Monday, February 22, 2010

Auditions Woes and Fractured Plans


With my Spelling Bee audition coming up on sunday I am beginning to stress out a little bit about audition songs. Why am I finding it so hard to choose one? Even after an incredibly helpful chat to ice cream about it, I'm still yet to settle upon my 'uptempo' song. *sigh*
I'm finally having a bit of a relaxing day today after a lot happening in a short amount of time. I've done absolutely zilch today which makes me quite happy. I'm just about to write a couple of chapters of my book once this blog is updated (yes, I am using you, Mr. Blog, as a writing exercise this morning) and possibly read for a while after that. I'm really feeling at the moment that there simply are not enough days in the week. With ballet, singing, YABC, tap, work, random extra work, auditions, and trying to see people I'm struggling to find any time to breathe. Oh well. I can't say I don't like being busy, on the contrary, I love it really. If things aren't busy I don't know what to do with myself, so stop complaining Emily and enjoy it!
I'm also keeping my mind occupied with worries about future plans. I haven't explained what's going in with my ' baguette' section of this blog so here I go. My plan was to work in France for a couple of months this year as an au pair, but things are changing and I'm not sure whether I should still go. If I do, I won't be getting the full year of training in that I need. If I don't, I don't know when the opportunity will arise again. I suppose France isn't going anywhere...

I've been thinking a lot as well about the great friendships I have at the moment. I've spent a lot of my time throughout high school worrying about friendships with people who haven't made any effort to keep the friendship going, and with the people I am around now I realise how pointless is all is. Friendships aren't meant to be difficult: that's the whole point of them. They just work, you don't need to try hard or constantly be boosting the friendship further, it just goes on it's own accord. I'm lucky to have my three very best friends all the way from grade five still with me and still like family to me, and I'm even luckier now to be spending time with more people who make me feel appreciated and loved. These friendships just work. Of course, everyone still struggles to create relationships where maybe there shouldn't be one and I do too, but I'm stepping back now and simply acknowledging the futileness of it all, and just enjoying those people who are simply my friends to the deepest sense of the word.

Oh, I thought I'd mix things up a bit today and post a bit of a story for you all. I've been doing these writing exercises before delving into my book, where I find the word of the day in my iPhone dictionary (very handy app) and writing a page-length story based on that word. The point is to not self-edit at all, just to let whatever comes out onto the page come out. It frees up the mind really well, and helped me ditch that irritating writers' block I had for a while. So to you writers out there who are stuck a bit, try this, it really helps, and improves your vocabulary at the same time! It's a win win!!

So here you go. This story was based on the word pecuniary, which means 'relating to monetary matters".
Hope you enjoy it. Feel free to comment. If you like it, I'll post some more.

Pecuniary

Frederick was a man of pecuniary and numerical matters. He loved numbers. Anything with numbers, that was his penchant. Oddly enough, he didn’t do any maths subjects in school, nor in university. It was a sudden and insurgent interest that had only made itself clear in his older, more dignified years. When his previous hobbies had all become far too immature, Frederick had discovered the joy of trigonometry, Pythagoras’ theorem and probability.

He had his numerical and pecuniary schedule of course. Every morning he would start of by opening his puzzle book to the newest Sudoku puzzle. That would be finished in – on his worst day – ten minutes at most. His next challenge was the daily puzzles in the newspaper. He would skip the riddles, the word patterns and the scrambles and go straight to the numerical pyramid that could easily be solved in a few, well thought out minutes. He would then go about his day, feeling as if he had sated a portion – if a small portion at that – of his very nearly insatiable numerical hunger. When the day was out, and he had used maths as many times as possible to solve his daily problems, he would settle down with a cup of hot chocolate and his favourite cinnamon cookie and begin to settle his pecuniary matters. His daily budgeting was an important part of his life, and he had an extensive software program designed solely to keep his monetary affairs in order. He would record his expenses, input his earnings, balance his profits, manage debts (though there were very few), plan his daily budget, and finally put aside a few dollars in a ceramic blue mug on his desk for a treat. That mug would purchase him a special chocolate bar, or maybe a new pair of mittens.

As is quite clear from Fredericks schedule, numbers and money are among the top priorities in his life, the next few being punctuality, and general if not excessive politeness. He had no patience for other things, least of all relationships. He had no friends to speak of, unless you counted your puzzle book a friend. His family had moved to Switzerland out of the blue, quite unbeknown to Frederick who had prepared the turkey for the family Christmas only to find that no one was home. But he didn’t mind too much. Families were too noisy, and far too ignorant of the importance of budgeting and maths. A wife would be too eager to splurge on a holiday, or perhaps a new dress. The children would always be wanting new things, and his little treat mug would be gone in an instant, snatched up by their greedy little hands for tuckshop money or a new yoyo that would break after two days. Clearly, Frederick had his life sorted out quite well, thank you very much, and needed no family or friends to make him happy. All he needed were his numbers, his hot chocolate and his budget software. Oh and his job. He wouldn’t know what to do if he didn’t work. He was an accountant (of course) although he hadn’t been his whole life. But he tried not to dwell on his past, rather embarrassing obsession with professional trombone playing. Accounting was all that mattered now. And numbers. And budgeting. And his hot chocolate.

At the end of his day, Frederick would close his budgeting software, clean his mug, dust the crumbs off his nightshirt and slip into bed. The light would be switched off and Frederick would let his mind drift off on a cloud of prime numbers and nearest decimal points. After all, Frederick was a man of numeric and pecuniary matters.


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