Monthly Music

Today was pleasantly surprising. I received an unexpected message from the person who turned my lonely frown upside down ever since Natalia left for Brazil. And yes. I was quite happy the rest of the day :)

It's nice to know that I had different soundtracks to the four months I was in San Francisco, and being hooked to a new album each month kinda put my memories in order.. it made me remember different occasions and different thoughts and feelings.

December: Nicki Minaj's Pink Friday

December was a myriad, but Pink Friday was constantly on my playlist. I loved blasting her collab with Rihanna (titled Fly) while I was strutting from the Metreon towards Westfield Mall where I worked in Buckhorn. Then there was Moment 4 Life (her collaboration with Drake). I loved that song. It made all the tiring hours at Buckhorn feel like it's worth it. I was in a different country without my family for once. I was working in an environment that spoke a language that I really didn't understand. It wasn't the same as high school as I sort of knew most of what they were trying to say. Minaj's anthems of hard work and strength really did it for me.

January: Switchfoot's Hello Hurricane

January was the most torrential month for me because of the shift towards another job. That two weeks in limbo was plain agonizing. Switchfoot's Yet was extremely uplifting for me. The entire album was uplifting. It just... fitted in the entire situation.

February: Hillsong

Uh. Yeah. I felt the nip of not going to church or cell or anything religious since the Christmas play so I started listening to Hillsong mixed with Switchfoot on the way to work. Plus I started listening to online sermons too, don't mess.

March: Adele's 21

Ahhh. This was because.. you know why la. But it was really funny the first time I listened to the album. The first song that played (it was on shuffle) was Someone Like You. It's so funny that I associated this song to another person before the guy I'm associating this song to now. It's even funnier that I was waiting for Roman to get to the train station (he seriously needs to invest in a watch) and I got to listen to almost the whole album before he arrived. By that time I was so emotionally affected by the cd I didn't speak to him for the first 10 minutes (he thought I merajuk kerana dia lewat tapi ialah berkenaan dengan Adele kuakuakua)

It's very effective to segment your different experiences in the year with different music so that you remember.

Try it.

Before I forget

The night when we were supposed to meet Shenminator for drinks at Vertigo. Or was it the other place across the street.. Shamrock? Can't remember.

It was one of the first few nights we had as "The Basement Club". Andy had just arrived from Switzerland and we decided to show him Polk St the second time (since the first time was a bust as we went on a Saturday night)

I didn't check which bus stop we were supposed to board at after emerging from the Civic Center BART, so we ended up going the wrong way away from Polk St. I suddenly realised we were on the wrong bus when we started going into this long uphill stretch of Victorian style houses so we jumped off the bus. Not before Andy had a situation with a stoned out homeless person who was mirroring Andy's every move (they were sitting opposite each other on the bus).

Once we got off we started our slow downhill walk back to the nearest bus station, and that picture happened.

"Quick, take a picture of me with the city down below!" Andy called out as he dashed to the middle of the crossroad.

Natalia laughed as she pulled out her camera. She wasn't so jolly after we crossed 3 blocks, since she decided to wear heels (of all days).

At that bus station we waited for almost half an hour before a bus came.

At that bus station, we got to know each other so much better. We started talking about future plans, how we were at home, how we wished we were home (or someplace else other than the dark neighbourhood we were in!) and other random stuff.

It was kinda weird to feel slightly crestfallen when we saw the bus lumbering downhill towards us, because we were having such a good time bonding.

But then again our time at Polk was great too. Random guys chatting us up (unfortunately the one who talked to me had his girlfriend in the toilet, but he was nice enough to offer me a free bike tour if I ever wanted to ride across the GGB to Sausalito), we tried playing drinking games Takahiro taught us back in December, and we were all super happy, giggling to ourselves as we bought drink after the other.

Good times.