Pepero Day 2018: My Guitar Promise (From A Year Ago)

“It’s eleven eleven~”
Taeyeon’s 11:11 lyrics

#181111#

Recounting last year’s 11/11 Pepero Day, I had written in my blog post PEPERO DAY 2017: PEPERO FOOD ART + REFLECTIONS OF 11:11 that it was a pity I didn’t have time to learn Taeyeon’s 11:11 piece and record myself playing the instrumental intro on my guitar. It was sort of a promise that I would do it this year instead.

So that eventually became my plan for this year’s 11/11. But in the days leading up to 11/11, I had been forced by my physical circumstances to be kept really busy with my new job of 4 months in the running. There was barely enough time and energy left to devote any portion of my free time to practise my guitar. 11/11 was on Sunday. It was only on Wednesday night in that same week that I managed to push myself to take out my dusty guitar that I hadn’t touched for several months and started learning from youtube tutorials and practising for real. But it was a really challenging thing to do after a full hectic day at work. Due to exhaustion, my mind was drifting about; it was difficult to concentrate. It took me a long time just to memorise the fingerings and sequence of the chords for just the first few bars of the song. I practised for about 1 hour before I decided to call it a day.

The next subsequent days I was again kept busy with work and other personal commitments. The next time I had free time to properly sit down with my guitar again was already Saturday. Even so, for the whole of Saturday morning, I had to be called back by my company to work on duty for our 11/11 flash sales. It was already late afternoon by the time I got home. After some rest, I took out my guitar. Fortunately I was in better spirits this time and I was more focused and able to learn and complete at least the first verse of the song at a quicker speed. But without adequate practice, the transitions of my chords and plucking weren’t smooth at all. However, due to the urgency of the situation as 11.11 was drawing near in a few hours’ time, after just an hour of practice, I couldn’t care less and went straight to record the video.

But the moment the camera started rolling, I panicked and my palms started sweating. My fingers weren’t behaving as obediently as I wanted them to. Before filming, I thought my playing was still okay, but after filming started, everything went haywire. LOL. So instead of a video of myself playing 11:11 perfectly on the guitar, it turned out more like a practice video that was full of mistakes. But again, what could you expect after only 2+ hours of practice combined together? 😝 The following is a video of all my combined NG takes. I decided to call it “My Last Minute 11:11 Guitar Practice”. Hahaha. 🎸🎬 I played until my right index finger suffered a painful blister. 😢

Yes, it was regrettable that I wasn’t able to play it perfectly yet. But I guess this could serve as a motivation for me to do it even better next year! Let’s wait till next year’s 11/11 and see how much I can progress with this same song? Hahaha. 😛 But I hope you still like to see the process of me practising the guitar even though I made so many mistakes! 😅 (inserts a voice: “It’s important to make mistakes!”) One strange important thing that I had noticed was my left wrist became unusually weak for the rest of the night after I stopped filming and playing my guitar. I wondered, could it be Taenggu’s soul who was actually using my left hand to play the guitar with me earlier on so that I could play the guitar a little more smoothly and we could accomplish my guitar playing plan together just in time for 11/11? 👻

On another note, Taenggu’s 11:11 still remained as my ringtone up till now! In other words, I still hadn’t changed my ringtone even after 2 years since its release. An important fact that I had realised when thinking about what to write for my 11/11 post. Haha. And did you buy anything from all the 11/11 flash sales that took place at many online shopping portals on this day? Coz I did. Hehehe. Definitely a good time to shop and buy something to pamper myself. 😍😁

And last but not least, pocky and pepero snacks are a must to prepare and be exchanged with your loved ones on this day! I actually bought 6 boxes of pepero at the supermarket because it was on offer. I decided to keep 3 boxes for myself and gave the other 3 to Taenggu. At least I got to eat some pepero myself as if someone had given it to me too. #theactofbalancing 💜

탱구야, HAPPY 11:11 PEPERO DAY! Love you. 😘💜