Wow!!!

About a week ago I attended probably the most amazing concert I have ever attended! It was called Firebird Festival and it was sooooo good. The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra played Shostakovich's Festival Overture (one of my favorites), Sibelius' Finlandia, The Firebird Suite by Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff's first piano concerto, with soloist Hong Xu, who I actually talked to afterwards! Rachmaninoff's first concerto is one of my favorites pieces so it was sooo exciting to hear it played by with an incredible pianist!

Phew!

I just finished cleaning my room and wow! it felt good!!! I recycled lots of paper and neatened up some things and now it looks great. Cleaning your room is just something that is so annoying to do, but when you do it it feels great! I now enjoy spending time in my room!

New Poll!!!

Don't forget to vote!

Ooh, spiffy...

Blogger has a new "Poll" option which I just had to take advantage of. I know my current poll is rather lame, but I will think of some better ones, I promise.

8 things about me!

I have seen this on a number of other blogs and I thought I'd do it on mine too!

Here is 8 random things about me!

1. I loooove classical music.

2. I was born in Vancouver, BC and I love the ocean. I want to live on a small island a couple kilometers out to sea when I am older.

3. I own two Oriental Fire-Bellied Toads. I love frogs.

4. I'm a composer. Not a very good one, mind you, but I do love it.

5. I love reading. I like history and some fiction.

6. I am considered a nerd by some of my friends. It could be because I love learning and studying thing that they consider boring, like parlimentary procedures. I am reading Roberts Rules of Order right now.

7. I love to geocache.

8. I love making lists and have every thing organized neatly, but fail to do so in my own room!

Liber Youth Retreat

Okay, here is my promised post about the Liber Youth Retreat. Once again, it was great experience. I have been trying to think of somehow to write about it, other then just using a bunch of superlatives, but they are really what sum it up! I had two excellent counselors, both of whom I knew pretty well from previous events but it was great getting to know them better and to just hang out with them for a weekend. Our speakers were very engaging and their topics were excellent and applicable.

The simulation--well, I could write a whole post on the simulation. The "story" was about a water dispute between two African tribes. Because of this dispute, smaller disputes were happening: cattle were being killed, people were being killed, the other tribe was hunting on our land etc. We were split into two larger groups-the tribes and one smaller group-mediators from a peace organization. I was a delegate from one the tribes. We had come together at this meeting to come to an agreement. We argued and debated and finally, with about 3o seconds remaining on the clock, we came to an agreement! With only 3 hours, it was really quite a feat! Have you read The Anatomy of Peace? For me, this was a great example of always seeing other people as people. At first, I was seeing the other tribe as "them" but when I started to look at them as "us", I was able to see the situation in a clearer light, and think about solutions that would make us all happy.

I had some great discussions with really neat people. It is just so refreshing to see so many wonderful people who are really trying to become better people and make the world a better place. Its such a great atmosphere.

Phew, so much to write about, and I have really just touched the surface. I wish I could show you the photos that I took, but, to protect people's privacy, I will not post them on the internet.

I can't wait 'till next year!

-Daniel

PCOS

Have you ever had a time in your life where you become completely and utterly obsessed with something i.e. a type of music? I am going through that at the moment. For me, it is PCOS aka. Piano Concerto Obsession Syndrome. I looove piano concertos! Thats all I ever listen to now! I just went to the library and go out 10 CDs of them. The library lady looked at me funny. Here is is a list of some my favorites (feel free click the red X in the top right-hand corner of your screen now if you're not interested... :P)

• Piano Concerto No. 2-Rachmaninoff
• Piano Concerto in A Minor-Grieg
• Piano Concerto in G Minor-Dvorak
• Piano Concerto No. 1-Tchaikovsky
• Piano Concerto No. 3-Prokofiev
• Piano Concerto No.1-Prokofiev
• Piano Concerto No. 1- Saint-Saens
  

The list keeps growing...

Please share YOUR favourites! Or other favourite classical music pieces, for that matter...

Sibelius 5

Wahoo!!! A few days ago, I got a computer program called Sibelius 5. It is music notation software that allows you to enter your musical compositions and it will play them back to you and you can print them out and they look "professional". You can read more about it HERE. It is AWESOME!!!!!!! I have been wanting it for a looong time, so I saved up my money and my parents paid some as my early birthday present. I'm really excited about it...!

-Daniel

P.S. For those of you who are still waiting for a post on the Liber Youth Retreat, it is still coming! I hope to have it done in the the next day of two. Maybe even tonight, but thats assuming I stop composing and playing with Sibelius long enough to write it!

Quebec

As some of you know, I just came back from almost two weeks in Quebec. The reason I went was to go to a large Scout Camp: Scouts Canada Jamboree 2007. There were scouts from Ireland, USA, Kenya, Switzerland, Taiwan( and other countries, I forget) and of course, lots from Canada! It was really great. There were almost 8,000 people there! Located about an hour north of Montreal, Camp Tamaracouta was the perfect place to hold CJ. It is right next to a really nice lake, and even though there were almost 8,000 people there, it really didn't feel like it! One of the highlights for me came when I got to meet Adam Baden-Clay, who is Lord Baden-Powell's great-grandson! It was neat meeting a living relative of the man whose started this great movement. I didn't bring my camera to CJ (intentionally, so I wouldn't lose it), so I don't have any photos to post, but you can find some on the site I posted above.

The "actual" Utah post!

Here it is: the big Utah post!

We did so much that I won't possibly be able to write as much about our trip as I would like to, but here goes! The first two days of our trip were mainly just driving. From where I live, to where we were going (Cedar City, UT) is about a 24 hr. drive so it can get loooong and boring. However, I was in the USA, a place I had never been before. How cool is that!
We passed through:↑Observe the snow in the background...This is June, remember!
And finally:
The first night, we stayed in Helena, Montana and drove past their State Capitol building, which was really neat. Here is a photo:↓
We arrived in Cedar City, and poked around there. It is a really neat city with lots of character. It is quite small, around 10,000 people.
My YFA began the next day. We had three book discussions, three excellent speakers and two simulations. Besides that, we had a formal dance (ball room dancing, not that random bobbing up and down that you find at most dances) and lots of quiet conversations. What was really awesome is that everybody there is really, really, really nice and is really trying to make a difference in the world, which is cool.

My YFA was just a tiny bit of what we did while we were in the States. The evening that I came back, we went to Kolob Canyon, which is quite close to CC. In the evening, the red rock there is very beautiful.↓

We went to Grand Canyon. Its HUGE!!!
↑We saw lots of these lizards at the Grand Canyon. I have to admit, I sort got obsessed with them, and my sister would groan when I zoomed off in search of them...


The next day we went to Bryce Canyon. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I am going to post lots of them.





Kathleen had her YFA then we went headed home! We stayed overnight in Salt Lake City. I am not Mormon, but is was really neat spending time there and learning more about LDS. Sunday morning we poked around on Temple Square and went to the dress rehearsal of "Music and the Spoken Word" and heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir live!↓




↑This is on the roof of the LDS conference center. In the background, dead center, is the Salt Lake Temple, of which there is photo (5 photos up) of it at night.

All in all, it was a great trip, and I learned loads.

Anyway, thanks for reading!

Utah!

Hi all!

I am in Cedar City, Utah (using the library computer)! So far, our trip has been amazing. I have met some many wonderful people, made new friends and got to know other friends even better. Yesterday, we went into Arizona and went to the Grand Canyon! Its...really...BIG!!! The size of it, completely took my breath away. In the visitor center, they had a small scale model of it, which showed where we were in it. What we saw was a tiny part of the canyon. It made me feel very, very, small! In Utah and Arizona, they have all these cute little lizards. I am a avid nature person, so I spent a lot of my day trying to find lizards!

I would like to write about my conference, but to do that would take days. Suffice it to say that it was incredible and tons of fun. I made some really great friends and learned so much. My counselor was someone who I already knew, so I was thrilled to have him as a counselor. I plan to write a much longer entry when I get back to Canada, but until then, this will have to do.

Cheers!
Daniel

To Utah!

In two days, I will be leaving for Cedar City, Utah. I am attending a Youth Conference put on by George Wythe College. We will also do some touring around and make a bit of a "holiday" out of it. I am excited to learn about the history of the area. I will make a post about my trip when I get back!

World Day against Child Labour

The past few weeks, I have been researching the issue of child labour. Child labour is the employment of youth under the minimum age set by the government. They are usually made to do work that is dangerous and are paid very little. June 12th is the World Day against Child Labour and in honour of that, I would like encourage you to research child labour yourself and tell as many people about it as you can.

Some excellent resources:
Free the Children- Craig Kielburger(book)
Wikipedia's article on Child Labour
UNICEF article

Frogs and Mother's Day

Today, on Mother's day, we went for two lovely walks in the woods. Frogs are my favorite animals, so I was delighted to see some. On the first walk, I saw some adorable Boreal Chorus Frogs, about an inch long. I also saw this funky tree.

On the second, I saw a beautiful Boreal Toad. The picture quality is a bit poor, as I had to zoom in a bunch and it pixelated a bit.

And also this flower:

Happy Mother's Day!


-Daniel

HTML

Hello everybody,

I'm terribly sorry that I have not posted in almost a month. I have still to write a longer and more interesting post, but I would like to share something with you that I think is the coolest thing ever. Observe: THE BUTTON!

I am learning HTML right now and have learned how to make cool, professional-looking buttons!

I am sorry if I have bored you terribly..:)

-Daniel