Very personal

Time: 5.30pm
Weather: rainy day, temperature around 20C.
Location: York U Second Cup
Now playing: songs that I feel connected to
Mood: was bad. Now better, going to be good

This is gonna be very personal, I swear.

Finished my improvisation private lesson, I have so much on my mind now. The feelings are swallowing me, and I'm stuck.

It has been 2 weeks since school started. I have been outrageously energetic, hardworking, positive, outgoing, critical, confident, and any good attitude you can possibly associate with. IT IS GOOD.  I acknowledge the importance of both personal and "professional" expression. But I think I have been "working" so much that I ignored my little heart can be quite breakable sometimes.

I want love, I want care. Not from anyone, but from myself.

I have been giving out love and care so much lately and I ignored the existence of my little self.

This doesn't mean I'm weak in reality. I just ignored the sensitive (YES that's the word) self. I talked to myself a lot but most of them are about how to relate myself to the outside world...about my responsibility and things that I want to do.

What about things that I want to feel, just for the sake of myself?

For the sake of myself.
For the sake of myself.
For the sake of myself.
For the sake of myself.

Myself
Myself
Myself

Who the heaven am I? And why does that even matter?

It doesn't matter to anyone other than myself. I feel my existence, that's what matters.

Whatever I do when I'm alone, or even in the middle of the crowd, if I do it to make myself feel good, do it.

Sometimes, you need to take a break from "social" responsbility. Despite that, my attitude of "working makes me feel good" still works very much.

Just this moment, please, let me be alone, to think and feel whatever I want. After a while...tonight, tomorrow, or just the next hour, I will read this post again and be critical again.

Break.
Break.
Break.

When I was feeling quite bad just now,  I found a quiet spot in music building and played this song on my iPod, in a relatively loud volume to block all the sound around me...focused on the sound of this song...



Ivana Wong's "I'm really hurt". It is a nice song indeed, but not a song that's very significant in my life, and my heart is not hurt. I just wanted a soft female voice singing a song that doesn't need a lot of techniques, yet sensitive emotions.

Music is what feelings sound like. How do one sound when he/she is hurt? This song is one of the ways.

But you can scream, you can cry, you can moan. Those are sounds of hurt too. Music is just one of those many many many ways.

Because I question the importance of iPod, because I question the importance of "stylistic" music, I started to listen to a lot of weird stuff - avant garde, experimental, alternative, free jazz, soundscape composition - all of them are still considered music, but they break "rules" led by conventional and mainstream music.

Mainstream is not only pop. In North America, it's also Western classical music composed by masters (Mozart, Beethoven etc.), jazz standards (those by Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Carmen McRae etc.) and smooth jazz/easy listening (Norah Jones, Michael Buble etc.)

But there are times when I just want to listen to certain singers or songs, especially those I feel connected to. Most of those music, I discovered them without the "assistance" of formal courses and teachers.

I like that process of loving a musician just because one day you heard about him on radio, you dig the songs, you googled him, found more youtube videos and songs and albums, saw him on newspaper, heard about him from your friends, you wanted the radio play the songs again, you streamed his songs every day, then you decided to own a hardcopy of the album, you bought it, held it with hands, hugged it, put it next to your bed, went to concerts and autograph sessions, be happy.

In short, be a small [yet significant] fan.

After writing all these, I found myself even more connected to the outside world and communities, although I was being very personal (and probably a lot of grammatical errors too).

Working makes me feel good. But there are many ways to feel good, don't limit yourself to just one source to happiness. People tend to get bored by one same approach, so, switch around and have fun!!!

PS: After playing Ivana's song, I switched my playlist to this...



told you, this post is very personal.