Paypal Ordeal

So I checked my bank balance yesterday to pay a friend of mine for some camping expenses. I raised an eyebrow when I saw that I was down $880 for no reason, especially since there wasn't an ATM in a 25km radius around the camping site that we were at!

Within a few minutes, I called up CWB and had my Master Card canceled and basically stopped all financial transactions with immediate effect.  I let them know about what had happened and I must say, they were very supportive and assured me that I would get my money back. I wasn't happy with just the assurance as I had to find out the who, the what, the why, the when and the how, but the bank was not interested in these details at the moment. They were more interested in getting my money back to me. Fair enough.

Being the inquisitive character that I am, I backtracked every single transaction that had taken place in the last few hours. Turns out that someone had hacked into my Paypal account, which I did not know at that point of time, and used my information to buy a perfume and a "foreign purchase", with a total expenditure of $880! In my bank statement, this expense appeared as three different transactions from New York and the United Kingdom, but the amount added to $880!

So I figured that the transaction must have taken place via my Paypal. I logged on and saw the transaction immediately. I raised more than an eyebrow this time. I raised a storm. Fortunately for me, I received an email from an ebay seller saying:

"Hi you still haven’t sent address, and ive just found out it , it cant be sent via post , as its battery is built in."

Huh???? What? What was this guy talking about? I had not ordered anything, leave alone a device with a battery in it! So I replied to his email asking him what it was all about. Within a few minutes, I had a reply from her (turns out the seller was a sweet lady):

"The ipad that you bought from me off ebay, and wanted sent to Indonesia, you paid via paypal"

In the next few milliseconds, my thoughts were - "iPad! Woohoo! Wait! What iPad? WTF? YES! Gotcha you li'l sucker!"

I emailed the seller back saying that she shouldn't mail the iPad anywhere and explained the whole situation. She was onto it immediately and refunded my money within a couple of minutes.

In the meantime, I called up Paypal and they assured me that I won't lose my money as well. However, in the emails between me and the eBay seller, I knew exactly who bought the iPad, where it was bought from, when it was bought and where the dude wanted it to be shipped - Indonesia!

Neither the bank nor Paypal was interested in this information and said it could take weeks or months to find the culprit. I was giving them the information on a silver platter. And to be honest, it took me less than 3 hours to find out all of this information. Cool huh?

In hindsight, I also noticed that I had not received any confirmation from eBay informing me of this purchase, nor an email from Paypal with a receipt of this purchase. So in case you are wondering if you could be a possible victim, the answer is, YES. 

Check your finances every day. I have been in the habit for the last 3 years. It is one of the things I do within the first few minutes of waking up - Read the news back home, check emails, check bank account, check facebook (.... don't we all? :) )

So at the moment, I'm stuck without a debit card, which means I have to go to the bank to get some cash... if I have any left in my account, that is!

P.S. Nobody messes with AK or somebody gonna get-a hurt real bad :)

What drives me?

A lot of my friends constantly ask me... "How do you do it?". They're referring to my crazy sleep patterns and late nights followed by early mornings, followed by more late nights and early mornings. It's as if my body is able to cope with 4 hours of sleep a day, or so it seems. It does have its drawbacks, and long term effects, but at the moment I'm in a creative space like never before. I've been learning things at an incredible pace and I see myself getting better at it. I've been working 8 hours a day, then recording musicians at night, only to come back home and shoot pictures and time lapses. So how do I do it?

Watch this video below and see if it answers my question. I first watched this video when Dr. Gert Gast showed it to my class when I was still studying. It has left a lasting impact on me, and has radically changed my views on social acceptance of highly creative individuals.

 

This is the only video that I have saved on my phone and I watch it regularly before I sleep. Sir Ken Robinson is a brilliant speaker, and what he says in the video, is totally in sync with my belief. I am creative by nature and I have a habit of thinking outside the box... all the time. I grew up in an education system that not only concentrated on academic progress, but also nurtured my extra curricular talents and encouraged me to pursue what I love and have faith in my abilities. I think I am very lucky that I love my job. I don't think of it as work, but merely an activity that I am passionate about. I do get tired and it does get stressful sometimes, but I still have this drive that pushes me to keep at it, and improve with each passing day.

I am enjoying this creative space at the moment, and I hope that my friends and acquaintances benefit from my creative space as well, so that their talents are nurtured and encouraged. I love learning new things and I am open to learning virtually anything that I come across. At the moment, I am learning more about photography and polishing my skills in audio to take me to the next level.

That is how I do it. :)

We Are Not Alone!

I remember having a conversation with one of my friends in Uni when I was studying Electronics. Out of nowhere, he asked me, "Do you think there are aliens out there?". I replied, "Yes. Most definitely. And if they are out there, they're probably as evolved as we are."

It's funny how we are so desperate to look for life out there, that we end up spending billions of dollars on space expeditions and other useless shit. I think humans are not meant to be on this planet in the first place. We are the aliens. We're destroying the planet at an incredible pace and we still don't acknowledge it as a race, merely because we fear that the global economy will collapse and people will die of poverty.

We rarely think of the rest of the species around us. The other day I read an article about a man-eater being shot dead because it was killing villagers on a regular basis. It turned out to be a tiger, and we complain that there are only 2000 of them left in the world. The tiger is my favorite animal... in fact if I ever get a tattoo, it will be dedicated to the tiger. If we treated all species equally, should we give chicken the right to kill humans just because their eggs are taken away? Or should we equip all our cows with Rambo knives to kill us when we kill their friends for meat?

We won't. We're selfish. And we're destroying ourselves, before we destroy anyone else. We're using global warming as an excuse, but quite frankly, I don't think we're gonna survive the next 500 years to live as free men and women. We're gonna die anyway, so it's not a big deal. There will be consequences, and we're gonna find out pretty soon. I'm glad I wasn't born any later than I was, because I can only see us going down.

And while you think about it, I'm gonna go record some music :)

January - The Month That Turned It Around

It has been an exciting four weeks, although it has taken it's toll on me. The first few days of the month were a struggle, but I was lucky that I was on vacation and could dedicate time for myself to recover. Photography turned things around for me earlier than I expected.

After a long hiatus, I was finally back on stage. I have always enjoyed performing on stage, especially spontaneous jams which pop out of nowhere. I can feel my creativity growing when I'm put in an unprepared situation. I had a great time playing with Red Bantoo (http://www.myspace.com/redbantoo) again, and I was keen to play more with them. Soon after, I was booked for two more gigs in Sydney in the upcoming weeks, both of which I am looking forward to.

I think I am very lucky that I am surrounded by genuine people who have turned into friends for life. In the last three years, I have made acquaintances in every other country on the planet. I'm an easy going guy and people get along with me really well once they get to know me.

I have also been very lucky to have recorded some of the most talented musicians in the area over the last 3 years. I enjoy recording musicians. I think it is a really special moment, when you capture someone's performance and create something that is non-materialistic but still has the power to alter the emotional state.

I had the chance to record Pete Murray, one of the top musicians in Australia over a 4-day recording session in the SSL 9000K studio - an amazing studio at my workplace. It was a massive learning experience for me, and for everyone who was involved. I am looking forward to completing this project soon and get on with some of the other amazing projects that I have been working on.

I am also recording a small choir - three girls with the most incredible voices. They're young teenagers, but they have divine voices and sing harmonies that give you goosebumps all the time. I am really excited to be a part of this project and I must thank my buddy Glendon for letting me record them.

All along, my dear friend and colleague - Philippe Chambin has been my mentor in the field of audio. I have learnt a lot from him and we do a lot of recording and mixing projects together. We realized that we work well together and we are starting something big and exciting very soon. I will keep you posted on this one! :)

The downside of the last one month has been my health. I have been pushing my physical, mental and emotional limits to the maximum, and I don't know how long I will be able to continue like this. I have a tendency to immerse myself in some kind of activity when I am feeling low. I have been sleeping for just under 4 hours a day on average in the last one month and I can feel my body giving up on me. I have lost some weight as well. I know this isn't good for me in the long run, but it is the only way I know to avoid falling into a low and unproductive phase.

A Life of Compassion

My parents taught me one simple thing. Others before self. If you know me well, you would also know that I would chop my arm off if you only asked for it. My parents brought me up with values that are simple yet powerful, values that let you go to bed with a smile on your face and those that never let you down. I was brought up with compassion and that is all I knew. Throughout my life, I have been around people who have helped me become what I am today. I have seen my father help people in need, no matter what time of the day it was and no matter how tired he was. This is the only way I know.

With great regret, I must mention that very recently for the first time in my life, I felt let down by compassion. I did not expect something to hit me that hard. I felt compassion being sucked out of me. It made me think about people in ways that I never thought before. It made me analyze the way people have treated me in the past. I'm sure you would agree that we never like being taken for granted. I started identifying people who had clearly taken advantage of me. My attitude towards life was about to change.

Over the years, I had turned into a people-pleaser. I could make everyone happy at the same time. Some people really didn't deserve it, but I never saw it. I decided that from now on, I would always choose who I help and I would learn to say no to people who didn't deserve it. It is unbelievably hard to do so for someone who never questioned anyone when they asked for a favor. I never expected anything back in return either. I guess this is where I had to draw the line and stop being a nice guy all the time.

By saying that, I don't mean to say that I'm gonna turn into a bad person... I am not capable of hatred. I am just going to turn neutral and not react to a situation that I don't want to be involved in. Compassion will be followed for people who truly deserve it.

I'm not quite enjoying this at the moment, but I know it's working and it is the only thing that would keep me going. If I realise that this is a wrong move, I will without doubt go back to unconditional compassion immediately

It's a New Dawn, It's a New Day, It's a New Life.... and I Felt Like Shit!

New Years' Eve 2010-2011 proved to be something that changed my attitude towards life. For the first time in my life, I had to do things I never thought I'd do before. I don't think I'll ever forget that day, but I would like to spare you the details. All I could say is that just as 2010 ended on an all new high, 2011 began with an all new low. I was faced with a major problem - My current personal and professional responsibilities do not permit me to go through a low phase... I couldn't afford to be in a negative state of mind.

I spent the next couple of days working things out in my head, and I realised that I was heading down a one way street with a dead-end. In hindsight, I figured that I always was, but I thought it could change with time. It was no one's fault, but it just didn't seem to work out. After seeing me go through the whole ordeal, a very dear friend finally asked me a simple question: "Is it really worth you spending that much energy on someone who didn't want it in the first place?" I knew it would be hard, but from that day, I had to let go of the part of me that was holding on. I'm still struggling, but I know I'll get there.

I have always worked effectively and efficiently under tremendous pressure. My brain tends to focus on the task at hand and not let go of the focus until the task is completed. It's like a state of meditation where all you can see is the tip of the flame and nothing else, even if the flame is moving and fluttering in the wind.  It is all that I can see. It is something that people have regularly pointed out when they've seen me work, and I never realised how powerful this ability actually is. I decided to light my own flame and immerse myself in a space that I had never created before. This low phase was just about to turn into a massive springboard that would propel me to turn the entire month around.