Susie's Blog

When I started with Mason he was a little boy. Now he is 16. Good looking 190 cm young man with massive hands. I still boss him around. That doesnt' change. But see how they grow! He said that Susie just gets smaller.

My friend Sarah is from Iran. She has been talking about the 10 days celebration of middle east new year. She invited me to go to this big celebration at Paramatta park. You see the whole park is filled with people from the middle east doing bellydancing. Then there is Giselle and I, two very asian girls belly dancing in the middle of thousands of Iranian. So much fun.The guys there told us that we need to marry middle east men. Giselle said of course!! (her husband is German. She has two daughters age 10 and 7). That was hilarious. We had a lot of fun belly dancing!

I went and had Korean for lunch. All of these cost 10 dollars only. Gees. you don't get that in sydney these days. Especially all of these. Good value for money. I will surely be back.

!4 of us girls had my birthday dinner at Napoli de Bocca in Harberfield. The dresscode is bright girly colour. The invitation says no male feature and no kids. So there we are. I wished i remembered to bring my camera!! Just a few photos taken from my phone.....such a wonderful dinner party.

What a lovely birthday lunch Jenny took me at Moore park. Beautiful sun, lunch and company. I am really happy. She pays too. That really makes me soooo happy.

I like how Amy changes her face dramatically during the 30 mins. Concentrate so hard as if she needs to go to the toilet.

then she is happy

then we got to dance. Really happy. Look at the shirt. Clearly we know who bought that shirt.

I used to be a serial goal setter. Everything in life I set goals and stick them on my wall. Vision board, goal book and everything you can think of. I have them. Just like what all the how to be successful goal book teaches us to do. I have one interesting example to share though.

So many years I would like to have 60 students. I figure out that with 60 students everyweek that will give me a very solid income. Also that's the number that will keep me enough free time to keep on with a good life style. Just the right balance. But I didn't have that many. I started with 30 kids years ago. I would print out the whole weeks time table, put them into boxes. Write down the existing timeslot that already have students' names in. And circle the rest that I would like to have students. I work on filling in the boxes. Yes goal setting is useful but I add them on one year after another, 40 kids, 50 kids....I advertise. work hard, letter box drop, marketing and even have jobs in school. I chase the goal.

I build on more and more students but never quite reach 60. Last year I had enough. I quit the school job. I tear the paper down from my wall and couldn't give it a damn anymore. After reading "the new earth" I decide to take it one step at a time. i am just going to do my best with whatever I got. Not worry about advertising or chasing the goal. I put on a big showcase at the end of the year using all of my energy and brain cell and all profit went for the good cause for charity. All i think is to do well at that moment of time and follow where my talents leave me. Not thinking about money, first time in my goal chasing path. This year my student number is  way over 60. maybe 70 even. And the phone call comes in everyday. And i no longer want to count it anymore.

For so many years I also have a list of the man that I want in my life. The book says to do so and all relationship experts recommend it too. I tear the list and throw it to the bin. I will no longer be chasing a goal like that. Enjoy life -one -step- at a time.

My parents always said that no news is good news. I prefer to have good news than no news though. But these days i agree with them. Today one of my 16 year old student told me that she was very distressed to see the naked photo of her dad's woman on the computer. How do you answer to that?

I also found out that another uni friend of mine passed away in her sleep at age 34. No signs at all. Something wrong with the blood in the brain.

Then it's another friend's dad finding out he has advance lung cancer. He is only in his 50s. When I saw her early this week she was still happy chatting. Today is only Thursday. The report says that the dad has very serious lung cancer.

Life is very unpredictable isn't it.

I think from age 21, I had birthday party or dinner every single year. Sometimes with lots of people and even the smallest one is still not small. It's really not because I am popular. I think the most important reason is that my birthday falls on the first week of easter holidays and its very easy for people to come and I always make sure it's good food and good fun with dresscode at all times. Today I looked at the photos of those birthday dinners, I noticed that the group of friends I have is quite different every year. I would have a few long time life time friends who are always going to be close to me. However I have a lot of those that I just happened to be very close at that stage of my life. After that, they might be out of my life but then the new group will come in.  Life is constantly interesting with all the different types of friends so my single life is never dull. But most of the time friends come in and out of your life. I don't know if that happens to you too. Maybe just me.

I remembered for my 30th big birthday my gorgeous friends Selina and Lu-dan (egg) flied to Sydney to celebrate with me! Now both of them got married and had kids!Mine is still the same which is rather depressing isn't it. Anyway I haven't heard much from Ludan after and at one stage Selina and I want to contact her but feel a little weird because we just never hear from her after she told us she is pregnant. We were a little worried if anything wrong with the kids? So we just leave it like that. However this morning at 7:30 am my door bell rings and the postman delivers the surprised birthday present from Lu-dan!! I am soo happy! My student was so excited opening the present with me too. Looks like everything is fine with her and that's absolutely fabulous! Thank you darling!

Mara invited me to the ear hour dinner at her place. I think the Australians are amazing. They followed it religiously and we had the whole garden and house full of beautiful candle lights. I forgot to bring my phone on that day so couldn't take photos! What a bummer. We had about 8 people there and the average age there was probably 50 so it was very fascinating to chat with them about life and everything. At the beginning i thought, oh no i might not fit in and don't know what to say among all these middle age OZ couples but it turned out to be a truly wonderful evening. We had so much food and lots of good red wine. What did you do at earth hour last saturday at 8 pm? did you turn off the lights?

We have been exploring the afternoon tea spots around sydney. This one is in Birkenhead. Pretty nice....you overlook the water after shopping spree (though lots of shops are still in renovation). then had a good old fattening tea and cake before going for a walk around the bay. Not a bad sunday afternoon at all...

 The brand "Seduce" in Sydney is normally quite expensive. Not much materials but quite expensive. On the weekend a friend of mine took me for afternoon tea and we just saw the sales in the stall. All clothes were put there randomly for people to select. 5 dollars each dress. Can you believe it? This is the Seduce brand and every dress is 5 bucks. I don't think I have ever got such good bargains in my life. These two dresses were $205 on the price tag before. Gee don't we love a bargain.

They have lots of size 6 dresses but I can no longer fit in it. Size 8 and 10 are rare. Then from size 14 and 16 you could see more there as well.

On the weekend a few friends and i went to Balmain for the organic afternoon. We had great lunch, walkabout and then checked out all the organic shops and cafes in retro balmain area. We walked past this shop and I had to stop everyone and took the photo. See those pillows with names? I have every single one here in the studio. Quite a coincidence. Harry Jack Cooper Mia Ella Olivia. .every single one. Awesome.

I honestly think all of my students can play Gu Zheng. I really teach every single one of them regardless they learn piano, singing or dancing with me.  My Gu zheng skill is really crap but at least I am putting a bit of multi culture elements in all these OZ kids. really fun watching them playing. They can all read the simplified Gu Zheng score. Pretty amazing.

I thought I have lots of shoes. I always thought I must have more than 50 pairs. But I bought the new shoes rack and put all of my funcitonal shoes there. Less than 30 pairs. Not bad ma.....only 30. How come this rack looks like it's gonna collapse any minute.....maybe i am not very good at ensemble them together...

Before dad went back to Taiwan more than a month ago, he planted some random seeds into these 5 empty pots. Look at it. Now even the flower popped out. What is it anyway? I only watered them with the water that neko didn't want. but they still managed to grow rather beautifully.

Sunday afternoon is always the most relaxing time for OZs. Lots of people hang around doing nothing. Claudia and i went and checked out the new yumcha in city first. Still full, we continue enjoyed the chocolate at the rocks. Gorgeous sun, people and chocolate. This is Claudia and our dessert.....

My old teacher used to say to  me nstantly, Susie you are not a real artist. A real musician should not think like you. Never think about what profit you can get, you have to think about how you can contribute to the kids!!

I do think about how to contribute to the kids education and how to teach them with all I could in singing piano and dancing. But you know what, I also do think about how to make the school bigger and how to earn more money by creating new classes and target different groups. Nothing glory about not having money at all!!

Today my old wonderful teacher in her 70s, she lives in the public housing after the passing of the husband, being so miserable, broke and lonely. I walked past her studio in city the other day. She has a little sign putting up at the bottom of the building entrance. She never needs to advertise all her life. But this is where she is now. You know, I feel so sorry for her. She used to be the top teacher in the industry and she charged us the earth for the lessons.

She has terrible temper but everyone puts up with it before she is a very good teacher. A true artist. From very early on I know she is terrible with money. Over 20 years of time she rented in the most expensive suburb with the massive house with her good income. I know she has lots of credit card debts too because she didn't know paying off the credit card debt is important. I no longer keep contact with her since few years ago because she gave me lots of stress and I didn't like the influence and comments from her that Susie is way too commercial in my way of running my studio. But Miss, I love you still but look at where you are today. That is the path we shall never follow. Be smart. Never be just the true artist in this modern day.