How do you say Goodbye to that which you do not know, and that which you will not get to know? Do you say Hello? If the loss is communal, why is it then that the loss feels personal? Is it because I have lost the opportunity to discover your ways? I can’t explain why it is that I feel the way I am feeling, so I wrote a letter.
Dear Cindies,
As with most of my knowledge about the University of Cambridge, and Cambridge culture in general, my first brush with you was in one of Jake Wright’s vlogs. I remember watching vlogs in Grade 12 and learning about Revs, Life, Spoon’s, and you – and for whatever reason, my brain didn’t let go of that information. Not then, when I elected to apply to Oxford, and nor when I was applying to study here as a postgraduate student. It’s why coming here felt surreal. I was suddenly in places I recognized from YouTube videos and short films, from folklore and history, and that felt wonderful.
Cindies, the first and only question I had for you was, what are you? I couldn’t find you anywhere on the map (as with Life), and it was then I realized that you were steeped in time, left stuck in an era where you were not Ballare, but Cinderella Rockerfella’s. Boy, what I would do to see you in that avatar. Or any avatar really. As I discovered during my undergraduate study, I am not a very club-party type of person. However, as I learned as a school student I am very much a human being that enjoys music, and loves meeting new people. It hurts, deeply, to learn that you were a place that facilitated both, whether through the smoking area, the lack of washroom access, or on the dance floor. That shared, lived experience appears to have united this city. I will now get none of it, and that, dear Cindies, makes me very sad.
After arriving in Cambridge, I threw myself into Cambridge magazines and facebook pages. The Tab had this lovely quiz on which Cambridge night-out I was, and despite knowing I was likely a night out at Market Square eating from Trailer of Life, or waiting in the Pret queue, I learned I was Wednesday Cindies. You may infer from that what you would like, but this result was meaningless to me till I discovered this wonderful Wednesday Cindies playlist on Spotify.
That discovery has led to a lot of self-reflection and inquiry. The Tab’s quiz was not necessarily designed with the scientific process in mind, but truly, this time, it felt like they got me right, spot on. At my core, I am a nostalgic human being that looks at History with rose-tinted glasses. On Wednesdays, you appear to have been an embodiment of that, which makes your closure even harder to bear.
If you’ve reached this far, you’re likely asking: but Tejas, you’ve been here seven weeks, why didn’t you visit for a socially-distanced evening earlier? I do not have an answer that does not sound like an excuse, but put simply, you were not at the top of my Things to explore in Cambridge list. That is a shocking answer, and you may be quickly drawn into resentment, but I urge you to read on, for Cindies, you were on the list. You were just slotted away for when I felt I had settled in sufficiently to accept that the work wouldn’t get done anyway so a night out would be of zero-harm. As a postgraduate fresher, but a fresher nonetheless, I have not settled in to this level as yet. Consequently, I reserved you for mid-way through Lent. Far enough for me to feel at home, close enough for me to smell you – whatever your smells are.
For a place that seems to adore its legacy, from the limited information we the public have been given, Cambridge appears to be ripping a piece of that legacy’s soul away from itself. This may be symbolic of several things: capitalism, a rift between town-and-gown (to quote the 1900’s), and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on local business and the hospitality industry at large. This conscious uncoupling, whatever the circumstances, feels rough. It is personal, insofar as I will not get to experience you, but more so because as a student of the University, I felt attached to your existence. Knowing you were there felt like sufficient evidence of the statement Cambridge has an active nightlife. Knowing you are gone means I cannot claim that sentiment anymore, despite the existence of other clubs.
We may find another place, another room to blare out the Wednesday Cindies playlist. I may listen to it alone sitting in my room wearing pyjamas. Even with strobe lights however, these places will never replicate the atmosphere of that corner in the Grand Arcade (or Lionyard, pick your poison).
With this, and with the knowledge that people have Camfessed they would transfer if you shut, I say goodbye. Having written all of this, I am still uncertain whether I am saying goodbye to the ground upon which you were built, or to the people that made you who you were. Thus, I personify you, and say goodbye to the spirit I felt destined to meet and feel robbed of completely.
Thank you for existing, Cindies, and for making me feel more strongly about my desire to cherish more of the Things to explore in Cambridge list I built while waiting to relocate here.
Somebody else will miss you. Unfortunately, I just missed out.
[Writing Note: I’ve had this story in my head for a while, but till today – when I actually feel like I got as close as possible to The Perfect Shave, I wasn’t very sure how to articulate it. Since this morning I’ve been feeling the side of my cheeks with the back of my hand exalted at the smoothness of the curve, and I think now’s as good a time as any to tell this story.]
I don’t know if my mother can, but I can very clearly remember the first evening I learned how to shave. It was in Grade 9, and I had a pencil-thin moustache going that we both deemed unnecessary. One of my teachers commented on it jokingly at school, saying I needed to shave, and that evening after I relayed the news to my mother, she took it slightly seriously and pulled out one of the travel shaving kits my dad had brought home from a recent Emirates flight he was on. We stood under the dim light of the washroom, me with this new tool in my hand, and after I figured out how to get the foam on my face, my mother stood behind me guiding me to do downstrokes. I washed my face – and that was it. I looked like a baby again. I remember speaking to my father that evening and he chuckled. He’s sported a moustache all his life so after some laughing he asked me about what I used to shave and those sort of things.
After that evening, I began shaving maybe once a month – if you can call removing a moustache shaving. I got my moustache taken off me every time I went into the barbershop, and in general, rarely let it loose, although there are some photographs on facebook to the contrary. At this time I had no hair growing on other parts of my face, so it was all about moustache maintenance – something that was painless, easy, and not at all time-consuming. This phase must have lasted two years. During this period of time, as everyone in class began to go through puberty, we saw each other at our worst. I remember some horrific moustaches my classmates had – and I belong firmly within that club.
Things changed in Grade 11 though. The passage of time meant that I was growing some hair around my face, and being School Captain and a stickler for rules, I used to be disciplined for my grooming quite frequently by our faculty advisers. I must’ve gotten called out atleast once a week with the Tejas, Shave! comments, and some of my friends told me to as well. So I began to take it seriously. I’d shave regularly – I reckon once every week perhaps, mostly when I was in the shower. I wouldn’t use shaving gel or foam, but in the shower, feel around for wherever there was hair on my face and try getting it off. Then once I was out of the shower, I’d look in the mirror, feel around for any spots with my glasses off, and then look at the final product with my glasses on – getting rid of any stray hairs, and moving on. This habit was birthed out of my terrible early-morning skills. I never had the time for a patient shave. I was always late getting up, late into the bath, and everything was a rush.
It was only to family functions and other get-togethers that my mother carried out the check. Apart from outfit checks, the shaving check was a new one for her, and one she forgot to conduct sometimes (notice the shift in blame), which resulted in me showcasing my moustache at some gatherings. She was not thrilled in the car. The dose I received was the you look old, along with some comparisons to those without the moustache. She was very smart, I must say. I’d like to think that I’d grow out the moustache for occasions to get the comparisons to my dad – because puberty had seen my face morph into his after looking so much like my mothers for the most part of my life. She saw right through my laziness. Grade 12 was when I became slightly more responsible, even with moisturizing and self-care.
Then I went to University.
Two things really suffered: skincare, and haircare. I stopped moisturizing, oiling my hair, and shaving in general when it was cold. The first year was okay because I think my body was still in the whole puberty phase so it was a lot of patchwork, my face. Second year onward, I couldn’t explain to you where the hair would grow from. I’d go to sleep freshly shaven sometimes and wake up with rough skin – the result of the hair follicles erupting from the surface. I hated it. I began trying to put off shaving for as long as possible, and the time between each shave grew. In my fourth semester, after one of my batchmates candidly told me I looked better clean-shaven and we had an extended discussion about the state of my face and hair, I resolved to shave each week, promptly, and prevent excess beard growth. My motivation collapsed within the first month.
Second year was truly the lowest point. I grew out my hair a lot and shaved very little, only for times where I saw photo opportunities happening. My mother really took this to heart, and she’d drone on and on about how her grandfather and father shaved every single morning. This is true, my great-grandfather legitimately shaved every morning. But I had gotten so bored of the story it had no impact on me whatsoever. My dad rarely put any pressure on me. He couldn’t care less about the shaving. It was more about the hair for him – was I oiling it? No. So I’d hear a lot about that – especially after some bad haircuts I had. My mum couldn’t have even asked my father to speak to me about it because when he was in College, he had grown out a beard – and had one till his wedding day.
The story is that my mother couldn’t recognize him at the airport because he had shaved the beard and just had a moustache left.
Third year onward I began to care a lot more, which coincided with a different change in my life. I’d shave regularly and take care of the way I presented myself. Especially in the monsoon semester, when things were bearable and shaving was easy. In the winter semester, I couldn’t care less till summer rolled around. The water was cold, the razor felt bad on my skin, I hated everything. Summers made it easier to be clean-shaven because it prevented the accumulation of sweat on the face, so I was pleased with that change.
The biggest change throughout my time at University though was that I became someone more aware of this process of shaving. I began to consider carefully what shaving gel/foam I purchased, the type of blade I was using, and the aftershave care for my skin. I became aware when I missed spots. I cut myself a lot. I watched a lot of shaving tutorials and generally started to invest more time in the shaving process – sometimes upto 30 minutes if the gap between my shaves were large. Other small experiments included the electric razor – which I carried because my dad had told me to keep one, but quickly decided I didn’t enjoy. But this change of becoming more cognizant of the effort to look clean-shaven meant I started to see things I wasn’t really seeing before. I began to notice things like graining and patterns in the way my facial hair grew, and started to spend time ensuring my side-burns were even post-shave.
However, this entire journey of awareness meant I also became acutely aware that every shaving stroke I made was imperfect. I didn’t know what perfect was yet, but to my mind at that point, every single stroke felt like it left some hair follicle untouched by it’s steely graze, and that disappointed and infuriated me. This was particularly true during internships, where I’d spend time on ensuring I was presentable each morning and shaving each morning if I had to. I’d always feel upset after my shaves because there was just one bothering spot. Most of the time this was at the bottom of my neck, toward the edges, or around the sideburns and ears.
In the last six months, when I basically grew my hair and beard out – shaving maybe thrice or four times throughout the pandemic, I decided that moving to the UK would mean shaving every day. I made this decision consciously. I read a lot about how you need to shave only when you need to shave – but the rate of growth for my facial hair was quite high, and roughs appeared every other morning, with a wide enough green to play golf on by the end of the second day. So shaving every day was the going to be the way to go. This was also helped by the fact that my classmates were right. I felt I looked better, and felt better, when I was clean-shaven. I like having soft-skin it appears.
Since I’ve moved to the UK, every day has been this struggle. It appears that although locations change, imperfections do not. So I felt every misplaced stroke, every knick, and every complete, imperfect shave. Running the back of my hand across my cheek I’d feel no hair but my skin would look green which meant hair follicles were just on the edge of the surface, ready to come through. I’d miss spots even on full strokes. Sometimes the razor just wouldn’t catch things fine enough so I’d do multiple strokes.
I was very tired with this, and that turned into an obsession. I was fuelled by these imperfect shaves each morning, and I decided that one day – and sooner, rather than later, I’d have, what to my mind, was a perfect shave. A shave where every stroke got rid of all the hair in the area through which the razor passed, leaving behind, at the end of it, a clean palette upon which all of the hairs may grow. The idea was to prevent re-stroking, or having to pass through the same patch of skin to eliminate some hair. Usually restroking means approaching the patch from a different angle, and believe me, I’ve done some wonky ones, but eliminating it would mean I’d save time, and I’d also save myself some shaving gel. Incremental savings, but savings nonetheless. I’d also save quite a bit of water.
Now, my reading and research pointed to various products I could use to assist me. I’m not going to fall for these new technologies. If people can shave with a single blade and achieve success, I wasn’t going to buy a 4-blade razor, or a 5-blade razor. I’ve had some disasters with those in the past (including knicking quite a bit of skin across my thumb; I had my glasses off). I wasn’t going to invest in new, fancy shaving gel, or a cool new aftershave, or lots of product. Since I’ve taken up some new hobbies, I’ve learned that the greatest tools are the tools you own. So I was determined to carry on with my Mach3, Nivea Shaving Gel, and Aftershave Cream.
I’m a pre-shower shave guy, so I knew the one thing I’d have to incorporate is washing my face a little better. As the days went by I started to see that yielding results, particularly because I have oily skin. That was perhaps the only big change. As for the rest, I decided to take more time, be more patient. Having decided I’d shave everyday, shaving had become a part of my daily routine, and a part of all the time I had dedicated to getting ready for the day. Being patient though, meant reviewing each stroke, and slowly eliminating restroking even if it yielded imperfect results.
That’s the thing about repetition and recognizing errors and flaws. If you do something long enough and weed out things you’re doing incorrectly, slowly – chances are you’ll get it right soon. It took me forty-four days. Forty-four shaves.
This morning, I woke up and had the perfect shave. I celebrated by treating my face to some more TLC.
This is what I felt like:
Creed represented everything I wanted. Just the one perfect shave. At the end of it, I’m certain critics would tell me I did something incorrect to detract from my glory, but I can tell you – it felt, and now (I checked), still feels – perfect.
I don’t know if this will repeat itself. Or when. I don’t know if my motivation to shave will drop. I don’t know if it will stay alive. I could grow out my beard again – it’d be back in a week. All I know is that having achieved this, I am now perpetually in a quest for the perfect shave. I have tasted success, or what I define to be success, and I will search for this now, every single morning.
I know it may not occur. When I am unsuccessful though, I hope to look back at this post and think about the journey that brought me to this point. It has been a glorious path. I am likely to adventure and try out more eco-friendly options, like safety razors and cartridge razors rather than the blade ones I use at the moment – but even there, I will continually remain a student of this quest for the cleanest shave and the smoothest skin.
The Saturday has come to a close. Would you believe me if I told you I slept for 11 hours again last night? Whether or not you believe me is immaterial, for my sleep-tracker says I slept 11 hours, and it appears as though, sleep-cycle wise, I am the healthiest I have been in years. There is a consistency, I am not over-stretching myself, and I sleep when my body demands it. It feels glorious.
Today was when media outlets began to project Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to be the next occupants of the White House. This is truly a small step for America, and I’m curious to see how the international order, that has become so used to searching within for leadership, responds to America’s attempt to lead the world again. What I most grateful for though is that climate change is now certifiably, real.
In the morning I completed a run, spoke to family, and got around to reading. I’m currently wading through my Jurisprudence reading list, where we’re reading Lon Fuller’s The Morality of Law. I have to admit that thus far, the subject is sailing over my head, but I am learning new things each week, and I am looking forward to my December break, where I hope to spend some more time with the texts we’re reading and the commentaries, and really formulate some opinions on the text grounded within it’s internal logic. I’m looking forward to reading Hart again. For a start though, I have begun to appreciate why jurisprudentialists and philosophers ask themselves What is Law? – because at the moment, I find existing answers slightly unsatisfactory. Atleast the ones I am exposed to.
The afternoon saw some ice coffee from The Locker, a time-lapse, and a lovely walk along Midsummer Common with an undergraduate third-year whom I will be working with through this academic year. I’ve met quite a few undergraduates and doctoral students here since I’ve arrived, people who are outside the Law department and program, and people within, and every person I’ve met has amazed me with their story. Sometimes I’m left wondering if I could just spend every minute here, instead of studying, meeting new people and understanding their journeys – what they find fascinating and what excites them, what got them here and what they’re going to give back. It feels like these are things to hold onto in reserve particularly when you’re uncertain about your motivations being here, if that ever occurs.
In the evening we celebrated the projections with some take-out, and now I’m back to reading more Jurisprudence. I’m taking breaks to watch clips from The Office because Biden is from Scranton, and that is amusing me to no end.
In the morning I had a workshop for International Environmental Law, followed by a lot of free-time to read before an evening full of adventure. We hosted our first event for the International Law Society, which was delightful. Although attendance was a fraction of the number of individuals that joined our facebook group, it was really good to see that those who did attend were rather excited at the prospect of what the group had to offer – and more importantly, they came with a bunch of ideas. Hopefully we can use that to build something successful and sustainable in the Lent Term and beyond. After that I had my first team meeting for the moot that I’m participating in. It’s a joy to be mooting again, quite a thrill to be working with some new people. I’m eager to see how things go.
I think the excitement exhausted me because I slept 11 hours, and woke up this morning to get going on my reading for the next week. Lockdown means that I’m not going to get my sports quota in any time soon, so some time around the afternoon I walked along the river to clear my head and do some photography. Back at home and I cooked myself some risotto and came back up to do more work. Having spoken to my parents, it’s now been about 4 hours since the risotto business was done, and I’ve done nothing, so my goal for today is to now churn out the newsletter and then seriously, get cracking on some work for the rest of the day.
Tomorrow I’m hoping to get a run in just as the sun rises or thereabouts. Let’s see how that ambition fares.
Another week of interactive sessions down, and I feel Week 5 coming at me faster than I did yesterday. This morning was fairly slow, which was nice: allowed me to get into my reading and follow the US elections just to see the kind of stuff happening there. In the afternoon I had my interactive session, where we focused on environmental regulations in the maritime environment (for which I have a workshop tomorrow morning).
That led to the highlight of my day. I spent my afternoon preparing paneer tikka masala for my hostel neighbour from GNLU, and then went out to meet another friend for coffee. We realized that owing to conflicting schedules, the International Law kids tend to rarely get the opportunity to speak to the Corporate Law part of our cohort, and we were meeting after nearly a month. A nice long walk around the city centre later, we parted ways and I went off to do my last erg session for the month (and the Term, in all likelihood).
This evening, I was with a different senior from the Boat Club, who really knuckled down technique on the erg, getting us to focus on separation and building out the back-stop and the catch, and each part of the stroke. I had a ton of fun, and genuinely felt my strokes in parts of my lower back I did not know I had. The other reason it was enjoyable was because this senior made me laugh a bit – he pointed out to my knees at one point and told me to complete the arms before moving my legs. Essentially by not separating, I was ending up in this weird position where my arms would invariably come into contact with my knees. On the stroke itself, my knees were getting slightly wobbly. Through that exchange, I was reminded of the countless times I was told about my knock-knees in school. Most races, the knock-knees would make my parents worry I’d trip over. I giggled.
The night was just a delight. In GNLU, every Wednesday was paneer & ice-cream night – and we were able to recreate that tonight, together, which brought a little bit of Koba into Cambridgeshire. The lockdown means it’s difficult for us to recreate this again before Term ends, but we’re going to try – and I’m hoping to try out some other things I learned during the lockdown in India. It’s always more fun cooking for a crowd.
You know how I keep referencing Week Five Blues and saying that I’m not going to let it get to me? This evening, after a rather tiring day, I spent some time on the phone with my parents theorizing why Week Five Blues exist? What brings them on? What sparks them? What makes it an affliction that unites the entirety of the University’s population? I haven’t experienced them yet, and I hope I don’t feel disappointed next week, but my working theory is as follows. It’s the realization that you’ve done so much already (and remember so little of it), but that you’ve got halfway left to go before the end of Term, which is a fair amount of work to come. Alternatively, it’s the realization that you’re behind on work, and that consequently, you have to make a choice about whether to catch-up to work from last week, or begin afresh from the subsequent week – letting go of past readings & starting anew. In either case, it means that time away from Full-Term is still going to be loaded with reading and reflection, and perhaps that causes some amount of being blue. I shall overcome. We, as a community, shall overcome.
Today, though, was quite something. Woke up by 7, did some reading – and had an interactive session for the International Human Rights Law course. Today we were discussing human rights bodies. My interaction with this subject has largely been through the lens of moot courts, or reading papers I found interesting, and although taught at University, I had never considered the subtleties within treaties, and linguistic differences in output that these bodies produce. It was a really nice way to feel awake, and at one point, I legitimately felt like the neurons in my brain were absorbing information and snapping into life.
After that, as I’ve recently been appointed as a General Editor for the Cambridge International Law Journal, I was given some training for my role. That was rather enjoyable. I’ve loved editing because it feels like you have the opportunity to play a small part in somebody’s writing process. It’s a position of tremendous responsibility, and where feedback is given, it’s an excellent exercise on how to write critique that is legitimately helpful to the author.
Then I had a workshop for International Human Rights Law, on forced labour conditions and the International Labour Organization. Before that I cooked & did some preparation for a fun evening dinner I have planned tomorrow. Coming back though – workshops, on the LLM, are essentially small-group teaching where the faculty:student ratio of 1:13 is respected and adhered to. It was interesting because there was nowhere to hide at all. I can only imagine how the undergraduates feel during supervisions.
All of this listening made me crave a power nap, so I gave my body what it asked for, spoke to the parents, took a quick walk – and then had a 7pm Jurisprudence interactive session. Why 7pm? Well, yesterday I had a conflicting Global Governance workshop, and the Professor was kind enough to accommodate the conflict by offering an online session tonight, which was fantastic. Just 5 of us going through legal abstractions – yes, Jurisprudence is still going over my head.
All of this, and it felt like it was time to give thanks for everything this place is allowing me to live out, and remember everything I have to give back to the community. That closed out what has felt like a forever Tuesday.
Today’s been an intriguing day. Having slept for 8 hours, I woke up, completed some reviews of submissions I was reading – and got to my reading lists once more. We’re at Week 4 now. Week Five Blues are close-by, it appears. As of yesterday, we’ve learned that we’re going to be on National Lockdown from Thursday. However, this seems to be a rather soft lockdown – with Universities and Retail that’s Essential continuing to be open. Restaurants are going to remain open for takeaways. The decentralized nature of decision-making at Cambridge means we’re awaiting instructions from College and the Faculty of Law on the implications of the lockdown on decisions that had been communicated to us earlier in the year – particularly on in-person teaching. For me, as an off-site student, something that I’m waiting to understand is if I will still be able to visit St Edmund’s – and to what extent I can interact with my College.
I knew this was likely before I signed up to study this year, so I felt adequately prepared for this, and I am still feeling that way. I will continue to study and make the most of what this place has to offer. If I feel like it gets to me though, I will reach out for any help I need.
I had class in the afternoon, followed by a Graduate Workshop. Where we have classes that have more than 13 students signed up to study a given subject on the LLM, we get workshops that accommodate only 13 people twice a semester. That’s really helpful, and is the small-group teaching that allows for broader discussions about subjects we’re clearly passionate about. Today’s agenda: common spaces, something I adore with every fibre of my being.
Having received a notification about a book that I had to return, in the evening I cycled to Sidgwick, returned the book to the Faculty, cycled to College, and came home. Now I’ve spent an hour watching YouTube videos – so I’m going to spend the rest of the evening preparing for my 9AM tomorrow.
This afternoon, I went out for lunch with an undergraduate Law student at the University, someone I’m working with as a part of Decolonize Law Cambridge to discuss work and other things. Over the course of our conversation, he brought my attention back to this blog and it was at that point that I realized that I didn’t write all week after Monday. For all the talk about recording every impression this place makes on my mind, I was upset with myself for not actually following through on it. Particularly because I heard about this Theatre teacher in Singapore who has been doing something very similar to what I do since Blogspot came about (which is a while ago on the blogosphere now). I got back home and told myself, that’s it, I’m going to spend the entire evening writing – and churn out six quality pieces about the week that’s gone by. One essay in though, it felt pointless. The day’s past, and I feel like I’d be dishonest to myself and to anybody reading the blog in saying I wrote this on that day. Although I journal and take notes everyday to help me fill in gaps where I’m unable to blog, the conversion of those thoughts into concrete sentences just never feels as raw as writing observations on the day of events feels.
Henceforth, therefore, I shall strive not to miss days – because I don’t want to. If I do however, I’m not going to strap-together or plaster-together a string of posts that act as observations from the week. I think I’ve been doing a lot of that because of my own obsession with completion and counting, but someone pointed that out to me as a character trait of mine last week and I was very amused with myself. I’m legitimately obsessed with numbers – because they never lie, yet in my case, I’ve been using them to further the notion that I am a daily blogger.
I’m a blogger, a writer. Daily-ness happens frequently.
The rest of the evening went in a secret project that may be revealed to the world some time in the future, some music, readings & work. We’ve just discovered we’re going to be on lockdown beginning Thursday all through to December the 2nd, which is just 4 weeks. I hope this helps contain the spread of the coronavirus – it would be very difficult to the NHS and for hospitals here to have several patients to tend to. I need to use this week to figure out a regime that replaces all the sport I’ve been doing in the past couple of weeks with some other forms of fitness. Maybe I’ll do hockey drills on the Common – we shall see.
I woke up in amazement of everything that had transpired last evening. I wrote about pinch me moments, and it feels like I want to hold on to every single moment of every single day and let it linger in my memory palace.
A morning lecture and then I was done for the day, free to spend the rest of the afternoon and evening on readings for tomorrow’s interactive session. A quick trip to the bank and I got back home and had the opportunity to eat pancakes at home with my housemates, a treat that I thoroughly enjoyed.
I should explain my living situation. I’m a paying guest in a house – so I live with a family. The house is always a lovely environment to stay in because it’s rarely empty. There’s atleast one person at home most times of the day. It’s great to come home to that, and to pop down into the kitchen for conversations whenever I’m taking a break – for moments like this evening’s pancake adventure of course.
I’m not singing Chapel Choir this weekend, but we just received an e-mail from our Chapel Music Director with recordings from last week and I can identify moments within those recordings where I wasn’t confident of the sound that would come from my mouth so I’m quieter and suddenly I get louder when I don’t necessarily need to. This weekend I’ll be practicing music for the Symphony Chorus, and hopefully all the practice gives me the confidence to trust my vocal chords once more. I know I’ve written this before, but I’d like to be as free as I was when I was a child. It was just my parents that thought I sang well initially, and that gave me the liberty to explore singing to my heart’s content. I’d like to do that of my own accord once more.
Tejas Rao 