How I Spent my Gap Year?

1. In January to April, I was working on a project which eventually, well, failed. It exhausted energy, ego, and confidence, but I walked away with many lessons, one of which include “Over-planning leads to inaction”.

2. Also in January till April, I auditioned successfully for the KLPAC audition, and played for the Spring Festival concert. It was my first time in a full-fledge orchestra. I was really excited that I showed up at every bi-weekly practicing session without fail, except for once when I have to work. The Star called us “professional amateurs” although I personally do not assume ownership of that commendation because my violin skills were one of the worst among the violinist.

Late Bloomer?

A recent Malcom Gladwell article oiled the mechanics of my brain and got me thinking about the issue of “Late Bloomer”. Should I consider myself one?

I never deserved to be labeled “genius”. (And I am saying this because, as Gladwell put it, there is an underlying assumption that “genius” goes hand in hand with precocity.) In the field of music for instance, most established musicians of the day once were child prodigies who had shown great intellectual promises at a tender age. It is a not-so-secret ambition of mine to play Chopin’s Etudes with high level of virtuosity, but a quick check on Wikipedia (that by the way renders hope into despair) reveals a common pattern of the learning curve that binds Lang Lang, Sarah Chang, and the likes – they started learning to play their instruments at the age of three or four, by age six or seven they had certain skills, and by ten or eleven they already were hosted by the Carnegies and the Musikvereins. By twenty we called them virtuosos.