Corey Mwamba

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Entries for 22nd Mar 2017

I've been quiet because... well, PhD writing. It's more important to me than lots of other things.

That importance is not something that has crept up on me. I knew it would gradually take over; but I thought I had much more time. This was a mistake.

I am enjoying it, though.

The time spent on this—which I want to do—has made me realise how much time I have spent on things for other people while not properly thinking about myself.

It's been sobering. In the effort to be able to be helpful and adaptable, I think it is easy to forget to "spring back", to accommodate our own needs and selves; to be elastic rather than plastic.

That isn't to say that I'm a saint, because I'm really not. But I have been been stretched in different directions; and (perhaps appropriately) the PhD is giving me a focus on what I want to do that I'm not sure I've ever really had before.

I feel my focus as a musician is always fleeting. This is mainly because I never planned on being a musician.

But doing music has given me many ways of dealing with myself and others that I may not have found, had I done exactly what I wished or planned.

Put another way, the practice of music elasticised my thinking. But the working in music has plasticised my life.