theCollectiveUs

Stupid moment of the week:

I sent out some forms and a check by post because I couldn’t endorse them electronically. I went to the trouble of printing the forms, then buying stamps and locating a post box just to send them out.

First, I got a call saying I forgot to sign the forms.

Then I got a call saying I forgot to sign the cheque.

…

I’ll be resending them tomorrow.

Last Christmas, my mom gave me (and a friend actually) this book of inspirational messages. There are 365 of them, one for each day of the week. Today’s is about being happy so I thought I’d share it.

并非孤身一人。一切也能坚强地克服过，转换成为“幸福”。 确信着这件事，变能明朗地浦现无现的勇气，没有任何恐惧的事情。“不畏惧的人”才是“幸福的人。

It translates to

You’re not alone. It’s within your power to transform things in your favor. Believe in that and you’ll have limitless courage; there’s nothing that would faze you. The most blessed people are those with no fears.

I like how poetic the chinese sounds.

Because I can’t get to sleep, I’ve been reading horoscopes. I’m still unconvinced that the millions of people born under the same star sign would share similar fates and personality traits but apparently, I do possess the ones that my Chinese Zodiac sign are most prominent for.

This is one of my favorite Disney songs from one of my favorite Disney movies.

I’m in love with this song that I can’t find anywhere. It’s by an indie band called The Real Tuesday Weld and the song’s titled Sweetest Songs. You can get a listen here on their MySpace page. It’s really gorgeous and reminds me of being 15 and sitting on the doorsteps in the rain at 20 degrees Celsius and waiting for the mailman.

I tried to look for the song online but to no avail. I can buy it off iTunes but it’s not available in the iTunes Singapore shop.

The band has a pretty good collection of very sad-sounding songs. The sort I like to listen to that are very much in the same vein as the Eels. I like the toy piano instrumentals in the background (my term for it, not necessarily true).

At least 3 people are disgusted with the collection of music I have at home. The internet and Napster became widespread when I was in my early teens but I liked owning CDs enough to actually save money to buy them. I still do like listening to most of the CDs so it’s not like I’ve come to a point where I feel disgusted at owning certain albums. I’m glad I’ve never gotten into the whole “You treat me like a rose/ You give me room to grow” phase.

In High School, I acquired music including

• Classic Disney Vol 1-4
• The Beach Boys All Summer Long
• You’ve Got Mail OST (I maintain it’s a great collection of songs)
• Shania Twain The Woman in Me
• Shania Twain
• Shania Twain Come On Over (You get the idea…)
• HAL Extremis feat. Gillian Anderson (very cool techno stuff)

Then in Junior College, I got

• Matchbox Twenty Yourself or Someone Like You
• Bardot (I won this because I liked their songs but not enough to want to pay for the album)
• Nirvana, Pretty much all their albums
• Suede Head Music
• Robbie Williams Swing When You Are Winning
• The Beach Boys Christmas
• The Eels Electroshock Blues

And then in University, I started on

• The Eels – Everything else
• They Might be Giants – Discography
• Brian Wilson Presents Smile
• Green Day Nimrod
• Michael Buble (Ok I lost this album so I can’t remember what it’s called)
• Brian Setzer Orchestra
• Apparently, a lot of Nightwish and Within Temptation

Especially in University,  I find myself connecting certain memories with certain songs that I’d play. I can’t bring myself to play Matchbox Twenty after graduation because it brings back very bad memories of this particular period of  time where I’d be sitting on the same spot on my bed for 18 hours at a go in 34 degrees Celsius in my room which has only 1 miserably small window, trying to figure out some programming assignment.

Listening to the song Push is enough for me to taste Campbell Cream of Chicken soup in my mouth and it’s forever associated with this particular moment where I am in this pink tee, just after a shower, staring at my computer and doing my work at 11pm on a Sunday night where I’ve a box fan blowing at my back. I stare out the window and the moonless night is illuminated with lights at the food court at the foot of my hostel block. I’d sit there for the next 4 hours and then decide to have a snack of tasteless Meiji crackers. Flying ants will start appearing, attracted to the light of my notebook at 2 in the morning and I’d end up closing my windows and opening my door to be rid of them. At 4am, I get to bed and wake at 12 the next day where the cycle repeats.

Green Day reminds me of the times when I’d be back from class at 4pm and don’t really want to start on work but have nowhere to go because it’s a Wednesday night. I’d have my door open and I’d be lying on my bed staring at the ceiling with the radio beside my bed on a chair. The fan rotates and rocks on the ceiling above me and I stare. And I stare. I’d do my laundry and be waiting for the dryers in my room while staring at the fan. When the laundry is done, I’ll lay my bed and lie on the warm sheets in the hot afternoon sun and think about doing my homework. I’ll end up starting on an essay and think it’s fairly well-argued and then it’d be 6pm when I’d meet up with a friend at the Business canteen for dinner. This takes up easily an hour and a half of my time and when I get back to my room and have yet another bath, it’d be 8pm.

That’s when I’ll decide to play more Matchbox Twenty.

Hokay… I changed the theme and it’s now a mish-mash of text with almost no distracting pictures and colors because pictures and colors are for babies.

What do you think?

The mind is a powerful tool. I came across this psychiatric disorder:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_pregnancy

after reading this article which I quote

Remember the brouhaha over the story of a woman who didn’t know she was pregnant? Well this is sort of like the exact opposite: doctors performed a C-section to find that the woman wasn’t pregnant at all! The woman reportedly appeared at the hospital with her husband asking for a C-section. A resident in charge made the pregnancy diagnosis and doctors agreed to surgery after trying to induce labor for two days