And I thought reading my biochem notes while taking a shit was bad enough

Figure 12.6: Men's restroom in a MIT building.

You know when you hear the same opinion coming from two different people, it always sounds more convincing and profound coming from someone smart and well-respected...whereas it sounds like absolutely shit and "UH WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??" coming from some stupid loser. I really hope I'm not the latter one...if I am, I should really start to shut up.

Rant of a bitter boy

if there's one thing I regret about life, it'd probably be not going into post-grad music studies, not because I am "wasting my talent" right now, cause seriously (no asian modesty at all), I've got no talent. I've seen numerous truly talented people, and I'm not talking about people like Oscar Peterson, Brad Mehldau, Jamie Cullum... and all those biggies out there. Cause I might as well just shoot myself if I wanna compare my music abilities to theirs. But what I mean are people around me, from highschool, from where ever, just ordinary people. I'm sure they did have to spend incalculable time in order to achieve where they are right now, but a huge portion of their achievement is cause of their innate talent. I'm serious when I say I have no talent. I can't improvise. My fingers are retarded when it comes to moving fast on the keyboard. My voice sounds like a goose. The only musical thing I might slightly be proud of is my music creation/composition/arrangement, in which God knows where it's gone to now. It's so impossible to catch back that motivation and endless creativity like back in highschool. Anyways, my point is, I don't have that crazy talent, but my love and curiosity for music is endless. And I guess it's just not just so much like passively listening to music, but more like its composition, its structure, the chords, the embellishment they make, the melody they write based on the chords, the style, how the composer/arranger originally thought of that...... I really wanna know how simply changing one single note in a chord can trigger such different feeling. Music is really...I don't know, created by some crazy creature from another realm or something. And getting to my point finally, is that, I've always wondered with this love for music, I wonder where I'd be right now on my music journey. Maybe just another music busker on the streets, even after graduating from Berklee or The New School or Mcgill Music School, or whatever, not like I had the ability to get into those anyways. Anyways, if I theoretically did graduate from a music school, I think my ultimate goal would be trying to bring jazz to places that aren't very often exposed to jazz, such as Taiwan. Jazz...it's just out there, in some other fairy land that I can't even understand.

And on that happy note, I will go sleep now...and wake up tomorrow morning, again in the world of midterms, work...studying...worrying about other stuff..... Well, I hope my enthusiasm and curiosity for wildlife will be enough. I mean, they ARE pretty fascinating, at a whole different level than music. And that ends my rant.

"Monk's Dream"

Composer: Brad Mehldau

Performer:Brad Mehldau

I wonder if they really live in cardboard boxes

Lately, I've been having these kind of conversations with some friends:

"Yah I'm pretty sure about quitting Biotech next September."

"WHAT? WHY?"

"Well I don't know. Extracting DNA and growing bacteria just isn't my thing."

"Oh... what do you wanna be in the future then?"

"BUSKER."

Actually, I think I'd rather stay in a nice 5-star hotel and play lounge music for snobby rich people, preferably in Grand Hyatt Taipei. And I wouldn't have to glare at audiences, who while sitting on metal gates and reading a Giddens novel in the Jean-Talon metro station, enjoyably listen to me play Vivaldi's L'inverno for free. Oh and, when the passerbys in the Jean-Talon metro station do throw their unwanted change in my instrument case, I wouldn't have to force out a polite smile and subtly mouth out a merci, and then brusquely curse them inside my head YOU BASTARD, I DON'T GIVE FECES ABOUT YOUR SYMPATHY DIMES AND PENNIES. I WANT BILLS.

Most importantly, there's no air-con in Montreal metro stations. Sure don't want the heat to deform my awesome $850.00 cello from Tom Lee.

"The Gentle Waltz"

Composer: Oscar Peterson

Performer: Andrew

藍天

"藍天"

作曲: 陳建寧(FIR的KEYBOARD)/陳政卿

作詞: 于光彥

I actually wanted to add more jazz elements to this song, and avoid its original pop ballad feel, maybe change some chords around, add a solo in between, more melody embellishment... but 1. I got lazy and 2. I'll probably sabotage this classic song with my so-called "jazz" elements and a mob of Taiwanese pub singers (along with 阿妹) will probably burn my house down.

Geisha ladies

"Evening Dream" (demo)

Composer: Andrew

Performer: Logic Express

Even in dreams

You can only see the faintest image of the back of her tiny body

Hear her giggly voice

Feel her presence

But can never seem to see her face

Smokin' Bunnies

"Bunny"

Composer: Shorty Rogers

Performer: Andrew

Papageno's Aria

Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Arranger: Andrew

Stupid contest, I wanted that 1 grand.

(And maybe the fame too)