Sweet sweet corn

I find it rather odd that this supposedly hectic final semester (one more for me) is being showered with a bucketload of off days. Well, maybe they want us to use all that free time to work on our assignments and researches.

They wish.

Last week I was on a semi self-imposed week-long break from classes. Monday was Aidiladha, Thursday was the birthday of Sultans (yes, Sultans) and Mr. Hellis took Wednesday off so I decided to skip Tuesday and Friday as well since my absence rate for both classes were quite commendable.

Surprisingly, I haven't skip any of Mr. Hellis' classes. Hmm.

Skipping Tuesday was quite legit for me though. Farah went under the knife to remove some lump in her left breast, so I was on standby the whole day since Ibu spent every minute with her. So after lunch with Akim we went to SDMC (oh ya, SJMC went into a rebranding phase not so long ago). Akak came to visit too so the 3 of us had fun chatting in the cafeteria.

Until,

That scent.

It's the most intoxicating scent you could ever get in a hospital strewn with the many whifs of modern day drugs and a sanitatious flock of casts and bandages. It's the scent of sweet, sweet freshly steamed corns.

So I sent Akim to get 2 cups and my goodness, from the first spoon to the last drop of bittersweet after-corn juice, I was somewhere I'd like to go again and again and again. Fuh.

Then on Thursday night was TD's practice session. Spent most of the 2 hours polishing the new song and we agreed that it's ready for this week's gig. Friday was another overnight session at SAE, our makeshift pre-production phase for Yuna's next release. It got quite tricky this time as me, Efry and Adil attempted to record our parts from the recordings of the first session- which were not guided by a metronome. So we did what we could albeit with 4 songs out of 6. Personally, 'Fireworks' was a standout. It still sounds fit for a Medulla B-side but can also be slipped in as a pre-Ok Computer demo. Bijan's presence during the session reminded me again why I would not hire Faiz & Faiz to do the next record. They're highly adept with ProTools and the mindboggling Digidesign yes, but what we need is what only Mokh can offer; the mindset of a record producer.

It is a fact that without Mokh's valid and vital inputs, the EP we did would sound very sketchy. He made us realize that some of the songs were quite empty despite it's full flesh live versions. Also when his melodic sense coupled with Yuna's strong vocal compositions, it resulted in unexpected wonders. But me and Efry did consider the possibility of getting the duo to be our studio engineers under Mokh's supervision. But neither of them have the necessary logistics to make this happen. So this issue is still out in the open.

Coming out of that session and TD's practice the other day made me realize one daunting yet very welcomed thought. The recording process for either band's next release will push me technically. Even after more than 5 years of playing, I am still a very limited guitarist in terms of technical prowess. No, I'm not talking about shredding the fretboard, but it's more of a consistency issue. Plucking 3 strings in one progressive pattern at 120 BPM for a good 50 seconds demands a level of consistency I've yet to attain. And I don't think 'punching' would help during recording too. Well, the only good news is that I have at least 'till March to work on that.

Hmm. It seems all I talk about these days are no more than music huh. Oh right, what happened to lunch+movie?

It didn't.

The night before that day I called her up, and was told that she'll be going to her sister's. So I told her that I really want to take her out, and promised a reschedule. She was still quite worried 'cause it will mean I have to pick her up at Auntie Ani's. I still don't know to what extent of fussy she can be with her nieces and nephews. Anyways, after the overnight session (which ended around 6:30 a.m) I went home and slept around 8 a.m. 2 hours later she texted me and I couldn't sleep anymore. She did the rescheduling :D

For the first few days we were heavily texting, I didn't know where all this would lead to. But I think last night paced things nicely. It brought us back to solid ground. And also brought me back into thinking of another someone. Perhaps, THE someone at the moment.

Maybe I'm reading a bit too much into this but this whole pattern of her asking the wrong things from me seems to have its pull. She asked how much would a 4R print cost, where to get wings for her Halloween party, is Naili's a good place to eat and whether she should be getting either an iPhone, an iPod Touch or a Sony Ericcson X1. All of which I don't have an answer for, really. Never has someone been so, trusting of me even when time and time again I can't give what they want. But I would like to believe I can be the one that gives her what she needs. Alright, alright. I am reading too much into this.

See how la hor.