whoa boy...

The end-of-sem-assignment-rush syndrome is here and i'm up to my neck in hot water. hehe...
Haven't got any decent sleep the last week or two. But it'll be over none the less by next wednesday :) pray that i'll hold up?

and i'm gonna splurge some money soon... on the Adrenalinn II. It's really been a hard decision to make, 1.5k-2k may not be that big a sum but it really is a huge ammount for me right now... To all the gearheads, check it out and tell me what you think.
Roger Linn Design
Harmony Central Adrenalinn II reviews
Last recommendations and comments before i get it people...

And of course, pop, what do you think?

Grumpy...

It's always a wonder the difference what a good night's sleep can do for you. I've been feeling kinda grumpy for the most part today and i think i blame it on sleep... or rather, lack of it.

To be even more specific, i think the lack of a good night's sleep. Haven't really been having enough sleep for more than a week. Right now, i can only remember from friday, had only 5 hours, sat only 4, sun only 5, mon only 5 again and last night was about 7. Seven usually is enough but when i woke up this morning, ugh... felt like i never slept at all... oh well... let's see what happens to my sleep the next few days...

It just hit me on Saturday that I've actually only 2 weeks left before finals are on. The thing is, there's no pressure/stress/worry or anything on my part. Weird? I dunno. Even this morning when my pastor was asking for those who are having major/final exams, i didn't feelt he urge to respond at all.

My friend, Wee Ming, once said something along these lines: "What's the point about worrying and studying extra hard for your exams? When you graduate, everyday will be a close examination of your skills and knowledge. If you don't know your stuff by the time the finals are here, chances are, you won't know your stuff when you need it when working." So there you have it. I'm pretty comfortable with my skills/knowledge/etc and i suppose that's why exams and exam results don't bother me as much. I have nothing to prove in exams. People should see what i'm capable of through my actions, not just from a piece of paper. I know plenty of people with a GREAT piece of paper but.... they aren't worth much in a practical sense... hehe... anyone feels insulted yet? :P I suppose all this can be blamed on society for wrongly putting the emphasis on exams rather than on learning. But that will be a discussion for another day. :)

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Longdrawn 2: Music for elevators. That was quite an ok gig. The first band was really crap though. They certainly Lied their way through. The vocalist couldn't sing a single note correctly, the guitars would be better known as noise. Next up was Free Love, they were quite decent; catchy riffs and somewhat acceptable lyrics. Full of energy. Sounded somewhat like OAG though. Her Reverie was my highlight though, with their stuff sound very dreamy and melodic. Justin, Keng and Co. did very well... Bought their EP too btw. KLPHQ was somewhat impressive with their own brand of instrumental music. The guitars mix very well with the sound samples. This Body Broken was good as well, though they could have been much better. They lost their lead singer recently and so their guitarist, Warren, had to do the vocals as well. He sang a lil bit shrilly though BUT he does have a good low voice, am puzzled why he doesn't use it properly... Furniture was impressive too. But there was this short annoying fat dude who kept disturbing when the one of the band members was intro-ing the band and songs... sheesh.. They played a lot with effects though. Lots of filter effects and synths and samples as well... Rich bunch I reckon. The supposed highlight was a disappointment for me. The Observatory was nothing spectacular. Relied a lot on loops and samples. The two songs that I heard (left early cuz had work in the morning! sigh...) was actually pleasant to hear but a bit repetetive. Their intro instrumental song was crap though. No head, no tail and no body. But gotta give them credit for the way they layer their sounds though.... I do think that they did suffer somewhat from overhype...

FREE FOOD!!!

Back in my first sem, the best thing that happened to me was performing in some events and things like that. The highlight of the performances is usually is the dinner at the hotel! Musicians/performers/etc don't get to eat at the event itself but we eat before. usually buffets and stuff like that at the hotel's restaurant. Imagine free buffet at Palace of Golden Horses! yup.. been there, done that.

This time around, i think it'll be another buffet at Marriott. jealous? I'll be at Marriott Putrajaya tomorrow for a performance/presentation thingy. It's a pre-convo dinner for the bigshots at UPM thingy.. i assume we're doing the dinner music... yeah... entertain while others munch. Oh well, the life of a musician.....

Guess who the guest is... heheh... Sultan of Selangor. Not really the first time i've played in front of him tho. Did it on my first sem but i'd like to think that i'm a more mature performer this time around :D We'll be doing some classic P. Ramlee stuff (not my cup of tea but really fun none the less), some evergreens and some jazz stuff. I'll be doing guitar comps accompanying my coursemates, Gerald (Violin) & Xiaoyun (Flute); and Lecturers, Ooi Eow Jin (piano), Ariff (sop sax) and Joseph (bass); and a guest, Martin, on drums. Let's see how the royalty like us... hehe..

Oh, and i had a prety nice time with my mom... :)

and great surprise from my pop... thanks for the comment... really gave me a lift.... double :)

How good am I?

I have been thinking and blasting myself really hard the past year or two about how lil improvement (relatively) I've had playing the guitar. Tried a few things here and there, tried new ways of doing old things and stuff like that. But despite all that, i felt like i wasn't good enough at all. That's really kinda disheartening and all when there's just something that I can't do properly or at least can't do well enough.

So here i was demonstrating something at FGA KL at their guitar class thingy (was invited by my boss, Mark, to play with him). While playing , i realized that i saw there were so many slack-jaws arround just admiring what Mark and I could do on the guitar. Having said that, I still didn't think that I'm really that great a player. But what hit me while I was driving back from that thingy was this:

I've been playing for 7-8 years perhaps. And looking back, I have improved and became a better player. Back then it was as such that being able to do barre F chord was like an achievement! haha.. silly me... now, much more complicated things i've been trying to do. And that was when i realized that i AM indeed not bad and like everyone else, always can improve on something. So with that revelation(and sorta burden being lifted) i felt better about myself. And on the same day, in church practice, a break through happened, some of the weird things i tried seemed so much easier, and everything was much smoother.

Moral of the story? If you would take some time to sit down and see how far you've gone and what you've achieved, as well as give yourself a pat on the back for it, you'll be amazed at how much more you can achieve. It's like giving yourself some credit and giving yourself some slack. This really helps to give you that lil boost to get you through a few tough things. Having said that, I do realize too that i can't rest on my laurels and just be proud of what i can do, instead, more things, tricks and weird things await me! :)

On a light note, my mom's coming to kl on sun! Can't wait to meet up with her. It's been sooooo long.... hmmm... perhaps i can get a good treat out of her!!! hahaha... do i hear someone say chilli's? hahaha....

Of sorethroats and waking up

That damned sorethroat isn't getting any better. sheesh. In fact, it's now worse! A very sharp pain everytime i swallow... oh well.

This morning, I got up at like 11.30, but the best part was, church is at 10! Missed it by an hour and half. Officially I put the blame squarely on my alarm clock which didn't ring. But the point is, why is it always that hard to wake?

I'm reminded by a good story that a good friend of mine told me (what i remember of his story anyway). His alarm rang and woke everyone in his house up EXCEPT him. His mom shook him up and he switched off his alarm and went back to sleep. 15 minutes later, his mom dragged him out of his room where, after his mom went to the kitchen, he promptly plomped on the couch to sleep further. Later on, his mom dragged him into the bathroom where lo and behold, he still managed to sleep sitting on the royal throne! but then, after a lil threatening with water, he gave up, brushed his teeth and well, woke up!

Another friend of mine is also well known for his non-waking-up antics. Non other than the famous Benloke. The way things went is, he would usually ask you wake him up but if you actually manage to wake him up, get ready for some abuse from him! hahaa...but if you didn't he still abuses you. All that after about 2 hours later than when he wanted to wake up.

Funny old thing this waking up thing is. Now, if only i could wake up as easily without much fuss. But if i did, then i suppose that would be when waking up time is at 12 noon!

Ugh...

Darn... my throat hurts like mad. Body's feeling woozy and hot. Can't think straight...
I hate being sick.

Pray for me, will ya?

Thanx