Eh, where did my weekend go?

This is going to be a terribly self-indulgent post as I'm going to whine about weekends, or rather, how I squander away the precious weekends.

I just find myself caught in this loop of wasted weekends--every week, the same thing happens: Friday morning comes around, and I heave a little sigh of relief and say a bit of thanks. By afternoon, I've already lost the will to even pretend to work, and can be found surfing the web listlessly for amusement or having empty, emoticon-filled conversations that only the idle can muster with pals via MSN.

Friday evenings are not a good time to go out as I'm pretty much exhausted by then, so I usually go straight home, intending to watch all-night TV with some potato chips or cookies. Then, I concede defeat by 9.30pm and quit for the night to catch up on sleep since I've become a weekday insomniac these days.

Saturdays and Sundays would be a mindless blur. Lots of sleeping, channel-surfing, with a dash of reading and blogging and ironing and snacking, or movies and friends and coffee sometimes. That's it. I've slept my weekends away again! On Sunday night I would suffer last-minute, where-did-my-weekend-go panic and try to repent by staying awake as late as possible to cram in some leisure reading or whatever. So when Monday morning comes, I would, bleary-eyed, heave a sigh of resignation and resolve to make the next weekend different.

How nice it would be if I could do a different thing every weekend. Organise a family picnic, attend a concert, go roller-blading. See, the pangs of guilt are starting already.

Try and try again

The grade 2 violin exam which I took yesterday, my first music exam, was something that I've been dreading for 2 months.

I was very reluctant to sign up for the exam initially, because learning the violin for recreational purposes was stressing me up enough as it was, and also because taking the exam, which I wasn't even sure of passing, require hundreds of dollars. I grumbled that I must pass it or quit learning it.

The violin is something that I wrestle with. I stumbled upon music late in life. My fingers are stiff, and my hands, too small for my full-sized violin. I don't have a good sense of rhythm and my sight-reading ability is questionable at best. I'm a nervous wreck when playing the violin and always fumble over notes. I just wasn't making any improvement, and my enthusiasm was waning dangerously.

I still wrestle with it, but after 2 months of more intensive practising, sometimes, just sometimes, I feel like I get it, like I'm really playing music. My fingers know where to go, the bowing feels smooth and loses its usual jarring quality, and I feel like I'm actually getting into the groove of it.

Anyway, the exam was a disaster. I was so nervous my mind drew a blank when I was asked to play the F major appregio. So silly of me to practise it over and over again and only to panic and forget it when it matters the most. The rest of the exam was a blur. I came out in a shocked daze, and proceeded to binge on a subway sandwich and pepperidge farm chocolate cookies.

Anyway, yah, 2 months of numbing practising have actually made me realise how much I wish to really play the violin, and not wrestle or fumble with it and make all those terrible screeching noises with it again. So even if I flunk this time, I've decided to continue learning it. Try and try again.

Places I want to go (II)

After more than a month of discussion, my friend H and I have booked that holiday thing. Perth, here we come! People have been saying that Perth is a boring place for retirees and old people but I think that's what we want: to let loose in a nice, quiet, little city (we are both, after all, spoilt, bratty city gals) with little shops, cafes, marketplaces, a nice park and surrounded by picturesque natural wonders, like what picture is showing above. Look at the sky! The water! I was telling H that I want to walk along the jetty that extends into nothingness and just jump straight into the blue water. Woo hoo! This is going to be one cool, crazy trip.

The office

We were given 3 days to move out of the current office which the 8 of us share, and we'll be scattered in 3 different offices.

It's no big deal I guess, especially since there's already been talk about us moving. But it's true that this has been my second home for more than 2 years, not because I spend so much time here, but because it feels like it. For me, home is where sleep is. I don't sleep well in strange places and the office has already passed the litmus test because I nap there all the time. And the funny thing is, my dear colleagues actually try to talk in whispers and not make noise when they see me sleeping when I'm patently NOT supposed to!

Our office has an open, communal concept: there're no partitions and we sit in 2 rows at the sides while in the middle there're 2 big common tables. So a bunch of us often talk across the office and well, everyone can hear and see everything. It feels like a classroom, only without a teacher. And instead of flinging paper planes and crunched-up paper balls at each other, we hurl mock-insults.

And the view from here is fantastic--I often stand at the windows that span from ceiling to floor, just looking at the green hills afar which turn misty on cold days, and the occasional thunderstorms. Now they're turning it into an archive room cum general office, of all things, and building in those looming, grey compactus shelves libraries use to keep books that no one would borrow anymore.

For the move, I managed to keep my immediate neighbours, which is a relief. All of them have by now shifted out of the old office, except me and my right-hand neighbour (and a part-timer who's not often in), who seems as reluctant as me though he keeps a cheerful face about it. I thought I was crazy to be sad about leaving an office, but at one point, he mused aloud that he's been here for 2.5 years, and I knew I'm not really that nutty. Now that he's out in schools, it's just me in this big office which is so quiet and still, I can hear the humming of the printer and people walking by outside.

People have been coming in and out of the office all day, carting off boxes, stock taking, putting labels on the furniture. I wanted some quiet time in the office but now, looking at the empty desks around me, I realise it's the people who make the place. This was an office built for 10 and the noises and buzz they generate, and now, it's too big for comfort for me, and the dust is making me sneeze. Time to do the packing up that I've been putting off and head for the new office.

Places I want to go (I)

One of the places that I hope I'll get to see--lavender fields at sunset. I heard that France has lots of them, but it could be anywhere in the world for me, really. I just want to run to the middle of it, close my eyes and take in a deep, deep breath of the intoxicating, sweet scent.

The problem about making lists of the places you want to go is that you're very likely to have been inspired by picturesque photos in National Geographic or some travel magazine or postcard which had been photoshopped down to its last pixel. Or the photographer had used some special lenses which made the colours more intense: the sky pristine blue and the clouds iridescent and fluffy, and the forest, emerald green.

It'd be kind of sad if you're enchanted by the facsimiles and yet be let down by the real thing--dull and raw and washed out in comparison.

Perhaps the lavender would not be a vibrant purple. Perhaps lavender would feel dry and coarse and prick me as I touch them. Perhaps the real lavender doesn't smell anything like the bottled scent. But I'd rather risk being disappointed than not having seen it at all.

I want to see the real thing, not just someone else's version of the place, no matter how artistic it is, or how poetical. Not a flawless, polished, frozen picture in a glossy magazine. I just have to find out for myself, so that even if it proves to be imperfect, I can still say that I know the real scent of lavender.