老九悟到的天空

上星期六，和朋友约好看«老九»音乐剧。对时间的拿捏一向都不是很好的我却迟到了，结果错过了开头的那一幕。

在看老九之前，就已经对它满心期待。因为它关于梦想，还有梦想和现实之间的矛盾。一个我很喜欢的题材。

(我尽量不要提太多 spoilers啦，因为你们真的应该去看！！)

老九，名副其实的就是家中的老九。他有八个姐姐，却没有一个像他那么聪明。所以当他有机会参加考试得奖学金时，全家的希望都寄托在他身上。每个人都为了他忙进忙出，就是要他考到奖学金，让家人过好一点的日子。

但大家万万没想到，老九会在考试当天，为了去看师傅的最后一场布偶剧而缺席。

老九发现，其实他有选择。其实，乾坤就掌握在自己手中。

他要的是选择。他不要因为大家的期望而失去自己的自由。他想要的是学掌中戏。不是成为一匹被驯服的野马。

很喜欢剧中运用的一些讽刺和对比。

讽刺，因为他羡慕的是孙悟空。老九有一个他很喜欢，师傅送他的孙悟空布偶。他唱道:
“ 看孙悟空闹天宫不困与牢笼 师傅手中的掌控神奇又神勇 它变化无穷 是种 嘲讽我在唯命是从“
孙悟空的布偶，生命是由师傅给的，永远逃不出师傅的手掌。还有，那首歌叫«悟空»。应该是代表着老九对孙悟空的羡慕，也诉说着老九悟到的道理。

«老九»里头还有战马基金会(给老九奖学金的机构)和战马的负责人。他通知老九和他的家人他能够去考奖学金。他提到，战马基金会能让野马都驯服，因为马都喜欢吃好草。这些“野马“将会把每一次的奔跑当作赛马。

得到了好草，却失去野外奔跑的自由？值得吗？如果是吃不完的好草呢？如果全家都能因为你而吃到好草呢？

嗯，我不知道。

我也很喜欢战马和孙悟空的对比。一个被驯服，一个追求自由。有一幕，是战马基金会的负责人和老九的“对持“，负责人唱着所有历史的伟人，像拿破仑还有一些我记不起的名字，而老九唱的是小说和虚构的人物，像是孙悟空还有小王子。

我在看«老九»之前，就已经期待自己会哭得很惨。可能因为预设了自己会哭，所以看完了，我没哭，只是眼眶几度湿了。但这不代表«老九»不好看，因为我心里其实想着很多东西。

有一幕，是师傅跟老九说着掌中戏曾经的光辉。师傅唱了一首歌。仔细的歌词我不记得，不过歌曲诉说的是一门艺术的没落。舞台空了，掌中戏就算是免费的，也没有人要看了。还有另一幕，是老九爸爸要师傅去劝老九去考试的。老九爸爸提到，为什么你(师傅)一定要把掌中戏传下去？

在台下的我眼眶泛泪。好心酸。一个人付出毕生心血的艺术，在另外一个人的眼中却是可有可无的。

我觉得，«老九»的感人之处，除了很棒的团队，真的就是能引起共鸣了。我知道在不久之后，我也要面对抉择。我知道自己很有可能像老九一样在兴趣和现实之间徘徊。我庆幸自己不需要背负全家的期望，但也羡慕老九找到了答案。

我的老九，你在哪里？

As if

Truth behind my JC life Chanced upon this just now while looking at random twitter conversations on my timeline. I have to say I definitely didn't regret reading it because it gave me a fresh perspective of JC life and all that.

I guess I've never been one to care too much about the process of anything. Not that I'm a result-oriented person, just one who doesn't really think about or remember the process. Maybe that's because I think too far ahead.

It didn't quite occur to me that results don't just happen without a process... Until I read her blog entry. As for myself, I thought about how I'll be struggling between the options of heading to a JC or a polytechnic. I thought about how I'll head to university after JC, and perhaps take up a 'practical' major and lead a mundane office life just like anybody else. I thought about how I'll head to a polytechnic and find myself struggling between the many options of courses. Then maybe I'll take a media-related one, or a design-related one, or if I'm more 'practical', I might head for optometry and be an optician. That perhaps, would be little different from the office lady life that I might lead.

But yes, I missed out something as well. Will I even have the choice to go to a JC? Am I even working hard enough to make sure I don't screw up my O's first? It's as if in my mind, everything will just get through easily and everything just happens as I've expected. As if I'll definitely finish the schooling phase of my life easily and then start working and start a family.

As if this phase doesn't require any hard work to overcome. It might be because I've never met with anything that strongly stopped me from moving on. I didn't contract any serious illness or fail so badly I had to drop out of school. Or made any decisions that affected my life seriously. My life has been smooth, generally. Nothing big, nothing too serious. Just moving on like 'everyone else'. (With even some time to spare for chasing idols.)

You know, I've always believed in this balance of everything. I know my life won't be so smooth-sailing all the way. There's got to be some struggles along the way, some big waves to sweep me off my feet. Just that I will never know when that comes. I guess I've been a little too complacent. Tip-toeing through the ankle-deep water, as if high tides never come. Without a floatation device, and not knowing how to swim. As if I'll miraculously float (while alive) without even the knowledge to.

Time to buck up and learn how to swim. Metaphorically and really.

Self-worth

Sometimes it's just because of my moodiness but sometimes I do feel like shit because I feel like I'm inferior to other people. And that's when I try to fish for compliments or feed off the past compliments by remembering them again.

It makes me sound like such a shameless and shallow bitch. Gosh.

But come to think of it, it's just my way of redeeming the self-worth that I have lost along the way. Somehow they just evaporate when I hear certain things or when I see certain things and it takes more effort to get them back than having them just evaporating away.

Yes yes, so as I was saying, I feed off compliments. More like compliments toward the things I do than my appearance of course. (I am not a shallow bitch and it's not like people compliment my appearance lol.)

So a few days ago I was feeling really down and useless because I didn't want to study any more. My results are also slipping and I felt unmotivated because I didn't have a clear goal. Every time I feel like this, I take out my sketchbook and....

Look.

I see my progress in drawing. When I first started drawing Rui En as An Xiaoqian with a mechanical pencil after doing portraiture during art lesson, and then doing a few more before making a breakthrough when I did the drawing of Rui En as Hu Xiaoman after I got myself proper pencils. (The previous drawings immediately seemed like crap.) I swear I was so proud of myself. I know compared to people who can do digital portraits like this and amazing deviants like her I'm probably nothing but still.

And you know what, it's such an amazing feeling to have your idols hold your drawing. Honestly.



But the compliments-fishing part came in after that when I drew Qing Feng.



Forget about Facebook. I was so happy when people 转发 my 微博 (kinda like retweeting) and gave comments (both compliments and points to improve), and also really glad when people replied to my post on the Sodagreen fansite forum. And it makes me equally happy when I think about it too when I feel horrible. *sobs*

There there, my self-worth comes waving to me and asking me to get it.

Drawing is just one of the things that I feel that I can actually do (and can I say... well?) and it does give me a sense of satisfaction when I churn out stuff like these. But I have to constantly keep in mind not to let my ego be fed too much because the drawings really aren't that 像 if you keep staring at it. (Trust me, I do.)

PS: On a sidenote, it might be possible that I fish for compliments for my drawings because I don't get them for other areas. ;p

PPS: Go ahead and think I'm egoistic if that's how I appeared to be from this blog entry. :|

加油

插班生啟程去台灣的那天，我告訴我媽說她們會去那裡兩個月，到一些live house和咖啡廳（女巫店也有耶！）表演，然後嘆了一聲。然後我就順帶提到了，她們現在是獨立歌手，沒有唱片約了。（我是看到omy的報導才知道的。）結果從我媽口中聽到的，卻不是什麼支持的語氣……

她說，從《絕對superstar》選秀節目出來的歌手，有幾個是紅的？石欣卉，潘嘉麗，唱歌都很不錯的，可是她們有紅嗎？潘嘉麗上通告什麼的，唱片也出了好幾張，卻還是紅不起來，以前當空姐還比較好。石欣卉現在還不是回來演戲（指星洲之夜）。只有黃靖倫因為人有點呆呆的很好笑所以有通告上，不過也很少聽到他唱歌。所以……插班生哪裡會紅？

有點難過。

我以為我這樣喜歡插班生，我媽至少會被感染到一點。至少會告訴我她們唱歌好聽。結果什麼也沒有。還要跟我說這種打擊我對她們的信心的話。（她聽到我在播《眼鏡矇矇的》還說這種歌哪裡好聽……………………）

不過我對她們有信心。

話說回來，我對她們沒有唱片合約的這個消息是有一點…吃驚吧。我以為合約至少都會簽個兩年。她們什麼時候和公司解約，我也不太清楚…（其實我覺得已經好一陣子了。）

不過這個消息我也不是完全沒料到啦。明眼人都看得出來，公司簽了她們後，其實什麼也沒做到。除了好像有幫忙贊助/發行專輯。她們什麼節目宣傳，都是自己弄的。她們自己在推特，臉書，微博發布一些表演的時間地點。前公司的臉書呢？連插班生的名字我也只看過一兩次吧。滿滿的都是一些五月天，小鬼的消息。就連照片…都只有在公司的三十週年演唱會出現吧。去年新加坡金曲獎的照片，插班生只出現在一個團體的後面，當他們的背景……就因為她們什麼也沒贏嗎？

或許公司還有在其他方面幫助插班生吧。雖然我什麼也看不到。這樣也好。

獨立歌手，或許沒有大公司的大力宣傳，也沒有那麼多的資金，不過一定還是有好處的。我對獨立音樂的運作方式不清楚，或許就是比較有自由吧，專輯的風格造型都不必被約束。我希望插班生這一趟台灣行能讓更多台灣人聽到她們的聲音，認識她們，喜歡她們。可能他們會遇到像林偉哲對蘇打綠那樣的伯樂呢？Who knows! 看天時地利人和吧！

要加油哦，插班生！:)

這首很好聽，是worship song。（還有很可愛的Carrie）


還有這首，會收錄在新的單曲裡頭！20/4發行哦！


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兩年前，接近三年，我媽也說過瑞恩很難紅的。因為她太酷了，不善於和媒體打交道，每次都冷冷的。現在呢？瑞恩還是不喜歡這種媒體的東西，可是卻有很多粉絲了。因為她靠的是實力。

插班生是有實力的。

Over

Yesterday I finally told (technically speaking, I smsed) my sis what I want when she asked me about it. 

I said, a keyboard.

Surprisingly it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be to tell.

Maybe a part of me is already determined to get one while the other is reluctant.

Anyway, to express my feelings about this was such a relief. Like, revealing a secret you've kept for years because you thought no one would entertain it.

Not that my sis didn't know at all though. She probably knew about me wanting to learn to play the piano (no I haven't actually told my family directly) but didn't know I wanted to get a keyboard. I mean, that was a rather recent thought of mine after realising that a keyboard is actually not very expensive compared to an acoustic piano.

I'm really glad that it would be yet another step towards my dream. I haven't taken the step yet, but I will.

It's a dream that buffers my falls and keeps me on track whenever I feel like shit about everything.

Y'know, I'm really happy that I'm having tears of joy right now? (Despite it being many many hours after my sis's reply that she'll ask around for lobangs.)

Goodnight everyone.

And Happy Birthday Zi Lei. :')