why, phone?

Exams are ending tomorrow, thankfully. This was a hell of a ride. After my first paper my brain went out of control and couldn't stop flying through the night, so I was thoroughly air sick in the morning with jet lag. So I did my second paper in a sleep-deprived haze i.e. my preconscious state, and can't remember any of what I wrote.

And when I attempted to sleep after that, my phone couldn't stop ringing cos my 'manager' (for lack of a better word) kept calling me to do Christmas shows for the company in december, 3/4 of which I couldn't make because of other rehearsals.

At first I thought work was just eating into my normal school life, now it has encroached onto my exam space which I previously thought was well defended by a general social withdrawal. Hateful phones.

the road not taken

21 means responsibility, maturity (hopefully), the end of all things good, life goes downhill from here. We're all going to die anyway so what does it matter? (I quote from my JC refrain). As it is I don't really know what's happening in my life because there are too many things happening and I am at the brink of drowning my identity in work. ('Work', not 'schoolwork'.)

Speaking of identity, I was flipping through my lecture notes, now being the season for mugging, and I came across some adjectives.

Antisocial. Insane. Depressive. Workaholic. Evil.

Easygoing. Calculating. Precise. Studious. Assertive.

The first set was what I wrote down when the lecturer asked us to find 5 words to describe ourselves. The second set was what I got when I asked my brother to describe me. He, being intuitive and all, was quite accurate. But I haven't wavered from my original descriptions because I think that's my essence.

Because siblings are supposed to have rivalry in one form or another, you who are reading this, decide which set of adjectives you agree with more, and post your views on the tagboard or somewhere.

last moments

Two weeks and counting before exams come again, and I'm still traipsing round the island looking for The (elusive) Cello. Went to Toa Payoh to see this $6000 German cello, presumably German and presumably 14 years old, but because it doesn't have a label there's no way of telling - it could have been from China for all I know. The sound is nice and mellow, but the strings are really old and used, so I had a hard time getting it to sound, and I missed my own cello there and then, which doesn't bode well for it.

Then I went back to esplanade to see if their new shipment had any good stuff, and I tested this gorgeous $38,000 cello, made by this Italian guy (i think), and despite it's very low bridge, it had an amazing sound and you can't sound anything but nice on it. So today I told my classmate about it and he went "You might as well get a weekend car", and that sort of put things in perspective.

Currently the most promising one is the $11,700 German one that is less than a year old - it's nice but probably needs bridge and fingerboard work because it's quite difficult to play. Then there's always the cheaper $6000-ish China housebrand one that I suspect only sounds good because of the $245 worth of strings that's on it. It's horrible to be talking about instruments in terms of price, as if sound or tone can be 'bought' by forking out more cash, as if these things can be quantified; it's like trivialising the instrument as an individual.

Whatever I decide on, I'll be in debt for a long time to come; but the worse is separating from my current cello. Although I'll still be able to see it sometimes, but it's different. It feels like you're separating from your spouse. Not that I know what it's like to have one (Thank God), but, well, it's like having your tooth wrenched out. So now that I'm in my separation anxiety phase, I'm actually playing my cello a lot less. I just look at it out of the corner of my eye and sigh, then pretend it's not there. To practice for the fateful day.

the Hippo and Cow show

Have been spending many hours this few weeks watching project presentations. The most hilarious was when Hippo and Cow's group presented on Manic Depression. At the end of it I concluded that the group was suffering from collective mania.

So they took a long time setting up a piece of black cloth between two chairs. And then the motley crue of 4 huddled behind, amidst giggles. And the slides came on and they started reading off the slides from behind their black cloth. Word for word.

(Oh before I forget, the black cloth was the backdrop for their puppet show.)

What an extreme manifestation of stage fright.

Well they had finger puppets. Each had an alphabet for a name. By the end of the introductions I didn't know who was what, but that didn't matter I suppose, as long as the lecturer got it. They then attempted a re enactment of the case study. Someone was doing two voices (because she was handling two puppets), and when she tried to modulate her voice to a higher register, she collapsed into high-pitched giggles. This happened a few more times. The class was laughing, initially, but we waited patiently for her giggly fit to pass. It took a while. But I suppose she didn't have helium or anything to facilitate the process so it must have been really difficult.

Eventually, all that slide-reading happening behind the black cloth got a bit boring, because although the puppeteer was very diligent in wiggling her finger with every word, to mimic the speaking action, it is not very possible to engage a whole class with a finger. So people started murmuring and eventually Hippo and Cow emerged from behind the black cloth, which provided more surface area on which we could focus our attention on. That was a relief.

I also realised that some people can't pronounce 'social work' even though they are studying it. It comes out as "showshul work". And 'Silver Ribbon' (Project) came out as "Shilver Ribbon". They speak like they are Japanese.

Oh my goodness I so can't believe I'm blogging about downright evil and elitist sounding things but I was desperately trying to retain my sanity and not implode.

spectre

So developments have occured since I last posted, and now the pastor is officially taking over as Music Director though he does not know anything about music. But I suppose as long as I don't have to work with BigMama anymore I'll be less distracted with having to keep tabs on her mood and such. Divine intervention is always great. Although I wonder how long before new problems come up. One has always to be prepared for the worst.

Did some snooping and heard that BigMama is actually happy with this outcome, and thinks her prayers have been answered. That's good. I suppose having all this 'power' as music director and not being able to do anything with it must have been frustrating. 'Disempowered' is the word. The grand sounding title must have held many promises. But titles are titles. They come laden with expectations too.

But really, I think her consuming need to possess the choir, yet not being able to do it explains much of her behaviour.

(Is all this rationalising of her behaviour helping me in any way?)

She has the same birthday as me. How freaky is that. Every day I see her, I think of what I could possibly become, or what I already am, and I am terrified.

the choir saga

Violist's dream came true to a certain extent, yesterday I exploded, though not in the ultra drama way that he expected it to be. I exploded in that BigMama, the music director of the choir I'm currently conducting (or, trying to conduct) pushed my buttons hard enough to make me actively seek out confrontation with her.

I'm quite a confrontation-averse person. To preserve mental health, I ventilate a lot, sometimes excessively. Also known as bitching. Something in me just snapped yesterday, when BigMama smsed something really passive aggressive, and I decided that I was not going to let all this unhappiness fester without knowing exactly what it was that was bothering her. So I smsed back to say that obviously she was unhappy about something I was doing, so maybe it was time for us to talk. She agreed.

I act rashly sometimes, and yesterday was one of those days when I seriously questioned the sanity of my behaviour. So today when we were supposed to talk, she brought the pastor in, which threw me off for a while because I didn't expect it, but I told her that we still needed to settle things between us even after that. She acquiesced. I suppose by that time I was confronting her avoidant behaviour instead of letting it pass and avoiding her as well.

So we talked, about roles, about direction of the choir. (she IS the music director after all), about the past few presentations that we did. She thought my choice of piece was too difficult, she thought I was going too fast and leaving too many people behind, she said (and sounded like she was representing the choir) that members were getting discouraged. I took it at face value at that time, however, found out later that it was probably an exaggeration. Well that was fine, until she started making attacks at my brother's character and spirituality and decided that he was not godly enough to serve as section leader. Instead, she recommended her husband, even though he isn't musically trained, can't (really) play the piano, and has no choral experience. By that time I was severely disturbed, and was feeling sicker and sicker at the minute, so it was good that someone came along to announce that we had to leave, so the 'discussion' ended.

I was glad that I escaped the fate of being mauled, or sat on.

(At this point, I have to say that what I'm doing now is not bitching so much as constructing my personal narrative of events. Don't worry, this has an okay ending, sort of. )

The severely disturbed state persisted through lunch. I was fortunate to have this really objective but sympathetic person who lost her appetite together with me but did wonders in moderating everything that I was coming out of my mouth at that point. (I want to be 30 quickly, but I'm not even 21 yet.)

By the time I got home, in my utterly zonked out state, I talked to my dad, who was mildly amused at the situation I was in. As he is equally conflict avoidant, he said that I should just let BigMama do what she wants, and leave. It was a fantastic idea, so I started drafting the email and all that jazz. My resignation letter was actually coming along nicely. (BigMama made it sound like I was causing tons of distress to the choir, so I figured that if I left, she would feel better if she regained control. )

Then Pastor's daughter smsed to say that BigMama was doing investigations of her own about some issue. (BigMama heard the choir singing when we were having our little discussion, and was trying to find out who it was that had the audacity to initiate the practice. I told her that we don't own the choir - their enthusiasm was commendable actually, so she didn't say anything, at that time.) So, while telling her how to respond to BigMama, I informed her that I was resigning and she sort of flipped and went to tell her parents, i.e. Pastor and his wife.

Both of them are fantastic crisis intervenors. Now I'm starting to feel bad about having caused all this trouble, but I suppose it is beneficial in the long run to get this problem sorted out. Well, Pastor sort of came up with a plan in the span of 3 smses, and his wife was doing all the crisis counselling and presenting the Other, Divine, point of view and everything sort of fell in place after that.

I don't know how this thing is going to be resolved eventually, will probably know by next week, but it feels as if I've just been pulled back from the brink of I-dunno-what. Divine intervention, I must say. Yesterday I could never have imagined how things would turn out today, could never have imagined it would turn out this well, with everything coming together like one big sudoku puzzle. God works in mysterious ways, really.

So many things happened today I'm still reeling from the shock. Well not really reeling, more like concussed. I still have an individual project presentation tomorrow, and have to resume my student life - at least before I go and teach in the evening.

white out

The present cello I am in the process of considering is a $6000 China one. It has orange brown varnish, and it resembles the colour of Weetabix,. It has a very brignt, in-your-face sound and is much too happy for my liking. I figured it's impossible to play on a irritatingly bubbly cello all the time. And worse of all, it's female. Which means whiny, temperamental, unpredictable, and too much to stomach. And not to be racist or anything but it's a China cello.

Why am I thinking of buying it then? Because it won't drain all of my money, it has a loud happy sound and it's female. If its sound is personified, it's a bit like a blonde car roadshow promoter.

After 3 weeks of break I went back to KoolPurple School again. SpunkyGirl's hair has grown longer, and messier, and she is starting to whack her cello like a boy. QuietBoy has become a lot darker after going to Krabi - he looks almost Thai now. He's still as quiet, and scarily so sometimes. He smoulders when Chatterbox Boy rants on and on. Sometimes I think ChatterboxBoy talks like a schizophrenic; he makes extremely random connections! He has also earned a scar and a few burns courtesy of one Shanghai restaurant. Kids change really fast, and not at all.

MusicFanatic is actually improving, although she claims extreme lack of motivation.
However after showing her the wonders of the Miracle Study that I recently stumbled upon, she was totally amazed at the immediate results, and it was great to see her get excited about cello again. As much as kids are a blast to teach, sometimes it's nice to have students who respond to your teaching. Well, SpunkyGirl is learning fast though, and her superhero powers of concentration are unbelievable in a 7 year old. Her perfectionist streak is really scary sometimes especially when she keeps wanting to restart her piece each time she makes a mistake.

It's really great fun doing this, I wish I could do this forever, but the dark side of me is saying that this feeling won't last, because nothing lasts nothing stays and everyone leaves in the end. It's just a matter of time is all.