Learning in Unexpected Places

I was taking a shit at a friend’s place and snooping around his stash of magazines, newspapers and books for something to read. Was told millions of times that reading while shitting is a bad habit that might cause “piles”.. But in my case, shitting can be difficult at times, and reading something while at it just makes it a whole lot easier.

Back to the main thing…I chanced upon a small book that contained the teachings of the Dalai Lama. There was a page that said this:

“I think that leaving aside how the endless pursuit of romantic love may affect our deeper spiritual growth, even from the perspective of a conventional way of life, the idealization of this romantic love can be seen as extreme.

Unlike those relationships based on care and genuine affection, this is another matter. It is something based on fantasy, unattainable and therefore maybe a source of frustration so on that basis, it cannot be seen as a positive thing.”

Makes A LOT OF SENSE when you think about it.

Talk about being enlightened in the toilet!

Living away from home

I had a girl’s night out with the rest of the students from the percussion section. One of my classmates was nice enough to invite the percussion girls for a nice dinner cum chill out session at her place. The food was awesome and we were entertained by her baby daughter who was such a darling! We had Bosch soup, salad, salmon and potatoes with hollandaise sauce with some red wine. Desert was chocolate and vanilla ice cream, LOTS of potato chips, coffee and some baileys. (I could go on and on with food…) So it was a fantastic evening with great food, drinks and of course great company. It was nice to finally sit down with the rest of the girls and have a nice chat about everything.

Recently, I kind of realized that the only way to get to know about a place is NOT to just go to all the touristy places and buy souvenirs and take lots of awesome photographs..(the list goes on..)

The best way to go is to hang out with the locals or people who have been living there. That’s the best way to really get to know a place, the culture, their habits. It really gives you a lot of different perspectives and insights about the place you’re in. One gets a lot more knowledge about a place from talking to people because you get to hear of the “real life” not the façade you see in tourist places or postcards or whatsoever.

It’s like if you think about Singapore. Lots of tourists hear Singapore and they say “Yeah.. it’s a really clean and nice place with a nice zoo and I really like the white tigers” and then they’ll be a whole lot of other comments that it’s quite a boring place if you stay around too long. But seriously, which one of us locals would go to the zoo and look at the white tigers. I for one haven’t seen the white tigers. If any friend comes to visit, I could bring him/her to the zoo only upon request, and spend a maximum of 2 hours there. Then, we’ll hit 85 for ba chor mee, satay, chicken wings and otah and hit geylang for durians and tau hwey.

I tried this in Stockholm and I had a super awesome time. I didn’t manage to check out every museum, but my friend Shu and I were hanging out with a lot of the locals, some were her friends and others were just strangers we talked to on the train, at bars, and almost everywhere and I have to admit, we had such a wonderful time!

Do what the locals do, that’s the only way you can maximize and enjoy your stay in a particular place. I might be wrong, but for now, that’s the way I want to experience Denmark. So, for that I’ll make an effort to hang out and stuff and by the time it’s time to leave this place, I won’t think back and say “Oh yea Denmark, it was pretty much school and home and the things are really expensive..Yea, I've seen the Queen's castle, the statue of Hans Christian Andersen and the Little Mermaid” These things are very superficial in a way, and somehow forgettable.

I need to spend time here learning new stuff in school as well as learning about life in another perspective. I’ve been told to make good use of time here, because it’s not as if I get this kind of chance everyday.

I’ll heed this advice and I’m hoping to say at the end of my stay that I made the right move and have grown from this experience, not only musically but also as a person. :)