I'm rolling two posts into one (CHEAT) because both of them have proved to be quite tricky to roll the usual heavyweight 1000+ for; the contents of my fridge are so thinly stretched and straight up boring that I found myself considering eating my own leg out of sheer ennui, and abandoning drafts left right and centre. I will however, distill a description of the contents of the Scholary refrigerator... which may prove both enlightening and uninspiring in equal measure. Also in this post I will attempt to broach the tricky issue of compliments. I have an odd relationship with compliments, both giving and receiving, and the issue of what I feel is one of the best compliments I get paid these days. without further ado, let us away away.
The Fridge in any shared dwelling is a minefield, usually forgotten food gone past its date. Often, anything based on milk will normally have grown its own civilization to rival that which exists outside the fridge before it's removed. Don't forget the shaft milk of Britten House. Currently, the fridge is pretty empty; I am living on my own since the other Scholars have gone home. There's little of interest in their left behind things - beef mince and refrigerated pasta, butter...and a bag of peppers, I think. Maybe a Chorizo? I'm not checking. I'm not even at home. I do, however, maintain an intimate familiarity with what I purchase. All that's mine in there right now is butter and lactose-free milk. I often don't keep things in the fridge, due to the typical lack of room in there: usually there's enough for the four other Scholars and well, not much room for anything else. It's obviously a problem but there's not really much to be done. The others buy for a week at a time, and I buy for myself. It's been like this for a little while now, a few weeks after I got into that whole lactose intolerance scene. I guess it's slightly more expensive in the long run, but I have my own stockpile of stuff in the dry cupboard after all. I usually raid the reduced sections of both the Co-Operative and Tesco, I know I'm gambling all the time with what there is, but one the basics are down I can make anything that I know that I'll eat. The one thing that I always need to keep in the fridge is the Lactose free milk. I tried Soya but... Eurgh. Life's too short to drink that bean curd, after all. As long as I can drink tea and eat cereal in the morning (well, when I get up in sufficient time), then things will be okay. I promise.
As part of the deal though, my contents of the fridge are as follows:
- Amoy Aromatic Black Bean stir fry sauce
- Helman's Mayonnaise (full fat)
- Lactofree blue milk
- Utterly Butterly
- A bag of pre-sliced peppers (which need to be thrown out actually)
Phew. That was boring. Sorry! There really is nothing exciting in my fridge.
So I need to talk about compliments now, and specifically the best compliment I've ever received. Let's go for the latter option first as a warm up though, because straight up the best compliment I feel that I receive is people complimenting me on this very blog. It's really gratifying when people come up to me in bars, on the street, on twitter, at church, and say that they're enjoying reading my work or about that comment they left (you know who you are), or being chided for not keeping to the daily schedule (aha). Of course as a writer I basically have no idea what I'm doing, which is probably why I'm having so much difficulty with unfamiliar titles and the territory that comes with them, not having any actual training or education, just throwing words onto the internet and finding that thankfully they seem to be sticking pretty well. I'm sure there's more than enough people who don't like it, and aside from the frankly hilarious trolling I got last year I do pretty okay for comments.
But what about other compliments? Ones that maybe I don't feel so...confident about? Like, about my singing? Ha ha... I'm still quite insecure about my singing. I mean, I don't even listen to any countertenors for pleasure, so why should anybody want to listen to me? When I started singing again after my voice had changed, my technique was so woefully inadequate and you know, everything was terrible not to mention the constant derision I was subject to by one of the older Songmen made me lose a lot of faith. Things changed for the better though, and I got a lot of confidence back, even though I didn't think I made any impact in the choir sound. Fast forward to Mancroft, where I was once again on the back foot, and always felt like I was doing something wrong, that I was too loud, my vowels...well, just wrong. Things like that hurt. I mean, really hurt. There isn't much worse that you can do to an aspiring musician than leave them feeling like they can't do anything to improve. I put almost as much energy into not expiring, as horrid a subject that might be. Let's not talk about it any more. The real upshot, the point I'm really trying to make is that I felt so unconfident that I stopped believing in the compliments I was paid about my voice. It's a thorny issue, actually, because I genuinely didn't think that people were lying outright to me or anything, just that...I wasn't worth it. For years I have been passed up on solos and concerts and I rationalised that it must be because I have a terrible voice, a sound neither worth making or listening to. It's this approach that may contribute to my habit of seeking out unfamiliar repertoire (as far as Countertenors are concerned), so I don't have to stray into more familiar territory where I may suffer from comparisons to other singers, where I will inevitably come off worse.
Sadly, I suppose, I still have that attitude. It's difficult to get rid of. But I dunno... I'm working on it, I guess. There have been two episodes that have gone some way to convincing me that I might be, uh, mistaken in thinking that I am not worth believing in...
NUMBER ONE I received a first class mark in my final vocal recital at University. Accepted wisdom was that no singer ever gets a first at UEA and then I went and got an extremely pleasing 73, If only the rest of my degree classifications could have gone like that! I mean, my dissertation was first class too, but that's writing and academic writing at that, something I have a simple yet highly effective formula for, coupled with researching my topic the entire time I had writing block. Obviously I wouldn't have performed so well if I wasn't actually good, but... I did work hard for it, after all. I also had an excellent accompanist, without whose support I would have found it difficult to have done even half as well.
NUMBER TWO I was asked to join the team of permanent Lay Vicars at Truro Cathedral Choir. I know, I know I know... You'v all probably heard quite enough about this but there was no way I even thought myself remotely good enough to be anything but a Choral Scholar until at least this time next year or so, maybe even another two years but actually turns out I'm good to go right now, not something I thought would happen until at least the age of 25. I suppose I should just accept the fact that I'm capable (rather than just culpable) and get on with the job at hand now, but you know, it means a lot! As much as I've suffered with issues of confidence and feeling that have difficulties in belonging, trying to remember that I'm actually wanted by the Boss to stay here; I'm sure he could rustle up any number of Choral Scholar types (perhaps mostly from the Oxbridge trail) on a rolling yearly basis to replace me had I not accepted - but no, it seems to be a much better idea if I stay on for the time being. Musically of course this is my ideal world, but life itself has brought up an unexpectedly large amount of challenges, even at this stage! There are miles to go yet.
Curiously, it does feel like there is little worth celebrating about this appointment though. I'm not going anywhere, I'm not using next year to prepare to move on to higher education, which actually is basically what all the other Scholars are doing, in one form or another. Whether to a Cambridge Collegiate Choral Scholarship, The Royal Academy of Music or PGCE study, the others have... destinations. At this point, it seems I only have a journey in front of me. As the "good news" was announced at the beginning of the Michaelmas half term holiday, before my exodus to Norwich and back, it sort of...got lost in the post? Perhaps it was always part of the plan, I don't know, but it certainly feels a bit more...ordinary. Oh well. Time will tell what the lay of the land will be next year, with my own place and a job to go alongside too. It seems that personal rather than professional goals will be my focus.
As for giving compliments, it's also something I'm not terribly used to. This is more down to a lack of confidence - who the hell wants to hear me say...well, anything to them? Why should what I say matter? But this is the root of a deeper problem, one we don't have time for now. I am gradually geeting more used to paying compliments as I get older and get more used to being able to engage other people in conversation, something that I still actually work harder on than you might imagine. I have about two whole decades worth of strategies that are in operation all the time, and if you can't tell...that means they're working perfectly.
That's all. For now.
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