Brother: Oh and I can run World of Warcraft with full graphics on my computer.
Me: *attempting to look pissed* ...don't taunt me please. (=P)
Brother: Oh but I have more HP, so I can taunt you so gg.

Some days like this I love my brother for being that awesome.

Just for those who don't know or may not remember, a few months back mum bought a new laptop for herself and my brother and I was left with the crappy desktop computer.

So what I'd thought had died down apparently didn't. But I won't elaborate on it for the sake of keeping people anonymous and to avoid stirring up further shitstorms.

I've always wondered about the teacher and how they feel about things. Obviously, they have a task to do - to teach their students. Some have different ways about going it as I've observed in high school and through other experiences. In University you can feel that there's a professional distance maintained between lecturers/tutors and their students unless there are personal connections.

But I suppose in this case this mostly applies to primray/high school teachers. What happens when there's an unnaturally bright or gifted student?

I imagine some teachers don't know how to handle such a student. Some can't be bothered. Some are overly supportive, and others actually give the kid the tools to continue developing. Obviously the hardest thing for a teacher is to find out how the student learns best.

Additionally, wouldn't a teacher feel some pressure? I've noticed that there are some teachers who have been teaching for a long time, and the experience shows in their consistent attitude towards their students.

There isn't a fine line between external help and internal help. Whilst it's rather narcissist of me to use myself as an example, I've felt that back in high school I was stunted and my development got better in my last year when I took on doing University Extension Mathematics. And then now in Uni and doing music, I continue to realise, identify and discover how I learn and do things. Helping oneself requires a degree of self awareness, in my opinion.

*shrug*

I actually managed to lead a group of random people to down a raid boss! But that's not what I wanted to write about.

It feels weird now that I don't have exams anymore. I still have an essay for Music & Health that I haven't handed in, but I'm going to go ahead and do it even though I may not get credit just to satisfy myself.

Anyway, my recital. Apologies to everyone but I was not allowed to record it!!! What I'll probably do is record the unaccompanied piece when I have some time and the appropriate room in the house.

I'm not too happy with how it turned out, but given the circumstances, naturally I'm very happy with my effort.

The funny thing is, my mum and teacher have commented that my playing has matured a lot since last year. The weird thing is that I don't really feel as if I've changed much. Maybe it's just because all of these steps are so gradual and small that I don't even notice them.

I need to write something for yesterday. For those who don't know, a friend's mother passed away last week and yesterday was the funeral. At the crematorium the presenter actually allowed a few minutes for an open forum for people to say something, but closed it before I felt emotionally ready to step up. I took a trip down to Sydney for the day just to attend, only to be greeted with a plane delay on the return flight meaning that I got home at midnight. Not fun.

Life goes on. Really.

I've always prided myself on my own mental control and self awareness, but there's nothing like being told the odd thing that may 'snap the lock open', putting it metaphorically.

My mum was looking at a really old class photo of back when I was in primary school in Sydney with the friend whose mother passed away recently. And she pointed out one particular person and asked me 'Wasn't she the one who died a few years ago? Had no immune system?'

I sort of feigned not knowing before actually briefly remembering my mum informing me of the event.

I know I've written an entry or two way back on the same or similar topic, but to be honest I don't really remember them. I like to think that over time I've developed my thoughts, so entries written now/in the future are expansions.

Anyway, what I hate about death is that I always end up wishing that I knew the person better. The thing is, where does it stop? I mean, one could completely know a friend inside out, but there's no limit to the fun both people could enjoy whilst together.
Again, this is a habit of me, trying to establish a black and white manner of things. In a black and white context it's either you know the person fully inside out, or you don't know them at all. If you know the person inside out, you can grieve openly. If you don't know the person at all, it's not really a big deal. When you're in the middle, you're pretty much in my situation: grieve a little, with a major of the frustration being the fact that there are things that you don't know about that person.

So I'm trying not to linger in these thoughts because if I have a breakdown god knows how long it'll take me to recover. The funeral is on Wednesday and I'm heading down to Sydney for the day. My recital is on Thursday. We're hosting a large party at our house on Saturday and still have a lot of preparation to do. This'll be one hell of a rough week.

I did my Music Since the French Revolution Exam today. Basically what happens is that there will be four pieces played over an hour and we have to identify and write on them (can be anything, about the piece or style or period it was in, etc.).

Just so anyone on FB in my music year happens to be reading, they were:
1. O Superman (for Massenet) - Laurie Anderson
2. "Une poce voco fa" from The Barber of Seville - Rossini
3. "The Augurs of Spring" from The Rite of Spring - Igor Stravinsky
4. 2nd Mvt from Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) - Gorecki

Honestly I'm a little surprised that the song I blogged about last night happened to be on the list. Also, earlier today before the exam a colleague of mine posted his FB status about the first piece. Coincidence? Well I'd suggest a theory but I think I'll pass.

I should be cramming for Psych, but I'm in a too happy and relaxed of a mood. Dammit.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but I had a friend's mother who was very sick.

She passed away this afternoon.

I'm fine. To be honest I can't be wasting time.

Update from this entry.

The past two days I drank a can of Mother with lunch and I felt awake and attentive in the afternoon. Mental concentration was better and I obviously wasn't tired!

Today I didn't drink a can of Mother and....I'm sort of wishing I had one. As a result I'm feeling more tired than usual and am considering heading home early to get some rest before my cello lesson/taekwondo.

But yeah, only two days and this happens. Hmmm...

However I'm definitely drinking a can before the exams on Thursday and Friday. Aural this morning was incredibly easy as usual (although I slipped up on melody/rhythmic transcription because I wasn't paying attention to the key).

The first time I heard this in the lecture I didn't really think much of it. Now that I'm devoting time to listen to it, I'm incredibly moved throughout the whole piece.

However this is one out of 20-odd pieces that I have to memorise for my listening test tomorrow (essentially we have to identify the piece, write about it and the period of music history it refers to). In a way I'm doing a bit of studying by writing this post, lol.

The words are taken from a message scrawled on the walls of a Gestapo cell by an 18 year old girl, with a bit at the end taken from the Polish translation of 'Ave Maria'. In a way, it's basically a reformation of a prayer to the Virgin Mary.

This work is an example of holy/spiritualist minimalism. In general the minimalist movement was a reaction against the complexities of modernism. Basically the question was, 'Why not make music simpler?' Composers then begin to focus on repetition, eliminating a sense of direction, using simple techniques. As we can see in this work the simple but long chords (which sounds like cinematic music) create a sense of transcendence and eternity (this can be seen/interpreted in other ways, as well) along with the spiritual overtones.

And now my head is starting to hurt...if only I had more tolerance for vocal music!

I recently started playing the Starcraft Campaign again because, well, DotA was getting boring and I got disconnected from Bored Aussies (probably) because my brother was playing Counter-Strike. I make this assumption because in the past whenever he's playing Counter-Strike there's a noticeable lack of bandwidth when I'm trying to do my thing.

That aside, I've been watching Starcraft gameplay videos on Youtube. Personally I think it's awesome how game playing has become a national sport in Korea but anything else seems unheard of. Don't get me wrong, I imagine there are still Warcraft III and I do know there are still DotA tournaments about. But then I do live under a rock when it comes to those things. I'm aware about gamer conventions, obviously Blizzcon and a few others.

Funny thing is, my microing really sucks when it comes to RTS games. There's far too many things to keep track that my mind starts phasing out. However watching these gameplay videos have given me some insight and it's actually fun figuring out what they do, and why they do it. The only problem is that footage is recorded from the observer instead of an actual player.

I was going to write something thoughtful today, but I've forgotten it. My essay has been completed and handed in, and I had a rehearsal with my accompanist today. Now just to prepare for the exams on Thursday/Friday. It'll be a rough week but I'll be happy to start playing WoW again when all that crap is over.

I also got my haircut today, although the salon at the Uni is a tad expensive. However the staff were really friendly and talkative. However I'm happy with my haircut, but my brother thinks I look more like a chick (I'm rather disturbed by the fact that he said 'chick' instead of 'girl'). I might put a picture up, if I get around to it. Basically it's cut back to shoulder height, and quite frankly I'm really happy with it. No more incredibly long hair strands, no more hair on my shoulders and no more sweatiness coming from longer hair on my shoudlers and back, yay. Now I understand why some people with long hair cut it for the summer.

Aural Exam tomorrow morning. Haven't really prepared, can't really prepare for it. Stupid absolute pitch.

*twitch* It's like fate wants me to stay off Warcraft 3 and DotA.

Quite frankly I'm getting a little tired of this computer (NOT the EeePC laptop). I run the cleaners every now and then but considering it's 5 or so years old it's really starting to fall behind my demands, which nowadays is usually Firefox with 5 or so tabs, Windows Media Player (would be iTunes if I wasn't so anal about Apple products) and ideally I'd like to tab between those and Warcraft 3 or WoW (which would also mean having Ventrilo up).

Naturally I've asked for advice, and I'm clearing out as much as I can but the main problem is that the computer was initially shared and my brother is far too lazy to clean up his stuff. It also has a lot of stray programs and random processes just chewing up RAM (usually has 4+ svchost.exe-s running and when the computer lags sometimes it's one of those chewing up memory) and I'm always apprehensive about deleting them because I don't know where they belong.
The other reason may possibly be the fact that it's a regular HD. Of course, there's SSDs out there and I'm curious to see how better the performance would be on one.

Windows 7 is out, but I'm not sure if I should buy the license or just buy a whole new computer to go with it. The latter seems like a desirable option, since it'd give my mum the opportunity to figure out the internet settings for her business and clients. Apparently if your computer can run XP it can handle Windows 7 but....yeah. Old computer is old. Maybe I should just reformat it and give Linux a spin.

Enough bitching, though. I have an essay to finish and exams to study for...>_>

I should really learn to appreciate music more.

It puts me into a more calm and pensive mood, completely free from hate, worry, insecurity, etc.

The reason I'm saying this is because I've been unnaturally grumpy and sleepy all day, but now that I got around to backing up the music on my PSP (since my brother's borrowed it to play FF: Dissidia) I'm listening to Beethoven's Symphonies, and I only just realised how much different I feel already. I guess the part that seems daunting is listening to music constantly to keep me in the mood.

I've still managed to stay off WoW, which is an achievement. However today I went ahead and bought a game card online, but won't be activating it until after Friday afternoon when my Psych exam is over. I'm thinking of transferring one of my toons to an Oceanic server, but we'll see what happens - they only seem to take credit cards as payment and I don't have one.

I'm also definitely getting a haircut on Monday granted I finish my last essay for the year by then. Nothing drastic, just ~10cms (~4 inches) back up to neck height. I'm getting a bit sick of having to tie it up into a (high?) pony tail just to keep the hair off my neck especially on hot days.

Uh, and yeah. Blah blah blah normal post blah.

A colleague of mine at Uni just posted the following video of himself performing the 1st Mvt of Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole.



It's things like this that continually remind me of my dreams. I think one of the things I hate about my attitude to music is that I feel competitive and that I continually judge others. And I do that to make myself feel better and remind myself not to make the same 'mistakes' as they do - the funny thing is that naturally I have my own mistakes that my teacher points out. Which is why I usually keep my mouth shut these days.

Just a bit of background on the piece, as the name suggests it was meant to be a Symphony (seeing as the name translates to 'Spanish Symphony'), but the concertmaster's part is vastly different to the orchestra and as a result nowadays is considered a concerto. It was written for Sarasate, which some of you will remember my earlier obsessing about one of his works: Carmen Fantasy (technically, also a violin concerto), which draws themes from Bizet's Carmen (an opera) which premiered a month after Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole.

But whilst I reflect on Spanish music, something doesn't seem quite right. I say this with a bit of ignorance, seeing as this is the first few times I'm listening to it and the fact that I'm unfamiliar with Lalo's music in general: It's missing something.

I think when I listen to Spanish-themed music I usually expect a lot of slipperiness. I always think of gypsies doing their job, seducing and dancing with castanets. A Spanish wind instrument that few people have heard of, and the sounds of a strumming guitar.

And as always, I take these things to extremes, which means nothing ever seems to sound good enough. I don't know if this is an asset of liability, but I do know it's the reason I keep performing - because I know I'll never be perfect.

Hopefully you guys know the spin off from FML: FMSL - Fuck My Sex Life. I read this one a few days ago:

"I'm a 19 year old guy. I've never seen a girl naked in real life or had a deep kiss. FMSL"

Dude, you're 19, wtf? I'm hitting 20 in over a month and you have the guts to complain >_>

Just as well I'm not whining about not having a girlfriend anyway.

Ever since I read a comment about caffeine and sugar consumption, I've sort of been geeky about it and working things around and experimenting with it.

Basically, it's a good idea to have some form of caffeine before you sit an exam (i.e. a coke, cup of tea, etc.), since it'll give you a boost in energy for a few hours.

However the same doesn't go for sugar, it gives you a boost of energy for a shorter period, and then there's the feeling of being left deflated (i.e. the withdrawal? I mean, you know how you feel a bit tired roughly an hour after consuming a sugary product?) unless you continue to eat something with sugar in it. It's okay if you've having, say, a one hour exam but not any longer unless you continue to supplement yourself throughout the exam (and these days, you're only allowed a bottle of water, really).

I tested this out last night by eating a Snickers bar before taekwondo and sure enough, I had plenty of energy to push myself during the session, and was dead tired by the time it ended that I gave up trying to eat the Chinese takeaway with chopsticks and instead shovelled the whole thing into my mouth.

The funny thing that happened today that prompted me to write this was that I was thirsting for a drink and I was heading to Uni today to do some studying for my listening test, so I figured I'd head to a vendor and grab myself a Coke. Seems the machine was fucked up and I got a can of Mother instead, then I realised how actually the can of Mother would've been better for studying rather than a bottle of Coke.

I'm probably taking this thinking a bit far, but a few days ago I was worrying about how the hell I'm going to be up and perky in the morning of my cello recital examination, seeing as I'm not really a morning person and my recital is at 9:55am in the morning. Time to stock up on a few cans of Mother, I guess.

I just need to see whether caffeine induces withdrawal effects hours after consumption or not...(consider the main problem in testing this out is the fact that most caffeine products come with sugar).

I realise I'm probably touching a nerve of my fellow musicians but for a lack of material to blog about I thought I'd write something whilst I'm procrastinating. Of course, I've tried to write this in a non-offensive way, but if you find anything offensive you're free to challenge it.

Earlier this semester I had a masterclass with a guest tutor from ANAM, and that basically opened up another door of awareness to listening. I feel silly that I haven't realised it before, but it solidified some of my own basic principles.

When we listen to music, we generally listen to music for enjoyment. When we're enjoying music we don't really pay a lot of attention to the details. And it's between enjoying music and critically listening that a lot of people tend to hover, mainly towards the former as far as I'm aware.

I can't describe critically listening to music, but when I'm in 'critic' mode I listen to every note, every sound, and ask myself how it's being played and whether I like it being played that way. If I dislike a certain aspect: What is the interpretation? Why?

It is that, that I ask myself why my fellow musicians seem to be unaware of these small things. Naturally I imagine there are situations where other people feel it's disrespectful to criticise their fellow musicians (an opinion which I'm of the opposite of), which is the main inhibiting factor in drawing my conclusions.

Could it be, perhaps, that our ability to listen is a major factor of how well we perform as musicians?

People think it's weird that I have a bunch of friend requests on Facebook that I haven't accepted nor ignored yet. They're just sitting there.

I'm gonna be honest, most of them are people that I've seen IRL, but have never interacted with by any means. Others are those that have a ton of mutual friends, but no profile picture.

To be honest, having no profile picture is the thing that pisses me off the most. But then I'm one of those idiots who doesn't really care how much information about his personal life gets leaked to the public (I mean, look at this blog!). I have a very good visual memory, so honestly, if you know I've seen you IRL, have a freakin' profile picture so I can recognise you. I'm never good with names.

I guess the other weird thing is that I've gotten friend requests from friends-of-friends or both people my senior and junior. The juniors I don't mind so much, but the seniors I'm sort of like 'How the fuck do they know me?' whilst wondering who they are.

Anyway, this isn't supposed to be much of a post, but I've been in a bit of a stasis at the moment and it just doesn't feel right sometimes if I'm not blogging as often as I normally do...waiiiiiiiiiiiiiit a minute...

Following from that last post - I had a rehearsal with my accompanist today.

Then I realised how my mentalities and lack of social skills had screwed up my rehearsal today. I kept forgetting patterns and cues I'd normally remember because I intently listening to my accompanist and was just nervous about the whole prospect of working with someone completely new and out of the blue. I was playing out of tune, not maintaining correct posture, and on top of that her piano was flat which made me uneasy.

But I'm not complaining. She was very friendly and actually has a degree in accompanying (she commented that most of the 'accompanists' under the University are more soloists) - she spoke to us about how she's been trying to get on the University's list for ages but was rejected because she wasn't a graduate.

She was also very understanding and asked questions about my hearing impairment, how I preferred things, etc. If it wasn't for the fact that I'd only had 6 hours sleep and only a can of baked beans for breakfast, I'd be feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. I actually appreciate it when people ask about my hearing impairment, but at the same time I fully understand how regular people can be nervous when asking others about their disabilities, having felt the same way myself towards other people.

When I look back on stuff this year, I feel like I've barely made any progress with the whole socialising thing. However I have definitely made progress, but getting up to the point where I'll be able to understand people better still seems very far away. I've realised one of the reasons I started losing empathy and social skills was because I was listening to music and treating it like a friend that I could control. I've noticed I change my pieces based on the mood I'm in and the type of person I'd like to be talking to right now, whether it's the optimistic and happy-in-nature person or the emotional and crying person who just simply needs a hug.

In a way, I'm happy that I still continue to find out more about who I am and why I do what I do. I think the thing I'm struggling with at the moment is trying to remove the mask that I usually have on when I'm out there in real life - however through this blog and the relevant Facebook feed, I sure damn hope that people who stumble across these gain a better insight as to who I am :)

Falling asleep in Concert Class due to hunger here, so let's write a blog entry!

I've often wondered why I seem to be the only one of a few who actually prefers solo performing over playing in groups.

However, besides the general nature of the person, a few things comes to mind as to why some people dislike solo performing (this also includes performing with an accompanist).

- All the attention is on them
- They're worried about stuffing up because the mistakes are easily discernible
- Criticism

I suppose it's always been difficult for me to understand these type of people, but I'm aware of how I'm different to these people:

1. I love criticism.
2. If you stuff up, you stuffed up. Learn from it and better yourself. It's okay to do the whole 'OMG' thing but any further obsession is too much.
3. I'm a bit of an attention whore (naturally I don't go out of my way to gain attention, though).

I thought about writing this post after I observed someone break down in the middle of performing during String Class yesterday.

Granted, the more times you perform the better you'll get definitely. Nerves are a normmal thing though, you just need to turn on or put on the 'Confidence' mask. The general audience loves a confident performer.

And I'm too hungry to write more coherent thoughts, so that'll be it for now.

I'm saying it again. It's funny how a good few minutes of music practice seems to erase all the stress and worry that builds up in the body throughout the day.

Although at the moment it feels like my cello and I aren't working together because of something on my end, which is really irritating. I think it's because I'm stressing myself out, especially with WoW withdrawal.

I really, REALLY want to stay off WoW until at least the start of next week when I've handed in all my essays (save for one that was due two months ago which I gave up on but will definitely work on during the exam period). However I'm having doubts about my emotional/mental stability. It seems at the moment the things I'm doing to supplement my withdrawal is more DotA games, Youtubing, and watching anime.

It reminds me of the whole 'Having a girlfriend in high school = failing VCE' thing that teachers and psychologists would babble on about. To me, it's analogous to taking drugs. You're addicted to them and they maintain your sanity. Once you're without them things start to fall apart.

But back to the initial problem. I think it's also because my brother's practising almost non-stop at the moment because he has a violin exam coming up in a few days. The annoying thing is that he asks me to do his music analysis and would rather remember the information than understand it or make any attempt to hear it in the music he plays. I generally maintain a rule to not practise when he is practising, and ideally if I had to I'd have to practise on the other side of the house which happens to be the study room mum works in just about all day and night. The good thing is, though, his recital exam is on Friday.

Now I'd babble on with some interesting thinking regarding awareness to music and hearing impairment but it's late, I should be off to bed, but I've done absolutely nothing for the night.

I recall back to the time in first-year Year 12 where I cracked the shits at a classmate during a Literature SAC because I just wanted her to shut up.

Naturally, very few people have actually witnessed my mean and overly elitist side.

For the last two weeks or so I've been feeling this edginess and now I'm actually recognising it as exam stress. The problem is that it tends to manifest itself in my character, making me feel, as you've already guessed, mean and overly elitist. Of course this probably comes with a ton of other things that are related.

I'm sort of reminded about my 'mean and elitist' attitude to doing things. There's no emotions, you just get the job done. If you're freaking out about an essay that you've only just found out about recently, it's your own damn fault. There's no whining or negative feelings when the conductor points out your mistake in an orchestra, you just acknowledge the mistake and better yourself. If someone tells you to do this, you do it.

I often think that as long as everyone in a group of people who share the same goal they have the capacity to achieve the best results, further ahead than the social friendly groups. Of course, you could probably argue otherwise, but it's a massive grey cloud we'd be walking into.

But if you have an opinion, I'd love to hear it.