Stress Relief

It’s the Exam period.

AGAIN.

Now they’re called EOYs, not CTs anymore, which don’t make no sense cause they’re still acronyms.

Anyway, the point is, I’m under immense stress, and so is half the school population. The other half either are supersmart and they’ve finished mugging, or they’ve given up on all hope.

It’s this point in time where I realize why people need their stress relieves and baby beanies so much. Because it’s impossible to go through life without some form of stress release and relief.

Mine is of course my music. Celine Dion, specifically, That’s The Way It Is, and Reba, da Queen of Country. Stuff like that.

I shudder to think what would happen if stress from homework ever got to us. I was reading this article on a girl who got so stressed out over JC schoolwork that she nearly broke into depression. She was saved in the nick of time.

It’s really shocking, you know? Like this actually happens and people can actually get hurt from doing schoolwork. I’m not implying that the girl is weak or anything, but… to me, it seems rather far out there.

I can feel for the girl, and I can get her plight. I feel the strain and stress there is too.

But surely there had to be something that she could have done herself to ease up the stress, before it got too out of hand?

I’m not a perfect scorer for my grades, rather, I’m in extremes, i.e. extreme-good for some, extreme-bad for others (especially the double-weightage one) and hence I’m not one to speak, but I guess if I were to choose between my grades and my wellbeing, I’ll definitely, without-a-doubt, go for my wellbeing and my health.

I can’t believe some people will actually sacrifice their health for their work. Workaholics, in student form, will go to any lengths to get their grade, even if it means sacrificing their peace time and sleep time.

There’s no doubt at all that my overall health comes first.

Which leads me to admit, that because of the Lit performance task of Black comedy recently, I’ve been neglecting my usual wellbeing rites, and not eating proper meals and stuff. Regretfully, I now have a semi-cold.

But yesterday, thankfully, I went home to sleep, instead of doing what the other guys did, cause they actually wanted to STAY IN SCHOOL overnight to rehearse all the way through.

Siao, I was all AGAINST it can!

It’s like why sleep in school when you’re not camping? I know you want marks, but that’s extreme right!

No beds, hard floors, and a performance next day. It was suicidal, and don’t reference Survivor: China to me. They get a million bucks if they make it through.

But I protested, and in the end we all went home.

So it’s not too late to salvage. Nothing’s too late to salvage.

I know it seems tough, but find your outlet and comforts. It will get better.

At least, I hope.

P.S. I have gotten one of the best gifts in my entire life!!!! It’s now my official cheer-me-up. Whenever I feel down, I take a look at it and I’m immediately happy.

*BRACE YOURSELF*

So freakin’ cute! Plus it’s very me!

THANKS MR FONG! =)

Matching Music With Moods

I’m blogging this right before I go to school.

Very rush, but I realized the songs I’ve just heard just so invoke so many feelings in me, I had to dedicate another post to these good artistes.

Matching Music With Moods

26/9/07

Matching…

The following songs make me…

Loving: Rihanna feat. Ne-Yo: Hate That I Love You (Good Girl Gone Bad)

Sad: Reba McEntire & Kelly Clarkson – Because of You (Reba: Duets)

Dirrrty: Olynn – Feel Like Making Love (Original by Pauline Henry on ‘Pauline’)

Angry: Kelly Clarkson – One Minute (My December)

Happy: Chantal Kreviazuk – Hands (Under These Rocks and Stones)

Inspired: KT Tunstall – Under the Weather (Eye To The Telescope)

Reminiscent: Rob Thomas – Problem Girl (Something To Be)

Peaceful: One Republic – Apologize (OneRepublic)

Energetic: Boys Like Girls – The Great Escape (Boys Like Girls)

P.S. I recently got Chantal’s FIRST album Under These Rocks and Stones from Amazon.com!

Woooo!!! I’m at peace now.

The 5 Greatest Websites Ever

I’ve recently decided that in the history of humankind (or at least so far), nothing has impacted our lives more than 5 websites of brilliant design and convenience, which has resulted in our constant usage and our support.

Invention has taken over a new realm. Move over, Einstein.

I depend on them so much, life would never be the same without them.

And I’m not going to get into the topic of what happens if our entire lives revolve around Internet, nor am I going to get into the topic of what would happen if these websites went down… but that would most likely not be happening.

So here I am, cementing my pick for the 5 best websites that have ever crossed our computer screens, and I’m absolutely sure you will agree.

5) Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/

The ultimate shop anyone can ever visit. It stocks every single thing you could possibly even think of, ranging from exercise equipment to Karaoke VCDs to pepper sprays to celebrated writings. Shopping for things that could only be found on the other side of the world is now a snap of the fingers, though admittedly the problem is getting your payment over there. But what the hell, PEPPER SPRAY! :@

Who knew such a brilliant global shop could be borne from an original online bookstore?

4) Myspace.com

http://www.myspace.com/

Nowadays anyone can become a star. Get a page with MySpace Music, upload your self-sung tracks, and get a singing contract ala Lily Allen!

But more importantly, it’s better than Friendster, Facebook (Ros Lee won’t think so) and Multiply because it’s chock-full of Americans! And boy, are there some interesting ones in there! Celebrities, wackos, philosophical types and war-driven maniacs. All sorts, I tell you.

Could post up examples of such MySpace pages. Keep your eyes out.

3) YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/

The once-unknown site is now THE site to go, with millions and millions of videos up there, hosted by superspeed servers and being visited millions of times every hour. Sites like dailymotion are copying the style of YouTube, but YouTube is undoubtedly the site to go to if you wanna get noticed, put up some fun material of yourself, or watch other people’s fun material.

No more excuse for being unable to watch that VMA performance of Britney, if you missed it (well, at least an excuse would be her management removing it from the site due to her bad behavior.)

2) Yahoo!

http://www.yahoo.com.sg/

Yahoo! Billion-dollar company. Worth it?

If you visit Yahoo, be prepared to see the whole crammedlyness of the site. This ain’t like Google, with its simple white layout and one single typebar. And that’s what makes Yahoo! Yahoo! When you enter the site (which happens to be my homepage) any good piece of news grabs you, you’ll be visiting it and getting yourself updated.

If you would rather check your mail in a hurry, Yahoo! gets there fast, though the logging out takes some time.

Or if you want to know what’s latest in movies, music and videos, all that’s good on Yahoo! to view too.

A quick search in Images gets you what you want, and fast. Though for search engines I visit Google, but Yahoo! gives you more fun for space.

It’s cluttered, but it’s good that way.

1) Wikipedia

http://www.wikipedia.org/

When you Google anything and an ‘en.wikipedia.org’ appears, you know you’ve found something good. Although it’s an encyclopedia altered by us normal human beings, but it is undoubtedly the greatest invention for knowledge-gain and quick understanding.

I’m not just saying this from a student point of view, though as a student, we would all be at a loss without wikipedia.

Wikipedia provides artiste releases, singles and all, histories of countries that go way back before anyone was born, as well as bona-fide scientific research work that would not be reliable if it had a ‘citation needed’ next to it, but 98.98989898% usable otherwise.

Wikipedia has changed our lives so much, just because we all needed an authority on subjects that really ask for it. Heroeswiki, Bulbapedia, Survivorwiki, all for TV shows and cartoons we have all come to love.

Everyone needs an authority, and we just got what we asked for.

You Should Have…

A new segment!

You Should Have…

Featuring CDs you should have bought, movies you should have watched, things you should have done… but yet things not too late to STILL DO!

You Should Have Gotten…

Rob Thomas
Something To Be
Melisma Records (2005)

One of the best albums, no doubt, in my collection.

I would very confidently say this album eclipses some of Chantal Kreviazuk’s work, as well as other known artistes such as P!nk and Justin Timberlake (But JT reaches heights due to other musical reasons. More on that later).

Rob Thomas’ solo debut back in 2005 is something that I wanted to get, but never did, for some unknown reason. If you’ve heard his solo This Is How A Heart Breaks and Lonely No More, they’re all good and all, but in no way his best work. Those songs are radio-friendly, but there are so many more gems in the album which I feel would have showcased his talents better.

Problem Girl and Streetcorner Symphony are marvelous gems in this album that are beautifully-written and composed, and sung with raw emotion and Thomas’ trademark gritty vocals. Both songs will make you feel happy on a day when the world is getting you down.

In fact when I first heard Problem Girl I could imagine a scene where a poor, scared little girl is sitting in the corner of a classroom, sobbing as classmates bully her and teachers shake their heads at her. Yet by the end of the track I can also imagine her standing up, facing the world and telling the world to ’screw off. This is my life.’ Good music unravels scenes in your mind as you listen.

All That I Am is one that would please fans of mixed genres. It contains elements of Oriental flavour, as well as combining different textures such as jazzed-acid sounds to create a track that contains a ‘rojak’ of feelings. Brilliantly done.

Ever The Same and the title track Something To Be are also marvelously-composed tracks, with soft track layouts that don’t overshadow his vocals (Justin Timberlake’s album is an example of one where the track layouts overpower his vocals). The lyrics of these two are beautiful, and I applaud Thomas for his excellent creativity.

Justin Timberlake’s album is good for his synthesized sounds and the new heights with which he reaches with the combination of electro-techno backings, well-placed raps and rather camouflaged vocals, but Thomas’ work achieves with a combination otherwise. No techno beats, no rappings, no featured artistes, but his vocals stand out so prominently and that combination makes this album so endearing and worth getting now, if you haven’t.

****^ 4 1/2 STARS!

LEARN, dammit, LEARN!

I have never before blogged twice in a day (except for during my blog’s early year when I needed to fill it up with something) BUT TODAY MOTES AN EXCEPTION.

Earlier in the morning I was superly-duperly energized by Matchbox Twenty’s How Far We’ve Come video, and I was really on a roll.

NOW, however, I’M FREAKIN INCENSED.

Humans really never do learn from their mistakes (See point 4) below).

Wars are one thing. And I guess we can do observe that wars are the result of human repetition due to the inability to freakin’ pick things up from where they did wrong before.

But on a smaller scale, I saw a brilliant example of how mistakes are made, so intelligently, by our television producer people.

Live The Dream just ended. The Sugarettes, and Olynn were eliminated.

AND I DO NOT FREAKIN BELIEVE IT.

Two of my most favoritest artistes just got REMOVED FROM THE SHOW!

And you know why?

What else?

Voting. V-O-T-I-N-G.

Wah, it is damn infuriating I tell you.

Because now every Wednesday I will have no television show to watch! I could go HBO, or Star World, but the fact is that a perfectly good local show just got ruined!

http://fineattitude.blogspot.com/2006/08/infuriation.html

I posted this way back last year, as you can see, when dearest Mathilda D’ Silva from Singapore Idol 2 got kicked out.

Very infuriating. But what is more infuriating THIS TIME round, is that NO ONE LEARNED FROM THEIR MISTAKES!

For goodness sakes! They are a producer-bunch of people, Caldecott Hill is only so big, HOW HARD can it be to understand ONE SIMPLE FACT:

VOTING NEVER WORKS!

Voting is STUPID! It’s like some random shitty I’ll-blindfold-you-and-you-go-SMS-ok? situation!

This isn’t like election or something you know, where the government you elect actually has a purpose. This isn’t election where popularity matters cos that means the NMPs and MPs are actually impressing.

This is a talent show. And for the same reason it is called that, such shows are only as good as THE PEOPLE ON IT.

SO HOW SMART IT IS TO KICK OUT THE GOOD TALENTED PEOPLE?!

Olynn was brilliant. I recorded a clip of her singing, and i can send it to you if you want to hear. Just beep me on MSN.

But the POINT IS, NO ONE LEARNED!

Ken Lim himself said that Olynn wasn’t the right choice to go out. He would have picked differently, and we all know that she would have stayed on.

But Singapore is different. Singapore randomly votes, or doesn’t vote at all, because 50 cents for an SMS is way overpriced, and hence it is not A RELIABLE MEASURE OF ANYTHING!

And then they ask us, “Why did Singapore Idol flunk? Why wasn’t it a success?”

We reply, “Because you used voting. You got Singapore to vote. And that’s not a good way to do things.”

They say, “OK. We’ll take that into consideration.”

Then during the semi-finals, the judges’ decisions decided the top 10. We thought they had learned.

BUT noooo. They still have to revert back to stupid, stupid SMS /Call-in voting.

EH EXCUSE ME. You think this is America issit? Sibeh “Let’s-go-to-war-now-I-think-it’s-damn-fun!” America?

Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis can garner thousands, millions of votes alone.

Can Singapore produce the same results?

I’M SO FREAKIN SEEING HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF, albeit in a smaller scale.

Ugh. I’m not going to even blog about this any longer. All talent shows are gonna flunk unless stupid stupid, TV producers LEARN.

Off to watch Grey’s Anatomy. If Singaporean producers aren’t smart, I’ll just not watch Singaporean-produced shows then.

Which so far, seem to be all of reality talent competitions that are talentless. Ah, the irony.

P.S. I am inspired to create another post: How Singaporeans try to emulate ang-moh Americans.

How Far We’ve Come

How Far We’ve Come is seriously the best song from Matchbox Twenty to date.

And the video is one kick-ass inspiring piece of wonder, too. Makes you really think about the achievements of Mankind to date.

1) But Mankind still has a long way to go.

The video by Matchbox Twenty only showed the good side, the side that we are proud of, of our equal rights, of our achievements in space, and of fighting the better fight.

But Mankind is some jealous, bitchy crap. We often think that what we do is cool. We often think that by being mean to someone else, we are in actual fact, looking cool, or being looked-up to.

It doesn’t work that way. When you’re being bitchy, you’re looking like a fool. Because no one likes a person who’s like that. You may find others who are like you, bitchy and mean, but eventually that’s as far as your social circle can go. And one day, you’ll go up against one another.

2) Jealousy and envy exist, as feelings of spite intended to hurt someone because you admire what he has or is, to an extent. But Mankind is all the same. What they have, is what you have too. The only problem is that they refuse to give. They refuse to share.

Because they, and we, are taught that whatever we worked for, is ours to own and OURS only. It’s impossible to give away something you worked hard for to someone else.

That’s something we haven’t learned from past till now.

As proven by…

3) Wars.

Recently, at this year’s 59th Annual Emmy Awards, one of my favorite actresses Sally Field (The Flying Nun), who scored an Emmy for Brothers & Sisters (another one of my most favorite shows) got censored for her speech.

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/62940

Her speech, when it had to do with war and her anti-war sentiments, got censored. And I don’t think that’s very fair. She is respected, and she has something to say. It’s not like she’s asking the world to go to hell or something. Her words actually mean a lot.

America could be counted as the most powerful country in the world, and the President of it is often known as the “Leader of the Free World” but yet so many mistakes have been made on American soil.

Why do mistakes like war, and all, still happen?

4) Do we ever learn?

History has a purpose, the great SS/History teacher Joseph Wong said. History exists for us to learn about our past, our mistakes, what happened before we were born, and taking it all with us in mind, to the future.

What have we taken with us? Civil wars, World wars, plenty of wars, and yet nothing has been learned, apparently, because wars are still taking place.

Although, the humanity at present is definitely much better than that of the past. If aliens were to visit our planet now, they would definitely be more impressed than they were if they had visited in the past 2 or 3 centuries.

Teachers, for one, know their stuff. They know their moral values. They know how to teach and impart (most of them anyway). I think mothers AND teachers should rule the world together. Would definitely solve many of the problems. I don’t think teachers would be very much inclined to go to war.

But I could be surprised.

P.S. Pardon this post a bit. I know it’s slightly weird.

Matching Music with Moods

Matching Music with Moods

16/9/07

Matching…

The following songs make me…

Loving: Travis – Closer

Sad: Natasha Bedingfield – Soulmate

Dirrrty: Jennifer Lopez – Do It Well

Angry: Delta Goodrem – In This Life

Happy: Rob Thomas – Street Corner Symphony

Inspired: Matchbox Twenty – How Far We’ve Come

Reminiscent: FM Static – Tonight

Peaceful: Jennifer Love Hewitt – Bare Naked

Energetic: Groove Armada feat. Mutya Buena – Song For Mutya

P.S Contacted Creative! Gonna send my dearest to repair! Wooohooo!

P.P.S Has anyone seen Britney’s performance at VMAs? I know, I a bit lag, but I finally got to catch it and it was really… weird! You’ll get what I mean when you catch it. Wearing that black gyration-suit-thing was not a smart idea either.

P.P.P.S YouTube doesn’t have it… Some copyright claim. Oh well. If you managed to tape it down, good for you. If not… well, it’s probably better for you anyway.