The bad sleep begins

This is really strange. I've been sleeping quite badly lately, waking up feeling tired and my eyes hot. I don't know if it's because of the hot hot hot weather and the fact that I will not turn on the air-conditioner (well partly because there's a nest of birds on the a/c and if I turn it on, it'll disturb them. Actually these birds come here every time, this is like their home now. Even after a storm or typhoon, they come back here to rebuild their nest...heh

Well I have officially not practiced drums for 4 days (today being day 5) and I feel horrible about it. However, I am actually mentally quite tired from the whole week and if I were to practice anything today, it'd be a joke really. I think I've reached a point of Central Nervous System exhaustion where I am just... tired form inside. The good thing is today is Friday and it's Buddha's birthday so I can kind of get away with really resting a bit. Although I have a comedy show tonight, at least it'll give me the day to get some relax time.

I started re-watching the Killswitch Engage: Set This World Ablaze DVD. It's interesting to see that even bands like that have gone through what every small and unknown band goes through. Playing shows for 2 - 10 people in the audience. I remember some of our shows have had literally 4 - 5 people standing there cringing and they try to understand how we're calling ourselves musicians.

I have to say, it brings me great motivation when I just watch the progress of my band, well most of my bandmates. We're all taking this band more seriously than ever and it has been showing. Last night some of us met up to discuss plans for the future and also work on our new band image/logo/font. We got tired of the old style because too many people were using that font, from barber shops to even movie titles! Yikes! Well at least it forced us to really think about our logo this time because we're not going to change it. On another note, it has also forced us to better understand the roots of Eve of Sin, both the meaning of each word, the meaning to us as a band and the meaning behind how it has grown and matured.

Damn, the more I think about my band, the more I just want to go practice some drums even if I'm not feeling physically up to it! Ahaha I'll give myself 30 mins of rest and then see if the food I just ate has digested and filled up my muscles :)

Well, this entry is more like a step backwards as I've been realizing more and more that I need to learn to stop and rethink if my strategies are working. For example, my comedy writing idea of changing writing time to 9:30pm has completely failed me. Like completely, not only have I not written as much as before, now when it's 9:30pm, my creative juices are completely non-existent and all I want to do is finish what I have on hand, not add anymore to it :P

I guess it's understandable. I've also read about how different people have different time cycles for different things. Some are more creative in the morning, others at night and so on. I've got my drum and workout times right, my work time is also clear now, but my comedy writing time is the one that gets sacrificed right after rest time :P...I guess somehow my brain feels it's too relaxing and can be given up??! Anyways, so here's to the long weekend and a chance for me to step back and re-work the way I perfect the 24 hours I have each day. I have 240hours to perfect this before I come back here and share my results with the world!!

Wahoo!

Walk

I've come to realize it's been quite a while since I decided to take myself and go for my lovely random walks to nowhere. I really miss that peaceful time I often spent with myself, where I'd follow no schedule other than my mood and as long as what I wanted was within budget (my bank account has no feelings) I'd go for it. I'd randomly see the next movie in the cinema nearest to me, or even eat a frozen yogurt provided I kept walking while munching it away. Heck, I remember once even taking a bus, getting off in the most dead area where I could almost see no signs of anything to do or enjoy, and just keep walking until I get somewhere.

Walk. I was reminded by this when I checked out this song:

Yes, for all of you who didn't realize, that's Walk by Pantera. I've been doing a lot of studying of the band and their style titled "groove" metal is very obvious now that I've actually put a conscious effort into figuring out the drum beats. There's so much to learn there.
I would really enjoy just listening to their songs and going for a walk, heck it sure as hell felt good listening to Walk while working out at the gym! :)

Tomorrow's Tuesday and my schedule is quite empty. Wait, I mean my calendar, as in I don't have any meetings lined up, but my to do list is massive. Holy crap, it's actually really overwhelming. I think the fact that I've gotten more and more organized is actually draining me faster because it has all become such a functional system that it no longer used to go "out of order" every now and then but has become a very efficient (and thus energy-consuming) system. Problem is, I'm finding it harder and harder to replenish that energy in time to keep things going smoothly. Who would have thought over-productivity would not be good either.

The cool thing is over the years I have learnt so much about myself (like how long a certain type of food keeps me full or how long it takes me to mentally be relaxed enough to work again), I am able to plan my days better than ever now. In fact, every night before sleeping, I have to plan the next day, which really kicks start so many things. I know I mentioned this before, but it deserves a reminder. Just going to bed knowing you have tomorrow down to the hour, you sleep so much better and know you're going to kick start your day!

But it also tells you what you cannot do. I know I'm not going to be able to just go for a random walk tomorrow because honestly, my schedule is packed as hell! I've got projects I have to tend to that really should have been dealt with a few days ago.

So the last 10 days have been awesome. I have to say awesome because I finally expired doing 4 comedy sets around Hong Kong all in less than 10 hours! Ahaha 5 sets if you make it 20 hours! It was awesome, do a set, pack up, travel, do a set, pack up, travel, do a set, pack up, travel, do a set, pack up, burn out. Ahaha the more I do this the more I realize I really enjoy performing. Especially since 2 of those 4 sets was for a fund-raising comedython, the joy of knowing people were giving to a good cause thanks to my (and others') performance was so satisfying. Kind of like instead of me just taking out my wallet and donating on my own, I created something that caused 10 other people to donate instead. I guess it's that satisfying feeling to know that something I created made a difference. What may have seemed like an innocent piece of humor had such great impact. I'm slowly understanding a true artist's mentality of making a difference to the world. I mean, heck I bet when Pantera was still a bunch of youngsters back in their glam rock days, none of them would have thought how they'd influence someone like me! The more I listen to their music and really study it, the more I feel like I missed out before when I used to just listen to it blindly. I mean, it's not wrong to freely listen to music, but to really study it takes you to a whole new level, the details, the creativity, woah.

I guess in some ways it even trains you to realize that everything in life is deeper than you realize. Heck, when I first started drumming, it confused me how someone could practice for 8 hours a day and still feel it wasn't enough. Heck, my practicing just 1 hour a day feels like I'm barely scraping the surface of what I want to learn....

Speaking of 1 hour a day, my comedy writing has taken a turn for the worse, partly because I'm struggling to find a way to get back into the routine of writing daily. With drumming and my exercise, I have a great functional plan. However, with comedy, what's happening is that things are everywhere, messy and I often don't get to review where I was, what I wrote, etc. properly which is slowly killing my process. I've been spending a bit of time reading about how other writers work their stuff out but none of their methods/processes are what works for me :\

Anyway, it's like 2:30am and I got to wake up in time tomorrow so my schedule doesn't get thrown out the window, so I shall stop here, and only hope that in 10 days my comedy career will be taking off again in terms of new material.