Irritation

I can’t think of any suitable title for this post yet, so I’ll just type the post out and decide on the title later. It’s probably due to my current mood—anger. I can never concentrate on anything except myself and the object of my anger when annoyed in any degree whatsoever except the slightest ones. This happens especially when practicing the piano; even a mosquito can cause a grand mal irritation, leading to loads of mistakes, leading to more irritation, which equates to what physics would call a chain reaction; the end result (triggered by any person nearby) is not necessarily nuclear but can be explosive. I’d say that the above goes for pretty much anybody else; look at some of Way or Frozen Wind’s posts. (Females seem to be somewhat immune to the above phenomenon; I’ve never yet seen the least hint of a grumble on Aiming or Pooh’s posts. Irene, unraveled is another matter.)

At the moment, I’m decidedly angry, but since I subscribe to the notion that one shouldn’t wash one’s dirty linen online, I’m not leaking a bit of juicy gossip. So there.

But I must say that it’s very, very annoying when a parent screams for days on end about your studies, your failure to get any scholarship at all, and hates it when you enjoy anything at all, for example, the computer and the TV set. It’s a blessing I don’t enjoy sports or she’d probably have sent every basketball into orbit or something. So far I’ve noticed that her most frequently spoken commands are ‘Shut down’, ‘Turn it off’, and ‘Do your homework’.

It’s also very annoying when your kid brother—7 years younger than you—has a predisposition towards calling names when in a temper. He does, of course, at least have some creativity; two years ago he was yelling ‘CHICKENING IDIOT!!!’ at everything in sight; now his apostrophes take the form of ‘You devil/demon/moron/idiot!!!!’ etc.

I’ve been characterized on the Color Quiz as ‘Egocentric and therefore quick to take offense’, which is unfortunately true, especially when it comes to family. It’s the old we-hurt-those-we-love-the-most, except that on occasions I don’t love them at all. In fact I’m quite cruel to them sometimes. (Again, I’ll spare you the dreary, sordid details.)

I’m going to be leaving everybody I’ve known for the last 6 years behind in 13 days. To think it only took me three days to make that decision! It’s another example of the repent-at-leisure bromide, except that I hope I’m not going to repent this one. I wish Wolf would at least contact me or something, he’s been unheard of for some time now. It’s like he’s disappeared into a black hole or something.

My mother has decided to have the entire upper floor altered, so she’s hired a firm to do it. They’ve spent most of today stripping off the ancient carpeting (it’s so old that it has turned into different shades depending on light exposure) and putting on some kind of wooden tiling. I don’t know the exact measurements or technical jargon, but it looks good and will be much easier to vacuum clean. Now if only the vacuum cleaner worked.

And my two older younger siblings had their violin examination today in some little off-the-beaten-path art school. It was dilapidated in the extreme, had absolutely no good acoustic properties, and the doors squeaked when moved. There was even one door that made a sharp banging sound when opened! (I examined that door quite closely and didn’t see the reason why; put it down to my ‘eight’ nature.)

My sister did quite well, I think (I know because I was there in the capacity of accompanist) and should pass with merit; my maternal uncle’s wife will be gratified to know that the musical gene also exists in this branch of the family tree. Unfortunately, my brother didn’t do quite so well, and made a number of embarrassing mistakes.

It began when he entered the examination room without his score, and had to rush out and back to get it. Then he entered the first song one beat too early and caused no end of delightful errors in which we tried to catch up with each other. After that, the second song was played with a great amount of unwanted and unplanned-for pizzicato notes (one, to be exact, but it reverberated like thunder in the tiny room). And the third song, which was supposed to be quite simple even for the accompanist, came out with a very strange beat which fluctuated wildly over the course of the two pages. For those who know music, you should know the havoc that can be caused when a song’s beat can’t make up its mind and turns fast and slow at unpredictable intervals!

The examiner did his best to reassure my brother, I’m sure; I wasn’t around for the rest of the exam and therefore escaped witnessing more painful moments, but from what I’d seen my brother isn’t likely to continue the tradition of getting merit grades in music. Of course it’s still wildly possible; I broke down halfway once during a piece and managed to get a merit score (barely; only my perfect score on the aural test saved me), but still—

It’s only his first, so I suppose allowances should be made. But I still wish he’d listened to me when I told him to practice; I have a little more experience where exams are concerned, after all. At least now I get to gloat and tell him I told him so. But it does seem very un-chivalrous to kick him while he’s down.

Not that he’s very down. His temperament is of the sort that doesn’t remain on any one mood very long, so he brooded over the exam for a whole 35 minutes, after which he went online and played some games (punctuated by gentle hints of my mother’s disapproval, which went up rapidly in volume and went down as rapidly in subtlety), and is now playing tennis somewhere. It’s almost unfair that he should get the nicer temperament type (I think it’s called sanguine, but I can’t be sure since I haven’t gotten him to take the test).

Not that I don’t like my own, but it would be nice if it were always easy for me to shake off my own disappointments.