Top 15 of 2008

Songs I OD'ed on in the past year.



1. Ratatat- Crips
2. Flight of the Conchords- Business Time
3. Midlake- They Cannot Let It Expand
4. Radio Dept- Pulling Our Weight
5. Iron & Wine- Flightless Bird, American Mouth
6. Stars- Midnight Coward
7. Nada Surf- Inside of Love
8. Lykke Li- Little Bit
9. Plushgun- Dancing in Minefield
10. Explosions in the Sky- First Breath After Coma
11. She & Him- Change Is Hard
12. St. Vincent- Marry Me
13. The Proclaimers- I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)
14. Greg Laswell- Sing, Theresa
15. VulpesVulpes- Blankets

a new year

Raedio, Noir Desir, Leonard Cohen... and a high five.

Oh winter break

Chill chill chill its snowing outside! The semester ends tomorrow with a little French holiday party in my class. My brother just helped me prepare my dish. I don't have much domestic talent but I think the ratatouille came out pretty yummy.

I rented a few films to watch over the break. 

1. Bottle Rocket (to celebrate their Criterion release!)

2. Planet Earth (because it would be enjoyable on HDTV)

3. 30 Rock Season 1 (it's tv-makeout-time)

4. It Happened One Night (for my mom to watch!)

There is so much to look forward to in 2009. Even if I end up off this premeditated map, I'd be okay with it. My resolution? To not cut my hair for a year (excluding trims). I've gotten my hair cut so many times during the past 2 months I'm actually regretting it, haha. Actually I just went to the salon yesterday. They had to buzz my back a bit. Whee!

Cheers to all the movies and music that I'm about to encounter! Cheers to the people I will meet. Cheers to future regrets and weight changes and friends I will gain and lose. Cheers to footprints and history makers, to the new President, to unemployment, to insurance, to happiness, to fulfillments, to alcohol and velvet moments. Cheers to 2009!

Ironing, whining

Last night I saw two musicians. Asia's superstar icon, Lee-Hom Wang and my beloved idol, Sam Beam. HURRAY!!!!!!




Sammy, we love your beard.
It's my safety spot.

turbulence

So I unintentionally planned out my winter break. I will be spending those few weeks learning the unfamiliar programs I listed in my resume.

I'm waiting for Rimbaud to come through the mail. 

And a career.

=)

Hello. So he won!

Today begins a new chapter in Barack Obama's life. Imagine how drastic the lives of his children will change once they move into the White House. As fortunate Malia Ann & Natasha are, they will also suffer the consequences of the privileged, especially being the daughters of the first (half) black President. Their lives are at risk.

I didn't mean to start off pessimistic. It's just what I'm thinking of now. 

Off to the next paragraph!

Lately, I've been having trouble with the internet since I'm on wireless. The only steady spot I have is the kitchen, which is where I am right now. But that's not so bad at this time of the day. It's completely quiet. Hot water and teabags are within an arm's reach. The telephone is ringing... my mom just picked it up from the other room. 

My sister is coming home for the weekend which means I have to clean up. Cleaning up doesn't bother me as much anymore. I actually just found my high school poetry book again. It costed $40 (equals a million dollars in my currency) when I first got it but we had the option of reselling it for $27. However, by the end of the semester, I couldn't give the book. It's golden! I love poetry! and music! and art! and films! and a hot cup of tea =)

Snip snip snip

Sometimes I feel as if the only thing I have control of in my life is my hair.

melancholy mondays

My feet's cold. I'm wearing snowboots in the house. =(

I'm on my 6th cup of tea. Radiohead's Fake Plastic Trees is playing in the atmosphere. I miss my best friend.

crippled fly

A couple of weeks ago, I was browsing through films and caught Yumeji in the Japan section. So of course, being a Wong Kar-Wai fan, I immediately connected it to the infamous song composed by Shigeru Umebayashi. Actually I've always wondered who Yumeji was, being that the score is titled Yumeji's Theme. The movie is the last of a trilogy directed by Seijun Suzuki, with the previous films being Zigeunerweisen and Kageroza. I saw the first one so far. It's weird but pretty interesting. So if you're into foreign independent films, make a date with Suzuki.

It's good to know where Yumeji's Theme is from now, especially since I owe so much credit to this song. It's mellifluous, smooth and beautiful. And sometimes when I'm zoning out, I start seeing things in purple and red, with images bouncing off each other and fooling my vision. I need a big white sheet and a projector in my room...

I recently attended a big dinner and found myself sitting between a plane pilot and a graduate student from Yale Law. In cases like this, I can only sit there and imagine the depths of knowledge embedded in their brains. Actually I always find myself in these situations, imagining away. With the 4 corners of a kindergarten classroom (house, blocks, painting and puzzle section) who knows which corner you'll choose and how much it would affect your entire life.

I remember watching this girl in my kindergarten class paint once. She was using her fingers and palms to paint an elephant, which was really just a green glob on cheap paper. I remember getting frustrated and thinking to myself how it's ALL WRONG. ELEPHANTS AREN'T GREEN! .. But she looked so happy dipping her fingers into the green container that I felt bad telling her. And now I'm glad I never told her what I thought. Because it's like "why not?" Why can't animals be however you see them? Your eyeballs belong to only you and nobody should take away your own vision. And nobody deserves the right to take away anybody's happiness also! Being happy is the strength of mind that no one should ever cheat or try to steal. The sort of person that look for and possess happiness will be forever searching. Possession of tangible things in the world will always fade and disintegrate. The only thing you will ever have control of in your life is your own mind and vision. I hope you'll seek it within your soul.