Can You Make a Living out of Music?

I was in Covent Garden for dinner at a burger chain. It was an open seating space. I could hear music from the open basement area. They play rather lovely music I would say. As I was finishing my meal, I decided to take a look at the beautiful faces of the people who play this beautiful music. I went to watch from upstairs.

(Note: photo credits go to Capco and Lady Jerez respectively. I do not own them nor were they taken the day I visited. I hope they make it clear what the place looked like!)

It was a group of violinists. They're good! I thought I'd stay a couple more minutes for another song or two. Then I heard a group of ladies next to me say: "They're not here for the music, they're here for the money!"

Whoa. What are they talking about?

Just after that, I saw a guy approached me and asked if I would like to make a donation for the musicians. I politely declined. He was being pushy. "Not even 2p? Not a 20p?" I shook my head.

"It's only free if you don't have conscience!" he yelled and walked away.

What?! Is that how they treat their audience? I was happily enjoying their music and then this guy approached me and totally ruined my mood.

Now I get what those ladies were talking about, who have obviously left before I finally did too.

Okay, I'm not gonna defend myself for not making a donation here. That's gonna be another long post. The point is: these musicians were not there for the music, they were there for the money.

I think it's a shame they're doing this. Everyone could clearly see a donation box next to where the musicians were standing as well as a pile of albums and a sign that says "£10" basically inviting us to buy their album. That's perfectly fine for me, but I don't feel they needed to send a team member to approach all the audience and ask for a donation. Especially telling people off when they don't make one!

I often see musicians on the tube stations or on the road performing and promoting their albums, but I really appreciate the ones who also put a sign with a link to their website or YouTube channel. They're clearly there for the music. They want people to hear their music and see their passion. And I totally respect them for that.

On the other hand, surely nothing in the world is free. These people need to make money in order to survive. It is true that approaching individual audience will increase their earnings, but is it that important for them?

Do they want their audience to give them money because they enjoy the good music they make, or because they feel bad being asked directly to pay a donation (especially if you risk being told off when you don't donate!)?

I believe that people who are truly passionate about what they do will know how to prioritise the different things they want in life, whereas the ones who don't will only be chasing figures.

Read More

How to Free Up Space in Linux

I had a long, tiring day today.

As some of you may know, I finally installed Ubuntu alongside Windows in January and also upgraded to Windows 10 recently. I really like Ubuntu and started hating Windows which takes so long to boot up and ages to install updates.

Today I tried installing LaTeX-related packages on my Ubuntu partition as it was required for a coursework, but ended up running out of space. Before this I would usually write LaTeX documents on my Windows partition, but since I've been using Ubuntu a lot more recently, I thought it would be convenient to be able to do everything in my Ubuntu machine.

I guess it was my fault. At the very beginning I only allocated 26.8 GB for my Ubuntu partition. God knows how much space I was supposed to allocate to it though! As a result my machine was unable to boot at all. I could only see a blank screen. I panicked and tried to find a way to give my Ubuntu partition more space, which isn't possible since I have 4 partitions already. Damn you Lenovo! I suppose I could back it up on a DVD or something and then reinstall, but I don't have a free DVD with me right now and I can't wait that long to fix this!

My biggest concern was that I was doing my other coursework in my Ubuntu machine, and I was stupid enough not to push it to GitLab or make any backup at all. I don't think I'll be able to redo it before the deadline as I have to run "experiments" and collect data, which took me two days to do and I still have a ton of work left. Now that I can't log in to my Ubuntu machine I have no access to it and I don't wanna redo the coursework!!

Fortunately though it turned out that I was able to access the files on my Ubuntu partition from my Windows machine, and I had to delete a ton of unnecessary files. After that I could boot up Ubuntu but it keeps complaining I'm running out of space and I have no idea what to do.

I ended up removing a lot of files off Dropbox, university work, and some packages that I installed for God knows what. I was still curious as to reallocate more space into Ubuntu and spent hours trying out so many different ways I found on the internet to no avail.

I gave up and logged in to Ubuntu in the hope of being able to uninstall more irrelevant stuff to free up space. I then found two useful packages that I installed (in order to get more stuff uninstalled, yeah, sounds about right). Let me share my findings with you.

1. Synaptic Package Manager

Synaptic Package Manager is able to give a comprehensive list of all possible Linux packages out there and tell you which ones you have installed, as well as help you completely remove them.

To install: sudo apt-get install synaptic

2. BleachBit

BleachBit can help you delete temp files, log files, cache, trash, and all that stuff.

To install: sudo apt-get install bleachbit

Those two guys completely saved my life. Oh, and this guide too: How to remove everything related to TeX Live.

In the end I am able to get 11.1 GB free space in my Ubuntu partition. I was unable to install anything LaTeX related though. This means I'll have to switch to Windows every now and then to type up my coursework and dissertation in LaTeX. Or maybe I'll back up my Ubuntu and resize my partition.

... Most likely the former.

I hope you find this guide helpful, if not a little entertaining. I had a miserable day. I hope this guide can solve your problem before your day gets too miserable. Or at least I'll let this cute dancing potato cheer you up a bit.

Read More

I Like Being Competitive, It's Healthy Sometimes

I got an email this afternoon saying that I passed the first round of Search For A Star, a competition to find talented final year university students in game development.

I was pleasantly surprised! I honestly didn't expect to get shortlisted as I felt that my performance in the first round wasn't particularly amazing.

It was a one-hour C++ coding challenge with around 10 algorithmic questions. My department emailed us about this competition like three times and I thought it looked interesting, so I joined in for fun. I thought this would be a great opportunity to hone my coding skills too. The first questions are actually basic algorithms, which I'm lucky to have taken an algorithm course in my undergrad study, but the rest are a little more challenging.

In my personal opinion, some of the questions aren't very hard to solve but my limited coding experience made me spend more time thinking about how to code it correctly and efficiently. Some other questions do require more thinking though. At the end I was only able to finish half the number of questions.

 I was actually glad I took the test as it exposed me to different ways of manipulating strings which I have yet to master. I learned from experience not to overestimate my capabilities and be more realistic, which might in turn lower my confidence at times, and I thought I wouldn't pass that round but I was happy I had participated.

To my surprise I got an email saying I'm through to the next round! I couldn't believe it!

This feeling though...

It's been a long time since I felt this way. A sense of accomplishment, a sense of satisfaction, a sense of winning... Finally, I was able to do something that I thought I couldn't do. I was able to do something better than others could (although surely a lot of people did much much better than I had). For once, I was good enough and I could be proud of myself!

For some, this may just be a usual part of their life, but for me, it totally made my day.

I started getting serious about this competition and went to find out more about this event. I wondered how many people were selected to the second round. I later found on Twitter that 100 people were shortlisted! Yay! That makes me feel really special and I'm getting really really excited to go to the next round. Not to beat other contestants, but to gain yet another experience and learn new stuff.

If I get the information correctly, the second round will give me the opportunity to build my own game on Unity. That's one of the coolest things ever! Back at the start of term 1, I actually wanted to join the GameDev Society at my university, but the meeting times always clashed with other events so I missed it. I'm really excited that I have a motivation now for learning Unity. Just so you know, I've always wanted to build my own game! Hopefully this time I'll be able to tick that off my bucket list. :)

However, sometimes I wonder...

Is it wrong for me to feel this way?

Is it wrong for me to feel satisfied over "winning"?

It reminds me of my high school years. I was very academically competitive. I always wanted to be the best in class, be the most favourite student, and I would be unsatisfied if someone got a better grade than me. Yeah, I was arrogant af. In my defense though, people said I was very hardworking. So I guess I deserve some credit for the effort? :P

Anyway yes, I learned over the years that we can't always be the best, especially when you go to university. I went to a rather small high school. My graduating class had less than 20 students. There were some competition, but certainly not as much compared to other, bigger schools. It wasn't too hard to stand out. Our teachers knew every student. To make things worse, one of the subjects I took only had 4 students. Of course that's no reason for me to be highly competitive, but I guess I was raised in such a way that shaped me like so. I thought doing well at school was the only thing I needed to do. Or rather, I thought it was the only thing I could do to make my parents happy.

Coming to university, I was placed in a community where everyone is studying the subject they like or do well at. It's not like my literature class in school where half of us didn't even understand what's going on and had no choice but to take that class. At university, everyone was there because they're good at it, and everyone else is also good at it.

With my competitive nature, I was completely overthrown by how amazing other people on my course were. I thought I was good enough. I thought I was capable enough. But I was just a small fish in a big pond.

I didn't know what to do in that situation. I fell apart. I lost my confidence. I didn't even know who I was anymore. It was probably the hardest phase in my life.

Ever since then, I learned to set my expectations low. When you only expect a little but accomplish so much, you get to feel a great sense of satisfaction. I liked that feeling. When you expect so much but accomplish so little, it feels completely terrible. (Or at least for me it does!)

I guess my self esteem has only gone down much lower due to that. I tend to think, am I good enough to be able to do this? Am I capable of doing so much?

Am I enough?

I don't like this feeling. But I do like it very much when I find that I have accomplished something better than my expectations. That's why this Search For A Star competition means a lot to me, and I'm gonna try my best in the next round. Even if I don't pass, I'm sure it'll be a great learning experience, and I'm really happy already to know that I passed the first round. :) (Ah, there I go making low expectations again!)

Disclaimer: I tried as much as possible to write every sentence in this blog post without sounding very cocky, coz that's really not the intention here. But if I do, please forgive me! Thank you for your understanding!

Read More

Why Social Media Makes Me Awkward

On my routine of checking social media apps on my phone today, I found out I got a new follower on Instagram. Normally I get one or two random followers upon posting a photo, but most likely they just want a follow back and will unfollow within a week or so if I don't do it. This is different. A friend in real life just followed me on Instagram! How unusual!

Okay, it's not like 99% of my Instagram followers are strangers, but when I get a new follower, they are either the aforementioned or friends who just joined Instagram recently. This finding got me thinking: how did this friend find my Instagram account? Did they see my Instagram post on Facebook and followed me from there? Or did they have so much free time in hand they actually used the "Find Friends" feature on Instagram? But why? Is there a hidden motive or is this just a random occurrence that I may ignore?

Look, of course getting a new follower is a pleasure, and I do not mind this person following me at all. I even followed them back! But my point is: what they did is something I'm really unlikely to do. I find it awkward. Because if I just follow my friend on Instagram without asking the person, I'm scared they will think all the above thoughts. See what I mean now?

Sometimes a thought comes across my mind when I look at my friends' Instagram profile and find that they have thousands of followers, compared to my mere 400 followers. How could that be? How can I have so few followers compared to my friends? I'm not the type to follow strangers on social media (anymore! *blush*) so following random accounts who do #followforfollow won't work. Maybe I could find my friends on Instagram and follow them, secretly hoping they'll know who I am and be kind enough to follow back.

But... Would they be okay with that? I don't really know this person all that well... Maybe they wouldn't really want me to follow them and see their photos? Ah well, just follow them and see I guess. But wait! What if they think I'm stalking them? They could think that I have a crush on them or something. NONONO let's not do this. I'd rather have fewer followers than being branded as a stalker!

The same concern occurred on Facebook too. You know that little section on the home page suggesting people you may know? Yes. That one. It makes me go "whoa I have hundreds of mutual friends with this person I think I've met them once or twice at some event but should I really add them as a friend or actually will they even remember meeting me or at least if they forgot my name hopefully they recognise my face but there is a possibility they completely forgot and don't know that I exist and think I'm a random stranger who added them just to get more friends on Facebook or have a crush on them and want to hit them up"

On Snapchat as well. Got that one classmate in my contacts. Found they have a Snapchat account. Don't know if it's really okay to follow them. Maybe they wouldn't really want me to have a look on their personal daily life as I only did one group work with them and never talked to them anymore.

Why can't it all be not awkward? I wish I had the guts to just click follow. Maybe they will follow me back and like a couple of photos.

On that note, please feel free to follow me on Instagram at @dessskris now before I think it's too random and you might be stalking me. Add me on Facebook if you know me, and you can add me on Snapchat by the same username @dessskris. Thank you for stalking my blog and go back to work!

Read More

The Future of Unspoken Words (Revisited)

Wow, it's been two months since I last updated my blog. I don't even remember what my last post was about. Apparently it was a self reflection on why I wanted to keep this blog up and running, instead of abandoning it altogether like many other people did, and how I would do that.

I guess my absence for the past two months goes to show that I'm not all that serious about this blog. I didn't make time for it, I don't try and think of what to write on my blog, I didn't even remember I wanted to revive this blog. But why did I come back now?

I started a new chapter in my life two months ago. I'm now pursuing a master's degree in a subject which I genuinely have passion in and wouldn't at all mind doing for the rest of my life. It's such a huge change, yes in terms of the coursework and timetable too, but more importantly in a sense that it makes me more conscious about my future. I keep asking myself, is this what I'm gonna do in my future career? Will I be able to get a job as soon as I graduate? Am I good enough to be what I wanna be? Can I? Will I?

I feel that my course has a very busy timetable, but not very many opportunities to practice. I guess that's the difference between an undergrad course and a master's course. I used to have a marked worksheet for each subject every week (even though they do not count towards my grades), but now I get a tutorial sheet which is not marked, and doesn't take as much time to complete as my undergrad worksheets. That means I'm left to find other means to revise on my own. Other than that, I get 5 practical coursework (or, I'd rather call projects) this term and a few other assessed coursework.

Even though the tutorials are short, I find the projects take a bigger portion of my time. Perhaps not because they are hard, as some other people have completed the project within a few days, but because I need to revise the materials, learn some of the things that weren't taught in class and figure out what I'm supposed to do. People say that once you know what you need to do, it's not as hard to put it together and build the program. Unfortunately for me, I'm still on that first stage...

Outside of my study, I'm very excited about attending tech talks, workshops, or hackathons. I actually spend my weekends looking through Eventbrite to find interesting events I could go to. And damn, there are SO many events in London! It's such a shame how I have lived my three years in the UK without ever attending any of this kind of event. I can't believe I wasted all those time. I could have learned so much from attending free events like these.

Well, now is my chance! As it's my last year of studying in the UK, I'd like to make the most out of it. Every time there is an opportunity, I would go to a tech event. Fortunately London has an amazing transport system which allows me to go to all these far away places for those events. My university also organise various events regularly and invite companies to give a talk on campus. I feel like I've just started living my life. I feel like I've been dead for the past 21 years and just started living now!

It is amazing how these events could connect students with people from various companies and startups to share their views and ideas. That's why I don't wanna miss it. I don't wanna miss it coz I know that if I do, I'd miss an opportunity to learn something new and build a connection.

However, sometimes I also feel that it could get too much. At least three days in my typical week I would have an event to go to. That doesn't leave me much time to revise and do work, as coming home from a 30-min tube ride would wear me out and beg for some time to chill and rest. Am I doing this wrong? Should I revisit my life priorities and get it straight? Maybe I should spend more time revising than attending these tech events. I'm a student after all. Isn't it a student's main responsibility to study? But these events also offer learning opportunities. The kind of learning that I may not get at university. Am I wrong for wanting to attend a lot of events?

I spend my nights thinking of these things before bed. I would look at my calendar and plan my next three days. What time to get up, whether I'll have time to eat at home, whether I could go home first or wait on campus or go to these events straight after lecture. Also, whether I should really go to this event at all, how much time I'll have left for doing work, whether I should cancel this other event or not. The list is endless.

I have only recently realised that one of the biggest reasons why I can't sleep is because I have a lot of things in mind. It's bad, but I don't know how to control it otherwise. I'm an anxious person by nature. I tend to overthink things. Every little thing makes me nervous and leaves me restless.

Sighs.

That's when I remembered about this blog. I thought writing out my feelings and thoughts would relieve a little stress, and it's about time this blog gets an update anyway lol.

I guess that's the answer. I would never be able to maintain a blog that would sell and get millions of followers (are you kidding? I don't even have 20 lol). I can't afford to regularly publish updates. I don't have a specific theme that I can write well on. But I can keep this blog as a personal notebook. I'll know I can write my heart out here whenever I want to. And this is why I want to keep this blog up and running.

Read More