Karaoke, or How I Reinforced My Inability To Sing.
Went karaoke-ing with the clique today, and man my throat is going to kill me tomorrow I swear. Thank god for emergency Strepsils Extra! :D
I've decided that I shall not sing Slave 4 U anymore, because I stunned the entire room when I did Britney's "oh~".
The worst part is nobody suspected me:
"OMG WHO DID THAT?"
"JIA YI IT WAS YOU RIGHT?!"
"What!? No!"
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...."
while I was like "... :D! ME IT WAS ME!" -waves hand-
And I earnt myself a "Ohmaigod, Julian!" <3
Lessee... We sang a lot of english songs mostly. I'm stunned that they can't sing some of the songs, and more stunned to know that they can't sing some of my favourite songs. ): And I was super sad that they didn't have TABOO by Koda Kumi cause I was really looking forward to that!
Yeah I know right? I CAN SING IT OKAY. BELIEVE ME.
Instead, we went through multiple rounds of Britney Spears, Beyonce, Gwen Stefani, Kelly Clarkson, Adam Lambert, Jay Chou (免费教学录影带 is love! and I don't even listen mto most chinese songs) and one Madonna song (I think!) and finally a few of Gaga's because I INSISTED. There was Rihanna also, and Sean Kingston, and ONE Scandal song, a few S.H.E. classics and before I left, I managed to squeeze in ONE Utada Hikaru song that wasn't my favourite but better than nothing. so the playlist went something like:
I'm a Slave 4 U
Gimme More (yeah, grreeeeaaaaat fun singing this one...)
Circus
ROLLING STAR
菊花台
Celebration
Bad Romance
Paparazzi
Poker Face
热带雨林
Walk Away
Halo
If I were a boy
中国话
I know right, great fun. But I swear I did a lot of the singing because I was the highest. Which goes back to my throat hating me. sorry buddy, but you owe me too for being ridiculously limited in range. Are we even now? No, not by a long shot.
Anyway, Rachel and I had a hilarious time trying to catch up with Yui because she's got mutant lungs and can sing 3543413 verses on one breath, and because even though I'm average at reading hiragana, I'm below average on katakana and downright rubbish at Kanji. So it was like "NANANANANANANANANA--" And an entire verse in hiragana and katakana appears, "--THERE'S A GOD!"
And please I don't want to talk about Summer Song. I started picking up on the lyrics at maybe the last 3 verses. LIKEWOAH, NOOB.
So end of the story: I cannot sing. I've got NO range, NO talent, NO... err... interest and last of all NO ear for tone.
I'm totally key/note/tone-deaf. That's probably an understatement, but you get the point.
On a possibly unrelated note, I also went book-shopping today, which means I am officially broke! I mean, what did I expect, buying two books in a swoop. In addition, I also borrowed JiaEn's 1984 to update my already grim view of the world. If that doesn't make me one very happy girl I'm beyond hope. So now I have three books on my desk in addition to whatever I borrowed from the library -- and I will continue borrowing Camus from the library until they stop charging $41~ for a fricking EIGHTY-FIVE (85!) page novel. Nonsense has to end somewhere -- and that makes the number of unread books shoot to... I dunno, a lot: Le Premier Homme, Mr Palomar, The Plague, The Path To The Spider's Nest, 1984, Notes From Underground and Tale of Two Cities. Sadly, I decided Anna Karenina is boring, even though I think it'd have made a good topic for conversation. I, for one, adore the way the name Anna Karenina just rolls off the tongue like a sweet. It's a gorgeous name.
The story however is not so gorgeous :/
And instead of reading my unread library books (see first four books in list) I'm doing things like rereading The Hours: one of the most depressing books I do not own, but also, inexplicably or therefore, my favourite. I still adore Laura Brown the most, mainly because of just how conflicted and yearning she is; Mrs Woolf comes in second for being uncertain; Clarissa is last because she's the only character left. Still, I will never get over just how much I empathise with the book: dreaming of grandeur, thinking of oneself as someone meant for better things, wishing one could just be content and not yearning, knowing that in the end, that there will be another hour after this and another after that, and that no matter how screwed and fucked up (sorry, best word!) life becomes, it will still go on because time is blind, fair and just.
Also, is there anyone I can hold a debate with over the Oxford comma? Anyone?
I think this quote can just about become my life:
"First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable."
I suspect the entirety of The Hours was based on this quote. Seriously, it should be.
I can also go on for hours (haha, hours) about how beautifully punctuated this quote is -- the semi-colon dear lord, so perfect! Two related yet independent clauses, joined! -- and how it reminds me acutely of Invisible Cities, where there is a city built to have every facet of itself reflected in its canals and rivers below, where "eyes locked" they may observe each other constantly, "but there is no love between them".
Speaking of which, I should get my Invisible Cities back. I adore that book! Even though my brother assures me it is depressing and that when I grow older I will come to wonder how was it I could bear to read it so young, about lives and youth slipping away, about signs repeating themselves just so they will exist...
Also, I should think finished Mrs Dalloway was one of my smartest moves. And I don't make many smart moves cause I'm not smart. Now that you actually know what it's based loosely off on, you can fully appreciate the glorious genius of Cunningham (whom I made fun of passingly to JiaEn: "oh look, welcome to the family!" says Papa Ham) in The Hours, where each character is somehow or another a character in Mrs Dalloway. The fact that you can spot it out and the fact that they are alike but not the same and so perfect in the story makes me glow with happiness each time. Is it bad that I'm smiling like a schoolgirl in love even though I'm reading a depressing book?
Yes I love books, but it is also a doomed love because I'm in love with the books that have survived the decades and centuries and hordes of frenetic readers and reviewers and have come to be respected but strangely not fully loved (yes, that was a The Hours reference!) like a purring, feral cat that is adorable and lovely to hold, but is likely to expose you through wounds to the world. But that's okay, I mean everybody knows: I'm a cynic and a pessimist, and though I try, I do not always see the beauty in the sunset, sunrise and each brand new day.
I wonder what went wrong, but then I decide: nothing, except me.
Also, if I don't stop editing this post, I'll officially become my own Minitrue. Yeah.
I've decided that I shall not sing Slave 4 U anymore, because I stunned the entire room when I did Britney's "oh~".
The worst part is nobody suspected me:
"OMG WHO DID THAT?"
"JIA YI IT WAS YOU RIGHT?!"
"What!? No!"
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA...."
while I was like "... :D! ME IT WAS ME!" -waves hand-
And I earnt myself a "Ohmaigod, Julian!" <3
Lessee... We sang a lot of english songs mostly. I'm stunned that they can't sing some of the songs, and more stunned to know that they can't sing some of my favourite songs. ): And I was super sad that they didn't have TABOO by Koda Kumi cause I was really looking forward to that!
Click to viewYeah I know right? I CAN SING IT OKAY. BELIEVE ME.
Instead, we went through multiple rounds of Britney Spears, Beyonce, Gwen Stefani, Kelly Clarkson, Adam Lambert, Jay Chou (免费教学录影带 is love! and I don't even listen mto most chinese songs) and one Madonna song (I think!) and finally a few of Gaga's because I INSISTED. There was Rihanna also, and Sean Kingston, and ONE Scandal song, a few S.H.E. classics and before I left, I managed to squeeze in ONE Utada Hikaru song that wasn't my favourite but better than nothing. so the playlist went something like:
I'm a Slave 4 U
Gimme More (yeah, grreeeeaaaaat fun singing this one...)
Circus
ROLLING STAR
菊花台
Celebration
Bad Romance
Paparazzi
Poker Face
热带雨林
Walk Away
Halo
If I were a boy
中国话
I know right, great fun. But I swear I did a lot of the singing because I was the highest. Which goes back to my throat hating me. sorry buddy, but you owe me too for being ridiculously limited in range. Are we even now? No, not by a long shot.
Anyway, Rachel and I had a hilarious time trying to catch up with Yui because she's got mutant lungs and can sing 3543413 verses on one breath, and because even though I'm average at reading hiragana, I'm below average on katakana and downright rubbish at Kanji. So it was like "NANANANANANANANANA--" And an entire verse in hiragana and katakana appears, "--THERE'S A GOD!"
And please I don't want to talk about Summer Song. I started picking up on the lyrics at maybe the last 3 verses. LIKEWOAH, NOOB.
So end of the story: I cannot sing. I've got NO range, NO talent, NO... err... interest and last of all NO ear for tone.
I'm totally key/note/tone-deaf. That's probably an understatement, but you get the point.
On a possibly unrelated note, I also went book-shopping today, which means I am officially broke! I mean, what did I expect, buying two books in a swoop. In addition, I also borrowed JiaEn's 1984 to update my already grim view of the world. If that doesn't make me one very happy girl I'm beyond hope. So now I have three books on my desk in addition to whatever I borrowed from the library -- and I will continue borrowing Camus from the library until they stop charging $41~ for a fricking EIGHTY-FIVE (85!) page novel. Nonsense has to end somewhere -- and that makes the number of unread books shoot to... I dunno, a lot: Le Premier Homme, Mr Palomar, The Plague, The Path To The Spider's Nest, 1984, Notes From Underground and Tale of Two Cities. Sadly, I decided Anna Karenina is boring, even though I think it'd have made a good topic for conversation. I, for one, adore the way the name Anna Karenina just rolls off the tongue like a sweet. It's a gorgeous name.
The story however is not so gorgeous :/
And instead of reading my unread library books (see first four books in list) I'm doing things like rereading The Hours: one of the most depressing books I do not own, but also, inexplicably or therefore, my favourite. I still adore Laura Brown the most, mainly because of just how conflicted and yearning she is; Mrs Woolf comes in second for being uncertain; Clarissa is last because she's the only character left. Still, I will never get over just how much I empathise with the book: dreaming of grandeur, thinking of oneself as someone meant for better things, wishing one could just be content and not yearning, knowing that in the end, that there will be another hour after this and another after that, and that no matter how screwed and fucked up (sorry, best word!) life becomes, it will still go on because time is blind, fair and just.
Also, is there anyone I can hold a debate with over the Oxford comma? Anyone?
I think this quote can just about become my life:
"First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable."
I suspect the entirety of The Hours was based on this quote. Seriously, it should be.
I can also go on for hours (haha, hours) about how beautifully punctuated this quote is -- the semi-colon dear lord, so perfect! Two related yet independent clauses, joined! -- and how it reminds me acutely of Invisible Cities, where there is a city built to have every facet of itself reflected in its canals and rivers below, where "eyes locked" they may observe each other constantly, "but there is no love between them".
Speaking of which, I should get my Invisible Cities back. I adore that book! Even though my brother assures me it is depressing and that when I grow older I will come to wonder how was it I could bear to read it so young, about lives and youth slipping away, about signs repeating themselves just so they will exist...
Also, I should think finished Mrs Dalloway was one of my smartest moves. And I don't make many smart moves cause I'm not smart. Now that you actually know what it's based loosely off on, you can fully appreciate the glorious genius of Cunningham (whom I made fun of passingly to JiaEn: "oh look, welcome to the family!" says Papa Ham) in The Hours, where each character is somehow or another a character in Mrs Dalloway. The fact that you can spot it out and the fact that they are alike but not the same and so perfect in the story makes me glow with happiness each time. Is it bad that I'm smiling like a schoolgirl in love even though I'm reading a depressing book?
Yes I love books, but it is also a doomed love because I'm in love with the books that have survived the decades and centuries and hordes of frenetic readers and reviewers and have come to be respected but strangely not fully loved (yes, that was a The Hours reference!) like a purring, feral cat that is adorable and lovely to hold, but is likely to expose you through wounds to the world. But that's okay, I mean everybody knows: I'm a cynic and a pessimist, and though I try, I do not always see the beauty in the sunset, sunrise and each brand new day.
I wonder what went wrong, but then I decide: nothing, except me.
Also, if I don't stop editing this post, I'll officially become my own Minitrue. Yeah.