As some of you have gathered, I have been in a low ebb in the past couple of months or so. I have had difficulty concentrating on work, sleeping at night, and has barely touched my guitar since my big concert in October. Mel suggested that it might be SAD (Seasonal Adjustment Depression), where the lack of sunlight in the winter (the Sun set at like 3.30pm today) made me depressed. But I've been in London for the past two winters, and I don't remember being so down.

Last night, as I laid in bed tossing and turning at 3am, grappling with my demons, I was completely filled with resentment and anger at all the times I've been wronged, even if they happened years ago, and I was lying there plotting revenge on how to get back on those people who have made me unhappy. I gave in to my anger, when I suddenly realised: this cannot last without me destroying myself mentally.

I sat up in bed, and knew I had to do something. My parents have been trying to drill into me to take up meditation for my own good, and I have always rebelled against them. They don't seem to realise that I'm the perfect candidate for reverse psychology: tell me to do something and I won't do it, even if it's something that I would have done on my own. When I was 14 or 15, I was a believing Buddhist, but my parents suddenly turned towards Mahayana Buddhism, and which had elements I completely dislike, and that turned me away from it. Ironically, the final straw that turned me stop considering myself as Buddhist came from a pamphlet my father made me read when I was about 18. It was by some Thai Buddhist monk, and it contained stuff that I considered so repulsive and ridiculous that I considered myself an atheist from that time onwards.

I realised that I need to continue my own search, and not let my disdain for my parents' particular sect of Buddhism poison my perceptions of the entire religion. When I made that realisation, I calmed down almost immediately, and I decided to pick up a little booklet of Buddhist aphorisms that my mother had given when I left for the UK. After reading a few minutes, I was calm enough to turn off the light and sleep.

It's good that I'll be flying back in 2 days' time. A change of environment can only do me a world of good, and I can't wait to meet up with my friends.

Check out this video of my friend Todd Kreuzberg from Annapolis, whom I visited during my STScI internship in Baltimore. He totally rocks (albeit rather unorthodox playing style), and I've gotta get back to working on my guitar....