2/52: Thank You for the Music

So a few weeks back my laptop crashed. Yes, all great blog entries start with that. Haha. My impatience finally got the better of me. It was one of those things my dad warned me about while I was busy being my stubborn self. Admittedly that was long overdue but still, it didn't make the "loss" any easier. So yes - 2 years worth of music downloads, most of my college files, more recent photos that I haven't transferred to my external drive- all that and maybe a little more, poof! Gone just like that. In retrospect, I took it surprisingly well for someone who has lost her life's work (at least that's how my brother referred to my files). But alas! There was hope; for my music files at least. Thank God for my recent travels which prompted me to sync my ipod with the iTunes in my laptop! A half an hour, several websites, a few virus-infected blogs, and two tutorials later, I was on my way to regaining my music back. But the playlists were never revived (taking a moment to mourn the loss). But hey! At least I won't be going back to square one. It was, and still is a long process - putting back my songs and playlists together. I'm only halfway done and I'm slowly realizing that I could never bring it back to the way it once was. So before I completely accept the fact that I will have to move on and leave some of those songs behind, let me share to you the Top 25 Most Played Songs in my iTunes for the last 2 years. 

A Collage of Album Arts

1. Landslide - Smashing Pumpkins
2. I Will Follow You Into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie
3. No One's Gonna Love You - Band of Horses
4. Skinny Love - Bon Iver
5. A Girl, A Boy, and A Graveyard - Jeremy Messersmith
6. Pale Blue Eyes - The Velvet Underground
7. Furr - Blitzen Trapper
8. Challengers - The New Pornographers
9. Arrest this Heart - Hungry Kids of Hungary
10. A Comet Appears - The Shins
11. Train Song - Feist & Ben Gibbard
12. Slow Show - The National
13. The Greatest - Cat Power
14. Walking After You - Foo Fighters
15. Survival - The Colorful Quiet
16. Naked As We Came - Iron & Wine
17. Belong - Cary Brothers
18. Here Comes A Regular - The Replacements
19. Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
20. Sleeps with Butterflies - Tori Amos
21. Kinderszenen Op. 15: VII Traumerei (Dreaming) - Robert Schumann
22. All My Days - Alexi Murdoch
23. I'll Say I'm Sorry Now - Shawn Colvin
24. Come On Get Higher - Matt Nathanson
25. Gravity - Sara Bareilles

So that's it folks. Goodbye, iTunes...whichever version that was. We had a good run, but it's time to move on. Thank You for the Music.

1/52: Ms. Postponer says Hi

So...it's 2012. This is one of those moments when I can personally say, finally. You see, I'm a postponer (if there's such a word) - I postpone things; always putting off doing them believing that's it's not the right time, nor moment, or the weather's bad, or whatever lame excuse I can conjure in my head. Now I can't exactly point out the reason why I do these things, but if I would have to guess, I think it has a lot to do with fear - fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of going against the norm. And if I may be so bold, I'd dare to admit that I do a lot of things out of fear - I study because I fear the disappoint in my parents' eyes; I took up my course in college because I fear that if I don't, I'll end up poor, lonely, and stuck in this country; I seldom bring the car when I go out because I fear there won't be enough parking space or all that's left will be parallel parking spaces (Trust me, I know). This fear has gotten me this far though. I'm living a not-bad life for someone who just started working. But you know, at the end of a long workday, at the end of an exhilarating night, at the end of a lovely vacation, I find myself staring out blankly into nothingness and can't help but feel that something's missing. It's like I'm too busy trying to live out a life that's not really my own. And I know that that's normal, I know that life is an unending search for questions without answer blah blah blah, but I'd like to march to my own beat now, chase life in a pace I'm comfortable in.

And starting this blog is one tiny step towards that, consider this a symbolic ritual if you may. I've been wanting to create a personal blog for ages, I just never got around to doing it. And if I can't sidestep a landmine as small as starting a blog, how am I supposed to expect to tackle all the other more important issues?  So here's to baby steps; to driving around the city faster than 30kph, to wearing high heels at inappropriate places, to saying yes to seemingly bad ideas.  

To discovering horizons, to seeing beauty in adversity, to culinary attempts and failures,

To new experiences, to scribbling in torn pages of notebooks and sketching in tissue papers, 

To family, friends, and love, 

To art, to travel, to passion, to adventure, to life - Ms Postponer says Hi.