March 16

A word and evaluation from the leader of my team, in table form because that's the way it was written when I received it (as it was last year). Took another while to figure out how to make tables again:

	Observation and Comments
Nathanael gets together with the team and organizes practice times effectively	When we were arranging the practice times, he would tell us what time will be available for him and we could often find a proper practice times for our team.
He is well prepared beforehand.	I’m sure he always practices his drum set well, as he has no problem in matching the other instruments.
He helps more proactively in planning plan the flow of the performance and other details (e.g. tempo and beat).	He would tell us his suggestion about the rhythm, the beat…etc and try to match with the songs’ style and feeling. He would also provide the most accurate beat so that all of the us could follow him correctly and so as the congregation. He would try to point out the mistake we made during the practice.
He tries to avoid keeping to myself and communicate more with my team.	Sometimes when he doesn’t have any opinion about the flow of the performance he would just look at his phone. But this has been appeared less as we are getting along with each other.
He ‘experiences’ the joy of ‘serving’ God.	He is willing and eager to serve God. He cherished every moment when he is serving God.

It seems that I did a good job improving my communication skills with my team this year, and my actual playing hasn't fallen behind at all.

It's actually somewhat disappointing that my March performance at church is exactly two days after the MAD project itself is due. Just missed it by a hair. The rehearsal happens on a weekday though, maybe I can still get photos for it.



(And, yes, the timezone is still broken. Guess it's one of those things I'll never fix, like the blog title.)

February 23

[You know, broken timestamps and all]

Sorry about the lack of stuff. The youth worship team at church generally doesn't handle Christmas ourselves, so this would be about January. Unfortunately the photos went missing, which is why I've been putting it off.

January 19 should've been when I was actually playing in worship last, and oddly enough everybody showed up late for practice due to traffic. We wound up staying half an hour longer, and while that sort of threw a wrench in my homework schedule it wasn't anything serious. It was also one of those occasions where I actually recognized some of the music and already know how the melody goes, so overall it was an easy performance this time around. Unfortunately my hand slipped and I actually dropped my stick at one point, but I made a surprisingly quick recovery.

I was actually supposed to be performing today originally as well, but I had to get some of my identification documents renewed (ID, passport, that kind of thing), so I couldn't show up. I'll try to get in one more, but in the meantime I guess I'll start writing the reflection.

November 24

(Still ignore the timezone error)


Actually got asked to rehearse twice this time. Never argued, though I never did ask why. Anyway, less familiar pieces to go throw this time, but I think I managed well. No more than one mistake that comes to mind. I've never been too smooth with double strokes, but I think I've figured them out this month. Overall, that seems like an improvement.

October 27th

(Timezone still incorrect)


It went well this time. Got rehearsal sorted out and got there on time. I don't think I got any worse in terms of technique, but as usual there's room for improvement. The songs were actually familiar for once, so I kept up with the beat well, and I didn't slip more than once on the day of the performance. Videos have never worked out all that great on this computer the last few years, but if I can get a new one I'll try to film something. In the meantime, I guess it's more still shots.

New Semester (2013-2014)

(I realize that the title of the blog isn't all that accurate anymore, but for some reason it won't let me change it this time, so we'll have to leave it at that. The timezone on the timestamp is probably also messed up, if it shows up.)

So here I am on my church worship team again. The groups got rotated around again, but I've known all these people for a few years now, so it's not too hard to get used to. Now that it's the third year in a row, I've noticed that I've had a few instances of unpreparedness. Forgotten music, forgotten drumsticks, couldn't arrange a good practice time and couldn't attend, etc. I have my group on my contact list now, and I plan to at least get the practice times arranged properly. Trying to reorganize my room so that I have a place to put music that I need later as well.

Personal technique can use some improvement as well, of course, but that's always a given goal to work towards, and getting a feel for it comes with time. Besides, the leader thought I did pretty well on such a short notice.

An Evaluation on My Success

A word and evaluation from the leader of my team, in table form because that's the way it was written when I received it (making tables in Blogger is not easy):

	Observation and Comments
Nathanael gets together and organizes practice times effectively, as well as planning the flow of the performance and other details (e.g. tempo and beat).	Nathanael has been punctual every time. He’s a good listener and teammate as he always attends to others’ suggestions. From his performance over the last 12 months, I can say that Nathanael is willing to cooperate with different people.
He does not feel nervous about speaking to other team members and sharing his thoughts.	Nathanael doesn’t speak much. He usually speaks to one or two particular teammates who have been working with him for a long time. His volume is low. Sometimes, teammates may find it a bit difficult to understand him.
He makes effort to prepare for the worship and participate more in the team.	Absolutely agree. Although he doesn’t speak, from his performance during the worships, I can say that Nathanael does pay a lot of effort at home in rehearsing the songs. This is because we can always find that his performance is much more fluent than we first practice.
He ‘experience’ the joy of ‘serving’ God.	Agree. One of the indictors is that he smiles more than before during the practice. Occasionally, I can hear what he plays is a bit different from what we have rehearsed. I would say that’s because when he plays the drum set, he experiences the presence of God and the joy of music.

It would appear that I have improved on all but the speaking portion, which has always been a personal difficulty of mine. I'll probably keep serving on the team, and I plan to work on this.

Note: The post timezone is still off, but the date and time is fixed.

Early Spring

[I just noticed something weird going on with the post times on the older posts being from the wrong timezone, making all of them set to some random early time in the morning, but they were all pretty much written in the afternoon. I'll probably fix it if I can figure out how]

I said once a month, but we had a special sermon on the week my group is normally in charge of, so now it's actually been two. I was just a bit late to practice this time due to heavy traffic, but it seemed everybody just arrived too. The first few minutes wound up with me trying to troubleshoot the sound output of the drumset, so I had to go ask someone else what we had planned, since they seemed to have agreed on something beforehand. The performance went pretty smoothly, as usual. I still made a few mistakes, but nothing serious. Several of the song's were new, like last time, so again I was surprised how well I followed the music. One piece was very familiar, and was relatively easy, however.

More photos available than expected, too: