Being sick, writing music, and making decisions.
One of my elementary school students got me sick, but luckily I've had all day to sit around and wait for my body to recover. Yesterday was my first real shift being a mall-Santa-photographer, and it went all right despite my sniffling all over the place. Santa is super nice, and CNN was there covering it and I don't suck at the job so I suppose things could be majorly worse. Still, my ego is very resistant to this retail work and I'm not sure I need more lessons in humbling myself right now - not enough positive sources of validation to balance that out right now.
I spent most of today rereading my favorite post-DH canon-compliant fanfic, The First Day. I'm not usually much for Harry/Ginny fluff because it's so bland, but I tend to enjoy their angsting-into-a-relationship drama and there's not enough stuff written post-DH so I take what I can get. The last chapter is a really lovely one and I started writing a song inspired by it and the concept of the one-year anniversary of war. Used one of my standard default melodies (songwriting is hard) but I liked the chorus I came up with. "We light these candles / shed these tears / but we've made it through this year." Simple stuff, just on guitar for now, but I like it. It goes in the iMovie graveyard for now; maybe a year from now it will take shape, ha. It's weird to write words and music concurrently, too; I can't do it on dulcimer, so I'm just very unused to it.
Also, I love the way my voice sounds when I'm sick. Just a little bit more gravelly and stilted because I can't breathe properly. It's heavier. One step away from my normal choir voice, which is very rarely what I want to hear on the songs I write, ha. Maybe I really should be in a band. Properly.
In other news, thinking more on the money thing I posted about yesterday, I've realized that I've sold myself out just as much by doing these stupid part-time jobs as I would be if I had a full-time job. The only difference is that I am struggling to eke out a living. And seeing how much I've hurt my ego by lowering my elitist standards to retail jobs, I can't think it would be much more of a blow to my pride to work for the man. So come mid-December, the hunt for full-time employment recommences. We'll see what happens.
...thinking of the chorus I've just written made me think of the photos I took at the Virginia Tech vigil those few years ago. Maybe I'll stare at those pictures and keep writing. I'm in a mood for that post-disaster glimmer of hope, that solidarity and love. We'll see what comes of it.
Aaaaaand I need to make some userpics and friend some people on here. Maybe when my entries focus more on the creative and less on the emo.
I spent most of today rereading my favorite post-DH canon-compliant fanfic, The First Day. I'm not usually much for Harry/Ginny fluff because it's so bland, but I tend to enjoy their angsting-into-a-relationship drama and there's not enough stuff written post-DH so I take what I can get. The last chapter is a really lovely one and I started writing a song inspired by it and the concept of the one-year anniversary of war. Used one of my standard default melodies (songwriting is hard) but I liked the chorus I came up with. "We light these candles / shed these tears / but we've made it through this year." Simple stuff, just on guitar for now, but I like it. It goes in the iMovie graveyard for now; maybe a year from now it will take shape, ha. It's weird to write words and music concurrently, too; I can't do it on dulcimer, so I'm just very unused to it.
Also, I love the way my voice sounds when I'm sick. Just a little bit more gravelly and stilted because I can't breathe properly. It's heavier. One step away from my normal choir voice, which is very rarely what I want to hear on the songs I write, ha. Maybe I really should be in a band. Properly.
In other news, thinking more on the money thing I posted about yesterday, I've realized that I've sold myself out just as much by doing these stupid part-time jobs as I would be if I had a full-time job. The only difference is that I am struggling to eke out a living. And seeing how much I've hurt my ego by lowering my elitist standards to retail jobs, I can't think it would be much more of a blow to my pride to work for the man. So come mid-December, the hunt for full-time employment recommences. We'll see what happens.
...thinking of the chorus I've just written made me think of the photos I took at the Virginia Tech vigil those few years ago. Maybe I'll stare at those pictures and keep writing. I'm in a mood for that post-disaster glimmer of hope, that solidarity and love. We'll see what comes of it.
Aaaaaand I need to make some userpics and friend some people on here. Maybe when my entries focus more on the creative and less on the emo.