MUSIC MONDAY: Fight Song by Rachel Platten

July 20, 2015July 18, 2015 / iamsupercarla / Leave a comment

I am not really a morning person. Generally speaking, I find it easy to wake up early, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. I think most of the time, I get up out of obligation. I have work to attend to, I have to finish some school work, it’s my turn to make a meal…

Don’t get me wrong, I love being of service. It’s just difficult to get up sometimes, especially when you know the extent of the obligations you have to carry out during the day. I try my best to have a good ten minutes just meditating, but most of the time, the to-do list just run on and on in my head.

So one morning, on our way to work, this song comes on. It was absolutely motivating. I looked for a lyric video, so you can see what I mean.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UqfrH74wc0

I remember when Tatay died. I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking in my head how are we going to move on from this. What do we do next? What will I be at work? How will my wedding be? Who will my mother grow old with now? Where do we go next? It’s just a barrage of questions over and over.

I don’t know how I got to bed. Or how long it was before I actually slept, really slept. More so, how I got up. But I did. I got up, I did my sun salutations, I made breakfast, took a shower, went to work. And then I hit repeat.

This song brought back all those memories of those days. And while the blessings continue to shower my path, I am not denying that when days are hard, they’re hard. Truly sincerely disarmingly hard.

But there’s a lot of fight left in me.

Renaissance by Nicolas Senegas

REVIEW: Begin Again (2013)

July 18, 2015 / iamsupercarla / Leave a comment

Jesus Christ, do I have a lot of work left behind or what?

Finally got the chance to watch Begin Again, the highly praised film of 2013, and boy, I was not disappointed.

MOVIE REVIEW Begin Again

Quick sidebar: with so many balls up in the air, I do my best to avoid the things that I want to experience first hand. Music, movies, books are all jotted down in a tiny little (now long) list that I have committed to start going through the moment school is over. So… :) (hint hint)

This is one of those movies you instantly fall in love with. Hands down, right away, the moment that beautiful soundtrack plays, you’ll fall in love with it. Throw in a Ruffalo that aged very well in spite of the role-required beer belly and the naïveté of a waif-like Englishwoman in the form of Kiera Knightley, and you’ve got yourself a melancholic hit, best for viewing on a rainy season, with a partner, a group or alone, definitely under the covers, definitely touching some skin.

For those who have not seen it yet, please do so. Do not deny yourself the pleasure of fantastic narrative and riveting music. Do not deny yourself of the feels trip that come with every twist and turn of this film.

Oh, and you MUST hear her sing.

4 out of 5 stars

MUSIC MONDAY: Save the World by Swedish House Mafia

July 13, 2015July 16, 2015 / iamsupercarla / Leave a comment

I fell in love with this song when I was on my way home, tired and spent from work and school. Traffic was everywhere and the heat was (then) on. It almost sounded like a call for you to still rise in spite of the odds.

20150713 Swedish House Mafia - Save the World

Only that at that moment, the odds were your daily routine. All of it can become so burdensome, you forget the purpose behind what you’re doing. We wake up, have breakfast, endure the commute, 9 to 5, then commute (worse than the morning), arrive home, heat up leftovers, go to sleep. It’s can be an endless cycle.

But you work to provide for your family, because you have bills to pay at the end of the month, because you want to help your parents out, because you want to get that promotion…

Because your company needs you, because you want to progress, because your country needs your service.

Then I heard this song and I remembered there are more people out there whose days are just about to start, whose hours are longer than mine. Most of them are forgotten or not even acknowledged. But they wake up, eat, commute and work their own version of 9 to 5, running the lights and the sounds at night, sharing the same goals and dreams that we have.

So yeah. Who’s gonna save the world tonight then?

Must be these adorable dogs. <3

MUSIC MONDAY: That’s All by Frank Sinatra

July 6, 2015July 7, 2015 / iamsupercarla / Leave a comment

Our Saturday meetings have recently been my source for these posts, and to be honest, they’re not bad at all!

As the term slowly reaches the finish line, we found ourselves growing much closer to the cafe employees and patrons. A couple of weeks back, one of the regulars made sure to stream his music throughout the cafe, and we ended up having a music-filled writing session.

This weekend, though, we revisited some classics. I remember first hearing this song from my cousin’s same-day edit video. She was one of Jason Magbanua’s first clients and the version he used from their SDE is the one with Gary Granada. (You can watch it here.)

At first, we were struggling to find out who’s the original version. Then, one of my co-mentees dropped that line: Frank Sinatra. Of course. That’s the only voice that would feel like you’re being courted and wooed from head to toe.

Plus it doesn’t hurt too, that you’re surround by grounded people with old souls.

That’s all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SINfqtCq0lY

MUSIC MONDAY: What Might Have Been by Lou Pardini

June 29, 2015 / iamsupercarla / Leave a comment

The day almost passed and I almost failed to put up my Music Monday selection. I was this close to not forgiving myself. Hahaha.

Anyway, the past few weeks have been quite turbulent for my thesis writing. Not only am I uninspired, my raw research data just continues to expand, meaning I have more to read and edit and filter and select as deemed appropriate for my thesis discussion.

For a moment there, I failed Prof Ben too, when work overtook schooling. Ideally, there should be a balance but the scales have been tipped and only a good amount of 80s music can even it out again.

For that, I would like to thank Gelo of Kaffe Caffe. If it wasn’t for the heartbreak playlist, I wouldn’t be the prodigal daughter that I am today.