'Never a failure, always a lesson' is actually a proverb that I got off from what Rhianna tattoo awhile ago.  It's kind of funny because with things that has happened this year, I immediately written them off as failures and got really upset for it.  I think you start blaming yourself for a lot of things, but instead of looking at failures/mistakes as something that would ruin your life forever, it's powerful to think of it as a lesson instead.  Something that you learn from and I really like that. :) 

Speaking of which, I've added to my ever growing library. :P I bought 'American on Purpose', an autobiography by Craig Ferguson.  It's not a surprise since I adore Craig Ferguson as noted in my previous entry, but I was waiting to hopefully be slightly cheaper?  It was rather on the expensive end, but I gave in, especially since I got a gift card from my friends. :)  On a sidetrack, I bought in total 15 books this year!  I'm amazed too, I really didn't think I bought that much, though I'm happy.  Next year, I think I will hold back a little bit because I have classes that would probably need me to buy textbooks, so no more buying, for the time being. 


Back to the book, I thought it was a great read. :) I think Craig spares no expense of being just really honest about his past.  He doesn't glorify his achievement, in fact, many of which are quite understated in my opinion.  As well, I find that at times, he is a little too harsh on himself.  But he writes really candidly on his struggle with alcohol and drugs.  It's almost kind of surprising to read all of his experience and it's even more exciting to see his triumph now.  He's been sober for about 18 years, and that's an impressive feat in itself.  He's on quite a success late night talk show, for what it can reach, it's quite amazing to be quite honest.  

In line with what I wrote earlier, Craig writes about failures early on, 'He will know from an early age that failure is not a disgrace.  It's just a pitch that you missed, and you'd better get ready for the next one.  The next one might be shot heard round the world.'  This is when he talks about his son, but I find it also inspiring to others to read too.  For myself too while I'm still applying for jobs, if one doesn't work out, or if I mess up in an application, I better get ready for the next one. :P

It's funny the other little things I learned from reading his book.  I remembered him mentioning that people ask when you do hit rock bottom before you realize that you're making a mistake.  The thing is that you hit rock bottom actually quite a bit of time before you realize you make the mistake and each time it feels and is worse.  When I first read that, I was perplexed over this idea, because you would think after a rather dizzying spell you fall and you get back up and everything is nice and cheery.  This is far beyond true because it's only human nature to fall back to what's easy and back to the same routine.  It's not the worst thing in the world, but it happens. 

Another quote I came across that I quite like is the Latin motto that is on the Ferguson's clan official crest that states Dulcius ex asperis meaning 'Sweeter after difficulty'.  I think it's a nice little paradox and something inspiring. :) 

Craig met someone called Susie, who told him, :"Fear might be God’s way of saying, ‘Pay attention, this could be fun’”, I like that idea.  This idea spawned off to the idea that between adventure and safety, I choose adventure.  That's what Craig said and I always thought it was an interesting concept.  It gives me the idea of pushing myself to have a little more fun, after all, a little fear might mean it might be fun. :)

I doubt I would ever begin to fathom what the mind of an alcoholic is like and nor am I really interested.  However, reading this book makes me have somewhat of a greater insight into the mind of one, though, it's still confusing still.  One thing I don't need any real further explanation is that it's very difficult to overcome, but not impossible.  Given the right resource and the will, it is possible.  

An interesting read and it makes me respect Craig even more. :) Not to mention, all of the lessons I'm learning. :D

I'm not surprised that many people perceived me as a really "girly" person.  I love to shop, I'm getting into makeup and clothes and shoes rock my life.  However, I am very hands on too.  In high school, I took Tech and made a lot of things.  I made a birdhouse, a remote car and several circuit stuff too.  I think many people would be surprised to know, but at the same time, I can get down with a lot more practical things.  I do enjoy making things, and I think this mostly comes from my art background and interest.  

So it's a no wonder when it comes to building things around the house, I usually help with it along with my dad. :) A lot of the new furniture in our house I have helped my dad build, most which aren't too difficult to begin with, but it's always fun to figure it out.  When there is a new furniture, I like to think it's a little project that it's just for my dad and I to do.  My brother sometimes help too.  I love the time I get to spend with my dad building these things because we work really well together trying to figure things out and putting the pieces together. Also, we complement each other pretty well too since I can usually take apart the instructions and direct my dad while he usually is the one that assembles it without any nicks or anything like that well.  It's kind of like our little thing that we do together and that may not come by often, but I look forward to when it does. :) He's my favourite partner in crime when it comes to building things. :P

So recently I've been starting to use Twitter.  I've been meaning to get one for awhile, but I've always been skeptical about Twitter.  My thoughts has always been 'Seriously, a series of shouts in 140 characters?  And what can you get done in 140 characters?  Random ramblings?!'.   And to a certain degree it's true.  Well, with a lot of my posts, but I find that it also it is useful.  For quick little news and to direct to news, articles, readings, youtubes or pictures. 

I'm so surprised how much I have actually appreciate and like Twitter now.  One thing I did learn about adopting to these new social platforms like Facebook or Twitter is to just slowly go at it at your own pace.  It's not necessary to tweet everything, similar, you don't have to post everything or add everyone as your friend on Facebook.  As well, it takes awhile to get comfortable with things.  It's not difficult to start to tweet, but certain things like be a little daunting.  Such as creating shorter links, re-tweeting things and direct messaging people can be confusing, but I find that these sort of things you just ease yourself into.  There's no rush to it and joining in isn't too late. :) 

I'm hoping to slowly expand myself on Twitter as a starting step of establishing my presence online.  I am slowly including a Linkedin account, blog and involving myself in forums and whatnot.  I like being able to take baby steps.  One of them is slowly to write here as a practice before I start something more professional.  Can't wait! :)

Yes, I am an uptown snob! I admit it. What is this going downtown business? What is this TTC-ing everywhere? Okay, maybe I'm not like that, but I have to admit that I have been spoiled greatly through having a car for most of my life and being from UTSC, I have avoided commuting. However, since I have begun to intern, I have to TTC. The next best thing would be to move downtown, but to be honest, it's not quite absolute that I would be downtown at the moment, so I'm going to suck it up for the time being.

Despite all of the shortcomings of TTC that many people have often complained about it, I would say that it's different. After being on it for a month, there is some upside to it in which I'm thankful for the frequency for the TTC. As well, I am thankful for the fact that I can sleep and read on the TTC. When you drive, it's complete concentration on the road and little for anything else. I mean, there is the radio, but that can only keep you occupied for so long. It can easily get you agitated and cranky being on the road for long period of times. At the same time, I find that being on the TTC and not having much else to do, it also gives you a lot of time to reflect and think about things. I find myself just pondering about things, amazed at some of the changes that are happening around downtown (LCBO just opened at King Street West and Spadina :P) and just smiling at little things that come by.

One thing I do find is that commuting for an hour and a half for one trip (three hours in total) is extremely exhausting! I don't think I would ever commute for that long, I would give myself at most an hour to commute, the time is just so wasted otherwise. I would hate to spend so much time just going somewhere, I do have other things to do! :P Or I'll have to bring my laptop or something, but either way it's wasted time! I value time and I hate wasting it just idling, I mean I do read and whatnot, but it's still wasted time. I would consider living downtown because it would be more convenient, but that's a longer commitment if I do decide to work there.

Another thing is that even though the subway is so convenient and faster than the streetcar and bus, it's a little depressing! What do I mean by this? Well, it's underground and you don't see anything aside from ads and the people around you. I do read and it's fast, smooth and I sleep there, but when I'm not as tired I'm just wandering off in my own world. But when I run out of thoughts, you look around, it's dark, dreary and a little old? I don't know how else to explain it. However, I contrast that when I'm on the streetcar and I see things outside, especially the gorgeous light decoration around King Street and the buildings, its just a very different feel. I don't feel as dead, I feel more perked up and inspired. That's the one thing I like about taking the TTC, the opportunity to see things like that I would probably miss if I were driving.

I do like being downtown and seeing the busy urban lifestyle. Not to mention that everything is so convenient!! But I think the long commute is killing me slowly and making me resent the time that I waste. Thus, I'm a little more annoyed that I probably should be at the downtown location. I can't continue this long term. I've spoken like a true business student, time is money! :P

This post is like a week late, but compared to my other posts before, this isn't too bad. :P So, I went to go see Lady Gaga with my brother and sister last Saturday and it was amazing. I'm a huge Lady Gaga fan, I do get tired of songs pretty quickly, but then not really because if I truly love a song, I will listen to it constantly. I guess it's a little bit of a compulsive habit because I watch certain shows constantly like how I watch HIMYM on a daily basis.

I'm losing track of things. :P The concert was amazing. My only complaint is that she did come out a little later than I anticipated. I've been to quite a few concerts and it's not that bad. I blame it on the fact that the opening acts were quite long. It was nice that there was two opening acts, but I wasn't too fond of either Semi Precious Weapons or Kid Cudi, so I was okay. The funniest part of all of this is that my brother and I kept making random comments so it kept me amused throughout. :P

The main act, Lady Gaga didn't disappoint though. :) She perform pretty much all of her songs except for Telephone, but that's pretty insane still. Considering that it was about a two hour show, she certainly delivered with interesting dancing and costumes. I think from the Britney Spears concert, I realized that I do appreciate live singing over just a performance. I still loved the Circus concert, but I think it would have been better if she could have sang live. :P Surprisingly the stage was also quite interesting too because it looked like a box and it was filled with appropriate background images. I also loved the fact that she interacted with the audience a lot. Kid Cudi lost that and although a lot of things may be rather generic and probably said to other cities, it did connect the audience well. :)

My favourite songs of the night included Just Dance, Fashion, Teeth and Bad Romance.

I was happy to see that she had a full production value in her concert, which was so different from when she was performing at the Kool Haus. To think also that it was just like six month ago that she was in that venue.

One of my favourite concerts I've been too. :)

One of my guilty pleasures that I indulge in more than I would like to admit is celebrity entertainment and gossips. I would like to think that I'm completely up to date on the latest celebrity gossips and news. Though I do have the tendency to skip over certain celebrities like Spencer and Heidi and anything Kardashian. They just don't interest me and it's just a waste of time for me to keep up to date on where they went. My interests lies more on like new music (or music videos) that people came out with, more so recently watching/reading interviews, magazine photo shoots and random entertainments news. I know that it's not good to get too absorbed into these gossips, but it's just to relax to read some interesting things.

This has always been a part of me, I just pay more attention to entertainment news. Even before Perez Hilton and ONTD, I remember going to Yahoo! News to get my entertainment news. Although they are much slower, I find that other sites much more reliable. Another interesting note is that for myself as I got older is that I find myself more interested in what others had to say about an issue versus than the actual news itself. The most recent notable issue that I found myself more engrossed in the comments rather than the actual news is the whole Adam Lambert performance on the AMA and later ABC withdrawal on his GMA appearance. I know of the incident, though I have yet to watch the performance, but I got the general gist of it (from the gifs and random snippets). I thought the entire act was overrated and rather vulgar. But from reading the comments from ONTD, I love seeing the different perspectives of things. For instance, some people have noted similar opinions to mines. As well, there were comments such as there wasn't anything special to rave about or that he was being innovative. As well, there was comments that people shouldn't be offended and they are just simply overreacting. There was some interesting comments too, but I love the discussion it brought out.

I think another note, similar to how I liked certain comedians have changed overtime, my source for entertainment has also changed. From Yahoo! News, then Perez Hilton and Dlisted now I usually go to ONTD. I do still read Perez Hilton on occasion, but I find myself quite disconnected from it more so now because I find the personal commentaries he makes a little cruel at times and it seems really biased. However, ONTD to me is a collective of people who find out news and sends it to the moderator and it gets posted. I think it's a great collective system that to me is like Wikipedia. I think it's also great because I find that it provides a lot more up to date news on things, and since it's not just one person, you can get a variety of news. As well, I think the comment system which is to me something more exclusive to Livejournal that makes it easy to reply and clean. I find others like blogspot a little messier and whatnot. But it's the users is what makes LJ, not only are the news updated, but I like how you can read what people say. It's like a forum in many ways, which I find interesting. :) I think when people collaborate and share, I think that what makes a successful system, which is what I believe that makes ONTD successful.

Though I probably read up on entertainment news more so than I would like to admit, it's to me interesting so what else can I say about it? :)

More than ever you hear about people constantly talking about engaging consumers, Twitter, Facebook, but where have all of the celebrity advertisements gone? What do I mean? What I'm talking about is the days where companies would spend big money to get a celebrity to endorse a product and made a huge production of an ad for the Superbowl. The biggest example of this, Britney Spears. To me, that also pops up commercials like this:



Such a classic commercial and for me growing up, this is what I saw a lot of time. I guess you can say that Pepsi does use this with their Justin Timberlake commercial in 2008, but in 2009, I don't see this anymore. It's becoming a little more rare to see a celebrity aside from cosmetics to be in advertisements.

I was reading upon this article and this Advertising model of paying a celebrity millions to epitomize a product is no longer effective. It's all about engaging consumers and connecting with them. This is being used a lot less and it's an interesting shift of where money in Marketing is going. It is especially interesting when you see a big company like Pepsi that is notorious for celebrity endorsement to even scale back.

However, I do wonder in many aspects is this phenomenon rather more inclusive for the North American market. I am noting this because I see Asian countries for instance with a lot more usage of celebrity endorsement. Even in the UK I have notice that it is a little more predominant. I noted this with The Saturdays that are the face of Veet and Virgin. As well, with the different advertisements that are done there compared to North America. This is not saying anything about the country, but I think this is just evidence of the differences of Advertising and Marketing within the countries.

As well, even though the celebrity model may be used a lot less, I think it would depend on what exactly is the product. For instance, I think for cosmetics and fashion, the usage of leveraging their brand to them is still in effect and strong. For instance, Rhianna is still the spoke person for Cover Girl similar to Ellen DeGeneres. I think that is effective when that can capture what the brand is about. However, for many consumer goods, can this be said about it? I don't think so anymore.

I kind of miss the big advertisements with the songs and whatnot, but it's nice to see the change in Marketing. Consumers just don't connect with celebrities singing about the merits of a product, rather what can the product do for them. :)

I think one thing that I do find a lot of time is that I think I am quite patient with people. I think this is mostly due to the fact that I've worked with kids all of my life pretty much. Since high school I worked in summer camps and day cares. As a result, I can put up with a lot of things and just withstand it more so that probably I should take, but I take it. I always try to be this way because of my own philosophy is that I would want someone to be the same way with me, so I should be just as patient, if I could. I know I'm not always like that, but I'm trying.

For the past while I've been looking for something inspiring and to keep me motivated too. I think I came across Ellen Degeneres' Tulane commencement speech and it made me smile. I think it's inspiring because it does make me believe that things will be okay even if things aren't at the moment. I loved it when she said this, 'I know I'll always be okay because I know who I am'. I think now considering everything I've been through in the past while, I felt really lost on who I am. I was so ashamed, embarrassed, lost, and simply not confident that I was going to be okay. I could say it, but I certainly didn't believe it. I really didn't believe that I was going to be okay because of all the bad thoughts, but I think now more than anything, I know myself better and I'm happy who I am. Flaws and all. It's forever a work in process, but it's a step in the right direction.

I know my friend always reminds me, by stating that in 10 years or so, I would look back at this time when things aren't so peachy and laugh. I agree, things will be okay. However, I disagree to always have that mindset and to think so strictly like that. I do believe that I have to look in my future, have hopes, goals and aspirations. To get there though, I need to place my focus on now, the present, to be able to achieve my goals. To be able to get that 'in 10 years I will look back and laugh'. I know I will be okay and be successful, but I need to determine what to do now, because everything in the future would be fine, but to get there, I need to experience and see failure and success too. I need to build up all of those experience to become the person who is strong and successful. To get to there, I need to slowly build things up to become the person and to achieve those success.

One of my favourite words of wisdom for the past while is from Cheryl Cole's song 'Parachute' that states You are your worst enemy, you'll never win the fight. And it's so true. I've always been reminded that I need to be my best friend and I think in many ways for the past while I've been slightly unfair to myself and as much as I am patient to others, I need to patient with myself. I need to keep myself up and motivated because I know I have so many people who believe in me and care so much to see me succeed, I need to keep that faith in myself too. :)

Things will happen, things will be okay, it might take a little longer, but it'll happen.

I watched a lot of those entertainment documentaries and commentaries where they discuss like what was the best videos ever, artists who were big influence to artists today and whatnot. Everyone always talks about how influential artists like Michael Jackson and Madonna was towards today's music and this is especially true for music videos. Another thing is that I remember people anticipating for the Thriller video, but people said that you don't see that anymore. To a certain degree I agree, but one of my favourite entertainment news websites Oh No They Didn't makes me think otherwise. There are posts and they have people posting and waiting for videos to come. I noted this with the Britney Spear's '3' video and now Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance' video. I think that it does live on and it is apparent with larger than life and respected artists like Britney Spears and Lady Gaga.

As well, I think times are changing. People don't stare in front of a TV as much anymore, and this is especially true when the quality that you watch online is just as good as watching on TV. I think people would gather to watch things online and discuss in real time rather than watching it on TV and calling up their friends after wards. I think that it could be very powerful because that would definitely increase the amount of people who can watch it from anywhere, increasing the exposure of the artists and the video. As well, you can send it to more people with the availability of Youtube for instance.

I think for me growing in the 90's and early '00s, I think I was spoiled with some pretty epic videos. I'm a little sad that I missed out on the Michael Jackson Thriller video as I wasn't born yet, but videos like Tupac featuring Dre 'California Love' and TLC 'Waterfalls' were pretty epic in their own rights. But if you look at the videos compared to before, they're all so similar and boring. They are at a club, or they're just singing to the camera. Heck, if you look at Britney's older video, the dancing and even the cheesiness of 'Oops...I Did It Again' is to me more entertaining than her latest video '3'. Even Backstreet Boys had better music videos back then (Can't deny that Larger than Life was interesting at least :P). I would say that perhaps Beyonce does have some of the more interesting videos as of late, but 'Sweet Dreams' doesn't live up to like 'Survivor' from her Destiny's Child days. I don't think I ever watched a video though that left me amazed and wanting more recently. They were no means though bad videos, there were still great, but a little off from legendary status.

I think that many music companies aren't putting in the money there because the return for developing music and whatnot is certainly not to the same extent as it was a decade ago. I remember reading that probably what would likely happen is that companies would be hesitant and probably the last 'million-dollar' video would be Justin Timberlake's 'What Goes Around...Comes Around.' Which is why it pleases me so much to see Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance' video to be so amazing. I'm at such awe right now. It starts off so slow, but it builds up so nicely. The dancing is adorable and it has such a nice artistic touch to it that reminds me of Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson's Scream. It was interesting, and so different than anything you see out there. There is a creepy and very dark element, but it was handled quite well.

I think if not anything, this video actually makes me hope to people like Britney Spears, Madonna, Janet Jackson, Rihanna and Beyonce to make videos exciting again. I know I'm only listing female, but I tend to like female's videos better, I think there is something more artistically better. :P I want more videos with effort and thoughts to be placed into them. I want videos to be entertaining, eye-catching and fun to watch. I'm so tired of watching the same thing over and over again. (One of the best evidence of this is Usher who in my opinion basically released the same video with 'Yeah' and 'Love in this Club'.) I don't need to see just a pure dancing video, I don't need to see if it's predictable and like '40s setting with the same plots of a guy getting a girl or something or just someone singing into the camera, I want it to keep my eyes always glued and curious to see what it going to come next.

I'm surprised how much I love this video. It looks really amazing, everything is so clean and stunning. More importantly, there is clear evidence that a lot of effort was put into this.  You simply don't see this in a lot with music and videos anymore.

I really respect her and applause her for such an amazing video. It's one of the better videos that I've seen in a long time. 

I was on facebook and I noticed that my friend posted this article on Colbert. Basically, it's about Colbert Report sponsoring the US speed skating team.  This is due to the fact that their previous sponsor had to withdraw, thus putting the team in some financial difficulties.  However, it's not that Stephen Colbert is sponsoring the team, but they getting people to donate to the team and they have sponsored some other charities in the past too. 

I used to watch The Colbert Report before, but I stopped mostly because school started to get really busy and I couldn't keep up with it.  I'll try to pick it up again, but I always loved Stephen Colbert and how funny he is!  It's just so exaggerated and ridiculous that you can't help but to not laugh.  

The combination of both the Olympics and Stephen Colbert is very interesting.  Most of the time many companies are the ones that are sponsoring the team and whatnot, but I guess this just shows you that the recession is hitting people really hard.  But I think this would be an interesting way of raising awareness and a way to quickly raise money.  Finding a new sponsor may be even more difficult, but considering how successful it has been in the past, I wouldn't be surprised if they do succeed in this.  

I can't wait to hear more about this. :)