#but also i just spent stupid money on tickets to live podcasts so i probably shouldn't

[senselessalchemist]

Bow problems (+ other nonsense)

[fourteenacross]

year in review

Time for the year in review! I do these two surveys and the writing one every year, though the writing one is gonna wait until I have time to collect all the links and do the word count and everything.

Fandom 2017

1. Your main fandom of the year?

Definitely still Hamilton on the reading/writing front. In the "this is all I talk about" way, it was probably Great Comet or maybe Malloy in general because I still want to talk about Ghost Quartet all the time.

2. Your favorite film watched this year?

(Hahaha, in last year's meme I said something about finding Moana surprisingly moving and wanting to see it again. I ended up seeing it like, five times in theatres.)

But actual films that I actually saw in 2017 that weren't Moana. Probably Get Out. It's really a masterful piece of work in my very favorite genre. I made a zillion people see it. I still think about it all the time. And [vague spoilers] the bit where Rod comes out of the car is probably my favorite movie moment in 2017. [/vague spoilers]

3. Your favorite book read this year?

I can narrow it down to my top three, which were Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee, Star-Crossed by Barbara Dee, and Ghostland by Colin Dickey. The first two are completely unsurprising--Gentleman's Guide is my favorite sort of narrative, where there are exciting adventures and also a queer romance and everyone lives happily ever after. Star-Crossed is the book I needed when I was thirteen, and Ghostland is something I'm still talking about all the time.

4. Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?

Did I listen to anything new this year? Oh, Ghost Quartet! Definitely Ghost Quartet, it was all I listened to for about two months.

5. Your favorite TV show of the year?

Oh god, I don't know? There was nothing I was obsessive over. New stuff that I liked: One Day at a Time, The Good Place, and...maybe that was it?

6. Your favorite online fandom community of the year?

idk. To be honest, I still don’t quite ~*~get~*~ tumblr (tho I had some nice conversations via the chat function, despite my general awkwardness as a human), LJ is dead, and while I connect with fandom friends and talk about fandom on Twitter, I don’t do that as much as I whine about my life. I guess AO3 has been great via comments received, but that also feels one-sided, as chatty cathy as I sometimes get when responding to people’s comments. Most of my fandom conversations this year have PROBABLY been over text?

^^^^ That's what I wrote last year and it probably remains true, except to say that I had a lot of gr8 conversations about my dumb fic with @lisapizza​.

7. Your best new fandom discovery of the year?

I don't think I had one, unless you count Ghost Quartet.

8. Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?

Everything that happened around the end of Great Comet. I'm still angry and heartbroken over it.

9. Your fandom boyfriend of the year?

I'm changing this from "your TV bf" and "your TV gf" because I just don't watch a ton of teevee anymore. Still, even with that change, I'm not sure I have a fandom boyfriend right now. I have been pretty anti-dude this year. OH, I guess unless you count Lucas Steele getting all up in my biz on stage when I saw Comet in August XD

10. Your fandom girlfriend of the year?

Probably Brittain Ashford or Morgan Marcell.

11. Your biggest squee moment of the year?

My entire Chicago trip was pretty great, including seeing Karen as Angelica which was WOW. Seeing Malloy as Pierre. The final performance of Great Comet in a ferris wheel with @lisapizza​ @charmingpplincardigans​ and @chiasticbees​

12. The most missed of your old fandoms?

Mostly I miss having close buddies in fandom. I miss texting @pearlo​ every dumb fic idea I have and planning trips and parties for people to come do fannish stuff together.

13. The fandom you haven’t tried yet, but want to?

I’m p mono-fannish, so I’m good for now.

14. Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?

Oh god, I don't know? Heroes, probably. It's weird not doing DragonCon this year. Um, Hamilton in Boston. Whatever happens with Moby Dick. Black Panther and A Wrinkle in Time. The Simon vs. movie.

***

General 2017

What did you do in 2017 that you’d never done before?

Went on a non-con vacation with friends! Recorded a live podcast episode (twice!)! Uh...probably other things?

Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

+ Read more adult books

Aahahahaha, if I did that, it was by like...one. So no.

+ Keep track of good things that happen

I started this at the end of the year? But I did not start in January, so much of the year is lost to my shitty memory.

+ Make a writing schedule and try to stick to it for at least a month

This did not happen.

+ Be better with money–pay off half the credit card

This also did not happen.

+ Go on more dates

This also did not happen. I did go on some, but not as many as 2016 and I spent a large chunk of 2017 dragging my feet over asking someone out instead of just...asking.

Next year:

+ Come up with a better way to track reading/writing/finances + Set up some kind of writing schedule + Cook more often + Schedule at least a couple days a month that are designated "get nothing done" days, so I have at least a couple days where I'm not an anxious mess over not doing enough. + Go somewhere new + Go on more dates--there will be more kissing in 2018, I stfg.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

Caitlin had a baby! I still haven't met him :(

Did anyone close to you die?

The only person I can think of is Sara, a con friend who I know through several of my closer friends. It was weird being at con without her.

What countries did you visit?

Just the US. Hoping to change that in 2018. I did go to ATL, Charlotte, and Chicago, but even that feels like less travel than I normally do.

What would you like to have in 2018 that you lacked in 2017?

I’d like to feel more on top of things. I’d like more organization in my life. I’d like more sleep. I’d like a girlfriend.

^^^^ Keeping that answer from last year.

What dates from 2017 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

January 21 and the Women's March, which was amazing and energizing. June 13 when we saw Malloy as Pierre and that whole weird weekend. September 3 and having the final performance of Great Comet in a ferris wheel. (And also crying my cosplay make-up off all day like a nerd.)

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Staying alive? I feel like this was not a particularly strong year for achievements.

What was your biggest failure?

The whole year feels kind of like a fuzzy grey blur. I feel like I can come up with nine hundred failures, but none of them were particularly bad.

Did you suffer illness or injury?

I started the year off with a broken foot and also with a cold that lasted almost a week. The usual brain stuff was worse than usual thanks to the state of the world. I got glasses.

What was the best thing you bought?

Tickets to Great Comet and Hamilton and Ghost Quartet and Ghost Light and all the other shows and things I saw. My trip to Chicago. My skeleton onesie.

Whose behavior merited celebration?

My friends. A lot of excellent activists.

Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

The American people as a whole and everything associated with our clusterfuck election outcome.

Where did most of your money go?

Grown-up type stuff (rent, utilities, groceries), cons, and travel.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Chicago, HeroesCon, DragonCon, Hamilton, Great Comet, Ghost Quartet. Galentine's Day and my Great Comet wake and my Halloween party.

What song will always remind you of 2017?

I feel like this question is more aimed towards people who listen to the radio. My answer is going to be Ghost Quartet because I listened to that a lot.

Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? I would say that, overall, 2017 has been a sadder year for me than 2016, because up until November, my 2016 was pretty great. But this very moment right now, I think I'm probably slightly happier than I was in December 2016 because everything seemed SO bleak at that point, and at least now there's been some hope.

b) thinner or fatter? Same.

c) richer or poorer? Same.

What do you wish you’d done more of?

Writing. Sleeping. Going on dates. Hanging out with people.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Being depressed. Obsessing over stupid shit people said on the internet.

Did you fall in love in 2017?

Nope.

What was your favorite TV program?

For new stuff, probably The Good Place.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Many, many people. THANKS, POLITICS.

What was the best book you read?

See above for more details on this one.

What was your greatest musical discovery?

Ghost Quartet.

What did you want and get?

Cons, brunch, travel, various tickets to things, my skeleton onesie.

What did you want and not get?

Impeachment. A girlfriend. More sleep.

What was your favorite film of this year?

Get Out

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 32! I had a party and we played Drawful and @lisapizza made me a beautiful cake!

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Any sort of fix to our current political mess.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2017?

Retro-y dresses.

What kept you sane?

@ginthusiastic @pearlo @caphairdadbeard @isjustprogress @intrikate88 @lisapizza @charmingpplincardigans @anachronistique @chiasticbees @brilligspoons and the rest of the Boston crew whose tumblrs I don’t know/remember, and the DCon crew and Great Comet and Hamilton and GBBO and social media breaks.

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Brittain Ashford, Morgan Marcell, the entire cast of The Last Jedi.

What political issue stirred you the most?

It's hard to pick just one when the whole country is on fire.

Who did you miss?

Pretty much everyone when they are not right next to me. Sarah Bay, a lot, but I feel weird singling one person out. [This is exactly what I wrote for the last three years, but I’m keeping it because it’s still true.]

Who was the best new person you met?

I’m trying to think of actualfax new people I met? I can't think of anyone?

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2017:

No one cares about facts.

Quote a song that sums up your year:

I will try to forgive myself for living in the dark for my loss of wonder for forgetting how to play

I will try to forgive myself for being absent in public and bored before stars

for not remembering for not being in my body for not starting right now I will try to see myself as I am

[olla-village]

Language biography -My Chinese adventure

1. Here I am 18 years old

So, here I am, 18 years old confused monolingual… Finished my community college just to realize that I hate spending so much time in front of computer screens, writing code at nights, powered by coffee and greasy junk food.

 18 years old meant that I was an adult, at least both I and law of the country agreed on that… I could buy cigarettes, alcohol and tickets to other countries even if my parents were against it. I didn’t need to ask anyone’s permission. It felt like freedom. Freedom comes with responsibility, but that’s the whole different story.

 2.  It was time for something big It was time for something big.But for what? When I was younger I liked to travel to nearby cities by busses and hitchhiking. It was a mixture of being lost, on purpose… and finding something new after every trip. Traveling was my form of learning and escaping from problems at the same time.

 This time I was really lost.No direction. Hitchhiking for a week didn’t help. Yes, I tried. I needed a new medicine. I tried, like many of us nowadays, to find the answer online. Almighty Google knows it all.I didn’t know what to ask. So I decided to look at my bookmarks.

There was a website I read for more than 4 years. Or so. I guess. It is called Magazeta. They also do a podcast. Not some goofy cast, but LaowaiCast. They discuss everything about China through the eyes of laowais, speak Chinese fluently and seem to have all kinds of fun there in the mysterious country.

3. I decided to join them

I decided to become one of them, join this strange tribe. To become a laowai. A proper living in China laowai. And not an expat, who just hangs out with westerners, but a Chinese-speaking laowai. I figured out how much money I needed to study Chinese for a year, found 2 jobs that’d allow me to earn enough in 3 months. June, July and August. I became a taxi-driver, and began to work at a construction site. Not bad for a guy who majored in programming, eh? At least, there were no computers.At all. No screens, not even sunscreen. None of that, nada! I kept researching my new dreamland, China. Almighty Google told me that for my budget and for language learning Top2 options were Tianjin because Mandarin there is very standard, but it is cheaper than Beijing and Shenzhen, the most Mandarin-speaking city in Guangdong. I chose Shenzhen. It’s tropical and close to Hong Kong. I watched many Hong Kong movies as a kid and was interested in Kung Fu.

After working for 14 hours a day for 3 months I hated my jobs enough and was ready to fly to my dreamland. So I did. I kissed my parents and my girlfriend good bye and started my new scary laowai adventure. 4.  I didn’t learn Chinese before went to China I didn’t learn any Chinese before I went to Shenzhen because I read online that it’d destroy my pronunciation forever. So I followed advice of someone Almighty Google led me too. I was proud that I would’t learn broken pronunciation. Stupid. After a few, quite a few days of trains and planes, I arrived in Shenzhen. It was another planet. Humid, incomprehensible, green, terrifying and extremely friendly. No Kung Fu skills required. Beginner friendly.

I ordered a service of an interpreter who would meet me in the airport and help me to get to the hotel, the first and the last time in my life. He was quite surprised when I asked if he has a knife or at least keys when we got to an ATM. It was hard to explain why I sewed my bank-card in my pocket, but he understood that in my country people like to pick pockets. Not the best advertisement for a country, but I was determined and didn’t want to let thieves destroy my plan. 5.  Soon I didn’t go to lessons at all So I got a dorm room, figure out where I can buy pillow and started to learn Chinese in class, but soon I found that I was not able to say tones right and I was late for my writing classes on purpose, to skip that annoying dictation where I’d make a mistake in every character. Soon I didn’t go to lessons at all. I joined Wing Chun classes and hung out with other laowais and Chinese folks instead. My roommate also taught me some Chinese, especially survival kind of stuff or how to ask for cigarettes on the street, his teaching skills were particularly awesome when he was drunk. Sometimes when I met my classmates in campus they asked me why I gave up on learning Chinese, I said that I don’t go to classes, but I still learn Chinese. I hated that one guy who said he learns Chinese just to read stuff and that he doesn’t care about speaking since there’s no reason to talk with Chinese people, what a prick! I don’t hate him anymore. At that time I called my approach “just learn”. It meant learning without homework and tone drills. 6.  Laowai life was fun I spent 4 months like this. I was so busy practicing wing chun, playing football, buying fake shoes, hanging out and exploring Shenzhen that sometimes I forgot to eat for 2 or 3 days. That’s why I sometimes stole my roommate’s sushi that he’d get for free every night. Thanks to well-cooking people who lived in the girls’ dormitory, I was never hungry. I think I looked so skinny they just wanted to feed me on the level of instincts… Long story short, laowai life was fun, colorful and cheap for those who lived in campus. At least, it was for me. For 4 months or so. And then it was over.  The End. Game over. I had to go back home for what I call family reasons. I didn’t finish my 1 year Mandarin course. It was also hard to get my deposit money back, but I did. It was really good for my Mandarin skills. My WeChat was full of contacts. I packed all the tea, gifts I got from strangers in my friend’s dorm and stinky clothes. I was and wasn’t ready to leave. I told my friends that I’d be back for sure, which I doubted.

 The END or To be Continued? That is the question. At that moment, I connected language to living in that country. 7.  I missed China and Chinese Don’t live in China = don’t learn Chinese. So, obviously I gave up learning languages and broke up with my girlfriend. Luckily, I found a lazy job where I could play my phone almost all the time. For several months I just lived in my memories about China and felt some hole growing inside me. I didn’t understand where it was coming from. One cannot go and live abroad and then come back to the farm and pretend it didn’t happen. It is going to change anyone, no matter how hard this naïve person is trying to ignore it. I needed to fill that emptiness. I tried a few things. They didn’t work. Until one day I saw an ad about learning Chinese just by listening. Like literally sitting on my bottom, which I was already doing, I was even getting paid for that, and learning… Chinese! The language of my dream/nostalgia land. I was nowhere near fluency at that moment. Upperbeginner at best. I missed China and Chinese Pod became my new way to connect to the land of rice and cuteness. That emptiness inside was filled. Except for … it wasn’t. But things were getting better, way better. I felt alive again. Or maybe it was that nice Turkish coffee I was drinking while I listened to Chinese Pod? Then I thought that just listening, even good listening was not enough for that hole somewhere inside me. So I thought I need… people! But I still wanna sit on my bottom so if I find people online, I don’t need to spend extra time after job. Multitasking for the win. 8.  I started my new job I found hellotalk and some similar apps with similar names. Hellotalk was the best one, but at that time it was slow, sometimes a message was sent 4 hours or a day later, so I stole people from there by asking their whatsApp number. I started to realize that the missing ingredient in my life, besides people, was Chinese language. I also realized that escapism and dreaming about faraway lands was not an ideal solution. In search of a perfect combination of people and languages, I decided to join a university. I wanted to study Chinese, but they told me that they have teachers, but not so many students want to learn Chinese. Interpretation was not available that year. What a weird year! The only choice was teaching English, which sounded tasty at that moment, since I also wanted to change my job at that moment. I asked for all the details about exams and stuff. It was nice except for the fact that that stinking girl tricked me and I was preparing for master degree entrance exams instead of what I really needed because I was the first one who wanted to join that university that year and she didn’t really know what to tell me. It was a surprise, but I passed it super well, like top2 or something. Probably because I prepared for something way more difficult, thanks to that stinking girl. My score was a big surprise for me, since I’ve never been a top student. At the same time I started my new job. I was a tutor. Teaching kids English.1 on 1. Learning my major by practice. It was awesome. Language became my bread and peanut butter. 9.  I found my jam. It was olla. But I still needed jelly! Peanut butter sandwiches are fine, but they’re nothing like peanut butter jelly ones!

That Sunday I planned to have some rest for my brain and body. So I got a lot of nesquik and scrolled mindlessly through countless web pages full of memes and stupid videos. Until I saw an ad for a language learning app on some page where people who learn English hang out. In comments I read that most users were Chinese. These comments were written in a negative tone, but for me it was pure treasure. Here, I found my jam. It was olla. By that time, hellotalk and its clones were deleted and forgotten for a long time, but I gave olla as much of my precious SD storage and space on the screen as it wanted. I liked it for no particular reason, as I thought back then. Now I do understand that other apps couldn’t provide this kind of sense of community as olla did. It was alive, lively and vivid.

10.  It was addictive

It was a perfect place for me to practice my languages. My way to do it was to provoke people, often it meant arguing with them. I learned to be provocative in many languages. I also learned to pretend to be from different countries. The most difficult one was Australia. Controversy and gossip were my fuel. It was not just any drama, it was international. Better than Argentinian TV series! I tried many ways to catch attention, I hope that psychologists and my future employers don’t read how much of an attention seeker and drama queen I was. A few times I deleted an app and said it was shitty publically, while actually I loved it but was busy studying in my university and knew that I don’t have enough will power to keep studying while olla was still on my phone, it’d be too much of a distraction. It was addictive. Before I deleted it, I posted my email on olla plaza. Jessica was worried or surprised or something of this nature and wrote me an email. She helped me to deliver my messages to my biggest language buddy. It was one directional isolation and made me way more mysterious than I’ve ever been before. Because of me being such a d... dumbass, many people hated me, but many liked me. Many mentioned that they missed me, I knew it through gossip and screenshots. Imagine the size of my ego at that moment… After a while, I realized what other apps lacked completely and why they didn’t deserve my storage and screen space. Sense of community + drama, gossip and controversy (people crave it) + many people from different countries in the same room. Cultures don’t merge this way in 1 on 1 conversations. Other platforms also have many people from different countries,but they try to find you a match, a perfect partner. Perfect is boring. In olla people didn’t match perfectly and it was beautiful. It was colorful. It was my home anywhere I went. 11.  I couldn’t stay like this forever I couldn’t stay like this forever. All of us eventually get boring, also known as serious. I was a university student after all. Gotta be pretentious and stuff. They call it professional. I started to read a lot of SLA (Second Language Acquisition) research, just like people read news or comics. As a result, I realized that my“just learning” intuitive approach to languages was actually consistent with research. Even gossip and drama. But mostly community and compelling input. It is kind of the same thing.

Not only I pretty much filled that emptiness by languages, I also came to the point where my experience met science\research. Like yin and yang.

12.  I started to plan to get back to China After that, I decided to get my life together again and I started to plan how to get back to China. I didn’t get any good idea how to do it, but I started to save money and told my classmates and buddies that most probably I will go to China again. Fake it till you make it works every time. I also told some folks on olla about my plan. I really do consider olla to be my hometown and I did find real life friends there. I think it’s safe to say that I spent more time on olla than with my real life friends. I also spent a lot of time with my offline friends, but they can be less available than something tiny in my cheap phonethat opens the door to my friends. Wait, olla is real, so it’s also real life. People there are real. Language learning there is real as well. Wrong dichotomy. So I spent more time in my olla hometown than in another one because it felt warmer and closer.

My best language buddy who already became my friend decided to help me make my second laowai life happen much faster than I imagined and invited me to join olla team. I pretended that I am so cool and need to think for 1 day or so, like it is not a big deal, when in reality it was dreams come true type of deal, at that moment I was already packing my small backpack and getting ready for the second chapter of China. This time it was Guangzhou.

To be continued.

 You can read my language buddy’s story here

(my story https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/ollaolla.home.blog/40)

 Bear

2019/10/1

[jeremyhechtsblog-blog]

Most Valuable

I auditioned for America’s Got Talent, chilled with the “Cash Me Ousside” girl’s mom, got clowned by Schoolboy Q, and talked on the phone with Ice Cube.

 Okay, so I didn’t really have a full conversation with Ice Cube. But I did answer the phone and say like five words to him.

“Jeremy, will you wait on the line for Ice Cube to call? He’s doing an interview with us in a few minutes.”

“No problem!” * me kind of nervous *

* phone rings *

“Hey what’s up?”

“Hey is this Cube?” (yeah, I called him by his last name)

“Yeah man, what’s going on?”

“I’m gonna give the phone to Jeff okay?” * hands over phone after the realization that I just spoke to Ice Cube *

This week I got to help out with interviews for Ice Cube, Rick Ross, Fat Joe and Remy Ma, and Schoolboy Q.

Last Saturday

It’s been eight hours and they are finally letting us into the final room for auditions. John has been waiting with me for the whole time because he is the illest roommate in the game today. We watch as little kids with more dance moves than I’ll ever have, step into the middle of the crowd to entertain the, at this point, antsy crowd. Some people here have put their life into these auditions and may leave thinking their whole life is over.

I signed up for this Americas Got Talent audition a long time ago and honestly forgot about it until a couple days before this. But I figured, I have nothing to lose (except for 8 hours) and I’d rather know than never know, ya know?

I step into the final audition room with ten other contestants. For those of you who don’t know how it works, this is the screening process. The auditions you see on TV have already been “accepted” into that round, so the really bad ones were put on-air to entertain, on purpose.. It’s not as “real” as you think.

“Jeremy”

I step up to the front of the line”

“I’m going to be rapping a song that I wrote 5 years ago after a kid on YouTube said he was going to kill himself. Years later someone else told me this song saved their life.”

I rapped my song “Hold On” and the judges were looking directly at me the whole time. No mistakes, word for word. I felt like it was a magical moment. My 90 seconds are up and I walk out the building with John. We go to get chicken and waffles.

“You guys ordered three meals.. There is only two of you?”

 “Yup” * we both laugh *

“You guys are heroes”

Thursday

Today the “Cash Me Ousside” (Danielle) girl is in the Power studio. If you’re thinking to yourself “who?” you probably haven’t been on the internet in the last year. She is basically this girl who went off on Dr. Phil and now the internet has made her famous and she is probably making a lot of money. Watch this first

Keep in mind she is also 13.

I help make some shirts that say “HOE” on them, and although my mom will be proud that I ironed for the first time, she will most likely not be proud that I’m wearing a shirt that says HOE on the front of it. But hey, I’m just telling it like it is… The shirts were a joke because this girl Danielle called the Dr. Phil audience “a bunch of hoes.”

Her mom, who is with her in the studio says,

“I don’t want to be in the interview today. Is there somewhere I can sit?” 

I show her to the Cruz Couch room and we end up talking for a half-hour with another one of the employees from the sale side of Power, who came to get a picture of the mom for her daughter. The mom tells me her side of their story and how Danielle has had a troubled past and is really a good kid.

It was an interesting half-hour to say the least. I’m not sure if I’m enlightened, but it was cool.

Jeff asks me to call into the station to ask if I won any tickets for Big Sean.

“Hey this is Power 106”

“Hi, did I win Big Sean Tickets?”

Danielle gets on the phone “no you little stupid a** b**** you’re a r*****. Go home, you didn’t win s***.”

“That one hurt my heart a little bit.”

After that escalation, I went to take a picture with her, but I made sure to keep a lot of distance because she is 13 and I don’t need all of those comments on the internet…

 Friday

Schoolboy Q is in the studio today. I know, does it ever stop? I see him and he is standing next to Baby Bash (who I didn’t recognize at the time but who sings “Suga Suga” one of the greatest songs of all time). I take a picture of Baby Bash and Q.

I meet one of the dudes rolling with Baby Bash, he is also an artist. We start talking about music and Canada and the industry.

“Give me your number man, send me some of your music.”

They bring in a bunch of female fighters for Schoolboy Q to interview because Cruz will be on paternity leave in a couple weeks and the station wants to have some fill-in material to play for the morning show.

I am the one who has to escort all of the female fighters to and from the rooms and to the bathroom. I’ve gotta say, I wouldn’t mess with any of them… But they are super cool people.

Q has weed rolling and the room is starting to smell pretty loud… I tell him he should have his own podcast called “The Q Podcast”

“man, my face looks too good for a podcast. I need my own show, yaknowhhhattiiiiimeaaaan?” * laughing *

“Where did that saying come from?” * I attempt to say yaknowhatimean as cool as him and ultimately fail *

 “People think it’s from the bay, but it’s from some gang banging s*** from way back in the day”

We take a picture and as I’m walking up we shake hands but Q looks at my shirt (which has a low cut collar white t shirt) and says

“Ah man, we got one of them cut your own shirt n***** You gon claim you bought it that way”

“I really only wore this shirt because I knew you would clown me… Plus I actually did buy it like this but you won’t believe me”

“But you still chose to buy it like that” * laughing *

I was gonna retaliate about him wearing orange flip flops, but the flip flops were dope. So instead I just say:

“Those flip flops are dope.”

“Thanks my g, gotta always keep em on yaknowhatiiiimeaaaaaaaaan?”

Lesson:

Make Yourself Invaluable:

This one is from my Professor’s “Keys To Success” list and it’s his number 1 on the list. It has become the number one goal I try to achieve in every single business scenario or relationship. It’s also one of the 48 Laws of Power. Make people rely on you. If people cannot get what they need anywhere else or from anyone else, then they need you. And that is what I try to do. At Power, I create the best possible interview questions and notes for each artist I’m tasked to help out with, and sometimes even for ones that I’m not. Because now, if they cannot get those notes or that level of research/ creativity anywhere else, then they have to come back to me and that makes me invaluable. If you provide a feeling to someone or a connection level of conversation that someone cannot get anywhere else or with anyone else, then they will come back to you. Always. It’s plain and simple but you should try to make that one of your main goals if you are trying to maintain something or advance in that realm/ relationship.

Take Risks when It’s at Little Cost and Large Potential Gain to You

It may seem counter-intuitive to say that a risk is something that has little cost to you, wouldn’t that make it not a risk? Wrong. Risks are just doing things that may put you out of your comfort zone, even if there is no real cost; it may just be a perceived cost to you. For example, I wanted to audition for America's Got Talent, so I did. It was a risk. I risked rejection and a lot of time spent, and the opportunity cost of doing other things or getting homework done. But I felt like the payoff could be large and the cost was little compared to not ever knowing. I need to do what I feel and trust my instinct in this life, otherwise I might have a regret, and I’m not into settling for regrets. Not even one.

I try to live my life and put my all into everything I do. Even if I don’t put my all into music, or radio, or writing, or PR, because I have a lot of dreams, when I am focused on one I put my all into that and I chase after all that I want.

Like my friend Anja told me yesterday (Happy Birthday by the way),

“Allow the space between where you want to be and where you are now to inspire you, not terrify you.”

Your journey is your destination.

Stay inspired and I love you all for reading this. Have an incredible week as always, and just remember: you’re breathing.

-       Jeremy