chu_totoro

play jazz piano

i wish i could be alone with my piano again

even though i got a piano off the streets and even managed to replace all its keytops i feel like i rarely play because i don't like disrupting people and then i am not disciplined/organized enough to specifically find time when the piano is free to play. i just want to play whenever i feel like it, and stop whenever i feel like it. and if it's not free when i want, then i end up not playing

maybe i'm too conscious of other people

i miss the co-ops

and the little room on the top floor of kcp in tokyo with the stand-up in the corner where i first met weena

i made so much progress on rach 2 back then

:(

( reflection )

( day h15 )

upset me.

Power is given for a reason. Rules are in place for a reason. Nothing exists without a purpose - what is blindly following rules, but a brainwashed, robotic existence? That's entirely contrary to the American way of life, isn't it?

A rule such as the BSC Guest Policy is not in place for somebody who is a long term, contributing member to the co-op who was unfortunately only able to get a contract elsewhere and prefers to live somewhere where he feels more at home. It is for people who have nowhere to live and are "fishing" off the house's resources. Leeches, you could say. It is NOT for somebody who has already paid full rent to the BSC. I mean, it's basically like he's using our resources instead of theirs, but the money all goes to the same place in the end. He's not a misbehaving leech who has overstayed his welcome. He offered to do unofficial workshift hours to make up for his use of the resources. Honestly, that would have been a GOOD deal because the house needs more people to fulfill their workshifts. If anything, he adds to the house resources by generously making food and giving it away to people around him. I can't see how this in any way is counterbeneficial to the house. Isn't that what a house manager should do? Isn't their purpose to maintain everything in the best interests of the house? What she's doing, it's - so unkind. :(

After much contemplation, I have decided that anger is not the answer. However, I don't know what is the right answer. I think (if I hold myself to my values) it'd be to swallow my anger and remain inclusive to all, even the people I really, really don't agree with. Normally I would simply dissociate myself from them, but I am going to be here for the rest of summer and in the future I am probably going to meet many more people who I find close-minded, upsetting, or insufferable. Is it possible to befriend them and maybe make them a little more open-minded? Is it a waste of time? Is it better to stand up to them and say what you think is right? Is it better to dissociate?

Man, the real world is tough. ==

In other news, this is my new favorite song!

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edit: wow i DID NOT know the singer for she and him was the girl from 500 days of summer. how cool!

so done with this school.

I only wish there were less loose ends to tie up and that I could just walk away now without them all trailing behind at my feet but alas, it is not to be.

Ditching most of senior week because I am a bad daughter and don't feel a strong enough sense of filial piety. But also my parents are chill. I swear, I wouldn't ditch graduation if they were going to, say, totally freak out and never forgive me for the rest of my life or something.

This is one of those moments with falsely imbued import that I'm probably going to regret missing sometime later on in my life, but right now I could care less.

I've discovered that I like to be free. Like a bird. Just me and my own, winging about, chasing my every whim. I hate being loaded down. I hate backpacking. My idea of travel is to bring as little as you possibly can and wander, never knowing more than the destination of tomorrow. I don't want to bring a whole home with me on my back. Like Shanna said today, she goes backpacking to find a nice place to settle down and set up camp, whereas I go traveling for the sake of traveling. It's not a mistake that I spend my time floating from group to group (clique to clique? no, our school is not so divided as all that) and never stick. It's there, somewhere in my blood.

Someday in my life I will probably step into the world with all of my naive beliefs about freedom and have them crushed beneath me like a dung beetle. Until then, ja.

(Senior beach day was a lot of fun.)

So as I mentioned earlier my ~~Skullcrappy~~ Skullcandy headphones came in the mail a couple days ago, and today I finally bothered enough to find my iPod cable (I haven't updated that thing in at least a year) and am now wandering about the house with this massive furry white thing on my head.

I look like a hip new youngster! Rocking out to hip new music. Maybe Green Day's latest album. ;D

/cough.

IN ACTUALITY, I am listening to Dvorak, Faure, and Brahms. Yes, I am that geeky. Shut up, I'm in so much love with the cello right now, it's not even funny. Piano is awesome by virtue of inherent soloistic qualities, but nothing the piano does could ever, ever replicate the rich tone of cello strings played well.

(If it's any consolation, Green Day's newest album is currently in the downloading...)

So my dad, upon noticing this new bit of headgear, promptly presented me with a pair of old Sennheiser HD 580s, which are much more comfortable as you can see by virtue of their MASSIVE earphones.

Unfortunately, my dad had an even MASSIVEr head, and he... stretched it. Because it doesn't fit around my head. :( It kind of sits there and doesn't go around my ears all the way, which is fine if I'm in front of the computer, but if I try to walk around it falls off my head. A pity, because the Sennheiser is worth almost 200$ whereas my white fuzzy is only 70$. ++The Senn has better sound quality because, let's face it, you really shouldn't buy headphones just because they are white and fuzzy (headphones are for listening to music, isn't that right) but hey, it's my money, I earned it myself and I'll spend it as stupidly as I choose to.

(Conclusion - Use Sennheiser for laptop and Skullcandy for iPod...?)

Anyway let us get to the real point of this post:

My phone interrupted me in the middle of the Dvorak Cello Concerto with an invitation to go see Star Trek. I turned it down because I wasn't even halfway through my to-do list of the day (which didn't include instrument practise, either) and I wanted to watch House: Season Finale with my parents which we had already put off yesterday because they were tired.

Now they aren't going anymore and I feel slightly bad, like I'm responsible (I probably am). The guilt is slight, but it's still there. And the point of this post is really - don't you just hate it when stuff like this happens? It's nobody's fault, but just like. It puts the faintest blotch on an otherwise great (or at least normal) day. On the other hand, I know for a fact that if I had said yes, I would get irreparable unproductivity guilt when I got home, esp. because I'm only lukewarm towards Star Trek. I know it sounds silly but when I plan to practise and then I don't I can feel the lack in my fingers. Which means I'd have to practise after I get back and then I'd have to sleep late again and I'm sick of sleeping late, I kept waking up in the middle of the night last night (OK admittedly that's not related to sleeping late) but TBPH I like to sleep early and wake up early and practise early and be done for the day and uh let's cut this short. Basically I would have felt worse if I'd gone. And right now it really doesn't bother me *that* much but it's still there, a small splotch of imperfection hanging on the edge, just out of sight.

So I kind of wish nothing had ever happened and my day just went on like it was going on and everything was good. And it's making a big deal out of a small deal (srsly I'm gonna forget about it within the hour), but the thought, however small, was still there. And I guess the point of this post was to reflect upon the 无奈 of life sometimes. Which I've had far too much of (haha this is NOTHING compared to stuff I had to choose between junior year) but... sometimes the small things matter more than the large ones?

无奈无奈 what fugly simplified Chinese. I wonder why my pinyin won't work w/trad. anymore.

edit: ...I need a tag that says 'music is good for the soul' :O

edit2: Aw House... aw...

:(

Is this what it means to grow up? Is this what it means to leave your childhood behind? I realized today how little, how truly little sometimes there is that you can do, and that is the bitterest of all. No, not bitter. Sad. Melancholy. Wistful. Wistful. I am wistful today. There are so many people out in the world, around me, beside me, near me, far from me, millions of people brushing by and leaving specks of themselves behind, but in the end the only person you have utter and complete control over is you. You are responsible for yourself, only yourself; no one else can take that responsibility from you, just as you can never truly shoulder that responsibility for anyone else. And that is the loneliest thing of all. To know that sometimes there is nothing you can do, nothing you can say, that sometimes saying nothing is better than saying something, to acknowledge it, truly, truly acknowledge it, to know that sometimes what you have to offer is not enough and never will be, but also to know that there is nothing more you can do, and to accept the emptiness, the ache it leaves behind because, because, what else can you do?

We are only human, all of us, and subject to human desires and human limitations. Yesterday Jennifer Tien joined us on the quad steps and I chatted with her because I knew the others wouldn't, they are all nice people but they wouldn't, they wouldn't notice her and if they did they wouldn't try and they wouldn't listen, at least not for long. If she pestered them to see something or to repeat something maybe they would (and maybe they wouldn't; I've seen that too often), but they'd shift the attention onto her for a brief moment and then go back and she wouldn't, not really, be included. Has her whole life been like that? Subtly excluded, subtly shunned, only some people (like me, like Connie) will talk to her and oftentimes when they do they are too nice, fakely nice, they treat her like she's retarded or something and how many people, when it comes down to it, really just treat her like another friend?

Yesterday she was squatting curled on the quad steps, chin on her knees, fiddling with her calculator on the ground. The day was warm, sunny, relaxed. I wanted to say to her, "Look up! Look around you. Look at the people. Stretch out, enjoy the sun," but when I did she couldn't get comfortable with it, she had gotten so used to diverting her life away at a small screen in the dark. And it doesn't have to be like that. The rest of her life doesn't, doesn't, doesn't have to be like that, just because she stutters and talks too fast and has trouble communicating. I wanted to tell her to just slow down, relax, talk louder - it's not really so hard as it seems to be - but we met and brushed by so quickly; she's going to Santa Cruz while I'm off to CAL, and in the end all I can do is treat her honestly and focus on my path in life...

What brought this on? A combination of reading 瓊瑤 and life today. I've lost the essence of what I wanted to say with the Jennifer tangent - but it isn't so much any one aspect in particular as much as sitting back and watching things run their course (as they do in 瓊瑤's novel), the paths crisscrossing and each individual character's feelings, and the great wistfulness that comes with knowing what can and cannot be changed, the inevitable.

I was asked multiple times today if I was OK because I looked tired, or not even exactly that, just, "I don't know, not happy."

Is this what happened to Boitz? Is this why he always seems that much more on the edge than he used to be, and only relaxes to laugh off the tension on a rare good day, like today?

I feel as though I've forgotten how to be happy. People say stuff and I smile, and sometimes I mean it and sometimes I don't, but even when I do it wears off so fast. It's like I'm preoccupied, like a preoccupied smile, brief and distracted and the feeling gone before I even know where it's gone. But what am I preoccupied with? What is there to be preoccupied over?

I remember freshmen year, it was so easy to be amused all the time. By anything. And as I am right now I can still see the amusing side to everything, how it can be construed as an amusing event, and I grin for seeing it but the smile doesn't reach my eyes. It is a tightening of the muscles around my mouth and jaw, that's it. I can't make myself mean it.

In some ways it's even worse than wallowing in self-pity or misery or w/e because I'm not blind to myself. I can still see, I see myself and I want to feel and I go through the motions but I don't, it doesn't work. Or maybe I'm wrong and I just think I can see but really I am utterly utterly blind to what is really wrong. Not that that helps me.

Maybe it's just that everybody's gone. They all graduated, group after group and now it's just me, me and my class which I was never close to anyway and there's nothing left. School is devoid of color.

God, now that I think about it there used to be so many of them. So many people, all gone. So many connections, all gone. It's overwhelming just to think of the hallway the way it used to be. No wonder life seems so much emptier.

But that can't be the whole of it. Or maybe it is. God, I don't know. Have I forgotten how to be happy? Or has happiness forgotten me?

It's strange. There are so many things I would like to say to a friend of mine - whom I actually see around all the time - but for some reason we never seem to talk, or when we do, we talk about inconsequential things. And when we do I think of more things I could say later, when we have time to talk privately, but then we never do and I never say them.

And I think this is almost an all-around thing. Except in most cases, I don't even have anything I want to say to people outside the inconsequential stuff. And it really makes me wonder - what am I doing? Who am I? What am I living for?

I feel as though I've lost my ability to care and can't get it back. It's easy enough to laugh and joke with others, to talk and to chat and to babble, but at the end of the day it all seems so shallow. So empty. We talk and we talk, but what do we talk about? Nothing, nothing, nothing.

I think maybe I've lost the focus to my life because I no longer know what I'm fighting for. Or rather, there is nothing left for me right now that I genuinely want to fight for. I don't know. Maybe I'm stressed. But I don't think so. I distinctly recall being far, far more stressed in junior year and it wasn't like this. The work right now is nothing. Easy. I can handle it. It's more like I have a life and I'm living it, but I don't know why I'm living it. I go through all the damn motions without feeling anything. All the colors seeped out of the world when I wasn't looking and now I can't, I can't get them back...

I get the feeling that my life is attached to the world by such a thin thread... and I wouldn't mind snapping it and cutting off connections altogether.

I don't have a goal ahead of me anymore. I'm just drifting aimlessly, letting the waves wash me from here to there without really caring. Everything I do, I do out of a sense of duty rather than any real desire to do it. I want somewhere to stay, but there is nowhere to stay so I keep drifting.

I want to snap into zombie mode so that I stop thinking, period. And then time just passes. But that's too hard with the kind of classes I'm taking this year. Maybe I can ease myself into extreme practice mode enough to equate; practice blanks out the mind too. Rather, it makes you concentrate on practice and you think of nothing else, which is similar to concentrating on busywork and thinking of nothing else, except perhaps a little better for the soul in the long run.

I just want something to do, to occupy my time, and block out thought.

Or maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and all of this will seem retarded and impossible, because that happens too. Blame tonight on a hormonal imbalance in the brain? That wouldn't be so bad.

Yesterday there was a New Year's party at my house.

I heard the people arriving from inside my room. Car doors, talking, laughter... I could hear my grandma and my little cousins. My aunt, my other aunt, my third aunt. They all have loud, distinguishable voices, mingling in the dining room and floating down the hallway to my ears. I was working on my gov't homework. My grandpa came in once, to see what I was doing. I went out a time or three, to say hi or to get stuff from outside.

But through the hustle and bustle, as everyone set the tables and prepared to eat, I still went back to my room to work in front of my computer. I was unconsciously stretching out the time, waiting for another car door to slam, waiting for the familiar chorus of greetings and pleasantries to swell in the dining room, for the two cousins (or one) to come flying down the hallway and go "Adelaaaa!!" Until that happened it felt as though we couldn't start, as though not everyone was here. I even, when I went out earlier, saw their parents there and wondered what was taking them so long, and it wasn't until my mom yelled at me to come out and eat with everyone that it slowly dawned upon me that they weren't coming. Of course not. They're both in college.

It's a bizarre feeling, that. Like having a rug snatched out from under your feet. Throughout the entire evening it felt as though something was missing, and, of course, something was.

I have two girl cousins, one one year older than me, the other two years older than me. The three of us have always been generally lumped together as *that* generation by the adults, when it came to mini-generations. (My siblings, 5-6 years older than us, are the *elder* generation, and my two younger girl cousins, still in elementary school, are the *younger* generation.) And it's always been the three of us. One flew off to college, this year the other one flew off to college, next year would be my turn and really it didn't bother me that much because I didn't see them on a regular basis anyway. You could say the fact that they left didn't really hit home until yesterday.

It's just odd. And also lonely, of course, not having the right age group around to talk to. The adults are fun, but not quite the same. (My sister might have made up for it some, but she didn't not get home until later.)

Two birds have flown, the third is poised to join them. Time enough we'll all scatter to the wind.

How strange.

Now that I think about it, no wonder three is my lucky number. Not only was I born the third child, on the third day of the month, I was also always third within *my* generation of cousins. Funny I never noticed that before.

Highfive, Ender. Long live Thirds.

( cut for mass chinese )

edit: I could have sworn that was Mr Ellis just now, riding his bike in the street.

Life is so weird sometimes.

New Year's meme! Ripped from... myself. Last year.

Post the first sentence of the first entry of each month of this past year.

2004-2007 of my livejournal life are over here.

( 2008 as follows )

In other news, I think that may have been the only chatgroup sleepover where I didn't actually... sleepover? Or have I not before, I don't remember anymore.

Seeing people was nice. Eliza looks the same. Louis looks the same except he says the f word a lot more than he used to. Kevin looks the same only his obsession changed from pikachu to thundercunt. Debra looks in fact like nothing at all because she DID NOT GO because she is the lamest person on earth.

Del and Jiji and Zano don't seem to have changed much. Neither have Kero and Mel, but I see them around on a regular basis so that may not count. Joe is less invisible than I remember. Improvement? Not sure if that'd be on his part or mine.

Oh, Del's house is definitely not the same. It is large! And with basement. Reminds me of Tiff's house.

Tiff, by the way, did not go, but I saw her ~3 hours ago at the post office because we both happened to be mailing our music supplements last minute. harharhar.

My grandpa died yesterday.

My back is killing me.

The latter of the two matters so much more to me than the former.

Perhaps that says something about my character?

Then again, my grandpa died a long, long time ago. 'sbeen a decade, at least. It just took his body this long to catch up.

( ... )

Rest in peace, grandpa.

... hour and twenty minute long AIM convo. whew!

I think I've had longer, but not in a long while.

I'm so tired. My body is tired, my mind is tired, but my thoughts are still perfectly clear. I'm not sure how those all work together.

I don't think I've slept this late for months. Which is kind of sad, considering it's only 1:42 AM, but I really haven't. Not in ages. Been sleeping before 12, for the most part.

In other news, I was watching the cello children and I couldn't help but think about how small they were and how young they were and how far they still had to go, and I couldn't help but wonder, sitting up on that ledge, if this was how my seniors felt years ago, sitting up in that same spot and looking down on us from on high, and if in another several years the little freshmen-now-seniors will find the same spot and look down at the itty-bitty children and think of me and wonder the same thing. Life keeps moving and moving, but it seems that somehow the same cycles keep repeating themselves over and over, echoing, in some strange way, the vestiges of the past...

Mmmmm seeing as I haven't stayed up this late in so long, I probably haven't made an LJ post while up this late in a long time as well. My mind always starts churning slightly haywire past a certain hour. Next morning the thoughts sometimes seem ludicrous, sometimes not. But who knows which mind is more lucid? Maybe it is actually this mind, and all the times waking I go about life as in a dream. Who is to say a dream is not more real than reality? For that matter, how are we to know what's really the figments of our imagination and what's not? What if reality changes from day to day, but every time it changes your memories shift as well to accommodate the new reality? How would you know it shifted? Could you even call it a shift, if you don't remember? Or would it, in some sense, be so many parallel worlds all next to each other?

Aish I'm screwed for school tmr.

I have no idea what I dreamt last night, but I am certain it involved a frisbee.

In other news, my dad gave me some technological tips yesterday that were most amusing. For example, my Azureus share ratio is now 70.319! Admittedly this doesn't do much except make my little red/yellow button happily green all the time (the actual ratio's stored in the trackers, see), but it's still kind of fun to play with.

Also, here is half a page I typed into a word document and then abandoned for something else:

( blatherings )

In other other news, I finished Quality of Mercy. It was so good. It was everything the seventh book should have been and wasn't, and will always, I think, stay the real ending, the right ending in my head.

Thank you, Maya.

( musings )

Junior year, has, officially, ended.

I feel that should somehow be a profound realization – maybe a sudden shock to the core – but, to tell the truth, I don’t feel that different. :x ah well.

Time for tributes and dedications!

( huzzah! )

That was quite a good year, albeit busy and stuff. Better than sophomore year by far.

I’m exhausted now. Time for some neoguri!

edit: ahhhhh I almost forgot!

( edits )

Okay. Really done now. I think.

Have you ever been really, really tired but just not want to sleep because sleeping meant waking up again?

A bad way to put it. Not exactly just waking up, I s'pose. I mean I don't want to die. But sleeping means a wink of time, and then before you know it it'll be the next day waking up to face all the bloody work, all the shit that you've just got to get down and grind through without a moment's respite and THEN the next day it's school again and another week and next weekend will pass as fast as this when and the next and the next...

I dunno. Just. As long as I stay here, reading, writing, wasting time, time stands still. It doesn't pass slowly, but it feels like it does because there's so much of it, so much of the night before it'll be light again, and I can let it trickle by while I do whatever I want, forget responsibility, forget homework forget cello forget orchestra, just sit here and... waste time.

I'm stupid. I know.

I think it might just be the lack of anything to look forward to. I mean, there's summer vacation, but that's not for so, so long. And from now until spring break it's just work, work, endless work, because tomorrow there's the CPYO concert, and next weekend there isn't EVEN a weekend because I'm going to be off at All-State, which I haven't even started to practice for yet, and the weekend after that is the SHS orchestra concert, and the weekend after that is Mrs. Kim's student recital (oh god), and the weekend after that is Cello Congress concert (and the whole week devoted to Cello Congress rehearsals T.T), and the DAY after that we leave for New York, and touring colleges is nice, and the East Coast is nice, but I just want to rest and stay home and sleep, I don't want to travel, and that's spring break gone in a bam and a POOF! and back to school again for two weeks of poetry panel presentations to various English classes around campus and then it's May and AP testing and SATs and June and SATs again, and THAT's about when it ends. When APs are over and AP classes all get to chill and SATs are over too, for a coupla months at least if I have to retake anything, and everything grinds down to a leisurely halt.

But god it's so far away from now.

My teachers accuse me of not trying hard enough. And the best thing is, they're RIGHT. Amidst all this chaos, all this crap, I still manage to waste so much time and procrastinate so much, and when I need most to snap into that zombie-like mode, where I wake up each morning and go to school and come back and mechanically churn out my work and go to bed and wake up the next morning and do it all over again, each day just like the other, all of them blending and merging so that I can't even remember which was which... I can't. I mean, maybe I'm not trying hard enough. I don't want to be a mindless working zombie, the idea inspires internal resistance. :x Subconsciously I feel THAT is time wasted. But what I think is time wasted differs too much to count.

I mean, who am I to complain so much if I'm not even trying that hard? What am I still doing awake?

The funny thing is, people who are really doing their best don't have TIME to complain. That's wasted lawlz.

I think I am being escapist. Or something very like it. lawlz whatever bed for me.

whuuuuup edit: oh the hell. I forgot about Readings in the Redwoods.

...I don't even want to think about it right now. It can stay in the future kthxbye.

New Year's meme!

'sbeen circulating a bit...

Post the first sentence of the first entry of each month of this past year.

k so for the heck of it, I did the entire thing from 2004~2007 since the time I first got a livejournal, because I don't think I've ever done this meme before. Interesting to watch the progress.

( 04-07 summary )

Fun.

Happy New Years, all. Almost.

( whew my mind's dead after so much thinking )

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chu_totoro

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