Monday, September 6, 2010

First day of school. Sort of. Lol. College has officially started again, although I have no classes today.

Where should I start? Well, for one thing, I finally failed my first subject in TOA. And surprise, surprise, it's Corporate Identity 2. What a bitch right? I spent hundreds on printing the stuff and had sleepless nights over it. You see, during the last few weeks of CI2, Leon had kept rejecting every single damn thing I'd been giving, and he even told me "Would you consider retaking this subject?" which basically meant "You're going to fail." So I did feel pretty hopeless on the subject. However, later on he told Fei Yan to tell me to call him. I did, and he said he would help me a bit, by telling me what things I needed to change on my design, the typefaces, the font sizes, and all that. The following week he said my designs were much better, and he even said certain things were "pretty good". I was like "I didn't pay you a million bucks right? You said that of your own free will right?" I mean, getting the word "good" out of him is like striking the lottery (excluding the times he says "not good"). So after everything and the final presentation, I ended up getting an F, C and C. F for the logo, C for the idea and C for the design. I thought that was good enough to pass. I guess not. Because of the logo, I failed. What the hell. During that phone call and the subsequent weeks he never once mentioned anything about the logo. Nothing! I thought it wouldn't be too big of a deal since he mentioned every single design error I had apart from the logo. Turns out the logo is 25% of your entire marks for CI2. And because of that, I failed. Dang. What a bitch. I had stayed over at Fei Yan's home, Wai Kwan's home and Zi Yuan's home over different days countless times in the last few months of CI2, just to do the work together, and it would've all paid off if it wasn't for the logo. Pfft.

Luckily for me, the timetable fits just nicely. I can take CI2 over again while continuing as per normal with the rest of the subjects without any problem. And it's really thanks to God. On Thursday, CI2 ends at 7pm. The next subject begins at 7pm. If there was any clash, I'd be stuck and have to fall behind one semester. So its like pure dumb luck. Whew.

Anyway, updates! Robenz and Jessica have left the cellgroup. Robenz time as a worker in Malaysia is over and he's forced to move back to Indonesia. Jessica's finally finished her time in college and graduated, so she's gone back to Indonesia as well. Linna, Linda and Vonny have all left church. So basically my cellgroup is only Faith, Ai Lee, Kai Yih, Zoe, Andre and I. Zoe's leaving back to Canada at the end of the year, and Kai Yih is gone from KL half the time anyway. So basically there's only this much people left. Lmao. That's the thing about CHCKL. A large number of the members in church are foreigners who come here just to study and leave after they complete them. Very rarely do they stay behind to live their life here. Kuala Lumpur's a very "intermediate city" where people come and go very regularly. Add to the fact that Malaysia makes it a pain to become PRs and citizens. So yeah. As a much smaller cellgroup, it does kind of force an opportunity to get even more united, in quality than quantity, so I'm thankful for that at least.

Speaking of leaving church, Pastor Kevin spoke a really honest message last weekend. He spoke about restoration. Of how we fall away from God, how we disappoint, and how our friends, and even some pastors and leaders leave church. This last point was a very honest one. He talked about how when people leave church and come back much later, people give them a look that says "What are you doing here?" or "What do you want from us?". We rarely give them the benefit of the doubt that they have really come back to God. We judge them so much on the fact that they left church that we forget they made the effort to come back as well. It was a very deep and heartfelt sermon by Pastor Kevin, and it touched on a very vital issue, especially in this season of the church, as growth is starting to slow.

Oh, one more thing! Last week on the 30th, because Miki couldn't make it for the Festival of the Tritone gig, to compensate we had a drinking session at her home. Me, Justin and Bruce. We did a small celebration for Justin's upcoming birthday by switching off the lights and producing a glow in the dark t-shirt with a glow in the dark skull in front. Heh. He said he was so touched and all that. Glad you like it! For the drinking session, thing is, I hadn't eaten for 15 hours that time. And I took a hell lot of dry gin shots, with countless cans of beer and instant noodles a bit later on. So you know what? I threw up. LOL! Yeah! Craps man. I haven't thrown up in ages. Zzz. I felt bad, 'cause I had the urge to throw up downstairs. I rushed to the washroom upstairs while vomiting. So part of the stairs and quite a portion of the second floor was covered in my puke. Miki's mom and sister was teasing me and saying it was okay, but even so, I still felt bad! Horrible, that I threw up and everyone helped me clean up. The process was probably made faster due to the fact that all of us were heavily intoxicated, and so no one really gave a crap they were cleaning and slightly touching the vomit. Lmao. Heck, Miki's sister even joked that we should go drink together some time. Yeah, geez. I just felt terrible that I threw up in her house, with her mom and sister there. Again, deepest apologies!

On better news, the day after that, which also happened to be National Day, we had our gig! The Festival of the Tritone, organized by Justin's band, Ashes of Pain. Kai left ANK to join their band, so we had one less person this time. As of this typing, I still have no idea why no pictures or videos have been uploaded yet -.-, for any of the bands! Can't even take pictures from Facebook.

Here's the poster Justin made.

Banbodo actually ditched the gig. They were a total no-show, which really pisses me off 'cause that's just unprofessional and very what the hell for an entire band, with no excuses. So forget about them. There were 4 bands remaining. My band, As Naive Killer, Justin's Ashes of Pain (previously called Oneirometal), One Inch Closer and The Metaphor. We played with One Inch Closer before, and they specialized in pop songs, even Japanese ones. They were the starting band in the previous gig, and for Tritone, they were also the opening act! Haha. We also played with The Metaphor in my first gig, and they were again, totally awesome. Purely melodic.

Anyhoo, due to the lack of pictures, apologies! You'll have to read about all the bands. One Inch Closer began the act, with a few songs, and a special finale song that included a guest female vocalist singing instead. It was one of their heavier songs. The song was actually written by the main vocalist for the girl who sang, lol. They were a good start to everything, and yeah. Well done!

Next up was The Metaphor. Out of all the bands that day, they were the most experienced and most talented. Officially formed in May 2009, they've gone on to become very well recognized all over the local music scene. And they are my favourite local band in Malaysia, without a doubt. They're that good. I'd have loved for them to be the finishing act, but Justin wanted his band to be the finale, as they were the organizers and the such. The Metaphor wowed everyone, and their music made everyone high. Like seriously high, like on drugs or something. Their music is very melodic, yet heavy at the same time. They just made the entire audience transfixed on them. It's seriously beautiful. Everyone was just totally stunned. And they played the longest out of all the bands too! They easily connected all their songs together and it was as if they never stopped to start the next song. It was just pure awesomeness.

AsNaiveKiller was the next band. We were the first heavy metal band to play (Ashes of Pain being the next). We did our first song pretty well, and played the metal version of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" pretty well too since we'd played these previously. Our next two songs were new songs, which we made in the span of just a few weeks. One pretty heavy song, and another faster paced one that we came up with a mere days before the gig. The heavier one we titled "RnB" (Raw and Brutal, inspired by the local band Xerpent) and the faster paced one was called "In My Memories". We did RnB pretty well, but messed up In My Memories pretty badly. The breakdown was cut in half and my timing was off for a lot of parts. Zzz. However, we did have headbanging support! Haha, thank you Ashes of Pain and a few other people. I'd say this was our best performance yet.

And next, Ashes of Pain, the organizers of this gig! Justin finally formed his band in its entirety and the first thing they did was organize the gig. Kai brought a hell lot of people so there were tons of people headbanging in support. Even I joined in. My first time headbanging. And I headbanged for every single song. Ashes of Pain played mostly cover songs and self-composed songs (which I think were better than their covers). Their own song Betrayal was my favourite. As they finished with an outro, my neck ached like hell (and continued to hurt for nearly a week). They were very impressive with their showmanship, compared to all the other bands, talent aside. We all chilled out at Asia Cafe later to eat and chat a bit, before heading back. Although all the bands were plagued by technical difficulties and/or mistakes, overall it was a success! And the crowd was much better than the previous gigs. And thank you Ruz and Andrew for making the effort to support us!

I think that covers the recent events. I've still got stuff in drafts still unposted. Lol... needa get typing on them soon.

Okay, to end this, here's a picture I thought was hilarious. Click to see clearly!

Chronicled
10:08 AM

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