The title of this post may confuse you. What I'm trying to do here is play on the phrase, "Like father, like son" or "Like mother, like daughter".

On Saturday, I had two piano recitals to attend. My piano teacher has a lot of students, so she has two recitals. Most students only perform in one recital, except for a few exceptions. In the afternoon, I was number 18 in the lineup and played the song Nocturne in F Minor, Op 55 No 1. I left for home after my performance so I could relax a bit and eat dinner before returning for the second recital. When I arrived back at the church (we always have our recitals at a certain church, I suppose you can rent it for performances, seeing as it has a piano), I saw some people coming out of the church and standing in the parking lot.

I saw two girls, and I think they were probably sisters. They were both wearing a jacket sort of thing and dresses. Also, both of them seemed to like swinging their legs around. One girl swung one of her legs back and forth, while the other girl did some movements that looked like kicks. o_o;; I suppose sisters behave alike. I think my mom and aunt are similar in ways too.

Sometimes I wonder what my sibling(s) would be like if I had any. Would my sibling, like me, favor my father's genes, or my mother's? Would my sibling be a mix of my parents? Or would he/she look like neither? What kind of interests and personality would he/she have? Would we get along? Would we fight all the time? Would we barely talk to each other?

As an only child, I think of how things could have different if I hadn't been an only child. People who do have siblings oftentimes think that it must be nice to be an only child. You don't have to share your toys, or if you're a younger child, you won't have to deal with getting hand-me-downs (well, unless they're from other relatives or something). And your parents' attention is focused on you, you, you. You are, however, your parents' only posterity, and their expectations rest on you solely (though I hear sometimes oldest siblings still feel the burden of being expected to do great things, at least in the case of someone I know). I'm just fortunate that my parents are not as driven as some parents. One of my classmates said her father threatened to disown her if she didn't get an A in math.

But sometimes, even if you're an only child, you might still feel like you're being compared to someone. And in that case it's even harder than being compared to a sibling. If you're compared to your siblings, at least you know what you're up against, but if you're being compared to an imaginary, perfect child, or to all other successful people in general, it's a lot harder.

I used to feel like I was being forced to be someone, to be "smart" and earn a lot of money, but after a while I began to realize the pressure mostly didn't come from my parents. Some of the pressure came from seeing other students and their ambitions, but in fact, I believe I have created some of the stress upon myself, too. I often seem to have an angel and demon on my shoulders - the angel says that I must stop getting distracted, and focus very seriously on my work - while the demon says, "Oh, just a few more minutes won't hurt. You have to have some fun." And then I end up in anguish for having cheated myself by not listening to the angel and not achieving my potential. When I am upset over a test score, it's not exactly the grade that really bothers me, but the feeling of having failed, and not done as much as I could have and should have.

Well, back to the topic of being an only child...This may vary from person to person, depending on personality and a person's experiences, but I think only children are probably more likely to get lonely. I personally feel like I might be closer to or more reliant on my parents, as they are the only real family I have (I do have grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, but I don't see them much), and so I feel the absence of their presence more deeply. (Sometimes I even thought I wanted to die at the same time as my parents or before them so that I wouldn't need to feel the pain from their deaths.) I wonder if this is just one of life's many hurdles. After all, no one ever said life was easy (or did someone?).

Labels: absence, ambition, comparison, failure, family, life, like father like son, only child, perfection, piano, pressure, problem, recital, relatives, siblings, similar, sister, stress, theory

Well, I wasn't really under house arrest. But I thought it kind of made sense considering the kind of dream I had last night.

In the dream, I was not in my home. It was in someone else's home, though my dad's friend and his son were also there. However, my father seemed to be missing. Perhaps we had been staying at the house. I was told that I had to go stay in the prison. There were two signs in the house, both of which had an apple symbol on them for some reason, and the signs led to two different jail cells, I guess. I wailed, "Do I really have to go?" My mom said that yes, I had to, it was for the best. The people at the house recommended one of the jail cells. I wasn't sure how to get into it since it seemed like just a vent. Then I pulled up and realized underneath the floor was a big room! It was filled with guitars and CDs. There was a bed (and maybe a computer, but I can't remember). I hopped down, deciding being imprisoned wouldn't be so bad after all. But then I wondered how I would get up to go to the bathroom at night...

I had another dream before that, where I was going to go to my mom's friend's house. I thought we were in Yosemite. My dad and I were walking in a place with those barbed wire fences and plants. There was a big gap in the fence where you could see a splendid view. A tree stood on top of a very tall and thin hill, and there was a lot of space around it. And surrounding the big chasm was rocky mountainous walls. I was going to take a photo, but my dad pulled me away before we had the chance. Then we went to my mom's friend's house. I don't know why, but my mom's friend introduced herself to me. I just kind of shrugged and went to explore the house. In one room, there were some kids, like a girl maybe around my age and a younger boy and someone else, and they were playing a game. (I'm guessing a card game but my memory is failing.) I joined in, but they were cheating and playing by ridiculous rules. I got angry and through down my cards and stalked off. The kids just laughed. I wanted to go back to the place with the great view. (Apparently in my dream Yosemite National Park is not somewhere you have to drive to get to but it is actually partially in the town that my mom's friend lived in) I walked down the street. It was nighttime now and some signs were starting to get lit up. I think I saw a Circus Circus sign. I think I must've been in a gambling town or something. (But it was nothing like Reno or Las Vegas or Monte Carlo.) I can't remember much else.

The earliest dream of the three that I had recently was a dream about my JubJub. I have this plushie of a kind of pet that looks like a head with little feet on it. I thought it was cute when I got it (from McDonalds with my Happy Meal in...2nd grade?). It looks like this.

My mother said to me, "We are selling JubJub." I was very upset and started to cry. My mother wouldn't budge. Apparently she really needed the money. I woke up feeling just awful, but then I figured out it was a dream and was greatly relieved.

Today I participated in a piano recital. It was at a local church, which is rented by various music teachers for their recitals. As a kind of promotion, or maybe a bonus, there was a recital with all the teachers renting the place in the first half of the year showing off their best students. I didn't want to go, but I figured it might make my piano teacher upset if I refused, so I went. I think I messed up very obviously one time. And I was scared to death before; my legs were shaking, my hands were cold, and my heartbeat was amazingly high. (Sadly, even exercise can't make my heartbeat that high. Only public performing can. Oddly enough, one time when I had my heartbeat taken at the doctor's office, it was really slow. I think it was about 44 or 46 beats per minute. That's scary. Only athletes are supposed to have such slow heartrates. In fact, children 6-15 should have a heartbeat of 70-100. My dad insulted me by saying I wasn't active enough) Still, I feel like I was able to put my emotions into my music, and that's good enough for me.

I stayed a while to listen to other students. I also listened to the students that came before me. (My teacher's students perform towards the middle of the recital) There were quite a few violinists there. I suppose this is the "cream of the crop" as they all played with vibrato. However, the high notes sounded kind of nasty. (But I guess it might always be like that for violin. That's one of the reasons I picked cello. And I think my old orchestra teacher once said that people who use that high-pitched E string on their violins should be shot.) But they were talented students, I can say that much. There was one cello player. My mom says he didn't have a good attitude since he wore casual clothing, and when he was walking up the aisle he didn't lift the cello high enough so the part on the bottom of the cello hit the ground. But the song he played was good. It felt very sad and I was getting really emotional at first. The song sounded pretty cool, like it should be in a touching movie or something.

I actually really liked the part where a young boy and a woman (was it a relative of his? Was it his teacher? I forget) played together on the piano. It was a simple song, I think Liszt was the composer...Unfortunately, I don't remember the song name, and it wasn't on the program paper (each performer tells the audience their name and what they're performing). But they played in unison and that simple song sounded beautiful. I was inspired to play it. (But I don't have anyone at my house who could play a duet with me...Unless I were to teach my parents to play the piano...)

Labels: casino, church, dream, duet, family, friends, games, heart rate, house, instrument, jubjub, neopets, photography, piano, plushie, prison, recital, room, song, yosemite

Actually, that's a folk song or something, but oh well. I decided to use this because I've always heard of life being filled with "hills and valleys". The valleys are the hard parts and hills are the good parts (though that doesn't make much sense since it's hard to walk uphill, but whatever). So, since I'd just gotten around one of the bumps in the road, I thought this blog title might be suitable.

This bump in particularly would be the piano recital. It comes every year, and all the students must perform once if they can make it (if you don't show up, you'll be wasting your money since you need to pay a recital fee, and you'll be wasting your time practicing the song the teacher picked for you for all those months). If you're high level enough, the teacher will want you to perform in both recitals (there are two of them because the teacher has so many students!). Unfortunately ever since last year I have to perform twice. I didn't do so well on the first recital this year and even ended the song on an obviously wrong note. I was very much embarrassed so I just put on a grim poker face of sorts. The second recital was better since I got to read my book in the meantime (the higher level your song is, the later you play) and reading always calms my nerves, though it is rude to the people playing before me.

I'm watching an anime called Kaze no Stigma. It was good at first but now it's getting weird and kind of scary. Especially since the main character went insane and started attacking people and his eyes turned red. (This always creeps me out, since albinos have red eyes and white skin) I thought he was way better when he had blue eyes. Since I'm almost done with the anime, I guess I'll just bear with it to the end.

My history teacher told us about a Renaissance book called The Decameron. It is about a group of young adults who escape to the mountains with food and such to avoid the deadly plague which was taking over Europe at the time. Every night they tell ten stories and they take turns being a "leader". (But one guy tells a story about whatever he wants, since he asked especially, and my teacher says he's got some pretty crazy stories) Anyhow, my teacher says he'll raise our grades by 1% if we read it, and he'll talk to us to see if we're really reading it or not. I wonder if it's available in my local library. Still, it seems like a mighty feat to read more than 1000 pages.

I was very pleased today with what we did in PE. My PE teacher, let's just say he's Robin, decided we would do three different state fitness testings in one day - Pushups, curlups (situps), and trunk raise (lie down on the ground facedown, hands and feet not leaving ground. Then try to lift your head up as high as you can without using your arms or lifting your legs). I was horrible at trunk raise, and managed to do all of the curlups. It was pushups that was the high point of the day (weird because I like curlups better). I got 31 pushups, which is not much really, but at least it was better than most people. So I'm glad of that at least.

Labels: anime, books, bumps in the road, freaky, kaze no stigma, life, PE class, performance, piano, pushups, recital, renaissance, state testing, the decameron

That's my name for a male singer, but his real name is Michael Bublé. My dad thinks he's cool, though I find him kind of annoying, particularly because of the way the women scream like fangirls when he comes near them. I can't tell whether they like his singing (because he sings love songs a lot) or if they think he looks good. It's beyond me, either way.

I am now in the possession of two red cow/bull stuffed animals. One of them is supposed to be something that you stick to a car window and the other one is sort of like a beanie baby. I have no idea where the beanie came from, but I do know that the car decoration came from China, since this is now the year of the ox (on the Zodiac calendar). Right now, if someone came to my house, they would see the beanie on the computer speaker and the car decoration on the lamp. For some reason it actually sticks on the lamp. (By the way, the lamp is the kind that will light up depending on how many times you touch it with your hand. It's too bad yanking on the stuffed cow doesn't turn it on.)

I was woken up early this morning by the most annoying sound ever - the smoke alarm. It wasn't beeping like crazy like in a real fire but every minute it would let out one shrill beep. I can tell from experience that my mom must've turned on the heater again. She insists she turned it on because she thought I was cold, but I would've slept longer into the morning if she hadn't. I tried to get back to sleep, but the beeping doesn't go away for a long time, so I eventually gave up and read a book. Typical thing for me to do when I'm bored.

On the shelves above my television, there is a clock, a strange porcelain statue (probably the Buddha?), my Ancient Civ 3D model from last year (this being a clay figure of Hatshepsut), a plastic container with dinosaurs in it, a flower pot, and some trophies. I have not added anything new to my trophy collection for such a long time. Probably the only chance I'll get will be the upcoming piano recital, which is around the end of March. I'm always quite nervous due to my fear of performing in front of people but I guess I can't get out of it unless I somehow get in an accident. (And that would have much, much worse consequences.)

I probably need to get more pencil cases or another rack for my pens. I have so many of them by now, that if I disturb my desk (mostly for storage rather than use, hehe) the pile of them will topple and I'll have to spend five minutes meticulously reorganizing the pencils. The only salvation I could find was a wooden container which could serve as a pencil holder if necessary. My parents just insist it's because I'm such a hoarder and a packrat...That may be so.

Labels: cow, heater, lamp, michael buble, packrat, pencil, pens, piano, reading, recital, shelves, singing, smoke alarm, stuffed animal, trophy, year of the ox

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