is the attitude to be able to put up with failures, try again and again. I like the idea of failing fast, frequently and cheaply.

I shall end the video review with this quote:

…every big problem is a big opportunity. If you think about it, no problem, no solution, no company. Very simple. Every big problem is a big opportunity. If you don't have a big problem, you don't have a big opportunity. Nobody will pay you to solve a non-problem. 

Show-and-Tell Preparation

I was rather surprised when I learnt about this, cos I don’t know this beforehand. And so I end up having only 2 weeks to prepare.

I will be doing a playing a pop song on traditional Chinese instrument. I have no problem choosing this performance. The challenge is the part on choosing a piece. I select the theme to be a pop song first, to cater to the young audience. But I have never performed pop songs before, not to say solo in pop song (cos Chinese Orchestra is usually group performance). I found this song being playing quite nicely by this instrument by someone online and a score somewhere else.

Then to realize the song is actually not for this instrument, it is for guitar. This is not the main problem; the main problem is the score has many wrong notes and rhythm, I only managed to edit a bit. I also later (after 1 week plus) found out there are many versions of this piece online. I found mainly scores for piano. By doing these I was able to compare and contrast. I think none was actually totally correct (my own thoughts together with the comments on the forums), but it was not too bad since this instrument is different from piano (I can’t play all those notes in piano on this instrument lah). That was when I made the major adjustments. But I was already used to the old fingerings and bow style. So I tried to minimize the adjustments, while making the piece sound right to my ears. This is the first time I customize my own score used to perform!

I think those reading this would be able to guess the instrument (but not the song:)). I wonder there if would be another person performing the same instrument, cos that person was/is from the same section as I do in NUSCO. And I wonder how many ppl would actually perform (cos FB videos don’t show many). It would be very weird if there are only a few who perform and I am one of them. Also there is no time limit to a performance. So if too many ppl perform, would it drag till too late?

Actually I have not been playing this instrument from quite some time after my major performance in my 3^rd year second sem. I took a break off Chinese Orchestra that time cos of my health and my final year. Hope these two weeks would be sufficient for the upcoming performance. I should be able to perform do a reasonable performance provided that if I don’t get too nervous. All the best for myself!