Lately, I've been thinking about what it is that I do with my life that make me different from other people -- you know, mindset and everything. I spend a lot of my time working on my craft, thinking about certain aspects of myself that I can improve upon. Then I started thinking about my previous post regarding my life in college, and I realized that I have a unique idea of what it is that I am doing in my life.

I wondered to myself, "What does it mean to be a college student? What does it mean to be in college? What am I supposed to get out of it, if I do get anything? Is it worth the time and effort to be in college? Does college define my future?" And then it dawned upon me:

I am a musician, a scholar of music, and it is who I am. I am not a college student. I am a musician, a scholar of music, that is studying in college. That is who I am.

My life started a long time ago when I decided that I wanted something out of life. I chose a path, I stuck with it, and it has been my main definition of my life, my identity. I don't believe that anyone should be going through the motions of life, but rather finding out what it is that they want for their life and getting it through hard work.

Every time I'm in the practice room in the early hours of the morning, I wonder what it is that drives me to be there, working on improving my abilities - even during the summer or winter session - when I could be relaxing from school like the rest of my peers. After all, I deserve to relax after all the hard work I put in during the semester right? I should be rewarded in some way for straight A's and good work, yes?

After my epiphany, I realized that there is no truer reward than the one of satisfaction in my life - to know that I am musician, a scholar of music. In reality, I am a student of life - there are no rules but the ones I choose to follow to live. It is the desire for knowledge and self-improvement that drive me, and that is why I wake up at 5:00AM to practice my identity.

For the past year since I've been at SJSU, I've been routinely making myself readily available for life in the early hours of the morning - say 5:00-6:00AM. I have a specific routine in the morning that has been more or less consistent, especially on the weekdays. Rise at 5:00AM in the morning, make coffee (I drink about 2.5cups), eat a huge breakfast while I'm having coffee (big bowl of rice and whatever is available to eat), have a 10-minute hot shower, brush my teeth and clean my face for about 5 minutes, and be out of the door at 5:40AM. I arrive at school at approximately 5:53AM. You ask, "What the fuck are you doing up so early at school even before 6:00AM in the morning? Classes aren't even starting yet until at least 8:00AM in the morning! People aren't even awake at that hour!."

Well, I am. And for a number of reasons.

1.) Have you experienced the horrors and frustrations of trying to find parking in any one of SJSU's three parking garages? You probably have, and if I were to guess, it happened between the hours of 8:30AM and going into the evening. Am I right? Yeah? See, I was guessing.

I get to school early in the morning to avoid parking difficulties. This is perfect, because I am starting my day without the stress of finding parking. This is also perfect because it is the closest point between the exit of the garage (going to San Salvador), and the staircase which leads onto the campus. My only gripe? I have a very strong opinion against housing students leaving their automobiles parked at desirable commuter parking spots. Their car sits there for weeks until they decide to go home or go out. I get extremely pissed, because they are forcing commuters to find parking in a higher floor, possibly making them late for class. There is a floor called 2H for a reason. Please be considerate?

2.) Have you ever driven late at night or extremely early in the morning during the wee hours? I'm sure at some point, you have. You can probably even tell me some observations that you can remember on one of those nights. IT'S QUIET. It's amazingly quiet, almost deathly quiet. You think to yourself that while everybody in this part of the world is sleeping, you're pretty much the only one that is awake, and you're probably right. However, I'm sure you're also thinking, "Fuck. I can't wait to get home to bed and K.O. Too fucking tired/drunk." Yeah, I know what you mean.

I get to school early solely for quiet time. It is deathly quiet. It's like for a moment in time, you're in a different dimension - a dimension that is completely removed of humans. This momentary, alternate reality allows me to get in touch with my inner thoughts, away from people, so that I can concentrate.

3.) I don't know how many of you readers are music majors, but if you are, you will know that there is a certain bell curve as to when students practice. The highest point, which describes the average normal distribution of students, happen to fall in between the hours of 11:45AM-3:30PM, preferably noon. For most music majors at SJSU, this is the favorable time to practice. Evening time takes second place, as there are still students in the building working on honing their skills, but not as much as during the day. Morning time takes third place. Nobody wants to wake up early in the morning to practice. I am usually the only one in the building at 6:00AM, practicing and performing for the janitors while they clean after our messes from the previous day.

I get to school early so that I can have an extreme, focused practice. Without another human element in the picture (other than the janitors - we mind our own businesses), I direct my attention towards my goals set for the day. Diligent practice. Also, if any of you know SJSU's practice rooms, you will know that they are extremely old and have gotten so bad that noise leak can be heard throughout the hall and in other practice rooms, when they are supposed to contain the sound. I can't deal with that. That's worse than having human distractions. Other music majors practicing is worse than being distracted by people socially. Especially at SJSU. You also know that the practice rooms have a horrible heating/venting system. Every single morning regardless of season, the practice rooms are blasted by a heater --- literally turned up that it is at least 74 degrees in these rooms. This is why I arrive in the morning and camp out in Room 150, when there are no classes in session just yet. The space is open enough that I don't start sweating. It also sounds better in there.

4.) As a music major, do you ever feel like you don't have a life? It's always practice practice practice study study study and not a lot of time to experience college life, or life in general?

It is kind of common sense, but if you finish your practice for the day in the morning, then you pretty much open up your afternoon and evening to do what it is that you need to do. Right now, I am balancing gigs, day-time work, school, and relationship/social life, and guess what? I'm not really stressing that much.

That's all practical reasons as to why I choose to practice in the morning. I can easily sleep in and wait to practice later, but I don't. I have philosophical reasons why I chose this path.

As a young adult, my core philosophy is to never settle for less, and to never settle for what I currently have. I have a very strong desire not only to be extremely good at what I do, but to be extremely good at everything that I do. This includes performing, teaching, writing/arranging, producing, recording, sound engineering, and much more. I believe that in order to succeed and do well in life, you have to be extremely versatile and marketable to the world. In a sense, you have to be a universal man - able to do many things, educated in politics, science, and issues of the world. With this strong desire, I have an insatiable craving for knowledge that contribute to my development. I don't care about relaxing and hanging out so much like my peers do - I see value in taking initiative, working hard, and being resourceful, and in order to do that, I need to be able to back up my shit with knowledge, skill, and hard work.

The idea is that I never run out of ideas on how to improve my situation and the situations around me, while at the same time not spreading myself too thin. There is a certain pace to growth that I think everybody needs to find that will maximize the use of time while you're training for the professional and future world. It's kind of like trying to find the right tuning that will resonate soundly with your schedule and maximize your potential . I've found mine this semester, and out of all the practices I've had so far, about 97% of them have been very efficient and productive. Waking up in the morning to practice or do work is one of the best decisions I make in life each day.

The other thing that I wish I could change is the overall atmosphere and environment at the SJSU School of Music. It is way laid-back. Not a lot of people take their studies seriously (I haven't seen or heard anybody tell me that they practice everyday like they're supposed to). As a result, I get frustrated that some of my peers don't take being a music major seriously. The school lacks pressure. There is literally no pressure pushing the students to become the best that they can be, and it drives me to wonders sometimes if I had made the right decision. I've had a lot of time to think about what it is I need to do to address this, and there are two parts. However, I will only get into one of it.

I once considered going to a conservatory entirely for this reason - the high level of playing and the high level of pressure involved to succeed. It ended up being way too expensive for me, and I did not want to get out of school to be ridden with debt. I figured that I can go to SJSU, because they have a good program compared to some of the other schools in the CSUs and UCs.. I also wanted a well-rounded education, which is the process of completing the general education courses required of students going to these schools. On the other hand, I just can't help but think that I may have missed out on an opportunity, because I don't think that SJSU is cranking out caliber musicians at the same level as those graduating from conservatory. It was depressing, but then I realized something. The programs are modeled on these conservatories, and the faculty are all extremely competent and dedicated educators, yet we haven't heard any great success stories or accomplishments in a long time? Why is this? What exactly is going on? The system is not much different than the ones at conservatory?

It's the students. In my opinion, the students are the issue.

I find that somehow, there is a different mindset that students studying at a university have compared to the students studying at a conservatory. There's just way much more non-music related classes at CSU than at conservatory, and I'm pretty sure the partying and fraternizing occurs more frequently at university. Not to mention, there are also different field of studies to mingle with as well. People slack off more at university.

And then I finally realized it... I do not have to be like the other students at CSU. I became determined about NOT doing what my peers were doing, and developed the concept that if I want to graduate at a conservatory graduate level, I have to have a conservatory mindset. I have to eat, breathe, think, and do as the students at conservatory do. Practice everyday diligently, and live life as a musician and a music scholar. My resources are here at SJSU, and like the conservatory students, I plan on abusing my right to absorb all the knowledge that I possibly can from the faculty here. My philosophy became that if you want to be successful in life, you have to think and live successfully. "Life" does not start after college. "Life" has started a long time ago. I ask myself and I ask my peers, "What are you doing now in your life that will make you better?"

I had a powerful revelation about life some days ago. This is what I realized:

"There is a skill, an art, or a craft in everything you do. And with each skill, art, or craft -- one must concentrate and work hard (or think hard) towards perfecting it."

This came right after I realized that having power and control is very much important for success in life. You can't be good at everything you do (see philosophy #1) unless you understand the nature of the skill, art, or craft. This requires strong observational and hypothetical thinking skills... an ability to adapt outside of society's chain and influence, and then to be able to come back and control/manipulate those chains and influences. There is an art to everything. 

Find it, capitalize on it, add motivation and determination to it, and nothing can stop you or hold you back from being the person you want to be.

Be smart.