It was supposed to be a Good Friday filled with back-to-back episodes of Glee and celebrating a birthday. Yet, the innate musicality that runs in my family caused us to abandon our original party plans all because we unanimously agreed to learn the Glee version of a Bill Withers’ classic after some gentle prodding from one of the cousins. Brennan was convinced that we would one day perform either for a family gathering, or for a church function. And seeing as we’re a family with absolutely no qualms about singing in public, we immediately gathered in my room and embarked on Project: Lean On Me.

We (or, rather, Brayton) tried to figure out the harmonies first based on a preview page of the sample sheet music we got off the Internet, but after seeing how devoted we were to getting our melodies perfect, we promptly purchased/downloaded the rest of the sheet music, and gleefully – ha! see what I did there? – got down to learning our parts. It was an extremely serious session, with all of us displaying plenty of dedication as we eagerly took instructions from our 17-year-old conductor extraordinaire. Unfortunately, the song was a LOT more difficult than we thought, so we only managed to learn up until the end of the first chorus. All within 3 hours. LOL. You see, only 2 of the cousins can sight read. So um, yeah. :p

What I loved most about the whole experience was the exciting revelation that God may have a bigger purpose for us to fulfill. Not only has He blessed us in such a way that He has given us similar gifts, He’s even gone so far as to give each of us different vocal ranges so we could perfectly fill up the various SATB roles (Soprano: Rachel, Alto: Me, Tenor: Brennan, Bass: Bjorn & Ian, Soloist 1: Beth, Soloist 2 & Conductor: Brayton). Naturally, His blessings brought about indescribable feelings of pure bliss as we sang together as a family.

The 7 of us don’t get to come together very often, so I’m not sure when exactly we’ll finish learning the song. But I’m confident that the end product will be pretty decent, and dare I say, good, even. But yes, we’ll try to do a recording so you can judge. For now, I’m just deeply thankful that we all have this amazing connection with each other, that can simply be attributed to our love for God and music.

When I graduated back in 2004, never did I imagine I’d end up teaching. After all, I’d been chasing the dream of becoming a journalist ever since I was 14 or 15. As soon as I had set my mind to it, I did everything in my capacity to achieve that goal. From simple things like making sure I read enough magazines so I had a good understanding of the requirements of feature writing, to (of course) picking the right majors in Uni. My life seemed set for writing when I graduated. Then when things were set in motion, I got myself into Events Marketing instead. It was an experience and despite my eventual issues with it, I would gladly go through it all over again. But as many of you know, exactly one year later, I felt that I was called to teach. And since then, I’ve not looked back.

But this evening, while looking through my old CV, I was reminded that I actually did pretty well in many of my modules, and one of my proudest academic achievements was when I scored that Distinction for my Creative Nonfiction Writing module. It was the module that I’d been eagerly anticipating since I enrolled into Uni. It was the module that allowed me to hone my writing abilities. One that gave me a better understanding of writing for the Arts. Needless to say, getting that Distinction was a real affirmation. So now that my 3-year teaching bond is almost up, I can’t help but wonder if I should pursue this long-forgotten ambition of mine. After all, I never got to realise it, since I went into Events, rather than Journalism, right after graduating. And isn’t there this thing about seizing the day while one is still young? No? Too cliché?

I guess I could dabble in both, although it’s certainly not going to be easy, especially seeing how I’m presently in a profession where “spare time” is far from aplenty. And yes, you could argue that there’s this whole blogging platform already available to me, which is definitely more suited for my schedule. So what more do I want? Alas my dear friends, ask any aspiring writer and he/she will tell you the same thing: it still matters to get ourselves published.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do, so I’ll just ask the Lord to open up doors and lead me in the right direction. But y’know, I’m also half-wishing that only one door will open. Mostly because I’d be too afraid to make a decision. But yes, let’s leave that for another time.

I must admit I’m quite disappointed with my lack of ability to blog more frequently. With much of my own attention turned to Twitter and Tumblr, I’ve misplaced my interest in writing and waxing lyrical about life. I’d like to blame my busy schedule, but we all know that’s not true.

In this attention-deficit society, writing requires sustained focus, structure as well as an attempt to have some form of cognition. My lack of posts is proof that I’ve fallen victim to the code of Instant Living, where everything must occur quickly, allowing (excessive) brevity to reign. After all, when life hands you the option to communicate within 140 characters, suddenly 140 words seem like a serious chore.

In an effort to be less sporadic, I’ve installed the WordPress App on my BB and in fact, that’s exactly how I’m blogging now. Needless to say, the Tumblr and Twitter apps were also downloaded.

I want to blog more because it helps me to reflect on issues more introspectively, and more simply, it gives me more room for expression. I’m just not sure if I’m determined enough to keep this up. Let’s hope so.