Why Did I Turn My Back on Music?

Three years ago, I stopped playing the violin on a regular basis. Shortly after that, the fingerboard collapsed. Even if I wanted to pull out my beautiful instrument, I can't play it. Last year, I brought home a cello. I played it a little, but I never got into it. I've stopped playing music. The only amount I do now is watch my 9 year old brother play the piano and show him how to play the new songs. I've learned how to sight read very well over these seven years, but I can't play anymore. Five years ago, I thought having an electric violin would be the coolest thing ever. I loved how they defied the conventional shape to produce the full sound. They just looked really cool.

I guess, in a way, I've never really separated myself from music, I just kind of stopped making it. It kind of depresses me now that I've stopped playing the violin. It would be great if I could go back to playing it.

Last night, I went to the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert. I guess they kind of do symphonic rock and medley lots of classical and typically orchestral pieces with guitars, electric bass, and drums. It was a fun show: the music was wonderful, but the Christmas-y part was a little too much. They opened with a piece that eventually segued into Farandole and it made me realize just how much I miss being able to play for fun.

Maybe I got too busy to play my violin after awhile. I was doing so many things, trying to find myself, define the world, and exist that I didn't have the time to learn to love the way 440 Hertz felt as the vibrations brushed across my skin. Maybe it's that I resigned myself to being not that great for so long that I forced myself into the perpetual bit of doubt. Maybe I had never truly appreciated the timbre of a violin and it was only after I found myself so excited to hear a song intro in violin that I realized this. It's such a distinct sound with so many faces and emotions. I miss it.

-Promoting Music in all the Weird Places

Scarlet Bloodmoon

Hi, Uh, You're Retarded. Here's Why:

So today, these people on campus were petitioning to get a few anatomy and biology experiments to switch from real animals to computer simulations or videos.

Firstly, videos!?! I will learn so much better now that I'm watching some guy I can't even ask questions to about the little rabbit I'm cutting open so I can stick electrodes into. SO MUCH BETTER. I will know exactly how the tissue resists the knife and how hard I have to pull. I can then later apply this experience from watching someone I don't even know cut open something to the first patient I have to operate on. That patient will surely have the best surgery in the world and will later thank me for completely saving his life. Seriously? A video?

Secondly, a computer simulation?!? You hand any college student a computer program with catchy graphics and the ability to cut things open, and they will liken this experience to playing XBOX with friends. This becomes a video game. There is no respect for video games! I totally want a doctor cutting me open after learning anatomy through a video game. This doctor will be "trigger happy" and cut just a little too much and a little too deeply, but it doesn't matter! I'm not a real person because the computer simulation has conditioned the doctor to be completely okay with it and treat it like a game. Yeah, he will be the best doctor ever and I will thank him for the best surgery performed on the face of the earth and he will cure cancer because of how awesome his surgery skills are. IT WILL BE AWESOME. Seriously? A video game?

Thirdly, Mrs. Jahr, my Biology teacher back as a freshman in high school made us write out a contract to respect the dead fetal pigs we were dissecting. She talked for two days before the dissection about how we have to respect the pigs and that everything we did was for knowledge and if we mutilated the pigs in anyway, we were in so much trouble. Yeah. Our group really wanted to see the brain. We dug it out. It was squishy and did not survive coming out of the skull. But we respected that pig more than it would have been respected if the mother pig had not been butchered so that someone might have some bacon. It was so respected that even without being born, it lived a fuller life than its mother.

That is the kind of doctor I want performing surgery on me. I want the doctor to have gone through enough work with dead or living organisms to the point where anything put on the operating table is treated with more respect than one would normally treat their family.

Now back to my story:
So these people were trying to collect signatures to support PETA's complaint against the "unethical" treatment of these rabbits. The school paper today had an opinion article on this topic. The guy who wrote it had really looked into this topic and made known that there is an entire branch at ASU for research on the ethical treatment of research animals. Anyone handling animals in research are required to submit a lot of paperwork, to go through training on proper handling, and any experiments on animals are sent to a board of faculty and community members for consideration. If there is a more humane and equally effect alternative, the experimentation is denied. This is for every experiment. Obviously, if there were something as effective and more humane, we'd be using it already.

But these people would go to tables where students were eating lunch and ask if they wanted to sign a petition to stop experiments from cutting open bunnies (cute bunnies!) and sticking electrodes into their heart while they were still alive. All the girls would sign immediately thinking they were super special and saved some really cute cotton-tailed bunnies. Major pathos going on. The guy got over to my table. I am fairly immoral. I don't care about the bunnies. I don't care how cute they are. His ethos approach did not get to me. Well, the school would be saving money on it. I think this is a necessary experience any medical expert needs. He talked about necessary as implanting pacemakers or something that would better human life. I still thought this was essential to becoming a qualified practitioner. He left, moving on to easier signatures.

Firstly, these butchered bunnies are under heavy anesthetic. They feel nothing, are in no pain or distress, and pretty much show no sign of life until you get under the skin. They are not asleep; not really. They are completely unaware.

Secondly, bunnies and all mammals are fairly similar. Our bone structure is made of the same bones, of mostly the same shape. Our circulatory system would also be similar.

Thirdly, I'm paying a lab fee for my BIO 188 lab. This covers the frogs that we will be dissecting soon. I'm sure the anatomy students pay a lab fee to cover the rabbits. This cost, in no way, affects the tuition of other students.

So anyways, this entire thing has made me realize just how much I hate people like this. I don't want to fall into the moral standards you all set for me. I like being who I am, immoral and all. I like having no need to stop and wonder if I can live with myself after something. I love who I am. I love all the mistakes I make, all the shit I fuck up, and all the experiences I've had: good or bad. I'm grateful for all the lessons I've learned and all the people it took to teach them to me.

I'm inherently selfish. I was talking to myself this morning and somehow got to talking about being faithful. I told myself I wasn't worried about it. Why? Well, we're satisfied with our current setup, and I fucked up once, so he can fuck up once. Somehow, this all led to telling myself I'm just not worried about it because it's probably not going to happen. I couldn't decide why I knew that, but I guess it's an arrogant and selfish thing to think. Well, it's just a part of the complex mechanism that is me.

-Forever Me
Scarlet Bloodmoon

Thirteen

College is easy. I've been doing well on the exams, meeting some new people, hanging with some old people, all that good stuff. There really isn't much to talk about, which I guess is why I haven't posted since last month, but yeah. I wrote a 5 page paper on abstinence-only education being inadequate. Did you know that the federal funding for this fiscal year does not include any for abstinence education? That being said, we are finally not wasting any money on teaching kids crap and lies about their bodies. Yay! Yeah...

Bought a pack of the new Trojan condoms. Haven't tried them. Eh. They look weird on the box. Tip is like super=-inflated. Yeah.

Started hardcore monitoring my Basal Body Temperature. My mom told me she wasn't able to keep up taking her temperature every morning. I win. A few weeks later, this lady on the campus advocating Natural Family Planning congratulated me on not taking hormone pills. Too bad she had hardcore Catholic literature about how BC pills are evil. Gross.

Um, I had a dream a little bit ago that pretty much made me laugh when I woke up. One of my exes had told me they still loved me. I almost reflexively said "I love you too," but I paused like halfway through and stopped. Instead, I said "I don't love you" or something along those lines. It felt very therapeutic when I woke up. Like, I'm glad my dreams finally agree with the rest of my consciousness.

We are learning about drugs in Psychology right now. It's kind of silly. That's pretty much it for what I've been doing...

-Pain in the Form of Healing
Scarlet Bloodmoon

P.S. - Tried the condoms. That time, I was super easy. It might be the condoms, or it might have just been that time. No idea. It didn't look as weird on a penis as it did on the box, so that's a plus.

Mother, May I?

Today was rather off...It started out like a normal day I guess...but in English, we decided to have a party, and so we did. It was exciting (not really), we had food, and it was just a very fun and relaxing day. World History was alright. Nothing super fun, nothing totally boring. I had only seen James as I was walking from Physics to English and later when he was at work, and very much later when he came and visited me afterward.

I think we've gotten to a point where we are constantly denied any real intimacy in our relationship. Sure, there are places and times where we can be physically intimate, but there never really is a time where I can enjoy just being alone and so close to him without something looming ahead or needing to be done. I miss falling asleep with him. I miss being able to do absolutely nothing for long periods of time without the need to rush off elsewhere. I miss sneaking into his bed to just be there with him, and just to know that for a few hours, I can just listen to his heart beating and feel his arms wrapped around me. It's now at the point where we've been denied this over and over again to the point where it's the only thing we want. It takes us longer to leave each other. We'll spend fifteen minutes, if we have them, to say goodbye not because there's the potential for sex or because it'll score us points, but I'm hesitant to leave because it feels so wonderful to be held. I miss him as much as I do because he's being pulled away from me through obligations. We always want what we can't have, right?

I guess that leads me to a new tangent. Abstinence education does not work. Sure, it's the 100% guarantee way to keep free of pregnancies and STDs, but what about the kids who have no "moral" upbringing and are now cheated from Safe Sex Education because bigots in the government and bureaucracy think the two are the same thing. I'm thankful for television and the internet, for without the two, I'm sure to have destroyed my natural balance of hormones or be a teenage mother. Also, it plays against the idea of temptation, human nature and children always wanting what they cannot have. I don't get why the abstinence people have to play to the idea that after sex, the relationship will become dead. Does that mean that if you ended up marrying the person because they were "so understanding and perfect" but were only looking for sex that the person would have changed because you put a ring on it? Are they implying that by settling down, sex will now be the last thing on their mind? This also teaches to guys that the only ticket to sex is marriage, thus inflating the divorce rate. I am worth it. I'm worth more than the deception of horny males who will never grow up to realize that sex and marriage should not go together exclusively. I am worth more than "saving myself" for "the perfect moment/guy," because my perfect moment technically has never occurred, but I'm happy. I am worth more than the lies they are feeding you: I still value the small gestures of physical intimacy -- and I probably value it more than those pure little goody goodies who waited, I love him for who he is, sex is still special to me, and I'm happier than most people ever will be. Sex did not ruin my perception of love.

I absolutely hated being accused of being some succubus figure who is so morally loose that I view sex as a means of destroying the purity of others. I absolutely hated being told that I will never know that love is because I'm having sex before marriage. I absolutely hated that someone who basically was a stranger told me that they pitied me for what they misread as my mistakes. Right. I pity you for driving your family apart. I pity that you don't realize what love is. I pity that you destroyed the purity of your own child through your insistence that your way of life was the absolute truth. I pity your unhappiness. I pity your lack of lack of religion. I pity your pitiful way of life.

I love being who I am. I love being my achievements and mistakes. I love my history, my culture, and the person I came out to be. I might not love everything around me, but I love the way I turned out. I love that I have the most amazing people to turn to and that I can rely on and trust so many people. I love my life.

-Moreover, I Love You
Scarlet Bloodmoon

I'm Beginning to Like Routine.

I guess, in some weird twisted way, I win...but it's not really about that anymore. Maybe this is how I can get everything out while it's still small and cute instead of when the stress or whatever has been bottled up to a point where it's poison.

Well, I have Super Glue epoxy all over my hands, keyboard, and sheets. Bleh. Gross! Um...Finished my Governement report thing easily. I loved doing it. Anyways: homework was easy tonight, and of that I'm glad.

I didn't really get to see James today. He took the day off from school and so after school at like 4:10 ish, he came by my house and we chattered about what he missed in school today. Oh, and then later on, he proved to me that I really don't have people I hang out with or that I would call great friends. I mean, I used to have friends, and then I decided that I didn't like bits and pieces of them, so slowly, as I started changing, the way I see people and my tolerances were changing too. So, all of my previous friends were abandonned because I was no longer into anime, people became lost to be because they weren't interesting anymore or because it was just about the right time for something to die and for something new to take it's place. Well, whatever. I still have people I can turn to, and if not, I always have myself and all of my blogs.

I might actually call it an early night tonight, and of that I'm surprised. I finished everything before 10 and I actually did everything?!? What's this? Anyways: life has been fun.

Oh! So I come home today and my mom and Andrei are basically arguing over his allowance. Andrei says my mom owes him three dollars and she doesn't understand where he is coming up with everything. After listening to Andrei explain his side for maybe three minutes (and it took my mom forever, to the point where Andrei was crying) I was able to explain exactly what Andrei had wanted and where he was coming from. Wow. I win.

Um...that's basically it...Robot shipped today. Not that exciting. Whatever.

-Apparently, I like playing with sticky liquids...
Scarlet Bloodmoon

#70

Woo, 70th post today, and next month marks one year of my little blog's existence. Pretty exciting! While I don't have a whole ton of readers, or strangers who encourage me to get out of rough spots in my life, I have learned a lot about myself through my blog, and I have come to hate that whiny little girl I was eleven months ago. I resent some of the things I said, some of the things I did, and some of the things I thought, but that's not going to change the past. In fact, maybe if the past had changed, I wouldn't be here now, talking about half the things I do, and maybe, I would still have never had pistachio ice cream.

I used to love running around in the rain. It didn't used to matter how cold it was outside, I'd still come back inside sopping wet and cold. Now, I'd rather curl under blankets and find warmth. Somewhere along the line, I wanted to stay warm. I don't know...conditioning I guess.

Tch. I don't feel like doing anything. I don't want to wake up tomorrow. I want to stay at home all day and sleep and read. I want to spend an entire day not having to worry about stuff. I'm so done with having to care so much about everything. I want a soma holiday...That'd be fun.

-Another Useless Milestone
Scarlet Bloodmoon

Colleges?

So for the past like two days, I've been watching this show called Undressed that was on MTV or something...it's like this little drama thing that looks very indie and it totally out there. It's alright...I get mad at it sometimes and refuse to watch it, but then I get bored. Eh.

Oh, so on Friday, there was this club meeting thing at conference and basically, it was seniors talking to not seniors about college applications and stuff like that. They asked where we were going to college and I said I was going to ASU because I didn't want to be far from my parents. I lied. I'm going to ASU because really, I don't want to leave him. I'm telling myself that I don't want to deal with out-of-state tuition and that I'm not good enough to get a full ride anywhere, but if I had really worked hard enough, even now, I could. I don't have that ambition and I don't want to leave behind this window of happiness I have. Maybe I'll end up regretting this, but there is nothing wrong with getting an in-state education before going somewhere that counts. I'm not staying here because I'll miss my family, and I'm not really staying here because I have no other option. I'm staying here because I want to and because it's easier here. At least I'm not depending on my parents to pay my way through the world. Ugh. I can't stand people from old money or people who take everything for granted. Graduation will rock your world, and if not at graduation, your life will be fucked when you realize no one can help you.

-According To Plan

Driven

I think there's always something to drive me to compete with people. So this time, as long as James is blogging everyday, I will try too. Um...not much happened today, so there really isn't much to talk about or complain about...Let's see:

I guess in a way, I'm conceited to a point where I drive off the potential success of people. I believe that I can do anything better and that people celebrate and magnify things way too much. Of course, it only applies to certain people, and it really doesn't make sense at all why I feel this way. I'm just weird I guess.

I've been listening to Chinese music all day long. It started off as genuine curiosity over a band and then I just got hooked. I enjoyed pulling the songs apart and would smirk every time I found a phrase or thing I understood. It made me happy that I could pick out these things. It made me feel better about myself and the fact that most of the time, I feel I'm losing my culture and roots. Maybe that's what this cultural melting pot does: strips people of their cultures and implements a conglomerate that doesn't quite represent the culture they had lost.

Oh, so my mother has always loved hearing stories of American born Chinese people that return to Taiwan/China and become huge stars and such. She's often suggested we go back to Taiwan and do something with our lives. I only love ABC stars because they will often sing in both Chinese and English and they actually make it work. This leads me to my other point: half Asian children are beautiful. They are. It's the mixture of the Asian darker coloring with a paler skin tone and a more "healthy-looking" facial structure and shape. Their eyes are just a little bit bigger, their faces a little more round, and they look really pretty. I used to envy my cousins because they were just a little bit lighter and just a little different. And since I am super sure I'm not going to end up procreating with an Asian guy, I guess I can envy my children for the rest of my life.

I planted a tulip bulb today. It is currently in the refrigerator and has to be there for about 12 weeks. Exciting, isn't it? Andrei was basically ecstatic to find out what I was doing and decided to pot and grow weeds from the backyard. Okay. It was a messy process and imagine my surprise to find that the pot I had originally intended didn't drain well and basically became a mush of old, dry potting soil and water. It was gross. I also baked the last of my cookies today. Maybe I should just start making cookie dough myself and freeze it.

-Well, that was tangent-y
Scarlet Bloodmoon

Floating In Dragon's Blood, Lull Me To Sleep

Girls are special. We all exist within our mothers as they are within their mothers. I don't know why I thought of that or why it is at all relevant, but once again, I'm forced to accept the fact that I came from sticky white stuff I make a habit of swallowing (no real pun intended) and a cell that causes so much pain for me on a monthly basis. Once again, I'm pondering my future as a mother, and once again, I'm not thinking about sex just for the sake of sex. I hate it when I get like this.

I'm past the point where I'm unsure about everything, but I'm not yet past the point where I know for sure how I want everything to work out. It seems I have been hurt way too many times to allow myself to fully believe in anything and there is still that little part of me that wonders what will happen if things don't work out. Will he change, or will I change my entire social group and lifestyle just to avoid some conflict? Or, will we both be so masochistic we stay together in the same social groups, work together on everything, and pretend everything is okay when really, we are both seething in wounds that still yearn to be nursed? Back and forth, this little part of me argues, but given the right distraction -- or maybe it's me turning away from it and giving something else more attention -- it stops. I no longer care because maybe I'm so done and busy I can't ponder other things or maybe it's because I'm wrapped so tightly in his arms that I need to remind myself to breathe.

It's weird. There are times where I forget that I'm in a relationship. It's not like I start looking for attention or that I start to wonder who I could get, but there is just this overall sense of tranquility and euphoria where I am so used to how things are that I equate where I am with most of my life previously where I was outside of a relationship and still equally happy. Or maybe it's because with conscious thought, I could never give enough credit and meaning and value to the relationship and so my subconscious takes it over. Or, maybe in those moments, if I listened hard enough or thought hard enough, I could actually seen something beyond conscious thought.

It kind of feels like I should start over with this blog. Do a newer introduction to myself, something less attention-whore and a little bit more personal. I started this thing with the intention of maybe an audience of three people I actually see day-to-day and whoever else that would stumble into the blog and stay around. I now have maybe five people I see on a day-to-day and I don't care who sticks around. Maybe it's time to be a little bit more open about my personality and stop trying to cover tracks.

-Good Night, Sweet Dreams, I Love You
Scarlet Bloodmoon