cold? not cold?

We went to Burbank to check on the 1st mix of our 2nd EP. Things turned out alright but I am really not so sure how much I liked the small studio Jacob was borrowing from Ryan cuz it was a small garage and the computer was freaking slow. As bothersome as it was to have the computer stall ever once a while when I was listening, I have to say I am still glad Jacob is around to finish the 2nd EP for us. I don't know what we will do when he leaves....sighs...

Jacob's wrist was hurting just like I am having some problems with my right hand wrist. I think he got it from working way too much on the HI project. Over time work with stress is always bad. For my wrist...I don't know what the heck is wrong. One funny thing that happened when we were driving home was that we headed north instead of south, and ended up spending 50 min to drive home because of the direction mess up. Oh well....

I am also feeling kinda sick starting from last night. Not sure if it's the extremely dry air or something else....my throat just keeps on hurting through the night, and I am now feeling kinda dizzy like I am having a cold or flu. I hope it won't affect me when I listen to the mix tonight....hum....

Jacob and Scott

I think I should never plan to sleep in. I can't even remember how many times it's been.....but every time I plan to make up some sleep I end up waking up by some uncontrolled forces.... Today I was woken up by Jacob's call this morning, and it wasn't good news.

Jacob is doing mixes for us these three days. He called in the morning to tell me that snare drum track (which Scott did the arrangement with) sounded phase-y. That means it does not exactly sync with other tracks and you hear phases of sound. Well...if that was the only problem then it would be easy. He only has to tell Scott and then have Scott print the track again then we can do the mix another day. The big problem was.....Jacob was fighting with Scott so he wanted me to call instead.

I would not mind calling Scott either since Scott knows I would never bug him to fix problems unless there is really a problem....but the situation is.....he was so fed up with Pastor Chen and got into a huge fight with Jacob because the PC project. (They wanted Scott to re-print whole bunch of stuff which Scott thought was stupid and a waste of time.) I really didn't want to get in the middle of the dirty situation and communicate about problems just because Jacob and Scott are not talking right now....cuz it wasn't news that everyone who worked with something related to PC projects would end up hating working for him.

However, since Jacob told me Scott would not pick up his calls.... I called Scott. I told him there may be some problems with the snare, and he said "no there is not, Jacob is crazy". I have to say I was a little shocked by the magnitude of Scott's annoyance toward Jacob cuz I have never heard him say things like that. He then complained to me about the whole HI and PC situation like I have never heard of it.....again.... (Come on....I worked there, ok? I know the pain in the ass...yeah....pain in the ass is exactly what Scott said....lol) Anyway.....this phone call kinda got nothing solved and I called Jacob and told him Scott said there is no problem (even though I doubt he really checked....)

Jacob was then frustrated and I explained to him how by me talking in the middle it won't get to prove the problem to Scott. I suggested him to just call and leave a message explaining the situation, and if by night time Scott does not reply then we can try to call him again using my phone since he talks to me. Jacob was reluctant but then he said alright. I was actually worried about the whole thing cuz I didn't want the mix to suck, but then there was not much I can do so I went to brush my teeth and cooked my coffee after all the calling and talking,,,

Around 15 min later Jacob called again, and told me he was able to get the right sound by pushing a bottom on the console and trigger an effect in the arrangement... so he was wrong about the problem. I was like....oh....that is great...make sure you tell or write Scott to tell him you were wrong and say sorry then. He was like "yeah I will"....I thought that was the happy ending....and then right after I hung up Scott called. He said "I checked the track, and there was something wrong. Jacob was right." I was like.....all....confused.....Scott told me he would re-print it and e-mail it to me so I can take it to Jacob tonight. I was like....that is cool with me.

I called Jacob and told him what Scott was gonna do and then I guess Jacob was kinda happy about it even though he figured out how to make it right.... Again right after my call with Jacob Scott rang again. He went "This is really odd....I have never encountered anything like this. I was trying to open the track in the OS 9 (or 10) which I did the arrangement with, and everything sounded just right. When I export it to the other version where I print the tracks with, it sounds wrong....but the original source was correct...." I then told him "It's ok....Jacob figured out how to do it and I will just tell him the original is fine. If we can just do it with the way he figured out then let's leave it at that. If there is any problem I will make sure to call you maybe tomorrow."

So that is about how everything got solved....back to where we started..orz....and it was surely a lot of talking, explaining, and arguing through early morning (when no musician is supposed to be in a good mood.) At the end I asked Scott "hey....are you gonna be talking to Jacob? Don't tell me you are just gonna fight with him from now on, k?" and then Scott told me " I will talk to him....He is still a brother in Christ and everything....but then ministry, work, friendship, and money should really stay separated from each other. Jacob gets all too personal with everything and that makes it difficult to work on their projects."

I couldn't agree with Scott more. Chinese people just like to mix everything together thinking if I am a friend with you, then you got to do everything for me for free. Ministries take people for granted and expects a lot of favors from people (in the name of God or so they think). The thing is...God does think people should get paid for what they work for. If you did not come to an agreement clearly with someone from the VERY BEGINNING....then there is no right for you to ask otherwise at the end. Chinese ministries don't respect who they work with, and don't nurture whoever work for the ministries.... so at the end whatever relationship people have with each other dries up and dies. At the end everybody gets burnt out one way or another.

I know how harsh Scott may seem for us fake Chinese, but I have always enjoyed conversing with him cuz he does not try to hide it. One just has to be as direct to him as he is, to make him realize he is not the only one who has principles. I like dealing with the "no hidden message" Scott much more than those fake Christian people who appear to be nice and then stab you in the back. Anyway.....very dramatic morning and yet good exercise of brain for me. There is one lesson I learned though.....being a musician....you just have to be the one who everyone likes. If you are the exact opposite....You will be famous in the circle in no time....just like the Chinese saying "bad things spread a thousand miles"........

Why do you?

There are just way too many different ways to explain why our prayers don't get granted. Some say you have to be connected to the grape tree as a branch and be in Him to get your wishes granted. (As it was discussed form our prayer meeting last night). Some say you have to 1st seek his kingdom and then all others will be given to you....yeah....but seek his kingdom 1st. (Is it a way to distract us from what we really want? I don't know....)

Some say no matter how you know God knows all your needs, you should still ask. It's by asking that your prayers get answered. But again....some say God is not giving you what you asked because he has better plans for you.....So isn't it all confusing? Why would we want to ask something that is not the best for us...knowing God has a better plan? What is the point asking then? To think that we are not in him and not really doing what God wants so that we don't get our prayers answered? Then what about the Joseph situation? The Job situation? They didn't do the wrong things...and yet went through what they didn't ask for....

So do we pray because we want our prayers answered? We seek cuz we want to see God? or we just do it because we were told...even though we know things may not come as what we wanted? Some say we have to be childlike to enter the kingdom of God....but then do kids really ask much? So when we pray we should not ask things? since we don't know if things will be granted anyway and we don't want to mess up our faith by being disappointed? People say we should not be afraid to try a relationship cuz of the hurt we may have to go through...but then isn't it stupid to try it anyway when you know you will be hurt by the given conditions?

So who knows why our prayers don't get answered? I guess only God knows...and we can probably stop speculating since nobody has a sure answer ANYWAY....

What is that you ask in life?

Finally finished reading Proverbs today, and came across to something quite interesting which Agur wrote. (He was a descendant from Abraham's son Ishmael. He came from the ancient east which was supposed to be famous for the wisdom) In Proverbs 30:7-9 he said "I ask two things from you, Lord. Don't refuse me before I die. Keep me from lying and being dishonest. And don't make me either rich or poor; just give me enough food for each day. If I have too much, I might reject you and say, ' I don't know the Lod.' If I am poor, I might steal and disgrace the name of my God.

How much wisdom do we have to actually ask this kinda things for our lives?

Billy vox tuned....

Went to tune Billy's vocal this morning..... Other than the computer getting stuck at one place three times (and every time we lost some stuff already tuned...and had to start over again) I guess things went alright. Kevin liked Billy's voice and said Billy has a lot of bass end in his voice. He also said he usually likes the untrained vocal cuz it's more natural and has more characters in it. I was cracking up inside cuz I wonder what he would say if I told him it was my hubby singing. Well....at least he liked it.....

Kevin showed me some stuff he and his wife did, and to be honest I got a little jealous. His wife has a very sweet voice which cna get powerful at times when needed. They do commercial music and also has a rock indie band which has several records out already. It is indeed very convenient to have a spouse who can sing well and work together with. They can just do everything in their own studio and get everything done by themselves.....including the arrangements (instrumental recordings), the vocal recording, the tuning, and the mixing....I guess I am already lucky that my hubby can sing for me so I shouldn't complain since I can't sing myself....lol....Next time I am just gonna write something that fits him more....yeah...have to try at least....

Alright....time to eat....now we just have to wait for Jacob to mix stuff.....

Recording....

For some reason I couldn't keep on sleeping this morning and woke up around 8:20. That is really odd since today is Sun and I was actually tired last night. I guess my sleep was probably too good in quality I didn't need that many hours? just felt kinda odd...

Yesterday was the big day which I had to record Billy for the 4th song we are gonna have on the 2nd EP. I have to admit I was kinda frustrated through the recording session. 1st of all I was already annoyed at the fact that he doesn't really count rhythms right, and then I was more ticked off when he repeats mistakes repeatedly....but the fact is....I think I am just more strict with "my" people and more nice and friendly with people who I don't care much about....lol....

Billy actually didn't do all that bad at all. I guess my song was just a bit too hard for him to sing cuz his range is not that wide, and definitely too hard for about 95 % of singer to count (cuz most people who sing don't count anyway.) Samuel was funny cuz he asked me if I auditioned the guy I was gonna get married to and made sure his voice was pleasant and acceptable. I guess I didn't really have to do that since I heard Billy sing before, but seriously never thought I wanted to record him someday even though his voice is kinda nice. (But if I married someone who is tone deaf I would probably die....)

Anyway...I think I was scaring Howard cuz he probably never saw me being that frustrated in recording sessions. I guess I am pretty calm when I produce most of the time and people who I produced always thought I am fairly "nice" even though very picky.....kinda feel sorry for both Billy and Howard now, but too bad I thought Billy can still do better with the talent he has....We will see how it sounds like after I tune him on Mon and mix the song in the future then....sighs....hopefully it will sound decent enough and hopefully we will have more songs for him to record someday....Fingers crossed...

Cutest thing....

Practicing the song which we are going to recording on Sat was quite tiring....so I guess we needed to find something fun to do afterwards. Billy dressed Hades up as a Mexican and I got some photos of him just to show what we do at midnight....orz.....

No secrets...

I was trying to make up some sleep (which I kinda lost through the past two weeks) by sleeping in this morning. I don't think I was all that successful achieving my goal. 1st of all Hades was bugging me through the whole night. I don't know what is his problem cuz he didn't even have his collar on, but he refused to sleep on the bed throughout the night. He was willing to sleep on the bed AFTER Billy got up this morning. I wonder what is up with that....

Hades is now catching up his sleep on the bed alone...and I just had three dreams which woke me up several times this morning. Out of the three dreams I had two nightmares. I think whatever was in the nightmares really shows what causes stress in my life at this point. No wonder Chinese people say "whatever you think during day time shows up in your dreams"....lol....

Some people saw the photo I put on facebook with high school friends and started to fill me in with more informations I didn't know of. I guess everything travels fast in this world now. It's kinda scary how things get leaked out and whatever done will always be known somehow. I guess it's a good thing in a way....so we always think about what we do before we do it....cuz eventually everyone will know....lol....

More coffee....more coffee....The cat who bugged me all night is still sleeping....and it's already 12....

Packed....

For some reason I just feel last week was kinda packed with many things...I wonder if it's just my perceptions of time getting messed up or that my brain was functioning kinda weird for the entire week.....?

1st of all the tuning session kinda occupied my free day of the week, and then trying to look over Howard's Chinese version of the 4th song lyrics kinda took some brain out of me even though I procrastinated...Weekend started with a weird lunch cuz my friends from high school wanted to eat with me. Catching up for the 1st time in 13 years was really something. I think I actually enjoyed it cuz high school was such a good time in my life....I can't believe we would be meeting again in LA without ever staying in touch before. The fact that Taeja was so funny and I never knew about it was particularly amusing to me. I guess we will be meeting again soon with another friend who we missed this time.... and soon enough I will be turning into a Japanese cuz all of them are....

House hunting this week turned out to be more promising even though we looked at less houses. I think the market is continue to go down and we may actually be able to get an ok house with our original budget in the future. Nobody really knows how the market will be, but then hopefully we will just be able to catch the right one at the right time. Buying a house is so troublesome I am starting to wonder if I will have the patience to find the right one with so much time and energy spent...sighs...

Weather was extremely hot through the weekend...and gas price is soaring sky high....not like that has any connections to what we did over the weekend really....but just popped into my head for some reason. Jay and Billy tried to work on the Eng version of the 4th song but didn't seem like it was going too well. I certainly hope we will have a chance to do that version and get our mixing fees worth it....but oh well....It's really not up to me at this point...

I also got a new phone 1st time after quite a while. I used to change my numbers every year just to escape from people who I don't want to stay in touch with. I definitely changed my phones every year if not less than a year. I don't know what just happened to me for the past 2 + years...maybe I was always waiting for the best to come and it never did...life is funny at times...yeah....that is too much thinking from a simple phone....but seriously to think about the change was kinda weird...What really happened to me in the past 3 years? hum...

K..I am tired of typing...just gonna upload this photo Billy took for us at the reunion lunch....Noriko on the left used to have the same violin teacher back in high school....Taeja on the right was never really my friend friend. She was also a student at Interlochen for 4 years but graduated one year earlier than me. It's funny she is the person who found out we live close nowadays and suggested meeting up....Oh....I can't stop cracking up when they told Billy how diff. I looked back then...I guess it's always fun to surprise people....lol...

collecting info while working....

Sleep was getting better but not all that ideal cuz I was probably worried about the tuning session for the songs this morning. I guess I am just not very good at "not worrying for tomorrow"....(or the future in general) So I woke up earlier, got out earlier than planned, and arrived to Kevin's place almost one hour before the appt. I was lucky that when I called Jacob to ask for Kevin's phone numbers Jacob actually picked up the phone. Kevin was nice enough for me to start our session earlier cuz he was wrapping up previous work in the morning anyway.

After importing all the tracks we needed to tune, Kevin listened to the 1st song (which I told him would take the longest to tune) and started smiling. He went "wow....this is gonna be EASY...songs are in such good conditions to tune it will be fast"....and then of course he went on talking about how Pastor Chen's project was way more work for him cuz notes can get 2-3 notes off with the worst incidents...Well...I don't know why I am TOTALLY not surprised about how people complain about working with certain producers....I guess I have been there and seen it all...too bad...

I found out some interesting info with this new engineer I am working with. (yeah....don't ask me why I get to know people's lives....they just tell me....) He is only 28...(yeah can't believe now I am working with people younger than me. I must be turning real old.....), from Canada, and married someone from Hawaii. That was not the most interesting part (I mean a guy being married at his age...). The shocker was that he has been married for almost 10 years now. They have dated back when they were around 15-16, and he got married when he was 19. After hearing that I started to wonder if Jacob is the only Christian engineer who is not married left in the industry....cuz most of them get married super young in the states for some reason...

Kevin and his wife were touring together since they were still kids. He plays the drums and she sings..(yeah perfect match for all the drummers...some worked some didn't....) They stopped touring cuz they had a kid....(and the son is 7 years old now....man...talking about being young parents....amazing....) They have a dog which is 10 years old + acts like a cat. The dog is kinda small and they try to keep him slim.....etc....so how much more do I have to know? I wonder...

We finished tuning three songs in less than 4 hours...That was like super fast but I am sure he completely appreciated how picky I was with the singers when we recorded....cuz seriously we didn't have to do much to make the songs sound decent. Oh...I also found out he and his wife works for a lot of TV and film productions now and he has no business cards cuz they are too busy with cases they don't really care about getting new clients....Keep in mind....all those chatting were done while we were working....pretty efficient I would say....

I guess I am feeling much better on the three songs now since they sound half way decent before mixing. I can't stop worrying about the 4th song now since we don't have the lyrics ready and yet recording is set to be next Sat. I really hope this weekend would be the time we wrap up the lyrics so at least Billy will have a week to learn the words....Ok....have to stop worrying before my head blows now....

What do you write for?

I was reading blogs of various people after I finished all the teaching and things I needed to do for the day. All of a sudden I started wondering why people write blogs. Do we really have THAT much to say anyway? Do we write because nobody really cares about what happens in our lives so we HAVE to share it somehow and let it out? Do we write because there is nobody to talk to in real life so we have to pretend we are talking to someone while we type? Are we afraid that if we don't write we will forget about everything in the future when we get older?

It's quite interesting how distant people become after we "mature" with age. Internet seems to be the only thing that holds our friendships, relationships, or even families together. Is it just how this world is going be? It's quite convenient indeed, but then is it relational? Do people actually get to communicate in a deeper level? perhaps internet gives us a better of covering up and hiding ourselves behind the screens? It's hard to tell really....

I write cuz I don't tend to remember things for a long time. I write because I need an outlet for my stress. I write so my families in the other side of the planet gets to know what is going on with my life. They probably care about about my life....that I am about 99 % sure...I also write so I have a place to process my weird thoughts. I am pretty sure not all strange thoughts are well appreciated. I guess I also write for those who can KINDA understand my tangled up mind.....

Procrastination....

Didn't sleep too well last night again...not like it's anything new...but I think I actually had too much in my mind. I think the main reason why my brain was moving in a weird speed is because I knew I had to think through the lyrics Howard wrote so everything can fit nicely with the music I wrote....but I didn't really feel like spending my brain juice on it for some reason....so I procrastinated....That....really didn't help me to get anything done either. I waited and put it off in the morning. I got my violin back from Pasadena around noon. I even started playing for 15 min just because I didn't want to get to work....and then I gave up cuz I couldn't even drink coffee and watch TV....

So my part of work on the lyrics is kinda done and I will bug Howard to fix a little one more time. Hopefully we will be able to get it wrapped up before weekend. I will also have to get three other songs tunned with Jacob's friend who lives far away....I hope that will also go smoothly. I have no idea why I am having a lot more to do when I actually teach less. It's just not very economical of my time I think. sigh....don't even know why I am trying with the EPs. It feels like nobody really cares much about it other than the people actually writing....I hope it's not all in vain...

I think I need some fresh air before I do something else...can't stop my head from spinning yet...

at the speed of a snail....

Not sure my brain is functioning REALLY slow right now. The only reason I can think of with this slow reacting head of mine is the change of schedule today. I started my day by teaching three students in the morning cuz the kids have spring break now. I can't even really remember how I got through the lessons. I am not even sure what I told them....but I am sure something really useful....right....

After the lessons I went and bought the food for the entire week. I guess shopping at odd times during weekdays is really nice since there is basically nobody in line for just about anything. I started cooking after I got home and had a cup of coffee...and that really felt like the whole afternoon. I am sitting here now trying to think if I should start looking at the lyrics Howard wrote on my song...but seriously my brain isn't functioning.....

It's really amazing how life gets messed up when routines get disrupted by certain incidents...hum.......

Thank you....really....

I was watching this program called 大學生了沒 since last night. They were talking about families and relationships between parents and kids. I can totally tell Billy wasn't all that into the show when I was watching it last night cuz he usually does not appreciate "negative" shows much. I tried to finish the unwatched portion by myself during day time today. I have to say the stories the kids were telling were quite depressing. Almost everyone in the show was crying listening to the stories.....

It is quite amazing how people are irresponsible nowadays. They have kids without thinking about the responsibilities. They can't deal with their own problems so they expect the kids to get involved and help them out. They leave the families when disasters cannot be reversed without thinking who caused the troubles at 1st place. Of course there will always be problems in life, but to cause a lot of pain for people who didn't have the choice to decide if they want to be in the same family with you....is just lame....

It is like a bad cycle when divorce rate climbs up with kids grow up in unhealthy environment. Kids not given the right education and moral values later on get into screwed up relationships, and then messed up marriages. History then repeats and gets worse by generations. With the students I teach, I only see half of them having semi-healthy families....and we are talking about well off families that can afford to have their kids take lessons with me....so what about others who I don't even have the chance to see?

I think only by watching those depressing shows I can learn how to be thankful more. I have always been proud to have the parents I have even though we are not wealthy or anything. I am not sure if my youngest brother knows how to appreciate them as much as I do at this point cuz he is still young....but I am sure someday he will go out and discover how fortunate he is compared to his friends out there in the world. I guess it's good I have been away since I was 14 so I get to see a lot of messed up situations when I was still young. The bad side of that is how I no longer have much hope and faith in people around me.....

I am glad I finished the show by myself. I am glad I am able to process my thoughts after watching it....even though it's with a very complicated feeling. I am glad I don't have to go through whatever those kids went through, and I am glad I am teaching some of the kids who have similar situations. I consider the time worth spending when I can bond with those poor kids. I wish they will know better when they have a family of their own in the future. I wish the stupid parents would someday wake up and understand how dumb they are by messing up other people's lives....and I thank my dad and mom for being who they are.....

April Fool? You bet....

April fool just passed few days ago, and yet I feel the whole week is kinda like April fool. 1st of all I had a student (who told me she wanted to major in music for the longest time...aiming only for USC....right...) telling me she finally found out about audition requirements (like after I asked her to find it out for almost half year now) and decided to just minor in music. After that she says even though she is not trying for music major, she still wants to learn cuz she loves music too much to quit. I was thinking.....right....if you love music that much you would actually listen to me and put your time into practicing instead of working part time like crazy (when she doesn't need the money at all). Through all the lessons I taught her....she probably only showed up prepared no more than 5 times. (On top of that she is late almost half of her lessons). She then told me she only wants 2 lessons a month now (after all her BS about loving music...right..), and I told her to find herself another teacher who does not mind if the students don't ever get improved. Some people are just not worth wasting life on....

So this is the sad thing about being a musician. You struggle to make money and yet what you do does not really feel like any kinda fulfillment (when it comes to teaching kids who don't mean what they say and don't really care enough to put efforts in). Through the years I fired most of those who don't mean to get better with either their playing or attitude, and yet a sense of frustration follows when you think about financial burdens. I wonder how much people can appreciate art/music/or anything entertainment related when they don't even know how stable their lives can be.

2nd thing that belongs to the April fool's pool is a gig which was supposed to happen for the coming week. I was getting excited about the gig so I started calling around to reschedule my students, and then I was told this morning that the recording isn't gonna happen until at least May. I guess there is no guarantee it's gonna happen in May either, and I already have my schedule all screwed up. I also called the violin repairman to ask if my instrument is fixed and then he told me he really didn't do any work last week. Instead of picking up today, now I have to wait till next week....if that is really happening.....So is a musician's life meant to be unstable anyway? Is that why most musicians have to marry a doctor just to stabilize everything?

3rd thing is about two phone calls last night. 1st was a phone call which I got from a person who wanted to learn piano and saw my ad on craigslist. (Yes....as pathetic as it sounds like...asking friends to refer students obviously does not mean much....so I decided to just put an ad on the internet and see what happens.) The person called...and in the middle of the conversation said he needed to get another call so he would call back later....and guess what? he never did... Oh well...not like I am expecting a lot from an ad on the internet, but sure it was not too encouraging.

2nd phone call was from Billy's mom canceling the bible study session for Thurs night. Billy was supposed to talk to his parents again with their messed up financial situation or whatever they need to talk about, and now I wonder when that is gonna be. I was planning to have the night to myself and perhaps eat with a friend or something, but now it's canceled so I guess life never goes as planned.....

Through all those cancellations with the past days....I don't know what I should expect now. I guess to never keep any hopes up should probably help on easing the disappointments in life whenever things don't happen? and yet how exciting and fun would life be when there is nothing to look forward to? That is the part of my life that I cannot figure out what to do with as for now....