It's times like these...

...that I appreciate Facebook.

In middle school, there was this guy with whom I was good friends. We had a lot of classes together, and we basically spent a lot of time in each other's company, running around, devising pranks to play on our teachers, and keeping each other entertained during the long boring hours of class. I think at one point, we even walked home from school together. Then in ninth grade, he moved away, and I didn't talk to him since then. I don't know why...we probably started hanging around different people, and then he left and we lost touch. In essence, he completely disappeared from my life, and I didn't give much thought to him after that.
At one point, we became Facebook friends, although I'm not sure how that happened, because he doesn't friend people, and neither do I...but anyway, a couple days ago, I got a message from him. I remember seeing the notification email and thinking, "What the heck? Maybe it's a forward or chain message or something." I clicked on it, and it basically said that he and his roommates decided this week to reconnect with their middle school crushes, and I was his only one. So, if I wanted to Skype and catch up on the last seven years or so, that would be really great.
First, I laughed for about five minutes straight, because it was so random and amusing and, I don't know, completely unexpected. But then we got in touch via Skype, started talking, and tonight, we ended up having a four-hour video chat. As he said, we've barely even scratched the surface, and there is still so much to say.
It's surreal. On the one hand, it was as if I was meeting him for the first time. I didn't even know what school he went to, what major he was, what kind of person he's become. His hair looks different, his clothes are different, and he's definitely grown up. But on the other hand, this is the guy I sat next to in eighth grade English every day...his mannerisms, his personality, and his sense of humor are like second nature to me. Within minutes, I was blabbing on and on, talking endlessly with him like I would with a first-tier friend...it was as if our seven years of silence had not existed. I was surprised at how natural/comfortable it was to suddenly share so much of my life with him. What's more, it seems that we matured and changed in quite similar ways over these years--not by affecting each other, but by simply learning the same lessons. The image I envision is two travelers walking down parallel roads...they don't meet, but they're going in the same direction. Discussing books, movies, music, drugs, school, family, friendship, relationships, marriage, individuality...we held the same principles for so many of these topics, on so many levels.
When we were fourteen, we'd sit and talk about the school dance, the Jogathon, the To Kill A Mockingbird assignment, how to make stars with rubber bands...and now that we're in our twenties (crazy), we talk about what jobs we want, past relationships, what we think about The Fountainhead, what makes quality music, what we like/dislike about ourselves... It is reassuring that while the topics change, the comfort and openness and ease doesn't. It is reassuring that a middle school friendship is significant enough to reappear seven years later. Most of all, it is reassuring that there are still people who see the value of making an effort to keep in touch. We're all busy these days; it is so easy to find an excuse to NOT take the initiative, call someone up, and find out how they're doing...not out of obligation or convenience, but because you really care. We all go around saying, "Aw I miss so-and-so" or "I miss the old days"...but not many people act on it. Even fewer people voluntarily dig out an old candle of a friendship, dust it off, and relight it.

:)

Middle School

The other day, I was recalling middle school memories with an old friend, and afterwards, I dug around my past online blogs and found some hilarious entries. Brought to you from the diary of 14-year-old Jennifer (but edited by present-day Jennifer, because 14-year-old Jennifer typed weirdly and had bad grammar):

MPU's=Mrs. Pierce's Ums. At first we thought it was so funny...I couldn't stop laughing every time we made a tally mark, but now it's just like a daily routine. "How many times did Pierce say 'um' today?" "245." "Cool."


The Tale of the Ice Cream: Once upon a time, a girl named Vera was extremely hungry and kept telling this to Jennifer in a line for a ride at Great America. Finally they finished the ride and went off in search for food. Vera found an ice cream store and got a huuuuuuge ice cream (it must have been about 8 inches long) and took about two licks before the whole thing slipped off the cone and fell to the ground. It was silent for awhile, and then both girls looked down. The ice cream slid slowly down the pavement.


No school today. I spent like a whole hour trying to get my Legolas poster to stick on the ceiling of my room. I had to keep jumping up and down on the bed. It was so hard...what a workout.


Today after break, we turned off all the lights and did the duck-and-cover to trick Pierce into thinking there was nobody in the classroom and she'd accidentally come to school on a Saturday. It didn't work, but when she finally got in, we all started singing Happy Birthday to her so she wouldn't get mad at us. I don't know whose crazy idea that was, but it was hilarious and ingenious all the same. You could tell she was confused...couldn't think of what to say, so she just smiled and walked to the front of the class like nothing had happened.


Good ol' eighth grade. In retrospect, possibly my favorite grade. :)

***More on with whom and why I was reminiscing in the next entry...it's a good story, so be excited.

Je suis bouffon.

"I can feel my brain beginning to atrophy already." -Calvin and Hobbes

Seriously, it's embarrassing.
Today in the middle of French, I realized I left the homework for Schenkerian Analysis (my next class) at the apartment. So during the 10 minutes between classes, I ran home to get it. Made it back on time, sat down, finished the homework in class, and concentrated every neuron in my brain to not doze off. We also listened to Fritz Wunderlich singing Schumann lieder, so I floated off into Jenniferland for a while. Then class ended, I left school, came home, and realized I forgot to turn in the homework.
A few days ago, I brought Chip (my violin) to French, because I had excerpt class later in the day. During passing, I went downstairs to print something, and I accidentally left Chip in the classroom. I didn't even realize something was missing until I came back upstairs and someone informed me that one of our classmates had my violin and was trying to find me. But I had to go to class first. Went in, sat down, and was in the middle of concentrating every neuron in my brain to not doze off, when that classmate walked in the room, handed me my violin case (of course I was sitting in the most inaccessible location, middle of the back row), and walked back out. The teacher sort of stared at me, went "...okay" and kept teaching.
A week or so ago, I was sitting in my apartment, eating lunch and staring out the window, not even doing anything. At 2pm, I realized I had completely forgotten to go to my 1pm class.
A few days before that, I was sharing a taxi with a girl, and the fare was $12. She had a twenty, and I had a bunch of ones. It took us so long to figure out how to split the fare that the taxi driver went outside for a smoke while we deliberated.

WHAT IS GOING ON???

Connie

You know my prayer plant Chloe? Well, my mom liked her so much, she got a miniature prayer plant for herself in California, and named her Connie.

Hehe, so cute. :)
Anyway, she's been worrying that the climate isn't humid enough for Connie, and tonight when I asked about it on Skype~

[10:53:40 PM] Sefen.Hsu:  my connie is kind of sad, I had to put her in shower after I'm done every day

Hahahahahaha I love my mom...

The Case for Christ

Just a note before I copy out my favorite quotes: A few months ago, I was talking to a trusted friend about religion and how hard it is to reach beyond the barrier it sometimes creates. We talked about the loneliness of being the only Christian among close friends, and the desire/wariness to share your faith. A while later, I got a lovely snail mail package from her that contained a book called The Case for Christ. I finished it in 2 days--the fastest I've read a book since those good ol' Harry Potter days. The author was an atheist (Chicago Tribune journalist from Yale) setting out to disprove Christianity through archaeological and biological evidence. After 21 months of research, he came to accept Jesus as a real man who not only changed lives, but who existed/exists as the son of God. I think this book addresses the skeptic in all of us, believer or non-believer...to some degree, everyone needs logic and proof behind their beliefs. It hurts and angers me when people turn away from Christianity without bothering to learn more about it. At the same time, I don't think it's right to latch onto a religion without knowing its history and reliability first. Faith is such a huge determining factor in your life, that none of us should claim to have it figured out until we know a whole lot more about it.
I don't write this entry or recommend this book to change someone's mind. I don't expect atheists to listen to me and say, "You're right! I'm convinced!" What I do hope is that people will take initiative and find the information for themselves before turning away.

Favorite Quotes:
There are religious symbols that are quite meaningful to people--the symbol of Jesus being divine, of the cross, of self-sacrificial love, of the Resurrection. Even though people don't really believe that those things actually happened, they nevertheless can inspire people to live a good life, to overcome existential angst, to realize new potentialities, to resurrect hope in the midst of despair--blah, blah, blah...So these liberals say historical research can't possibly discover the Jesus of faith, because the Jesus of faith is not rooted in history. He's merely a symbol...but listen: Jesus is not a symbol of anything unless he's rooted in history...The theological truth is based on historical truth. I don't want to base my life on a symbol. I want reality, and the Christian faith has always been rooted in reality.


It's like this: if you love a person, your love goes beyond the facts of that person, but it's rooted in the facts about that person. For example, you love your wife because she's gorgeous, she's nice, she's sweet, she's kind. All these things are facts about your wife, and therefore you love her. But your love goes beyond that. You can know all these things about your wife and not be in love with her or put your trust in her, but you do. So the decision go beyond the evidence, yet it is there also on the basis of the evidence. So it is with falling in love with Jesus. To have a relationship with Jesus Christ goes beyond just knowing the historical facts about him, yet it's rooted in the historical facts about him.


If you do something against me, I have the right to forgive you. However, if you do something against me and somebody else comes along and says, "I forgive you," what kind of cheek is that? The only person who can say that sort of thing meaningfully is God himself, because sin, even if it is against other people, is first and foremost a defiance of God.


I go through the books that people write to try to tear down what we believe. That's not fun to do, but I spend the time to look at each objection individually and then to research the context and the wording in the original language...And every single time, the prophecies have stood up and shown themselves to be true.
So here's my challenge to skeptics: don't accept my word for it, but don't accept your rabbi's either. Spend the time to research it yourself. Today nobody can say, "There's no information." There are plenty of books out there to help you.


Jesus intentionally walked into the arms of his betrayer, he didn't resist arrest, he didn't defend himself at his trial--it was clear that he was willingly subjecting himself to humiliating and agonizing torture...So when you ask what motivated him, well, I suppose the answer can be summed up in one word--and that would be love.

And this one is C. S. Lewis, another former skeptic:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say....You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Mei

I've been meaning to write a happy birthday entry for my sister, but the week of September 30 was kind of a chaotic one for me. So here is a belated shout-out to my favorite girl in the world. :)

When Mei turned seven, I gave her a composition notebook that I hoped we could use as a shared journal, a place where we could spill secrets, ask nosy questions, and write about our days. The two of us planned to write an entry every night and place the notebook under the other person's pillow (our "secret hiding place"), where Mom and Dad wouldn't find/read it. It wasn't like we didn't see enough of each other that we had to exchange letters...it's just that, as anyone with siblings will know, there are certain things that just don't get said amidst brushing your teeth side by side, eating dinner with the family, or passing each other around the house. I also figured that since Mei was entering second grade, she might start liking boys or at least thinking about the "birds and the bees"...and I wanted to be the first to know, if/when this happened.
We've written each other regularly ever since, and when I left for college, we continued the journal online. This past summer, Mei and I decided to dig out that first composition notebook we shared and read through old entries. Here are my favorites:

 

In case the photo isn't clear, it says: "Jennifer, this is a secret so don't tell anybody not even Dippindots. O.k. this is it. I like you more than anybody else? YOU KNOW WHAT?"

(Dippindots was my bunny.)

I love the random drawing of a boat in the middle, and how she crossed out =( and changed it to =/ after mentioning Cameron. I love my sister...

(Sorry, I don't know why it's sideways.)

Mei has a lot of unique qualities--complete randomness (as exhibited above), an unpredictable temper (the Water Gun Incident, in which she hit an annoying little boy on the head with a water gun, and also the time she bit her preschool teacher), effortless hilarity (her imitations of Dad are incredible), acquiring the strangest injuries (sitting on her own thumb and spraining it, being knocked out by the zip line at school, running into a pole etc.), not to mention her unparalleled skill of avoiding any form of work. But if I had to pick one trait that sets her apart from the masses, it's her sweetness.

When she was a baby, she sat in my room and watched me practice, then she would wobble over to her toy chest, take out two plastic sticks, and mime playing a violin with them. When I entered high school, she bragged to all her friends about her sister, the "refreshment" (she meant to say "freshman"). And now that she is the freshman in high school and I'm in college across the country, she still shares her life details with me...I know about her Group at school, who likes whom, what the homecoming themes are...If we don't have a chance to talk on the phone, she writes in our blog, and she reads what I write too.

Some people think in words, others think in images, sound bites, or feelings/sensations. When I think of people, I think in snapshots, and when Mei comes to mind, these are the snapshots that play out in my brain: 

-her running downstairs to get my textbook for me from my room because I'm too lazy to walk there myself

-her bursting into tears whenever I mentioned leaving for college

-her always giving me the bigger half when we split food

-the pride in her eyes when she tells people about me

-her jumping to my defense when I argued with Mom and Dad (although she usually hindered more than helped)

-her sitting patiently on my bed at 2am as I sobbed over some heartbreak or another

-her laughing at my jokes/weirdness so hard that she can barely breathe

The amazing thing is, over the years and now that she's a teenager, she hasn't lost any of that sweetness. 

A) She loves our parents and makes an effort to spend time with them, even if they annoy her. Like last Halloween, I asked, "So did you go trick-or-treating?" and she said, "Nah, my friends went, but Dad was too tired, so I stayed home with him."

B) When I'm home, she's still my personal servant...she follows me around the house and gets me water/food or whatever I want. Of course I ask for it politely and stuff, but still. Actually she's pretty much the family lapdog...Dad is always making her get ice cream and orange juice and stuff like that for him.

C) Every night, she tells my parents that she loves them. And she says it first...it's not like the typical teenager situation where the parent goes, "I love you," and the kid goes "Yeah yeah, love you too."

D) I'm still her best friend. I know we're sisters and it's not that big of a deal, but this seriously means the world to me. Remember that first photo above? Well, here is something she wrote in our blog about a week ago: "When Jonathan and I were doing this dialogue thing for classwork, he was like, 'so what's your favorite person's initals?" and i'm like, 'j w' because well JENNIFER WEY. and then he's like 'jonathan walters?' and i was like 'wowwww no. jennifer wey...' hahahaha who on earth would say something like that?? so ridiculous. Oh well. OKAY well i'm going to sleeepppp. GOOD NIGHTEO! <3"

Some things never change (I hope). I'm sure she doesn't realize it, but every time she writes to me, it makes me so happy...my whole day just lights up.

Having siblings is indispensable. I am lucky enough to have the greatest, sweetest, loveliest sister imaginable, and there is really nobody in my life quite like her.

What Feels Good

If I made a Top-10 list of the things that make me feel good, somewhere near the top would be playing a good concert. Tonight was the first NEC concert of the year, and mm it felt good. First of all, Jordan Hall was literally full to the brim...I counted maybe five or six empty seats. Second of all, it was like a football stadium, with all the cheering and roaring, even before we played a note. But most of all, the energy generated in each piece was so tangible and present, like a ball of fire, coming from the players and being spread to every corner of the hall, and bouncing off the audience back to us. It's a kind of energy you only get from the "youth" orchestras...this sort of wide-eyed, passionate, sometimes even overzealous enthusiasm and eagerness to share the music. I like to look around when I'm playing in orchestra, and these are some of my favorite snapshot moments: a man in the front row with his eyes closed and a smile stretching across his face the entire time; the kid next to him with a huge afro nodding along to the music as if it were rap or heavy metal, staring up at the stage; a wave of string players with their faces and bodies moving to the whirlwind of sound; and little smiles between stand partners.
They say musicians make the best lovers; I'd flip it around and say lovers make the best musicians. You treat the music you're making like you would treat a lover...with tenderness, passion, spontaneity, patience, and commitment. If you're a person who is capable of loving with all your heart, it will shine through in the music you make.
Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself how amazing it is to be able to produce sound. I've been playing violin for so long, it's easy to take this luxury for granted, but just think--with your two hands, you can create a medium of expression that encapsulates ideas that have spanned centuries. Out of your instrument can come sounds that draw the darkest secrets and strongest feelings from deep within a listener's mind. And into your instrument can pour all the emotions and experiences that have been stored in your body after a lifetime of living...it's a miracle, really, if you think about it.
If, by divine will, I am able to do such a thing for the rest of my life...well, I pray I will never ever take it for granted.

Oh my.

Two memorable lines from a phone talk with M.

Me: How was your weekend?
M: It was so horrible actually. We've been getting our roof fixed, and I was in my room watching TV when through my window, I saw one of the workers fall off our roof.

Me: How was your birthday??
M: It was okay. But actually, it was bad, because while I was gone, my cat ate my hamster.

color me gray, with a silver lining

Maybe it's pathetic fallacy striking again through the dreary weather here in Boston, but it's been a gray few weeks back at school. On the one hand, I feel like a chicken running around with its head cut off, trying to handle all the things I've put on my plate and barely surviving. On the other hand, I feel almost bored. I have an old T-shirt that says, "Find inspiration everywhere," and I think I need to dig it out of my closet and start wearing it again, because that's what's missing these days--inspiration.
You can work your butt off and do everything right, but if you're putting all your effort in for the wrong reasons, ultimately you aren't going to feel 100% satisfied. If I'm practicing harder than usual and scheduling my time more efficiently these days, it's so that I can cross more things off my check list and feel some sense of accomplishment and self-worth. But to be honest, simple love for playing music has become less and less of a conscious factor behind my actions. Here are some realizations I've had that probably contribute to my decreasing motivation:
1) All humans are not created equal.
Some of us are just naturally more talented than others, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. There's always that group of people who are the first to catch on to something, the fastest learners, the most creative minds. They can revel in the luxury of intellectual superiority without having to lift a finger--they were born this way. Then, there are the people who actually have to work to get to the level of that first group. I've always considered myself somewhere in the middle; I know what it's like to be the first to figure something out and have to sort of wait for everyone else around me to understand it...it's a weird combination of triumph and embarrassment, smugness and self-consciousness. I also know what it's like to be with people who are waiting for ME to finally catch on...I can tell when I'm the "slow" one who has to work harder to try and keep up. It doesn't bother me too much when I'm in the latter group, because I can accept that I'm not the best. However, there are a few occasions when it really makes me second-guess the extent of my capabilities, and whether my hard work is worth it.
An example--Q and I have been playing in the same quartet for three years now. I think we work well together, we get along, and there have been lots of good laughs and good times...I mean, we must be doing something right, otherwise we wouldn't have stayed together for so long. He's always been sort of like my hero in terms of violin-playing, and while I consider myself his equal when we're working together, I am secretly in constant awe of his music-making. However, spending a lot of time with him also reminds me more than anything else that life is not fair. Here's what normally happens. Say we both take an audition for the same orchestra. I start practicing for it a few weeks in advance, I listen to recordings, drill passages with my metronome like a good girl etc. He prints out his music and looks over it the night before, and minutes before the actual audition, changes his mind about which concerto he'll play. We both take the audition and end up with pretty similar results, him a bit higher than me. Granted, there may be a lot of factors I'm leaving out...he's a lot older, more experienced, and spent a larger percentage of his childhood practicing than I did...but what it boils down to is natural talent, in my opinion.
The fact is, there are people out there who are just automatically better/smarter/faster/stronger...and while perseverance DOES make a difference, there is only SO much that it can do. This applies to everything, not just music. I go to a school where I constantly see examples of people who easily achieve a level of music-making I can only reach at my best moments. This should inspire me, but watching them, I actually find myself thinking, "What's the point?" And I settle back to my usual comfortable spot--somewhere in the middle, certainly not the worst and certainly not the best.
2) You can't control luck.
There are good years, and there are bad years. I try not to be too superstitious, but I really do think 2010 is somewhat of a "bad" year for me, in the context of my life. It started with me trying to make a celebration pound cake, which both exploded and imploded in the oven (yes, that's possible). Then, it moved on to several days of weeping sessions, losing eight pounds, and eating about five bites of food a day (YES, that's possible). With regards to music, I guess there were several instances where I really felt I tried the best I could, did the best job I could, and still didn't get what I want. Now, if this were a math test or a science project, it wouldn't bother me very much. I mean, I'm not trying to make a living as a mathematician or a biologist. But in music? When I do my best and don't make the cut, it bothers me. Well, really, it scares me. I don't let it affect my confidence or my belief that I deserved it. I just realize that no matter how hard I try, there's always the luck factor that I can't control. I mean, you can play like Heifetz, but if there is no dream job opening, you're not going to get your dream job. Once again, I find myself thinking, "What's the point?" And I settle back to my usual comfortable mode of living--chugging along, practicing my scales and learning my pieces, so that at the end of the day, I can check off all the items on my to-do list.

There are some professions where this sort of philosophy and work ethic will suffice, but music isn't one of them. If you make music for the ultimate goal of self-satisfaction and accomplishment, I don't think you will get very far. It doesn't work that way...there is something fundamental, something much deeper that exists at its core. Knowing this, feeling uninspired has made me very uneasy and stressed out lately. And on a drizzly cloudy Friday night as I packed up my things and trudged out of my practice room at midnight, after a long day of sectionals (zzz...), French (zzzz...), Schenkerian Analysis (ZZZZZ...), excerpt class (sigh), Pho with C (God always throws me a silver lining here and there :) ), and the gym, I felt like a shape in a child's coloring book waiting to be filled in with a gray crayon.
But then I pass by one of the practice rooms, and look through the window. There are five people inside, obviously students, sitting around in a circle listening to some piano quintet which is blasting through iPod speakers. They have music in their laps and smiles on their faces, as they nod and sway their heads to the music, eyes closed. Late on a Friday night.
Why do we play music? Oh yeah. Because we LOVE it.
Find inspiration everywhere. Amen. :)

Chloe

Meet Chloe, my prayer plant!
While getting settled into my new studio, my mom and I decided to take advantage of my three windows and get a plant. At first, we were looking for rosemary, because apparently being around rosemary improves your memory, and God knows my memory needs improving. But the flower shop didn't have any; just as we were about to settle for a cactus or something else low-maintenance, I noticed a cool-looking plant, so I asked the storekeeper what it was. It turns out that this flower shop is the only place in Boston that sells prayer plants! Prayer plants originate in Africa, according to him, and are generally only found in Florida or very tropical areas. They are BEAUTIFUL--green with bright pink stripes on the front of the leaves, and a musky purple on the undersides. I think their life spans about a couple years. But the coolest thing about them is, they recognize time! Every night at 7pm, they close up their leaves, and every morning around 11am, they open the leaves again. My question is, what would happen if you brought a prayer plant overseas? Would it get jet lag?
Anyway, I brought my new plant to her new home, and I think she's pretty happy here so far. Doesn't she look like a Chloe? I only have to water her twice a week. Also, now that I'm living alone, it's nice to have someone/something to come home to every day. :)