Happy Anniversary me!

Today marks 5 years since I began this blog. Wow. This blog reflects on my life in milestones over the last 9 years.

Why 9 years? Actually, it’s 9 years 3 months. Since I met my DH (Darling Husband). So much has happened since that time!

7 years 9 months since I was proposed to. 7 years and one month since I moved to Queensland. 7 years since we married.

7 years since I met some wonderful friends in QLD, forgoing my usual diffidence to make some lovely, ongoing connections.

7 years and 1 month since I began my singing teaching and consulting business. And 7 years since I’ve successfully maintained it. 7 years since I met our accountant. Who is awesome.

6 years since I started working as a sessional lecturer.

6 years since my son began dating his current girlfriend.

It’s 5 years 9 months since I began my PhD. 22 months since I went part-time. 1 month, 5 days since I submitted it and 10 days until assessors’ reports are due back (nervous, much?).

5 years, 9 months since I made 2 dear friends (RD and LG), sharing an office and solving the world’s music and education problems together.

3 years, 3 months since DH and I bought our first home together.

3 years since I started 1-2-1 singing teaching in Musical Theatre at the Qld Con.

2 years, 6 months since Boots the Beagle was killed outside our busy road.

2 years, 2 months since I went on a health jag and lost a truck load of weight. 1 year since I started copping out and putting it all back on again!

2 years since Poppy the Groodle was born and we adopted her into our lives.

18 months since I bought my new car.

1 year 3 months since my daughter came out to me as transgender.

1 year since I left Facebook.

10 months since my daughter came to live with us.

8 months since we decided to try and improve our house.

2 months since we got the money to do something about our house.

5 years of writing my thoughts in this blog. 19402 views, 192 comments, 122 followers. I curate my thoughts, you know. There’s plenty I don’t tell you, can’t tell and won’t ever tell you. But to my followers and friends who read this, thank you for your lovely words and gentle encouragement over the years as I wrangled my way through my PhD and many life issues throwing up the usual bum steers. You’ve been a wonderful audience.

 

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NYC is a noisy place part 2.

Megan Washington said an interesting thing about NYC in an article published by Fairfax yesterday when she called it “the most vampiric city on the planet”. I agree. Native New Yorkans are bred to survive and thrive in that environment, which makes their energy outside NYC seem all the more shrill and hard. It’s gratuitously noisy. Unnecessarily so. Aggressive? Perhaps. I didn’t get that sense. It was more that New York believes its own hype about being noisy and busy and bustling. It’s no more busy than any other large city, and occasionally less so. It’s just a lot noisier than your average city and the aural assault is too much after a while. There’s a thrum to the city that was really evident in the peace of Central Park. It’s a tough town to survive for those people who are emotionally and spiritually depleted. I knew I was going to find it noisy and busy and indeed I did.

What I did not really expect was the New York condescension to the Outlier or Other. Friendly folk: absolutely! Don’t get me wrong. New Yorkans were cheerful, loud people and I liked them a lot. But there is a readily observable sense of superiority of the native New Yorkan that is present in all their transactions with people not from the city. I kept feeling during personal interactions a kind of “oh, hello you nice little naive person from the Antipodes. How sweet of you to come here and oh, by the way, all nations of the earth are represented in our restaurants, we’re known for it”. Huh. Maybe a long time ago. Now, not so much. Also, the quality and variety of the food is desperately overrated. There’s a reason Heston Blumenthal of Fat Duck fame went to Melbourne with his restaurant pop up rather than go to NYC or other big city.

Like all cities, there is a cultural overlay that defines and shapes the relationships of people and groups to place. NYC has held the planetary Number One spot for a hundred years for being the vanguard of intellectual creativity and ideas, from Dorothy Parker to Warhol to Seinfeld (well…). The zeitgeist of this place is huge. But this historical mountain over the course of the 20th century seems to be stifling the vanguard now. While there DH and I went to a bunch of art stuff. MOMA, Guggenheim, The Met, Broadway. Was I missing something? I didn’t get excited by the stuff. I fear NYC is now too afraid to attempt to be truly creative, in the big art houses, at least. They seem content to rest on the laurels of their admittedly impressive cultural heritage.

One such example was Aida (Verdi), at the Met. A terrible, horrible production. Singing was pretty good except the tenor, who was past it. Orchestra lovely, but conducting out of time at times. Found myself conducting from my seat in frustration. Acting by the leads non-existent, particularly the main soprano, whose performance was horrible even while her singing was lovely. The horses in the procession scene were the highlight of the show. The director should have been shot. In slow motion. Much like the production, which had 2 very long intervals of 40 minutes each. OMG. I have never been so bored in my life, and I LIKE opera. And I love Verdi. Some truly terrible reviews, sadly, that rather unfairly targeted the singers when actually it was mostly the ghastly direction at fault. But we booked months ago and I expected so much more from this NYC company. Not this hideous heritage piece playing like something out of the 1950s.

Sure, our Broadway experiences were supposed to be about spirit fingers and jazz hands, and they certainly were. We saw all new productions: Kinky Boots, If/Then, Honeymoon in Vegas, Pippin (ok, this one was old but new again), It’s Only A Play. Some nice work going on but no really exciting fresh ideas. It’s Only A Play could have been written by Noel Coward or Neil Simon! In fact, I’m sure it was in parts. The old conceit about a new play and its players,  playwright, director and producer all waiting in the producer’s glamorous bedroom for the opening night reviews from The NY Times (a trumped up nonsense of a broadsheet if ever I’ve read one). Very funny play, but hardly original. But I liked the honesty of live performance. I liked that I could see the faces of the performers (at Honeymoon we were 2 rows from the front in the central orchestra), that one guy’s hands were shaking (he opened Honeymoon in Vegas and it was first night of the previews, for goodness’ sake). I liked that mistakes were made, that the “polish” in shows like Jersey Boys wasn’t always evident in these productions. Gosh, that made it lovely and real. And not that much better than anywhere else, actually. Which made it even better to be a part of. Broadway is NOT inaccessible for our young performers and wanna-be musical theatre peeps. Just highly competitive.

BTW Honeymoon in Vegas is a triumph. Go. Just go. If you want an unabashed, exuberant musical with jazz hands, spirit fingers and dancing show girls, you will not be disappointed. A triumph. The book by originator Andrew Bergman was perfect, the music by Jason Robert Brown was perfect, the Sondheimesque-lyrics by JRB were also perfect. The production was a little patchy, but that’s because it was previews and the tech wasn’t quite finished I think. (I’ve seen worse and we expected worse things to occur!) The performers were fantastic. All really solid – the 2 leads in Rob McClure and Brynn O’Malley were lovely (sidebar, who thinks that Brynn O’Malley in a blond wig is a dead ringer for Taylor Schilling?). Nancy Opel was perfectly cast. David Josefsberg as the Vegas star stole the show and Tony Danza was surprisingly great. There’s even a tap number followed by a soft shoe shuffle duet. Performed by Tony Danza in front of the curtain. 4th wall conventions thrown splendidly away. Dancing Elvis impersonators. Dancing Elvis impersonators SKYDIVING. Quick changes. Oh, it was joyful.

For all my complaints, I don’t think I got to know New York the way I want to. I will be back. But I will be armed with a good Fiji holiday prior, and prepared for the NY assault on the senses. And I will escape from time to time to quieter places, just like so many New Yorkans do for some respite from the noise. It has been said that Americans are noisy people who don’t listen to others. Now I know why.

 

NYC is a noisy place. Part 1

And that’s coming from someone who lives on a main road. NY is noisier than Hong Kong or London or Paris, three major world cities I’ve frequently visited.

So, I’m not sure I like NY very much. There’s no place for quiet. There’s a song by Adam Gwon called “Calm” which explains the frenetic nature of NY very well.

It’s not that NY has lots of people – it does, but so does Paris and London and HK. In fact I’ve stayed in Mong Kok in Kowloon, apparently the most densely populated area on Earth. I don’t mind people. But NY is just so much noisier than these other cities and I’m not sure how I feel about it. And it’s not the people, either. They’re perfectly normal. (Except the tourists from middle America, weirdly, who are noisy and have really loud, rather ugly voices.) It’s the noise of the traffic, the subterranean subway rumbles, the overbearing use of music everywhere. The blaring. All combining to make the city a noisy, loud, seemingly frenetic place. But it’s the noise, nothing else.

It’s also an interior city. For me, coming from Antipodean Australia with its outdoor cafes and laid back lifestyle, all the interior spaces of NY were again – well – noisy. Nowhere to be quiet. Except at 8.00am on a Sunday morning. Or the Highline. Or down at South St, Seaport, where there are lovely open spaces and fewer highrises, and, bluntly, fewer people.

That being said, NY is very beautiful, and I loved Central Park, the Highline, the Guggenheim, MOMA, the Empire State Building at night, the Rockefeller Center. Broadway, oh my! Broadway. And the subway. OMG what a fabulous subway. I love the subway. I love the frequency of trains, the friendly people (yes, strange hey, that people on the subway can be friendly?), and Grand Central Station.

There are overrated places where the collective imagination and valorising of such spaces render the visitor rather disappointed with the reality. Soho and Greenwich village are two such places. The thing about Soho and the Village is not that they are different from other spaces in other world cities (think Soho in both London and HK), but that the architecture is such a relief from the high rise of the Midtown. And of course it was in Soho and the Village that dangerous creativity and ideas and social activism and social conscience and difference were and continue to be most celebrated. I think I expected more from this area and I was disappointed not to find an open square or meeting place – Washington Square too cold and wet this trip – I had foolishly expected a gathering place such as found in villages of old. Not to be, here. Manhattan is characterised by a grid of roads. There is nowhere really to escape the roads.

I’m looking forward to going back again, though. Manhattan/NYC is a fascinating place. I’ve not yet even scratched the surface, and I suspect travelling with more people or at least meeting up with Manhattanites who live in the city might make my future experiences richer and more evocative than the rushed tourist version I experienced last week.

p.s. We really liked Seattle.

The NaNoWriMo experience

Nah, don’t be daft. There’s no way I’m doing this little exercise when I’ve just handed in my PhD. I’m exhausted and in no way ready to embrace the challenge of fiction just yet. But it got me to thinking. The National Novel Writing Month seems like a great opportunity to plan a future novel. Not this year, but certainly next year. I reckon if I plan my plot and my characters with enough detail, then next year will be a great writing opportunity. 50,000 words in a month? Sure. That’s less than 2000 words a day. And if a picture tells a thousand words, then what does a song count for? Cabaret, here I come.

Currently I’m resetting my brain to enjoy being quiet for a bit. Frankly, I’m so thoroughly depleted that I’m turning every day into a holiday when I can. If I’m not teaching in the afternoon I come home and veg out on the couch. I’ve been watching True Detective. A brilliant bit of work if ever I’ve seen it. Loving the great acting, scripts, cinematography, plot. Loving the way the writer creates tension and develops his characters. Wonderful, layered stuff. Anyway, I’ll enjoy being creative again in a year, I suspect.

But in the meantime, I’m creating a couple of book proposals for some big academic publishers. I’m keen to get on with this bit. There are a couple of days free in the next little while that look like possible prep days for my proposals, and then, New York.  !!!!

New York, New York: here I come!!

My gift to myself for successfully submitting the PhD – a trip to New York City! DH and I are leaving in a week, my precious Poppy and Lucy the Cat being cared for by my daughter in our absence. There will be home parties and fun times, I’m sure. (And then we’re going to Seattle for a couple of days too, and it’s great as well because I’ve been there – I know.)

My DH mentioned a story about a colleague of his, whose partner had recently submitted her thesis. He romantically asked of her: “where would you like to go as a GIFT for completing and submitting your PhD?” They’re in Spain right now. Clearly, her choice of gift.

My DH felt he wasn’t being very romantic because he hadn’t done the same. Nonsense, quoth I, we’re going to New York City!! (I just removed some exclamation points because it looks uncouth. Despite Elaine from Seinfeld thinking the lack of exclamation points lacks appropriate joie de vivre.). New York, New York, what a wonderful town. I have a sneaking suspicion that I will love that crazy, noisy, loud city. I have a sneaking suspicion that once I go once, I will need to go again and again. And again. Maybe for a month at a time. Maybe to write. There. I have plotted the perfect scenario to visit NY every year in the height of our summer (which is horrible, by the way – all steamy and hot – too darn hot), and spend a month writing. And yay. Or maybe I will hate the frenetic pace, and the Americans. Man, they can be LOUD. This is coming from a noisy blond Australian soprano, BTW.

I’m still anxious, though. When does the anxiety of doing a PhD end? Does it ever end? Has it now morphed into a generalised anxiety about life? Will I ever feel – just – DONE? Calm? Relaxed? FINISHED? I’m trying to self-medicate, but it’s not working.

I’m on my second gin and tonic (ok, it’s November but I swear Monsoon season has begun early this year), and I’m too old and tired to get really hammered. Besides which, getting drunk doesn’t really affect me the way it used to. My gums ache from dehydration (I’ve still not got the hang of drinking 3 litres of water a day during the wet season) and I get an early onset headache when I’ve not eaten enough food when drunk. Man, I sound old!

But next week I’m going to New York! And tomorrow I’m going to Melbourne for the weekend. My home town. Which I miss. And later on I’m going to New Zealand for a wedding, and in the June break, the whole famn damily are staying for 2 weeks at a rather nice Chateau in Bordeaux, thank you very much. I think we’re ok for the travel.

New York, New York! Hellooooo!!!!

 

 

Should I rejoin Facebook?

I’m done with the PhD. I’ve nearly finished teaching. Should I rejoin Facebook or is it all a waste of time, and potentially a bit Big Brother-y?

I’m not sure I really want to go back to that life. I’m doing okay without it. But I have slightly addictive tendencies with the thing should I choose to return.

Hmm. Thoughts welcomed.

Back to life…

I’m back home. Sad and happy simultaneously. I loved my writing retreat but by Thursday night I knew I had reached the end point of what I could achieve by the coast without going a bit insane. Not from loneliness, but from tiredness from constantly diving so deep into my literature and then getting annoyed upon finding my literature is all over the shop. Fuzzy structure annoys me and makes me tired.

I have one more week remaining to try and wrangle this thing into some sort of cohesion by Sunday week. After that, it goes to my supervisors for reading. After reading through my introduction, I’m pretty happy with it. I like my narrative chapters. I like my methods chapter, there’s not much more there needing doing. My conclusion is still a bit sucky, but I can probably clean it up in a day. So it’s still the literature and the discussion that needs a bit more work.

I’m trying to follow the instructions of my supervisors, who recommended removing more of the quotes and letting my voice be heard. While I totally understand this, I also get annoyed that I’m told at the same time to substantiate, substantiate, substantiate! Pat Thomson, who is clearly still reading the same blasted thesis she started a week ago, is getting SO annoyed by over explanation, excessive exposition and a shopping list of research studies. I know that it’s important to maintain active voice where possible, but when you are told to signpost for the reader, to not make grandiose statements, and to always make sure your statements are backed up by research, then it’s hard to find authorial voice when these directives are so prevalent. Goddam it.

 

Writing retreat huzzah!

After the craziness of last week’s Audition workshop in which I was course leader, it’s great to get away and have a peaceful time here in Noosa, finishing off the PhD. I don’t seem to have much of a sense of urgency about this week, which is weird because already one day is wasted due to travel and general sickness, and another 2 are nearly over already. I guess what I am now seeing is the very last bits of the thesis all slotting into place. I can now see that I need to add a concluding summary section at the end of my literature review that ties up all the loose ends.

I can also now see where there is a gaping great hole of research that I had completely forgotten about. I’m filling it in very fast now, really in my writing element, and writing and editing quickly – and at times, simultaneously. I’m filling and patching and removing and slicing and dicing my text, then reading it all through again to see if it makes sense. The ongoing problem is to ensure all the pieces slot neatly together, so I keep going back to my signposts to see if they are clearly marked. Linking phrases and passages are becoming clearer now, too. Especially if they are absent.

One of the things my precious book “Completing your qualitative dissertation” by Bloomberg and Volpe (2012, Sage) say is that there are steps to presenting your lit review. They are below:

1. Provide a statement of purpose
2. identify the topics or bodies of literature
3. provide the rationale for topics selected
4. describe your literature review process, report all your literature sources, and identify the keywords used to search the literature
5. present the review of each topic
6. present your conceptual framework
7. provide a brief chapter summary of the literature review and its implications for your study

Sadly, this does not seem to include a “what is not known” element that I am told by my supervisor and others is important – in other words, identifying the gaps that led me to the study. Also, I’m not sure a conceptual framework goes at the back. Or does it? I’ve put mine front and centre, and then again at the back, to link to the literature. In fact, this is the problem of my literature review: I still think it’s a bit all over the place.

Also, I’m not sure point four is really useful unless this is to delimit the search specifically for the benefit of the thesis examiners. One thing I probably need to explain is that I need to limit my search on pedagogical approaches in one-to-one music lessons to SINGERS, not other folk. Because the singing instrument is embodied and mostly internal and singers don’t hear what their audiences hear, plus we’re actually building the instrument at the same time as learning to play it, there’s a lot we have to do regarding simultaneous feedback between singer and teacher.

Anyway, I’m loving the quiet rush of the sea and the occasional sound of the seagulls – which are far less lonely sounding than those English ones. I can see the sea from the balcony and I am deeply, quietly happy about writing. Maybe that’s what I am now. A writer. One of my many identities, at any rate!

I read Anna Goldsworthy’s exquisite biography “Piano Lessons” (2011, Black Inc) this morning. Gulped it down in one enormous rush. Loved it, loved the beautiful, respectful way she wrote about her teacher, the enormously funny, wry commentary on being a child, and her struggle to become a musician. Mostly I love her trying to explain about feeling the music – the architecture, the small bits, the joy, the composers. All through the broken English of her beloved Russian teacher Eleanora Savin. What a joy this relationship reads as! And yet Anna does not resile from asking herself whether she was too dependent on her teacher even as she writes about her improved understanding of the music and how she functions with this woman. Will read it again once my study is out of the way.

And given that I am next to the ocean and have not even gone for a walk, I think now is the time to take a short stroll along the beach before heading out for a bit of food. And then, after dinner, Offspring followed by The Good Wife. Perfect.

 

Everybody just leave me alone!

Bless my DH and everyone else for not really understanding why I need to be left alone now. For weeks and weeks and weeks.

Because when you’re in flow it’s so easy to be there. But when you’re out of the flow state it’s like pulling teeth to get back in. And my PhD is waiting for no one. Certainly not me.

Gah. Besides which, my flow state keeps being interrupted by new literature that I feel I need to investigate in order to show an up-to-date-ness of reading. And that interrupts flow, too.

I think one day I’m going to have a room at the bottom of the garden like Dylan Thomas or Virginia Wolfe.

I’ll be a bit neater, but not much. And I’ll go down there and no-one can bother me when I’m in my flow state. And I’ll write and write and write. And maybe do some arts and crafts. Because that’s what I like to do. I’m pretty terrible at painting and knitting and scrap-booking but I do like to do it from time to time.

In other words, I’ve had a bit of a useless research day today because I’ve been working at the university and flow state was achieved nice and early but not in my PhD. Sadly.

But! Tomorrow is another day. Bring it.