Karma in the jungle

And here we are, 10 days after my last entry. Today's a big day for me, because we have a big All Indian Comedy Show tonight called Karma Komedians. I'm excited and nervous about it. Not stressfully nervous but just excited nervous. I don't know what to expect and I have to do a whopping 40 minutes tonight. I'm really not sure how that's going to happen but it just will.

So I've been reading the book 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot and I am loving this book! Sure last entry I said I wasn't blown away but now I am! Some of the things it talks about are really fascinating, comparing things like does Mozart's music have long term effects on your intelligence? And many other interesting thoughts that popular culture has us believe in a certain way..... I'm almost done with it. I read about decision making yesterday and it talks about concepts of letting your sub-conscious make the decisions and how to work with that. If you haven't read that book, I recommend you check it out, it's quite an easy read, especially since it touches on so many topics and basically tells you what you need to hear, not a long lecture that you'll probably forget.

The next book that's on my list is the newly bought (also with gift vouchers heheheeh) Sun Tzu For Success: How to Use the Art of War to Master Challenges and Accomplish the Important Goals in Your Life. I couldn't help it, it looked too tempting and the amazon reviews seemed quite good about it. And heck, it's Art of War people!!!!
This month's been a real shopaholic month for me, with a new Kindle on its way for my mother (she uses my Kindle DX which means I don't get to use it while it's with her). I was also (once again) this close to buying a new phone for myself because I am just so freaking fed up with my current one but the sad thing is, it still works, I'm just fed up with it. Kind of like saying I could use a makeover but it's not something I need :P

I also indulged in a new Hallmark bamboo scented diffuser and it really is awesome! My room smells like..well the jungle! Ahaha but the cool thing is, every night I combine it with the lovely sounds generated by naturesoundsfor.me and voila! I enjoy the sound of the beach, owls, etc. in the middle of this concrete jungle I live in... and my Phillips living color set to green combined with the bamboo fragrance sure does wonders after a loooonnnggg hard day!

The thing is, work has been quite wild for me lately, I've been helping out the guys over at 8five2.com set up some blogs. Things are still work-in-progress but the cool thing is, they've been very helpful with suggestions and enhancements (like ideas for better display on the iPhone). Man it's getting to the point I feel like I need to get an iPhone just to test out apps and websites on it... this is insane!! I got to find an emulator to use.....

Things have been awesome with the band lately and we've worked on 2 brand spanking new songs with one of them really challenging my endurance (at least my ankle speed) but not so much that I'm out of control. I'm glad things are working smoothly again and we've all matured as a team. Things are so much more fun now, I really do look forward to jamming ever week. And speaking of the band, we're heading over the Macau tomorrow. Ahaha talk about  a packed weekend!

Anyways, the next 10 days are going to drive me mad but at least I know no matter how crazy it gets, I can always hide out in my humble little jungle, close my eyes and enjoy it :)

Time to get ready for tonight's show!! Rock on!

The lock up

Woah, that took a while to do my Day 10 entry! I'm only4 days late. But for a very valid reason. I've been busy. Whoever didn't guess that needs to wake up and smell the coffee of life and the fine line between excuses and reality.

I've finally got some time today to catch up on all the 530538068042042853058350369018539 things I have to do because I've locked myself up in my room and I'm not allowed to leave this apartment until 8pm tonight when I go jamming with my band. This weekend is a big test of me sacrificing for my interests. So Ted Alexandro is in Hong Kong and he's performing at TakeOut Comedy from today (9 July 2009) to Saturday (11 July 2009). I opened for him last night at a show at the Hong Kong Football Club and it was awesome! As much as I want to go watch him again tonight, I have to practice with my band because we're scheduled for a recording session at the end of this month for Underground Compilation CD #3! And on top of that, a metal band called Rudra is performing on Saturday 11 July 2009! The kicker is that my band was invited to be an opening act for Rudra and due to the clash with my comedy, we couldn't make it. So I guess it's one of those "you can't have it all" deals.

I've been doing some thinking recently on the idea of when it is ok to not do something because you couldn't do it even if you tried (eg. no electricity) vs. not doing it because you're can't do it (eg. brain dead) vs. not doing it because you just don't want to do it (eg. frustrated and don't care anymore). I've reached all 3 moments in a lot of things and it's like I keep bouncing from one to the other until the job is done. Usually when I hit the point of frustration, I'm propelled back to why I can't do it and what's stopping me and if that's not the case, chances are I'm brain dead which frustates me because I want to get stuff done. In some ways, this mentality of getting things done is a blessing and a curse to me. It's great because I have achieved oh so much more than I ever did, but a curse because it's like a nagging boss never letting you go. I was talking to someone today about how it's already July and I heard the typical sense of unhappiness that the year has gone by so fast and it feels like nothing has been accomplished. I guess for me, it doesn't really happen anymore like that, I no longer feel like my months are getting wasted away, but more like did I maximize my time? I know I accomplished stuff, but could I have accomplished more?

I had begun on the 4-hour workweek but stopped it because it felt like it was going nowhere. Instead of going with my usual attitude of "get it done" by finishing it, I just stopped and moved on. I'm currently toying with a book called Train Your Brain More because I'm a firm believer that the brain is a muscle that needs to be worked out as much as the body to stay in shape and sharp and healthy. On top of that, proper nutrition is essential which is why I've been getting into the habit of eating almonds and nuts which contains good sources of essential fatty acids at least 1 serving a day. Usually at night before I sleep alongside my casein shake. Speaking of training your brain, I recently read an article by Jerry Seinfeld on Lifehacker talking about his productivity tip/technique which was interesting. I can't say it's uber-original or really special, but it makes sense. He basically says to have a big calendar that is stuck on your wall and for everyday you accomplish your goal (in his case, write comedy), you put a bit red X on that date. Over time you'd have this chain of X's which you'd grow fond of and you would not want to break the chain. In doing so, you build the habit of working towards your goal daily and also have the pressure of not ever breaking the chain. I've been using an online tool called Joe's Goals which is similar except it's not a whole calendar long but still lets you keep track of what goals you achieved in a day. I've been using it for a while and the main things I keep track of are:

• Practiced Drums
• Went to the Gym
• Ate well

I used to have a longer list of things to check but it didn't work because if I had 10 things and I only missed 1, it'd seem like I still did 90% of what I set out daily. The problem was that I'd slowly lose that "oh my God I need to work at it!" mentality because 10% was such a small amount. Whereas now, every item is 33%! Fail at one and I've screwed up 1/3 of my daily goals! It's a different mental-effect. Interesting how our minds can whip us into shape when given the right stimulus.

The interesting thing about all this is that at the end it's a matter of just taking the step and doing it, which is often the hardest thing for someone who doesn't have a whipper/boss standing behind them at all times. You're your worst enemy and best friend really. And speaking of friends, my friend Bun is back to Hong Kong! After almost 2 years of photography work in Germany he's here! Wahoo!

Well, I'm off to continue my lock-up and crank out all these tasks and widgets I want to get through before I go mental at my drums tonight! Have a great next 10 days!

The end of a chapter

Finally, I have finally satisfied one of my curiosities enough to move on to another. I have read enough books on fitness to proudly say I know enough about this topic to achieve my goals. Now just a matter of executing the knowledge and realizing my dreams. I've read tonnes of books and each book has its own point of view as well as new information to either completely throw me off my path or renew my faith in believing in what I'm doing.

So this begs the new question, which other curiosity do I satisfy? Much like what I read in my fitness books, at the end of the day, we get fit to survive and this leads me to functionality. I know it's always cool to get all buffed up and ripped, but at the end of the day, having huge arms does nothing but intimidate people and potential threats. From a usability point of view, they're quite useless unless you're trying to be a paper weight :P I have nothing against buff dudes, heck I admit I'm working on adding mass too but I guess at the end of the day, you got to do stuff for he bigger picture.

So, seeing as how I've progressed so much in both my fitness knowledge and physical being, it would lead me to pursue my drumming life and work on improving that. In fact, today while I was practicing drums, I realized I'd been spending far too much time on isolation exercises and my ability to just play the drums had gone down. So I decided it's time I got back to playing the drums and just followed the musical exercises in my books and kept at it. I'll do more research about the best way to advance my drumming later, because if my drumming never improved any more, I'd still be able to live.

What I won't be able to live without is my web design skills. I've recently been looking at improving my skills and got introduced BluePrintCSS. When I took the time to understand this framework, it took me back to a while ago when I used to read book after book about the best ways to make HTML websites and boy has that come in handy. All the neat little tips and tricks have helped not only save me time, but made me a living. All those cool frameworks I used to dab and learn about, stuff like jQuery used to make me all hot and excited because of all the cool things I could do with it! And then it all stopped, I got so caught up in the actual work, I got a bit out of touch with the new tide of the web. The funny thing is, I can still do my job, just there are better ways of achieving the same/better thing. Kind of like saying you can still get your message across via snail mail, but email just makes it soooooooooo much faster/better/easier.

This begs the 1st question of any quest: Where do I start?
Well, to be honest, I don't know. I'm ready to run back all the way to the basics, but that's not what I'm worried about, it's the source of this knowledge/refresher that I need to be certain about. I am a big fan of Friend of Ed (heck I'm a moderator on their forums, that's how much I love them) but I've been so out of touch I don't even know where to start with their books! But fear not for the web I have....the web! Yes, the mighty Internet to the rescue! I guess with any project of mine, it all begins with research. So here we go, for the next 10 days, my quest will be to find the best first step to re-invent myself as a new media designer/developer. Oh and a kick-ass drummer and comedian and you know the rest :P.

Oh and I've recently started on the book 4 hour work week. Long live audio-books! I'm only in the beginning and well so far I'm still not 100% sure what the book is going to be about but I do know that a lot of people are raving about it, so let's see what's the big fuss :P If anything, at least it'll make those mundane trips on the train a bit more productive. Sigh, I love and hate productivity. It's like a drug to me. Kind of like that addicted feeling you get when you work out and suddenly stop? Oddly recently I've managed to mentally avoid that weird feeling because I've finally convinced myself the importance of rest from exercise and I have results to prove its usefulness! Now if only I could convince myself of the importance of some "do whatever" time :\... oh well maybe this book'll be the magic pill!

The end of near

And here we are, the mighty month of June, hinting the arrival of the mid-way point of 2009. It's fascinating how these "dates" act as some sort of miracle turning point for a lot of people. Like new years suddenly empowers thousands to change their ways, all in a day. I admit, I'm one of them, but I often use it as an excuse to make changes. Kind of like I tell myself "alright man, it's a new year, a new mind-set and a new level of success" rather than "ok ok I'm going to do this starting 1 Jan!" the thing is, and if you read my previous posts near the new years' time, I often like to do a new years test run of all my resolutions for a few weeks to work out the kinks of everything before I really go with the "ok starting 1st Jan, I want to..." chant.

Speaking of chanting and repetitions, I've been continuously doing a lot of research about fitness and healthy eating and it feels good to get to a point a lot of the books seem to be repeating themselves. That means I've fully got the concept behind a lot of this. Of course, there's still a lot to learn, but the point is, I can now confidently plan out my meals, my workouts, etc. knowing exactly why I have to do everything. I mean, I've been studying factors such as how fast/slow you should lift a weight as well as let it down. In fact, after knowing all this, a lot of things make sense. I can even feel differences in my body and it no longer is "oh I feel sore", but it's a different type of sore. It's like I've better understood the different types/levels of soreness through understanding the reason behind this soreness. Like now, I'm in a phase of "slow tempo lifting" where I'm working my slow-twitch fibers and this often depletes the glycogen stored in your muscles much more, requiring your body to refuel with more glycogen, thus filling up your muscles more and making them bigger. I wake up feeling sore because I feel like my muscles are empty. After a hearty breakfast, I'm back to normal. The funny thing is, I realize now the benefits of this workout and to be honest, from a strength point of view, this isn't the best choice because I'm neglecting my fast-twitch fibers and eventually I'll be weaker than before. Partly because I'm lifting lighter weights and doing it slower. As they say, lift slow and become slow. But aren't your muscles getting bigger? Yes, that's true, but they're getting less efficient, in other words, my mind-muscle connection isn't being trained. Tell me to punch a guy, and I'll probably not be too forceful. It's a funny reality we live in.

I've found the best way I can improve is to understanding why I improve. Much like how I spent time learning about muscle-memory, I've seen my drumming skills improve a lot ever since I conciously understood why I was practicing a certain way. Sure I wish I had more than 30mins to an hour a day (at most) to practice, but it's still good enough. Oddly, drumming is all about the mind-muscle connection so training my muscles to get bigger helps my drumming in almost no way if you ask me, however, it does help boost my self-confidence, which in turn will boost my on-stage image/vibe and thus probably help my drumming in the end. However, it still comes down to plain ol' practicing in this field.

For comedy, this is yet another thing, body language, voice, tone, expression, etc. all combined! I'm hoping to do a one-man English show this year and it'll probably be at the end of August. I'm not sure if I can make it by then, but that's the goal for now. I've got 10 days to confirm this with myself and get to it. I've been constantly gathering ideas and stuff but haven't had a chance to refine any of them, but it's alright, an idea-gathering phase is very important in itself anyway. So I'll let you know what's going on there in my next post.

And this brings me to my point of being in the middle of 2009. I can see where I was on 1 Jan and where I am on 2 June. It's a good progress, kind of like this year has been a time for me to answer all my "why is it like this" questions, and hopefully the rest of 2009 will be for me to fulfill the "do it like this" part. :) So here's to another 10 days of achievements and successes to everyone :) Enjoy!

Periodization

Periodization has been a very interesting concept to me recently. Mostly because it's been something I've been reading about a lot in fitness training manuals and books. I recently finished reading a book by Ori Hofmekler called Maximum Muscle, Minimum Fat and I must say I'm really beginning to dig this biological stuff! He goes into the deeper details of fitness to the level of hormones and how our bodies are actually pretty damn balanced. I mean, it's very hard to get it out of whack unless you keep it that way chronically. It was quite interesting to finally really understand the biological processes that your body goes through that explains the reasoning for a zig-zag diet and how many extreme diets, like the low-carb diet are eventually going to come back and bite you in the ass. I've never been a fan of taking information at face value, I want to know why this information works before I'll truly believe it. I mean, learning about the mitochondria size of different muscle fibres and how they affect the ways your body burns fat is really interesting and brings a whole new level of insight into the ways I can design my own workout routines. Too often you see people say stuff like "oh I just follow this workout because it works", sure that's great, but eventually you're going to run into a brick wall because there are only so many generic workouts that'll work for you. Eventually you're going to get more and more specific with your goals and you'll have to work that way as well. Learning how different muscle fibres work and how they get trained has taught me to better understand why there are times when I'd feel like I had a blast working out and times when I'd feel fatigued at the gym. Woah :) Knowledge is awesome! I'm currently reading The Poliquin Principles and it goes into the finer details of things such as the science behind different speeds of lifting weights. It's awesome! I knew there was a lot to this point but most people are so focused on the exercise, they ignore the form!

I respect a movement's form because it ties into a lot of other things I do. My comedy requires a lot of body language and as they say, majority of your message gets communicated through your body, and only through a mind-muscle connection can you properly execute a smooth expression with your arms, legs, face, etc. The key here is to be as relaxed as possible so that you are in full control of everything. When you're under tension, it's harder to control things. It also ties into my drumming which always, always, always emphasizes on the idea of staying relaxed. Even at high speeds, the more tense you make your muscles, the harder it is for you to progress. Only through relaxation are you able to execute each movement properly and smoothly. At the same time, slow movements allow you to conciously notice the details of inbetweens. Just like when you watch a slowed down instant replay of a sports event, you get to see things you conciously missed (even if you subconciously noticed) and then really absorb everything.

I've slowly been noticing how my body isn't balanced physically. I'm not talking about the typical right arm stronger than left arm issue a lot of right-handed people suffer from, I'm referring to my level of flexibility. My left side is actually tighter than my right which in turn affects my posture as well as daily life. For example, for anyone who's bumped into me, you'll notice I almost always have a back-pack with me. I rarely ever leave the house without it because it contains my laptop and maybe a book, some snacks, my music (yay for big headphones!) and in the summer, a spare t-shirt and of course, my very, very vital water. Everytime I look into the mirror, I see my left-side strap lower than my right. As much as I balance the strap lengths, my shoulders seem lipsided. Yet when I'm standing straight without anything on my back, my shoulders are balanced. Then I started noticing my posture from different directions, most notably from the sides. It seems that due to the tighter chest muscles on my left side, my left shoulder leans a bit more forward than my right, thus causing an imbalance in my bag's weight. And so here I am constantly conciously reminding myself to force my left shoulder back a bit more so as to make it into a normal habit of mine. Muscle memory at work once again.

The more I dig into this, the more I'm noticing how my forearms are different too. I've recently been studying my left and right hand movements during drumming and my left hand is definitely a lot less flexible than my right and so I have to conciously force it to turn a bit more so as to stay in balance with my right hand. The joys of perfection. Sigh.

Going back to my title, periodization to many is the period of certain things happen, but to me it's a block that signals an expected time of a goal being achieved. It's like a period of time of going to work before you get your paycheck, I'm focusing on the paycheck so as to make each day seem worth treading through. Honestly, it's barely any fun watching your left hand do single strokes but I know as long as I work at it, by the end of a certain period, I should have matered the technique properly. And to be honest, my hand drumming speed has improved a lot recently through my single stroke practicing. Though I'm slowly feeling that I can't keep neglecting everything else :( Much like any training, the key is good for combined with holistic training that works everything. My biggest challenge is to better understand how long it takes for the Central Nervous System to usually recover from a tiresom training session before when I can train it again productively. So here goes another 10 days. By then, I should hopefully have moved onto the lovely double stroke rolls which my feet are dreading but have to master. Speaking of which, I think I'm going to hit the drums for a bit of practice. Especially since it's so darn gloomy and rainy outside, I don't want to think about the rest of the day :(.

So let's see how the next 10 days unfold, and how many of my goals I achieve! :D Charge!

Digging up the roots

So here I am in the middle of the night. Technically a day late for my Day 10 entry, but at the same time, I count my days from the time I rise to the time I retire. So I'm still on time :).

Recently, I've been going back to my roots and foundations and exploring whether or not I need to re-evaluate everything so I can further progress. I've noticed this necessity in my drumming, especially after I watched Benny Greb's The Language of Drumming. It's been a while and I'm still working on my single-strokes, pretty much the first thing any newbie drummer will learn to do. After all that research about muscle memory, I've been paying a lot of attention to the finer details of every movement I make. It's a tough test of patience but it does pay off. I can't wait to move into double-stroke territory.

My ankle has also healed pretty much 100% and I'm glad to say this has been the fastest recovery ever. Partly because I took care of it and followed the RICE guide although I skipped the ICE part but used one of those Japanese muscle pads (like Tiger Balm) and boy oh boy did that help! Also, I've been taking omega-3 fatty acid supplements so I'm guessing that contributed to the healing process pretty well, after all, it's good for joints and well, I hurt my joint. So with a healed ankle, I could finally work on my feet at the drums and I realized my feet progress is around 50% that of my hands. Like my hands can increase at around 40bpm each session, but my feet go at 20bpm/session. It also takes much more mental energy and concentration for me to keep my feet focused and disciplined so I can hit the mark of my metronome on the dot. For all of you drummers out there, I use the Boss DR-90 Metronome which has an in-built accuracy tester and I've kept it at the hardest. I mean, if I'm going to be practicing, I might as well do it right and perfectly. Like they say, perfect practice makes perfect. Not just practice.

Let's hope in the next 10 days, I can move on from single strokes and start with double-strokes!

Another thing I've been re-visiting is my comedy. I've been going back through some of my old bits and refining them. It's a very, very time-consuming process but the outcomes is worth it. One of my famous bits used to be good and now it's nice and tight. It's a great feeling when you know you've created an A+ bit that a lot of people remember you for. It's one of those signature bits :). I'm planning on going through all my other bits and watching my tapes, re-writing the wordings and making them tight, tight, tight! I'm talking machine-gun punchlines! Also, my goal for 2009 was to have a one-man show in English, which means I need a good 1-hour set. Right now I'm at a solid 15 minutes or a pretty alright 20 minutes if you include B-grade material. I recently got to watch Paul Ogata, who in my opinion has completely blown me away time after time and is the 1st live stand-up comedian I got to watch and ever since that has been a target I'm trying to achieve. It's great seeing him on stage and being able to speak to him off stage. He's a humble guy and as much as you ask him for advise, it comes down to one thing -- writing. And he's so right. I could read all the fitness magazines or listen to every drummer alive, but until I hit the gym or practice my drums, I'll get nowhere.

He said comedy is like a muscle you have to keep training and boy is that true. People don't get rusty for no reason, just like your body gets out of shape so does your mind. That's why I'm trying to go back to my beginnings and work from there again. The good thing is, having been there and done that before, I know what to expect and what to avoid, so it makes the process of progressing so much faster. It's like being fit once, and getting out of shape, oddly your body has a (different) kind of muscle memory that remembers the fitness level you were at before, and you can easily get back to that with a bit of training. It reminds me of my return from New York. I had put on a good 4lbs and oddly enough in a week's time I shed 70% of that new weight! Woah! I suppose it's like riding a bike, you might kind of need to warm up after not having ridden one for a long time, but it's a much faster process that it was when you first started learning.

I've also gone back to enjoying Buddha Bar music. No Phantom of the Opera for me for now. I've also been reading a lot of books on mind-mapping, hoping to find some awesome trick to improve them but in the end it seems I just have to go and map what's on my mind. I had made one on a large sheet of paper, but the speed of my thinking is much faster than the speed I can write at, I can at least type almost as fast as my thinking so that helps. I'm evaluating iMindMap to see if it fits what I'm looking for. I've found a lot of other mind-mapping software both open source and commercial but all of them looked too technical and seemed very creatively limiting. Tony Buzan talked about how we keep using our left-side of the brain and don't stimulate our right side enough because we often lack colors, images, sounds, etc. so I'm trying to make sure my right side gets strong too by incorporating all these into my mind maps. I've realized one limiting factor is my inability to properly draw what I see/think in my head. I've tried but it just doesn't work. I had talked about this being something I'm going to work at every night but I've come to realize leaving something to do at night is not a good decision because usually near bed time, I'm quite burnt out or exhausted mentally and being told to learn something that doesn't require just passive reading or watching is really not attractive at all and by this time my level of discipline has dropped too due to my low energy levels.

On a reading note, I'm currently ploughing through Beyond Brawn and so far the initial chapters are full of stuff I consider nonsense. Not saying the author is not good at delivering his message, I mean it's still I already know and it's basic motivation repeated in different words. I'm planning on following this book with Weight-Training Technique because I'm starting to get into much heavier weights and before I injur myself, it's best I make sure my technique is perfect. This is also the phase my imbalances will start getting exagerated, like my stronger/bigger right arm is more noticable now and so it's time I upped the level and really killed myself at the gym. The last time I had a leg day, I came out totally trashed, in a good way. Not "oh my goodness, I'm so tired I want to die" but "oohh, I can feel my legs are exhausted after a good, hard workout". I felt good. Which is often how I feel like at night after a long hard day of work, work, work and achieving!

So far going to the foundations has been helpful for me and may be good for you, maybe you should spend a few hours and re-evaluate the steps you took and make sure they were perfected before you progress even further. Heck, no one wants to climb back down a hill because they realized they left something at the bottom, right? At least not when you're near the top.

2 years. Where was I?

Woah, it's been 2 whole year as of today since I started this blog! It's so much fun travelling back in time and reading these sorts of logs to see where I was and where I am and how much of it was "pre-planned" and how much of it just happened. Poof, I can honestly say, whatever's going on in my life, at most 30% of it was planned 2 years ago when I started this blog. The rest? Well the rest is as with anything in life, it goes with the flow.

It's times like these that makes me happy to know I'm a person obsessed with leaving my footprints and marks of my history for the future me to enjoy and recall about :). To be able to see how I had treaded up the mountains just to scream my lungs out not knowing that in a matter of months, the emotional turmoil I was going through would be nothing compared to the craziness that I'd be thrown into. To know that the emotional turmoil I'd once gone through was actually a blessing in disguise revealed to me a few entries later. Heck, every entry of mine surprises me with something I didn't expect. So what's to come in the next 10 days for me?! Who knows! :) And that's the great thing about life, you just can't get bored of it.

A lot of times people need stability, they need a routine, hell, I need a routine too, I can't wake up every morning not knowing if I'll still have a bed to sleep in. However, I do wake up every morning not knowing how my day will unfold until it does so. I may give myself a rough outline of the day's schedule, but rarely has it ever followed precisely and I've come to accept the standard rate of error (you know those +/- 5% sorts of things) in my time management. I no longer freak out when I'm 5 minutes behind schedule, I simply appreciate that I'm not 6 minutes behind and charge on.

I guess in the last 2 years, a lot of me has grown and improved. Kind of like a person with a better haircut doesn't make that a different person, it's still the same person but with improvements (or if it's a bad haircut then the other way round). For one, I've come to establish that I can do what I want to do as long as I genuinely know I want to do it. There's no faking passion, as I've said time and time again in my posts. The things I do cannot be faked, you can't fake enjoying heavy metal, you can't fake being fit, you can't fake being funny and you sure as hell can't fake having a passion about something. Reading through my entries in these last 2 years, my passions have remained somewhat the same, however, I've grown in terms of depth regarding them. My drumming's improved, my fitness has gotten better, my comedic performances are more enjoyable and well heavy metal music still is like a brain massage to me :) Speaking of which, if you haven't already, you must check out Lamb of God's newest album Wrath. It's one of those discs that need time to absorb and enjoy. You can't enjoy red wine without letting it breathe a bit, the same goes for this album. It's really, really good and now has become my mental gear shifters for the gym. I turn this on and boom my muscles are pumped with blood and ready to dance with dumb bells like it was Saturday night live.

I won't let this post go on for too long but I just wanted to share with you the joys of having this blog that has been a part of me for the last 2 years and if you don't already do so, start writing a blog or a journal. You may not see the point now, but in a few months when you look back at where you were and where you are, you'll be very, very happy about it :) Trust me.

Enjoy the fine Wednesday and look forward to the weekend, it smells like a good one!

Logs, logs, logs, logs and more logs

I've come to realize I'm the type of guy hat loves to keep logs of everything I do. I keep records of my comedic performances on video tapes, I log my drum practice sessions, my fitness workouts, even what I eat every day! Heck, I'm (b)logging right now!

The other day, I was at the gym, lifting weights when one of my fellow iron pumpers came up to me (he's seen me there and always smiles and occasionally has a small chat with me) and told me to stop logging everything down (I carry a notepad and pen with me to keep track of how much weight I lifted compared to my last session, so I don't get lazy) and told me to just lift as much as I could and I'd get stronger. It made me think, was this overkill? I mean to keep track of things to this point, does it take the fun out of the whole deal? When I log down everything I eat, do I forget to enjoy what I eat because I'm so busy worrying about the nutritional content of what I'm eating?!

Honestly, it took me less than a second to realize, no, I love logging what I do. This way, I have a starting point from where to keep progressing. Not to mention it gives me more motivation to try harder because I've got written proof of where I was and where I am now. I mean, if I re-read posts in my blog that are like almost 2 years old, I'd even read about how I felt after having arguments with people, I'd remember those memories of struggling with my 1st comedic act, heck, I even have a post where I was so excited that I did 20 minutes of comedy in Cantonese! Now I can do a 1 hour show! :D Hell, my fitness log keeps me in check every time I'm at the gym because if I'm not getting better, I know something's wrong. Then I can go back to my food log and check if I've been eating right and perhaps it'll explain why my energy levels were lower than usual. Come to think of it, I feel like an Area 51 experiment but without the scientists around me, but instead, inside me.

I do admit, sometimes when you have logs of everything, you have a tough time maintaining these logs. It takes me time to actually stop, write down my drum speeds and progress and compare them to previous practice sessions. Time I could have been using to enjoy the sunshine or reading a book instead. Speaking of reading books, it's been so darn long since I actually read a book. It's crazy. I used to read my books on buses and trains but now I've almost always cut out taking the bus anywhere because I've come to realize it takes me just as much time to walk to the closest train station as it would if I waited for a bus, took the bus, then took the train. Not to mention I get that little walk and save some money! Win, win I tell you! :D Especially now that it's still a bit cool, I'm not all drenched in my sweat from walking around, so I might as well make the most of it while it lasts. I'll miss this when summer comes.

And when I'm on the train, I usually have my music playing and I'm just giving my brain the massage it deserve with some nice music. Ok, nice is a relative term I must admit. Last night I was out with a friend for dinner and we were talking about our musical preferences. As many people know, I love metal. And when talking about it, it made me realize (and I've probably said this before) that metal is one type of music you can't fake enjoying to be cool. Unlike, say, hip hop or jazz, it's not that easy on the ears so if you don't like it, after a while, it's going to show. Don't get me wrong, I listen to jazz and hip hop too, but given a choice, it's usually metal first :) Recently, my workouts have been always fueled with Lamb of God's album Sacrament or a collection of my favorite Chimaira songs. It's gotten to the point that I have a psychological switch when these songs come on. Like I'd be walking on the road and when one of the songs, such as Lamb of God's Again we Rise or Redneck comes on, my mind will suddenly have images of the gym and weight plates. I've recently even been learning the drums to that song and it's a lot of fun, not too hard to play, but does require some focus because of the fills.

Speaking of drumming, so here we are in February and I had a new year's resolution of constantly working on my drumming skills from month to month. So here's the breakdown for those of you (read me):

• Blast Beat #1 fastest stable speed: 150bpm
  
• Stable double bass pedal for 1 minute: 155bpm
• Song learned: Lamb of God - Redneck
• Song perfected: Chimaira - Power Trip
• Song in progress: Lamb of God - Now You've Got Something to Die For

So there you go, more logging on my part. At least I'm living up to my word. The thing is, with these numbers, 1 year from now, when I look back, I'd probably laugh thinking "I could just do 150bpm only?!" because that's what I often do when I go back to some of the old drum exercises I used to do and marked it as "80bpm max" and now I'm hitting like 140bpm :) So logs, even if overkill, put a smile on my face after all. And thus, they'll keep going, on and on and on. At least if I do lose my mind one day, I'll still have my logs to tell me where I was when I was still less insane. Have a good next 10 days and you know what? Why not keep track of something and see where you got to in just a measly 10 days. Honestly, 10 days is a loooonnnggg time! :)

Inspired...finally

Yes. I'm back on track. My sleeping cycles have gone back to normal and I'm feeling more inspired than ever! So much has happened in the past 10 days, I don't know where to start.
So I have an early morning tomorrow (Wednesday) but I figured I really ought to stay on track with my blogging, after all, once I fall behind my schedule, I'll keep tumbling like before.

Tonight, I got to enjoy a great, great drum clinic by the magnificent Marco Minnemann and boy oh boy was he mind blowing. I mean, it was crazy enough just watching Mike Mangini yesterday, but Marco just finished me off! As much as deep down inside I'm thinking "man, they're so lucky to be able to play like that", I know there's no luck involved, it's all hard, dedicated effort they've put in over the years. I mean these guys have been playing drums for over 15 years so I'm nowhere close to them with just a bit over 3 years under my belt. The cool thing is, this is exactly the kind of inspiration I needed recently. I've been really busy filming for a documentary I'm hosting for RTHK that I haven't had a chance to sit in front of my kit and just play let alone practice!

Speaking of practicing, I haven't had a chance to rework my set for this Saturday's English Comedy Competition Finals! Yikes! Filming has been non-stop since Sunday and every evening I've had the drum clinics and here I am on the verge of going to bed so there goes any chance to work at my material and refine it even more. For those of you who weren't at the heats, this year's competition is very, very stiff! Everyone's upped their game and this is exactly the way I love it! May the best man/woman win! I really appreciate a good, hard competition because it makes the victory all the more worth it, not to mention even if you lose, you know you lost to some of the top notch people available! :D So in many ways, I've already won. In fact, this reminds me of this time last year when I was just getting into stand up comedy. Before the Chinese competitions, my friend Bun asked me once on the phone "Just tell me this Viv, what will you do if you don't win the competition?" and I responded "You know, the fact that I'm just able to do stand up comedy is a victory for me, it was a dream, now it's a reality, winning the competition is secondary" and in many ways, the same applies this year. I mean, sure, it'd be great if I won, I'd love it and all, but if I don't, so what? I mean, I'm the type of person that grows through both success and failure so both ways I will come out strong so I'm not really worried in that sense. I'd only feel bad if I knew I could have done better. In fact, isn't that what kills most people? Not the feeling of losing, but the feeling of losing when you could have won if you just did your work better?

I've been recently reading some stuff about fitness and it had a whole chapter talking about goal setting. Sure, every book always touches on that topic but this one included some really good points as well as quotes and I'd like to share them with you here.

In his book Watermelon Magic, Wally “Famous” Amos wrote:
“Mistakes are natural. Mistakes are how we learn. When we stop making mistakes, we stop learning and growing. But repeating the same mistake over and over is not continuous learning – it’s not paying attention.”

Legendary Green Bay Packers Coach Vince Lombardi put it best when he said, "The dictionary is the only place success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must all pay for success."

And finally,

In developing the martial art of Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee worked hard to quantify and formulate a philosophy for self-defense and personal growth. His formula was: 1) Research your own experience, 2) Absorb what is useful, 3) Reject what is useless, and 4) Add what is specifically your own.
“Formulas can only inhibit freedom,” said Lee, “They are externally dictated prescriptions that only squelch creativity and assure mediocrity. Learning is definitely not mere imitation, nor is it the ability to accumulate and regurgitate fixed knowledge. Learning is a constant process of discovery – a process without end.”

I guess when you put all these together, it kind of tells you the same thing, everything requires effort. There is no quick fix nor a short cut. Marco Minnemann never got to where he was from just mucking around, he spent hours and hours working at his technique and refining his musical mind. But effort really isn't enough. Like Bruce Lee says, learning is not mere imitation, just repeating something that already can be done is useless, why would anyone find you to do something they could find someone else to do? It's point #4, adding what is specifically your own that makes me smile. It's this point that differentiates us from anyone else.

Even in my comedy, I know it when it's my style, that's my goal, to have my own style, my own signature, my own stamp that people can recognize immediately. The same goes with my drumming as well. Of course, don't get me wrong, I personally think imitation is a form of learning, much like how you have to learn the rules before you can expect to break them. With drumming, you got to learn the basic rock patterns before you expect to create your own. Like Bruce Lee said, after researching, you absorb and reject the information, then you personalize it. I do this a lot with my comedy, I observe my surroundings, absorb, perceive and acknowledge it, then let my perspective on it sink in and see what I get out of it. Very often I get nothing. Sometimes, however, I get a great bit and that goes into my arsenal of humor. Heck, sometimes I could be showering and an idea comes into my head and I'm rushing to write it down or I keep repeating it so I don't forget. If there's one thing I really don't like, it's forgetting an idea. Great or not great idea, I hate forgetting it because there's a difference between being great now, or being potentially great. They're both great, just at different times. Just like asking, which is better? Sun rise or sun set? They're both good in their own ways.

So, as usual, my inspiration is limited by the same thing as always -- time. It's Tuesday night and I feel like I've accomplished so much, yet accomplished nothing at the same time because things I wanted to do haven't been done, but things that needed to be done, have. Well on a brighter note, tomorrow I have a quick medical scan, then I can finally sit and catch up on my work. I've got a lot of stuff lined up, so hopefully I'll be in the cranking the widgets mentality and get it all done as fast as possible. And now, I'm off to bed. Have a great night's sleep and happy hump day! :D

The art of KISS

Nope, I'm not about to get all romantic on a Sunday night/Monday morning. KISS as in Keep It Simple Stupid.

A lot of my blog entries have been looonnngg posts with an automatic-writing style to it and in some ways, it's tiring for me to even re-read them after a while let alone anyone who's curious about what I'm thinking, so I'm going to try my best to get to my point as soon as possible here.

So I've been spending my whole day re-organizing my room/work area and everything else so that I've created more empty spaces. Oddly, I've always been the type of person who aims to just fill up any empty space with something because I feel that I'm not making the most of a shelf if nothing's on it. But I was thinking about its relation to design and even music. If anything, it's the empty space in a design and the non-notes in a song that allow people to stop and enjoy what is occupying the space/music. And so I started telling myself to keep it as basic and simple and minimalist as possible and so far so good! My room feels more spacious all of a sudden and I feel like I can even kind of go for a walk if I need to do a 'ponder stroll' :P It's quite nice, just having what is necessary and chucking away all the rest. Of course, there still lies the problem of me needing a lot of things! For one, I've got 3 freaking screens on my desk! :P I've managed to connect all my many computers so I only have to use 1 keyboard and 1 mouse thanks to the crazy power of Synergy! I've streamlined a lot of my drumming area. Like I used to have a little flat area to keep my macbook for recording/practice and another area for my mp3 player for play-alongs and another area for my exercise books. Then I realized, I never ever use all 3 things at the same time! They're mutually exclusive! If I'm reading from an exercise book (by the way, for all you drum freaks, I'm working on Afro-Caribbean Drum Grooves, I remember like 9 months ago, I tried out the first exercise and just gave up because of the insane coordination/limb independence it required, but now I can do it and it's a lot of fun!) Ahaha, I can appreciate the finer details of this type of music now! I never realized how complex it was! The accents, the crazy hand/foot patterns, it really forces you to divide yourself into 4 parts!

And this whole mutually exclusive thing made me think about how much this can be a good factor in my arranging my life, which kept leading me to the whole KISS attitude. I went berserk and started throwing away drum catalogues I had collected as knowledge/references because I figured if I ever needed to read something, I could download the PDF's! I threw away name cards of people because I have all that information stored in my contact database, so what's the use of the card? I cleared up my desktop and re-mapped some of my shortcuts (yay for AutoHotKey) combined with ol' trusty ObjectDock but I still have Launchy installed for times when my hands are on the keyboard so I don't ever need to move away or to the mouse if I don't need to. Yes, if you haven't noticed, I'm a productivity/efficiency freak. If you're wondering, my macbook is similarly set up but I use QuickSilver (I prefer it over Spotlight). Though I still haven't found a good mind-mapping software that I'm happy with (so if you got any suggestions, please let me know).

Alright, KISS! Mutually exclusive, it's another thing that came up when I was researching some more about the typical "I want to lose fat and gain muscle" routine. In fact, those 2 things are mutually exclusive! In a nutshell, to lose fat, you need to burn more calories than you consume. To gain muscle, you need to consume more calories than you burn! And the only proper solution is to do them at different times. In other words, in phases. You burn fat first (but also risk burning some muscle) then you pack on some muscle (but also risk packing on some fat), then go back to burn fat, repeat. In the end, your goal is to come out with more muscle and less fat after a few phases.

So now we got the KISS attitude, we've got the realizing that things that are mutually exclusive can help towards KISS and now we have the concept of phases. This brought me back to when I first dove into GTD, one thing the author David Allen talked about how you end up wasting a lot of energy in the process of changing tracks. Like if you tried to over multi-task you end up wasting more effort because your lack of strong, deep focus on the thing you're working on results in a weaker outcome. As a lot of people know, I'm a multi-task lover. I try to make sure I'm pushing everything to the limit, I try to eat while I walk rather than sit down, I leave my reading to the bus instead of sitting in my room and wasting precious work-time, etc. But this phases concept brought me back a lot because I do agree, I've suffered from a lot of over-multi-tasking and ended up more confused with what's going on than I expected.

KISS, mutually exclusive, phases, not over-multi-tasking and focus. And that's my goal for the next 10 days, to keep it simple by making sure I focus on phasing all my mutually exclusive tasks while trying my to make sure I know my multi-tasking limits. This is going to be a tough 10 days because it'll require quite some discipline on my part because I know I get really greedy sometimes and just wanna do so many things all at the same time which sounds possible on paper, but from my experience usually fails :P. Like telling myself I'm ready to go do cardio for an hour straight at the gym! Sure, I'm fit enough, but 1 hour later, I'll be dead. And the rest of my day/night suffer.

So here we go! Woohoo! A (relatively) short simple post! :D Have a good week + 3 days!

In bed

Technically, yesterday was my Day 10, but I'm not really late because I haven't gone to bed yet, so it's still, in my terms, Monday to me right now :P

So I thought I'd share some good things with everyone, seeing as a lot of my posts are usually me sulking about how tough life is or how I need to improve myself to attain a certain level of satisfaction. Lately, I've been really noticing improvements in my drumming because I've gained a lot more control (and speed) over many aspects of my music. Stuff I remember totally going "no freaking way" a few months ago is like "woohoo I did it!" now! It's a great, great feeling if you know how impossible something felt, yet you can do it now, makes you really feel like the world is your oyster. And indeed it is! I've always been a firm believer that nothing is impossible, it's just a matter of putting in the effort to attain what you want to attain. I still remember a few years ago, I was looking into the mirror air drumming and thinking "it'd be so cool if I was a drummer!! I'd be like this awesome rockstar rocking it out!" and guess what! I am a drummer now and I do rock out! Ahaha even when I'm at home, just practicing, I really get into it and go insane! :D It's really good to just shut the world off for 1 hour and go berserk for that period. For some reason, once I get on my drumkit, it's like nothing else matters, I don't care if I have 305353535030392004 things due, I'll tend to it when I'm done with my practice/jamming. It's a good feeling, especially when you pick up exercises you did a few weeks ago, and try them now and totally blow yourself away with how easy it feels! The other day, I was practicing some hand exercises. The last time I did them, I was hitting 180 bpm (beats per minute), and when I picked them up again a monthe later (sometimes I do other exercises in between if I get tired of one book) I was hitting like 220 bpm! I actually stopped and re-checked my notes to make sure I was doing this right and I was!! 40bpm in a month! Now some people might be tapping their thighs right now thinking "er, I seem to be doing 300 bpm, what's the big deal?". No. I'm not talking just 220bpm, I'm talking 220bpm at 16th notes, which makes it 220 x 4 (don't asky why, it just is) = 880! Woohoo! Sure, there's bound to be another drummer who thinks this is no biggie, well it really isn't that good, but to me it's freaking awesome I hit 880 hits per minute! 1000 hits, here I come! :P You know what? The guy with the fastest hands in HK is at 974 hits per minute, so 100 more hits and I might get the new title :P Exciting. Another thing I can tell you is when I first started drumming, I thought 900 hits a minute was totally, ridiculously out of this world! Like I couldn't conceive how the hell a person could do that in just 60 seconds! Let's say 900 hits in 60 seconds means each second you need to be doing 15 strokes! But like I said, nothing is impossible and my drumming has always reminded me this, and lucky me, I keep a log of my progress which means I can always look back and compare where I was and where I am. Don't get me wrong, this hasn't happened overnight, nor has it happened without its fair share of frustration for me! I've had so many occasions where I've been fed up with my drumming abilities, always feeling like I'm just lacking in so many things, and you know, being a metal band doesn't help because metal is all about power and speed, 2 things that only come over time! Even now, when I'm jamming, I can still feel there is so much more I need to improve on to reach the level I want my band to be at for our music. Sigh, but again, I'm not upset about this, this constant need for improvement and change actually is a good thing, it makes sure I never hit a rut or a plateau in my playing, much like my fitness as well.

Anyone who's looked a bit into personal fitness knows that after a certain period, our bodies hit a plateau when it comes to fitness and your progress kind of slows down a lot. You have to constantly change your routine and give your body a new challenge before it'll respond with improvements. This also keeps things fresh and also makes sure it weeds out those that really want something, and those that are just in it for a good time. I'm not saying it's wrong to just scratch the surface of stuff, everyone's got their own style and everyone's got their own passion. I scratch the surface of a lot of things, not because I'm not a passionate guy, but simply because I may not have the same amount of passion towards something as the next guy, and it's not wrong in any way. Heck, I'll give you an example. I've always wanted to draw by hand, I think it helps me express my ideas if I could draw properly, I want to get all these images in my head on paper. I've tried working at it, but never really got much success because I always end up stopping halfway because I'm busy. Now those who know me, know that I'm one to say there's no such thing as "no time", you make time. You find ways to make the time. I can make time to improve my drawing skills, however, I chose not to. Heck, if I really didn't have time, then surely I shouldn't have time to practice drums either? Get my point? I've come across a lot of people that actually tell me how they're frustrated with their life because there's so much they want to do, yet they can't because they have no time to do it. You know, you can still get good at something even with 10 minutes of practice a day. Heck, if you really want to push it, make every commuting minute time to learn that one thing you always wanted to learn. Take off those headphones and stop staring into blank space, and just go learn that thing you wanted to learn! Even if it's 5 minutes a day, in a week, you've hit 35 minutes, in a month you'll have spent 2 hours! 2 hours in a month may not seem a lot, but spread over 4 weeks, your mind is given time to digest what you learnt in 5 minutes each day and you'll be shocked how much you can improve already! :P

Yes, I'm going on and on and on once again, I know, but this is a topic I really enjoy -- self-improvement. I always believe people can improve. Again, a little info about me. I'm one of those guys that don't believe people can change. By this I mean, once a crook, always a crook. I have yet to meet someone who has truly changed. I've met a lot of people who can control themselves better, but they're still the same person as they were before at heart. Like a drunkard is a drunkard to me. You can stop yourself from drinking, but deep down inside you're still the alcoholic you were. Again, I hope to be proved wrong one day because I do believe this is a rather grim way of viewing the people of this world :\. Anyways, going back to self-improvement. However, as much as I believe people don't change. I do firmly believe people can improve and upgrade themselves. A crook can upgrade him/herself to be a more sophisticated crook. A comedian can improve himself to be more spontaneous and natural. You get my drift. And this is something I aim to do daily. I know my personal quota of learning everyday is 2 hours approximately. I know after 2 hours of reading, I hit a point that I'm reading for the sake of reading and it's really a the point where I'm getting diminishing returns of knowledge really. So knowing this, I try my best to take advantage of those hot 2 hours each day and fit in whatever it is I'm trying to get better at or learn. Oh, these 2 hours are the amount of time I can spend reading about something. My drumming practice goes by another system. Just FYI, after 1 hour of drumming, I also end up wasting time. By 1 hour, I mean 1 hour of honest, intense practicing, not mucking around and jamming and stuff. 1 hour usually gives me 3 solid exercises to work on alongside an initial warm up routine.

Hmm, my eyes are slowly closing, I suppose being in bed is sometimes too comforting and that probably explains why I'm typing so damn much in this post. Ahaha, I just feel like I've had all this time to think about so many things, I want to spill them all out and get them written down asap. But if you've read so far, you might as well read on, heck you've spent all this time already, it wouldn't do you justice to stop now. Actually that's another thing I was thinking about. You know how sometimes you're at the bus stop and you're waiting for a bus and it just doesn't come. 20 minutes later, you're thinking if you should just go and find an alternative way to get to where you're going, but you're worried that once you leave, the bus will come, and you end up waiting for an hour, when you could have been home had you just walked from the get go? That, I must say, is something I really hate happening, which also explains why I much prefer walking everywhere than depending on a bus.

So going back to what I was saying, today, is my celebration of where I'm at. I think you should do that for yourself too. It's not often we stop and turn around and look back with a smile. Most of the time we only see where we haven't reached or we only notice all the paths we didn't take, but we don't retrace our steps and appreciate the path we did take and where it's lead us. Sure, this is easier said than done, but it does help to have a log of your pathway. Like I said for my drumming, my log book has been gold in keeping me motivated and encourages me to keep pushing because I do see results! It's a (good) vicious cycle. I see improvements, I want to work harder, I work harder, I see more imporvements! Woohoo! So yes, stop and be happy to be where you are, heck, just be happy to be alive! If your life seems to be in the shitters right now, just put on your favorite song, stop for 1 hour and tell the world to go down the drain (what I do when I go to the gym or when I'm drumming) and just do what you love. I'm serious. It'll do you good :).

Of course, when that 1 hour's up, you have to step back into the craziness that is your life. But before you do, ask yourself this, how many people get to be you? Much like everyone says their family is the worst/craziest, everyone thinks their life is the toughest, but you know deep down inside, your life is the toughest out of them all, so how many people not only get to be you, but survive being you, on a daily basis? Not many, and for that, you deserve a pat on your back.

And I deserve a massage. Hmm, I really could use 1. Have a good day! :D Off to snooze it up!

Passion

Alright, so I'm almost 2 days late for my day 10 entry. A first for 2008 but this time it was purely due to insane schedules and workloads on my part :\.

Today's entry is brought to you by the word "passion". Why passion because I've come to realize it's on par with the essence of all life -- water. Think about it, without passion, life would be as dry as a desert. How would you feel waking up everyday knowing you had nothing passionate about your life? Wouldn't you be thirsty for such a feeling?

I was talking to some band guys last night and it was so refreshing to see these group of people glow with a genuine passion for music and music only. They could see great fame and fortune as possibilities but no matter what, it was the music they wanted more than anything else. It was so encouraging to talk to people who had a passion like I do for many things I'm involved in. I'm not talking about people who dedicate their lives to what they love, I'm talking about people who love what they dedicate their lives to. There's a difference.

Let's say you love painting. To dedicate your life to painting means you sacrifice everything else and focus solely on painting. Now there's nothing wrong with that, but that means you specialize all your efforts towards this passion that is painting. To love what you dedicate your life to allows you the leeway of doing more than one thing. I personally love web design, I love my band, I love stand-up comedy, I love drumming, I love a lot of things and I couldn't ever say I want to dedicate my life to one of them, but during the time I dedicate myself to one of my passions, I put my heart in it. Sure sure, this sounds so grand and va va va va fancy but this is really what I do. Don't get me wrong, there's only so much "effort" you can dedicate in a day and that's probably why I find myself burnt out so often because I try my best to put 100% in something if I genuinely love it. Very often after band practice, I'm exhausted physically and mentally. Heck, after every work out I feel great but I can feel physically and mentally I'm a bit drained because I really focused hard for the hour I was in the gym doing my thing. I take it really seriously which is why you'll never, ever see me go to the gym "with someone". It's similar when I play my drums, as much as I tell myself "let me go relax and play a bit of drums", very often after an hour of intense drumming (playing + practicing), I come out more tired.

The funny thing is, each type of "activity" of mine tires me in a different way, which is also why it's like I have all these passions and as much as some people might feel I'd be distracted, I feel I'm quite focused when it comes to the things I love. Working out exhausts me in a different way than stand up comedy or drumming does. Like let's say I was playing drums, after 1 hour, I'd be too tired to properly focus and write a blog entry because the mental effort I spent is a type of concentration where I have to pull myself out of my body and let me limbs do their thing while I stand aside and make sure everything sounds good. At the gym, it's the reverse where I have to go into every limb itself and work it, like if I was doing a bench press, I'd go into my chest and arms and really squeeze every single muscle as hard as I could. So like I said, it's a different type of fatigue when I'm done. Another good example is that after I work on some design for an extended period of time I'd find I cannot go play drums and be creative, I won't be able to come up with new patterns for songs, however, tell me to go for a job (something I don't need to get creative with) and I'd have no problem really. So in many ways, mentally I have to following departments that I try to work out:

• Concentration/focus - When I'm working out, I need a lot of this. When I'm practicing drums I need a lot of this at slower speeds.
  
• Creativity - when I'm working out patterns for my band's songs, when I'm writing out stuff for my stand-up, when I'm doing my freelance work I use this.
  
• Observation - when I'm playing at faster tempos on the drums, I need this because I need to take care everything is still staying clean. When I'm working out, I have to watch my form

Physically I have:

• Coordination - when I'm drumming I have to use a lot of this
  
• Muscle strength/endurance - Working out + some drumming
• Muscle relaxation - very important during drumming!

Anyways, so as much as a lot of my departments are inter-linked, they have different levels of use for different things, so I try my best to find ways to balance my schedule so I put things that require different departments next to each other. This allows me to minimize my "feeling too tired to do it well" feeling and also I find I don't waste so much time "resting" on purpose (ie. doing nothing but resting everything department) Think about it, it's like working out. When you've just finished doing bench presses, you could either sit there for a minute or you could work on a muscle group that wasn't really involved (eg. do squats) during your rest time. I personally prefer to hit it and hit it hard without wasting time. However, I admit, there is one muscle that is always involved -- your heart. So it really comes down to listening to your body as well and knowing when you've hit a point of diminishing returns and stopping there. As much as diminishing returns still means you're getting returns, just less, sometimes it's not worth wasting your time doing that. Think of it as not reaching your maximum output in this field and so it may be better to shift your focus on something else that'd give you more returns instead. Like I could spend an extra 10 minutes at the gym working out but not getting as much of a result or I could leave with an extra 10 minutes to give me a headstart when I get back to begin my freelance work where I'd be getting maximum returns for my effort I put in there.

Confused yet?

Anyways, going back to passion, I just feel in today's world, passion has lost a lot of its value partly because a lot of people may not know what it is and therefore thinks they've got it when they may not have. For all I know, I may be one of those "misunderstood" people who thinks he has a passion about something when maybe I don't. But I will never forget when I first laid my eyes on the Roland TD-6 v-drums, woah, that feeling I got was very intense and it was like I just had to, had to, had to have it! The price tag, the space it required, the fact that I couldn't play drums was irrelevant. All I knew and wanted to know was that I needed to have that. I got it and till today I have never had 1 millisecond of doubt in my decision :). That, so far, is what I call passion and how I define it.

Going back to that group of guys I was talking to yesterday, I say they had passion because one of them said one key thing "I know I don't have much money, I know I have to work and I don't have a lot of freedom, but all I need is time and I'll get to where we all need me to be." This touched me when I heard it because that's how I feel with my drumming. I know my band would love if I was a much stronger drummer in general but it's not a matter of me not having the heart to reach that level. All I need is time. It's one of the hardest things I deal with in my life to be honest, when I know the target and the only thing in my way isn't even whether or not I'll put in the effort, but it's a matter of time. Like a wound, I can focus as hard as I want and have all the heart in the world, but the wound will still need time to heal no matter how hard I try.

But it's definitely a positive thing to know there still are people in this world who love what they do and do it for themselves and the good of helping this world grow in general. Creating good music shouldn't be about hitting it big, but more like creating something you want to share and let others enjoy. It should be about self-expression that is aimed at sharing your feelings and emotions with the world around you. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of reasons to create music, but for me, this is the direction I take. This is why my band's slogan is simply metalcore music from the heart because at the end of the day, our best gig is the one where we get a huge round of applause in the form of happy heart beats :)

It's Day 10 already!

Wow! 10 days already since my last entry. Time has really, really flown very fast this time. It sure doesn't feel like 10 days! My last entry was a major entry so I guess that's why I don't have too much to say. But if I think back, once again, a heck of a lot has happened.

First, I had a killer set at Champs on 29 Feb 2008 doing Chinese stand-up comedy! The whole night was a good show in general with a full house and very interactive people in the audience. Some of the ladies sitting near the stage were really nice and played along to our jokes. It's really quite a challenge to make sure you as the comedian try your best to always stay one step ahead of the person you're talking to in everything you say. In many ways it's like you need to outsmart and outwit them while staying funny and not offensive. I've found sometimes I need to really take care and not cross the line of being rude. But I guess in the end, it's still fun and people come with a laughing mind and so whatever may seem rude comes out as just being a joke. Also, after every show I make it a point to go back to those who played along and thank them because after all, if it wasn't for their sense of humor, the show wouldn't be as fun. I very much like interacting with the audience because it brings a fresh feel to the whole show even if a lot of my material is my old stuff. It's tough writing new material for every show and so I try to make sure people who return don't see a completely identical show. Then again, there are people who come just to re-hear some of my bits and even "sing-along" at times ;) It's quite encouraging.

So that's my comedy update for this entry. Now on to my drumming......*drum roll* I got a new snare drum! Check it out, and yes, even I was shocked when I finally chose this one because anyone who knows me knows that I really, really, really, really don't like getting signature models of anything (ie. stuff that was designed for someone else) but this snare was just perfect in price, in sound, in power, in look, in everything. I went to the store and tried out snare after snare after snare without letting budget limit me, but in the end, this one was the one. And the funny thing was, this was supposed to be the first snare I would try but I didn't because I told myself "It's a signature model, I don't want to get a signature snare!" So here you go, I'm the proud owner of a brand new Joey Jordison JJ1355 Snare drum:

Mwahaha!! Yesterday we went jamming and I finally got to put this lovely snare drum to the test. It definitely fits my drumset and my band's sound and while playing it, even I feel more empowered! It's kind of like shedding the extra bucks for a better guitar and in the end, with the better sound you're inspired to play differently and realize a lot of things that you felt didn't sound right now do. Like a lot of my drumming that I felt just didn't have the power to go with the angry guitar riffs now seems to be able to keep up. Again, as I'll always say, I still have a long, long way to go with my drumming, I'm much happier now! :D Speaking of drumming, I've gone berserk with practice lately, like suddenly I've got this new motivation to really work out my technique, like you'll see me playing quarter notes on the bass drum at 50bpm! That's like less than 1 beat per second, imagine doing that for over a minute, it sounds boring, but it sure let's me make sure my technique is proper. I need to find the perfect relaxed technique so when I go to higher tempos I'm not wasting any energy because when you're hitting 200bpm at 16th notes, we're talking making clean 13.3 beats per second! Sounds impressive eh? Ahaha that's my dream to hit that number :) I can do a very clean 140bpm now (ie. 9.3 beats per second) and the fastest I've clocked is 165bpm (ie. 11 beats per second) so there's still a long, long way to go. I don't even want to imagine people who are hitting like 225bpm (ie. 15 beats per second!).. yikes got a bunch of phone calls... got distracted.
Wow, I need to practice some drums today before I go for my comedy gig tonight :)...

So it's 10 days since my last entry, a lot has happened, my life's getting more and more focused and more and more broad in the sense a lot of going on once again and it's a matter of me keeping track of everything.. well not really keeping track, but more like trying to manage and not get overwhelmed by everything. My fitness routine's improving, I'm really noticing some jumps in my strength now because I've finally gone past the initial beginner phase of going to the gym where you're still searching to balance all your muscles so you can be optimally coordinated when doing any exercises. I have to admit, I've been spending more time on the weights than I do for aerobics but at least it's still a fair trade because the time I'd spend doing aerobics, it goes to my drum practice which really is quite tiring to all my limbs :) Not to mention all the concentration sure drains my brain out, but I love it.

So here's today's words of wisdom. Stick to it. Much like any habit, the hardest part is sticking to it in the beginning, breaking through the initial inertia and finding your momentum in what you're doing. Once you've found it, you'll just flow, much like when I'm standing in the greenroom before any comedy gig, I'm nervous no matter how prepared I am, but once I'm on stage, I let it flow, flow and flow some more :) The point is to be like any great manager, get the parts moving, and step aside and let them do their thing. I had to manage myself, and yes at times I had to intervene to make sure all the parts were moving properly, but once they have, I just step aside and enjoy the ride :) It's a lovely experience.

Too much, too good

Technically, the Day 10 entry is tomorrow but I really just wanted to stop my life and share some good great news with you all. First of all, my band, Eve of Sin finally played our debut show at DM Plus this past Saturday (16 Feb 2008). All I can say is, it's been 2 days and I'm still high and shaking from the performance. I'm not trying to toot my own horn but we did a killer job. All of us ended the gig and smiled with extreme delight and agreed, we did it. We finally did it. After so much hard work, late nights, talks, searches, effort and a heck of a lot of heart, we did it. This was truly a dream come true for all of us. Within a month's time the band went from a new vocalist to a new demo, a new website, a new logo, a new set up, a new mindset and a new future.

Enjoy this video before you continue.


So there you have it, on a flip side to my comedy, I'm a metalcore drummer and many people at the band show had seen my stand-up comedy so it was hilarious! People were calling out bits from my set while I was on stage, it was great fun and really a memorable experience. I'm happier that people were laughing and moshing on the same night, really both my passions combined into one. If you saw the video, you'll see how wild the crowd went that night. Almost everyone had never heard of us and the 5 - 10% that were our friends had only heard one of our demos so the rest was all a bunch of strangers letting loose and enjoying our music. The night had a lot of other bands as well but we stood out in our own way. Hey, no matter what it was, to have a crowd reaction like that on our debut performance is like having a road paved for you with a bright future ahead. I see great things for Eve of Sin so watch out for more gigs!

Eve of Sin, to me, is really an inspiring part of my life. It's seen me through a lot of things both good and bad and it's reminded me that when you know your passion and you stick to it, everything will work out the way you want. But it all starts off with a dream. Eve of Sin was a dream of mine. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it wasn't a dream of its other members, but I can't and shouldn't speak for them right now, so I'll talk about what I do know -- myself. I still remember days I used to stare at the big mirror in the bathroom and pretend I was a drummer by playing air-drums. I used to always say "wow, it'd be cool if I was a drummer" but never followed through not because I didn't want to, I just felt I wanted to be where I am today but without the wait of practice. It wasn't that I didn't want to practice, I didn't mind having to do that, but I wanted the results now! Kind of like paying by credit card in a way.

Eventually I did it, I realized my dream, and started playing drums. In the beginning it was overwhelming and tough especially when you're a beginner and you're surrounded by really good musicians, you always feel like you're lacking and it's very discouraging. But in many ways, I kept reminding myself of my place and after all, anyone who's good today, had to have been a beginner at some point as well! It's just a matter of time that I get to where the other skilled players are at. Today, I feel I still have a long road to go, but I can say I've reached a milestone in my drumming life that I once dreamed of. To also perform and be appreciated is another milestone and a dream at the same time! On Saturday night, I just let it flow, one thing I learnt from Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within was that I just had to let it go. I really did because after the show I couldn't remember what was going on on stage, I just let it flow naturally. And it worked out. It's a funny concept because you need to tell yourself to take all that hard practice and throw it all away and just perform. You need to have a certain level of confidence in yourself and your musical skills to be willing to let it flow happily. Like I said, I don't see myself as a top metal drummer (yet hehe) but I trust my skills enough to let it flow by itself. I know at the end of the day, the worst that could happen is I mess up, but I'd probably do the same if I didn't let go, so why not just sit back and enjoy.

In the book, it talks about stepping out of your body and becoming an audience to the music, I did that, all I can remember is enjoying the music and hearing it unfold. I don't remember playing it, but I did according to the videos :). So I just want to say, I talked about the theory behind effortless mastery in my blog entry back then but today I can tell you I experienced effortless mastery :). It's a great feeling but takes a lot of effort on your part before you can expect it to happen but like I've said before, just have the faith. You keep at it, all that effort cannot be wasted. Energy doesn't just disappear, it transforms into another form, the point is to make sure the form it transforms into is the form you want! Go for it and rock on!

Longest meeting ever!

It's 11:55pm so I'm technically still on time for this Day 10 entry, who knows what time I'll finish writing this post. I'm so tired now! Yikes! I still have a tonne of work to do before I can even think of sleeping let alone taking a break! I decided to get myself into the work mood, I'd start by going through all of my to-do widgets one by one and the first one (for today) was this Day 10 entry. I hate being late for my Day 10 entries because I know if I mess this up, a big part of me gets all lazy and just procrastinates away all my other things I need to get done. To be honest, these last few days have been hectic for me with high levels of stress. I'm starting to feel the strain of too many moving parts in my life again.

It's been around 3 weeks into the new year and 3 weeks ago I would have never guessed how many things would have happened in a measly 3 weeks! When I said Bring It! I was serous but I guess reality also heard it and threw everything in my direction! Yikes! But you know what, my mind is still in fighter-mode because I'm ready, bring it on. It's all mental more than anything else, I feel tired because I agree with myself that I'm tired. I feel lazy because I agree that I'm feeling lazy. When I disagree with myself, I find this new energy that lets me keep going. It's when my mind slacks off and says "OK, you've worked hard, you can be lazy today" that's when I start feeling tired and lazy. I guess the hardest part of it all is trying to find the line that divides your body telling you you're tired and your mind telling you you're tired. I'm still figuring out the difference because when my mind's tired, my body gets tired, but when my body's tired, all the energy in my mind is no use because I can't push myself to move and then my mind gets tired automatically. It's a vicious cycle.

I believe I can fly and I've said it before, it's not that we cannot fly. It's just that we haven't figured out a way to fly and all the facts and knowledge we have tell us that we cannot. I keep reminding myself this whenever everything is telling me that what I want to achieve is impossible. There's so much information and knowledge out there that I cannot easily conclude that something cannot be done. When I tell people the schedule I have this week, many people tell me I'm crazy, others tell me it's no big deal. Personally, I'm not worried but I'm worried. Like when I think about it, it seems overwhelming but when I look at it, I think I've been through worse than this.

It's all mental.

On that note, today's Day 10 entry is about the mental part of our lives. My mother read a paragraph from a book she's reading and it said something along the lines that we can only go as far as we think we can. In many times, growth only happens through failure. In weight-lifting, our muscles get stimulated to repair and grow the most after we break through the reps where we're almost failing. It is the last 2 reps that rewards can be reaped from, the first 10 reps were simply preparing us for the last 2 reps where we can achieve the results we want.

Growth and success can be achieved only if you break past the phase where failure is almost inevitable. It is when you push a little bit further that you did last time. It's when you walk out of your comfort zone and tread into the scary, deadly territory. This is where I feel like I am right now. I can feel my mind crying for help and telling me to slow down. I can sense my body screaming that I'm in the brink of the yellow zone and on my way into the red zone. But I can hear my heart say I can handle it. And as long as I believe in myself, I can do it and I'm going to do it. I can't wait to go through this week and tell you all about it in no later than 10 days and I'm looking forward to my next 6 months entry because boy has a lot changed :). You see that smiley face? That's me being proud of what I've achieved after all this time and effort.

Speaking of time and effort, I've set up my TD-12 drumset but I have yet to actually play it!! AAAHHH!!! I don't have time to play and I think it'll be a whole week before I'll get the chance to do so!

Also, as for the title, I had the longest meeting ever today, it was divided into 2 parts, the first half was 4 hours, the next half was 3 hours. And now I'm off to work :).

I'd rather burn out than fade away

I read that somewhere and it overwhelmed me completely! I love that phrase and it's my motto (for) now! To be honest, I'm really mentally exhausted, I've been out and about all day long since the moment I woke up and now it's around 1am and I can finally allow myself to stop and relax. In fact, I don't want to relax, I want to sleep, but I'm so used to late nights now from work and stuff that 1am feels like telling myself to sleep at 8pm, you just psychologically can't do it. But I'm going to try today because I need to have a full, long day tomorrow.

I think my energy levels have been going down because I haven't been doing my breathing exercises properly lately because the building renovation crew is painting the outside walls, so I don't want to be filling my lungs with the fumes from their paint. I know, I know, I could easily go to a park and get some fresh air, but when I'm out and about, I'm always on the go! I never seem to have the chance to stop!

Wow, I'm really exhausted to the point I can't even get myself to do hand drum exercises tonight! I've been kind of slacking off with drum practice lately because of all this work I have ahead of me. I don't blame laziness, I really have been busy. I have a lot of stand-up comedy performances lined up and then nerves are slowly building up because everytime I perform I want to be better than my previous show and this creates a certain level of pressure within myself. It's good pressure though, don't get me wrong, because without this, I'd never improve and I have to keep striving for excellence. I'd rather burn out than fade away :)

But on a brighter note, my lovely TD-12K drumset has arrived!! Waaaaahhooooo!! Check it out, the boxes are huge!!
Seriously, they're humongous! When I got home, I looked at them in awe and thought "Wow, poor delivery guys!" But I'm not going to allow myself to unpack them until this Sunday because I know once I open the box, I can say goodbye to the next 4 hours from the moment I break the seal. Speaking of drumming and crazy work, today is going to mark the last day I can relax. From tomorrow onwards, I have so much stuff lined up for myself it's not funny! I have to prepare for the Friday Stand-up comedy show at Champs. Then I'm having a late-night jam session with my band which means 12am onwards... oh goodness. Then Friday's the big day. Saturday I've got back-to-back comedy shows of Chinese followed by English. Sunday will be the day I catch up on all the work I missed out on Friday/Saturday. Monday, I've got a long meeting with a client during the day, Tuesday will be my day of preparation for my gig in Macao. Wednesday I'm at Macao all day. Thursday I'm back in Hong Kong and opening for Paul Ogata at night. Friday is my MC performance. Saturday is finally my day of rest and relaxation..... Sunday my friend Ka Chun is probably going to come to pick up my old electronic drums and then we're back to Monday and well I don't want to look that far.

So like I said at the start of the year, bring it! And let me just add, I'd rather burn out than fade away. This is a lot lined up but I'm ready for it. Don't forget I cannot and will not neglect my freelance projects, too. So I need to keep myself in tip-top condition and energized to the max at all times and on that note, I think I'm going to go for a nice hot shower, get into bed and get some snooze. I'm honestly plain and simply exhausted. Help :\.