...since I last blogged. In fact, it's been a long time since I've been back here. But I'm glad I returned. There's a certain somebody who knows why; a certain gorgeous sweet adorable funny crazy wonderful gal who has me daydreaming and giggling to myself while I should be working. As much as I need to work, my inner 10-year-old isn't having a bar of it. He needs time to be springy and silly. And whenever I get into fits of giggles over her, I feel the need to cuddle up with something soft so I can play pretend, just for a while.

Sweetie, you know who you are, and you should know that I think you're beautiful too. I do, honestly! And I hope that we get a chance to meet someday; you seem like someone I could be really close to, if everything felt right...

DAMN, was that the bell? Okay honey, talk to you after school, maybe? *kisses your cheek*

It's now mid-November, and there's not a lot in the way of work that's much better. Every time I think I do something right, after proof-reading the thing for the fifth time I find all sorts of niggly little errors that the postgraduate examiners would mark down harshly if they found. It's almost worth going back to doing exams for me; that way I wouldn't have this guillotine hanging over me, threatening to cut my academic dreams in two.

Speaking of dreams, I don't often remember mine, often to the point where I sometimes think I don't even have them for long stretches. But last night was different. First I dreamed my father was dying; he had left the house after we had had a big argument, and was about to drive the car away from the house, before he fell out of the driver's side door, hacking and choking and loudly coughing up blood. I have never really thought about what life would be like without my parents in the world to coddle me when I am at my weakest, and it shook me for a while.

But even more disturbing for me was the next dream I had some hours later. I was walking through the corridors of what appeared to be the Music Department I study in at university. As I was handing something in, the administrator turned to me and said, "You'd better get going to your performance exam, they must be expecting you by now." Not knowing what the hell he was talking about, but eager to figure out what was going on, I turned and left for the room where the recitals were happening. An Asian girl was just finishing her Schubert performance when I walked in, and the three lecturers told me to be quiet and wait for a moment. Sure enough, half a minute later, the girl finished her piece, and began happily discussing her performance with the judge on the right-hand end.

A moment later I heard, "Next is... Alex!" The female judge in the middle smiled and said, "Good to see you, you may start any time." My head started to swim as I tried to recall any knowledge of my participation in this paper. "There must be some mistake," I said, "I didn't enrol for this. And if I did, I must have withdrawn within the first week." The smile faded from the judge's face, and she said, "Now, Alex, we know your attendance has been... well... non-existant, but we're still prepared to hear your recital."

The judge at the left side of the table handed me a piece of paper, folded in half. I cast my eyes over it, and immediately groaned in disbelief and despair. On the paper was written a list of music, in my own handwriting, which I had hoped to learn and perform. Some of it was 12th-century troubadour songs, some was 19th-century piano music, and a couple of guitar pieces were added in for good measure. I recognised the list as being a set of "objectives" I had set myself in the first performance class of the semester, the only one I had attended. One of the judges said, "Come on, Alex, we only need an honest attempt." Through tears, I admitted to them: "But I don't know any of these", and wandered to the back of the room, crumpling up into a ball and sobbing pitifully. The last thing I remember of the dream was that the room was filled with the other performance students, who were enjoying a post-recital afternoon tea, casting scornful eyes over at me every so often as I wept in the corner, perhaps for ruining their 100% student pass record, or perhaps for just being a personal waste of space.

This is what I fear most: becoming a failure, who contributes nothing to society by my existence. It is what I have been led to believe repeatedly through my early years, and what I am determined to defy now.

They say that dreams such as these are intended to show you the opposite of what will actually happen. There is a Pacific legend that says that if you dream of a funeral, you will soon be at a wedding, and vice versa. Strangely enough, this is indeed the case for my first dream; I will be attending the wedding of my old friend Lindsay this Saturday. She will be marrying a guy named Jeremy, who seems a charming fellow, though I've only ever spoken to him once. But I can only hope that this stays true for my second dream, and that I am not doomed to failure as foretold by my tempestuous mind.

I was just thinking as I sat here with my sinuses all clogged up... If ever there was a proof against the existence of God, it's the flu. Like the one in my head right now. I mean, seriously, what's it for? All they really do is prevent people from being able to think in a straight line, and consequently to get things done. This results in an enormous drain on the economy, when one considers how many people are laid up in bed with a similar condition. So when God invented the flu, he obviously wasn't thinking about the economy.

Now, if we take this a step further, the fact that a person is laid up with the flu and therefore extremely unlikely to make that imminent deadline will often cause the aforementioned afflicted person to: A) attempt to work through the flu, slowly getting things done but overheating their brain in the process, B) lament and groan in the combined agony of having a flu and the knowledge that they will be severely reprimanded by The Man for not finishing their work on time, or C) both of the above. Any or all of these selections may result in temporary insanity in the afflicted person. Therefore, when God invented the flu, he was not only not thinking of the economy, but also not thinking of the mental well-being of his own creation, the one he apparently takes the greatest pride in.

Anyway, this is the situation I find myself in presently; I have a veritable mountain of musicology to climb and a big fat flu - bigger and fatter than a hippo on a diet of chocolate and cheesecake. I *have* to do this work, but my electric blanket is calling me rather seductively now. I'm trying to do neither by venting my frustration here on NN.

Ach, nicht mehr. Schlafen - schlafen... Ich muss.

I always said that this year would go really quickly, but I don't think I really believed it. Well, now we're more than two-thirds of the way through this year, and I think my mind is somewhere back in May.

I got through all that work I talked about last time with a B+ average. I expected worse, so I'm pretty happy. As long as I pass this semester's papers on the same average, I can go straight on to my Master's degree next year. We're doing things with a point to them this time around, so I think I'll be slightly more motivated than I was last semester.

I've been reading through Alpina's blog and realising how bland my life is right now. For those of you who don't know, Alpina is an amazing, incredible woman, who feels and senses things far beyond what most of us are capable of, and her adventures have had me spellbound ever since she began posting. Even her writing is a delight for the senses, so in person she must surely be capable of blowing a man's mind. I hope I have the chance to meet her one day, even if it's only in a dream.

Sure, I have a future ahead of me and a whole lot of things to do and music to write. But why do I already feel past my prime? Maria Sharapova won the US Open last weekend; she's 19. An acquaintance of mine, John Chen, won the Sydney International Piano Competition (and various others) when he was 18. And there are dozens of kids no older than 20 who make it to the Olympics, some of whom have gone on to win medals. At 23 years old, I feel like I've slacked away most of the good years of my life.

Most of all, I feel like I'm due for something *really* good to happen to me. You know, like winning Lotto or signing a record deal. Actually, the guys want to reform the band with a new drummer this weekend, so we'll see what becomes of that. But for now, I'm stuck in the mire of musicology, hoping that someone will someday pay enough attention to my work for me to go on and lead a simple, comfortable, pointless life.

It's now closing on 3:30am as I write this, so I'll quit moaning and get some sleep. There's always too much work to do, but I've never failed a paper yet, and I'll be damned if I fail a paper now.

Alex
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I was afraid at one point that I would get none of this work done whatsoever, and even e-mailed my lecturer when I was feeling particularly broken to pieces, saying that I couldn't do the work and that consequently I would fail the entire year. But I've stuck it out and finished the Schenkerian musical analysis of a Schumann lieder (who cares?), which I really thought was going to trip me up. I'm now close to finishing my orchestral piece, which is the other huge obstacle to overcome, and I also have two smaller assignments and one *enormous* one still to cover. It's going to be a battle, but I'll get through it somehow.

Wish me luck.

...to click on this link and laugh your ass off.

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/scampi/

I won't give the song away, but you'll have it stuck in your head ALL day. It's on a loop, btw, so just close the window when it starts to get irritating.

For those of you who actually care about how I am, I've been working and working and working and working and working, with no real end in sight... I'll be on more often when I don't have quite as much going on. Pwomise.

Alex
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Please.

After class yesterday, I headed around to my mate's place to prepare for a swingers' party. I was in good spirits, and I couldn't wait, since I hoped to relieve myself of a lot of pent-up stress. My mate was trying on these stupid outfits and G-strings, asking me which would pull the most girls. In the end, he donned a bowtie and an apron (and nothing else) to serve as the "bartender-bitch" for the night. He cracks me up.

Then, at about quarter to 6, I got a call from Dad. He tells me that my uncle Tim passed away while on a business trip to America. My extended family on my father's side is based in Canada, and I hadn't heard from uncle Tim since Christmas, but nevertheless, the news hit me like a truck. My stress levels shot through the roof, and I don't think I really got the better of it for the rest of the night.

I decided (foolishly) that it would be best for me to go to the swingers' party anyway, since it might still be excellent stress relief, and I would at least be able to take my mind off things while enoying the sexual company of others. *Bad* plan. I don't think I anticipated exactly how hard the news had hit me, and though the eyecandy of several girls each ravaging three guys at once did indeed take my mind off things, my own performance at the party was lacklustre at best, completely useless at worst.

Now that I'm home, I've talked to everyone here to decide what we should do next. Dad says he's on a plane tomorrow evening to attend the funeral. Apparently no-one knows how uncle Tim died yet, so I can only hope that it was quick and relatively painless for him. What really makes it worse for me is the fact that uncle Tim was my dad's *younger* brother. How bloody wrong is that? I swear to god that I will never understand how the world works, and that by the time I actually do start to get it, the world will have screwed me over too many times, and I'll end up a bitter, miserable wreck. Hell, I'm off to a great start with that already.

I think I'm gonna fucking cry.

I'm so tired. The university year has started and already we've been dropped into lots of assignment work. That, and people are expecting me to run umpteen clubs on campus, not to mention being student rep for a number of other classes. I'm sleeping past noon most days (when I can afford to) and staying up late trying to get all my work done. *sigh...*

My common sense tells me that I'll eventually get used to running around after people like a headless chook, but the rest of my body obviously doesn't have that kind of rationale. Grrrrr...

I just arranged me a cover of Summer of '69 for all the flatmates who've been begging our band to crank it out at a party. It's faster and generally a lot more fun than the original, so I'll see what the lads think of it. This is going to rock potatoes.

The Rawdevns are coming, the Rawdevns are coming... Batten down the hatches and lock up your daughters! You have been warned. RAH!

If you scroll down to an entry marked October 14th of last year, you will note that I had just come out of my composition concert with nothing to show for it, and at the time was waiting on the recording of my piece to come back, so that I could justify all my moaning about how I didn't win anything. Well, the CD has since found its way back to my hot little hands, and *everyone* who has heard it, by their own admission, has been anywhere between "very impressed" and "moved to tears with emotion". I couldn't have dreamed of a better response.

So, I've decided to go public with my work, and see if there's any kind of market for the music I write. If you'd like a copy of my string orchestra piece, or my electronic works, or both, send me a PM with your name and address, and I'll be happy to mail it out to you. And if you're a very lucky munchkin, I might be able to put my piano pieces from three years ago on there as well. At some stage I'll put a lo-fi copy of my piece up online somewhere for people to listen to, but if you'd like a surprise (LOL), then just let me know, and I'll send it out as soon as it's ready. International mail isn't a problem for me; as a composer, it's more important that I get my name out there. So yeah, I'd love to hear from you guys.

*sigh* It's 1:10am here. I feel like I should be doing something inventive with my time, but the only thing I could think of was doing work, and that can *always* be saved till tomorrow. See y'all later, I guesses.

*mwah*
Alex
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