[Sound] Sampling Your World

Hello world!

So it's been a while.  I was in the middle of typing some self-deprecating remark about messing up my goals for the blog and had to delete it--remember, self, that diligence is better than self-deprecation!  I'm working on practicing what I preach.

I realized a few days ago that I've been under the weather in my head.  Nothing extreme, no drastic change.  I wouldn't call it anything close to a depressive episode.  Just a little unmotivated, which is a killer in a school like this one!  A few days of doing little work really gets me behind.  I'm also starting to realize that one of my new procrastination techniques is cooking.  Gotta work on that one.

Plus I noticed that my AA meeting attendance wasn't too hot in the last week or so.  Sure, I made it to my weekly commitment at a local detox, took some girls from a halfway house to a meeting, and made a few other meetings, too.  Which sounds totally admirable, except I know that it wasn't enough for me.  I always tell fellow alcoholics that there's two times when you absolutely need to hit a meeting: when you really want to, and when you really don't want to.  Connecting with other like-minded people is the best thing I can do to combat complacency and lethargy.

Moving on!  

I did manage to start pulling out of my slump last Thursday by convincing myself to get wrapped up in a project that was assigned for my electronic music class.  The project has actually been really challenging for me: we were assigned the task of recording sound samples from the world around us (for example, I sampled a Keurig brewing coffee) and producing a 3-5 minute piece of music from only our edited samples.  All that in a week.  That's pretty daunting--try it at home if you don't believe me!

What really helped me was the setup of the studios we use.  There's two studios that the students and faculty share for recording, editing, arranging, etc., and we sign up for times to reserve the studios beforehand.  Being held accountable for keeping a schedule is a fantastic tool to get me to get out of a bad mental place.  I have probably spent 12+ hours in the studio in the last week alone, serving the dual purpose of forcing myself to get out of my head and forcing myself to get my homework done.  Nice.

So my piece isn't done yet.  I have about 2:10 of material completely arranged, and I still have more ideas to execute.  Best of all, I'm not busy convincing myself that I'm a failure.  When I do nothing useful, I think of myself of useless--a self-fulfilling prophecy, because I get so paralyzed with guilt that I do, in fact, do nothing useful.  Instead, I'm going to stop blogging now to make it to the studio for my reserved time, and spend the afternoon making awesome music.  

A solid quote to remember, from a passage in Came to Believe (an AA book on spirituality):

"Sometimes I have failed, but I am not a failure.  I have made mistakes, but I am not a mistake."

Maybe I'll post some of my work on this blog later?  Maybe not?  What's great is that I don't have to commit to that yet.  I'll just get moving and be productive, one moment at a time.

Take care!