2018 of Strings and Beats

Well, 2018 is over and it feels like it went by so fast. As compared to 2017 or '16, there might not be anything that was majorly interesting, but nonetheless, it was a good year.

Jan

I remember I had spent the 2018's new year midnight hanging out with my group of college / office friends at a rooftop restaurant, proposing toasts. Those were some fine times with that group and we always used to have some good laughs when we were together. Who knew by the year end it wouldn't exactly be the same.

Anyways, it was a good start of the year as I also made my first international trip in January to Singapore. I had made some new friends in office and made a wildcard entry to their plan of travelling to Singapore. We also made a brief journey to Krabi / Phe Phe Islands in Thailand.

Well, the year went by - I played lots of footbal (also got lots of injuries); Bought a couple of Germany Football team jerseys (but then watched Germany lose miserably in the FIFA World Cup); had hours long talks with my brother over the weekends (and got some useful / inspirational tips most of the time); and listened to some good music....lots of it.

The Music

Somewhere in the mid year, I had gone crazy over Green Day and discovered a lot of their awesome 90s tracks that I hadn't heard before. Dookie instantly became my favourite music album of all time and I listened to Green Day for hours every day. I even practiced several of their songs on my friend's electric guitar. I don't know what but there's something about Green Day's music that makes me like it a lot (even though others may not feel the same way).

Around late in the year, I also discoverd some great songs by The Rolling Stones. I just couldn't stop listening to their Statisfaction and Gimme Shelter. Both of them are really legendary songs and are considered among the best songs of all time.

The D-908 chaos

Me and my (then) flatmate Duggal, used to mess around regularly at our friends' flat at D-908 (because why make our own flat untidy). Even though there have been other significant moments, there are these small things that I mostly remember, like:

• throwing vegetables at neighbours flats from balcony whose windows were open (got caught once)

• always blocking a friend's room with a mattress every time we went there

• Piling up all the furniture in front of one of our friend's room because he wouldn't open the door.

• well, and what not....

Mid Year

Two of my very close friends left work and Hyderabad to pursue other career opportunities. That was the first change in our group of college / office friends.

Somewhere in August I also shut down my website JEEQuery. It was still getting major traffic but I could not find any time to invest in it any more. It was a good 3 year run. (a previous blog post about jeequery).

Guitar and Drums

I also started learning more of Guitar, mostly the music theory, scales and patterns. I had already been playing guitar for long and was able to play & learn the basic songs (both acoustic and electric). But, until I actually know the theory, I would just know how to put my hands on a guitar, and not actually know how to play it (heard Billie Joe Armstrong quote this somewhere).

Since I'm really into classic rock, I always wanted to try out drums too. I started learning drums at a nearby music institute. It's really energising to play drums. You get absorbed into the music and beats. I'm continuing learning drums this year.

There are things in which I feel I could've done better or had better utilised my time. Even though I enjoy life as is, but there are always things I can improve upon and learn from past experiences.

In the end, I'd like to share a comic by Brown Paperbag that I liked: