I am on Youtube

… finally?

It had been almost a year since I contemplated posting some YouTube videos of me playing the piano because it seemed everyone is doing it these days, and plus I would obviously love to share my work with a wider audience. But the YouTube account that I set up had been gathering dust and spider webs, possibly because of my round the clock busyness and my reluctance to get into the whole video and audio editing mess (I am a perfectionist, so my videos, if I post them, had to be perfect!)

Today I spent one solid day to get some videos up and running. So what prompted such a change in behavior? Well, last Saturday I did some piano performance and was asked if I am on YouTube. I said I did not. And while I said that I made a note to myself that it is about time I do just that.

Preparing the videos were …arduous, and the mere thought of it was enervating: Converting videos, editing audio, transferring files from the thumb drive and SD card, restarting the entire computer three times when the computer refuses to acknowledge the SD card as a hardware, constructing a video in Windows Movie Maker. That lastly mentioned task truly deserves a special mention. Windows Movie Maker decided to make life difficult for me by refusing cooperate. It freezes the audio and video at its will. I literally felt like torching the entire computer, throw all items on my desk to the ground, screaming my lungs out, “WHY WON’T THE SOFTWARES JUST … WORK??”

Somehow I persevered and ended up doing lots of extra, tedious work. The videos are up. No subscribers, not many view counts yet. But hey, Rome wasn’t build in one day, and once I figured out how to oil things up, “streamline” the process and get efficient – from the black and white keys to YouTube, I am hopeful that things will change. Or you can contribute to my number of subscribers and view counts by clicking on my YouTube channel and viewing the videos. And a comment or two make my day too!

The Problem with Reincarnation

My first conception of reincarnation as a kid was through a Hong Kong drama adapted from Journey to the West, one of the Four Great Classical Novels from ancient China. It was a story about the pilgrimage undertaken by a monk, accompanied by his three proteges to India (the birth place of Buddhism); hence Journey to the “West”. The flesh of the monk, as the story goes, is highly desireable as it is believed to be the key to mortality, so it was an interesting journey full of pitfalls as the demons and spirits attempted to feast on him while his three proteges struggle to protect their master.

The story flirted with various metaphysical story elements. The Buddha would appear out of nowhere in the middle of the show, so would the lady sitting in yoga position on a giant lotus flower (the Goddess of Mercy). I was also exposed to the concept of hell and heaven. Such depiction on television definitely had some bearing on my early perception of the universe that I inhabit. For a while, the boundaries between the realm of the show and the real world was blurred. I was god-fearing. I would not lie, not even a white lie that bears not the slightest malicious intention, for fear that I will go to hell, which, again through the depiction on the tv, occurred to me as an unpleasant place that I certainly do not want to be in.

5 Feet 9

Today I realized I was only 5 feet 9.

For much of my teenage years, I was largely unpertubed by my height and had on numerous occasions assured myself that “everything will fall into place”, perferring to outsource my vertical accendancy – and those sleepless preoccupations – to nature.

I craved for 180cm. Or more. Nature gave me 175cm eventually. And if the last word in the previous sentence triggered an annoying blip on the radar of the most conscientious of readers out there who would spring their feets and advocate for concise writing and truncation of unecessary words, in a while they will see why that is necessary in aid of the understanding, and to put into context, the despair of this author. At the ripe age of twenty, nature dictates that there is little, if any, that I can do about my height. And so the pressure is on to forgo the dream, which I am sure shared by many men out there, to look like Kang Sang Woo – 6 feet tall and ripped.

The Big Bang

In an event of aberration, I worked at the Mandarin Oriental today. Mandarin Oriental was where I began as a pianist. It was the first domino, which sets off a chain of events which otherwise would not have occurred: play the saxophone, change to a better violin teacher, learn under a jazz piano maestro, upgrade laptop, buy books, groomed myself, buy clothes and accessories, play on a 9 feet Steinway and Sons grand piano, etc, etc. It all started in Mandarin Oriental some two years ago.

So today was a reflective day. I recalled having arrived late by train for the meeting with the agent at Mandarin Oriental on my first day. It was a Friday. I quickly changed into a white shirt, bow tie, black pants and catch this: a dark blue blazer from mydays as a school prefect. (Which compels me to issue a fashion faux pas warning!) I put on some hair gel and tweaked all my hair to the back of my head, leaving my forehead bald. And finally, I put on my glasses – the nerdy thick frame one – just in time for my scheduled performance at 3pm.

On Becoming a Saxophonist

I found myself counting the minutes. My saxophone teacher is scheduled to arrive at 8.30pm. By 8pm I am officially paralyzed, doing nothing except browsing through saxophone pictures on Google Image over and over again and peering over my shoulder to track the minute hand on the clock against the wall.

He arrived much earlier than promised, which helped tame my anxiety tremendously. He then retrieved a brown rectangular box and handed it to me. It was heavy, but I am not complaining. I stood still for a few seconds to savour the moment. It was a milestone.

Four Years

Four years ago, I wanted so badly to become a songwriter. I thought that was something I could do better than others. So I emailed a producer and asked him about becoming a songwriter. The how, who, and what.

Write good songs, and let the right person listen to them, he said. Gladly he offered to listen to my compositions. Elated I was, that I anchored before my music notation software for a several months and began churning out the melody, then the harmony, then the rhythm. Thinking dreams could be kicked started so easily in a matter of a few audio clips sent as email attachments, I was crushed.

Change of Mind

I had a staggering change of mind today. While I rummaging through the torrents of information on web pages of various universities, I realized my previous ambition of waltzing past a Gothic stone arch of a Ivy-League standard institution, suddenly became so alienating. 

I have set aside five esteemed insitutions to which I will painstakingly populate empty spaces on the application forms and diligently write application essays, having thought that these “untouchable” super five are well-endowed with academic features and opportunities that would without any doubt appeal to me.

Twenty

I turned twenty last month. It was a frightening event that defies celebration, be it in the form of engaging in a gift-accepting ritual, organizing a party, or putting on a (heaven forbid) conical hat. Frightening, because it was akin to standing on the railway, looking at the dashing train in the horizon – mere twinkle in the eyes, but augmenting in size and closing in distance as the clock ticks away.

Curiously I decided that the incumbent thing to do on such day was to anchor before a Word document on my computer screen and churn out words after words. It was a chronicle of the first twenty years of my life.

Why blog?

I think blogging is a lot like living. At some point of life, we asked: What is the meaning of living? What is the purpose of it? I have been blogging since January 2007. Today, I wondered why I did that in the first place.

Why did I blog?

Merdeka?

August 31 – a day of celebration for “the freedom, the independence, and the progress that we enjoy”. Or so the “official” idea of Independence Day is. But, has it always been the case?

Supposedly Independence Day is the day to reflect on the effort by those who had contributed (not necessarily those from today’s ruling party as the school textbook would like us to believe) in attaining sovereignty for the nation.  But for generation – Y like yours truly, the spirit of gaining independence is beyond the realm of my experience. So what does Independence Day mean to the late bloomers?