I have failed countless times to update this blog, and I have a feeling no one really reads anymore. However, since this was where I started writing it always feels most comforting to return to write short bit about my life here

I was browsing today this article where a number of individuals had submitted pictures or scans of their teenage diaries. I have hardly graduated out of teenhood myself; once a very interesting character told me that you don't truly stop being a teen until you've passed 25 years of age. Sometimes not even then. Yet I can't help but look at (the now hidden) entries that used to chronicle my life in secondary school and then in junior college. I was a very different person then, and yet, not so.

As I write this now, I am waiting for myself to fall asleep, for the memories in my head to die down so I may just tumble into a nice dreamless sleep.

Yet sleep evades me, as it naturally does when you need to wake mere hours later for the most important task of school. It feels so new all over again, because people just come and go and come back again.

But enough of my rambling, I should really try to at least close my eyes and lay down, and hope that eventually sleep will take me.

To all those people who left my life, I miss you. You know who you are

<3 M

sunnuntai, huhtikuuta 30, 2006

ugh

i'm disappointed in myself.

yesterday's sectionals was ATROCIOUS. i didn't play well at all.

i felt i had fingers of lead, a clumsy tongue, and nothing i played sounded musical in any sense. sounded like a bunch of notes that i decided to play randomly.

this isn't the first time you know. vincent's told me repeatedly NOT to push the tempo when he's conducting. that means i've been rushing our section alot loads of times without even knowing it. whatever happened to my tight rhythm? its lost. lost somewhere in that air conditioned room.

and then there's those annoying running passages which i USED to play without breaking a sweat. now i see the little black things printed on my scores and i start goggling at the paper, wondering how in a million years i would be able to play those passages. not that a bass clarinettist has many running passages to play now, but when i do i totally suck at them. take the phantom of the opera for instance. its been what, 3-4 months now, and i STILL can't play the running passage towards the end. at least for that stupid running passage in carmen suite, you know, that one where i play the melody with the flutes. i figure out how to alternate between the different keys, and my pinkies on both hands nearly died. because there are so many alternate fingerings to use. at least i've mastered that one. but that simple one in phantom is bothersome. that (E-C sharp-A sharp-C sharp)x4. i don't think i'll be able to play it before the concert.

its not as if i didn't play the simple parts on saturday badly either. i bungled up the flag parade part of the john williams 4 symphonic themes. i wonder why i even bothered to continue with band in jc, since i'm that lousy.

even warm ups were a torture. i played ALL the scales wrongly, when on a usual practice i only mess up if we play 2 octaves, cos i can't reach the higher notes. don't even talk about the higher register. shows how poor my breath support is. all i do is squeak and fight against my instrument when it comes to the higher register. the very thing mr chew taught me NOT to do. i was breathless during the standard warm ups and during the tonguing exercise, AND the intervals that vincent made us play were so terrible that i just gave up towards the end.

combined wasn't as bad. maybe because i let fabian and the bassoons cover me instead of trying my best. bleh.

see the thing is, concert is coming up. i'm a teeny bit apprehensive. i don't really want band to end. after all, its been a major part of my life since 2001. first picking up the the clarinet. my first squeak! my first running passage. my first fun combined practice at musical moments. first sharing the clarinet with maya, having foot drills. my first performance during the national day parade at school. i've cried with, laughed with, been angry with, loved a band. we were small and humble then, with hardly enough instruments and without a proper band room, away in the farthest room on the highest floor. now i'm part of mjcsb, with a proper, accessible room, with good instruments, and i somehow feel though the situation and people are different, feeling haven't changed. i still laugh with, cry with, and love the band.

i wonder if i will feel lost without band every week. even though i moan and groan about the ulcer-inducing practices that leave me with stomach cramps, i don't know if i can do without them.

things come and go, but i didn't realise time was so fleeting as the poets like to say. not till now.

i shall put it like this then. love for something, someone an experience or whatever. one only realizes love for it, when your love is gone or about to go. only then does love overwhelm and overcome you. only then do you realize that you've taken for granted what you had. only then do you realize that you loved.

marlz

sunnuntai, huhtikuuta 30, 2006

ugh

4/30/2006 01:59:00 ip.

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