CXLVII – Dreams aren’t gonna just materialize.

147

Today I just talked to my parents about having our own family portrait taken when I graduate from SP (y'know, those graduation gowns you get to wear, which you see in pretty much every traditional family portrait). My dad agreed wholeheartedly; my mom...not really. She said to me to hold that thought till I graduate from University, so when people ask my mom silly stuff like where I graduated from she could say so with a little more pride.

Paper society, remember? In S'pore saying you got a degree or a masters sounds way better than saying you've got a diploma to feed you. Well, obviously, but hey, this is an Asian society as well, which means it's a society of saving face.

Which is why University is still a prime choice. Locally, preferably. Again, this isn't simple—think about all the other people out there who think the same way. That means I'll have to fight extra hard to get what I want, and need to attain. If not here, then overseas, if the necessity arises.

I've had enough of this procrastination. It's gotten me nowhere, but down. Way down. Like Sec 1 bad-results down. Being the shy one has gotten me nowhere either. Look what happened when I finally opened myself at FOC and FOP? It worked wonders, it achieved miracles. So away with the old, and in with the new! If I don't transform now, I might as well not do so, for it'd be too late.

I'd like to shed a few pounds. I'd like to study hard and do well for my sake. I'd like to be more open and friendly.

Oh, I'd like to have that family portrait taken too =) Hopefully in future when I see myself smile in the photo I will know it is one which is well and truly genuine and worthwhile.

Till then!~ Lots of holiday activities to occupy me for the next week and a half!

P.S. I've added a couple of new pieces, Pachelbel's Canon in D and J.S. Bach's Toccata und Fugue for the Organ. Hope they are worth listening to. =)

CXLVI – Tragedies of a Composer.

146

So, the exams are over. Did OK I guess, but only results can speak for themselves. Time to move on.

Lots of things happening this holidays, but I can't be bothered to list them out. There is no point in doing so anyways, so again, time to move on.

~

If life can be summed up in the chords of the piano, then I think I know just the person who fits the bill, one whose work reflects his outlook of life, as well as the life of his own. That's right, it's Frederic Chopin.

When you become really good with the piano, as I hear from many recordings, the chords and notes become a mere guide; it's the pianist who does the interpretation, and places the feeling in the music, things that make a listener discern between an amateur and a master, a maestro. And I guess when Chopin wrote all those Etudes and Sonatas he knew how pianists in future who play it would interpret it—that in the manner in which he had lived his life. As far as I have read, his isn't the happiest: he died impoverished and ill, and still so young.

If you listen to his work (I've put up Nocturne No.20, alongside the likes of Scriabin, Handel, Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi), you may notice something about his music, something...pained about it. Like as though he is chronicling his life in a series of works, subtly hiding the true intensions of publishing them, like saying, "Enjoy what I have missed, what I have lost, lest you end up in the state that I am in". Maybe that's not it, but that's how I see it.

Chopin's life is a tragedy; his work is anything but. And those beautifully placed notes on paper have become the most sought after the ears of the discerning. I've had enough of modern pop, for now. And as an exception, I shall move back...to when classics ruled the airwaves, when it was the blast of the trumpet, the squeal of the violin that struck a chord with the masses.

When true feelings, be it fear, anger, sadness, lunacy or sheer joy, did not need words for them to be expressed with absolute clarity.

Till then~ =)