So ends my one week holiday back in Kuching. It's a bit strange thinking of the place where I've been living for the past 18 years as a 'holiday destination', and going back to my 'home' in KL. Perhaps this is how all first-year college students studying abroad feel.

I did notice that old habits which I thought I had gotten rid of started to resurface once I was in the comfort of my old room in the house. Before I left KL, I made a mental checklist of what I would do in Kuching:

1. Practice, practice, PRACTICE my clarinet
2. Copy Bach chorales (assignment, sigh...)
3. Update my blog regularly

I even brought back my Jamey Aebersold Major and Minor scales book (which I still haven't really covered well enough), and a few days into the holiday, my Baermann Part 3 book (ie The Clarinettist's Bible) arrived from the US and A. Extra motivation to practice? WRONG.

On looking back at the past week, I am amazed at the amount of time I spent in my room playing HOMM5 Hammers of Fate. And the amount of time I spent on my bed. Sure, I finished all 3 campaigns, as well as the whole of Half Life 2 Episode 1, but that meant late nights, and late nights = waking up at 12 noon. Half the day gone, so no mood to do Bach chorales. End up playing more games until dinnertime (save one or two days), 3/4 day gone, so no mood to practice clarinet. Eat dinner, then go online to update blog. Only thing is,

1. Connection at home much slower than in KL.
2. Check mail/Wikipedia/clarinet forum/blogs, get distracted, keep on surfing till 2am, "WAH SO LATE, where got time to update blog, I do tomorrow lah."

And today, my last day (or rather, night) in Kuching, is the culmination of 8 consecutive "I do tomorrow lah". I believe there's a simpler term for this vicious cycle: procrastination (3 whole paragraphs summarised in one word).

I suppose it's a subconscious thing; after all for the past few years I have been following the same routine in my room (to both lesser and greater extents) and even though I adjusted to a somewhat more disciplined lifestyle in KL, once I got back to Kuching, everything resets back to the old ways of life. It's easy to think "never mind lah, holiday lah, do what you want lah", but there's this niggling feeling in me that says I'm not being RESPONSIBLE. And there were bad side effects; when I finally got down to practising my clarinet today (another victim of "I do tomorrow lah" syndrome), my embouchure was predictably GONE . After a not-so-fruitful 45 minutes, I gave up, depressed.

Moral of the story: It sucks being a musician when you don't practice.

Not to say the holiday was a total disaster though. There were the fun moments - playing for the youths and beating the fathers 5-3 in the Fathers vs Youths football rematch; playing piano in church again; meeting old friends and going for movies, steamboats, 'swimming' (ie mah****, without money laa...), finally getting to drive once more. And perhaps I'm better equipped to deal with "I do tomorrow lah" syndrome so next time I come back to Kuching it won't recur (yeah right I hope).

*Looks at clock*

Ahh... it's 3am. And I have just contradicted half my blog entry (or at least the part about not sleeping late). Wait, is there a part about not sleeping late? Hmm, maybe it's just my 'niggling feeling thingy' acting up again. I really should get some sleep, my flight to KL is at noon. And to a specific person who complains I never update my blog regularly, at least when I do, it's not just a few sentences of meaningless crap!

Or maybe it is, depending on your point of view.

*Expletive* Man, I'm thinking too much tonight. I really really need to sleep.



One last thing - if you're a clarinettist, I highly recommend the Baermann book (part 3). If you've never heard of it, it's the clarinettist's equivalent of Hanon for pianists. Sure, it's about as interesting as eating cardboard boxes, but it will do wonders for your technique. Worth every sen/penny/cent/insert-local-currency-here.