Wow

So I did my first senior concert and it went really, really well. Everyone seemed to like it and recognized how hard I worked, blah blah blah. Old news! I played my first show with a band I joined, Septic Mountain, tonight, but I'm having a hard time not freaking out about how much I want to do for senior concert 2. I keep having ideas that sort of stick with me, but the problem with just "doing them" is that each seems to represent an extra 10-15 hours in the workroom, and I live in there as it is. At the moment I'm thinking about a drumpad consisting of a long mousepad on top of some piezos, where each piezo is linked to an amplifying circuit which is then linked to the triggers of a 4066 quad bilateral switch, causing brief connections between two fucked-up points on this big Radio Shack keyboard I've had since I was ten. I've also made some really good looping cassettes (always fun), and am working on rigging up two nice tape decks I found for loop-dubbing purposes. I also want to work out a synthesizer rig which I can play while I play drums, which involves gutting a broken wah pedal, building a good synth circuit, making the one foot-controlled potentiometer cause as much change in sound as possible, then putting it back together. I also have this whole insane LED thing I really really want to do, plus a more meticulous version of the piece for buzzers, cymbals, and gamelan tapes that I performed at SC1, plus maybe this collaboration with this crazy guy from my E-comp class last semester. All this is still in the early stages, and I have about six weeks until I must must must do another thing. Just had to write all this down before sleep.

Back from break

So winter break was about as eventful as winter breaks can be! I'm feeling a mix of emotions right now, mostly because it's over. Brazil was a truly unique experience. The weather could've been better, but Julia and I did a lot of things that were unique to Brazil, and if such a thing is possible, I feel even closer to her now. The food and coffee were particularly amazing, and I really plan on jumping at the next chance I have to go back to Rio, be it for the 2014 World Cup or something more immediate. We also played lots and lots of Civ III, which neither of us had played previously. At first it was the most goddamn difficult game in the universe, but we improved quite a bit. Unfortunately, now that I've updated my operating system to OS X Lion, I can't play it anymore! Talk about bummers...

After Brazil, we spent a week out in Geneseo while Julia started school. Bumming around while she was gone was kind of strange, but it was worth it just to spend that extra time with her. I was home for a week after that, and I think that made me feel pretty crazy. I just sat around listening to Dio-era Sabbath and surfing Reddit, so I guess in a sense it's nice to be back at school. It's the last semester, and I can truly say it's been interesting, but I don't really feel I can say much else at this juncture. A mix of good and bad things, lots of learning, lots of discomfort, some growing pains, some newfound maturity (I think). It's even weirder because I'm not actually taking any class (just senior project), so while I have a lot to do, it'll pretty much just be me pushing myself, something to which I sort of exposed myself last semester, but this time is more extreme nevertheless. I do have time commitments, like working at that coffee place and doing a few odd jobs around campus for cash, plus I need to get out to Geneseo to see Julia as often as I can. I'm already starting to realize what a strange semester it'll be, both because of my relative lack of things to do and Julia's overabundance of them. My own needs have to take a backseat, but it's hard to actually put that thought into practice sometimes. Nevertheless, I think the whole thing is something truly special, so it just boils down to treating important things like important things.

On a less important note, Ajax's season pretty much ended today (barring a few miracles) with a 4-2 defeat away at Feyenoord. I woke up hung over as shit at 8:30 ready to watch the match, only to realize that it had started at 6:30 and that Ajax had lost. With that, I ran to the toilet, vomited violently, and went back to sleep. I daresay the day has improved since then, but last season, really my first supporting Ajax, was amazing, an unexpected amount of glory culminating in a triumphant final-day victory over Twente. I think Twente will take the Eredivisie and PSV will take the cup, so that's settled; honestly, at this rate, the club may not play in Europe at all next season. I will love the Godenzonen forever either way, so this is only a small setback for a team with some of the best young players in the world. Onwards!

Busy busy busy busy

So towards the end of each semester, it really does become impossible to not make plans. Tonight, Monday, is the only night this week in which I have nothing to do, so I'm spending it writing a paper due in a week and a half because I have concerts to attend, as well as traffic court on Wednesday for a parking ticket I picked up more than a month ago. It's been taped to the wall next to my door so I don't forget, and I'm also starting to use the crude "Calendar" on my phone, which is by no means a smartphone.

At the same time, I'm also gearing up for my first senior concert. I had misgivings about my initial idea, which was to record a guitar loop on the fly and put it through a bunch of different effects for ten minutes or so, but I got to hear some sick cassette recordings of the Bard gamelan and that gave me a better idea, so I'm gonna use those to make what will probably be a much better final product. Still, armed with this idea, I now have to rush rush rush to make everything I want for this concert. Normally I'd have winter break to do it, but as I'm heading to Brazil in a little under three weeks (!), that's not really an option. It's an interesting thing: work hard now to relax later!

Action!

So after a great Thanksgiving break, everything feels much better! I'm not really happy to be back at Bard, but the past few days have really made me realize how great my life is, and how much I have to be thankful for. I don't really want to go back and read my last entry, so I won't comb over the fine points, but honestly there's a ton for me to be excited about. Realistically speaking, whatever happens in the next year or two will probably be the most radical shift in my life ever, and that's a crazy thought, but the more I think about it, the more I'm comfortable with that. Julia and I made a list of things we can do to "be better people," and looking at it, a lot of what we wrote was unrelated to "adulthood" or "moving forward." It was little things, like learning to make soda, or traveling, or getting in shape, or learning to garden, valuable experiences entirely separate from career-mindedness or any expectations of what postgraduate life should be like.

Still, baby steps. The semester ends in about three weeks, and in that time I have a lot to figure out and practice and brainstorm, since I'm spending most of winter break in Brazil before coming back and pretty much jumping right into my first senior concert. Funny enough, my beloved Ajax is going to be in Brazil over the holiday, although they're staying in Sao Paulo so nothing can really come of that. Project or no, it'll be really satisfying to enjoy summer weather in January, and that'll be doubled because I paid for the trip myself. Excitement all around!

Not good enough

It's 1 AM. I'm listening to Vaccine. Today has been such an unbelievably shitty day that I'm seriously considering just fucking driving somewhere tomorrow, getting a motel room, turning off my phone, and letting people think I've been kidnapped or something. I know full well that that won't happen, that I'm too levelheaded to do something even slightly rash or out of the ordinary, but the thought of doing something blatantly for attention is really appealing right now. Such has been my approach to the world that I now feel like people passively become my friends more because they're afraid of letting me down than because they actually like me. Same applies to family, too: I think I spent so much time making it clear that I wanted to do my own thing and that I don't really need help that they're more or less not really in my life, but right now I want to feel like I mean something, and there really is nobody there to do that. For all my grandstanding and pretending I'm my own little island, I really just want to share and love and all that, but I'm scared. Nothing I'm doing feels right and nobody will ever care because I'll never allow myself to scream for help even though every time I'm reminded how alone I am I can privately spend full days feeling like I'm going insane, wanting to vent, and wanting to die, but always being too restrained to do anything but tell everyone I'm fine, which only makes it worse.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how fun Summerscape was, which is a funny thing because while I was doing it I thought it was monotonous and lonesome. As such, I'm not really sure how it was. I think in hindsight, the lack of stress I felt while doing that is very appealing, especially given how up against it I feel now.

The funny thing is, in terms of moving towards graduation, I'm doing better now than ever. I'm positively hurtling towards what I want to do, but I've never felt so placid and uninspired, even now that I've found a medium in which I can create something special. Necessity is the mother of invention, which is why I can keep churning out things I think are cool, but I guess it's always been my nature to get into a routine from which I'm afraid of breaking, but about which I will complain endlessly, to myself and others. For example, the boldness to go get a job is the sort of thing that will get me lots of jobs, but I'm not sure it'll get me any jobs I really want. While I'm only 21 now, I could easily wake up one day aged 55 having, in a blur of monotony, spent my entire normal adulthood obsessing over something (anything: chasing a dream, working a decent-paying job at which I am good, going to goddamn Ghana and teaching English, all for example) but never really attaining the heights I set out for, having settled for nothing special 20 years prior. I guess what this all boils down to is that I'm very good at convincing myself of what I want, but I'm not at all sure where that'll lead me, and absolutely not convinced it'll ever take me anywhere happy or successful if I let myself do everything alone.