An attempt to go with the flow

I think I must have been sick of being too planful, I tried to go without a concrete plan today. Just go with the flow.

I woke up at 7.10 a.m. The biological clock must have woken me up. As if there is nothing else to do in life except reading the newspapers and surfing the internet, I did exactly these two things after breakfast. Then my body told me that I was feeling tired and I started taking an hour of nap from 10 a.m.

When I woke up from the nap, I felt like going to the library to return my library books and perhaps borrow another travel guide, so I did. There was an attempt to go with the flow. But it seemed that thereafter, I started attempting to make some vague plans. I figured that I should first return my books before going for lunch, so the plan was as such.

I returned the books, both of which were travel guides. Then I borrowed a travel guide titled The National Geographinc Traveller: Great Britain.

I was at this shopping centre named Ngee Ann City. I saw rice dumplings on sale and was tempted to take photographs of them, but I withheld myself. I reckon that the stall-vendors may not be pleased if I were to take photographs without buying any of the rice dumplings. I did not have the appetite for rice dumplings today so I did not want to buy any.

Instead, I felt like eating vegetables for lunch. Non of the food stalls at Ngee Ann City seemed to entice me, and my heart told me I could try this eating place named Marche, so I did. The vegetables were nice and fresh. I requested that they be cooked with oyster sauce. Oh, Stephanie might be pleased if she gets to know that I ate cauliflower for lunch. The cauliflower did not have the green leaves, unfortunately.

After lunch, I browsed around for maps of London, and I got myself one. Also went around looking for a luggage case, and got one which is navy-blue. It comes with two hangers. I thought that it would suit my needs when I go to Aberdeen. I needed to hang the clothes required to be worn during the performances.

In the evening, I basically just lazed and watched television. It was quite an unusual way for me to spend the early part of the evening. Television tends not to get my attention as much as other affairs. Then again, maybe I was really drained from the week such that I wanted to drown my senses with the boring television.

Later part of the evening, I spent time practising on the double bass. That took about 45 minutes. Playing the double bass feels much more stimulating physically and mentally than watching the television. It also gave me much more level of satisfaction, and a greater sense of achievement. The only difficult thing is that I needed to overcome the initial inertia of starting to play the double bass. Afterall, my dear double bass is normally kept covered with a double bass bag to protect it from the dust. So it means that I would have to uncover the instrument from the bag in order to play it. Practising would also mean that I needed to centre my mind and prime it for practising. That way, I could better concentrate.

I started out playing certain passages from Mendelssohn's Fingals Cave. Then I went on to play certain passages from Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. With Emily's urging on Wednesday, I tried playing the first twenty bars from Berkeley's Introduction & Allegro. I did not go beyond those bars. I simply have no confidence on how the bars thereafter should really sound, even though I had heard Emily played them earlier this Wednesday. I think I needed to work on my aural skills. I still have no develop a good inner ear to be able to hear the music in my mind simply by reading the notes with my eyes. I usually would play those notes on the piano (belonging to one of my brothers) to be aware of how they would sound. This is especially so if there are accidentals and unusual intervals.

So now the day is close to an end. I really can't say that I was living the day spontaneously, but I tried not to overplan.