Songs to fall asleep to and those that keep you awake

I had a hard time falling asleep last night, for unknown reasons (and I’ve got terrible headache now). As usual when I can’t bring myself to sleep, I count sheeps (it never work) or listen to music (sometimes it work). And here is a list of songs that help me fall asleep and those that I avoid as they will just keep me awake.

1. Aubrey by Bread

(Basically Bread’s songs are very effective in bringing me to sleep. Try ‘If’ or ‘Make It With You’, too.)

2. Together Forever by Carol Banawa and RJ Rosales

3. Have I Told You Lately by Rod Stewart

4. Three Times a Lady by Lionel Richie

5. Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum

 

I think one of the reasons why these songs get me sleepy is the fact that they are familiar songs that give comfort and remind me of home. Now a list of songs that help me stay awake.

1. The Prayer by Charlotte Church and Josh Groban

(Ok, it is nice and soothing at the beginning, but when they start picking up the notes and ’screaming’ at each other –Groban in Italian (or Latin, I don’t know) and Church in English, you can’t possibly fall asleep. The song is just too grand.)

2. Don’t Be Stupid by Shania Twain

(I’ve tried listening to Shania Twain’s songs to get myself asleep. Some, like ‘You’ve Got A Way’ or ‘From This Moment On’ or ‘You’re Still The One’, do work. This particular song, however, irritates the hell out of me. Imagine how everytime you are about to fall asleep, and you’re saying to yourself ‘yes, finally, i’m about to fall asleep’, Twain replies curtly ‘Don’t be stupid!!!’ Talk about bursting bubbles.)

3. I Will Follow You Into The Dark by Death Cab for Cutie

(OHKAY. So it’s a sweet song. But to listen it in the middle of night, with leaves rustling and wind blowing and wolves howling (the latter is an exaggeration obviously), it’s plain creepy.

4. U.R.A. Fever by The Kills

5. Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.

(Definitely a song to get you high, and not one that can get you asleep.)

Toys R Me

I am nineteen going on twenty, I am naive no more… (sung to the tune “Sixteen Going On Seventeen” by Rolf and Liesl)

I’m having a temporary Peter Pan’s syndrome, and I’m reminiscing the good ol’ time…Here’s a list of my favourite toys and games as a little girl.

1. Hide and Seek

My favourite game of all time. Played with dozens of friends on the playground in my primary school after school hours while we were waiting for our parents to fetch us home. My sisters and I used to play it in my grandparents’ house too, since it has lots of hidden spots.

2. Fishing!

You know those toys with rotating board with fishes jumping out and magnets in their mouths? You use the fishing rods which also have magnets as the bait to fish them out. I love this toy, but I’ve never owned the big one that I have always craved for. Sobs.

3. Hopscotch

Totally popular when I was in primary 2, 3 and 5. And we used to invent lots of new types of hopscotch.

4. Lego

Always my favourite, I had one with mermaid theme (but I have lost all pieces, ergh!) There was a castle, soldiers, mermaids (cute mermaids, later I used them as fish for cooking games, lol, I was such a sadist)

5. Rope skipping

The rope was made of rubber bands linked together. I have never had any rope due to my mom’s serious aversion to rubber bands.

6. Barbie

I have never got a barbie doll before! Sobs, but I love them still, and my sister now has three (neglected) barbie dolls.

7. Paper dolls

Came with different paper clothes and accessories that you cut and fit in to your dolls. I had almost a complete collection of Sailormoon paper dolls (complete with Mamoru Chiba, Luna and Artemis) which I eventually lost. Sobs.

8. Early Nintendo Mario Bros, Mappy, The Islander, and of course, Tetris

Miss them, here are some pictures of Mappy and The Islander, see if you recognize them.

Islander

Mappy

9. UNO

A great family game

10. The Sims

Not really a childhood game, since I started playing it only when I was in junior high school. But it deserves a place on this list.

Caroling X’mas Carols

Something on my to-do-list for Christmas this year (too early? No way) is to compile a CD of rare Christmas songs for my mom (well, actually they are not rare, just not the boring ones we keep hearing every year).  Here’s a list of the songs:

1. A Marshmallow World by Brenda Lee

I listened to the version by The Rat Packs and I loved it. But this version is even more wow. I can imagine the postcard scenery of white rooftops and all

2.  Mistletoe and Holly by Frank Sinatra

Hmm. Mistletoe. How romantic.

3. It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas by Bing Crosby

What’s Christmas without Bing Crosby? I love all his Christmas carols

4. Santa Baby by Marilyn Monroe

I bet my sisters will love this one.

5. The Christmas Song by Jackson Five

Ok, so the song itself is not as rare. But Jackson Five? That’s something that my mom will love a lot.

6. Warm and Fuzzy by Billy Gilman

Just a variation to the oldies carols. I love his angelic voice.

7. Here Comes Santa by Linda Eder

Believe me, I’ve never heard the sung version of this song. Most of the time I only listen to the instrumental version, the monotone version from the lights on the christmas tree at home. By the way, this song comes with Santa Claus Is Coming At The Town medley.

8. A Holly Jolly Christmas by Dean Martin

Again, what’s christmas without Dean Martin? My mom has this CD of christmas songs by Nat King Cole and Dean Martin, and it’s our bestest christmas carols collection. Let me add one more by Dean Martin into that collection

9. Christmas in The Trenches by John McDermott

A variation to the joyful songs. This one is more mellow, ballad-ish and I love it because it’s sooo meaningful. It’s about christmas in wartime.

10. Christmas Alphabets by The McGuire Sisters

Took me forever to find this song. Fell in love with it when I first heard it on Gossip Girl (the episode Roman Holiday).

 

My friend thinks I’m born 30 years too late. I think so too. In fact, I think I’m born 50 years too late. HAHAHA. I’m so retro

Things I’d love to do in my lifetime

Allow me to relapse into my favorite past time: list-making teehee

Here are some things that I must make sure I do in the future:

1. Buy a ranch house (oohh) and keep a super big sunflower garden *grin*

2. Adopt a wolf / Siberian Husky / penguin / fox or any polar animal

3. Buy a pair of Converse shoes (hohoho, yeah, I’m THAT pathetic)

4. Build a library in my super nice house (har har, dream on!), preferably one that looks like that byootiful library in Beauty and The Beast

5. Own a white grand piano (or a baby one)

6. Subsidise (preferably fully) my parents’ pilgrimage to Lourdes and other sites

7. Learn to speak French!

8. Stay in that famous Jumeirah hotel in Dubai

9. Drive a convertible of course!!!

10. Get my future kids to learn how to play harp (haha, just some weird ambition of mine)

Things that I don’t really like about myself

Time for some reflection (aka self-hating, self-pitying session)

10. My, erm, lack of self-control. I overspend on unnecessary stuffs, eat too much Ruffles, sleep too much, slack too much, etc.

9. I’m sensitive. Ouch. Relatively sensitive anyway.

8. I think too much (and daydream too much, tee hee)

7. Some parts of my body. Oh come on, stop that talk on self-image, I have healthy self-image (relatively, again), so I guess there’s nothing wrong about feeling a little bit self-conscious? HM?

6. I can’t wear PLASTIC/SILVER/ANYTHING-OTHER-THAN-GOLD-AND-DIAMOND earrings due to my sensitive skin. Not that I’ve worn a diamond before. Add to that  any SILVER/ANYTHING-OTHER-THAN-GOLD-AND-DIAMOND jewelry. This sucks coz then I can’t really wear anything pretty AND affordable.

5. I can’t sleep properly without my bolster. This is not such a bad thing actually hahaha.

4. I read too much romance, and still loving them. Guilty pleasures.

3. I have a mega-bad habits of liking everything I used to hate so fervently. Actually it’s like I hate it so much that I find too much information about it, and getting obsessed about it, and thinking that hey, I might like it anyway. For example, spinah porridge (which is totally EW when I was small, but I miss it now). Or Billy Joel and Lionel Richie.

2. Sometimes I love to irritate people deliberately. Oops.

1. Pimples grow on my face whenever I’m ogling somebody too much, or thinking too much about someone. Bummer.

Plans in my life

Now that I’m graduating, I should put down what the possible paths for me are.

A: become an engineer (not very appealing to me right now, but oh well…)

B: become an accountant

C: take up finance and see what I can do with it

D: take up creative writing and write a novel

E: work with TIME (wildest dream)

F: become a psychiatrist

G: become a food critic

H: become a manga artist

I: take up International Relation as a major

J: take up Liberar Arts as a major and see what I can do with it

K: run back crying to my parents and ask for prospective husbands

L: enter a monastery for female priests and get a scholarship to Italy (I doubt they want female pastor)

M: become a teacher

N: become a tutor

O: just leave everything and go to Africa for community service

P: start a CD store

Q: register myself to sugardaddy.com

R: enter a quiz or reality show for quick cash

S: become a professional gamer

T: become a secretary

U: become a boutique assistant

V: become a professional blogger

W: become a yoga trainer

X: start an oldies paraphernalia store (sounds like a good one)

Y: become a bar singer (this used to be plan Z)

Z: get Oprah to listen to my pathetic life story and hopefully, somebody feels touched enough to help me

Why I Belong to The Retros

This is a crazy post, but I want to publish it nonetheless.

Here are some of my theories on how I will be better off in those retro years:

1. I love oldies songs. They make up a great proportion of my top rated songs in my iTunes. And I still think, to these days, that the singers of the past relied heavily on their singing talent and not so much on their dancing (make that ‘grinding’) or looks (The Carpenters vs The Pussycat Dolls?)

2. I think John F. Kennedy was cool, and his wife Jacqueline Onnassis was wow!

3. I also happen to have naturally curly hair in Connie Francis’ style. I told my friend that my Plan Z in my life is to be a bar singer, and I’ll make sure I sing Connie Francis’ songs hahaha!

4. I am a great fan of the retro comic Archies. And I happen to love that bubblegum pop “Sugar Sugar” (I’m getting bored of it though)

5. I secretly think (not much a secret anymore) that Elvis Presley looked good. And I can imitate his trademark leg rocking while singing “All Shook Up”

There, I relapsed into making a list again But unfortunately, I couldn’t find five more good reasons. So let me keep it at that.

It’s been a while since I…

1. fell in love

2. saw my parents

3. ate Ruffles

4. had a nice dream

5. got my prayers answered

6. laughed out loud, loud, loud

7. jogged

8. drew some mangas

9. shopped (OHHHH NOOO……..)

10. ate good seafood (it’s a luxury where i stay now)

Ten great ways to aggravate your PMS

Clinically tested (experimental subject: bolstalova herself)

1. Finish one whole tub of Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunks (400ml) in one day and self-destructively step on the weighing scale

2. Read the Bible or Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul or My Sister’s Keeper or just pick any inspiring stories

3. Watch La Vita e Bella or Premonition or Land Before Time (doesn’t work for me, work for my sister though)

4. Listen to How Can I Tell Her by Lobo, or He Ain’t Heavy He’s My Brother by The Hollies, or if you are a Christian, try The Old Rugged Cross and Sweet Lamb of God

5. Sleep away the depression (only to plunge back into depression after you wake up and find you haven’t finished that towering load of work)

6. Check your bank account balance (I guess this only applies to me)

7. Listen to somebody bitching about others

8. Cut some onions (you get the message)

9. Talk to another friend who is also PMS-ing

10. Reminisce your childhood while listening to Mother How Are You Today (May Wood) or I Love You Daddy (Ricardo & Friends)

Important lessons I learnt thus far

These are some important lessons I have picked up over the years

1. Thou shalt never ever mix Kellog’s cornflakes with Milo. You’ll end up emptying the whole bowl into dustbin or struggling to finish it like me.

2. Thou shalt never read others’ diaries, you’ll only discover things you don’t exactly want to know.

3. Thou shalt never step deliberately on banana peels. They are, in actual fact, really slippery.

4. Thou shalt never ignore what your parents said. Their words often turn out to be true (the fact that they will be constantly over two decades older than you, well…, they do know much more things than you)

5. Thou shalt never wish for something you don’t really want.

6. Thou shalt never attempt to defrost sausages using microwave.

7. Thou shalt never spread chain mails or spams. All you’ll get is curse from people, honestly.

8. Thou shalt never lie to your parents. They have told the same lies before.

9. Thou shalt never go to a fortune teller (especially one that is said to be reliable)

10. Thou shalt never attempt to cut through the impossibly tough meat or in seconds, either your plastic fork breaks or the meat crosses over to other people’s plates.

those stuffs sound like an embarassing confession, haha! Some of them are really personal experiences.