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purplesurveys · 3 years

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survey by amandahudson48

When's the last time you said you were sorry? Maybe last Friday or yesterday? I haven’t been replying to Andi because I was in a slump, then when I was finally able to get back to them I made sure to apologize first and explain why it took me a while to respond.

Have you done anything interesting in the last week? I got to dine in at a restaurant again after nine months last Monday, and I brought my parents to treat them as well. The three of us had ramen, then I also treated them to frozen yogurt after. It felt nice to be out, but we also headed to a mall Gab and I used to regularly go to so everything ended up being too difficult to process and I was fighting tears the whole time at the ramen place.

Are there any songs you listen to everyday? I don’t think so. There have been a lot of days where I’ve avoided music altogether.

What do you consider a waste of time? Having to manually go to a government office nowhere near your house to queue for an ID or document when it could be done digitally, but you can’t and have no choice anyway because the agency’s website isn’t even working. In short, welcome to the Philippines where the government can steal billions but can’t maintain their own damn websites.

How do you react to stress? I tend to have a shorter fuse around people. So that I don’t accidentally lash out on anyone, I’ll bring myself to work on autopilot until I get a task done. If I find time to myself, I cry in private for a few minutes because stress sucks; then I try to dust myself off and get back to working.

Have you ever considered what you would do in certain life/death sitches? Sometimes. My game plan for the most part is to simply scream at the top of my lungs to rouse attention, but I’ll never really know what I’ll do unless something actually takes place. I have a track record of being scared frozen when scary men have approached me in the past, so idk if I will have it in me to scream in a life or death situation.

Have you ever gone mud riding? No. Photos don’t look too appealing mostly because I’m not into vehicles and driving them on unconventional terrain lol, but I mean I would still give it a shot at least once.

Do you edit your photos? Just sometimes, if I mean to show off or promote someone/something to my mutuals; like the time I promoted my uncle’s business when he gave me a free cheesecake. I usually use the VSCO or Foodie apps.

What kind of cookie do you like the most? Chocolate chip cookies that are crispy on the outside and gooey inside; and dark chocolate macadamia cookies.

Do you enjoy working alone? Sure, though I don’t mind the occasional groupwork.

Is there anyone you're not over and feel like you never will be? Yes, I’m in exactly the same place I found myself at five years ago.

Do you like long or short surveys? Medium-length, so like anywhere between 40-70 questions is the perfect length for me.

How often do you listen to your iPod? I used to listen to it everyday because I brought it with me throughout middle school and the first half of high school. When iPods slowly went out of style in junior year, I started using it less frequently.

What kind of house do you want? Something modern and minimalist; I’d like it to be predominantly rectangular or square in shape with large windows. I do also want a brutalist style for myself but I might have to give that up if I ever end up with a family, as I don’t want my kids thinking their own home looks aloof and unapproachable.

Would you like living on the coast? It sounds like paradise. Yeah, absolutely.

What song was the last you listened to? To Let A Good Thing Die - Bruno Major. Then I got really sad and had to stop listening to music altogether and scramble to watch something hilarious on YouTube.

When's the last time you were really late to something? Last week, for a meeting with a client :/ I wasn’t accustomed to my weekly calls just yet and ended up attending a 4:30-5 PM meeting at 4:57, right when it was ending, because I thought it started at 5. It was embarrassing and my manager was rightfully jokingly mad at me.

Do you prefer to take back roads or the highways? Highways as much as possible, but if I’m stuck in traffic and if it looks like I wouldn’t be able to get to my destination on time then I ask Waze to guide me through backroads.

How do you spell your name without consonants? Rbyn or Rbn, depending on what you consider y to be.

What's the last movie you watched? Uhhh it was still That Thing Called Tadhana but it’s been a while. I mainly watch a Korean drama titled Start Up these days.

What would you like your generation to change? The people society votes into office. Young Americans seem to be leading the charge on this front, which is so so great. Meanwhile in my country Manny Pacquiao is planning for his 2022 presidential campaign and we are once again fucked because voter’s literacy is so fucking low that I actually see a possibility of him winning. Migrating has never sounded more attractive.

Do you use your cell phone a lot? Yeah, it’s beside me with the screen turned on nearly the entire day.

When's the last time you saw an ocean wave? Not sure about an ocean wave, but the last time I saw a wave in general (we were at a beach) was August 2019.

How long can you hold your breath? Maybe a minute max? I haven’t had to try in a while.

Would you rather work behind the scenes or be the star? Behind the scenes. I loathe the spotlight and I’ve never been the performing type, and I always hated it whenever I’ve had to perform in school or for a family function. It’s also why, as fun as hosting looks like as a career, and as much as I know I would’ve been decent in it if I tried, it was just ultimately never the path for me.

Are you a sore loser? Yeah, I hate it. I’m competitive to the bone, which personally sucks too because it’s hard for me to enjoy games lol. I make it easier for the playing crowd by just watching at the sidelines so that I don’t ruin things for them.

When's the last time you used a pair of scissors? Yesterday when I was doing embroidery.

What was the last word you thought? I mean...’embroidery,’ I guess, since I typed it last before reading this question.

Is it easy to make you angry? It takes me a while to explode.

Have you wondered if other people wonder what you’re thinking? No.

Do you sing a lot? When I’m alone and am certain no one can hear, yes.

Do you think you have an addictive personality? Uh no, not really. I like keeping a certain distance with everyone I interact with. As nice as I can be, I try to make sure my personality isn’t the type that would ~leave people wanting more~ so to speak.

Which affects us more: our genes or the environment in which we're raised? For me, it’s the environment. Genes are strong too, but they’re already there; they’re given, they’re constant, they’re wired into each person. The fact that people can still be constantly affected depending on what kind of situation they’re in says much about the capabilities of being raised in a certain environment. For instance, I know for sure I would’ve ended up being more emotionally stable if I was provided with a healthier, gentler upbringing.

Why do you believe that? Oops, I may have already answered it above.

Honestly, do you enjoy arguing? Nah. Watching others do it can be fun, but I avoid them myself.

Do you prefer to use tape or glue? Tape. More secure.

Do you see routine as a comfort or a rut? Comfort. I do like bursts of spontaneity every now and then, though.

When's the last time you cried? Last night. I wanted to this morning, but I already did so much heavy crying last night that I just gave myself a break today.

Do you believe that love can get you through anything? No. I know that now.

What do you wish you had more of? Money is always a good answer. Also, weekends.

If you HAD to change one thing about your best friend, what would it be? I wish Angela lived nearer, so that it’s easier to visit. I wish Gabie wasn’t so selfish.

Have you ever gone to sleep mad? It’s harder that way, lol. But I mean yeah I guess I’ve felt angry while trying to go to bed; it’s just that I usually use certain outlets so that I could calm down and fall asleep more easily.

Do you like your computer? I love it. Even though it’s an older Macbook Air I have no plans to replace it; it’s still so low-maintenance and reliable after all this time.

Which theory do you wish but perhaps not believe was true about afterlife? This is a good question and something I always wish was verbalized more. For me, it’s the idea of reuniting with all your deceased family, friends, and pets in death. That has always given me comfort, but I don’t necessarily cling to it.

Is there anyone that you truly could not live without? I can think of one such person, but we’ll see if it holds true.

#survey #surveys

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theadventuresofharryandlaura · 6 years

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Best of 2017

As 2017 comes to a close, I am using the first quiet days I’ve had in quite some time to reflect on the last year. One of the problems with the itinerant, episodic life of a musician is that I don’t always get a chance to digest a musical experience before moving on to the next one. So, I will attempt to process some of the best parts of this year through writing this post.

Though, as a country, we seem to be descending into the Worst of Times, 2017 was for me, musically, probably the busiest and most exciting year I’ve had yet. I spent about 210 days on the road this year. I took countless flights, got hung up by the cello time and time again, got stranded overnight 3 times, and visited Japan, Mongolia, Malaysia, Philippines, Korea, Thailand, Nepal, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as well as 25 US states. I played 120 concerts and about 100 more educational workshops, outreach events and masterclasses. As with previous years when I’ve looked back on what the year held for me, I feel a profound sense of gratitude for this life and for all the people who help me to lead it. So, I offer my favorite 10 experiences of this year, in chronological order, and why I loved them.

1. Asia Tour with Break of Reality

2017 kicked off with an absolutely epic tour with my cello band Break of Reality, organized by the US State Department. We spent over a month touring to Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Mongolia and the Philippines, performing many concerts and workshops. You can read a perhaps TOO-detailed account of the tour in my last blog post (yes, I’m ashamed that that was many months ago..), but now that I have a little distance from the experience, what has stuck with me is the collaborations we did with local artists in each country. The notion that music is a universal language rang overwhelmingly true during these collaborations, allowing us to inhabit totally different cultures quickly and naturally despite spoken language barriers.

3. Brahms and Lindberg at ChatterABQ

In April, I traveled to Albuquerque, as I often do, to perform at a wonderful series there called Chatter. The concert took place on Easter Sunday morning, and the program consisted of two monumental works for clarinet, cello and piano by Johannes Brahms and Magnus Lindberg. My collaborators were the incredibly talented James Shields (clarinet) and Conor Hanick (piano). The Brahms is just a staggeringly beautiful work, one that I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of playing a few times before (but could play hundreds of times and never tire of it!). The Lindberg, on the other hand, I was learning for the first time for this concert. It helped that I have some experience with Lindberg’s complex, dense, yet riveting writing, but still I spent more hours than I care to admit learning the cello part for this piece. Though Lindberg is very much still with us and the piece was only written ten years ago, the piece has a timeless gravity to it that our audience really seemed to respond to. It was worth the many, many hours spent to learn it, especially since the three of us had the opportunity to play it again as part of the Music Today Festival at the University of Oregon a few months later, and will present it again in NYC in 2018! Stay tuned for details...

4. Sybarite5 @ Osaka Competition

I believe I wrote about this same competition in my highlights of 2014 blog post, and this past May, Sybarite5 was once again invited to the live, semifinal round of the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition & Festa. The “Festa” portion is what we played for: it is an audience-judged, free category encompassing all types of groups from a Mongolian horsehead fiddle quartet (actually my friends from my visit to Mongolia earlier in the year) to a Japanese percussion collective. Older, wiser, and more sure of ourselves than ever, we put what we absolutely felt was our best foot forward, presenting our most exciting, energetic works with conviction. And, we were eliminated in the first round, beat fair and square by a Japanese jazz flute and guitar duo. What we learned from the experience is that we can’t be anyone other than ourselves, and we can’t control what audiences will want, especially in different countries. We took a few days to explore beautiful Japan, and then headed home to move on to the next adventure, which was...:

5. Silk Road Global Musician Workshop

I could write an entire, lengthy blog post on this week alone, but my thumbs can’t take it, so I’ll keep it brief. A mere 24 hours after our not-so-triumphant return from Japan, Sybarite5 re-packed our suitcases and headed to Greencastle, Indiana, where we participated in the Silk Road Global Musician Workshop. GMW is helmed by our old friend and cello tour de force Mike Block, who assembled a dizzying array of talented faculty to teach their unique musical styles to a collection of curious musicians and music-lovers of all ages and walks of life (including us). We were all placed in separate “bands”, which were each led by a different faculty member. In my bands, I was lucky enough to learn about and play Indian music with tabla master Sandeep Das, klezmer with renaissance man Hankus Netsky, and extended cello technique with Mike himself. It was both transformative and humbling to be in a student role again after all these years. I loved getting outside of my comfort zone and being forced to try things that I wasn’t good at. The whole environment was wonderfully supportive, and the group felt like a family after 7 days of very intense music-making and soul searching. It’s a very special festival, and I think any musician could benefit from it.

6. Boyd Meets Girl CD release/ US tour

In July, my dear husband Rupert and I released our first album together as a cello and guitar duo. Boyd Meets Girl is the name of the duo and the album, and we are very proud of both. The album, recorded in October 2016 at Sono Luminus studios in Virginia, reached No. 3 on the Billboard Classical Chart, received many positive reviews, including Gramophone magazine, has been played extensively on terrestrial and satellite radio, and one of the tracks has nearly 100k plays on Spotify. We are thrilled with how it came out, and to celebrate we performed about a dozen concerts around the US in July and early August. The highlights for me were the wonderful Guild Hall of East Hampton, which was packed despite us never having played the region, a return to our beloved Newport Music Festival in Rhode Island, and my first performance in Taos, New Mexico since being a student at the chamber music festival there 10(!) years ago. We even sold out of CDs at the last concert, but thankfully we had time to go home and get more before the next adventure...:

7. Boyd Meets Girl Australia/New Zealand Tour

Over a year and a half ago, before the album was even recorded, Rupert began contacting presenters in Australia to organize a truly epic tour of the country. Through hard work and incredible attention to detail, he managed to organize 18 concerts for us in every state and territory, covering every major city and many smaller towns as well. We also flew to New Zealand at the beginning of the tour, to catch up with Rupert’s brother and play one concert. I will not lie, the schedule was grueling, with two stretches of 6 concerts in a row with plane travel each morning, but it was just exhilarating to get to know so many corners of Rupert’s home country, including some places that not even many Australians have been! Highlights included performing in the historic Melbourne home designed by Rupert’s grandfather, Robin Boyd, who was one of Australia’s most accomplished architects, playing in Perth and Albany, Western Australia (on the West Coast of the country with no other major cities anywhere near), performing in the stunning ballroom of a private mansion near Hobart in Tasmania, traveling to Uluru, the “red center” of the country and the heart of Aboriginal culture, and from there taking a 6-hour bus ride to Alice Springs, the closest city and place of our final concert! I am so proud of Rupert for his hard work in organizing the entire thing, and for booking every single flight (of which there were many) over the PHONE because of the cello.

8. Gharana Music Festival

After a few weeks back home, in which Rupert and I played several more concerts closer to home including our official NYC album release at SubCulture, we once again traveled across the world. We were lucky enough to be invited back to the Gharana Music Festival in Nepal, in which we had participated in 2016 as well. Most of our concerts took place in Kathmandu in extremely charming venues: a bar/restaurant/plant nursery and the grounds of a fancy French restaurant. But the memorable part of this year’s festival, for us, was the “run-out” to the town of Janakpur, in the south of the country close to the border with India. I use quotation marks when I say “run-out”, because getting from Kathmandu involved a 10+ hour ride each way in a van, through gorgeous but terrifying high mountain passes in the Himalayas. I must say, our driver was an absolute legend, never once losing his concentration while driving on the one-lane, cliff-hugging roads where only small and often broken bricks separated us from a sheer drop. The city of Janakpur reminded me more of India than of Nepal, with cows and goats roaming freely in the streets, and dirt roads running through the city. The most outstanding feature of Janakpur is the truly spectacular Janaki temple, and this was the site of our concert there. The concert consisted of a set by a local band, a set by us, a set by the well known Kathmandu-based band KUTUMBA, and then a collaboration with all of us. The morning of the show, we got together with KUTUMBA, who explained to us that their mission is to make traditional Nepali instruments cool, and to fashion themselves as rock stars playing these instruments, which they have absolutely done, and they tour the world selling out huge venues. They taught us one of their songs and asked us to mash it up with one of ours, and we chose the Faure Pavane. Somehow it came together naturally and quickly, and their tunes were so catchy I couldn’t get them out of my head! That night, a huge stage was erected in the area in front of the temple, and we presented what felt like an actual rock concert. A crowd of thousands gathered to hear us, and Rupert and I played our Bach inventions and other rep just the same as we always do, except MUCH more heavily amplified. We also wore traditional kurtas to match the Nepali performers, and during the concert, giant grasshoppers landed aggressively on our fingers and instruments. It was a wild, unforgettable experience.

9. IRIS Orchestra

This year, I had the pleasure of playing two concerts with the wonderful IRIS Orchestra. The orchestra performs in Memphis, but its members come from all over the country, converging about five times a year. I will write about the most recent time, just a few weeks ago, since it was more intense and also fresher in my mind. There is something magical about IRIS in that it’s a different group every time, all culled from the same large roster, but the exact personnel for each concert changes every time. So, everyone gets together for the first time on Thursday evening and by Saturday is concert-ready. For this particular concert, which was the “strings-only” concert that the orchestra presents once a year, I was leading the cello section, and also doing outreach concerts around the community with my string sisters Sarah Whitney and Angela Pickett. So, our schedule was particularly busy! The rep for the concert was curious: Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusic, two pieces which I have played so many times I lost track a decade ago, paired with piano concerti by Hindemith and Bloch which I had never even heard, much less played, before, and which required some time in the practice room. But, I always cherish opportunities to learn new music, and the piano soloist, Orion Weiss, played both of them with such conviction (even though they were new to him too), that the concerts were so much fun. I feel lucky that I get to go back to IRIS in just a few short months.

10. Northwest Bach Festival with Break of Reality

My final trip of 2017 was a lovely one. After a 12-hour turnaround from Memphis, I flew to Spokane, Washington to meet my cello bandmates for the “Winter Classics” series of the Northwest Bach Festival. The festival is helmed by the talented and dynamic cellist Zuill Bailey, whom we had the pleasure of getting to know, and hear play, throughout the week. We did three concerts, which progressed from an educational daytime, acoustic show for the inquisitive students at Eastern Washington University, to an intimate acoustic show in a cozy, atmospheric winery, to a full-blown rock show with drum set at a converted cracker factory. This last show was also special because we unplugged for one tune, a 4-cello arrangement of the Bach 6th Suite Sarabande, for which Zuill joined us (it is a Bach Festival, after all). The whole thing was so unique, and it was the first time anything outside of traditional classical chamber music had been presented at this festival. We were so thankful to Zuill for believing that a cello rock band could work in the context of a chamber music festival, and we hope to return to Spokane again before too long!

So, those are my favorites for 2017, though there were many other memorable moments! I am so thankful to my colleagues and to those who consume and appreciate music. I will leave you with my “Year in Cities” 2017, which is a list I keep of all the places I sleep (not drive through or go for the day), so that I don’t forget! Onward to 2018....

New York, NY • Okinawa, JAPAN • Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA • Kota Kinabalu, MALAYSIA • Seoul, KOREA • Busan, KOREA • Daegu, KOREA • Pangyo, KOREA • Ulaanbaatar, MONGOLIA • Manila, PHILIPPINES • Zambales, PHILIPPINES • Newport, RI • Lancaster, PA • Tucson, AZ • Scottsdale, AZ • Fort Worth, TX • Memphis, TN • Cleveland, MS • St. Cloud, MN • Minneapolis, MN • Iowa City, IA • Albuquerque, NM • Wichita, KS • Hesston, KS • Pittsburg, KS • Muncie, IN • Nashville, TN • Montreal, CANADA • Eugene, OR • Portland, OR • Osaka, JAPAN • Kyoto, JAPAN • Tokyo, JAPAN • Bangkok, THAILAND • Greencastle, IN • Ithaca, NY • Montague, NJ • Chatham,MA • East Hampton, NY • West Hartford, CT • Burlington, VT • Taos, NM • Telluride, CO • Cortez, CO • Santa Fe, NM • Jackson Hole, WY • Toronto, CANADA • Auckland, NEW ZEALAND • Cambridge, NEW ZEALAND • Figtree, AUSTRALIA • Canberra, AUSTRALIA • Adelaide, AUSTRALIA • Melbourne, AUSTRALIA • Perth, AUSTRALIA • Albany, AUSTRALIA • Wagga Wagga, AUSTRALIA • Hay, AUSTRALIA • Deniliquin, AUSTRALIA • Brisbane, AUSTRALIA • Crows Nest, AUSTRALIA • Sydney, AUSTRALIA • Hobart, AUSTRALIA • Yulara, AUSTRALIA • Alice Springs, AUSTRALIA • Fargo, ND • Kathmandu, NEPAL • Janakpur, NEPAL • San Francisco, CA • Anahola, HI • Three Oaks, MI • Hart, MI • Chicago, IL • Spokane, WA

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