finally woken

I once told someone that half the stuff I know about my extended family I get from reading the papers, and this time it's happening again because my cousin is apparently stuck in Lebanon. Kudos to her, must be quite a ride.

This week I ended placement, which means hello essay, hello form filling and money claiming and goodbye Stitch. The last one, I still cannot believe, am still getting over, is such a relief, I can't believe I made it through without killing myself.

This week I ended quartet performance at the concourse, and made it through giving the opera introductions, without killing the audience. Or myself. It was surprisingly fun, and I think it was the epitome of reverse music education because I felt I was educating myself instead of educating them. Oh well maybe a bit of both. Anyway it was a lot more fun this time, maybe because we had more people dropping by (Thank you all who came!), more quirky people in the audience, and more encouraging people! I realised that the westerners are so much more spontaneous in showing appreciation and/or delight, some locals looked like they were there to digest their food or something.

And now I am hopeless hooked on the movie version of Rent the musical, immorality, hedonism, catchy tunes and all. It's such a vice, but I don't know why I identify so much with it. It's the whole living in the moment, concentrate on your art and bochup the corporate working world thing that unleashed the hopelessly idealistic side of me, probably repressed in light of more practical considerations such as money. Repressed also due to the pressures of "I can't be doing nothing tangibly productive with my life and education".

Which brings me to the sobering reflection of what I've learnt during placement - I can't do the whole 9 to 5 thing. The lack of stimulation was painful, half the time I was pacing in the room, literally pacing up and down, in circles, sitting in different corners, positions, walking up and down the corridor, taking the lift down and up again. Even though I had cases, had to do readings and summary recordings and a process recording and plan and conduct a workshop, and fend off Stitch's nonsense, it wasn't enough. Not that there wasn't enough to do, it just felt like something was lacking. And that something was filled by the teaching and the playing and the rehearsing. So in a way I survived because I cheated - I had all these other escape mechanisms from the absolute mundanity of work.

LateNightAstrologer has been talking about Jennifer Tham's quote of "You don't choose Music, but Music chose you", and as much as I don't like how that sounds like soul possession, I think I agree. It's like, it's the only thing that plagues me, the only thing I feel totally inadequate doing, but enjoy it because of precisely that reason. It's like a privilege endowed on you, and you hate yourself for ruining it, but at the same time you're hooked to those moments when something clicks and you do okay. Alright doing okay is an understatement. Doing okay makes you feel like you could jump over the moon.

epiphanies, a confession and selling of self.

Last week into fieldwork - the concept seems so surreal especially after the people in the agency have stealthily made their way into my life. From the food they normally eat, or their physical ailments, aches and pains, their favourite movie stars, the soccer team they most support, the music they listen to - somehow I suddenly find myself with all this little bits of information that have to be reorganised into another part of my brain once I leave. It seems almost cruel, like you're relegating them into some cold cobwebby corner of your life, and moving on.

Well, that's probably not as cruel as what I've been doing to Stitch, which is basically messing with his mind, not to mention his life. After conducting a mini experiment of my own and discovering that at the end of 9 weeks I really know what buttons to push, is a scary discovery.I know how people say knowledge is power, but knowledge is scary because you have to choose how to use it, if not you might end up hurting people, which, inadvertently I did. It's scary because where I once saw him as a major irritant, now I see him as extremely vulnerable, susceptible to manipulation if someone really manages to read him, which isn't that difficult.

So in effect this post is a disguised confession for my sin of being an overly superior manipulative bitch with Stich. 9 weeks have made me realise a lot of things, namely that I am really in no position to claim in any way that I am any better than Stitch, regardless of whether he's deluded, insecure, egoistical or just misunderstood. And I have also finally seen my Scorpness manifest itself in full force, which scares me a lot.

It's these little epiphanies that happen along the way that makes me think that I'm actually getting a lot more out of placement then it seems. And on a even stranger note, I realised that my personal objectives for placement have all been fulfilled, but not exactly in the most expected way.

Seeing theories come alive in placement - Well, I think Stitch has taught me exactly how difficult it is to practice Unconditional Positive Regard, how difficult it is to see someone who appears weaker than you and not despise them not laugh at them not adopt the whole Pharisee-ical attitude of "Thank God I'm not like that!". Pride is an insidious thing indeed, and knowing that it's there doesn't make it go away.

And I never thought I'd be able to say this but it was a great experience, especially in terms of self-discovery. I don't know if I'll still be able to say the same thing at the end of this week, considering I now have to deal with resistance in all forms from both my clients, but I don't mind it really.

On a side note, T.H.E Quartet is performing at Esplanade Concourse this Wednesday and Thursday, (and next Monday). We're playing two sets, one at 730pm the other at 830pm. If you don't mind listening to quartet arrangements of opera excepts from Carmen, Marriage of Figaro, Faust, etc, or if you're dying to see me malu myself during some cello solo, do come down and be entertained.