Fact, Fiction, Fantasy, Reality

Fact: There is a list called “The Forbes Fictional 15” and its topnotcher is a duck, followed by a vampire, followed by a teenager.

Fiction is, so to speak, something that is either unlikely to happen, or something that hasn’t happened yet. Anything can happen in fiction. Anything can stop happening in fiction.

In English class, we discussed “Magical Realism”, a subgenre of Speculative Fiction, which is defined as the fantasy that responds to the usual Western clichés—ones away from princesses and princes, and fairies, and witches, and stepmothers, and magic wands. Ones that focus more on the people more than the glitters (and lost shoes and apples).

Magical, you wouldn’t think it can happen.

Reality, it is happening.

It is usually explored by Latin American writers such as Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, covering myths, superstitions, folklore and the like.

To me, however, the past weekend gave me a new view of magical realism.

–

For example, you go on an excursion with a good friend, to a place you don’t remember having gone to, to visit your mutual friends, without any apparent plan or itinerary (or at least none of them worked out, if ever there was?).

The place: UP Los Banos, a ‘branch’ of your very own university which is around three hours away. Bordered by Mt. Makiling, the campus itself is a home of numerous folklores, including the famous Mariang Makiling, which only adds up to your wondrous experience.

For three days and two nights, you feed yourself with meals priced as low as eighteen pesos! In the metro, such meals do not exist. If they did, you probably wouldn’t trust them enough to buy them anyway. One thing you are almost certain of: back there in the north, such meals are mythical.

After the first night, you go biking with your friend for a more down-to-earth tour of the campus. You begin to get absorbed with how close the place is with nature, at the same time its feel has an uncanny semblance to your very own campus, way up, far into the metro.

You also notice the people. Back in your school, there are numerous dorms and boarding houses where a lot of the people resided enough to call it a shelter. Or at least that was how it felt for you, mere school-goer.

Out there, people actually walked a different walk, and the air of familiarity they had with not only each other but also the environment around them made it feel like it was home. It was home even for you, mere visitor, for the three days and two nights you were there.

The laughs, conversations, sing-alongs, chocolate cakes, and everything else—they weren’t new to you. But then when you think about them again, they probably, sort of, kind of were. Away from the usual (even cliché) stressfulness and haggardness of the life back in the metro. Away from what you’ve known since you started knowing things.

Magical, you didn’t think it can happen.

Reality, it did.

Whereas in fiction, a duck or a vampire or a teenager can be the richest creature alive; in reality, you can have three straight days of awesomeness, without any character to hate, where thrifty and frugal people rule instead of kings and queens, and when time feels like it floats by even faster than your favourite movie on fastforward. That’s when you stop and think to yourself: hey, maybe reality isn’t that far off from fiction, after all. ^_^v

–

Ehehe. I wanted to connect my English lesson to the nice weekend I had. Thank you Subtle, Cousin, and Porks!

Comatose

Imagine yourself in that second when you realize you’ve stopped dreaming, that moment when you’re about to open your eyes (but not quite), separating yourself from where you were when you were sleeping. Imagine

your stance while waking up, unsure of anything, at the same time recalling every bit of detail of where you are supposed to be. Imagine

waking up in a spotless, immaculate whitewashed room which reeks sterility and cleanliness. Imagine

hearing murmurs, gradually getting louder and louder as your consciousness takes over. Imagine

realizing that you are not in your room, nor anywhere familiar. Imagine

being sane enough to know where you are despite these.

You shift your gaze to the right where a machine beeps to the command of your heartbeat, where a bag of tranquil liquid continues to drip onto a clear chord which connects to a needle which pricks through your veins. Imagine

This: everything is a dream. Everything was a dream. What you’ve been living for what you’d think is a lifetime is not real.

You are not where you are. You are not who you think you are. Today and most of yesterday are merely figments of your subconscious—a world which you created unbeknownst even to yourself. Imagine

the rest of your life was something you just dreamed. Imagine

you had another life—your real—life before you started dreaming, which was the first memory you can ever remember. Imagine

waking up to the truth, where everything familiar becomes the strangest. Imagine

not remembering a single one of them, a single piece of you—the real you. Imagine

not really living in your house, in your shack. Not really going to your school. Not really being friends with your “friends”. Not really being enemies with your “enemies”. Not really being with him or her. Not really being good at what you think you’re good at. Not really being born from your mother. Imagine

the feeling of drifting away from what you know, from the pains and the laughter that you’ve had, from the mistakes and right decisions, from enemies and friends, all of them threatening to pop away like a bubble from your memory, like how your usual dreams drift away from you moments after you wake up. Like they made no sense at all. Like they didn’t matter. At the same time risk knowing that they actually do not matter in your real life. Even worse—risk knowing that they probably don’t exist—that your subconscious merely created them to fulfill those that you have longed to meet or be with.

Or

Choose to be asleep forever, in the comatose which is the angry world you are apparently contented with, the one you desire to change, with your real loved ones, the ones you do not remember, grieving beside your unconscious, sleeping, living body to wake up. At least there–here–you know what to do.#

Awake via mini heart attack

I was basically half asleep during the last few hours before I got home, but I dragged myself to go online to check my e-mail for any updates (facebook and blog automatically, maybe even subconsciously, follow). When I reached my wordpress, this is what welcomed (for lack of a better–er, worse–term) me:

And I swear, I can’t remember being shaken away from drowsiness so quickly and so effectively as much as I was when I saw that, except maybe the time when our neighbor’s house was on fire and we had to evacuate.

A chunk of my soul is in this blog. (Well, not really. But you get the hyperbole don’cha?)

Thank you, WP admins for fixing the problem in lightning speed! Haha!

On a lighter note, this kind of heart attack trick is exactly what I need to keep myself awake and working for my subjects during class hours.

10 Sour Memories

Right on top of your head–in no particular order–some of the sourest, most shuddering, cringing, churning, maybe even vomit-inducing memories you have. Usually, even the worst events have a silver lining to them, but there are just those memories that you’d rather not remember. Memories that you could have lived perfectly well without.

1) That one phonecall I had with a friend and then I learned that she was going to migrate.

2) “I am so disappointed with you.” - “Disappoint” is the one thing that I’m allergic to.

3) When my cellphone was stolen – The worst part about this was that this was in school, inside a room filled with my friends, and literally nobody else went inside.

4) When my cellphone was stolen again – I say the second time around is worse. Losing my 5-month-old cellphone during the first day of classes as a college student in the huge grounds of UP Diliman was not.a.fun.experience.at.all.

5) Prom.  - It was good. The lights were psychedelic, the colors were great (albeit girly, our theme was Barbie), I had a good date, I was with a great friend… but Idk, there’s something about prom that makes me shudder every time I remember it. Maybe because I was really awkward and… I didn’t have good social skills back then? Idk, I just… eep.

6) Grade school graduation - The highlight/climax of my mediocrity as a child!!!! I remember thinking on stage that I didn’t even deserve to graduate!!! Hahaha. Anyway, at least that part is wayyyy over.

7) The day Lolo died

8) My first mall gimmick - I think it was because of this first gimmick that made me a homebuddy for most of my high school life. I’m a frugal person, for one. I really dislike spending for some reason. And during this mall gimmick, my unhappiness/unsatisfied-ness emanated through the wallet-sized photos we took. Frowns galore!! And straight faces weren’t trendy during those times so it wasn’t in the peg posing at all. Eep.

9) My first taxi ride alone - I was going home from a friend’s house then, with no more than seventy pesos in my pocket! But I had to ride the taxi because there was no other way out of the village. So I did. And the worst part was the taxi meter ran faster than I can ever imagine. Less than two kilometers away from where I came from, the fare was already at sixty-two! To think we came from a village, and it was a relatively big village, and there was no traffic at all! Unbelievable! So I hopped down the main road and took the jeepney going home. Nothing better than the original Filipino mode of public transportation!

10) My first overpriced coffee which I bought for myself – I was so excited before actually going to the coffee shop. When I held my frappe and tasted it, it was perhaps the worst good-tasting thing to ever land on my taste buds. When I had my second overpriced coffee courtesy of a friend, it didn’t taste as bad-good. I therefore conclude that unnecessary, overpriced, luxury, edible items taste best when somebody else buys them for you!

–

I’ve been listing 100 good memories as suggested by my cousin Ashley’s bucket list, and it’s pretty fun, except that I’m still not finished with it up to now. While remembering the good old days, I stumbled upon a few unpleasant ones and decided to share them out here! Everyone should try it, I think. It’s a fun interpersonal exercise kind of thang~ 8D

Epifanio de–who?

Who is EDSA?

I vaguely remember my *ten-year-old self watching a gameshow on TV. I think Vic Sotto was the host then, and he asked who EDSA was named after.

During that time, I didn’t care about street names or whatnot. In fact the only roads I ever knew then were Boni Avenue-Pioneer/Sheridan-Shaw Boulevard and St. Paul Road—the ones that led to my school from the gate of my house.

But now, things have changed immensely. Being a commuter the past six months has taught me more roads and ways than I ever knew in the seventeen years that I’ve lived prior. And EDSA is, next to Boni Ave. and right above UP’s University Ave., the avenue of my life (sfx: echo, echo).

“Epifanio Delos Santos,” the contestant said.

My *ten-year-old self raised an eyebrow. Who?

I expected that a highway as important and as life-changing (yes, life-changing!) as **Highway 54 should have been named after the likes of Jose Rizal or perhaps Elpidio Quirino—someone who we studied in our Sibika or HeKaSi class. EDSA is, after all, the main circumferential road of Metro Manila (according to Wikipedia, of course). This means it doesn’t quite touch the capital city, but it (kinda) circles it—like a fence around a house… which doesn’t go around the whole house. Or a bitten donut. Anyway.

For the record, we never studied Epifanio de los Santos. In fact, aside from the gameshow, I never heard his name anywhere else.

So I conducted a little research (coughwikipediacough) regarding this stranger who I happen to pass by twice every normal day.

Who was Epifanio de los Santos? How great was he of a man that a street (EDSA, nonetheless!) was named after him?

Epifanio Cristobal de los Santos was born April 7, 1871 in Malabon, Rizal. He was known as “Don Panyong” (this pseudonym of his, I have never heard of as well, but it’s more comfy to refer to him that way haha!). He studied in the Ateneo de Municipal where he took Bachelor of Arts and graduated summa cum laude. He became a lawyer after finishing a law degree in UST (topped the bar exams in 1898 too!).

He married twice—the first one being Ursula Paez, who bore him four children before her death. His second wife was Margarita Torralba who gave him eight more children.

Being an artsy kind of fellow, Don Panyong was a gifted writer, musician (he played the piano and guitar exquisitely), painter, historian and reader.

As a writer, he was considered as one of the best Filipino prose writers in Spanish (Marcelo Del Pilar being the other). He also became a contributor to La Libertad (Malabon’s patriotic newspaper which was banned by the government) and later on the associate editor of La Independencia. He was also considered to be one of the best biographers of his time.

As a musician, Don Panyong was considered to be one of the three best guitarists in the country. He was also honoured a music professorship during his stay in Ateneo. One of his friends, Jose Gil, described his musical prowess in a eulogy:

                “But our greatest moments were when he took guitar in hand and played for us very peculiar but soul-gripping music which I feel he composed on the moment and fondled his guitar as no one else know of.”

Don Panyong also developed a talent for painting, but he chose to not focus on such. However, he is known to be an avid collector of Philippine artworks and artefacts. Through these, he helped in enriching the culture and history of the country.

In the political aspect, he served as the district attorney of his father’s hometown in San Isidro, Nueva Ecija, later on being appointed as the Provincial Secretary (I think this means governor in present terms) for two terms, in the same province. He also became a member of the Philippine Commission in 1906. He was also linked to the Malolos Congress.

In 1925, he became the Director of the Philippine Library and Museum, until his death in 1928 due to a cerebral attack. This, for some reason, was the image that stuck to most of the people who knew about him. Maybe because it was the last thing that he did? And I guess, the passion that he exerted on arts and literature during his lifetime gave a different air in the Philippine Library and Museum.

(I wanna put his picture here, but my internet is way too slow so instead, here’s a link to how he looks like. Caption: They say artists are the saddest people. But that doesn’t make him any less great or what.)

And there is EDSA (well, EDS) for all of us. Briefly, at least.

When I found out these things about him, I couldn’t help but admire how great of a man he is, for the low-key profile that he has kept since… well, since forever. Again, he was never studied in any of the history classes (for me, at least, Idk about the others).

See, all my life I’ve had this notion that Jose Rizal is the greatest, smartest Filipino there is and there will be but apparently, there is an Epifanio de los Santos who can be of the same level!

What’s even more admirable is that he is a man of the arts who gave particular interest in books and literature, artefacts, and music—these things we’d consider only as our “hobby” were basically his life.

Today, this man is alive through the ten lanes of EDSA, which is the sanctuary of the ever-so-unpredictable MRT and is being clogged by more or less (probably more) half a million vehicles a day. It is the cause of migraines for those stuck in traffic, bonding moments for those clingy people going home, security for those lost in the midst of the metro, and sooooo much more.

Unfortunately, it seems that the hustle and bustle of the fast-paced lives at present make Filipinos overlook who he is. As it is, everyone knows what and probably even where EDSA is, but not everyone knows that it stands for Epifanio de los Santos avenue, and even less know who Epifanio de los Santos is.

Anyway, great job to whoever or whatever names streets in the Philippines. Don Panyong deserves Highway 54, if that makes up for the lack of attention the country gives this great man!

 ——————————–

Bib:

http://www.epifaniodelossantos.com/BIO.html

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

 ——————————–

*- just for the effect. I’m not really sure if I was ten then, I could have been a lot younger or a little older, hihi.

**- former name of EDSA

–and Found! :)

(I have a wide, wide grin on my face as I write this blog entry. 8D 8D 8D)

Last week, I lost my wallet on a jeepney ride home (see Lost). Today, in between my marketing stunt calls for an org project, I got a call from our driver saying that someone found it and gave it to him.

I just had to stop working for a bit because this is something to write about—pronto haha!

Imagine, I was calling nonstop for about an hour, and at the exact moment when I put the phone down to rest for a bit, I received the call!

My mom gave me her wallet to replace what I (thought I) lost. It's too huge for its emptiness. My cellphone even fits inside! Haha! But it's a good enough 9-day replacement

And I can’t even put into words how I feel right now! How, how, how can something so amazing happen at such a perfect time? Because this December has been gloomy (for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on!) despite all the fun stuff that’s been happening!

A taxi driver from A.A. Galang (yes, shamelessly and PROUDLY plugging this taxi company!! Give lots of tip to the driver when you ride one please!) found it… how he did, I do not know. Remember, I was on a jeepney when I lost it, in fact, nowhere near a taxi, during that time. I can only imagine the adventures my wallet went through!

The God-sent man (or woman) probably saw my IDs inside and took it from there. Thankfully, my uncle (who’s rather famous around auto… people) owns an autoshop nearby, and we have the same surname, so “CAROLINO” probably rang a bell and he returned it there.

It has been nine days since that incident. Do you know what can happen in nine days? Jews mourn for at least nine days every year. Novenas and Vigils happen in nine days. South African and Namibia had a concluding war for nine days. Cats have nine days to live again and again if they were to die everyday! There is a band called Nine Days and they sang the song Story of a Girl and it’s a really nice song and—

*erm, going back* Although there’s always that stark bit of hope in me that I’d get it back (just like every other material that I lost… which, well, I didn’t get back, but still), I’ve pretty much accepted that it was as good as gone. I’ve battered my head a lot the past few days with regards to my losing-another-thing-slash-irresponsibility-slash-unwanted-unluckiness, but thank heavens I now have something better, brighter and happier to (over)think about!

adjsfl I can't even! Everything's inside! The honesty and integrity (add every other positive abstract noun here) overwhelms meeee~

What’s even more amazing is that everything  is still in place! My poor 20-peso bill is still folded, all receipts (I assume, but I wouldn’t really know about this), the two 1-peso coins in the coin purse, the tickets from different events, the pictures, the IDs… everything! Not that there are people who’d be interested with everything (or anything, for that matter) inside my wallet. But still. Haha.

Shame though, I didn’t get to see the driver. It’ll be my new quest. Thankfully, the A.A. Galang taxi garage thing is a walking distance away from my house. I don’t have any monetary thing to give the man, but he probably knows that already after seeing my wallet, but I want to at least thank him (or her). People like him (or her) GMH!

For the first time in my entire life, I feel a different air of Christmas spirit . I’m getting more inclined to believe that there is actually more good than bad in this world! People just don’t give too much (or enough, or long enough) attention to them.

I can feel it. Things will start to turn around today. What started out sooo badly will end epic-ly. Hohoho. To whoever is reading this: IT’S POSSIBLE!

5 days to go before Christmas!

(Obviously joyful, joyful!)

Lost.

To top off a rather bad week (which was already getting better, thanks to friends!), I added a new bullet to my “things I lost” list.

My wallet *cries a tear*, is—err—was one of the most expensive things that I owned. My tita gave it to me last June as a random gift. Although it didn’t have any more than twenty bucks plus a stored value MRT card (for a bonus ride), my high school IDs and UP Power Card were there. A lot of my old wallet-sized photos were also inside.

It was lost on our jeepney ride home from dinner. I put it in my jacket’s pocket after paying for the long and traffic ride. My thoughts drifted elsewhere while waiting for the jeep to arrive the house, completely forgetting about everything that I brought with me.  When I got home, everything was still in my pocket, except for the wallet. It probably fell while going down the jeep. I realized it two minutes too late!

More than the wallet itself though, what really bothers me is my growing habit of losing things, forgetting things and mindlessness.

One year ago, my 3-week old cellphone was stolen in my bag. Seven months ago before school started, I lost another (empty, moneyless) wallet while we were drinking at a friend’s house. Six months ago, my five-month old cellphone was stolen. And now, I lost another wallet!

What annoys me even more is that each time I lose something, I’d tell myself that it’d be the last thing I’d lose. Ever.

And then something like this happens!

On the brighter side of things, I am now warranted to fill up my Christmas wish list. I’m not a very materialistic person, more the experience-collector kind. But now I have something rather urgent to ask for haha! Filling up wish lists has always been a work for me. Although I do want a lot of things, it was never to the point of me noting them down. Thanks to my mindlessness, my Secret Santa will probably have an easier time getting me a gift for this Christmas!

I admit that I have a loooot of mindless tendencies, just because I have a lot of things that I think about. Everyone has his or her waterloo, may it be cramming or lateness or laziness, and mindlessness is, for the most part, mine. It sucks that I can’t seem to find a way to help myself out of it. I’m starting to fear that the day might come that I’ll lose even bigger things (or even worse, opportunities or friends!).

Sigh. This is really, really frustrating. December, so far, has not been a good two weeks.

That could have been me.

There is a “default story” of me whenever I meet my elder relatives or family friends. You see, when I was less than one year old, I was a pig’s hair close to being kidnapped.

I was at home then with my yaya, “Chona” (can’t be sure if that’s her real name now), and both of my parents were out working. Now, there was a construction going on in our kapitbahay’s house then, and so there were many workers, plus my titos and lolo were there helping out.

Brave Chona brought me to our backyard where I started crying like a newborn (later, my mom would fondly tell me that my guardian angel was slapping me during those times to keep me noisy and annoying). Some workers, or my tito, or my lolo (there are so many versions about who actually heard me and went inside, differing per storyteller, so I can’t be so sure, but I’m certain that they all saved my life) heard my hysterical cries and was able to rescue me.

Chona took a lot of my pictures then, probably what she showed to her customers. She left a few here at home. *sigh* She should've considered being a photographer instead of a criminal.

They said that my all of my clothes were already packed, along with my mother’s jewelry, and that I was dressed like it was a Sunday.

When asked to explain, Chona said that a man called saying that my father was caught in an accident and was then in the hospital in need of… well, my mother’s jewelry.

Obviously, they didn’t buy her excuse. My mother told me that during that night, the entire family stayed in the house with my titos and my father carrying an itak, interrogating Chona who did not budge. Apparently, there was a white car waiting outside the house when everything happened, but it was nowhere in sight after she got “caught.”

Kidnapped. Almost.

A few days ago, I came from UP to finish enlisting my subjects. On my jeepney ride going to Quezon Ave. MRT station, two streetchildren hopped onto the jeepney. Now, this is a fairly normal sight for us commuters. One of the kids distributed envelopes to riders inked “Onting tulong lang po. Pangkain lang po.”

(If in fact those kids wrote those, I am impressed that they are literate!)

On a normal basis, these children will get nothing out of the riders. And truly, they got nothing from us during that day. But as we drove through the long Quezon Avenue, the two kids hung on the entrance of the jeepney.

The driver did not like this. Hanging on jeepneys is dangerous, not to mention illegal, and they were his liability. So he stopped the jeepney and went down to shoo the kids away.

The two ran a short distance, and when the driver went back to his seat, they ran back and hung onto the entrance again.

This greatly frustrated me (and I’m betting everyone in the jeepney). The driver once again stopped the jeep but did not go down. One of my co-passengers then took the initiative and shooed the kids away, hitting the post of the entrance.

The children did not like this, in fact one of them eyed him with such anger and even threatened to attack the bigger man fearlessly.

Thankfully, the jeepney began moving again.

I watched the kids grow smaller as our distance grew. They were so little, surely not above seven years old, and I couldn’t help but wonder what if Chona successfully kidnapped me.

On the bright side, if Chona didn't attempt to kidnap me for her profit, things would still have been extremely different. So, in the most awkward way, THANK YOU, CHONA. I'm very happy right now, so yes, thank you.

What if there was no construction going on in our neighbor’s house? Or if the workers or my titos or my lolo were too apathetic to concern my hysterics?

I could have easily been like those kids. I could have been that girl carrying her little “sister” on her back, knocking on every rich-looking vehicle along Ortigas or Shaw. I could have been those kids distributing envelopes on jeepneys before singing Christmas carols in Divisoria or Quiapo. I could have been that teenage mother sitting on the corner of a main road, waiting for her kids to come back with alms. I could have been that blind singer begging for alms along EDSA.

If my “guardian angel” did not spank me during those times, or if I were too happy eating chocolate while she dressed me up in our backyard, or if some home-building machine was turned on and was loud, I would not have been heard. It could have been that easy for me to be the one you are conducting outreaches for. It could have been that easy for me to be that kid you tap your car windows to shoo away. It could have been that easy for me to be the sampaguita vendor in your church.

Of course, I remember nothing about the most dramatic (and for a lot of people, defining) moment in my life. I do know for a fact that my family did not press any charges against Chona for our own safety.

That means only one thing: Chona was on the loose a few days or weeks (or if we’re all unfortunate, until this very moment) after attempting to kidnap me. During that time frame, she could have been successful at kidnapping other children.

And those other children could be some of those on the streets that we are seeing right now. Those children could be one of the Batang Hamog along Guadalupe.

We are all, at this very moment, and at every single moment that we live, on the verge of making our lives (and other peoples’) better or worse. I think some people underestimate their power to decide, saying “Bahala na.”

Don’t. Our actions affect other people, whether we know it or not. When you see someone who needs help, or looks like he or she needs some sort of help, don’t let the fear of being rejected or ignored stop you from doing so. It’s so easy to approach someone and ask if you can do anything to make his or her life easier at that moment.

At a certain point in our lives, we would need help, even though we would refuse to admit it. I’m not saying that we should help so that when it’s our turn to need the help, we would get it. We shouldn’t expect, but as my father always told me when I was a kid, there should be no inhibitions in doing or saying good things.

Like helping someone do a project, or assisting an old lady into the jeepney. In my case, that help came when those workers or my tito or my lolo heard me cry and rushed to my rescue.

As the movie goes, “Pay it Forward.” You could have gotten so much worse in your life. Those things you’re thinking about could have been soooo much worse. But they’re not. And the least you can do to appreciate where you’re at is to help other people feel that they’re lucky as well.

Luck is real, but it’s not the coin or bill you find while walking, or the wishing feather you try to catch. Luck is the people around you. You are everyone’s luck. Exercise that power well. A lot of people hope for it.

Taking over

This blog was initially intended for our English class during the first semester. I ran this with my partner, Jonie. Past posts include a 5-item bucket list entry and a few essays that we needed to accomplish for this project. (formerly agascarolino.wordpress.com)

Now that the first sem is over, I decided to take over and continue this blog for myself . Won’t delete our old posts.

Yay! Now I can follow and blog like a normal, er, blogger!

Seven Decades

Sem break is up and I’ve been preoccupied with downloading old songs the past few weeks. Here are some of the songs that I got:

40′s-

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B (Andrews Sisters) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfCFU3Mqww

50′s-

Round the Clock Rock (Bill Haley) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5fsqYctXgM

La Bamba (Ritchie Valiens) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Coy8Hoa1DNw

60′s-

Rhythm of the Falling Rain (the Cascades) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQstQST1GiM&feature=related

Blackbird (the Beatles)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5CUHHGlQg0

Daydream (Lovin Spoonful) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzXglkS2svk

Shop Around (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQGXa3FiXKM

70′s-

Let it Be (the Beatles) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0714IbwC3HA

Dream On (Aerosmith) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcrnu27r-kw

80′s-

Let’s Groove (Earth Wind and Fire) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMWfmlp0zfg

90′s-

That thing You Do (The Wonders) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBz4BuibeLI (even tho this sounds like a 50′s song)

Mmmbop (Hanson) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N53-LxbIizA

00′s -

Teenage Dirtbag (Wheatus) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=534Zz_FZYvw

Someday (Sugar Ray) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JlAw0elZ4k

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It’s really interesting how entire generations and cutlures are defined by songs. Such things can’t even be tackled well by textbooks, whereas a few verses and a chorus deliver them so well.

I never actually considered myself a music person. I know a lot of friends who are die-hard music fans who  attend gigs and concerts, tell the world that they can’t live without music, know every single band member, and even those who listen to songs while studying!  Some of them stick with the mainstream, while others prefer the less exposed indie songs. Others are loyal to certain bands, while others keep a full genre in their playlist.

I appreciate rather all of them, from the oldies that I love so much because they’re so full of emotions (songs that make you wanna boogie or shed a tear) to the new ones that are so diverse. I also really, really love OPM songs, especially The Eraserheads and being in UP just makes their songs even more special with the proximity. OPM songs, particularly, remind me of so many things in life, may they be my childhood or people or random events.

I just like music. It gives volume to life.