Failing Musical Auditions

I screwed the audition up. I prepared everything but still didn't have everything go as planned. I got the notice of the school having a musical audition two months in advance. And although I didn't practice every single day for the last 2 months, I had dedicated a lot of time upon it. There are things that aren't worth the time, and my preparation for the musical may be one of the many of them.

My desire to audition for the musical came from my soul heart of wanting to prove myself. I wanted to tell myself that part of the 12-year old me that was in an award-winning choir was still in me. I wanted to extend my qualification for my pride in being able to sing. With that being said, if I had been able to train myself intense enough to get back to where I was 4 years ago, I would love to perform in a musical. But after the audition, it doesn't seem likely. But everything is fine because I have no interest in performing on a stage that all my friends would be coming to watch me embarrass myself, except that I had wasted a bunch load of time trying to shape my vocal cords.

What exactly went wrong was everything. Although I did try to warm up my voice, I failed my first high note in the song along with every other high note. In addition, I also forgot to round my voice up during the whole song because I didn't have that much consciousness to focus on being judged and failing high notes at the same time. After all that, I also got a comment on how little my voice was. I mean, you don't need a loud voice for choir, you needed that opposite. And although that is a very good excuse I could make to myself, it will definitely not affect any of the judging processes. Have I also forgot to mention that I put my previous singing experience as an international champion choir member? Now that I have time to look back on it, it was a huge mistake. Not only I had dropped my teacher's expectations that had been gained by my early interest in the play, but I had also raised his hope higher than what he already had to drop it altogether(I didn't know how grammar work in the last sentence, just ignore it). To sum it all up, real-time performance isn't my jam.

After knowing that I have failed the audition for the musical, I decided that I have a new goal to achieve singing-wise (I really have too many goals). The goal is to do a cover of a song in any way I want. And if I did that without difficulties, I would aim to write and record my own song in some sort of way. Since last year, I wanted to have my own song. It seemed too easy for me: you just have to string a series of notes together and add lyrics to it. But like everything else in life, I am pretty sure its one of those many things that are very easy to scratch the surface but very hard to actually master it. While a lot of people admire people are good at a vast amount of stuff, it is most likely that they had scratched the surface of a lot of things, and it is not actually that impressive. I have read that colleges like people who are very focused on a certain aspect of skill and not a variety of good skills. And me being in the spot that I am in now is not good. I just focus on too much stuff. And while it may be ok for an actual smart person to take on multiple skills at once and to improve on them, it is quite impossible for me.

I may not be able to perform on the upcoming musical, but I had set more goals for myself and I am "determined" to achieve them. (lazy conclusion, I know)

This is a sketch I did months ago because I am not as productive anymore
and I don't draw as much (I am a very busy man)

A Ramble about quotes from a book

Like yesterday, I finished a big chunk of "This is Marketing" by Seth Godin, specifically 33% again. And also like yesterday, I have some thoughts about some of what this book says and want to get it off my chest before I go annoy some of my friends if I do have any at all.

"When people share their negative stories, they often try to broaden the response and universalize it. They talk about how 'no one' or everyone' will..." (Godin 1203).
This quote doesn't relate to me that much in contrast to the previous quotes that I responded to. This quote reminded me of how Youtubers indirectly complain about their comment section. Most of the time, YouTubers like to say that the negative comment doesn't affect anymore or that they don't see those comment as anything that is even worth their time. But, in my point of view, if anyone talks about how something doesn't affect them, that thing that they are talking about is already affecting them. That thing that they are talking about is making them have this feeling of power and that they have the power to ignore people. This is one of the many things that only exists if you don't talk about them. The second you want others to know about this bound topic, this special thing isn't that thing anymore. To put it into context, to tell everyone that you are humble will break your characteristics of being humble. The second that you talk about it, you are not humble about being humble. The second these YouTubers say that those comments don't bother them the single bit, they cared about these comments. I am getting off topic, this is nothing related to the quote. Back to what we... I am talking about. The typical negative youtube comment "broaden the response and universalize it". Although this is such a simple and obvious thing, I never notice it enough to actually point it out to myself.

"In the last few decades, we've gotten lazier in our nuance of warding status, preferring it to be related to either the dollars in a bank account or the number of followers online. But status continues to take many forms" (Godin 1522).
I really do not know what is wrong with me, I only feel awe in non-fiction only when it is about a personal experience, lol. Because this blog is one that I don't put that much effort into, I will just again talk about my personal experience. The reason that I highlighted this on my kindle is the topic of "status". This author explains status in a very interesting way, in a way that he says it is "relative". I couldn't find a very direct short quote to explain his view of status. Basically, he sees the status as the respect, power, and authority that one person has. He pointed out that a middle-class blogger has a higher status than a millionaire because he got more influence on people. Of course, a millionaire can pay someone that has influence to influence people, but that is not the point. For me, although I was in the lowest and easiest classes in my school in Shanghai, I have a sort of high status in my school. Like I said in my previous vlog, I was famous for being the kind and good kid at school and most classmates treat me very good. I could justify bad actions just by agreeing on it. If someone has a joke about how Christmas is in January (typical boring high school jokes) and I agree on it, the friend that is being trolled would have nothing to say. Thinking back, I am not that kind nor good anyways. But back then, I have the status to change conversations and silence them as I want.

"Status has inertia. We're more likely to work to maintain our status (high or low) than we are to try to change it" (Godin 1532).
This again is a personal experience. This author is such good at interpreting human response that I am a bit freaked out by it. In the book, he is constantly surprising me how he pin-points my behavior in life. It is in such extent that it is very scaring. His saying of how people would want to keep their status no matter what is very true. For me, I had been identified as the super skinny kid for most of my life, and when I get a little be fat(and which is healthy for me) I would freak out. I was so keen on keeping my status of being the most skinny kid that I didn't even care for my health no more. It is such striking to me that this marketer knows me more than myself.

That is all for today, and I will most likely finish the book tomorrow and write the last blog on it. If you are reading this, I am very thankful for it but let's be honest here, no one would read this. Even the people that read had been little than ever, the possibility for anyone to read this is rounded to 0.

I don't have any picture to go along with this blog, but I wanted to include one. So this is a picture of the kindle that accompany me when I am bathing

"This is Marketing - Seth Godin"

I used to find book reviews and the analysis of non-fiction book stupid. If the non-fiction book already gave out the information it wanted to, why is it needed to re-explain it on a blog or similar matter? Having a blog that no one reads, I now understand. After reading a book, it is most likely to have something to talk about it. And when that happens would want to type it out to the non-existent audience of mine. (me and you, I don't know which is which no more) I didn't type my thoughts of the book because I wanted to sound smart or explain my foundings, I just want to get things off my chest.

Because I really don't care that much, I will do it the less interesting way.

"When the teenager was fifteen, he didn't have that much of transport problem. And plenty of teenagers make it through the college years without a car. This is a want, not a need" (Godin 687).

 This line strikes me a lot because I always hear adults say how impossible it is to live without a car. And I always think that there are buses and buses carry us around just fine. Me, as a middle school student runs everywhere I want to go. If something is out of the running distance, I ignore it and not go there. Although that is not always true and sometimes I need a car to go to competitions, there is still the uber option. To be honest, this line doesn't really mean to much to the average person, it is just to me that a book-writing person had backed up my thoughts entirely.

"We're seeking our own little pocket of uniqueness" (Godin 687).

This line similar to the one before is special to me for a very specific reason. For my life, I have avoided popular songs just to avoid them and just to be unique. This side of me made me miss out of a lot of songs, but that is what makes me. I strive to be unique all the time, And if something is too popular I will stop doing it. In the past, I pride myself on the fact that I stray away from youtubers more than a million subscribers. A small reason for this is that the videos of large channels are too polished for a single creator and it makes me jealous. The whole time, I was seeking my own little pocket of uniqueness. I made myself unique by brute force. And by doing it, I was still driven by the crowd, being driven the inverted way.

(Talking about yahoo, google and bing search engines)

'What (google) was better (than others) was that the search box didn't make you feel stupid" (Godin 908).

Although I don't have the slightest idea of why google was ahead of the game since search engines improve as more people uses it. This answer explains a lot to me. Google by providing just one search box compared with the thousands of links on Yahoo search, was more simple and "less stupid" to use. I never related design with quality. All the doctor's registration software are messy as hell, but nearly all doctors use the same software. The thousands of boxes and links on that software didn't seem to have frustrated them too much and so I concluded that quality needs to be separated from design. Design of a product is only a bonus and won't affect much to the consumer. Thinking back, the major reason that I was a razer fanboy is not that I am a gamer, but is because their design is pleasing.

That is it, that is the insight that I have on the first third of the book. I didn't organize everything seamlessly because no one would read it anyways.

"This is marketing" book

Hubris

Since I read a Chinese novel about an all-powerful kongfu disciple, I had set him as the person that I look up towards. Although he is only a fictional character, his one act in a battle inspired me to be better. While this character is mostly very humble, the scene which I remember him from is one of the most humble acts of his. What he did was very simple, he simply saved everyone that is fighting in an all-way death battle while keeping himself safe. Without him, all the people in the scene would just have died because of that fact that they keep attacking each other. His superiority upon all others inspired me to be just like him. What's more is that he never try to display his power. Unless something resorts to violence, he would rather be called the weakest man alive then demonstrate how powerful he actually is.

Since the day I read that book, I tried to better myself, to learn more skills, to be good at more aspects. I dreamt of one day that I could hide my well-trained skill. What I always tell myself is that you need to have something to hide to actually hide stuff. Till this day, the things that I picked up is my drawing abilities, my coding skills and some of my musical abilities. While none of my abilities are anywhere near perfection, they are a lot better than what I started off with. My art receives compliments without me even trying, I am able to tell others that I self-taught myself coding and more. Looking back at everything that I have learned, I am very pleased with everything. To the 10-year-old me, this is the goal that I have long been wanting to achieve. But like everything, our desire adapts to what we have. The more that we possess, the more that we want. Now, I want to have a steady source of income that does not revolve around labor. Being a cashier and having a long-term source of income is lame to me. Being a typist that mindlessly type is lame to me. Just selling lemonade in the front yard to people that are interested just because you are a kid is lame to me. With that said, if you give me any of those jobs for me to do right now, I would fail them entirely and get fired probably within a week. I could not talk to strangers fluently, nor could I type 100 words per minute, nor could I even get my guts to put up a lemonade stand. The things that I despise of are the exact things that I could not achieve. This is also the same with art pieces. While I critic the arts that I see and tell myself that I do not want to become the artists that produce those arts. I myself could not draw those myself. I am constantly petty and I don't always do things about me. I am getting off topic, so I am just going to summarize myself here, although I have been trying to improve myself constantly, I still achieved a little and could not do the things that I want to.

On top of who I want to hide skills that I have, I have followed a saying in the bible for a very long time. Although I don't read the bible a lot, this exact one line from it changed me drastically. This line illustrated that you shouldn't use evil to combat evil. If anything, anyone does something bad to you, you should never get revenge on them. If you are not able to return that evil action with love, you should leave it and present that nothing happened. This one line had guided me so far that a lot of people from my school in Shanghai treats me as the kindest kid in the entire grade. Classmates from other grades came to know me like that as well. Although my classes are all in the lowest level, smart kids treated me with respect. To be honest, this may just be my hallucination, but this is what I feel. I never cared if anyone makes fun of me, and most of the time, I end up helping those who do.

The reason that I brought this all up is that I again for the numerous times in the school see people just trying to be ahead of the teacher.  I myself is guilty of this as well, but when others do it, it is more present in my eyes. And since I am bothered by it, I wanted to say something about it so this is it because I am too lazy.

Another practice sketches that I did in the span of 3 days

Laziness

It's 7 days since my last post and I haven't done what I said I would do. It is a new year and the new me seems like he is not going to be productive all. During the 3-day holiday that had just passed, I had done nothing as always. Except the 2 sketches that I did, i practically did nothing. With all that said, I am just going to continue the bad daily blogs to play. If I keep trying to re-write my old blog, I am never going to post antying again. Which no one would care, but my English would die momentarily.

During the 3 day holiday I had, I discovered the junoir doctor youtuber that I followed had a company along side with his band and 154wpm typing speed. He had achieved so much that it is making me jealous. Although I have my own website, my ambition to start a busniess soon, all my plans are still in the process and don't have any results to them. Specifically, my website doesn't even have pictures to it yet. Although all the html and css is written and ready to go, I never took the time to draw the pictures to go along with the website. It is always so easy to say what you do, but not to do as what you say. I had written to-do lists every single day, but the days that I actually did all the things on the list could be counted with just my fingers. With all that said, I am going to post my blogs on my own website alongside with here. Although the reason that I chose such a outdated blogging website is that I want to elimate all possiblities at anyone finding it even if they wanted to, I would now try to reach out and improve the quality of my blogs. I know I had said that for a lot if times now, but I am no longer saying I will not try when writing my blogs. That also means that I will embarress myself a lot as I really don't have good grammar and contexts. If I say I will be trying, the things that I produce would already my limit and they would suck. But failure is part of the journey, so I would keep trying. Typing out paragraphs upon paragraphs about my life would help me be more disiplined, and some embarassment won't mean much as long as I improve myself. Which, is not happening. But whatever.

Review on my birthday resolutions, I said that I would finish my website before my birthday, but that did not happen. Because of that, I would set a new deadline and that is before this month. There are still 9 days till that, and a couple of pictures and illustrations needs to be cramped in there. I will keep you guys(no one) posted and try my best.

Another blog is written again, and in my point of view, the quality of it had improved. I hope I would take back some kind of grind, no matter it is with art or programming.

One of the art that I did during the 3-day holiday

Back to School

As always, I again stopped posting blogs because I am very lazy. Although this blog serves absolutely no purpose at all in this world, keeping it going makes sure that my English abilities have a safety net under it. And on the topic of quality, I am going to rewrite all the blog I have posted before so that I could actually improve my English now. And while proof-reading isn't anything in my interest, I will at least be admitted from coming up a topic every single day. The downside of all this is that it would be a nightmare proof-reading crap. Like this blog now, all my previous blog are trash, and to repair trash is hard, to say the least.

Because I am not going to rewrite my blogs today, I need to think of a topic to fill in this page, and my first day of school after the winter break would be nice to talk about. After being suck of confidence after seeing my parents, I now again see how much I had to do to catch on. With some research, I found out that colleges in the US don't care that much about grades. As long as they don't suck, they don't pay attention to them a lot. What they care about is what you do outside of school and what you do to improve yourself personally. Just getting all A is difficult classes doesn't impress people that much anymore. As because our only soul job as a student is to be an all A student. Not being that is like not completing your job in a company. To stand out from the massive crowd of students, you need to do things outside of school and impress them with an essay. And this proves to be very challenging. While this also means that you don't need to focus on grades that much, it also means you need to do things that are no instructed. And for anyone that had tried self-teaching themselves something, it becomes very challenging because you need to have self-integrity. And that I don't have. I may have no feelings and don't mind hard work, but getting myself on the desk regularly for long periods of time is hard because I would just drift off into space in my daydreams.

Life may be frustrating, but laziness is always present. So why not embrace it and stop the blog right here. Although all my blogs end with me saying I no want no more, laziness would comfort me after.

My human anatomy practice 

Birthday Presents

Days had passed and I got my birthday presents which are great btw. I got a raspberry pi and a levis wallet. To give you some context, I used to use a wallet from a dollar store and I never had anything that could give out digital signals. Although an Arduino would be easier to work with, a raspberry pi could do much more so I'm happy. On a side note, I also met my family after a whole half year studying aboard. It is great seeing them again even though its only just for a week. 

During this short trip with my parents, I got to go to Las Vegas to enjoy the food and experience the cold breeze. Las Vegas to me is always that super busy city that people get drunk at and gamble their way to death. But after visiting there, I saw that it is nothing like that, instead, the poker tables are all empty along with the other gambling games. The whole place is filled with expensive restaurants and brand shops. Along the side of Las Vegas, we went to the outlets that serve relatively cheap things from reputable brands. I, myself, got two jeans from my parents and they are great as always. While I grow up hating jeans, my view on them had changed after I cared more about my looks. A couple of years ago, I wouldn't mind even to change my clothes for weeks. 

I don't have anything to say anymore, so I am going to leave this here. Bye