St David's Day, Margaret Thatcher, and Stultification

My dear Reader, I apologize for not having regaled you with an update of my life in the last few days. I thought it was a lot longer than a few days because the last update was on the 25th of February and it is now March, but I had forgotten how few days there were in February. Today is of course my name day, so sanabituranima is going to make me some leek soup, and I have bought some Cake wherewith to celebrate the occasion. I went to Mass at St Cuthbert's at 9.15 this morning; I did not succeed in rising at 6.30; I did succeed in rising at 8.45, or perhaps 8.43 or so. I had intended to spend some time in prayer before Mass; instead I did that after I had had breakfast, which I had in Brown Sugar. I know it is not called Brown Sugar, but I call it Brown Sugar anyway: it used to be its name, and so I shall still call it that, be it what colour or thing it be may. I had lunch in college; then I did about fifty minutes of piano practice. I had finished - at 1.45, for I had to go to a lecture - when a man came to the door and spoke to me to complain about my playing being "repetitive." How do you practise anything without it being repetitive? I am sorry but if you are to learn something you have to repeat it. He used the adjective "hammering," and there is one little bit, of about four seconds, which I might have hammered - though I did play it a large number of times. How else am I supposed to learn it? Anyway, I had finished. He said it was tuneful up to that point. I was not entirely sure whether it was myself, or Chopin, or my interpretation of Chopin, that he was criticizing.
Then I went to my music-therapy lecture which was taken by Janet Graham, who is the chief music-therapist in the North-East. I did not expect the lecture to be interesting, but it was more interesting than previous lectures have been. I have not seen Rachel Darnley-Smith, our usual music-therapy lecturer, for a month now. Anyhow, we had that lecture, then our group practised until about a quarter to six - from 2.15 to 5.45 is three and a half hours, so we have worked hard this afternoon. It was after that session that I bought the chocolate cake with which to celebrate St David's Day. I found out that if you want to use a machine and pay by cash you have to use a particular one which was not the one I was using since the one I was using came up with zero every time I tried to scan the cake. Also, when I walked in and out of the shop, the alarm sounded; I attributed it to my cello. No one has arrested me yet. Those alarms go off so frequently with so many false alarms that they seem to me to be almost entirely self-defeating. Not that I have any strong opinions on anything.
Well, that's not quite true. I have strong opinions on everything from Tolstoy to a teapot; Margaret Thatcher is the only thing on which I have no opinion. I do not feel I know enough about her to have an informed opinion, and the views that I have heard about her differ so much from each other that it has not been possible for me to imbibe a prejudice one way or the other by a process of osmosis.

On a not very related note, I think it does not do any good for a child to be laughed at for not understanding something, or for someone to say "How can you possibly not know / understand that?" I think it does positive harm. I don't know or understand something; you tell me, without expressing it in words, that you think I am stupid; therefore I do not ask anything of anybody who might be able to help me because they might react in the same way that you do - implying that I am stupid because I don't know or understand something -; and in failing, through this fear and false pride that you have taught me, to ask questions, or to ask for help, I paralyse myself and am unable to make any progress at all; or rather, I stultify myself; and so your unexpressed accusation of stupidity, of which you may have been entirely unconscious, has become a prophecy that has almost fulfilled itself. It is true that my pride is my own fault: but you taught it to me.