A Higher State of Consciousness

Work

Life at Zouk started last Wednesday and it wasnt exactly a great start when Karizma, the biggest draw for the night failed to turn up. We had Mats, the other guest, play a longer set of course and it was quite a crowd-pleasing set. On a Wednesday, that was some turnout.

But we had to make a point - no one cancels on Zouk without a valid reason like that and Mats, the label owner and somewhat boss of Karizma, was every bit the businessman. He offered to take a relatively smaller fee for his appearance (which had to be a little higher than what was promised since he played a longer set but yet had to be less than what otherwise would be paid for 2 djs since Karizma bailed out on us).

He found it easier to talk to Jill becos of their prior contact and the fact that she's travelled a bit around the US made it easy to keep the conversation going. I can't travel (yet) so I may just have to subscribe to Discovery Channel Travel for some armchair filler. Hey, whatever helps must be considered.

And I got my Macbook on Thursday. It is cool but having bred on Windows for all my life, it took some adjusting.

So by Friday, I was pretty comfortable with it already. Which just goes to show you cant put down a fast learner :P

Friday was pretty mundane but everyone was a little concerned for Byden's gig since he was up against some serious competition from MOS on that night. Still, the turnout was nothing short of spectacular. 80% of the space was filled! That's like DOPE, man!

Then we had Marco V over on Sat. A nice fellow who speaks when spoken to. Nothing about his demeanor or talk suggests the awesome techno he unleashed that night. Sure there was trance and a little prog. But I always refer to him as a techno dj, really. His is not trance full-on so I am still baffled that Zouk should classify him as trance.

Work (Part 2)

Fuck MOE, which only got back to me like a good one month after my interview. (They promised 2 weeks). They offered me an appointment as a trainee teacher, of course. But what awful timing...

I am going to give my work at Zouk another week's consideration before I decide. It's been great at the club so far but I suspect that's becos Jill hasnt given me the full load of everything. I know the PR bit is necessary for the job and I have no complaints about the dinner, seeing that they have everything set up and that their drinks are always cold, showing them around the club etc. But I just suspect that like Aldrin had previously forewarned me, she's the laidback sort. I am going to have to start talking to some DJs and agents on my own now. And learn how to do the file-sharing thingy so she has no excuse not to share stuff with me.

Damn, since I am at it...

Teaching is certainly the most practical career path I can choose. Everything is systematically organised - do X, get Y. Not to mention, it pays pretty darn well. At least $300 more than what I am getting now. And that's for the training period. After I am done, I should be commanding at least $3k (including consideration for my working experience). When I am done with it all, I can tutor for the rest of my life.

In essence, it's about the money, stupid.

But it sure sounds like hellish boredom. For one thing, I am going to be one of almost 20,000 teachers in Singapore (the interviewer said something like 18,000). And I wont get to travel to the States. I probably got to look over my back for students who might otherwise want to youtube their teacher 1) smoking and/or 2) dancing and prancing on the Zouk dancefloor.

In essence, it's the good money and regular hours making up for the boredom and restriction of freedom.

Life

Dad got back but we hardly spoke. In fact, I hardly speak to anyone else at home now. It must be the hours cos I am out when everyone comes home. It must be because I am not feeling exactly most family-friendly since the relationship with the ex-gf is kinda up in the air. She had a positive impact on my ties with the rest of the family when we were together. We would share dinners, she would chat with Mum a bit and everyone in the extended family did ask about her over the last New Year.

She was good fodder for conversations with the family.

Ok, ok...I didnt mean it like that. But it's along that line.

She's the one I want to marry.

But things have changed. So we gotta learn and adapt as we trudge along.