Tonight's Jam

I'm in Lliria again. This time I'm the vegetarian cook for Winter
School. Tonight after dinner a few of us came to my room and hung out
and played music. Here are some pics.




I got to play my new song for
Pitu, Neda, Hector, Shirin and Shaheen. It was so much fun. I really
missed that, hanging out and playing music. Hector and I reminisced
for a bit after dinner about our times in Haifa. I don't get to see
him much so it was nice to hang out and talk again.
This summer school is huge. There's a big bunch of youth and preyouth
and a few adults. Total is about 150 people, but the number is
expected to go up to about 400 or so this weekend because Mr. Dunbar
is coming! It'll be wonderful to see him again and hear him speak. He
is doing a special session on Friday and Saturday (i think those are
the days).
Another old friend I'll be seeing at this school is Rene from
Switzerland. He is coming tomorrow, just for a day, because he is
going back to Switzerland the next day, but 1day is better than
nothing :o)

Testing Photo Blog

Ok so this is the true Flickr test. I am sending an e-mail with a
photo attached. THe body of the message should end up as my blog, the
attached photo should automatically assimilate itself into the right
hand side of the page, and the subject line of the message should be
the title. If this works, I'll be majorly impressed with this Flickr
thing, since it only took a few minutes to set up. However, if you're
reading this and there's no picture, then Flickr gets no points from
me.

This picture is one of the few I took on the day that I took a trip to
San Sebastian with Mara and Mark. There was a protest about to be held
and we were passing through the square as Basque activists were
setting up. San Sebastian is an old, mostly Basque, beautiful city.
This was on one of the walls....

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Merry Christmas

Today is Christmas day. I'm a Bahá'í and I don't do much for the Christmas thing. It's not that I don't celebrate, because I do believe in Christ as a Messenger from God Whose title is the Son of God. But as far as the whole tree and presents and what has come to be the typical Christmas stuff... not interested.
This has nothing to do with my blog today though. Just thought I'd mention that since it's Christmas today.
I started playing the guitar a while ago ago. In March 2002 after the Fast I bought a Takamine guitar from Adrian Green. It had belonged to Salman before that, so it was kind of mailroom guitar. It sounded really nice and was easy to play. I started doing some online lessons, and got together with Saman and David once a week for Wednesday night guitar night, which started with very high aspirations of guitar lessons, but it being me David and Sam, what generally happened was, David would show up, with or without his guitar. Sam would show up with hers. David would play around and show us something new he had done. Show us as in play it for us, not so much teach it to us... I would cook dinner while Sam played the latest Ben Harper song that she'd learned from tab. After dinner David would give us some impossibly difficult exercise to do to improve our skills (which were nonexistent at the time). After abuot 10 minutes of that we would get bored and start talking about what movies were in cinemas, and usually within 45 minutes we'd be sitting in the movie theatre. If not, we'd be in Ahuza or Ben Gurion or in the Hadar at a cafe drinking something yummy and laughing (sin guitarras, by the way). So that was class. Despite not really learning how to play anything at "class", we all agreed that it inspired us to play better. Sam and I would look at David's fingers in awe as they seemed to move effortlessly along the strings, and of course, we would practice during the week so that when Wednesday rolled around, we would have harder, bigger callouses on our left hand from the guitar strings. And if that's not proof of guitar playing, what is?
I've been playing the violin since I was 6. Well not really. I started with the viola. Well not really. The viola is bigger than a violin, and I was a small child, and there weren't really half size or 3/4 size violas, so what they did is take a full size violin and put viola strings on it and voila! Viola! At some point, I don't quite know when, I, for some reason wanted to play violin instead. I think I thought violin was cooler. So then I got a full size violin, which, oddly enough, felt just like a 3/4 size viola! Geesh. Anyway, the result is that for years I played the violin in various orchestras and stuff, and later picked up the viola again. I love playing the violin (and viola) although if you had spoken to me when I was 14, I'd be singing a different tune. I thank my parents often (in my head anyway, maybe not to their faces) for not having let me quit when I wanted to. And I often encourage parents of children who are playing instruments also not to let them quit. I can't tell you how many adults I've spoken to who said "I used to play .... (insert any instrument here).... I wish I had kept it up". Not one person have i ever met who said, "I played the .... I'm glad I quit." or "I'm an accomplished ....ist, I really should have quit."
But I digress.
Just before I went to Haifa I was in a band in Bermuda, F Natural. We had fun. We played songs, those guys were good. They encouraged me to sing. We took a poem I had written and put it to music. Performing on the stage for the first time, singing, was the scariest thing I have ever done in my life. Playing the violin has absolutely nothing on it. I didn't know what butterflies were until I stood there on that stage about to start. But although I didn't particularly like that song, or the melody, or even the poem very much, I liked the thought of singing, even if the actual act of it scared the crap out of me. All my life I've played an instrument that I can't sing with (unless you count the background "Lahs" I sang with Aube Mystique, our band in Montreal). With F Natural, I realised that there are songs in my head that I want to sing and play, and there is no way I could express how I hear the music, not with a violin. So I decided to learn the guitar.
Other than the Wednesday night session and the free online lessons, I have tried to avoid formal training. I prefer to get tips from friends like David and Eric, and more recently Hector and Riaz. I don't have a particular style, I love learning Tracy Chapman, Ben Harper, and Jason Mraz songs. I hate when I'm playing and people start saying "can you play...." because the answer will surely be no. I'm not interested in learning other people's songs so I can play in a group at campfires. The reason I'm learning guitar is to hear out loud the songs I hear in my head.
Now I have 3 songs that I can consider complete that I've written... "The Bubble Song", "The Free Will Song" and "Is That Enough?". It makes me happy. I'm doing what I want to do with my guitar.
A word about my guitar. Last February, I decided to give my guitar to my father. He had started singing and was discovering his voice. He was also writing poetry again and doing some amazing stuff. His instrument of choice is the drum and he plays really well while singin, which is a feat in itself! He was starting to write Calypso songs and I thought that I'd give him my guitar, so he could have the independence and freedom to put his own music to them. I remember the frustration I felt when I had a song in my head and was trying to explain to a guitarist friend how it should sound. The frustration was not just on my part, because it takes a lot of patience be told that instead of "frrrrink" you should be playing "flllleeeng", which were the only types of words that I could use to describe what I now realise are really simple guitar chords.
I taught Dad E some chords, but he didn't seem interested. I left the guitar with him anyway, just in case, and maybe one day he will learn, if only to be able to show people what he wants played in accompaniment, but his drum thing is really working for him, so if worst comes to worse, we'll have 2 nice guitars around. But since I was guitarless in February, I set about shopping for a new one. I didn't find anything I wanted within my pice range in Canada, so I went back to Haifa and the search continued. Eric was my patient, indulgent sidekick in the guitar quest, that led me to all of Haifa's malls and repeated visits to the Glass Mall in the Hadar. Funny enough, it was there, in the music store where I had been buying supplies for 2 years, that I found it. I had a strong feeling that there was a guitar out there that was "My Guitar" and my job in the shopping was to find it. This one called out to me from the rack where it stood, and after negotiating a great price, waiting for the next order to come in with the right colour, there it was.
Now, almost 2 years later, I love my guitar even more. We spend a lot of time together and it is helping me to be able to share the songs that are in my head, and it's really an added bonus for me that other people actually like the songs as well.
Now I have to work on my singing....

Haven't blogged for a while

Not because I have nothing to say... not because I don't like blogging... Not because I'm not doing anything... Not because I'm busy doing other things... I just haven't felt like it. That's all.
A few times in the past couple of weeks I've seen stuff or done stuff and thought "ooh I should blog that" and then, when sitting here in front of the computer, just haven't. Oh well. Life goes on :o)
I will try and recall some of those things right now...

I walk slower than everyone else I know. Peoplñe take my slow pace as reluctance to go wherever we are going. Nope. I just walk slower. I often tell people to go ahead and I'll catch up later. I usually get where we are going about 20 seconds later. What's the point of walking fast so you can get somewhere 20 seconds sooner, and still have to stand there for 20 seconds longer. If the bus comes at 1:20 and we are 5 minutes away from the bus stop, and it's 1:05, I much prefer to walk even slower than my normal pace, look in store windows, watch people go by, than to rush and get there at 1:10 and stand at a cold bus stop on a busy street. If I'm ate I'll hurry, but if I'm not, I'm going to take my time and enjoy the journey. So there.

People stare at me a lot. It doesn't bother me. It often bothers people who are with me. I often think "hey, if you don't have a life, and have nothing better to do than stare at me and wonder about mine, then so be it." I have been accused of pretending to ignore people staring at me. Apparently, sometimes it's so obvious that I couldn't really be ignoring it for real. I am. I am immune to starers. I am also becoming immune to people around me complaining about people staring. It happens, so what? On the odd occasion when I notice someone staring at me, and happen to meet their eyes, I usually smile at them. Often I get a smile back and that's nice.

Growing up in Bermuda has made me a weird person. I grew up doing some things that we do in Bermuda and I always thought were normal. NOw a lot of these things are "weird". I say good morning or good afternoon to the bus driver and the shopkeeper and the ticket guy at the Funicular, and the other people who are at the bus stop when I get there, and pretty much everyone who I deal with. Even if I have never seen them before. I also thank you. Apparently this is weird according to some sources. So I started observing. It's true... most people don't. Hmmm... I decided I wouldn't stop doing it. The other day, I was shopping with some people from my cooking class. There was a lady (whose name I never forget, because it's Violetta), and a guy (whose name I always forget, it's either Juan, Ramon, or Jose... something typically spanish). We went to the butcher to get some morcilla (which I had no idea what it was, however I later found out it was blood sausage made with rice... but that's another story). When the butcher-lady asked who was next, Violetta asked for 1 and a half kilos of morcilla. Juan-Ramon-Jose interrupted and said very pointedly, "Buenos dias". The butcher was like "huh?" so he said "Primero, buenos dias. Despues, queremos un kilo y media de eso morcilla." She smiled, said buenos dias to all of us and got the sausage. I thought it was nice. It reminded me of a couple of things:
Flashback #1: It's winter 2000. Caroline is meeting me for lunch at Rock Island. She comes running in with Trimmingham's bags, she's been shopping. We sit with our soup or whatever it is and she tells me that the woman in Trimmingham's is a bitch. I was like what happened? She said that got the stuff she wanted and went to the cashier to pay for it, she had stopped in on the way to work, and so was already late. She put the stuff on the counter and the woman just looked at her. Caroline looked back and after a few seconds said, can you hurry, I'm late for work. The woman kept looking at her and finally said "Good morning" very pointedly, and obviously not meaning it in the literal sense. Caroline was like "what?" so the woman said it again "Good. Morning." Caroline got the point, said good morning and the woman rang up her sale, wished her a nice day and Caroline took her stuff and left. In the retelling, she explained how offended she was that this woman wouldn't ring her up unless she said good morning, even if she didn't mean it, and she felt like this woman was very nervy, trying to put her in her place. I don't agree with the attitude of the woman in question, but I did feel that it was kind of rude of Caroline to walk into a store at 8:30 in the morning, come into contact with someone in order to do business, and not say good morning, or any kind of greeting. I think this is definitely something culrtural, so if you do go to Bermuda, try and remember to acknowledge people.
Flashback #2: It's somewhere around 1988, it's a school day. I wake up, brush my teeth and go downstairs to get breakfast. The radio is on, my parents are in the kitchen. In my head, I said good morning, but apparently I didn't open my mouth and say the words (you know how it is sometimes early in the morning). I walk into the kitchn to get breakfast. My father is standing there blocking my way, looking at me with a funny look on his face.
me: "What?"
him: ...same look...
me: "What?"
him: "You don't walk into a room and meet people there and not say good morning!"
me: "I said good morning"
him: "Marcille, did you hear her say good morning?"
mom: "No"
dad e: "Go back upstairs and start again"
me (inside my head): I said good morning didn't I? Why do I have to go all the way back upstairs? This is stupid.
me (returning downstairs): "Morning mommy and dad e."
them (with way too much enthusiasm): "Good morning sunshine" (or something to that effect)....
And so continued what was the last morning I ever didn't greet my parents when I saw them
I used to think my parents were strict and weird. Okay so they're weird - they have to be. All parents are. But they're people. And they're wonderful people. And we lived in a place where people were supposed to teach children to treat people like people, just like they were taught by their parents, in Barbados, and in Bermuda. You see people, you greet them. You see people, you acknowledge their presence. What took place that morning stuck in my mind... (what also stuck in my mind was the second time I came downstairs, there was an announcement on the radio that all Government schools (including mine) would be closed that day because of the threat of an oncoming tropicl storm... it was a false alarm as usual, but we had a day off from school, and I also remember thinking that if I had had my radio on in my room that morning I would never even have come downstairs and had the good morning incident. The fact that 16 years later I remember the whole thing with extreme clarity indicates that I was meant to learn that lesson that morning.). Caroline lived in a place that was different. People generally only come into contact with other people for a reason, and don't talk to each other unless it's necessary.
I like saying good morning to people. I like greeting and being greeted with a smile and a nod or a good morning, whether it's by strangers at the bus stop or the family in the house. I've also noticed that a few weeks ago when I used to get to the bus stop and everyone was staring down the street in the direction of the bus that was not yet in sight, and said "buenos dias" I used to get a few confused looks and mumbled replies. Yesterday morning, I got there and the 2 ladies there who were having a conversation looked at me and smiled and said "buenos dias" when I arrived. How cool is that?!!! And I didn't even have to be rude about it like the lady in Trimmingham's!