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Unfortunately, I didn't do anything spectacular leading up to my 100th post. I didn't go skydiving or go hunt some humans or anything relevant like that. But I did in fact did some pretty small stuff.
First up, mah violin!
Finally made some skritches! I think I'm slowly getting the hang of holding the bow. I think it's something like this:
As you can see, it's not like it's very stable or something. But when the pros do it, they make some beautiful sound out of it. My teacher told me to leave my thumb there first since I'm a beginner. Apparently pros put it in between the space above or something. I tried to do that when I was trying to self learn how to play the violin (because the book told me to do so), but it felt... wrong... My thumb was always touching the hair of the bow and it felt like I probably shouldn't be doing that.
Other fun fact! You can actually put some pressure onto the violin when playing it. I was so afraid of the horse hair breaking that I was basically playing like air until my teacher told me to just apply some pressure. "Don't worry it wouldn't break", and then it got easier. The other things is that, violins are freaking loud!
So far, my teacher is teaching me how to play through the E string. The E string being the highest of them all, makes practicing hurts mah ear. The other thing my teacher told me that is inevitable is the "violin's hickey". She told me to practice holding the violin just by squeezing it between your shoulder/chest area and jaw/neck area. In order to play well, we're not supposed to use our hand for support, because the hand is meant to be used to change the notes. If the song is fast, your hands needs to be always ready to change, so we gotta learn to support it on its own. That exercise hurts my jaw. I'm not sure if I'm doing it wrong, or that my head is malformed, or it's suppose to be this way, but its what I gotta do in order to play somewhat of a violin.
There are a few other nice things I saw. I've been donating some of my books to the public library, trying to get rid some of weight. Guess what~
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| My Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is now on the shelves! |
Come, come and borrow some mangas!
So, why am I now starting to donate my stuff (not just books, I've gotten rid loads of my clothes) to the likes of the public library, and SPCA (and now I learned, not Value Village, they're a for-profit second hand store. I'll still shop in them though because their choices are just lightyears ahead of any of the second hand stores here, but they don't deserve my wares! Hmph!). It's because, lately, I've been deciding to move elsewhere.
Of course, you knew this already if you followed my blog. If you did not, well here's a tl; dr:
Jerry graduated. Wants to leave Newfoundland. Too much stuff, can't carry all of em.
Well, there you go, now back to the main plot.
I think I have decided to move to Montreal, yeah? So previously, there were the big 2+1 cities to consider moving to. Toronto (duh), Vancouver (duh doy), and Halifax (wuttt?). So, Halifax is pretty much like St John's but better. Lots of the people here that graduated would move to Alberta or Halifax. Heck, my roommate has decided that once he graduated he's moving to Halifax, and is really hoping that I'll move there with him so he doesn't have to go through the troubles of finding new roommates again (and amongst other stuff, like having someone you trust and all, but that's not very important eh?). Toronto because its basically the first city everyone thinks of when they hear "Canada". Lots of friends are there. Heck, I even have family there (see: my New Years kerfuffle). So it'd be an amazing place to move to yeah? Then there's Vancouver, or "the other city people think of when they think of Canadian cities". Again, some friends moved there. I have a friend who I used to debate with back in Malaysia, who was in Toronto, now moved to Vancouver, and he really wants me to move in with him and his girlfriend (rent cheaper, trusted friend, etc. etc.)
So, among these three wonderful choices, which city did I decide to move then?
Well... none of em!
I've decided that I wanna go to Montreal instead! A city where 50% speaks English, 50% speaks French; a city where I know absolutely nobody; a city that never really was on my radar until suddenly I decided to go all in on it! In fact, it's because of all these 3 negative reasons is why I wanna move there.
I've been doing leaps of faiths ever since I left Malaysia like 5 years ago.
5 years ago, I've basically decided to all-in into Memorial University. I did like 0 research on the university, on the city, and I basically went with the flow (much to my mom's chagrin). Then later, I've decided to just pick up German, and go couchsurfing in Germany. I grew up in the city, at that time I'm very much one of those sheltered city boi. My parents were super concerned when I told them I wanted to couchsurf, "what if they're murderers?" they say. I mean, fair point. It'd be cool and scary if couchsurfing is actually just a guise for serial murderers to congregate. But anyway, I did that, in a country which I don't speak the language of (kinda, I was like A1 level German at the time). Special thanks to those two hosts that is actually willing to host me! I was so green at the time, no one wanted me except those two folks. Both of them had the logic when accepting me: "It looks like you're new and have 0 experience. And because of that no one wants to accept you until you gain experience. That's why we're here to accept you because we understand." Doesn't this circular reasoning sound familiar? *cough*jobs*cough*
After that, I basically went to Sweden for like 8 months just for one reason. A reason that was planned months in advanced, way before the Germany trip. Again, much to my mom's chagrin (hmm, this is starting to get repetitive). Somewhat similar to the Germany trip but with a much bigger stake. Upon arriving, I had to basically rely on trust to get me through (at that time, I was still super scared because what if it was all just one massive prank o_o, holy moley that'd be awful). Either way, I would like to believe that all these leaps ended up extremely well. Not only that, they are kind of connected ain't it? One leads to another, as one cannot happen if the previous did not happen in the first place. So, this decision to move to Montreal shouldn't be any different right?
I once talked to a friend of mine, and she questioned me on why I kept on trying to do things the "hard" way when there's always an "easier" way. Basically, we were talking about many things at that time. It's easier to find a job and a life here in St John's because we've been here for years, we know the people here, we have connections, and all. It's easier to date within your culture because you don't have to go through the entire thing of misunderstandings due to culture and all the "maybe discrimination", it's easier to not minor in German and use up those free slots to just take "easy A" courses to boost up the GPA. Heck, it's easier to "not study statistics". At first, I didn't know why I did all these too, but luckily she helped me answer the question. She ended the question with: "你是不是觉得你这样子做会比较有意思？" I'm like "wah, thanks for giving me an answer. I didn't even know why I do all these, but that's a very legit reason to do so, and one that I accept". So I said, "哦，有可能。" Huehue I'm such an ass.
I think this whole conversation started when she said she would only date within her race, which sparked a whole mini issue. You see, when a white person says that, that's like, totally racist and all. But what if a Chinese international student living in Canada said that, what does it entail then? Maybe the guy wanted to date her but got hurt because her reasoning basically takes him off the "could-be" lists just by being born the wrong skin colour. But for her, it's not worth the trouble of going through the entire learning the other person's culture and all. And being a Chinese girl, there's always that "am I being fetishized?" things going on. Also: parents. See: above, and below.
SIDE STORY: I had a conversation with a friend. Basically, around the end of the conversation she thought I had a lousy family and a lousy relationship with my parents (mom especially) because I kept on doing things that piss off my mom (getting tattoos, studying literally the other side of the world from home so neither of us could visit often, not dating a Chinese, Buddhist girl (which is still a running joke among my friends here)). At first I don't understand what she means, but then I finally got it and went "nonono, I didn't do things to piss off my mom. I do things that subsequently pisses off my mom is a more accurate statement." Correlation /= causation. I didn't intend any of it, it just somehow happens. We had a few laughs, but I think she still did not believe me 100%.
SPECIAL SIDE STORY: I now understand the meaning of "the early bird gets the worm'". One morning, at 6am, I saw a bird just eating worms. It was like a buffet for this bird. I think. I think 6am is a time when most birds aren't up yet, I could be wrong, that bird could be the late one and is getting all the scraps but I don't think so, I think that bird is the early bird, and it's getting the worms. Thus, the early bird gets the worm.
So yeah, nothing major for my 100th post. uwu
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