the color purple

i'm not sure what has gotten into me..why i am into all these blogthing quizzes all of a sudden. but i did this one and it was really accurate. it was only like 6 questions. i mean, i don't know what color my aura really is...but all the stuff they said about me was right. this is much more impressive, albeit less amusing, than those name definitions and stuff.

Your Aura is Purple

Your Personality: You're a dreamer and visionary. You believe you were put on this earth to do something great. You in Love: You're very passionate but often too busy for love. You need a man who sees your vision and adopts it as his own. Your Career: You need a job that helps you make a difference. You have a bright future as a guru, politician, teacher, or musician.

What Color Is Your Aura?

for the moment

do you guys ever get that feeling when you listen to a song that is just so strong and inexplicable? i get it every once in a while when i hear a really incredible song. it's a feeling that makes you want to listen to the song all day long, and you feel that you just want to do something with it. if i could play it myself, i know i still wouldn't feel complete. it's a feeling of incompletion and utter hopelessness, but at the same time a feeling of complete freedom and liberation. it's like i really feel like i want to create something so powerful and so beautiful, but i know it won't be the same. every nerve in my body is moving to the rhythm of the music and my hands feel really ready to make something. but i just wouldn't know what. there isn't a thing i can do to shake this feeling. and it doesn't come so often. so what i end up doing is just listening to the song on repeat for a few hours, dissecting every beat the way they must have as they were recording it. i learn it inside out, like the back of my hand, like my life depends on it. then it's in me. then it's a part of me.

i went to the exit/in last night. i saw jeremy lister and the gabe dixon band play. they were phenomenal. jeremy lister has this amazing heavenly high tenor voice that he really knows how to show off in really creative ways. the gabe dixon band has a cool jazzy/funk feel, with an upright bass player instead of bass guitar, and gabe plays keyboard and does the lead vocals (and he also plays the accordion, which i found out when they came out to do an encore). he's played with names like paul mccartney and norah jones. i also went to school with gabe dixon's little sister for four years, but enough about me. ;)

jeremy lister played this song last night that just blew me away. it was the second song he played, but it was stuck in my head immediately and has been ever since. since i only heard it that once, i've been singing the same phrase over and over again all day long: "with your smi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ile....with your smi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ile." i finally found it on itunes, so i downloaded it IMMEDIATELY. you all should listen to it on jeremy lister's website. the song is called "for the moment."

i'm pretty sure the next one on my list to listen to for hours at a time will be "all will be well"...by gabe dixon.

e is for ebullient

so here's another RANdom post just for roxanne. i don't know what's wrong with my blog, but just scroll down.

ELIZABETH
E	is for	Ebullient
L	is for	Lucky
I	is for	Intense
Z	is for	Zealous
A	is for	Amorous
B	is for	Boisterous
E	is for	Exquisite
T	is for	Talented
H	is for	Honest

What Does Your Name Mean?

i don't know about you guys, but i didn't know what ebullient meant. according to oxford english dictionary, it means:

1. That boils; boiling; agitated, as if boiling.
2. a. Of the humours of the body: Agitated, hot, effervescent. b. Of drugs and diseases: Causing heat and agitation.
3. fig. Of energy, feelings, influences: Gushing forth like boiling water; bubbling over, overflowing, enthusiastic. Constr. with.

interesting.

hey, ukulele!

some of the kids i work with at the world bank children's center started calling me ukulele a few months ago. i'm not sure why, but they just started saying, "hey, ukulele!" ever since then, i've felt very close with the instrument. so the other day, i finally bought one.

...and i love it. i've been searching around the internet looking for all kinds of ukulele resources. i've found lots pages that have tabs and chords of popular songs, and i'm working hard now on learning to play "The Star Spangled Banner" (the national anthem of the USA). i think i'll audition in the fall to play it at one of our university basketball games. :)

one interesting thing i came across while i was doing my uke research is the ukulele orchestra of great britain. i didn't realize the ukulele was such a popular instrument. this ensemble has several different types of ukuleles played in it, and they play covers of all kinds of popular and classical songs. here is a video of them playing the nirvana song smells like teen spirit. and if that's not enough for you, listen to this cover of natural woman. wowie.

another thing i came across was a video of a girl known as the hoola hoop uker. no introduction necessary. i think the video speaks for itself.

i think the MOST impressive of all is jake shimabukuro,a professional uke player. below is a video of him at the strawberry fields memorial in central park, NY playing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." i guess his version is more like "While My Ukulele Gently Weeps."






i think this may very well become a new obsession with me. when i bought the uke, i noticed that they had them in all kinds of colors: pink, red, green, etc. i just went with the standard wooden guitar color, but if i buy another one i think i'll go for the pink. actually, the guy who sold me the uke told me that the beatles were big ukulele fans. i've found other sites that attest to the fact that george harrison was a uke player. and this site has a very unique way of teaching beatles songs on the ukulele.

i have a feeling that this whole ukulele thing could get dangerous. just look what happened to cookie monster.

aliens in the mist (or rain)

so i was just chatting with JD, and he sent me the link to an article about some unidentified red-colored particles found in a random red rain shower in India in 2001. basically, the man doing the research has found that these particles are a lot like live cells, with very thick cell-walls. they reproduce and everything! however, they do not have any DNA. and life on earth as we know it must have DNA in order to be classified as life. also, they can survive in water up to temperatures of 600 degrees farenheit, which no known life on earth can survive. so this guy has a theory: maybe they're aliens! maybe they hitched a ride on a meteorite and ended up in the rain in india.

now apparently they think this is a really big deal. i don't.

look, if aliens do exist (which of course they do. are we really arrogant enough to believe we are the only life forms in this universe?!), they're not going to look and behave exactly like us. in fact, and this has been my belief my entire life, i don't even think we would recognize it as life right away. life on earth is exactly that--it is life ON EARTH. it is made for the conditions on earth. the conditions outside our atmosphere are very different, and we can't survive out there. so in order for something to survive, it would have to be very different from us. it only makes perfect sense.

so these people are spending obscene amounts of money to tell us something i could have told them in second grade.

now, they also say that if they do end up proving that these particles are extraterrestrial life, that it may give us some insight into the origins of life on earth. but how would that REALLY help us? don't we have more important things to worry about? i mean, if these scientists are smart and able enough to study extraterrestrial life forms, i think the money and energy they are using should be put towards helping our own life forms. what about finding cures for cancer, AIDS, and even the common cold? what about finding (effective) vaccines for things like meningitis?

maybe i sound a bit cynical and backward, but i just don't think studying this will get us anywhere at this point in our society. it's not where we should be focusing our energies.

anyway, so then i was still chatting with JD and telling him he should read my blog and try the name thing and see what he gets. so i decided to try it again too. strangely enough, this is what i got:

Elizabeth Hai -- [noun]: An alien 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

seems there are mysterious forces at work...hahahahaha.

definition hoax

ok, so i've come to the conclusion that this 'name definition' thingy is a load of crap, but also a load of fun. after reading roxanne's post about it and seeing all the various comments people posted with their results, i noticed that some names have the same definitions. so i thought, "hmm...what if i tried it again. i wonder if it would give me the same response. so i did. and it gave me this:

Elizabeth Hai -- [noun]: A beat poet working the streets 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

this is strange because last time i got "like in nature to a banana peel."

so then i decided to try some of the other names of people who tried it just to check.

roxanne's result was "a person who has the ability to be invisible." when i tried her name i got:

Roxanne -- [noun]: A master blogger 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

i think that's a very accurate definition.

i was having luck, so i kept trying. martin got "visually addictive" last time. here's what they told me about him:

Martin -- [noun]: A human transformer (Robot in disguise) 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

i guess that goes along with the "superpowers" theme. hehe.

carmel last time had "full of bees." my result for her name was:

carmel -- [noun]: A real life terminator 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

soraya was "fuzzy to the touch." my result:

soraya -- [adjective]: Like in nature to a train-riding hobo 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

hahahahahah. i think i should stop there. nothing can top that!

check out your definitions and see what you get! the exciting part is that you can check back multiple times and it will give you a different definition. let me know your results!


(added approximately ten minutes later:)
guys, i just have to add this one. it's too funny.

Elizabeth -- [noun]: A person who makes a living suing celebrities 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

blogger's audio clip feature

is pretty cool. y'all should try checking it out. i'm really impressed with it and excited about it. earlier tonight i posted a song in the 'audio clip' link in my profile. so you should all listen to it!

the song is called "I Left My Baby." it's performed by King James and the Serfs of Swing. the vocalist is yours truly. :) so for those of you who haven't heard me sing in a while (or ever for that matter), this is your chance! the quality of the recording isn't exceptional, but i think you can at least get the picture.

these pictures are from when we performed at a senior prom last month. and by senior prom, i do not mean high school seniors or college seniors....i mean senior citizens. that's right, folks. the average age of the attendees at the prom was 78. it was awesome. they loved it and so did we.