In late February, while having lunch my father, he informed me that Madelyn was going to be in town for her father’s birthday. Madelyn was an old friend that I used to have “play dates” between the ages of 10 and 12. The play dates stopped when Madelyn was shipped off to boarding school in Seville, coincidentally to the same boarding school my older sister was attending. Then came the one thing that turned my life upside down and inside out. My father said, “She’s your betrothed bride.”

My parents had set up an arranged marriage in tween years. While arrange marriages are no longer the norm, they still exists. They also have a higher success rate. This apparently has been the custom in my family for quite sometime. My father, on the other hand, did not marry his betrothed, as she passed away a year prior before the marriage was suppose to take place.

The last few months I have had to deal with a onslaught of planning a wedding I didn’t want. We found time between my busy schedule here in a LA and her life in Cambridge finishing up her MBA. When I was in New York for work, she came out on holiday during Easter Weekend. During that weekend we took time to try to reconnect, introduced her a few friends, and looked at the Plaza Hotel as a possible wedding/reception local. After having coffee we had an altercation over some differences and she stormed out. I thought it was all over, but I was wrong. A few days later I was informed, that she had chosen the Plaza and the wedding would be in autumn. A few days after that, the date was confirmed. November 7th was the day I was to be wed. As you can see, I was being informed what was going to happen. Nothing I did was going to change that.

While I was focusing more on work, our parents (hers and mine) had already started talking about guest list, colours, table settings, etc. A few weeks later I was given a sheet with 150 blank spaces to fill in name of those I wanted to invite. Madelyn also had 150 guest of her own… our parents had already agreed on 500, for a grand total of 800 invitations. I took me a couple of days to finish up my list and still had a few spaces to spare and everything was ready for the invitations until Madelyn decided she no longer liked the invitations she had picked out. She wanted to personally pick out the invitation when she was back in LA. So that pushed back a lot of the planning on her part and made me look bad in front of the few people that knew I was getting married and where awaiting their invitations.

There were family politics why I couldn’t say no. The was constant barrage of congratulations from all my relatives, some I didn’t even knew I had. I tried to find common ground… I tried to to be this person I was suppose to be or least our families wanted me to be. But at the end of the day it was just a mask.

I couldn’t live a lie and try to be with someone that I knew had no connection or chemistry with.

I’m not saying that I’m a catch, far from it… I have many, many faults. But the points stays the same, I was being groomed to be in a loveless marriage. But with this I am going to endure a lot of consequences which I still not sure what’s the worst that can happen.

I had dinner with Madelyn parents last Tuesday night to discuss what they wanted to do with the expenses of what had already been deposited for the hall, reception, and whatnot.

Since then I have been harassed by my own family. While my immediate family is out of town, aunts and uncles disapprove of my choice.

I dislike that my family deems it necessary to tell me how to live my life. Many of them are ashamed that I chose to study music. They are ashamed that I didn’t go to UCLA, Brown, USC, or Cornell. Yet I have done well for myself. I have decent career and somewhat happy for all the thing I have been able to do at my young age of 23.

While there are still other consequences to face when my parents get back, they can disown me for all I care. I will stand my ground. I will fight for what I believe. I will not be broken.

“Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense”

-Winston Churchill

If you understand this good, if not, it is no longer relevant.

There has been a few personal dilemmas that I have had to deal with in the past few months.

But I came to the realization that I can’t be what others want me to be.

I am current at the airport to fly away for a few days on vacation to celebrate my birthday.

I will deal with the consequences when I return. Until then, I will enjoy my time off.

I would like to present to you, Paige.

After much debate and thought I decided that I will be staying in the LA area for the foreseeable future. So I have decide to purchase a car…. much to my father’s pressure it was a new car. The stock market has been good to me these last few months. So, instead of getting a loan, I was able to just buy it cash. I have to say that Lexus’ sales are down 40% over last year adding to the credit meltdown, due to these and other aspects I was able to get a good deal. Also, this the basic entry level car. No 20″ rims or flashy stuff, just the basics.

⁹ A man’s heart plans his way,
But the LORD directs his steps.

Proverbs 16:9

It’s been about two weeks since I was notified that I am no longer enrolled at APU. Since then I enjoyed a two great 4 day weekends where I was able to be with friends and talk to them about my options.

During the fist 4 day weekend I spent some time away from home, I checked into the new London West Hollywood (formerly the Bel Age Hotel) on Wednesday night and just tried to have a quiet and peaceful birthday. Spent the next day lounging around the suite, but after a while I called up a few friends for a nice intimate dinner at the new Gordon Ramsay Restaurant.

The next day some friends wanted to go find me a good present, but one thing lead to another; we walked into a Tesla Showroom in Santa Monica. For those that are unfamiliar, Tesla is a boutique car maker of electric cars. At the time being they are only producing one model, a sport car, that does 0-60 in less than 4 seconds, which is incredible for an electric car. So one thing lead to another; I took a test drive. I was a great drive, there was no engine noise, because there is no engine. It was smooth, but I was a bit put off because it an automatic. There is no way I would be able to afford one, they run about $92,000, but Tesla is in the process in making a sedan that will introduced later this year and model that will be around $30,000 by 2010.

The rest of the weekend was spent with old friends for High school in Laguna and Newport. Overall, it was a nice weekend and was able to spend much needed time with people I hadn’t seen in a long time.

During this past weekend I was given the opportunity to fly out to Miami and do a few mixes for a studio. Seeing that I was going to be in Miami, I decided to check out FullSail, a vocational school that has just been granted University status. On July 3rd I get to Miami with some of my close friends at 6 am. I try get directions to FullSail and right there as I am getting out of the plane it hits me. FullSail is in Winter park, a suburb of Orlando, not Miami. I raced down to the ticket counter to ask if there is any flight leaving to Orlando soon. Luckily a plane was going to leave at 7.

I got there on time and took a campus tour. I have to mention this because it somewhat relevant; this is a school that has been pursuing me for the past 4 years. Even when I was at APU I would get emails from their Admission counselors and their staff. I had accepted their offers to start in January of 2006 but that never came to pass.

This is my first time seeing their facilities, which have been greatly expanded in the last few years. As I looked at the amount of quality equipment they have, sat in labs, and lectures, I could only see that these people are being trained to be technical and giving a type of formula to mix. While it might work in a few places, I strongly disagree with this type of teaching. I have always believed that musicality is the most important thing.

Either way, after a while I got to talking to the staff and they wanted to see what my skill are like. They fired up one of their mixing board and their Pro Tools HD with 7 HD racks and what not. I did my thing. I took me a while, mainly because I wasn’t quite happy how the acoustic guitar was recorded and had to “fix it in the mix” with tons of EQ and plug-ins. They gave me some criticism on some of the things I am sloppy on. They where mostly on fence on my mixing style, some of them really liked it, while some where not quite fond of it. To remind people what I am going to talk about there are three main styles of mixing, LA, New York and London. This does not mean that there are no other ways of mixing it just state they are the main styles. Quick back story, I started mixing in LA; move to New York managed and recorded a band; had a mentor, he was british. I basically have a type of fusion of all there styles with some added things here and there to really make it more of an art form and try to make it musical, instead of a cookie cutter type of process.

They where a bit impressed that I mixed in British EQ. and that I used a when plug-in that are intended for specific things for completely different tasks. After all was done they asked if I can start next month. I’m not too sure about this. Talking frankly with one of the professors there, he said that they really can’t tech me much. I would get an Associate degree in a year but then I would be in the same place I am now. Then he brought up a good point, they have a really Music Business degree. That has somewhat sparked my interest.

I’m still not sure what I’m going to do. I was talking to Austin, I might have come up with an epiphany, God hasn’t let me move from LA in 4 years, and even though I am no longer at APU, I doubt that has changed.

Also for those that have been asking for pictures of Hawaii, and summer, they might be up in a few days on flickr and a few on facebook. I am sorry that I have been a bit late on delivery but I have been a tad busy and you know, trying to do something with life.

I will endure…

en·dure (en-dr’, -dyr’)

To carry on through, despite hardships; undergo

To bear with tolerance

To suffer patiently without yielding.

My experiences at APU have been great. I enjoyed my myself very much so, and I would not trade the friendships and the people I met there. I did not dedicate myself to the school work. I took things for granted and now, I have to suffer the consequences . All things come to an end. I was there on borrowed time and my time is up.

I usually succeed at everything I do, so to fail has really impacted me in ways I did not know it would. Just as a precaution, I am once more on anti-depressants (low dose, two pills). It was bit hard seeing that I was in a middle of a recording project when I got the call. I had to leave my emotions and my personal life at the door.

I’m not sure what my next course of action will be; if I will be taking classes in the fall at a community college, to return at a later date. There is no possible way I could go to another university to finish my music degree seeing that APU Music programs is vastly different than other Music programs. I’ve been in talks with people with connections in Miami for work and FullSail has always caught my eye as a good vocational school. There is also Musician Institute, or what works for most people, just get out there and work.

It seems like I was a fool to think that a simple audio engineer could be a musician. I started at APU very minimal knowledge of music and musicality, most of what I did was a gut feeling. I now leave APU with a greater understanding of why music is powerful medium.

Thanks to those that knew and prayed for me.

Thanks to those that stopped in halls to have a small chat.

Earlier this month I started with the motto,

“The actions that will take place in the next few days/weeks will impact my life greatly. Today might be the first day of new life.”

These words have never been so real in my life. These past few weeks have been hard with work, family, and school. Some things will never be the same, some will be the same forever

Work has been an constant struggle, the amount of paperwork, countless hour spent on meeting, having the project’s budget cut by a third, writing proposals for better recording equipment. The list goes on and on. I’ve been able to keep things on track by working a lot more than the usual 40 hour work week, which as most of you know, does not apply to musicians. I have a passion for this because it’s something I’m good at and that why I do not mind all the work.

There has begun a big divided in my family over what will happen if my grandfather, on my mother’s side, passes away. There are certain “guidelines” and “traditions” that has been passed down generation to generation for some time now. Our family is traditional in the sense that there is a patriarch and that such of thing. There are those that wish for the family to continue the tradition in the patriarchy system and those (read: younger branches of the the family tree) that wish to go about their lives without tradition, calling it “an outdated form of living” and “a way of controlling people’s lives.” My personal opinion, I would greatly wish to be able to just step back and let them do what each choses. But, as everyone in a family, I have my responsibilities and I must see them through.

School… School… The whole down but not out, situation. More to come as things become clearer. Maybe, I was naive to think that a simple humble audio engineer could be a musician. I was expected to be able to learn countless techniques and skills that most had been developing for years in matter of weeks/months without any prior training. Things are still in the balance and I will do anything to see if I could accomplish my feat in showing those that audio engineers are more than just gear sluts or people that just turn knobs, but are musician themselves.

Why am I doing this? I don’t know. Usually people choose the path of least resistance, while I choose the ones with the most. It’s also seems like I am doing this to prove something or out of spite, which is part of my personality. But, you would think I would have learn my lesson by now?

As I said prior, I am broken. Maybe this is my way of showing people that even though I am broken I can function as person, sometimes even better than most. Maybe this a away of being humbled and you becoming more tolerable of failure; the whole life lesson things that we all have to learn sooner or later.

Hopefully I will learn which one and have an answer by the end of the summer.

Life has been a bit busy… end of the school year, then packing and moving and to top it of Choir tour in Nor Cal and Hawaii.

Everything is almost back to normal, except for a few things…. I have no place to live. I applied for a sabbatical next semester, now it up to the summer and the following months if I should return to school next spring.

But other than that things are good… taking a few days to relax before starting a new project that will open doors.

I don’t want to go into specifics because they don’t matter. The only thing that matters now is that I’m once more staying in LA. God has thwarted my plans of moving for the third time now. Things happen for a reason, I just wished I knew what that reason was.

I don’t understand why I was able to do all the things that lead to my move just to come to a complete halt. Therefore making everything come crashing down in a matter of days. Either way after much fighting with administration at APU I am once more enrolled for the Fall semester.

As I write, one thought just keeps popping into my head. It was the night Celebration had their first concert and as I said my goodbyes, Nate keep on insisting that he was going to see me in the Fall.

I wonder if he or any of my friends have influenced God, the Cosmos, or Karma to keep me in LA.

I’ll probably tell you the story, someday.

It seems like my timing has been very good lately. Escrow finally closed and I signed that last of the paperwork on Saturday and today everything was processed. I’m happy that all of this is finally over and that I am now an owner of real estate; I feel so grown up. There a just a few things I need to clear up before I start to move in some time mid next month, primarily I need to get a plumber to replace all the copper pipes in the loft and then start to decorate and give it my own style. Right now I’m just hanging out with friends in a beach in the hamptons and enjoying the much deserved down time.

Everything seems right is place. Tomorrow I’m off once more to Boston to check on things at Berklee and then, sometime later this week, headed back to LA.

I’ve also recently been informed that I have enough Frequent Flier miles to take someone with my on my vacation. I’m considering taking my younger sister. I haven’t spend much time with her in a while and I think this might make up for it. There are just a few problems with that. I will need to have power of attorney to be able to fly with her and then I will have to responsible for her and what not.

mmmm…

Maybe I need to think it over a bit more.

I had a long conversation with Claudia, which I would have rather done face to face. It was hard but it had to be done. It was one of those, ‘Where is this going’ conversation which will take a lot more talking once I get back to the Sates. I really hope there will be a response. As of now both of us still want to pursue of careers before any plans of engagement, if there ever will be. This is something we have talked about a lot, but with me leaving there are a lot unanswered questions and uncertainties. Which let to question my decision and what is to follow.

My move to New York is going to affect not only me but the people around me. I find it hard that we usually just think of ourselves. The action and repercussions are usually left to the imagination that it hurts only one self, but the reality is that it hurts a lot more people than we think. I admit that I have been selfish in my decision making, not taking into account friends, family and sometimes even God. Sometimes I wonder how my actions have affect the people around me. Have my actions impacted people around me for the better or for the worst?

It just got me thinking of the what if…

Why do I have gut feeling of there is something that will go wrong? Is this because I have doubts of what is come?

I believe this is reason I haven’t been able to fall asleep tonight. I’m trying to think of the possibilities of what my action will do to the people around my life. Trying to somehow justify my decision in the best possible way. Trying to weight the pros and the cons.

The people I will not longer see, the friends I will have to make time to talk to once in a while, my family that I have put so much effort to become closer to, the places and ‘safety’ which LA gives me. The sacrifices I have to make for this great opportunity which I have been given.

Why am I doubting so close to the move?

I’ve made the decision and Escrow will be closing soon, there is not way I back down. The hard part and what is still up in the air, but I take with great care. The feelings of Claudia and I. What will happen. This feeling of uncertainty is not something I’m accustomed to. I like to have all the answers or at least where I can find them. In this situation, I have neither.

I just pray that God will help me in my path, whatever that might be.