So I have been finding myself delving back into many of my old hobbies, most notably: music composition, and card magic. In the time that I'm not working on assignments or playing video games I find myself with nothing much to do, so I open my second drawer down to find an old pack of cards I'd left there for a rainy day. I open them up and pull out the 56 cards inside, discard the arbitrary cards and start to get a feel back for handling the deck. Each card still has a finish like it just came out of the box for the first time, and as I fan them out each card separates just as much as the one before it.

I start to run through all my basic techniques like my false shuffles, false cuts, jogs, breaks, and passes. I play around with all my sleights and flourishes and try to get back the feel for all the techniques I used to be able to perform flawlessly. Magic is both a science and an art. You must know the method for each move, but just knowing the method is never enough. You must also be able to use charisma and misdirection in subtle but powerful ways to guide your audience to the full effect of the trick.

As a musician I have 7 years of formal music training and I am capable of playing a variety of brass and percussion instruments, but obviously I don’t have a small band set up in my dorm, so all my music these days is done digitally on a program called FL Studio. This program allows me to control each step of the process with individual riffs on single instruments and combine them into rhythms, and then I can further add and subtract segments from my leads, basses, and drum kits to fit the style I’m going for. Furthermore, I can link my sounds to channels and set effects in those channels, so whenever I need a bass boost, or equalizer I can add one to the individual sound or group of sounds.

College has been interesting thus far, and I find it strange that in such new circumstances I start reverting back into some old habits and interests. I guess it could be a coping mechanism to the increased stress that is present in the new environment, but no matter what it is I am enjoying re-exploring these activities as if for the first time.