just visiting

The engineering faculty is grey and quiet, the kind of heavy silence weighed down by brains moving, eyes running past lines of code and numbers. A kind of mechanical functionality pervades the place, people dress functional and talk in abbreviations, (if they talk at all). The most striking thing was the silence though. In artsfac there is this general buzz that you eventually get used to and block out as white noise but enginefac just has this hush. Sacred silence of science scholarship.

I wandered around aimlessly for a bit, just to attempt to spot semblance of life in the place and found it in the canteen that was swamped with people at 5 plus pm. I guess food does have a way of getting people enthusiastic.

regressing

Today at cello lesson (first in a really long time!), CelloGrandMaster asks if I practiced XX thing.
I said "I guess, kinda"
She replied, "Now you are talking like the (KoolBlueSkool) kids!"

oh no.

Twitter-apy

With two weeks of impending break (starting tomorrow), I figured I have the luxury of time to engage in yet another apparently time-wasting activity a.k.a Twitter.

I never figured out what the point was in posting status updates incessantly. Even filling in the blank status update bar in Facebook has sometimes proven to be stumping, because the information entered has to somehow straddle the space between the public and private self, or be entirely in the public self. And with the number of 'friends' increasing, including many whom I barely know or haven't even spoken to, this has been getting trickier.

So I don't know why I started twittering and I don't know how long this ride will last but for now I have TweetDeck on my desktop to facilitate endless distractions and decreased productivity. There is strange solace in knowing that other people are similarly involved in such an apparently inane activity. Majority-imputed significance perhaps?

status updates

is antsy she can't get into facebook
is counting down to the end of term (2 more days)
is quite impressed with a few of her students
is picking up the messy pieces of other students
is considering twittering because the facebook page isn't loading
doesn't know what to do now.
thinks quitting facebook might be harder than quitting a person.
thinks quitting a person might be harder than quitting coffee.
might just have an addictive personality after all.

finally

For once, home before the sun set, showered off all the hairspray junk, wiped and scrubbed the layers off my face, ate dinner slowly, all before 8 pm. It is a good day and I never knew it took so little to make me happy.

What we don't have is what we want the most.

So it was a crazy past few weeks, with Palace Ghosts and Hoffman and quartet filming all in a row, but now it's finally over, and the fatigue hits like a heat wave. Fell asleep standing up on the train, leaning on my cello, and staggered home in a never ending 15 minute walk.

The bliss - of sitting in front of the computer blasting music watching Chuck and chatting. The research can wait. For now, I am giving myself quality alone time.

languishing language

eyes arms body brain screaming for a break.
two more days of the *cough*man opera.
tonight was one messy show.
audience was huge.
citylink jampacked with bodies ambling through the tunnel.
temperature is up in the tunnel, and in the theatre pit
the lights are dim
the rain perforates the windows.
need the sun.

XXX

Occassionally my students will ask "Am I your worst student?" Those who ask that question are usually the better ones.

"Better" means those who actually want to learn the cello and don't mind being taught. Of course, if they practice, that's a definite bonus, but I have resigned myself to the fact that nobody has time to practice.

Now, theoretically, there should be no "worst student" because why sign up for cello lessons when you don't want to learn the cello? (Of course, maybe their parents make them learn the cello but in general parents are practical people and would rather their kid learn the piano or something more portable like the flute or violin.)

Against all social work values of non-judgementalism and acceptance, I do have someone whom I consider the 'worst'. Let's call this person X. Having spent the past 3 terms psychoanalysing X, exploring reasons behind X's resistance to cello playing, 'rolling' with the resistance and trying to build on what X wants to do (basically pulling out all the tricks in the hat), I found myself back to square one yesterday, trying to get X to sit up straight and hold the bow.

X has a history of histrionics in relation to the cello. X 'forgets' to bring the cello, injures fingers, arms, body, doesn't bring music books, loses sheet music every week. In short, does everything possible to avoid playing the cello. When I do theory with X, X is perfectly compliant and angelic and enjoys scribbling on the board. Anything to do with cello however, is abhorred. X turns on the droopiness, sulks wetly, and hides behind the instrument. Most of the lesson is spent trying to get X to do something on the cello, for example, play an open string. X will not stand being corrected, and trying is akin to scraping your knee with a cheese grater.

Sometimes I wonder if my perception of X was clouded by my knowledge of X's history with music teachers. I am X's second cello teacher, and have heard much of her from the previous. I started off with zero expectations of ability, but did not expect such active resistance to learning the cello. X intends to take GCSE Music, only because parents want X to.

This X issue has been dragging on forever until yesterday when I told X to try perhaps looking for another cello teacher who can actually get something done with X. X did not expect that and looked temporarily dismantled, before withdrawing into the wet slumpiness and silent sulks.

The conclusion of the matter has yet to be seen. For now, the daily late nights because of the opera are enough to handle.