Music Review

The first thing that popped into my mind was the original work on Youtube that I'd come across. It was pretty difficult choosing which song I wanted share, because there's so much good stuff that people come up with!!!

In the beginning I was going to talk about a medley that I found by Sam Tsui and Kurt Schneider (found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoNdr0AbttI They've got a few others you should check out too.) of some of Lady Gaga's big hits. (For those who don't know, a medley is pretty much just a mix up of songs -- yes, I have talked to people about this who didn't know what it was.) But then I remembered a girl I found a while back and how much I loved the messages and simplicity of her songs.

I might be my love for really good acoustic guitar playing, her voice or lyrics with meaning and creative  and clever wording, but this song really stuck out to me when I first heard it. The song is called "Common, Simple, Beautiful Ways" by Jennifer Chung. You can easily tell it was written and sung beautifully from her heart.

I read a little about her on her website. She grew up in the bay area in Korea and was raised by a single mother, a Korean dancer, who took care of her and her brother. Because of her situation, she was really close to her mom who still a big influence in her life. This song pretty much tells her story and expresses how much her home and her roots mean to her.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. :)

Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eg3l79KR4U&feature=related

Jay Gatsby and Nick Carroway

Yes, actually I do think their relationship is pretty fraudulent. I bet it if weren't for Nick's connections to Daisy, Gatsby would never have gone out of his way to officially invite Nick over to one his extravagant parties. After all, the whole purpose of his everyone-is-welcome parties are in hope of seeing Daisy among the unfamiliar crowd. He tries so hard to make Nick comfortable around him and like him so that he'd do him that favor of inviting Daisy over for tea too.....it just seems like the kind of effort you'd put into someone you aren't very close to, to put up a good image. With others like friends and family, usually people are much more relaxed and unguarded around them. (At least that's the case with me.) The fact that Gatsby constantly calls Nick "old sport" makes it even more like he's really trying hard to create maybe even a temporary "relationship" to use his relations for his own benefit. Now that I think about it, Nick is always calling him Gatsby in the book, years after they'd known each other. They aren't very far apart in age, so it's not that much of a respect issue. That might actually be the reason why I keep calling him Gatsby myself. At first when I heard the topic of the week, I had no idea who Jay was for the longest time. Anyway that's that.

A Winter Poem

The year's first snow fall

Starts with a single, lonely snowflake

Dancing on its own, the sky its ballroom and 

The wind its music.

Then a companion of his soon follows, and then many more

Make their way to the already wet ground to

Finish their performance and leave their audience

With an enormous white blanket,

Speechless and awe-struck.

-Happy Winter!