" I’m forgetting more and more each day. I’m forgetting how to compromise with someone, how to structure my life around someone else. I mean, it’s not like I ever really did that anyway. I’ve always been someone who’s needed their alone time and done their own thing. But I do like this idea of being a team and working together. You spend too much time alone and you forget how to do that. You forget how to be with someone other than yourself. "

"I pet his face and listen to his breath and cannot fall asleep because there is a foreign feeling in my veins, it is the feeling of finally getting what I wanted, and the feeling is colder than i ever thought it would be. The feeling won't let me sleep."
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It is 1:45 am and I do not want to sleep but I have to. I thought I wasn't interested in fiction until I found a good one. It makes me confused. I am skipping the parts because I have no time to finish the book but I want to know what will happen to her. Okay it is 2 am.

Animations are awesome. (or visuals, to be less specific)

Effective ones, that is.
By effective, I mean those that contribute to a certain message, or complement what a song has to say or add meaning to words. Or as long as they go well with anything light-hearted and bubbly. Etc.

(Because i want to get away from my computer asap to read, i shan't talk about these videos for now.)

Just one thought: animations/visuals make everything better - more interesting, engaging, easier to remember. Honestly. All great talks should be animated, no issue. Moving onto the music videos. Instead of having music videos that are almost totally unrelated to the songs (happens often), more artists should think of creating more effective videos with visuals/stories that link to the words or emotions behind the lyrics. We can still have our bizillion interpretations of the audio track, no restriction. But I thought it'd be nice to have more videos made according to how the artist himself interprets it. Just thought that might make their work a little more impactful, amongst many other ways that might exist to stick these words/music on our minds. Isn't that the whole point of videos? To add depth.

Okay maybe singers have to think about things like budget constraints but.. what's the point of creating a video if it doesn't even give the song any sort of value? Such a waste of film and beautiful lyrics if the film/story would be better off with another song. Or if the lyrics aren't that fantastic, use the video to make it good. Okay perhaps some videos exist just to remind us of the existence of the song. Then I have nothing to say. Maybe that's reality. Yeah I guess there's nothing much to say about starships or dance floors or djs who got us falling in love again. (And no I'm not hating on the music though they're obviously not my cup of tea, cause.. I'll admit some party songs can be catchy at times)

I thought the ones below are great in their different ways. The first one's something insightful, it's worth your 10 minutes. The second is so cute it makes me smile. And now I can't forget the lyrics to Octopus's Garden.


Are you past oriented or future oriented


The Beatles - Octopus's Garden (animation)

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Although quite unrelated, here is an insightful article my teacher showed us:
What Captures Your Attention Controls Your Life

"Still, I must be careful because Jude is two people. He is a tender sailor whose hands seem too rough and large for the delicate way he makes me feel watched over. 


But he keeps this version of himself locked behind his ribcage until he sees me. The rest of the time he is somebody else."
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I would sing hey jude/ that would be special/ now take it. blub.

Freeee to be whatever


Oasis - Whatever (Maine Road 1996 live)

Most epic performance ever. Gallagher brothers fight at the start of the performance, Liam walks away from mic and smokes (ooh colourful smoke) while harmonica player flips him off and Noel continues singing and improvises octopus's garden (by the beatles) into the song. Then Liam decides to continue with the tambourine while sitting down and says something mean after the song.

Don't know if it's in my playlist due to entertainment value or what, but the octopus's garden part helped to up the score by 5 points when it was already around 9 to start with.

Music I have been obsessed with the past two days.

I do realise this is my 4th post of the day. But this is music. Nobody can get enough of it. Sara Bareilles' music feels close to her heart, and therefore to us listeners as well, and by that, something I can listen to for hours and days on end. Oasis'/Noel's HFB ones make you feel like screaming "NOEL I LOVE YOU" at a concert. I think their music is amazing in an indescribable way. Really, I don't know why I like them.

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Sara Bareilles - Gravity (Acapella version)
- one cannot miss the original, of course. refer to sytycd video below - As I have mentioned, this song works wonders with the choreography. I wish I had listened to it two months ago. This might be a relevant piece in the future as well.


Sara Bareilles - King Of Anything (Live)
this song is special to me because it was the one that cheered me up while I was down and really stressed up during the coursework days back in 2010. I remember having a watercolour palette in front of some sketches at around 3am in the morning and it kind of lifted my mood. That was the first time "happy music" worked for me and I have become a firm believer of the "music changes moods" thing ever since.


Sara Bareilles - Once Upon Another Time
I have called up HMV and Popular for this newest album but they don't have it. Her official store doesn't ship cds to singapore either. Here is a :( to express my disappointment. You can download one of the tracks, stay, from this link.

How gorgeous is she and how great is she live? Am dying to see her play these live. Other wonderful songs include Kaleidoscope Heart, Between the Lines, Uncharted, Gonna Get Over You, Love Song.

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Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson - Winter Song
Ingrid Michaelson is coming to Singapore and I will most probably be going!

Favourite Ingrid Michaelson tracks include: Sort of, The Way I Am, Be Ok, Maybe, You and I, Turn to Stone, Can't help falling in love (cover).

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As someone aptly described, Noel is "the bottomless fountain of amazing acoustic songs". 


Noel Gallagher - If I Had A Gun (Acoustic Live)
If I had a gun, I'd shoot a hole into the sun,
and love would burn this city down for you


Have the semi-acoustic emotional version I always post as well:

Noel Gallagher - Don't Look Back In Anger (Live)




Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - If I Had A Gun (Live)


Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Don't Look Back In Anger (Live)
Got amused by this comment: "God Speaks at 3:46 :D"

And just to prove all my love for Noel Gallagher did stem from my love for Oasis (they have, unfortunately, disbanded but Noel still makes great music with his high flying birds. I actually like his voice more.), here are some Oasis songs I have been hooked onto:

In fact, my favourite CD on my rack is Oasis' "stop the clocks". Okay Sara Bareilles' "kaleidoscope heart" is  on par.


Oasis - The Importance of Being Idle 
Retro mtv version haha

And I shall end this post with Champagne Supernova, the first Oasis song I heard during SR Rockfest 2009 and consequently fell in love.


Oasis - Champagne Supernova (Live)
I actually like the slower studio version much more (Liam's voice was nicer there as well) but here is a live version in reminiscence of the Rockfest concert. Also, there's Noel's guitar solo from 4:00 to 5:08.

Other awesome oasis/Noel's HFB tracks include: (it's good) to be free, stop crying your heart out, stand by me, wonderwall, Live Forever, Lyla, Sad Song, Whatever, The Death of You and Me.

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okay I have spammed. Bye to nobody in particular.

I also sometimes think of how my parents are the only ones I feel safe sharing certain things with, although I keep huge chunks of myself away from their sight. They see the sides of me that are less dark, which I am not afraid to reveal. As acceptable as these opinions of things are, and therefore things I should be able to tell everyone else, I only say it to them. Like issues of the world, or people, or families, or love, or the country. Because they are wise enough to tell me answers and I do not have to be engaged in discussion where friends expect me to. I think friends want your opinion in return, where my family allows me to let whatever thoughts I have simmer in my mind, or on the pages I write. I think they wish I would share more with them, but they love me nonetheless.

There are no other people where I can call "family". Wait, my relatives share the same grandparents' blood I hold. But I do not understand that kind of love much, because I see them only once a year. As much as I know they care for me, I don't feel that love much. My 'nuclear family' is the kind of family I am talking about here. My husband, if he exists, will be someone I love so dearly and would do everything for, but his blood is not in me. We can bond in all ways possible, but there will not be a single scarlet drop of our liquid in each others' bodies.

When I think of family, and love, I think of my mother. She irritated me today by insisting on giving me a massage. Now, I do not want to let it be misunderstood that I'm an ungrateful person. At that moment it felt like she was offering, or stuffing, something I do not need into my hands, and would not accept "later" or "no" as an answer. I was not irritated by her concern for me, only her insistence on doing "what is right" irregardless of what I needed at the moment. But when I finally relented, and felt her effort in every stroke of her slim hands between some ungrateful requests of mine to not pull the elastic band of my shirt too much (being the ocd person I am), I realised how much she loved me with her silence, not throwing aside that want to help me. Despite the somehow lack of communication before. And of course, how incapable I am of loving someone or considering someone else's needs compared to her.

I think I'd want to be able to shower someone with the kind of sacrificial love she has for me, or the kind all mothers have for their children. I would love my other half with more effort, simply because there is no natural bond to cement us together. Many of us grow old to the realisation that our parents' love for us are so great, despite the arguments and misunderstandings we've had, and we come to find that bond and mend any gaps. But it is different when we are to love a stranger, our to-be-other half. There is more effort to be put in, and I will imitate my mother's love for me.

I think being able to meet someone like that is very difficult, and just now I had the stupid thought of having a baby and loving my own product so much, without having to make it with someone I might not even be lucky enough to meet. There should be a new species of humans, like asexual plants, and I might want to be one if my lousy communication skills and tendency to be lost in my own world scares people away.

The point of writing this is to remind myself that even though a lucky me might experience love in the future, or provide it, there will be nothing quite the same as the blood bond I have with the people who created me, or my brother whom the same couple have created. Last night, my mother woke up in the middle of the night as usual to remind us to go to bed, and I saw the wrinkles in her face, the squint in her usually large eyes. I feel the signs of my parents growing old when they take their frequent afternoon naps.

And I think of what I've written in the first paragraph, that they're the people who have shaped me and answered my questions and accepted me. I heard myself saying, "I do not want to lose them", amidst my frequent desires to break free from the strong hold they have over me, the desires of freedom. I can have both, and show them I love them in return. I thought of this and felt something cold down the corners of my eyes, and this paragraph is evidence of how much I want to remember that moment.

Books, at least the ones I read, are nice because they help me lower expectations I have of people. They're unlike movies which have a lot of (active) human interaction or communication. They describe silence between people like it's okay, how lovers don't speak, some are even in their own worlds as they're together but still want to live with each other. I've seen it in all the books I've read. They seem to say that love exists even with all its imperfections, and I wonder if all the people I thought I didn't love are actually people I could care about despite us not being a perfect fit. I like the quiet quality in books, or maybe the quiet quality in books I read, because the characters are all alone and they remind me of myself. Or maybe the quiet quality is there because I like the noiseless world I am engulfed in when reading.

I also like reading about old people and their simple love stories, and about the simple, human, animalistic (in a pure way) desires of the characters. They simplify love, strip the complications I have of the term away, tear the expectations and criteria and rationality down.

Sometimes I still wish you would find this part of me which I would never show, but wouldn't mind it being discovered.

If I continue telling myself "there is no point in being sad" and try to focus my energy elsewhere, would that kill that emotional side of me? That pointless self-absorbed side of me which I love and hate at the same time.

I feel I have become more self absorbed lately, there's no particular person I can openly direct my attention towards. Not because I don't want to. I feel.. closed up. For whatever reason I do not know of. Someone made me hate asking "how are you". And I already feel so disgustingly self absorbed I don't want to tell anyone about me unless they probe. It shows real interest. I like that. Strangely, I can't do the same for others, I don't dare to. I want to take that away from me and care for others again.

I miss you and I am sorry. I hate how the word sorry always doesn't mean much, but I am sorry. Tell me how exactly I can make amendments. Tell me you're disappointed, ask for any sort of attention I can give.

As for the other you, I don't trust that you'll want to make amendments so maybe we will drift apart, not making it to the opposite ends of the sea, not far enough to be out of sight, but still apart. Until you prove me wrong.