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So I got a new mp3 player--I used to use my old iPhone 4 as an ipod since last year after I got a new phone, but thought it's time to sell it away. In place of that, I got Cowon i9+ and it's perfect for me because of its small size & amazingly large storage space (32gb). It's great because I don't need iTunes anymore. I just need to drag in the music files into this "external drive" and it's done! I don't even reorganize the items by changing names and classifying them according to artists or albums. I threw in a bunch of music files and still have 3/4 of the space left. It's just great for me who loves listening to music all the time. I don't prefer carrying music around in my phone because I don't want them to take up so much space. Even though technology is so advanced these days that we only need one smartphone device to do anything, I still prefer the analog way of keeping phone and music player separate. Music needs to be appreciated in its own way, not as a side function of an all-in-one machine.
My love for music developed back in 2004. My mom used to give me virtual "points" for doing small housekeeping work at home, like arranging shoes, doing dishes, and making my bed. I kept track of them, and at the end my mom replaced my points with real money which I used to buy my first mp3 player. It was quite expensive back then; it was 4gb one from Iriver and was worth about $300. I carried it everywhere with me and made sure my library is updated every week or so. If the file names weren’t obviously visible or in a weird order, I invested a lot of time classifying them neatly and perfectly. I even listened to it while studying or sleeping. My mom told me to keep it away from me especially during studying but I think I never listened to her. I eventually developed the habit of being able to study better when I’m listening to music than when I’m not, which still persists until now.
All friends in my junior high school also had their own mp3 players, and we used to exchange ours during class breaks and lunchtime and listen to each other’s playlists. We also did the same in the buses to hagwons after school, recommending good songs and singing along the lyrics. I remembered their recommendations, came back home, downloaded them all from Soribada and updated my music library. It’s interesting how those songs are the ones I most vividly remember. I still remember all the lyrics for my/their favorite songs and even the talks we had while listening to them, even though everything is almost ten years ago. It’s a pity I am somehow not able to memorize all the lyrics for the songs I listen to now. I don’t know why, maybe I don’t pay so much attention to the songs than I used to. Or maybe because they don’t matter as much as they used to back then. Either way it makes me a bit sad.
It’s great to have my mp3 player back because it reminds me of my young self ten years ago. All those times I spent organizing the songs, always kept it around me day and night, and thought this is the most precious treasure I had. My Iriver was replaced two years later with 1st generation ipod nano, then two more years later it was replaced with ipod touch. When I finally got an iphone in college I wasn’t listening to music a lot just like I used to. All of a sudden I became a busy college student who just couldn’t spare a lot of time solely on catching up on latest tunes and memorizing them. But now as I hold a brand new mp3 player in my hand, I think I can return to my old self who used to appreciate music more than nothing else. The old self who knew how the smallest things have the power to brighten us up, at the end of a depressing and gloomy day.
Now I don’t have enough enthusiasm to exert my OCDness to perfectly rearrange the file names and create all sorts of playlists within my library. I am satisfied with just throwing in bunch of the files I have, listen to them on random mode and rediscover the gems I used to repeat on infinite loop back in junior high and high school. Those were the songs that made me cry, the songs that used to console the premature, sensitive heart of teenager me. Thank God for allowing music in our lives, letting us rejoice in the happiness and satisfaction it can offer.
