that's over like 20%
I noticed another thing about the jacarandas. They aren't actually dead. They all, or almost all, have a few tiny clusters of life remaining. I just never looked hard enough. I just assumed instead of stepping forward to take a closer look.
I don't know what to think of this.
-----
When I went to my backyard I would check on the jacaranda tree. Every time there would still be those few clusters of flowers left. They'll be gone any day now, I would think. But every time they would still be there.
I went for a short walk and I couldn't find any that didn't have flowers.
I guess that ... even though at first it seems like the flowers have left, it doesn't mean that they are gone.
Just most of them.
But most isn't all
-----
I had an amazing dream. After I woke up I was confused as to whether it was a dream or a book, because I think my dream self thought it was a book. My dream self knew it was all narrative. In fact, I remember near the end seeing something like "other books from this artist". I previewed one of them, the first scene had a floating black temple. They both cost $110, and said "that's almost $10!". I only got partway through the dream - I know this because I thought, oh, this is one of those stories with 2 plot lines that are seemingly unrelated but come together at the end. Except I never got to the end so it was just 2 unrelated plot lines.
After I woke up I wondered if I should try write down everything because as far as I was concerned it was the most amazing story I had ever experienced. I didn't, and now that I've forgot almost everything except random snippets that are nothing on their own, I remember some parts which make absolutely no sense at all.
I remember people had faith in magic and religion, because in this world those were the things that actually did something. Science was useless. At least it was in one part of the dream.
One part involved ... having trouble cooking eggs next to dangerous nuclear caskets in some kind of lab or something like that.
You know what, I think it was all just a crappy dream that made no sense. But I felt so excited from it. Because when I was asleep I was completely detatched from real life - even though the whole thing was constructed from pieces of real life (e.g. school, Trine, driving, religious/philosophical themes from the Ender's Game series).
Oh damn it. Now I remember one part of it was a game. And there was something really clever about the game, something like when you get to a checkpoint there's a cutscene which depends on which characters died and which are alive, and there is interaction with the spirits of the dead ones. It made for emotional character developing moments. Something like that except completely not that. That's what I remember.
When I was asleep I was completely detatched from real life - I didn't know what "sense" was, so it didn't matter that nothing made any [sense]. The worlds and the actions were incomprehensible to my waking self, but they made sense in the dream. So in the dream they made emotions, and these carry over to my waking self.
So anyway, that dream was a long moment of inspiration, and like inspiration, it seems incredibly ordinary and to some extent silly after it has passed.
I sleep around 3:30 to 4. Last night I didn't have anything except chocolate in the late hours and I had more trouble than usual going to sleep. I think it was worth it for the dream, though. When there is nothing to do, I know I won't sleep early so I work on Swan Song. I don't know if progress is quick or slow. It started off very very slow because I didn't know how to do it, or the key and time signatures. I think I'm slowly starting to realise that proper musicianship notation is impossible. Because yesterday I ran into one part where the right hand was 12/8 and the left hand was 6/4. Actually, I guess this part is 6/4. But it's annoying because I have to break all the rules because I don't want to have tied notes everywhere.
Tangent. It's a lot quicker now that I figured out most of those things. I can get about half to one page every sitting. Which doesn't really say much because how big is a page anyway, and some parts of the song are more complicated than others. But I think finishing transcribing this song in the holidays and spending the rest of my life trying to learn it might be an accurate prediction.
Yesterday I realised that the three-handed part in Coto can be played with two hands. You just have to be really really good at piano. The middle voice is played by both hands. It's like trying to play a scale (for example one octave of C major, one hand), with the first half played by the left hand and the second part played by the right hand. You have to time it right so the break between both hands isn't noticible.
Maybe I'll try this. Coto was getting boring, anyway. It's a new year. A few minutes ago I thought trying to do this was impossible, but not now. I thought Swan Song was impossible, didn't I?
------
3am but it still feels too early to sleep. You know what? hang on one second
3am feels too early to sleep, yet 12pm seems too late to wake. I set my alarm to 10, although maybe that is not early enough. But I'm going to go back to a biphasic sleeping pattern. I hate waking up so late, it feels like half the day is gone already.
I lost the desire to have a job a while ago. While I still had it, I made a plan about where I could go. I never followed it through.
//there are so many things and thoughts I want to mention right now at the same time, like a thousand tangents. they all combine, and don't make sense together.
So instead I stay at home and spend my time doing things like, taking twenty-two minutes to type out everything from the ----- barrier to this point.
I'm not that slow at typing. I think I knew I would end up staying awake and thinking if I tried to go to sleep twenty-five minutes ago, so I stayed here instead. It's not that I don't like thinking. I like thinking, but not when I'm trying to sleep. Or maybe I do, in a sadistic way.
If I didn't like thinking when I was trying to sleep, I don't dislike it when I'm not trying to sleep. It means I don't mind thinking when I'm awake.
So when I come here, it's not to blog. Actually, it is to blog.
I come here not only to blog, but also to think. Except I prioritise the thinking. And that's why I take so long to write so little.
Why do I blog, then? Why am I here, why does etc etc.
I think "Why do I blog" will suffice.
this one's tough. I don't blog because I think a lot people will read it. I know that a lot of people left because they don't have time for this anymore, or just grew out of it.
I don't blog because I want a lot of people to read it. A couple of times I resented the existence of this place being mentioned at all. I kept it to myself.
I don't blog for a personal diary.
I thought of some other reasons why I don't blog but I forgot them. It would have been a little more poetic if I had continued with a few more "I don't blog because..." but I don't really care about that.
... why am I being so technique-cynical tonight?
....
It was anaphora, wasn't it? The technique where you keep starting the sentence the same way. Was it? I can't remember any of these things well enough to be sure. What was polyptoton? I don't remember anything about it, except that I used it in my year 11 english human condition essay which got a good mark. It's like this for all memory, isn't it? Eventually, you forget all of the substance. You're only left with the shell. You only remember the shell. I suppose it works well like this.
But then you didn't really lose all of it forever. The substance is still there, locked away in archives. Except we don't have the key to our memories. Perhaps one day we could, and we could go back and ... no ... I remember this ...
There were a lot of not-reasons for why I blog, and I decided to start thinking that way because it was the only place I had to start. While typing them out, I realised:
I don't blog because I think a lot of people will read it, but I do think that at least some people who aren't me in the present or the future will read it.
I don't blog because I want a lot of people to read it, yet, if no one read it I would stop.
I don't blog for a personal diary. Yet I still talk about some personal things here.
A lot out of the people I know ... don't know or care about the things I care or think about. That reads like a bad thing, but it's not... because ...
hmm
maybe in some cases it is, but not always.
I think I blog because I want to talk about some of these things. The one-sidedness of these ... conversations isn't a bad thing either. No disagreements, no interruptions until the end. If I didn't come here, they would probably say that I just needed to be listened to.
So...thanks, I guess.
It's getting a little too close to morning now. I can't hear birds yet, but I know they will be awake soon. I didn't end up talking about the things I wanted to. I guess that can wait for another time. Oh, there they are. The early birds.
-----
A few days after uploading Coto, I decided to make it public, because I remember searching for sheet music for any song from 88 a year or two ago, and finding nothing.
Hey I just wanted to say that since Kashiwa Daisuke's album 88 was released I've been looking for someone to have transcribed Coto. I got so fed up that I started transcribing it but after getting halfway through, I didn't have enough heart to continue. After 3 years of not finding anything, randomly I decided to search for it a few days ago on Youtube to see if anyone had done a cover of it. Imagine my surprise when I saw your video which not only has the cover, but a link to the sheet music and it was free. So I thought I would express my gratitude in a PM and when I saw your channel realized that not only do you play dota, but you're the guy that uploaded the special tactics video with the familiars back when Drow got her passive reworked and was super broken. I thought it was cool we share similar interests and I just wanted you know that finding your video along with the sheets at 3am made my week.This gratitude flows on to you, Harvard, if you read this. Even if you don't read this, in fact.
Thanks a bunch dude
This song has brought me much joy.
I told my mum a few hours ago that I would sleep earlier tonight, it's past 3 now because I spent some time composing a reply and also because I didn't really intend on sleeping earlier. However, since I've slept at 4-5 in the last 2 nights because I didn't want to wake up too early for the biphasic sleep pattern, if I go to sleep now it will still be "earlier".
But I just want to quickly write down before I forget. When I tried to have the 1.5 hour nap, I couldn't sleep for a little while. But when the alarm went off, it was so hard to get up. I got up and turned off the alarm, and just went back to rest a little more, even though I knew I wouldn't get back up if I did. It just felt so good because at that point in time my body wanted nothing more than to go back and sleep.
And that's what I did, but the extra nap wasn't too long.
I found this noteworthy because I used to be able to do this. I used to be able to have biphasic sleep patterns without many issues. And I don't think I will be able to any more (since this morning I overslept over a couple of hours too). Because I've changed. I don't have any willpower. Motivation isn't the issue (although I guess it is still a factor) because I do really really want to wake up before 11 or 12. I just don't have any will power.
I don't have any ambition, either. I don't have all of these things, ...
Anyway, I'll go to sleep now, relatively earlier. I can continue this some other time.
-----
It's strange walking behind my house, through a pit of sand and dirt that once used to be a path. It's also strange to think that once, over there right under the stairs, there used to be a lavendar bush, and there used to be a corrugated-plastic roofing over this area that was loud as hell when it rained, and all of the moss that grew between the bricks-that-are-now-gone, in fact everything-is-now-gone. But the strangest thing is, I'm already used to it all.
I was helping relocate sand from the pits to the garden where it could probably be used later, and a mosquito was bothering me. She just would not leave me alone. It's funny, I had decided to put this off until it wasn't sunny anymore, but that just happens to be the time when mosquitos can go out of hiding too. I haven't clapped mosquitos before. Or ever. If I ever have, I forgot about it. One of my earlier memories of this house was when there were multiple mosquitos bothering my brother and I. He kept trying to clap them. I only complained about the mosquitos. Eventually he got one of them and told me to do the same. I didn't really want to kill the mosquitos. It would leave a dead, mutilated and bloodied mosquito corpse on my hands. And also, I wasn't a killer. But he insisted I do it, so there I was, half-heartedly pretending to try to kill them, like a slow, sarcastic clapping. I let my hands cave in a bit, like cymbals, in case the mosquitos were slow enough to actually get hit. He noticed this, and told me to straighten my hands and clap properly, I wouldn't be able to kill them with concave hands. How was I meant to explain to him, that I didn't actually want to kill them? If I said that, he would just say that I was scared. Which I was. It was all futile, because he knew I was scared to kill them already.
I remember when I went back to China in 2011, or maybe this was the one before that actually, doesn't matter either way, there were many more mosquitos there. So they would have mosquito nets for the beds and electric mosquito swatters. I didn't have any problems swatting away at mosquitos with a racquet and listening to the electric pop when it found its target.
This one mosquito just wouldn't leave me alone. So I would just brush or swat her away whenever I thought she was there, which often was after being bitten. Eventually, she stopped to rest on the wheelbarrow. And I stopped to watch for any movement from the enemy. There was none, and as I stared at the unmoving mosquito, I wondered if she was aware that I was watching. I turned to go back to work after a little while. Later on, the same thing happened. The mosquito stopped to rest, this time on the sand. I could shovel some sand on you, I thought. So I did just that, and to my surprise, the mosquito didn't even move. I quickly dug her out, and instead of towards me, she flew away and around the corner, and I never saw her again. I wondered if it was the near-death never-encountered-before experience of having a mountain of sand dumped on her that did it.
She probably had enough blood anyway.
Some people think I'm nice.
I thought about what nice people do and what nice people are like. I try to make a conscious effort of being nice, but no matter what I can't overcome or change the fact that I'm not a nice person at heart.
I'm not a killer, not because I'm nice. I'm not a killer because I'm weak.
-----
I had a weird dream, I was convinced it was real, when I woke up I was convinced it was the beginning of 2013, then my memories began to conflict and the whole absurdity of the dream became evident. Normally the shift back to reality takes a while, but for some reason for this dream it was slow. I thought it was real, it made perfect sense, it was confusing. Making sense and reality is perspective.
Am I a name person or a face person?
I'm a name person. I can't remember faces. I have trouble visualising. But if I try hard enough, I can remember names. I have this habit of calling people by their actual names, instead of their nicknames. I don't know why. I just call people by their names.
Except my dreams had peoples' faces that I recognised, people who I have not seen in a very very long time.
I don't remember much else, I went back to sleep for a few more hours after that.
-----
Earlier this week I mentioned that I gave up searching for a job because I never actually wanted one in the first place. I wrote down as a temporary dot point "to shake off feelings of worthlessness", but I don't think that's it.
I think it's much simpler. Peer pressure. Parental pressure. Worry that not having any experience means I won't get a proper job.
Simple.
I was thinking about games. The presence of a timer or a countdown, regardless of whether it matters or not, makes you rush. It doesn't have to be that, either, it could be something like rising water or a wall of fire slowly chasing you. Unless you're really slow, you're never in danger. But you think you are.
I played through Trine and Trine 2 in my spare time, and one of the things you can do is grapple to an object. Pretty much you shoot a rope at a target, and you swing back and forth until you decide to jump from it, like spiderman. And while playing, I realised that I knew exactly how I would go about trying to code those physics if I was trying to code this game.
I thought about being a game developer, but I don't think it's a good idea. It's like being a musician, you have to be the very best or it kind of sucks.
I haven't made much progress on Swan Song in the last week or so. A week or so ago I tried to play the first few pages. It didn't go well. How do you play triplet-quavers with one hand, and normal quavers with the other? How can I reach all of these notes that jump around so much?
I realised how hard this would actually be to play, so I lost a lot of motivation to transcribe.
Then I tried harder, and I know I'm making progress. So when I have time, I'm going to get back to transcription. Is that a word?
I'm going to learn how to play this song, while I still have all the time in the world.
The jacaranda flowers are still there. Some of them are gone, but some are still there. A slow departure. They'll be gone soon, I keep thinking, but they're always still there. Maybe instead I should think, they'll be gone eventually.
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