Electronic Music and Me

Just a short-ish blogpost about my foray into Electronic music, a little history about how I came to start listening to it and how it has affected me, perhaps a little on why I like it. Making this blog post because hell, I've been into EM for a short while now and I may know very little on it, but just felt like giving my own 2 cents on it.

So I guess there were a multitude of reasons that culminated in my eventual exploration of it. Well it's very limited since I listen largely to Zedd and just one song from Calvin Harris that I've begun to realise actually lacks any lyrical depth. Yeah I know, EM isn't about the lyrics, it's about the beat. But I can't bring myself to enjoy a song purely on its beat alone, it's gotta have something substantial in the lyrics department. My first exposure to it I guess, I have to thank Zen for, for relentlessly playing Zed(League of Legends champion) with Clarity(mana giving summoner spell). Every time he does that, it was customary to play Zedd - Clarity, a thing we had among ourselves that was amusing. Back then, I didn't really listen closely to it as well, it was just a joke to me and I don't have the focus to really listen to it and play at the same time. Then I had my girlfriend who was really into Electronic music and kept pressuring me to listen to it.

Well I guess one day I did, was trying to find that song Rude by Magic! and just clicked the first link without looking too closely and got the Zedd version of it. I realised a minute into the song and saw that it was by Zedd, and thought "Hell, why not listen to Clarity?" This time I actually listened to it and was completely blown away by parts of the song that I hadn't caught before, little details that just wowed me. The lyrics of the song got me, I'm a romantic at heart and it had undeniable tones of a couple that knows they can't do without each other. So dang, just like that, after a couple replays I got totally hooked on Zedd and began to explore other songs by him. That was sorta how I got into EM, albeit just exclusively Zedd at the time.

So ever since I got hooked onto EM, things that really didn't matter to me became so much more apparent. Basses and beat among others. Prior, I didn't really care much about the songs I listened to so long as they had meaningful lyrics and was pleasing to the ear. I'm not so sure how to put it but EM just has that thing that Pop doesn't offer. Apart from that, there's sounds in EM that you just can't get out of normal instruments, stuff that sends shivers through my body. It can really put me in a place that the stuff I used to listen to before didn't and that's really something.

So yeah, that's pretty much it.

Answer

Alright, long overdue but at least I'm finally writing it. The reply to your direct message on Twitter which I have ignored for a really long time. But I won't be replying you there, but here, because hell I do what I want.

To be completely honest, I didn't really dislike you, personally I had nothing against you. You just happened to be a convenient source of entertainment on a boring bus ride home. But aside from that, actually, I think you're the one that has a problem with me. Hark back a season or two, you absolutely hated me and I don't even know why, though I suspect a thing or two. I've never spoken to you before, nor you me. So I have absolutely no idea why you hated me. And one game of Dota 2, I think the first I've ever played with you, I wasn't included in the Skype call, not that I cared either way, it'd just be a lot better for coordination. You mentioned that you couldn't wait to see how noob I was, haha, I found out. I later went on to get a rampage that game, how's that for you? Among other comments like I didn't use chronosphere a single time that game(I did but you didn't see) and how I didn't use it in the teamfight top lane. To which I replied then and I will reply again now, I was bot lane, chronosphere is not global. Do you expect me to chronosphere the bot lane tower for no good reason?

One more thing, there's a massive discrepancy between what you preach and what you actually do. On your own blog, you mention that you know what love meant to you and how a crush you had had confessed to you but you rejected him because of the aforementioned reason. Yet, here we are a little less than a month later, on your Twitter where you were literally almost begging for someone you like to confess to you. What for? So you can reject the guy? I don't understand this disparity. Just a word of advice, beautiful things are worth waiting for(I've actually indirectly tweeted this at you before.). Just because most of your peers have partners doesn't mean you need one.

You say you miss our group but do you really? That's very ambiguous. If I take that for what it is, that would imply that you miss all of us, the entire group. Are you really sure you still do? Cause I seem to recall that you don't like a couple of us, nor do you have any particular reason to like every single member of group 1.

I'm pretty sure there's a couple things I left out that I don't recall at this specific moment but the gist of it is there. That's my answer to you.

Update + Rant

Yo whats up people I just transferred to my new course just this week on the 4th of May, which is Nanotechnology and Materials Science. Was accepted because, as I was told, my Chemistry score for O Levels was pretty good. My new classmates seem pretty friendly and I think I'll be fine here though I'd say it's still too early to tell if they'll become my friends. I don't know them all that well yet. So here it is, my farewell to all my friends of DGAD, definitely going to miss you guys because I really hate new long-term environments and it usually takes me a couple months to get comfortable. I know I kind of left without saying goodbye but well, I'm not so good with that.

Interesting to note, most of my other course mates seem to be really full of shit. But good thing my class seems fine.

So I just watched an old video by Veritasium as part of an assignment and was just mildly annoyed by how stupid and ignorant some people are that they don't even know what water is made up of or the states of matter. It's not a poor African child who can't afford school here, it's a very obviously middle class white girl as well as several other adults in their 20s and 30s. For fuck's sake the girl called a water molecule "the little circles of oxygen". Yes, because that's all that's in a water molecule, H2O. She can't even name hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, off the back of her head and it's really just wow. What the fuck do you even do in school. Some people can't even afford to go to school. And then some asshat in the comment section defending that she does not need such knowledge for life. Sure, she doesn't. It won't kill her but still this is high school/secondary school knowledge, it's so basic.

So that's pretty much it, just a really small update and rant about ignorance. Wonder if any of my new classmates will find this.

Transferral

So week 2 of school started and I can genuinely see myself enjoying this course apart from Drawing cause damn fuck that guy. Maya seems interesting, Digital Painting is gonna be awesome and wow, Game Level Design, what I've been waiting for for a long time. Character Design is well meh, not going to have too high hopes for that cause I'm shit at drawing characters, I can come up with worlds and imagining how it should generally look like but I'm no good with individual characters where I have no freedom to direct how it looks.

Well anyway my transfer is underway and I'm awaiting the call from the school. I'm not too sure if I still want to transfer anymore but well, hey, if I do then I do. I have no intentions of sharing this blog post this time round cause well, I don't want it to be known that I am transferring out so soon. That's all I guess, just want to let you guys know. If you even read my blog.

Adulthood and wasted potential.

Before I start, I guess I should apologise for leaving my blog on hiatus for so long since I didn't do that in the previous post. Just relaxing myself into a pool of relaxation. So in this post I'm just talking about my feelings lately, nothing much. If you aren't interested in a little whining then I guess you could stop reading and go to 9gag now. See, I even gave you the link.

Boy I feel so fucking old lately. I've not remembered myself with such mature thinking before. I recently had a talk with my girl and she told me I should quit DGAD since I'm not interested in it. Well I think I'm not good at that shit, that's for sure, and I have seen what it has to offer and I just ain't interested any more, partly because I suck too. So well I don't know, I guess I started growing up and thinking about my future more seriously? The wake up call was really the 2.76 GPA I got for this semester. It ain't above a 3 and to me that just sounds like I'm bullshit, which I am. I also realise that this course isn't something I'm gonna be able to ace in without some base skill and practice which I don't really have the base skill to begin with and I don't think I'll have enough meaningful time for me to get good for it to be any worth in my diploma grades.

I remember Ray sitting me down one time after class to talk to me about my future studies and well fuck I guess I made the wrong choice by not listening to him. He told me I'm good with my Sciences and Maths and I should honestly consider JC, which well, I didn't, obviously. So I'm like ultra fucked up the butt now and I totally regret not listening to him and just went with JC. Gosh that man was an inspiration. So so awesome. Just remembered the tuition classes I had with him. I didn't really talk to anyone there and usually sat there doing my work. Being very silent. The only person that'd make me crack a smile was him with his occasional banter with the other students and his jokes. I really enjoyed his lessons.

So then that led me to think about my past in general. My PSLE t-score was 242, which apparently was a really high number and led to some of my friends questioning me as to why I was not in an Engineering course. Well I just didn't want to go to Aerospace Engineering cause fuck Singapore's bullshit technocratic education system where they won't teach you anything that Singapore doesn't need. And well all along I've known I was pretty intelligent. Ever since like early primary school I knew. I could feel it in my environment, which led to me not studying cause well the work was really too easy and I just didn't see the need to. An idea that stuck with me till now, that I'd do fine without studying cause I was smart. It was incredibly fucking stupid of me to have not realised that in lower Sec when I was failing Science and Math because I couldn't be bothered to study, thinking I'd do with my smarts. Well fuck me the wrong way with a neutron star dildo because smarts isn't going to get me far without hard work as well.

Now I regret not studying harder because I could have definitely done better, I am capable of it but I just wasted it with my laziness and complacency. Now I see and understand the words of my teachers and seniors. Well shit happens eh.

The right thing in life and other things.

Recently I've been wondering if I'm doing the right thing in life. There's so much I want to do but I feel that there is so little time. I didn't use to think like this when I was younger, shit growing up does to you eh? Now I'm always thinking about the future, what's going to happen to me, what will I do? A person lives probably around 85 years if they're lucky. That makes every year more than 1% of my life. How am I spending this 1%? Am I using it well?

Sure, I am happy with my life as it is. I have amazing friends. The most genuine people I know, people I know I can count on, the kind of folks I would bring into battle, the kind I would fight for, lay down my life for if they wish it. The people that I would want by my side should world order break down this very moment. But as for what I am doing with it, what kind of future will it bring for me? Already, I have spent an academic year in this course. A course mostly for people with artistic minds. A mind I do not possess. All along, I've always known myself to be a scientist, a thinker and tinker. I have an insatiable hunger to understand the inner workings of everything around me, horizon events, neutron stars, psychology, evolution. Everything, I want to know everything. I'd probably do better in a course of scientific pursuit than artistic, would I not? And yet here I am, spending 1% of my life in an art-based course. What is it that I want to do with my future exactly?

I've always wanted to become a YouTuber that plays games. It's a fun and easy job, no? Sitting there, playing games, editing videos and uploading them to YouTube. Vlogging, sharing my life with people out there who are interested in my life. Getting paid by ad revenue. Making short films even. I'd probably take a course in Filmography in a heartbeat. And so there's my passions. Science and film. But here I am doing Art.

And yes, I still have a long road ahead of me. I'm only 18, I have 60 or more years of my life remaining if I am lucky. 60 or more years to do the things I want, to learn more about everything. But I've also spent a quarter of my life as well. Is this going to become something I will look back upon in my old age and think, damn, I shouldn't have done that.

I thought about all of this recently, when I was watching a Kurz Gesagt video on Neutron Stars with my sis(also there was a talk I had with an old pal). It was incredibly fascinating. It got me really excited. And my sis made a remark, "You should have taken a science course." Damn was she right. Science had been my passion all along. Physics was my shit. Ray(my tuition teacher, great fellow), Mr Tang, Mr Song, Mrs Lim and Ms Tan had been some of the most fantastic teachers I had. Theirs' was the subjects I did the best in, Math and Science. Ray in particular, had been the one that inspired me the most and started the fire in my heart that I would come to have for Physics when he explained that everything around me in the world can be explained by Physics, words that were echoed by Mr Tang and Mr Song. And so began my interest in it, my effort to understand it more, an effort that I did not possess in my lower Secondary school life.

I want to learn Physics, in particular, Astrophysics. About stars and space, our next great frontier. Manifest Destiny was wrong, the idea that it was the destiny of the American pioneers to colonise America. No, the true frontier is space. The galaxy. The universe. Homo Cosmicus, an idea by Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, a Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory, of Russian and Polish descent. He believed that humans would eventually come to colonise the Milky Way Galaxy and evolve into the next step, Homo Cosmicus, no longer Homo Sapiens. I too, believe that is our destiny. Humanity was born on Earth but meant for the stars. That, is our resting place. That, is our Manifest Destiny.

Most of my friends have told me that in the future I could possibly end up doing something else. I concur with that but then might my life now be in vain? It could all be put down as an experience I had in my younger days. I don't know what I'll end up doing but hey, at least I got to see what I got to see and it's all a fun journey.

Amos Yee.

So recently there was that kid called Amos Yee who made this really offensive(subjective opinion of the masses,  I didn't find it to be so but I tend detach myself from emotional or opinionated things and look at it very objectively) video on the first Prime Minister of Singapore. As this post is not about the first PM of Singapore, I shan't say anything beyond that I didn't really grieve his passing. People die, that's what people do when they reach old age. He's reached 91 and that's actually pretty good, most people don't get to live that long. He's also left behind a permanent trace of himself in his legacy, which is Singapore, good for him. I think that's what people should strive to do; leave something behind that you can be proud of.

Now on to our main topic. I realise how much Amos and I are actually pretty similiar. Opinions and personality wise. When faced with something that we view to be an injustice or we feel that it isn't right, we can never be silenced. Even if it causes us to burn for what we have said, we'd burn on that stake with a smile on our faces. Hark back to that incident some weeks ago about that Faceraping and the teachers that handled it. I had written a really long letter that I had wanted to send but finally didn't. And I said to my friends who advised me not to send it, "I'd go out in a blaze of my own glory. At least I know that I tried." In that sense, I think we both are pretty similiar to Mr Lee, if we see that something isn't right, we'll fight till it is or die trying. I've read his blog post on his 4 years of Sec School life(and we both came from the same school, he was 1 year my junior) and I've agreed with some of his opinions on respect, that it is something that should be earned through actions and words than position of authority or power or fear.

The school actually does advocate the idea of avoiding controversy to protect the 100+ years of the school's reputation and it's pretty much a Chinese school so obviously it'd be very conservative, something I think Amos should have considered before deciding to enrol here, if he did chose it. Then again, we live in Singapore, an Asian country with Asian values, Asian parents, Asian culture. It's all very traditional, the idea that with age comes maturity and wisdom. Grades are important. "I am older or in a higher position than you so you must respect me." And yes, the long pants are soooo comfortable. And actually if you ask me, all secondary schools should make long pants a thing since Sec 1. If you make them think the long pants grant you maturity, then giving them to you will make you think you're mature and so you'll be mature. A placebo effect. And regarding the CCA side, well...

An opinion that has been riding in my head for a while is that my CCA, which was NCC is in my opinion, pretty much doomed ever since there was a change in the head teacher for it. He instigated a new "rule" that if you want a position of leadership, you'd have to have good grades for it. That's what killed it in my opinion. Some twerp with zero leadership but amazing grades would get a leadership position, and who'd follow his command? No one. And what you have on your hands then? Ineffective leadership and declining performance across the board. Also there was this thing where all the Sec 3s have to come back for CCA in NCC. Sec 3 being the year where we take on the various leadership positions of S1, S2, S3 and S4. S1 being the Admin, S2 being the platoon leaders of Sec 1 and 2, S3 being the PTI and S4 which is Logistics. So how many of us actually get leadership positions? 2 S1, 4 S2. 2-3 S3 and 2 S4. Which gives us a number of about 10. Max of probably about 12. In a platoon of 24 members minimum? That leaves half or more of us with absolutely nothing.

I was placed in the Admin department as a member. And I can tell you that I have never once seen the attendance sheet(that's how much I know about being in S1, taking attendance) nor touched it before in my entire career. Shit, the juniors don't even know my rank. I've never been greeted by them. I've pretty much not done much at all in relation to leading my juniors except escorting the ones who report sick back to the canteen and I don't even know shit about being a medic. That's me and the rest of the half of my platoon. We really don't get to do much at all. We don't even know why we're there for "training". There's none to be had and none to do. We were actually told by the teachers to go do drills or something. Cometh the fuck on. We've done enough of it in Sec 1 and 2, where's our time to show our stuff? And I have it better than some of my platoon mates. Unlike them, I have obligations with regards to shooting in NCC. I think I've done more live firing than any of my other platoon mates and have gone on quite a few trips out of school to better my skills or represent the school. There are others in the Orienteering team and the Drills people(can't remember what we used to call that Advanced Drills or something). My other 2 "members" of the S1 are examples of those that really have nothing else to do in NCC. My constant companions in wondering what are going to do in every training session. Probably nothing.

I digress, back to topic.In my opinion, he's probably a psychopath. No no, he's not going to go about killing people soon. He just has traits that psychopaths have. And believe it or not, many people around you probably have them as well. They are actually pretty common, these "psychopaths". He shows no remorse being arrested and having his charges read out to him, that's one of the signs. And you know what,  Singapore? I actually think arresting him has helped him achieve his goal. He wanted influence. He wanted his idea out there, he wanted controversy. He wanted to prove his point. And arresting him also proved his point in that anyone who has an idea that was controversial would be arrested and charged. Clap clap clap. You guys just proved his point. And he doesn't care that he was being punished for what he's said. Based on his blogpost about his school life, he's actually grown immune to that. It'd just make him want to voice out more of his opinions and more strongly those he's already voiced. He's a smart man. His words were probably very well thought out, even the vulgarities. He wanted to make sure he'd be arrested for it. He made sure to push the right buttons to draw the attention to him to get his point out there. He knew what he was doing. He knew alright. To those out there that aren't looking at the minute details, it'd just appear to you that he's an insensitive and unappreciative brat. Despite all appearances, he's actually won. You've all just made a fool of yourselves.

So that's my analysis, in a brief summary, I am quite like him in my opinion and judgement of myself, and that by arresting him, he actually won. He's proven his point that anyone who says anything controversial in Singapore would be arrested. Psychopath. Genius. A lone wolf. An iconoclast.