Cursed

This morning at church Hamish and Aonghas performed a Chinese duet while I performed a Chinese solo as part of the church’s Chinese New Year celebrations. How did it go? BAD (no surprises there)! I don’t know why I can do anything in front of an audience at times, and then at other times I’m nervous. I’m not trying to look for excuses but an audience made up of Chinese people does frighten me because I always assume they have high standards of me, and expect me to play really good. There I go and stuff everything up and don’t play any good at all!
When I was younger I rarely made mistakes and managed to perform well in public without letting the nerves get to me. Several years ago after I had won this music scholarship for an accordion performance, I was invited to perform at this dinner for members of the organisation that funded the scholarship. I chose to perform this piece ‘Maleguana’ (keeping my policy of playing one piece per performance in tact), one I had never performed before, nor was I ready to. I played it like it was a jumbled sequence of notes and obviously embarrassed my parents. I’ve never been the same since then… I’m sure I’ve made a stuff-up in each performance I’ve been in ever since.

Even though they weren’t exactly together, Hamish and Aonghas survived and managed to play right through their piece without stopping, unlike me. Phoebe told me a couple weeks ago that she might come to church (because she occasionally comes to the same church as me) to watch me perform. Now I’m hoping she didn’t! A few people did comment after the performance on how good we played. I find it hard to believe the sincerity behind those comments though!

Anyway afterwards there was this ‘Love Banquet’, which was basically a shared lunch most likely to celebrate the upcoming Valentines Day. I may not have a love for Valentines Day but I certainly love shared lunches! It’s a change from the usual rice + vegetables + tofu lunch we usually have at church. Unfortunately, my run of misfortunes continued, when I spilt a hot cup of tea all over my pants! I walked to the toilet, hoping no one would notice the wet patch between my legs. However, the hand dryer in the toilet was too high for me to reach and dry my pants! It did dry up after a while.

Stay tuned for my rant and rave on Valentines Day – how much I loathe it, especially since I am single!