love, read, write

Not often do I write personal things on this blog anymore, other than an excuse of why I didn't post, but this I must share.
This whole month, starting from maybe the last week of last month, I had a piano competition/recital every weekend. I had only the least hope in doing well in any of them, because I rarely practiced piano--what with all of the homework to do, sleeping late and all--piano was becoming less and less a part of my daily routine. Before, I had been practicing nearly every day for at least, and at least meaning only on days when I was very tired or didn't have time--thirty minutes. Now, I had come even to the point of practicing once a week, maybe even never, until my piano lesson where I would put myself to shame as I practically sight read my piece in front of my teacher. (Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad, but you know what I mean.)
I would only practice half to death on the day before the competition (practicing-to-death on either a Friday or a Saturday, depending on whether the competition/recital was on a Saturday or a Sunday) and somehow manage to push through the piece at the audition without making a major mistake.
All of the other competitions that I have gone to until today were regionals--they weren't that difficult, because often times, I thought I had played horribly and the people gave me good results and good comments (which really surprised me actually o.o).
But today, it was a state-wide competition, which is a lot more difficult than the regionals, meaning you actually have to practice. (So I practiced a very long time yesterday heh.)
Also meaning, the people who also enter the competition are very high level-yness (excluding me, probably--I didn't even practice that much T.T).

So here is what happened at today's audition. In narrative form.

I stepped out of the car, and jumped onto the concrete of the parking lot ground. I jumped a few times, adjusting my feet, having just put on the uncomfortable dress shoes in response to my father's "We're almost there, guys! Get ready!" as he pulled the car into the vaguely familiar parking lot.
My brother stepped out beside me, adjusting his tie, uncomfortable, probably, just like my shoes.
I tugged at the bottom of my dress nervously. My father called out, "I'll be waiting in the car! You go in with your mother. Good luck, guys!"
So we nodded and waved and then turned around, me clutching my piano bag tightly and half hopping-hurriedly and half walking nervously to the entrance (which was, I tell you, very far from where we parked, more than we thought. I thought my legs were freezing).
We went inside of the very small and cramped entrance room that was filled with nervous students (I guess you can call them students, because they're not exactly pianists, you know? Or are they?) drumming their fingers on their piano pieces, younger siblings hopping around and wishing them good luck, parents anxiously waiting for their children to emerge from the audition room doors, and high school volunteers awkwardly calling out kids' names to escort them to the right audition room (which were dispersed about the building, from second floor to the basement--that place must have a lot of pianos).
We squeezed our way through the nervous students and the anxious parents and hyper siblings and managed to get to the end of the room, where the two adults with the attendance sheet were waiting for students to check in.
"Judge number?" One woman asked, obviously English not being her first language.
"Umm... He's judge 7," my mother said, pushing my brother (who was behind me) in front so that he could give them his Audition Sheet that said his name, what pieces he would play, which number judge he had, etc.
"Oh, she has judges 6 to 9," the woman said, gesturing towards the other woman, who seemed to be in her sixties, perhaps, and had a very wide smile on her face.
"Hello! And now, which judge do you have?"
"Judge 7," my brother muttered timidly.
"Let me see your paper," she smiled.
He dug the Audition Sheet from his piano book and gave it to her.
She murmured his name as she slowly checked it off.
"And you, honey?" she asked me with a smile.
"I have judge 8," I said, and she nodded.
She flipped the page and with a shaking hand (she was an old woman), she checked off my name after viewing my Audition Sheet as well.

My brother had been scheduled for 1:30 and I had been scheduled for 1:40, but apparently, things don't always go as exactly planned, and perhaps my judge's line of students had been going pretty quickly, because while my brother wondered why they didn't call him up yet at 1:29, a high schooler (in their black uniforms--perhaps that was the dress code for them) emerged from one of the back doors and called out, "[My name]!" in a half-hearted voice (what can you expect, they'd probably been guessing the pronunciation of names since this morning).
I, quite surprised at the earliness of my call, jumped up and pulled off my jacket hurriedly. I grabbed my piano books and squeezed back to the back of the room and he took me down some stairs, down a hallway, right into another hallway, into a small corner scattered with many doors on the walls. One of the doors had a piece of paper taped to it that read "Judge 9" and another "Judge 8."
He told me to sit down on the chair next to "Judge 8" and left me, probably to attempt to pronounce another kid's name.
I sat down, putting the books on my lap, drumming my fingers on the image of an abstract painting of a piano--the cover of my piano book. I waited, and from "Judge 8" suddenly came the sounds of someone playing the piano.
Of course. They wouldn't call me up exactly when it was my turn, I realized. They'd call me up when the person before me started playing. That would make the most sense.
So in my nervousness, I listened to the person play the piano.
And that person,
was very very good at it.
I could tell. They articulated the notes so clearly it made me shudder and--oh! It was indescribable.

Another high schooler suddenly appeared around the corner with a little girl about the age of perhaps 7 or 8, wearing a red bow clip and a white turtleneck shirt with black dress pants (or whatever the black pants are called). She was very cheerful and outgoing--I could tell, because instead of nervously dragging along behind the high schooler as most 7 or 8 year olds would do before an audition, she was jumping around and hopping behind him with her books in her tiny hand.
He told her to sit down and left.
The girl looked at me and smiled. I awkwardly smiled back.
"Hi!" she said.
I replied with the same.
She jumped up from the chair and bounced to the door of "Judge 8", where music was still flowing out of the crevices of that door, and she jumped up to try to see through the window of the door that was apparently too high for her to easily look through without some sort of elevation.
She jumped a few times to look through the window, then sighed.
She sat down on the chair, jumping so that she could move her back to touch the back-support of the chair and so that her feet were dangling from the edge.
"That's my sister, you know. She plays that piece so much. It gets annoying if you hear it ten times a day."
I laughed.
She rocked her feet back and forth, her feet far from the ground, her arms holding the edges of the chair and her books slowly sliding down her lap.
She caught the books before they slid onto the ground.
She jumped up again to look through the window, and then sat back down.
Then, Judge 9 appeared from behind the door and beckoned for the little girl to come in. She slid down onto the floor and hopped into the room.
I was alone again, and having been blessed by the presence of such a cheery girl, being alone with my desolately nervous self was a little nerve-wracking. I rubbed my hands together, feeling the sweat on my palms.
I returned to listening to the little girl's sister, who was still playing the same piece.
She was playing Chopin. I knew that. It was in a minor, so it had that darker feeling to it. I also knew that it was a Nocturne (are Nocturnes capitalized? Nocturne, nocturne?), because I had heard it before.
In fact, I had attempted to sight read that piece before, when I was bored and wanted to try to play another Chopin piece.
But never before had I realized how beautiful the piece was.
(Okay fine, maybe I did. But it didn't strike me that much. I liked other nocturnes better.)
But this person, the little girl's sister--she was playing the piece so clearly yet so nocturne-y, and so beautifully, I was swept away, touched by the beautiful music. (But after I played my piece and was going home, I realized that it would probably be bad if the person before me was so good at her nocturne--I had auditioned with a Chopin nocturne as well...)
Especially the ending-- the clear high notes that she articulated ever so--
AHHH
Well I went home, easily found the piece (I had attempted to sight read it, after all), looked it up on youtube, listened to it a few times, and tried playing it again.

And I envied that girl--I could still see her as she emerged from behind the door of "Judge 8", her short hair and grey business suit (I don't know what to call them, business suits, jacket thingies,,, !!!), slumping down the hallway, holding the books in her left hand, her eyes to the ground. She was an ordinary high school girl, just like me, just like all the other kids, but her music! !!! Hearing just her music, it was so beautiful and seamless and effortless and awesome that I just had to picture this amazing pianist with a natural glow like in the movies and---
but she was a high schooler. Yet she had the power to make a bunch of black dots and lines into this melancholy, slow and peaceful, almost slightly saddening nocturne.

It might seem creepy that I liked this girl so much, whom I do not know, whom I shall never see again (unless I magically get in and see her at the recital), who, with her music, made that piece my favorite Chopin piece.

I listened to it again at home, and it's such a great piece! I love the ending. I love the ending, and the trills in the beginning, and
!!!!
You should listen to it, too.
That piece of music that I wrote this whole post about--
you can hear it, too.
It's Chopin's Nocturne Op. 55 No. 1.
You can find it easily on youtube. I prefer Rubinstein, but you're entitled to your taste.

I am going to practice that piece. It is too awesome to be just listened-to.


So yeah.
Bye.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/105I8KWwvFPEfBR5nQfyGc9-UgYhFQ_roAOY2Go8KEjw/edit?hl=en_US

This is what I got so far—not fully edited, and I know—I shouldn’t publish it if I didn’t finish it, but I’ll edit it later on.

Here it is.

 

 

 

I was always the best.

In my family, I was the smartest, considering my short-attention-spanned, hyperactive brother could not stay still for at least a minute. In my community—I was the one who won the reading prizes, writing prizes, all that academic glory. In my school—I was in the school newspaper because I had won a competition and performed in a winner’s recital at Carnegie Hall (Carnegie Hall! Wow, that’s good! they’d say). I was the best at drawing, because everyone else just didn’t care.

In the middle of fourth grade, all of that changed.

I had moved into a whole new place. A new county, a new town, a new house, a new school, and new peers to make friends with. It was all a blur.

It was a Friday. October twenty seventh, six days after my birthday, there I was, standing in this strange… big house. It wasn’t a small cramped apartment anymore. We wouldn’t spend those Christmases huddled in the corner next to the veranda, next to the Christmas tree, everything close to us—the TV, the kitchen, the couch, the rooms, the bathroom, the door. It wasn’t that small safe box that we lived in.

It was big.

That was my first impression.

And.

It had stairs.

Stairs! For the first time in my life, I could brag to my friends about how I could run up and down stairs—stairs! Our own stairs!—and never get tired of it—that our rooms were so big, and we had three bathrooms! And two sinks in one bathroom—that was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. I could tell this to all of my friends—how amazing would that be—such a great house!

And I could finally say, “I live in a big house”, rather than “I live in an apartment”. No climbing flights of stairs to get to our house and then set down our things, dig for the key, and open the lock, and burst in. It was just park, walk, unlock, and walk in.

It was like a dream come true(—the only thing was, I had a life, so I didn’t exactly dream all day about living in a house—just trying to express how amazed I was).

But of course, that wasn’t the only thing in mind—what was I, stupid? I knew what would come next.

School.

I’d have to make new friends, even when these kids had already started school, already decided who their friends were and who their friends weren’t, and already diving headlong into the depths of learning.

But I’d do well. As I always was. The person who was smart, and good at drawing, and piano, and nothing would change.

I learned, however, soon enough, that living in this new place was like an American expecting everyone else in Korea to speak English and understand English and follow American culture. No. It was different. Very.

I noticed this the minute I saw the school. It was an eerie feeling—these kids were already used to this school by now, already adjusting to their classes, their teachers, schedules, learning. But the first impression was—man, is it big.

And so fancy! The architecture wasn’t just a big box. It had a curvy hallway that had big windows, so you could see the little paintings on the inside walls, see teachers walking by. But we were early, my mom and I. We came here before school started, to keep things organized and ready when school did start.

We walked in, and the office—it was big. Everything was big here!

My teacher, Mrs. Unanski was introduced to me—it was so weird, because my fourth grade teacher before I moved here—her name was Mrs. Kaminsky—sounded oddly familiar.

She was nice. And old. And small. But very nice. I remember that. Really nice. Mom followed along, as we walked through endlessly long hallways, with drawings on the walls already, projects and drawings and paintings and writing all on the walls. And the classrooms had the lights on, and I would peer into them, imagining each seat occupied by someone—a friend, maybe.

Mom asked how many classes there were (oh, there were so many classrooms!), and she told us there were eleven fourth grade classrooms, ten fifth grade, and eleven sixth grade. Said it without much of excitement, or whatever. Just said it, like it was just the usual—oh, it’s a bit sunny today, with a bit of clouds, not raining, definitely.

My mouth dropped. I remember that. Real clear. I couldn’t believe it. In my private school, there were two classes for each grade. Then in the public school, maybe four or five. And I was amazed. This was the world-record, I bet. Eleven!?

My mom spoke just what I thought. Oh, not the private school and public school thing—but that there were so many.

“Oh, this is the only public elementary school in Holmdel,” she nodded.

I was, again, amazed. When would this town stop surprising me?

The only public school? That would mean—my imagination of just a few classes of fourth graders stretched to a massive crowd.

We turned a corner, and went up a ‘hill’, and there we were, at a classroom, strange, new, but still, my future.

After my mom left, I was alone, in a room, awkwardly readjusting my glasses and setting down my books, as the teacher told me what they had been learning so far, and that today was the day of a test—a grammar test. She said I could take it, but it wouldn’t count—that I could try it—would I like to?

Well, I didn’t think that I wouldn’t know. So of course, I said yes.

When the kids piled in, one by one, they set their bags down, I felt something new in the air.

It was different. Much different. So different from Woodbridge, I just felt a bit nervous. They were dressed differently—I mean, not like they were wearing dresses or an exotic brand from the southern coast of Africa (is there even one?), but it just felt different, the way they looked, the way they acted, just the way they walked into the door.

I began to note the differences.

Personality.

“Hey, look! It’s the new girl!”

And on my desk was a little puppy, or was it a turtle?—but anyhow, it was a cute little doll, and there was a card next to it that said “Happy Birthday! October 21! Celine Choo!” On it. It was one of those things you buy at staples, and you fill in the “Name” blank, the “Date” blank, and then you’d give it to the person, with a sticker to go along.

“Hey, why does she get to have Puppy?” (I forget the name of it, so I’ll just call it puppy.)

“Well, probably because she’s new.”

And of course, I wanted to say, “it was my birthday, actually,” but I didn’t. It felt weird, though, seeing them so… confident. And knowing. And sure. So sure.

It scared me. It was different. Nobody sat back and was shy, nobody stared at me quietly—they crowded around me. It was weird. Very. (Did I say that already? Emphasis.)

“Hey, welcome to Holmdel! Here’s a pen!” This girl gave me a pen—a purple one. Quite randomly, actually. No, maybe it was because it was my birthday—I’m not sure. Whatever.

Anyhow.

The groups. I figured out the groups very quickly.

In Woodbridge, nobody cared about how they looked, whether they wore these pants or those pants or wore these shoes or those, whether their hair was this color or that, whether they had an accent or not. But here, apparently, they did. When they walked in, most of the people were wearing at least one item of clothing that had a brand name. And they were all wearing the ‘in-style’ or whateveryoucall it sort of clothing. Pretty sweaters from Abercrombie, boots that were fuzzy, all sorts of stuff that I did. Not. Recognize.

It was strange, yes. Very.

The groups. I could tell who was in what group, very quickly. It just came to me.

First, it was the Asians. Don’t blame me—I noticed them because I’m Asian too! But never, ever, in my life, had I ever seen so many Asians in the same classroom. It was lucky, in Woodbridge (sorry to compare so much), to have any Asian in your classroom. But here—there was her, her, him, her, and her (no names given). It was… different.

But what else was, the Asians were different. Am I sounding like I’m naming a new species? That’s what it should sound like. Because they were Asian, alright, but they were wearing clothes that I would see in magazines, the brand name clothing. What I had never thought of wearing—at all.

The next group. They were the kids who were strangers to me, almost like a new species. I found, later on, that people tended to call them ‘popular.’ But at first sight, they were just plain strange. They would burst into a song during recess, crowd into a group and talk about whatever they would, talk loud and confident and burst into sarcasm seventy eight percent of the time, and they wouldn’t talk to certain people. Certain people.

They would act all nice and friendly in front of the teacher, and when the teacher was gone, they would suddenly start talking and walking over to their friends—so audacious—and they would order our class to do this, that, whatever, and then glare and do whatever they wanted. It was strange, yes. Very.

Then it was the people I was the most familiar with—people who didn’t care what they looked like, people who didn’t care who you were or who I was, but just accepted certain things. Some Asians, some Caucasians, you couldn’t really have a way of telling. But I was in that group.

(Oh, and, if you forgot about the grammar test—I bombed it. So, don’t ask.)

As I lived in Holmdel longer and longer, I realized certain things, and began to follow that saying—“When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

I made friends with the Asians in my class (what, was it my fault—I was so amazed by how many Asians there were in my class), and even found one of them was Korean! KOREAN! It was rare for there to be two Koreans in our school, but for them to be in the same class—that was pure luck. Pure luck, I tell you.

But as I made friends with some people, I realized that even Asians thought the way the strange—‘popular’—people did.

“Well, she’s wearing fake Uggs.”

And to myself, I’d think of that as ridiculous, stupid, just empty minded.

When I talked to them, not only did their personality did I notice, but their values in things, their expectations, and their achievements. So much… higher—than Woodbridge.

Some people would need at least an A. They would get angry if they got a B, or a C.

And their values—wow, would they talk about their houses—pools, tennis courts, how many rooms, study room, a laptop, computer, iPod, iPad, this car, that car, this phone, that phone, what! It was like they were living in the houses and lives I would have never dreamt of having.

And the school was so big—two gyms! and a huge cafeteria, a field and two playgrounds and a blacktop to play on. The bathrooms were in the best conditions could be (I know, an awkward subject—sort of not really whatever), and the classrooms had all sorts of cool things, like TVs in every classroom, and a touch screen thing—SmartBoard, was it? And the field day—AT A SWIMMING POOL!? That was the best thing in the WORLD. I couldn’t believe it.

But they were complaining.

It amazed me—couldn’t they see how much they had, what they had?

And their achievements—Holmdel, the school of smart people, I would say. I was no longer ‘the smart person.’ I was now the ‘person,’ no wait—the ‘new person.’

I played at Carnegie Hall? Oh, shut up, ten other people did, too.

I was in Gifted and Talented program for Art? Oh, shut up, there’s tons of other kids who take art lessons and ace the shading techniques and coloring techniques and painting techniques and win prize after prize.

What was I, now?

Piano?

Don’t tell me—my level was the average.

Swimming?

No. I wasn’t even at the level to compare. No.

And guess what—everyone at LEAST took one sort of lessons—and they were already talking about colleges, SATs, and who knows—jobs. While there I was, stupidly standing around, thinking I was smart, how ignorant I must have seemed. Tennis lessons, swimming lessons, piano lessons, writing tutors, math tutors, art lessons. Everything.

Of course, when I moved to Holmdel, my whole perspective changed, my whole house changed, my whole SCHOOL CHANGED. And so did the people in it, thus affecting me.

Yes, me.

It gave pressure on me. It felt like I was the only one doing nothing, the one who wasn’t prepared, the one who wasn’t competent. Not able.

So I worked hard. I didn’t have any tutors, no extra lessons, workbooks, after school study whatevers. But I did my homework, studied, tried to maintain the usual A range, whatnot.

And being such a slow person, it resulted in the usual bed-time of around ten to twelve. (Which is one of the terrible reasons to why I’m so short—but that’s beside the point.)

All I knew was that I would NOT be someone my mom or dad would just take for granted and give up with the amazing-smart-daughter dream. I wanted them to be happy. And the more I tried, the more they expected. And the more they expected, the more I tried. And it went on and on and on.

So sometimes, I hear kids complain how “this sucks” and “that sucks” because the speakers aren’t working for the projectors, or that we don’t get to use the language lab, or because our school looks ugly, or whatever. And sometimes, I agree—then I catch myself, and I try to remind myself that I am lucky. That I am in a place that I should be thankful about, that if I did not live here, to this day, that I probably wouldn’t have made high goals, high expectations, and high achievements. And that through Holmdel, I have made the good types of friends, and that I would, ultimately, make the right choice.

What choice? Oh shut up, I don’t know about choices that are in the future—what am I, clairvoyant? Fortuneteller? Go consult the nearest tea-leaf reader at Target in the pharmacy section—not me.

And after a while, it became difficult to take piano lessons from a teacher who was thirty minutes away. We no longer had time for that. So my mom searched for a new teacher. And there, she lived three minutes away. What a convenience!

A short month or two after I started taking piano lessons, we had a class recital—of all of her students—my piano teacher’s.

Everyone. Was. Godly. At. Piano.

Besides the first and second graders, of course—they had just started.

But suddenly, my pride shrunk to the size of a pea.

This person won this award, this diploma, got into this high school, this major.

This person got into Julliard for this instrument with this much practice and this much—

And as I learned that this teacher, this teacher who was teaching me—she was teaching those amazing key-touching people—I realized that I would probably reach that level. And after a year or two, I began to find confidence once more, not only in piano, but also in academics and such. I realized that I couldn’t compare myself to my peers—people in Holmdel—no, I was not godly at piano, nor was I a genius in math or whatever.

But I realized that I could compare myself to my friends back in Woodbridge!

How stupid.

Yeah, I know.

Stupid.

Dumb.

Arrogant.

You can throw rocks and stones (they’re the same thing, I know) at me.

But I realized.

I went to my friend’s house after Korean school, which was back in Woodbridge—or somewhere near—those towns are pretty similar, and that friend was learning from the teacher I had been learning from before I moved to Holmdel and found a new teacher, blah blah, you know the rest. She was my friend, my best friend—except for the fact that we were very very far from each other now.

My mom told her “why don’t you play a piece (piano piece, duh, don’t you know) for me? It’s been a long time!”

Now, all this time, I had thought I was better than her (again, you can kick me later on, when you actually see me, and just don’t kick your computer or something), because of this new, advanced teacher, and you know (—wait maybe you don’t. Whatever. Just pretend to know—nod and smile). Better at sight reading, piano, technique. Because even when we had the same teacher, we were rivals, you can say.

Well, she started playing, and I sat there, on the floor, looking at the keys from under, looking at her playing the piano, and I realized.

Of course, now that I had seen so much more advanced playing, I realized how she and I played weren’t the best, but she was still—good, you can say. But I realized that I should not feel superior, let compliments get into my head, or think of myself better than someone before seeing their skill.