Top 12 Songs of 2012... According to Me

Since 2013 is just around the corner, I would like to bid goodbye to 2012 by commemorating some great moments that were created this year (I know, I'm so sweet). Since music has been a supportive friend of mine this 2012, and I enjoy making my own lists... here is my own list of top 12 songs of this year! May we all have a safe, healthy, and wealthy new year!!


12. Feel Again

- Is it just me or does it really resemble the tune of Dog Days (by Florence and the Machine)? It effortlessly sends me to some European town whenever I listen to it.




11. Diamonds

-Being an avid Rihanna fan that I am, a Rihanna song has to be on this list. This is
 the song that I've been singing the most these past three months. This song is also my ultimate jam in the car!



10. Little Things

-All One Direction songs are catchy. What makes this song extra special is that it is written by the genius Ed Sheeran.



09. Anna Sun

-One of those songs that make me pump my fist instinctively just upon hearing its first five seconds. This song was the song that I usually listened to last summer, whenever I walked from the Skytrain station down to Main Street on the way to Evergreen. This song carries with it a bag of colourful summer memories: summer school, meetings with my co-"architects", watching the London Olympics 2012, and spontaneous decisions to treat myself with Oreo McFlurry. Definitely my 2012 summer soundtrack!



08. Thinking About You (Tori Kelly)

-I like Frank Ocean's version, but Tori Kelly's is just.. unbelievably timeless.  I give its lyrics a letter grade of A+, too!



07. We Are Young

-A song that never fails to lift up my spirit. My mum also likes this song. She even sings along with it whenever she hears it (although she sings it with wrong lyrics: "tonigggghhttt, we are oneeeee")



06. Payphone

-A song that my friends and I kept singing every day at lunch break during last two months of the previous school year! Hahaha this song carries a lot of fun memories with it -- good times!



05. Call Me Maybe

-Probably the most overplayed/overexposed song of 2012 (Gangnam Style is the reason why the word "probably" is in there). Although this song was excruciatingly annoying for me at first, I learned to love it.



04. Somebody That I Used To Know

-Another song that seemed annoying to me at first, but ended up being one of my most favourite songs ever. This song has powerful lyrics, too (personal favourite: you can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness)! Phillip Phillip's and Elise Testone's duet of this song was the ultimate reason why this song eventually ended up as one of my favourites.



03. Some Nights

-Another summer song of mine! The harmony and melody of this song are the reasons why I might have this song ingrained in my memory. It is just so fresh and so unlike any other pop song today.



02 Let Me Love You

-One of those songs that make you forget whatever you're doing and effortlessly takes you to a fun, carefree dimension for four minutes! The fact that 10th place has, so far, been its highest place on the Billboard chart makes me question my faith on the world's music taste.



01. Titanium

-I don't think I will ever get tired of listening to/singing this song. Powerful music video, epic melody, and relevant lyrics. What more can I ask for?

Happiness is a Choice

Here I am, awake at 2:25AM, making a painstaking yet rewarding effort ofcreating this weird/senseless/who-reads-it-anyway post (painstaking, because Iknow that this will require an extensive thought organization; rewardingbecause I can finally liberate these smothering thoughts). I have just beenlurking around Twitter and Tumblr for the past hour and I was dazed -- evendisturbed -- that most of the posts were filled with complaints and rants. No, Iam not talking about those political “our government sucks” posts. I amreferring to those people who do not know any better than to blame nature andcircumstances 99 percent of the time.


Tumblr: "I hate my life"
Suffice it to say that I am not in my greatest mood whenever I see postslike this. It actually does not pester me if a person posts somethinglike this once in a while. But to say "I hate my life" online as if itwere the only phrase you know? That's just something that hugely bothers me. How can anyonehate his/her life? If you feel like you're the person I'm talking about,breaking news: life is amazing. It may not be picture-perfect all the time, butobstacles are things everyone has to face. As we travel this road morepopularly known as life, we will encounter numerous stoplights. Red lights maycause us to pause, but green lights will always reappear after a few seconds! Iknow that there are far more people who possess heavier problems than I do, butI am certain that those problems will not exist forever. Some of us are justway too impatient to wait for green light to reappear.


Twitter: (something like) "I am not great enough" or "Whydo I fail at anything I do?"
I understand that each human being has his/her own insecurities. I have myown ones, too. Insecurities are in-born for everyone, I suppose. But I constantlyget annoyed (self-pity can be very annoying in the long run) when people usetheir insecurities as an excuse to be full-time lazy heads and not do anything. They say that because they are "not good at it", there is no reason for them to try anymore. If you are one of those people:  instead of letting your insecurities faze you, why don't you just use them tobring out the best in you? Strive to be a better version of yourself every dayto defeat those voices inside your head that are always shouting "you arenot great enough". I assure you, once you start doing it, life gets a lotmore invigorating.


As cliché as it may sound, life truly has its ups and downs. Acknowledging that fact can already lift a lot of weight off your shoulders.I know that there will always be that one particular day in a year where youjust feel like cursing as many times as you can or hitting your head againstthe wall as hard as you can. It's okay to go through that day. You are a human. You are entitled to be sad, be angry, and cry. The importantthing is that you recover and move on. Do not waste your time focusing on theugliness of one flower if there are a lot more beautiful flowers around you.Happiness is a choice, not a destination. If you want to be happy, then chooseto be happy.


(Side note: Sorry for being a bit negative myself, but myongoing exposure to pessimists inevitably saps my optimism. Pessimism is verycontagious, isn't it?)

Happy February

What have I been up to these past few weeks? Well... the TV and the internet have been my real best friends. YouTube and online episodes of TV shows have been keeping me company every night. I guess it's safe to say that I approximately spend 5 hours a day surfing the internet everyday (yes, including school days.. *insert a sheepish giggle here*). What the heck do keep me glued to these?


1. YouTube. What would my life be without YouTube? Ahhhh it's hard to imagine!! YouTube gives me daily dose of pleasure, laughter, and lessons. YouTube makes my nightly room concerts possible! Lately, I've been so into Rihanna, One Direction, Cher Lloyd, Jessie J, and Coldplay music. From their music videos, to lyric videos, to their live performances -- I can spend an entire day watching all of those! Aside from music, several TV shows are also the reasons why my soul and attention have been so inclined to YouTube. Alan Carr (Chatty Man) and Ellen (The Ellen DeGeneres Show) are very much worth watching every night. Their hilarity and wit are unlike any other!


2. Online TV Episodes. Last Christmas Break (2011), I didn't want to run out of things to do. So I downloaded several movies as well as TV series episodes online. Since then, I've been addicted to Modern Family so much. I only started watching Modern Family when the third season started, so catching up with its episodes from Season 1 by downloading them online is totally one of the best life decisions I've ever made...... (exaggeration). But seriously though, it really is a brilliant show! I really hope that the writers of the show will never run out of creativity and originality!

3. TV. Since I have this mad, almost-obsessed-like love for some artists.... I couldn't let the Grammys and the Brits pass without watching them and giving them my absolute undivided attention... (exaggeration #2). A sudden appreciation for British singers/artists grew in my heart after watching the Grammys, and it grew even more after the Brits! I mean, Adele, Coldplay, Florence & The Machine, Jessie J, James Morrison, Leona Lewis, and the late Amy Winehouse to name a few? Incredible. Not surprisingly, after a day or two, that appreciation turned into ugh-I-want-to-go-to-London-so-bad feeling. That feeling, however, gave me a whole new exhilarating inspiration to give my best in my studies, and to actually start working on my 2012 goals! Awesome, right? From being a crazy fan boy to being an inspired, enthusiastic student? HAHAHAH


4. Blogs. Blog-hopping always elates me. It just never fails to inspire me and teach me something new. For me, blog sites are like magazines and each blog post is a magazine article. Maybe that's why I find joy in blog-hopping; maybe it's because I get to choose the articles that I want to read, without giving so much effort (like flipping pages back and forth), and I can do it for free!

My February is pretty much boring if you'll compare it to others, but honestly, I love how I spent my February! We all have different interpretations of "fun", and I sure found one this past month. This March, however, I want my "fun" to be filled with activties that will finally get my lazy bum moving!!!