Sifurbo

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[sifurbo]

Being back on Tumblr after 10 years!

Holy moly, the nostalgia!

The last time I posted here was after my 25th birthday. At 23, I decided to do these yearly reviews where I would post about “n” number of cool things I did the past year, “n” being the age I turned.

I continued on till 25 and I realized I never ended up completing my 26th birthday post. It is still on drafts. Two of my biggest achievements that year was traveling to France on my first self funded trip abroad and buying a bicycle.

I am 35 now, recently married.

I ended up going on at least 15 of these “self-funded” trips abroad. Even sent my parents on a few, until my mom died 5 years ago and my dad lost interest in traveling altogether. I also bought a bunch of things, this really expensive Macbook I am typing on, and a whole load of crap; some which were useful, some not so much.

Life is different now, my old posts are like a gateway into the mind of me in my early 20s. 10 years can be such a short time in the grand scheme of things, but such a long time in so many ways.

Anyways, this is probably getting too long for a tumblr post. Maybe at the end of this year I’ll do a “36” post. Having to come up with 36 cool things this year will be tough given my current 12 hour workdays.

[sifurbo]

25

Well, I am a quarter of a century old now! 

So,for my 25th birthday I wanted to look back on 25 things that made this past year memorable! Thank you to everyone who was part of it. 1.Formed "Transcend" and released first single Finally decided to release some new original music with long term musician friend Samprit Raihan. Here's the only song we released called "Worth Your While"

Worth Your While by Transcend

3 new songs from us are on its way soon. Follow us on Facebook for updates. http://www.facebook.com/transcendworld

2. Attended NaSTA with StagTV Had the pleasure of attending and cheering on my StagTV buddies at the National Student Television Awards (NaSTA) at Loughborough University.  Proudest moment of the weekend was when StagTV won the award for best Freshers' coverage!

3. Travelled to various places in UK. Ended up seeing quite a few cities in the UK including Birmingham, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Manchester, Leicester, Northampton & more.

4. Became the ultimate London enthusiast. Ended up travelling to beautiful London town at least a dozen times, in the process discovered many hidden gems! Big shout out to partner in crime and ultimate Londoner Negar Amiri

A video posted by Sifat Hasan (@sifurbo) on Jun 15, 2014 at 9:19am PDT

5. Released 17 new videos on my Youtube channel Kept my musical self busy in front of the camera and got a few videos uploaded for my *ahem ahem* fans around the world.

No, videos every week didn’t happen, but quite a few did.

6. Recorded new material for "Transcend" Finished writing and recording new material for my virtual band Transcend. Big thanks to Sam Max for helping us out with a studio and his amazing drumming skills. EP set to release soon *fingers crossed*

Follow us here: https://www.facebook.com/transcendworld

7. Celebrated the graduation of my cousin. My cousin Rani, finally graduated university. For those of you who don't know her, she is probably one of the biggest sources of inspiration in my life. After growing up in Khulna, Bangladesh and barely knowing much english, by a stroke of luck she moved to London, UK for attending University. After six years of extreme hard work, working over 40 hour weeks while attending university, transferring universities twice, doing two major internships and overcoming all odds, she graduated with a BSc of Accounting and Finance from the University of Greenwich and successfully scored a graduate job with NHS. I got to celebrate her big day with her!

8. Surprised Best Friend on her birthday. Did a two hour commute after work to be with my bestest friend ever on her birthday after six years! So proud of everything you have accomplished this year Ani.

9.  Reunited with many long lost friends. 2014 was definitely a year of reunions. The Pictures say it all.

10. Fixed an old school Coffee machine Me and monsieur Laurent brought a retro coffee machine, that had been left in our house for at least a few years, back to life. Two patient days of cleaning later....WE HAD COFFEE!

11. Reached the finals of the Nielsen Business Case Competition. Represented Surrey Uni at the Nielsen Business Case Competition UK Finals with three amazing team mates Dick, Katie and Parm. A few sleepless nights turned out to be a great learning experience, as we got an amazing insight into the inner workings of one of the biggest Market Research firms in the world.

12. Started working at IBM for my placement year Started working as a Resource Management Analyst at the biggest technology services company in the world as part of my placement/Co-op year. Incredibly thankful for this amazing opportunity. Six months in and I have had the pleasure of learning from some amazing mentors in the business, and have made some great friends.

13. Watched the Foo Fighters! Couldn't believe my eyes as I saw Dave and the boys rock the socks off of thousands of people at the closing concert for the Invictus Games in London. Big shout out to my buddy Alessandro for getting the tickets. Definitely one of the best concerts I will ever go to.

14. Watched Tesseract & Animals as Leaders. Another memorable concert! Got to see three of the most redefining progressive/djent metal acts Tesseract, Animals as Leaders and Navene K under one roof in Birmingham.

15. Welcomed my nephew Liam into the world. The next generation of our family is here! On 18th August 2014, my sister gave birth to this future handsome hunk named Liam. Even though I haven't been able to see him in person yet, lots of positive energy and love from the other side of the world nephs! I promise I'll come see you soon!

16. Did the ALS Ice bucket challenge Everyone did it, so did I :P

17. Read more books than ever. Finally got into the solid habit of making time for reading and for sure read more books this year than ever before. So smart right now.

18. Had my highest lifts in Squats, Bench-presses and Deadlifts Consistently hit the gym all year and hit my highest lifts ever. Let's not get too into the numbers as I still have a long way to go, but thought I would share the achievement so far.

A video posted by Sifat Hasan (@sifurbo) on May 3, 2014 at 7:54am PDT

19.Learned to cook Gluten Free. Because I really wanted to cook for a certain someone, I ended up learning how to prepare food completely free of gluten. You're welcome.

20. Went on a tour of Sky TV with StagTV Got to go inside one of the biggest TV stations in the UK thanks to Daniel Ashworth and the entire StagTV crew.

21. Finally got a Frosh 2013 shirt. After Naina left, my room mate handed me a packet with a Sauder Frosh 2013 t-shirt inside. People who know me well will know the significance of it. The pack said "Joint custody?"Thank you Nainu, I almost cried.

22. Met "Bookpeople" from across the pond. Had no idea, but the UK was full of Southwestern "bookpeople". Thanks to "social media" I ended up meeting a quite a few of them. 

23. Met Dan Tompkins Met one of the best front men alive right now for a vocal workshop. For those of you who don't know him, he is the lead singer of TesseracT and Skyharbor. Other projects where he has featured are White Moth Black Butterfly, In Colour, Absent Hearts, Piano etc. 

24. Collaborated with BeatBaksho Collaborated with my buddy Shanto's acapella project "BeatBaksho" to cover "Madness"by Muse. The video should be finished any day now, I promise :P

25. Reached 6000 listens on Soundcloud. Thanks to all the new covers and originals I posted this year my Soundcloud reached over 6000 plays. Follow me for new music coming soon. www.soundcloud.com/sifurbo

[sifurbo]

Finally! www.ownedtheband.com #owned #one #newalbum #freealbum #bhabantor #groovy #uttara #bangladesh #underground #amazing #kochikiller #akbrothers (at University of Surrey)

[sifurbo]

Random German surprise! #classical #guitar #acoustic #deutsch #movienight #instamusic (at Guildford Park Avenue)

[sifurbo]

"Please hear what I am not saying"

A poem I came across which I feel we can all relate to. A reading of Charles C Finn's poem "Please hear what I am not saying" by Stephen R Covey from an audio of his famous book "The 7 habits of highly effective people".

[sifurbo]

24

(This post was supposed to be published on my 24th Birthday, December 24, 2013. Needless to say work,exams,job apps, and procrastination got in the way, but here it is. Better late than never) Another year just went by in a flash, and just like other birthdays I feel older than ever. *Badam tsss* Thank You for all the people around me across 3 different countries who made this year as exciting as is was.  I can say with conviction that this was an incredible year of growth and wanted to look back at the top 24 things that made this year tremendously memorable! 1. Released my first ever proper Youtube cover video! Covered "These Days" by the Foo Fighters one boring day during winter break. The video received 1200+ views and was well received by my friends!

2. Experienced JDC West as part of the Ambassador crew. In the process got to meet and hang out with some very inspiring people! I was lucky enough to be the team Ambassador for team UBCO for the largest business competition in western Canada, JDW West. My team consisted of Jaimee, Shelby and one super fun crew from Kelowna! As part of the Ambassador team I was also blessed to have surrounded myself some very inspiring Sauder students and alumni!

3. Saw MUSE, the best live band of our era A huge dream come true as I got to watch MUSE from the front row with Enzo, Peter, Tony, Jemma, Dimitri, Quentin and co.

4. Walked the entire Lion's Gate Bridge in Vancouver On a cold February night I walked the bridge with Caroline, Barnabas, Brad, Intishar and Dylan! Highlight of the night was definitely peeing off the bridge from its highest point. One of the last few memorable nights in beautiful Vancouver!

5. Got the sweetest video made for me when I left Vancouver, all thanks to Richard Lam (who, by the way, also founded the coolest lifestyle brand www.keeponcollective.com ) Still almost shed tears every time I watch it. Thanks for the sweet messages from Rebekka, Barnabas, Carolee, Ben, Ram, David, Tom, Barbara, Robin, Brad, Caroline, Miya, Tony, Rebekah, Andrew, Billy, Vincent, Abby, Richard, James, Peter, Enzo and Michelle. This will be one my grand kids will see. *sniff sniff*

6. Made an Acappella cover of Justin Timberlake's "What goes around comes around" with Shanto!

7. Played live shows with long term musician friends OWNED, who are all set to release an epic album. Follow them here: https://www.facebook.com/ownedtheband

8. Reunited with my band Absent Element  Had the pleasure of reuniting with my band Absent Element, even with only 3 members around, and play concerts around my hometown. Wrote a brand new song too! Follow us here: www.facebook.com/absentelementband

9. Started a Blog Decided to start a blog to express myself and try to be a better writer. Probably should write posts more often. sifurbo.tumblr.com 10. Became fitness conscious. Made going to the gym 3 times a week a habit for the first time in my life including eating healthy and rarely drinking carbonated drinks. Some of my best "lifts" this year were squatting 1.1 times my body weight and dead-lifting 1.67 times my body weight (Not much, but getting there). Also made approximately 12 people join the gym, some of who are seeing incredible results! #doyouevenliftbro

11. Finally picked up the habit of reading regularly. Thanks to the advice of several fantastic mentors, I have made sure I have taken time off to read at least 10 pages of a good book or listen to 10 minutes of a self help audio everyday. This habit has had a tremendous positive impact on my life, and I feel like everyone should give these books a shot. My favorites from the past year include: "The Slight Edge", "The Compound Effect", "Think and Grow Rich", "How to win friends and influence people", "How to stop worrying and start living" and many more. 12. Got accepted to the University of Surrey! Managed to pick myself up after my life came to a halt when I was forced to leave UBC for immigration reasons, and was lucky enough to be accepted at the University of Surrey in England.

13. Reunited with some awesome people in London. Got to meet up with some old friends I had parted with in different parts of the world after upto 5 years later, including my cousin and inspiration Rani, and my buddies Aniqa, Marzuk, Muyeed, Shawkeen, Tyler, Larissa, Shandon, Miya, Lauren & Ali!

14. Got the warmest welcome moving into my new place by my awesome housemates at Stag Hill 25. Thanks for the incredible welcome Gareth, James, Jack, Sia, Fi, Ulkey,Fanny and dinner from roomie Harith! Will remember that night for a while. It's been an amazing 4 months living with you guys and I'm sure the next 5 will be even better!

15. Joined STAG TV Became a part of the coolest student media team ever, the University of Surrey's very own TV Channel, Stag TV, as a presenter and producer

. 16. Went to Cox's Bazar Took a short trip to the city with the longest beach in the world with my crippled cousin Utshob and Dr. Kamrul "wifi" Haleem.

17. Grew a stache of epic proportions  Not the best Movember in terms of donations, but that stache though!

18. Played with Loco Motive! Spent time playing music with one of my most admirable bunch of musician friends in Bangladesh, Loco Motive. A lot of recording was done during this period with front man Sadman Rahman which never got released, but nonetheless it was an amazing learning experience.

19. Recorded a cover with Asir. On a bored summer day, I suddenly had the urge to cover a song called "Ek" by Iqbal Asif Jewel and Jon (Black/Indalo) from an album called "Jewel with the stars". The immensely talented Asir Arif filled in with on the spot Guitar and Bass takes.

20. Travelled to Brighton! Fed my wanderlust just a little bit and went to Brighton on a beautiful day with some lovely folks. At least one down out of a billion other epic places yet to see in the UK.

21. Took a french course! Learned some basic french at Alliance Francaise de Dacca avec the incredible Madame Urmila! 

22. Started work at Ecco shoes! First paid work in England! Hours are long, pay is not-so-good, but hey I'm making money and good work habits, and you should really see the free 100 pound shoe I got FOR FREE!

  23. Mastered the usage of the phrases "Cool Story Bro" and "Do you even lift bro" Made sure I annoyed my friends in Bangladesh esp my gym crew at every opportunity possible with these two phrases. Definitely one of the highlights of my rather dull summer.

Hope you guys are having a great new year

24. Became a regular at Channies! Became a regular at Thursday Night Open Mic at "Chancellor's"  at my University. Definitely one of the best crowds I have ever played in front of.

[sifurbo]

Yes, I cut my own hair!

So for the past one year or so, I have been engaging in the really unusual act of giving myself haircuts. Am I good at it? Kind of I guess. Does it always go well? Not really. Have I badly screwed it up a few times? Hell yes. 

But the question remains. "Why Sifat? Why do you have to do this yourself?" "Its only 15 bucks, 12 quid, 200 taka". "Plus the head massage they give you after is amazing" The real question is. Why not? Why let someone else touch your hair, go "snip snip" and show off their artistry using your hair as their canvas? My hair is a part of my head! Only me having control over how it looks gives me a strangely liberating feeling. If I screw up, I look funny for a few days, but its still MY EXPERIMENT, MY CREATION, MY WORK OF ART!

Anyone started cooking for yourself recently for the first time? How did your first full meal that you prepared turn out? Chances are, not very good. Did you enjoy it? Yes, every last morsel. Because it was you who made it. Every bite of that slightly raw chicken, over-boiled pasta, or burnt brocolli, made you feel empowered. You were satisfied! You wanted to call your mom and say, "Mom, I did it! I am a big boy/girl now." You achieved a feat you never thought you could. I will be honest with you however, I first started cutting my own hair because it seemed like a good way to save some money. After all money has been a rare commodity in my life for the last 3 years, since I started living among the expenses of the "western world". However, now it has turned into this weirdly therapeutic ritual I perform  about once a month to make myself feel good, Powerful and. feel like I am in control. If you know me well, you should know that this past year hasn't been the easiest one for me to deal with. If there's one thing I have learned from all of it, it would be to take full responsibility of my life. All of my life I had blamed my poor health on bad genes, my educational failures on extenuating circumstances, my poor relationships on other people. Not anymore! I am starting to adopt a mindset that Darren Hardy talks about in his book "The Compound Effect". The mindset of taking a 100% responsibility for your life! Here are some quotes from him! "You alone are responsible for what you do, don't do or how you respond to what is done to you" "No matter what has happened to you, take complete responsibility for it — good or bad, victory or defeat. Own it.' (For those of you who have never heard of "The Compound Effect", I urge you to read it, or listen to the audio books. Here's a link to one of the clips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_2q36k-5Ew ) Cutting my own hair has given me a sense of responsibility and empowerment that I never felt before in my life. It may have been a small change that I decided to adopt, but the mindset that I had to adopt in order to pull it off month after month spilled over to various other aspects of my life.

Anyways, decided to start writing again after a long time. Thanks for reading! Let me know if anyone of you actually pick up a pair of scissors or a trimmer and give self-given haircuts a go!  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. And to my homies in Bangladesh, Happy Hortal/Oborodh and STAY SAFE!

[sifurbo]

Fried crab from the beachside in torrential rain! #instafood #cox'sbazar

[sifurbo]

"You put those hours in and look at what you get, nothing that you can hold but everything that it is" - Macklemore

So, this Friday was my "big comeback" to the Dhaka underground music scene! I performed a gig with long term musician friends from the band Owned covering some of our favorite Foo Fighters songs.

  Owned and, my band, Absent Element go way back to 2008 when Absent Element played its first ever gig. I remember them playing the slot right before ours and absolutely killing it. Till summer 2010 we had played a number of shows side by side and became well known in the scene as two of the better emerging rock bands. What I barely had any idea was of how big they had become in the two-and-half years that i was in Canada, leaving my band inactive.

  After overcoming a number of set-backs including one of their guitarists flying abroad for studies and departure of their previous front man, Owned had fought its way to being one of the best in the scene. Even after being cut-down to just three men, they consistently delivered hit singles and stellar live performances. As a result they now have a solid fan base and are almost done with recording their debut album.  Needless to say the show went great! It was a packed house  and the songs received great response from the crowd. What really flattered me were requests for Absent Element's singles "Pichhutaan" from the crowd, which I promptly replied by saying "sometime very very soon". Being on stage in front of such a big crowd for the first time since 2010 was a huge morale boost for me, especially following three months of utter boredom sitting at home not doing much. It really helped re-ignite my passion for making music again and got me excited for getting on stage with my band Absent Element.

     Snap from the show   As me and Samee from Owned were sitting in his room observing videos from the Muse concert I was lucky enough to attend in Vancouver this February, we talked about how unconditionally committed you have to be in your pursuit of music to be as good as those guys on stage. We talked about how a lot of younger musicians these days do not realize the value of consistently trying to get better to achieve their musical goals, and thus fade away. Circumstances are never favorable enough, if you have enough passion for what you do, you can achieve great things by not giving in to the countless minor set-backs you will have. I'd like to quote a little something from an article I recently read which really hits it home "You have to kill those excuses, or they will kill you". 

[ Great Read btw: http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person_p2/ ]  Overall this past week has gotten me very pumped for my band's return to the stage on June 14th, and making new music in general. Hopefully the rest of this break from studies will prove more productive than it has till now, and I will be able to look back at some worthy musical achievements.    One last note I'd like to leave you with is: listen to a song called "Ten Thousand Hours" by Macklemore, if you're ever in need of some motivation to make new music (even in rap is not your thing). The title of this post is a line from it. Damn, this was a long one. Adios, and see you next Friday at "Loiter D85" in Banani and you can see my band play :D Follow Absent Element: https://www.facebook.com/absentelementband Follow Owned: https://www.facebook.com/ownedtheband Event page for Absent's return to the stage: https://www.facebook.com/events/396507527129218/

Photo Credits: Roots Air BD [https://www.facebook.com/rootsairbd]

[sifurbo]

One of those days that puts a smile on your face when you look back at it!

So, this is my first ever attempt at this thing called "blogging". That means if this sucks it's your fault for reading it! Anyways, today's been an unexpectedly satisfying day. One of those special days God plans for you to give you a bit more perspective and purpose.   It started with me finally getting around to watching the movie "Life of Pi". Despite the three annoying girls sitting to the left of me, commenting on every scene and giggling among themselves, the movie did manage to give me the goosebumps it promised. Some people seemed to not like the ending too much, but for me it just really reinstated the fact that at the end of the day having faith in something is the same as believing in the unseen. Living with a Bengal tiger on a boat or carnivorous islands may not necessarily be it, but believing in God, yourself and your goals is a lot times believing in things we have yet to see.    A Must watch, if you're like me and have a hard time keeping up with movies.   On one of my lazy Facebook scrolls after getting home, I happened to come across a photo shared by a friend from a page called "Human's of New York." Having previously fallen in love with the city on my 2009 family trip, I get captivated by anything remotely related to it. The page consists of pictures of New York City residents and a little something about their lives, their day or simply their personality.    The picture my friend shared was of a Bangladeshi immigrant, who looks to be just a little older than my dad, behind the counter at a convenience store. The description on the picture mentions how he works one more job at a pizza place after his hours at the shop, even though him and his wife were college professors back home. The comments on that picture especially were very heartwarming to read; full of people expressing gratitude towards people they knew who worked hard and made incredible sacrifices. Here's a link the picture/page

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=465686816838757&set=a.102107073196735.4429.102099916530784&type=1&theater   Great page to spend a bit of time on!

One quote that stuck with me from the comments were "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle".   In the past week I had been getting more and more annoyed at a friend who wouldn't stop talking about troubles with her love-life, but this quote gave me a little perspective on that. I hope I will treat her better from today than I have been in the last couple of days!    Lastly, I was thrilled to hear from a friend of mine from UBC who, right now, is on a volunteer program in a remote village in Kenya. She seems to be going through an amazing time of self-discovery. I'll leave the details for you to check out on her blog, which by the way is far more exciting and far better written than mine. http://distantwanderings.wordpress.com/

  So this tumblr business made me stay up a lot later than I had originally planned to. However, now this little boy will head to bed a little more grateful for everything than yesterday! Thank you bearing with me. Mad respect if you made it this far :P