Take it Eazzzy

My resolutions for this year are pretty simple: to fall sick less and play more. I dare say I had a good run for about 6 months. During that time, I chalked up only a half-day MC and made an effort to meet up with different groups of friends. Socially, I've not been this active since...since...I don't know, JC?

But it looks like my body has run out of steam. I started getting colds again. The current bout has lasted 8 days and now viral rash is appearing on my neck. A few too many pimples have been blooming on my face. I feel too tired to go out with friends or family. And because my father is undergoing chemotherapy now, his immune system is compromised and I've to avoid being in the same room as him.

Health is a concern very much on the everyone' s mind right now. My eldest sister gave me a prep talk about living more healthily and making an effort to improve my immune system a few nights ago as she sees me as the weakest link in the family. 

I'd say she's right. I really need to take better care of myself. My prevailing thought this year has been to do more. I need to go out more, read more, learn more, catch up with more friends, know more about what's happening and try more new things. But now I just want to take it easy.I've designated this weekend to be a sleepfest...and the weather is just right for that. I'll do nothing but laze around and take my meds and sleep without feeling guilt that I've postponed a meet-up to December, I'm not reading any of the books on the expanding list in my mind, or the magazines piling up on the bedroom floor, or practising that interesting little piece called Tambourin on my violin, or watching the DVD of the documentary Old Places I bought a few weeks ago. I probably shouldn't even be blogging. Yeah, I just want to eat, sleep, bum around and let my tired body and mind rest. All else can wait. Only when I'm taking good care of myself can I take care of others. 

Image.Music.Text.

I started a new blog! It's at http://image-music-text.tumblr.com/


It doesn't seem like a good idea to start another one when this blog is so inactive. But this new blog has a more specific purpose: I'm using it to make sense of the images, text and music I come into contact with every day, in the hope of learning how to better use these modes of expression.


I decided to start this online scapbook to collect all the things that inspire me in one way or another. Why do it online? I'm a muddled thinker, and as a consequence, a muddled writer. This becomes more obvious to me after I started writing for my new job. My main problem is that my articles lack a logical flow--the ideas are all mixed up together. 


I guess it's the way I think--my head is filled with half-formed ideas somehow (and sometimes illogically) connected to each other. Writing them down seem to help sort out the confusion and bring some focus to my thinking process. And when I know I'm writing for an audience, I try even harder to bring some discipline to the internal chaos. 


But Facebook is too public and this blog is too private. My aim is to make Image.Music.Text. my public blog. I've since realised that sharing of knowledge and ideas is crucial to our personal development and hope that the blog will lead to that one day.


I will still continue to write here. This is the online refuge that I come to whenever I need to vent, complain, think and comfort myself. And during those years when I wasn't writing at all for my various jobs, this was the only avenue for me to keep the writing going, knowing that I have a sympathetic audience who won't judge me too much. :) 

Ideas live on

When I hear comments about how Apple is going downhill from here, I get reminded that people die, but ideas live on.


Perhaps some of the most important work we should do is to ensure that ideas that are worth spreading, spread. Act on them. Tell stories with them. Live them out. Nourish and expand them. Anything to keep them alive for those who come after us. 


This train of thought coincided with what I've been mulling about for the past weeks. Recently, I attended a lecture by Prof Lee Shulman from the US who is well known in the teacher education field. He studies the teaching and learning practices, or pedagogy, that professions such as law and medicine use to train their practitioners.


To him, going back to the fundamentals is crucial. He asked a group of engineers: so what is an engineer? Their reply: "An engineer uses science and math to mess with the world by designing and making beautiful things...and once you mess with the world, you're responsible for the mess you've made."


Before this lecture, if you had asked me what I was, I would have replied: I'm a writer and editor, and I work with words. Simple. 


But now I realise that working with words is just a technical skill, a craft I need to hone for my vocation. What is it that I'm trying to achieve exactly? 


I've always felt that those who can't do, write. I look at the other professions, like doctors, scientists and engineers and feel that they are making genuine and tangible contributions to the well-being of others. What can a writer do? Societies can't do without doctors, nurses and teachers, but writers seem...dispensable. But I thought, writers tell stories. And perhaps their responsibility to the society is to tell only the good ones, the worthy ones. 


To do that, first, I must learn my crafts well. So be it writing, or taking photos or making music--if it gets the message across, I want to learn more. I know it all sounds very hazy and idealistic, but it's good to have something to focus on. It's so easy to get lost in the daily humdrum. A question that constantly pops up is: What am I doing with my life? For now, I seem to have found some sort of a reply, however vague.  


Some people think astrology is bosh. But the description of my sign pretty much sums it up. Those born under the Gemini-Cancer cusp are supposed to be good communicators with an emotional side.  That's what I want to be: a communicator with a heart. One who will help the good ideas to spread, and help people to connect the dots by telling stories, and in that process bring about positive changes to lives. 

Above all, I like that music

Music exams have always been nerve-wrecking affairs for me. Actually, make that for everyone. I wonder what is it about these exams that reduce grown-ups into quivering jelly in the exam studio. It could probably explain why my chromatic scale started on A and ended on G. The examiner paused. I paused too, and thought "shit". That was an awkward moment. 


And what happened before the exam didn't help soothe the nerves. With less than 2 weeks left, our accompanist said she can't make it for our exams as she had to fly to China to handle some contract matters. 


But OK, the good thing is the replacement turned out to be better. "Better" by the way, doesn't refer to their technical prowess on the piano, but their ability to set me at ease. 


On the day itself, I was feeling quite calm. I had been feeding on bananas for the past few days--someone on the ABRSM forum swears that 2 bananas before the exam can calm the jitters. I even went to the park to walk off the remaining anxiety. I was ready. 


I reached the exam venue half an hour before my slot. Knowing myself, I didn't want to arrive too early and end up getting all stressed up, just waiting outside the studio. The accompanist was already there. My teacher told me she wouldn't be around but another violin teacher would help me to tune my instrument. So I asked at the counter, where's the violin teacher? But the staff told me there was none. 


OK, never mind. I knew the second option was to go to the nearby violin shop to get it tuned. My teacher is on good terms with them and have told them to help. 


The walk there was a little farther than I thought but tuning shouldn't take long. But what did you know, the violin pegs were so stiff that the guy couldn't tune it and ended up taking all of them out and waxing them. And he even told me the E string was crooked. All this time when he was "dismantling" my violin, I was panicking and pacing the shop. I've no time left and will come back to get the pegs fixed another time, I told him. But he was resolute and said it had to be done or there's no point in going for the exam because I'll sound terrible. 


It got so late that the dad of the candidate (a little boy of 12) before me came to the shop to look for me. He had earlier given me directions to the shop and was worried I was lost because I was taking so long. His boy had already started his exam. We quickly rushed back, I practised each piece once with my accompanist who tried to calm me down, and in we went to the studio. 


I'm not sure whether I'll pass this exam. My accompanist wasn't sure too, as I skipped a few bars of the second piece in a moment of confusion. But it's not worrying me much. I hadn't expected to come as far as Grade 5, seeing that I almost quit after the first year of learning. And I don't mind retaking it, just so to make sure my basics are sound.

There was a time when I was convinced that music is the most universal, emotional and divine language, the language to communicate with God. And when I think of all the modalities of communication such as text, images and music, the last resonates most strongly for me. The Grade 5 exam had been stressful and I fretted quite a bit to my colleagues. One told me to stop the exams after this, and do "music appreciation" instead. That made me realise that from the perspective of an outsider, music is a source of stress to me. And it made me remember why I'm learning it in the first place. I do it because I like it, and I like playing it with others. So even though I'll always fret about the exams, I'll not forget again that above all else, I like music. And that is a good enough reason to continue on. 

The sun will rise, the sun will set

That's what the current president said when asked if he'd be emotional about the last national day parade he would preside over.


I think that's how my father thinks of his life as well. Depending on which doctor you ask, he has less than a year (without chemotherapy) or at least 5 to 10 more years left. The more optimistic one advised him to carry on with his life as usual and fight it as you would with any other disease. 


The uncertainty of it all has been draining. From whether it really is cancer, to whether operation is possible, to how advanced it is, everything has been a question mark. 


Everyone in the family feels down and some are already showing signs of stress--there's been a couple of outbursts this week. My eldest sister told me that she HATES going to the doctors with my father because she has to mentally prepare herself for the diagnosis every time and has to recount the details to me and my sister later. 


I feel like a bit of a wreck too. I would have sudden urges to cry in public places, like on the MRT. Often, I feel like just curling up to sleep. 


My father seems to be the calmest of us all. He kept saying that he has already lived to a ripe old age and everyone has to go some time. Now he just wants to make sure he has everything in order. A chat with him and my siblings on Friday calmed me down somewhat. Hopefully when I'm old I would be as serene as him about death and dying. Worrying is so tiring. I have to get moving again. We all have to carry on and live as best as we could, even if the time is short.