High school regrets

I think one of my biggest regrets (and one of the hardest lessons I've learned) thus far in my life is my experience playing the violin throughout grade school. I was reminded of this just now from witnessing my exasperated mom trying to push my sister into signing up for a sports camp that she adamantly did not want to attend. It was a conversation I knew all too well...

"But Mom, I'm not even good at it! Everyone else is better."
"Yeah, they're better because they go to events like this and practice."
"But I don't enjoy it."
"You don't enjoy it because you're afraid of losing. But once you get better, you'll start to like it."

...and so on. You get the point.

I am not blaming my mom for pushing me all these years to play the violin. Her support, her time, and her discipline were constant reminders for me to live up to a goal, which I think is important to instill in kids at a young age. And there were some good experiences. Some great ones, even. My favorite memories of playing the violin were my times playing in our high school pit orchestra. There, I was actually excited about the music, enlivened around my fellow musicians, and at the end of the day, proud of my involvement within the orchestra and the production as a whole.

But at the same time, I don't think any amount of practice or rehearsal could have made me into a good violin player. And that's because deep down, I honestly never really enjoyed playing it as an instrument the way I was taught. I never cultivated a taste for classical music, I didn't even particularly like the way the violin sounded, and many times, I downright despised the cutthroat, meritocratic structure of youth orchestras. All those years, I never developed the passion or self-motivation I needed to really engage myself with the violin. And all those years, I was too scared and lazy and "okay" with my lukewarm hobby to really do anything about it. So all those years, I would continue along, telling myself that being 2nd violin wasn't a big deal ("all those 1sts were overeager losers anyway"), letting my parents shuttle me to and fro all sorts of orchestras and practices, watching as thousands of dollars went into an effort that I knew at the bottom of my heart would ultimately be fruitless.

I think that if I had been a little more honest with myself and with my parents, I could have salvaged some of all that effort and time into something a little more meaningful. Perhaps I could have realized my disconnect with classical music and taken up a less orthodox style of playing. Or I could have done something completely different and joined the Mock Trial team in high school. Or maybe I would have learned an instrument I genuinely enjoyed listening to and playing. I've recently started to fiddle around (no pun intended...) on an acoustic guitar, and even though I am quite terrible and can only play three songs, I still like and look forward to practicing the guitar because it's more relevant to my interests and taste in music. It's a sort of enthusiasm that I never, ever really established with my violin.

I guess the lesson to take away here, as obvious as it might seem, is that a successful hobby needs to be meaningful to its purveyor. There is really no point otherwise.

Another new obsession: Shaytards

Most of my close friends know that I am a huge YouTube junkie. It all started with my rather sudden and inexplicable interest in makeup videos. I could literally watch them for hours on end. This led to an unfortunate phase in my life in which I spent most of my waking hours online shopping for makeup, hair, and nails products. I now possess a ridiculous stash of cosmetics, some of which I put to good use, most others not so much.

My foray into YouTube eventually led me into finding some really interesting content. One of my favorite channels is "Shaytards", which is basically a vlog series filmed, edited, and uploaded by a regular ol' guy named Shay Carl. Most of Shay's videos revolve around his precious family - Mommytard, Princesstard, Sontard, Babytard, and Fetustard - but he also often has other famous or popular YouTubers in there too. The crazy thing is, he's been doing it for over a year, and his videos have developed somewhat of a cult following, as they should. I mean, over 365 days of consecutive daily vlogs - how amazing is that? It got me thinking, if he can be original and brave and funny enough to upload a 10-minute video every day, then I sure as heck can think of something to blog about once or twice a week, right? Which means I need to stop starting and discarding entries at the rate that I've been doing so far (about 3X a day).

Anyway, here is a typical Shaytards video. Just like any character-driven TV show, the series definitely takes a while to get into, but trust me, you'll get hooked by Shay's infectious happiness and general awesome persona. The Shaytards family is always so positive and adorable that I've started to look forward to that pocket of time every day that I get to share with them. And then every night before I go to bed I pray that Shay will adopt me into his awesome family and that I will from henceforth be known as Rosetard.

Can't stop this feeling

Waking up on Thursday morning was so strange. First, because it wasn't to my phone's obnoxious death alarm. Man, I wish I could somehow post what my alarm sounds like on here. For now, just imagine the jingle the Grim Reaper would play when he came for you - a deceptively happy flurry of evil death bells all chiming in seizure-inducing pandemonium. Ya, that's what I wake up to every morning.

Grim Reaper or janitorial Nazgul? Who knows...

But I digress. Thursday morning was special because for the first time I could remember, my first thought of "Oh God, today's the day I have to ___" was followed by...nothing. Sweet, blissful, nothing, nada, zilch. My exams were over with (for better or for worse). The competitive Mock Trial season had ended. I had a few job interviews lined up in the coming week. The world was at peace, just like Thundercat, who was curled at my feet, her little gray ear twitching as she probably dreamt about whose bed to pee on next.

I'm gonna piss on you...drip drip drip

You'd think I would've just closed my eyes and gone back to sleep at this point, but my body was still in winter quarter mode. So I got up and made three pounds' worth of hash browns and stuffed my face as I tried to ease my mind with the help of an episode of Keeping up with the Kartrashians. But even after all that, I was still nervous and jittery! I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was forgetting something big and important that was going to creep up behind me and kick my ass.

Not even Khloe can assuage my fears!

It's been 36 hours, and I'm still not fully relaxed. I can't really accept the fact that this quarter is over and that I'm home, in bed with another cat (...), thousands of miles away from Chicago. I don't know what's wrong with meeee I think I have postquartertum depression or something.