overstayer

As of today, i am officially not a student anymore - I surrendered my Student Pass and now I'm just another Indon in Singapore! I guess its really a close shave how I ALMOST forgot that my pass expired on 30 Apr, which would mean that, let's say, I remembered in May, they will arrest me and give me free plane ride to Indonesia and forbid me from re-entering Singapore for quite a while. But anyway, that's not really important now.

I haven't updated for donkey years. But it's not like there has been people viewing this blog for a gazillion years. Sometimes it really feels like I'm holding a rock concert in a graveyard. Or whatever. Many things happened, of course... and although at the moment I'm slacking I've been quite busy the past 2 weeks - a $2000 contract with TH to produce a video for one of their events. Thats like err.. $2000 over two weeks. On first view it is a very good deal of course, until you realise the kind of red tape and blockage they make you go through. Can't elaborate about it at all cause I have an NDA with them - Non-disclosure Agreement - cause they feel the data is sensitive.

Of course, me, a humble student, with a "professional rate" given for two weeks work. What I can say is I definitely was a bargain (I'm not being cocky or anything - their toa-tow-kay, the HC person likes the vid and told them to tell me to put my name and pic at the end during the credits. And I was told they were so happy with it they are thinking of showing it to outsiders as part of their first impression thing of the company). So if you think of it, it is really a bargain. Consider that (this is not sensitive knowledge but it's not common knowledge either) Mediacorp charges outside people exorbitant fees to use its clips.

To view their library is something like $250 for 4 hours.

Taking the first 5 seconds of any tape - $1500, with $50 dollars charged per second after 5 seconds until 28 seconds. After which there is a flat rate of $2500 from 28s to dunno how many minutes, then there is another per-second-rate. Of course, means the more tapes you take the more you pay. I mean I can't say how much the company actually bought. But it doesn't make much sense to the everyday person why a company that owns Mediacorp wholly must pay for a few seconds of footage. Okay, the world is imperfect.

See how I think they really got a bargain? HAHAHA.

Anyway, it's been a pretty good experience lah. I learnt really a lot about how to do lots of new tricks - and downloaded a lot of stuff as well.

SO that's that, though I still have to collate a video for them during the event itself, which is pretty much an easy job.

Which also means, that from now till I get another student pass (ie when I confirm that I want to accept some uni's offer) it is illegal for me to work! Lol.

Anyway, went back for AJ Idol today. It was okay, I guess, but the standard of the contestants really dropped for the bands. Between Dania's band and that other group of crap, i think the winner is pretty obvious. Who gets away with a Bon Jovi impersonation especially if your (two) guitarists aren't even playing the song correctly. I think really they were trying to be AJ's next rock band after extasy - but at extasy played music, they played lots of noise, and I was really really trying hard to keep a straight face in the front row ah.

The guest "star" was really damn pro, that beatboxing guy. But that being said, it is something u want to see once and then clap and then forget about - cause other than his ability to use his mouth very quickly and innovatively. Well, it's not interesting. You know, like Zhang Yimou and his colorful spending spree for his movies - but ultimately are forgettable ones. And he's (the guest) someone who is trying to make it pro, like pretty desperate to. Of course I feel bad for him... and why i think music should be just for fun and interest and not for money cause

MONEY SPOILS EVERYTHING!

If you haven't realised yet. how many arguments, murders, frame-ups, crimes are money-motivated?

i want to form a band that really feels our own music - even if we do get signed on we'd have to have the final say over our content - dunch want to be doing over-commercialised numbers do we. Ah. that reminds me cause the others are all in the army, and not as enthusiastic about the music thing anymore, maybe. I'd have to wait till uni days then.

and one more thing i realised - my written english is degrading, or is it the late nights and lack of sleep to correct and recorrect the minor details of my contract job? - note from the first paragraph the english. Then scroll back here.

LOL.

it's quite lonely nowadays, with me being sidelined from my facilitator job (my toe hasnt healed yet, at least i can't wear a shoe yet) and all other guys in the army. other than weekends which have some stuff to do the weekdays have been, well, boring...

with my $2000 pay check, what should I do:
1-save it
2-buy a $295 mockingbird guitar
3-go for guitar lessons

I like the sound of 2 and 3. HAHA. Another idea: KBOX! 4 guys going Kbox is really more fun than it appears. Esp if the first song i chose was 脱掉. Ha.

ahh.. maybe if I'm free, I'd blog more. To the ghosts and shadows who occasionally come by to listen to my compositions (if you havent realised yet, that MIDI track is mine)