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| wow did a month just fly by like that?
this sat will be my last lesson with the music school and i cant wait for it to be over. while i think i will miss the environment due to my two years spent there i surely wont miss the management or the students ha. well its not so bad considering also that the students i like to teach are going to be my private students.
which makes for a big problem. i end up with too many students on top of the new private students that the school is giving me. a bit worried as i have time to teach due to the school holidays and at least the students can make it early afternoon. what i;m not looking forward to is when school starts and the parents start requesting to change timings. i will have no other free time! hmm ok lah take it one day at a time.
after almost two odd months in the new school i'm beginning to enjoy the flexibility that the manager is giving me. i think she knows that she has to somehow try to keep me happy. ok not being ego or anything but at least she understands how this whole keep your teachers happy thing works. i.m quite "gum" with the management so i think it shouldnt be too long for me to get more aquainted with the teachers although in the first place i've never had that rapport with the teachers in the former school anyway.
it feels good though to just travel to one place and just teach... although it is starting to feel a little bit too tight for me due to the back to back classes its a fixed income thing. some of the working students are starting to try and postpone lessons in favour of their work sigh looks like its the same everywhere. the good news is that the school doesnt accept such excuses and they are quite strict in dealing with the cases, talk about looking after the teachers welfare... i try to be nice but not too nice cant afford to chalk up 30 make up classes again. looks like i have to spend the week break making up though but what the heck.
oh yeah and i am going overseas finally! going to thailand with my cousin 7dec to possibly the 16th. we're going to chiang mai to visit the countryside and i'm looking forward to it as i miss that part of thailand. maybe its time to get in touch with this girl in thailand..... well i think i'm definitely going to bring a camera and snap away. who knows i might be bitten by the travel bug and do more.
more and more weddings... 5 in fact this month. woah thats a lot plus the fact that i have to change keys, learn new songs... fun but can be tiring when coupled with trying to cope with my burgeoning schedule. but i reckon that i have to accept the assignments if i want to get called for more...its just a matter of not screwing up....
being very busy is a good thing, i have had less time to mope about not going out enough or seeing enough or experiencing enough... just too tired to do any of that! i do hope i dont become the kind of friend that waits to be called out though i must try to find some time to meet up with my friends... ok time to plan...
in some ways i'm sad at how some friendships turn out or how i've come to perceive my relationship with friends. maybe its just me being tired and cranky, maybe its this yearning to be close to people or to even find someone but well i know what i have to do, and right now its not the right time to think about it but to just build up this path that i'm currently undertaking
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| i have seriously been stretching myself thin over the past few weeks. i cant wait for Nov be come simply because i would have stopped teaching at the school so that solves one headache and its just good knowing that its finally going to be over.
i received an sms yesterday from the manager asking if i could take one of the students as a private student since the parent requested for it. i couldnt help but grin to myself from then onwards.. wow the power i have! i guess the manager did not have any choice since hes been informing the parties so late... imagine school is going to close end of Oct but no one knew till the end of the first week. if i was the parent i would have been very angry. i guess with that kind of option it means less time for me? i'm still deciding whether i should consider private lessons because well:
1)the student stays in Sentosa
2)i'm up to my neck in students.
yeah i know the first reason is like... dont know how to describe it. is it worth it travelling down all the way? no doubt i should be asking for me cash but you know whether its worth the time is another thing, a luxury that i need so badly now. i figured that its going to be worth it still though because i have another student at delta road that is requesting to change it to a weekend soon so i guess going there for two students or maybe three later on will be ok? just cab then. problem is that i think most likely sundays will have to be it. which just means that i will not have anymore free time for myself. i really need to think this through.
the new school is really pushing it sometimes, already this week alone they wanted to assign me four students to teach but looking at my schedule i think its going to be impossible for me to find anymore time. they even asked me to come on a weekday morning which i refused to cos i really need the mornings for my practicing. already i'm hard pressed for time to just find time to breathe. i shall just stand firm by my decision. but you know already i can tell that they are getting impatient with waiting for me to be done with the school and worse still, it looks like i might have that much free time even in Nov if i'm trying to accomodate the new privates. oh well... see how i guess i think it might turn ugly but i have to remind them that i'm just a part time teacher and i have no obligation to accept students.
been asked to play at four weddings this two months.. well technically three, one is going to be some wedding exhibition thingie but i think its still good pay. at least some action! and hopefully something else comes out of this anyway.
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| its at times like these that well that gives me the inspiration to write. and today i feel like writing how i feel, so far i think i have been quite on the surface with my entries. but today i just want to write and write.
but i write mostly because to be honest despite having friends i feel utterly alone. i feel that i have no one to talk to, to confide with and to make me feel like i can face the next day. (which by the way is going to be a over 12 hour long shift and i have no intention of sleeping till 2 today.)
i've reached the point where i can go for lunch and dinner without feeling weird that i will be ordering and sitting by myself. i count myself lucky that i have not had the experiecence of fighting with the lunch/dinner crowd and try and balance my food tray and my laptop bag and guitar slung over my left shoulder. i'm so glad i bought my ipod which lets me watch videos as i eat so that i dont end up staring at someone else unintentionally or have to look as if i'm totally fine with eating alone. sometimes i enjoy the solitude and sometimes i really hate it. i think i subconciously skip lunch or dinner sometimes because of this.
these past few weeks or maybe jsut the last two have been trying for me. i decided to type the letter and hand it to my school principal who actually wasnt surprised at my actions. in fact he was expecting it owing to the fact that i have been cutting down on my availabilty and him mentioning to me that the orchard branch is closing down was the one that really rushed my decision. however he asked me to stay till end of oct as it would not be very easy on him if i left mid month. i agreed since i was thinking that it would be good for me to part amicably. however that wasnt the arrangement with the new school cos i told them i would be able to commit mid oct. so when i told the new school of the change they werent too happy, apparently they had arranged for a group class already mid oct but now they have to push it back at the risk of losing the class. this made me a bit pissed off because firstly i have only met them the week before and they are really ramming the students down my throat, i will be getting 3 or 4 calls a day about new students and i cant just commit straight away. whilst i dont wish to make them give up on me i could have used with less persistence. of course it didnt help that they had planned the group class a month before which was way before they even asked me down for an interview. but i think its getting better now, they didnt push the group class issue and my new students are apparently happy with me so thats got to be a good thing impression wise on the school.
another thing that was occupying my mind was this wedding that a couple engaged me to get a group to perform at. the bride was...well very specific... she wants her own songlist which ok we can try to accomodate, then suddenly she springs on me her request for wireless mics which i cant provide due to the budget. yes a small budget that i offered them because the other professional bands were too expensive. so they wanted us to give them what these other bands would do at that price. that irked me much because if you wanted your wedding to be so perfect, why hire us? although after a practice with Xue Yi i;m more convinced i'm going to enjoy this wedding... i just dont like the idea of someone suggesting what songs to sing, how to sing it, what order to sing it etc etc.... but oh well lets see how my meeting with the couple goes tomorrow.
what makes it worse is how suddenly i was left to organise this wedding alone. originally i was supposed to do this with Teresa and adrian this bass player i was glad to be friends with. but ok teresa is pregnant so well what to do, hopefully a few months later lah i mean i have Xue Yi who can pull it off just as well. what was really fucked up, and i mean really fucked up was how adrian suddenly pulled out just after i confirmed our gig with the couple. as in i have already sent the invoice, sent the list even reconfirmed with the kan cheong couple. Adriain just found a job and suddenly hes like super busy travelling here and there and firstly ok he says he cant commit to jamming with Jason and me or even join us for open mics. the worse thing he did was to just sms me and tell me that he cant commit to the wedding as well since he has a hectic schedule. it was a really a 'what the fuck' moment for me. nothing else better describes it really. this even after he calls me a few days before to ask if the wedding was confirmed. what makes it damn jialat is how i think hes just sitting on the fence about the situation, so that if suddenly he can make it he will want in. he said he will call me to explain and i'm waiting patiently for his call, but its not because i want to hear what he has to say but its purely for me to give him a good telling off, about how suddenly i am forced to undertake this project on my own, ask Ajie to play bass who isnt a jazz person but now i have to make extra effort in making sure he does. so i've been coordinating everything from equipment rental to organising practice to entertaing the requests from the couple.
sometimes i wonder why i'm undertaking all this. even with that pop band i'm coordinating everything. and no one lifts a hand to try and do something. i mean the solution is very simple: just look around for gigs but no one is doing anything at all. i'mn trying hard to look around less open mics but its got to be a group effort. sometimes i just want to be the band member that sits around and does nothing but play and look up to the leader to tell me what to do. I"M THE GUITARIST SOMEMORE....
it was the same with well *shudders* Always Marcia, Lotus and I would be looking high and low for gigs for us to play. imagine i'm the one serving in a very very active unit while juggling admin/field duties and i am calling/emailing organisers for oppotunities. eventually i got really sick of doing it and thats why i wanted out.
ah wow it feels so good to just write this down. i think its pretty obvious i need a break huh.
but still lots of things to settle. preparing for this wedding gig has made me think a lot about what to do next... namecards, videos, demos, pictures possibly time for me to stop being so lazy and do something about my lack of playing before i get too old heh.
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| its been a weird weird week or time so far.
for some time now i've been getting more private students through an online agency that takes a commision of half the fees of the first month per new student.
lately the fees have been climbing higher and higher, the most recent being 50 an hour for a student. thats already like almost twice how much i'm offering others. and it appears that its been the norm for a while now so i should be expecting more crazy offers.
which is a good thing i guess, i'm now at the stage where i can ask for a higher rate and it doesnt matter if i dont get the assignment or not because its just more about adding on to my own number.
so this was going on for a while, and then suddenly i get a call from a music school that is apparently behind the website and they were looking for a guitar teacher to come in and teach. of course i had already decided that i dont want to teach in a school anymore but when i heard that students pay 220 a month for lessons i thought the offer was just too good to pass on and i decided to go over for an informal interview.
however the current school i was teaching at decided to drop me a bomb, they told me that most likely at the end of the year they would closing the orchard branch. which shocked me because while i knew that they werent doing very while i didnt expect them to decide on closing a branch. the problem was that they were obviously playing the guilt trip/trust card as they told me how i was the only one to know or rather the first and that the other teachers and parents would only be informed much later and about how they hoped i can accomodate to changing over to balastier. the thing is that not all the students from orchard will come over. meaning that i stand to lose at least half of my current students. i would have to start all over again in terms of waiting for the school to send me more students and i know for a fact that there hasnt been any enquiry at balastier for a while. which means i will have to wait.
let me just tell you about the interview though. it was.. very overwhelming, to cut the story short the manager wanted me to start an electric guitar course and she was very open to purchasing all the equipment and agreeing to my terms and conditions that i stated. something which my current school would take some time to think about before agreeing. the rooms were big and i see myself actually doing more in terms of teaching and earnng money.
the answer looks pretty obvious right? then why do i find it so hard to approach the current school to serve them my notice? one thing is that they already played the guilt trip/trust in me card so that makes it tough, another thing is that there are some students that i really enjoy teaching and i dont think i can give them up so easily. sigh. this is one of those situations where i cant be all nice and compromising.
as of now my timing is so packed that i'm finding it hard to tell the school which day i can make it to start one or two lessons. well hmm i guess i better do it soon or else they will lose patience with me.
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| Downtime, funny a computer related word can fit the description of what i'm going through right now.
its not easy to deal with situations where you spend a few months jamming with people who didnt promise to commit but said they were in and then suddenly they cant commit anymore. i thought all was going well and then suddenly, one found a job and cant commit so much (aka play for fun now) and the other has to prioritise.
funny, seems like every where i turn nothing fruitful has come up and that kind of like crashed for me since the start of last week. i just lost my enthusiasm for practicing or jamming for a while. i had plans to arrange maybe a jam and sing session with friends and all but i have really no drive to make any list or to pick up my guitar.
seriously what is wrong with these people, say one thing and then backing off the next. i mean they did say that this will happen but man this is so sudden two bands in two weeks. its heavy stuff.
i just had energy to prac like an hour and that was it i was drained or had no mood.
not sure how long this will last but i think maybe nows a good time to scout around for good holiday getaways.
think i shall "hermit" awhile, seems i only get angry hanging out with people and 'friends' is a term i find hard to swallow these days.
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