the eXternal mind

Yesterday was senior appreciation day where the seniors implicitly get a break with the dress code, are entertained by peers through a talent show, and fed by an outdoor barbecue which ideally would have taken place with an outside picnic.

Unfortunately, the weather yesterday was just all around bad. The skies were dark in the morning which quickly led to moderate raining throughout the rest of the day–completely destroying any idea of a picnic. Therefore, after the talent show, there was a frenzied rush to obtain food in a small crowded space which resulted in huge lines and hungry seniors.

That was when a group of my friends and other groups of friends decided to eat at Friendly’s instead at Granite Run Mall. But first, I would like to comment on the talent show.

There were many great performers in the talent show including singers, dancers, musicians (of the instrument type), and anything-goes-non-classifiable performers. Being slightly biased in my preferences, I liked the bands (like Fed’s band) and Tom and Thaddeus’ dance off at the end. But I enjoyed all of the performances and had a good time.

I had an act too which was supposed to have been kept secret, but the details were passed around the school nevertheless. As everyone already knew, I was playing “the mario theme.” Luckily, I still had a few tricks up my sleeve so that it wasn’t just “the mario theme,” but “whole-bunches of mario themes.” Honestly, I was kind of worried about playing. The days before the talent show, I was trying to practice, but I felt that I was hitting a plateau in my performance. I originally auditioned with a 10 minute or so piece, but since I had to cut down my act to around 4 minutes, I made numerous cuts, splices, and upped the tempo on the themes. I don’t think my fingers and finger-wrist muscles were as developed as they could have been, so when I was playing much faster than I normally played it, my fingers wouldn’t respond as well and became very lazy when hitting notes. The ending of my act was brutal too since I had to make chord jumps at high speeds. This is something I’m not very good at, and in practice, I frequently miss notes or hit the wrong ones. Therefore, in the attempt to perfect the ending, I burnt myself out the past two days repeating the ending over and over again.

The actual performance at the talent show was perhaps the worst I’ve ever played it. One problem was that the super-awesome Steinway $20,000+ grand piano wasn’t loud enough to overcome all of the commotion in the auditorium so I had to forcefully play louder. This led to less finger mobility which caused me to miss a lot of notes in fast passages. This also fatigued my fingers and wrists a lot so when I got to the hardest part, the end, my fingers were very sloppy getting the right chords and notes, and I messed up many times during the jumps and the arpeggios.

The good news was that a bunch of the mistakes went unnoticed since I was playing very fast, and because the noise that the audience made masked some of the harmony.

Thanks to everyone who applauded and to those people like Felix who stood up too. However, I only take performance credit and the slightest modification to the order and links between the themes. I got the idea and the sheet music from The Video Game Pianist whose skills surpass mine at least five times. If you check out the videos section of his site, you can see him perform. He makes everything seem effortless! Finally, if you like what he did (or what I did), you can learn the music yourself in the sheet music section of the site. Most of the pieces are very easy too but just sound cool.

So afterwards a group of us went to Friendly’s because Mare used her persuasion techniques to convince a lot of people to go (including me). I went with the Steve group and happened to be the last to arrive! To my bad luck, there wasn’t a seat left for me so everyone was being nice and tried some solutions until a seat arrived. So I sat at the “literary discussion” table.

Everything on the menu looked the same so it took me ages to decide on what to order. I ended up getting Fish and Chips! We all ate, talked, looked around, repeat, etc. The good thing was that the table I was eating at wasn’t as awkward as the “awkward table” that included Steve, Carli, etc.

Like all good math students, we had trouble calculating the payment at the end and tipping.

Then the Mare-group decided to hang around in the Mall so the rest of us decided that wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Since I’m running out of words right now, I’ll just give a quick recap of how the Mall went:

1. People gather around entrance. Wait around.
2. The Acorn-like group splits from the Mare-group.
3. Eugene walks to Radioshack. We follow.
4. Dave considers getting blood pressure tested and having everyone else do the same. Idea fails.
5. Christina-person and friends gets idea of having the guys try out funny clothes. Mike heartily agrees with the idea but declares self a non-inertial observer. Idea works and we all laugh at the zoot suit that Eugene wears. Well, okay, it didn’t work.
6. Eugene runs off.
7. We-group -> Showcase comics. Browse around. See strange comics like: “Story of Christ” and “Assasination of Abraham Lincoln.” Leave.
8. We-group hang around outside. Eugene shows up with Half Life 2.
9. Bookstore goto. Book looking. Some people buy books. We leave.
10. Nothing to do. Find corner of mall. Play cup.
11. Time to leave. Single file walk around mall.

The highlights of the mall were definitely playing cup and playing “follow the leader.”

On the topic of cup

That was the first time I played cup. In my own inadvertent words: “It’s….so….stupid!” But when I blurted it out, I had the underlying meaning: “It’s so stupid, but awesome!” It’s true actually, the game is simple (we hit a stryafoam cup around), but addicting since using a cup is different from using a ball, potato, or a balloon. I ended up looking much like a toddler trying to hit a ball with my arms waving around stupidly. I could hit the cup, but the cup wouldn’t move in the direction I wanted it to move. I also had this tendency to want to kick the cup back up when ever it fell down in the middle where no one felt like getting it.

On the topic of following the leader

Now, malls usually have a bunch of hidden cameras with security teams watching all the time. I remember back in my middle school days when I was in the mall and saw three normal looking guys coming out of no where to tackle some other guy walking out of a store. When, after cup, we all decided (expect Eugene) to walk in a single file around the mall following the leader, this guys must have been crapping their pants with laughter. First, what kind of kids would stand in the corner of a mall hitting a cup around, and second, when do kids ever decide to walk single file around the mall doing really crazy caterpillar-like movements? Never? Okay, that sounds about right. That’s exactly why it was awesome–because no one expects to see that.

Overall, it was fun hanging out with a different group of people at the mall who do spontaneous and different things. It makes me feel that I’m not just a robot following society’s preplanned procedures.