After almost 9 hours of traveling, I arrived on the island of Koh Samui. I took the bus/ferry route over an airplane trip due to the lower cost and the opportunity to see the countryside, which, after the first hour or 2, was just like an interstate in the U.S. except with more tropical vegetation. Oh well, at least it was more turbulent than an airplane ride, ha! It really wasn't too bad and I managed to keep the seat next to me vacant for my stuff and more room to "lay out" in, so to speak. I also managed to read quite a bit, the whole trip didn't seem to take too long.

I was a bit sad to leave Phromthep, although happy at the same time. I had a lot of fun there, was pushed to my limits physically and mentally and met some very interesting people. However, I needed a change of scenery, so I was happy to move on, but this was not the change I was hoping for. My first impressions of the island are not good. In fact, I'm so disappointed with it right off the bat that I'm thinking of changing my plans pretty soon here. I haven't paid for the gym yet, but I may only do 2 weeks to see how I like it and decide where to go from there. The island seems okay, but I haven't seen much of it yet, so I can't judge it (more on this in the lessons from music part in the 2nd part of this entry), but the gym is not nearly what I expected. The room/bathroom is better than the last place although I don't have a microwave or kitchen area, which limits what I can eat in my room. But the gym seems very cramped, very run down (there's rust all over the cardio equipment, what?) and just generally unfriendly. It's in a very rundown area with dilapidated buildings next door, and you have to take a back road of sorts from the main road to get to it. Here I thought it was just off the beach in a decent area. Turns out I was way wrong. I even had to do the "fake throw a stone at dogs" thing, not once but twice, to get some suspicious dogs away from me. One went a little nuts and backed off but started barking like nuts. And this is on the road to get to the camp, where I will have to walk several times a day since there's no food at the camp! They have a breakfast thing apparently, but I'll have to go to restaurants for every meal unlike the last camp where there was a cafe right there with health food. If you ask me, a camp like Phromthep could take over the muay thai business in any part of Thailand, if it just changed a few things.

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself since these are only first impressions, but jeez, I was even getting hassled way more than normal to get a massage when I was looking for a decent place to eat. So because of all of this, I thought about what my options were over dinner. I haven't paid yet so I could up and leave tomorrow if I wanted (not going to happen), but my new plan is quite appealing. I'm thinking of staying here 2 weeks for training and then going to Koh Phangan for 1 week due to how much good stuff I've heard about it. When I was eating dinner I got to talking with a Canadian who recommended it over Samui and I know John really enjoyed it as well. This last month was supposed to be more of a reward since I'm almost done here and I feel like I'm roughing it now more than before, haha. If I went to Phangan for a week, I'd plan on getting a bungalow by the water and just live in the moment, relaxing, eating the local food and actually enjoying this trip for once. I would continue my workout routine, but no muay thai. Just swimming, running, jumprope and anything I can do outside of a gym, essentially. It actually sounds quite intriguing and I think I'd get more out of this trip. Then I'd head to Bangkok for my last week where I'd train at another gym and check out the city before heading back to Chicago. I'll think about it the next few days, but this seems to be the best route for me right now. I wanted to enjoy these last few weeks more than I think I will with where this camp is.

Now, back to the other topic for this blog: life lessons learned from music. The other day I obtained (downloaded, ahem) all the albums from Coheed and Cambria except their first one which I already had, just on a whim. I couldn't believe I was missing out on them for this many years. I saw them way back in '02 or '03, had some of their music, didn't give their first album much of a chance, and that was that. Despite only hearing good things about them from friends, I never gave them a chance. I naively thought that they were a lot heavier than they are precisely based on a few songs which start off darker than they really are. Some songs are more on the harder/darker side than I like, but most have this sense of glory or epicness that I've never heard in music before. First life lesson: don't judge. Don't judge a book by it's cover, a band by one song or a person by how they appear. The funny thing is, there's been a few bands who I've written off before giving them a chance, only to find out that I really love their music and should've given them more of a chance. A good lesson in life when it comes to meeting new people. You'll befriend people who are your opposite, maybe even marry someone who's your opposite, but you'll never know how good of a match you are unless you give them a chance.

Life lesson number 2: getting out of your comfort zone is a rewarding endeavor. Everyone has a lifestyle they're comfortable with, just like everyone listens to the same music all the time. Most people have their favorite bands that they listen to more than others, or a genre that they stick to. But holy cow, you don't know what you're missing out on until you give other things, people, restaurants, places, bands, wines, bars, WHATEVER, a chance. You may not find your new favorite food, but you could be pleasantly surprised by what you try and it'll open your eyes to the possibilities of what you could be missing. If you spend every week working only to succumb to your neighborhood watering hole every weekend, you don't know what you could be missing out on. Chicago is a big city, there's 1,000 other things you can do other than going to the Cubby Bear on a Saturday night, like every other Saturday night.

Life lesson number 3: it's okay to feel all emotions, but don't get hung up on them. When some people are feeling down, they put on some blues or depressing music that they can wallow in. That's okay. What's not okay is to continue listening to it for too long, just to feel sorry for yourself. If you stay depressed over something for longer than is necessary to deal with your grief, no one will enjoy being around you. If you always listen to the blues, you won't give yourself a chance to move on because you'll have that music that you can relate to that you think may be healing you when in fact it prolongs your depression. That's just an example. Music evokes all sorts of emotions from us, as does real life, but if you stay hung up on them, you'll never get back to normal. Change the cd.

Life lesson number 4: Maybe the right person isn't who you think it is, maybe you haven't met them yet. Think of your favorite bands over the years. Tastes change, but you think you have a favorite band until you hear another band/musician and think, no! THAT'S my favorite! Take me for example. When I first got into music, I knew very little. I listened to oldies or metallica and nirvana, that's pretty much it. I liked that music and still do. But nirvana was my favorite band by far, no doubt I loved them. I still like them, but they are nowhere near my favorite. I started getting into more metal and rap in high school, then punk, then realized there's so much I like, I want to listen to it all! My favorite bands went from nirvana to korn/limp bizkit (whoops?) to mest to the starting line to I'm not even sure right now, probably say anything. The point is, as I find more and more music, expose myself to more bands, I find new ones that are my favorite. You can stick to the bands you loved as a child, but that's like marrying the first person you have a crush on. Sure they may be great, but you never know if there was someone better for you and you just didn't think to listen to anyone new.

Last life lesson: stop caring what everyone else thinks, no one is paying attention. A big thing with music that really annoys me is actually two-fold: elitism and shame. People who not only think everything they listen to is the best music out there but that anything they don't like is garbage and anyone who listens to said garbage is stupid. Then people are ashamed that they enjoy certain music, only because of what other people would think if they found out. Who cares if you like boy bands, embrace it. I'll admit right now, out of 5,000+ songs in my iTunes I have (counting...): 6 songs by Gloria Estefan, 6 by George Michael, 6 Barry Manilow, 2 by Tina Turner, 4 by Paula Abdul, 8 by the Beach Boys, 17 by Madonna, "I wanna dance with somebody" by Whitney Houston, "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls and "Mambo No. 5" by Lou Bega. No macarena...yet. I would have been horrified if guys in high school found out I actually liked these songs. But who cares? They're catchy and I like them. There's nothing wrong with it and if there was, I wouldn't care. It doesn't matter what other people think. No one really notices anyway. And you know you'd sing along with Wannabe if it somehow came onto a party playlist.

Anyway, these were things I was thinking about the other day as I realized how far my music taste has evolved over the past 15 years or so. I remember when I went off to college, with my very own computer and winamp player! So excited to play all this music. But I only had 300 songs on there. I thought, how could people have 1,000 or more? I didn't think I'd get that many more songs honestly. But if you expand your taste, are open to new possibilities, get out of your music comfort zone and come to terms with what you like and will listen to it no matter what anyone thinks, you realize there's so much out there to discover. You never know if your favorite band is just one listen away.