randomness

it's been ages since i last posted, and not for lack of trying. On the contrary, i have been through some stuff that worth several long posts. But anyway...I don't have the mood to elaborate on them. It can be summarized with just two words anyway: life sucks. So let me talk about other, lighter stuff.

first of all, i'm officially addicted to Michael Buble's Quando, Quando, Quando. Yeah, i know...where have i been? I'm never a big fan of radio, and pretty much of what I listened to these past few years have been songs from a certain spiky-haired singer. But updating the couple songs section in the O universe wikipedia has given me a new hobby of looking for songs that match clone-soldier pairings. So I listen to the radio more often these days to keep an ear of songs that may apply to any pairing, and came across this song. It's too bad that it doesn't apply to the pairing of my character and her clone boyfriend, but it's still the most beautiful, relaxing, soothing track i ever heard. It's almost like a food for the soul. I couldn't stop playing it repeatedly for days, and even now I still have the melody playing in my head. Since there's no good video of it (Buble's record label seems to ban any posting of recorded songs in youtube), you have to bear with this one (Bonita's voice is nice but nowhere as good as Nelly Furtado in the studio version):



i've always been a fan of jazz music as it's the only kind of music that is friendly to the mind and soul. It soothes and relaxes and doesn't interrupt with your concentration when you're at work. And it helps that Buble has such a dreamy, soothing voice. But even his other songs don't have quite the same effect to me as this one. Lyric is only the second factor that attracts me to this track--what really gets me is the music. The song has helped me to recover from the tension that happened at work two weeks ago and restored my mood. Funnily enough, the same track also makes me feel mellow in the past two days with a kind of longing. It just come to my attention that I only have one month left before my contract ends--and I still have no clue whether I should continue. I love the job and my colleagues, but the boss' erratic, moody behavior and the company policy doesn't make me feel secure in the slightest. But if i give up the job, there'll be nothing to fall back on. I'm on the running for two freelance jobs that may give me more money than my fulltime job can, but i'm yet to hear the result of my tests from them. So i'm in a kind of crossroad once again, unsure about my future and financial security, and Buble's song just conjures all kinds of romantic, peaceful images that I can only dream of having. Hence my sudden mellow-ness.

Second, I've just finished translating another crappy Harlequin romance novel. The kind of novels that glorifies men who are strong, masculine, cold in daily lives but sizzling hot in bed, and generally view women as either distractions or useless softies before they warm up to them more than halfway through the book. The women are, of course, helpless to fight their own feelings and desire, unlike the men who are more controlled in everything. Oh yes, the book tries to justify itself, throwing remarks of girl power every now and then, but the whole story just screams helpless surrender to me. It's about a girl who has just lost her fiance in a car accident and meets a rich, powerful, masculine guy while on holiday in Venice...and falls instantly into his arms. Oh yes, the guy loves her too, but he practically treats her like a mistress (and sometimes like worthless trash) before he comes to his senses at the end of the book, while the woman has been practically crawling on his feet since she sleeps with him. The book has tried to obscure the image by hinting every now and then that the girl still remembers her dead fiance and that it's not easy for her to love again, but if melting everytime this rich guy touches her and thinking about nothing but him through the entire book are not enough evidences of how she regards her dead fiance, i don't know what they will be. And of course, the book doesn't have a place for the poor guy who despite his flaws had shared good and bad days with the woman for years, or nice colleagues who know how to treat women well but look more like nerds or gays. The fiance has been simply reduced to "the man she'd been destined to spend her life with". No memories, no grievances, no signs of love to support the girl's professed love for him. Only tears of guilt for having indirectly caused his death and for falling in love with another (richer, more masculine) guy too soon after the incident. How touching. It's so much different from the last Harlequin supernatural trilogy I translated last year, where the women are kick-ass women who become the men's fortress and make them come to their senses, sometimes with a very hard kick on the butt. It was probably the only Harlequin romance that makes me feel proud for having translated it.

speaking of stories, i've decided to take an indefinite break from writing after completing the first part of my clone story. It's not an easy decision, especially since I've been eager to write the second part where my wretched clone boyfriend will meet his angel: my character. But soon I'll become too caught up with survival to write and I don't want to give a certain someone the luxury of enjoying my story while she has been commenting on every story in the board but mine. I may sound resentful and hateful, but I feel really cheated and betrayed by the obvious avoidance. Besides, nobody seems to read my chapters lately anyway apart from my own editors. I may consider writing part 2 of the story offline, just for them and for my own sanity.

i guess that's all i have at the moment.