College Stress

I just feel the need to express my feelings of AAAAAAH because I feel like I don't really know what's going on, I constantly feel like I'm missing something or forgetting something big. Like I'm going to get to school on the first day and they'll be like "haha, you forgot to sign this form, we'll have to cancel your entire enrollment, sucks to be you!" I just filled out the MPN for financial aid which I feel like I'm really late on, but it's confusing because there was no deadline or timeline or anything! UT just randomly sent me an email saying they released "some or all" of my financial aid funds and I'm just so confused because I hadn't even signed the MPN yet. (At times like these, I remind myself that people like [redacted] who are literally constantly late and overdue and disorganized on everything still manage to survive somehow... and calm down just a little...) I feel like I'm doing everything wrong. I feel like this financial aid stuff is pretty much dealt with but there's going to be other stuff that I have to deal with, and the amount of anxiety I feel about it is disproportionately large. Even though I'm freaked out, though, I know I'll be okay in the end as long as I make my plans well and keep track of things.
Just some thoughts from today.

It continues

The bronchitis. IT STILL HASN'T GONE AWAY. I guess it's really not all that bad because at least the fever is gone, but now it's just the cough, which is really annoying, mostly because it's been keeping me up at night and making me throw up.

Anywho, I have been sick and also kind of busy BUT I still managed to make a really bad painting. (Idk, one day I just got this sudden random urge to paint, which I haven't actually done in a long time. I should really make more art!)




So yeah... This is a somewhat abstract painting of a modern art statue found in Banff. I just thought the reflections on it looked really interesting and might be fun to paint, which they were. I wish I paid more attention to what I was doing with the paint colors, because that greenish color did not look nice at all. Actually I didn't do a good job of reproducing the grayness of that one, probably because I did all the colors in big patches,,,, oh well, this painting was a quick impression anyways. Also, if you noticed that it's actually sideways on the easel and that the photo is rotated over, that's because I painted it sideways, the only reason being that I was looking at the reference photo on my phone which I couldn't stand upright because it was charging. XD

Here's the original photo by the way so you can fully appreciate the extent of mediocrity that my painting turned out to be. I really didn't have the right shade of blue/cyan paint to achieve the right colors that I wanted, and if I were to do it again, I would abstractify all the way to get something more colorful and interesting. As it is, right now this painting is kind of in-between-ish, not quite abstract enough to be good, not quite realistic enough to be good either. I think I went into it wanting to make a really bold abstraction of it, but not quite knowing how or being brave enough to really bring out the interesting bits. Also, the brushwork is just really lazy and disorganized. If I did it again I would arrange the brush directions to actually kind of make sense. When it became clear this painting wasn't going to be it, I just skipped on the background entirely. I just picked a really hard subject to paint in the first place, so really, I don't feel bad about it at all. Just a bit disappointed I didn't get something cooler out of it I guess.

---

If some stranger came upon this blog they would probably think I'm just a somewhat shitty artist, and I know I'm trying not to care what people think, but there's a difference between someone thinking something about me based on valid representations and straight up just not being represented fairly or truthfully, and I think that in this case I'm justified in wanting people to know that I actually can make much better art when I actually try, and it's in a more familiar style rather than being something experimental. So please allow me to prove to you theoretical reader my skill in one of the only things I actually feel I'm somewhat good at.


Oil painting of glass swan


Colored pencil drawing of doggo <3


Oil painting of street through wet car window


Pen and water of snail <3

Ok I think that's enough self-congratulation ahaha. Well I hope anyone who sees this likes my art. Anyways, I better go practice violin.

Where have I been?

Got bronchitis, have been very sick for the past few days.

The most borrect thing she could possibly say, as promised

Things that she said 4 by Samantha Liu

I figured I had to get this thing out of the way. There's not much to say about it, I guess. It's just really freaking boring, I just made it as like a baseline as reference to. I mean the plan is to make 50 of these, anyway. But I think I actually have to start trying next time and maybe making it longer and not just have blocked chords. I mean honestly... I haven't done anything to really step out of my comfort zone yet. Maybe next time just take this basic foundation and add some texture, maybe do some voice leading or like arpeggiate the bass or something idk....just to get a feel for things. ok yeah sounds like a plan. i feel like i'm making really slow progress though.

more things that she said

I made 2 more "things that she said"s in rapid succession, this time focusing more on the chords instead of the melody first. They're just really simple outlines I guess. i did this by putting 10 minutes on the clock and forcing myself to just put out the first thing I thought of. I wrote them without listening to them until the very end, so that makes me feel slightly less shitty about how bad they came out. even though i shouldn't feel bad because i'm just starting out and i was intentionally trying to experiment with weird things so really, it's expected that they come out weird. i gave it roughly one chord per line of the poem so they're really short. They both sound really shitty wonky because idk chord functions, and i should probably go and learn about that. and listen to more music analytically. also I was reminded about that "make 50 of something" challenge that Vi Hart did a while back; the idea is to make so many different versions of something that it forces you to try new things and improve on it, and it also helps you be ok with a lot of them being bad because there's less focus on the individual versions and more focus on the whole thing as an exercise. So I think i'm gonna do that; making 50 versions of things that she said, or at least as many as I can before I get too tired/bored/annoyed.Things that she said 2 by Samantha Liu

So for this one I learned that just because it's a major chord doesn't mean that it's going to sound happy (exhibit A: measure 4). I think I compartmentalize too much in my mind because I was thinking only about that one chord change without the context. So I learned I'm bad at stringing things together into long coherent phrases. I think the motion of the melody also contributed to its weirdness, with that fall from F to Eb and then the wistfulness of a minor 6th, was definitely NOT the mood I wanted for the line "Let yourself go." Maybe I should just start with writing things that use like NORMAL chords (1, 4, and 5) maybe I'm trying to jump ahead of myself by putting in weird spicy chords just because. i think maybe next time I try this I'll make one really "borrect" example just as like a control or something.

Things that she said 3 by Samantha Liu

well, this one's more normal than the other one at least. I still don't like what happened in measure 4 though, and I can't figure out why. I think I don't like the movement from G to C back to G so quickly in this context. like the peak was at the wrong place. maybe I should take the cues from the poem even less literally than I already am. because I made the melody peak on the G relatively where the "go" in "let yourself go" would have been but it musically doesn't make sense. Or maybe it's one of those deals where it just sounds weird because I've been thinking about it and staring at it for so long. (Actually, coming back to it after lunch, it does sound less weird than I thought it did. But I still don't entirely like it.)
Also, I've already hit my 5-score upload limit on the free version of Musescore, so it looks like by the end of this project I'm going to have like 15 musescore accounts. whoooops?
the good thing is I already feel SOOOO much better about making these. It doesn't make me want to kill myself whenever I listen them anymore. Now it's more like slight cringe and disappointment, but even those easily go away when I sit down to analyze my mistakes more systematically. So yay!!! This is progress! i'm feeling good. :)

it has been several days

it has been a few days since i posted my first attempt to make something stupid and this post is just me making sure to myself that i'm still committed to this idea, i just haven't had the time to make anything else yet. thanks a lot daniel kahneman
now i find myself worrying about the prospect that anyone who would see these posts, and me struggling to make something happen that isn't happening, would find my whole situation kind of pathetic
which is entirely stupid because 1) it shouldn't doesn't matter what anyone who sees this thinks and 2) NO ONE IS SEEING THESE POSTS ANYWAYS. i'm literally just suffering ghost embarrassment. Which is STUPID.
which i don't mean to say in a self-judgmental way- i know that everybody suffers from irrational thoughts and emotions, so this doesn't make me any more stupid than a normal person; i'm just saying that the embarrassment is stupid as a what I feel is an objective fact, because it's so irrational.

all of the cringefest

in the continuing struggle to defeat fear, i forced myself to contact someone that i felt nervous to talk to, even though the nervousness was completely and utterly irrational (as it usually almost always is). the conversation is now awkwardly under way.
Funny how awkwardness necessarily involves fear of judgement, which is exactly what I'm trying to get over. I just have to get to a place where I'm ok with that. THROUGH PRACTICE AND A LOT OF CRINGING BEFORE IT GETS BETTER.

7:13 left to say something useful

i've been a bit apprehensive about this whole idea of just putting whatever on here even though no one is going to see it. very afraid that i'm going to quit this whole thing really quickly. maybe not afraid but more like worried. pessimistic? or that it's really just going to be a lot of garbage for a long time and that it's NEVER going to get better. all this and i haven't even really started yet! and I haven't even sorted out how this thing is going to work in my day to day schedule yet. (Ha, what schedule?) and i'm just constantly jealous of people who are able to put themselves out there and make the things they want to make, and make them well. i think maybe later today i'll give another go at "things that she said" because my last attempt was really a non-attempt and i just gave up at the ed really. i'm thinking about if i can pass this blog off to some strangers online, or maybe not strangers but maybe paulo or the LWSH. Just so i'm not really just posting a lot of shit things out for nobody to see, like some sort of insane person talking to herself.

Things That She Said 1 by Samantha Liu

So this is my first "stupid thing" that I'm posting on this blog. I figured instead of sitting around being sad about how I suck at music, I should probably, you know, practice making music? so I took this old shitty poem I wrote as a basic constraint, and wrote a simple melody around the poem. The poem isn't supposed to be lyrics or anything, just a basic guide for how the mood of the song should develop over time. Here's the poem:

Things that she said
Open your heart
Uncloud your mind
Let yourself go
But stay on the ground
Look up at the sky
And come back inside

The poem has a three-ish feel, so I thought the music should be in 3. The poem was actually about things that my violin teacher said, and my struggle to resolve the paradoxical advice to let myself be spontaneous and free, but then also to show discipline and restraint and control.
So it starts our sorta casual and attempts to expand and brighten culminating in "let yourself go" but then falls back down (i think measure 16 is the best I got in this regard).

What I really want to say about this, instinctually, is OH MY GOD IT SUCKS SO MUCH WHY AM I EVEN TRYING I HATE THIS I HATE MYSELF AND I HATE EVERYTHING I DO I SHOULD JUST GO DIE RIGHT NOW AND I'M EMBARRASSED FOR THIS THING'S EXISTENCE AND WHYYYYY DID I EVER THINK I COULD DO THISSSS

but I gotta REPLACE NEGATIVE THOUGHTS with MORE POSITIVE ONES and not be FUCKING TOXIC FOR ONCE so, the rational thing to say about this is,

I guess it starts out ok enough. It's really unoriginal, but the point of this exercise wasn't really to be original, it was more about just getting started with something, no matter how simple AND SHITTY it is. I guess it accomplishes what I set out to do, which was to make a simple melody which roughly follows the emotional contours of this poem, even if it doesn't accomplish it all that convincingly or interestingly. I dislike the ending though, because jarring key change. Turns out I have no idea what I'm doing. I already knew that. If it makes it any better, I wrote the whole thing down on paper without listening to it first, and I already knew that it was going to sound kind of funny, but I didn't know HOW funny it would sound until I put it into musescore at which point I was like oh no this is really bad.
well, I remember thinking coming out of measure 16 that it would be weird to end the thing in G major/brighter key than it started in so basically I was like i should probably switch to something else, I need more of a mood change anyways. I thought about just ending in G minor, but I wanted it to feel calmer/bittersweet, not darker. so i was like fuck it i'm just gonna do whatever and just end it. The result was a jarring key change and also deviation from the 4-bar phrase pattern that had been set up, because I tried to force the music in a direction I didn't know how to make it go.

So what I learned from this is that you can't just randomly decide to change keys in the middle of a melody. use pivot chords. note to self, learn how to do that.

So that was my first post of a stupid thing I made. How do I feel about it? Still a little bit embarrassed. There is a lingering feeling that what I have just put out into the world is a shame upon myself, my family, and anybody who's ever associated with me, and especially my music teachers. But I know that all of that it just bullshit in my head. Even if this were really the worst garbage that anyone in history starting out in composition ever wrote, I'm just going to have to be ok with that. I have no delusions of being good. I'm just trying to do this for myself, I'm just trying to not be afraid anymore.
Ok, well... I guess that's enough for today.

To get over fear of judgement

I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I've come to this single idea that everything I do is shaped by fear. Fear of judgement, of not being good enough, of not being able to make it, of things being difficult, etc. etc. And anybody who really knows me (actually not a lot of people now that I think of it ) knows that I hate fear, and I believe fear is the absolute worst thing ever, a mere evolutionary remnant from a time when the environment was full of tigers and whatnot trying to eat you. Fear is good for helping you not die, but is literally the most maladaptive trait to ever exist when you're trying to accomplish things and make friends and get things done and just live life the way you want to.
I forgot what I came here to do lmao
ok, well, fear of judgement. I figure if I just do enough stupid things/make enough shitty things, I'll have nothing left that people can judge me for that I haven't already given over willingly to be judged. IF that makes any sense. I don't think I'm ready yet to announce this project out to the world, but I'm going to start putting really, really shitty things and ideas onto this really old shitty blog that I used to post on when I was like 13 or whatever. (Actually I say it's shitty but I look back at some of the stuff and actually start to like some of it. It's nice in like that naive optimism sort of way. I could honestly stand to have some more of that nowadays.)
So yeah, anyone can technically see this, but not anyone who isn't intentionally searching for this, i.e. knew I had a blog back in middle school and was like "hey i wonder if that old thing is still up"
placing my bets now, it's gonna be pat or jennifer (if anyone at all.) if it's one of you then hiiiiiii
what's uppp
lel
wait shit my analytics say i have one follower
whatever hopefully they don't actually check
BUT THE whole POINT of this is to BE OK WITH BEING JUDGED so i guess, let them see this. it don't matter to mE (well right now it still does but hopefully that changes.)

Progress

I think I've finally gotten to a point where I can look back at the posts on this blog and feel no shame or embarrassment about them. I think this is progress.

The thing I have in common with someone who's been to outer space

I saw this blue jay feather today. Isn't this life so beautiful?

It's the small things that matter. :)

That Waterpark Kid

It was a long line. Looking up, you could see the many flights of stairs spiraling up to the waterslides. Looking down, you could see the whole indoor waterpark, see people swimming and running and laughing. Sunlight from the glass ceiling pleasantly warmed my back.
I saw a little boy making his way up the stairs to join the back of the line where I was, pulling with him a blue double tube that seemed comically large compared to his small body. He was wearing a turquoise swim shirt and he had dark chocolate hair, and large innocent brown eyes. Coming up behind me, he asked me, "Can you please hold my place in line for me? I need to go get someone." So I said sure and I took his tube in addition to my own so he could dash back down the stairs.
The line slowly moved forward, and the boy soon came back to reclaim his tube, still alone as he didn't appear to have found the person he was looking for. He waited impatiently in line for a bit before he had me take his tube again, running back down the stairs to find whoever it was he was looking for.
Soon I was nearing the front of the line, and I was beginning to worry that the kid wouldn't make it back in time to go on the slide. Finally I saw his face as he made his way back to our place in line, still the other person was nowhere to be seen.
"Did you find who you were looking for?" I asked.
He nodded, but I saw that he kept looking over the stair railing down at the ground, anxiously searching for someone, hoping to see them making their way up the steps so they could go on the slide together.
We got to the top, but still no one had showed up. As I was about to go down the slide, I looked back to see that the lifeguard had taken the boy's double tube, exchanging it for a single tube.
The lifeguard said I could go, so I pushed off and down the slide, crashing out of the bottom of the slide into a wave of water and laughs.
But when I looked back to see the boy come out of the slide after me, his face looked absolutely crestfallen. My heart fell.
I didn't see him after that but I hope he's having a good life.

The Sun Shines the Same Way in All Places

Lost old lady wandering lone
Looking for a bit of home
Soft youth trying to find her way
To each, the other's eyes, they say
Things are going to be okay.

Fake Flowers

Fake flowers

Have watched real flowers come and go

Seen their delicate beauty

Smelled their fragrance

And watched them wither and die

And wondered why arrangements of plastic

Should deserve to live for so much longer

We're Off to a Good Start

Today I forgot
That I have to write poems
For the next two months

Rock

Hello moon.
Are you waxing or are you waning?
Is it just me or are you sinking?
Are you waxing or are you waning?
I didn't pay attention in science class so
I forgot which direction the light spins
Silver crest, sky smiling far away
I forgot which direction the light spins
But whatever because in the end
Your light tells me that the sun is just
Beyond                    The horizon
Where we pretend things disappear into
A single point or two
But we know the truth, you and I
It's daytime on the other side

Hello moon.
The best flying rock in outer space
Or maybe technically falling in circles
Actually I take that back
Planet Earth is certainly a better rock
Sorry

A Case for Abstract Expressionism

No one really stops to think about art except art professors or historians or museum curators. That's the first thing; when someone criticizes abstract art for being lazy and pointless, I sometimes doubt that they've really tried to examine and study it closely. Maybe they have, but they just don't see a connection. That's fine, I get it. I'm not going to shove art down your throat if you don't get it. I don't get medieval art. It's some of the most boring stuff to me. But let me tell you, you have no right to assume that since you think something is stupid, everyone else should think it is too, and that people only just pretend to like it in a sort of attempt to engineer the type of person they are and that others will see.

But let's be honest. If a person doesn't feel abstract expressionism, I am almost inclined to believe that if they tried hard enough to understand, listen to, spend time with and know artists and art fans, they would begin to see just what it means to those people, and form interpretations of their own. But I mean, just because there's a small chance you could understand it if you really really tried, doesn't mean you have an obligation try. I mean you have a life too. And you probably have other things to worry about, other things that you care about and are passionate about. You can't afford to care about everything.

I'm just a high school student. I know very very very very little about anything. I think about art quite a bit though. I don't expect you to agree with me, but this is my take on abstract art.

There are all types of people in the world. Truly there are people who live out most of their lives in their own heads. I guess some people would say they are unrealistic and irresponsible and they should stop imagining things and live in the real world. But to them, their  mind is the real world. They spend so much time mulling and examining their thoughts and emotions, it's what they know.

All the abstract expressionist artists I learned about in Humanities class were "tortured" artists. These are the type of people for whom most of their lives is focused on an inner dialogue with themselves. (I am not entirely sure if they were tortured and depressed as a direct result of the things they thought about, or if it's as a result of a consequence of being introspective all the time, for example routinely not sleeping enough because they've stayed up all night thinking about the meaning of the universe, because prolonged sleep deprivation really takes a toll on your sanity. Or being bad at making friends and then being depressed because they have no one to share their inner world with. Or, I think simply because they're part of a misunderstood minority of people, or they feel that they're in a minority of people. Because even if 70% of the population was like this, they would all be so isolated within themselves that they wouldn't realize they weren't alone.)

So we have people like this. Do you think they're going to connect well with a realistic classical depiction of a king? Or a mundane impressionistic landscape? (Okay well I was going to say no, but actually probably yeah now that I think about it. I think maybe they could connect with anything that doesn't talk. So I guess there are some details of the "real world" that they would focus on and the rest kind of is a blur for them. I mean they have to have some inspiration of something for them to think about, right?)

But anyways I digress. My point was supposed to be that these artists have so much in their mind and how they see it, there's not much in the real world that mirrors how they feel. I mean, nature is wonderful, but what about the expansive seemingly endless jumble of swirling emotions that surrounds and colors the artist's every waking second? What does one do about that?!? Painting depictions of the real world simply isn't going to do these emotions justice.

When I look at a work of abstract expressionism, I think that the artists are trying to paint their own world. They're creating their own spaces. They're not copying God's work, they're trying to make their own. We've had centuries of trees and people in our paintings. They want to make their own world. These artists, they're playing god. Drawing on the forces inside their heads.

And every artist's work is very distinct. I think that on their own, the art wouldn't mean that much but the artists charge the canvases with their purpose and their life. They make the art, and the art makes them. It becomes a part of their identity. Truly each artist is unique and feels and interprets their world differently.

You're going to look at their art, and you're not going to see the same thing as what they painted. (Maybe you don't see anything at all.) But I think they know that. Maybe they're okay with that or maybe they don't ever quite get past the rift that traps them in their own minds. But anyways, whatever you see in that art is going to say a good deal about who you are, and you're probably not ever going to entirely understand it! Especially if you aren't accustomed to thinking about things without need of words to describe what you're thinking. But for many people, there is something there when they look at that art.

And you know what, it's not that easy to come up with something that detaches itself from the natural world and becomes a representation of a only feeling! Pollock? Check out the surface of Europa. Rothko? There's an endless color field shimmering and shifting its tone to reflect the state of the world and it's called THE SKY. (IMO compare the artist's work to God's work, the artist's work seems crude in comparison.) But anyways, that art is going to have a character that is unique to itself and its painter.

I think it's just amazing and rich, the art. It sometimes kind of hurts though.
So. That's my take on abstract expressionism.


----------------
A CODA
You know something that isn't reflected in nature though? Music. You could say most music is abstract because it rarely ever resembles birdsong or running water. Music is kind of something mankind can boast as its own creation. It's really distinctly human. Although there are insanely ingenious skilled composers who can illustrate a morning or a storm or moonlight with their music, it's a very human emotionally charged rendition. It's crazy, I can't wrap my head around it. The theory of music is really very simple compared to the emotions it can evoke. And the technical theory part of music is already insanely complex as far as I can tell. Like Mahler, Sibelius?!?! Where the heck did you get those ideas?!?! How did you know how to express it so perfectly?! Aaaaaaaah I just CAN'T EVEN. You guys achieve alicorn princesshood. You too Beethoven and Stravinsky and Mozart and Bach and Tchaikovsky and Dvorak and Barber and Marjan Mozetich (srry had to google ur name) and Delibes and Verdi, Rossini, Strauss, Strauss, Strauss. You get cookies AND RAVEL AND DEBUSSY AND LISZT AND VAUGHAN WILLIAMS AND CHOPIN k I'm not going to liszt everybody it's just too much to handel

Something I just remembered

Back at the end of September, the legacy orchestra played at Rice for their first beginners concert. It was really great to play and see Mrs Fox and Mrs D and walk down the old hallways and visit my old orchestra locker and help stack chairs at the end of the concert. (haha it hadn't even been half a year at that point but I still was really nostalgic.)
Anyways, after all the chairs and stands were racked and put back into the correct rooms and most people had left and the sky was dark purple with a tinge of red, I walked outside to the sound of crickets chirping and a breeze of cool air. I tried to call my mom to pick me up but for some reason the call wasn't going through so I just hung around near the flagpole enjoying the quiet and hoping I wasn't being bitten by too many mosquitoes.
There were some other students and parents talking to Mr. Glasscock who was staying and making sure everyone got their ride home and no one was left by themselves in the dark. Slowly, one by one, all of the students left as I kept trying to call my mom. So then it was just Mr. Glasscock and me, and he asked when my parents were going to come, and I explained that my calls weren't going through for some reason, and I started feeling bad for making him stay for so long so I just started walking in the direction of home and maybe just hide behind the building until he thinks I left and idk? I also just kinda wanted to be alone and yeah.
So Mr. Glasscock walked up and was like you still here? And I was like yeah but I finally got a call through so the two of us sort of just sat on the curb near an orange-glowing streetlight waiting for my parents to come.
Mr. Glasscock I guess couldn't take silence so he was trying to make conversation.

"How's Jasper?" he asked in a tired sounding voice, and I was just like "It's okay."
"Is it harder?"
"I guess, but it's not as different as I thought it would be."
"I have 2 daughters in high school."
[I can't really remember what I said to this, it was probably something lame like oh that's cool]
"How are your grades?"
"Okay. Not good enough."
"What are they, like 96s?" this said with a sort of sad tired laugh in his voice.
*heh heh nervous laughter*
..
"How's your GPA?"
"I don't know, I haven't calculated."
"GPA takes all the fun out of learning."
..
"Yeah."

At this point I looked up to see his face, dimly lit by the orange glow of the streetlamp. His tired face, a face I imagine once glowed with limitless joy in teaching and learning, now just so done and not even frustrated anymore, just tired. Disappointed.

Mr. Glasscock had now gone on to complain about the mosquitoes, but I had the sound of his voice, the look of his face imprinted into my thoughts, where I turned the image over and over in my mind the whole ride back, staring out the open window at the houses going by, glows of orange against the dark sky.

Rise again

The fireflies have gone to sleep

The stars retreat back into mystery

And it is time for the quiet to break.

Houses go by as the first

Touch of orange lights the horizon.

We're back and we're

Setting fire to the sky,

Rooftops lit by golden flames, a

Shining phoenix reminding that

We will never die.

And we are here to rage,

Rage for those who have died,

Who still suffer through the

Nights of hatred and evil,

Nights without end-

Rage,

Until the searing sunlight

Is at last victorious