Gonna be stopping my piano lesson..?

I guess none of you guys would have thought I would want to stop, right?

Well to be honest, I've been thinking of stopping since a few months ago.
My family had financial problem since last year, but recently it's gotten quite bad.

I don't know how many of you knows this, I didn't really let anyone know except a few very close friends.
It's something that I don't really mind letting people know, but yet it's something that's extremely hard for me to tell people. I think I've kinda written about in in my blog, jumbled up in a post and another topic, but meh I'll tell you guys here.

I don't have a dad, my dad passed away when I was 7 years old.
My mom is strong, she pulled through, and we managed to live quite a luxurious life, even though at times, things is quite hard too.
Anyway, that wasn't the thing that I didn't really let anyone know, though I guess not all of you know that my mom is a single parent huh?

Well the thing that I was talking about is that last year my mom got diagnosed with breast cancer.

It was after my SPM when I found out. She's known it all along during my SPM, but my mom kept everything to herself then. I guess she was afraid that it will affect me, and I guess she's probably right.
Anyway, that time when she told my siblings and I about that, I was so shocked. I feel like my life has been turned upside down. And yes, I guess my life was kinda turned upside down. I had to suddenly be a grown up in a short time and manage our family stuff during my mom's treatment. It wasn't fun at all.
It made me realize how horrible the real world can be.

Back to my story, that time during SPM, I was kinda stressed about what college will I go to too, and what I want to study. I've tried to discuss it with her, but she always brush me off impatiently and she would not listen to my study plans. She kept telling me to wait until my SPM is over and until I get my results first. Of course, I was frustrated and couldn't understand why she keep putting it off. I was so frustrated, I wrote a blog post about it. Click here if you want to read it.

Well, I guess you can imagine how fucking horrified I am after I found out about her medical condition. I still cringe when I think about it now, about how I behaved. It instantly became clear to me why my mom did not want to talk about my future, my mom can't predict anything at all.

Anyway, my mom went through treatment in December
She stayed in the hospital for almost 2 weeks, recovering, and continued her recovering process at home after 2 weeks. Basically during the month of December, I had to manage the family stuff for her, since she needed to rest.
It was a stressful month for me, so I went out a lot to try and get my mind off things. You can see it from my my blog post during December last year lol.

Well, all those talk and here is what it leads to.
My mom sold her day care centre since she can't work for a few months. The whole recovery process took a long time. December was her operation, and after that she has to start chemotherapy and radiotherapy. It took around 5 months for the chemo to complete, and another 1 month for radio. Those treatment are not easy, they're very hard for those that didn't know. Chemo is a really dreadful treatment.
My mom couldn't work while getting her treatment too.

Since my mom wasn't working, obviously there is no income since I don't have a dad. We got by with savings, and with the help of family and friends. And well I did went to work, that was some little income coming in, but still income nevertheless.

But now, I'm in college and it's hard to find time to work.
And fuck it, money is running low. Mom is still not working yet, she's trying to set up a business again though. But yeah, we have no income right now.

That's why I'm thinking of stopping my piano.
It freaking cost up to RM420 per month, and if I stop, that money could go to my room rental instead then, and it would help in some way.

I'm still hesitating in some way though.
There's only 8 more months until I complete grade 8, and my teacher is expecting me to go through the grade 8 exam next year. I want to stop yet I don't want to cause I kinda feel like it'll waste all my previous effort and time and money?

But then, I have kind of lose interest in classical music, and I find myself not really wanting to go to piano class anymore..I don't know if it's because my schedule is so packed that I don't find enough time to practice, or I really did lose interest. I'm super confused.
I dread my piano class, but when I got there and sit in front of the piano and start playing, I just feel like playing and not stopping.

:/

Yet, if I continue my class, financial will be really tight, and what if I don't pass my exam?
I don't know if I'll have enough time to practice to get me to pass. I'll be wasting an exam fee of RM530 (which I need to pay next week IF I decided to continue) if I failed my Grade 8...
Yes, I don't have enough confident. I still remember how I rushed for my Grade 7 exam last year, struggling between SPM and piano..I passed, but not all that good, I almost made it to Merit, but I didn't :/

I'm so torn between continuing or not with my Grade 8 now..
It's only another 8 month of struggle, can I make it?
Yet there's the family to think about, the financial side fml.
And there's this worry of mine that if I stopped, I lose all motivation to continue in the future :/

And I really needed to think about whether I can manage my time or not..

All these problems was going through my head yesterday night, I couldn't sleep because of it.
I've never felt so torn between stuff before.

So I texted Bryan, at 2 in the morning lol and ranted all these stuff to him. The text came out 9 pages long LOL.

His reply was so clear and simple, I guess he kinda cleared my head?
He told me to stop temporarily, and if I have the determination, I'll start again later.

It made me realize that yes, I can always start again if I wanted to, and my previous time, effort, and money won't be wasted because I've gained the skills from the past 5 years I've been learning piano.

And so now, even though I'm still quite confused about everything, I've kinda come to this decision to stop only my practical lesson. I'll continue with my theory work, and I guess the reason why is that maybe I see it as something that will help me hold on to my classical music side.

I don't really want to lose it completely, typing this has made me realize I don't dislike classical music as much as I thought. I like it, just that at times it's hard for me to realize that. Classical music is after all, the first type of music that I love, and it helped shaped me and bring to how I am now.

Anyway, I still can't fully decide yet.
I need to talk to my mom, and to my teacher too...

But for now, I feel better, and to me it seems like the best solution.
My fee will decrease to only RM100, the RM320 can go to my room rental to help out, and I'll feel better about everything I guess?


Meh.
For now, that's what I've decided.

And ........

Wow.
Such post.
Much confusing.
Very long.

(Okay fuck this doge trend it's seriously affecting me lol. But putting that in cause this post is quite depressing)


Bye bye.

18th Birthday

I just had my 18th birthday. (ehem I wrote this a few days ago but I didn't have the time and the internet access to continue it until now)
Anyway, I didn't expect anything special to celebrate, mom asked me what I want to do for my birthday, but I can't think of an answer. That's a good thing I guess, I have everything I can possibly need :)

Yes there are stuff that I want like a new keyboard, or even better, a car lol (impossibru though)
but I know that we can't afford it, those things can wait till I get my own income :D
It'll never be too late. :)

So anyway, had a family dinner on 16th November in TGIF at The Gardens.
My sister's birthday was on 15th on November, and mine was on 17th. I guess it's only fair to celebrate in between LOL.
We actually planned to eat in Chilli, but the restaurant was full and the waiting list was too long. So we went to TGIF. I was kinda dreading it, cause I've heard about how embarrassing it is to celebrate a birthday there :x But since my whole family wanted to go there, I have no choice but to go. TwT

To be honest, this dinner is just not really all that great.
Here's some reason why:

-I was sick.
I had a freaking flu the whole day, but by evening time it was worse.
My nose won't stop running, and it was blocked too. I find it really hard to breath, and I feel dizzy. I can't stop sneezing too lol, I think I sneezed over 70 times that day. And no, I'm not exaggerating.
And to make it worse, I was having my period fml. I felt terrible hahahhaha.

-We're not seated together
There was a lack of space in TGIF that time, so we had no choice but to sit separately :/
Me, sis, bro and his gf sat together, while mom, uncle, aunt and cousin sat in another table in front of us.
Not that far, but still we didn't have the chance to talk and chat together. I would love it so much more if we're all sitting together =3=

-The food was meh
The food tasted meh. For the price we're paying, I don't think it's worth it :/
Yeah, maybe it's because I'm having flu that the food tasted bland, but my family said it's not nice as well. So not nice it is, I guess.

Well anyway, I guess the main reason was cause I was sick and it made me feel awful haha.
Here's some picture:

Lol picture of half gone cheesy baked potatoes. This was nice though!

My strawberry lemonade! 

Sizzling cheesy chicken, which tasted really bland to me :/

My brother and his gf

Sis and me, sis and mom~

My stupid bro haha

Anyway, since it was my sis and my birthday, TGIF presented us a chocolate brownie.
But it was kinda more to my celebration for some reason, so they made me sing, and my sister dance instead. Then, they made the whole restaurant sang happy birthday to us *buries face in hand*
And they made me try to blew the candle from around a metre away. So embarrassing lol.

Anyway, after that my bro freaking stuck the candle down into the cake, and made me pull it out with my teeth.
And I know someone's got to be totally stupid to not see what is coming next, but well, I'm that one totally stupid person that did not expect my brother to push my face down on to the CHOCOLATE BROWNIE.
Fml.

How could I be so stupid lolololol. He's video-ing it too, why didn't I see it coming?
Oh well, must be my flu haha. Brain wasn't clear enough lol.

Anyway, no I'm not gonna show you guys the video. I looked really awful and I sounded awful too. So, nope. :P
Instead, I've extracted some frames from it.

T____T

Stupid sister laughing like crazy

Hahhahaha I look like I had a tooth missing

Lol.

Anyway, even though it's not the greatest dinner ever, I do appreciate that we went, and I get to spend time with my family.

When I got home, I felt really awful cause of my flu.

I went to bed straightaway and I didn't bother staying up to reply birthday wishes as I always did every year lololol. 

The next morning, I woke up to a flood of birthday wishes on my wall ;w;

Feels so nice and loved hahhaa, even though I know most of them only know about my birthday cause of Facebook LOL. 

Anyway, I got a text from Bryan. He said something about duck scratcher, but I was not in the mood to play along with his lame jokes lol. Still suffering from flu ;w; And kinda annoyed with him for some reason hahahhaha. So I didn't really bother about him .w. He told me he was going to Tenshi, and I kinda had the feeling he wanted me to go too, but I didn't bother ._. My reply to him was so cold ahaha .w.

Then at night he texted me again. He thought I was emo cause he didn't wish me or 'forgot' my birthday, but truth is I really was just not feeling that well enough to be high and happy lol.

I had a flu pill the night before, and I'm sure you guys know how drugs made you eh? You can't think straight lol.

Turns out Bryan was trying to get me to go to Tenshi so he could surprise me with a cake, but ahahaha I was a spoil sport. And turns out duck scratcher meant Happy Birthday in his own language -_-||||

So sweat. Everything was so lame hahahha. 

Anyway I ended the lameness and made up for my spoil sport attitude by calling him my self proclaimed brother (he has erm..sister fetish? LOL) and saying I love him lol.

Never in a million years will I say that to him again hahhaha. Flu really made me go cuckoo.

Well those stuff aside, I just lazed on the couch and watched movies the whole day. It was good though xD

So nice to be able to stay on the couch the whole day finally! Life keeps getting busier and busier :/ 

And mom made me pancakes too 8D So loved. 

Then by evening time, I kinda recovered yay! Felt so much better. 

Went for dinner with dear Crystal at Bukit Mewah Club, Kajang. :)
Celebrated both our birthdays together, just us xD Crystal is only a week younger than me heh xD

Didn't feel like eating solid meat, so I ordered sausages instead lol.

The pot at the left is actually cheese sauce for us to dip *w* 

 

       

 Sorry lo, we're extremely vain haha

It was lovely to spend time with her :D

Wish I could spend more time with my other high school friends though.

I MISS YOU GUYS D:

It was around 10.30pm when I got home.

As soon as I got home, mom brought out a cake lol.

Two candles, one for me and one for sis haha

(I can't remember a year where I didn't share a cake with sister lol)

Taking pictures with Miko and Baby as well xD

That cake was nice! I loved that they used dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate :D

After eating the cake I went online, and around 5 minutes past midnight, Sing Yee called me.

She's like, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOEE OMG I'M SO SORRY I'M LATE SORRY SORRY SORRY T________T

Hahahahhaha. Then I told her that she's special because she will be the last one that wished me.

And she's like, "if anyone else calls you next don't pick up please"

Hahahhaa, so cute.

Turns out she's not the last to wish me though :x

The last was David (my band's guitarist lol) I think.

He wished me in the next morning hahaha.

Oh wait, the last to wish me was Hairee from my class hahahaha.

He wished me on 19th I think hahaha.

Oh well, why am I even writing this down LOL.

I wonder what the future me will think when I read this again. xD

Anyway, on Monday night I went back to college to use the studio to practice for my studio competency test. In my group there's Emad, Oliver, Selwyn, and Stephy.

When I got there, Emad and Oliver was already there.

We played around with recording, then Stephy came.

We recorded more stuff, but halfway through Oliver disappeared. I thought he went down for a smoke.

Selwyn's not there yet.

Without bothering much I continued with whatever I was doing in the studio lol, then suddenly Stephy came to me and Emad, looking kinda flustered, and told us to go downstairs to Selwyn cause he's in trouble.

I was worried, I thought that Selwyn ran his car into someone or something LOL.

Stephy ran out, and I followed her.

As soon as I got out of the studios, I was greeted with the birthday song. I was like, "oh my god wtf wtf wtf" hahahaha. Selwyn told me that I should have seen my own expression lol. I kinda wish I could too xD

They totally got me. I never expected this kind of thing at all.

The thought of me being surprised has never crossed my mind, and I was stunned.

I don't think I'll forget this feeling :)

It was so awesome.

So happy to have such great friends :D

Thank you guys!!!

                                             

The cake that they got me.

Selwyn was late cause he went to get this cake lol. This cake tasted awesome! :D

Blowing the candles.

Hahaha I couldn't blow the candles properly, I was still in that dazed kinda mood lol

After that, we went back to the studio and practiced till midnight.

Then we headed out to a mamak restaurant near our college, and ate the cake there.

                                       

Eating birthday cake in a mamak restaurant past midnight, how cool was that??? Hahaha.

                                          

Picture of everyone. Emad's in here too, yay!

Hahaha he normally hates his picture taken, but I made him to be in the picture using the excuse that it's my birthday xD

So....I guess that's basically my 18th birthday! :D

I think it was one of my best birthday ever haha.

Cause it's been some time since I have a celebration. I can't even remember the last time I really celebrated my birthday lol. I think it was my 9th birthday when mom threw a party for me lol.

Oh, that, and Chi surprised me with a present 2 years ago and a home made cake.

Well anyway, I'm really really glad that my 18th birthday turned out this way :)

Loves to everyone! xD

Being a crew for Indie Youth Fest 2013!

Indie Youth Fest event happened a week ago, at Publika.
I got a chance to help them out through my college. At first I was having troubles deciding whether to go or not, since I have a run on the 10th, but in the end I said yes.
I'm glad I went :)

I drove over to USJ on Friday, and on Saturday morning I headed along to Publika along with Oliver and Emad. I did not know the route to Publika, but luckily there is GPS. It's kinda scary though, my driving skills aren't that stable yet, and Oliver is scaring me by scaring himself hahaha. Still, we got there safe and sound xD Guess my driving skills isn't all that bad hahahha.

When we got there, we were briefed on what to do, and we setup the stage.

Did some arranging of chairs, setup those banners, setup microphone stands, etc.

Monitor speaker

Mic and line port, where we connect microphone and the monitor speaker

 Cables and DI boxes lol

*random: 3 functions of DI boxes:

-Impedance conversion

-unbalanced to balanced conversion

-Earth isolation

lol. 

It took a really long time to setup the stage for some reason, mainly because the drums and amplifiers were late? Anyway, it was done at last.

Kinda learnt how to setup an electric drum set and the amplifiers, which are quite easy I guess.

After everything on stage is done, the first band did their sound check.

Not sure if I remember correctly or not, but I think they took AGES to do their sound check @_@

Anyway, I felt sorry for them .___.

They're the first band to play, and the place is empty. There's on audience beside us crew, and the vendors.

So I went and sat down on the chair, and be their audience. 

The vocalist's like, "...erm, hi. *waves* " And I waves back and said hi lol.

Then he look around, and goes, "...Hi, chairs."

lol

Still, I felt bad for them :/

After them, there's a solo by erm..Forgotten his name .___.

But here's a pic:

There's some other bands as well, but I really like this Singaporean band called Take Two.

They're doing acoustics, and their songs is awesom!

And look at all the handsome faces *w*

Hahahhaha.

Oliver's like, "so, which one do you like?" 

Lol xD

And oh, in their middle of their performance, the wind blew strongly and the banner behind fell -_-

I jumped up the stage to fix it, and bruise my leg in the process fml.

Been a week, and the bruise still hurts T^T

Then the wind blew away straws from a food vendor's stall, and I picked those up too.

The I stupidly gave them to Emad, and he look at me funny and said,

"Just throw them away, no one's gonna use those straws now."

.....What was I thinking .____.

When will I stop being absent minded OTL

Anyway, our job was just to make sure stuff goes on smoothly on stage, and tends to the musicians.

I helped setup the keyboardist's keyboard, and all of them have such nice keyboards and midi controller T___T So jelly.

Anyway watching all those bands, I miss my band T_T

I wanna go jamming, and perform with my members again.

Why is everyone so busy TwT

Well anyway, halfway through the event I got dragged to look after the CD booth -_-

Boringgggg ._.

Luckily it's only for a short while.

I helped record videos too.

This is the sound room, but it's placed in a horrible location lol.

I got the experience to try and listen to the bands through the headphones, basically all the mics and lines and connected to this thing. It sounds just like a recording, but the band I listened to sounds...erm...bad ._.

So I guess sometimes being a sound man could be bad, depending on the situation lol. :x

Around 7pm, we changed location.

We moved in to Paradiso lounge, instead of being outdoor.

Look at all the instruments *o*

Setting up and indoor location is so much easier lol, probably because the venue is smaller.

After that, I went with an old lady (not sure what is her role in this event) to get food for us.

I don't really like doing these type of stuff actually, but since I'm the only girl she just drag me away TwT

Oh well.

After that, there's not much to do.

We ate, then just chill on a couch.

Here's a picture of me, looking tired haha. Awful eyebags and dark eye circle TwT

Anyway, I guess that's all.

Before this during live performance, I've only experienced being the musician. (keyboardist)

But now, I've experienced the stage crew side.

Being a stage crew wasn't as easy as I thought, there's more to it than I've always thought.

On the other hand, some things could be extremely simple too lol.

There's this guitarist that couldn't get a sound from his amplifier, and he asks for my help.

And all the time, it's because the main switch is off.

I sure did have a silent laugh to myself xD

Well that's all. Can't wait when I could go on stage and perform again, and at the same time, become an audio engineer xD

Updates for last week

Last week I had a week break. Updates on my week:

Saturday:

Went out to Klang for dinner with family.

It was quite a famous restaurant, we had to wait 2 hours for the food wtf. But since we went all the way to Klang, we just decided to wait. 

A picture of one of the dish we had, lala. It was really good though, their other food was nice as well. Didn't take any picture though.

After dinner, we visited Shah Alam's I-City.

We went into the House of Horror.

It was just meh. Not worth the money at all.

 Me and bro with the erm...disfigured figurine.

Sis and me 

Lol this picture kinda turns out creepy 

Ahaha. Proposing to the erm...disfigured figurine 

Me and skull 

My cousin

After wasting out time and money in the house of horror, we decided to go to the 5D motion ride.

Do we look alike? Haha

The ride was meh as well. Not thrilling at all, and it feels fake.

Kinda stupid. Wasted our money as well -_-

In conclusion, I don't think I-city is worth going any more. Most the pretty lights from before is taken down to construct useless rides and etc. They're expensive and it's quite bad.

:/

Monday:

Went out to watch Thor 2 with Bryan.

Just hung out, kinda got bored while he played MaiMai with Tony. Meh -_- Guys.

Haven't seen Bryan in a few months.

Caught up on our life, and I realized we changed a lot?

And I guess I don't know what to tell him. I let him do most of the talking while I just listened.

He's my best friend, but at times I don't feel that at all. 

For example, now. -_-

Seriously, screw you Bryan. You really piss me off sometimes. Idiot.

Tuesday: 

Cousin came and stayed for the night.

We went jogging in the evening, then swam.

Jogged outside of my condo, in Sungai Long.

Jogged a total of around 5km I think.

I like jogging along this road, it's surrounded by trees and there's not much car. 

It's actually 5km, I accidentally deleted the first km :/

I guess it took me around 45-50minutes for 5km?

After the run, swam 10 laps :3 

Random selfie

After that, I went to pasar malam with bro, sis, and cousin to get our dinner.

I bought Japanese curry rice <3 p="">

Wednesday:

Dyed my hair on Wednesday. Cousin helped me :3

Hair dyeing in progress!

Purple highlights! 

After I dyed my hair, I head out for my piano class.

After I came back, went jogging again with cousin, but this time just jogged around my condo.

For some reason, I managed to ran 5km in half and hour that day OAO

Yay, achievement!!!

Thursday: 

Went out to Kuala Lumpur with mom to settle some stuff.

I was feeling super grumpy, cause I was falling sick and I feel really tired.

Sorry mom, for making you stand my grumpiness :/

After getting back from KL, I just slept the whole day away.

Then at night, went out to find Crystal to collect my t-shirt for UTAR run on Sunday.

Friday:

In morning, I went to Susan's house to practice for our Christmas gig.

I will be playing the keyboard and she will be singing.

We'll be playing 7 Christmas songs.

After that, I went to USJ to have a look at a house. Was planning to move with a few of my coursemate, but then there's not enough people to move out. Guess the plan won't work :/

Saturday:

Volunteered at Indie Youth Fest.

It was a great experience. I'll write a seperate blog post on this event later. Left all the pictures I took in my other phone. and that phone is currently in Sungai Long :/

Sunday:

Ran the UTAR Trekathon with Crystal.

Woke up at 5am in the morning cause will be going out at 5.30am.

So tiring T_T Since I only had 3 hours of sleep :/

The run is in Bukit Cahaya, Shah Alam. It's a freaking hill T_T We're going uphill most of the time. Damn tiring. It's a 7km run, but my Ipod told me it's 7.9km :v

Crystal and me

Me! Love what camera angles can do. Insta slim lol.

With Crystal and her uni friends.

7.9km in 1 hour and 15mins.

Well I guess that's all for the week. 

Went back to USJ on Sunday night, and then it's college life as usual.

That's all for now. Will update about Indie Youth Fest as soon as I can.

Bye!