AoNikki

I know, playing the piano (and blog writing) when having three essays due in just more than one day sounds very stupid (hey, but who are you, YOU all-nighters and chronic procrastinators, to comment on me procrastinating...?)

But, you know, when you're in the mood for music, making some melodic noises is all you want to do.

But, you know, this is meaningless. Someone here really annoyed me with his bossy attitude; someone else amused me with his cuteness and kindness (and so-called curiosity). QQ talked to me about life in Vietnam again, but I was lost. If it weren't for this parade and school, maybe I would never wear Ao Tu Than as I did today. My flag got heavy in my hands after a while, so QQ and Jakob (who is probably reading this) carried it. At the end of the day, I'm left alone struggling to recall certain things in the past. And they are sad. So sad.

I accompanied Gregorio (who made me laugh with his jokes about math) to the greenhouse, where he kept his bean seeds (experiment for his extended essay). Under the light of my laptop screen, he watered them with care and affection. He talked to them, sobbed happily (or pretended to) when he saw the first shoot. You know, maybe I should have kept learning biology - the science of life, Ki-chan used to say. And I have always wanted to plant a tree - which I never did.

That was how I ended up sitting in front of the piano in the former music room, playing some classical. Yes it's been a while. I'm not the best pianist here, but perhaps I'm the only one who gives it all to classical. Last year and also this year, I have been doing a lot of band music, percussion, different kind of guitars, and drums. If there weren't G. , James, anh Quoc, if it weren't because of my admiration for Wilhem Kempff and his dexterity, if it weren't for Phuc - my Vietnamese 1st year who was going to UWC Adriatic as a cellist under one of the music scholarships - and his video from Asian Youth Orchestra 2007 in which he participated... if it weren't for all of these things, would I still be sitting here, starting practicing movement three of Beethoven's moonlight sonata - which would probably take me 10 months to master? Would I still want to practice the violin? Like everything, it's black and white. My enjoyment when playing Rock or Latin American music pushes me away from classical. Tonight, when I sat by the piano sight reading the music, I was amazed by my own dexterity and classical piano skills. Did I really abandon it so long that I even forgot how far I had gone? Needless to say, you know that the way I went through was different from most. Jin and Bryan knew it well, Joe knew it, and Sayaka-neesan knew it. It was not just the piano, it was everything - comp sci, Japanese, the flute, the guitars, psychology,... I tried to teach myself these things in such a disorganized way that I eventually ended up having to fill the holes I created in my knowledge about them.

Well, being where I am now indeed has changed many things. Lately, I have been too concerned about US college application and I almost forgot that before I came here, I had never thought about going to the States for college. I wanted Canada or Japan. The day I came and left Toronto for the first time 7 years ago, I cried on the airplane and promised myself I would study hard and go back here for university. Back to Mississauga, back to my house, back to Jin's house, back with all you guys, with Square One,... Well, and I did come back a couple of times, sooner than I thought. I just wouldn't be back for university.

The day I left for Costa Rica the first time, I was holding APU's package in my hands, reading again and again Uyen's emails, and said to myself: I would make it to Japan.

But things changed. It took a while for everything to be back in place.

I always study two pieces simultaneously. One is allegro/agitato (or the likes), one is adante/cantatible (or the likes). This allows me to switch to the slow piece when my hands get tired with the fast one (Actually, sometimes, instead of playing the slow one, I sight read something - like today I sight read one of Bach's interventions that I found inside Carolina's music folder).

The slow piece I have been playing recently is not really classical. It was composed by Grigor Ilev in 200x, called "A Child's Wish". It's a sad, sad piece. Very melancholy. The first time I listened to it, I stopped writing and looked through my laptop screen as if it weren't there. Tonight, no other piece could convey what I felt better than this one.

Its title reminds me of this morning, when Melody told me something about Hannah: that she was a really lucky child, considering that a majority didn't have both parents, didn't have sufficient lives. And this brings me back to another thing in summer, when I was at an ACCESS seminar,after an MIT lecture about stereotypes. Jeff was asking us to name the way how we differentiate the majority and minority, and someone said : the lack of education. But it's not true. Actually we, the educated, are the minority, knowing that a vast majority of the world is illiterate. These guys, they did well at school, they had excellent English and extra-curricular records - otherwise they wouldn't be chosen to be in the seminars. They were so surrounded by people like themselves, and thus they took education for granted. And that way, we just didn't realize how lucky we were.

During summer, I watched a TV program (similar to "Be Active" in Portugal), in which this 17 year old schoolgirl from Hanoi went to HCM for some days, and met a strolling flower girl there. Back to Hanoi, she talked to her friends : "thanks to this trip to the South, I know now that there are many people, like that girl, who are more unfortunate than I am" (note that's she kinda well of, wearing fashionable clothes, with big houses and cars...). I was so amused by that saying, and I really wanted to tell the character in the show : if you have lived 17 years and didn't realize that, that means you didn't live at all.

But, who I am to justify? Look at myself. Converse shoes. Addidas jacket. Living abroad. Going to college.

I immediately think about Ban and Sue (my host mothers, in case you don't remember). They were one of the reasons, beside you guys, why I loved Toronto so much. They are very well off, and I mean VERY. Recently I have been invited to their business, and I know relatively how much they're making. But that is now. When I was at their house, I didn't feel that way. They lived like middle class people, small house, abstemious meals. Humble followers of Jesus. They did take us out quite often, for typical food restaurants, for movies,... but it only signified that they're really kind.

I once wondered : so where does all the money go? But I wasn't keep wondering for long. Something, yes something that occurred during my staying at their house, that I almost totally forgot after years, just came back to my mind. Oh yes, of course, but back then I was so small and ignorant to even question.

Then my thoughts go to Siam Paragon in Bangkok and all the people I have encountered there. I mean, I had been to many malls and plazas, but at nowhere had I felt what I felt that day. When I was walking there, I saw a man lying on the narrow pavement, limbless, ragged clothes. His skin must have turned dark brown ages ago, his hair tangly stiff, smelly and filthy. The sun burns him. Rain falls on him. Cars pass by leaving the dust and smoke on him. He's so disfigured that I couldn't tell how old he was, but there was one thing, only one thing - his eyes - which let me know that he was supposed to be in his youth. Those eyes stared at the tin in front of him, into which people going in and out Siam Paragon mindlessly passed by and threw some coins. I tried to imagine how his life would be. I tried to figure out how he could have live without hope and without himself in his life.

Then I entered Siam Paragon and Siam Center. Those brand names made me sick. Those glass window with the "Sale 70%" made me sick. Those KFCs and free wi-fi spots made me sick. Those luxuries, those clothes, shoes, perfumes, creams..., those people with dyed hair, fashionable outfits, goth styles, heavily made up, ... they nauseated me. I ran out of the building for a gasp, hastily inhaled. But before my eyes, in front of the skyscraper opposite, lanes of cars rushed on the narrow roads. Above them, the overpasses. Above that, the train. I could not even see the gray sky and felt suffocated. Suddenly I realized I was standing on the marble steps of a magnificent building, wearing Roxy's and Converse, my laptop in one hand, my purse with all the bahts and dollars in the other. I turned round to look at where I had been. The automatic door opened and closed as people came and went. That place, those brand names, those windows, those KFCs and wi-fi spots, they accepted me. They opened their door and let me in.

I detested the world I was in. I detested myself.

Back to the present, suddenly I realize I'm sitting in front of a one thousand dollar piano, with the music sheet opened on my laptop, attempting to play a classical piece that requires years and years of piano practice.

I stand up to open the window, and the cold air from outside chills me. It's dark outside, but I can still see the trees and the grass. There's the smell of rain. Again, maybe I should have taken biology. It's too late now.

I decide to leave, because if I continued playing, I would break the music.

Back to my room, I grab my bamboo flute and play a lullaby. It soothes me. But I guess the sound of bamboo flute and my roommate don't really go along well together. I wished I could cry, but my eyes are so dry and emotionless. I don't really know what I want to cry for. There are so many sad things in life and in this world that just by knowing about their existence, you can shed tears without the need to identify them. Actually, had I be able to identify them all, maybe I would have spent my whole life crying.

That's basically how I ended up spending two valuable hours, which should be used for writing my essays, to write this blog post.