People who know me in person, have read my blog long enough or have browsed through my Last.FM will probably notice this about me: I absolutely hate rock music. Aside from Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, I have no other rock song on my iTunes playlist of 3,000 songs…

…that is, until yesterday.

While I was watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood last night, the opening song captured my ears – or rather my heart. It’s called Again by YUI (ユイ). There’s so much soul in her music that I could forgive the perpetual annoyance of the electric guitar. Her childish yet calming voice pierces through the normally unforgivable guitars, as if striving to overcome all obstacles just to reach whatever she’s trying to reach. (My soul, in my case.)

So like any Gen-Y’er, I wikied YUIand was just so, so, so impressed. YUI also known as Yoshioka Yui (吉岡 唯) writes her own songs, plays the acoustic guitar, the electric guitar, the bass, the piano and even the drums! She could just be her own band – if only she could clone herself 4 times over. Coupled with her childhood struggles and her dramatic climb to fame, it’s really hard not to respect someone as talented and dedicated as her. (Of course, her childhood drama could all be a marketing ploy. But who cares, this girl’s got talent).

I shall stop gushing like a fan girl and just let you experience it yourselves.

Can’t wait to go home, pick up my guitar and start learning to play her songs! YUI <3!

Dear Readers, do you have any idols? Who and why do you like him/her?

Related posts:

1. Girl with a Guitar
2. My Cover of アイシテル Aishiteru

It’s simple and blatantly obvious, if you think about it. A person with the opportunity and dedication to sing for 10,000 hours or geek out for 10,000 is obviously going to be more skilled than someone (of equal talent) who only sings in the shower or geek out only when s/he majors in Computer Science.

With that said, Gladwell isn’t saying that 10,000 hours guarantees that you will become the next Bill Gates. It’s just that Bill Gates was rich and fortunate enough to clock 10,000 hours of programming in an era where computers were not easily accessible to the public. So social status, cultural background, era of birth, innate talent and the magic 10,000 hours all played critical roles in his success. In short, Bill lead a life of luck, while never forgetting hard work.

However, Gladwell does point out that 10,000 hours is the magic number that gets you good at something – good enough to be the best in your country, or in some cases, the world.

Have I clocked 10,000 hours for anything? Probably.

Surfing the Internet: 20,000 hours
I started surfing at age 9. In 1995, my dad brought home a modem to connect to the Internet. I can still remember the excitement in his eyes. From there I owned a Hotmail account, logged onto mIRC, and regularly scoured Yahoo!. Then at age 11, I stumbled upon a Backstreet Boys fansite hosted on Geocities. It was too pretty for words – then. And that’s how started learning HTML.

Over the past 12 years, I’ve clocked in 20,000 hours in email, chat, surfing and web design. Not sure how many hours I’ve spent with web design, but it’s safe to say somewhere close to 3,000 hours.

Watching Anime: 1,800 hours
I’m sure I’ve spent more time doing other things in my life, but anime deserves an honorable mention. Here’s why: I started watching anime in 2006. According to my anime list, I’ve watched about 75 days worth of anime. That means I’ve clocked 1,800 hours within 2 years. It’s a scary thought, but I now enjoy an interesting byproduct.

Language Mastery at 10,000 hours?

So it struck me. Watching 1,800 hours of anime is probably why I can easily understand colloquial Japanese. It means that I’ve spent 1,800 hours listening to spoken Japanese (while reading subtitles). For the record, I’ve never tried to study Japanese beyond the alphabet system. I can barely read, write or even speak Japanese.

And this also explains certain strengths and weaknesses I have with other foreign languages. I’ve read a lot of French in my life. I’d read up literary works, news and even blogs. But I’ve never had the opportunity to speak. So I couldn’t ever have a decent French conversation without interjecting with “ummm…” after every 5 words. As for Chinese, I’ve always understood it well. That’s ’cause my mom would scold and lecture me in Chinese. But I’d always retort in English, and staunchly refused to read anything with Chinese characters on it. So my strength lies with understanding Chinese but not speaking, reading or writing.

So the key to master a second language is to clock 10,000 hours and divide it equally amongst reading, writing, listening and speaking.

Moral of the story: Get off your lazy butt and start clocking 10,000 hours if you want to be the best. And if you’re learning a second language, spend 2,500 hours watching movies, 2,500 hours reading the newspaper, 2,500 hours skyping with foreigners, and 2,500 writing a blog. When you finally reach 10,000 hours, your second language will have probably become as easy as your first.

In the meantime, I will attempt to get off my lazy butt and clock another 8,000 hours in web design, read more books in Chinese, and practice strumming the guitar.

Have you spent 10,000 hours in an activity? (Please don’t say school, work or sleep. That’s the same for everyone.) What do you think the keys to success are?

No related posts.

So here’s a song I’ve been singing whilst in the shower instead. It’s called アイシテル (Aishiteru; I love you), originally sung by a Jpop newcomer 清水翔太 (Shimizu Shota). I sang the whole song except the second verse (which I’m not very familiar with yet).

You don’t have to be shy about it, I know the guitar accompaniment is really bad. 75$ kid’s guitar + a guitar beginner who has no time to practice = shitty strumming. Just as one of my friends says, if I quit my job and practiced non-stop for 3 months, I’d be like Sungha Jung. But alas, I like my job. And I don’t aspire to be a fingerstyle guitar prodigy either. I just sing and play the guitar for my own amusement. So it’ll probably take me years to get any better. Or maybe I should start looking for someone to teach me, instead of struggling to teach myself new chords every Sunday morning.

Oh and those attune to music will also realized that I slowed down the tempo when I got to the bridge. I had a hard time pronouncing the words, since Shota sings it so quickly. Guess I’ll need to sing that bit more often while I’m showering.

Without further ado, here’s my version.

Here’s Shimizu Shota performing Aishiteru live.

And here’s a YouTuber‘s cover of it, which IMO is the best cover ever. He mellowed out the song even more, and really put his own style to it. (He starts singing at 1.15)

Feel free to post your own covers too.

Related posts:

1. Girl with a Guitar
2. Tears from the Ear
3. New Theme: Torii (Alpha Release)

It was the song playing on my mp3 player – a Japanese song called ‘Motherland’ by a half-Korean half-African American singer, Crystal Kay. I’ve had this song on my playlist for more than 5 years, but I’ve never paid any attention to it. I always thought that it was just a good song by a good singer – beautiful melody, and strong vocals.

This is a perfect example of how I judge songs; I only listen to the melody. It seems that I’ve grown to ignore lyrics. It’s probably because I’m too jaded from American music; the lyrics are always about sex, drugs, rock and roll. You know, I really don’t need to profess my sex life to the whole world with a Billboards Top 100 hit. So, I don’t see why they need to. And no, I don’t know and don’t want to know what it’s like to have a cocaine addiction or jam in a band.

So, I turned my attention to Korean and Japanese music in 1999. The same great melody, and I have absolutely no idea what they’re singing about. Perfect. But after a decade later, I learned Korean, and watched enough Japanese animes to understand some of the lyrics anyway. The irony.

After the 5 years of leaving Crystal Kay’s Motherland to collect virtual dust, I finally understood its lyrics. What beautiful lyrics that explain my life and my fears! The sorrow of leaving a place, friends and family. The need to know that I have a place to return. The need to feel connected. The patriotism I have never felt. All expressed is very simple Japanese – simple enough for someone like me who’s never learned Japanese ever to understand.

That is why I couldn’t hold back my tears.

In the end, I took our my glasses and silently teared behind the safety of the lens.

So what do you listen to when you listen to music? The lyrics or the melody? Has any song ever touched you?

—

Crystal Kay – Motherland

This is also the ending song for popular Japanese anime Fullmetal Alchemist (鋼の錬金術師, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi). Enjoy!

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The song is the opening song for anime ARIA the NATURAL. It’s called ‘Euforia’ and originally sung by Makino Yui. Enjoy!

Yeah, I should really change my tagline to “aurally polluting the Internet since 1997″! Maybe I will. LOL!

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1. The Nanyate?! Guitar
2. Beautiful Love Song

First Dance – Billie Jean meets Bollywood

Semi-finals – Thriller meets Bollywood

Finals – Michael Jackson meets Indian Janitor

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Anyway, Springley was named for a practical design purpose: to ensure that the header would be balanced between the water lily. The palette inspiration came from a must-have for all designers, Pattern + Palette 2 (which my boyfriend got me for V-day). The actual ‘spark’ of an inspiration came from the anime series ARIA the ANIMATION, where life on Mars is portrayed as paradise on Earth, where everyone is kind, everyplace is beautiful, and everything bad is… never reflected. The world that is portrayed is so unreal, so perfect that I couldn’t help but be sucked in, and eagerly wait for my daily 20 minutes of paradise through YouTube. I know there are not many anime fans amongst my visitors, so I decided to bring their fantasy via Nanyate, the only way I know how – pastel colors, rudimentary code and crappy drawings worthy of an F in art class.

I hope you enjoy your fantasy through Springley, as I enjoy mine through ARIA.

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