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Whyyyyyyyyy
Sep. 2nd, 2009 12:48 amdo I keep sleeping so late!?
Also I am being consumed by guilt because I am not practicing, except not really because I am not feeling the guilt, hello, hello, where is it?
No, I am not being consumed by guilt for not practicing, I am being consumed by SECONDARY guilt when I procrastinate practice and laze around all day (no, that's not it, wait for it) - and people ask me out to have fun or go see a movie or go watch a godawful Shakespearean play (okay, that one was uncalled for), and THEN I don't feel guilt, not exactly, but I am distressed and miserable and cannot enjoy the whatever-it-is and I am angry at the people for calling me out and disrupting my time (even though when I am home I probably would still not be practicing - but that's beside the point because when I'm at home I feel like I am simply procrastinating and will get to it soon enough and thus feel no distress) and generally become very cranky and upset.
Clearly I should just stay home all day and not practice OR socialize.
...okay, I lied. There's more going on than just lack of practice, but most of it involves internal family issues that you don't need to know about.
And if that sounded like a really gradiose excuse for lack of practice, it isn't. The family issues as well as the (lack of) practice have a lot to do with mood swings and a desire to kill things but not much to do with the actual quantity or un-quantity of practice wherewithal.
And now I shall end this post and try not to get up late tomorrow and try not to get on the comp immediately after waking up tomorrow (to ensure I don't fall back asleep) and probably fail!
edit: Considering it is now 2:33 AM, I most certainly will fail. Which means I might as well not even try.
The meanwhile, some thoughts that have been brooding awhile regarding instruments and practice - the source of all (at least much of) my misery comes from instruments and instrument-guilt; if it weren't for my instruments I would be out playing with Carolyn all day and off to the condo and hanging out with the Pinecone and visiting people and generally having fun. But due to aforementioned issues, I can't enjoy going out and am a recluse. Or maybe I am naturally a recluse, considering for most of my elem/middle school life I never wanted to go out and just wanted to sit in front of my OS 9 and play Neopets or build strange webpages with Eliza. But the point is, I never chose any of these instruments myself. Mom started me on piano at 5, which is far too early for any kid to decide for him/herself, and guzheng she gave me a choice between guzheng and yanqin (but still it was a multiple choice not a free response) (incidentally, I picked yanqin), and cello I would never have taken up had she not insisted I do so because I needed an extracurricular and if I wasn't going to do S&D I had damn well better join orchestra. And the thing is, I've got this persistence thing going where I don't like to give things up if I can help it, the concept of "no but I've already spent so much time on it!" so I've kept on through with all of them and grew to be good (or at least decent) at them and with that came the liking/satisfaction/joy/what-have-you that comes with being good at anything.
But what if she had never pushed me to any of these? What would I be doing now?
I think I'd've learned much more in terms of web design, php, mySQL etc than I have now - it's pitiful little because I can only work on my website in my spare time (and that's something I never really get sick of doing, unlike practice); maybe I would have joined Journalism and become super good at pretending I'm doing lots of work while playing lots of computer games in the background. Maybe I would have (really would have) joined percussion. Learned guitar with Mels. Had that been on its own, not one-more-instrument-on-top-of-3 already to learn, I think I would have taken the time to play with it and taken the time to learn it because it was at my own leisure, because I'd have so much free time ANYWAY without the already-procrastinated-practice-guilt weighing down on me like heavy lead chains. Of course, who knows if I would have come to be interested in percussion without the lead-in of orchestra, and who knows if I wouldn't've become a degenerate gamer (because that was the all-too-likely path things were taking in middle school), but the point is that I've never wanted these things, wanted them in their own right - I learned to want them but that's not the same thing, not at all. And that's a very simple concept that many Asian children around the globe are aware of, but the impact hasn't really hit me until now.
It's taken me thirteen years to decide that maybe the price is too high.
Well, OK, not thirteen years because I didn't really take any of it seriously for about a decade, but goddamn.
(Then again, I could just be bitter about this whole recording business, which I honestly am quite sick of by now.)
Oh look, that makes it 3 AM. Whoop-de-doo.
edit2: OF COURSE, there is this thing where supposedly all musicians go through this because musicianship is a difficult thing and takes incredible amount of self-discipline.
Now, this would be fine if I were only a musician. But as it were I didn't take music seriously for 10 years (no, honestly, I never quite got the whole solace-in-music thing until high school) and developed many other varied interests on the side and no matter how hard I try I can't let go of them because, hello, I DON'T WANT TO interests are interests interests mean something that you're interested in and want to do, right? And balancing between them is what tears me apart.
Or maybe this is just because orchestra was such a let-down by the end of senior year. Seriously, I think my high school years went freshman > sophomore > junior > senior. ALL THAT PROMISE IN FRESHMAN YEAR, WHERE DID IT GO??? Not anything close to expected satisfaction.
lalala Japan here I cooooooooooooooome~
(my third aside theory is that all of this misery REALLY comes from my not sleeping enough. which means tonight's def. not gonna help~)
edit3: Whaddayaknow I managed to wake up at 8 AM.
Being told to get OFF the piano is a welcome change. Guess my playing is too unappealing to be background music for mom's phone calls.
So I'm kind of obsessed with the second joint on my right hand. It caves in! And I've been playing for eons with it like that and it hasn't mattered and I can play my pieces pretty well and my teacher says I'm used to it and it shouldn't matter, but it does because I've tried some Hanon and tremolo exercises and in the long run it really, really does matter. It makes my hand sore because the weight is on the joint, not the muscle in the back and al;jgkalskjfdajfkja; WHY ARE MY THUMBS DOUBLE-JOINTED.
On a side note, I don't have this problem on the left hand (any more) because I played cello for so long and the basic shape of the left hand forced my thumb joint to gain some muscles around it and its basic position is basically straight and/or round, as per the shape of the cello neck.
But yeah that only took years of god knows how much playing every week.
T______________T STUPID JOINT.
edit4: Noooooo I have circles under my eyes. Boo. Dx
edit5: Seriously? A fanfiction auction to support American Idol?
Life just gets weirder and weirder.
Also I am being consumed by guilt because I am not practicing, except not really because I am not feeling the guilt, hello, hello, where is it?
No, I am not being consumed by guilt for not practicing, I am being consumed by SECONDARY guilt when I procrastinate practice and laze around all day (no, that's not it, wait for it) - and people ask me out to have fun or go see a movie or go watch a godawful Shakespearean play (okay, that one was uncalled for), and THEN I don't feel guilt, not exactly, but I am distressed and miserable and cannot enjoy the whatever-it-is and I am angry at the people for calling me out and disrupting my time (even though when I am home I probably would still not be practicing - but that's beside the point because when I'm at home I feel like I am simply procrastinating and will get to it soon enough and thus feel no distress) and generally become very cranky and upset.
Clearly I should just stay home all day and not practice OR socialize.
...okay, I lied. There's more going on than just lack of practice, but most of it involves internal family issues that you don't need to know about.
And if that sounded like a really gradiose excuse for lack of practice, it isn't. The family issues as well as the (lack of) practice have a lot to do with mood swings and a desire to kill things but not much to do with the actual quantity or un-quantity of practice wherewithal.
And now I shall end this post and try not to get up late tomorrow and try not to get on the comp immediately after waking up tomorrow (to ensure I don't fall back asleep) and probably fail!
edit: Considering it is now 2:33 AM, I most certainly will fail. Which means I might as well not even try.
The meanwhile, some thoughts that have been brooding awhile regarding instruments and practice - the source of all (at least much of) my misery comes from instruments and instrument-guilt; if it weren't for my instruments I would be out playing with Carolyn all day and off to the condo and hanging out with the Pinecone and visiting people and generally having fun. But due to aforementioned issues, I can't enjoy going out and am a recluse. Or maybe I am naturally a recluse, considering for most of my elem/middle school life I never wanted to go out and just wanted to sit in front of my OS 9 and play Neopets or build strange webpages with Eliza. But the point is, I never chose any of these instruments myself. Mom started me on piano at 5, which is far too early for any kid to decide for him/herself, and guzheng she gave me a choice between guzheng and yanqin (but still it was a multiple choice not a free response) (incidentally, I picked yanqin), and cello I would never have taken up had she not insisted I do so because I needed an extracurricular and if I wasn't going to do S&D I had damn well better join orchestra. And the thing is, I've got this persistence thing going where I don't like to give things up if I can help it, the concept of "no but I've already spent so much time on it!" so I've kept on through with all of them and grew to be good (or at least decent) at them and with that came the liking/satisfaction/joy/what-have-you that comes with being good at anything.
But what if she had never pushed me to any of these? What would I be doing now?
I think I'd've learned much more in terms of web design, php, mySQL etc than I have now - it's pitiful little because I can only work on my website in my spare time (and that's something I never really get sick of doing, unlike practice); maybe I would have joined Journalism and become super good at pretending I'm doing lots of work while playing lots of computer games in the background. Maybe I would have (really would have) joined percussion. Learned guitar with Mels. Had that been on its own, not one-more-instrument-on-top-of-3 already to learn, I think I would have taken the time to play with it and taken the time to learn it because it was at my own leisure, because I'd have so much free time ANYWAY without the already-procrastinated-practice-guilt weighing down on me like heavy lead chains. Of course, who knows if I would have come to be interested in percussion without the lead-in of orchestra, and who knows if I wouldn't've become a degenerate gamer (because that was the all-too-likely path things were taking in middle school), but the point is that I've never wanted these things, wanted them in their own right - I learned to want them but that's not the same thing, not at all. And that's a very simple concept that many Asian children around the globe are aware of, but the impact hasn't really hit me until now.
It's taken me thirteen years to decide that maybe the price is too high.
Well, OK, not thirteen years because I didn't really take any of it seriously for about a decade, but goddamn.
(Then again, I could just be bitter about this whole recording business, which I honestly am quite sick of by now.)
Oh look, that makes it 3 AM. Whoop-de-doo.
edit2: OF COURSE, there is this thing where supposedly all musicians go through this because musicianship is a difficult thing and takes incredible amount of self-discipline.
Now, this would be fine if I were only a musician. But as it were I didn't take music seriously for 10 years (no, honestly, I never quite got the whole solace-in-music thing until high school) and developed many other varied interests on the side and no matter how hard I try I can't let go of them because, hello, I DON'T WANT TO interests are interests interests mean something that you're interested in and want to do, right? And balancing between them is what tears me apart.
Or maybe this is just because orchestra was such a let-down by the end of senior year. Seriously, I think my high school years went freshman > sophomore > junior > senior. ALL THAT PROMISE IN FRESHMAN YEAR, WHERE DID IT GO??? Not anything close to expected satisfaction.
lalala Japan here I cooooooooooooooome~
(my third aside theory is that all of this misery REALLY comes from my not sleeping enough. which means tonight's def. not gonna help~)
edit3: Whaddayaknow I managed to wake up at 8 AM.
Being told to get OFF the piano is a welcome change. Guess my playing is too unappealing to be background music for mom's phone calls.
So I'm kind of obsessed with the second joint on my right hand. It caves in! And I've been playing for eons with it like that and it hasn't mattered and I can play my pieces pretty well and my teacher says I'm used to it and it shouldn't matter, but it does because I've tried some Hanon and tremolo exercises and in the long run it really, really does matter. It makes my hand sore because the weight is on the joint, not the muscle in the back and al;jgkalskjfdajfkja; WHY ARE MY THUMBS DOUBLE-JOINTED.
On a side note, I don't have this problem on the left hand (any more) because I played cello for so long and the basic shape of the left hand forced my thumb joint to gain some muscles around it and its basic position is basically straight and/or round, as per the shape of the cello neck.
But yeah that only took years of god knows how much playing every week.
T______________T STUPID JOINT.
edit4: Noooooo I have circles under my eyes. Boo. Dx
edit5: Seriously? A fanfiction auction to support American Idol?
Life just gets weirder and weirder.
