November is at the doors, and that means less than 1 month to Clockenflap! I really can't wait for the biggest arts and music festival of Hong Kong, I really need to take my mind off my stressful life... I am in the process of figuring out my personal schedule, and I'm listening to some new bands that I'll get to see at the festival, if things go as planned! Sekai no owari are one of them: I didn't know about them before, but it looks like they are one of the biggest Japanese acts around, and they are likely to try and get to the international market soon enough! Given that I could really use an SOS right now, this song of theirs comes at the right time!
Another week has almost flown by, another busy one but I'm quite happy about it, I brought to completion what I was supposed to and kind of enjoyed the process too. The only problem is the sleep quality I've been getting lately, worst of all last night (thanks Coca Cola for not reminding me I shouldn't drink you at night...), but I'm kinda getting used to it. More good news, I bought the tickets for the music festival that is gonna happen in Hong Kong in late November, whose complete music program has just been released, with a late addition of one of my favourite bands of the last few years, which I can't really wait to see live for the first time! So excited!! (No, they're not Kiasmos, but I still love this one quite a lot)!
The end of a never-ending day comes, you find yourself hanging on to it because you don't know how to spend the last few hours left before sleep, too tired to do anything productive, too busy to guiltlessly waste your time on anything non-productive, you find yourself eating a kebab kindly offered by your colleague you have been helping over the day, on a bench in the uni campus, staring at the black sky, the blacker sea and the people who still walk around in significant numbers at 9 PM past, then the bus comes, takes you home, down the hill, glaring at the flashy skyscrapers, one of which is your home... it's almost romantic how daily life rolls out when you're dead tired!
Lazy days are the best, and when they are spent in good company they're even better! Should I add anything more? Well, this song is quite great too, of course! Happy Sunday to you all!
Today has been a very Dido day: as we all hoped last night, thyphoon Haima passed quite close to here and so the weather observatory issued the typhoon signal and all day activities have been cancelled! No lectures, no conferences, so I've had quite a bit of time to... well, work on papers and assignments of course! Busy life, but with the colder season slowly coming in (is it actually?), the rain and the quiteness of working in front of my computer, Dido on the soundtrack... it's not been a bad day in the end! I've produced some output and hope I didn't deplet my energies so that I can keep on being productive! Not time to enjoy the weekend yet, but maybe Sunday I'll be able to put my papers aside for a while! I hope you'll be having a more entertaining weekend than me anyway!
I don't know why I fixed in my mind the 20th of October as the blog's birthday, when I actually posted the first entry on the 19th of October, but well... does it really matter?
So, I'm here to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the blog!!! It turned 3... well, yesterday actually! It's incredible that I've managed to stick to it for so long given everything that's happened in these past three years and especially given that I didn't expect to stick with it for so long in the first place! This third year has been the hardest one so far, I'd say. I've been having plentiful of free time in my hands and that brought me to waste it on TV series and travelling (well, that time wasn't wasted at all!) and other things, so that I haven't paid enough attention to 'A song or two per day', which has actually become 'A couple songs per week', or something like that! Lately, since I started my PhD and moved to Hong Kong, things have been hectic once again and it's been even harder to find the time and energy to come and post here, but still, I'm trying my best!
So, as I keep saying, this blog has been the longest commitment of my life (it has been actually), so let's make somethings special for its third birthday, hoping that I will be able to finding my balance and carrying on with all parts of my life, this included! To celebrate the blog's birthday I want, as usual, to share something special with you. This year I've chosen my favourite OneRepublic song, given that they have just released their new album and after this and 'Native', I really got the feeling they're not gonna go and make anymore great music as they did on their first two album, as they have started a more commercial path (understandably, but I must say that doesn't make me happy at all). Moreover, just a couple of months ago I left everything I had at home to embark on a new adventure and, knowing that most of it will be there again when I come back, of course being far away doesn't allow me to enjoy my past relationships as much as I could when I was back home. That doesn't diminish them, rather... they just evolve. So "Time could tear you apart, but it won't break anything that we are... We won't say our goodbyes, you know its better that way, we won't break, we won't die, it's just a moment of change! All we are, all we are, is everything that's right..."
After a couple of signal 3 typhooning, I've already grown tired of the freakin' rain (as if I ever liked it before...), but well... I have to try and stay positive! Things are going a bit more smoothly now, which is good, but I am also starting to see how this whole PhD thing works, with peak stress periods and then down periods, so I guess it's gonna be twice as hard to keep myself the "right amount of busy" at all times! Anyway, no big news under the musical point of view either. Lately I've been mostly listening back to my best playlisted songs of 2016 and, well... I guess that this one is gonna join the club soon!
Finally today I've been able to take a day off, off working, off papers, off school, off this life that has been consuming me for almost two months without giving me almost any room for breathing! Well, I confess... I read half a paper on the beach. Just to keep up the rhythm. But I was on the beach, come on! Thanks goodness this weekend has been good and I've been able to somehow find a good balance between duty of work and duty of keeping myself sane! Given that I've been devoting most of my time, day and night, weekdays and weekends to papers and assignments and lectures and stuff, I don't feel guilty in taking some time for myself. And I'm actually feeling good about being able to manage it all without going crazy or paranoid! Then we went to the movies and we ended up watching the latest Tim Burton's movie, for which Florence wrote this song (it's been nice). Could I post anything else on the blog? Of course not!
Long and exhausting day today, been around since 8 am and got back home 12 hours later after attending an exam where I didn't understand half of the questions (but they're not gonna fail us, they say...!) Why should we management people be concerned with tough maths in the first place, is not clear to me, nor is the whole point of doing this exam in this way, but whatever, let's just hope that it's in the past. Of course because we have a sh*tload of other stuff to take care about! I'm trying to carve some me-time off the schedule (like weekends and hopefully nights) and, for the time being, I am miserably failing. What the hell did I sign up for?!
This is my new obsession and I've been meaning to share it with you guys for a few days now, but being busy has actually turned out to be a good thing this time around, as Lykke Li just released the official video for this song on her channel. liv is a so-called "supergroup" featuring Li herself and a few other Scandinavian/American music business known names. This is the first song they released for this new artistic project, and I can't wait for more music and parts of this "installation" to come out if this is a good representation of the quality of the stuff!!
Hi guys, I've been away from the blog in the last few days due to a busy life and among submission deadlines, paper-reading, hiking and sea-bathing, social gathering (not ever enough of that) and so on, I often find myself at the end of the day exhausted and with no spare time, not even 10 minutes to sit down and write a stupid blog entry. I'm striving to find my own balance, to carve some me-time in my schedule, so hopefully I'll be able to get to write a bit more constantly than now, but perspectives are not best...! Anyway, this way I need to be more picky with the songs I choose to share with you. So there you get an angry angel!
I guess we all get one of those days every now and then, those days when you just feel like sh*t for no particular reason, but for a lot of particular reasons. Stress builds up, especially when you are just starting a new chapter of your life or when you are going through a particularly intense period. Even worse when these two things happen together. Add in the fact that you thought were through with your mid-youth crisis but well... you know that answers don't just fall from the sky and solve all of your problems at once. Anyway, I think I conveyed my malaise well enough! Then I go to take a walk and find myself doing yoga exercises in my favourite reading spot in the park nearby (the corner for old people to exercise), past midnight, Lykke Li in my earphones and voilà! Feeling sooo much better. Sometimes it's so easy... not to solve your problems. You never solve your problems (for good). What you need to do is to regain your balance, and I've managed to do that. For today. Thanks Wii Fit, thanks music (once more)!
A beautiful dinner and pleasant evening started with us singing Cher songs in a (supposedly) Cher-voice getting back from grocery shopping...! When you are with the right people, it's really true that it doesn't matter much what you're doing. It's days like these that make me feel good, even if nothing special really happens! "I'm strong enough to live without you" sings Cher, and this is probably the reason letting people spend time together because they actually enjoy it!
