love, read, write

Once again I am sitting in a dark and dusty corner, reflecting my terrible deeds of these past weekends. Despite the notification set on my phone to vibrate and scream "BLOG POST BLOG POST BLOG POST" every Saturday at 4:00 PM, I have neglected my blogful duties and descended into the low levels of nothingness.

However, here I am, a new human, a new being, reborn from the filths of procrastination and ready to face the new life that is ahead of me. What gave me this life changing awakening, you ask?

Well for one, a friend who has asked me why I was not posting (which surprised me to think that someone actually checks my blog ^^), and also that pang of guilt when you see your blog in your bookmarks bar while you're searching up articles for your research paper due Tuesday.

Speaking of my friend, she made a blog! You guys should go to her blog, here. It's about reading and she posts every Friday about the books she read that week and opens the comments for discussion. Definitely check her blog out.


AND.
I am back to my blogginess.

Recently, I have come up with a fanstastical story idea that I will not reveal and only keep to myself. Because I need to develop it more. Plus it's not something that I'm ready to share yet. Heh.

Also recently, I came up with another fantastical story idea that I promptly forgot afterwards, putting me in this chronic state of stress that will most definitely linger through the week. I need to find another story idea !!

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Now, to move to the real bulk of this post. It

Barnes and Noble is my synonym to awesome. It is the place that pops up in mind when somebody says Heaven. It is the very essence of my being. It is the core of my heart. It is where I belong.

Yes, I may be over-exaggerating, but it has been and probably will always be the place that I love to go to, that I will probably go to most when I am old and have lots of free time and have a nice job with not too many work hours and a substantial pay and I have some time to spend happily. I have always dreamed of my future life (I'm sure everyone has), and every time I think of it again, I add new elements, new items to my list of "What-I'll-Do-When-I-Get-Old".
Here is my dream day:

It's been a long work day today, and I decide to go to a little cafe to buy a blueberry muffin and a coffee (or maybe tea, green tea). I sit down next to the window, looking out to the busy city and people briskly walking by, so immersed in their own lives and oblivious to the beating hearts all around them, pushing their way past to rush to their destination. I sip my coffee (or green tea) and finish my muffin. I sit, looking at the clock now, emptily looking at the little second-hand hesitantly ticking continuously and endlessly, remembering to pause a little at each second. 
I blink, and looking at the time, brush the crumbs off my lap and pick up my bag, swing it over my shoulder, and lift the warm coffee (or green tea) cup off the table. I throw the napkin away on the way out, letting the tiny bells jingle behind me as I push myself into the busy streets of bustling busy lives. 
At the next corner, I turn right and open the door to walk into a cool, air-conditioned building. I am met with a pang of silence, contrasting from the noise and hassle and beeping and honking echoing outside. I look back at the streets through the glass doors and windows of the building with the words "BARNES & NOBLE" inscribed backwards on the surface, so that the busy street-walkers outside can read the words appropriately. The noise from outside is muffled, and for a moment the bookstore is filled with the loud beeps and honks of the outside as another person walks inside. 
I turn back around as the door closes again, and I walk to a small circular table amongst other wooden tables set aside for the Starbucks' customers, set my coffee (or green tea) down, and place my bag on the table next to it. 
Pulling the chair back, I slowly seat myself and pick up the coffee (or green tea), now cooling from the time and temperature. I take a sip and close my eyes, listening to the soft music rippling from the speakers at the corner of the store. 
I pull out my laptop from my bag, place the bag on the floor leaning against my chair, and set the laptop on the table. My stories are still open from yesterday, and I continue it, typing away for another hour or so. 
Afterwards, I close my laptop, put it back in my back, sling it over my shoulder, and throw out my finished coffee (or green tea). Looking around, I walk towards the escalator situated in the middle of the store, sloping upwards to the second level where nonfiction and historical fiction are harbored.
Another hour passes while I skim through World War II, the Korean War, the Renaissance, and other events with capital letters and important people.
I leave the bookstore with a second bag now in my left hand in place for the coffee (or green tea) that had warmed my hand earlier, and I catch a subway to the nearest train station to the outskirts of town, where my tiny house is.
In the train, I sit at a window seat, with my two bags on my lap, and untangle my earphones to listen to some Chopin nocturnes or perhaps some Beethoven sonatas while I watch the scenery pass by my window. 
I walk home the last mile and unlock my way inside, putting my bags on the chair pulled back in a hurry from the morning, and put my keys on the hook hanging from the wall.
I walk to my office and emerge with a huge canvas and a paint kit, step out the back door and set my canvas down on the easel that has made indents in the ground from the months it has been blocking the grass from growing. 
I sit down in the chair and pull out the paints and begin painting happily until the sun sets, when I close my kit and walk back inside, letting the canvas dry on the table next to my window and putting away the canvas that was there from the day before.

This is sad. I am beginning to feel very cheesy and very 'eugh', if you know what I mean. Everything's so mushy and happy and it's actually making me feel appalled because of the extreme happy-rainbow feeling of it.

Anyhow, that was a small story that I wrote to accompany my idea of Barnes and Noble and the calm feeling it has (plus a few other cheesy accessories (paintingahemahem) that reek of the stink of blue cheese).

I quite often spend my time at Barnes and Noble, especially when my mother has lengthy meetings after Korean School. I'd ask her to drop me off at Barnes and Noble so that I could spend a good two hours wallowing knee-deep in the rich information and mind blowing stories that they nurture in their humongous sanctuary of novels and memoirs and pages and covers. First, I'd wander to the escalator because the first floor doesn't have too much books (New Releases, Top Selling Books, informational How-To books, New Nooks/eBooks, and Starbucks). From there I would basically wander without much purpose. I usually go to the nonfiction section first to look for some interesting books that I can read. Last time I went I found a particularly interesting book on Asperger's Syndrome, which I read about for an hour and a half, for example. There's not one specific section that I usually go to (though I do tend to always visit the Arts section at least once every visit), and I search through the shelves for interesting titles or topics or authors until I get about two or three that I can read for a few hours. I'd always sit right next to the window that stretches from ceiling to floor, facing the parking lot outside (I know, it's not such a great view, not like I'm looking at the Eiffel Tower standing majestically with my peripheral vision) and read the books with the sun as my reading light. My back would be to the Romance or Science fiction bookshelves (those are the bookshelves next to the windows). And there I'd sit for hours on end, jumping from nonfiction to fiction to How-To's to Biographies until I get the annoying Rrrrrrrrrrring! Rrrrring! ringtone that can only mean that it's time to recall where the books belong, put them back, and get ready to go home.

So yeah. Moral of the story is.
Barnes & Noble is awesome.


(You know, I should be getting money for this. I'm practically advertising the awesomeness of this store.)

(...)

(Naw, I'm just joking around. I don't need money for the awesomeness of Barnes&Noble. As long as it exists I'm fine.)







I hope you wallow in the cheesiness of these stories and also have somewhat of a good day.
(Somewhat. I emphasize the somewhat.)

Bye!

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.