龍頭蛇尾

Since childhood I've been afflicted by a disease so common that the Chinese have a special adjective to describe the afflicted: 龍頭蛇尾 (lóng tóu shé wěi), a chimera with the the head of a dragon but the tail of a snake. This satirical creature impresses with the splendor and majesty of the dragon but invariably disappoints when its much meeker tail is exposed. This is an apt and poetic description of someone with great initial passion but no appreciable follow-through. Sadly, it's also a pretty good description of me, and the piano in my parents' apartment that serves as an expensive decorative piece is testament to that. As I embark on a difficult (and hopefully long) journey to learn to play the guitar, I hope I can tone down the initial excitement and crank up the stick-to-it-tiveness. I will try to be less like a dragon with a snake's tail and more like a possum with the body of an armadillo. Less poetic, I'm sure, but perhaps more pragmatic.

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