Have you ever been alone in a crowded room when I'm here with you?

Have you ever been alone in a crowded room; well I'm here with you...

I also have something interesting to post. About flux in life. But I will do that later. I am posting to remind myself that I had something to post about.

I recently attempted to have an MSN conversation with one of my friends without using any contractions. It was an interesting experience; I never noticed how much more forceful one sounds when one does not use contractions. See what I mean? It makes your speech very deliberate. You are not supposed to use contractions in English essays and I think that it is partly the reason why English essays can sometimes sound pretentions. Imagine if I did not use contractions in everyday life. I am already aware of how odd this post sounds if I were to read it aloud.

Boxing Week sales really functionally serve one purpose for me. Film buying. I was thinking of attempting to add "clothes buying" to that list since it's been years since I last updated my wardrobe but one look at all the clothing stores was enough to convince me otherwise. All in all though, I have now in possession Knocked Up, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, The Bridge to Terabithia, and Grease. All for affordable prices too.

So, when they're filming a movie like Knocked Up for example or How To Deal, that involves some sort of birth, where do they get the baby from? Do they just pop into a maternity ward and find some random pregnant woman and say "Do you mind if we use your newborn in our film" or something?

Also, I feel that if you've gone and done something like set your status to "Xyz is excited for Christmas in 3 days!!!" or "Xyx is counting down the days till Christmas... 3 more to go!!!" you have a moral responsibility to update your status every day and adjust the number accordingly. Seriously, I can't stand people who still have that status TODAY.

"You should take some cake!" - Female Parental Unit
"Why on earth would I do that? It's a mango cake composed predominantly of mango fruit and mango flavored cream... and I don't like mangos" - Jon Wong
"When you were at Denise's house a few years ago they served you mango cake didn't they? And you still ate it" - Female Parental Unit
"Yes I did. And since then, I have decided that life is too short to eat unpleasant tasting desserts for the sake of being polite" - Jon Wong

I'm sure people will disagree with me but think about it. Really think about it. You're telling me that for sake of "being polite" I should forcibly consume something I don't like that's not even beneficial to my health? I'm all for class and manners but I feel as if all these behaviors have to be justifiable to those who disagree with them. And I disagree with this "manner" that we should forcibly consume dessert we don't like. And no one has been able to justify why we should do this beyond saying "it's polite". Give me a break. The whole point of serving dessert is to allow your guests to indulge in some pleasant tasting food. Nourishment isn't even a factor behind eating dessert. With a main course, you could say that while good tasting food is better than bad tasting food, we fundamentally eat to be nourished. So obviously, we find ways to nourish ourselves in the most pleasant of ways (i.e. with good tasting food that makes the nourishment process pleasant). But dessert has nothing to do with nourishment. It's pure indulgence. So tell me, would you feel better knowing that I am forcibly consuming unhealthy food whose original design is for indulgence against the better judgement of my taste buds? That's pretty stupid. So no, unless someone gives me a better argument than "it's polite," no.

I will post something of interest later.

Year in and year out, around the time of the This Year In Baseball awards, I can never help thinking about how stupid fans are when voting for the Blooper of the Year. All other categories can be argued but man, the yearly winners of the Blooper of the Year award never ceases to speak to me about the type of aesthetic tastes 9.6 million voters have.

Why is it that I only post on here when I have something to complain/rant about? I guess that's not completely true. Sometimes I post about interesting things. But a lot of the times, bad feelings find their way into blog posts. What is it about me these days? Has it really been that long since something's happened in my life that's so good it's worth posting about? Cause I feel as if I would... post I mean, about good stuff. But I'm thinking back on these past months and... nothing. Oh I've had days where I've felt BETTER than others and I guess I've had temporary flits of happiness every so often. I've not smiled from a thought lately. You know what I'm talking about? Like when funny stuff happens in life and when I hang around with friends, sure, I smile plenty. Sometimes I even laugh. But that's all momentary stuff you know? I always knew when I was genuinely happy with life because I'll think about things that make me smile. That's what they mean isn't it, when they talk about smiling for no reason. It's not that you're smiling for no reason, you're just not smiling because of your current situation but rather, smiling because you've conjured up something in your mind that's recently happened that brought a smile to your face. Happy thoughts you know? But when I let my mind wander these days, I don't think of happy thoughts. In all honesty, I don't think of much and when I do, it's about something that concerns me. Jesus christ, this must be what depression feels like.

Ugh... don't kill yourself emo kid.

I seem to have developed a habit of mocking my self indulgence.

I decided this holiday season, in between Christmas shopping and seeing friends and all, I was going to watch all my favorite films at some point or another. So far, I've covered Sin City, High School Musical, Donnie Darko, and earlier tonight, Garden State! Man, every time I see that film and especially that tap dancing scene, everything around me just... blanks.

Next up, The Girl Next Door and A Walk To Remember.

So I'm sitting here at my computer and suddenly feel like listening to music. Like an idiot, I had forgotten my headphones in Kingston, but sitting nearby were the headphones I bought for my mother last Christmas. Now unlike my own headphones, these are no ordinary, run-of-the-mill headphones. Being Christmas and all (and the fact that she's my mother), I had invested in a pair of comically expensive, high-quality headphones. But anyway, she's not using them at the moment so I put these headphones on and...

Holy crap, it's like all the organs in my ear experienced a collective orgasm.

A few days ago, I recently watched my scheduled installment of High School Musical. For those who wonder what the aforementioned "scheduled installment" refers to, basically, I watch this film 3 times a year prior to each lengthy break in the school year: Christmas, Reading Week, and Summer. Unscheduled screenings happen from time to time (Karen Au) but for the most part, yeah. But speaking of Karen Au, we get into a debate every so often about what constitutes an admirable singing voice. Karen has this thing for projection (correct me if I'm wrong) and will every so often chastise singers for their inability to shatter glasses with their voices. For me, projection is not a primary determinant in singing prowess. I feel as if a girl who could project her voice would intimidate the hell out of me if she sang in front of me in real life. At the same time, I too have certain "do or die" qualities I require to be in every voice I consider to be great:

1. Vibrato - vibrato is key (get it? get?! har har har). Erhm. Yes. Like most things, I don't like vibrato when it's overused (read: opera singers) but one of the qualities that instantly sets people apart is their ability to hold a vibrato at appropriate intervals. For those who don't know what a vibrato is... basically, when good singers hold a note, you can hear the note vibrate/it sounds wavy. Usually, this happens at the end of a line. This is what sets singers that I like from opera singers. Singers that I like will hold notes mid-line without vibrato and hold them at the end with vibrato, opposed to opera singers, who manage to insert vibrato into even the shortest of notes held.

2. Effortless hitting of high notes - anyone can hit a high note. Some people can hit them better than others. And some people are so good they can leap (not easy in and of itself) and hit high notes without effort or at least without sounding like they're putting in effort. Cause when you don't have to strain your vocal chords, the notes come out clean and pure. And leaping up to high notes can sound very good if you can make it sound easy.

3. The ability to sing in harmony - anyone can sing the main melody. But someone who can sing in harmony with a main melody can make a duet sound so much richer that I consider it an essential quality in any voice I consider to be on par with greatness. It's actually harder than it sounds because you have a sing a third or a fifth either above or below the main melody and it takes a great deal of practice to be able to hear the melody and sing with it without actually singing the melody itself. Trust me; I have attempted at singing said harmony. It's a pain in the ass if you're not used to it. Believe it or not, church choir actually trains you to be able to do this quite well.

Those I feel are 3 qualities that set the great singers apart from the decent or good singers. Because let's be honest. As long as you can sing in tune and are not tone deaf, you're a decent singer if you stay within your vocal range.

Every so often, things happen that remind me how much I hate the single life. And please, none of this "relationships are overrated" bullshit. You'd be a cynic to say that and I'd lose respect for your opinion anyway.

Every morning if I'm on the road, I hear on the news about an "overturned tractor trailer" that's blocking the road. Every morning; no joke. And it's always an overturned tractor trailer. I'm on the road on my way back from Kingston yesterday in terrible weather. Poor visibility, slippery roads, my dad's driving at like 60-70 kph on the freeway and what do I see? Tractor trailers (multiple) speed by me at like 100-120 kph. That's so stupid on so many levels I'm surprised they haven't banned tractor trailers on the freeway. Just think about it for a minute. Every day, one of these things flips and blocks traffic. And yet, every single speeding vehicle on the freeway is a tractor trailer. I can't stand it. Like I just can't stand it.

So a girl on flixter, condescends from her throne to give The Ring half a star and says "got a low rating cos i had nightmares about the girl coming out the tv for about a month.... great i wont sleep to night!"

So you're critcizing a horror film for being too scary? I'm sorry, I think my brain cell count just dropped. I need to stop reading flixter reviews.

Seriously, people need to stop complaining about the crappy shape of our world if they're not going to go out and make it a better place. That is my mantra for future students; make the world a better place or fail my class. But you have to understand how the world works to change it right? That's where my job comes in. I think it was Burke who said that it's lunacy to simply rip out an existing society just because it's flawed. Society would come crumbling down if we did that. Change must be slow to some extent. You have to understand and operate within the system first before you try to change it. So no, don't go out and bring a homeless person into your house to make the world a better place because quite frankly, your parents would freak out. That's like ripping out an existing order and shoving in something new that the existing people are not prepared for. That's tough to understand because people tend to lean themselves to either end of the spectrum: complacency or radical change. Quite frankly, both ideas are ridiculous. I said make the world a better place; not change the world overnight. It's going to take time but in the end, I think most people, if they're brought up to be compassionate, open-minded, and unselfish, will find that the juice is worth the squeeze.

Once you're financially secure (because like any realist, we must keep in mind that the stomach comes first; you're not changing anything if you're always hungry), you need to take a good hard look at yourself. I should hope that most people are happy. Like if I were financially secure and had a good family, I think I'd be happy. It's important to remember though, that just because you're happy doesn't mean you have a right to stop making the world a better place. Because that's called complacency. And it's very easy to be complacent when you're happy; when things in your life are going well. Right? It's much easier to say "I'm going to make the world a better place" when you're acutely aware of how much life can suck (read: when you're unhappy). But we can't lose ourselves in the simple fact that we're happy. I'm in no way imaginable condemning the state of happiness. I think it's a very pleasant state to be in and it's certainly much easier to be compassionate, open-minded, and unselfish when you're happy. It's just also much easier to be complacent when you're happy; to think that the world is an alright place; which it is, especially if you're not alone. But the world could be a better place. And it's up to us to make that difference.

So make the world a better place or fail my class.

Also, happy birthday Denise, despite the fact that you will never read this.

Advantage of being in Con-Ed and ranting about the failures of our education system on a daily basis to my housemate: I can pull an all nighter, write an entire semester's worth of reflections on each class, practicum, and assigned readings for my music ed class and still get comments like "these are thoughtful, insightful reflections" on the assignment. Either I'm good or there's a serious flaw somewhere.

The problem with a 7 PM exam is that you basically finish preparing for it the night before. I mean, unless you're seriously strapped for time (which for me would mean having 2 or more exams on the same day or on consecutive days), most people wouldn't go to bed the night before an exam thinking "I'll finish studying stuff that I haven't covered tomorrow before the exam". At the same time, even if you're prepared for the 7 PM exam, you don't really feel like you're allowed to do stuff before the exam except review. This is why 2 PM exams are the optimal time.

"Kind of a ridiculous plot, they threw glasses and baggy clothes on a hot girl and took them off and she was hot"

That's just one of the comments I keep reading that outline the same point. That people seem to criticize film makers for not casting ugly people in a film where "inner beauty" plays a role. Now look, I admit that there's truth in that criticism. It's kind of difficult to accept the moral point in a film if the "ugly" person with a good soul isn't actually "ugly". But people who criticize film directors for this always overlook one fundamental point of film making. You can't just cast ugly people in a film and expect it to sell. This is especially true in films where part of the plot involves seeing the inner beauty in people. Now I know, this makes me and the rest of the movie watching public seem incredibly shallow but it's a truth that you can't ignore. You cannot bombard people who go to SEE a film with main characters who are not visually appealing. It's the same reason why you can't have people with bad voices be in musicals. It's why Troy Bolton in High School Musical, along with the rest of his basketball crew claim that they don't sing when they really actually have good voices. It's the same reason they cast Mandy Moore as Jamie Sullivan in A Walk To Remember. It's the same reason why they uglified Charlize Theron in Monster to play her part, even though she's actually good looking. When you're making a film that people are going to watch as fictional, for entertainment, you just can't ignore the fact that people like to see the person with a good soul be also good looking at the same time. It's part of FICTION. It's part of why we make films. If it's too realistic, we might as well go live our lives and videotape that. Sure, we could make the film a lot more realistic but then you might as well call it a documentary.

Human beings are the only animals that drink milk post-infancy. Apparently, it's biologically inane for us to be doing this because milk, which is a base, partially neutralizes our important stomach acids. You know how you can mix vinegar and baking soda to get an explosive chemical reaction? Yeah... something like that on a very small scale happens every time we drink milk.

Dah! The house is completely devoid of snacks and I'm starving! Seriously, I can't even snack on my current breakfast cereal because... I don't know; somehow I don't see Raisin Bran as snack food. Should have gone with Mini Wheats.

Also, occassion cards have a serious superfluity of blank space. I buy a Christmas card and aside from the little message written in the center of the second page, it's completely blank! And me being me, I feel an obligation to fill all the blank space. Sometimes, this leads to creative results but I honestly think there's too much blank space in these cards. Decorative pictures and stuff would be helpful.

My housemate is taking far too long to finish his dinner date. I swear, I've been hungry since 6 and I've still not eaten dinner because I'm too nice to intrude into his dinner and demand the usage of the rice pot.