My Mom

Contrary to what this picture might suggest, this post is not about my mom being Puerto Rican, although she is.

This post is about my mom being the most wonderful, amazing, loving person I have ever met.

Just to say what brought this up, my mom recently, in the words of my cousin, "wanted to find something fun for me to do this summer", and so she surprised me with tickets for the my cousin and I to go see Les Miserables in Salt Lake City and gave me some extra money to help cover food and the shirt that I was inevitably going to buy.

My mom does little things like that for me all of the time. I wouldn't be in college, I wouldn't have gotten the scholarships I did, I wouldn't have dressed up for anything, I wouldn't know what to do with my hair, etc, if she hadn't been there through all of high school encouraging me, reminding me of deadlines, and getting my off my butt to do things.

She is such a loving, kind person, always willing to help anyone she can in any way she can, even though she usually already has a lot on her plate. She still worries about me here in college and looks out for me. She has guided me all of my life, and I don't tell her enough how much she has influence my life and how much I love her and appreciate all that she does for me and how much I know she loves me.

I love you, mom. Thank you for everything.


P.S. I know you might hate the picture I chose, but I like it.

Day 8 - a song that you know all the words to

hehehehehe....do you think this is what the challenge people meant? :)


Also, this is the best version of this song EVER.

just so you know.

Day 7 - a song that reminds you of a certain event

The most epic birthday party ever.

Need I say more?

Day 6 - a song that reminds you of somewhere

Hearing this song (and watching this video) remind me of Amsterdam.

Now that might seem weird, BUT it's true. When my mom and I flew back to Bahrain after a summer vacation in America, our flight was delayed in Amsterdam. Our airline paid for a night at a hotel nearby, and so we stayed in Amsterdam for a night. At the hotel we were trying to find an English station to watch, and we found this music station. We heard this song and watched this video like three different times that night. We also ate truly terrible hamburgers, watched Spongebob dubbed in Dutch, and went to a Van Gogh museum. Good times.

Day 5 - a song that reminds you of someone

This song reminds me not just of someone, but of several amazing people. Namely, Erika, Brooke, Lauren, Cindy, Jordan, and Justin.

I can't wait to see you all again.

Day 4 - a song that makes you sad

the music video is a little awkward, but every time I listen to this song, I get a little sad, just because the lyrics of this song have found a way to perfectly express how I've felt sometimes.

Day 3 - a song that makes you happy

'nuff said.

Day 2 - your least favorite song

When I first saw this, I thought, "I don't have a least favorite song." sure, there are a lot of songs that I don't like, but I don't dislike them. Well, except for Sweeney Todd, but that's a whole entire musical that can't really be summed in a single song, and there are even a couple of songs in that that I like.

BUT THEN
I remembered this song.

This song is the band of my existence, and truly is my least favorite song, although that is a euphemism. I. Hate. This. Song. I can't completely explain why I hate this song so much, there are plenty of people all over the world that love this song, but I can't stand it. This is the song that, after I played a Hannah Montana song in the presence of Ellen, she retaliated by playing this song, which is BEYOND cruel. This song for me is a hundred times worse than Hannah Montana for Ellen, and if you know Ellen, that should give you some idea of how much I truly dislike this song.

Anyway, this is "Asereje (the Ketchup Song)" by Las Ketchup. Don't ask me to explain it, I can't. I'm posting the video, but you should know, I didn't listen to a second of it, and I don't plan on listening to any second of this song ever again for the rest of my life.

30 Day Song Challenge

So, because music is one of my most favorite things in the world, I thought I'd enjoy doing this challenge that I found on Facebook. Some of the days are kind of fun, and some of them I have no clue what I'm going to do. Like today for example...


Day 1 - your favorite song


How in the world am I supposed to pick my favorite song? I mean really? If you looked at the most played song on my iPod for the answer, it would tell you that "Let's Get Loud" by Jennifer Lopez was my favorite song, but it's not. There are sooooo many good songs, and quite a few that I'm always in the mood for. SO, I"m just going to go with the song that I'm most obsessed with right now, which is "My Man" from Funny Girl. I'm posting the Glee version, although Barbara's is excellent. Mom don't hate me for not going with the original. Sorry.

Big Decision

So... today we had a wonderful church meeting. In Relief Society we had a lesson on honesty, and I don't know if it was that lesson alone, or the combination of that lesson and the lesson we had in Sunday School, BUT the upshot of all of this is...

I decided to get rid of all of my illegally obtained music.

Okay, okay, everybody calm down, I know this is hard to believe, but it's true.

I've just spent the last four hours going through my iPod and deleting everything that
-I've gotten from friends
-I've recorded off of movies, but really I should just buy them from the soundtracks.
-other songs I've just gotten illegally

My iPod started off with 4, 163 songs, and now has 3, 172 songs, which means I deleted 991 songs.

That's almost 1,000 songs! I didn't even realize that I had that many songs that I had gotten illegally. Some of them were from forever ago and it wasn't until I thought about where I'd gotten them that I realized that I hadn't bought them. I'd always kind of tried to ignore the fact that by sharing songs with my friends I am actually robbing those artists, but after church today, I decided that I knew it was wrong and I couldn't keep doing it. So, from now on, I'm not going to get songs from other people or share my music (sorry guys).

But now I have 991 less songs than I did four hours ago! which is kind of really really depressing. It almost physically hurt to delete some of those songs, but I guess music isn't really what's important in life. Right now, I still can't really believe that I actually did it, but I know it was right and I'll feel good about it later. :)







Still, I'm going to get to work on replacing a lot of those songs, not all because some of them I don't think I even like, but definitely some of them. So, any donations would be much appreciated :)

The Voice

The Voice is a show on NBC that I'm liking more and more. The premise is that this show is based more on finding great voices than looks. While I don't think they're totally sticking to that idea, I still enjoy the show. Today I decided to do a kind of review on the show. I say "kind of" a review because I'm mainly going to be discussing some of my thoughts on the show and different moral dilemmas that have come up (who would have thought that

In the first two episodes, people who had previously auditioned for the show and were picked to perform, performed for the four judges while they had their backs turned (thus they would be picked on voice alone). The judges had to pick eight people for their team out of the many that performed, and if they wanted a certain person on their team, they would push a button and their chair would turn around. If more than one judge turned around, the person would pick which judge they wanted. Now the show is in the battle rounds where each judge pairs up people in their team and the two singers have to sing the same song on the stage but only one of them gets to move on.

So, now for the good stuff. While I applaud the show for having the original auditions where the judges couldn't see the performers, I think that as soon as the judges turn around, the show isn't about their voice anymore. Especially because from that point on, all of their performances are watched by the judges. Also, I think it would've been better if the viewers weren’t shown the performers at first as well. But maybe that’s asking too much, I mean it is a tv show. Either way, I guess, the coaches seem to be focusing on voices, which is good.

As far as the contestants themselves go, during the auditions I didn’t think they were that good. I thought some people had great voices and other people really weren’t that good. BUT, during the first battle round, I liked everybody’s voices a whole lot better. I thought they all did fantastic! And I definitely did not envy the coaches’ positions, I could not have chosen between any of them. Despite the fact that there were some fantastic duets during the first battle round, I find the whole idea of a battle round sad. Maybe I’m biased because I hate competition more than anything, but I just think it would be terrible to have to sing a song with someone else knowing that your coach could only pick one of you to move on and that you had to sing better than the other person to stay on the show. That would seriously suck! It made me think about what I would do in that position (even though I will never find myself in that position) and I think that honestly I would either purposely do bad or ask my coach not to pick me, which seems silly, but I really, really, really, really, really hate competition.

The first battle round also brought about some moral dilemmas. Everyone that I wanted to go through was picked to move on. BUT I started wondering if I wanted certain people to go on because I thought they did better than the other person or if there were other reasons. For example, the first match-up was between two ladies on Christina’s team and I wanted Frenchie Davis to go through, and while I’m pretty sure that I wanted her to go through because I thought she legitimately did better than the other lady, the other lady also seemed really cocky and I don’t like It when people are cocky, so I was wondering if I didn’t want her to go through because she was cocky and not because she didn’t do as well. Also, there was another match-up between a guy called Patrick and a guy called Tyler. They sang “Burnin Love” and both did really really good. I wanted Patrick to go through, and he did, but afterwards again I was wondering if my motives were pure or not. First of all, I thought I might want Patrick to go through simply because he looked so sad when two of the other judges said that they would pick Tyler ( I have a tendency to root for the underdog). Also, Patrick was pretty cute. But also, Tyler during the audition round said this thing about how it was hard growing up Mormon because he was gay and he hadn’t come out to his father yet, but he guessed that by saying so on the show he was coming out to his father, and that just didn’t sit well with me. SO, did I really think Patrick sang the song better? Or did I just not like Tyler enough to wish him well? It makes you think about what really motivates people to make their decisions in situations like this, there are so many factors that may be subconscious.

Despite the fact that I went through some semi-depressing moral dilemmas after the show, I can’t wait for next week’s episode. I really enjoyed the duets in the last episode, I thought that everyone’s voice was fantastic, and I would recommend this show to anyone who enjoys music.

Also, because I can’t help it, as a final side note, Adam Levine always looks really really nice. Even with a beard.

But the beat goes on, da da dum da dum

So...I thought tonight that I'd dedicate a post to some awesome lyrics of some songs that I've been enjoying recently, just because I felt like it. (to start with, the title of this post is from "Lose Yourself" by Eminem) so, here we go...

"Read some Byron, Shelley, and Keats, recited them over a hip hop beat, I'm having trouble saying what I mean with dead poets and drum machines." - from "These Words (I Love You, I Love You, I Love You) by Natasha Bedingfield

"Do you hear the people sing lost in the valley of the night? It is a music of a people who are climbing to the light, for the wretched of the earth there is a flame that never dies, even the darkest night must end and the sun will rise." - from the finale of Les Miserables (my roommate's been obsessed with the musical lately, soooooo good)

"No you can't fence time, and you can't stop love." - from "Suds in the Bucket" by Sara Evans

"You'd better keep her, I think it's cheaper than makin' whoopie." - from "Makin' Whoopie" (the song is actually kind of terrible, but I thought this part was soooo funny. :)

"We haven't spoken in days now, cause you don't care, and that's what probably is making me sad." - from "Turn Me Over" by Andrew Austin (I heard this in an episode of my favorite tv show EVER called Rookie Blue)

"Strummin my pain with his fingers, singin my life with his words, killing me softly with his song, killing me softly with his song, telling my whole life with his words." - from "Killing Me Softly" (I like the Fugees version)

"Elevator operator, look at me a smile a weary smile, I"m sure my looks could easily deceive the wisest of them all. He says, 'Are you going to the penthouse or the condo that lies just beyond the chapel door?' I smile back and softly tell him no, I"m going to the bottom." - from "The Bottom" by Waylon Payne, but I like Tara Holloway's cover a lot better

"I treat it like a high school dance, waiting in the wings for my big chance, but I would only stare at my shoes. You belong to me, I belong to you." - from "You Belong to Me" by The 88 (such a good song!)

"Blessed children, though you wander lost and depraved, Jesus loves you, you shall be saved. Patrick, darling, since you left me I am undone, Mother loves you, God save my son." - from "Carrying the Banner" which is in Newsies. I have been obsessed with this song today and this is my favorite, it's this simple part and the second lady has a phenomenal voice, and this section always always gives me chills. Here is a video of the scene in the movie. If you don't want to watch all of it, this section begins at 3:10, although I would recommend all of it, the beginning has some very funny lines, and there is some pretty sweet dancing throughout. It makes me smile. (P.S. sorry if there's an advertisement, I didn't know that would happen :/ )


Newsies / "Carrying the Banner" by falcounderground