As I sat down to write my blog, to be honest, I kept thinking of the Mother's Day blog I wrote about a month before. You know, that Mother's Day blog was actually written months before Mother's Day because I had written somewhere something about mother nature and how it reminded me of my mom. I remember writing it on a receipt from the gas station when I had to fill up the car while my dad used the bathroom. It was kind of like a post it to remind myself to write about it for Mother's Day. Then, of course, I lost the receipt, but at least I remembered vaguely what I wrote that rainy day at the gas pump.
So why am I writing about the behind the scenes of my Mother's Day blog when it's Father's Day? I did no preparing for this blog except for writing this all out on a note pad the night before at around 2:50am. I just watched a scary movie and I wanted to take my mind off it by writing and then I remembered Father's Day . . . oh yeah!
I guess I always thought of fathers or father figures as people who are . . . hmmmm . . . kind of hard to explain. They're always there in the background. The mom would take the spotlight because she was physically connected to the child (or children) or there's a kind of motherly bond with the kids that's assumed and impossible to break because it seems so natural. But the father has a slightly different perspective. The father can never truly understand the physical labor the mother went through at childbirth nor can he feel a real motherly love. If the mother takes the spotlight, the father does everything else, holding the whole production together, supporting the lead star and all that they both have produced. I mean the father is only fitting, no?
That's exactly how I feel with my dad and I think that's the reason I hadn't really prepared for this blog -- because he's so busy in the background, making sure everything's in check, running smoothly, and I ignorantly took advantage of his being there, always there.
I'm sorry, Daddy! I think a thank you for you is in order as well as an opening up of my eyes!
This is the life of my dad: he wakes up super early every morning. On weekends he cooks breakfast (best egg and ground beef with onions and pepper omelet in the world). Otherwise, he would drive himself and our neighbor to the train station for their commute to work. He goes to work on week days and comes home, ready to cook dinner. Then he lets us children eat it while he waits for my mom so he can eat dinner with her! That is just . . . he's the guy to learn from, folks! Fellas, take notes. Some nights he takes my mom out on joyrides and some nights he plays tennis with me.
Once I was in a car with him and he told me how he understands how some dads just work, work, work, to bring home the dough and they never see their kids. And he learned this through past experiences - fathers he had met, maybe on the train ride home. He didn't want to be one of those guys. You know he used to smoke when I was about four or five years old. He knew he had to quit because it wasn't healthy for us. That was enough to get him to stop smoking quite easily. Although I do remember my Mom telling my four year old self to take his packet of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket hanging to bring it to her while he was in the garage smoking. Don't worry, a couple of nicarette patches and he was free. I always wondered why it was so easy for him to quit and I like to think it was because of his determination to keep the production in check.
So I guess I just want to thank all fathers and father figures who try their best to make sure the love in the family always burns as much as it did when he first met his wife.
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!
Monday, June 21, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
A look into my mind: concerts, the bellagio, dancers and English
Days are just rolling by. It has been almost a month since my last final set me free and what have I done lately? Played some tennis. Watched tennis. A big load of yard work. Practiced the drums (although I probably listened to more music than I practiced, truth be told). Made a few changes on a couple of songs on the piano that I might post on youtube.
My days are filled with solitude since I don’t have a job and everyone else in my family does. They’re out working and I’m outside working on the yard. Or in the basement practicing the drums, or on the piano practicing that. I haven’t started running in the morning yet because I’ve been waking up late, lately. I forgot about my guitar. I think it was because it’s hard for my hands to play broken chords and that discouraged me. I forgot about my djembe drum because I got the drum set recently – my Tama – and I’m still very much excited about that. It stole my djembe drum’s thunder hahaha. Perhaps I’ll touch it tomorrow. Tomorrow’s another day.
Yes, I’ve been soaking in this solitude and I’ve learned to love the peace and the pleasure. No one’s in the house from the time I wake up to about six in the afternoon. Seven hours alone and I use them to find myself in more ways than just one. I’m talking about learning more about myself. I can do whatever I want in the house under the condition that I finished the chores laid out for me to do by my parents, which are, I think I mentioned this before, things to work on in the yard. Clearing out land, pulling out weeds – and even more challenging, stubborn roots (I’d use a pick) – as well as trimming the grass, gets me thinking under the solitary sun.
What exactly are my goals for the summer? What will I have accomplished by the end of August? Am I moving forward? What the heck am I doing? Here’s a better one – why am I doing what I’m doing?
Here’s the thing. I have to get at least twenty hours of teacher observation at any school I choose. But I don’t really want to. My career is supposed to be English teacher and for a while, I ran with this idea because it seemed logical and rational and maybe because I actually thought that was something I wanted to be. But, to be honest, I really like being creative in more ways other than words. Although, an English teacher is still where I’m heading.
You can call me a pleasure seeker and I’ll probably stay in purgatory for some time because of that occupation. I like sounds and playing around with sounds, organizing it and arranging and re-arranging it so that it fits a song like a glove, with all the creases in place. I like to see a sight that pleases me to the fullest. Lighting effects at concerts, I’m talking about! I like to experience a collaboration of sound and sight – of music and light. They should marry and their children would be the satisfaction that is worth paying the high monetary cost of going to a concert. I’d want to be the person who arranges what’s going on, on stage. Another example of the interplay between music and sight is the bellagio – how the spouting water complements the music so perfectly. I’d want to be the person who arranges those beautiful shows. One other example are dancers. My definition of a dancer is this: a person who embodies a piece of music. They are music personifiers. In other words, dancers are music is human form – they are what music would look like if it relegated itself to our bodily outline. Now, I myself am not a true dancer; I can’t dance well hahaha. But I’ve been watching “So You Think You Can Dance,” and I’m just falling in love with the passion with which people dance in accordance to the song. The song is in them and they show it with the movement of their limbs, heart and soul.
One thing the concerts, the bellagio and the dancers have in common is that they all produce effects that are highly pleasurable to experience. I want to do this. I want to create powerful effects for the entertainment of others. If only I could make this my career somehow, I’d be set for life. Do English teachers do this? They are more tamed, they have rules, but the material they work with produces effects, although, not so much with sounds; rather, the effects produced are through words and their meanings.
Perhaps it was fate that led me toward the English major as opposed to a different major. We all know, I hope by now, that I am not business oriented, so you can forget about economics or finance. For some time I thought I may be science oriented, but that idea slipped through my fingers. Why? Because now I realize I didn’t find pleasure in that, despite how interesting God made things. History entertained me throughout high school and college, particularly American history, but it also bored me at times. And I knew I couldn’t tolerate those boring aspects – the politics/government. I was never into that. Political/philosophical theories tickled my fancy more than the actual politics. I’d like to say that English was always there to entertain me, but . . .
As a child (kindergarten to about the beginning of middle school), I wasn’t exactly, smart, for I was indeed slower than my classmates, having to go to the research room and getting allowed extra time and help on tests. I remember how my younger sister was able to read a clock and the word, “Nutrition” before I was able to hahaha. I was slow in reading and I didn’t really start loving to read until college actually hahaha. Wow, college, I didn’t realize, ha! There's no doubt that all my life, I've been a late bloomer. Anyway, whatever I read in school were my favorite books only because I didn’t read anything else. You know the other day, Ate Sherry reminded me how I used to hate reading because it was so hard for me. And my parents knew it was through parent-teacher conferences. My third grade teacher suggested that I read a chapter book each month and keep a personal journal, but that didn’t happen. But then I grew older and I matured and it seemed that one summer fixed me. My dad said it was my fourth grade teacher who was hard on me, who made me improve significantly, but I mean, it’s gotta be more than just her.
But I was always closer to the creative side of English over the mechanics of other subjects. My dad tells me that out of all my siblings, I’m the one who daydreams the most. He also says that’s why I’m not focused and that that’s why I’m not good with directions. But it’s true. Are daydreams popular? Do people have a lot of daydreams? Throughout my lifetime, I’ve probably had like a hundred of them, and they don’t really go away. They’re like playlists and as time goes by, I add to them or recall certain ones that I made up when I was younger and sort of change it around. What do I daydream about? I don’t know, certain situations that would be cool or interesting – comfortable or uncomfortable – to find myself in. Not the trite, what would you do with a million dollars kind; my daydreams would usually be so intricate, I’d imagine making books out of them. It’s funny because I’m reminded of the saying, “I’ve got a book in me.” Have you heard that phrase? If I’m not being entertained some way outside of myself, I literally turn to my imagination and that would be a pretty main reason I wouldn’t focus on something. There was a period of time when I couldn’t sleep at night because I kept thinking things, making up things in my head. My parents didn’t know what was wrong with me, until we came to the conclusion that I had an over-active mind and they told me to just not think. But how can you not think? That is so difficult; it’s so difficult, at least for me, to clear my mind. I'd be very hard to hypnotize.
In any case, the spark of interest in English had a special twinkle, brighter than that in other subjects. Not only that, I knew that English was connected to entertainment. Yes, an avid fan of The Office, I am amazed and have respect for the scriptwriters because they’re so clever and witty and creative. Songs! I love analyzing lyrics of a song. Songs are basically poems and the frame of them is the arrangement of the song -- the mood, the tonality of the piece, is just as important as the lyrics if the lyrics mean anything to the musician(s). So that’s when I started to love to write and lean even more toward English as opposed to math, which I almost majored in, only because I was a little more than decent in it.
So, almost in conclusion, English, the concerts, the bellagio and dancers, are all similar because they are all connected to entertainment and the senses and enjoyment and that's what me likes. I say almost because what I wanted to have accomplished in the blog are a set of goals for the summer. In relation to what I’ve written so far, I present to you my goals:
1. Learn to drive. If I do, my dad promised to get me double bass kick pedals for my drum set. Digididigididigididigididigidi. That’s how they’ll sounds like, except with a deep tone.
2. Make at least one drum cover to post on youtube. Also, continue practicing/learning the drums.
3. Make at least one piano cover to post on youtube. Also, memorize the scales (I haven’t memorized all of them yet, if that even interests you, I don’t know).
4. Improve in tennis.
I’ve realized just now, after writing all this, that this is kind of like a self-assessment or reflection of myself. It’s self-reflexive is what it is! I think I love my hobbies more than my planned career . . . is that bad?
My days are filled with solitude since I don’t have a job and everyone else in my family does. They’re out working and I’m outside working on the yard. Or in the basement practicing the drums, or on the piano practicing that. I haven’t started running in the morning yet because I’ve been waking up late, lately. I forgot about my guitar. I think it was because it’s hard for my hands to play broken chords and that discouraged me. I forgot about my djembe drum because I got the drum set recently – my Tama – and I’m still very much excited about that. It stole my djembe drum’s thunder hahaha. Perhaps I’ll touch it tomorrow. Tomorrow’s another day.
Yes, I’ve been soaking in this solitude and I’ve learned to love the peace and the pleasure. No one’s in the house from the time I wake up to about six in the afternoon. Seven hours alone and I use them to find myself in more ways than just one. I’m talking about learning more about myself. I can do whatever I want in the house under the condition that I finished the chores laid out for me to do by my parents, which are, I think I mentioned this before, things to work on in the yard. Clearing out land, pulling out weeds – and even more challenging, stubborn roots (I’d use a pick) – as well as trimming the grass, gets me thinking under the solitary sun.
What exactly are my goals for the summer? What will I have accomplished by the end of August? Am I moving forward? What the heck am I doing? Here’s a better one – why am I doing what I’m doing?
Here’s the thing. I have to get at least twenty hours of teacher observation at any school I choose. But I don’t really want to. My career is supposed to be English teacher and for a while, I ran with this idea because it seemed logical and rational and maybe because I actually thought that was something I wanted to be. But, to be honest, I really like being creative in more ways other than words. Although, an English teacher is still where I’m heading.
You can call me a pleasure seeker and I’ll probably stay in purgatory for some time because of that occupation. I like sounds and playing around with sounds, organizing it and arranging and re-arranging it so that it fits a song like a glove, with all the creases in place. I like to see a sight that pleases me to the fullest. Lighting effects at concerts, I’m talking about! I like to experience a collaboration of sound and sight – of music and light. They should marry and their children would be the satisfaction that is worth paying the high monetary cost of going to a concert. I’d want to be the person who arranges what’s going on, on stage. Another example of the interplay between music and sight is the bellagio – how the spouting water complements the music so perfectly. I’d want to be the person who arranges those beautiful shows. One other example are dancers. My definition of a dancer is this: a person who embodies a piece of music. They are music personifiers. In other words, dancers are music is human form – they are what music would look like if it relegated itself to our bodily outline. Now, I myself am not a true dancer; I can’t dance well hahaha. But I’ve been watching “So You Think You Can Dance,” and I’m just falling in love with the passion with which people dance in accordance to the song. The song is in them and they show it with the movement of their limbs, heart and soul.
One thing the concerts, the bellagio and the dancers have in common is that they all produce effects that are highly pleasurable to experience. I want to do this. I want to create powerful effects for the entertainment of others. If only I could make this my career somehow, I’d be set for life. Do English teachers do this? They are more tamed, they have rules, but the material they work with produces effects, although, not so much with sounds; rather, the effects produced are through words and their meanings.
Perhaps it was fate that led me toward the English major as opposed to a different major. We all know, I hope by now, that I am not business oriented, so you can forget about economics or finance. For some time I thought I may be science oriented, but that idea slipped through my fingers. Why? Because now I realize I didn’t find pleasure in that, despite how interesting God made things. History entertained me throughout high school and college, particularly American history, but it also bored me at times. And I knew I couldn’t tolerate those boring aspects – the politics/government. I was never into that. Political/philosophical theories tickled my fancy more than the actual politics. I’d like to say that English was always there to entertain me, but . . .
As a child (kindergarten to about the beginning of middle school), I wasn’t exactly, smart, for I was indeed slower than my classmates, having to go to the research room and getting allowed extra time and help on tests. I remember how my younger sister was able to read a clock and the word, “Nutrition” before I was able to hahaha. I was slow in reading and I didn’t really start loving to read until college actually hahaha. Wow, college, I didn’t realize, ha! There's no doubt that all my life, I've been a late bloomer. Anyway, whatever I read in school were my favorite books only because I didn’t read anything else. You know the other day, Ate Sherry reminded me how I used to hate reading because it was so hard for me. And my parents knew it was through parent-teacher conferences. My third grade teacher suggested that I read a chapter book each month and keep a personal journal, but that didn’t happen. But then I grew older and I matured and it seemed that one summer fixed me. My dad said it was my fourth grade teacher who was hard on me, who made me improve significantly, but I mean, it’s gotta be more than just her.
But I was always closer to the creative side of English over the mechanics of other subjects. My dad tells me that out of all my siblings, I’m the one who daydreams the most. He also says that’s why I’m not focused and that that’s why I’m not good with directions. But it’s true. Are daydreams popular? Do people have a lot of daydreams? Throughout my lifetime, I’ve probably had like a hundred of them, and they don’t really go away. They’re like playlists and as time goes by, I add to them or recall certain ones that I made up when I was younger and sort of change it around. What do I daydream about? I don’t know, certain situations that would be cool or interesting – comfortable or uncomfortable – to find myself in. Not the trite, what would you do with a million dollars kind; my daydreams would usually be so intricate, I’d imagine making books out of them. It’s funny because I’m reminded of the saying, “I’ve got a book in me.” Have you heard that phrase? If I’m not being entertained some way outside of myself, I literally turn to my imagination and that would be a pretty main reason I wouldn’t focus on something. There was a period of time when I couldn’t sleep at night because I kept thinking things, making up things in my head. My parents didn’t know what was wrong with me, until we came to the conclusion that I had an over-active mind and they told me to just not think. But how can you not think? That is so difficult; it’s so difficult, at least for me, to clear my mind. I'd be very hard to hypnotize.
In any case, the spark of interest in English had a special twinkle, brighter than that in other subjects. Not only that, I knew that English was connected to entertainment. Yes, an avid fan of The Office, I am amazed and have respect for the scriptwriters because they’re so clever and witty and creative. Songs! I love analyzing lyrics of a song. Songs are basically poems and the frame of them is the arrangement of the song -- the mood, the tonality of the piece, is just as important as the lyrics if the lyrics mean anything to the musician(s). So that’s when I started to love to write and lean even more toward English as opposed to math, which I almost majored in, only because I was a little more than decent in it.
So, almost in conclusion, English, the concerts, the bellagio and dancers, are all similar because they are all connected to entertainment and the senses and enjoyment and that's what me likes. I say almost because what I wanted to have accomplished in the blog are a set of goals for the summer. In relation to what I’ve written so far, I present to you my goals:
1. Learn to drive. If I do, my dad promised to get me double bass kick pedals for my drum set. Digididigididigididigididigidi. That’s how they’ll sounds like, except with a deep tone.
2. Make at least one drum cover to post on youtube. Also, continue practicing/learning the drums.
3. Make at least one piano cover to post on youtube. Also, memorize the scales (I haven’t memorized all of them yet, if that even interests you, I don’t know).
4. Improve in tennis.
I’ve realized just now, after writing all this, that this is kind of like a self-assessment or reflection of myself. It’s self-reflexive is what it is! I think I love my hobbies more than my planned career . . . is that bad?
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Was that really a road-trip playlist?
Realizing that my road trip playlist is really just a collection of my favorite songs, I’ve decided to make a genuine one. This list would be ideal for the road, not because of the content or meaning or significance of the lyrics, but because of the mood it radiates. In other words, if I can picture myself out on the road – driving toward the sun or in an open field of an angry overcast sky that’s displaying a cinematic thunderstorm – with these songs, then they’re perfect for joyriding, cross country.
The Killers:
Leave the Bourbon on the Shelf
All the things that I’ve done
Mr. Brightside
On Top
Jenny was a Friend of Mine
Glamorous Indie Rock and Roll
The Balled of Michael Valentine
Show You How
Who Let You Go?
Romeo and Juliet
Sweet Talk
Read My Mind
When You Were Young (and Enterlude/Exitlude)
Somebody Told Me
Andy, You’re a Star
Don’t Shoot Me Santa
In my opinion, what’s ideal for a road trip is some good, rich classic/indie rock and roll music. Some exceptions would be dancey songs or songs that make you shake your booty, like Jason Mraz’s “Make It Mine,” or The Killers’s “Joy Ride,” and “Human.” Other exceptions would be piano rock songs, like most of Keane’s songs, particularly, “Somewhere Only We Know,” and “Snowed Under.” And I can’t forget real acoustic songs, like live versions of some of Jason Mraz songs, like, “Did You Get My Message,” “Dreamlife of Rand McNally,” “Little You and I,” “Older Lover Undercover,” and “Galaxy.”
Now that’s a road trip playlist! Like almost everything living, this list may change and I’m its modifier. Who knows what kind of music I may like in the future? Although I hope it’s the same music I like now because I really love it. It’s a mix of rock and acoustic.
The Killers:
Leave the Bourbon on the Shelf
All the things that I’ve done
Mr. Brightside
On Top
Jenny was a Friend of Mine
Glamorous Indie Rock and Roll
The Balled of Michael Valentine
Show You How
Who Let You Go?
Romeo and Juliet
Sweet Talk
Read My Mind
When You Were Young (and Enterlude/Exitlude)
Somebody Told Me
Andy, You’re a Star
Don’t Shoot Me Santa
In my opinion, what’s ideal for a road trip is some good, rich classic/indie rock and roll music. Some exceptions would be dancey songs or songs that make you shake your booty, like Jason Mraz’s “Make It Mine,” or The Killers’s “Joy Ride,” and “Human.” Other exceptions would be piano rock songs, like most of Keane’s songs, particularly, “Somewhere Only We Know,” and “Snowed Under.” And I can’t forget real acoustic songs, like live versions of some of Jason Mraz songs, like, “Did You Get My Message,” “Dreamlife of Rand McNally,” “Little You and I,” “Older Lover Undercover,” and “Galaxy.”
Now that’s a road trip playlist! Like almost everything living, this list may change and I’m its modifier. Who knows what kind of music I may like in the future? Although I hope it’s the same music I like now because I really love it. It’s a mix of rock and acoustic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)