Gaga Lovin'

I really love how Gaga's  voice always sounds better in live performances as compared to her music videos. And  I think her performances aren't complete without her playing the piano. Cool. I envy her talent.



And her choreography is just so catchy which makes you wanna learn it. Especially the Telephone and Alejandro dance :)

JTA Musings 1: Preserving my Sanity

     10 days to go till my 1st JTA semester ends.

     (cliche ahead) Seems like yesterday when my first day of JTA sem started and now here I am, struggling with the requirements from papers to presentations to long exams. Now I understand why JTA sem can be such a hell -juggling with four major subjects and one tough core subject! That's for the record. Yet as for my situation, pairing up JTA with Recruitment Week, well you could imagine fusing a week-long school event with your academics O.O But that's another story! I'll share it here next time [when I will finally have my free time back again, after this sem ends!]

     Back to JTA sem. I could still remember having a bet with my blockmate for whoever will breakdown first, loses. Haha. I personally pictured myself giving up on my requirements and just end up crying. But surprisingly, I haven't reached that level yet. Even during the Recruitment Week [which was my personal bet] when we would report to school 6am everyday (OMG that really was torture for me) and with all the piled-up quizzes and requirements which I temporarily neglected, I was still fine, I didn't breakdown.  Good for me! :)

     So here's a short list of what probably kept me sane these past few [hell yeah] months:

     KOREAN STUFF. I know some people would roll their eyes at me, thinking that Korean stuff is crap, listening to songs and watching dramas in a language which you yourself don't understand. Yes but what can I do I don't mind listening to songs which I can only comprehend a very few words and definitely I don't mind watching Korean series -duh that's why there's such thing as subtitles! Watching series like these really keep you sane especially when serious school stuff are eating you up and taking most of your free time. Though I felt guilty watching these stuff knowing that there's so much to do and so little time, I feel happy squeezing these stuff in my free time and I still manage to do everything on my checklist. So for this JTA sem, I'm proud to finish THREE dramas! :D

Personal Preference  

Another story with a gay theme haha

 

Full House

I love the Three Bears song! I shall learn it in Korean :D

My Girl

I think this is my favorite among the three :)

     So if you wanna know more about Korean dramas, click here and for online series, MySoju and Dramafans are my bestfriends.

      Also, Taeyang's smooth dance moves and sexy voice also did the trick and helped kept me sane -other way around? :). He's like Korea's Justin Timberlake, although he's short. Toinkz. And his performances tend to get a bit steamy to the level that one of his concerts was strictly off limits to minors :D

     Here's the music video of one of his songs. And the dance version is really worth embedding here :))

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     FOOD. I've been eating quite a lot so I won't be surprised if someone will say that I've gained weight. I can't spare an hour for jogging or any other exercise.Not to mention that I'm an emotional eater. TSK. So screw those test results that made me eat happy food which are basically Korean ice cream ,chocolates, bananaque, Hong Kong stir-fried noodles, Wicked Oreos, frozen yogurt, burger, seafood and etc. :)

     FAMILY AND FRIENDS. I really think I'm screwing up my social life because of this semester and I'm pissed about it. I can't believe I'm postponing catching-up talks, hang-outs, whole day bonding 'till the 22nd! I'm such a bad friend and I really feel bad about it.  Still, weekly dinners and lunchtimes with friends, texts from my dad and wake-up calls from my mom are also one of the things that kept me sane this semester. Yeah!

     FACEBOOK. Of course.Seeing group photos where I'm tagged kind of comforts me from the screwing-up-my-social-life thing :D

     MOVIES. I'm looking forward to so many movies that I really can't wait to say goodbye to this stressful sem!

     SLEEP. Really I'm surprised that up to this time I'm still able to get enough sleep. I'm sure I'm not slacking off. Maybe sleepless nights was just an exaggeration? Or it could be overrated.. Or maybe I just couldn't hear my alarm no matter what. :)) 

     KOREA. Though this may not be my first choice, yet I'm really excited to go abroad that we even already made a partial list of the things to do when we're there :D :D So please, South Korea, don't fail me. just make friends with the North and everything's good.

     last but not the least ...

     PAUL THE OCTOPUS. I keep seeing the word 'octopus' or 'pusit' in my FB news feed that I can't help but google what's the fuss all about. Oh, it's about a psychic octopus of the World Cup. Coincidence or not, funny how this Octopus managed to be 100% accurate in his world cup predictions. Some critics say he's just a lazy octopus going for the box nearest to him. Yet some even say that Paul, just like other sea creatures, is going for the box with the flag attached to it that has the brightest colors (red, yellow, shades of orange, etc). Still, Paul gets death/dinner threats. :))Whatever. His predictions are as accurate as J. K. Rowling's Professor Trelawney. Paul's the New Nostradamus, haha. In the finals, Paul predicted Spain, yes the one with the box nearest to him and the tank and the one with the most striking flag. And guess what, Spain won. And Spain's flag with Paul the King is a winner :)) Congratulations, Spaniards! and special mention to Andres Iniesta, the guy who kicked the ball towards Spain's victory :)

Paul, the Unofficial King of Spain

    2 minutes 'till 3am and I still haven't started on my Final Philo paper which is due 3 days later. And I still haven't studied for my Orals too. And I still haven't touched my Finance book. Really, I should just click the 'Save Now' button and time to go back to reality. No use escaping from it, and I have to wake up 5 hours later for our mock presentation practice! For what it's worth, I think this year is gonna be a good one. *crossed fingers* I really can't wait to cross out all the days in my countdown till 22! So Ingrid, Basyah! Aja Aja! Korea here I come! :)

* photo credits to dramafans.org and koreandrama.org and Yahoo Sports

Of Juliet Dethroning France

I was used to adoring France as a country, and Paris too -the city of love, fashion, history and arts. If I were asked what would be the first country I would love to spend a week or two, France would be the answer without hesitation. A safe answer, one would say. It's expected. Who doesn't love to go to France?

So all this time I've been truly eyeing France until this latest romantic flick caught my interest and made me take a glimpse on another European country, Italy.

Call me corny and cheezy and a hopeless romantic but this film's trailer made us add the film 'Letters To Juliet' to our long list of movie bucket list. So everytime we go to the mall, we would check out the movie schedule, waiting for it. From 'coming soon', to 'next picture'...gosh I can't believe we're waiting for a film other than the last two installments of Harry Potter! And this film's music video, starring Taylor Swift's single, 'Love Story', really made us want to see this film as soon as possible (and also made me want to go to Italy!).

Basically that music video says it all, you can save yourself from spending for a movie ticket if you ask me. The plot's simple, everything's predictable and yes you can expect a happy ending for the Juliet in the film (which is quite contrary to Shakepeare's classic Romeo and Juliet story).

Until today, we finally got to watch it. And I wasn't disappointed with the film :)

Why did I like the movie? It was simple, no complications and yet the emotions are still there. The plot's generally direct, no surprises, yet it doesn't discourage me from watching the film till the end since I was more interested with the flow of events, like how the feelings and attraction between Sophie and Charlie started brewing up from the first time they saw and dislike each other in a cute way. How Charlie's starting to be nice to Sophie with his really lame attempts to ask her out to dinner or to a city stroll. Yes, I'm a sucker for leading men who are rough, rude and ill-mannered at the start yet throughout the story you can see them change and become unexpectedly nice and romantic HAHA :)) Their dialogs and lines are also cute and funny, some are lame though, yet it still managed to paint a crescent smile on my face (I also laughed when Charlie said something about New York being overrated). Also, Sophie's fiance's for me is one of the clowns in the story despite being a total jerk, from being obsessed with pasta, wine and food to rather excellently speaking in contradiction to Sophie like "It's horrible not seeing you but I don't mind" (something like this).

letting Sophie taste his 'masterpiece :))

Another thing why I like the movie is well their emotions kind of got through me since I happen to be a little teary-eyed during the cemetery scene. Yes, lame, getting teary-eyed for a romantic flick but I couldn't help it since they were talking about sensitive topics such as death and love. Romantic flick or not, as long as I got teary-eyed or it made me laugh 'till my stomach's hurting, that's a good movie for me.

I also like movies where I can learn something from them, such as one country's culture, trivias and other interesting facts which you don't normally encounter in an everyday classroom setting. For this movie, I learned about Verona, in particular the existence of Juliet's wall and her secretaries called the Club di Giuletta, and that also of the place 23 Via Capello. Yes, the thing about them dividing the letters according to language and romantic problems is also true. Also, the film also mentioned about Italy being a home to the best wines, cheese and other food Victor (Sophie's fiance) never failed to mention in the story.

the wall where lovers write a letter to Juliet

And the ice cream scene was just so sweet which really made me want to put ice cream on someone else's face :)))

cheeziest and sweetest scene in the film :)

What I not failed to notice is the story's emphasis on the fact that this thing called love seem to transcend cultural and geographical boundaries, that everyone could actually speak this language despite their own native tongues. Look at Charlie's grandmother and his Lorenzo Bartolini. She's British and Lorenzo's Italian. Same thing goes with Sophie and Charlie -a Newyorker ended up with a British native. The two couple aims to better highlight the universality of this four-letter-word feeling, as shown by the letters to Juliet received from different parts of the world.

Never mind the corny ending, from climbing balconies to the use of a bunch of adverbs to describe one's feelings and the lame misunderstanding ("there were two Patricias!". Still, I recommend this film if you just want to unwind, entertain yourself or reconnect with your hopeless romantic side (haha). To begin with, the story's really not centered on how lovely the city of Verona is but it's rather on something that up 'till now still sells despite the corny factor: destiny and love. What are the odds of you finding your soulmate or true love since you happen to be in the right place at the right time?

From here, 'Letters To Juliet' join the ranks of 'The Notebook', 'The Proposal', 'Step Up, 'She's The Man' and all the other decent romantic flicks out there.

From here, Italy, the city of Verona, Milan, Venice, and Rome joins the list of my top places I would love to visit someday.

From here, I'll begin to acknowledge that some things are really not just a coincidence, that life was meant to surprise us and we all have our moments in our lives where we want to say "Grazie Destino!" out loud. But of course finding a 50-yr old letter that would change your life or realizing during your pre-honeymoon that your fiance's not the right guy for you isn't the only surprising thing in the world so I say let's keep the door open :)

And yeah. France, like New York, might be overrated. :))

*pictures taken from here.