I really must thank my friend from France, Anthony.

Once in a long, time there will be a piece of music which manages to capture such strong emotion. When I heard it, I was shocked that I was moved to tears right there in the bus.

I had been searching for so long, that I had given up. After a certain point of time listening to all sorts of genres and compositions, I thought I'd heard it all. I thought that there would never be a piece of music that could present me with a new experience, and the joy of discovering a new fantastic piece would forever be a part of my past.

Perhaps for me it is significant to look for emotions in music, because I filter so much of my own emotions consciously and sub-consciously. Feeling emotions through a song is an excuse for me to feel at all, because its nothing personal, therefore, no weakness will be shown, no vulnerability exposed.

Anger and an overly psyched up state disrupt performance and critical thinking.

Sadness prevents one from raising himself to an optimal state of performance.

Disappointment means that I was the one who made the mistake in expecting too much in that person or situation, therefore it is important to learn, but useless to dwell on the emotion.

I have forgotten how some of these things feel like, for others, it is at times a battle to control.

But being unfeeling is a terrible state to be in. Which is why I search. In music, its not personal. The piece has a story to tell, a goal, and objective, and you can feel for it for that brief period. And for that brief period, I can remember what it is like to be "human" again. But when the piece ends, its over. No harm was done, no vulnerability exposed, but I got away with the joy of feeling for that short time.

Perhaps this is my drive for music and composing. This is why it means so much to me. This is why so many things that can interest other people do not appeal to me. And this is why, I cannot expect anyone else to be able to truly understand me.

If someone could step in my world for a few moments, they would feel sick to the stomach. Because that is how I feel at times. So sick until an overwhelming numbness needs to wash over you to keep you sane.

Overall I am a fairly logical person. Every process, pipeline, function will be tailored and optimized for its specific goal. There are branches that I am willing to sacrifice that the average person will not. I am not as talented as many people, so I need to optimize more in order to out-perform or get on par with them. Some people will do what it takes to make up for their inferiority complexes, I will go the extra mile.

But I have discovered that I have one thing that most people do not combine with their desire; the ability to think "out of the box."

With desire, the creativity to do things in unusual but better ways, and the willingness to sacrifice so much to achieve my goals, I can finally achieve a satisfactory rate of progress.

Most people utilize one of these forces at a time, or at times, two. But when you add all three dimensions together, you can see and understand so much more.





Spent the day working on the national education rap for singapore discovery centre's musical to be performed in various secondary schools next year as part of their national education curriculum.

I really really hate being the one sowing propaganda, but what the heck. I still want to do the soundtrack for ndp some day.

Went canoeing with the dog at kallang after that. Took two k1s and brought through my route past the merlion. The waters were eerily calm in the evening. None of the usual waves outside of shears bridge. Past the esplanade it was so calm it almost looked like jelly.

But the climax of the trip was canoeing right through the spittle of the merlion. That's a once in a lifetime experience. Tourists snapping and taking video all over the place haha. How often can you canoe under the spittle of a national icon?

Experimented with new strokes on the way back, discovered the usefulness of the top hand press down stroke, which allows the pulling arm and lat to relax completely, yet maintain a very low cycle with very high power.

Sprinted against the dog for the last 100m. Gave him about 2 seconds head start but ended up one boat in front of him :p His long pull is damn good but acceleration still sucks la haha.


Rushed down to bishan gym in a cab to meet the moose, but turns out the idiot fell asleep!

Dinner at ksl after that. Dog's been learning alot, which is reassuring. Having him planning the training programme and leading will be the first step. The actual leading part will be the hardest part for him, though.

Both of us bitching about how lousy our ex-teams are right now. Its sad that I can no longer feel as much as I did for "team singapore". Too many factors need to be tweaked, and as much as it would be possible for me, I still do not have the energy to reformat everything, and the next phase of life is still so uncertain.



I was hoping that the dog would trash me in k1 today and re-awaken my desire to canoe, but he didn't, and instead we discovered a new aspect to technique play which is more interesting.