The Strokes have a new album out, Angles

If you told me this information during my late high school days or freshman year of high school I would get very very excited. The Strokes was one of my last "wide eyed band obsessions" that I had. It's been a long time since then. Metric, The Morning Benders, and Fleet Foxes make the ranks but unfortunately don't capture it, maybe this is what happens with age.

The Strokes recently released their new album Angles near the end of March, but I tried to ignored it. I was really disappointed with their third album First Impressions of Earth (especially with the horrible video Juice Box - it was beyond what I could handle. You Only Live Once though is one of my favorite songs) Julian's attempt to be "different" was too much for me. I say Julian since he tends to be the master mind/control freak behind the albums. He recently came out with a solo too but I also have not given that a chance yet. 

I gave it a run through yesterday through. You can hear the entire album here. 

I was scared. I first listened to their first single "Under Cover of Darkness." Okay. Safe. It's alright.

Then I listened to the rest of it. It was different but not annoyingly different from First Impressions of Earth. Their inspiration had a little bit of elements of baby Strokes but then took elements from other albums, each song with its own appeal. Interesting. I am still a bit critical though....since pitchfork did a very extensive review of the Strokes for the last 10 years of their careers in build up for this album, revealing that the Strokes boys themselves didn't like the process of making this album. At around this time Julian was promoting his solo gig and recording for this album at the same time.

Valensi found the whole experience deeply dissatisfying. "I won't do the next album we make like this. No way. It was awful-- just awful. Working in a fractured way, not having a singer there. I'd show up certain days and do guitar takes by myself, just me and the engineer. Some of the third album was done that way, but at least we were on the same page about what the arrangements and parts were. Seventy-five percent of this album felt like it was done together and the rest of it was left hanging, like some of us were picking up the scraps and trying to finish a puzzle together."

"We're all learning to work on each other's songs and learning how to deal with emotional issues that come up in relation to the songs, when to let go and when to fight and compromise," says the guitarist. "I feel like we have a better album in us, and it's going to come out soon."

Julian: "I definitely think there will be a fifth Strokes album. I mean, I hope so."

Despite this negative reviews from the band themselves, I personally recommend: "Taken for a Fool" "Call Me Back" & "Life Is Simple in the Moonlight."

Critics like it too:

Angles is the best album the Strokes have made since Is This It because of the stylistic depth and progressive excitement in those crisscross guitars, the tightly wound rhythms and Casablancas' dry trademark croon. - Rolling Stones

It's a great album thrown together albeit probably with pressure from labels and their fans. At least they created something, and with that I can respect.

I first fell in love with them because no matter how many times you listen to their first two albums you can always find a new beat to fall for. I fell in love with them continuously and I loved them in a way that I could never love any other band. These boys will forever be know as my "favorite band" for influencing me and accompanying me through high school and early college days.

Like with any album it takes me a long time to warm up to it. Sometimes I listen to it a year or more later having found it laying around in my ipod. I'm still warming up to this album, but I can tell that I like it. 

Hong Kong, honey.

via my friend Ed.

Nokia - HK Honey from The Silentlights on Vimeo

This video really makes me miss Hong Kong (Also the British accent is quiet dreamy - "I'm a bee keepa"). It captures the city pretty well in under 4 minutes. I had spent a rather life changing 6 months there. My time in Hong Kong was absolutely wonderful, the city itself is enough to keep you company. I remember being lonely a few times, but found refuge with the tall buildings, sky scrapers, to the small rickety food stalls. They were lonely. And maybe it was something about that loneliness too that made me feel for the city. Contrary to the video, Hong Kong gets really quiet around 1 am. With no one around, the sounds echo and bounce at night against the hard concrete. Softening it. If you're quiet enough you may notice that the cement pulsates. It was as if they were speaking to me.

I sometimes wonder what Hong Kong was like before it's rapid economic development.

All this talk about honey reminds me of the Bohol, Philippines:

Random inspiration

Courtesy of one of my favorite image websites.

 

Hey ma, look I'm on tv.

I've made a few cameos on tv since my start here with my work, Pacific Links Foundation with their anti human trafficking project, ADAPT. For those that don't know already we combat human trafficking at the borders of Vietnam through grassroots efforts. This is a different way of learning about what my organization does. See if you can spot me in some.=)

CBS

PBS (Forward to 4:50 to get to my org!)

A video myself and a fellow volunteer put together for SF State. =)

Lastly, my thoughts on women's empowerment and my work. I wrote this in an email to someone today. It may be a bit out of context (you don't need to know), but the ideas that I wrote best summarize my thoughts on why I am here.

For me the work of PALS and ADAPT redefines the definition of women's empowerment to mean much more...

Scholarship, life skills and vocational training dive into the power that all women and girls are born with, the power that they already have in themselves. I think that the word "Empowerment" is a very powerful one, far from being "soft" and "general." One that derives from the idea that girls and women are innately strong and powerful. And while many organizations have maybe used that word, I think our 10 years of work redefines "empowerment" and shows what it's really about. Personally for me, living here for two years, seeing and meeting the faces of young girls and women of our programs I know they are very strong, very resilient. For trafficking returnees our work is more than "freeing themselves" from slavery per say, more so they need help in realizing what has and always been in them. ADAPT does helps girls and women realize the power inside them. We empower them. 

Also the definition of empowerment: "Empowerment is the process of increasing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes. Central to this process are actions which both build individual and collective assets, and improve the efficiency and fairness of the organizational and institutional context which govern the use of these assets."


---


Have you ever met someone who didn't believe in themselves? 
It's a very disheartening experience


Have you ever tried to make someone believe in themselves?
It's a very disheartening experience


Have you ever believed in someone, more so than they believed in themselves?

It's a very disheartening experience

but you can only do what you can
you should say what you can
because you don't know what kind of impact your words can have on a person if at all.
Silence will not, I know that for sure.

She laughed, and I lost my hearing.

Note: This blog is actually dated April 1st, 2011 but I hid it in the month of March so her other friends who were in on her joke couldn't find it. My clever self tricked Sally with her own trick. This is my first real attempt at an April's fools joke. I'm 23. I'm so bad ass.


Although it like 35.68% failed...I realized it wasn't so funny, but I felt rather great in the process. =) As a result I have a whole bunch of pictures of Sally on my blog.

Sally Kikuchi is a very good friend of mine. =) After rummaging through some old photos, I decided to capture our friendship here on my blog. 

So it started like this, this is me before I met Sally Kikuchi. Lost, confused, and a tad bit awkward, I had a difficult time making friends.

During this time, Sally Kikuchi also had a difficult time making friends for reasons I am unaware of.

Okay, okay I kid, we're actually both awesomely awkward people who like to laugh. See the excitement on her face due to the fact that we're friends? Yeah I know. She loves me.

Anyways, let's backtrack  well her Nikkei Student self was introduced to my REACH self by our friend Van. I am glad he is some use to our lives. (^_^)

I believe it was a blur of buying me a cookie to my first drunken night on her birthday to boba sproul chats on sproul, Sally Kikuchi became a really good friend of mine and has been one of the few people that are a constant presence in my life despite being so far away from me. Here is why sally is great:

She quiet photogenic:

She makes me laugh (and vice versa):

For some reason, lady gaga tends to be part of our conversations on gchat:

Sally: i forget

  do you like lady gaga?

14 minutes

1:13 AM me: she's cool i have no feelings really about her

  i like watching her videos

1:15 AM Sally: mmk

  im watching her 1 hour interview with google

1:16 AM and i like her

------------------------------------------------------------

me: ohhh kk

10:46 AM do you like lady gaga?

 Sally: yes

  :)

  i like her boldness

------------------------------------------------------------

Sally: hahaha it might

  dude kim watch lady gaga's new music video for telephone

  itt is crazy

  but i hecka love lady gaga

-----------------------------------------------------------

                  Sally: im listening to lady gaga before i go to bed haha

She tells these lame jokes, often repeatedly:

June 20, 2010 (on skype)

Sally: hey kim

  how does lady gaga like her meat?

RA RA RAAAAAW

June 22, 2010 (on gchat)

9:35 AM Sally: hey kim

  how does lady gaga like her meat?

 me: ah im glad you didnt tell me the punchline before the question

9:36 AM RA RA RAAAAAW

 Sally: HAHAHAHAHAHA

  man

 me: hahahhahahahaha

 Sally: did tika tell you?!

 me: tika forwded me the conversation

 Sally: aw man

 me: hahahha

  hahahhaa

  hhahaha

  omg

  sally

  plus

  you've told me this joke already

 Sally: that was such a fail

 me: what were you thinking??

9:37 AM Sally: WHAT?!?!?

  NO WAY

  when did i tell you this joke?!

  man

And now the last and final one, she tends to be pretty forgetful these days:

Sally: haha

11:12 PM so to get libby and jen for april fools

  i created a fake email account

  "Larry Hanpril"

 APRIL FOOLS' SALLY. Jokes on YOU. I hope your big head enjoys your date with Larry. I put in quite a few good words for you. HAHAHA.

When I get affirmation, I get happy.

I'm just being honest, frank, candid (gre word - I should really be studying). Every single like on facebook, comment, email, and other forms of affirmation are quite enjoyable to me! I think people forget or don't know that I live in rural/suburbia of Vietnam. My mama lived a portion of her life here.  I do spend quiet a bit of time on my blog and facebook, checking if anyone has affirmed my thoughts about life, although rare, comments on my blog are ever better because that means you took the extra time to click around. Thank you!

I know I talk trash sometimes about other forms of extreme affirmation, like people who are constantly twittering, facebooking, and texting.

I mean I can pretend to be hipster pretentious and not really care about what people think about me, be all vague about my life, but that's what this blog is for. but why would I be writing blogs? Blogs are some people's way of asking for a bit of attention about our lives. Nothing too bad. I don't really talk about my emotions to people, so in that way, I never really release the pent up experiences or feelings I have through spoken word. Only written word.

I have to be more audacious (gre word) in life.

And now onto the subject that got me blabbering at 1 am in the first place. So many people are liking it on facebook that I'm going to extend on it a bit more. I've grown a great deal being here, and also I've matured and become less fearful of things. There were many that doubted wether I would "last" in Vietnam.

Well IN YOUR FACE. TWO YEARS BIZNATCH. =) I never once doubted myself. I am a lot stronger than many people think I am. Like I said before in my life lessons that I've learned in Vietnam:

Our assumptions about people are always never complete.

being in vietnam for two years, anything "chaotic" doesn't even phase me anymore. lol:


oh, no electricity? whatever. let's go to a cafe. 
not following instructions? alright things will get done.
mouse in the kitchen? hi buddy. 
bugs in my rice? protein. 
hair in my food? oh. 
yelling angry staff? the sky is pink today. 
burnt out? put a bird on it. 
stupid people? who? 
spider or bat in the room? mosquito racket.
tired at work? I live on the third floor of work.
late for work? I live on the third floor of work.
forgot something at "home"? I live at work.
fallen off a motorbike? there's dust on your butt.
blocked facebook? there are blogs.
cockroach? If you get them to lie on their stomach their helpless.
pink eye? get medicine.
fever? lie down, sleep.
stomach hurts? what did I eat 10 hours ago? oh yeah. 
pimple? oh you ate something "hot"
thirsty? go get a smoothie for 50 cents.
hungry? go to the market.
the floor is wet? wear sandals.
no soap in restroom? there's water.
dropped food? 20 second rule.
people saying your fat? you look fatter too.
dirty ice? wash it.
broken laptop cover zipper? it can be fixed.
broken cellphone screen? it can be fixed.
stolen laptop in japan? japan is really small (actually quote from experience)










don't take life too seriously.do what you love. go with the flow. don't try to make things perfect all the time. do what you can. do what you can with what is in front of you. do what you can with what you are given. learn from those that are around you, don't wish that you were somewhere else. don't place the blame elsewhere when its in your hands. don't place the blame in your dreams. leave your dreams to be. don't make excuses for your fears. that's how they win. don't always wish for something that is not there. don't focus on things that are out of your hands.  focus with what is in front of you. don't worry too much.  worry about what is in front of you. worrying about the future won't get you anywhere. worrying in general won't get you anywhere. stress out a bit. its okay. stressing is normal. but get over it, since your stressing is wasting time.


the unexpectedly good will come.







gotta remind myself constantly to take my own advice.

Despite being 4'11" I love rocking out really hard at shows.

Or maybe you can call it dancing really hard. Although I couldn't handle the My Chemical Romance crowd my freshman year...I was toppled over by 15 people and elbowed and eventually shoved out of the crowd because I couldn't breath (lol good times). I also couldn't handle the annoying female fanatics roadies (fuck. you.) of the now mainstream Kings of Leon.

During highschool I really really really wanted to be a punk, but I was unfortunately the opposite of bad ass, so my attempts of wearing really tight jeans (before they were popular) with lots of black and white were undermined by my perfect attendance and straight A's.

I miss this part of my identity: the combination of  teen angst, early college days wannabe badassness. Now I'm into hipster folksie, mellow songs that make me feel like I'm running through green fields. Meh. Every now and then you need some screamers, these are some of my all time favorite "rock hard until your neck hurts the next day" songs:

and to end on a lighter, less ear aching note, here is one of my favorite songs of all time: