Piano Lessons: Part 1

This one time I took piano lessons for 14 years and it was pretty average.

In this story, my mother was flogging a dead horse, and I was a lazy, whiny child.
Let's go back to a time when Captain Planet was teaching me how to recycle and the Care Bears were, well, doing ALL the caring. Maybe the Care Bears should have been recycling too, then we would have stroked two birds with one stick. I was four when I starting taking piano lessons. For the next 12 years (with a one-year (even worse) violin sabbatical) I continued to go to piano lesson every week. Here are some things about it...

That Which I liked:

• For the majority of my esteemed piano career, I was taught be a lady named Margaret. She lived next door. She was always very kind to me.
• I started to babysit her child as soon as I was old enough. He was entertaining. He was adopted and I have since learned that he is autistic. He would always interrupt our piano lessons with non-sequiturs, like that kid who likes toytles.
• One year, he told me he wanted 'cerated-edged scissors and cellotape' for Christmas. What a strange gift. I didn't have the heart to tell him that he was weird, and that most pairs of scissors aren't actually cerated.
• Babysitting was fun because this family had a nice house and a nice couch, and hardly any work was required of me. Something that I became interested in during this time was figuring out how many Tim Tims was an acceptable amount to eat. I knew I would be given the whole packet anyway, but deluxe biscuits were exciting to me at this time, and it was a question of balance between a) not wanting to look like greedy, and b) being concerned about pack weight on the hike home. 
• Babysitting allowed me realise just how much I love looking through other peoples' pantries. C'mon. Get with me here. We all do. These specific pantries always featured an abundance of the fancier kind of food, but there was always a shit tonne of cask wine. I guess some people just really like cask wine?!
• AND they had Sky TV. (Sky TV is my pert little country's name for cable.) More than four channels was a pretty exciting thing and it was there that I discovered Jared Leto and his phenomenal bone structure. 
• Margaret's husband was super nice. His name was Colin and he was from Jersey. Not like the Jersey-Shore-Jersey, but the Jersey-off-the-coast-of-France-Jersey. Maybe that's where Jersey Caramels are from. Also, maybe not. Colin was one of the few adults in my life who I recall talked to me like an actual person, not just a half person. I even pretended to be interested in golf for him.
• Wait, this is about the piano?
• Chromatic scales were pretty. Fucking. Rad.
• I liked the way my nails sounded when they clicked on the keys. Margaret didn't like this, though. That made me like it a little more, because it was starting to taste the sweetness of middle-class rebellion.

That Which I Hated:

• Putting effort into something that I didn't find fun.
• The instability of my later piano career. When I was a teenager, we decided I was bad at the piano because Margaret was too nice. I don't really think that this was true, but after this epiphany, I changed teachers twice. I'll call one of them 'Angry Old Lady' and the other one 'Nice Old Lady' because I actually don't remember their names. Nice Old Lady would always interrupt the lesson to talk to her cat. Nicely. 
• In a desperate attempt to quit piano, I told mum I wanted to learn another instrument instead. Problem with this was that I failed to realise that the piano is one of the best instruments out there. In a stupid decision, I choose to learn the violin in a one-year sabbatical. I was trying to escape from my increasingly weary thoughts, and I had outright asked mother if I could quit. The only way she would budge was by letting me do an instrument switcheroo. Don't ask why I chose the violin. I can't tell you. Big mistake for both me and the people who had to hear me practice for that full 30 minutes per week.
• Exams. I hated these the most. 'They' would import these stuck-up old bitches from England to judge. In hindsight, these old people may have been the kind of ladies to buy their grandchildren ALL the icecream sundaes on family outings, while wearing ridiculously big hats, and they would happily reminisce about the bygone age where mail came TWICE a day. But to me, in those soul-sucking examination halls, they just seemed like the kind to hate black people and anything that hippies represent. Even more, though, they especially disliked 'the youth of today'. Oh, and they didn't smile. Ever. The exams would always take place in a very old and very large room. The ambiance was so unsettling and I was a nervous child.
• I always had my lessons on a Monday and for some strange reason, I would always get a headache on Mondays, like clockwork. It was as if my brain was telling me that the Royal School of Music can. not. fit. inside.

I will tell you more things later! 

Other thoughts from me this week:

• When the Olympics are on, I turn into a strange person who doesn't sleep. I reach a strange quality of cranky because I'm tired, crazy because I drink coffee to compensate, and happy because I have watched unfamiliar and exciting sports. 
• There's this thing called Sriracha butter. I'm pretty sure this is just where you grab some butter and some Sriracha and mix with a paddle, but it sounds like it has Jesus-like qualities. 
• At work the Korean employees have to wear these red blazers. They have epaulettes and little medals, too. It makes me feel like they are in the Royal Navy from the 1700s, and it makes me want to dress all the foreign staff up to look like pirates. 

This is the video I carefully selected for you:

THE END

Liz Tritops 

xoxo

I Went Home Yay!

Hey guys. 
Long time no chat. 

The last few months has been odd for me. I was home for the whole month of December! It was nice to see my people again but I was also hiding under an awkward stress cloud. I struggle to embrace the concept of being funemployed. 
Then BAM! I found one a job. It was in Seoul. I now live in Seoul. 
I live in a place called Gangnam. My building has two or three plastic surgery clinics in it. Yesterday, I thought about going outside to buy soy milk, but then I saw what kind of pants I was wearing. Had I been anywhere else in the world, I may have gone in track-pants. Hell, I may have even gone in NO pants. (Assuming pants-off Friday.) But when in Gangnam...
The last few months has led me to reevaluate my life a little bit, because I have been rather poor. 
From now on I will lead a more stingy life and regularly look at pie graphs. I hope I am still a fun person.  
I've taken to working on many side-projects. The thing is, I have so many side-projects but so little time, and I am real excited about all of them all that I feel a little spastic. I'm almost thinking about trying a weird sleep cycle again. I wrote a little about this here. PLAY LIFE, guys. Do science with yourself. I dare you. 

Here are some things that happened at home: 

• I went to the supermarket that I used to work at in hope that I would see a few people who used to work there 9 years ago. I do this so I can see that I have progressed more than them. Two of them were still there.
• When I remind myself that I'm unemployed, I remember that I'm a judgmental, jobless bitch. 
• But I did need to go to the supermarket. 
• Every time I see my parents I swear that they know how to use the internetz even less than they did the time before. 
• My mother has awful calendars in at least three rooms of the house. They all have terrible pictures. Example: Cats looking curiously at Christmas trees. Another example: Poor people in India. 
• What I don't get is that my mother isn't even THAT old. Don't have you have to be over 60 to put a calendar on the toilet door? 
• I saw some people I like. One of my friends made me walk too much (I hate walking. It's so unproductive. It's neither good exercise, nor a speedy way to get places), but I still like her so I guess that means a lot.
• I made chocolate mousse from smooshed avocados and tofu. Father ate it and said it tasted good. Then BAM! I told him what it was made out of. Boy, did I show him! If there's one thing I enjoy in life, it's surprising people with nutrients. 
• For the first time, I came home to no animals. I didn't like that. I like all the animals, ever. Except some cats are shit, and birds and horses are a bit scary too.  
• Nek minnit, Dad gets a cat. It's scared AND friendly.
• Nothing so interesting happened at home. 

Other thoughts from me this week recently: 

• One of my friends was quite late this one time. She blamed it on Tater Tots. They were cooking. She wanted to eat them. Now, I hate tardiness. I looothe it. But then I thought, if there is a valid excuse for being late, Tater Tots is it. Then, you can call them Later Tots. 
• I have this thing that I really wanna do. Basically, I wanna know would feel like to be a dinosaur or reptile and be born. So I want someone to make an egg for me and have it be the same relative strength where it is just as tough for me to break out of as it is for a new-born reptile. I guess it can be sticky and gross if you want...I just wanna see what it's like. If anyone knows anyone who can make this happen...
• Would you rather be a Planeteer with an actual power, or be Ma-Ti because he has a spider monkey? 

Watch this video I chose for you:

Thanks for reading about me

Liz Tritops

xoxo

Tramping - Because My Parents Said So

Some kids spent their holidays flying to expensive places and buying expensive things. Other kids stayed at home and were boring.

Welcome to Real Chat about my family holidays 

As a child, family holidays usually consisted of days spent in the En-Zed bush living in tents or huts, and carrying ALL the things on our backs. It was fun sometimes, but mostly it was decidedly average. Here are some things about it:

• If you had to walk through a river (99% of the time you did), you knew your socks wouldn't be dry the next day. It feels medium because in the morning you can't have a cry about it, because crying won't make your socks dry, and it will probably piss your parents off. I'll tell you something for free: Wet socks are better than no socks. Also, there were always small bits of gravel and shit permanently lodged into the fibers, so it felt even more awesome when you put them on again.
• You get so dirty and smelly that you don't even feel dirty and smelly anymore. 
• Things were quite pretty. 
• Swing bridges are rad. They swing. They're bridges. I like most bridges. You had to obey the signs that said how many people were allowed on them at a time. If you didn't, you could fully...like...die. 
• Heaps of friendly people go tramping. Also, lost of weirdos go tramping. My friend, whose family also made her go tramping, told me this one story about how an Israeli guy cut a large hole in a mattress to make a poncho. She then used it as anecdotal evidence as to why every single Israeli person is awful. Hard to say who is worse; her, or the Israeli.
• I think tramping really does build character. I used to read Calvin and Hobbes as a child. Calvin's dad always used to ramble about character building. Going tramping would make me feel a little like Calvin, but so much tougher. If he can build character after chilaxing in a tent on a lake for a bit, then I thought 'I'm gonna have so much character after this HELL'. 
• One time my dad woke up in the middle of the night to chase a possum with a stick. Good on him.
• Possum probably would have eaten my face off. Thanks, Steve.
• One time, Steve got us lost and we had to climb up a waterfall then slide down this massive scree slope and I actually thought I might die. I think mum thought we were all going to die, too, but she didn't say that at the time. She was quite angry at Steve, but I think that you can only do silent treatment for so long when you are stuck with your husband and three kinds in the middle of actual nowhere.
• We consumed a lot of SCROGGIN. For Americans, that's trail mix. (I like 'SCROGGIN' a bit better though, because if I call it 'trail mix' I feel like I have to be on a trail to eat it, also I find it too literal. It's kinda like calling jandels 'flip flops'. How rudimentary is that? Naming something after the noise it makes? We may as well start calling 'cows' 'moos' and 'dogs' 'barks'. Rant over.)  If you're a word nerd, you might know that SCROGGIN is an acronym for sultanas, chocolate, raisins, orange peel, glucose, grains, 'imagination', and nuts. What blows my mind now is that Steve had the audacity to put SALTED peanuts in with everything, so it was all just a little salty. That's the dangerous thing about putting 'imagination' into an acronym. You get salted nuts. 
• One time my brother ate too many dried apricots and he got the shits. We all found that humorous. 
• Tramping taught me to be impatient with people who complain when we are going for adventures that some people call 'hikes' and I would call 'walks in the park', then I feel like the hugest dick. I also feel this way about people who can't climb up very small hills. This is because I'm not even good at climbing up hills, so if you're worse than me then you probably have issues. 
• Tramping food tastes better than regular food. Not because it's actually better, but because you're tramping and what else are you even gonna eat? 
• Mum told us that she was giving us stars for walking well. I was imagining a star chart-type thing, because she said it was a star chart-type thing. We would get given different colour stars for being good at tramping i.e. not complaining, walking fast, singing fewer annoying songs maybe, etc. Thing is, I never saw the star chart, nor did I question the lack of tangible rewards. Life. Lesson. Learnt. 
• If your parents didn't make you go tramping, then you missed out, but also, not really. 

Other thoughts from me:

• I still really like that song Irreplaceable by Beyonce. What really gets me about it, though, is that she rhymes 'minute' with 'minute'. 
• I think I have something like 223,000 websites bookmarked. I don't know what to do. I don't feel okay. I don't even know how to categorize them, and I can't simply delete them all. Too much work has gone into wasting time on the internetz to have nothing to show for it. 
• On getting naked in front of animals: It feels so wrong, but is it really wrong? 

Watch this because I said so:

Thanks for reading

Liz Tritops

xoxo

Top 5 90s Songs That I Didn't Question

Lot's of dumb songs came out of the nineties. MMMBop, Mambo No. 5, that Blue song by Eiffel 65; the list goes on. I feel like these songs were self-aware. They kind of knew they were shit, and even as a little tyke, so did I. 
Then there were some other songs from the 90s. They weren't stupid enough to be funny, and I simply didn't start questioning them until years later. It wasn't like I was missing some sexual innuendo like most eight-year-olds. It was more like these songs would NEVER make any sense even after I had given my first cheeky handjob, read a Cosmo magazine or two, and snuck some vodka into a girly sleepover. 
These songs make me feel kind of duped.

Top 5 90s Songs That I Didn't Question:

Hands - Jewel 

What would you do if someone commented on the magnitude of your hands? 'Coz this is what Jewel would do:

Good chat. 

As Long As You Love Me - The Backstreet Boys

I get that the boys just want to be loved, but they're getting kinda desperate. What bugs me the most is the first line: 

Although loneliness has always been a friend of mine

I'm leavin' my life in your hands

I DON'T FUCKING UNDERSTAND AND I FEEL ANGRY ABOUT IT. 

LMO - Summer Girls

'Like the color purple, macaroni and cheese.'

I like mac 'n cheese as much as the next person, but I don't feel the need to go all tourettes about it. 

'I'll steal your honey like I stole your bike.' 

You can take the bike, but not the honey. Please, god, no. Anything but the honey. 

'Hip hop marmalade, spic and span'.

Like, he's just saying shit. 

Here's hip hop marmalade: 

Sitting Down Here - Lene Marlin

I'm sitting down here but, hey! You can't see me! I wanted this song to be about a rather long game of hide and seek with a large amount of people, but when I looked into it a little more, I think it's probably about a stalker. A stalker that only sits. If she sang 'I'm standing up here but hey, you can't see me' it would make even less sense. 

A couple of lessons from the lyrics of 'Sitting Down Here':

- Want revenge? Sit down here. 

- Do you want to hide but not really? Sit down here. 

Sex and Candy - Marcy Playground 

What I wanna know is how a girl can be like disco super fly, double cherry pie, and like disco lemonade? Sounds like one hell of a party. So much disco going on here. 

They should all invite hip hop marmalade. 

Other thoughts from me this week:

• I've started using 'lol' again. I don't know why or how this started, but all I know is that I feel like a 16 year-old again. This is madness. 
• Here's a LizTip: When you write a to-do list, use a small piece of paper. That way, you won't make a list as big as Russia and you might actually achieve some of the things on it instead of spending your whole day writing the list. Also, have fucking cup of tea. 
• I want you all to know that I now have a window at work. This is quite nice, because now I don't feel like I'm trapped inside an ex-Soviet prison. 
• There is a Starbucks opening in my city. I feel like a lame as sheep being so excited about something as average. But now I can get a chocofrappafuckahalfmochalattechino with whip if I were that way inclined. I'm not that way inclined, but a pumpkin spice latte wouldn't go a miss. America taught me that seasons have flavours!

Watch this thing I found: 

Liz Tritops

xoxo

LOVEYOUBYE 

I'm Getting Better At Life

Today it's raining and I feel like a bit of sharing. 
I wrote a list of things that I used to do or used to believe. They are kinda stupid. I even tried to make it in chronological order for you guys!

• One of my biggest financial regrets was buying a Furby. You may think this was no biggie, but when you take into account my savings, income, potential earnings, and liquidity, wank wank wank, it's all bad news bears. At the end of the day, I had a toy that I hated and I still had stingy parents. Of corse I vehemently defended my decision to buy the Furby.  
• I believed in bright blue eyeshadow for a while. This was quite bad, but unlike many girls, I realised that you can have too many of those little shitty plastic butterfly clips. 
• So...for far too long I believed in Noah's Ark. I mean it is fun to believe. This guy had ALL the animals; David Attenborough would have creamed himself.
• I used to think that pirate LEGO was the best. 
• I still do!!! 
• When I was 12 I believed in socialism for just a few weeks. That was a strange phase. I think I did it just to piss off Steve. That's my dad. I might write about him one day. 
• I honestly thought that olives shouldn't be eaten. By me. Or anyone else. Because if I can't enjoy it, no one else should. 
• I thought there was no better pet than a cat. There is. It's called a dog. Here's one eating cabbage. 
• 'Food is negative calories when consumed after dark or with alcohol'. Sometimes I still think this. 
• I thought tea was bad just because it wasn't coffee. 
• I believed everything that I read in Dolly magazine. Here are some lessons from this: Lesson 1: All woman are beautiful all of the time. Lesson 2: 'How to look thin for summer and boys' or 'How to slap all this shit on your face so you don't actually look like yourself anymore'. Lesson 3: Interactive activity! This is where you can take a flowchart type thingy to learn what kind  of girl you are. Because why be yourself when you can be a label?                                                                                          All of this may or may not have left me with a confusing sense of self-worth. 
• While in high school I liked to think that I had better taste in music than the masses. I wasn't a musical sheep. Baaa. I did this weird thing though, where I felt that it was necessary to put lyrics from some of my favourite artists all over this one folder that I would carry with me everywhere. I tended to go for the most angst-y lyrics possible. Look at me, world, I have so much angst! And boy did I show them! 
• I had an awful boyfriend when I was 17. There were many terrible things about him, but one thing that was particularly bad was the smell of his pants. It was like that funky smell that you get in your clothes when they don't dry/air-out properly, but they also kinda smelt metallic. I thought this was okay for some reason. 
• I will study harder next term! 
• A few years ago I was all about the hippie pants. I thought they made me look worldly and would make me feel comfortable. Really, they just made me look like a slob. But I was a comfortable slob! 
• I liked t-shirts with 'witty' phrases.
• OMG I loved Ed Hardy. lol jk. 
• I was convinced that organisation was exponentially beneficial. No no no no no. Making lists about making lists and having meetings about having meetings will never produce anything tangible except more lists and empty coffee cups. 
• One day I was in the tropics and I had a terrible time with a banana. Then I didn't eat bananas for a whole year. That was dumb. 

Other thoughts from me this week:

• There are parks in this country that have these 'inversion table' things. I often call them 'upside-down-bench-thingies'. I like them heaps. My friend thinks that this means I have autism because I like the vestibular motion. I think that he's smart, but sometimes he's wrong. 
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has given everyone unrealistic expectations about the tour of any chocolate factory. Anywhere. Forever. 
• Recently I saw a guy vomit on the subway. That was kinda up there. He was hungover/still drunk. It reminded me of the time when I chundered in a gondola for the same reason. I felt like I should have told him about this and then maybe he wouldn't have felt so alone. 

Here's a video which I hand-picked for you:

Okay. That's all.

Cheerio

Liz Tritops

xoxo

LizPoints 2.0

I have had to revise my old points system because I'm so freakin' dynamic and all about adapting.
I used to play a really fun game where if enough of a my pre-determined, unlikely and/or awesome things happened in one day, then I got me some icecream. It was more fun than a pillow fight in a tree hut. This game has become outdated and I need to upgrade to LizPoints 2.0. It really is like a little window would periodically pop-up in my brain. It looked like this:

For ages, I clicked the middle box. Recently I have realised how many potential treats I am missing out on. Here is how LizPoints 2.0 works:

For each of the following, I accrue one point: 

• Arriving at work at exactly half-past. 
• A child that I dislike immensely doesn't come to class. 
• Seeing a Korean with a pet dog that isn't tiny. 
• Finishing a TV series. There is nothing quite like that strange combination of accomplishment and emptiness that comes after a Netflix binge. Why not numb the pain with a point. 
• Eating a mango coconut smoothie with bubble.
• Seeing a Korean with an alternative hairstyle. 
• Getting an exciting thing in the mail. 
• Seeing a couple wearing matching outfits. 

Some things from my old points system are still current. Here they are:

• Seeing an animal which I have never seen before. Let's go to the zoo!
• Waking up just before my alarm goes off. JUST before. 
• Running when it's dark and I not get attacked by clowns, rapists, or drop bears.
• Thinking about someone who I never see and then I see them on the same day!
• Saying hello to a new dog that I haven't said hello to before.
• Seeing someone in a pinstripe suit. 
• Seeing someone smoke a cigar.

NB: You cannot accrue more than one point for any given activity. Example: Seeing two alternative hairstyles in the same day does not win you two points. 

If I earn 10 points in a day, I get a prize. 

The Prize:

Mango coconut smoothie with bubble. You may notice that I get a point when I have one of these anyway. So, if I'm already on nine points for the day, all I need to do is drink one of these guys and then I get another one pronto. Nice tactical move on my part. 

I love mango. I love coconut. I love bubble. I love smoothie. 
And that was my story.

They say with 'bubble' because why add an 's' to pluralise anything? And why not make up words like 'pluralise'?

Other thoughts from me this week:

• Tomorrow I'm going camping. Korean style. This is probably where there is a dairy 10 minutes walk away. 
• I really like the smell of tent. I'm sure some people think it's mildew-y and gross, but hey, these are probably the same kind of people who brush their teeth in the shower. I think tents smell like freedom and spooning.  
• I really hope I wake up and I don't remember which way the tent is facing. I don't get that kind of disorientation everyday. Like if I went outside everyday and forgot which way my apartment had been facing. That would be messed up. 
• I need more brunch dates in my life. NEVER. STOP. BRUNCHING. 

Hey guys. If you want to waste your time on something, then pick this:

LOVEYOUBYE

Liz Tritops

xoxo

Why Is This So Hard?!

I haven't been able to blog recently. I tried, but nothing happened. When I was at uni, I would get bored of learning about supply and demand so I would write. When I was in Portland I was surrounded by strange people and it made me want to write about them and myself, and the things that they made me think about. Portland is so weird. A lot of the people there try so hard for the city to not be middle America. Let's love 'soccer' and be overly-outspoken Atheists!  Then you would see someone ride past naked on a bike and nek minnit, you're drowning in Kale chips, feeling all inspired and shit. 
I came to a country where there's not much conforming to anti-conformity. I stopped feeling creative and I think I even got a little bit boring. Everything stopped.

Here's what I've done instead of writing:

- Become better at napping.
- Eat even less things that come from animals.
- Develop some new insecurities. Thanks, Korea.
- Try not to give a fuck.
- Hate Seoul a few times and then start to like it. Somewhat.
- Learn that white rice works okay for Koreans but not for me. 
- Experience 'pedestrian rage' like never before.

Recently I started making lists again and I even made a flowchart, too! 

Here is my list of things that are really quite hard for me when they probably shouldn't be. I hope they are also hard for you or otherwise I am actually special.

• Spelling 'd-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y'. This website might help. Or it might not. 
• Taking clothing off in the car. 
• Resisting reading the comments on a YouTube video. I fail, and subsequently lose any faith in humanity again.
• Habitually disposing of empty gum wrappers. Yeah so right now I probably have a collection of 22 and a half in my handbag. Shit is WILD in thurr. 
• Remembering where the deodorant is when away on holiday. 
• Recounting a dream and making it sound interesting. Most likely, nobody cares. 
• Finding a can-opener that does what it is supposed to. They are supposed to open cans. Often, they don't. 
• Finding a manly man who tweets. Just because. 
• Listening to just one power ballad.
• Flossing daily.
• Not eating ALL the peanut butter when there is nobody around to judge. 
• Having less than 4 tabs open at any given time. I like to think I can achieve all the things, all the time.  Right now, this is what I'm working with. 

• But really...are eskimos flammable?  
• Washing my stuffed animal more than once every three years. 

Other Thoughts From Me:

• Sometimes I like things that are coloured like animals. Example: Black and yellow socks. Then I can feel a little bit like a bee. This may or may not help me in life. 
• I want to say things like "Do you all have a copy of the agenda?" and "Let's set up some parameters." but I don't even want a job like that. 
• Where are the tree huts in my life. 

This is quite cute. WATCH IT! 

Mischief managed, guys

Thanks for reading. I will post more often now coz I feel like it again. Really.

Liz Triceratops

xoxo