1. Maintain good results for the upcoming two semesters so that I can directly apply for a degree program.
2. Socialize more with the people in my university, my classmates specifically (oh, come on!).
3. Polish up my photography skills (I’ve been abandoning this since… forever).
4. Be more understanding (in my relationship obviously).
5. Be more independent!
6. Lose some more weight.
7. Stop procrastinating; try to finish all assignments on time.
8. Expand my collection of novels/football magazines.
9. Enjoy life even moreeeee.
10. Be a better person!
Time used to crawl so slowly when I was a kid but now it just… flies real fast till sometimes I don’t even have enough time to catch things up.
The year 2009
will be wrapped up real soon, and a pang of sadness hits me hard inside
whenever that particular thought creeps into my mind. Entering a brand new year means stepping my
feet into another phase of a more complicated life and… of course, being
another year older means greater responsibility. I admit that I haven’t done much this year
and only God knows how little the percentage I’ve contributed to make it a
memorable and unforgettable one. But... looking on the bright side, I still managed to successfully achieve five out of eight
resolutions I made on December 31st last year. Ain’t that bad, huh? Oh yeah, I'll list down my new year's resolutions soon :-)
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BRITPOPCAST #6: THE GIRLS OF BRITPOP (wave 2)
Second wave:
- Kenickie (Lauren Laverne - all girls band)
- Kenickie, believe it or not, was the only all-girls Britpop
band. There was another band called Fluffy around this era, but they
were more hard-rock than brit-pop. While Fluffy's ultimate was branded
with "eight tits no talent", Kenickie was more loved in general. While
their music is often more polished punk/pop early on, they shifted
their sound to more lounge for their second album. Obviously the band
was still in their infancy ... but eventually broke up shortly after
the second album.
- Lush (Miki Berenyi & Emma Anderson)
- In early Lush's history, they were two best friends, Miki
Berenyi & Emma Anderson. They were fanzine producers, and started
their own band based on their love of shoegazing music with their EPs
and debut album Spooky. You can hear their love of melodies as
they sing in and out. Of course, when you have two songwriters, they
often clash if they have other interests. In this case, at the time Split came out in 1994, some of the songs were clearly "britpop"esque. Even the naming of the album (Split)
was an indication, between aggressive pop songs like "Kiss Chase" and
"Hypocrite" - the britpop songs would later continue with "Ladykiller"
and their ultimate britpop moment with Jarvis Cocker on "Ciao!" While
I did tend to like the Miki songs, Emma did coin a few great pop gems
like "Shake Baby Shake" (which is about the love of her car).
- When we heard that drummer, Chris Acland committed suicide by
hanging himself, we all knew the band would be split up after this.
And it's true, they never quite recover. I was lucky enough to catch
them before the tragedy and continued to follow to see what the band's
been up to. The last I heard, Emma is in Sing-Sing, which had a great
pop song called "Feels Like Summer".
- Catatonia (Cerys Matthews)
- Since we previously talked about Catatonia in our previous Welsh Britpop bands, I'll only briefly mention them here. The thing with Catatonia for me was that each of their song was either a hit or miss... no inbetween feeling. I either hated or love it. But the songs I really love, I really love, so that makes up for them. I love the way Cerys sings, in fact, all Welsh people have a particularly weird accent to them and it's always a nice earful when you do hear them sing or talk. It's like they're speaking English, but learned it from another planet.
- Favorite songs: "Mulder & Scully", "I Am the Mob", "Karaokee Queen", "Road Rage", "Dead from the Waist Down"
- Theaudience (Sophie Ellis-Bextor)
- This was a very brief band from 97-99, fronted by Sophie
Ellis-Bextor - who went on to have a series of very successful
Eurodisco releases. I must admit, I never followed the band that much
- they arrived a little too late for me. I didn't buy their debut
album (it was never released in the US), but managed to get their debut
single, "I Got the Wherewithal". The song is quite good, and even
their b-side "Penis Size and Cars" is amusingly catchy.
- Bis (Amanda MacKinnon)
- I love this Scottish band. Although they were far too
"kiddish" in their cute unreadable spellings and anime-influence, they
were pretty damn cute and catchy. Songs like "Kandy Pop" topped many
playlist around this time, although in retrospect, looking back, it was
a pretty mindless dum (dumb as in DUM) song. Unfortunately, many
people, including myself, didn't regard Bis as a Britpop band, but
they're often grouped in. My favorite song: "Action & Drama"!
Honorable mentions:
- Black Box Recorder (Sarah Nixey)
- Very catchy/dancey, but not Britpop. Their bassist is Luke Haines, formerly of the Britpop band The Auteurs.
- Dubstar (Sarah Blackwood)
- This British act came out during the birth of Britpop, but they
were far too alternative-dance/electronica to be considered Britpop.
The singer is Sarah Blackwood, who, I reckon the band ditched toward
their later music releases.
- Sneaker Pimps (Kelli Dayton)
- Fluffy
- Republica (Saffron)
- Fat Les (Lily Allen sings on their last single???)
12/30/2009 03:45:48 ♥ vu (
) ♥weheartmusic.com♥twitter.com/weheartmusic♥news.weheartmusic.com
One sewing project...
...and one very patient cat...
...and one very creative little girl.
Plus, one phone call to AAA, lunch with one friend, and one birthday cake to be made for tomorrow.
Hope your day was as lovely as mine!
For the last, I'd say year, Zak and I have uttered the sentence..."I fucking hate banks" more times than I can count...
We miss our small Alaska bank. Bad. We have come to truly hate "big banks".
And after the bailout? The sentence has become a practically everyday utterance....and hating is now too nice of a word to use. It's more like loathe and despise, at this point.
I know I posted something about Bank of America on my blog some time ago and I'm far too lazy and buzzed to bother looking.....but anyway, point being....Zak and I both have had a serious "issue" with big banks for awhile. We have talked endlessly about how could we function without even using a bank, to no avail. We have found no solution. We have discussed moving to a small community bank...I mean we have gone around and around about this....tonight, I see this...
NICE!!!!!
LOVE IT!
And that WILL be one of my New Year's resolutions....get the fuck out of a big bank and into a smaller one.
I will feel SO liberated....so in control....and I can't wait!!!!
Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®
When I was younger, I was much more giving with information about my life than I am now. If I was in a relationship, not only did everyone know but everyone knew every fight, make up, conversation etc that happened. When I couldn't figure out why no one really liked my boyfriend at the time, my mother wisely told me:
Voilà. C'est l'heure de la question à dix balles: Quel est le critère du "bonne" de Bonne Année?
Ben ça dépend j'ai envie de dire. Et même, ça dépasse.
Si on ne pinaille pas, c'est être encore en vie. Soit. Si on fait un peu plus attention, on va vouloir être en vie, mais en bonne santé. Logique.
Puis après vient le grand saut dans l'immensité du très vague et variable "Bonheur". Qui dépend de quoi lui? De l'entourage? Des conditions matérielles? De l'intérieur? Des trois? Ben voyons.
Hum. C'est la porte ouverte à toutes les fenêtres, surtout qu'après, vient le bond encore plus gigantesque de la personnalisation. Ooooh la belle fenêtre de la personnalisation.
Je suis plutôt, malgré les apparences, des ces personnes qui s'arrêtent au "bonne", sans chercher plus loin. Parce que chercher, c'est ne pas trouver en l'occurrence. Alors que s'arrêter à "bonne" ça marche à tous les coups.
Je retire les dix balles. Bonne, c'est bonne. Et c'est plus clair en 5 lettres qu'en mille pensées analysées.
As the year draws to a close, I thought it would be fun to look back at the books I read in 2009 and share a list of my favorites. (Read, but not necessarily published in 2009.) I've finished 110 books to date and will probably read at least one more before New Year's Day. It was tough narrowing the list, but here they are:
FICTION - 5 STARS
City of Thieves by David Benioff
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
Ghostwritten by David Mitchell
Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Serena by Ron Rash
FICTION - 4 STARS
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
The Sparrow by Mary Russell Doria
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (sequel to The Hunger Games)
Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel
The Outlander by Gil Adamson
The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
NONFICTION
How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer
Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries by Neil deGrasse Tyson
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
Microcosm: E. Coli and the New Science of Life by Carl Zimmer
Summers With Juliet by Bill Roorbach
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
What were your favorites this year? I hope you'll share a few in comments.
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