PMS Garmon

A lot has happened since i broke my olecranon. Mostly here *points to temple* and here *places hand on chest*. In the time I have been incapacitated I’ve undergone more than just a surgery. I’ve since realised many small things about myself that need to, and must be, changed. The biggest thing I have noticed is that I’m always rather jaundiced when it comes to music and photography. I found the need to over criticise performance whenever I saw photos taken from people around me on the internet or whenever I saw or heard bands. Always the feeling that I should feel the need to put them down. And why? So it doesn’t make me feel crap about myself. Very selfish isn’t it? I agree. So no more of that. I have no right to unconstructively(?) criticise people when I cannot do much better myself.  

Something that Zi had brought to my attention had disturbed me. It has to do with my realising realisations. She said to me that at the end of it all, all I wanted was fame and fortune. And I thought about it and realised that she was right. I kept thinking that making music was going to make me famous and popular. That is not how it should be. That was never how I had intended. Sure when I was a kid that was probably how I felt but to think that way now would be way too ridiculous. The reason I want to be a great musician is so I can just do what I love. You make music for yourself and if people like it, then good. It was never to please people. There was this quote that went something like "do what you love and you never have to work a day in your life." That should be my philosophy. Another reason why I want to play music is so I can perform in different countries. My new and improved life goal; play a gig in Japan. If I can do that I can happily die with no regrets.

The last big thing that Ibnu made me realise was that I was getting too lazy. I wanted to defer university because I hadn’t done a few assignments and there was a bunch of things I had to think about and deal with that I hadn’t been doing. He urged I rethink my decision and that I wasn’t too far behind. And he was right. I had just gotten lazy over the fortnight, heading back into holiday mode. And so I’m just trying to take over my laziness with my will. Here I am having typed out a semi-lengthy blog post with my left hand. I’m impressed. I really should just stop crying over spilt milk and get to cleaning it up.

The 12th of August is when it happened. If you don’t know (but you really should) was the day my elbow decided to kiss the pavement; hard. It happened like this. Imagine two ramps, with about a metre in between, one being higher than the other. Kind of like a slippery dip of concrete, I decided to go down without thinking (though I’m usually quite paranoid) just to see if it was fear that was controlling my decisions. Half way down the second ramp, my conscience kicked in and I bailed. I went flying for about a metre and landed directly on my elbow. At first, I thought it was a regular stack but unfortunately it required medical attention.

And so, I was admitted into the Nepean Hospital, where I would later find out I had shattered my elbow rendering some bones dead and a case of arthritis. I don’t want to go into detail about my stay, mostly because half of it annoys me and half of it was me trying to get some sleep. I did however, meet some patients affected with diabetes and another who went through shoulder reconstruction. I learnt a few things I guess, mostly just eat healthy and live a long life. Okay so I didn’t learn much, but, though I should have come out with a heavy heart and an unfortunate weight on my shoulders I instead left with a new challenge in my life.

I will become ambidextrous.   

Last night I watched a video where some youtube ’stars’ got together and performed a cover. They all looked happy and content, and it looked like they were really having fun. I think I miss that with music. I have actually been neglecting Michelle a bit and maybe music on a whole. I need/must return to it all. Last night, under the covers I felt pathetic; wasting away.

As life goes on, I find talent to be more and more conspicuous. Or maybe I’ve just surrounded myself with a bunch of talented people. Everyone I know, knows someone who’s got a creative flair about them. They’re musicians or designers who have made something of themselves at such a young age. And I can’t but constantly compare myself with them. I wasn’t born with a natural ability to do something perfectly or amazingly. I pick things up quickly I guess but I’ve never really become great at just one thing. Anyway, realising this has brought me back down to Earth. My dreams seem pretty unachievable right now but maybe things’ll change. I’ve never been one to believe in hope though but I do believe in luck. Now I’ll have to see if luck believes in me.

I haven’t been a good contributor to this blog in the past few weeks because of how busy I’ve become. It’s also partially because I haven’t found a necessity to write recently and also because I don’t have anything particularly interesting to write about. In my absence from this blog, I have been finding my photographer side rather than my musician side. To be honest, I haven’t actually been doing a lot of music related things recently and so I’ve gotten stale. So let me update myself on how it’s all going. 

Two days ago I attended SMASH! and took photos as an official crew member. The photos turned out okay-ish I guess but a lot of them were blurred mostly due to the fact that I found it a bit difficult to focus in such low light, couldn’t really see the sharpest focus. As a result, a lot of my photos were blurred. I also shot with natural light which was mostly yellow in Town Hall, Town Hall. All those other photographers seemed to know exactly what they were doing. I met some other photographers there; they gave me their business cards. Michael Lee & Kris Ezergailis.

Exciting news, I finally got a callback. Some lady called for Tabcorp asking if I still was interested and of course I said yes. As I understand I am meant to take inbound calls and just fiddle with data, helping customers place bets. Sounds alright I suppose, a job is a job. Interview this Thursday and training commences this Saturday. I’m nervous but…you know.

I’ve decided to start doing extracurricular activities in hopes of expanding my achievements in my resume. I’ve recently joined a design/communications team who is responsible for running Degree. Apparently it was once in print but now reduced to just the blog. The team is looking to expand it so it can go back into print. All we got to do is make it interesting enough to have students to want to follow it. So we should not only aim to make it look good, but it should appeal to students. Hopefully we can make a difference, hopefully I can help achieve that cause. 

I’ve finally sold my D60 and gone to a 550D. Hopefully it makes all the difference and I’m taking more graceful shots. Started out pretty decently as you can see. Roxanne who was the model is also a writer in Degree. In a way I kinda look up to her; her writing style is so elegantly abrasive. I wish I could write a little better than I do. Honestly I write like I’m a 16 year old girl. 

Anyway it’s time for a blog name change. This is just another beginning, maybe the real beginning. 

So life so far has been pretty okay. Spending half my time looking for a job, half my time sleeping. In between I find time to hang out with friends and girlfriend among the other things. And still my life is lacking something. I have no idea what it is. Maybe it’s just that I don’t have a job to pass the time with. I still really feel like there should be something else in my life. 

I don’t know about dreams. I used to have them but I think now I have none. And I’m finding it really difficult to live my life without a dream. Because what am I trying to achieve by living. What do I want to do with my life. It’s not so much of a question of what I want my occupation to be. It’s really more of a question of what I want to do for my future. Considering my options, there’s not much. I’ve read so much about people attaining their dreams jobs and I’ve seen videos where they give others advice on how to reach that goal. And I so badly want to follow in their footsteps…but incompetence is holding me back. Incompetence…the attribute I hate the most. 

Years ago I could churn out songs in under 5 minutes. I could write about anything and everything and then put a melody on it while creating a guitar piece to suit. I could even write funny songs. I had no trouble coming up with witty new lyrics, never repeating obvious rhymes. It was easy to pick up a guitar and write a chord progression and them improvise on it. Writing raps came simple too. As I recall in Science class, my pal Chris and I would write rap disses on other students and then perform it in front of them. Things flowed out and were so much simpler then. Now? I can’t even bring myself to write something decent. I’m pulling out hairs everytime I attempt to write. I get stuck on what to write. In the end it turns out I’m not writing about anything really though that is mostly because I cannot think of a topic to write about. My ’songs’ now are like words vommitted out onto a person who is strumming the guitar with a metal file. It’s a fucking disgrace. I can’t call myself a musician.

It feels like I’m losing touch with everything. The things that I want to excel best at I find I do worse and worse in. Music and photography. My photos look so boring and uninspiring much like my songs. I really don’t have a direction anymore, I’m losing control and focus. And now I’m absolutely lost. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do. It’s depressing.

The truth is all around is but I guess it’s up to us to accept it. And I’ve of late accepted it. I’m nothing special. Just a kid with pipe dreams and a good ear for music. Man, this is shit.

You need to walk before you can run. I need to read before I can write. I think over the years my ability to write (if you can call it an ability) has gotten worse. A lot of what I write now lacks a nice variety of vocabulary. Instead, it’s just the same kind of thing over and over again. So maybe reading a bit more will improve that. I’ve begun to read before I sleep now, which is great for me since I can’t find a time in the day to do it for there is too much to do.

So the semester is done. I didn’t do as awesome as I would have liked. I wonder if it’s because I got lazy or I’m just crap at design. Maybe a combination of both. Maybe because I spend more time eating Chicken Man than I do on my assignments; which could very well be true. Next semester is going to be killer. What the fuck do I do?

Lately I’ve had a lot of dreams about flying. It’s almost second nature to me. And it’s as though the dreams are connected somehow because in each current dream I make note of previous encounters with flying. One of the first dreams where I flew, I travelled across the Australian plains. It was kind of like a video with the hightlights of the outback and the kangaroos and all that. It felt like I was in one of those. I flew all the way to Sydney Airport and then sat on the roof of the airpoort and looked across Australia as the sun set. It was a breathtaking view.

Apparently the trick to human flight is to take a very brief run up and to launch your body forwards and upwards. And then you are automatically lifted from the ground. But staying in flight is the hardest part. I still haven’t gotten quite used to flying yet. Everytime I try it I go upwards a few metres but then I plummet to Earth again. When I do actually catch on, momentum drives me forward and I’m flying above the trees and houses.

Human flight is one of the most amazing feelings. It’s so weird but when it happens it is absolutely crazy. I wonder if we’ll ever get that far. Maybe they might discover that we could fly from the beginning of time except no one knew how.

Times are rough.

from Sven

But you gotta stay tough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNDE1d9_zZk

Keep *shining*