Let's talk about: Eurovision

     As you may all know, there is a annual song contest for Europe called Eurovision. The contest was inaugurated in 1956, so many years ago, and it's one of the most important shows on this planet. But, because there's always a "but", the contest changed so so so much over the years and it turned into a really predictable contest. In other words, you know the winner even before the actual night of the contest. I'm watching this contest - show since I was little, so I'm really familiar to it. This year, I finally realized things are going for the worst and that this show is not as fun anymore.

     First thing first, I do want to congratulate the winner, Loreen, and say that her song was really beautiful. But, again the "but", I do believe that were much more beautiful songs and there was a really good singing technique behind those other songs. Those songs I'm referring to are Spain's, Pastora Soler - Quédate Conmigo. and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia's, Kaliopi - Crno i Belo. I believe that one of these two songs should have claimed the win last night. A little bit of hope still exists in my heart, that the contest will go back to how it was before, because Serbia's song was really appreciated (it got 3rd place), and the same goes for Albania's and Estonia's song.

     Second thing, the freaking voting system bugs the hell out of me. I'm not talking about the official voting system of the contest, but the one of each country. People usually vote for their neighbors or countries they have a whole history together with. That's why most of the votes were so predictable. Leo, the one that commented the show for Romania, guessed where most of the high points (8, 10 and 12) went because that's how the countries gave points in the last 10 years. I did the same thing as him, and half of the time I was right. I'm sorry to say this, but this contest is about the best song, the best live voice and the best interpretation of a song. Some of the songs that got a good amount of points didn't passed this 3 important key point of the show. This goes for Moldova, that had the name of the song in romanian but the entire song was in english and I couldn't understand a thing, Russia, even if the grannies were cute and brave for singing on a show like this one their song didn't deserve second place, and Romania, because it got a crappy song (I'll explain this right away).

     Third thing, even if I repeat myself, Romania's song was a piece of crap. In my opinion it didn't fit the contest, I hated it that it was in English (I always hate it when our songs are in english because I think it should be in our language when it's a song representing Romania - you can say that my romanian pride makes me say that) and Spanish (why the hell spanish??!!!!), and because the lyrics were totally not making sense (what does Zaleilah mean?). Besides all that, the vocalist of the band was totally unprepared: during the rehearsals she forgot the lyrics, her voice sounded really different when she was singing live and last night she started off the tone and her voice sounded hoarse during some parts. In other words, the perfect combination of a big failure. Costi Ionita, even if you still sustain that this song should have won, I'm sure it's your pride talking and not your mind. Plus, even if I didn't watched the second semi-final, I saw last night that from it came most of the good songs, so it made me realize that if Romania were in the second semi-final it wouldn't have stand a chance against the other bands/singers.

    Anyway, all we have to do is hope that next year the show will be better than this year, regarding the above mentioned problems, and that Romania will be represented next year by a better song (even if I have my doubts that that will happen).

Let's talk about: Books

I know I haven't written a "Let's talk about" post since a long time, so I thought today was a great chance to do so. Please do keep in mind that this post might contain spoilers (I don't want to ruin a book for you before you even got the chance to read it).

I'm going to start by telling you how I started to get this addiction of reading. Back in my 5th or 6th grade (I can't remember well), the romanian literature teacher at that time gave us a list we had to read for the summer. Some of the books were good but some were not that really interesting at that time. I remember I read Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (I still have the book), Around the World in Eighty Days, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and many other books by Jules Verne, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. These are probably hard books for a 15-16 year old kid, but I enjoyed them since the stories are really nice.

Then, when I entered high school, again, the literature teacher told us that we had to read the books she will give us or we got a bad mark. That's when I read Ion by Liviu Rebreanu, Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent and With the Gypsy Girls by Mircea Eliade, The Moromete Family (first part) by Marin Preda, The Last Night of Love, the First Night of War by Camil Petrescu, plus many other more. Besides all these books, I read some on my own for extra credit, like The Moromete Family part 2, Procust's Bed by Camil Petrescu and Jar by Liviu Rebreanu.


In college I didn't have romanian literature anymore, so I started to read books on my own. The way I pick books might be a little strange, but usually I read the synopsis found on the back cover of the book and if I find it interesting I buy it. If not, then PASS!! :)) What I started to read during college are all books written by international authors. I read books pretty fast, like a 400 pages book I read it in two days, but if you put the hours I actually read head to head, it probably takes me less than a day.

As you can see in the picture I did read the Twilight series. I know that some people don't like the movies and the books but I do love them. The movies are not that good. In my opinion Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are trying way to hard to get into the skin of the characters, that they go to the opposite direction. Good actors are the ones that don't look like they act, like they are getting a new name and they are living the action for real. Kristen and Robert are really showing that they are acting. Sure, some of you may say "You read the book first and then you saw the movies so that's why you have this impression". Believe me, it's not that. Plus, books are always better than movies. Anyway, people should keep in mind that these books are for teenagers or young adults (however you want to call them) so that's why the story is so cheesy.

Another book from this series, the young adults books, that I have read is Fallen by Lauren Kate. I haven't got my hands on the next books, but I'm planing to read them. I really love books with creatures from different legends, but the ones I love the most are the angels and if a book is about them and the fight between angels and demons, then I must have it.

Before I got to buy books, I read them on my PC in english. This is when I read The Morganville Vampires by Rachel Caine. I haven't finished the series or if it's still ongoing, I haven't got the chance to be ut to date with this books, because after the 5th book, the story started to get boring. I wanted to start readying them again a year ago because I saw the books translated into romanian in a bookstore, but i dropped that idea pretty fast.

Now, let's move on, to another type of books I love to read: horror. From this genre, I only read books from John Saul. I really love his books because it's super fast to read and easy to understand. The down side to all of this is that I don't find them that horror. Yes, the books are full of suspense and mystery, but the only book that scared me was The Right Hand of Evil. The other books, Darkness, Sleepwalk and Creature weren't that scary, in my opinion. One thing that I realized after readying these books, is that the action follows a pattern: the main character of the book moves to a different city than before and you find out about what the connection between the title and the book near the end of it.

Next, I'm going to talk about Dan Brown's books. From this author I only read Digital Fortress, Angels & Demons and Deception Point. What I love about this author is that he can trick my mind a lot. In every damn book, he gave me the impression that the one to blame for the bad things in the book is someone else than the actual person that is guilty for everything. A friend of mine told me that the same happened to her, but only for the first book. I guess I need to read the other two books in hope that I won't be deceived again.

I'm sure that by now everyone realized that I love Japan and South Korea, so it's not going to be a surprise when I'm going to tell you that I read books from the japanese literature. Fumiko Enchi, Yukio Mishima and Taichi Yamada are ones of my favorite authors. I find them really easy to read and I think the stories are really interesting. Of course there is a bit of SF in the books that make them even more fun.

Even if I usually read fast, there are some books that get the best out of me. Those are the books that explains the action really good, like to the smallest detail you can think of. The author wants you to understand the characters even more that you would do, by reading a book, like they are real persons. These books are Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima, Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (this is a case where the movie is as good as the book) and Independence Day by Richard Ford.

One of the books I love the most, the one that I enjoyed the most and the most fun one, is and will always be Where Rainbows End by Cecelia Ahern. This book is not a normal book. The book is a collection of messages, emails, letters, instant messages and newspaper articles and follows the life of the main characters. The book teaches you that sometimes, some decisions we take in life can change your whole life and can keep you away from things you wanted really in your life.

I know that the post is really big, but I hope you will pick some of the books I read as something you will read in the near future.
 

Small Kpop MV review: JJ Project - Bounce

     I know that lately most of my post are about Kpop, but there are so many comebacks and debuts of bands I love that I can't help to write about them. Today I'm going to make a review for JJ Project. JJ Project (because of the last word, it makes me think this is a subgroup of a future to debut band - something like how things were in B.A.P.'s case - or this is made just for the fun and the members will be actually be apart of two separate bands) is a band created by JYP, with two members: JB and JR that we all got to know in Dream High 2.

     They really showed their skills in the drama, JR is like a dance machine and JB has a really cool voice, so I was expecting a great debut from them. And I got it, with a few bad things attached to it.

     The song has a fast rhythm, one that I love, but I have the impression that I'm listening to 4 different songs: a hip-hop song (I think I can hear a little bit of old school hip-hop and it makes me think of Lil Mama's songs), a rock song (even if JB says "rock'n roll" there is no freaking rock'n roll, because it's actually pure rock), a house song (it does not make me remember of the club songs these days but the old house songs - like Basshunter songs) and I guess a pop song (I really can't name JB's part anything else but pop). The things is, because these music genres, the flow of the song changes and you can feel it right way because the difference is so big from one genre to another. Overall, the song is really good, but if I were in JYP's place, I wouldn't have tried to put 4 music genres in 1. Maybe two the most, but definitely not four.

    The fast rhythm makes you want to dance, which is a good thing (you don't want to see me dancing right now). I really enjoy the part where they go "Now everybody bounce bounce let it bounce bounce" and I'm like jumping with them and when the rock part starts I go all headbanging (this song gets the rocker out of me). After listening to the song for a couple times (what couple?? I'm at my 6th listening right now :)) ), I realized it's really catchy. That's a good thing, because catchy songs makes you listen to them more and more.

     Anyway, remember people:

Keep calm and bounce!!!

I need a little bit of help

     Hello everybody!! How are you today? I hope you are all having fun and enjoying your time...because I'm not doing so. Outside is a shitty weather (it freaking rains!! :| ) and I had some plans for today that got canceled because of the weather.

     Anyway, I'm making this post because I want some help from you. I want to win some Kpop CD's, but I need people to click my link (I'm going to give them to you in a few seconds), so that I can have more chances to win. You can be or not, a Kpop fan, because if you click the link it will count anyway. If you want, you can create an account and participate in the giveaways too. Also, if you do that, please leave a comment to this post with your link and I will help you back. ^^

     So here are the links:

1. Baek Ji Young giveaway - http://www.gurupop.net/event/18/67757275706f7034353530

2. Hello Venus giveaway - http://www.gurupop.net/event/17/67757275706f7034353530

3. Wonder Girls giveaway - http://www.gurupop.net/event/14/67757275706f7034353530

4. J.Y. Park giveaway - http://www.gurupop.net/event/15/67757275706f7034353530

5. A Pink giveaway - http://www.gurupop.net/event/16/67757275706f7034353530

    For those of you who will help me, THANK YOU!!!, and for those who won't, Don't worry. I'm not going to hate you or anything like that ^^.

Small Kpop MV review: Infinite - The chaser

     Me is spazzing right now!! Not as much as I did with B.A.P., but it is something close to that. Yes people, Infinite is having their comeback and their new MV is totally awesome.

     First of all, the rhythm is awesome. I'm used to this fast rhythm that is always, or almost always, used by Infinite in their songs. It's like their trademark. It gives you this feeling of rush and it makes you want to dance to it. Because of this rhythm, their dance is as fast as the song, and this is one of the reasons I love these guys. Their dance moves are so fast for my eyes, but they are able to actually do the moves every time in sync and you really can't see a difference from a performance to another because it's the same: perfect!

     Second, Woollim, what happened to you? Did you finally realized what great potential exists behind Sungjong and Sungyeol? The guys finally got a little bit more lyrics, more screen time and they are placed in the center. I almost did not see L, who is the face of the group. Sungjong and Sungyeol finally got what they deserve as part of this group. I always got the impression they were used when places needed to be filled by someone else than the rest of the group.

     Third, I haven't really understood the MV. I did read the english translation of the lyrics, but I can't find something that will make me understand the MV not even 5%. So if there is someone who did understand it, then please explain it to me.

     The song is about them being dumped and them saying they won't give up on  those girls and that they will make them fall in love again with them (I used so much "them"). So I guess this is where the title comes from. They chase after the love of some girls. Ohhh!!!! I guess they chase for the girls, so they take things to the extreme, like they would do anything without giving a damn about the consequences, that's why L has a car crash, Hoya is climbing something, that probably is hard to climb, and Dongwoo and Sungyeol are on a bike. But I still did not understand the part with the keys that Sunggyu and Sungjong have in their hands and what is that box all about.

     Anyway, all in all, I love the song and the MV. I will always enjoy listening to Infinite.

Japanese Festival: Okiagari Koboshi

     I planed to go to this festival yesterday, but I had a terrible headache when I woke up in the morning, so I gave up the idea. But, today I was feeling super ok and I did go to the Japanese Festival Okiagari Koboshi. The festival was made by the classes from the Japanese section of Ion Creanga High School. It was fun to walk around the classes and see what I can do. 

     The first thing I did, was to learn how to do the wrap something in a cloth (Furoshiki), like books, bottles, bento, so that you can transport them easier, and also, how to make cool bags from these cloths. After that I saw some anime (Kuroshitsuji and Togainu no Chi), then I went to the origami room and made some lilies, a dog, a boat and tried...tried to make a crane but I forgot how to make it, so I gave up in the end. The fun part was to see Tsuki making a heart bookmark. She tried, she really did, and in the end she finally made it, but it was so fun seeing her trying to do something that it seemed easy (even I couldn't solve the mystery behind the making of the heart bookmark).

     Oh, I went to the Haunted House (Obake yashiki) which was pretty cool. I think I screamed once, I really don't know, but it was fun. I always saw this kind of things in Anime and Japanese dramas and I wanted so much to try it and today my wish came true. And Tedi, I'm sorry I wasn't looking behind me so that you could scare me, but Tsuki was dragging me towards the exit to fast to be able to do anything.

     The ending ceremony was nice because of the traditional japanese dance, the modern one, because there was a girl that played a traditional instrument called Koto (please correct me if I'm wrong). And thank you Tedi for singing (even if there were some technical problems). 

     All in all, it was a fun way to spend my Sunday and I can't wait for next year. ^^

     Picture and videos time (sorry for my crappy pictures but I have a 9.5 megapixels Kodak so I can't ask for to much):

      (credits to Tsuki for the videos)

I'm thinking of.....

     ....doing something new on this blog. Since I saw my stats for this blog and realized I have around 970 views (I'm not trying to brag about it or anything like that), I thought of trying something else.


     That's why I created a suggestion box (kind off) and I'm waiting for you too suggest me a topic or something you want me to talk about it. The questions can be something like "I want to know your opinion on books, so can you make a "Let's talk about: Books" post?". Also, you can ask me whatever it comes in your mind about me and my life (well almost anything, let's keep a good level of decency here) and I'll make separate post with my answers to these questions.


     If you are interested in this suggestion box, start asking: