You know a song is cool when you don't really understand what the lyrics are saying. That said, I think alot of things in life come at a time when its too late. You only get what you want at a time when you don't want it anymore. Such is the irony of life. Bleah.
Its been almost two weeks since my last entry here. That's probably the longest time I'd ever left an active blog hanging without an update.
I find it strange that everytime I meet up with non-medicine people, they always ask me the same question - 'How's medical school?' and I always give them the same answer - 'Like that lor.' I just can't put the frustration and exhaustion into words. But I must say my non-medical school friends have been very very understanding and supportive of my foray into medicine, and everytime I meet up with them, they always help me rediscover some of the passion that's been extinguished by the stress and demands of medical school life.
I will try to smile.
Loads of people are flying off again, so much so that I can't even bloody keep track of who is flying off and WHEN they are flying off. Then again, I'm so busy that I don't think I can really go see people off in the first place. So to anyone who is flying off and still reads this blog, bon voyage and good luck in your studies! Don't get into too much seedy sex, drugs and booze over in the western land of vice!
I went to watch Sodagreen's concert with juniors Xinhui and Yinghong at the Max Pavilion on Saturday! At $150 each, the tickets we had were the most expensive for the night. Its the first time I had ever spent so much on a concert, but nonetheless, it was worthed every cent. I know most music lovers would have chosen to spend their money on tickets to Sing Fest instead, but I'm glad I didn't go squeeze for a place there. Watching Sodagreen was a treat. It was as good as their first ever concert here, which was last year I believe. I went for it as well and I remember being blown away by them then, because of how amazing they sound 'live' and also how friendly and sincere they were! This time round, they were back with a bigger line up, an additional year of experience, and it really showed that in their music and their stage presence. But if you strip away all the fancy pancy stage effects, what matters is still their solid singing and their down-to-earth friendliness.
What I like about them is their unique sound, which is always slightly quirky and not too conventional. It helps that their lead singer Qingfeng has such a high and distinct voice. I love the way that they handle all genres of music, how they can emote with slow, heart wrenching emotional songs and how they can send the crowd wild with their high octane fast numbers. It gives their music a very interesting touch, making them feel bubbly, with a background element of class to them.
Another thing about them is their sincerity. I love the way they do encores. They don't just perform a piece or two of pre-decided, pre-rehearsed songs, they open the floor to the audience for requests and try to their utmost best to give the audience as much as they. And they try to elongate the session by having utterly hilarious conversations with the audience and also bantering among themselves. Very funny.
I enjoyed myself alot at the concert. It was a good breather from the harsh reality of clinical life and a good chance to go to somewhere where absolutely no one from medicine would go, and just let loose. A night of solid music, hilarious entertainment, a night to forget the troubles and worries haunting me, to just immerse myself in the wonderful world of music.
A night I would never forget. Til the next time they perform here! Sodagreen pops!
Thanks to Paul's performance at the 心年快乐 event this afternoon, this song is stuck in my head right now. I know lots of people love the original by Teresa Teng, but I must say I love the Sodagreen version best.
Its a very poignant song, with touching lyrics. I must say I was almost moved to tears this afternoon, not only due to Paul's rendition of this song, but also by David's and Joanna's strings duet of another Teresa Teng classic '月亮代表我的心' (or was it '甜蜜蜜'?) . I must be really really exhausted to feel that way. These two days have been particularly tiring and trying for me, and I have NO idea why. Feels as if I've reached the brink of exhaustion and something is struggling to pull me away from oblivion before I collapse and die.
Anyway, I wish I could sleep now. Exhaustion gives you a horribly short fuse. I hope it doesn't blow anytime soon.
Sidenote: its the end of CNY break, and I feel horribly, horribly depressed. I've never felt so sad about starting school before. But then again, I've never started school after a long break with a whole month of exams and CAs for me to tackle so I guess its only natural for me to feel this damn way.
Just what I need right now, a unbelievably poetic and sappy love song to get me in an emo mood. Anyway, Sodagreen creates some of the most poetic songs in mando-pop ever. Very poetic. This is their first single from their new (3rd) album which just got released in Taiwan in conjunction with their first huge concert or something. The youtube version's not the whole song, just a preview version, but its enough to kill. Sigh. I don't think its out here in Singapore right now, but then again, I've been a hermit for quite some time so my information sources are kinda inaccurate. But I'm definitely going cd-shopping on Thursday or Friday, to have my short break in celebration of the end of the first wave of CAs.
And its raining right now. The heavens are beckoning me to be emo man.
Okay, this is here because Shihui complained that the previous youtube video featuring Sodagreen wasn't even an official new music video. Not wanting to admit defeat (hehe) I found this, which is a new official music video of one of their new songs. I think its the second single from their latest album, but I'm a bit perplexed as to why they didn't film a music video for the first single instead. But oh well, who cares as long as its good music? In stark comparison to the previous song, this one is utterly sappy and overly happy - and strangely, it works, because even cynical old me finds its cheerful infectious melody hard to resist! Which is good, because its time to temporarily shake away the exam blues baby, and be happy and merry for awhile before revertance to exam mode occurs! Woo-hoo!
Its amazing how a single band can produce songs of such extremes: ballads that are so poetic, touching and emotional, and fast tracks that are so happy, cheerful and saccharin-sweat. Amazing.
Anyway, my first three papers for CA1 are over. Now to wait til the last week on November for the final three papers. Immunology and Virology were both pretty challenging papers; Immunology was okay, but Virology was just a killer. They tested us on viruses that weren't even taught and also on specific details that I just never thought they would be evil us to test us on. Oh well, they are over. I just freaking hope I pass both papers with a decent mark. Time to enjoy myself for the next two days before the mugging starts all over again this weekend.
And speaking of enjoyment and oh-so-delightful fun, take a look at this sneak peak of the up and coming episode of Grey's! I'm having a hard time deciding which part is funnier - Meredith's look of abject horror when George and Izzie complain to her about their horrendous love-making; George complaining about Izzie being a porn star; Izzie complaining that George's kisses like a chicken 'Did he peck you like a chicken Mer?' or Cristina's "I'm painting Burke's apartment so that I can stop calling it Burke's apartment. A happy colour ... Red. Like blood." (she really gets the best lines!) Looks like this week's episode of Grey's is going to be a funny funny funny one!
Europe has completely screwed up my internal body clock. I slept at 3am after an excruciating effort to sort out the photos for the Europe trip, in which I only managed to complete the transfer of half of the over 8-9 thousand photos that the 6 of us took. I was half expecting (and hoping) to ignore my alarm (set at 0800) and sleep til noon or something so as to get some well deserved (and sorely needed) sleep. Unfortunately, something inside me must have been unhinged by my 3 weeks in Europe, so much so I woke up quite suddenly at 0750, even before my alarm started to ring. And any effort to drift back into sleep again was thwarted by the blasted alarm that really went off just 10 short minutes later.
So I woke up, all grumpy and mad at myself. Had breakfast and decided to get on with sorting out my photos. Which I managed to complete at around 1030, which was perfect because I felt it was high time I posted an entry about the Europe trip (which I had long expected to be a behemoth of an entry), So I promptly started selecting photos to post with the entry. Unfortunately, due to the sheer amount of photos that the 6 of us managed to accumulate among ourselves, I found myself being unable to finish browsing through the photos. In fact, by lunch time, I had only managed to browse through probably less than half of the photos we took. Feeling quite sick of looking at more photos of Europe, I decided to just lay back on photo selection today and continue another time, so I am happy to announce that that gargantuan entry about Europe will have to be further delayed! (Yaaaaayyyyyyy!)
I met up with the 5 of them yesterday to get the complied photos (housed in 4 DVDs), as well dinner at Cafe Cartel and a movie session (Ocean's Thirteen). It was quite a memorable outing because of several reasons:
1. I found out that Century Eggs are no longer allowed to be sold in S'pore. Yes, horrible isn't it? What will happen to my favourite dim sum and porridge dishes in which century eggs form an essential component of the dish's composition? I suggest we observe a minute of silence for the unfortunate demise of century eggs in the hearts and memories of S'poreans.
2. I learnt (the painful and hard way) that there are a series of small path dividers separating the path from PS to Cathay. I was oblivious to their existence and in my usual neurotic state of mind, swung my leg out at one of them, such that torrents of pain coursed through my poor beaten body when my tibia came into contact with that blasted pillar of unforgiving stone, concrete and cement. I was lucky to escape with nary a bruise, though it shouldn't have been a surprise because of the fact that wizards have a higher threshold for physical injuries.
3. I also learnt that a certain friend and travel mate of mine doesn't like fish. This is a blasphemous thing to say, because, as I am sure everyone can see from that little list of my favourite things located on the left hand column of this blog, you would have noticed that Voldemort happens to love fish. I was also shocked to note that this travel mate of mine is also incapable of telling apart the different species of fish that are commonly served in S'pore, which means that she is unable to tell the difference between say, a garrupa, a pomfret and a sea bass. Which I honestly find appalling because... well, they look so different from each other, don't they!?
4. Ocean's Thirteen was quite okay. I think the movie worked because the amazing chemistry among the cast members, because without the amazing cast, the confusing and rather baffling plot would have crushed the whole movie. I thought it was on par with Ocean's Eleven, didn't watch Ocean's Twelve so I can't really compare with it. But yeah, not bad a movie if you want to have some entertainment.
To cap it off, I present to you another favourite song of mine from Sodagreen. I am particularly fond of the lyrics for this rather depressing song; it manages to articulate some of the feelings I've been having after the rather unfortunate business of parting with someone you thought you could (and would) love for a substantial period of time, but then you just sorta know that you have to. Even if you don't want to. Because she (and probably you yourself)just don't want it to continue anymore.
You can try to convince yourself that you've moved on, but even after a million shrugs of "Oh wells!", you'll still find that empty feeling inside - hoping to be filled once more.
I am listening to Sodagreen's debut album right now! Feeling quite happy about it. Yup, I went out today to search for that album. I was so so so determined to find the album I actually searched a total of 5 different CD stores for it - HMV, Sembawang (is the company closing down?), Gramophone, CD-Rama and That CD Shop, all because I wanted to buy the CD at the cheapest price possible. I've become such a cheapo. Sheesh.
Anyway, I spent a total of 60 bucks on CDs today. I couldn't help it. There were so many CDs on sale, CDs that I wanted to buy ages ago but put the idea off because of either a lack of budget or lack of time or just simply forgot that I wanted to buy that CD, CDs that I never ever heard of but were being sold a dead cheap prices, so you know, you just got to have it... SO SO many to choose from. Argh. I went mad, just taking random CDs of the rack and telling myself that I've gotta have this and that. I'm gonna try and plough trough my whole stack of CDs later, before I go to sleep. Talk about collateral damage, or in this case, collateral purchases.
Its quite amazing that a simple entry on Sodagreen can be updated 3 times in a single day. What can I say? I turn fanatical sometimes. ____________________________________________________
My favourite Sodagreen song, from their debut album. The vocalist of Sodagreen, 吴青峰 is quite erm... niang. I mean, yeah, if you watch most of their MVs, he has really weird stage presence and actions, involving a series of twitches and rather effeminate actions, which looks like spasms or something. But of course, that could be attributed to the fact that they started out as an amateur underground band (which is how the best bands supposedly come about) so they don't really care about fancy moves or anything.
And oh yes, 吴青峰's voice is also awfully high, in fact, I think he may actually be singing in the key for females. That's how unnaturally high his voice is. Crazy. So you can be forgiven if you thought it was a girl singing the songs in the first place. I dunno how he managed to achieve that voice... its just too high for a guy. But oh well. He is talented. Most, if not all, the tunes and lyrics are composed by him. And who cares if he has quirks? Most of the best song writers have strange quirks - 阿信 of Mayday freaks out if his fringe is messed up, and he needs to wear a baseball cap to cover his face whenever he is outdoors; Chris Martin of Coldplay is a vegan even though he looks like he is malnourished or something; John Lennon digs strange, eccentric girls like Yoko Ono; Paul McCartney married Heather Mills (with her prosthetic leg); Green Day's Billy Joe Armstrong puts on mascara; Elton John loves performing with feather boas around his neck... the list goes on.
Sodagreen's music appeals to me, because it reminds me of emo Brit rock, the branch of rock made famous by bands like Oasis, U2, Coldplay and recently, Snow Patrol. Its more mellow, more emotional that American punk rock, or heavy metal for that matter. Which is the kind of music that appeals to my horribly horribly damaged soul of course. *cough* You don't really find much Chinese Bands these days that are in this mould. Other Chinese bands I am fond of, like Mayday or FIR or 南拳妈妈 follows styles that are somewhat different. Mayday used to be quite emo as well, but recently, their style has been evolving into something slightly more American. FIR takes their inspiration from Jap rock. And 南拳妈妈's source of artistic inspiration is mainly from Jay Chou and his brand of hip hop/asian fusion music.
I just wanted to wax lyrical about Sodagreen's songs really. I'm just deliberately postponing that entry about my Europe trip that you guys know, is bound to turn up sooner or later. Sigh. _______________________________________________
I've been listening to way too much 苏打绿 songs these days. For the uninitiated, 苏打绿 (or Sodagreen) is a Taiwanese band that has recently been making waves in the Chinese Pop Scene. In fact, they just won the award for Best Group/Band at the Golden Melody Awards on Saturday, which is sorta equivalent to the Chinese Grammys. And if memory serves me right, this is actually their second time receiving this award. (They won two years ago when they released their debut album then.) Anyway, I like this particular cover of this rather old song. Apparently its for some charity so its released as a single or something. Like the lyrics, and the way they sang it.
Anyone out there with a copy of their debut album? I'm looking for it at various music stores. Can't seem to find it. Hmmmm. So if you do have a copy of it, do me a favour and lend it to me. Yup.
And for the record, I'm still having difficulty with the whole sleeping according to S'pore time thing. Probably goes to show that my body's too in tune with UK time. Hmmm.
Name: voldemort33
XY, 01/06/1987, s'porean typical geminian free-thinker moody & eccentric thinks far too much for his own good med student (be afraid. be very afraid!) demon45_6f@hotmail.com
crazy craves
music (jazz, rock and lounge) day-dreaming drawing & photography animals (sheep!) chocolate and tea! seafood, noodles and soup!
pet peeves
noisy crowds over-possessive, insecure, whiny people two-faced hypocrites housework and homework being called 'rich' rushing to do stuff crying, pesky kids
deepest darkest desires! (aka wishlist!)
to be a doctor (with a heart of gold!) a dog my own condo apartment a driving license and my own four wheel drive my own comic line someone to hug
