Mother's Day and its preceding days

Honor thy father and mother.

In Christian beliefs, parents have a God-given authority over their children that can't be defied; if dishonored, the offense is not only towards your parents, but to God Himself. They are to be honored unconditionally except in the conditions of them sinning or them causing you to sin. This commandment; although the most "realistic" compared to the previews ones, which talk mostly of one's relationship with God, rather than the human to human relationships; contradicts the culture at the time because it gives equal power to male and female, which was rarely the case. Nowadays, it is somewhat opposite the case; it is common for mothers to have more power in the household and more influence over their children. I mean, they did go through that nine months of bloating and that nine hours of labor.

Today is mother's day and although it was a last minute decision, I decided to make dinner.
I chose to make Soy and honey glazed salmon because I had such limited time and this came up to be one of the simplest dishes. Despite the haste and simplicity, it turned out really nice! My brother Sean, who said he'd make the salad, bought a ready-to-go salad from Safeway, that cheater.
I regret not having enough time to make it look nice, as you can tell by the picture, it looks really boring and empty. But, I got a thumbs up from all of my family so I'm off the hook! : )

* * * * * * * *

Yesterday was VYSO's final concert of the year. We played Overture by Weber and five movements from Carmen, one of which was my flute solo.
So I was pretty nervous, and being a flautist, you need to watch your nerves.. Because your nerves will project right through your sound. There have been many times in performances where I felt confident and relaxed but my body told me otherwise, resulting in my lips shivering. And don't try to be optimistic, because this does not sound the least like vibrato. When I told my fellow flautists, they told me they'd experienced the exact same thing, which, being or at least trying to be super simple minded at the time, instantly made me feel better.



Entr'acte

My flute solo! The sound quality is terrible but if you can hear, it starts with the harp and the flute, later joined by the rest of the orchestra. In our rehearsals, the strings section played the harp part, which I thought would be the performance plan. When, an hour before the concert at our final rehearsal, the strings were replaced by a single harp, I felt like it just sounded so quiet in the huge auditorium. And I'm gona blame my squeaking on the high note on that! Oh, and of course, on the jinxes from my brother. Somewhere near the beginning, you can hear Sean quietly saying "choke, choke, choke". That little bastard.

Overall, it went pretty well; we all agreed it was the best one of the year. Our concert took place in Kay Meek Center, wayy into West Van, but despite the distance, Amrit, Isabel and Jonathan came to watch and we finished the night with Chinese food.

I have another excuse for my wrong notes! I must admit, throughout the concert, I was half asleep and half zoned out and half dying from exhaustion. If that even mathematically makes sense. Well, this explains the state of mind I was in.

* * * * * * * * *

The night before, Sherry and I went out; we went out, which lead to me getting locked out. We hung around and at around nine, we brought company from Surrey. Then the drunken night carried on from a random guy teaching us astronomy to meeting a fellow drunken girl on the skytrain to getting locked inside the skytrain (AGAIN. At the same skytrain station!) to getting locked out of the house.

All the buses had stopped running when I got to 22nd station, so I had to shamefully call my friend Tracy to pick me up.. (If by any chance you're reading this, Tracy...You know you saved a stupid kid from truble and I don't know how to thank you!)
It was around two when I got home. Okay, good enough, I could still get a good 6hours of sleep til I have to wake up for my rehearsal.
Let me just say that I always carry around my keys. Except that night.
Silently cursing the new door we just installed (my old door used to just open without unlocking once you pushed it hard enough), I went to the back because I knew it would be open. But of course, it wasn't; otherwise I would have been awake during my performance. I knocked on my brother's window for a good 15 minutes, with no luck. I really didn't want to wake my mom, but I had no choice. Desperately, I called my house, only to remember my stupid stupid suggestion this morning when she told me about random phone calls in the middle of the night. I told her to disconnect the phone before going to sleep, and she did just that.
Yep, so I did the unthinkable; I slept on my balcony. I'm grateful for the comfy chairs.