Transitions

June is almost here and it's another time of change, part 52. Every few months since last February it's been one upheaval after another, and nothing's been still and concrete for much longer than...maybe 6 months and that's really a stretch. I've experienced yet more change that tore me down a little in this month, but feel marginally confident that I can somehow pull it back together, for the even bigger change of graduate school and moving again in just a few months.

The heat and humidity in New York make it so unbearable in multiple ways that I can hardly worry about my problems! My lack of sleep thanks to my lack of air conditioning is prompting me with strange inspiration, such as getting up forty five minutes before my alarm after about maybe four hours total of sleep, to pack up my apartment. Whut?

Restaurant review time -- my piano duo partner and friend, Asuka and I went to a restaurant I've been dying to try for months. When looking for Japanese curry places in the city, there were certainly a few places that were just all about CURRY but Yelp discovered Hiroko's Place for me, down on Thompson Street and Spring Street in Soho. Hiroko's Place is pretty much the cutest thing, with a manga and magazine corner and a nice upright. (Sadly they're not looking for a pianist...) It's certainly not what you would expect from "Japanese" -- they specialize more in comfort food that a family would have every day. Between Asuka and I, we had seafood gratin and omu-curry. The few bites of Asuka's seafood gratin were so rich and creamy, and the seafood was actually seafood (real scallops!) and tender. Omu-curry was a brand new concept for me, with an omelette wrapped around rice, and doused in curry. Wow, brain overload for food! Anyway, for the future, some Japanese spaghetti might be nice...

Piano chemistry

Okay. I love piano, this is a fact. Right now, I'm having a hard time focusing on the winning part where I have to shove Chopin concerto in my brain real fast. Instead what's in my head right now is the Schubert Fantasie in f minor for 4 hands.

My piano duo partner and I read through it and worked on it a few times, but what made me go a little mad is playing it with this guy I really like. I've never been regularly seeing another musician as a romantic partner and it's such a new experience. In the past few weeks, we played through the Fantasie twice, once with me playing secundo, once primo. I was told I'm a better primo because my Schubert phrasing sucks ass and it's off. Most likely true, since I'm terrible at German styles but oh man, now I want to play it RIGHT NOW and it's such a fun bonding experience even if I'm a shitty sight reader and occasionally play (lots of) wrong notes.

I believe in coffee.

I am having the best day ever. Seriously.

I didn't ever expect it to be good. I'm sick again and I woke up with most of my voice shot to hell. However, I think a random cup of coffee completely did the trick. Normally, coffee is not my bag. BUT! I managed to have a great teaching day, and came home, taught two students, and practiced about two and a half hours. I'm pressure learning the first movement of Chopin's 1st Concerto in e minor, Op. 11 and the next week or so I have to just slam out notes. It needs to be ready to perform by mid/late July and I can tell you right now, that is NOT enough time on my normal learning watch. However, I am pretty much rocking out the learning process and piano is SQUEE and I am SQUEE and pretty happy.

I haven't even seen my favorite person yet. That's in another hour. Seriously, can my day get better? If all my days are this good on coffee, I want some more!

Things I learned today.

I have learned that I like to talk my problems out. They need to be voiced, and aired and sometimes tantrum-ed. However, right now, I only have one person who is my main outlet. The problem becomes that the more I tantrum at him, the more he thinks I'm crazy but I need the outlet! If not, I just gorge on it like a fat kid on cake, then the problem gets 20 times worse than it originally is.

Emotions are overwhelming. Why can't I just be happy and pleasant all the time?

Peeve

There's someone I really like and when they blow me off I get really mad. I just had to put this out there somewhere.

Day 11 - A photo I took recently.

Doesn't it look tasty? It's the hamachi sashimi at Hakata Ton Ton, a place that specializes in pork. I've been keeping a "food blog" of sorts -- just pictures of food at different restaurants in NY that have been amazing and look pretty so this is a recent one.

It also has a wonderful story. Over break, we were packing up JP's apartment. At some point, I finally crashed and took a nap (aka "went plah") on his bed. I had planned to stay in since he was meeting a friend from HS at a bar and I wasn't particularly interested or invited. However, he did ask me along, stating that she might be all over her new boyfriend, and the bar might suck so he waned my company. After failsaucing at the bar (there was a line allllll the way around the corner, and it seemed expensive, not worth it and it was freezing out), he suggests that we get something to eat. Halfway there, I recognize where we're going, and omg, I love Hakata Ton Ton, almost as much as I love Cha An. Turns out he had made a reservation and was surprising me as a thank you for helping him pack up. Sweet and barfable? Yes. Oh by the way, the food was amazing.

Remiss

I have been completely remiss in updating my blog. Granted, I'm not surprised. I've had more of a social life in the past seven months than I have my entire life. Last month, I started by having my graduate school audition, followed by a really awesome costume party. I sang at an open mic sort of thing at Cooper Union, and the last two weeks were devoted to helping my friend move from Harlem up further north into Washington Heights/Inwood and that took nearly all of spring break. The last few days when I got to relax, we ended up going to the biggest Japanese bookstore in the US, Kinokuniya, where I spent five hours of my life.

I guess I could also use a few more girlfriends to do stuff with but that's a small complaint. When I spend hours and days and weeks with the same person, I guess your girlfriends tend to not assume you're not available which is pretty much true. I suck.

Maybe some shares to come soon.

Day 10 - A photo of me taken over 10 years ago

The closest 10 year ago picture I can find. This is more like...eight years ago but I don't have anything else handy. Is my friends Kathy, Stefanie and I at a band concert at night. Actually, I also remember the bag I'm holding, which I made out of old jeans. They had daisies embroidered at the bottom and I outgrew them.

Day 9 - A picture I took

I take a lot of photos so this was actually hard to pick one. I've recently done some sweet ass body paint that was a close runner up for an awesome photo I took but I wanted to go to this one. This was taken in Italy, during a rehearsal right before the last week of the month for a new opera, Iago, by Carlo Pedini.

It was our first time running through the death scenes, where like in any good Italian opera, everyone kills one another and then they're all dead. Tensions were definitely running high and I was the only person having fun because I was just slamming away on some tremolos and giggling. Eventually, our director has to leave to take a phone call, and everyone ends up playing with the blue fabric (chi) on the floor, and this chaos ensued. Yay good times.

Infatuation

Infatuation is the best feeling. I enjoy being liked, I enjoy liking, and I love the heady rush. It can be a person, sometimes it is a person, recently it's been some serious Ravel. I think my boundless energy comes from the intrinsic headiness of being in like, which then transfers itself to my music choices for new repertoire. The Ravel Piano Concerto in G is so full of natural screaming hyperactive bounce, sensuality, shimmer, song, and a run-and-jump feeling that I can't help but being drawn to it. It has all my moods, even a hint of the tired but that hazy blissed-out tired.

I'm also returning to Alborada Del Gracioso. Repeated notes still whooping my ass, and I expect them to for a while, but playing it is so much fun.

Oh you know what else is weird? I'm going to be singing in public somewhat solo for the first time ever on Thursday, you know, since I was...five. My two friends and I are covering The Paper Raincoat's "Rewind" for a Cooper Union open mic or something. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Every night is filled with something. How do I still have trouble sleeping? Gyah.

March Madness

It's March and I only posted about five times in the beginning of February. You can imagine I'm up to some no good. :) Week 2 of February was a great weekend of Chinese New Year's, Valentine's Day (which I did nothing for) and the start of my February break. I spent most of it in Harlem, having adventures, and being snowed in with the occasional trip home. Right after break ended (of course), I started getting serious audition panic, so there was a lot of practicing and small rewards. One of those was some serious food fest. There was takoyaki, yakisoba, pigs feet, cream croquettes, butter mushrooms, and I think we got something else too, but it was followed by a three course dessert at Cha-An, which oh, did I mention it's my fav. place in the city?

Actually, my audition was yesterday. It was probably the fastest 7 minutes of my life. Even though I didn't play every note perfectly in place (Maybe I missed a trill or a note in a run somewhere...like those parallel fourths in the Chopin 1st movement? So likely.) I think it was important that I showed that I had FUN and that I enjoyed playing, which I believe I did. Is it enough to get me into school? I don't know, I feel like it's extremely political and for once, life's NOT fair. Even if I played my best I might not have gotten in. Who knows. I came home and slept for another hour before going out adventuring in the city again. When I woke up, it was a brand new day and my audition was over. I even came back and practiced Chopin 4th movement out of the sheer joy of it somewhere around 11:30 at night. Word.

I'm weirdly anxious and bouncy today, even though my audition is over. I didn't sleep until 4:30 but woke up at 7:30, then 10:30, extremely eager to start the day. Currently, my hands have this gorgeous gold nail polish...then they're dyed green on the fingers. I was working on dying a wig in fabric dye last night till about 2:30, for a costume party Jean-Paul and I are going to tonight. It's going to be all out body paint on our parts, and since I'm the one that draws, I'm already up, ready, and planning how this paint dealie-o is going to work. Perhaps updates on paint as I get it going? In a half hour I'll be starting mine, and mixing up some gold so woooo to that. I should probably find some anime to watch to make the day go a little faster.

Day 8 of Sharing

A photo that makes me sad -- oh boy, it's tough. To FACEBOOK!!

Recently, I haven't had a lot to be sad about aside from being seriously poor on some days. I've been stressed, but I haven't been sad. This is Alex, my ex-boyfriend who I was with for nearly five years. We operated mostly long distance and every moment we got to see each other was a gift and a major event. You can imagine we have many many photos taken together. You can also imagine that he hates me in the face real bad.

Alex was a huge part of my life and responsible for so many great changes, but there's definitely some sadness and bittersweet nostalgia. When you look at my Facebook photos of which I have many, this is the first one that shows up, somewhere on pg. 4. I pretty much know to skip like, another four pages of photos so I don't get all nostalgic and sad. I once drew a picture of him based off this photo. We had been walking around ALL day, trekking about the city exploring and having fun together, and at this point, we were sitting on the ground near a pole at Penn Station, waiting for a train out to Long Island.

I think though, this is probably some of the better sads I've tasted. It has a lot of beautiful things in it but it's still sad. Like Beethoven's 2nd movements.

Realizations

I just realized that my audition for Manhattan School of Music is under a month away.

Um.
Wow, all of a sudden urgency got really real and it's fun. I practiced. But now I'm stopping to watch Kobato, and all I can think is that... "Let it just be a break. You're going to go back and practice. It's just a 20 minute break and you won't be tempted to fall asleep after."

It's like dating. Most of the time I love it, live with it and occasionally want to hit my head against a wall. I also have to reiterate: FML!Chopin. Yes, it's true, the fourth movement is still whooping my butt big time. At least I have all the notes learned. Now I need to actually PLAY them. (Aside: how many of my posts are about piano? If it's a lot, isn't that a good thing?)

OK, super quick, Kobato Ep. 7, then BACK to practicing.

Why Life Is Not Fair Part 2 Billion

It's because I get my divine inspiration to learn music and practice at 11:30 PM or 4:00 AM, and never during my awake hours.

Doushite? ;_;

Tomorrow at 8:30, I need to be up. I'm playing in a small competition at 11 AM in Midtown.

It is currently 4:30 and I woke up with a desperate urge to find out about possible piano competitions and summer festivals. Oh, and the burning desire to succeed at piano. Why why why why why. Why do you hate me, brain? Are you nervous? You've been sleeping so well. Why tonight?

God, I hate you so much right now, brain. Please turn yourself off.

Cinderelley, Cinderelley

Tuesdays are always particularly hard, even if I make huge efforts to be positive. Something about it always gets me. Often times I'm cranky, it's too hot in my classroom and my feet hurt. By 1:30, I have a headache from being dehydrated. I try really hard though. Since I know Tuesdays are my Monday, I work super hard at sleeping, bringing lunch...? But no. Tuesdays kick my ass.

Normally I come home and sleep for two hours after I finish teaching my piano student. Today, I deemed my apartment finally "unliveable". This amount of grossness and disorganization finally just was too much. I have spent three hours cleaning out papers, putting things back in boxes, vacuuming...but I barely have one room done. My living room is tolerable but drowning in papers I need to process. I have a pile of clothing in the hall that needs to be HUNG. As for my kitchen and my room, I have no words. The kitchen is truly hellish -- three weeks of dishes that have just been LEFT there. It's become really hard to eat because I have to mine through the gross dishes. On top of that, my foster cat's old litter box is still there waiting to be processed in my Things to Do list. I have a feeling that as much as I want to wash it, it'll probably going into the trash. Sadness.

And the weird part? Oh man, this cleaning is ... purifying. Gross, right?

Foods

I love cupcakes.

Cupcakes just turned up at our staff meeting -- mini red velvet cupcakes! Whoa! It's pretty excited.

That's my really exciting thing for the day that's making me happy. At some point in some blog, I decided to talk about one thing that made me happy. Today, red velvet cupcakes and standing up for myself makes me happy.

This week, I'm going to crack down. I vow to clean up my shit, meaning, my entire apartment. By Friday after work, I want my place to be shiny for rehearsal. Done.

Today my song is definitely Lily Allen's "Smile".

First Grade Romance

I was going to post something whiny but I just heard the BEST conversation ever and laughed so hard. Initials used for all first grade students involved.

D: "S, are you Z's girlfriend?"
S: [insert disgusted look here] "No."
Me: "Wait, D, you're in first grade. Why do you need a girlfriend? You're SIX. You'll have the rest of your life to find a girlfriend!"
D: "You're right!"
Me: "Yeah? Totally!"
D: "But when I'm older, I'm going to have a girlfriend. She's gonna come to the school and fight everyone and her name is going to be Sofa!"
Me: "D, that's in the future! How do you even know that? You can't be sure of her name or anything!"
D: "My mom told me it's going to be true!"

A few moments later:

D: "Did you know I have a girlfriend?"
Me: "Is it someone in our school?"
D: "Yeah!"
Me: "Is it someone in your class?"
D: "Yes!"
Me: "D, is it A?"
D: "Uh huh!" [real proud]
Me: [pause in thought] "...does she know?"
D: "....no..."
Me: "Then it doesn't count! You can't have a girlfriend if they don't know about it! The other person HAS to know about it!" [rant]

Luckily, the kid thought this was pretty much the funniest thing ever. And hay, so do I!

Realistically

One of the worst things about being so blissfully happy is that I tend to forget I can't afford things. It's easy to forget I have things that need to be paid for and that I'm nearly living paycheck to paycheck. As much as New York is fun and all, I tell myself at least once a month -- you can't afford to do this.

And I do it anyway. Does anyone else have this problem? I need to find a cheaper place to live. x.x

Silly stupid

I rolled out of bed at 7:18 AM in Harlem, and screeched softly as I possibly could to show alarm. In fact, I believe my first words were "Oh shit!"

For waking up late on a Monday and feeling all crazy, I'm ridiculously happy with my life. I'm happy with my five days of nearly wearing the same thing, having time to practice, and not doing my own dishes. I'm happy with my social life because I actually went to parties, in which one involved the game Birthday Kitten (Communist Squirrel Cake) and Apples to Apples. Then, I spent at least an hour laying on the floor last night, giggling drunkenly and being called a retard. My weekend in a box, folks!

Tonight, I'm going to City Winery to see four hours of awesome music by an orgy of my favorite musicians. Tomorrow I teach a piano lesson. Wednesday I have a piano lesson. Thursday, I'm going to the Met for the FIRST TIME EVER to see Turandot (Squeeeeeeeeee). Does life get better? Does it? Oh and Saturday I'm playing in a recital? Whaaaat.

And if you were wondering, I did end up getting to work on time this morning. <3

A Sign

This is the start of my terrible blogging continuity, not writing in nearly a month. Obviously, it means one of two things -- I'm either more busy, or found more things to entertain me in my off time instead of doing things I'm supposed to be doing. I have a sneaking suspicion it's the latter.

Currently, I'm trying to absorb Brahms Violin Sonata No. 1 by listening. My friend Melissa Tong and I are starting to play together and despite my horrifying sight reading skills, we read through the first and second movements. I balked on the third. Wimp. I had first heard this piece when I was fourteen and in an ensemble class at Temple Prep. My friend Kara, who had introduced me to the program, was two years older, and waaaay better, was playing this with her violinist and in my little teenage heart I fell in love. (I also thought it was unfair because I was playing Mozart and at the time, hated Mozart and didn't play well. If I had a beautiful piece like that, I'm sure I would play well too, or at least want to!)

Outside of that, life has been pretty wonderful. I have an active social life, which is probably the biggest part that wows me, since to be honest, I've never had one of those! It's a lot of fun, but money leeching, especially when there's been a lot of hanging out near St. Mark's Place. Mmmm, Japanese food. There's a place I've gone to a lot recently too -- if you get the chance, check out Cha An Japanese Teahouse on 9th St. near Sunshine Mart. Ambience is too cute for words, service is beyond amazing. They're fast with food, so sweet, and come by and refill your teapot 10 times a night, no joke. We've been getting the sets of food -- either porridge with six teeny tiny but perfect amounts of side dishes or rice with four larger but amazing side dishes with soup. With each set you get a tea of your choice (REFILLS, eeee) and a beyond gorgeous and amazing dessert at the end. Some of the desserts I've had so far -- green tea ice cream cream puff, sesame creme brulee and some berry biscuit and creme layer thingy. Next time I go, I'm getting the dessert tray! (I'll say that but it's hard to turn down a real dinner.) By the way, the best part? It's just under $20 for an enormous amount of food!

Maybe a day of sharing later!