Hello, citizens of earth! As we are reaching toward the end of 2013, I think it would be proper if I wrote some retrospect of the year that has brought me so much adventure. Usually, I don’t write this sort of entries in my blog, but since it is a year of adventure, let’s delay no more!
2013 started off like a plateau since I’m still figuring out what I want to do for the rest of the year and the rest of my life for that matter. I had a short stint managing a local band under a Japanese label, until I finally decided that this was not what I wanted to do in life. If I wanted to do some managing, I wouldn’t have left my previous job at JKT48. My boss at the time had asked me what I really wanted to do, since he thought I could get things done as long as I’m passionate about it. It came to mind that I’m really, really passionate about music and attending live concerts. Up until that moment I had probably went to more than ten live concerts outside Indonesia. I’ve always liked going to events and working on events. Around that time, I had the idea of wanting to invite VAMPS to do a concert Indonesia. At first I discussed with my friends over at PopConAsia whether it would be possible to have them there, but alas, it didn’t fall through. So, the plan went back to the drawing board. But let’s back up on VAMPS for a while since it took place recently and was the main highlight of the year.
Early 2013, I had decided that I really wanted to focus on Japanese Station. Japanese Station was a news portal founded by my friend, Daniel, in 2011. I first met Daniel when he came to do a live report of JKT48’s temporary theatre. We became good friends after we went to Kuala Lumpur to see MIYAVI’s concert in 2012. Initially, I wanted to have a chance to interview MIYAVI as a reporter for Japanese Station and he was okay with the idea. I got a lot of opportunity to meet up with a lot of Japanese artists by being somewhat of a reporter for Japanese Station. I saw a lot of potential in it and thought that it could expand its business other than just being a news portal if someone had focus more in it. And that is what I did.
My initial project in Japanese Station was its JS Navigator that was to be the face of Japanese Station, which act somewhat of a newscaster/talent. I need not explain about this since you can look them up in Japanese Station. My second big project was Hyper Wave Festival 2013. We were to set things in gear and invite VAMPS to do a live concert in Indonesia. The plan was back on the table when one day I had this dream of working on their live concert in Indonesia and later that day, my friend, Alicka, called me up asking me to bring VAMPS to Indonesia. After that I was really focused on doing that one thing. It wasn’t smooth sailing from the beginning, the partnership didn’t fall through, several times I thought about calling it quits, there was problem with the concept of the whole show, the name had to be changed several times, the this-and-that and the tit-for-tats. But despite all that, I can safely say that I’m glad that I stuck with it and see it through until the end. Something didn’t happen the way I idealised them, but things happened the way they should and that was more that good enough for me.
Both good and bad things happened in 2013. I meet a lot of new people and learned a lot of new things. 2013 was a year of working my wretched ass off and making my dreams come true which in turn brought me to a state of enlightenment. It was a testament that anything can happen and that dreams are within our grasp if you try and reach for it. All in all, it was a hell of a good year.
As you might have noticed, I spruced up the site ^^. I was thinking that a new look on the might work wonders to spark my interest on writing again in this blog. I am trying to at least post at least a few entries a week like I used, too. I really hope I can make the time to write.
