2008 Recap

In trying to look back over 2008 and evaluate some of the things that happened… I opened up my planner and heres a little month by month recap of some of the highlights and lowlights of my year.

January
Working on shows at the upstairs
Supergiant turned 5 years old
Mom came to visit
Went to digital download tour for 3 days straight with Lizzy

February
started short film on my roommate
Started TEAM GOLD for self against city
Lost my phone
Broken Iris played on KCRA 3
My brother died

March
Went to AZ for my brothers Funeral
Saw my dad for the first time in 8 years
Did lights for the Matches and FTSK at the boardwalk

April
Started the “jungle” for my balcony
Produced skips vocal showcase at the upstairs
Did some side work for Joe cleaning foreclosed houses
Started bootcamp program at the gym

May
Finished film project
Went to Kaboom in SF with Jenn
Roommate painted my apartment
Had a show with We Shot The Moon at the upstairs
Graduated from Sac State
Went to LA for work – Stream Naturalization Class

June
Started Stairway to Stardom program as a Coach
First ever Shoot The Lights out @ the upstairs
Went to a lot of dance parties
Put on the last metal show ever at the Underground

July
Turned 24 – had a crazy dance party
Went to the sammies and made a complete ass of myself
Lost my phone twice in a week
Had A Thorn For Every Heart play the upstairs
Had a band crash at my apartment
Drank too much

August
Shoot the lights out 2 @ the upstairs
Stairway to Stardom concert
Recorded with my stairway band
HOODS played at the upstairs
Lost my job

September
All upstairs shows were canceled including shoot the lights out 3
Moved some shows to boardwalk
lost over $500 on shows
Roommate moved out
Worked on American Idol for 8 days
Went to see Third Eye Blind for the 20th time
Worked doing telemarketing for a republican movie for two weeks

October
Was sick for two weeks
Went to apple hill
Left for the salton sea
Worked 12 to 16 hour days at the salton sea

November
Came back from the salton sea
Judged battle of the bands at club retro
Started work grading standardized tests
Hung out with On The Last Day

December
Only had work for 8 days out of the month
Hung out with Brave Citizens
Had a roommate move in and move out
Went to a dance party and made an ass of myself (again)
Lost my phone (again)
Mom came to visit
Moved my bedroom into the bigger room in my apartment

latest update

soooo….. I haven’t had an epiphany yet.

The third eye blind concert didn’t even bring me any kind of enlightenment that I was semi-expecting. I have been so numb-ish lately trying to decode my own behavior. I just know that whatever I am doing, I am letting more of my subconscious do the directing… since my brain and most of my heart has been disagreeing.

But.. they say that radically changing your behavior patterns is hard (don’t they? who the hell is they??!!). So I continue to do things out of character or even against what I feel like I have done in the past. It’s kind of like tough love that I am doing to myself.

But… in doing this, somehow its pushing my emotions back. It’s like – I don’t feel much. Not much sadness, happiness, disappointment, anger or anything. I am just…. here.

I can’t tell if it’s bad or if it will pass or what’s going on… and in searching for spiritual and/or conscious guidance, I find myself back to square 1 every time and in the essence of just “being”.

My patience is being very tested lately and I believe that is where some of the questions are coming from. But the more questions that I ask, the more I am guided to simply exist.

Something is going to happen.

I don’t know what. I don’t know when, I don’t know why. I don’t know how many people it will affect… I just can feel something….. as nutso as it sounds.

SSSooooooo…. I will just keep waiting around….

I am going to the salton sea next week for the field sampling job. I’ll take lots of pictures. Maybe something there will open my eyes??

I am looking forward to being able to see the stars. We’ll be out in the middle of nowhere. No light pollution.

That should put some perspective on things.

alive

So – this weekend and these past few days have been interesting.

I feel like a broken record the way I recount my experiences, and I don’t know exactly what to do differently.

I don’t feel like there is anything I am doing wrong – at least not to me – but when people don’t get what they want…. and you have the power to give it to them – they get angry. Angry, hurtful, personal… selfish.

I am not a selfish type of person – but people who accuse me and make me feel like I am being selfish because they are not getting what they want out of me angers me …. and it makes my attitude towards them change. Then, I do become selfish.

I will not “give in” to anyone who makes me feel like I am doing too much for myself…. because I only just recently adapted a new outlook on being more in tune with myself than letting my decisions be completely based off of other people and what they want.

Now… I’m doing what I want.

It’s hard. I don’t like it. I keep telling myself I will be happier in the end, and that all the strife and the hurting that has happened in the past due to constantly giving in is worse than whatever I am feeling now.. which I can’t exactly put my finger on. And if I give in… then I am going right back to the way things always were, and there’s no change or progress.

On a completely different note than the one that is the tone of today’s blog .. I bought my third eye blind tickets today. Excited about that….but even then… not too stoked because I feel so bogged down by everything else.

The stress is making my stomache have massive freak outs.

I took too much relora trying to calm myself down and it’s taking days to get it all out of my system – my pee is still neon green after 2 days (sorry for the TMI).

Anyway – this is my last week of work. I better make use of the time that I have here… even if it is a short while. I am glad it’s already almost 3. The time is whizzin by.

I was slightly dissapointed with the turnout last night at the show – but the bands still did a great job. I was stoked that The Hoods busted out a suprise set. Crazy.

I like being busy

I know that I like to be busy. I like to have things to do – and feel like I am making some kind of progress. If I don’t… I get depressed and feel meaningless.

Right now – I have a lot to do so it justifies my existence. Then when I say that I need a break – does that mean I can’t handle all the work like I think I can?

It’s just all the shows. I can’t let them overwhelm me. I look at my calendar and when I actually mentally process all the things that I am doing – I get anxious. So I have to just keep going and keep doing it and not think about it.

All the steps are coming together. I can’t believe we got approved for another dance party. I really didn’t think that would happen. That’s pretty freakin cool. So now more things to prepare for. I bought a 12 foot banner to put outside of the venue too – so I am pretty stoked about that. It’s a digitally printed banner… I kind of wanted the vinyl lettering, but digital works – its cheaper… and you’ll still be able to see it from the street and that’s what’s important.

I get to go in and put the lights up tomorrow – I am excited but at the same time nervous about putting something in there that’s somewhat permanent. We have a lot going on though – so I might as well…I have something around 15 shows coming up not including the dance party.

It’s exciting!!!!

I get to record my stairway band on thursday – I can’t believe how fast the whole thing is over … this summer went so fast!

I tried to work myself out yesterday to where I would be sore today – but it didn’t work. I will have to try again today. I did do a decent amount of running – almost 3 miles non-stop… and I didn’t slow down – I guess the crappy part of gaining stamina is that you have to work out harder and longer….

I keep waking up super early and my body is like, okay time to wake up – but I don’t want to so I force myself to go back to sleep and then I wind up being more tired than if I would have just gotten myself up earlier. I think that next time I wake up – I should just get up. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to see if I have more energy during the day….

Alright I’m done.

yadseut

Why does this tuesday feel like a monday? How come every day feels like a monday? Like the cosmos and the universe has been telling me lately that time is standing still.

Each day, each thing that I do, I somehow don’t feel like it is making progress. Like… all this mumbo jumbo about change and progression of people and life … I had an interesting experience today that made me think…

So I went to a meeting with a guy today to hear a schpeal about some type of affiliate internet type buisness. It’s basically middle man work… but you can make some money if you put a decent amount of work into it. It’s something to do on the side. So he gives me this example of this guy – in his early 40’s apparently. He has visited every continent on the earth except for 1 (or so he told me) and he is completely independently wealthy through this online buisness. He used to be a school bus driver.
Okay so I think to myself …. this guy – traveling all around, seeing the world… what is that doing to positively affect the world? is he traveling around helping people? or just sight seeing? is he going to write a book about his travels.. to share his knowledge of what he learned? is he taking pictures to share…? Or is he just traveling around. This old school bus driver… using up air space, world space… “seeing” things. Is he becoming fully happy by seeing all these things in his life – and being able to be “free” and do what he wants?? is he studying something? Learning? So I ask myself… well… someone can be happy being a school bus driver. Does one have to travel the world, see what is out there… ? Does it really matter if all that you have from it is yourself? Perhaps this guy had some other motive… but who knows what that was. I really wondered about this school bus driver turned world traveler….And how many of those there are out there in the world – who just use their wealth to go “see” things.

What do you think??

change = progress

So if change = progress what are we changing? Are you changing? Is someone else changing? We want everyone else to change but don’t want to have to change ourselves? Or we want to change ourselves…. but we don’t…. ?
I try to think of the things that I want to change and then put them into categories…
What I physically can change…
What I can influence to hopefully change…
What I want to change…
What I can’t change..

and a lot of them overlap too… But once they fall into the “what I can’t change” category I have to be able to let it go. Because there are a few things that you can’t change… and one huge one is other people. If someone has no desire to change themselves there is NOTHING you can do….and all the years of energy and effort and care and concern will really do absolutely nothing in the long run. Isn’t that disheartening? What about those who feel that if you keep at it… eventually… maybe someday.. something will change? It’s possible. It happens occasionally… but when do you stop and when do you “give up”? I am not a giver-uper. I don’t give up easily … so maybe that’s why I am so disheartedned when nothing changes?
It’s kind of funny that I perservere through so much and at the same time I am really impatient. Don’t know how that works. haha

Anyway – this ramble today was brought to by the word, “CONTROL”, and the number 8.