What It All Comes Down To…

Ever get that feeling when you’re so happy with yourself because you were helping other people, only to have those people spit at you right at the face as their thanks?

What ungrateful, vile, loathsome, disgusting… (the list goes on I’m afraid, and I’m thinking about placing explicit adjectives here but, I’ve been taught better manners, so there you go…)

I never thought I’d get to meet such narrow-minded people in my lifetime, but, oh unfortunate me, I had to meet the worst of them.  And I’m pretty sure I’ll be meeting a lot of them in the future.

I just realized that I was being taken advantage of.  A tool to get someone else’s desires.

There I was helping them to be the best versions of  themselves as they can and all the while, these people you were helping were talking about you behind your back, telling people lies and absolutely making themselves look good in front of others.

How exactly do you make of these people?

Is hate the alternative you have for them?

How do you forgive them if they haven’t even apologized?  They just left.

That’s it.

Seriously.

It’s funny how the greed for material things and money can make such stupid idiots out of seemingly nice people.  Their true colors did shine through, I guess.  I suppose they just shone a little too late for me.

These people do not deserve a lengthy post so I’ll end here and I’ll let you contemplate on what you would do if you were in my shoes.

I sit in front of my laptop in an extremely euphoric state…

I passed it again…

By now, I think you now know what “it” is.

Last June 2007, the passers of the June 2006 Nursing Licensure Examinations (I am unfortunately one of them) retook tests III and V of the Board Exams and tonight the results are out.

I was working in the PM shift and I was through with endorsements for my patients when I read two text messages that bore the words: “Congrats!  You passed!”  In a completely shocked and impulsive mindset, I showed someone else the text messages in case I was seeing things (Yeah, that’s how paranoid I am).  I was grinning like a fool and I practically gave a yelp in the Nurses’ Station, which got a lot of people wondering.

The results can be viewed in here.

Since I didn’t get to attend Sunday mass, I figured it’s only fitting that I put a prayer in my post for today, for I feel like all God’s blessings are falling on me like rain…

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.

Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me. When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Hide not thy face far from me; put not thy servant away in anger: thou hast been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies. Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty. I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.

- Psalm 27

No spoilers… I promise.

After I have flipped the last page of this book, I felt a deep sense of disbelief and loss.

It was over.

The series, which I have followed for years, was finally over.

All the questions that were burning in my mind weren’t answered, but on the whole I absolutely loved this book!  I felt all kinds of emotions with this book and so far, only J.K. Rowling has managed to do that to me with a book.  If I remember correctly, my eyes welled up about three times in this book.

Usually, she does it only once.  But with this book, I cried three times.

I can’t say I loved the epilogue.  I thought it could have been better.  But on the whole it wasn’t so bad.

The overall story was amazing.  Humor, angst, adventure, drama, action and, of course, magic, was splashed all over the pages of this book.  J.K. Rowling is simply one of a kind.  I was so proud and so impressed with her to have written such a wonderful, engaging tale of a small, scrawny, bespectacled boy who would carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

I absolutely feel sorry for those who haven’t read this series.  The movies do not contain a tenth of the wonder and magic of the books.

I can’t say much since that will totally spoil everything for some people, but my mind got to thinking after finishing the book…

Somehow, in some way or another, there is a Lord Vol—

Ooops!  I meant You-Know-Who, in all of us.

Sorry.  I forgot the name’s taboo.  *Wink

I hear the beep.
I come closer to look.
I see you hold his hand…
Three seconds was all it took.

I ask myself,
Have you said goodbye?
I know you have…
And you’re not going to cry.

The time is close…
It’ll be over soon..
Say what you have to say…
Words from everyone are strewn.

I looked again.
I stand to wait and see.
See if you’ll seize the chance,
Before He sets him free.

And then I blinked…
There’s no more time to wait.
There he goes… going… gone…
I hope you weren’t too late.

I sit in front of my laptop and think to myself, what am I going to do with so much time before me?

This doesn’t usually happen since I’m almost always cramming for more free time.

If I was any other girl, I’d probably go clubbing or partying from one bar to another, but since I was never raised to be that kind of person, I’m more inclined to go to the beach, or read a series of books, or start of my literary journey, or start a project like revamping the whole website that I created for my class (yes, I am a certified Class A nerd/geek/whatever else you would call it!).

I have just finished taking the retake of the Nursing Licensure Examination and I for the moment, I really don’t want to remember anything from that experience.  Going out of the University of Iloilo, I was drowning in misery.  I thought to myself, “Holy crap!  I didn’t know if I passed this retake or not”

Judging from my exclamation, you’d have guessed that the exam did no good to ease my worries.  How could it when I didn’t even know what the questions were asking from me!

After a few day’s rest, I’m pretty much over it… I try to set my mind into more important things like my sick grandparents or the fact that I’m going to have to go to work again.

It’s only a matter of weeks until the result is out and until then, I’m staying calm…

My nerves can relax for now…

I got hold of Linkin Park’s highly-anticipated new record ‘Minutes to Midnight’ from the internet recently.  I was quite anxious about this new album.  I’ve seen a lot of bad (and I mean, really bad) reviews about this record.  The band has voiced out time and again that this record will sound completely different from their previous albums and Chester has said once that they had a somewhat “poppier” song which got me screaming, “WTF?!?!”  I honestly didn’t know what to expect from this album, regardless of how ‘What I’ve Done’ sounded.

I have been a fan of Linkin Park since the first time I heard ‘One Step Closer’ in 2000.  I’ve bought all their albums, the remixes, live shows and documentaries.  Their music was so different than most and that’s what initially drove me to love them.  So, when I heard that they were treading on ‘Pop’ grounds, I was quite nervous for them even if I knew there was going to be cursing for the first time.

The album starts out with ‘Wake‘, which is, by far, the best intro I’ve heard in any album I’ve ever listened to.  Definitely a huge improvement from that of ‘Meteora’.  It starts out slow but then climbs to a guitar-filled climax which gives you a feeling that, yes, this is going to be a different album.

I recognized ‘Given Up‘ as one of those songs that they had up at their official site.  I loved this song the moment I heard it.  If there was a remnant of Linkin Park’s sound from before, it would be this.  Mad guitars, angst, lots of screaming and curses here and there…

‘Leave Out All The Rest‘ is easily one of my favorite songs in this album.  In the beginning of this song, I was thinking to myself, “Oh heck, this is going to suck big time,” but when the chorus filled my ears, my mind was completely blown away.  The lyrics for the chorus of this song was so sad that some lonely part of my soul must have been ripped open unconsciously that tears started forming at the corners of my eyes.  No song has ever done that to me before.  “When my time comes, forget the wrong that I’ve done.  Help me leave behind some reason to be missed…”  I wish they weren’t going to make this a single for their album.  The only downside of this song is that it kind of affirms most people’s ridiculous notion that Linkin Park is a boy band.  Seriously…

Another trace of what Linkin Park sounded like before ‘Minutes to Midnight’ is ‘Bleed It Out’.  A great song with a rapping Mike and a screaming Chester with a hip hop beat mashed with electronic guitars.  I wish they’d make this a single.

‘Shadow of the Day’ despite it’s dark title is what I would categorize as one of those “feel good” songs.  I think this is the only song in the album that sounds like a Pop song.  Not really my favorite but the lyrics are well-written.

Obviously, I love ‘What I’ve Done’ since it was the first single.  No point in talking about this again…

‘Hands Held High’ sounds almost like Eminem’s ‘Toy Soldiers’.  This is their inspirational, anti-war-themed song in the album, with Mike rapping throughout the song about the poor, news and guns and criticizing the way the world is being run.  I love how they placed a sort of choir at the latter part singing ‘Amen’ until the end of the song.

I loved the song ‘No More Sorrow’ from the first note to the very last beat of the drum.  This song is perfect.  Definitely heavy with a dose of Metallica.  I love how the guitars played out in this song.  And the lyrics?  Definitely Linkin Park.  A lot of screaming without a single cuss.

I was so curious about this song, ‘Valentine’s Day’ and how this song was ever going to fit in into Linkin Park’s image.  I remember thinking to myself, either the band has gone completely out of their minds or maybe Cupid sent out a gazillion offspring (if he ever had them) once upon a February 14 morning and had them gather all his cheesy-peppered-up arrows and shoved them all down Linkin Park’s brain cells.  What could have drove any of them to ever write a song with that kind of title?  Initially, while listening to the early part of this song, I was terrified that my theory was correct, but listening at the latter part, and looking at the lyrics, “My insides all turn to ash, so slow.  And blew away as I collapsed.  So cold,” I realized that this is just a title to throw us off our seats.  This actually turned out to be one of my favorites in their album.  I mean, come on!  When you saw ‘Valentine’s Day’ in their track list weren’t you thinking the same thing?

‘In Between’ was a revelation to me.  I mean I knew Mike could sing, but this is the first time he sang the whole song.  He’s got a good voice.  It sounds honest and sincere enough to make you believe him.

‘In Pieces’ was the only other song apart from ‘What I’ve Done’ that Mr. Hahn could be heard prominently.  I love the melody of this song.  It has a kind of reggae vibe to it but only with guitars.  “And you, you will be alone, alone with all your secrets and regrets…”

I honestly didn’t know what to think of ‘The Little Things Give You Away’.  I liked the song but I suppose, I was expecting a heavier song than this since they said it’s going to feature a guitar solo.  This is probably the longest song they’ve ever done in a studio album, clocking in at 6 minutes and 25 seconds.

After listening through the 12 tracks, I came to realize something.  The guys from Linkin Park are not morons (if they were, they wouldn’t have lasted this long), I know that they knew they were going to lose a lot of listeners and fans by changing their style.  They knew that not everyone is going to like this new change and for them to still go through with the change just proves that the band is after more than just the number of copies they sell for their album.  It was time for a change since ‘Hybrid Theory’ and ‘Meteora’ sounded a lot alike.

I was so impressed that each and every track in this album sounds completely different from each other.  Hard Rock, Alternative Rock, Emo, Punk Rock, Classic Rock, Reggae, Hip Hop with a minute pinch of Pop are all combined in this album.  I didn’t think Linkin Park could pull it off.  Somehow, they did.  The melodies of their songs changed, but the lyrics pretty much has Linkin Park all over it except with a few curses – which, I’m glad, weren’t thrown at every song.

On the other hand, I was disappointed that there was less of Mr. Hahn in this album, less of their up-beat songs, less crazy guitar riffs from Brad, less rapping from Mike and less screaming from Chester.  I was disappointed that the band went on a ballad spree with this album even though I loved most of them.  I suppose that these disappointments are the very same reasons why most people would think this album is all crap.  I’ve seen people complaining left, right and center about it.  Four years is a long time, so I guess somewhere in those four years, the band kind of grew up from what they used to.  We all have to at some point or another.

But to hell with what everybody else say.  I’m getting this CD.

This ain’t ‘Hybrid Theory’ (which still stands as their best album) but, damn you, Linkin Park!

I love this album!

UPDATE: I just recently discovered that if you pre-ordered ‘Minutes to Midnight‘ from iTunes, you’d get an additional song entitled, ‘No Roads Left‘ which features Mike Shinoda, yet again, behind the vocals.  Trust me, if Shinoda’s voice didn’t blow you away with ‘In Between’, this one will completely obliterate your doubts that the guy can really sing.  It’s a real heavy rock track, kind of like ‘Crawling’ but with Mike screaming instead of Chester with no amount of rapping.  They should have included this song in the album.  ‘In my fear and flaws, I let myself down again, all because I run…‘

June 11 is slowly approaching on me like a plague. I think about it at least once every ten minutes and seriously, I wish it was over.

I’m getting back on that tension-filled feeling of absolutely doing nothing about my dilemma. Sometimes, I even feel like I’m drowning in a wicked quicksand of tension that slowly eats me alive.

I suppose I have, at some point, but not enough for me to feel confident about it…

Let me talk metaphors for a moment, as if I haven’t been for the last two paragraphs (slowly rolls her eyes and crosses her arms, as if to say “To hell with this, I’m sick of it…”).

You’d have to forgive me… I’m in one of those ‘bad trip’ moods…

For days now, my mind has been replaying this animation of June 11 as a seriously-horrible-looking, long-chinned-with-a-dent-on-the-center , bad-nose-job villain slowly inching on me, creeping and crawling along the side of a dark hallway (as Pocahontas did when she was spying on John Smith - except picture it as a bad animation) ready to pounce on me hard on the head when I least expect it.

If you did not understand that, I’m ok with that… I wouldn’t expect most to understand it anyway… I suppose I’m in one of those rare moods when ramblings tend to come out of my brain without much consideration on their sense.

I know what you’re thinking… For a seemingly sensible girl, there’s a whole load of crap coming out of my thoughts…

I might regret posting this sooner if not later… but I’m letting it be for the moment…