I’ve been feeling this way a lot lately. Work has been really torturous, the ride home even more so, and by the time I get home I almost always make a beeline for my bed and flop down without even changing my clothes. I suppose this is also a downside of having a screwed-up body clock–I get tired more quickly. Ah well, my mind is more awake at night and I am nothing but a slave to the schedule it chooses to follow.

Not far from our office is a nice little corner where the trees, the sky, the houses, and the electric lines make a picturesque scene, or so I think. That corner is the photo above, of course, as seen through my eyes. Every afternoon, at sunset (at least on days I get off early enough to catch it), the scene is sometimes, for me, breathtaking.

It’s little slices of heaven like these that somehow, some way, make the stress of the day melt away–even for just a few moments.

The movie Lolita is one of the most thought-provoking films I’ve seen in a long time. In a society where “pedophiles” are, more often than not, thought of as monsters, it’s quite unnerving to find yourself at the other side–understanding, even sympathizing, with one. The movie was narrated in the voice of Humbert, a man who falls in love with his landlady’s (and later, wife’s) 12-year-old daughter.

The movie blurs the line of morality. Is it really wrong to fall in love with a child? And is someone as young as Lolita can be held responsible for her acts? The character’s ages tell us clearly who is to blame, and yet it is true that adults can be foolish, and that children can grow up faster than their years. In cases such as that, wherein the child manipulates the adult, and the adult loses his wits, who really is at fault?

Lolita (brilliantly played by Dominique Swain) has an attitude comparable to that of a toddler’s–curious, testing her limits, knowing her power, taking advantage. She knows she has Humbert wrapped around her finger, and she uses his fixation as a means to get what she wants: money, privileges, treats. And yet in the midst of it all she remains childish–she pulls faces, she moans, stamps her feet and screams her lungs out when she doesn’t get what she wants. One minute she’s laughing innocently at a newspaper cartoon, the next, making love with her stepfather. Such displays of innocence lead one to think that, like most adolescents, Lolita hardly knows what she’s doing, or the consequences of her actions–though she may claim otherwise.

The quote above is one of the ones I liked best from this movie. I’m thinking of painting them on a pair of shoes sometime soon, though I do think my mother will be horrified when she reads it, haha.

Happy hearts’ day to everyone, especially to K.

I will try to upload as much as I can this week (probably V-day related, I have several stuff that I have floating about in my brain for days now). Been really busy with work but I’m enjoying my work so far.

Have a great day everyone.

There’s too much crap in the world to add your own–at least that’s how I see it. If you’re not careful, all the negativity everyone spews out can get through you and bring you down. Smile–even in the face of something really ugly, there will always be something to feel good about. The laughter of friends, the stolen glance of your lover. Choose the people you spend time with: keep the good in and repel the bad. Negative people can suck the energy right out of you before you even know what’s happening. Open your eyes. The reasons to be happy are all around you.

You just have to be open-minded enough to see it.

Quote by Jules Combarieu

They say that a person’s room says a lot about them. I think the same could be said about hard drives–they are repositories of a person’s interests: what they love, what occupies their time. :3 K’s, for example, is filled with mp3 files of music he loves, or of his own compositions, or of his band’s performances. The percentage that music files fill up in my computer probably won’t even reach 10 percent. Instead, movies, photos, and illustrations clog up my disk space.

I am probably the most tone-deaf person I know (the fact that I was a choir member way back when doesn’t count–I was friends with most of the members and they accepted me right away, without even having to audition, haha), but that doesn’t stop me from loving music some. A lot of people I know spend the most part of the day with earphones plugged into their ears, but I find this really disconcerting. When I can’t hear the sounds of the city–buses honking, engines roaring, cars screeching–I feel like the world is on mute and I am in the spotlight.

Until now whenever someone asks me what kind of music I like, I still have trouble trying to find the right answer. I am not particular with genres or decades, and I am not partial to any singer or band. The songs I like best (such as XTC’s Then She Appeared and Rolling Stones’ She’s Like a Rainbow) are songs that I’ve heard from TV shows, movies, and videos that I liked.

The real pleasure of music, for me, doesn’t come from just listening to it. It comes from being a part of the experience and not merely an audience–you may be the composer, or the guitarist, or the singer. I’m no good at singing, of course.

But I find that it’s more fun to sing your heart out when you don’t have to worry about hitting the right notes.