2014

Sun, Nov 30

<19:45 EEST> It's been a while here, after a rather stressful autumn with a couple of weeks left. It has witnessed another theatrical production come and go, Ihmisiksi at Ad Astra, as well as countless days of shooting Pidä Rakkautes the movie. But first to the main reason I feel like logging today, last night's epic KEHY event at Ilokivi.

I was originally asked to DJ at the pre-Xmas party following the once-again-annual gala of KEHY that concludes the revival of the Teatteriaalto theatre review. As often happens, I ended up doing various odd jobs at the main gala, including a live performance of a song from Ihmisiksi. My main responsibility remained DJing, along with Monsieur Pekka. The night turned out a blazing success, even though I feel a little out of touch from proper DJing. I guess some idea of good songs has accumulated over the years, and technically fancy song changes won't matter that much, especially with more organic genres this time. It felt awesome to DJ at Ilokivi's main stage for the first time, even if most of the audience were friends of friends from the local theatres.

There are still a couple of pre-Xmas parties left with their associated chores — not that I mind, it's certainly more fulfilling to my introverted mind than simply going as a guest — but I feel like the big one is behind me. Frankly, I'm quite surprised at my mental and physical stamina, given the memories of the SYTY festival workloads. While the difference is that I could afford to sleep late, my life overall has been a little stressful. I guess it hasn't been so bad after all.

I think my main source of stress these months has been the feeling of wasting time at the theatre and the film project. While many people have day jobs with proper free time, a math student must do the actual hard work during their off hours from lectures and supervisions. Thus free time has become even more precious for me. The main problem I feel is that my talent is wasted in the hours and hours of waiting and doing menial things.

For example, I had originally agreed to write a song for Ihmisiksi, but ended up as the stage musician, as we/I could not think of a better solution. It takes perhaps a couple of hours to compose a song, though of course it needs a lot of subconscious incubation. It is the kind of work I'm good at: focusing on a specific task on my own. The hours and hours spent for each single performance feel like a waste, as I'm not doing anything further in terms of songwriting. I understand it is an essential part of being a musician, connecting with your audience and stuff — and it's exactly why I decided around the age of 11 to not became a professional musician, as I don't want to spend my time on the road.

However, I feel I have become quite efficient with the free time I have left. Indeed, since the play and the main film shootings finished a couple of weeks ago, I felt my math performance took a dip. For a while math was the only thing in my life, and it didn't exactly help with the stress of coping with the weekly coursework. After a few days of banging my head in the wall with the exercises, I decided to skip a full day, including that weeks' supervisions for one course.

The decision included a clause to not to any math for that day, and I got started with my DJing playlist — I needed to get something productive done, and that was something with a kind of deadline anyway. The next day I was back on track with the math.