Welcoming the New Year

Firstly, happy new year! All the best for the upcoming years to come :)

With that long absence in mind, the reason for not posting anything in the last two months was simply because I was enjoying the rest of the fall season (in my opinion, the best season of the year! And not because it's my birthday) by just enjoying it as it was. Sure, the weather was a little more gloomy this year, but the smell of it was just... well... crisp. Clean. Refreshing.

Okay so that sounds odd, but for those who enjoy the autumn season know exactly what I mean. I think. You wake up to a crisp morning, go throughout the day without worrying about the heat of summer, the cold and snow of the winter, or the consistent wetness of spring. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy all the seasons... I just prefer autumn :P

Plus, I was working on a pre-demo for a colleague of mine so that he may pitch it to another producer. All the best to him! So with enjoying the outdoors, pumpkin carvings and days in the studio... it's been a productive semester. During the last week of this past semester, there were a ton of things going on; two ten paged (min) papers to write, two finals, one project (although fairly simple), and one 4-5 minute interview to conduct (sounds extremely easy, but when your interviewee talks enough and everything is rather fascinating... it's hard to bring down an hours worth of conversation down to 5 minutes). With that pre-demo to top it off (as much of an amazing experience it was), things got slightly stressful. But I guess that's what years and years of schooling is for, to prepare us to be able to do what we study to do in a lesser amount of time. Lesser? Is that even a word?

Needless-to-say, that was the best final week of school work so far since I was extremely fortunate enough to work with two phenomenal artists and meet another personal favourite one of mine. The two artists I worked with (one being my colleague)... nothing can describe their talent! Alexandre Éthier, founder of a group named "Forestare" and talented classical guitarist - with whom I work with - and Alexandre Désilets, a phenomenal vocalist and one of my personal favourite french artists. I thought I was going to go into some complete idiotic spasm when I found out that I would be working with the two of them. In the end, the piece turned out wonderfully (although I do wish we had more time to work on certain things) and I don't regret a single moment working with the two of them.

With this in mind, I was starting off to a great week. Two weeks or so prior, I had submitted my name for a contest to a private concert that I knew for a fact that I would not win due to the musician's large fan base and to the fact that I had no such luck. It just doesn't exist in my life's index.

I was wrong.

Two weeks after submission, the day before the concert, I had received an email saying that I had won a ticket for myself and a friend (optional) along with a few other tokens. At the time, I thought I was going to have a heart attack in the school's computer lab. Let's just say I looked like an idiot grinning and mentally... um... squealing. If life were to be a cartoon, the people around me would have heard the squeals. I have had the biggest "high school crush" on this guy since, well, since high school and knowing that I was going to finally meet him the following night was extremely exciting. As for the name, maybe I'll share that some other time ;)

In result to these two events, I had completely opposite expectations. For the first event with the two Alexandres, working with them and meeting Mr. Désilets only led me to having a deeper respect for the both of them. Where as with the private concert, don't get me wrong, I still enjoy his music and what he does, but to put it simply; I can now put that high school crush I had on him in a box, store it somewhere in the back of my mind and move on. Is this a good thing? Yes, I believe it is. Would I have changed my mind? No, not at all. Who do I thank for such luck? My grandmother and grandfather for watching over me up in Heaven and making sure I didn't do anything stupid.

Anyways, I thought I would share another personal photo of mine which I had taken while I was in Hong Kong for the first time this past summer. The experience was marvellous, the food was absolutely delicious, and the shopping was overwhelming. Best part of it all was spending time with family I have not seen since I was 8 years old.

Next destination: the UK, Germany, and Ireland.

Destination after that: LA and Las Vegas.

When?: whenever I've managed to save up enough money to do so :)

In conclusion, may this year bring many more opportunities such as these!

Cheers,

C.