Well, it's time to stock take.

It's another milestone here and I'd like to take time to pause a bit and wonder about the things which have changed in my life since the last time I really blogged regularly(read: before NS).

It's a new school - but same sort of shoddy information systems I've had experience with before, no big deal. No big orientation parties or camps - I'm not a party person, and not a punctual person either(not enough to sign up for camps - ) so I think I'll be making my own path, just like before.

Actually, that's what I've been doing these two years. Fulfilling my minimum requirements(BMT, registration for uni, etc) and doing my own thing everywhere else(going to MDC, taking up a concerto, hanging out with the 'aunties' and 'uncles' in re: mix(well, as they refer to themselves, mostly jokingly), working in the music shop instead of somewhere else, doing all the gigs, growing long hair)

And many more. But let me start at the beginning. The end of school. The ambivalence towards academic results - perhaps I thought it was wrong then. This I noticed in learnt from someone devoted to a higher purpose - and as of now, results are not a be-all and end-all; there is life beyond academia.

You lay the groundwork, it doesn't have to be enthusiastically, but as long as it is sufficient. You do of course want the best for yourself. And then you move on.

No doubt there are facets of my laziness which still hinder me. But not so drastically as compared to others - as another two giants in my life taught me, work smart and you won't have to work hard.

Then the stint in MDC - it was like a holiday gone wrong; as in it wasn't a true holiday where I could kick back and relax(it's the SAF, hello), but it was a distancing of myself from everything else familiar in my life but music. Good friends, certainly - but also the knowledge that no matter how screwed up life gets, we ultimately just do our best to salvage the situation and move on - and have a good laugh at it later. Various incidents surface - the commonplace improvisation, the 'MDC bomb'(no it's not a real bomb), recordings of songs - and of course all the talk-cock, that staple of army-guy conversation which I miss.

I think I gained some friends and working experience - still need to work on my person-to-person interactions, I know I'm horrible at that. One of the reasons I evolved my musical comments which I use in rehearsals - kudos to my partner cellist in the double concerto, who developed his own set separately before we even knew each other. Methinks we make a good team, and that we're really people with similar interests. All the on-stage experience has pushed me to dare to be different - if you have something to say, nobody will listen if it isn't unique and attention catching.

This is dragging longer than I thought, so maybe I'll end early without covering everything - I know I won't return to this topic except in thought.

I have to thank re: mix for having me all the way, though I may seem rather distant; I'm from a different generation, realistically speaking, and am not very good at fitting in with the rest of them - but I'm thankful to them for trying to include me - and no, I don't think of them as 'aunties' and 'uncles' - just big brothers and sisters, with the exception of the music director himself who fits more into the category of 'mentor' for all his expertise and wisdom. Plentiful interaction with the Chinese-speaking members is also helping my conversational Mandarin - a good thing.

And that brings me to OMM, the orchestra I joined for the Dvorak concerto. I think it's time I said it straight here: I don't like OMM's music. I find it lacking in details and quite messy in places, especially the strings; that being said, perhaps I could have done(can still do?) something about it. But I have greater loyalties elsewhere, and regretfully I won't have the time to try to fix this. At least the people in OMM know how to fake when they're playing wrongly, and that's another gripe I have: too much cover-up of the errors so everything still sounds acceptable. But if one wants to progress, I believe that things start with identifying problems, which are often all too easy to miss. Nobody should be blamed for accidentally missing problems, but it is a bad thing to see problems and not fix them. Perhaps OMM's committee has other bigger things to fix, but for me, the music is what I come for, what I do and what I will fix first, before and beyond anything else.


Editing later, I'm passing the link to a friend.
As predicted, I'm too lazy to go on. -.- maybe tomorrow.