Hahahaha this made me laugh so hard:
Jen!!!!!!! I was out of mg mind last few days!! Just finalized my schedule today!!
When do u free?! Since I dont have any audition or smthing I should be flexier than u!!
Here r when i'm free ! Let me know urs too:)
And the message continues. Emailing with J is sort of like Skype-ing with my parents; both make me so happy.
Flexier!!! Hahahahaha...
Friday, January 27, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
It's one of those days...
where I come home from class, lie down on my bed to "rest my eyes," and wake up 3 hours later. Tired and grumpy, I pick up my violin and play about 2 chords before my A string unravels and breaks with a sad twang.
-_-
Having unwisely lent my spare string to someone, I stared aimlessly/hopelessly out the window for a few minutes before deciding I might as well use this unexpected spare time to write an entry.
Today I had a random flashback to freshman year of high school, 8 years ago. I was sitting in some class, Geometry or Bio or--God forbid--PE, and I started imagining what it would be like if I could create the ideal school for myself. This was before I understood the concept of a conservatory or even seriously considered pursuing a career in music...all I knew was I spent every day in school looking forward to Saturdays, when I'd go to San Francisco and play in youth orchestra. So in this ideal school, a sort of Jennifer Utopia, I made up my own schedule of classes and activities. I even remember writing it down in great detail--I wanted to have orchestra every other day, weekly lessons, quartet rehearsals every day, and classes throughout the week about music theory and musicology. And maybe throw in a literature class once in a while. At that time, this seemed like the perfect life. I daydreamed about it constantly, while running laps in PE, memorizing the 7 basic economic principles in Econ, doing labs in Chem, having Socratic seminars in English...
I hated high school, but not because I disliked learning. I LOVE learning, and I always have. I just wanted to learn about music SO much more than than I wanted to learn about other stuff, and the more I realized this, the more "regular" high school seemed like a waste of time.
Well, today it hit me that I am now living the Jennifer Utopia about which I had fantasized so long. Practically verbatim, in fact. I have orchestra every other day (although in a perfect world, rehearsals would not be at 9am...hence my spontaneous naps). I have lessons, I can go to free concerts practically any night of the week, I'm seeing my quartet almost daily. On Wednesdays, I have a 2-hour interpretive analysis class, which is spent discussing certain composers and works in great detail, and listening to one another perform. Ordinarily, my attention span is woefully short, but during this class I'm rapt from beginning to end. On alternating Thursdays, I meet with a professor and one other student, and we talk about Victorian literature, a new novel every 2 weeks. On Fridays, I have a small class for score-reading, which teaches us how to play multiple parts of a score (say, all 4 voices of a quartet) on the piano--a skill I've wanted to acquire for a long, long time. This all may sound boring, but it's what I wanted most, back then. While other teenagers perhaps dreamed about prom, Ivy League schools, making the Varsity basketball team, or med school, I dreamed about this...the life I have now.
Of course, now that I've got it, I have new dreams, hopefully which will also pan out, when the time is right. But it is important to remember how lucky I am at this moment, without looking ahead constantly.
I also realize I should have made more of my high school education, truly learning the things I was taught rather than breezing by on last-minute studying, short-term memory, and luck. There are so many occasions now when I wish I remembered "that thing I learned back in high school." Knowledge of any kind can only make me stronger. I should have figured this out in high school, and maybe I wouldn't have scorned it so much. If I had to be there whether I liked it or not, I might as well have tried my best.
I guess if 14-year old Jennifer somehow appeared in my room right now, complete with Paris sweatshirt, purple braces, and Care Bear watch, she and I would both have some good lessons to teach each other.
-_-
Having unwisely lent my spare string to someone, I stared aimlessly/hopelessly out the window for a few minutes before deciding I might as well use this unexpected spare time to write an entry.
Today I had a random flashback to freshman year of high school, 8 years ago. I was sitting in some class, Geometry or Bio or--God forbid--PE, and I started imagining what it would be like if I could create the ideal school for myself. This was before I understood the concept of a conservatory or even seriously considered pursuing a career in music...all I knew was I spent every day in school looking forward to Saturdays, when I'd go to San Francisco and play in youth orchestra. So in this ideal school, a sort of Jennifer Utopia, I made up my own schedule of classes and activities. I even remember writing it down in great detail--I wanted to have orchestra every other day, weekly lessons, quartet rehearsals every day, and classes throughout the week about music theory and musicology. And maybe throw in a literature class once in a while. At that time, this seemed like the perfect life. I daydreamed about it constantly, while running laps in PE, memorizing the 7 basic economic principles in Econ, doing labs in Chem, having Socratic seminars in English...
I hated high school, but not because I disliked learning. I LOVE learning, and I always have. I just wanted to learn about music SO much more than than I wanted to learn about other stuff, and the more I realized this, the more "regular" high school seemed like a waste of time.
Well, today it hit me that I am now living the Jennifer Utopia about which I had fantasized so long. Practically verbatim, in fact. I have orchestra every other day (although in a perfect world, rehearsals would not be at 9am...hence my spontaneous naps). I have lessons, I can go to free concerts practically any night of the week, I'm seeing my quartet almost daily. On Wednesdays, I have a 2-hour interpretive analysis class, which is spent discussing certain composers and works in great detail, and listening to one another perform. Ordinarily, my attention span is woefully short, but during this class I'm rapt from beginning to end. On alternating Thursdays, I meet with a professor and one other student, and we talk about Victorian literature, a new novel every 2 weeks. On Fridays, I have a small class for score-reading, which teaches us how to play multiple parts of a score (say, all 4 voices of a quartet) on the piano--a skill I've wanted to acquire for a long, long time. This all may sound boring, but it's what I wanted most, back then. While other teenagers perhaps dreamed about prom, Ivy League schools, making the Varsity basketball team, or med school, I dreamed about this...the life I have now.
Of course, now that I've got it, I have new dreams, hopefully which will also pan out, when the time is right. But it is important to remember how lucky I am at this moment, without looking ahead constantly.
I also realize I should have made more of my high school education, truly learning the things I was taught rather than breezing by on last-minute studying, short-term memory, and luck. There are so many occasions now when I wish I remembered "that thing I learned back in high school." Knowledge of any kind can only make me stronger. I should have figured this out in high school, and maybe I wouldn't have scorned it so much. If I had to be there whether I liked it or not, I might as well have tried my best.
I guess if 14-year old Jennifer somehow appeared in my room right now, complete with Paris sweatshirt, purple braces, and Care Bear watch, she and I would both have some good lessons to teach each other.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Bronte
The writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master--something that at times strangely wills and works for itself...Be the work grim or glorious, dread or divine, you have little choice left but quiescent adoption. As for you--the nominal artist--your share in it has been to work passively under dictates you neither delivered nor could question--that would not be uttered at your prayer, nor suppressed nor changed at your caprice. If the result be attractive, the World will praise you, who little deserve praise; if it be repulsive, the same World will blame you, who almost as little deserve blame.
-Charlotte Bronte's preface to the 1850 edition of her sister Emily Bronte's novel Wuthering Heights
-Charlotte Bronte's preface to the 1850 edition of her sister Emily Bronte's novel Wuthering Heights
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