Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Mission completed, so far...

9th of October 2009

I've had this feeling of an ending coming up for a few weeks. An ending to the world as I have known it over the last few years. My studies are drawing to a close.

I just came from the Viva Voce (the defence/ interrogation/ questioning) for my final Masters Project. It was great! I love talking and I had really been looking forward to people trying to verbally trap me in a corner for days. The active word in that sentence is "trying." It's like the King of Norway said when he stopped smoking some years ago; he was really disappointed that it was so easy, cause he had been hoping for a proper fight! Calling my Viva Voce a "fight" would be exaggerating, but you have to stay sharp. And it was fun!

I walked down in the entrance hall of Leeds College of Music. I looked at the security guard and all the people walking in and out, and realized again that I was walking out. Not just right that moment, and I'll be walking through those doors many times again. But you get what I mean. I can't just call the college up and book a studio any more or check out whatever microphones I need, which is a crying shame. But hey, it's good too. Cause you'll get trapped in false security if you'll stay somewhere for the convenience.

I walked down by my old hotel the other day. It was two whole years since I checked in there for the first time. And tomorrow, on my birthday it will be two years since I signed the contract for the flat I live in.

Leeds looks less familiar now. It's not routine walking down the streets anymore, it's more a privilege and exploration than it has been in a long time. It feels like I'm back to the excitement of October 2007. Full circle, just coming towards the end and not the beginning. I think a lot of things lost some of their significance too. The balcony platter for instance. It is made from untreated wood and it annoys me how gray it gets in the city centre air. I wipe the dust off when I have guests, but it never looks like healthy fresh wood. Some time ago I bought platter oil, but haven't had time to apply it yet. Now it doesn't matter any more. I just finished the Masters Degree I wanted. In a few weeks I'll be an official Music Production Masters graduate.

I walked into my flat, didn't take my shoes off and kept the leather document bag hanging over my shoulder. I stood there in the middle of the living room and looked at my bookshelves and it was almost like I was talking with the books. Both those I have read, those I have not and those I have just partly read and browsed in. Many big ideas behind the purchases and yet life is too short to do it all. Or is it? When I came out of my year in folk high school 12 years ago I said that if I could do anything over again it was getting involved with more stuff. More conversations, more activities, more music, more... There is always more to do, there are always more unread books in my bookshelf. But right now I'm quite content, I just finished the education I wanted since I was in my teens. Curiously enough, one day before my 30th birthday. I finished the MA while I was still in my 20's. While my friends started studying I was still playing in the woods on mountain bikes, trekking the mountains and working with getting other people "out there" and with selling them the right gear. Thank God for His humor, one day before a landmark time-shift I'm done.

Swiftly leaving Singapore 2 years ago, headache at first over getting accustomed to the new studios I've been using here, finding musicians; and the unread books looked back at me and didn't seem at all sad. Corinne Bailey Rae started playing in my head: "...all these things happen... all these all these things happen... for a reason..." Yes, they do.

I think I should go and take some pictures of that old half-fallen down Abbey by the rugby court today. I've been looking forward to it for two years.

No comments: