What mail?

Okay...got a notification thing in the mail that there's a DHL Express shipment delivered to me and that they tried to deliver it but no one was at home...

While I love getting mail and packages from overseas...who the f--- would use expensive (I think) DHL to send me something? And I have no idea where or who it's from. It might be from Durham since I know they'll be sending all those visa letter things but last time they did that, they didn't use DHL. 

And I don't know who the hell would be sending me packages...

Ah, it's gonna be a long wait till Monday XD

EDIT: I used the Tracking system on the DHL website and input the random registration number. It's scary how it has every bloody detail of the travel/shipping itinerary on the site (like how it moved from one place to another till it got here). I definitely think it's from Durham if it's been sent from Newcastle (I'm assuming there's no DHL office in Durham...-__-)...the journey is interesting though: Newcastle --> East Midlands --> Leipzig, Germany --> Hong Kong. So this package has been through three different countries...hurrah, lol. 

(no subject)

Last month I gave a little preview of a drawing in progress but then no one guessed who it was (not that I was expecting anyone to do so XD)

So here is the finished product that I finished last month.

phantomphan1990.deviantart.com/art/Alan-Rickman-2-133489845

In my opinion, I'm glad it looks waaaay better than the one I drew two years ago which is also on my dA.

Sketching once again...

I can't sleep...AGAIN.

So what am I doing now? Well, the title pretty much says it all...as for what or who I'm drawing -- at the moment, I really have no idea.

And who knew that opera could be so funny? If you told me a year ago that opera could be comedic, I would have thought you mad. But I'm proved wrong yet again when one watches operas like Le Nozze di Figaro or Cosi and operettas like Die Fledermaus and Die lustige Witwe.

Here I am trying to sketch and listen to Mozart's Cosi fan tutte at the same time and then I get slightly bored and play my copy of the 1996 MET Cosi with TA, Mentzer, Vaness and Hadley (I'm sorry I can't remember the baritone who played Guglielmo...oops). I get to the scene where the two officers are saying farewell to their lady-loves...and I'm giggling non-stop at the the antics the singers get up to. Guglielmo is overacting his 'despair' at leaving, Hadley's body language (he plays Ferrando) clearly tells Guglielmo to get a move on and isn't too keen to deal with his hyperactive and overemotional fiancee (played wonderfully by Susanne Mentzer; definitely one of the most prettiest Cherubinos, Zerlinas and Dorabellas around. Von Stade obviously gets first place over Mentzer for singing but acting-wise, I simply adore Mentzer who is simply adorable when she gets into character). Vaness as Fiordiligi is trying her best to play older sister but also is frightened at the news of her fiancee going away to war while TA, as usual, plays Don Alfonso with all the sly cynicism and charm. What always makes me laugh is when the two couples are tearfully saying their farewells, he's more interested in pouring the sand out of his shoe (the set does indeed have sand since it's set on a pier/beach) XD

And the Allen/Vaness/Mentzer trio of Soave sia il vento is sublime...so is Francisco Araiza's Un' aura amorosa on my Cosi CD. Sometimes I really prefer Araiza to great tenors like Pavarotti or Domingo for some reason. Domingo was basically the first tenor I listened to (when I bought a highlights CD of  Bizet's Carmen during QBS...we were listening to the darn thing in music lessons for some weird reason) but I wasn't really impressed with a tenor's voice until the first time I saw Araiza sing Dalla sua pace on the 1987 Don Giovanni. I liked Jose van Dam (the Belgian bass-baritone) as Escamillo but again, my mind didn't click with baritone voices till the introduction of a particular British baritone as Count Danilo on Youtube. Really, it's all Jeremy Brett's fault for getting me into opera since it was his singing of the English translations of the songs in Die lustige Witwe that got me looking for other singers singing the same thing. XD

Ah, but I've rambled too long...back to sketching!