When the PhD is over I have plans. One is to learn jazz piano. I started before Kai was born only to quickly find that morning sickness and piano lessons do not go hand in hand. Music stopped during the early kid rearing years. Every time I jumped on the piano the kids would destroy any resemblance of organised music by joyfully pressing the keys. Bedtime was a disaster for playing as the little monkeys would wake up to listen in, jumping out of bed in curiosity. I gave up for so long. Recently I’ve started to play again. I play out loud now. I don’t care what people think when I make mistakes, I just play for fun.
An old memory came back today of my music exam for the HSC when the examiner asked where the main crescendo was of the Mozart score. I learnt to play the notes correctly but never thought of the music as an entire piece of work. It was played in stages as each section was mastered the next was begun. I didn’t really appreciate the music as a whole.
My thesis is starting to come together as a whole piece. It is time to pull together all the papers I’ve written and compile the work. Last week with no kids around I worked hard on the last paper of my thesis. This means there are two published papers, one draft and two rough drafts. It is still a long way away from finishing. The crescendo I played on the piano today reminded me to treat the thesis as a whole piece, not just notes joined together. Looking forward to when I can learn jazz without a lingering PhD awaiting to be finish.
