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More meme, and a request.
Well, there's that whole LJ/Facebook Connect mash-up that's going on right now, and so I politely request that you do not crosspost any comments you make on my journal to Facebook. While I like to keep myself pretty open in both lives, and while it is very, VERY easy to connect my two lives together, they are still separate lives for me. I can't do much more than say "pretty please with a cherry on top," but I trust you guys will respect my wishes. Anyway, onwards.
Day 2 - Your First Love
There are two ways to answer this (as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladybrick endeavored to show), and I'll do my best to answer them both.
We'll start with the love that persists today: music. It's a bit of an extension to my (normally-held-in-check) narcissism, in that I enjoy performing music (and listening to it too, to be sure, but my musical tastes didn't really start developing until middle school). Around the age of five (six?), when my older brother Jamie was learning violin, I demanded a piano to accompany him (and I'm reasonably sure I threw a temper tantrum about it).
My first teacher was Mrs. Chang, an elderly woman who taught the local Chinese kids how to play piano at a beginner's level. Her husband taught older kids at more advanced levels. She introduced me to "Arabesque" (Burgmüller, not Debussy), which eventually became the song I honed for competition as time went by.
I practiced (like a boss). I played (like a boss). I was so insanely tied into my music that when I got called away to dinner, I knew exactly which note I stopped on, and after dinner would resume practice on that very note, even if it was in the middle of a measure (like a boss). All of this was voluntary, and I'm sure my parents had equal parts I'm-incredibly-proud-of-our-piano-prodigy-son/I'm-going-to-murder-him-if-he-practices-that-bleeping-song-another-hour in this phase of my life. Some kids sing "The Song That Doesn't End" for hours. My parents probably had "Arabesque" playing in their nightmares.
This got worse for the one year I lived in Louisiana, since while in New Jersey my parents lived upstairs and the piano was downstairs, but in Louisiana they had me practicing with Jan Grimes, an LSU professor who...
...hey, she has contact details! One sec.
(One e-mail later)
As I was saying, Jan Grimes managed to take a seven/eight-year-old me who already loved practicing and took it up to eleven. My parents have a recital tape somewhere on VHS that shows me performing Arabesque over the years, and the performances recorded under Mrs. Chang's tutelage and those recorded under Mrs. Grimes' tutelage are worlds apart.
Basically, as much as I was practicing before, I was practicing much more intensely in Louisiana. And the piano was outside my parents' room. Perhaps the stray golf balls that occasionally crashed through their window as the result of having a country club as our back yard (I'm pretty sure this was our home, but it looks like the country club is closed and they turned the golf course into a housing development) was a relief to them.
Mrs. Grimes was the one who, as far as I can tell, gave me the kick I needed to go from enthusiast to actual musician.
When I moved back to New Jersey, Mrs. Chang didn't have any spaces available for me, but she recommended a teacher in Plainfield. I don't remember the teacher's name, but I remember my housekeeper taking me when she was done with our house and dropping me off; I remember the half-hour to forty-five-minute commute to the teacher's house; I remember waiting in his musky living room, reading the different Narnia books while he finished up with another student; I remember resuming reading as I waited for my parents to pick me up after work; I remember the occasional grab bag from "Kennedy Fried Chicken" for dinner.
I remember, not nearly as well, a let's-get-back-to-basics approach to things. In that same vein, I could swear I felt I was being patronized, and that I wasn't doing everything I could.
I remember, one day, deciding that it wasn't worth it anymore, and that I was done with the piano. My father says that had he known at the time why I was quitting, he would've found me a new teacher, but I think it was too late.
Thankfully, by then, I had found my new muse, the violin. We were also introduced in Louisiana, and even if I wasn't inspired by piano anymore, the violin was there to keep my musical juices flowing.
As for my first proper infatuation...
Just as the trope about good girls wanting bad boys can be true, so can the opposite.
She wasn't necessarily BAD, per se, just very much on the rebellious, a bit free-spirited side. Had TV Tropes existed back then, I could've labeled her a MPDG in my eyes. If it weren't for my raging crush on her, I probably wouldn't have even seriously considered theatre (she wasn't always involved, but a lot of her friends were), I wouldn't have picked up the basic syntax of sarcasm, and probably a few other things along the way.
We were always at arm's length, though, because when it came to girls, I was always a bit shy. Still am, but not nearly as. Eventually, she moved to a different school, and I moved to a different country.
She's on Facebook, and she's on my friends list, and life seems to be treating her well. We don't talk, though, but I'm happy for her.
...boy, is it easier to talk about the relationships that last a lifetime.
Day 01 - Introduce yourself
Day 02 – Your first love
Day 03 – Your parents
Day 04 – What you ate today
Day 05 – Your definition of love
Day 06 – Your day
Day 07 – Your best friend
Day 08 – A moment
Day 09 – Your beliefs
Day 10 – What you wore today
Day 11 – Your siblings
Day 12 – What’s in your bag
Day 13 – This week
Day 14 – What you wore today
Day 15 – Your dreams
Day 16 – Your first kiss
Day 17 – Your favorite memory
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday
Day 19 – Something you regret
Day 20 – This month
Day 21 – Another moment
Day 22 – Something that upsets you
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry
Day 25 – A first
Day 26 – Your fears
Day 27 – Your favorite place
Day 28 – Something that you miss
Day 29 – Your aspirations
Day 30 – One last moment
Day 2 - Your First Love
There are two ways to answer this (as
ladybrick endeavored to show), and I'll do my best to answer them both.We'll start with the love that persists today: music. It's a bit of an extension to my (normally-held-in-check) narcissism, in that I enjoy performing music (and listening to it too, to be sure, but my musical tastes didn't really start developing until middle school). Around the age of five (six?), when my older brother Jamie was learning violin, I demanded a piano to accompany him (and I'm reasonably sure I threw a temper tantrum about it).
My first teacher was Mrs. Chang, an elderly woman who taught the local Chinese kids how to play piano at a beginner's level. Her husband taught older kids at more advanced levels. She introduced me to "Arabesque" (Burgmüller, not Debussy), which eventually became the song I honed for competition as time went by.
I practiced (like a boss). I played (like a boss). I was so insanely tied into my music that when I got called away to dinner, I knew exactly which note I stopped on, and after dinner would resume practice on that very note, even if it was in the middle of a measure (like a boss). All of this was voluntary, and I'm sure my parents had equal parts I'm-incredibly-proud-of-our-piano-prodigy-son/I'm-going-to-murder-him-if-he-practices-that-bleeping-song-another-hour in this phase of my life. Some kids sing "The Song That Doesn't End" for hours. My parents probably had "Arabesque" playing in their nightmares.
This got worse for the one year I lived in Louisiana, since while in New Jersey my parents lived upstairs and the piano was downstairs, but in Louisiana they had me practicing with Jan Grimes, an LSU professor who...
...hey, she has contact details! One sec.
(One e-mail later)
As I was saying, Jan Grimes managed to take a seven/eight-year-old me who already loved practicing and took it up to eleven. My parents have a recital tape somewhere on VHS that shows me performing Arabesque over the years, and the performances recorded under Mrs. Chang's tutelage and those recorded under Mrs. Grimes' tutelage are worlds apart.
Basically, as much as I was practicing before, I was practicing much more intensely in Louisiana. And the piano was outside my parents' room. Perhaps the stray golf balls that occasionally crashed through their window as the result of having a country club as our back yard (I'm pretty sure this was our home, but it looks like the country club is closed and they turned the golf course into a housing development) was a relief to them.
Mrs. Grimes was the one who, as far as I can tell, gave me the kick I needed to go from enthusiast to actual musician.
When I moved back to New Jersey, Mrs. Chang didn't have any spaces available for me, but she recommended a teacher in Plainfield. I don't remember the teacher's name, but I remember my housekeeper taking me when she was done with our house and dropping me off; I remember the half-hour to forty-five-minute commute to the teacher's house; I remember waiting in his musky living room, reading the different Narnia books while he finished up with another student; I remember resuming reading as I waited for my parents to pick me up after work; I remember the occasional grab bag from "Kennedy Fried Chicken" for dinner.
I remember, not nearly as well, a let's-get-back-to-basics approach to things. In that same vein, I could swear I felt I was being patronized, and that I wasn't doing everything I could.
I remember, one day, deciding that it wasn't worth it anymore, and that I was done with the piano. My father says that had he known at the time why I was quitting, he would've found me a new teacher, but I think it was too late.
Thankfully, by then, I had found my new muse, the violin. We were also introduced in Louisiana, and even if I wasn't inspired by piano anymore, the violin was there to keep my musical juices flowing.
As for my first proper infatuation...
Just as the trope about good girls wanting bad boys can be true, so can the opposite.
She wasn't necessarily BAD, per se, just very much on the rebellious, a bit free-spirited side. Had TV Tropes existed back then, I could've labeled her a MPDG in my eyes. If it weren't for my raging crush on her, I probably wouldn't have even seriously considered theatre (she wasn't always involved, but a lot of her friends were), I wouldn't have picked up the basic syntax of sarcasm, and probably a few other things along the way.
We were always at arm's length, though, because when it came to girls, I was always a bit shy. Still am, but not nearly as. Eventually, she moved to a different school, and I moved to a different country.
She's on Facebook, and she's on my friends list, and life seems to be treating her well. We don't talk, though, but I'm happy for her.
...boy, is it easier to talk about the relationships that last a lifetime.
Day 02 – Your first love
Day 03 – Your parents
Day 04 – What you ate today
Day 05 – Your definition of love
Day 06 – Your day
Day 07 – Your best friend
Day 08 – A moment
Day 09 – Your beliefs
Day 10 – What you wore today
Day 11 – Your siblings
Day 12 – What’s in your bag
Day 13 – This week
Day 14 – What you wore today
Day 15 – Your dreams
Day 16 – Your first kiss
Day 17 – Your favorite memory
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday
Day 19 – Something you regret
Day 20 – This month
Day 21 – Another moment
Day 22 – Something that upsets you
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry
Day 25 – A first
Day 26 – Your fears
Day 27 – Your favorite place
Day 28 – Something that you miss
Day 29 – Your aspirations
Day 30 – One last moment