The title of this entry is the phonetic way of saying, "二千七年", or 2007 in Japanese. I read a number of year-in-review entries by friends, and I figure I may as well jump on the bandwagon.

The big events of 2007:

  • March 2007, Laptop purchase: With the release of Windows Vista, I had a sense that if I wanted a laptop with XP, I would need to get it now. By the time I hit the stores, Vista laptops were pretty much the only ones available. My office, however, has an employee discount with Dell, and a laptop with XP was one of the offerings. Thing was, I didn't have much cash on hand, and I wasn't about to put it on my credit card. So I went to my credit union to see if I could take out a loan, which I could. The credit union put the cash for the loan in my savings account, which I could then use to pay for the laptop. So I paid with my credit card, then transferred funds to my credit card to cover the purchase. One hitch: I drew from the wrong account, and I managed to put my checking account into a $900 deficit. On the weekend of SXSW. Yeah, suck. Everything got straightened out on Monday, but it was kind of harrowing to go through an entire weekend without cash. Totally not related, but I also finally took the iPod plunge and got a 2GB Nano.
  • April 2007, Trip to Maui: I had lived in Hawai`i for a quarter of my life, and never once did I visit Maui. For my 35th birthday, I wanted to take a trip, and I hadn't been back to Hawai`i since 2003. So I booked a two-day trip to Maui as a birthday gift to myself. Man was I missing out. I think I actually like Maui a lot more than Honolulu. It's urbanized, but only just so. And the attractions are a lot more impressive. What on Oahu can match the drive up Haleakala? I should've gone for three days to squeeze in the drive to Hana. Maybe next time.
  • May 2007, Move to a two-bedroom apartment: After getting back from my trip, I was greeted with somewhat unpleasant news: my rent would be raised about $70. For the amount of space I lived in, that felt like a rip-off to me. But a quick survey of Craigslist offerings revealed that the raise in rent would still be cheaper than moving to an entirely new complex. So I went down to the leasing office to see if what's available with larger square footage. For $13 more, I was able to increase my square footage from 590 sq. ft to 813 sq. ft. Oh, luxurious! Of course, the accompanying raise in utilities insured I was broke from May till my raise in October.
  • June 2007, Writing of 「健忘症」: With the vacation over and the move completed, I decided to take my laptop for a spin. Lyrics have always been where I drag my heels in the songwriting process, so I decided for my next project to begin with writing lyrics, then writing the music later. I spent the first half of June 2007 going to various coffeeshops to jot down lyrics. When I had about 15, I started to write music. For a gimmick, I titled all my songs in Japanese, just like how some Japanese artists use English for their song titles. After I started writing music for these lyrics, they ended up sounding like … country. Sure, I'll go with that.
  • July 2007, Recording of 「学生」 and In C: While recording 「健忘症」, I started using solo violin and cello samples in Reason. I liked it so much, I unearthed some old student works from college and recorded them as well. I also bought Ableton Live for a class I was taking back in the spring, and I wanted to experiment with the Studio View to see if a solo performance of Terry Riley's In C was possible. I thought writing and recording new material would be enough, but I ended up with a lot more.
  • August 2007, Recording of Original Confidence: In late July, my friend OmarG asked whether he could use my home studio to record a song to use in his comedy troupe's next show. I told him I didn't have much experience recording vocals, but I'd give it a shot. That one night of work opened my eyes to how I should approach my own stuff, and in early August, I started recording some select songs from each of my "albums". That compilation would eventually be my 2007 Christmas card, Original Confidence.
  • Sept. 2007-now, Weight loss: I forget exactly what spurred me to step on the scale, but a miscalibration of the zero mark indicated my 10-year-old scale may not have been telling me the truth for a number of years. So I bought a new one and discovered I was actually 10 pounds heavier than I was led to believe. Sufficiently inspired, I vowed to hit the workout room of my apartment every night for at least half an hour. Three months later, I managed to lose 25 pounds. Unfortuantely, I've hit the dreaded weight loss plateau, and I haven't been able to budge lower than 189. My personal goal is 150 or 160. I was 215.

Yeah, I guess 2007 was a pretty eventful year. At first, I was inclined to think nothing much happened, till I actually started listing everything out. I've been busy.