Silent Staccato

I remember walking to my high school listening to this album, especially the song “The One” in my clunky discman which chewed though 6 AA batteries! Upon returning home, the plastic album cover was cracked and I was so disappointed.

I always wondered why she chose to have an album cover with such wispy hair. But I loved the fact that the album insert paper was shimmery and her pictures were very pretty.

Haha…so this email came through…but who asked her anyway?

I am well, even better now that I can get a Baboon. My grandson will be so happy. Thank you so very much I really appreciate it and again Thank you.

Thanks, Server-that-is-located-in-the-UK. One thing I find extremely stupid is that sometimes my partner sends me an email from his office which is 23km away from me, yet I do not receive it until several hours later because of this elusive server. Sometimes I don’t even receive the email at all. For example, his email was sent to me at 10:45am but wasn’t received by me until 1:59pm. See, the email must travel all the way to the UK, after which it is rolled around, swallowed, regurgitated and spat back at me in Sydney. Sometimes it is swallowed whole and remains in the belly of the beast.

So this email we received is pretty stupid:

Good Afternoon
I would like to express how disappointed I was with the MAY 2012 edition of your magazine.

I am a single Mum trying to improve my looks to get better employment, when I saw the magazine had an article on Love your Hair I could not afford the magazine but thought it would be a good investment.

Oh dear, 3.5 pages on just ads of products.
It did not teach me anything nor encourage me how to improve my hair

Is there anyway I can get a refund on this magazine please
Please advise

So let me get this straight…you READ the magazine AFTER purchasing it and only THEN do you discover that you DON’T want it so you want your money BACK? Why not FLIP THROUGH IT BEFORE you buy it?! Don’t people normally do that?

Is this what we’ve become? Using portable devices to connect to the outside world amid our own silence?

LOL! I love how customers are so dumb. Must rant on Facebook IMMEDIATELY!

Why is this so hard? I expect you clik a button to

unsubscribe and at the same time stop automatic payments should also stop.

Do other people have the same problem when they unsubscribe? Time for a

message on my Facebook page this has taken too long.

If you have a problem, face it, don’t Facebook it.

I honestly don’t know what this young person is going on about in their recent email to us:

I recently brought the GF One Direction magazine.
I have found a mistake in page 8 information on Liam Payne in the randomness column fact one It says “Liam was born three works early with a lot of health problems, spending the first four years of his life in and out of hospital.”
As it is meant to be three weeks early.
I think you have made a mistake, just letting you know :)

Sandercock-Brown

I don’t understand why you would hyphenate that, though? At least separate them?

Okay I am seriously going to start posting all the funny customer emails I receive henceforth. I shall start with this funny Engrish spam:

Greetings from Zigong Dinosaurs World Science & Technology Co.,Ltd.

We are engaging in exporting Museum equipment like : | Make sound and movements Dinosaurs |  Wild Animals  |  Playground slide | Children entertaiment items | Pirate statues | etc…..
We are working with European amusement park ,Science Museum , themed restaurants and exhibitions

The specialising of our products is they can have the movements like eyes blink , tails left to right and even stomach breathing , if you like , I will send you some pics in our next email for you reference.

LMAO!!! stomach breathing! movements like eyes blink! muhahahahaha!

Today my best friend from the Philippines found out that her visa application to visit Australia for six months was declined. It sucks because I really want her to attend my wedding in June. So now she is utterly upset, as am I. What am I to do? Comforting her from afar is kind of hard.

Planning the wedding for our guests here is harder than we thought. Since we already had a ceremony in Nepal, having two weddings is really hitting us hard. Finally got the reception place booked in Sydney, but where to have the ceremony? Photographers, hiring chairs, an arch…oh gosh…ouch!

I sent a text to my friend Annie to ask her to be my maid of honour. She said yes. We’re so excited. I don’t know if it’s possible to ask a man to be a maid of honour which is why I didn’t ask my best friend. He was part of my ceremony in Nepal anyway. Still…

I told him that I loved him. He laughed and smiled brightly at me. We continued watching tv.

I told him that I had missed him all week. He laughed again and said that I was only being sweet because I was sick with a head cold. We continued watching TV.

He looked at me quizzically and asked me if I was certain that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. Without hesitation, I stated of course.

“Okay, here you go”, he said ammusingly and produced a red velvet ring box. He opened it to reveal a beautiful diamond engagement ring.

I was shocked. was I was still in a sickly stupor from my head cold?

I faltered. I thought that it wasn’t really happening. I mumbled “Wait no…”

“No? What?!” he exclaimed.

“Nooo, I didn’t mean no! I meant…”

“Just put it on before I put it away”, he said, his pride almost hurt. I happily acquiesced.

“You look like you have mixed emotions”, he said, with a look that clearly mirrored the same.

“I do”, I responded, with teary eyes.

The headset holder is slightly curious.

The alarm clock is a tad excited.

It’s been a while and I forgot to say how the performance went.

We had to move the grand piano around a few times (in front of the audience) because the light was casting a shadow over the keys and it was making me feel very disconcerted. All the while I was so focused on how stupid it must have looked to the audience that I didn’t really hear the course convener ask me if the position of the piano was good enough.

I left the stage to calm myself down before commencing. There was a rehearsal room which had old black and white photos of previous performances, huge mirrors lit up in lights…very old school. But I was so distracted that I couldn’t take them in properly. I went back out onto the stage and settled into the applauding audience.

The keys were too bright…almost blinding. The light was very hot, but I was cold. My hands felt incapable, so I sat until I could muster up a little bit of confidence.

All of it seemed like a blur. The entire six pieces felt like five minutes when it was actually thirty. I questioned myself if I had possibly played everything too fast.

After performing four pieces and commencing the fifth piece, I suddenly thought (whilst my fingers were so focused on moving about on the keys) that I was already halfway through the fifth piece and I only had one more to go until it was all over. I then started to think about how I would play the sixth piece. I slipped up - barely noticeable to the audience - but that’s when the adrenalin started pumping a little bit more.

I dusted the keys with my hands between every piece because I could see large pieces of black dust all over the keys and it was so distracting. How silly I must have looked, dusting the keys so pedantically.

The sixth piece: Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-sharp minor, a favourite of mine and definitely my favourite of the evening’s repertoire. The first three notes apparently shocked the audience (I was told afterwards) because of the strength and loudness with which they were played. But that’s just Rach. It’s all about the bells! I managed to get through the piece without any noticeable mistakes. All in all, the evening went pretty well apparently.

When I had finished, I received the applause and went off stage into the audience. I felt like crying uncontrollably and had to fight back the tears. I felt miserable. I hated the performance. It felt so artificial. So plastic. It didn’t feel right. For me, playing piano shouldn’t feel that way.

It’s been a few weeks since the performance and I haven’t touched my piano - except to dust it. I feel awful. Yet, I feel that it is justified for now since I played the same six pieces endlessly for six months…and all for what? I don’t know what marks I received!

I won’t give up. I’m in the middle of writing a play at the moment so I will find my way back to the piano in a few weeks. I will play it for pleasure and never again do I ever want to perform on a stage as the centre of attention. It’s too plastic up there.

I have a 30 minute recital tomorrow and I am performing six pieces on a piano in our concert hall.

I don’t know how to feel as a performer sometimes, or even as a musician.

I feel like I am inconveniencing the audience and taking up their valuable time; that my music is an intrusion on their life; that I might make a mistake and ultimately be judged for it; that my hands will be too cold, sweaty and shaky, and that I will never be able to perform the classical pieces with the fervour with which they ought to be played. That I am not good enough despite people’s professions to the contrary. That I am a phoney.

I am taking the day off work tomorrow so that I will be in the right frame of mind for my performance at 7pm. For me, no amount of practice can prepare me for the change in variables that can impact my performance: different piano, different sound, different keys, different pedals, different environment, different temperature, different audience, different feelings, different mental state, different emotional state. All of this gives me performance anxiety. I want to enjoy my performance and to really let go, but I am afraid of exposing who I really am.

I’d rather hide behind my hair.