I haven't moved from the front of my computer for about three hours now, except to make two cups of tea. A Sunday well spent, I must say. My midterms got over last week so this means I'm going back to spending all my evenings online again. These are three songs that I've got stuck in my head and I listen to each song about fifteen times a day at the least.

    

    

    

nice guys singing about feelings

I spent the whole day muttering "When I switched off my feelings, that's when I lost control" under my breath. I really love Teenage Fanclub. They're everything good in this world. I remember listening to them for the first time around March last year, right before the final physics exam of my life. I was listening to "The Concept" (which is pure genius) and drinking coffee and standing at the door of my balcony and staring at the tree with pink flowers and that moment was so right because it was the first time in days when I just felt good and not stressed and just happy and this intense feeling of frisson just overtook me. It was a good moment. Teenage Fanclub is good. They sound like a bunch of nice guys singing about nice feelings and sad feelings and happy feelings but the important thing is that they're nice guys. Like Wilco. Wilco sounds like a nice guy making excellent music about feelings and being human. 

The Strokes, however, don't sound like nice guys. They sound like a bunch of young dudes making music about being young and doing stupid shit and since you're young and you do stupid shit you can't be a nice guy (except for Nikolai, of course. He looks like the nicest guy ever). That doesn't make them bad guys or anything, but it's just that they aren't exactly nice. Maybe they'll grow old and be a bunch of nice old guys but they aren't... kind.

And Lou Reed. Lou Reed is all about feeling. The Velvet Underground only made music about being human. Their songs were matters of the heart. So my sister and I reached a consensus about Lou Reed and that was this: He isn't a malicious guy. You could say he's nice. The thing is, since he's a ~human~ he makes mistakes and thus hurts people and thus may not seem like a nice guy but he will always sing a song about it and realize he wasn't a nice guy so that makes him a nice guy.

Shit. It's tough being a nice guy. 

new year resolutions are stupid and pointless

Uh, yes. They are.

When I was eleven, I made forty two resolutions. Forty two. I ended up breaking EVERY single one of them. That taught me the first important lesson about new year resolutions: you're going to break them.

The second lesson I learnt was from my dad. He told me that most gyms had the highest number of new members during January. By the time March came around, about 85% members had fizzled out. By July, only 10% of the original members kept up with their memberships. Okay, these numbers are highly fabricated by yours truly but that's the important lesson: don't wait for January to sign up for something. Don't wait for January to quit smoking. If you were actually planning on doing it, you wouldn't be waiting for the first day of the new year. You'd just do it.

And the third important lesson is something I've gradually come to realize. Things like "I will get full marks on all my tests", "I will not lie" and shit like "I will exercise" is exactly what it sounds like, which is bullfuckingshit. So the trick is to start small and start easy and pick something which is at least a 0.1% feasible.

Basically, no resolutions for me except to change my apathetic attitude about every single life situation, stop being a pig when it comes to eating, and just write, godddamnit. And because I'm more in-touch with myself due to these online personality tests I've taken to doing lately, I know I'm not going to keep any one of them. I wish I'd write more because it seems like an important thing to do, but like Bukowski said, "My ambition is handicapped by my laziness." And that just sounds like a convenient excuse for not doing anything which I realize and thus I take back everything I've written and basically, this paragraph is void.

I've spent the whole day online, watching movies (Looper and Howl's Moving Castle. Both were decentish fun, but didn't really call out to my soul) and downloading shitloads of music. I'm now grooving to the Beach Boys' Holland and I have Britney (goddess) and Lou Reed for the whole of this week. I also finished Stardust today, which was nice and stuff but I couldn't really enjoy it too much because I've got the movie stuck in my head. The ending was, however, perfectly bittersweet.

Important albums: Too Young To Be In Love

Hunx and his Punx- Too Young To Be In Love

In the twelfth grade, I went through this transition period during which I was extremely happy and extremely angsty at the same time. I don't know how to explain it but my mood- and personality- would change, depending on the person I was hanging out with. I also went through several crushes during the year, which kind of ensured I was on a permanent floating high (crushes do that to me). 

It was through Crush #2 when I discovered the song "Too Young To Be In Love" by this band called Hunx and his Punx. It was perfect for me because it called out to my soul, y'know? It had the right amount of energy and heartbreak and hope and when I heard the line "nothing can mend my teenage heart again", I knew I'd found it. The song that would probably be my number one song for the year. I then pursued some of their EPs and stuff and it was okay. It had ridiculous lines like "what the heck is wrong with you?/I think you sniffed too much glue/You don't like rock 'n' roll/and I don't like you". Before you dismiss the song (and band) for being, well, stupid, wait! Give it a chance. And listen to the album Too Young To Be In Love.

I'm a teenager and I'm happy and sad and I'm into boys so this album is A+. It has everything you need to go through a mad crush/teenage hormones and the best part is, it doesn't take itself too seriously, which is an important criteria for me. It's just about being a teenager and chilling and being in love and stuff! You could almost pass it off for an album released forty years ago but all the vintage sounds and the lead singer's voice (it grows on you, trust me) and really really powerful backing vocalists... well, it's an explosive combination. It's not for everyone but if you like mad and fun stuff, listen to this album because you will not be disappointed. At all. 

Best tracks (in my important opinion): "He's Coming Back" and "Too Young To Be In Love". 

book roundup

Storm by Brigid Kemmerer 

I've been meaning to read Storm for a really long time, and I was so glad when I finally got my hands on it last weekend. 

Storm is about a bunch of teenagers who can control the elements of nature (fire, water, wind, stuff like that). This girl called Becca saves her classmate Chris Merrick from getting beaten up outside their school and then finds herself involved in the Merrick brothers' messed up lives (involving fighting from rival "elemental gangs", gunfights, family feuds, etc.). They also have time for love triangles when a new guy called Hunter joins school as well as parent problems. Good stuff.

Storm is a really fun book. There were some parts of the book which I found frustratingly slow-paced but it all worked out in a pretty interesting package. I personally really liked the characters, especially Chris and his brothers. The twins were really... fun to read about and I found the dynamic between the brothers interesting and believable. Becca is one YA heroine who isn't a piss off, isn't easily impressed by stupid stuff and doesn't let boys rule her life, which is a real blessing. I'm getting more jaded by YA with every progressing book simply because I cannot fathom why any character- male or female- would do a stupid (and the situations they find themselves in occur only due to their stupidity which the author tries to pass off as bravery) thing in the name of love. It's not love if you've known them for an hour and all they've done is stare at you during lunch and you guys have has one make out session! Lord.
And Becca still has some friend problems and most of all father problems which all happen for the greater good and stuff.

It's a good book. Definitely not the best book I've read and I don't think I'd be able to reread it, but I'd definitely recommend it for people looking for a new YA (paranormal) series. I think I'll probably pick up the second book in the series (it has one of the twins as the protagonist!).

Legend by Marie Lu

**spoiler alert** I actually don't see what the great deal is about the book. It's a futuristic society (judging from the clues from the book) about two people, June and Day. June's a rich military kid and Day's the most wanted person in the "Republic". This is going to contain spoilers. 

Thinking back, there seem to be some glaring plot holes. One thing that really confuses me is that for a Republic so advanced, a fifteen year old boy doesn't really fit the profile for the most wanted tag. Another really frustrating point is the the underdevelopment of the two main protagonists. They seem far too... forgiving of each others.  SPOILERS BELOW! 

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Day's mother was murdered. Murdered. As was Day's brother. And debatable or not, June was, in some way, responsible for their deaths. What I don't understand is Day's instant forgiveness. It just wasn't convincing enough as was the romance between Day and June.

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Spoilers end! 


It wasn't a bad book as such. it was just unconvincing. I also found myself skimming through several chapters towards the end. But judging by the other YA dystopian books I've been reading, this was definitely bearable. Just not great. 

Yet again, I'm at work and pretending to be productive. What I have managed to do in the last two days is create a recipe book with my own funky illustrations. All I have left to do is design the cover page. Boredom really hones my creativity, I must say. 

I'm really... jaded by work. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I want to go back to college. Like everything else in my life, the grass is always greener on the other side. 

couples part 1

Penryn and Raphael (aka Raffe) from Angelfall by Susan EE

I feel really strongly about Angelfall and its characters. At first glance, it’s like your everyday YA paranormal romance about a girl and an immortal angel (I know, right?!). Throw in a post-apocalyptic world full of resistance movements and cannibalistic children and crazy mothers and you get this fast-paced and fun novel (which you can devour in one night. Trust me on this).

Now what makes Angelfall so important to me are the two main protagonists, Penryn and Raffe. Penryn is your kickass heroine who just wants to save her little sister from the bad angels and Raffe is… an angel. A wingless angel, at that. So whatever reasons, these two journey across California to go save the little sister and Raffe’s wings. What you get is this roadtrip (actually, a walkathon would perhaps fit better) during which these two bicker constantly to hide the obvious UST (or is the bickering a result of the UST? Questions to ponder over) and get into a lot of danger and there’s constant fighting and everything.

What makes their romance really special is the fact that it doesn’t become the central part of the book. Good things are even better in small doses. There are tons of YA books out there which get absolutely ruined because of the romance overtaking the actual story (looking at you, Angel Burn) but Angelfall gives us the romance in little doses which makes it all the more exciting. It doesn’t hurt that both the characters are extremely likeable on their own and not just together which is the whole point of a strong main character, isn’t it?

Randall “Pink” Floyd and Jodi Kramer from Dazed and Confused

I root so hard for these two. Like really really really. Dazed and Confused is- in my opinion- one of the most perfect movies ever made and Pink and Jodi are like harbingers of this perfect movies (that didn’t make too much sense, did it?).

Pink is the kindest guy on the show and Jodi is the nicest girl. That doesn’t stop them from having fun and all of that teenage jazz (as opposed to clichés that tell us that nice people don’t have fun. Maybe I should retract because Pink and Jodi are popular people who are nice, and not nice people who are popular. That’s quite a distinction). Case points are Pink being an A+ guy to Mitch and Jodi being all cool older sister-y to Sabrina and the moral is that Pink and Jodi should totally be together. While watching the movie for the first time, I didn’t think much about them together until the (spoiler?) make out scene in the park! And Jodi stops Pink because he has a girlfriend and she’s decent like that and then they don’t hang out for the rest of the movie (which is, technically, just one night in their lives. Maybe I should write Dazed and Confused fanfiction about senior year) but who cares! Pink and Jodi forever! They’d form the kindest and most powerful couple in their little suburb!

Juliet Burke and James “Sawyer” Ford from Lost

What I’m going to do is ignore every cool aspect of Lost: the mythology, storytelling, the Island and the likes and concentrate on the romance. Now Sawyer is a cool guy and probably one of the funniest (and hottest) on the show. And he’s deep and full of layers and he’s got that con man act going for him, etc. etc.. Juliet is like this mystery woman with the smirk and you never really know what she’s thinking. So Sawyer is stuck in this endless triangle with Jack and Kate (who I happen to dislike so perhaps this whole ship is biased because I’m a huge Sawyer fan) and Juliet is all hung up over Jack and lots of drama and then wham! These two are the only ones left (I’m not counting Miles and everyone else, mind you) who’re stuck on the Island and that too in the 1970s! So what are the two to do?

Get together and be the most perfect couple until everybody comes back in time to ruin it, of course! They work so well together and they’re cute and everything good and I rooted so hard for them. I was actually frightened with Kate’s reappearance but by that time, I’d given up on the general storyline that the show took so… whatever. It all worked out okay (purgatory, remember? The season finale?).