Thank you for the amazing night, you guys!

Just got home from a really nice night of sushi with a group of friends.  I haven't had so much sushi at once in a long time, and I am actually physically uncomfortable right now.  I even managed to coax two cups of Chinese saké down my throat and, an hour and more later, I'm still burping the terrible stuff.

Anyway, enough moaning.  I had a really good time and for once got to sit in on some nice and naughty conversation that made me think, "I should be blushing at this."  IT WAS SO COOL!!

So, I'm working on a secret project.  Only two people know the details.

Check out this instrument:  it's called a sanshin, and is both precursor and cousin to the traditional Japanese shamisen.  It was based way back then on the Chinese sanxian (notice how they all the sound the same, or similar, when you say their names?) and developed in Okinawa before it spread to the rest of Japan and became the shamisen.  If memory serves it's because of the amount of trade happening between China and Okinawa at that stage, but hey, Wikipedia would know more specifically.

This version is the traditional python skin version...

... while these two images are of 'kankara sanshin', or tin-can sanshin, made

during and just after WW2.

It really sounded like an ugly little instrument when I first heard it, until I watch a little 8-minute documentary of it on Youtube and listened to a master play a kankara.  Wow, what a sound!  I suppose it once again just goes to show the difference between amateurs and maestros.

All things bright and Cape Towny...

Last night I finally managed to get myself a nice quartz point that I plan on using to tip a wand.

This isn't it, but it looks almost exactly the same.

I have been very lax when it comes to this blog, and I actually feel very bad about it, but it's almost as if I only want to write something when I feel down or depressed.  Why is that?  What is it about writing that makes it so much easier for us to share how we feel than actually saying the words?

Anyway, nonsense in my head.  I'll come back to this at some other point.

The wand I'm planning will have a hollow core and something inside it.  I'm still trying to figure out the "how" and the "what" of it, but this is the idea.  I don't want a normal type of wand, a piece of stick with some coloured ribbon wrapped around it and a stone glued to the end.  No, this one will have the stone SET INTO the wood, and some wrapping, and a hollow core with something inside.  and I'm going to carry it around with me, so in length the wand isn't going to be so long.

Phew!  Take a deep breath!

I noticed when I got home last night that my crystal has a rainbow or two inside it.  That is so wicked!  Rainbows are good luck, aren't they?

I also have a new set of tarot babies - the long-sought after Hanson-Roberts Tarot!  I've been looking for this deck for a few years now, and here my friend the Tarot Mama brings me a deck at the last meeting!  I was so thrilled.  They live in my bag now with the Primary Deck and the Gypsy cards.  Tarot bliss much...?

Things will look up. Deep down I know that - so why am I having such trouble making it a constant conscious thought?

I seem to have lost my drive in terms of the finance department.  Is there something wrong with me?  I want to use the money I make, but inevitably I end up giving it out on some other cause.  I hate having a loan to pay off (only because it wasn't insured against retrenchment - I mean WTF!?), but I wish I could give my mom more in terms of board, etc.  Paradox much?  (Or is there some other word that would be better used here??)

Anyway, I did rather well at the Bothasig Fayre the other day (somewhere around R 600) and I'm thinking I so wouldn't mind making that kind of dosh every day.  So, time to implement The Secret (weapon).  Heh heh heh.  That's the obscene amount of pasta I had for supper talking, by the way.  Ususally it wouldn't be a problem, but since the pasta was bolognaise and bolognaise involves red meat I happen to be suffering ever so slightly right now.  All energy usually used for my brain (or what remains of it) has been diverted into my stomach to digest the mince.  My mental circuits are sizzling and snapping and sparking.  Eish.  Intlokusami yaxnola.  I hope I spelt that right.  And said it right.

Goodnight, all!!

Is it called work-related stress when you haven't got any work?

I've found myself faced with this question on and off over the last few weeks and still haven't got a clear answer. Who does?  Come on, anyone?

On the upside:  I've finally started my zither project, and recently finished my embroidery project (I mentioned it in the next to last post).  Once it's been given to its new owner, I'll ask her permission and try and post a pic.  I've advertised my embroidery in a bid to make a spare cent and have had a bite from my Tarotmama friend.  I'm not going to be giving any names, she knows who she is  :)

I can't wait to see what my zither will look like.  I'm basing the overall design on a Chinese guzheng:

Besides the issue of the bridges (which my musical boyfriend says are easy enough to make? sort out?), I've been having some trouble with a workable sound box.  Regardless of whether or not this is going to be a concert instrument, I'd like it to at least be recognisable as something musical.

Huh, light bulb:  who's going to teach me how to play the thing...?  Hey, nothing like trial and error, I suppose.

If anyone happens to have a few thousand to spare, I wouldn't mind a real guzheng (hint, hint).

Peace out for now!

Today I babysat a college.

No, nothing weird.  I actually just watched the front office while Placecol rented the Beauty room at Face to Face.  Since the college is closed for business today and tomorrow, Jacob and Yolandi have no reason to go in, except for the Placecol thing.  However, Yolandi needs rest, and Jacob actually has things to do, whereas I, sitting at home cleaning house all day long, don't.

So I'm babysitting the college for two days  :)

I've come to realise over the past week or two that the heart and human emotion are incredibly fickle things.  Trying to make sense of them is an exercise in futility, and in any case, emotions making sense would make this life a rather boring existence, would you say?

The card combination for today:

I actually haven't got one...  It turns out, with moving my room around for the new bunk bed, I don't really have my cards within easy reach right now, and since I'm typing this from said new bed...

Well, you get the idea.

'Night, world!!

Going to the loo as a guy in winter has some serious drawbacks. SERIOUS drawbacks

It all has to do with cold hands and the necessity of touch.  Nuff said.

Now, that being said, I really haven't had a particularly remarkable week.  I finally came home on Monday afternoon after a week at Julian's and seriously can't say anything's actually happened between then and now.

On the upside, I'm redoing my learner's licences tomorrow (yes, both:  car and motorbike) so that I can do the whole driver's thing PROPERLY this time around.  Stress and leaving things until the last minute have always been my bane, but in my defence, I sometimes do my best when I'm pushed and / or rushed.  Sometimes.

On the art side, I've started an embroidery project.  I daresay it's the most ambitious one I've attempted thus far (and that isn't saying all that much).  I've been doing embroidery on and off  since I started high school, but have only really done one or two projects in their entirety.  Hopefully I can get myself to finish this one to my very exact specifications.  I've never been one to plod forward when I get stuck, so now I'm trying to teach myself to do just that.  I can't just drop things when they get too difficult, and that's what I've been doing, either directly or indirectly, for WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too long.

OK, so the card combination today has very little to do with tarot (except for associations).  The cards are:

23:  The Mice  and  (tarot association:  7 of Swords)
33:  The Broken Mirror  (tarot association:  Key 13:  Death)

These two cards are just so apt right at this very moment.  They speak about being honest and being prepared for the end of a cycle (or something such).  Huh.  If you could see my thoughts now...

P.S.:  Amazing lack of Gypsy card images out there...

A whole week later...

... and I haven't managed to get my classes off the ground yet.  A friend suggested that I've grown almost bored with the way things are going now and don't value myself enough to make the Universe take note (that's my interpretation of the message, in any case).

So, starting tomorrow:

1.  Get my class programme completed;
2.  Get my private student sorted out so that we can start her journey into tarot (or at least get her into the boat)
3.  Clean my room
4.  Advertise.

I want to giggle sometimes at how life turns out with the choices we make; what we keep and leave behind; hold onto or give up...

Tarot pair for this blog:

Page of Pentacles and Key Three:  The Empress:  A typical artistic view of things, all flighty and whimsical, but filled with love, both lost and gained

 Memories of the past haunt me tonight.