a month after school started

Things are getting more and more difficult. Besides of Every class getting serious, I also have to grade and teach. The first 3 days of this week, I spent more than 15 hours in music building working each day, didn't go home until after midnight. Besides, I still get so drunk every weekend. Trying not to think too much, I kind of like this style of life. Summer is leaving, I tried to stay outdoor (still working on my laptop) as long as possible when the weather is good. Afternoon of last Thursday was my only time off recently , as far as I remember. I even had meetings with students on Sunday (while still hanging over...ouch! ). That's it, don't have much to say. just keep going, drifting.

Busy, Exhausted!

The semester has already begun. In the past couple days, i worked almost everyday from 9am all the way to 11pm or midnight. And this is just the first week!! I don't even have time to think about anything other than my work. CRAZY!

I feel better when I work, indeed. Concentrating on something let me forget my sadness temporarily. I know it's just another way to anesthetize myself. However, alcohol is an easier solution.I like it better.

Why So Serious?

Yes, it's Joker. I went to the IMAX theater in Chicago to watch The Dark Knight today, finally. Many people warned me before I went that the movie itself is excellent but after watching the movie I'll feel so sad because the story is very dark, and Joker is so evil. However, I don't feel that way actually.
The most inspiring scene for me is the time when Batman questioned Joker in a small room. Joker told Batman that they complete each other and can't exist without the existence of the other. I didn't realize the fact (which is so true, Joker is god damn intelligent) until Joker said it explicitly. Besides, because he had nothing to lose, even he was beaten up so badly, he still enjoyed playing around with Batman. How cool he is! Besides, comparing to the cops with too many plans, Joker “just do thing”, and this strategy seemed to work very well.
As far As I remember, I always make plans way back to my junior high school or even earlier. This makes my life pretty predictable and controllable,but boring too. I kind of feel tired of it at this moment. Maybe I'll just drift in my life for a little bit. Why so serious?

Imperfection

I was sitting outside of my apartment, watching the sun going down. The sky was so beautiful. As usual, I thought the power lines annoying. Everytime I want a good shot of some scene, there are ALWAYS power lines somewhere in the picture. I always try to find a right angle to get rid of power lines when I take pictures. If I can't, I would take the picture anyway and use Photoshop to erase the lines. However, when I looked up to the sky today, I suddenly understood the inevitability, or even necessity, of imperfection. That's it. Isn't this shot beautiful? This picture may be the most meaningful picture in my life.

Big Sur

Just finish the book "Big Sur" by Jack Kerouac. It’s kind of hard for me to understand at the beginning because there are other stories happened before this book. However, by reading it, I still learned a lot. The way he described his inner thought and outer environment is so new and interesting to me. For example, he would say something like:” I can tell the beach doesn’t welcome me anymore”. The way of projecting emotion or feeling on a tangible object is very new to me. The style of writing would definitely influence my composition in some way (although I haven’t written any note for a long time).
However, there is something more important in this book, and it makes me introspect. I’m so amazed how Kerouac has his courage to expose himself, especially the ugly or the weak side, to public. I think I’ll never write my innermost thought down and have people read it (at least at this moment I don’t think I can do it). By reading his lines, I feel like I’m standing in front of a mirror. I feel that we are so much alike. We are both lonely in some way; we are both alcoholic; and most importantly, we are both imperfect.
I didn’t find the “solution” in this book, though, but I believe the solution would emerge eventually once I read enough.
After reading Big Sur and Norwegian Wood, I now can face my own imperfection in an easier way. I still feel lonely, even with my friends (just like Kerouac), but I think I’ll be fine eventually.

Taste

A friend of mine came to visit me yesterday and plans to stay for about one and half weeks. He is a musician, too, so it’s not surprising that we ended up listening and discussing the music in our computers tonight. First I played some pop music which I like very much and hope that he can feel my excitement listening to this. After I played 2 songs, he asked me “Do you feel anything in the songs”? Obviously he is not interested in this kind of music at all. Frustrated, I gave another shot. I played Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant – Jésus by Messiaen. I thought this one may be “spiritual” enough for him. He was amazed (not in a positive way). I believed that he thought the music I listen to are all noisy, superficial pop crap and weird contemporary music. Then, something which was incidentally discussed several times among composers in UI went through my mind. It seems that the music taste of the composers here is going too far advance comparing to other people. Even some of our performance major colleagues don’t consider this kind of music “beautiful”. Admitting, my music taste must fall on the “conservative” side of the taste spectrum of composers here, but still, too far from “normal people”. I feel like I’m a marathon runner running between the leading group in front of me and most people in back of me. I don’t know if I should catch up or just let go. Again, all by myself. Where should I go?

Norwegian Wood

I finished the book yesterday late night in the union. I don’t know how late it was, and I didn’t care. After that, I walked down to the quad, sat on a concrete bench in front of the Noyes Lab, thinking. People walked across the quad sporadically, alone or paired. It was quiet. Only thing I can hear was the sound of cricket and low humming of AC compressors.
Thinking was probably not a right term for what I was doing over there, though. I was more like tasting my own loneliness, in a weird but pleasant way. Strangely, although the entire book is enveloped by Watanabe's (the main character) own dark, hashed loneliness, I didn’t feel sorrow while I was reading the book. Instead, the story somewhat comforted me and eased my own loneliness. The first day i began to read the book, I read only about 1/6 of the whole story, but even that made me felt much better almost immediately.
The story has its own illogical points, but talking about logic here is maybe too harsh. How come a person who has almost no friends can talk in such an elegant way. How come a person with almost no friends can be so mentally healthy, or maybe tooo healthy. Watanabe is definitely not a positive person, but his mind is just healthy, I wonder why he doesn't go crazy. The entire story is under the shadow of death. Death of Kizuki, death of Naoko, death of Naoko's sister, death of the other two characters. Is that the only source of negative emotion? In the book, Watanabe said "Death is not opposite but part of the life". So maybe death itself is not so terrible, it is being permanently separated from people you love that cause the loneliness to exist. In terms of this, a dying one is luckier than ones who must continue their live. Well, I haven't really experience the death of any person really close to me, so I don't think it's appropriate for me to talk about death ignorantly. However, I do believe that one who must continue their live need more courage, including me.

Future

Future
In the union today, I bumped into another Taiwanese composer. Honestly, I'm not quite familiar with her. Somehow we got trapped in union by a thunder storm, so we inevitably began some.. talk. Study is a easy topic since we're the same major. We basically exchange the info of how we've spent this summer. She told me that she got into a famous music camp with full waiver. She also told me how many pieces she is working on at the same time. And then she made some comments about our female Korean colleagues that they are working way harder than us, and that we should take more effort focus on our work.
She encouraged me to apply for the camp next year and said " if your piece in that camp grabs the attention of the public, you'll be famous". However, it doesn't make me any excited at all. I don't want to be famous. Does "successful composer" equal to "being famous"? If that's true, I'm not ready yet. I don't know how much attention was draw to me in my whole life. I believe everyone must has experience being the main character of some situation. Being a "good student" (I hate to call myself this, that's why I quote it), occasionally I was the focus of people. Since I taught a lot back in Taiwan, occasionally I became the focus of people. I never enjoyed it. Some people feel very comfortable (or even feel proud) when he is the star among people, but it's not my case. I guess that's another reason why I gave up becoming a professional percussionist. I love music, I love making music, but I'd rather enjoy doing that by myself. Am I just too naive to believe that a composer can always easily hide behind the curtain, in his safe small corner without exposing himself to the public? If being a successful composer means I also have to admit the side effect --being famous, than I'm not ready yet. Well, probably I'll never become a good composer anyway.

After the taiwanese colleague caught a ride and took off, I opened up my laptop, linked to the network, and checked my online buddies of MSN as I always do. I saw another of my composer friends with his nickname "Every composer is insanely busy. Am I taking my life too easy now?" I suspect that comparing to him, I'm probably leading a even more relaxing life this summer and trying to do some self-exploration things. I spent time reading, wondering, drinking, having fun, thinking, sometimes crying, literally everything but writing music. I don't see anything wrong however. Maybe I'll lose this game of becoming a "famous successful composer", but I don't care, at least at this moment. Let's just wait and see. (I have to say that after the trip to Bali, I now appreciate waiting more than I ever did, and I enjoy it now).