All Of Me

Most old folks say that music is not it’s used to be. That the old songs were way much better than the current fare we’re hearing today. Well, once in awhile a song comes along that is a perfect blend of beautiful melody, soul-piercing vocals, and words that hit straight through the heart. This song by John Legend is one such song.

What would I do without your smart mouth?

Drawing me in, and you kicking me out

You’ve got my head spinning, no kidding, I can’t pin you down

What’s going on in that beautiful mind?

I’m on your magical mystery ride

And I’m so dizzy, don’t know what hit me, but I’ll be alright

My head’s under water, but I’m breathing fine

You’re crazy and I’m out of my mind

***

‘Cause all of me loves all of you

Love your curves and all your edges

All your perfect imperfections

Give your all to me, I’ll give my all to you

You’re my end and my beginning

Even when I lose, I’m winning

‘Cause I give you all of me,

And you give me all of you, ohoh

How many time do have to I have tell you

Even when you’re crying you’re beautiful too

The world is beating you down, I’m around through every mood

You’re my downfall, you’re my muse

My worst distraction, my rhythm and blues

I can’t stop singing, it’s ringing in my head for you

My head’s under water, but I’m breathing fine

You’re crazy and I’m out of my mind

Repeat ***

Give me all of you…

Cards on the table, we’re both showing hearts

Risking it all, though it’s hard

Repeat ***

I give you all, all of me

And you give all, all of you, oh.

Tinkerbell With No Neck

This is how Tinkerbell, the beautiful-in-a-very-cute way fairy in Peter Pan, is supposed to look like.  Bright upward slanting eyes, glowing face with gossamer wings, and super tiny!

Yet yesterday, I was at a children’s party celebrating the first birthday of my office colleague’s daughter of whom I’m a godparent, and this is

             

what

         I

                                         

              saw…

See the difference? OMG!

My friends and office mates were laughingly uproariously as I took these pictures. They were goofing around saying that due to lack of very essential vitamins, the ‘Tinkerbell’ in the party have not had a chance to developed well, thus, sporting a huge head without the usual support of a neck.  Hahaha… It’s a mascot of course :-D!  But it’s my first time to see one (with human features) without the necessary body part!

PASSWORD RESET: Prove Yourself Human!

A month or so ago I have given in to the consistent urging in my email of making my Yahoo Account more secure by creating a stronger password.  It was such an uneventful thing really except for the fact that when I tried to log in, I couldn’t recall what it was.  No problem right?  I just have to click ‘I can’t access my account Help’ and voila!  I would be given a set of instructions to reset it.

My reset info happens to be a couple of “SECRET QUESTIONS”.

I answered the first question with no difficulty at all. However, when I peeked at the second, I was momentarily stumped.  The question goes like this: Who is your favorite author?

And there’s my dilemma.  I am an addict. A book addict.  Reading has been my life’s passion. It’s a rare thing to happen that I don’t read something in a single day.  That’s how gaga I am about books.  And to ask me to single out a favourite among so many authors I like is for me, very unfair.

So here I was trying to remember who it was I have listed as The One when I realized that I have made my email account way back in college! Can you imagine that?  How am I supposed to recall who I considered my most favoured author at that period in my life?

I have little choice but to leave it to guesswork.  I bungled through it so many times in so many minutes, I have lost count.  And each time, I was also ask to prove myself human by typing a code that can hardly be seen swimming amidst a fast-flowing jumble of other letters and numbers. And in all that time, my office colleague, was teasing me and laughing at my frustration.

Eventually, I was able to type the right answer.  It was J.R.R. Tolkien, creator of Middle Earth and the epic fantasy, The Lord of the Rings.

The funny part was, all along I have saved my email password in my celphone.  Talked about memory lapse!

Seeing Forrest

“Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”  And so Forrest Gump said to the woman sitting near him at the bus stop in the opening scene of the film with the same title.  It was based on a novel written by a brilliant gent named Winston Groom.

Why am I rambling about this? It’s because after 20 years since it was shown in the cinemas around the world, I have finally seen the movie.  Now you’re probably asking why I have let it gone this far without seeing it when it was an Oscar’s Best Picture?  When it won a Best Actor in a motion picture award for Tom Hanks (one of the most superb actor of all time) for playing the title role?

Well I’ll admit to a shameful truth; for several months now, a copy of the movie has been patiently waiting in my laptop for me to notice it.  But I have stubbornly ignored it.  Not because I thought it wasn’t any good but because I thought it was ‘heavy drama stuff’.  Boy, am I so wrong!  It turned out to be one of the funniest and most inspiring movies I have ever seen!  My sister and I, our voices gone hoarse from laughing so hard, watched transfixed and at times teary-eyed as Forrest triumphed through one adversity after another, while still remaining kind, and humble, and good.

If I should rate Forrest Gump, with 5 stars being the highest?  My rating would be: 5 big STARS and beyond.  This film has definitely gone down in my list as one of the greatest ever made.

A REVIEW – The Zahir by Paulo Coelho

THE ZAHIR

by Paulo Coelho

BRIEF SUMMARY

A famous writer is in search of his wife, Esther, a war correspondent, who has left him for no apparent reason.  Has she been kidnapped or has she left him for another man or was she simply bored with their marriage?  These are the questions to which the unnamed protagonist seeks answers to; she becomes an obsession, ”the zahir”, which occupies every space and moment of his thoughts and life.  He sets out on a journey to find her and ends up discovering himself in the process.  He meets a young man, Mikhail, who was closely associated with Esther before her disappearance and who has embarked on a mission to spread the message of true love in the world.  The writer discovers the meaning of love and realizes what went wrong with his marriage, before finally meeting Esther.

REVIEW

The Zahir by Paulo Coelho was an interesting read but (at least for me, myself & I) it was not a very memorable one.  I know, I know, such a statement needs an explanation.  The reason I said what I said is because I started reading this book several months ago and in a very short time (a matter of days in fact or hours if you want to be technical about it :-)) had reached the last chapter, but then I stopped.  And now I can only remember a few things out of the 343 pages.  Unlike most of the other books I have read so far, I can take or leave reading this one, and the moment I have put down the book, I have not felt compelled to know what happens next.  And that was why it had taken me ages to get to the end.  But now I have finally finished it.

Now what do I consider a great story?

These for me are the Yardstick by which all stories are measured.

1. It has to be highly ENTERTAINING.  To keep me going the story, if not great, at the least should have an ounce of excitement, a whisper of a thrill, etc etc.  In short, not boring.

2. It has to have GREAT WORDS.  Words that are inspiring, challenges your beliefs or changes how you see things, how you view the world, and how you perceive yourself.

3. It has to ENGAGED THE EMOTIONS.  A really good weave will be able to transport you to that particular place and time and make you feel and experience things, be it joy, loneliness, grief or horror.  Otherwise it  will be utterly forgettable and not worthy of anyone’s time.

4. It has to make the reader wants to READ IT AGAIN.  The ultimate measure of a truly great story is when it lingers in your consciousness and makes you want to revisit it one more time.

The narrative of The Zahir is good, and for a time it got me through page after page.  But there are books that makes you feel as if you are there in the story and not merely reading it.  Although the book is filled with ideas about life and love, with a sprinkle of mysticism thrown in, the story has failed to engage even a minute of my emotion and I find it somewhat lacking in description.  I am sure Mr. Coelho has written some great words in The Zahir but in the passage of time –between the time I had began reading it to the point I have read the word ‘The End’– they had completely slipped from my mind.

In conclusion, I have borrowed these words from the heroine of The Fault in our Stars.

“Sometimes you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.”

Sadly, The Zahir is not one of those books and I will not be reading it again.

Starting Anew

2012 has been a hard year for me (Notice the lack of posts.) Not in terms of money or health or work.  

But I found myself drifting, so far from the person I once was when I started writing at wordpress.  I was full of inspiration back then, so positive about things.  Able to be more kind, understanding, selfless. 

I felt like my spirit has suffered a drawback.  Maybe the past 2 years was a test of my character, my faith.  If that was the case, then I failed magnificently. 

So yesterday, I started reading again Jason Mraz Journal.  It was what started me blogging in the first place. The guy inspired me a lot in the past, still does.  And I am also re-reading my Yancey books starting with ‘Prayer (Does it make any diffrence)’.  I have not actually had a heartfelt prayer for a long time now. 

Hopefully these little steps would be able to helped me dig my soul up from the pit I have put it  into.

Wise Words from the Captain!

“Security is mostly a superstition – it does not exist in nature. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces towards change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.”

-Capt. Mike Fincken

The finest Hour…

“The finest hour in our life is when we have done good things to nameless people without expecting them to remember our acts of love and kindness. The mathematics of life is not the multiplication of wealth but the division of task, subtraction of greed and addition of humility.”

I’ve caught the FEVER!

BIG TIME 🙂

I can’t believe I haven’t known about this series (Fever Series) sooner!

I mean I wouldn’t even have any inkling these books ever existed if not for the random chance of picking a book on sale written by an author I have not heard of.  Lucky chance, I’d say.  There’s an excerpt of Dark Fever on the back pages, and the rest they say is history!  Although, at the start I thought it’s just one of those books, you know, ordinary (Who would have thought otherwise when the heroine, Mackayla Lane, was the quintessential ‘Pink Girl’?).  Am I so glad I was so wrong!  The story is full of twists and turns, past-paced, dark, and an absolute fun to read.

Karen Marie Moning, you ROCK!

And I have finally caught on the Barrons Craze, Lol.

Jerricho Barrons, the dangerous owner of Barrons’ Books & Baubles, is the most frustratingly intriguing character I have read to date.  Is he a villain?  Or a hero?  And what the heck is he?

Not until the 4th and last book, have I any idea.  The same goes with the secondary characters, V’lane and Dani, to name a few.  Throw in the McKeltar Druids, the Sidhe Seers, and the myriad Seelie and Unseelie creatures that graced the pages of these superb books and I was so hooked!

If that’s not enough, in the heart of the whole thing is the Sinsar Dubh, a book so evil it corrupts anyone who touches it.

The only thing I have caused to complain (in fact lamenting it, to state it more plainly) is that this series is not available in any bookstore here in Manila, ergo the whole Island of the Philippines.  Grrr…  I would have gone mental if not for the blessed existence of e-books, thank God for 4shared.

Oh, and there’s a buzz about a ‘Fever Movie’.  I hope it pushes through because it would mean I could finally collect them (Books).

If your looking for an awesome read, check them out 🙂

Fever Series reading order:

Dark Fever

Blood Fever

Fae Fever

Dream Fever

Shadow Fever

DaNce, LoVe, SiNg, LiVe.

 

Source: world wide web