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I turned 22 last week. I hate the new number, to be honest. I wish I didn't have to grow older than 18. I made a birthday blog entry but I wasn't very happy with it because it went too personal.

Just minutes ago, I told my dad that I'll be graduating at such a late age. It wasn't a serious discussion at all. I told him that I'm worried I might get tired of studying. You know, tired as in losing the motivation and stop caring about how important it is to graduate from a uni. My dad said he'll knock my head if that happens. I regret for grumbling about how boring school is. But to be really honest going to uni seems so pointless. I'll get to that topic on another day.

I spent my book voucher today. Passenger released his new album yesterday. By right, I should be feeling happy today. But I just don't feel as happy as when I was depressed back in intec. It's so weird. Made me realise that my friend was true. Owning things don't make you feel happy. I remember how I argued and said well only the rich say so. And she answered, it's because the rich have felt it after having it all yet still not feeling happy.

Another friend made a remark on how interesting her life is, studying in the library 24/7 for her coming finals. And I'm here, worrying about my coming assignments and how I wish my current circle of friends were more motivated to study because all of the assignments are group works.

I don't get what I'm trying to say. But I just don't feel happy when I know I'm supposed to be. I miss my old friends terribly. Studying is currently not my number one interest. I'm very afraid of disappointing my dad who has sacrificed so much for me. I don't get why I have to complicate things. I know I just need to shut up and persevere, just like my other friends, and maybe by doing so, I'd be able to escape this never-ending cycle of self-pity.

Dang I didn't expect this to be so emo. Which is why I kinda hate blogging and writing on my journal these days.

First Step

I started a new channel on YouTube to mark the new beginning of my dream that I recently revived (lol). I used my real name with a shortened version of my dad's name haha. Please don't think that I hate my dad's name. I actually really like my dad's name, alright. It's just that I don't want people to google my real name and find me so easily, because my dad's name is very rare.

So here it is, the video that I painstakingly filmed and edited (we'll get to that story later..) 

Funfacts:

• It took me three days to learn this.
• It took me about 40 attempts to film this without making any mistakes.
• I actually didn't want to tie my hair up hahaha. But the fan was too loud and the room was terribly hot.
• Even in this video, there are many mistakes and brainfarts. (Those brief pauses were actually brainfarts hahaha.) 
• I got fed up of recording and had to tell myself gahhh I'm going to settle with this one.
• I recorded the audio using my phone and merged it with the video (muted the video's audio) because my camera's microphone has too much noise and I'm lazy to find ways to reduce the noise.
• The Thai dude who made this arrangement played wayyyyy better than me.

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Special shout-out to the anonymous person who made a comment on my whiny blog entry. Your words encouraged me to practise harder! If you're reading this, please let me know your real identity. I'd like to make an attempt of one of your favourite songs in the future!

I'm working on a Sungha Jung arrangement right now. Can't promise whether I'll be posting new covers anytime soon haha.

Ugh

Whenever my classmates ask questions, my lecturer will explain nicely. Whenever I ask questions, he'll answer me "don't overcomplicate things", "don't think too much", "don't make it complicated."

Ugh.

If I teach in the future, I'm going to remind myself not to do this.

Blogging from class, first day of the new sem, like a boss.

Those Who Wait

I am currently going through this phase of obsession towards Tommy Emmanuel's beautiful piece called Those Who Wait. It's a bit funny though, the way I've been hearing about Tommy Emmanuel since the past 7 years but never bothered to watch any of his videos on YouTube. I thought I won't like him. But boy, I was so wrong.

(There's a better quality video of him playing on YouTube, 

but the owner of the video disabled the embed code.)

I tried learning this, I really did. I even printed out the tabs. And I was so humbled by the fact that I actually have short fingers. I've never really been bothered about this throughout my years of playing guitar. It's because you don't really need long fingers to hold basic chords, you see. All these while I've been too comfortable thinking that being called a sifu and being able to play barre chords make me a cool guitarist. Boy, I was wrong. I still have a lot to learn. And I also learnt that I can't stretch my fingers wide apart, or wide enough to play this piece. A YouTuber said your fingers can adapt and stretch further apart if you practise. That's a bit of a good news.

Anyway I'm putting this here so you can listen to it. It's really beautiful and everyone deserves to listen to something as beautiful as this. 

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My ex-classmate from primary school got into Asia's Got Talent by the way. Meanwhile, my ex-housemate will be heading to my dream university. The reason why I'm saying all these? I don't know, really. I should stop focussing on myself sometimes. A few days ago a friend wrote on Facebook that "Success is a by-product, not a goal." While I'm at home not sleeping at 3 or 4 am, trying to ignore the pain from the growth of my wisdom tooth, I can't help to think of how everyone's growing up faster than me. Everyone's heading towards that direction--and I'm still here gaining approval from people to tell me that I'm good enough, funny enough, pretty enough, while I'm denying the fact that I need all these. Because I really don't know what I need and what I don't need.

Anyway, this song has a little bit of background behind it. In one of the videos that I found, Tommy Emmanuel actually explained why it's called Those Who Wait:

"We learn so much in life, don't we? I mean life is our teacher, life is the school--if we're smart, we learn the lessons and learn from each other. And I think one of the hardest things that I've ever learnt is patience--trust, faith, and believing that things are going to work out. It's really hard to learn to be patient. And that's what this song is all about--about truly trusting that if your mode is alright, and everything about you is heading in the right direction, there's no way that you could go wrong."

But Tommy, sir, I don't even know what it means to be having a mode that's alright. I don't even know where's the right direction ._.

April

22 years ago on this day, the uncle that I've never met passed away. He was my mum's younger brother. They always said he died too soon, at the age of 25. And my mum was miles away, with me just two weeks away from being born into this world.

Every year, I try to remember about this and remind myself how life is precious. I often fail, though. It's a lot easier to question and complain about things. It's a lot easier to feel miserable when plans fail and trains derail. 

Not feeling sad or anything, but I guess that's all I have to say for the time being. Trying hard to remind myself day by day that every little effort counts and still hoping to grow rich and famous heh. I know this is a ridiculous and incoherent post, but...what's not ridiculous and incoherent on this blog anyway.

"Sometimes words don't say enough. Sometimes silence says too much." 

--Passenger, Nothing's Changed.

P.S Of course I was kidding about being rich and famous...