| miserable 2005-10-19 09:10:25 ET |
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who am i kidding? i'm just a pathetic loser making up lies to make herself feel better. maybe it's my period or maybe i really need friends cause now i feel so fucking miserable, i feel so disgusting, how can i even exist? i just want to sleep and sleep until the world feels more welcoming..... but my courses tomorrow does not allow me to do that....
i want to be friends with them but i get so shy, i'm not even sure i can talk anymore. or if i talk, will i make them laugh? or will i get ignored or sullen silence? i can't even imagine i've even had friends before, how can such a loser have friends? i don't even remember the last time i made anyone laugh.... i've lost it.
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| Tai 2005-10-17 07:04:06 ET |
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I thoroughly understand that when you don't give a shit about other people, other people won't give a shit about you. Still I really don't give a shit about my classmates, all though I crave for them to give a shit about me, I think. But I'm basically having a pretty good life right now. I dont walk with no one, I dont sit with no one, not regularly, anyways. I still keep a good relationship between my classmates, a simple nod, an occasional small talk now and then. I guess I kind of miss my high school days, in those days I gave a shit about everyone and vise versa, but I think I'll still have qualms if anyone wants to trade my high school life with this. Its been long since Ive felt such serenity, I don't have to fill my mind with other peoples business, or try to make conversations with other people. I mind my own business, I think my own thoughts. It's interesting that when I was in high school, I felt like my body and soul were two separate beings. My body was on earth, doing whatever my soul told it to do. And my soul, was floating somewhere near the body I think, watching, planning every step; every step had a purpose; every action had a meaning. I knew clearly where I wanted to go, and what my goals were, I was writing down my story of life in a third person point of view. But now, I might do something without knowing the meaning.--- Not exactly not knowing, say I was in high school, when I walked from this place to another, I had the consciousness that ¡§You are now walking, You are heading towards another place¡¨. But now, I just look up where I want to go, and set it on autopilot. I might jabber some meaningless things to myself, or study the girls and boys passing by, think some useless thoughts, and what do you know, Im there! Its a complete first point of view. I thought I got it all figured out, this social stuff, ways of living and all, but now it appears that I don't know anything about it. Ain't life full of wonders? But still I think I've matured a lot, cause I think maintaining confidence and not being bored, or feeling alone when you're by yourself takes a lot of practice, too. Maybe thats what college is all about, learning to be alone, learning to face yourself.
I'm starting to read Hunter S. Thompsons Hells Angels. I bought it shortly after his death --- suicide or something, I forgot. I heard that his writing style's very edgy and cynical and that's what I like in a writer. Just read a few pages, supposed to be good I guess, all though I'm not that interested in greasy smelling American gangsters.
I really like my guitar teacher, he has a very interesting character. He's kind of jumpy and very energetic, and talks with illogical conversation patterns, one minute its ¡§do you smoke? Have you ever thought of trying?¡¨ next minute its ¡§do you like Marylin Manson?¡¨ and he doesn't even give you the time to think, he just jumps from one question to another. Nevertheless he's a man with unique thinking. He studies traditional Taiwanese arts and culture, so he's fairly familiar with Taiwanese culture. He's a singer/guitarist in a band in which they sing edgy lyrics about politics or thoughts related to Taiwan mainly in Taiwanese or Chinese, and I admire his songs very much. He dresses in a very Tai * style, jeans and a sports jacket that seems a bit too small for him ¡V zipped to the very top. His skin is quite brown but his hair is dyed in a orange ¡V brown color, which is even more Tai. He is a man with a good heart, really, even though he gets quite distracted while teaching me when a long legged hot chick walks by.
*Tai: adj, a Chinese slang, short for ¡§Taiwan¡¨, meaning very tacky dressing or talking style. originally it means someone who dresses in flowered t-shirt chewing pinang (aka betel nut, a nut with some kind of pastel gunk stuffed into it, usually chewed by Taiwanese gangsters or blue collor workers, extrmemly bad in appearance cause it makes your mouth red and is known to bring mouth cancer.) but now there's another saying about that phrase, Say you cuss a lot thinking yourself as a hip hoper, you are ¡§Tai¡¨, or you wear lots of false designer clothes. so basically ¡§Tai¡¨ is some what like the English phrase¡§poseur¡¨. But recently it has become a symbol of Taiwanese culture, cause it IS a pretty interesting feature --- we take Japanese or American culture, try to imitate it but it doesn't look quite right, and in a way it becomes our own stuff. There's a new style in Taiwanese rock music called ¡§Tai Ke rock¡¨, it¡¦s also rock music that sounds like J-rock or western rock music but not quite.
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| shocked. 2005-10-09 09:33:48 ET |
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This Friday we finally got to jam with a drummer, she applied to our advertisement a couple of weeks ago. Actually we already found a drummer two days ago so there is no need of jamming with this one, but I guess it would be rude to turn down that drummer, especially after she'd already learnt the two songs we gave her. Their was a little accident before our practice, I thought the date was on Saturday but really it was on Friday (though I still think it's Saturday), and when our other guitarist phoned me, I was already on a bus to Ximending, with no guitar in hand. But I eventually went to the band practice place Apa(it's a place for bands to practice, a little sound ¡V proofed room with drums and amps in there, costs ranging through 200~300NT per hour), it was a long traveling, getting off the bus then switching the subway, then changing subways, I really envy those American movies where band practicing takes place in your own garage. We went to Apa since we were high schoolers, so I was pretty familiar about it, but when I got there I found it went through a pretty dramatic change, they give you a code to dial in when you get to the front door, then it unlocks, and you find out that there's absolutely no one in there, no one at the counter, except the bands that were practicing. I think it¡¦s a pretty good policy, saves the money to pay those attendants. Anyways when I finally got there I started to look for a guitar, I asked the band in the next room, which apparently didn¡¦t have a guitar to spare, I searched the guitar practice rooms and found a very crappy guitar with rusted strings and knobs that couldn't stay in one place, oh well, better than nothing. I borrowed the cables from a bass player who scornfully asked me ¡§is it some kind of trend not bringing your instruments during practice?¡¨, after we're all set, we began to jam, and lordy lord was it gruesome! The drummer was crappier than our last one, we had to prevent ourselves from listening to her to keep tempo. We were so ashamed of ourselves that we all had the urge to put on a paper bag while passing the other room, which was playing out perfectly beautiful music.
Oh, and after our practice, our bass player quitted, just right now, I'm pretty shocked just this moment. Because I always thought that anybody would love our band, I guess part of her reason to leave is because of the disastrous practice, even though she said it's not it, my other guitarist says we're too noisy for her, I guess that's true too, since we ARE girls who like to talk a lot. Our lead singer suggested otherwise, she says that the reason the bass player left is because on our first meeting me and the other guitarist were late, and we weren't actually serious when we were jamming, i agree with her, we weren't sincere enough, no wonder the bass player left. But i wasn't really happy about our lead singer scolding us, like she knows everything, since she didn't really do much, it was me who found the bass player and our other guitarist to make appointments. but i guess we're all fustrated about this fiasco, and couldn't help being mad at each other. But we're still babies and this IS our first time in advertising for a new memeber(the previous members were in the same club at school, and we were "ordered" to form a band, so nobody had much choice), so i believe that we'll learn.
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| blah 2005-10-09 09:08:35 ET |
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I decided to enter the digital music club as well, cause I want to learn how to compose music with the computer (synthesizers and stuff, I don't know much about it), in hope to put a little depth in my songs, and besides the chances of hooking up for a show, rock music club isn't my thing. The people there are very narrow minded and extreme (considering the people I met during the club's barbecue), everyone seems to only listen to metal ¡V speed metal, black metal, all kinds of metal (which is a weird thing, because extreme types of metal aren't very popular in Taiwan). I was counting on their composing classes, but when I got there I found out they're using the keyboard to teach composing, and they¡¦re not even teaching you to compose yet, they're teaching you how to play the keyboard, music theories and all that stuff. I was pretty dissapointed.
I'm listening to this song called ¡§eight flew over, one was destroyed¡¨ by dream pop band Mew. I really like its opening, it brings tears to the eyes (at least my eyes), I heard it in one of newground's flashs, pretty good animation too. Sadly none of the band's other song intrigues me.
In Chinese class our teacher passed out his textbooks which was printed in simplified Chinese characters, I was pretty annoyed at the sight. So I asked him why did he wanted us to study mainland China's characters, and he got mad. He got mad because I asked the wrong question at the wrong time, still I think he's one of those people who want to ¡§return¡¨ to China, but of course it's nothing that I can judge of and It's none of my business either.
Speaking of this Taiwan-is-part-of-China issue, I used to be a very aggressive anti-China person, but now I don't really want to think about it anymore. Because I am pretty disappointed in our own government, fights between the politicians, they always yell, never try to sit down and talk. Because yelling or hitting other people interests the media, thus increasing their expose frequency, and, in some sick reason, helps them win votes. I heard that all those fighting and yelling aren't even real either, it's just a scheme they play out to attract mass media, and even though we keep claiming that we are ¡§Taiwanese¡¨ and not ¡§Chinese¡¨, but if that is true, than we do not have much culture of our own left. We were mainly governed by the Chinese and Japanese in the past, so most of our culture is other people's, we do not have our own features. If we claim that we are a different country from China, we will be rootless, we won't know who we are, or how to describe ourselves, and that will be a very sad thing. Sometimes I think whether it would be better to combine with China, at least then we'll know what to call ourselves, cause nowadays some people call themselves Chinese, some people call themselves Taiwanese, depends on what side are they on, it's a country ripped apart anyways. But on the other side, I despise Chinese people and their government, too. Cause Chinese people are snobby and irrational, and stupid cause their government blocks all kinds of information that their residents ¡§shouldn't¡¨ know, their government also uses all kinds of dirty tricks to isolate Taiwan from the world. I think both sides are shit, I can't tell which side is better or which side is worse, so I change the channel whenever I see news of our desperate attempts to defend ourselves by buying fire arm from America in dept, China's dirty bullies, or our politician's repulsively ass-kissing speeches in China. I stop thinking about it, I stop talking about it, I stop hearing about it, I'm an austrich with its head stuck in the ground.
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| rock music club 2005-09-29 20:05:44 ET |
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Today I went to Fju Ji's rock music club's performance for the freshmen. The president blabbed away about the rules and equipment in the club, schedule of guitar lessons and all kinds of other lessons. It was long and very boring and it felt like we were taking a class. But I know that the president is a man with a good heart and that he is just trying to do his best to lead the club, even though he keeps stuttering (it's hard to believe he won best drummer in the Asia drummer contest). I was kind of surprised that there werent any funny people in the staffs. When I was in Neihus club it was stuffed with funny people who'd always make you laugh when they're explaining something serious, but here it's just.... Serious. I was also shocked at how few the staff numbers. In high school there were at least 15 or so (even though the numbers will rapidly decrease through out the school year according to conflicts that happen between the members), but here there's just like 6 or so, I suppose that's why I didn't feel the ¡§big family¡¨ atmosphere you're supposed to get when you enter a club.
By the way I met a girl in my department who also intended to enter the rock music club so we made a deal to go to the show together. But when I arrived, I saw her sitting with two rows of boys and girls in our department, I felt a bit sad, I guess I wasn't the only one she made a deal with. There was no room for me so I sat in the very front row where no one sat ¡V which was very strange.
The performance was pretty good, but I didn't feel much, I guess part of it is because the amplify equipment wasn't very good and you can't quite hear the vocal's voice, but the main reason I think is because of the songs.... Bon Jovi/Queen style, speed metal, long guitar solos, they're very talented indeed, but the songs are just not listenable enough, it's nothing you can dance to.
After I got home and hooked up to my msn messenger, an annoying character popped up, the ex Neihu rock music club president. The boy is a rodent in disguise, he likes to test people through his words. I threw back some words disregard of his dignity (ex: rodent: man in the box by Alice In Chains has two guitars. Me: actually, it's three guitars). I was vice-president in our high school music club and my guitar techniques wasn't as good as him (but he wasn't really good either, which takes us to the conclusion that I sucked, real bad), partly because I rarely attended my guitar lessons and partly because I didn't have a very good teacher, so he really looks down on me, showing his disdain through words and metaphoric actions. He was so competitive, ill tempered, and full of jealousy that eventually all his band mates left him, which was a big laugh to me. I hope he doesn't attend the club but I guess it's inevitable since he's always wanted to be a celebrity.
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