Long Time No Sea

Hey guys!

Sorry I haven't been posting as of late, I just finished my exam block today.

I would love to say that I was furiously studying the whole past 2 weeks but it just isn't the truth.

Don't get me wrong, I studied, but not enough or at the appropriate times.

I took a very relaxed approach to them which surprised me as usually I'm freaking out about stuff.

Then I realised that I do freak out about stuff, just at the wrong times as well.

You see... there's this thing called procrastination...

Hahahah but enough about that :P

I think I'm going to say that this year was my test run year because it was the first ever exam block for me. Our school doesn't have them till yearlies for year 9 for some reason. Suits me ;)

You're probably wondering why I have a terrible pun in my subject line and that's because it's super duper hot here in Australia at the moment so it's beach season!!

So pumped. 

Everyone around school is suddenly slimming down at an alarming rate. It's weird to sea. 

I haven't been to the beach in what feels like ages, so I'm probs going to overdose on beaches these holidays.

I can imagine having snow at Christmas even though I've only seen snow once before. Probably because of all the american tv shows and the advertising. But I still love having Christmas in summer.

It's my favourite season plus the whole fam is in the pool :) We do have a roast dinner but we all find ourselves either in the pool or rolling around in grass, not cooped up with warm coco :P Plus we have summer holidays (summer break for you U.S of As) so our Christmas break is 2 months whoooo

What's your favourite season? Enjoy the snow if you're on the other side of the equator, we're just fine with our cool drinks and sunscreen down here :D

Music Is Love Music Is Life

I listen to a lot of music.

Some people like to explore and find different music all the time, whereas others just listen to a group of songs over and over until they've heard it too many times and then ditch it.

I am the latter.

I don't know where I find any of my music. I mean I have Spotify and use YouTube yet I still don't know where I find it all.

I make playlists, or just keep all the songs next to each other in my youtube history, and listen to them over and over. I usually listen to them before going to sleep each night.

The thing with my music is that it has to tell a story for me

If it doesn't tell a story, no good.

I daydream and create scenarios when listening to music. I conjure up a scene that changes slightly each time I listen to the song till it becomes perfected. Once it is perfected there are only so many times I can imagine it before I get bored and move onto the next song.

The cool thing about it is that because the scenarios usually correlate to what is happening in my life at that time, whenever I hear the song it is like a memory of not only the daydream but that little snippet of my life. And not even just a memory, all the emotions that come with it too. Music is pretty cool in that way.

Memory Through Music.

That should become a thing. I reckon it would help people associate things and therefore remember them. What do you think?

Though I was sorta lying when I said that if it doesn't tell a story it isn't any good. This whole DayDreamingSongListeningThingo only started this year. Plus there are heaps of songs that I listen to occasionally that I really really like.

I love party music... but only when with other people. 

I love reflective music... but I have to be in the mood. 

I love all music... it just depends what's up (or down, or around and around)

For example a few months back my best friend was teasing me about how I listened to heavy metal before going to bed. I don't just listen to heavy metal anymore, there might be a few in the mix though.

I also really love music by artists of other nationalities. I am learning french so here are a few of the artistes I've been listening to of late;

BB Brunes (la nouvelle scène rock française)

Check out Dis Moi

Zaz

Check out On ira

Coeur de Pirate

Check out Adieu

It was hard to pick just one song for each. Look at their other music too :) 

You might find you like la scène française

Please recommend me others :D Any nationality - go! 

Plus I've memorised the first verse of the Cuban song Represent by The Orishas (found that one through Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights). I was supposed to memorise the rest of it but I haven't really got round to it just yet :P oops

Click here for A Goddess

So yeah, check out some of the music I've mentioned, and please, divulge some for me.

Guide To Being Unique

Something people always say is to "be unique", but I have two issues with this;

1) What if someone has murderous tendencies and you encourage them to be themselves? Does that mean you can be charged with aiding a killing?

2) It's all well and good to tell someone to be unique, but these days it feels like everyone and everything is already taken. Every aspiration, desire, love, hobby, interest, hate, peeve and want you have, seems to have been "owned" before by someone. I'm not the sort of person that gets worried by that sort of thing. I like to think that my brain is my own. Sure, others have thought the same or similar thoughts, but I have not yet met or seen someone with the exact same brain as mine.

In fact, I think that that's impossible. If you are to meet someone and they have the exact same brain as you, you would both never really meet. You would both react to everything the same and therefore meeting would be impossible. Let me explain to you in a less wordy way...

Scenario 1:

*You.1 enters*

*You.1 and You.2 look at each other*

Both: "Hello"

"What is your name?"

"Oh no, you first."

"No you"

"Please, I insist"

"Well my name is ____"

"Pardon me, what did you say your name was?"

"Well this is rather remarkable"

*Both laugh shyly*

"I'm guessing you're here for the job interview?"

"Well, um yes, good. Erm, I have to get some work done so I'll just... um..."

End scene

Now to me that isn't meeting. That's exchanging a few too many awkward words. Sure, in the dictionary meeting is

meet¹

miːt/

verb

1. 1.

   arrange or happen to come into the presence or company of (someone).

   "a week later I met him in the street"

   synonyms:

   encounter, meet up with, come face to face with, make contact with,run into/across, come across/upon, chance on, happen on, light on,stumble across/on; informalbump into "I met an old friend on the train"

   • 
     

but for my purposes of this post, I'm going to say "codswallop" to the Oxford Dictionary and say that the scene I just described to you is not meeting.

Perhaps using another example where the two people are introverts will support my case a bit better

Scenario 2:

*You.1 enters*

*You.1 and You.2 look at each other*

*Both sit down*

*Glance at each other once more*

*Checks that the other person doesn't require a conversation*

*Pulls out magazine*

End scene

And if you were to be exactly the same, then you'd both always find each other in the same places doing the same things. In this way it would once again be impossible to co-exist with another "You" because "You" would both go for the same jobs and then only one of "You" would get it, therefore setting "You" apart and making "You" different from the other "You". 

Or neither of "You" would get the job...

That's another possibility...

So.

I think focusing on being unique is waaayyyy mainstream.

(Then again, thinking something is waaayyyy mainstream is waaayyyy mainstream)

Why not focus on being TheOneAndOnlyYou?

That way you are assured to be unique, but you aren't focusing on what needs to be done, but what is being done.

My Clarinet Exam

Yes, I play an instrument.

No, I am not very committed.

In fact I am procrastinating practising for a performance by writing this post.

Clari (Claire Eï née Ette) the Clarinet

Anywho, I completed my AMEB clarinet exam for fourth grade this year, and no, I was not prepared. I started practising at the very last moment. One week before the exam and my scales were atrocious. I knew all my pieces except for one, my aural was going downhill, and my knowledge for theory was practically zilch. Four days before and still I was rubbish. Sure my confidence in my aural and theory had improved, but that was due to no hard work of my own. My musical friends tested me on scales and watched with wide eyes as I failed even the simplest minor arpeggio. 

Finally I had to buckle down and practise. 

I practised my scales for hours on end. The morning of the exam my mum even paid my brother to pick out scales and test me on them. My mum told me that she hoped I would learn my lesson, that one needs to learn things and practise well in advance to reduce stress and better your chances of succeeding (I have my first exam block this year, she was hoping it would help me for that). 

My mother and father were off to Hong Kong that morning, not a regular occurrence in my household. Some of my friends have parents that travel often, for work or pleasure, but mine do not. Though it just so happened that mum's work venture and dad's rare holiday coincided exactly with the morning of my clarinet exam.

So my paternal grandma was at home, god bless, listening to C harmonic minor two-slurred two-tongued for the thousandth time when my maternal grandpa showed up telling me to hurry along into the car. Where I live the weather was threatening, but fine. By the time we got to the Con (Sydney Conservatorium of Music) though, the heavens had opened and it was absolutely pouring.

Pa had to find a parking space so he dropped me off outside. Did I mention that this was my first exam? I had never completed one before due to either slack teachers or dislocated shoulders, therefore I had no idea where I was going or what the procedure was for exams. My Pa is a stickler for being on time though, so I had plenty of time to get lost. 

I first entered a fancy, glass enclosed foyer where I saw a teenage boy sitting with an instrument. I decided that the small desk with the obviously-pamphlets on it must be the registration desk so I pottered up to the two lovely women with a shy smile while closing my umbrella and proceeded to hand them my registration form. They gave me a knowing, apologetic smile, as such lovely ladies tend to do, directing me to run back into the rain, around a bend, through the Botanic Gardens gate, and to follow the path to the right. They made a light joke and apology for the only route being the one through the rain, as lovely ladies are often inclined, while I tottered off on my way. Turns out that that desk was for auditions for an opera the Con was (probably still is) putting on.

So I ran off into the rain, disproportionate umbrella in hand, around a bend, through the Botanic Gardens gate, heeding the path that rounded to the right. There I came to a much smaller and simpler foyer where I sat for a good 15 minutes (I was quite early), before I dared to approach the desk. Here is where I found that in fact the desk was for applications to the Con's High School. Two lovely ladies once again directed me, though this time in a much more straight-forward route, to go through the doors two metres along and into the wider foyer where at the opposite end sat a small desk. By this time I thought someone was trying to tell me something - two registrations for musical opportunities in one day? Then I remembered my lack of skill and motivation... 

Nah

This desk was the smallest and most insignificant of the lot, though it most definitely did not hold any pamphlets. Two lovely ladies did man this desk as well, but there was a gentle gentleman there, distinguishing it slightly from my other failed attempts. There was where I found names in a list. One of the dynamic duo of lovely ladies ticked mine off, and the large, carpeted foyer full of children and teenagers was where I sat for another 15 minutes.

This being my first exam my clarinet teacher promised to meet me there. I couldn't see him anywhere but finally he emerged with a family friend of mine. Apparently he teaches at the sons' school too and teaches them clarinet. What a coincidink. Seeing their familiar faces reassured me a little bit. Once my teacher and piano accompanist found me we headed down to the practise rooms to warm up in the limited time. 

Apparently my clarinet teacher told Mrs. Family Friend of the connection I had made, (I hadn't actually talked to them with the limited time), and she had remarked that I must be the perfect student (lol). My clarinet teacher was smooth in his response by instead diverting the conversation in the son's direction.

After the exam my grandfather found me and took me along the children-and-teenager-filled carpeted foyer, through the doors, past the desk with the two lovely ladies two metres ahead, around the bend, (to the left this time), through the Botanic Gardens gates, past the fancy, glass-walled foyer and the other two lovely ladies, and into a cafe to enjoy a hot chocolate and each other's company. Inconsistent was my journey however, as the sun was shining brilliantly. 

This was where I remarked that the day was a brilliant case of pathetic fallacy as I munched on my crisps.

And this is where the poetic injustice of it all comes in folks. I received my examination results back around 2 weeks later, (much faster than the advertised 2 months), and I received an A!!

Mum shook her head asking God why I couldn't have learnt my lesson (hey, I still had to undergo all that extra stress, I did learn a lesson). Now she's worried that I'll think that I can achieve in life "just by talent". Though I have a problem with this because first, I do not have much talent, and second, I did work hard, just at the wrong time. Anyways, I can learn a lesson even if it is not in the hardest way possible.

Yes. I have learnt my lesson. And no. This post is not supposed to be me bragging about how I am extra-intelligent or talented (because I'm not. Properly practising only one week before proves that I'm not). This is just to highlight one of the many poetic injustices of the world.

Yes, I would love it if life were perfect. (Well, not really, I'd probably get bored, but you know what I'm getting at. The concept of the perfect life).

But I would much prefer it if it were just.

Perhaps the perfect life is the just one.

I mean, the perfect world would be the just world, would it not?

- TheFaultyPoet

Broccoli and Beetroot and Pets and Peeves

I hate broccoli but I love beetroot

I am 14, but like many 14 year olds I like to think that I am much older and wiser

It's fair enough...

I don't answer those who ask after my age "14 going on 15" (and that, for me, is a defining factor of my maturity since I have been saying it for the other 13 years of my life)

and I never really went through that "overrated" stage ("touch wood" *touches wood*)

Nor do I fangirl over any of the latest boy bands or read any magazines

Though I do say "like" constantly and unnecessarily (I need to get rid of that habit, soooo cliché)

and I do love a chick-flick (guilty pleasure)

and I have a few pet peeves 

(not that that's immature or teenager-ish, I don't think. I'm just trying to transition from one topic to another smoothly, but am obviously failing in the process)

So please, let me launch my blog (origin: weblog) with a few of them. 

You may find that you pet the same peeves as me

or peeve on the same pets

Either way, tell me what yours are

If you can't think of any, then tell me simply about your pets (or your peeves)

1) When people say "Happy Christmas" - it just doesn't sound right. Be merry at Christmas please, it's more fitting (like your pants by the end of Christmas lunch)

2) "Good thanks" in reply to "How are you?" I don't want to know what sort of a person you are, but how you are going. "Well thanks" is the correct answer. Though everyone tells me how good or bad they are these days, so it only bugs me slightly.

3) General grammatical and spelling mistakes. (I'm no expert on grammar, I've probably made heaps of mistakes by now, but the simple ones are frustrating. Especially if it is a published piece.)

4) When someone is a really slow typer or are completing something slower than I would. I am an impatient person 

5) When you are socialising in person and people are on their phones. I may as well pick up my phone and start messaging you from 2 feet away, I mean, that is your preferred method of interaction, right? Or do you not like interacting at all? In that case, please choose the old-fashioned method of just not turning up.

So Hi World, I'm TheFaultyPoet, and I hate broccoli but I love beetroot