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[Duckie]

23 hours ago, 314_175 said:

Hi again!

Doing well, having some longer sleep was great. When it comes to a reward for my practising... being honest, it will be my teacher's happiness for what I have done through summer break. She's from late 50s, but I really admire her knowledge, experience and dedication to teaching someone she sees is passionate about music. She didn't have easy life, she lost her husband and son and now her brother has health problems. All of them deal with cancer. Chemotherapy didn't much help her brother and his condition now is really bad. All she has now is her brother and cats. So her happiness will be more than enough for me when it comes to rewarding myself for practising. And of course I remember to rest, during that time I can also think about my interpretation of works I'm working on, if there's something that would sound better or something that sounds wrong and requires some changes.

I rather go hiking with my parents, because with friends it's hard to find right date that would fit everyone since they had their summer break planned a while ago. Also we need to get some tickets for trains to get anywhere, because we live in a bigger city and we don't have any hiking trails near and due to this, we all would have to wake up early to not begin hiking in full sun and go back when it's nearly midnight.

Looking at my future plans I know I'll have to take some risk, have my ups and downs, but I hope it all will turn out well. I found some books about this stuff and people that already do this, so I can enhance my knowledge to do the best I can at the beginning. My parents always tell me how well they know how life works. For my father one business didn't work out so obviously I also will fail. Unfortunately, my parents began their higher education some years before the fall of PPR in 1989 and it fell just when they finished their education and it turned out that now it was nearly completely useless. They had some problems finding their job and now they are really being used by they employers in my opinion. Their friends went to different companies and doing the same job they earn nearly 40% more while not having such experience as my parents. Now they are scared they won't stay long if they change employers etc. I don't quite get it, but maybe I'm to young to get it. They also have some bad experience with previous employers. And I constantly hear that I should study, get a degree and find some super stable job, but when I mention business stuff they just roll their eyes and tell me how bad it all looks like... I could get on well with my dad, but you know... Poland is really strongly divided when it comes to politics. I don't support neither side, both have their flaws. I can get on well with him, but he can come up randomly with the topic of LGBT, well mainly LGB part, and I just can't stand what he's saying. Of course being gay is something new and all gays are p-philes in his view. He tells me to study, but when I tell something that science says about homosexuality and show him some data about all this stuff, he usually says that people are only trying to find an excuse for this. Did he also never hear about Sacred Band of Thebes? There were already gay people mentioned over 300 years before Jesus was born, so how is this new? You might know how gay situations looks like in Poland, it's definitely not easy since church has a lot to say in ruling the country. I just can't stand what he's saying about these people even though I try to tell him it isn't how the TV is showing it. Nothing works... Anyway, about the power outage you mentioned, I remember one story my harpsichord teacher said in my former music school. She was nice, I'm going to miss her, but I still will visit her. She told me that she was playing Bach's 5th Brandenburg Concerto with an orchestra (she as harpsichordist) in some castle in Germany and in 3/4 of the last movement the lights went off, but they managed to play together and finish the piece. The audience was astonished and the performers received standing ovations. Pretty cool story if you ask me :)

Hi there,

I find it really admirable that you want to make your teacher happy. It sounds like she is going through a tough time and it really will make her day to know that she is motivating people and inspiring people like yourself to take your piano playing to the next level. That's really compassionate and mindful of you.

I think it would be a lovely idea to do a big hiking trip with your family. Are they outdoorsy and keen to do these sorts of things with you? Do you think you'll be able to go out for a big hike before school starts back up again?

The future is always risky in the sense that we never know what's going to happen. And believe it or not, that's actually part of the fun. We learn so much when things don't go our way, or even when we find ourselves doing something we don't enjoy doing. It's a learning on its own. Our parents may pick "safer" routes, but still things like covid happened and everyone were suddenly in the same uncertain position some had been trying extra hard to avoid. I think having children of your own changes things. By the end of the day I think your parents wouldn't do anything that would potentially mean risking a certain income to provide for your family. Even though you aren't a little child anymore, your parents will still have that sense of worrying about you and making a choice that will reflect badly on account of keeping you safe. Does that make sense? I always wondered why my own dad worked at the same company that wore him down decade after decade. But the truth is he was comfortable being uncomfortable there. He had a good income and he wanted to make sure he didn't make any rash decisions that put me and my brother in a bad position financially. Because chaning jobs, or even just putting yourself out there and admitting you aren't happy where you are could feel stressful and some poeple prefer to just ignore that and continue on. When we feel stressed our brain doesn't actually know the difference between a real threat (like a bear chasing you down the street) and a perceived threat ("omg, everything is going wrong!!") and will still have the same harmful effect on your body and mind. And sometimes the safer option is to avoid this kind of challenge. Same goes for changing your mind about things. Even if you present new well-researched information it is a safer alternative to have already made up your mind and not let that be challenged, because it might be stressful to change your ways. What do you think?

How do you cope when your father says homophobic things? It must be hard to hear, especially knowing it doesn't really matter what you say back.

Omg yes I agree. It's incredible how these massive orchestras can just work through power cuts and just continue playing. It shows how tuned into each other they are (pardon the pun).