The Devil on Your Back

You know how I love Florence Welch (and her machine), so it’s no wonder how hooked I am to Shake It Out, the first single from her new album, Ceremonials. By hooked I mean, playing the song on loop at the office, at home, and while running. It’s one of those songs you need to play with the volume turned all the way up. You either listen to it on blaring speakers (or headphones) or you don’t listen to it at all!

I first heard it on Jam 88.3 late last year. I didn’t even have to bother taking note of the lyrics because this song was unmistakably Florence + The Machine’s! Oh it was love at first tune. Seriously, how could you not be drawn to those pure vocals set against sublime instrumentation?

So yes, I’ve been catching the song on the radio for a few months now but it was only a few days ago that I really listened to it. See, I’ve been sleeping for less than three hours a day (thanks to ze thesis!) so it’s truly been a challenge to drag my sleepy self to the office by 8am. But not last Wednesday, when this song played on Jam 88.3, on my way to work. Talk about the perfect perk-me-up to an otherwise dreary, heavy-eyed morning. If Florence’s powerful “shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out oh whoa” can’t shake out your morning sleepiness, I don’t know what will. Which gives me a wonderful idea: the chorus is the perfect alarm clock tone!

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To Leap Without Looking

First off, wasn’t that a delightful episode of Revenge? It’s been a while since Emily Thorne/Amanda Clarke last destroyed a foe, of this magnitude. You knew she was going to exact revenge that way, what with the outward references to lighters, matches, and fire throughout the episode. Tsk tsk, you don’t mess with this girl.

And for our weekly screencaps, I found this dialogue between Jack and (fake) Amanda to be quite relatable:

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The Hardest Word

And Revenge is back on air! Oh how I’ve missed you, my dear cunning Emily Thorne.

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More Fun in the Philippines?

So yesterday’s hot news was the Department of Tourism’s new tourism slogan, “It’s More Fun in the Philippines.” Within minutes of its official announcement, it had become the #1 worldwide trending topic on Twitter. In fact, it’s still the #1 trending topic in the Philippines, as of writing. Until now, people are talking about it, and for good reason.

General feedback has been mostly positive. From what I’ve read, people like the conversational treatment of the slogan. Personally, I think it’s a tad too long — the shorter a slogan is, the better, for easier reference and recall. BUT it certainly rings true (will get to this later) and unlike our previous slogans, this one is a complete thought — It’s more fun in the Philippines, period. No, it’s not the most original or inventive slogan in the world (in reference to its ripping off a Swiss ad slogan) but, y’know, it doesn’t need to be. What it needs to be is understandable, relatable, and “owned” not only by the Tourism Department but by the country as a whole. On that front, I think this slogan succeeds.

As for the logo, the first thing that struck me was that it was very ABS-CBN, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The text is set in (presumably) Harabara, which I think is the perfect typeface for the slogan. Neutral fonts are too formal and businesslike so they are out of the question. Handwritten fonts might come off as juvenile, if not hipster-y. Ethnic-style fonts, while pretty, are limiting and might pose readability concerns. So I do like Harabara very much because it has the right balance of readability, ease, and versatility. I also like the addition of the banig graphic although I must admit that it took some time before I caught the Philippine map in the pattern. I’m not a fan of how the Philippine map has been deployed in clothing and other merchandise but there’s no denying that it has become an icon of the times. To feature it in the logo’s banig is brilliant.

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Motivation

Our new dining table is my thesis nook. I’ve taken a monopoly of it since the day it was delivered to our house. I find that I am more productive when I am working downstairs, in this area. And I foresee that this will be the setup until the end of the school year or until I finish my thesis, whichever comes first.

It’s hard to juggle teaching and getting an MS degree. The teaching part, I can handle. It’s the thesis-ing that’s been really agonizing for the past year. I have no idea how I managed to do it with such ease when I was an undergraduate. (Then again, looking back, that wasn’t my best work despite the grade I got.)

I’ve done a few things to motivate myself so I can finally get down to brass tacks and do this… but not to much avail. For instance, I got myself a netbook last April just so I could dedicate one computer to my thesis. But that didn’t work out so well as I found it to be quite a task to type on a small keyboard. The netbook’s proven useful (especially when I travel), just not very much when I’m writing.

But this, I know, is just the right motivation to keep me going… the perfect push so I can finally get my research done on time:

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