A happy (belated) New Year to everyone!  I hope you’re all as excited as I am about the new year!  It’s definitely going to be a good one and an exciting one for me, mostly because I’ve decided to make it so.

2011 was a phenomenal year for me.  It was a year full of me dis/uncovering new passions, expanding my studio arsenal, making new friends, deepening my relationships with old ones, switching up my living situation for the better, travelling and witnessing God’s provision throughout the first year I didn’t work throughout the summer.  However, it was of a lot stuff not getting done.  And a year of genuinely uncalled for struggle in school, courtesy of “the powers that be” (you know, bureaucratic tomfoolery).  And the combination of the two ultimately resulted in the longest year of my life.  I quite literally did not have a chance to stop working on/being involved in something from April, all the way down to the 11th of December, when I got on my flight back home to Cayman.

I want 2012 to be better.  I know everyone always wants the subsequent year to be better than the last but I sincerely don’t want to allow life to sweep me up like that again.  As I mentioned, relationships with people in my life were a huge part of my year and I want to make sure investing in them and allowing myself to be available to them is a priority this year.  From my new church community, to my brothers in beats, to the young bloods on the come up in school, to the kids who hold my heart all the way in China, I aim to make sure NO ONE misses out on the Paul Chin experience (in whatever way, shape or form it may require for their context).

Then, on the personal tip, I want to challenge myself to continue to do better and better.  I dropped a couple singles, picked up a DJ residency and started focusing on beats again but I also let another 365 days pass without my album, Age Of Atlas, coming to light.  And while I allow leeway for the fact that I’ve been at my busiest with school and at my brokest, financially, it still hurts that something I’ve been working on for so long keeps slipping from my grasp.  I’ve actually had to take a long hard look at this project in relation to where I see myself moving and I don’t know if I have it in me to do another rap album after this, or if I even want to.  Regardless, I’ve resolved to finish recording the album this year and then see what happens from there.  I’ll still need to find cash to pay an engineer and Lord only knows where I’ll find a home for it or how I plan to distribute.

But it’s not all bad on the music front.  Whether AOA drops this year or not, I’m putting something out.  I’m going to start work on a beat tape soon.  After discovering gems like Tokimonsta, Flying Lotus, Dibiase, Elaquent, Chief and Ta-ku, I’ve rediscovered how much plain ol’ unexplainable fun making beats for the sake of making beats is.  And I’ve even gotten into performing beats, which is something I’d never imagined myself being able to do, back when I started making those little Garageband joints in my room half a decade ago.

Then on the school front, I graduate this year.  And that’s all there is to it.  If you follow my tweets or read around here, from time to time, it’s been no secret that 4th year has been making me miserable.  So, I resolve, on that front, to just get over it and get it over with.  It’s such a short scope of time, relative to my whole life and, to be honest, the things that are making me so miserable, are truly just so insignificant.  They shouldn’t bother me (or anyone, for that matter) nearly as much as they do and I’m just done feeling lousy about myself and my work when I’m clearly on top of things (despite what certain parties’ verbal communication would lead one to believe).  I don’t remember if I mentioned it here or not but my type design project (which is, btw, a graphic design elective) got an A (rare occurrence at OCAD U) and commendation from the chair of the GD department himself.  That’s cause enough to celebrate and MORE than confirmation enough that I’m not a talentless idiot.

On a more fickle note, in 2012, I’d like to take back up my Mandarin studies and do a new illustration series.  The latter is more likely than the former, but honestly, in looking over these resolutions, I’d say my main resolution is really just an attitude adjustment :)

Have a blessed 2012 and People Over Progress to you, my friends.