Sajia Kabir

So, last February and March I took a break during Ramadan from posting dance videos, and out of boredom I ended up writing and finishing my first novel, a trashy romance called “Northern Lad.” I looked into becoming a professional fiction writer, and I discovered Nicholas Erik's 2022 Double Your Productivity Crash Course: https://nicholaserik.com/double-your-productivity/

In the end, I decided to focus on my music and dance, but I did learn some useful concepts. In one section, he discusses the four types of objectives: long-term destinations, goals, projects, and micro-goals. I definitely agreed with him that time-bound goals can be counterproductive, because individual people progress differently, and those differences can depend on life seasons and artistic development stages. I personally find projects useful for developing skills and as proof of expertise. I've come to use micro-goals as the creative equivalent of the “sewing a handkerchief” meme. In my (aspirational) to-do lists, I set out tasks that move me towards finishing my projects, which in turn move me towards my long-term destinations. So this fall, I'm recording a backtrack or two during my non-college days of the week. I plan to use them for demos. I will be using the demos to apply for grants and opportunities, rehearse songs for livestreams and gigs, and develop into a professional album. I am hoping down the road to use my albums as a proof of expertise to find work as a musician in different ways.

One YouTuber I follow is Kelsey Rodriguez, who has become successful as a business coach for visual artists. In one of her videos she discusses a concept called the Energy Menu, which is especially relevant to chronically ill creatives, disabled creatives, and any creatives dealing with low energy issues. 

I haven't followed the details outlined in that video exactly, but I found the concept of an Energy Menu useful for dealing with the fluctuations of my energy. I have a habit of writing overly aspirational to-do lists, and it's taken me years to come to terms with the fact that some days I will be super-productive and be able to chop produce, clean my bedroom, clean the bathroom, do college homework, practice dance and conditioning, AND work on my music, all in the same day. And some days it's all I can do to watch the 27-second “Drumline” choreography performance talk by Ebony on Datura Online to keep up my 365 Day Streak to qualify for a year's free subscription to the online dance classes. Using the Energy Menu, each day I choose which tasks on my to-do list I feel up to doing. And my morning decision might change after a refreshing nap after lunch, or on the other hand if we've decided to run errands in our neighbourhood. 

I took notes on the first chapter of “Early Modern Europe 1450 - 1789”  (Third Edition) by Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, the textbook for my college course by that name. Among other things, it discusses what books sold well in Europe following Gutenberg's invention of the printing press (the European version). Religious treatises were popular, and were full of what the author calls “religious titillation”, all fire and brimstone, complete with gory illustrations. Novels and historical romances; “how-to” books, including health, finance, housekeeping, writing tips for love letters and business; pornography, cookbooks, travel guides; chapbooks and broadsides. Back then, of course, literacy was restricted mainly to urban men of means. Still, it's worth remembering that not much has changed in what sells well in the publishing world. It's legitimate to work for higher standards of reading and education. It is not legitimate to scold the 21st-century public as uniquely lowbrow/middlebrow readers compared to “the high culture of the good old days.”

I had my first volunteer training with the student union of my college in the afternoon. I went to the gym afterwards, and didn't warm up properly. I ended up only being able to do box squats with 10 lbs and RDLs with 2 x 10 lbs. I was feeling a strain in my left calf, so I skipped the other four lower-body exercises I had planned for today. I will be taking Saturday as a rest day, but hopefully I can work out next week.

I had a female leadership class on Zoom from 9 AM to 11 AM. I was too drained afterwards to follow today's plan of recording the demo vocals for the three backtracks I had already recorded, and practice the Datura Online dance video I had in mind. We had to go out at half past four to get a few groceries. But after lunch I did have the headspace to work on creating piano chord progressions for five of my songs - “Bengali Winter,” “Frozen River,” “The Heart of the Snow Queen,” “Sang With The Tongue of An Angel,” and “Unfold.” I'm hoping to have the keyboard backtracks recorded by Monday night.

Today was the first class of my Asian History: An Introduction course. Our instructor gave us, as our first reading, an essay discussing how the word “Asia” was imported by the Japanese from European usage as a way of creating solidarity among Asian nations starting in the 19th century. This is, of course, a simplification of the essay's argument. The essay is dense and difficult, and goes into detail about self-perceptions regarding civilization and geography in Chinese and Japanese culture from ancient times onwards, and the influences of European contact and colonialism. A lot of those details will probably become clearer once we actually get to reading about Chinese and Japanese history as the semester progresses, as well as Indian and Southeast Asian history. I'm looking forward to writing my movie review of Amrapali, the Bollywood historical epic starring Vyjanthimala and Sunil Dutt. My mother said she had watched the movie on TV when she was young. My instructor claims he owns the sole copy of the DVD in our province. 

I'm hoping to get back into a reasonable movement practice over the next 12 months. One upper-body day of heavy lifting at the gym, one lower-body day of heavy lifting at the gym, and two low-impact HIIT workouts at home each week of about 30 minutes each. I just finished week 1 of the Intermediate Fusion: 6 Months - 20 minutes x 3 x week Training Tool from Datura Online. Three rounds of the Built: Lower Body Flexibility and Built: Flexibility for the Torso workouts from DO each week, with the choice of the workout depending on the needs of the day. I am doing dance and flexibility on a maintenance basis, because I am prioritizing lifting heavy and including intense cardio, the latter of which I have never done before. I cannot blow up a balloon to save my life, which is a bit of a problem if you want to sing well. 

Today I did a few minutes of plyometrics before weightlifting, just some basic pogo jumps, back-and-forth jumps, and side-to-side jumps. I did warm-up sets for all my lifts. My working set weights for wide lat pulldowns were 50 lbs; bent-over rows and bench press 2 x 10 lbs; overhead press 2 x 8 lbs; farmer's carry 2 x 12 lbs; and renegade rows 2 x 10 lbs. I plan to increase reps each week, and increase weights by up to 10 lbs each month. 

I'm a member of Bree Noble's Female Musician Academy. She's been recently revamping the Academy website, and one thing she added was an Authority Asset Quiz, a piece of intellecual property one can use to promote one's music. My top result was Book. The problem is, this coming year, I do not have the time, energy, and certainly not the money to work on self-publishing a book. So I decided to hunker down and finally get around to recording backtracks for live performance, and to use as the basis of demos and a professional-quality album next June. I'd been struggling with piano for ages, but several months ago I'd written down chord progressions for about 11 songs. I recorded the electric piano backtracks for “Naive” and “The Dress I Wore” last week. I tried working on “Resisting Me”, but it's a weird chord progression because it has essentially three vocal parts - the girl, the guy, and the girl's sassy best friend. So I decided to work on “The Body Says." Before it had been a nightmare because I was singing it in a weird key with lots of accidentals. Then I decided to transpose it to A minor, and it became a lot easier to play on keyboard. I recorded the backtrack yesterday after three hours total of wrangling with the metronome on Ableton. I'm hoping to send out the demo version “The Body Says” as a free download for my email list. I'm planning to send the song to my friends Chrisariffic and Audrey to play at their respective shows on CITR, the UBC radio station. I'm hoping to have 12 demos done by the end of this month to sell on CDs at the open mics I'll be performing at, and as a download on this website and Bandcamp. 

I've decided to go back to college this fall to learn interesting things and get disability grants. I'm taking a 100-level course on Asian history and a 200-level course on early modern Europe. Today was the first day of classes, and I spent time filling out my calendar and notebook with details and dates of exams and assignments. I'm hoping to do a presentation for the European history course on either Thomas More's Utopia or Voltaire's Candide, because the instructor said that this would be a good way of preparing for the midterm and finals - the midterm will have a 30 percent question on Utopia and the final will have a 30 percent question on Candide. Luckily we have a choice of going solo on the presentation, which I immediately opted for.

I'm also taking Beginning Choral Ensemble as a community student. I've decided to study Western classical music to extend my range, and my mother encouraged me to sing in a choir to get performance experience. I also want to learn how to sing harmonies to get work as a session singer. I'm planning to eventually study Western musical theatre to learn how to sing and dance at the same time.

What frightens me about SkinnyTok is that in 2003, if GLP-1 medications had been available back then, I would have crawled over broken glass back then to get a prescription. In 2002, I had been prescribed psychiatric medications for a bipolar episode, and as a result, I gained a lot of weight due to a sluggish metabolism and emotional eating cravings.  Now I have made peace with my weight, and if anything,  I want to lift heavy in the gym to get a muscle mommy physique. I am really happy that Kimmortal recently released a song called “SWOLETARiAN” celebrating heavy lifting. At least we have over a decade of history of women being encouraged to lift heavy to help us fight the new oppression of heroin chic.