This is New...

OK, the title for this post is somewhat cheating. It's a Kurt Weill song, but with Ira's lyrics. But anyway.

I started work exactly a month ago on Wednesday. I'm working in a great law firm in Wellington, and in tax again. *sigh* I love tax. It's a reasonably small team, but the people are really lovely.

The good things about working:

- the money! It's so exciting to get a credit card and then use it, and then to only have to pay it off in 55 days' time. Net present value and all that. Very good. And to get a regular pay after working at the university intermittently feels good, although I'm only two pays into the job...

- the tax! Not paying it (another subject to not get me started on), but the whole set of laws and everything. I've been blessed to have been able to know what I want to do, and to have been given such a great opportunity to work with some of the leaders in the field. And I can't wait till the 2007 Income Tax Act gets printed and I get my copy, fresh from the printers (I'm currently using a copy I swiped from the Finance team). Ah, the smell of a new ITA. Gives me the tingles... And under this heading I have to

- an office! I have a little glass box that is all mine. Well, other than the fact that I have a stack of about 15 boxes in one corner of my 9' by 9', and I only have about a metre of shelf space because the other 3 shelves have been used as storage. Apparently it was a lot worse before I turned up, my buddy was very proud when she showed me the extent of the tidying. But I still walk in some days and a magic box has appeared on my desk, or a file is lying open... Maybe I will start a sculpture, and block other people from looking in while I check TradeMe. But it still beats open plan offices. No privacy when you spend half an hour organising and buying tickets on the phone...

The bad things about working:

The time... It takes time to get to work, it takes time to work, it takes time to get back home. I'm out from 7.30 to 6.30 on an ordinary day, much longer if it's slightly busier. A couple of times a week I have breakfast trainings to attend, so that means leaving the house around 7am. And I'm not a morning person...

Being in a professional industry, time is of the essence and a lot of things are done within a very strict and tight timeframe. Case in point: Last Wednesday I was given a job with another, the materials we were to work with weren't ready until Thursday, by which time I had been given a couple of other urgent jobs, so I didn't start the original job until Thursday evening. I was at work from 8am until 9.30pm on Thursday, and the same on Friday, to avoid coming in on the weekend (the other grad did come in to do a few hours), and we worked from 8.30am Monday till... 4am Tuesday. I got home around 4.15, and was in bed by 4.30am. I was awake by 8.45am, to tell my secretary that I wouldn't be in until 11am. Let's just say that various family members had a lot to say about this...

My own time has suddenly become more precious to me. I have picked up the nasty habit of constantly looking at my watch. Catching up with friends is no longer a matter of drifting down to the Law School cafe, but of careful planning and booking. Shopping must be done during lunch times, because by the time I leave work everything is closed or closing (in which case they give me evil glares). I get annoyed when people are late without reason. I waited 20 minutes for someone to turn up, and my lunch hour is only an hour (funny that). Needless to say, in the absence of a respectable reason like "I got an urgent phone call from my senior", lunches with such persons will not be so quickly reoccuring. "I mis-estimated the time it would take for me to come from my house which I have lived in for the past month at least" just doesn't cut it, especially when the person in question has a history of tardiness.

All this money, but no time to spend it...

That's really all the bad so far. I really do love what I do, and I realise that not everyone gets to do what they like, be good at it and to be paid for it. My buddy commented to me that the firm doesn't require much, just your soul. Cynical and caustic he may be (and he is), but he is spot on in this regard.

Music-wise, I haven't had much opportunity to practise since I finished my Dip exam, but I am currently trying to memorise "The Man I Love" and "I Got Rhythm", as well as "Unexpected Song" from ALW's Song and Dance. I've deviated a bit listening-wise to Andrew Lloyd Webber as Cats is coming to Wellington in May, and I have just bought my tickets this past week, and am trying to re-familiarise myself with his music. Though I must say that a lot of it sounds much the same. I still love his music though. Another topic for another day. And La Boheme is here in early May too!!! But I haven't found anyone who wants to go. And Wicked! opens in Melbourne in July!!! Ditto regarding finding company to go with, the family has volunteered if I pay for them.

Buy of the month: ALW's Variations for Cello for $10.95. It's played by his younger brother Julian (famous in his own right as one of the top cellists around). It's based on a famous theme by Paganini, made famous by Rachmaninov's piano variations. This CD is out of print, and the copy at the public library is scratched beyond all reason (it can't get past the first 3 minutes without skipping, I don't know why they don't just throw it away). It's not the bestest piece of music around, but it has its place in musical theatre history.

*Sigh* Have a Blessed Easter!!!

How Long Has This Been Going On?

I've been in "unemployment" since the 1st of November, and have done very little in the intervening 4 or so weeks, including publishing posts on this blog. What has happened...?

I've finished my law degree!!! My grades for my final two papers came out this week, and I have officially finished. And quite well too, my average grade was around an A this year, which beats any of my other years at university, including my first year, which I thought was pretty good at the time...

I'm graduating in just over a week! I've got relatives coming over to watch the parade and the ceremony, which is very exciting. And then when they leave in January, I'm going with them for a month or so to just really relax before I start work.

What else? Don't really know, it's all been a bit of a haze of swimming, then not swimming, swimming, then not... I decided I was going to start swimming again, after about 6 years of not stepping within 100m of a pool, and I nearly drowned because I had forgotten how to breathe lol. It took a while to regain that skill. Especially when I breathe with my nose under water instead of my mouth. Strange fish...

So at the moment it is just taking things one step at a time, deciding whether to sign up to Facebook, whether to sleep, whether to change banks (don't get me started on the banking industry), what to wear for graduation.

Decisions. What to do, what to do... and there's about 2 and a half months more of this.

The Way You Sip Your Tea

There's a joke that back in the day parishioners would dry out their used tea bags to send to missionaries overseas as part of their effort to support them. But reusing teabags is something no one seems to understand or do except me.

I was drinking a cup of tea the other day and thought that I might try reusing the tea bag, because my tea was very strong, and the bag looked like it still had some life in it. So I made another cup and it was a perfectly fine cup of tea. The third wasn't too great though, it tasted like milky water, which is, I suppose, what it is to a lot of people.

But the art in reusing a tea bag is in drying it out. I left a tea bag to dry instead of reusing it straightaway, and the second (and third) cup was as strong as the first. Unfortunately, the tea bag got thrown out by someone in the family because it ain't a good look to have a collection of labelled tea bags when people are about to be visiting you ("and this one is from last week, Earl Grey..."). So while I think it could have done a fourth cup, I have yet to been able to try it.

Another thing which is a big no-no is leaving the bag in when milk is added. The government departments in NZ advocate putting in the milk before adding the hot water, but when you do that, the tea bag gets milk in it. And you don't want to leave a milky tea bag around to dry because you'd be starting a science project if you do it. And when you put in milk before the hot water, it will automatically cool the hot water, meaning the tea will not be as hot and will take longer to infuse.

So take out the tea bag before putting in the milk. And when the tea bag does get really ick, you can just throw it into the compost bin (it's just leaves after all). My mum does this part, but she takes the bag out after milk, so technically it's not just vegetation that's going into the bin.

But digressing onto other matters, nothing much has happened in the last couple of weeks that is worth saying. I injured my knee again (it's an old sports injury), so have been sitting around studying because there's not much else to do during study week and you're immobile. In a way it's a blessing in disguise. But other than that, not much...

Oh, Gee! Oh, Joy!

Yesterday was a day of many lasts: last day at uni (ever), last 8.30 lecture (thankfully), last tutors' lunch (which I missed because of a meeting that ran overtime), last lecturer evaluation form, last terms test, last coffee with one of my best friends, last lunch in the Law School cafe... and then I remembered there was one more 'last' to come. I have an exam in a couple of weeks. But only a couple of weeks...

It's amazing how time flies. I'm graduating with one degree in December this year, with another next year, I'm starting full-time work early next year. It didn't seem that long ago I was just at high school... but it has been 5 years. And it's been a long time. And I leave the uni phase of my life with mixed feelings.

IT'S OVER!!! I can't believe I made it...

But enough reminiscing. It's going to be a great couple of weeks leading up to the exams, and it's going to be a great almost-4 months of holiday after that. I've only got the one exam, so I'm going to study slowly and relaxingly. My study buddy is really on to it despite being really busy, so I'm going to do some harder slog in the next week so that when we meet for study I have lots to contribute. After the exam, I'm going to do some work for the university for a week or so, and then it's pure holiday until my grandparents come for my graduation, and then the Christmas season will be upon us. In mid-January the grandparents are going back, and I'm going with them to see my god-cousin (son of my mother's god-sister, who is like an aunt to me), and enjoy the first week of Chinese New Year (if my calculations are right). Then back to Welly 2 days before I start work...

Joke of the week: Three girls stood in front of a mirror which would zap you and make you disappear if you said something to it which was untrue. The first girl, a brunette, went in front of the mirror and said, "I think I am the smartest person in the world", and immediately she was zapped and disappeared. The next girl, a redhead, went in front of the mirror and said, "I think I am the most beautiful girl in the world," and she too got zapped and disappeared. The last girl, a blonde (you knew it would be, ay?), went before the mirror and said, "I think...", and she disappeared.

I Can't Be Bothered Now

I am so glad it's over. I never have to play the piano ever again (unless I have failed one component, and I hope I haven't).

Everything went OK, can't say it was fantastic, nor was it abysmal. Bach was nice, Mozart first movement a bit too fast, but not as much as in the competition, second movement bored even me to tears, but it was in time (does that compensate for anything?), third movement was OK, a few too many mistakes than I would be happy with, Chopin was OK but for the mistakes, Gershwin was great as usual.

The Viva Voce was disarmingly simple, and I think I stressed myself out about it so much that I couldn't see the wood from the trees and said some totally stupid things before calming down and saying things in sentences. The sight-reading (it's called a Quick Study- yeah right) was fine... until it came to performing it. I played it through twice reasonably well in the 5 minutes preparation time, but when the real thing came, I screwed up the rhythm in the canon in a jazz style (who ever heard of that?), and everything sort of fell to bits after that. But hopefully I did well enough to warrant a pass.

It doesn't help to wake up the next morning with a headache from the celebratory drink or few (brother: "it's called a hangover"), and then realise that I actually did know how to play that jazz bass rhythm. In fact, I had played a whole piece with that rhythm throughout it. Makes you want to find a wall and knock your head against it, except that it would hurt. Oh, and then survive on Coke the whole day so that it will corrode my insides. Just joking- Coke is just about the only substance that can keep me going when I'm knackered. "Must be holy chips or something" (Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite- the ultimate cool person's movie). Actually it's probably the caffeine and the copious quantities of sugar. Hey, that's a nice bit of alliteration there. Tehe.

Oh well, at least it's over. And I can start studying again. And perhaps clear up the war zone that is my bedroom. You don't know how relieved I am. Where's a wall when you need one?!

Nice Work If You Can Get It

"Integrity is a lofty attitude assumed by someone who is unemployed" Oscar Levant (one of the foremost Gershwin interpretators, and his close friend)

A family friend recently told us that their child had recently gotten a job working for the tax department. The family friend was very happy that the child was now employed, with a job paying well in excess of the average income of a NZer ($24000pa), and would be getting a rise in 6 months if they were still there, especially since the child (actually the child is quite grown, older than me by a few years) had no qualification vaguely related to tax or any associated discipline (law/economics/accounting etc) and had no experience in tax whatsoever. However, the child was not very happy: the job was not one he enjoyed, nor trained in, nor one which he found fulfilling.

But what irks me is when people complain about how their life sucks when they don't count their blessings, or when they don't realise that often the source of the unhappiness is the person themselves. For me personally, I would love to one day work in the public sector: good salary, 9-5 work days, no free overtime, no time sheets... it sounds like a good job to have, perhaps after the slog of the private sector and when you want to slow down to do other things. That child should know that not everyone in NZ gets the opportunity to earn that sort of money. Also, people who study subjects at university that are not in great demand should realise that they either need to be very good or need to find some other job that is unrelated to their area of study. If you study English Lit you should figure it out that you can either teach or flip burgers at Macca's. I personally love English Lit, but there are only so many English Lit jobs out there, and unless you are the best, you're probably not going to get one of them.

People see their jobs as an extension of themselves. As I was saying to my parents the other day, it looks like people these days have an inverted Maslow mentality: the desire to have the necessities is no longer the foremost consideration for people, but the desire for self-actualisation, to find something that allows you to find yourself and to show everyone else how the real you looks like (even though you probably don't know what that is, and if you really did you probably wouldn't like it). Having enough money to pay for food and rent is now secondary to doing whatever your heart desires. That's all very nice, but knowing (or searching) yourself is not very useful when you're shivering in the street in sub-zero temperatures and it's raining and all you have are apple cores (I know people who eat apple cores, but that's another story). A job is a job is a job: something for you to do to earn money so that you can do stuff. And it's a good thing to do. Not everything you do in life will be fun or immediately fulfilling, but you do it because it is good and right. Like medicine.

As for me, I am truly blessed to have a job ready for me once I graduate, and the job is with some great people, the pay is decent (although not as much as this child's pay- yet), and it's what I want to do.

On a tangent note, I really like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I learnt it in a marketing paper I had to do at university ages ago, and it nicely sums up what marketers try to do. I find that almost everyone subscribes to the upside down pyramid. That is the curse of prosperity- having so much that you don't know what's important because you've never had to ask...

"Money is not everything. However, without money you have nothing" Chinese proverb

He Loves and She Loves

I had my piano competition/festival recital today and yesterday. I played my Bach Prelude and Fugue on Friday, and the rest of my programme on Saturday (today). I hate recitals and playing in public.

The Bach Prelude was horrible. I put in rubato (variations in speed), which I had never done before, but felt I had to do because everyone else did. This resulted in an uneven, and decidedly un -serene performance. The Fugue was orright, could have had better clarity between voices, but it was rather bland and void of expression to compensate for the rather bipolar excesses of the Prelude. All the other performers played with a great deal of pedal (which I vehemently disagree with when playing Bach- thankfully at least my brain didn't tell me to put it in) and rubato, some to the other extreme from me, making it sound like a bad Romantic piece. Which the adjudicator liked. It's probably quite clear what I think. Needless to say I didn't win...

The other performance went a bit better. The Mozart first movement was played too fast, but I carried it off (it sounds better that way anyway, although I got told off (deservedly, I must confess) by my teacher for not playing within my capabilities at the time resulting in some mistakes that weren't there before. Second movement was orright, third was super, albeit with mistakes. Chopin was beautiful, also albeit with mistakes. I love the theme in the Nocturne, but it always seemed to me the contrasting B section, with its conrapuntal textures and its almost unrestrained fury, seemed a bit too contrasting. But the adjudicator liked it. And the Gershwin, he loved, and I loved. It was beautiful.

So I didn't get 1st prize. But I still got a prize, which was nice. The most important thing I got out of it was knowing that I hated public performances, and that I would never do it again. The stage fright is terrible. My hands shake noticeably, I start biting my nails, I run to the toilet several times, even though I don't need to go. When I am up there, I forget where I am, and have to stop to find my place on the score (even though, since I am playing from the score and not from memory, I should know exactly where I am), I mistime my page turns. It's horrible. I have never been a great public speaker, and I am no better as a performer. The neurotic in me comes out and it doesn't bode well for me at all. After my piano teacher's end of year concert, I will not perform in any more competitions or concerts or anything public unless there is some good reason for doing so. I hate it. I get nightmares from it.

Ugh.