So we beat on

Here are a couple of terrible quality videos from my recital - I will take some proper photos of the outfit I was talking about in the last post...if you can see, I'm wearing a dress with blue fairy lights all over it. It was pretty cool but possibly hazardous so I only wore it for one song. There was also a projector which was directed onto me so that the colours of the video were on me, if that makes sense. That's what the weird light is. Here is my program (sorry it's so hard to read, I kind of just wanted to show you the border because it is so pretty): 

I have finished a year of my degree at the Victorian College of the Arts. It feels weird, and like I'm not totally finished because I'm not staring into months of oblivion until March because I have so much to do music-wise before the year is over. 

I'm so happy. I really am. And it has taken me so long to be able to say that without some little niggle of doubt and some nerves sitting and waiting at the pit of my stomach. I love stronger and better than I ever have before because it's not the total insanity of my teenage heart getting ahead of my brain; I am making better music, I am a better friend and daughter, student and teacher, because I know more than I did. I did not enjoy every part of the learning process but I am so proud that I have made it this far, and can see just far enough into the future to be excited about it. 

This year has been exhausting. Sometimes it has been that awful kind of exhausting; where you're riding on a bus home at 3am with 50 other people, standing next to a pile of vomit while waves of anger and hopelessness wash over you in equal parts as the bus jerks you from side to side, into the body of someone you thought you knew. But it has also been that beautiful kind of exhausting, where you're lying in a paddock at 6.30am watching the sun rise with your closest friends, after watching it set the night before with the very same people. It's been emotionally exhausting, frightening phonecalls and late night television shows - but at the same time, being so in love with another person that your body and your brain are overwhelmed and exhausted, and the only thing you can do is just look at this person in astonishment at the incredible, impossible luck that has allowed your paths to meet, is one of the most wonderful and beautiful things in the world. 

I just finished reading The Great Gatsby today and absolutely adored every word. The last sentence is so divine, and so perfect, I want you to read it right now: 

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. 

I love stronger for what I have known in the past. The struggle continues for everyone but we beat on...we just don't have a choice. 

PS. THANKS FOR THE PICS EMILY XXX