While the sun shines

This looks set to be the most stressful holiday season yet. One colleague has gone on maternity leave, the other has tendered his resignation and will leave middle of next month, and yet another has gone back to her hometown for the holidays for a week. In the meantime, I'll have 2 interns, 1 new staff, 10 books (and counting), 3 journals, and a colleague's email account on my hands.

I feel like I've truly been inducted into real publishing world. This was what I thought I had wanted to experience when I decided to leave the comfort of the research centre--stress and deadlines and fractious authors--the real stuff that this line is made of. But thinking is just thinking; now that I'm standing right in the middle of it, I feel seriously disconcerted and a bit scared.

I'd be lying if I were to say I've not thought of backing out. It's really quite a pleasant thought, but only as a thought. :) It did take me a lot to leave what I had come to regard as a safe haven and now that I'm finally out, I really should make the most of it. To those who are also struggling in one way or another, as an old saying (courtesy of Queen Rania) goes, "a ship in the harbour is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for". Ahoy, mates! Full speed ahead!

Of lazy dreams and idle days
that life seems so far away
still, I'll take heart in what they say
"while the sun shines, make the hay"

Blogging is not fun

I seem incapable of blogging spontaneously. I wish I could. Those who do seem to have much more fun.

My blog is an exercise in deliberation. My posts are usually very short, but I don't remember ever spending less than 1 hour on even the shortest, 1-paragraph post. Do I sound too whiny here? Would I offend anyone if I write that? If it's not a showcase of the most scrupulous, diligent self-censorship, I don't know what is.

Not only the content--I write, delete, rewrite sentences over and over again, so that they sound right, stylistically. I attribute it to the legacy of my journalism education. Or maybe I'm just a bit anal. A friend recently commented that my blog looks very "neat" but I know that my thoughts are anything but. I certainly don't think in such neat, short paragraphs.

For me, writing has becomes a highly deliberate, premeditated process. Writing is not "fun" but needs a purpose, an agenda. And maybe blogging is about creating an online persona. I write, therefore I am. I think many people blog so that they can write their preferred persona into existence. The truth is, what we're blogging is really not so much about what we're thinking, but what we want others to know we're thinking. ;)

Rainy season

The rainy season has started. Nothing gets me more into the end-of-the-year mood than the rain and the drop in temperature. I always feel slightly melancholic, and a bit lost in thought, around this time of the year.

Those storms during the day are depressing. I feel cold and miserable, with the harsh air-con bearing down relentlessly in the office. The sky turns into concrete, and the only way to look out at the world is through tear-stained windows.

"Pitter-patter", her tears I hear
the year sighing, "my end is near"
"but don't rue my friend, have no fear"
"when I'm reborn, the skies will clear"

Ah, what melancholy. I guess I'm just feeling a little droopy. Storms pass, so do moods.

Serve chilled

I was looking forward to this weekend. Nothing special, just that I'm finally done with a series of tests--3 in the last 3 months--and I feel like I can rest easier for the rest of the year and "reclaim" my weekends by doing what I like most, which is to nua, or slack off, chill out, bum around. Like what I'm doing now, blogging with a mug of tea at my elbow, while bobbing along to Josh Rouse's songs. It feels like a weight has been lifted off me. Long live weekends!

"A beginner's mind is a beautiful place to come from"

My fingers and arms feel sore at the sight of a violin now. I've been practising regularly for the past 2 weeks for the exam earlier today. Very often, I would lie flat out, with the violin beside me, in the middle of a session because I was feeling peng san from the practising on top of a day's work.

The exam today was OK, except for some violent bow-shaking during the 2nd exam piece, a slow one which required long, slow strokes. And each time my bow trembled, the examiner, who was mostly occupied with writing her comments, would pause and look up. It was quite unnerving, I can tell you.

I was so nervous that my knees were shaking involuntarily. While waiting for our turn, the accompanist, perhaps sensing I was jittery, starting chatting with me outside the examination studio. Strangely, I was able to keep the conversation going like everything's OK when on the inside I was panicking and going "shit, shit, I can't stop all this shaking."

Other than the bow-shaking (maybe the examiner would think I'm attempting vibrato. Yah, right!), I guess I should be glad that I didn't make stupid mistakes this time round. I hope the nice old lady examiner won't have the heart to flunk me. Before the exam, my violin teacher had said with gusto about how we shall move on to preparation for Grade 4 straight after this. I felt excited, in spite of myself.

I bemoaned last September in a post about how I came to music late in life. Sometimes, I wish I had a headstart earlier on. Maybe my teen years would have been happier, anchored by music. Someone, I can't remember who, said that kids who learn music seldom, if ever, turn bad.

But like the accompanist commented, because my classmates and I are older and we actually voluntarily commit ourselves to this, we know to appreciate it, not like some of those kids who are learning but can't really be bothered.

And as the ever-perceptive Mr Mraz (hes's on blogspot too now! Read his stuff at http://freshnessfactorfivethousand.blogspot.com/) said, "A beginner's mind is a beautiful place to come from". I hope that when it comes to music, I would always retain the zeal of a beginner. :)