Classical Piece of the Week: La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin

So, I have noticed that I have been posting a string of really depressing or sad music these past few weeks, so I thought, to lighten the mood, I would go for a much softer, happy-sounding, piece. La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin by Claude Debussy, fit perfectly with this theme.

The Good Old Times

Ever since 6th grade, there has always been two distinct girls I have hanged out with in the school bus. Let's call them Bea and Em. So, at school, we aren't really in the same group, occasionally striking up a conversation in class or at recess, but not anything that went beyond that. But in the bus, we were like three good friends, talking, eating (although we aren't supposed to), and having a good time. It felt nice to have two girls to talk to, and to share laughs, even if it didn't go beyond the bus. Well, these past few months, we've had a few new additions to our school bus, and along with the fact that Bea and Em don't take the bus so often anymore, I've seen a whole new dynamic change in the bus. Gone were the days of chit-chatting and sharing food with my friends, and in came a whole new group of people who talked about explicit subjects and insulted people. They weren't like Bea and Em, they did not make me laugh or smile, they just made me frown in disagreement.

Book Review: Beauty Queens

Author: Libba Bray

Pages: 400

Year Published: 2011

My Rating: 3.5 stars/ 5 stars

Quick Synopsis from Goodreads:
The fifty contestants in the Miss Teen Dream pageant thought this was going to be a fun trip to the beach, where they could parade in their state-appropriate costumes and compete in front of the cameras. But sadly, their airplane had another idea, crashing on a desert island and leaving the survivors stranded with little food, little water, and practically no eyeliner. What's a beauty queen to do? Continue to practice for the talent portion of the program - or wrestle snakes to the ground? Get a perfect tan - or learn to run wild? And what should happen when the sexy pirates show up? Welcome to the heart of non-exfoliated darkness.

I think ludicrously serious (...does that even make sense?!) is how I would describe Beauty Queens. It has such crazy concepts, some ridiculous characters, but amidst all that, it still deals with serious subjects such as feminism, sexuality, discrimination of different skin types, and social and cultural identity.

Classical Piece of the Week: One Summer's Day

I'm not a big movie watcher. But I cannot resist a movie with a great soundtrack. In fact, I think the soundtrack is a big deciding factor on whether or not I liked a movie.

The movie Spirited Away has an amazing soundtrack. This film is about a 10 year-old girl named Chihiro who is trapped in this alternate universe that is full of spirits and alikes, after her parents ate forbidden food and turned into pigs. Honestly, this movie is absolutely spectacular, and so is the soundtrack. But there is this one piece that I find just a little more special than all the others. One Summer's Day, by Joe Hisaishi. It is, to say the least, brilliant.

Food, and the different emotions it evokes in us

Food. An essential of life, an accompaniment of my journey. It is always there, something that I often time take for granted.


Food. Oh what a lovely, lovely word! I don't just eat it, I savore it. It is a delectable little taste of heaven. It is the light of my day, it is my passion!


Food. Possibly the most complicated relationship I have ever had. An ongoing battle between my good conscience and desires. It brings joy to me and my taste pallets, but not to my waist line. I gorge myself of it, yet always regret it.

Book Review: Forgotten

This is a pretty negative book review. I, in no means, am intending to bash the author, or anything like that. The purpose of this review is just to share my opinions with other people, and that is all :)

Author: Cat Patrick

Pages: 320

Year Published: 2011

My Rating: 1.5/5 stars

Quick synopsis from Goodreads:                          Each night at precisely 4:33 am, while sixteen-year-old London Lane is asleep, her memory of that day is erased. In the morning, all she can "remember" are events from her future. London is used to relying on reminder notes and a trusted friend to get through the day, but things get complicated when a new boy at school enters the picture. Luke Henry is not someone you'd easily forget, yet try as she might, London can't find him in her memories of things to come. When London starts experiencing disturbing flashbacks, or flash-forwards, as the case may be, she realizes it's time to learn about the past she keeps forgetting-before it destroys her future.

When I found this book at the library, I thought I had discovered a hidden gem. The premise looked ever so fascinating and original, the cover was really well-done and fit with the theme, and the book felt like it was brand new (something pretty darn special if it comes from the library). Alas, I was wrongly mistaken, I had not discovered anything close to gold, I had only discovered pyrite, "fool's gold". Along with pyrite, the outside of this book looked ever so genuine, real, and amazing, but what lay inside just did not do the exterior justice.

Igudesman and Joo: A Big Nightmare Music (a.k.a. The Best Concert Ever!)

Igudesman and Joo= Epic Swag

Saturday night, I went to the Igudesman and Joo: Big Nightmare Music concert. I went into the concert hall with a hint of excitement and a bit of a headache (which is pretty normal for me) and came out with a goofy, full-teeth grin and sparkling eyes (in a figurative sense...) that read: That. Was. The. Best. Concert. Ever.

Okay, a little backtrack: If you don't know who Igudesman and Joo are, feel free to click on this link. So basically they are two musicians, Aleskey Igudesman and Hyung-ki Joo, who play some fantastic music whilst adding a lot of awesome humor to their performances.

During the concert, Igudesman and Joo played with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. I thought that was fantastic because it just added another layer of sheer musicality and awesomeness. I do not remember the entire order of all their performances, but what I do remember from that night was this:

Liebster Blog Award (2)

Hey guys! I'm happy to announce that I have been nominated for the Liebster Blog Award a second time! This time it was by the amazing Lottie Eve from la lovely stories. Lottie writes very insightful and vivid reviews, and I highly recommend for you to go check out her blog!

I'll be answering Lottie's five questions for me, and if you want to know the people I have nominated for this award, just head on over to this link.

So, without further ado, here are the five questions:

1. Do you tend to like the villain or the hero of the story?
Hero. Villains are much to evil for my taste.

2. What is your favorite thing about blogging?
I love reading the comments! They always warm my heart because then I know that at least one person reads my blog :)

3. If you could meet any fictional character who would you choose?
Goodness that is extremely hard... But I think I would like to meet D.J. from Dairy Queen. She just looks like such a down-to-earth girl but still someone fun to be with.

4. What is your favorite genre? Why?
YA. It's like the only kind of books I read, hehe.

5. If you could invite five authors for a party who would you invite?
1- Sarah Dessen, because she looks like an awesome lady and she loves GMA like me!
2- J.K. Rowling, because then I could interrogate her further on my unanswered questions regarding Harry Potter ;)
3- Grace Lin, because she writes amazing books!
4- Beth Revis, I follow her on Goodreads and she just looks like a great person!
5- Susin Nielson, I attended one of those events that features an author talking about her books, and that author was Susin Nielson. She was so funny and laid-back during the whole thing, and I love her for that!

Well, that is all for now. Thank you Lottie for nominating me for this award!

Classical Piece of the Week: Légende, op. 17

There are moments when you praise the Lord for inventing the violin. For inventing such a beautiful instrument that emits such a beautiful sound. The playing of Légende, op. 17 by Henryk Wieniawski is one of those moments.

Operation: Eliminating the Unnecessary Sugar

A video on YouTube entitled "The Real Bears" helped inspire me to write this post, click here to check it out.

Remember those days when the only kind of sugared drinks available were honey-flavored water?

Or when treats consisted of apples and oranges and not artificially flavored candy and licorice?

Well, I sure don't.

These days, so many people have come to rely on artificially sugared stuff that soft drinks have become the number one source of calories in the American diet (and possibly other countries' too). A scary fact indeed. And even though most soda drinkers know that sugared drinks are bad for their health, some choose to keep an ignorant eye on all the health scares that can be caused by these sugared drinks. And not only soft drinks. Candy, lollipops and similar can have equal effects on the body. And you know what's even more depressing about all this? These kind of food have no nutrition. I mean, grapes and strawberries are pretty sugary, but at least they hold amounts of vitamin and antioxidants and other good stuff in them. Soft drinks are empty calories. There are no benefits from drinking them. Only harm will be brought to your body.