10001110100110101
Watched a fair bit of television last night. Saw this documentary on A&E.. Investigative reports I think, about beauty pageants. They were talking about beauty pageants for kids, in particular, for preteenaged kids. Now, while I was watching this, I noticed that one family seemed to be forcing their kid to go through with this beauty pageant. What the heck? Maybe she got shy in front of the camera or something, but she really didn't seem to want to go through with it, and ended up running off the stage at one point.
All in all, it didn't shine a good light on these beauty pageants, and despite being a male (not understanding why any girls would want to be in a beauty pageant at any age), I think.. I think, unless the girl really really wants to go and do this, they shouldn't be trying it out. It's way too much pressure, and especially at such a young age for some of them (Five years old? Come on!) I think they should be frolicking around in the fields rather than prancing around on the catwalk.
This also can be extended not just to beauty pageants, but to sports, music, and other hobbies as well. When I first started playing the piano, I was truly interested in playing. I used to bang on our old (it was a crusty old piano) piano, and even though the tunes were barely recognizable, I liked just making noise. Being parents, my parents figured that I should take piano lessons so that I can actually learn to play the piano properly. I thought that was a good idea at the time, since, heck, I liked playing anything. They even bought us a brand spanking new piano (for a pretty penny). Well, after a few years of taking the royal conservatory (real constricting as Steve put it) stuff, I gradually lost my interest in playing the piano. All I would do is to learn a new song and regurgitate it during the exams. Then I had to take theory and learn about cadences and triads, perfect fourths and minor sevenths. This wasn't music, this was school!
In short, I didn't think playing the piano as being as fun as it used to be. The last couple years of piano playing were as bad as my last years in Chinese school. It was just torture, and I couldn't go on. Fortunately, I was able to stop with this royal conservatory crap when I went to university and haven't touched the piano since.
I wonder.. if I didn't take those piano lessons, would I still be playing the piano right now? Banging out those horrible tunes just because I like doing it? Now that I've played works by Beethoven, Mozart, and the rest, anything I think up of sounds bad.
What I wanted to become was an improvisationalist, playing out tunes and melodies that come to my head, like some blues or jazz pianist. Alas, I may have to wait quite a while for that dream to ever materialize.
Asked HNT about lending the house. He didn't look very amused but said it was okay.. and would beat me up if anything got messed up. Oh come on! Thirty frosh eating spaghetti? What could go wrong?!? *flip*
Went outside for lunch. Even got Dusty and RHS both out this time! The weather cooperated with us as well despite the rather brisk breeze. Got an interesting read (interesting since I had just seen the Craft last night) from a certain someone I should have asked out to lunch with us. Oops. My bad.
Now I should get going. Have to set some tra.. uh.. get the house ready and prepare contingency plans for anything.. and everything that might go down tonight. Gah.
[0 Comments]
