SMOKEandMIRRORS[v.18];;; theGREENobsession.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006
7:43 PM

Warning. Rant.

2nd warning.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

I'm absolutely confused. Friends ask me, why are you never able to make up your mind? and it is a question that I myself cannot even begin to answer.

Why. Why? In AC I couldn't decide whether I wanted to stay in drama because I couldn't take the rigour. Whether I ought to continue taking DEP because it stressed me out due to committment issues. Whether I should stay in AC and tahan the travelling or return back to my familiar abode in the east.

I ran away, because I wasn't strong enough to confront the issues that plagued me then.

I came here, to TJ, and now there are decisions to be made again. God, are you trying to tell me something? Is this a phase I need to get through because you know perfectly well how scared I am of doing something wrong?

Why am I so fearful? Why do I worry over the most insanely ridiculous issues?

Why am I asking why? Why do I think so much? Why do people need to tell me to relax? Why do they call me high strung?

I'm a beloved child of God. I should be none of these days. I should be relaxed. I should be calm. I should know that because He will never leave me nor forsake me nor will he ever disappoint me and so therefore I should not have anything to worry about.. right?

But sometimes the problems seem so real. And the solution so distant.

Joined the Creative Writing Club. Mrs Bernice Yong is in charge and she's cool. Went for band. Argh. Can I say that again? Argh.

Decisions like these shouldn't be this difficult. I envy the people who have the straight forward, simple mindset of what they want to join. Band. One path, one road, and thats it. Or something. But no. Liz is tired of band. Tired of playing. Tired of never being good enough as a musician. Tired of the fact that she sight-reads like a mammoth, cringes whenever she hears her own playing, infuriated that she knows she's out of tune yet can't seem to do anything about it and for four bloody years known that she was always never good enough.

Pah. Don't want to get angsty or bitter but I told myself that after TKGSSB, there would be no more playing. Patiently served my time because I told myself that I was going to make the most out of the fact that I had to stay in band. If it wasn't for the people, the friends I made being part of TKGSSB, there is little I want to remember about the band. Much less the concerts, SYF, the failures, and the sad flop of a last final performance that evening in July.

Enough, I said.

Yet now I stand here.
I know. I know TJ band is very different from TK. Its so much.. nicer. And I know this band experience would be a better one than TK. For those who think I'm exaggerating, well maybe I am. But for some of you, you will never be in a position to understand how it feels to spend so much time and effort on trying to be better at sight-reading, trying to improve your tone, and realizing that it never got better.

Eight months has come and gone since I last had regular band practices. In that instant when I played last Wednesday.. 3 years of playing the saxophone, 4 years of being in band. And the only thing it ever taught me was fear and inadequacy.

I like TJ band. In the sense that it is a nice place if you've got the passion for the music and thats what you know you want to do.

Ms Chew told me that because I came in on academic appeal and was a saxophonist, the school did not allow another band member to be appealed in. Sometimes I wonder if that person could've been Joel.

Its not all bad. I can imagine myself in band.

But in band I would always feel restricted. Held back by the notes on those manuscripts. Those squiggly black lines that were never my intepretion of reality.

I need words. I need blank space.
After I got out of band I wanted to just be in a place where I could be what I wanted to be, do what I wanted to do, pursue my love for the written and spoken word. For the theatrics, for the stage...

Liz liz liz.. Why do you always give things up halfway?
Mom has posed that question to me ever since I was a primary school kid.
Am I such a coward that I find myself constantly running in the face of danger.. no, not even danger, the potential, the whiff of it.

Drama. Debate.
Band.

You know what, maybe I'm just not as great at anything as I thought myself to be.

AC taught me that I wasn't good enough for the two Ds.
4 years in band and even just spending time in TJCSB shows me that I am even less of a musician than I am a speaker, a writer, or a reader.

I am just.. me.
And right now I'm just not ready for the world at all. If I can't make up my mind just over whether I should join band, I don't see how I'm going to face any tomorrows.

I want to know what I want to do.
I really do.
I just wish I did.

1 comments.

Anonymous said: Christ in you is the hope of glory. whatever the decision you make, He'll still prosper it =); 1:35 PM