Looking back; looking forward in Trichotomy

Old friends

The California trip is getting closer and I am planning the visits, but my piano teacher and La Professeure’s old student are not sure they’d be in town, so we may get some free days in SF!

Flautist #2’s husband passed away last week. It was not a surprise - he has been in a nursing home for the past few years. I went up to Warwick on Sunday for the open house/memorial, which I later realized is like a Shiva but since they are not observant, it happened on Saturday and Sunday and during the day. The last time I saw was 3 years ago; he was quite lucid and recognised me and La Professeure and enjoyed our company. Since then I’d only seen Flautist #2 once, and I was feeling a bit guilty about not keeping in touch. Though, it was understandable, since she hasn’t been coming down to the city that much.

La Professeure came down with a cold so couldn’t come with me, and I didn’t want to drive on the highway for 2 hours, so I took public transportation. It was iffy going up there. I took the LIRR to Penn, then Subway to Port Authority, then a NJ Transit bus to Warwick downtown, then uber. The hardest part was uber - turns out there were not enough drivers around - it took 10 minutes just to get a match, and he had to drive from the next town over. (I left a good tip).

As a sign of how long I hadn’t visited, I’d mis-remembered her address and got dropped off at a wrong house in the same development. So I had to call her to find the correct address and walked over. The trip was long, 1 hour on LIRR, half an hour for food and flowers, 2 hours on the bus, and another 1 hour to get Uber. Maybe I should have driven.

The visit itself was nice - she seemed to be doing OK, and has a lot of support around her, so it’s a bit reassuring for me. I got to catch up with her family and friends and they are all doing well. It was good that we can just catch up like no time had passed. Hopefully we can get together sooner next time.

• S
  
  

Being a follower

New Hip Company has office spaces in 4 buildings across the Chelsea district now, and has been moving people around to it. The Chelsea market building used to be occupied by sales and marketing team and has nicer public areas. Now New Hip Company has opened office spaces in two more buildings downtown, and have moved the sales and marketing people down there. So we are moving into the Chelsea market space.

I had thought we would love going there, but it turns out I am the only person on my team that is excited about the move. Everybody else are dreading the extra block of commute.

I quite enjoy my current project - I get to reuse a lot of the work and design I did 5 years ago when I first joined the team, for another project, which had since gotten abandoned, so it feels like my work is not as wasted. I am in coding mode now, and the other day felt like back in grad school.

And I find that 2am is still a most productive hour.

• N
  
  

Being in charge

I’ve been in charge of organising the recitals for the amateur group for almost a season now and am getting a hang of it. It’s hard to predict when people will drop out and when you have to find someone to fill in slots at the concert, but it’s good to always have a few minutes of music up my sleeve so I can step in as a last resort.

I started learning a solo transcription of the Yellow River Concerto. It’s a lot of fun to play, even though it’s basically a communist propaganda piece written under the direction of Madame Mao during the cultural revolution. It, however, is itself adapted from a Cantata written during the 2nd world war. Evidence suggested that Madame Mao forced many versions of re-writes to make it more “patriotic”. I don’t plan to play the 4th movement though - the blatant quotes from 東方紅 made me throw up in my mouth a little.

It took forever for me to find scores online because I searched with English at first.

• D
  
  

Last updated May 15, 2024