hm.
I feel like I've been spamming my 'rl' journal but I just feel all these feelings and I want so badly to sort them out. So, here it is.
I feel so confused lately.
I came to taiwan tentatively because I knew I needed a year away from school before grad school. I knew I would have burned out and became a bitter old person if I didn't take a break. Part of not becoming a bitter old lady was figuring out exactly what it is that I wanted from life when school wasn't driving me. When my family and friends were taken out of the equation, who would I become?
Well, I've been alone for nearly 10 months and . . . I'm so much more confused now because what I've learned here seems contrary to who I thought I was. Not completely contrary just a little different and I'm not sure how to continue on now with these conflicting 'mes.'
I thought that I was a nerd. Books were seriously my life in highschool. I didn't hang out with my friends, I read books. I could read 1 or 2 in a single day and I did, regularly. Sometimes on weekends I could fit in 4 or 5! When I went to college I went to classes, did homework, and practiced the piano. I thought I was going to graduate school and then work as a professor at school. I never imagined myself in the 'real world' and never fully contemplated doing anything non-academic related.
I've always loved music. When I entered college I had decided to give up the piano, but I found myself sneaking into practice rooms to play at 2 am in the morning. I signed up for a music theory class and the professor pulled me aside one day, "You're here because you obviously love music--and you're good at this. What are you doing in the history department? Come here and study music." I did.
But...as much as I love the feel of sitting at the piano my purest happiness is listening to others. Those chords, the instrumentation, the lyrics, the soul and the sex they create. There's some songs that make me forget existance. My last couple years of college I discovered visual kei. Since moving to taiwan I've rediscovered metal. Together these have awakened someone I didn't know existed.
I don't want to do anything else but make music. I can't be a performer, I knew that a long time ago--I just don't have that charisma, but I want to help the music spread around the world. Those songs that make me smile with their heart tugging chord progressions, their pushing rhythms, the strength of each note, the dancing melodies. I want to give that same feeling to other people.
The problem is I never contemplated doing these things before and I have no idea where I'm going with this. I know how to do school; if I went to graduate school I know how to do that. I know how to work in that environment--I spent my whole life preparing for that.
I feel like I need some grand plan for life. Even if it's something stupid I want some goal. But I struggle with this. Because that me I've discovered at rock concerts is a little more wild than anyone I've ever known before and she doesn't want to commit. She wants to be free. She doesn't want plans and expectations. And so it's become this internal struggle. Who am I? Who do I want to be? Why does it matter?
In the most practical way here it is:
Go back home to america. Get a dumb job to pay for life. Work in a local music studio or club. Figure it out from there. Possibilities if I go home also include following D'espa on their Sept. World Tour and/or following Mucc on their Nov/Dec Japan tour (I have enough money saved currently, but only if I go back to living with the parents--otherwise the saved money would go to living expenses). A part of me really wants to go home. To see this new me function in that old environment. Longer term, going home would be easier to learn new things. Working/volunteering in a local studio would provide me with learn-age and experience. Could do this, then continue on to the 'foreign/JAPAN' part of the dream.
Stay in taiwan. Move closer to taipei. It's incredibly easy to live here, but does nothing towards my goals except help me save money.
Move to Japan. I would be teaching but I would also be able to continue study japanese much more deeply and usefully. I would love to be able to ingratiate myself into the music scene, but other than a music degree and a few hours clocked in the school's recording studio I have little to offer (besides passion!). Learn japanese become a part of the teams that have produced some of my favorite bands. *ultimate dream*
Apply to graduate school's in US and Europe. Go to school. and more schooling. Delay any real decisions. I already even have a direction for my thesis. Of course my first few grad years would refine it, but like I said, this is what I was preparing for for the last 22 years. Also to note this is what my friends and family seem to expect.
Ah...there's so much more to it than just this. But it's so hard to make all my amorphous thoughts into words. It's so limiting! There's so many things inside my head that I can't seem to put in the right order and explain as thoroughly as they need explained! So frustrating.
I feel so confused lately.
I came to taiwan tentatively because I knew I needed a year away from school before grad school. I knew I would have burned out and became a bitter old person if I didn't take a break. Part of not becoming a bitter old lady was figuring out exactly what it is that I wanted from life when school wasn't driving me. When my family and friends were taken out of the equation, who would I become?
Well, I've been alone for nearly 10 months and . . . I'm so much more confused now because what I've learned here seems contrary to who I thought I was. Not completely contrary just a little different and I'm not sure how to continue on now with these conflicting 'mes.'
I thought that I was a nerd. Books were seriously my life in highschool. I didn't hang out with my friends, I read books. I could read 1 or 2 in a single day and I did, regularly. Sometimes on weekends I could fit in 4 or 5! When I went to college I went to classes, did homework, and practiced the piano. I thought I was going to graduate school and then work as a professor at school. I never imagined myself in the 'real world' and never fully contemplated doing anything non-academic related.
I've always loved music. When I entered college I had decided to give up the piano, but I found myself sneaking into practice rooms to play at 2 am in the morning. I signed up for a music theory class and the professor pulled me aside one day, "You're here because you obviously love music--and you're good at this. What are you doing in the history department? Come here and study music." I did.
But...as much as I love the feel of sitting at the piano my purest happiness is listening to others. Those chords, the instrumentation, the lyrics, the soul and the sex they create. There's some songs that make me forget existance. My last couple years of college I discovered visual kei. Since moving to taiwan I've rediscovered metal. Together these have awakened someone I didn't know existed.
I don't want to do anything else but make music. I can't be a performer, I knew that a long time ago--I just don't have that charisma, but I want to help the music spread around the world. Those songs that make me smile with their heart tugging chord progressions, their pushing rhythms, the strength of each note, the dancing melodies. I want to give that same feeling to other people.
The problem is I never contemplated doing these things before and I have no idea where I'm going with this. I know how to do school; if I went to graduate school I know how to do that. I know how to work in that environment--I spent my whole life preparing for that.
I feel like I need some grand plan for life. Even if it's something stupid I want some goal. But I struggle with this. Because that me I've discovered at rock concerts is a little more wild than anyone I've ever known before and she doesn't want to commit. She wants to be free. She doesn't want plans and expectations. And so it's become this internal struggle. Who am I? Who do I want to be? Why does it matter?
In the most practical way here it is:
Go back home to america. Get a dumb job to pay for life. Work in a local music studio or club. Figure it out from there. Possibilities if I go home also include following D'espa on their Sept. World Tour and/or following Mucc on their Nov/Dec Japan tour (I have enough money saved currently, but only if I go back to living with the parents--otherwise the saved money would go to living expenses). A part of me really wants to go home. To see this new me function in that old environment. Longer term, going home would be easier to learn new things. Working/volunteering in a local studio would provide me with learn-age and experience. Could do this, then continue on to the 'foreign/JAPAN' part of the dream.
Stay in taiwan. Move closer to taipei. It's incredibly easy to live here, but does nothing towards my goals except help me save money.
Move to Japan. I would be teaching but I would also be able to continue study japanese much more deeply and usefully. I would love to be able to ingratiate myself into the music scene, but other than a music degree and a few hours clocked in the school's recording studio I have little to offer (besides passion!). Learn japanese become a part of the teams that have produced some of my favorite bands. *ultimate dream*
Apply to graduate school's in US and Europe. Go to school. and more schooling. Delay any real decisions. I already even have a direction for my thesis. Of course my first few grad years would refine it, but like I said, this is what I was preparing for for the last 22 years. Also to note this is what my friends and family seem to expect.
Ah...there's so much more to it than just this. But it's so hard to make all my amorphous thoughts into words. It's so limiting! There's so many things inside my head that I can't seem to put in the right order and explain as thoroughly as they need explained! So frustrating.