The Audio Blog of Steven Sirski

Is this what peace is? Is this what a “normal” life is? How could this change? Work has slowed considerably.

Elections in Taiwan… maybe that’s why the internet connections are slow.

Chinese markets: Mainland vs outside - watching FXI ETF that contains a lot of the big names here on the Mainland (but trade in Hong Kong).

Chinese language challenge, another 1.5 hours done or so. Listened to this CrossTalk guy 郭德纲 (Guo DeDang) and a podcast called Bu MingBai on Apple Podcasts. If anything, this challenge will expose me to other sources to listen to. JUST watched an episode of 家有女儿!

SKRSKI MUZIK up and running on Bandacamp, take a listen. Link in the show notes!

skrskimuzik.bandcamp.com

Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com

Have a good one!

End of an era! No more dog meat in South Korea after 2027

https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/dog-meat-will-be-off-the-menu-in-south-korea-3ec5b05f?mod=itp_wsj,djemITP_h

Where are all the babies?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-population-births-decline-womens-rights-5af9937b?

TWO or THREE walks today? Why??? Cause I fell asleep after dinner last night! Woke up at midnight!

Workouts in! 7.42km in 47 min 23 sec. Got this done late so I figured I’d just do my weights too, so I did 45 minutes of kbell work.

Looking at getting a climbing rope and some battle ropes, might be fun to add.

Signed up for a Chinese listening challenge: pick a target (21 hours) and see how far you can get over the next three weeks. Have a look at Hacking Chinese website under their “challenges” section.

Newsletter out! Head over to Substack to read the latest!

And finally, skrskimuzik.bandcamp.com for all the creative audio you need.

Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com

Have a good one!

GuoBaoRiu for dinner! ShuangJingXuan - but we ordered waaaay too much! Only THREE dishes and the gupbaoriu (which the restaurant is famous for) took half an hour to prepare. By the time it arrived, we weren’t hungry any more! Ended up taking a lot home with us.

Tweaked the shoulder, so now I gotta figure out how to rehab that.

Lots of old podcasts now posted on YouTube, go subscribe to the new channel!

An update on music licensing: Audio Jungle, owned by Envato, isn’t accepting new applicants for its music licensing but AirBit is. There’s also a place called traktrain, but haven’t looked into them just yet.

Tomorrow a day off, and a few more next week. THIS is starting to feel like the holiday season!

Don’t forget to have a listen to Episode 43 of the big pcast on Spotify with Alyssa Brown. All about baking in Beijing!

And finally, drop by skrskimuzik.bandcamp.com to see what’s happening over there. Finally able to update several years’ worth of tracks.

Show notes up on stevensirski.com

Have a good one!

Spent much of the day working on the big podcast, using Repurpose to make backups and publish to YouTube!

Jamuary continues with tracks updated. Trying to set up the Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol board.

Thinking of music licensing ideas, airbit.com, audiojungle.com.

Creamfields Hong Kong already announcing presale! Should I go again this year??

Workouts in but was a bit slower today. I’m calculating each km as about 1400 steps which means I need 8960 to run four miles. Today did 7.3km but only 7518 steps, so is that only 5.37km? Confusing.

Show notes up on stevensirski.com

Don’t forget to check out skrskimuzik.bandcamp.com

Happy beginning of the week!

In memory of my Father, Andy Sirski. Вічная пам'ять!

WTF is Obsidian?? I’ve come across it before and this seems to be part of the new method of note taking, along with Notion. I know some language learners use it but I never have. Key part of the program is its ability to store everything as text files so you don’t lose them.

Workouts in, 6km at lunch complete with pull ups, pushups, squats, and lunges. Total time was about 54.36. Did NOT want to workout but… does doing things that you don’t want to do increase your brain power? Latest Huberman Podcast is with none other than David Goggins during which they talk about doing the hard thing, the thing that sucks. Apparently this affects the anterior midcingulate cortex in the brain that is in control of decision making, etc. Doing hard things makes this grow so you get better at making decisions. 

Episode 43 is done and uploaded! Head on over to Spotify to have a listen as Alyssa Brown of Brownie Bites joins me to talk about things China, business and baking. Hailing from the US, Alyssa has recently marked her FIFTH anniversary in the country and doesn’t seem to be bothered at all by the lockdowns. If anything, she put her time to good use by baking for others!

Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com

Don’t forget to have a listen at skrskimuzik.bandcamp.com for creative audio!

Have a good weekend!

Books I can read! Hahaha!… but do I still have the time?

Working on Episode 43! Coming together!

Jamuary… wow there are a lot of projects going on!

How is building everything up going? Learning email marketing, content creation workflow, different tools. I have a target of 140 hours and I’ve only done about 18 hours of research. I’m tracking everything on a spreadsheet so I can also remember what I’ve already covered.

Looking to build up language vlog over the year.

New weights! Where will I put them??

Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com

Don’t forget to check out skrskimuzik.bandcamp.com

How’s that for an intro?!

AI tools are making things look cool! Spent some time going through new tools.

Botpress… AI chatbots made easy! Haven’t really figured out the costs just yet but it looks very promising.

ElevenLabs - AI voice, like Speechify but cheaper.

Tried out batch creating with ChatGPT+Canva. Essentially you could create a decent channel for $210: ChatCGPT, Canva and an AI voice generator.

Sure, you could go cheaper, but you’d be running around with different email accounts wasting ttime.

New toy with a DJI gimbal! Apparently, if I went all in with DJI Osmo, etc., I’d be able to AI-edit on my phone without transferring files… this has me thinking…

December Drumming finished! Jamuary gets under way. Yes, I still need to make a post. I thought you had to upload everything sequentially on Bandcamp, but apparently you can move tracks around.

Am I still working out? Yes! 6.5km at lunch in about 41.56, a 6.25 pace. After work kbells. Started mace and club swings on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Basically working out every day, but not pushing things hard.

Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com

Don’t forget to check out skrskimuzik.bandcamp.com

Have a good one!

The story of 15 years of travel.

South Korea

Poland

Ukraine

Australia

Montreal

China

ESL teacher 

Farm hand

Warehouse worker

Wannabe musician

What could possibly be next?

Show notes n tracks up on my website stevensirski.com

Back in the Jing! New Year New Me New You?? 

Newsletter out!

What did we do? I fell asleep! 

How was the rest of Guangzhou? Relaxed, search for youtiao, rainy, went to the museum (free). To the airport and wow is travelling with carry on only great. Much better and efficient than Daxing.

Looking forward to 2024! What are your plans??

Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com

Don’t forget to check out skrskimuzik.bandcamp.com

End of December already! New Year’s weekend!

Slow day, smoggy day, T-shirt day!

Breakfast at TaoTaoJu, another famous name brand here. Had similar foods as yesterday but I think I’d give the edge to Dian Du De.

-Youtiao were similar, but we had leftovers so TaoTaoJu’s youtiao was okay to eat later on

-shrimp dumplings (XiaJiaoHuang) were better at DianDuDe

-HongMiChang were better at DianDuDe

-creamy spurt buns were better at TaoTaoJu than the DanTa at DianDuDe

The goal today was to go to Guangzhou Tower.

-600m tall

-third tallest in world

-tallest in China

-are there office buildings inside?

-four hours there cause we were waiting for the sun to set

-I don’t like heights

-Watched two guys at work on one of the pillars..

Dinner at FengYuanYeZhen ZhenPinYeZiJi for a type of Guangzhou hot pot

Walked around the World Mall. Lots of people, NYE weekend.

-How much do people actually understand of my Chinese?

That’ll do for Guangzhou! One more day that we’ll walk around.

Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com

Don’t forget to check out skrskimuzik.bandcamp.com

Have a great weekend and a Happy New Year!