the underground and the underrated

so yesterday i went over to one of my close friends's house and we had ourselves a hipster music session which is basically a session where we share with each other the underground and underrated music that doesn't get enough recognition. 

♡ queen ♡

you see the thing with both of us is this. we like these type of songs which don't have many views on youtube and are super great because sometimes if a song or an artist gets too mainstream it starts to get annoying. for instance, radioactive by imagine dragons and primadonna by marina and the diamonds. as much as i adore marina and the diamonds, i couldn't help getting irritated by how some people were saying that they love marina when they actually only like primadonna. that's why i sometimes think that the best music should just remain hidden for people to find them. 

♡ perfection  ♡

the same sort of goes with lana del rey. people are liking her more for her beauty rather than for her music. she is now only getting recognition because of the new "indie trend" which i think is pretty stupid. back then people used to say that lana's music was weird and they didn't like it but right now because of the indie trend, everyone is just saying how much they love lana and they think her songs are fantastic and all that stuff. 

so anyway here's the list of songs that are some of our underrated favourites:

my number - foals
san francisco - foxygen
blood - the middle east
love love love - avalanche city

try listening to these songs while looking at this 

sunshine - avalanche city
do i wanna know - arctic monkeys
i wanna be yours - arctic monkeys
intro - the xx
riptide - vance joy
backstreet lovers - the crookes
money - the drums
let's go surfing - the drums
obsessions - marina and the diamonds
all i want -kodaline
deadbeat - lightning love
rock it - little red
snowship - benjamin francis leftwich
in/out - dan croll
bloodshake - peace
let's move back to front - zulu winter
together - plug in stereo
rackets - plug in stereo

so that's about it for now. enjoy the underrated music ☺

never say no to pancakes

so today was a good day. in fact one of the best days that i've had in a really long time. today i made pancakes for the first time ever☺

look at those pancakes 

they're not exactly perfect or how i wanted them to turn out but i'd still say it's pretty good for a first attempt at cooking pancakes. 

i wanted to make sour cream pancakes from scratch but sadly i was out of all purpose flour so i had no choice but to use the pillsbury pancake premix that i have.

they weren't round but at least they were still a nice colour and had great texture. i just ate my pancakes with butter and honey because i like things simple ☺

i also went over to hang out with my neighbourhood friends, shine ni and wei lyn. we watched doctor who while having deep conversations and also share our tastes in music. and after that we went jogging and ended up being soaked in the rain and got freaked out by wild toads in the park. 

i will share some of the songs and things that we did tomorrow in more detail and for now i will just leave you the recipe of the sour cream pancakes that i was planning to bake today but didn't manage to because of my lack of baking ingredients. http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2013/04/edna-maes-sour-cream-pancakes/

basically this day started off great because of pancakes. pancakes are happiness, man... never say no to pancakes

everyone has their own problems but some that are just not as big as others

i'm not exactly happy go lucky and i'm completely aware of it. i'm not very outspoken either. i'm too shy and most of the time when i'm with my friends, those are the only times when i feel brave enough to act like myself. when i'm on my own, i'm quiet and i don't speak to anybody. 

most of the time i feel as if one of the reasons why i'm so unhappy is because of my shyness. it's not easy when you have anxiety. it ruins your life and your happiness. nobody realises how hard it really is for anyone with anxiety. it's not as if anybody would want anxiety in the first place. 

it's not as if people like me choose to be too shy to even start a conversation with anybody, or to be too embarrassed to answer somebody's question because you fear the idea that they might be laughed at by everyone else, or to be too afraid to ask for help from anyone because you believe that they have much better things to do than rather help you, or to even feel embarrassed because you're taking too long to get your money out and pay the cashier at the store and you can feel everyone's eyes just boring right into you. 

yes, those are all symptoms of anxiety. and you know what's the worst thing? when people tell you things like "oh, don't be silly. you're just shy" or "you'll grow out of it later." that doesn't really make anybody feel better. in fact, all it does is make people feel even worse because it's as if you're saying that their problem is trivial and that it shouldn't matter. a problem is still a problem to anybody no matter how big or small it is. just because you've never gone through what someone else has, doesn't mean that it is any less important than whatever problem that you're facing at the moment as well. 

everyone has problems. some that are bigger than others but they are still problems and they still bother the people that have them even though they're tiny ones. anxiety may seem like a small problem but it definitely isn't and it can destroy your future and many opportunities for you as well. 

so here's a little message to everyone that has ever made me feel as if my problems were too small to be important: don't you dare tell me that it isn't that bad unless you've walked in my shoes and seen things from my point of view. 

i know that this is a problem i am facing which i have to fix and i'm aware of it. but i intend on doing that without having other people to put me down by making me feel as if i shouldn't be troubled by it as much as i am now because it isn't as big as other problems. no one deserves to be put down for something that they can't help. 

“Just because one person’s problem is less traumatic than another’s doesn’t mean they’re required to hurt less.”

—	J.A. Redmerski, The Edge of Never

will grayson, will grayson

look how beautiful the cover is!

so i just finished reading this really good book by john green and david levithan called "will grayson, will grayson" (or as my friends and i like to call it, "will grayson multiplied by two"). the storyline behind the book is pretty simple. two teenage boys that each have the exact same name (w i l l g r a y s o n) that live two completely different lives, coincidentally bump into each other on one regular night in chicago. 

so john and david decided to split it evenly in half. john green wrote the odd numbered chapters while david levithan wrote the even numbered ones. they both had their own will grayson to write about. for example: john's will grayson is in all the odd numbered chapters while david's will grayson is in the even numbered ones.)

so lets discuss the difference between these two will graysons:

john's will grayson (will grayson #1) is pretty much like that one friend in every group of friends out there. that friend that is pretty much like the third wheel. he's the friend that barely contributes any ideas to anything and is silent most of the time unless you ask him to speak. he is best friends with tiny cooper which ironically is the biggest person he knows and at the same time the gayest as well. he has a romantic interest in jane which is one of the friends in their group. 

now moving on to david's will grayson (will grayson #2). he's a angry teenage boy that suffers from severe depression and is also gay. he doesn't really have any friends at the very beginning of the book except for this girl named maura which had an interest in him but she was more of an acquaintance rather than a friend to him. the only person which he was close with was this internet friend of his named isaac which he later realised that it was maura all along that was pulling a cruel joke on him. 

so both will graysons meet one chicago night at this porn store. will grayson #1 had just been dumped by his group of friends to see a concert that he couldn't get into while will grayson #2 was supposed to meet isaac there but later found out from maura that she had set the whole thing up. they started talking to each other about their lives and by the end of that night go their separate ways once more. they never interact with each other again until at the very end of the book. 

after that encounter with each other, will grayson #2 gets into a relationship with tiny and he then discovers feelings of love that he had never felt before. meanwhile, tiny is writing a musical based on his life and about love. will grayson #1 realises then that he isn't as important to tiny as tiny is to him. he realises what it really feels to love someone that means a lot to you. 

"i think about how much depends upon a best friend. Then you wake up in the morning you swing your legs out of bed and you put your feet on the ground and you stand up. you don't scoot to the edge of the bed and look down to make sure the floor is there. the floor is always there. until it's not.”  - will grayson #1

just from that one simple quote, i can actually relate to it quite a lot. i guess that you can say that in a way i am very similar to will grayson #1. he does not know that his best friend is that important to him until he is forgotten by him. 

will grayson #1 mentions that he has a stuffed animal toy named marvin that he used to play with all the time but as the years went by marvin slowly grew less important to him. every once in a while will would still take marvin out of the closet for the stuffed toy's sake even though it sounds pathetic even to himself. sometimes will feels as if he is tiny's marvin and tiny is stuck with someone like him who probably cares more about his friends that they will ever about him. 

on a scale of 1 to 10 i can relate to this on the number 12. sometimes like will, i feel as if i'm never good enough for my best friend and that instead of wanting to be my friend they are stuck with me instead. i feel as if i am nothing but something that is just bothering them instead of benefitting them. from this, i've learned that love is complex and sometimes you don't exactly know that you love something or someone or even the relationship that you share with them until it's gone. 

this isn't the first john green book that i've read but it is the first time reading david levithan's writing. i am surprised to know that his writing is just as good as john green's and the next time i go book shopping i will be sure to pick up some of his books. 

this is seriously a good book and i'd highly recommend it to anyone. it's a great book about love and friendship and also all the feelings that come along with those two things. i'll give it a 10/10 (yes, it's that good) and it is now #2 on my list of favourite books of all time (after the perks of being a wallflower). 

do let me know if you'd like me to do more book reviews and also let me know if there's any books that you want me to read or do reviews about. ☺

do you have room for one more troubled soul?

life can be pretty confusing. well, actually, a lot confusing. sometimes we aren't able to differentiate between what is real and what isn't. just like how sometimes we often get confused whether or not whatever memory that we remember is a fragment of a dream or a reality. 

life is complicated too. it's like a maze or a never-ending tunnel. you can see where it leads you but you never really know where it ends and by that it also means you never really know what will truly happen to you in the future. life is full of empty gaps that need to be filled and i intend on filling those gaps up. 

things never go the way you want them to. one day you can feel like you're on top of the world and the next day you can possibly feel just like the dirt under somebody else's shoe. one day you can be the most important person in the world to somebody and the next day it would be as if you never meant anything to them. you see, that's life. it's a never-ending labyrinth of emotions. seasons change and so do people. they come and go just like the seasons do and they leave just as suddenly as they came. 

"but because things change. and friends leave. and life doesn't stop for anybody." The Perks of Being A Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

but even though i know that people will always leave, i want to be remembered. i want to leave a legacy behind so that people will know the real me instead of what this washed up society wants to see. 

the society sees me as just another regular girl but the truth is i'm more than that. i am my favourite songs and my favourite poems and stories. i am a mess of unfinished thoughts and also memories and events that have never even happened, all sewn together to create me. i am the things that i eat and also the clothes that i wear. i am a book just waiting to be read. 

so this is life. i can't exactly control it for it's a roller coaster ride of a lifetime that i need to appreciate and i've decided that it's about time that i have. there's only one small question though... 

is there room for one more troubled soul?