Life As We Know It - Great soundtracks!

Watched 'Life As We Know It' yesterday. To me, the movie is rather decent, but the soundtracks are GREAT! There are two songs in the movie that I really like, hence I'm promoting them here.


#1

The Song Of the Week goes to For You Now by Bruno Merz (not to be confused with Bruno Mars lol). It's slow, sweet & serene. I was instantly touched by the melody when I was in the cinema watching the movie. The song fitted into the scene perfectly. This is the kinda song where you need to lie down, close your eyes, forgo all your thoughts and immerse yourself into its wonderful melody, in the middle of the quiet night.

#2

Sweet Child O'Mine is a great rock song, originally sung by Guns N' Roses. However, I like the Taken by Trees' version better. As opposed to GnR's high-energy, rock version, this cover is slow-tempo & mellow. A nice switch indeed.

Well, in case for some reasons, you find the above two songs boring, I got something else for you. This one sure is going to entertain you. Our country's very own product. Ladies and gentlemen,

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DP Seri Rosmah Mansor's music video - If Tomorrow Never Comes!! Don't play play man, our first lady got MV. How many PMs' wife in this world do you know that has her own MV? Swell man. And the music video is an epic _ _ _ _. The red border, the karaoke lyric... Wait until you watch the MV, whoah man, the voice, the scenes... Not to be missed!

p.s. don't kill me, shit.

Defense Mechanisms

Definition of Defense Mechanisms: "Unconscious psychological strategies brought into play by various entities to cope with reality and to maintain self-image"

Damn defense mechanism. All of us has it, each with different degrees and types. It prevents you from doing something you should, which you are afraid to / not willing to / lazy to.

For example, when you like someone, but are too coward to express it / not sure how to / afraid of ridicule and rejection, defense mechanism creeps in. It will make you think that you don't deserve that someone, you will not get along with that someone in a long run, and that someone does not have feelings for you, and that another someone will come along when you are prepared etc etc....

But, the truth is, you don't exactly know the answer for it. All you have to do is TRY. Damn it, the defense mechanism will make you do all the stupid assumptions which will lead you to an assumed conclusion aka hypothesis, and influence you into giving up trying, because it is trying to protect you from the possible rejection/ ridicule/ awkwardness/ failed relationship. Again, all the negative outcomes are merely possibilities, but the defense mechanism is so powerful that it makes you think the odds of failure are higher, hence it will be a futile attempt. In the end, you give up trying. Occasionally, you may have the urge to break out from such cowardice and THINK of trying, but then, sigh, defense mechanism is still playing with your mind, eventually successfully persuaded you into giving up. And this thing will go on and on until the opportunity is gone. And then you regret. Deeply.

Another scenario: You are so eager to take medical history from a patient, however that patient was clerked multiple times over. Then, defense mechanism sets in. It wants to protect you from the POSSIBLE rejection from a patient who MAY or MAY NOT be tired of all the clerking. In order to protect you, it will manipulate your mind like the example above, pushing you into making several assumptions:

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"Aiya read the case note enough already la"

"Aiya I have seen such case before, I think the symptoms are the same la"

"I think the patient is tired now, maybe i should come back again later" 

"The patient looks fierce, the probability of being rejected is high, aiya no need to ask la"

"Aiya fever only, no need practice taking history, I can wait for more interesting cases"

"Aiya pity the patient, clerked so many times already; those people lack empathy la, keep disturbing him. I won't want to tire him"

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And you get so creative that you can come out with so many other assumptions, just to hinder you from even approaching the patient. As a result, you risk faltering during case presentation, because you are full of assumptions and lack practice. 

The worse thing is that, sometimes you are rejected by patients and are let down. That will empower your defense mechanism, generating protection at lower threshold. You chicken out more easily in coming encounters. =.=

I can go on and on, giving more examples, but I ASSUME I have made my point.

F**k you defense mechanism!!

P.S. The above 2 examples are rationalization. There are worse types of defense mechanisms which I won't want to discuss.

Gleeky me!

Yes, I'm a Gleek.

I like Glee so much that I always replay the favorite parts over and over again, and this can go on for more than 20 times. I like Glee so much that I can't contain my feeling and hence I gotta express by blogging about it. (I wish I have such passion in study =.=)

Have you watched the latest season (S2)? Whoah surprise man! Charice joined the cast as Sunshine Corazon. And the interesting part is, she is gonna rival Rachel Berry and New Direction members hahaha. This is gonna inject a lot of excitement to the show. I'm looking forward to more great performances from her. Btw, I kinda wonder, who will be the lead singer in Vocal Adrenaline then? I mean Sunshine Corazon is great, but Jesse St. James (Jonathan Groff) is just as awesome, if not better. Man he has a wide vocal range! Love his rendition of Highway to Hell and Bohemian Rhapsody... ...

Then in the episode 2 of S2, Glee brought us another surprise. Britney! This is a brilliant theme. The choreography in "I'm a slave for you" and "Me Against The Music" was almost 100% adapted from Britney's music video. Despite the purposeful adaptation and hence the lack of originality, I actually enjoy it a lot! It is refreshing to see someone else doing all the Britney moves. Besides, Brittany (Heather Morris) can dance!! In season 1, she had barely any standout performance. In this episode, she was so impressive in her dancing that I watched her performance for like 20 times already. Ah I wonder why she only get to shine so late? Producer, more air time and solo performance for her please!! 

Glee redeemed itself in terms of originality when they performed Toxic. Love the rearrangement they did to the song, which make it sound more seductive, addictive and erm, toxic. Will Schuester's (Matthew Morrison) voice is so smooth and silky and incredible, and he can make any songs better to listen to! In short, Britney/Brittany is one of my favorite episode to date.

The strength of New Direction is certainly not their choreography, but the singing itself, and also the unity and the inspiration they brought. Yesterday, I re-watched certain parts of previous season, and I gotta say, I can't get enough of Vocal Adrenaline's performances! Love the choreography in "Rehab" and "Mercy" especially. "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Highway to Hell" were great too.

Another surprise I got earlier on was the appearance of Neil Patrick Harris as Bryan Ryan and his singing capability. Wow, the duet with Will Schuester in "Dream On" was amazing! I went insane when they both hit the high note at the end of the song. I was like "What? Neil Patrick Harris can sing? He can hit Adam-Lambert-like falsetto?! I thought he can only act!" I replayed that performance so many times.

Strain!

Another character that I GOTTA mention here is April Rhodes (Kristin Chenoweth). Ah, another Broadway performer with crazy vocal range! She impressed me the most when she sang "Maybe This Time" against Rachel. April won hands down! This song was looped in my music player for an extensive amount of time =)

Of course, Glee is not just all about sky-high falsettos and spectacular choreography. There were many ballads and slow-tempo renditions that really hit my soft spot. My top two favorites in this category: Lean On Me & Smile. These two songs were well sung and were incorporated into the right scenes. Everytime I listened to those songs, my frustration and unhappiness will be relieved, albeit temporary. Apart from these two songs, Sweet Caroline, Somewhere Over The rainbow, True Colour, Don't Stop Believing, Somebody To Love and Dream a Little Dream Of Me were among the songs I really liked.

Lean on me

In short, I am a Gleek. I love the song selection, and their interpretation of the songs, and not to mention the choreography. The themes are highly variable and well-presented. I can't deny the fact that sometimes, the storyline are over-the-top and cheesy. However, there were certain scenes that were genuinely hilarious/ inspirational/ almost tear-jerking.

Yea, you can call me shallow or whatever for watching and being obsessed with Glee. I don't care, because I have found something that I really enjoy - a good musical that suits my taste. 

Thank you Ryan Murphy. Keep it up ya.