New Playlist- Across the Universe Soundtrack

So last weekend I saw the movie Across the Universe with my BFF :) I swear the movie was surreal and yet it made perfect sense at the same time. The soundtrack was flawless & just emotionally appealing... sooo.... I googled it and now its my new playlist :D Yay!!!

1. "Girl" — Sturgess
2. "Hold Me Tight" — Wood, Hogg
3. "All My Loving" — Sturgess
4. "I Want To Hold Your Hand" — Carpio
5. "With A Little Help From My Friends" — Anderson, Sturgess, "dorm buddies"
6. "It Won't Be Long" — Wood, "students"
7. "I've Just Seen A Face" — Sturgess, Anderson
8. "Let It Be" — Woods, Mitchum, church choir
9. "Come Together" — Joe Cocker, McCoy
10. "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?" — Fuchs
11. "If I Fell" — Wood
12. "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" — Anderson, Fuchs, Carpio, soldiers
13. "Dear Prudence" — Fuchs, Sturgess, Wood, Anderson
14. "Flying" instrumental - The Secret Machines
15. "Blue Jay Way" — The Secret Machines
16. "I Am The Walrus" — Bono, The Secret Machines
17. "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!" — Eddie Izzard
18. "Because" — Wood, Sturgess, Anderson, Fuchs, Carpio, McCoy
19. "Something" — Sturgess
20. "Oh! Darling" — Fuchs, McCoy
21. "Strawberry Fields Forever" — Sturgess, Anderson
22. "Revolution" — Sturgess
23. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" — McCoy, Sturgess
24. "Across the Universe" — Sturgess (interwoven with "Helter Skelter")
25. "Helter Skelter" — Fuchs (interwoven with "Across the Universe")
26. "And I Love Her" (brief extract incorporated into the orchestral score during the "Across the Universe"/"Helter Skelter" sequence)
27. "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" — Anderson, Hayek, patients
28. "A Day In The Life" — Jeff Beck
29. "Blackbird" — Wood
30. "Hey Jude" — Anderson, Mounsey
31. "Don't Let Me Down" — Fuchs, McCoy
32. "All You Need Is Love" — Sturgess, Fuchs, Carpio, McCoy
33. "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" — Bono, The Edge

At work, not working... Retail therapy for cubicle blues!

So I'm at work... haha sad how most of my posts happen here, I practically live here lol.
So anyway, I'm here trying to be a good employee when my mind starts to wander and I remember a dress I've been wanting for a while, but as usual decide to leave for my next paycheck (ohh, the life of a broke college student, lol) and then I accidentally stumbled across the website where it's for sale... and then I accidentally started to look for shoes to go with the dress... so now there's a cute outfit out there in the cyber world that I want and can't have. Bummer.
Anyway, since I'm at work not working, I thought I might as well add the pics and give u guys a look. :D

Yes, there are two sets of shoes. I couldn't make up my mind. I guess it really depends on what's the overall look you're aiming for. I try to keep the outfit itself to a few colors, so I have options when it comes to accessories... but that's really just me.

Dammit! I want these! all of em! Anybody wanna contribute to the the funds and spare a good $300 for the dress, the shoes and the shipping? Hey, at least I asked!

So anyhow, back to work. I still have another hour to go before I can get outta here.
Damn. I just remembered I have an essay due tomorrow. Oh well. Deal with it later.
Catch ya latter chumps.
-Jezz

Complexities of another day at work :/

so I'm at work. Working-ish. and I'm dreading being here because of sinus pressure. It makes me cranky and it also makes me rude, which I have admit is not a good quality due to my line of work: Customer Service.
MY allergy medicine has made me really really groggy. I feel like I'm a hazy daze, and although it makes me upset it's a good thing I'm not driving with this frame of mind.
It is cold as fudge here and that isn't helping much with anything. I just ate two bowls of nachos while working and I can't even account for it, cuz I can't rememeber eating them. yikes.

I could just leave.... but the in-box is ridiculously full and I have a million tickets to close and update and something tells me that I won't be done with all by 8pm, considering it's 6:45 already.
Maybe I should stay and just try to exist while I pretend I'm busy so I'm not on the phone queue.
Or maybe I should just go home and wrap myslef up in my sheet and call it a day, pass out, and get some rest. OR MAYBE.... I could get off work early and meet H.a.S. and Sabrina, and Chris and go out downtown to the Westin and eat tapas as we watch the city slowly turn around us.
Maybe I don't feel so bad anymore!
Ok, I do feel bad. I feel sick. I don't want to work, but I'm not THAT sick that I can't hang out and eat.
Alright so sue me! I want to leave early to go out instead of working. It's not like I called out! I've only called out once, in 9 months of working here, I can at least try to slip an early leave, using my EXISTING and DETERRING allergy symptoms as an excuse -er I mean, reason, to leave.

So it's now 6:51 and I realize that IF I want any chance to actually leave by 8:30 or 9, I should at least TRY to get the in-box down, if not much, a little. I guess I better go and make myself useful. Damn.
~> to be continued...

**************************************************************************************
10:15pm rolls around and I still feel like crap
By now all kinds of changes have come along on their own.
I'm really actually sick, fever, coldness, weakness, tiredness, lack of appetite, everything.
Sabrina, Chris and Joey decided against going to the Westin since they are leaving really really early tomorrow.
H.a.S. and I were still going once I got off work early, but I wasn't able to. According to the supervisor (whose name makes me scold and squint my eyes in anger), someone called out and I would be the only person on the phone lines for iH between 9 and 11... So there is no way on earth I can leave a minute before 11:30, sick or not.
It infuriates me that despite the evil "supervisor's" "claim", SEVERAL of my co-workers are here on duty for iH, so OBVIOUSLY it wasn't the case that I would be the only one on the phone lines.
I'm cranky and crummy and whinny, I know.
I told H.a.S not to come over to the office and bring soup and keep me company cuz I know my temper and I know I'm going to be spiteful to him; even when we both know he had really nothing to do with any part of anything really... :/ I sawries I'm a pain sometimes.
Anyway, I suppose it's safe to say I've done my blogger duties today with my 3 posts, and made up for at least a part of my prolonged absence in the recent past...
So I'll rest my head on the back of my chair and pray the phone doesn't ring for the next hour and I will also admit I might possibly fall asleep. Whatever man.
Ok, so I won't fall asleep but I'll stream music on pc, which will be just as bad anyway cuz I'll slow down the network and the phone queue. haha.
(spiteful I tell you, spiteful)

-Jezz

The balancing act

SO I've come to see myself in a different light. (Yes I know I can be self-centered at time, wtfe)

After much debacle about me cutting my hair, and how much I've changed in the last 10 months... after hearing what everyone has to say and thinking of their opinions and how they affect mine.... after my conversation with H.a.S. last night about opinions, choices, priorities, consequences, failures, predicting the future and trying to overshadow the past, I've gain some perspective.

As individuals, we remain, ever changing, continually in evolution. By evolution, I don't mean the kind of changes that alter the biological makeup of our genetics, those take thousands of years of course. I mean, internally, emotionally we continually evolve, be it to better or worse versions of who we are.

That being said, I realize that, as insignificant as it may have seemed to me, I completely changed my values, my beliefs, my priorities, my choices and basically, what I defined as important to me when I cut my hair.
[[Leave it to me, to take something bane and trivial and turn it into the the apple that hit Newton in the head, causing me to discover the simplest of complexities about me. HA.]]

Having short hair made me change my focus. I saw it as an act of quiet rebelliousness. I didn't give 2 fucks about who said what and what I should've or could've done with it when I did it, or if I looked good or bad. I was tired of the stereotyping, the assumptions made about me, the other things that were overlooked about me. I was tired of the prejudice! I didn't care about anything else. I wanted to valued for who I was. I was speaking out, making the boldest statement I could: Beauty is not my main focus. It is only skin deep, and like most things in life, it will pass.

Days later it sunk in that, although I had made a point, there was more at stake for me that I initially accounted for. Turns out that all those assumptions and stereotypes we in fact quite close to the truth. They really were part of who I was.
Having long hair, I gave the impression of being quiet and reserved and shy; and although it was that way on the surface; I had self-confidence; a little fire in my heart that made me a toughened up cookie. I was strong. Fearless. I valued family above all else, I was committed to getting things right, doing things right.
When I cut my hair, I felt like I was a stranger to myself. I feel like I was standing in someone else's skin, being someone other than me. I was confused. I was lost.
Things happened. Life got in the way. I was in different circumstances, in situations I had never seen myself before, in things I could not have imagined. I made choices, I made changes.
Looking back at it, I see that although cutting my hair was meant to be an act of rebelliousness to prove my confidence in myself, to prove that I was strong and fearless, it back fired on me. It did the exact opposite. I became a mirror opposite of who and how I was. Maybe the circumstances I was involved in made it difficult for me, and made it easier for the changes to emerge; maybe they didn't. Who knows.

Fact remains that the confident, self-assured individual I was found itself MIA. I appeared to be strong and fearless at first, on the surface; but on the inside I was so insecure. I put my desires and chose instant gratification over the things I knew I should have been doing, over what once were my priorities. I put having fun and enjoying myself over being righteous and putting my responsibilities before my enjoyment. Live up now and deal with the consequences later.
I was so unsure of my choices I kept second-guessing myself. I knew something was off... but I was too caught up in my life, in everything, to take a cold hard look at the things I was denying. Denial and I are good old friends. We fit in right together. Deep inside, I felt like I was a cheap, mediocre, brittle version of the original Jessica. I felt and saw my life unraveling at the edges, I saw it crumble to pieces, and I didn't even know where to begin to put it back together.

More changes, more circumstances, more choices, more situations around me... and yes, my hair growing out. I seem to be finding elements and pieces of who and how I was and fitting it into who and how I am now. I'm trying to make a holistic version of me this time. A balanced act, not an ignorant fool who will follow blindly, but certainly not one who is oblivious of the consequences of her actions.
My hair is mid-length, slightly below my shoulders. My life is in somewhat of a harmonious balance. I feel empowered even if I am still quite fragile.
I'm still in the works... then again, aren't we all always in the works?
Someone should have told me life was this complicated mad long ago!

-ttys

Random Ramblings - Love

As humans,
are utterly, unavoidbly condemned
to take one step forward and then two steps back?

Are we genetically flawwed into falling into the same hole,
tripping on the same rock
constantly,
like a periodic number that can only repeat that last number endlessly?
Are we really plainly that stupid?
to fall for the same things over and over?


Dopamine is commonly associated with the pleasure system of the brain, providing feelings of enjoyment and reinforcement to motivate a person proactively to perform certain activities. Dopamine is released (particularly in areas such as the nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area) by naturally rewarding experiences such as food, sex,[8][9] drugs, and neutral stimuli that become associated with them. This theory is often discussed in terms of drugs such as cocaine, nicotine, and amphetamines, which seem to directly or indirectly lead to an increase of dopamine in these areas, and in relation to neurobiological theories of chemical addiction, arguing that these dopamine pathways are pathologically altered in addicted persons. Recent studies indicate that aggression may also stimulate the release of dopamine in this way.

-Wikipedia article on Dopamine

The human brain releases dopamine when it is in pleasure.
When you have good food, when you acheive something you are proud of,
when you have sex, when you are happy.
Now this substance is also released when you are in love...
and also when you are on drugs.

So let me see if I get this straight:
Love pretty much triggers the same response as a drug on your system.
I dont need to be high on LOVE!!
I got enough shit going on to make me go crazy on a daily basis on my own!

And help me understand:
If Love does the same thing for your brain as drugs do,
can love be addicting?
are we hopelessly vulnerable to become addicted to someone's love?
as to crave that person's affection to a point where nothing else matters?
to make you go against everything you stand for?
is there nothing we can do to stop this wide-spread evil?!?!

I ain't no rocket scientist, but damn, that is some seriously fucked up shit man....
WE HAVE TO CURE THIS DAMN THING!!! (o_O)

Now, I wonder,
IF,
in the hypothtical situation that I'm addicted to love,
particularly someone's love,
for these educational purposes we'll call it " X "
so, in saying that I'm addicted to X's love;
I suppose that I wouldn't possibly be able to get over my addiction to X Love by trying some other crazy compund of love,
something like, say"ZMS Love"; right?
I would only become further addicted to the general drug form,
LOVE itself...
regardless the final compound, the different variety.... so basiclly,
I need to go to rehab? (nooo, Nooo, NOO!)
Shoot, I'm already suffering all the withdrawl syndromes....
all twitchy and scatter-brained...
LOL, as someone told me, I'm all discombabulated (:P)
aw damn, I wasnt supposed to say that, it was originally a hypothetical situation...
oh well... I already admitted into it, what the hell...

So indeed, my only "cure" would just be to avoid it all costs...
indeed, stupid, and pointless
Love is damn near everywhere :/
and don't get me wrong...
for those of you lovebirds out there, by all means, man, I have no dubbs on it
Love all you want...
just keep that damn thing hella far away from me....
I need to get my head straight!!

and this insane craving is seriously NOT helping...

Well folks, I gotta finish up my working-ish day... and try to actually steer the fog that clouds my thoughts to see if I can be a productive citizen and finish my class assignments sometime in this century, hopefully before class on Monday...
-til the next one peoples...
and remember,
Say NO to Drugs!!!!

Homesick - bittersweet memories

I went to the Juan Luis Guerra & 4-40 concert last night and it was BALLIN!!!
I had an awesome time and, mom, who despite of her faboulous sense of humor never really allows herself to fully enjoy anything; was happier beyond what I could've predicted. She was having fun, and that in turn made enjoy myself soo much more.
Highlights:
-- Calor Urbano opened!! OMGG!!! they were friggin AWESOMEEEE!!! I lubb 'em!!

--A pesar de que estamos en USA, como en todo evento en el que se vea involucrado un dominicano, habian carpas regalando t-shirts, gorras, vociando, poniendo la gente a bailar merengue, rifando disparates, tipical dominican stuff.

--Se notó en grande la brecha cultural. Primero, por la vestimenta: los gringos, excesivamente casuales como siempre, andaban en flip-flops y booty shorts; los latinos, algunos más que otros y especialmente los dominicanos, andaban vestidos como si iban pal Jaragua, mínimo. Almost everyone was dressed up -myself kinda included (I wore a coctail dress ^^)- and of course we were looking down on the informality of your tipical "white people".
Then of course came the fact that our music is contagious and we can't just sit still, oh no. The space between one row of seats and the next is minimal, but you damn well know us latins were paired up dancing with the guy you just met a the concert, or in my case, andaban montando coreografías, kinda like the ones you see the back-up singers doing (I swear, it was my mom's friend, Tia Cecilia, who started doing it, and since mom was doing it.... ;P)

--Me acordé de Dennis un paquetón. (^^) Before the concert started, a group of my uncle's friends were talking about tennis, and of course we landed on the subject of Federer-Nadal games and how great the plays are, how absurd the the ball moves and how Nadal earned his victories against Federer. Dennis, crazy spaniard that he is, is litterally obsessed with the competition and practically worships Nadal. It reminded me soo much of the days when he would explain every intricate detail of every move. :)
Then during the concert, Juan Luis was singing "El niágara en bicicleta" y escuché la frase clave que encaja en nuestro "chiste interno": "Alguien se apiade de mí, grité perdiendo el sentido"
[por cierto, ¿¿Qué tienen en común Nadal, Juan Luis Guerra, Vin Diesel y Tio Teo?? jeje...]


Going to the concert, being surrounded by the scarse amount of dominicans residing in Duluth, GA 's vecinity, seeing my mom laughing and having such a good time, and the random thoughts I constantly had made me terribly home-sick.; and I must say I think this is one of the few times I've felt that way since I left. Please don't get me wrong -I love our tropical little piece of heaven, and would not change my origins, ever- but my experiences while living there were mostly quite sad. I'm not saying all of them were; I have plenty of memories I cherish dearly about my life there.... but here I have what I never could out there: freedom of choice, the ability to fend for myself, a bigger oportunity for college, a better lifestyle, and people who live and believe the same way; and back home, there were so many things going on on so many different levels that I was just about ready to lose my mind.

Today, while once again working-ish, I'm went thru one of my friend's facebook albums from my early high-school and realized there was so much I could've should've would've done if things would have been a bit different.
I also saw pics of my bf (aka Mr. Chewie) with his back-then gf, who happened to be a classmate of mine, whom he started dating a month after he broke up with me (yeah ouch; talk about a slap in the face.... he was known to be quite "da pleya" back in the day... thank GOD THAT stage is over.... and guess what!!!! I won biatchezzz!!!)
The point of this is to state, that I have good memories but I longed for so much and beared so much heart-ache over there that I have no desire to return to that.
I know, I know: it's a whole figgin island and life moves on and I'm in a totally different place and situation... but I still need some more time before I can say I harbor no grudges and resent.
Nontheless... dominicans are quite the characters lemme say. Being out here and NOT having dominican friends to say "chimi, bola, pasao, sancocho, bonche, coro, jevo, pana, dale ahi, k lo k, alante, bolsa y vaina" amongst other words and phrases makes you really apreciate your homeland.
DR de mi corazón... someday, sometime soon, old wounds will heal...