It’s sad to see another weekend go. Funny how you appreciate it more when you have weekdays filled with responsibilities. But I have to say that this weekend was definitely eventful. If anything, I wish I had spent more time resting and less time spending money.
This week I caught up with the new season of Glee. The first episode was disappointing for me. I wish it concentrated more on the New York side and less on McKinley High – which doesn’t interest me as much anymore. I caught up with my America’s Next Top Model. But I have yet to catch up with Once Upon a Time. A lot of time was spent catching up with my Youtube videos. A lot more time was spent outside instead of in front of my computer and even less in front of the television – which is probably how it should be, eating Key Lime Pie, and shopping.
Another thing is how interested I am as to how my life will turn out in a year from now, how much I’m going to learn from all these new experiences I’m currently having. I know it’s kind of vague here, but if there’s one thing I can share it’s that a new job, especially one that you grow to love, is sometimes like an out-of-body experience. If anything, right now, I’m kind of looking forward (and also slightly dreading) what may happen in the span of a year from now.
But enough for now, here are my favourite things of this week.
1. Song of the Week: The Protomen – Act II – Light Up The Night
2. Youtube Video of the Week: Sports with NERDS – SFPlays with PhillyD
3. Let’s Play of the Week: Captainsparklez’s Minecraft: The Building Game w/ Friends
talk to me
in silences and stares
these words are wrapped in gestures
in frosted air
keep your words
revel them with string at the tip of your loose lips
your sinking tongue
heroes are still heroes
unsung
just leave me this –
– a postscript
a quiet hello in a dim-lit past
that travels
like a helium balloon
swiftly in the sky
overcast.
– cumuloq ❤
————————————————————————————–
I haven’t really written a poem that rhymes in a while. This one is a bit of both the free and rhymed verse. When I was younger, I used to love to rhyme like crazy, till the structure of the poem was practically confined in it, in an ABAB form. As I grew older, and was taught many new lessons by people far wiser than me on the art of crafting words and lines; I learnt that a poem didn’t necessarily have to rhyme to have rhythm. Sometimes an implied rhyme is more powerful than an actual rhyme. It hints at our nature for predictability in a verse, and in a poem, and our role, as poets, to break this predictable system.
Personally, I love to rhyme. It’s half the fun of writing a poem. So I always add a hint of a rhyme in every poem I write. Even though there is no rhyme at all. And I guess this is part of the theme of the poem above, to do something without actually doing it.
The first time I can officially say TGIF! I’m proud to have completed an entire week of work. I’m also proud of the fact that I managed to blog on Monday and Tuesday this week as well. So, I hope you in turn have had a smooth weekday, and that your weekends will be enjoyable.
This one is for all The Last of Us gamers. Or, if you’re never going to go through the entire game, and you love musicals, this is still a good watch through. Very entertaining, I actually clapped at the end.
Well, I’m going to go watch the first episode of season five of Glee (and mourn of Cory’s absence once more). Again, enjoy your weekends!
When you’re a child, you’re only playing one role. This role has very few responsibilities and at the end of the day you are blissfully unaware of the many other roles everyone else plays around you. Your only concern is yourself. And that’s okay. Be a kid and learn about yourself first.
But as we grow up, or as I’m growing up more specifically, I start to realise how my world view slowly shifts from this magnifying glass on my own perspective to the thousands of possibilities that I barely graze upon every day in my life. And suddenly there’s this epiphany, everything has always been the way it was, but the way you see it changes everything that has been and is yet to come.
Let me make more sense. I’ve always grown up, most of my adolescence, as first and foremost a student. My sole task was to learn. And frankly, I was a haughty learner. I knew I did this one task of my childhood well. But as I’m growing older, I realise that my role as a child is also surrounded by other roles in society.
Let’s take the role of the waitress serving me ice-cream at a cafe. One day I found myself in the shoes of the waitress and realised how tough such a job was. I realise that I previously only saw the surface of things. Being a waitress meant standing eight hours in a day and being personable and having to deal with the not-so-friendly customers (some times). Long hours of waiting for service changed from impatience at the slow and stupid staff, to an understanding that a place may be understaffed and that those who are stuck with their shifts on that day have to put in twice the effort with half the gratification from customers.
My mother has had a number of tough jobs, jobs she shouldn’t have had at her age. Some of this includes cleaning and clearing up after university undergraduates in the campus canteen. It pains me, ’cause I was once in that role of being an undergraduate and I have had my fair share of leaving trays behind on the assumption that the cleaners are responsible for keeping the tables empty. It pained me when she came home to gripe about it. And it made me realise that we, as individuals of our society, take far too many things for granted than we probably should. I’m talking about university students who probably have had a sheltered upbringing, silver spoon in one hand and a nanny’s hand in the other, forgetting that the rest of society needs to clean up after their lunchtime messes just to get by.
It’s so easy for us to point a finger at institutions and the government, but sometimes we forget that when we point that one index finger at them, the other four fingers point right back at us.
Lately, my country has been going on about the educations system, about tuition versus government schools and the lot and the sad thing is that the first individuals they blame are the “sad lot that call themselves teachers”. If anything, I feel that these individuals are looking from a “child’s perspective”. But, I somehow don’t blame them. ‘Cause if I were at that end of the spectrum, I too would probably criticise a role which I have yet to experience myself. But, the difference is that I’m not, so I won’t.
One recent experience that was eye opening for me, that happened just yesterday and that I would like to share, was when one teacher was calling a parent in the staff room. The phone conversation could have been easily ignored on my end, if not for the fact that it was evident that the teacher on the phone was grappling with the father, trying to negotiate her way into some sort of mutual agreement towards his son’s safety. (I think I wrote a very similar experience once on a very different eavesdropped conversation).
In this situation, the boy had gotten himself into some accident and had been sent home where the father was now (I presume) scolding the teacher for not having called him immediately to explain the situation and to have taken better care of his son. The entire time during this conversation, I suddenly found myself not in the shoes of the child nor the father, but (in a rare and new turn of events) in the shoes of the teacher. I suddenly respected her role far more because I understood that while she probably did not want to face this boy’s father on the phone and be yelled at, she still picked up the phone and took the initiative to do so. But why? This action made me realise that she was genuinely concerned about the health of her student. And I think we forget about this all the time with the education system. Sure, teachers will harp on grades and on answers and on homework – but there are also teachers who genuinely care. The entire time on the phone the words she spoke were not accusatory, they were never in anger, instead they were composed and (in an almost amusing manner) she placated the father as if he too were a hot-tempered student of her own.
So, sure, we all used to be children who saw the world from our perspective. But I realise, as I’m growing up, that part of growing up is to not only see things as we see them in our eyes but to go beyond ourselves and find compassion in the other roles that exist in the world. If not, then we’re still just children, sitting in ourselves, minding our own businesses, oblivious and unaware.
I thought a befitting silver lining for this week would be all the new episodes of some of our favourite TV shows and some anticipated new ones. Here’s a quick recap/overview of the popular shows that will be releasing their episodes. All release dates have been taken from this source, but have been cut short to only represent the TV shows I (and possibly some of my readers) would be interested in.
SEPTEMBER 4 (WED):
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Season 9)
SEPTEMBER 16 (MON):
Bones (Season 9)
SEPTEMBER 17 (TUE):
New Girl (Season 3)
SEPTEMBER 22 (SUN):
Downton Abbey (Season 4)
SEPTEMBER 23 (MON):
How I Met Your Mother (Season 9)
SEPTEMBER 24 (TUES):
NCIS (Season 11)
NCIS: Los Angeles (Season 5)
Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (New)
SEPTEMBER 25 (WED):
Criminal Minds (Season 9) CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Season 14) Revolution (Season 2) Modern Family (Season 5)
SEPTEMBER 26 (THUR):
The Big Bang Theory (Season 7)
Two and a Half Men (Season 11)
Grey’s Anatomy (Season 10)
Glee (Season 4)
SEPTEMBER 29 (SUN):
The Mentalist (Season 6)
The Simpsons (Season 25)
Family Guy (Season 12)
American Dad! (Season 9)
Once Upon a Time (Season 3)
Revenge (Season 3)
OCTOBER 3 (THUR):
The Vampire Diaries (Season 5)
OCTOBER 9 (WED):
Arrow (Season 2)
OCTOBER 13 (SUN):
The Walking Dead (Season 4)
OCTOBER 17 (THUR):
White Collar (Season 5)
OCTOBER 22 (TUES):
Ravenswood (New)
I noticed that Sherlock has not been placed on this list, and I did do a bit of research into this. There’s rumors that it’ll be coming out on October 31st, I’m not too sure whether this is the confirmed date or not. It will be nice if people who have further information about this to add in their input in the comments, otherwise, let’s just say it’s still left to be confirmed sometime in “Fall 2013”, a.k.a. soon.
Likewise, several series are constantly being revised on their release dates, so if you don’t see a series that you’re anticipating on this list, you can either go to the source and find it there (I’m probably overlooking it because it’s less well-known in my vocabulary of TV shows), or it could probably be that its release date is still unknown. Either way, I hope this overview helps you pinpoint when your most anticipated TV show shall be coming out.
I think I made it pretty clear, at the cusp of this week, that my blog would pretty much be a desert landscape with the occasional tumbleweed. I believe this will be the forecast for the next few months to come till December. I hope I’m satisfying my (albeit small) pool of readers with the three posts that I did come up with this month.
If not, here’s a small paragraph on the things I wish I had time to blog more about but didn’t. Firstly, Nintendo pioneer, Hiroshi Yamauchi‘s, sad death this Thursday. I decided to pay him homage by drawing Mario and Luigi on my house’s mini-whiteboard. If I had time, I would have probably made a Nintendo Soundtrack on that day. Also, there was a lot to talk in terms of the Grand Theft Auto V‘s release, which managed to hit $1 billion in profits in a mere three days, making it the fastest-selling game in history (Source). It would have been nice to run through its features, along with my own personal favourite easter egg it has of Alien. Last but not least, I’m certain that we’re at that point in the month/year where a lot of TV series are releasing their first episodes of their newest seasons. Personally I know I’m waiting for Sherlock and Glee (although I know I’m missing out on a lot more – link here for a better summary). So maybe I’ll make a list after this post, or you can just click the link given.
After all that was not posted but now is mentioned is said and (not really) done, here’s my favourites for this week:
1. Song of the Week: Krewella & Pegboard Nerds – This Is Not The End
I know, I mentioned this song on Friday, but I think it’s quickly picked up as one of my favourites this week. It’s been a quick default song for me to go to. Plus, I think I’m slowly liking Pegboard Nerds more and more as my favourite dubstep artist – wow, I never thought those words would come out of my .. blog.
2. Youtube Video of the Week: Rage Quit (?) – Grand Theft Auto V
Michael does Rage Quits well. But I think he outdid himself this week with this, not so ordinary, rage quit of his. Oh, and another good one is ELDERS REACT TO YLVIS – THE FOX .. Ellen Degeneres also had a lot of Ylvis on her show this week, so those are fun to watch too.
3. Let’s Play of the Week: Prop Hunt: Secret Chinese Food (w/ Friends part 25)
It’s kind of rare to see these youtube gamers play Prop Hunt prop-erly (couldn’t help myself with that pun), so it was kind of nice for a change to watch ChilledChaos actually manage to find a good hiding place.
Last but not least, I have to say I’m sad to see this weekend coming to an end. But that does not mean I’m not curious to see what this following week has in store for us.
these theories,
phosphorus myths of ours
we both crave and detest.
we are morning stars
we are the definition of alone
we are astray /
the definition of not ourselves
both lonely and –
not by one’s self
astral
we stare at the past
consistently /
vaccuums of pulsating light and dark
years separate us
across the event horizon
the possibilities of these
multiverses /
we are egos.
This was the week I actually started work. This would/could have been the week when I would/could have legitimately called out, “Thank goodness it’s Friday!” on my blog. But nope. I get the weirdest – I don’t even know whether to call it luck or bad luck or what.
I ended up getting rashes from an unknown mysterious allergen last night. The worse lot were the rashes around my neck, just absolutely bright salmon-coloured rash. So I woke up at 5.30am completely befuddled on whether to just go, disgust all my new colleagues who’d probably have thought that I was contagious or something and go back home as early as possible (you know “sorry, got this rash, you want me to go – okay”) or just head to the polyclinic and get an MC. I kind of chose the latter. Mostly ’cause I know I did all my hard work yesterday so I had no work due urgently for this week.
Still, I felt (and still feel) incredibly guilty ’cause today would only be my third day there. And it’s ludicrous, starting work and going on MC after two days of work. So, yeah, very torn to say the least.
I think I’ve made myself feel even guiltier ’cause my rashes are mostly gone now after taking the medicine from the clinic. And I actually enjoyed my time home more than at work. I guiltily plowed through seasons one and two of Rocket Jump Studio’s Video Game High School.
This web series was not what I expected. I don’t know why, I kind of expected a very old school set-up, you know, with Tron, Space Invaders, Pacman and Tetris – an 8-bit series. From the name I thought it was going to be a bit more like Wreck It Ralph, i.e. where video game characters went to high school. Instead, it was very much more of a teen feel-good (throwback to the 90s) kind of series, kind of like if Degrassi met CorridorDigital.
I know I’m very late on the bandwagon for this series (heck, I’ve been late for other bandwagons – like A Very Potter Musical – it kind of resembles that as well). It debuted in May 2012. But still, it’s the kind of series that, if you’re a latecomer, it’s not too late – yeah, in short, it’s just never too late to give this series a go. Mostly ’cause all the episodes are of a reasonable 20-30 minutes long. And each season only carries a few episodes in them (heck, season 2 only had 6 episodes). I managed to watch it all in half a day.
The plot begins, centering itself around BrianD who unknowingly accomplishes probably an aspiring gamer’s dream: beating an MLG (Major League Gamer), in this case, The Law, on live stream on television. Suddenly, his name is out there, and he shoots up in the rank of gamers, so far, in fact that one of the best video game high schools (aptly named), Video Game High School, offers him a scholarship to their prestigious programme. The rest of the series follows his attempts at surviving the high school, making friends and enemies in turn.
There are definitely some familiar faces, some more low profile from the youtube community and others who are not that low profile in the least (won’t spoil some of the cameos). I would recommend this series more for the gaming nerd, the camp genre fan and any fans of the youtubers featured in it, i.e. if you’re a fan of, let’s say, WongFuProductions, EpicMealTime, RoosterTeeth, iJustine and Strawburry17 (Meghan from the Amazing Race) – and whoever was in there that I missed out.
The series definitely rubs off from Freddie Wong’s style. So if you find his kind of humor hilarious, you’ll find this hilarious. If you don’t get it – if you generally don’t love youtube skit humour – you’ll probably find it stupid and a waste of your time and probably Disney-ish and maybe a worse creation than *gasp* High School Musical.
So, yeah, that’s my two cents on the series. I personally loved it. My favourite parts are the awesome effects they have for the games. (Although, personally, I don’t think a dystopian world where video games are highly prized as a profession is incredibly accurate nor productive for a society – America really went down the drains there). I also loved the more thought out and hilarious lines. If it weren’t for all the youtube videos I “have” to catch up to on my “watch later” list (yes, it’s full again – 50 videos), I’d probably repeat season 1 of VGHS. But, yeah, the fact that I missed out on work and still enjoyed myself – too much – at home, makes me feel guilty.
Yet I still shamelessly advertise what is making me guilty here:
Wow, this was a really long post for a Friday. Usually my Friday posts are just me being lazy and posting a nice video that came out today. Less guilty now. Did some actual blogging work.
I just wanted to add this in here because I can just relate to the poem at this particular moment in my life. The first few lines caught my attention and the next few made me realise that (if this is the case, me feeling like I just want to escape all the time) I may never find a way out of these strange emotions of feeling stuck in a routine that I cannot leave, ’cause eventually everything becomes routine:
You know, the funny thing about blogging/writing is that it’s difficult to complain about lag – but that’s what WordPress is currently doing a lot of at the moment (for me). Whenever I open a window with it, my mouse seems to get a dose of anaesthetics and just crawls. And attempting to switch between tabs is just a nightmare. Which is why Sundays are beginning to be a nightmare to post up. But post up I will. And please, let me know if you also experience this lag when you load my page. I realise it does this for me and I’m wondering if you’re experiencing it too.
Just to update you guys (or more like forewarn), this coming week will be very busy. So I’m not too sure how much I’ll be able to blog and which days either. And (as predicted) my lazy self has not pre-written anything for this week. But fear not, I’ll make sure that I at least get a Saturday post in.
Oh, and to all my lovely new followers from this week and last week: “hello!” *waves*
Welcome to another round of my weekly favourites:
1. Song of the Week: Heartbreak Girl – Troye Sivan – 5 Seconds Of Summer (Cover)
Had this song in my head all day (apart from One Direction’s Little Things for some reason), so I thought that it’s a good indicator of what my song of this week is. Shamefully I’ve never listened to the original, so I kind of have no right to say that he does this song justice – but I’m still going to say it, ’cause he sings it with so much emotion and the expression on his face has so much meaning, it has to be true.
2. Youtube Video of the Week: Sophia Lucia on Dancing With the Stars
This is definitely not that new, but thanks to Dance Moms, I came across this amazing 10-year-old, Sophia Lucia, and the insane amount of dance skills (especially her pirouettes) she has under her belt. If you don’t know about her yet, then you definitely should check her out.
3. Let’s Play of the Week: SkyDoesMinecraft plays Miner Ware
I thought this mini-game was just hilarious and fast-paced and simple to grasp. And it looks like something I’d love to play for the laugh out louds. Minecraft is good at incorporating other games into its servers and Warioware and Minecraft is a great match. If you want to see HuskyMudkipz’s perspective it’s here. A close second this week is VS Episode 28 – Ray vs. Jack. Heck, the two of them can tie.
And, once again, no movie trailers, ’cause I simply didn’t watch any.
It’s a Wednesday post, do my eyes deceive me? I’m actually posting in this category!
I haven’t posted here for a while and mostly ’cause I haven’t been inspired to review or analyse any of the movies I’ve watched lately. Actually, that’s kind of a lie, ’cause I thought The Conjuring would be a really good one to go over all the scary elements that just gave me chills and that I still remember today – in the middle of the night, before I go to sleep. The truth is that I’m lazy and I’m distracted. Typical traits of a writer (who will never be published any time soon – ’cause she never finishes the manuscript in the first place).
So instead, I have this. It’s like my excuse list. It’s like the reasons why I will never become a full on film critic, i.e. I like my junk shows way too much.
1. Dance Moms
This is the one that has been currently keeping me busy at the moment. Abby Lee Miller is a dance teacher who churns out tonnes of national title holders every year. And this show features her elite competition team as they go through their dance season. But, the main focus of the show has to be the dance moms, who pick on every little crazy detail that does and does not involve their daughters. And it is so embarrassing that I’m hooked on it.
I fear that if I don’t finish it this week, it’ll just irk me next week when I finally start work. I’ve gone through fifteen episodes of season 2 this week and am hoping I finish (what is there) of season 3. It’s less of the drama that the mums go through that keeps me watching the show, and more of the beautiful little girl dancers. These girls sadly know how to put on make-up so much better than me. My favourite is definitely Maddie, but I love the grace Chloe has when she dances too.
2. The Bachelorette
The Bachelorette is a spin-off of The Bachelorwhere one of the rejected bachelorettes gets an opportunity to come back to the show and pick the “man of her dreams”. Like The Bachelor, she goes on a series of dates, double dates, and group dates to get to know the guys and has to eliminate guys over the course of the show till she is left with two men and a possible proposal (and cash involved). I know, it’s unrealistic and most of the proposals at the end of the show just end up with the couples breaking up a few months later or getting divorced. But when you’re feeling like it’s that time of the month, it’s just nice to curl up in front of the laptop and having a marathon of the show.
I don’t watch all the seasons of The Bachelorette – I can usually judge by the first few episodes whether or not I’ll be emotionally invested in the Bachelorette herself. My favourite seasons have to be the one with Ali Fedotowsky (I think she chose the wrong guy at the end) and the other one with Ashley Hebert (she chose the right guy). I always have to stop myself from seeing whether the final couple are still together or not, ’cause I always end up ruining the entire season for myself by doing that tempting self-research.
3. America’s Next Top Model
I think this show is very self-explanatory. It’s a competition that aims to find a potential working model, one that can make a name for herself (and Tyra) in the world of fashion. Some may not quite see this as a “guilty pleasure” TV show per say, but come on, some of the challenges and photo shoots lately are just ridiculous! A season where there are both guys and girls does not mean that they have to cross-dress as each other and have completely sexualised photo shoots. We get it; there are both genders in the show; stop rubbing it in our faces.
But, aside from the ludicrous nature of the challenges, I still watch it. My current favourites for season 20 have to be Nina, Jourdan, Chris H and Marvin. Chris is an interesting one, ’cause I honestly think he looks a bit – like he has a very bad attitude problem – but he looks so much more interesting on camera (which is ironic ’cause the entire show is through the lens of a camera).
4. Toddlers and Tiaras
Each Toddlers and Tiaras episode follows a few girls (and sometimes boys) as they prepare for their next beauty pageant. These girls are all eventually competing against each other. It usually features a mother who is a newcomer to the arena and maybe two season professionals (the definition of this is that the girls have probably been forced to model since they were just two-years-old – or younger).
Yeah .. I sadly have to admit that there was a time when I’d watch a whole bunch of these episodes one after the other ’cause they were so accessible on Youtube. And I do feel guilty that I know the names of Eden Wood, Mackenzie and Alana. There’s something about this show in which you do not condone the behaviour of the mothers and the children and the upbringing of both and the entire child beauty pageant arena – yet you still can’t stop watching ’cause you want to know who will win and what the kids will do to the mothers and what the mothers will do to the kids. And sometimes you come across a kid who really loves what she’s doing and you don’t know whether to feel all warm and fuzzy inside or completely sad for her. Or a kid who says something cute like “Sometimes I wish I weren’t famous and I was just a fish” (guess who said that!) And, yeah, it’s just a completely confusing situation.
5. Say Yes to the Dress
This series takes place in Kleinfeld where the company assists women looking for a wedding gown for their big day. Again, like Toddlers and Tiaras, I became hooked on this show ’cause it was so accessible on Youtube. Instead of trying to find a movie to watch for lunch, I would just go search for a random episode I had yet to watch and just watch that instead. And it was somehow very fascinating to me how many different wedding dresses there could be and how this store tried to market the dress in an emotional rather than monetary value.
So those are some (sadly only some) of the guilt that is me and the TV shows that I watch. Currently, I’m hooked on Dance Moms and ANTM and am taking a break from the rest. And now, after this post is finished (and took me way too long to write), I’m going to have my late lunch and continue with watching Abby Lee Miller yell at her dancers and the moms yelling at each other.
Monday is here again and that means another attempt at making me, and hopefully you in turn, happier about it. Sometimes, when things just get so stressful and horrible in life, it’s important for you to just sit down and give yourself a minute to breathe and to think about the silver lining to all your troubles.
And, I’d like to recommend that, if you’re also having a rough day – or just a Monday – you go ahead and list down your 9 happy things alongside me. And, if you wish, share them with me (’cause I’d love to read them) in the comment section below.
1. Getting the McDonald paper bag delivered to my doorstep and the nice roll it has on the top and the feeling of carrying it. Also, when I see someone carrying a McDonald paper bag on the street, after a long day at work, I somehow can’t help but smile. ‘Cause while they may be flustered and exhausted, I somehow have the feeling that once they settle down back at home and eat their Big Mac life is slightly less horrible for them.
2. Watching a movie for the second time with someone who hasn’t watched it yet. I guess the thing I love best out of this experience is sharing a film that I enjoyed and being able to see whether they enjoyed it just as much. The first time you watch something, you’re more interested in the movie, the second time, you not only spot things you missed the first time, but you also get to kind of have an outer body experience of how you must have felt the first time watching it through your friend. Or, maybe I’m just weird to find this so enjoyable.
3. Chips and ice-cream combo. Or, if you’d prefer, french fries and ice-cream combo. I guess this is somewhat related to the first experience – but I don’t think you can experience it with delivery. I like have my McDonald fries with the vanilla soft cone. It’s just a simple happiness for me.
4. Christmas shopping for friends and family. Christmas, in general, is my favourite time of the year. Sometimes, just to make me happier, I’ll go listen to some Christmas carols in the middle of the year, just to put me in a better spirit. I love Christmas ’cause everyone as a whole seems happier, and I enjoy making them even more happier with presents! I love Christmas shopping for presents for friends and family. Mostly ’cause it gives me an excuse to find the perfect gift for them and spend money on them and not have them eye me with suspicion with “What do you want?” I love to see the look on their faces and I love the warm fuzzy feeling it gives me in return.
5. Random coincidences. Call me corny, but I kind of see them as a little joke from God (I imagine Him with a very interesting sense of humor). There was this one day in the morning where my brother asked me which pants (or shirt, I couldn’t remember) he should wear. Later in the day, it was a hilarious coincidence when both his pants and shirt matched a huge minion balloon. He managed to take a picture next to it and it looked planned, but it wasn’t. That somehow just made our day a lot better.
6. Looking up at the sky. Sometimes we forget the sky’s there. And sometimes the sky just catches my attention and makes me wonder at how it’s possible that it makes all the pretty gradients it does. Maybe I should look up at the sky more often – but if I did, maybe it would lose its wonder.
7. Looking in the mirror and actually liking what I see. I’m honest with myself – and a bit harsh, I guess – but when I look in the mirror (and I think some people here might agree with themselves) I see someone who looks average at best. So if I turn to the mirror one day and actually appreciate what I see, I feel like I’ve accomplished some level of self-confidence in myself.
8. Finding something amazing I forgot existed. This is a random one, but there’s so many ways this can probably happen. Sometimes I look in the fridge and find a chocolate bar I forgot I put there. Sometimes I’m cleaning out my drawers and find some long lost memory in a random object. So, sometimes I smile ’cause I find something I wasn’t searching for.
9. Baked pasta. I love my mum’s baked pasta. End of story.
Hi fellow readers and writers and followers and friends, it’s Sunday!
A bittersweet day where you can still relax and have fun, but you can feel Monday slowly creeping up on you like a little brother about to pull a terrible prank – or a boss breathing down on your neck for deadlines. So let’s just reminisce on the week that has passed instead, shall we?
I’ve been a little more active this week on my blog. Of course, Tuesdays and Wednesdays posts have been absent for a while now and I want to apologise for those who enjoy those categories.
Actually, you know what, let me know down in the comments if you do really want me to put in something in those categories! Suggest a topic for those days if you want to! I’m always happy to try and meet your requests. E.g. suggest that I review a particular movie that you think I should watch, or you want to watch (of course, within my limits – I can’t jump to the future and review Thor 2: The Dark World).
For the meantime, let’s get to my favourites for this week:
1. Song of the Week: Adventure Club ft. Yuna – Gold
I guess I’m going a bit out there this week. I had half a mind to make this week’s song, Ariana Grande – Baby I, but then I realised that a lot of you guys probably know that music video was out and maybe too mainstream. So I decided to go more techno. Plus, for all those looking for something to study to or just listen to on your long commute, I think this song is just so soothing and relaxing. So maybe this is a great song for you to get through this coming week. Listening to it now while I type out this post.
2. Youtube Video of the Week: Pewdiepie’s BEST HIDING SPOT EVER! – Prop Hunt #7
In this case, I was going to put AH’s Let’s Play – Cloudberry Kingdom Part 2 but I thought I gave that video enough promotion on Friday (and it did not disappoint). But this one was definitely a surprise and a great laugh. If you don’t know, Prop Hunt is very similar to the classic Hide and Seek game. It is where you choose an item to be and your objective as a prop is to hide from the seeker and not get shot by them. On the other hand, the objective of the seeker is to kill all the props. Oh, and another close runner-up for this title this week was the Reddit topper, Fake Professor on the First Day PRANK — CHAMBER BOYS.
3. Let’s Play Series of the Week: Juicetra’s Pixelmon Noob Series
This is a new category I thought I would add, ’cause I get addicted to so many different LP series every week. This week I’m hooked on Pixelmon Noob. I’ve been watching Ryan (xRpMx13)’s viewpoint of this series but I realised I probably need a different perspective – ’cause, you know, I’m just greedy. Or, more like watching Ryan is sometimes like watching a 5-year-old play with shape blocks and he just keeps throwing them at the wall. I think, personally, I appreciate Marc’s style of commentating and learning Pixelmon better. He may start off as a “noob”, but he seems to have a steeper learning curve and admits to his faults more. Love both Youtubers regardless though. No hate.
Lastly, no new trailers of the week this time round. I’ve seen a couple of trailers – but they’re just all awful, just absolutely awful. I don’t know why they’re just going down the drain recently. Even Gravity, which probably has potential to be a great movie, has just the worst sounding trailer ever, like Sandra Bullock’s giving birth in space. So yeah, I shall not entertain any of that – except aforementioned Gravity.
this string – this
string that pulls in the dark
invisible like a spider’s silk
(that tugs
so
slowly
at my abdomen)
reducing my nett worth –
belittling me
i stand
on tiptoes
circling the room
like a bewildered fly
creating spaces behind and before me –
till it’s uncertain
where past and future meet and
part
of me (breaks) aches
’cause you know
i’ve been attached for too long
connected to you
by that little thread
less whole than half
less half than a hole.
i’ve been here too
long.
grasping the web in my hands
not realising that we’re no longer strolling down a moonlit park
but instead it’s me
alone
being dragged (a victim)
in an alleyway.
————————————————–
I really felt like I had to get this poem out. Right now I’m at the best stage to write so many poems (and probably at my best at making a path between my thoughts and poetry) but – and some may relate – my best stage to write poetry is at a point where my mental and emotional stage is very vulnerable and open, and that isn’t always a good thing. If anything, I feel like the above poem has some of my favourite lines out of all the poems I’ve written on this blog so far. I also like how it looks when I strip away the words outside the brackets, so the poem instead reads like this:
(that tugs so slowly at my abdomen)
(breaks)
(a victim)
I don’t think that was my intention when using the brackets – but maybe Ezra Pound will be proud of me for that salute to Imagism. Let me know whether you liked the above poem or the shortened version! Personally I think they’re very different (despite using the same words), and different people may prefer one over the other.
I think it’s safe to say that my Watch List is once again filled with videos (the way I like it). Some of them that came out today made me smile helplessly. Finally, exciting content! So here are the videos that I’ll be watching shortly and why:
1. Impossibomb – Bravest Warriors (Minisode 4) on Cartoon Hangover
It’s been a while since I’ve seen Bravest Warriors on my Subscription list. I got an awful suspicion I might have missed an episode in passing – or maybe not. But I think this minisode is long overdue in my mind.
2. VS Episode 27 – Jack vs. Geoff
I have an awful habit to scroll down to the comments and find out who wins when it comes to the VS series. I kind of like to know how the game will end, otherwise I just might get a heart-attack from the anticipation. This time, however, I shall contain myself and just hope that Geoff conquers Jack in this episode.
I watched the first part a while back. I think I even put it in my weekly favourites that other time. I don’t know what it is exactly about the Cloudberry Kingdom and the Achievement Hunter gang, but it’s such a good mix. It’s probably one of the only episodes (the first part) that made me laugh like an idiot at the computer at every stage. I’m usually a huge poker face watcher, but this one gets me. So I’m hoping part two will be just the same. I just need to make sure that I don’t watch it when people are around. Otherwise they’ll truly think I’ve gone insane.
4. Minecraft Quick Build Challenge – Champion Tournament: World Wonders!
Rage’s Quick Build Challenges are somehow always so easy to watch. And in the mass of a lot of youtube videos, I usually turn to this one to watch first. So, you can probably guarantee that later this is the one I’ll turn to first.
5. Video Games Make You Smart (With Rhett & Link)
I’ve yet to see Rhett and Link on the Sourcefed channel. So this should be interesting. Plus, the first comment (comment peeking) quoted “is that a coffee machine” so it makes me even more excited.
Hope you guys enjoy them! I know for some these videos may not be your thing. But I just like recording them on this blog. (I usually forget to like them or favourite them so they get lost in the flood that is my history list.)
Sometimes when I’m planning a novel I go a bit too far to create an atmosphere for my story. One way I do this is through creating a playlist. One overall theme that I’m familiar with and have tried to create during my writing process is the apocalyptic, conquer the world atmosphere, the one that requires a bad-ass (usually) female protagonist and a dystopian/dark universe around her. These are the go-to songs for me in writing such stories:
Of course, I believe there’s more than one way you can capture an apocalypse through sound. The most typical is the gun’s blazing one above – a “children of the new world” sort of way.
Another way to create an apocalyptic soundtrack is via music that is entirely reminiscent of the past, like old country music or old rock e.g. Zombieland or Wall-E. A story that pushes society towards the future but incorporates songs or elements from the past conveys a very powerful message, in my opinion. It encapsulates a loss and desperate need to preserve humanity. After all, humans are natural curators, hoarders of memories, and music is one way to suggest that while we move forward in time we also have to move further back in time as well to understand ourselves.
So, what is your end-of-the-world song? If you realised that the whole world was going up in flames and you knew your last few seconds were nigh, what song do you want to play in the background? Let me know in the comment section.
Mondays, we meet again. If you’re having a terrible day, people getting you down, things just not going your way, (unintentional terrible rhymes appearing in your sentences), then maybe this might cheer you up.
Some people may say that we get too old for cartoons – but for me, I can definitely see myself still watching them at thirty years old, unsupervised by children. Sometimes the best thing to do to unwind in the evenings is to not watch hard-hitting dramas on TV (’cause real-life creates enough politics and drama for a day), but to watch a cartoon. Even a few seconds of it, just to make you grin without realising it, is good enough.
‘Cause in dramas, people are self-conscious of themselves, they worry too much, they worry about things that just really shouldn’t be worried about. In cartoons, the characters are shameless; they’re wacky and random and crazy and unpredictable; they’re brave and heroic and caring.
Sometimes, as adults, we can learn more from cartoons than we can from reality TV. E.g. from the above scene, we can learn that if someone wants to “steal our souls”, we need to fight back and make them understand that we are who we are for a reason. And that sometimes the biggest respect we can get from others is through our resistance to conform to their stereotypes.
So for today, and for the rest of this week, I implore you: be Gunter the penguin.
I thought I’d put this on the blog to share the moment. ‘Cause this is the first time in .. a while.
Ever since December – or January – my Watch Later List has just been packed. I think during my exam period, it was at its worse, with at least 30-50 videos in it (but I think I should put the majority of that blame on CaptainSparklez’s Let’s Play series – which I just spammed all the videos I have yet to watch into the Watch Later list).
But, look at what all my (lazy ass) effort has amounted to: an empty Watch Later list. I don’t know whether to feel proud or absolutely guilty. The only thing I feel at the moment is hungry, really.
Why is this a feat? Somehow, as I’ve probably mentioned before on my blog I am just not comfortable when this list dwindles down to zero. I’m okay with having only a few. Actually, less than ten makes me feel great, ’cause it shows that I’ve caught up with a lot of saved content, but still have more to look at when I get the opportunity. Sadly, I can’t deal with it empty.
But, I’ve been recovering. It’s been at only one or two videos for a while these past few days. This either suggests that I’m finally getting more choosy and particular about how to occupy my time (and understanding that some videos are just a complete waste of my time) – or the Youtubers I follow (which is a lot) are just not uploading as much content now as they did during the summer holidays (understandable).
So, yeah, that was a lot longer post than need be.
Till next time! (Ohh, that’s what I used to say – not ‘See you later’ – scratch that side comment on my last post)
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