Also, it’s Mother’s Day today, and ironically my mum has spent most of the afternoon scanning childhood pictures of me, for my 21st birthday party, but I guess it must be enjoyable to some extent (once we get past the “Not Responding” thing that the photo scanner was doing earlier), because there are some pretty amusing photos of me, even if I say so myself! Anyway, here are the flowers I bought for mum from me and my sister. I’d gotten them on Friday after uni, and they’ve opened up just in time today, which is perfect. I also got her a sweater thing too…

Speaking of my sister, her school’s golf team has just placed 3rd at the NCAA Div1 Women’s West Regionals, so they have have made it through to the Championships in Tennessee! She came tied 10th overall, which is pretty good, especially because Liv managed to improve her score on every day of the tournament in Colorado. And since she keeps asking me what present I want, it would be the best birthday present ever if she shot something amazing on my birthday! (Might just link this post to her, ahem…)

I know I haven’t posted one in ages, so here is finally a playlist. Some good things to attempt do assignments to, and others just to keep me feeling sane and happy. Or motivated for hockey games and trainings:

1. Spectres de Mouse – Mouse on the Keys
I have a serious thing for this Japanese band’s beats and that’s all I need to say. There’s three of their songs on this playlist for a reason!

2.  Myth – Beach House
Hadn’t even realised that Beach House had a new album coming out until I heard this song used on a video at a blog I was reading. And so of course I immediately recognised the voice and went “WHAT SONG IS THIS?!” and had to get hold of it immediately. The rest of the album hasn’t struck me as much as this one has though. It will probably take some more time.

3. Whale In Da Pain – The Bridal Shop (Not a youtube link, couldn’t find one but you can stream it here)
I’ve been listening to songs #2, 3 and 4 in this precise order all week, I can’t put a finger on why. Apart from the fact that, clearly, this song’s bass line has largely influenced my affinity towards it.

4. Black Hills – Gardens & Villa
I’m not actually sure if I like this dude’s voice at all. I usually hate voices like this. But somehow I like this song.

5. Saigo No Bansan – Mouse on the Keys
Live video with a meaaan, mean drum solo. And just how crazy is that piano head? Holy shit.

6. Alex – Girls
No, I haven’t gotten over Girls (nor Yuck, as you will see below) since the summertime. And in fact, now that it’s autumn and getting bloody cold, the fact that listening to them reminds me of the summertime means I listen to them even more. The sort of song that girls like me wished were written about them…

7. You With Air – Young Magic
I had posted another song by Young Magic in my previous playlist but this song has become a staple go-to song that I play in the car when I’m driving to hockey training on Wednesday evenings. Especially when it’s wet and cold and just all-round horrible.

8. Icrus – White Hinterland
The way the bass line’s been produced reminds me of dubstep. And all those nights spent in dark rooms with it. By the way, this is totally not dubstep, if that makes it any safer to click on. Just a nice song with nice-girl vocals. Too nice, really. I usually don’t like too much of this nice-girl-voice stuff either, but somehow I enjoy this song.

9. Georgia – Yuck
Another song named after another girl. I was named after a song. Does that mean that no songs will be named after me? I hope not.

10. Artichoke – Pandit
Three words: wishy washy shit.

11. Double Bind – Mouse on the Keys
I love this bass groove. So. Much.

By the way – if there are any likes/dislikes to do with my playlist or recommendations please do let me know in the comments! (Or email me, those emails have always been a nice happy surprise in my inbox)

This whole process of creating a guest list has been somewhat nostalgic. Whilst I’ve invited a lot of middle-ground friends who have darted in and out of my life for most of my adolescent-to-adulthood years, it’s also caused me to put in quite a bit of effort with catching up with people. During the mid-semester break a couple of weeks ago, and even during class breaks last week, I made sure that I tried to see as many of my friends that I hadn’t seen in a while, and to try to deliver as many invitations in person as I could. I had the most lovely lunch-turned-int0-afternoon catchup with my old piano teacher (who has the same birthday as me), who had taught me for about eight of the past ten years, and it felt just like old times again, chatting about everything music and beyond – minus the piano lesson. I’m also looking forward to catching up with another influential figure who helped me out a lot when I was younger – hopefully this will actually go ahead in a couple of days’ time. I really want to make sure that everyone who has influenced me in a significant way will know how important they’ve been to me – and hopefully they will be able to attend and enjoy the evening with me. I’ve also committed a faux pas in not allowing “plus one”s, except for couples whom I’m friends with both people and have invited them together. This is firstly due to the venue having a strict people limit (for fire hazard reasons, etc), and secondly because I don’t want my birthday party to yet again turn into “just another party” where the host hardly knows half of the ‘partners’ there, and so on. It might sound harsh at first, but I’m sure my friends all understand.

The biggest headache I’ve got with regards to party planning has got to be the food. I don’t even want to go into it… That, and scanning childhood photos for a slideshow on the two TV screens at the venue. I simply can’t pick! And it’s going to take me absolutely forever to scan them all. I need to acquaint my mother with scanning…

And here is Flakey, who was a cute feet-warmer last night and caused me to sleep rather lopsidedly because I didn’t want to kick him! For a while last month Daniel’s beer box hadn’t quite made it into the recycling bin and was just floating around by our backdoor… Flakey decided to be a bit of a (cute) hobo, haha:

I’m not sure if it’s craziness or just my refusal to let facebook take over the my world, but I didn’t want my birthday invitation to just be a mass message put on the internet where people are bombarded by events everyday, and nothing ever feels personal anymore. On top of that, I want to make my birthday nice in the underrated and undervalued sense of the word, and for it to not become just another blur in everyone’s memories of this years’ batch of 21st birthday parties. Because by the time you’ve been to three or four weekends of 21st birthday parties in a row… unfortunately they do begin to blur. So in typical Amanda fashion of all-or-nothing, I made them all myself, only employing mum’s help for some advice, and asking her to ship the cards into the next room for me because I ran out of floor space! I’ve still got the majority of them sitting behind me on my bed though… need to deliver them all ASAP!

Here’s some pictures of the lengthy process. Luckily the only purchase I had to make in contribution to these invitations were ribbons, since mum magically has all the art supplies I needed! I made them by cutting up large watercolour paper into quarters. Painted. Textured. Folded with two ribbons tied on and hand drew a double bass design that I had made into a stencil. Then I wrote, signed and sealed them in wax.

This whole process of planning and inviting people to my 21st has also inspired me to catch up with a lot of old friends that I’ve not had the chance to see in far too long. It’s definitely been a colourful couple of weeks, and on Saturday I had a mini-drinks thing at Daniel’s house where Cara fed us all too much cheese and salami. Definitely not a complaint though! And despite the assignment deadlines, the boy and I have made some lovely plans for the next couple of days/nights; and tomorrow night dad is uploading to dropbox my film scans for the b/w rolls he’s gotten developed in Taiwan for me, so I can’t wait to see those either!

Having sort of established that context, the rest of what I want to say might make more sense. So I mentioned last week that on top of tests and assignments, I also had a recital. To be honest, It wasn’t anything that major, just a combo thing that we do twice a semester, so by my third year now, it just comes by like clockwork. But this particular one was especially important and symbolic to me, because of something that happened at rehearsal the week before it. See, the thing I’ve struggled most with, at jazz, is taking a solo. Most people love it, it’s why the play jazz after all. They want to take a solo in every single tune they play, and many people take long, long ones, and get lost and absorbed in the enjoyment and happiness of it. I’d never quite gotten there, to feeling like that… After a traumatic incident on stage back when I was around 16, I’d never been able to get over the “deer in headlights”, FREEZE, BLANK, PANIC! that just completely takes over me when I’m supposed to take a solo. Sure, it’s improved a lot since then, but in my head it’s still always been miserable. Which explains why jazz school has been the hardest thing I’ve made myself stick to, regardless of the fact that I seem miserable all the time – because I hate soloing. A lot of it comes down to confidence and just staying calm, I know, but it’s always been easier said than done. The PANIC! button has been the hardest to tame, because once the switch is flicked, nothing else seems to exist, and cognizant behaviour seems completely out of the question. I guess this is a very particular form of stage fright, in the sense that I’m perfectly okay with hopping on a stage, until I have to do the specific task of playing a solo.

Anyway, the thing that happened was, I had a musical epiphany of sorts. I had brought in a hard tune with tricky changes that I decided I wanted to try and solo over and every day when it crossed my mind, I’d scare myself shitless over it. It was at our last instructed combo rehearsal with Nathan Haines and I was intimidated out of my bloody mind, but for once in my life, it felt like it was a conscious decision – an available choice – to be able to say to myself “I’m not going to panic, fuck it, I’ll just see what happens”. And what actually happened? Well I have no bloody idea. That was the brilliance of it. It felt like an outer-body experience. I don’t know what I played or how I played it, it kind of just happened. Seemingly without any consciousness of what I was doing, and without any of the blind panic. It wasn’t miserable, and I’d almost enjoyed it, even. I went hope delighted and gushed at the boy about how bizarre and scary and wonderful and all sorts of adjectives about how it felt – but the problem was, that sort of thing isn’t to be replicated. I knew that to get through the combo recital I couldn’t just conjure up that “unconscious” playing, and I would have to actually tackle the issue of the PANIC some other way. So I made the pianist play the changes with me over and over and over again the afternoon before the recital (a bit late, I know), but I finally got comfortable and just left it to be.

I’m sad to say that it never ended up being half as enjoyable or lyrical as that afternoon spent in practise, because of an arrangement alteration we’d made which made the cue to my solo a logistic nightmare that actually came true. I’m annoyed at not having put my foot down and kept the original arrangement for it, but whatever, it’s okay. It just meant that the beginning of my solo was a state of confusion for the whole band as to which chords to play, but it turned out okay in the end. I ended up being thrown off and rushed somewhat, but I’ll live. The important thing to me now, is the fact that I feel it might actually be possible for me to one day thoroughly enjoy this business of doing a solo.

A surprising and interesting thing I’d discovered though, was that even though my bass teacher has been playing for lord knows how many decades – 5? more? – he said that the “unconscious” thing where it felt like a solo has just magically happened has only happened to him four or five times in his life. I said, oh, ha, great… so once every ten years then?

And on that note, here’s a nice photo of me that he’d taken at combo rehearsal last year. Who knew that Kevin Haines wasn’t just a bass master, but also took nice photos?

Anyone who knows me well at all would know that I’m not one for sustained effort. I tend to “not really care” about my grades, and my results always seem to be in inverse proportion to how much I tried or pretended to have studied. I’d like to think that it shows what I’m naturally good at. But heck. So this week, and this year altogether has been a weird change for me. My grades are important now, and I’ve discovered what it’s like to actually study for a test. And they will continue to be important and pivotal towards what I would like to pursue after my two degrees are fiiinally completed. That’s a scary thought. The idea that whether I study longer and sleep less or study less and sleep more could indirectly change the direction of my life’s path freaks me out. I know that’s oversimplifying it, but you can’t help but wonder – was the three hours’ extra study the night before a test/exam worth the three hours’ less sleep?

Also, here are some film photos from my friend Christine’s 21st birthday party. It was all the way back in December, the night before I left for my trip, but I’ve finally gotten around to putting them up now. It’s just so lovely, how happy she looks. It makes me smile just to remember how delighted she was with the speeches and how the night went. All taken on Kodak UltraMax 400 colour film with a Nikon F3:

Which brings me to the troubling issue of having to organise my own 21st birthday party. Which is less than two months away! Crap, I had better get those invitations and decorations sorted… ideas anyone?

This week’s felt so long and it’s only Tuesday night – how will I make it to Friday? And next Friday? Well that’s three tests, two assignments and a recital’s time away. Prioritising uni work is something I’ve never been good at, so I’m still attempting to make it work out. How is one supposed to resist the pull of the internet and self expression at large? The other night instead of sleeping I started writing and writing poetry, until I fell asleep with it in my hands. Then I continued to write later that day, between classes; observations, theories I’ve been wondering about, ideas, more ideas. And all the while I felt guilty because I wasn’t writing something more academic instead. So what have I done since? I left my special writing-notebook at home. It’s like self torture!

Taken on Ilford HP5 Plus 400 B/W film; Nikon F3.

I also have a huuge urge to take more rolls of black and white film, of undisclosed subjects, but I’ve still got about ten exposures left in my camera on a roll of colour reversal film, argh. I’ve got other film slr’s that I can use, but I’m very attached to my Nikon and the Contax RTS is a hefty mean machine that needs lots of batteries for some reason. Also, posting this photo finally makes me want to write about all of our December/January travels overseas – but now that I finally feel ready to do it, I don’t have time! It will be Easter break by next Friday though, so hopefully the written journey will begin there. Until then… I guess I shan’t really get to quench my thirst of multi-dimensional self expression, since I am trying for the first time in my life to achieve very specific grades. Grades. I hate that. I’ve never tried before. What happens if I psych myself out? Wish me luck.

Something I read on Julia’s blog that rang too true for me:

“Being unnoticed, and being watched,
both frighten me.”

Since I’m in such a good mood, here are some more of the photos from the trip that the boy and I took to Hot Water Beach during the last week of our summer holidays, just over three weeks ago. There are more photos on another roll of film, but I haven’t finished it up yet, so haven’t gotten that developed. The highlight was definitely Cathedral Cove, and we didn’t actually end up digging a hole at Hot Water Beach because we couldn’t be bothered swarming around the area with tourists, so we ended up exploring the other end of the beach, and created our own form of athletics, as you shall see below… the memory of it still cracks me up, it was so much fun:

There was a black-beaked seagull that kept making a pitiful noise, so I decided to give it a bit of the crust off my sandwich. The boy had initially told me off for feeding it, but then he ended up feeding this particular seagull a lot more than I did, luring the cheeky bird closer and closer… until he was within touching distance, and the seagull kept squawking and talking to him, see! The magic thing was, when we retreated back to our cabin at the campsite that was 5 minutes down the road, we found the very same seagull waiting for us outside our cabin!!!

A good assortment of condiments, apple ale and wine.

The dorkiest I’ve ever seen him. But I didn’t put up an even dorkier photo… I must say it was mostly my fault, making him carry all our stuff in my old swimming bag. But it seemed justified – that bag’s a thick, waterproof and sturdy workhorse. Doesn’t the sea and its colours just look amazing?

Going to the deserted end of the beach.

Three guesses what I thought that was when I first spotted it. And so I saw my first blue bottle jellyfish, ever. It does look like a “bottle”. Ahem.

The game was… run on this ridiculously soft sand with no grip and resistance, and see if you can jump over that ridge. Our own beach version of the high jump, haha.

This looks silly, but not as silly as when I ended up with a mouthful of sand.

Reading with a rum and coke at the end of the day.

People on a kayak tour at one of the little beaches we walked to on the way to Cathedral Cove.

Cathedral Cove: where signs advise people not to enter due to falling rocks.

Urgh I have MAJOR hat hair after a long trek down to Cathedral Cove. And I knooow, this photo is hilarious. What happened was, I had asked the boy to get a picture of “me AND the cove”, but he heard “me IN the cove”… apparently he had initially lined the photo up to look like the one I had taken of him, but it ended up like this, haha. I literally burst out laughing with “WHAT THE!” when I saw this.

A German tourist took this for us.

It seems that animals really liked me on this trip because not only did the seagull greet us at our cabin, but this little cute dog, which looks like the one that belonged to a barbie doll that my sister and I used to have, followed me back to our cabin from the barbecue where we’d cooked sausages for dinner. I’m sure it just wanted some food, but it was sooo cute, following me everywhere! There’s a better photo of it on the other roll of film though, this was the 37th photo in a roll of film made for 36 exposures, so the camera ate it up just as the shutter went off, causing major blurring.

I really wished that we were back there again, lying on the beach with our books and swimming in the sea that was so beautifully clear. But I wonder where our next adventures will take us. And oh yeah, the day after our beautiful trip to Cathedral Cove, the weather turned awful and was pouring down with rain. For some reason we thought the best remedy was to climb Mt. Pauanui in the rain, and I’m glad it took us less than half of the prescribed 1.5hrs to get to the summit. The weather was so bad that we were up in the clouds and the view wasn’t the best, but hopefully I’ll get something out of it when I develop the other roll of film eventually!

The truth about me is that I’ve been very lacking in motivation since circa 2004, and the sort of motivation I’m talking about is something of an all-round kind of motivation. The sort of drive that isn’t limited to one area of life or activity at hand – rather, something that spans across daily life in general, and dreams at large. But I’ve completely surprised myself these past couple of weeks by my new-found resolve to, well, put bluntly, try. I feel like I’ve spent the better part of the last decade running away from expectations of me, and avoiding the deadly word that gets thrown around a lot when people talk about me: potential. (Don’t even get me started on the whole idea of “potential”… trust me, I’ll never shut up.)

Anyway, what have I been doing away from the blogosphere? I’ve stayed ahead in my course readings, I’ve actually practised the bass (I know, right? It’s my bloody major and I often neglect it more than I should) and I’m determined, bloody determined to get things the way I want them. I want to get myself to where I want to be, or at least, in the direction of where I think I want to head, because frankly I have no idea where I want to “go”, as such. Today the boy and I washed our cars in the rain, as it was our mutual day off from uni. It sounds either more romantic or more dreadful than it actually was – and downright stupid, I know. But we did it despite the rain since it was already planned, and both our cars were dirrrty so it really couldn’t be ignored any longer. The “me” a month ago would’ve probably just sat inside and kept reading whilst the boy went and washed his car, or somehow negotiated another day to do it – but I’m glad that I got off my arse and did it today.

Also, I joined a gym last week, and I made sure to join the new fancy 24-hour franchise gym, because then I’m not limited to the crappy opening hours of traditional gyms. Believe it or not, for once I was the one urging my friend (who has been a member there for sometime, but I know doesn’t go often enough) to make a gym date with me, so that we can’t let each other down and have to show up. And show up we did. Yes, yes it was well after nine that evening, but I pounded out around 3-4km on the treadmill at a decent pace, and I didn’t even need Angie to hold my hand through it. I did my core exercises and other things and then… I felt fucking great. Then today I had a complimentary one-hour session with the personal trainer that also happens to manage the gym, and I am getting a programme made up for me so that I have more of a sense of direction as to what exercises I need to do for the fitness level and strength areas I want to achieve. He said he was really surprised by how motivated I am, and how a lot of people are all groggy and laid-back about it all, but I seem really determined to achieve things. And I guess I really am. I hadn’t really thought that much about it until then – how suddenly motivated I have become. All-round. Not just in one degree, but both. Not just with uni, but with hockey, with trying to be a better and happier person all around.

Then yesterday at my hockey trials I ran my butt off and tried my very best, even though I didn’t get put in my ideal positions. They’ve restructured the grades and so there are 3, maybe 4 teams’ worth of people trialing for the one team. I think I did well enough yesterday, but I’m definitely going to step it up for the second round of trials next week. Watch this space. Hopefully this time next week I’m gleefully chirping about looking forward to the hockey season… rather than being disappointed about it.

I thought I’d share the dinner that I whipped up for my mum, cousin and myself tonight – I have a tendency to make recipes up as I go, so today I’m pretty happy with how my pasta turned out. I started off with a bunch of tomatoes… then the next thing I knew I was all, phew, sorry to say so myself, but this sauce is bloody delicious. It’s a shame the boy had football training and missed out on it. (On the topic of football, did anyone see Barcelona and Messi’s ridiculously amazing result today?!!!) So, courtesy of a very full fridge, I’d cooked: sirloin steak, fish baked in lemon juice and ground pepper, butter pan-friend zucchini, pasta in some randomly concocted sauce, and mushrooms with melted butter and bacon. Ahhh I’m hungry all over again just thinking about this!

By the way, how do I hold onto this surge of motivation? Is it even possible/probable?

Final summer getaway location – taken on Kodak UltraMax 400 colour film; nondescript Konica.

University just started this week, so it’s completely taken over everyone’s lives, once again. I can’t be bothered explaining the finer details, but I’ve taken up another degree, without the possibility of a conjoint arrangement, so as of Monday I’ve embarked on doing two full degrees, concurrently. I don’t know what you’re supposed to call it – some say a “double major”, but I think that just sounds like I’m doing two majors under one degree – regardless, I’m kind of freaking out. Although I think at the moment I am at a good place between optimistic confidence and nervousness over grades and all that, rather than being on the extremes of cockiness or absolute breakdown, so I will try to maintain a steady mindset. I must say, I really miss being a full-time hermit down at jazz school. To put things in context, jazz school is in a separate building from the School of Music (I’ve been a music student for 2 years and have never had a class in there until now!) and the rest of university altogether. Although it is only a few blocks and a hill down the road, it’s a very different atmosphere from the rest of university. And now I’m subjected to having to move around through crowds and crowds of people, feeling claustrophobic in a very full basement lecture room, and generally not enjoying how horrible some people are, without having to utter a single word. I know, I know, this is what university is supposed to be like, and I will indeed suck it up and get over it, but I just say to say woaaaah what a shock to the system, even though I knew it was coming! My final and main complaint is that I simply don’t understand how rude people are. More specifically (skipping over those people whose phones go off, chat in the doorway of a busy building, don’t move 50-50 out of the way so everyone can keep moving…), I hate the girls all over uni who just glare at people as if they’re pieces of shit. As if I’ve personally offended them by merely existing. The evil up-and-down, know what I’m talking about? It’s like the bitchy version of checking someone out. I am so over that shit, just get me to 2013 so I can be half-hermit again, please!

Anyway, I will put up the rest of last week’s photos from the same roll of film – I still can’t believe that it was merely last week! It feels like so, soo long ago. The good news about today is that now I’m officially a member at a 24-hour gym, which means I will have a more productive activity to help with those sleepless nights. Buuut the great news of today is that the boy and I have secured Radiohead tickets for their show here in November. It felt really surreal right after we managed to buy them online today (sold out in less than 5 minutes, no joke), but now it’s all worn off and I totally don’t feel it at all. Although I love Radiohead, I was never one of those fans that longed for them to come to New Zealand, nor did I ever join in on the rumour circuit, every time they did a tour; so when they finally announced a show in Auckland… well I still feel like, oh really? But it will be amazing. It will be the boy and I’s equivalent to seeing Portishead last November.