Her off beat dance makes me fantasise

I’ve been missing for over two whole weeks now. And to be honest I have noooo idea where those two weeks of mid-semester break went!  I hate how that always happens to me – making plans in my head about how I’m going to spend my short holidays, and have it whiz past without me having achieved much, if anything at all. I hope I’m not the oooonly person that does that? I think a lot of it can be attributed to me simply wanting to fully relax after such a wound-up 5 first weeks of university.

Actually, to call it mid-semester break is highly misleading. There’s two more weeks in this ‘half’ than prior the break – because they’d aligned it with the Easter weekend, grr! I thought I had it baaad last half, it’ worse now. Crunch time. But I’ll try my best to keep blogging, because all of my pent up stuff isn’t really helping.

At the moment I have so many mixed feelings. Whilst I do not regret having chosen to major in Jazz instead of Law, I guess my tertiary pathway isn’t exactly soothing all the doubts and worries of “what happens after?”, etc. Also, in terms of the more pressing changes in my life that will be coming up in the next few months:
1/ I will be 19 in one month and two days. I’m not excited. At all. I don’t want to be in my last year of being a teenager! Not to mention it will be during the height of my stressful days.
2/ In June/July during semester break our family’s going on holiday to Australia. Whilst that just sounds like fun and games, it’s just really going to lead to a messed up denouement at the end of it (I reaaaaally shouldn’t think like this!) becaaauuuseeee…
3/ My younger sister is moving to Malibu, in the great City of Angels to attend Pepperdine University. I’m not ready to see her off (and she’s nervous as hell to leave as well), nor live in a house alone with my mother, and have 4 family members in 3 different countries. It sounds downright selfish and pig-headed, but I somehow feel as if I’d be happier if I were the one leaving home first, rather than feel like I’m left behind?

Oh shit, I don’t know.

One good thing of the day: I did my best ever solo in Improv class today. And trust me, it still wasn’t great, but my lecturer (also my bass teacher) and I are both glad to hear that I am making some progress. Albeit slooow and painful. But it’s progress nonetheless!

Friend’s EP Release gig this Saturday night. I shall be less gloomy!

P.S. Lottie – this blog title is just for you, and so is this “P.S.”
xx

This is not a warning call, your final shot

To my Sydney/Aussie readers, pleeease ref to 2nd to last paragraph & help me out!

I don’t want to spend this post bitching about just how much uni work I have (cos I have a huuuge load), but that’s the reason I haven’t had time to post. Had the first half of my improv assessment today – the harder part is on Tuesday. Basically as of today until next Thursday I don’t have any days off from performances / assessments/ tests! But come Good Friday (gosh, I’ve never actually looked forward to Easter break so much!), I will have a two-week midsemester break to relax a little, and actually get to socialise.

Yesterday my friend Charlotte showed me Foals’ new single, Spanish Sahara, which will be on their upcoming album that I’m now excitedly waiting for. It’s a stark contrast to the tracks from their previous album, and I highly recommend that everyone give it a good listen. I know, it’s a looong song. I’m always initially put off by track lengths, but this one is definitely worth it.

Until this week, I’d never quite realised just how complicated planning a family holiday is! My family’s decided to take a holiday in Sydney (and then perhaps drive off somewhere… haven’t decided where yet… that’s my job to figure out, eeek) at the end of June/start of July. It was a random, out-of-the-blue idea I came up with, but my parents thought it was a fantastic idea, since in just a handful of months’ time my sister is moving to Malibu – which means we will have four family members living in three different countries. I’ve just spent the past couple of hours scouring the internet trying to find cheap flights, affordable accomodation that’s still nice and in a decent location – yeahhh, we’re picky. Anyway, it’s all a very fine and exciting idea, but planning and booking it is proving to be a bitch. So if anyone has any suggestions as to where, outside of Sydney (several hours’ drive away is fine, we love road trips) would be a spectacular place to visit, pleeeeease let me know! And any nifty shopping spots, good bars/restaurants and gigs, pleeease!

Also, there’s a photography competition lurking around that I’m interested in entering… but I’ve never really been much of a concept photographer. Ahh, ideas, ideas… you see, I never plan. Anything. Let alone something I’m doing photographically.

Who ya fallin for, who ya fallin for? Whose lies?

These were taken in Taipei at Zhishan Park with a self-timer. It’s nearby the area I used to live in as a child, and our family used to go there a lot. I was very insistent (much to the frustration of my friend watching my mis-timings) that I must be the one to press the shutter and set it all up, haha.

University’s been hectic and sooo crazy – can you believe I’m taking six papers?!! For reference, the standard, average amount of papers that people take per semester is four. I thought I was mad enough when I decided to enroll in a computer science paper as my fifth, for the general education requirement, as most people put this off for a while. But I was really desperate for a non-music paper (for fresh faces… wow alliteration), and then later on decided it was now or never to take the double bass seriously as well, so enrolled in a 2nd instrument paper. Fingers crossed I pull through with decent grades!

Anyway, that’s the explanation for my lack of blogging, despite prowling the internet every night. I’ve been totally addicted to fashion blogs and looking at dream items of clothing that I could only afford if the decimal placing was moved a few places back. Not to mention, resuming my position working in a cafe once a week really puts in perspective of just how luxurious I’ve been lately – especially whilst I was on holiday. Minimum wage sucks, but it sure as hell beats the wages for students part-timing in Taiwan – which are about half of NZ’s!

The past two weeks have shot by so fast, my classes don’t even seem to last that long… but instead of at college, when I wished for classes to come and past quickly, I’ve been wishing that it was slower instead. As I’m supposed to be absorbing sooo many new things in all my jazz classes, the process of being taught, and expected to learn and immediately apply the new techniques or theory simply whizzes by too fast. Instead of wishing my spare, out-of-class time was longer for purposes of going out, etc, I’ve just wanted it, needed it to relax, and try and jam in some revision time. And to think I’m supposedly doing a “bum degree”. Fuck that. Reading 4 chapters a night for the next lecture is a heeeell of a lot easier than being expected to do 4 hours of practise.

I must go and tidy. I’ve swapped bedrooms and it’s still a wreck. And I’ve got a jam with some boys tomorrow that will hopefully result in a band of sorts… I will say more about it as soon as I’m sure. For now, there are just ideas, plans, plans and more plans in the brewing.

We share the same skies

I’m finally back! Actually, I’d arrived at 5am on Friday, and then was at the university merely hours later for my orientation day – resulting in about 38 hours of no sleep by the time I fiiiiiinally made it into bed.

I know, I’d intended to blog whilst on my holiday in Taiwan and Japan, but then my laptop broke within the first 2 days of arriving in Taipei, which royally screwed that plan up. I really should be sleeping now though – the first official day of university is tomorrow and I should try to kick my university career off with a decent night’s sleep… but knowing me, I will be browsing the web until I doze off eventually.

Asides from getting reacquainted with my bass (and any form of technique at all) after a whole month of being thousands of kilometres from it, the other hurdles I really need to tackle this week is my sheer nerves and anxiousness about starting uni itself. It’s exciting, yes, but I’m scared shitless at the same time – I’m doing Jazz Performance for goodness sakes! It’s a far cry from the would-have-been alternative… sitting comfortably unnoticed in a crowded law lecture and being able to do my own thing without putting myself out there – until I was read, at least. But now… I’m crapping out about having combo and improvisation classes, etc etc. Yikes.

In other matters, yesterday evening, the family decided to trade bedrooms – which equals bigger room for me, yay! The only (but huge) problem is that, now that we have fiiiinally moved the furniture contents of 3 bedrooms around, the wardrobes will remain unchanged until we can get it together enough to get everything back in the right places. Despite the bigger room, I still can’t see any carpet, simply because half of what I own is sprawled on the floor. Wish me luck with that…

And last, but certainly not least: Last night I attended The Cribs show at Juice Bar with a couple of friends. It was AMAZING. The best concert I’ve been to in a long time. The Jarman brothers (and yes, who could forget Johnny Marr) had amazing stage presence, everything was tight, energetic, a thousand times better than on record; and their shared vocals were done just so, so perfectly. The sweetest thing was, Ryan had a picture of Kate Nash stuck on his Gibson, under the strings, between the pickups – super cute! I’m just jealous that Gary (which one’s that? the hot bassist, of course!) who’s only 29 is married to a 42 year old! Granted, she’s meant to be pretty amazing (mixed an album of Elliot Smith’s, etc) but still… Gary was well worth the leg pain that comes with a barrier-less venue!

Anyway, I will endeavour to post about my trip in sections along with photos – when I eventually get around to sorting them all. For now, here are some shots that I’d taken on film. All unedited, directly from scans. It’s good to be back!

I’ll walk this modern tightrope… Where is home?

No, no, I’m not leaving civilisation for a year – I’m just off to Taiwan/Japan for a month, and that’s what my luggage looks like. 90% of what I’m taking consists of “western food goodies” and other New Zealand-produce like sheep wool scarves and boots. The 2x party packs of salt and vinegar chips are for my godmother, because apparently they don’t have s&v flavoured chips in Taiwan?! Plus, chocolate just makes a solid, relatively cheap gift – I mean, who doesn’t love chocolate?

Among the slightly less expected items were milo – I’ve got four heavy packs of those in there somewhere, for my mum’s friend in Kyoto who’s kindly offering me and my friend a place to stay next month when we fly over. And Ugg boots. Apparently they’re all the rave in Taiwan during their winter at the moment, and my godmother’s very picky and wanted NZ-made ones, with proper wool, instead of the cheaper, Made-In-China alternative.

I think the most annoying thing is the fact that my flight is at 11:45pm tonight – making today pretty redundant. Asides from my last minute packing and tidying my room, I haven’t really been able to do much today. Although, I think Charlotte’s coming around for goodbye hugs and to snip my fringe. It really, really needs a cut. But I’m too scared to do it myself!

I think the main upside to my luggage being occupied by edible and space-consuming gifts is the fact that after I arrive, my bag will become virtually empty, allowing me to go craaaazy with shopping; this is mostly important because university will be kicking off a couple of days after I return, and I don’t know how I am going to cope with mufti everyday for the rest of my life! Blog entries full of newly-bought goodies and yummy foods and sights from Taiwan/Japan soooon. If all goes well, by this time tomorrow I will have in my possession a very funky pair of somethings that I’ve lusted after for aaaages now, look out!

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