LORD…

by jon laa on February 16th, 2009

I want to thank you for the many humane people you placed in my life. Because without them, my life will be oh-how-cold.

I want to thank you that you established awfully awesome teachers in my life too. Even though one of them is cold and distanced, he/she is still amazing and I know you will find me the best one when the time comes.

I want to thank you because you made me who I am.

Now that you made me who I am, you gotta bring me to where you want me to be.

Falsehood

by jon laa on February 15th, 2009

It is about time I get used to people being untruthful and being completely hypocritical. Like how some can have issues with me but choose to keep that away from me.

The world we live in are filled with opinionated people, who lacks courage.

And screw the bullshit pleading that goes “please help me as a insert-non-family-relationship”. It is pretty evident you have a lack of courage to put what you want in written words, because you just can’t be sure. Because you don’t want to take responsibility for what you may be wrong at.

Then without those written instructions, it becomes my fault.

Now that you chose to deceive, you are to be judged. Mr stumbling-block, no less.

Don’t tell me how I am doing fine when what you have to say in my absence doesn’t seem so. Don’t flatter me and compliment me when you never meant it, and true enough you don’t.

Moving from these chauvinists who have nothing but material, sexual lusts within their souls, I am glad a new life awaits.

And just somewhat, I know I can and will move on from this brouhaha and lead my life. Not yours.

From this day forth, I lead my life while the rest of you can either stay or fuck off - there is a choice. And from this day forth, you can be sure that I wouldn’t put myself in any disadvantage just because you are abc or xyz, be it in speech, action or thought. From this day forth, I am opening myself to more pieces of shit!

But you do know that I deal with pieces of shit better than a nanogram of hypocrisy or any such thing.

Deep within, I am glad I made my choice. It is pretty obvious that if I didn’t make that what-others’-perceived-as-stupid-in-their-ignorance decision, I wouldn’t know and be this aware of myself.

Like alex said, it’s a route of self-discovery. Nodding in agreement, we agreed it wasn’t half as bad (if actually even applicable) as what it seems.

And like I have been saying, and dying to say, screw all abc.

Finished

by jon laa on February 13th, 2009

The lecturer has left after visiting and it’s my last day at work. Everything feels normal. There’s pizza to go around, which I cannot decide if it is for a farewell or not. In all honesty, I’d rather have the malay food than to have pizza. I don’t belong to those who value expensive food.

I took a walk to the market, even though I already had lunch, snapped some pictures. The florist didn’t have nice lilies, I need to figure where I can find some.

Everything feels surreal. Like. It is all over, too good to be true.

Moving on, I really will like an early day. I can’t wait to leave altogether.

Now national obligation awaits. And I am a little happy about it.

My log book is amazing up to standard. I didn’t have my medical certificates though, will need to bring them back to caleb another day.

Now, it’s all over. It is finally all over.

No doubt, I left a whole lot of shit behind.

Procrastinate

by jon laa on February 12th, 2009

Damn, I still have a long way to go. I have 12 weeks of reflections to write and you can imagine how much pain that is. Of course you can say it’s my wages for laziness, but it’s totally dumb, retarded and unnecessary. It doesn’t signify anything and it’s obviously a false representation of what I am doing. No, I did not have to lie. I just have to write what they want me to and omit what is less than pleasing. They’re a whole lot of half truths, which is probably what the society is built upon anyways.

Moving on from my self-inflicted misery (it wouldn’t be miserable if I allowed myself to follow instructions without thinking), this tutorial on vodka skittles, this article on pepsi’s logo, this news report on theft and this is about what I have been reading at work.

I think they should have taken the teen a little more seriously. I’d think there’s some societal issue when a teen decides to order that many candies. I don’t think I’ve spent a hundredth of the amount on candies. And besides, he’s quite smart what. They don’t seem to be taking his ability to find his way round the system kindly.

In all the reports of people being smashed under the trains, I don’t remember reading anything about what happens to the driver. I cannot even imagine what state of mental health I will be in if I ever do run a train over somebody.

Dio!

by jon laa on February 12th, 2009

I should be at home practising instead of being at work.

I don’t like the idea of owning both a posh mercedes benz and a 7-digit debt. It may be an asian thing.

Like the usual, I am still procrastinating. I need to fill up my log book, which is a total chore.

It’s amazing how much crap school can generate in the name of good education, or quality education even. The system established is obviously quite full of loopholes and their standards to being a smarty-fart-pants is pretty much flawed. I’m quite sure there’re at least a million and one successful people in the world who never quite did well in school at one point or another.

The amount of crap school generates is quite evident from the amount of paper work teachers have to do. I mean, they could hire office boys/girls for that. It’s cheaper and will be a more effective use of resources, compared to getting trained teachers to spend their out-of-classroom hours doing paper work. Pretty much of a turn off, in my opinion.

And the warpage can also be witnessed from the hiring of diploma or pre-college students to do relief teaching. There’s actually a page in the ministry of education dedicated to it. Like, hello?

To put it in few words, I am not happy (with the amount of crap I have to do and the amount of work my teachers have to do that there was a waiting list for consultation).

End of rant.

Passing

by jon laa on February 11th, 2009

It seems like the internship is over in a blink of an eye, but it is actually pretty much a hoard of unceasing disturbances. The food here is good, not that I tried the turtle soup, frog legs, durians or whatever that is famous here. The malay food is awesome, indonesian food rather. The kind that you wouldn’t find anywhere else and will never forget. There’re lots of small grocery stalls which sells perishables from fruits, vegetables to fresh fishes by the roads, it’s amazing to see ice-filled cartons with fishes buried within in a sunny hot day.

The walkways are so narrow that it isn’t uncommon to see people walking on the roads instead. In fact, the lanes by the shops tend to be void of vehicles. Pedestrians tend to walk on the road to avoid the crowd or the harlots. And the harlots are such amazing people, though terrible disturbing, to the degree of being revolting. But at the end of the day, they are still remarkable people.

Geylang has been awesome, a culturally-intensified microcosm of the cold, bleak, cosmopolitan, secular and synthesised city-state.

Last night’s lesson wasn’t too bad. The tuning work is getting into shape, my ears are starting to work after a three-year hiatus. It is agreed that they are lazy, and that I am not listening hard enough. Terrible. I’m a little lazy, or very lazy for the week. No plans to practise actually. Like, I am just not anxious about it.

I don’t really have anything more to say, I think it’s a mental block. Good bye.

Exhausted

by jon laa on February 10th, 2009

Back at work, last tuesday ever and tomorrow will be the last wednesday.

Did a four odd kilometre run before I head out off to work. It was more like 8 x 400m and a 800m slow jog to run it off. It takes quite a bit of motivation to do slow jogs - being a total waste of time and being totally tired, you just wanna get it over with - but once you get into a momentum of sorts, it’s pretty okay. Less intensive on the feet than intervals of course. The muscles are still a little tensed up from the bad run about a week ago, didn’t manage to run as fast as I will like to but it is not that bad.

Nearly forgot to bring my violin out this morning, brains may be still fried. There’s lesson later and I am not sure if I should be looking forward to it or not - tuning is somewhat there as of last night and the fingers are still not quite dexter yet.

Pfft.

Didn’t really pay much attention to bowing, I’m still playing with squeaks and all - terrible. I hope she starts at a manageable tempo, I don’t wish to die.

Dazed

by jon laa on February 9th, 2009

No, I bought a pair of adidas and not nike. My brains must be totally fried. It’s apparently some rather high profile shoe, not those latest model kind though.

Back at work, woke up late. Mondays are always a killer and I am glad it’s finally the last monday. And tomorrow will be the last tuesday, and it goes on and on.

There’s this bit of hiccup at work. More like, there’s this bit of undefined job scope and I am not keen in taking it up. Given that I have little time and also given that I don’t have much resources to work with, it doesn’t make sense. Besides, I offered them a chance, which was brushed away. In short, too bad.

The tuner is finally back working last night, my dad got me batteries. It feels awesome to be able to know how sharp/flat I am and not be left completely helpless. I probably need to get the mute from bit so I can practise comfortably late at night.

Been playing with a towel, so that I can use shoulder less. It didn’t work out. I still feel more comfortable playing without anything even though it means my shoulder will be tired out faster. I think it’s some muscles that can be trained. I am not sure. And the use or abstinence of the shoulder rest should be the last thing to hinder my progress.

Blogging at work feels totally evil.

Did think a little on what was said during the last voice lesson. Then decided to recap what was said in lessons before the last, tried them out. Managed to sing a A, not full and not glorious but easy, free and painless. I figured that’s a good start. I probably need to be able to sing a A comfortably before I can start to work on the sound and the start to work it to its beauty. It was the case for most of the notes, anyways.

There’s progress and improvement. I suppose letting nature do its thing is better than to work triply hard and fretting over every single muscle movement and every other intangibles. Everything seems to be taking shape at a faster than expected pace when I learn to let go and just do what is necessary. I practise a lot less on the voice, but it somewhat still develops and there’s still progression. Of course the piece I am working on still sucks, because I didn’t visit it for the entire of last week, but the sound is getting better. In that sense, it’s awesome.

The chamber recital was not terrible, I am convinced my brains were fried. I ended up listening to the same violinist and cellist again, not playing together this time though. Everything sounds better, like, better than what I heard the other friday at yong siew toh. The violinist somewhat dropped his violin (but managed to save it from its fall) while tuning and at the end of this movement there was some weird sound - it sounds as if the peg unturned - but he moved on to play the next movement fine. The cellist did not hit the music stand with her bow this time round, she did on the other friday. The largo movement was too much for me to take, I dozed off.

They played prokofiev’s five melodies for violin and piano and shostakovich’s sonata for cello and piano in D minor. Missed shostakovich’s string quartet no. 7 in f-sharp minor, which I am going to youtube now to see what I have missed. Grr!!

It’s a completely bad idea to be late for a concert/recital. It spoils the entire experience and the brains will be in a state too occupied to seep into the music. I found myself idling and eventually dozing off in the sonata for cello and piano, such waste of time and money.

Grr!

I’m moving on to do something else, tatas!

Unseen

by jon laa on February 8th, 2009

The afternoon was spent ransacking through the box of old scores, and there were some good buys. It is amazing.

Bought a pair of shoes, nike. The first pair of nike to break my adidas trend.

The concert was terrible, was late for it. Totally missed the first item, which was probably what I was paying to watch. Disappointing.

Besides that, I think life is still a little confusing.

Did practise though, after a two-day break.

Backward.

by jon laa on February 8th, 2009

There is progress, compliments, but they don’t seem to have any significant impact. Everything is slightly dull.

Gosh, I don’t want to do what I have to do tomorrow. It’s just something I agreed to, bad choice.

Moving on from all that, I hope they don’t disappoint at the chamber recital.