My Lie in April (April 2021)
Most times I cannot believe a month has an average of 30 days. It’s a long time yet when I look back I don’t remember anything; my head just throbs whenever I try. Is that normal? I don’t think it is and I’m kinda scared.
Anyway, I noticed I have been saying some small promises in my past posts, saying some things like, I will “look into this more” or I am “working” on something. That is a lie.
I probably did the promised things only for the day I made them, or a few days after, but I will forget about them until my self evaluations come, when I feel bad because it is only then I discovered I failed to fulfill a goal. I have quite a lot of broken promises for my media consumption posts so.. behold, my lie(s) in April of 2021.
But seriously, the purpose of me tracking my music stream trends is for me to discover more music - I review what I listen to in a month and if it is not varied enough I will do something about it. This is still not the case, so in a way this is the first lie of the month.
Top Artist
For the month of April 2021, my top 5 artists are: EXO, Nick Jonas, BaekHyun, Taylor Swift, and Paramore.
It is apparent that for music streaming, I am still heavily rotating between artists I already know (and love). Granted, some of them had recent comebacks, but still, I would very much like my trends to vary per month. I noticed I don’t regulate my streaming as much as I want to and I am working on that already these first days of May (future lie in May?)
Top Albums
My April 2021 top 5 albums are: Spaceman (Nick Jonas), Bambi (BaekHyun), Fearless Taylor’s Version (Taylor Swift), Wake Up, Sunshine (All Time Low), 21 (Adele)
Spaceman by Nick Jonas was such a bop to me. I am in love with all songs and I grooved to them for the whole month. My favorite JB bro is still Joe Jonas but I must admit Nick’s solo game is really strong.
BaekHyun and Taylor released new albums recently and since I am a big fan of them I streamed their new releases like a maniac. Their albums filled my April with such sweet fairy tale vibes, I started to feel a little lonely.
All Time Low and Adele were my attempts for a throwback. ATL is my favorite band since high school but it has been a while since I listened to their new music, hence my listening to Wake Up, Sunshine. 21 I streamed because of Rumour Has It, a title of a Kim Jongin fanfiction I recently read. Because of this my love for Set Fire to the Rain rose from my university-days graveyard. Adele’s vocals are simply amazing.
Top Tracks
My top 10 tracks for April 2021 are: What Type of X (Jessi), Swalla (Jason Derulo ft. Nicki Minaj), Spaceman (Nick Jonas), cry for love (BaekHyun), Monster (SuperM), 2Drunk (Nick Jonas), Set Fire to the Rain (Adele), Tomorrow (ChanYeol), Rumour Has It (Adele), Lucky One (EXO)
What Type of X, and Jessi herself, is so badass. I believed I streamed this song non-stop the first time I discovered it, probably until around 3 in the morning. The guitar and the vocals had such an impact on me. I felt like a badass myself. My streaming of Monster by SuperM was inspired by this song as well. I just felt like they had the same vibe.
Tomorrow is ChanYeol’s enlistment song so it was a bittersweet streaming experience. I like the melody of the song and ChanYeol’s voice suits the song’s style so well. As I probably mentioned before, his voice is one of my favorite voices from EXO.
Spaceman, 2Drunk, cry for love, Set Fire to the Rain, and Rumour Has It were song favorites from my April top albums. Lucky One is here, possibly as an overlap from my March EXO throwback. Swalla is another throwback song and my streaming to it is brought by my attempts to make a work playlist.
Ulam : Main Dish
This documentary is available on Amazon Prime Video. It is about Filipino food as a cuisine and on how it is being represented in America. I watched this the first week of April and failed to write a review until now so I mostly forgot about the details of the film. What stuck to me however, was the thought that Filipino food is very subjective, that when you serve a Pinoy dish to a Filipino you are basically competing with what is in that person’s memory, his home, his nanay or lola’s version of the dish. I experience this myself even in carinderias, on the basics such as adobo or menudo. I think simply that the best Pinoy food is always the home cooked version. Also, all throughout I got hungry from the delicious displays of Filipino dishes.
Vincenzo (episode 3-15)
One reason why I don’t want to binge is because I am not putting enough time for myself to process what I am binging. This was now the case for Vincenzo but still, I would like to try my best to express why I like this series (enough to binge it).
Everything was just so conventionally hooking - scenes were shot so beautifully and with much emphasis on making the subjects look cool, action cuts were done well with just enough gore to keep the mature theme, and the plot twists were satisfying especially during the early episodes.
The Hong Cha Young character grew on me so much she is now my favorite. I was weirded out by her during the first three episodes but her charm clawed its way towards me. Most times during her scenes, I pause the episode just to laugh out loud or slam my palms down some solid surface. I also appreciate the subtlety of the romance aspect and the strength of the female characters. Myung Hee is one tough cookie and I enjoy her character’s tenacity.
Just some things I would like to comment on: there is definitely romanticization sprinkled all throughout the series, and I guess that is what makes Vincenzo still a typical KDrama. Obviously, there is a lot of exaggeration as well, and with this I often gawk just by the thought of the sheer budget this series had. The camera shots and the camera quality itself is superb, but the sets and the corresponding imagery were just amazing. I also saw that video detailing the CG for Vincenzo’s Italy scenes during the first few episodes. He didn’t even really shoot in Italy! And the Italian characters he interacted with were shot in a completely different setup, but the lighting and the angles.. wow.
I just believe Vincenzo had the good balance of fluffy KDrama and western influences. I can’t pinpoint what it is exactly about Vincenzo that reminds me of Breaking Bad, aside from the villainous main lead, but it just does. Overall, Vincenzo has cool scenes and nice imagery so that is why I am hooked with it.
Cosmos by Carl Sagan
This is a medium length book in my defense. Each page riddled with so much information I think I have an excuse why it took long for me to finish this. And how can you even explain this book?
It’s so overwhelming, covering topics on history, biology, physics, chemistry, philosophy and religion, some politics, and some social commentary. I don’t know how to comment on the contents of the book and I honestly don’t think I am even qualified to do that. What I can tell you is what I felt.
It made me feel like nothing and everything at once. All the while questioning what really is everything in the cosmos and will there ever be a time I can get to know it all. Will I be able to handle it?
Everything in the universe screams unknown and uncertain, a perfect combination for me to freak out about (and I actually do freak out about it). Maybe I am not smart enough to take everything in but I still want to know and still want to try and understand. But the theoretical nature of getting to the answers discourages me because I have never gone that route in my life. It is the practical and the obvious that makes sense to me and sometimes I wonder how I even survived electrical engineering. My puny brain is just ambitious.
The book is also full of geniuses yet they weren’t really glorified in an excessive sense, just enough for what they deserved, and there were even some mentions of where they went wrong or some flaws in their character. But of course since most of them are theorists I revere them nonetheless. How? How can they think the way they think? I am human, too, but I don’t think like that. Is there a crash course to guide me?
This month I cycled through the first two months of The Daily Stoic as it was available on the Spotify platform. As mentioned before, the contents were bite sized and straight to the point and it aided in my digesting of the topics. The intro/outro background music is catchy and relaxing as well.
Stoic philosophy is something I gravitate to because I noticed it focused on the logical. No false positivity but no unnecessary negativity at the same time. It’s keeping peace with nature. It’s valuing good work.
Township
I discovered this game through my co-worker, Shammy. I used to play Farmville on mobile and she suggested I try Township. It didn’t help that some of my other co-workers were also part of a Township coop, which I also joined when my level was high enough. I have been playing this game on-and-off since mid-2019, jumping from coop to coop, or sometimes just doing stuff solo.
I re-downloaded the game this April and joined a good coop in the golden league. My coop members are Filipinos (as was the name of the coop itself), and most of the members were helpful and participated in coop events. They were not stressful to play with and I enjoyed my time so far.
The only problem is, my phone use spiked up since playing the game again. It shouldn’t really be that bad but since I neglect a lot of self goals I figured I should be directing my attention to fulfilling them, rather than playing this game. Also, there is the fact that this game doesn’t end because there is no clear goal and it just keeps on updating and expanding.
My coop now is what I think is a positive change. Members have FB profile pics to which I see some of them to be mommies, and I have a soft spot for moms. People also speak in Tagalog and in kind words. It’s just good to read especially now I don’t have many people to talk to.
Anyway, I noticed I have been saying some small promises in my past posts, saying some things like, I will “look into this more” or I am “working” on something. That is a lie.
I probably did the promised things only for the day I made them, or a few days after, but I will forget about them until my self evaluations come, when I feel bad because it is only then I discovered I failed to fulfill a goal. I have quite a lot of broken promises for my media consumption posts so.. behold, my lie(s) in April of 2021.
Music
I would like to question the format of this portion, or rather, the need for me to elaborate so much on the trends of my music listening activity. I have been thinking about it and I see no point in the detailed accounts. So, there goes my excuse for shortening this segment.But seriously, the purpose of me tracking my music stream trends is for me to discover more music - I review what I listen to in a month and if it is not varied enough I will do something about it. This is still not the case, so in a way this is the first lie of the month.
Top Artist
For the month of April 2021, my top 5 artists are: EXO, Nick Jonas, BaekHyun, Taylor Swift, and Paramore.
It is apparent that for music streaming, I am still heavily rotating between artists I already know (and love). Granted, some of them had recent comebacks, but still, I would very much like my trends to vary per month. I noticed I don’t regulate my streaming as much as I want to and I am working on that already these first days of May (future lie in May?)
Top Albums
My April 2021 top 5 albums are: Spaceman (Nick Jonas), Bambi (BaekHyun), Fearless Taylor’s Version (Taylor Swift), Wake Up, Sunshine (All Time Low), 21 (Adele)
Spaceman by Nick Jonas was such a bop to me. I am in love with all songs and I grooved to them for the whole month. My favorite JB bro is still Joe Jonas but I must admit Nick’s solo game is really strong.
BaekHyun and Taylor released new albums recently and since I am a big fan of them I streamed their new releases like a maniac. Their albums filled my April with such sweet fairy tale vibes, I started to feel a little lonely.
All Time Low and Adele were my attempts for a throwback. ATL is my favorite band since high school but it has been a while since I listened to their new music, hence my listening to Wake Up, Sunshine. 21 I streamed because of Rumour Has It, a title of a Kim Jongin fanfiction I recently read. Because of this my love for Set Fire to the Rain rose from my university-days graveyard. Adele’s vocals are simply amazing.
Top Tracks
My top 10 tracks for April 2021 are: What Type of X (Jessi), Swalla (Jason Derulo ft. Nicki Minaj), Spaceman (Nick Jonas), cry for love (BaekHyun), Monster (SuperM), 2Drunk (Nick Jonas), Set Fire to the Rain (Adele), Tomorrow (ChanYeol), Rumour Has It (Adele), Lucky One (EXO)
What Type of X, and Jessi herself, is so badass. I believed I streamed this song non-stop the first time I discovered it, probably until around 3 in the morning. The guitar and the vocals had such an impact on me. I felt like a badass myself. My streaming of Monster by SuperM was inspired by this song as well. I just felt like they had the same vibe.
Tomorrow is ChanYeol’s enlistment song so it was a bittersweet streaming experience. I like the melody of the song and ChanYeol’s voice suits the song’s style so well. As I probably mentioned before, his voice is one of my favorite voices from EXO.
Spaceman, 2Drunk, cry for love, Set Fire to the Rain, and Rumour Has It were song favorites from my April top albums. Lucky One is here, possibly as an overlap from my March EXO throwback. Swalla is another throwback song and my streaming to it is brought by my attempts to make a work playlist.
Movies & Series
Additional lies in April - (1) will watch more movies, (2) will regulate series watching. The reality - this month I only watched one film and binged on Vincenzo.Ulam : Main Dish
This documentary is available on Amazon Prime Video. It is about Filipino food as a cuisine and on how it is being represented in America. I watched this the first week of April and failed to write a review until now so I mostly forgot about the details of the film. What stuck to me however, was the thought that Filipino food is very subjective, that when you serve a Pinoy dish to a Filipino you are basically competing with what is in that person’s memory, his home, his nanay or lola’s version of the dish. I experience this myself even in carinderias, on the basics such as adobo or menudo. I think simply that the best Pinoy food is always the home cooked version. Also, all throughout I got hungry from the delicious displays of Filipino dishes.
Vincenzo (episode 3-15)
One reason why I don’t want to binge is because I am not putting enough time for myself to process what I am binging. This was now the case for Vincenzo but still, I would like to try my best to express why I like this series (enough to binge it).
Everything was just so conventionally hooking - scenes were shot so beautifully and with much emphasis on making the subjects look cool, action cuts were done well with just enough gore to keep the mature theme, and the plot twists were satisfying especially during the early episodes.
The Hong Cha Young character grew on me so much she is now my favorite. I was weirded out by her during the first three episodes but her charm clawed its way towards me. Most times during her scenes, I pause the episode just to laugh out loud or slam my palms down some solid surface. I also appreciate the subtlety of the romance aspect and the strength of the female characters. Myung Hee is one tough cookie and I enjoy her character’s tenacity.
Just some things I would like to comment on: there is definitely romanticization sprinkled all throughout the series, and I guess that is what makes Vincenzo still a typical KDrama. Obviously, there is a lot of exaggeration as well, and with this I often gawk just by the thought of the sheer budget this series had. The camera shots and the camera quality itself is superb, but the sets and the corresponding imagery were just amazing. I also saw that video detailing the CG for Vincenzo’s Italy scenes during the first few episodes. He didn’t even really shoot in Italy! And the Italian characters he interacted with were shot in a completely different setup, but the lighting and the angles.. wow.
I just believe Vincenzo had the good balance of fluffy KDrama and western influences. I can’t pinpoint what it is exactly about Vincenzo that reminds me of Breaking Bad, aside from the villainous main lead, but it just does. Overall, Vincenzo has cool scenes and nice imagery so that is why I am hooked with it.
Books
I just can’t seem to get past one book a month, can I? I promised to get back to reading this April, so there goes another lie.Cosmos by Carl Sagan
This is a medium length book in my defense. Each page riddled with so much information I think I have an excuse why it took long for me to finish this. And how can you even explain this book?
It’s so overwhelming, covering topics on history, biology, physics, chemistry, philosophy and religion, some politics, and some social commentary. I don’t know how to comment on the contents of the book and I honestly don’t think I am even qualified to do that. What I can tell you is what I felt.
It made me feel like nothing and everything at once. All the while questioning what really is everything in the cosmos and will there ever be a time I can get to know it all. Will I be able to handle it?
Everything in the universe screams unknown and uncertain, a perfect combination for me to freak out about (and I actually do freak out about it). Maybe I am not smart enough to take everything in but I still want to know and still want to try and understand. But the theoretical nature of getting to the answers discourages me because I have never gone that route in my life. It is the practical and the obvious that makes sense to me and sometimes I wonder how I even survived electrical engineering. My puny brain is just ambitious.
The book is also full of geniuses yet they weren’t really glorified in an excessive sense, just enough for what they deserved, and there were even some mentions of where they went wrong or some flaws in their character. But of course since most of them are theorists I revere them nonetheless. How? How can they think the way they think? I am human, too, but I don’t think like that. Is there a crash course to guide me?
Podcasts
The Daily Stoic (August - Sep 2018 episodes)This month I cycled through the first two months of The Daily Stoic as it was available on the Spotify platform. As mentioned before, the contents were bite sized and straight to the point and it aided in my digesting of the topics. The intro/outro background music is catchy and relaxing as well.
Stoic philosophy is something I gravitate to because I noticed it focused on the logical. No false positivity but no unnecessary negativity at the same time. It’s keeping peace with nature. It’s valuing good work.
Games
Here comes another lie in April : my phone use is well regulated by means of a Block app. Although this is mostly true, this month I went back to one of my greatest time sinkers.Township
I discovered this game through my co-worker, Shammy. I used to play Farmville on mobile and she suggested I try Township. It didn’t help that some of my other co-workers were also part of a Township coop, which I also joined when my level was high enough. I have been playing this game on-and-off since mid-2019, jumping from coop to coop, or sometimes just doing stuff solo.
I re-downloaded the game this April and joined a good coop in the golden league. My coop members are Filipinos (as was the name of the coop itself), and most of the members were helpful and participated in coop events. They were not stressful to play with and I enjoyed my time so far.
The only problem is, my phone use spiked up since playing the game again. It shouldn’t really be that bad but since I neglect a lot of self goals I figured I should be directing my attention to fulfilling them, rather than playing this game. Also, there is the fact that this game doesn’t end because there is no clear goal and it just keeps on updating and expanding.
My coop now is what I think is a positive change. Members have FB profile pics to which I see some of them to be mommies, and I have a soft spot for moms. People also speak in Tagalog and in kind words. It’s just good to read especially now I don’t have many people to talk to.