I had a pretty decent view of self in high school, even if it was affected by general malaise. I knew who I was, what I wanted to be. Now, I know less and less of what is in store for me or what I’ll be doing.

But I like this more:

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about my own path to happiness it’s that I need to shatter the world around me and to create it anew; at the core of my survival and self-discovery is an inevitable process of creation.

I’ve been holed up in my room for the better part of the month now, trying to get ahead in all my work but feeling all my momentum slowly fading everyday before the hours of noon and I find myself wondering where my day went.

For the past 6 weeks or so, I’ve been teaching some music and yoga classes at an afterschool program for at-risk youth, grades 1-4. They are absolutely adorable. And complete monsters, each and every single one. They made me lose my temper once, which, unless you’re my family, is pretty hard to do. It’s kind of awkward giving someone a time out in the middle of a yoga flow.

I’ve been particularly crafty this fall. Let’s just say I have way too much yarn (and no, knitting is not my plan for them).

I think this year, I’ll make a turkey for Thanksgiving. I’ve got a new recipe to try, courtesy of Alton Brown.

Yes.

 And maybe carve a pumpkin? 

And this is the point of the timeline where we need to kick it up a notch and turn these kids’ worlds upside-down and lead them to believe that the previous weeks’ amazements were only a prelude of what is yet to come.

Even in the midst of a tornado - Experts: Tornado Tore Through 9 New Hampshire Towns

It was 20 minutes from the camp. It was a particularly scary day with kids running around but it only left rain for us.

Side Note: Drive-in movie theatres are the best thing ever!

That and I’m prepping and planning all sorts of educational activities that are fun enough for kids at camp.

On the list include yoga and music time.

And this.

So I think a good goal would be to at least make one post a week until I can decide exactly what I’m going to do with this and how I’m going to go about it.

So in the meantime, enjoy the cool stuff I find on the net.

A Stroke of Insight

So I sympathize with my fellow New Englanders. It is just 80F with no chance of precipitation.

I was planning on utilizing my 6-hour layover in Dulles to fit in a few more posts for The Month of Love but my laptop is not liking the wireless anywhere (not even at the hostel) so there goes that plan.

I flew in Saturday night and I still can not find the apostrophe key, hence my lack of contractions.

And now someone is waiting for the computer so here ends this post.

Tomorrow night I head towards Amecameca, a town right at the foot of a volcano, spending a whole day at a Yoga & Art Festival.

I remember telling my parents that I wanted to do music in college and the look of loss and abandon that they gave me. Growing up as an ABC (American-Born Chinese) put me in that transitional generation of kids who often live in two different worlds - I had my suburban New England school life with my suburban New England friends and cafeteria food during the day, and my working-class Hong Kong family and my mother’s rice cooker at night.

Being the first one in my family to go to college, I might as well have told my parents I was running away and joining the circus.

There was something about making music that held me captive. And when the 4th grade finally came around, I picked my weapon of choice - the flute. My elementary music program didn’t have strings so I couldn’t live out my Asian stereotype of playing Paganini at Carnegie Hall. And we didn’t have enough money for private lessons so I never learned how to Rachmaninov on the piano. So, I chose the flute. I can’t remember exactly how or why, but I did.

I stumbled through that for a couple years until I switched to clarinet in 6th grade. I think I was just bored with the flute by then and we didn’t have any clarinets in the band so I completely changed gears, going from having to assemble three flute parts (3) to a bajillion clarinet pieces (7) and always searching among the stacks for the perfect reed.

My clarinet became my obsession. Every time I visited my grandmother I would always go to the music store next door and spend hours there looking at all the music stuff and really investing in my clarinet music geekdom. That’s where I bought every new brand of reeds, upgrading through the lowly Ricos to the Vandoren V12s to fit my upgraded Vandoren B45 mouthpiece and Rovner ligature. I would scour the store in search of clarinet music, landing on Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for Clarinet and Mozart’s K. 622. I would rifle through the music accessories like I was on Project Runway going through the Banana Republic accessories shelf.

And that took me through high school, taking private lessons on clarinet, making All-State, auditioning for GBYSO (and not getting in), being a musical prodigy in my corner of the world (but a relatively mediocre player in world-at-large).

It wasn’t until the summer after my junior year of high school before I stumbled onto the notion that I would be a singer and not a player. I had made it into All-State for voice before I made it for clarinet, so that summer I got a scholarship to play clarinet at music camp, all I wanted to do was sing. I went to voice studio that summer instead of clarinet studio and joined the concert choir, got into the chamber singers and the honors jazz choir. That did it for me.

I spent my senior year auditioning for music departments on voice, having never taken voice lessons but bolstered by the fact that within my 5′6″ frame was a Bass - when my voice changed in sixth grade I could easily hit a low C (two octaves below middle C).

And in college started the 2nd phase of my musical journey.

And for your listening/viewing/downloading pleasure:

• Beethoven - Missa Solemnis: Gloria. Bernstein/Concertgebouw.
• Rachmaninov - All Night Vigil: Bogoroditse Devo. (I’m hoping it’s the USSR Ministry of Culture Chamber Choir but I’m not positive)
• Anuna: http://www.myspace.com/anuna
• Dan Bukvich - Song of the River
• Dan Bukvich - Unusual Behaviors in Ceremonies Involving Drums

-ho|T

So I figured I’d kick off this blog with an introductory series of posts for the month of love and give a narrative on the many ways it shapes and contours my every waking moment and thought.

And it all starts with One.