19 December 2014

I have a memory I have been flashbacking to a lot recently.

It is of being in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Walking by Star Market on Sidney Street, mere blocks away from the Charles River Basin. I am walking with my father. I am young enough where I am still holding his hand.

The cold bite of the winter tickles my face. My father is wearing a dark blue jacket with red stripes inside. We are walking on the street. Eventually we are in the heart of Harvard Square itself. It is beautiful. Old buildings about, students in the streets pacing quickly to reach their destination.

It hasn't snowed yet, but it is likely to soon. This was the time that my father worked for AstraZeneca, a very well known prolific company that specializes in one of the finest bio pharmaceutical drugs in the world. At the time, Prilosec was the best running prescription drug for acid reflux disease symptoms. My father stood at the forefront of the drug's research in the 1990's.

I have been reflecting on my short time living here in PHX. It was the first time in my short young life that I have ever moved to a separate state on my own. I am grateful for the experience, but I sometimes wonder if my time here is waning. The bubble that I have been surrounded with, the disparity in intellect that I see within the throngs of people that reside here is unprecedented for me, personally.

A person walked past me here at the Starbucks I'm at wearing a "Cal" shirt. I said, "Hey, I know friends that went there!" She went onto say that many people have been to California. I had to explain to her that "Cal" does not stand for California, and that a lot of Californians actually take offense to that, as "Cal" and "Cali" are different abbreviations, after all. I then explained that "Cal" actually is a short hand version of describing UC Berkeley.

She didn't even know what UC Berkeley was.

Last Sunday, I sat at a different Starbucks in Scottsdale. Two middle aged women behind me discussed with each other the notion of glucose. "Did you know that the human body needs glucose?" They then went on to talk about how their kids were taking AP classes in school. They thought that AP and Honors were the same thing. Then they talked about how the SAT exam prepares you for college... I had to leave Starbucks that morning because I was just too appalled at the rampant stupidity. The bubble. What causes this? A lack of government funding in education? Socioeconomic disparity?

I've spent so much of my life being OVERLY humble, short selling my potential, that I believe I have negated my true purpose. I am returning to this purpose, via higher education, college, to get back into music, and specifically digital music production, with PMP certification for project management as a backup (think of a "minor" in college) in case things go south with my intent in pursuing digital music production.

24 October 2014 - Birthday

Today marks the 25th birthday of my life thus far. Twas far more celebrated than I could ever imagine. All my birthdays have been relatively quiet, lacking celebrations at all.

Change is good. Forward progress is good. I remember my heritage, which consists of an Asian background, parents who for the most part were and are successful in the practical realm. Both grew up poor. The mother got fabulous educational credentials, including a master’s. The father, PhD’s and master’s. Both are geniuses by all defining means.

I believe my upbringing in this forward thinking environment has enabled me to see humanity in a different way. Where challenges and pain points exist on a social level, I see opportunities to correct, optimize, allowing extended breathing room and social growth where none existed prior.

There are times in my life where I feel like I am pursuing down a path for a reason, but the “true” reason doesn’t really reveal itself until certain conditions have been met, be it a traumatizing experience, an epiphany, or just simply time.

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13 October 2014

So today I sat down with the assistant head of music at Glendale Community College. I intended to sit down with the actual head, however emails with the head will have to suffice.

I've dedicated a lot of my time in the last 3 months alone in my decision to return to school to pursue digital music production. My feelings versus what has happened appear to be in discord, which I find interesting.

What has happened
I spent a lot of time since 2009 pursuing things I didn't love, in thinking that money would buy happiness. First I pursued biomedical engineering, in the footsteps of my father who has always worked in the pharmaceutical industry.

I spent a lot of time since 2009 making good memories, but never really truly planning for them because I had a fatalist, cynical approach to nearly every aspect of my life. So in turn everything had this negative connotation, even the mere thought of getting up from bed was not rejuvenating to think about.

This fatalism, this cynicism… It should not have been rewarded. Despite my active resistance to my own destiny, I somehow secured a job at Sprouts Farmers Market in their Information Technology department in Phoenix, AZ.

This required me to move from sunny San Diego. Not that I would’ve known a difference at the time, I had associated San Diego with crummy memories and could rarely see the bright side of the landscape anyway.

So, in August 2013, I migrated my sorry self over to Phoenix, got my own apartment, prided myself in having my own corporate job, and then prided myself again in trying to settle down with the wrong love in my life.

I take great pride in my interpersonal relationships, so I’m going to spend a bit more time in this post iterating over some of the key events and the personal lessons in turn that I learned from dating this person.

To protect her identity, we’ll call her Jane. Jane was a person who was very much like me in many ways, but like any other human had her own individuality.

She liked the same video games I liked. The same music, and the same types of foods. For the first three months of the relationship, we flourished. We exchanged new ideas to each other, and I ended up being her initiator due to her over extended level of anxiety, preventing her from doing social things that others like myself can easily do without comfort, let alone thinking about. These types of things included: picking up the phone, going to the grocery store alone, traveling to places out of town… She lacked a lot of personal independence.

I didn’t realize it right away, but I realize it now. Jane was a representation of all the bad things in my life, a culmination of all the fatalism/cynicism in me. And in turn, as with any fatalist/cynic, that translated to an enormously selfish person. She used me, even took pride in it during our breakup, taking my money with her. I am at fault too to succumbing to what I didn’t realize was me trying to cling onto my own self.

I rejected my own growth, my own destiny.

Welp. Enough negative reflection.

What is happening now

My father believed that he could change the world with science, by advancing the human experience with pharmaceutical solutions to each and every human being. He did this via the application of big-money corporations that had lucrative sums of money to invest in various projects. And despite losing his job time and time again to company mandated layoffs, he retained that belief and didn’t succumb to the lavish idea that money buys happiness.

This is why I decided to return to music again. After experiencing years of depression, emotional pain, pointlessness, and other useless feelings, I simply had enough and re-evaluated my options.

In re-evaluating, in changing my internal human wiring, I saw new possibilities. I met new people. I expanded my professional network. I reached out to professionals already working or teaching in the digital music production sector. I created opportunities for myself, even found ways to mitigate the pain of expenses for school.

I have three months before school starts. I’ve implemented project management spreadsheets to manage the chaos in my life. I’ve started going to the gym again. Met some WONDERFUL friends, close and far. Started eating healthier again, done EXTENSIVE planning and research pending my return to school in Spring 2015.

In doing all this, I am convinced, and determined, that I will succeed. Moreover, that I’m in the part of life I was destined to always do. I’ve had enough friends and even astrologers tell me, “you are so meant for music.” Well, about damn time I go do it, and if I’m going to do it, might as well do it big!

Here’s what I’ve invested in so far in my intended path for music:
• Scrapped cello. I am grateful for the 20+ years of experience, but good god is it ever useless in digital music production
• Reached out to Avid Pro Tools official forums for support
• Researched the hardware/software requirements for digital music production
• Researched the cost requirements for digital music production
• Sat down with the head of music at Glendale Community College
• Scheduled to sit down with a faculty member at the Conservatory of Recording Arts in Chandler/Gilbert
• Sat down with a general academic counselor at Glendale Community College
• Sat down with a career counselor at Glendale Community College
• Procured a Visio 2010-powered flowchart outlining how I will succeed in music (where I see myself 5 years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now, what I think I need to get there, type thing)
• Cut back on the hours that I worked at my day job
• Reached out to several audio professionals already working in the industry for support and advice
• Compiled all of the above onto an Excel powered spreadsheet
• Invested in Sendible, a data analytics software application that helps me make smart, invested business decisions based on historical data from my social media accounts
• Chugging along everyday with optimism, hope, for an empowered future.


I feel like this list isn’t even done yet. There are many projects, many initiatives, and a lot of love and passion along the way to get there.

9 March 2014

Passions.

It's been ages since I've written in this blog. It's been ages since I've really been in tune with myself. I have spent almost a decade pursuing dreams that I have not been truly passionate about; chasing fruitless dreams and investing my self-worth in another human being, while letting my own insecurities fester in my subconscious and conscious reality alike.

Something cracked in my existence. As my mentor would say, or metaphysicists would say, the cosmic egg "cracked". I feel awoken. Perhaps the more commonplace way to ascribe it to would be to analogize this to Thane Krios from Mass Effect 2, a character wracked by guilt, but finds himself through religion and defines purpose for his actions.

Though, it would appear that path would be far different from Krios'. Not only do I not plan on assassinating people (thank goodness!), I am choosing a different path for myself, away from where I've been pushing towards the past year.

I spent the last year pursuing something that I was good at, and only out of necessity. A career that makes money, yes, Information Technology, but not something I want to pursue for the rest of my life. I tried convincing myself that I could, but the more I have been at work here at Sprouts corporate. What kind of person am I going to attract? The one person I tried to bring into my life intimately, my personal issues began to intersect with the positive dynamics of the relationship and it collapsed. (Granted, she had issues too and admitted to them... In any case, the relationship wasn't meant to be). And I KNOW the personal issues stemmed from the lack of true self-loving on my end.

I'm going to pursue music again. I'm not wasting time anymore. I see my brother at the age of 30 and doing what he wants to do, helping people understand themselves through education, and while he's not a billionaire, he sure is happy. I see people in my age group, some doctors, some photographers, some models, some philosophers, and some musicians, and I'm just here going... What the hell am I doing?

I've spent a lot of my life wondering why some people would abandon a high paying corporate job. I remember reading a blog entry about a woman who left Google Inc to pursue some personal passions. She abandoned six digit yearly salaries to pursue what she wanted to do. And she is happy. At the time when I started working for Sprouts corporate, I read that blog going "seriously? How stupid." And now I re-read that blog thinking, "wow. good for her!"

I have been chasing comfort through work, women, pursuing easy majors in school instead of what I want to do, I'm just done! I'm done being unhappy and not doing anything about it! My mother may have taken away my opportunity to stay in San Diego Youth Symphony back in 2003-2004, but I can't keep blaming things on a single individual-- I will succeed at doing and being what I love-- myself :)

I remember the days when I was in 7th grade, and I was in San Diego Youth Symphony. I remember loving to practice music on my own, really practicing because I really gave a shit about something that I really loved. As soon as that was taken away I stopped believing in myself and I became so destructive-- I remember how destructive I've been since SDYS in 2003-2004. I won't get back into SDYS anymore with my age, but I will get into where I want to be career-wise.

It won't be corporate, I don't think. At least not for a career.