Video: "Turn Your Lights Down Low"

So I wouldn't have to sing it.

So what if it hurts me?

      Having drunk a mug of coffee a few hours before going to bed,I was up and about again. I had just gotten off the phone with a good friend of mine, and although that would usually cap my day, it was cut short...

     My heart was beating a pitter-patter race (I hope it was coffeine-induced, because I only drink one to none a day, whereas before, I'd be drinking up to 4 cups a day.)... :-p

    Coffee keeps you up at the most inconvenient times, and since I wasn't one to just wait (tossing and turning) until sleep comes while I had thoughts in my mind, I decided to go downstairs to find something to do.

This was the first video I saw when I turned the TV on...

     Leona Lewis is a beauty, and although her songs sound pretty much alike (i.e. Bleeding Love, Only in Time (?)) were pretty "timely" when they came out, I thought, what the heck, I might as well watch this...    

It has a theme-y type of beat to it...something that you could easily adapt to your life. (LOL...here I go again.) Boom Boom...it goes, like the beat of your heart, you could almost say she was singing that song for you. "Go girl," she's saying, it seems..

Anyway, I saved you all the trouble and got the lyrics embedded here too.

- Leona Lewis Lyrics 

The video starts innocently enough...there were the makings of a romantic match...touchy-feely guy, body language, the looks, the parties, the nights-out, oh the even the "Scooch over, I don't want to get caught in the rain, can I take up more of your personal space than is really necessary?" scenes... :-p There was even a family dinner involved. The guy was practically a regular at the Lewis household...

There's a scene there where he got closer and held her hand, but since she drew it away, it seemed that she didn't want to...she was scared. (That pretty much sealed the deal...or, broke it.)

And so began the wistful looks, the regret, the preludes to loneliness...we see her touching old wedding pictures. It was paradoxical how, the song was all about "going for it",  and seizing the day, going after what would really make you happy, so you would have no regrets later, because, as we all know, there is no such thing as taking back a day, no such thing as undoing something that's already been done.  The visuals showed a girl who clearly liked a beautiful, perfectly right boy (who clearly liked her back too), but didn't do anything about it... only to be the one on the sidelines, pretending to be happy for this same beautiful boy, forever losing that something that would have been great with him.

I think that left a more enduring image...a more powerful one.

A wake-up call, that, if you really wanted to be happy, you really had to get up on your own two feet and do something about it.

So what if it hurts you in the end? What if you get lost and confused in the process? At least, you knew. You didn't let your life pass you by...

It's not just about love, I suppose, it's about life in general, the victor is the one who got bloodied and hurt, but tried, and definitely not the spectator up in the stands...

...nor the pretty bridesmaid who could have been the bride.

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Of course, one doesn't always get what he/she wants, but making the choice of going through the confusion (and maybe pain) of making a choice and sticking to it makes all the difference. We live and learn. Standing by is not living... it's just being, hmm...there, and you won't have anything to show for it anyway.

(And yes, it might be embarrassing to talk about later, but what the heck, it'll be a story of your own to tell.)

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Edit: Rereading this entry a few hours later has made me realize how seemingly ruthless it makes me sound...as if I would go after anything (or anyone) without any trepidation. That's not it, the "moral of this story" is that if there something you want, you shouldn't just let it go easily, with every "battle" being fought at the right place and time, for the right reasons.

New Moon... and the friend and lover archetypes

             Since I was in Cebu for a couple of days, I decided to catch the much-hyped “New Moon” installation of the Twilight saga in Ayala.  It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, and because my father went with me, I could very well say that my chances of dating a cute guy, or any of my Cebu-based friends for that matter for the day’s Last Full Show were zilch, nada.

            So, with father in tow, I went over to Ayala and got our tickets. Pops was asking why so many people were into watching this movie (he would eventually ask me repeatedly what the fuss was all about in-between periods of “sleep and wakefulness”. Haha.)

            I spotted my grade-school classmate Farah (Farah-noid, :-p) who yelled out to me, “Steph!” while we were going up the ramp into the theater (or rather, she spotted me.).”Eeek!,” I went, “You’re here!” And we hugged. It was a good thing I got to see her, she said she was moving to the States with her husband Galen very soon, for good. “I’m rooting for Team Jacob,” she told me.

            I just grinned, and then went, “We’ll see…” Honestly, I didn’t really have any picks. I went to see the film because I was curious, and not because I was swooning over RPattz’ romantic lines, nor fawning over Jacob’s fine, fine muscles. Yet.

            Book = Movie. They stayed true to form in their adaptation, I believe.  All the fans knew what was going to happen so it was pretty predictable. Of course Edward was going to say those lines from Romeo and Juliet perfectly and to the letter and of course Jacob was going to just spring out on screen, transformed from being Jake, a gangly (sort of) 16 year-old to being Jacob, the hot Man-Wolf in all his ripped perfection. *drool*

            Like in the book (New Moon is the 2^nd book in a set of 4 in the Twilight Saga), Jacob becomes Bella’s best friend/therapist/mechanic/co-thrill seeker after Edward gives her the [very] harsh, “You’re not good for me,” which of course, plunged her into months of uncertainty, melancholy and listlessness. [ Seriously now, why can’t “dumpers” give the real reason to the “dumpees” when they want to break things off? Having thought about that, though, saying “ Hey Bella, I’m afraid my vampire brother (or family, for that matter) would rip your throat open to feed on you, so I’m going to run off to Pompeii to brood, but I’ll certainly be spying on you from time to time, don’t worry... ” isn’t really going to help the story along, right?

            Right.:-p

            So anyway, Jacob and Bella go through the veritable cha-cha of dating and relating… i.e. He comforts her, makes her laugh, shows her around, protects her from Laurent, the vampire in dreads, watches a crappy B movie with her (i.e. Face Punch), [superhumanly] tries to kiss her (but in vain)…and in the end still gets the slap in the face when she finally tells him, “I love you, you’re my best friend…” (OUCH.) And to top it all off, there was the unforgiving, “It has always been him…”

            No wonder he went running around the great United States and all the way to Canada besides, after that. (Other guys would probably drown their sorrows in voluminous amounts of beer and liquor, but that’s probably ‘cause they don’t have the wolf genes and have the power to break the speed limit running for days at a time. :-p)

            Poor Jacob…just because you’re a great guy with a hot bod doesn’t mean you’re going to get the girl in the end. Girls are complicated creatures most times… Although Bella wasn’t entirely so, she just had a one-track mind. If she were a CD, she’d be playing “EDWARD” tracks all day long. With those blinders on, the ripples of your pecs and abs are not going to sway her so easily.

            Edward, on the other hand, capitalized on the fact that he was a 109-year-old tall, pale, handsome ladies man with a lot of dough…who was going to be around forever. Women like that kind of security, I suppose. (LOL). Let’s face it, he knew all the right things to say, read all the right books, drove all the right cars, heck, he evens spoke all the right languages (AND knew Shakespeare besides!). His downside was that he was a brooding, moody, overprotective boyfriend who thought that everything needed to be done in extremes.

            I mean, “You’re not good for me.” – what gives? Surely there must be a better, more ego-syntonic reason than that, Mr. Vampire Guy…with the beautiful eyes, full lips, razor sharp cheekbones…Er, right. Moving on…

            I think the real question is, who would Bella (or any woman in general) want to be with eventually…Jacob, the hot (literally) Wolf-Boy, or Edward, the handsome pensive Vampire Man?

            Which once again brings us to the age-old question, “Who would you marry…a lover, or a friend?”

            Of course, with Friend = Jacob and Lover = Edward.

            (Mind you, the last scene of New Moon was that of Edward saying the words, “Marry Me” to Bella. There was a collective gasp in the audience and then the lights came back on (after which, of course, my father got up and declared that it was a crappy movie all along. Haha))

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            On a side note, I’ll tell you who Bella (a.k.a. “Everywoman”) will pick… it’ll be Mr. Lover-slash-Mr.Vampire-Man-slash Mr. Perfect, ‘cause that’s what the books are going to say (In case you haven’t read it yet, I’m sorry for spoiling the surprise, but in case you have, you’ll know that everything will end up happily ever after (i.e. they have a cute little vampire baby, a snazzy house-and-lot set-up, a great sex life, and eternity to keep the number of Mountain Lions/Bears/Caribou down to a sound level to protect the delicate North American ecosystem.

            The end.

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            This entry was inspired by Farah, who asked me which team I was rooting for, Ron, who asked me why girls were so into Edward, when he was so pale and skinny, and D., who said that he’d pick the lover, because they’d be friends later, anyway. :-p.

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            Go Team Carlisle ! ( I’m rooting for the Doctor Guy.) :-p

            Haha.

~ S.

           

Video: "To Love Somebody"

Nina Simone's currently on my playlist...I downloaded an album one time. "To love somebody" is one of my favorite songs, but her version's a better one than the original done by the BeeGees.... :-) She sounds like Tracy Chapman, but she has a more interesting lifestory. :-)

In her later years, she was diagnosed with a Bipolar Disorder, which she struggled with and reluctantly took meds for. (People who achieve greatness always have had to grapple with an internal conflict at one point or another in their lives, I always say.)

Her concerts were supposed to be "not just performances, but events". I would have loved to have sat in one. :-)

Pic: Sunset

Not quite sunset. View of the almost-sunset from a boat leaving Negros Island at 4:10pm. November 23,2009. Photo by: S.

(The shafts of light were amazingly pleasing..).

Work update...

Applying for work in the government requires a lot of patience...

I've just finished writing (painstakingly), by hand 4 batches of pre-employment Human Resources paperwork. My fingers are sore, but i'm not complaining. I'm on my way to starting a new job, working for the government. ;-)

It's a hospital resident post, and for 2 shifts a week, I'll be getting around, by a fair estimate, maybe twice what I'd be getting if I were training already..

I've decided to postpone training for the 2010 academic year for personal reasons...It was hard to decide at first, because I've been given a lot of helpful (and sometimes confusing too) advice left and right. Everyone who gave me their two cents meant well, but I've always believed that I can only listen to advice enough to get other people's points of view, but in the end, when it really came down to it, the final call will be mine. I've always gone with my instincts in recent years, and ended up happier.

(Or if not happier, at least, felt better that I was in control of the situation anyway.)

Regrets, if any, will be fine, 'cause I'll be bearing the consequences of my decision anyway. If things don't work out, I'll only have myself to berate for it...(God forbid I'll be doing much "self-flagellation" soon, of course.)

I told my grandmother's urologist, who is a trusted mentor, that I was planning to work first and then save up so I can apply at a certain hospital (no names as of yet, cause I don't want to preemptively jinx my chances) by August. He said it was a good plan, and I should keep studying too...because that was the only way to stay ahead.

A month ago, I was in Iloilo to pick up some documents and I was able to talk to one of my teachers, another dear mentor who I looked up to (and still do). He gave me "insider's info" on hospitals to train in for my specialty choice. It was very enlightening, you know. Believe me, it's different to hear things from someone who's really "in-the-know" as opposed to someone who was just a casual observer, or who just heard so and so info.

He wrote me a "glowing" recommendation letter, I've been told, but I have yet to collect...and write a thank you note.

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We'll see what happens next. wish me luck. (It's a big responsibility.)

I'm starting on the first of next month. :-)

Video: "The Search Is Over"

I can't get this tune out of my head. haalp! (and yes, Arnel Pineda's version is better than the original Survivor lead man. and I'm not saying that just 'cause I'm Filipino). :-)

Video: "Breathe"

It just sounds really nice. and calming.