And whoops, it's 2020

Hello my beautiful baby blog

If you were a person, you would be 12 and taking your UPSR now.... but of course it's been put off due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yeah, you heard me right. We're in the middle of a fucking pandemic. 

Everything is disrupted. 

My uni - I'm in my Year 2 of BSc Nutrition at University of Nottingham Malaysia - has been moved online. Ridiculous, considering the astronomical tuition and facility fees my parents are paying for out of their ass. I could do a huge rant about this but I'll save you my rage. 

My gigs - I had to cancel most of them, no income for my music in the meantime. Fuck. All my shooting projects with NTV and Notts.fm delayed. Project I.R.A.M.A. - delayed. UCMA events - delayed as well. Of course we all got around to do things online but still... live music in the flesh... it's something else. 

My internship???? Fuck. I have none. Nobody wants to employ my ancient and unimpressive ass. 

My mental health? Took a huge nose-dive. I really need to see a therapist, but when I can afford it.

My friends? I have a tight-knit group that I care about. They're good for me. I'm too old to give a shit to people who don't matter. I still suck at replying texts tho.

I'm just listing things now, it's 5am I have my Microbial Food-Borne Diseases final due in 1 day lol wtf am I doing alsjflksjdf

To whom it may concern, may I offer you some updates

 

I have curls now, perming my hair is so fun. I love it so much. It is also burning a huge amount of money cos I always go to my favourite hairdresser who is expensive af. I kinda want to dye it half blue, but flashing back to when I had coloured hair and the maintenance........ Perhaps not

 

I'm into makeup now. Still figuring out how to do eyeliner on my weird-ass eyes nobody seems to be able to tell me what shape it is - hooded? Mono-lid? But catch me without blush and lipstick and you know I'm having a bad day 

 

 I'm still writing! I never stopped writing music and I think I've gotten better at it.  

 

Would  15 year old Noel be delighted to know that she has once again picked up her white electric guitar that she was so excited to play. Now I'm equipped with much more skill and knowledge, I can't wait to start writing music with an electric guitar!

 

 

Film. My time in Taiwan  really made me fall in love with film photography. I'm on that hipster shit y'know. Maybe one day I'll share some more of my favourite photos and the stories behind it. 

 

I'ts pride month. And I'm pretty sure I'm bi. Yeah. 🌈

Music

Oh boy, music is like an integral part of my life now. Like, reading back, I've said I live for music but I never would have thought that it's actually the only thing keeping me sane and wanting to live. I've invested so much of myself in it. I'm not trying to make it big, or sell my music. I just want to create some good stuff and share it with the world. 

Music is meant to be shared. 

I'm so happy that I still found a core group of people willing to make music with me, post-Taiwan. I love them with all my heart. 

 

I still miss Taiwan. Two years seemed just a blink of time compared to the 24 years I've been alive. But still, my heart aches for the place I once called home. 

Anyway, this post is a mess. But I'm a mess. And it's usually a good time. 

I wonder when I'll post next. Maybe it will be 10 years later?

Anyway, here is some of my new music. Hope the pandemic subsides soon so I can leave my room and hug my friends. I have things to do and shows to play. 

Love, 

Noel

she still has feathers

Oh, It's 2017

I don't even know how to begin. 

2016 has been a year of constant fuck ups but also intertwined with some memories that I just can't help but smile at.

But that was 2016, and let's be real here, I am terrified of 2017. Genuinely.

2017 is the year I take New Year, New Me  literally.

New house

New uni

New car

New body weight

New glsasses

New...

(I ran out of things to list but you get the flow)

Sigh, I haven't blogged for so long, I'm sorry. 

I'll try to update as often as I can, and I promise there will be no secrets on my blog as usual.

Also, does anybody know where I can buy an annual planner/diary? I need it to keep my shit in check. Thanks.

P/s: my mum told me off for posing in my PJ's 

2017 Goals:

- Be kind

- Not be overweight

- Study hard

- Write music

A Little Too Chubby Angel

Back At It

Hello. Hello. Everyone. Hello. Hello.

So recently I have decided to start blogging again.

Surprise surprise. After basically ignoring my blog for what, a year? The prodigal daughter has come back.

Reasons why：

1.  I'm currently living back in Malaysia. Uni in Taiwan didn't really work out, so I'm gonna study in Malaysia
2.  Living here brings me back to high school days, where I was obsessed with Twitter and Blogging. So I've decided why not?
3.  I just came back from Melbourne and while I was there I constantly visited my blog to read my old posts and it made me really happy to have a digital imprint of my adolescence. And I've decided to jot down the interesting things in my young adult life here.

So yeah. I've just decided to do this. There is no plan. I never have one. 

Cheers

Blogging Again Angel

Ah, hello

Bonjour! I'm just going to pretend I didn't just disappear for months again.

The reason why I'm here again is because recently I got a hard disk and I managed to illegally download Adobe Lightroom onto my computer! So this means the 32GB (not joking) amount of photos that was originally stored on my computer can finally be placed somewhere safe! Plus, I don't need to only rely on VSCO on my phone to edit photos!

I'm really excited k

So basically this means I will get to edit my photos in the future and it makes me really excited :)

Alright, alright. Update!

It's the middle of the semester and there are many things different

1. I have decided to switch my major. I am currently majoring in Environmental Engineering and it took me two semester and a whole Summer to reach the decision that Engineering is definitely not for me.
2. The major I am planning on switching to is Life Science. It's basically biology, and honestly, lab rat > engineer.
3. My hair isn't blue anymore, it's pink! But of course, pink is such a hard colour to maintain *sigh*
4. I am going to compete in the National Universities Intercollegiate Guitar Music Invitational (since 1999) 全國大專院校校際吉他音樂邀請賽 (since 1999) or more commonly known as The Guitar Cup, 大吉盃 at the end of the semester. The competition is super huge in the southern part of Taiwan and it's a big deal for me. I kinda sorta did participate last year, with Soul Seller, I helped out with the lyrics hah. And I'm uber terrified excited to compete.
5. Yo. My life may be in shambles but I still update my instagram with the hashtag #TheMisAdventuresOfSophomoreNoel daily. It takes extreme commitment k, please read my intsa please @NoelHasFeathers

So... I won't promise to update my blog anymore, cos I'm just going to not follow through anyway. I'm unsure if anyone actually reads this thing anymore, so go comment: MushyKickapoo on my recent Instagram to let me know people read this thing thanks

Here are some unreleased photos of my wonderful hair, edited using Lightroom hehe

Refuses To Stop Updating This Blog Angel

Sem 2: Batch #5 - A Lot and Lot of Performances (Uptown Funk, 起床歌 & Begin Again)

Hello! Summer has officially officially started and I had an amazing time up on 中橫! I was debating with myself whether or not I should break my chain of nostalgic Sem 2 posts and blog about 中橫 while it was fresh in my mind, but then I uploaded the photos to Facebook already and if I blogged about it I would only be adding detail to my favourite moments.

(That was me persuading myself to not break the Sem 2 posts, btw) Therefore I shall resume.

The next thing that happened after Bicycle day was 社博 (Club Exhibition) and 期初社大 which roughly roughly translates to: Club Presentation at the Starting of the Semester. We had a stall during club exhibition and also a mini stage where we did 20 minute sessions. Besides that, we accepted a gig on a bigger stage, where we dressed up and everything (well, I did anyway). It's a little complicated haha, but it only shows how busy I was during that week. I had more than ten songs to learn and perform. But it was worth it.

I was going through the photos of 社博 and I found that because I passed my camera to other people, it was filled with photos I didn't take. And because my portrait lens' focus is controlled manually, most of the photos were out of focus or the lighting was weird haha. So I'll just choose the best.

It was really fun, performing on such an intimate stage, we were situated at the entrance of the exhibition so there were a constant stream of people passing by, but all they did was just pass by, hahaha. It was a challenge to see how well one could grab the attention of people wandering nearby. I still need more practice, obviously.

Besides performing, we had to hand out flyers and basically promote our club. I know this sounds weird, but I honestly like chatting with strangers.

Day two of 社博 we had the scheduled performance on the big stage. It's called 動態舞台 Action Stage (?) and I performed with Linus, Xuncheng and BJ. We did a set of three songs, the last one being Uptown Funk. As I don't have the ability to play guitar that well, I played the melodica and ukulele. I honestly really liked our performance that day. It was cute and my melodica arrangement was spot one hehe.

Setlist:
1. 關於我愛你 by 張懸 
2. 因為你 by 女孩與機器人
3. Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars

And behold, some badly taken phone photos. Front camera photos are absolutely horrible.

Compiling photos is such hard work, and I always start these posts with such enthusiasm but then it starts to bleed out as my laptop refuses to cooperate. So halfway through these posts I start to lose patience and then I rush to the ending. Which is exactly what I'm doing now.

期初社大 is a full performance, with different bands from Minyaotuan in the club. But that's just how our club ikes to do it. The other clubs here in NCKU all do different things as the purpose of this presentation is to attract people into our club.

I was super excited for my first ever 期初社大 in which I had a chance of performing in. Besides that, I was also the emcee for the event. Before the semester even started, I had already picked out the song I wanted to cover. I wasn't even in Taiwan when I picked out that song. Enthusiastic Noel is slightly terrifying.

And I was also asked to be the lead singer for another song. A Taylor Swift song, Begin Again. But because the weather was extremely unstable (it dropped to 16 degrees), it took a toll on my voice. I couldn't control my voice they way I liked it and it made me sound like a duck.

This is 起床歌 by 曹格 Gary Cao, he's Malaysian and I really love the bluesy, big band vibe of the original song. We wrote a little something at the starting of the song, as a contrast to the happy upbeat feel when we go into the verse.

Lyrics:
Oh oh 今晚睡不著
想起以前那個  廢物男朋友
自從失戀以後  丟掉了工作
於是我也成了... 廢物

沒錢了  媽媽又不給錢
房東又在那邊  雞雞歪歪
靠～  腰～ (哭餓)
肚子餓

I'm pretty sure there are two swear words in it but my Taiwanese friends assure me there isn't.

I don't really like Begin Again, to be honest, cause I just don't feel as strongly for the song as I do for 起床歌 but everyone told me they liked Begin Again better. Ah well.

Below are some of my favourite photos of the event

Okay, I'm sure there are plenty of photos on this post now.

I'll leave ya'll with this video of me dancing to Uptown Funk

Funky Angel

Here's To 19

You may or may not know, but I decided to hide my birthday on Facebook this year. The main reason being I wanted to experiment on my new friend in uni, see if they remembered (I did tell them a few months ago) instead of  only relying on Facebook's notification.

And I was honestly very surprised to find that a lot of my closest friends remembered! This proves that people actually care.  Mostly people only started wishing me after seeing my mother's birthday post (it has more than 150 likes now, wtf) on my wall, so at the beginning of my day, a bunch of aunties and uncles (whom I've never met) started wishing me. It was actually kinda cute haha

Anyway, I'm really grateful for all the wishes, especially the videos I received. I'll post a few soon. But first of all, I wrote a song for my nineteenth year. It's not exactly an original, but that's what I felt like writing haha.

Lyrics:
I remember
In early September
Arrived in Tainan
With my dreams and plans

Started university
Caught up in activities
And suddenly
I find I'm 19

Happy birthday to me

Remembering 18
I proclaimed myself Queen
Dyed my hair red
But I was still slightly green

Now I'm 19
All the places I've been 
The faces I've seen
My hair is actually kinda green

Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday dear Noel
Happy birthday to me

I would honestly like to thank my parents, eventhough we can't celebrate together this year, they made sure I was still treated like a princess :)

I didn't actually celebrate grandly like the previous years, all I did was to go out and makan with my brother. Here are some of the photos of the night.

Food was good and my brother belanja me so everything was well hehe.

Also in the afternoon I was chilling in our GuitarOffice and my friends gave me a kawaii cake haha. Kevin gave me a bubble blower too. It was extremely random.

My friends are so adorable haha

Speaking of adorable friends, my Homosapiens with Boobs made a video for me! It was filled with my snapchats and their love. Also filled with copyrighted material. Yiwen tried to upload it to many places but got blocked off so we spent three hours during midnight fussing over technology just to let me see the video. Her data even ran out halfway through. I love Yiwen.

And then another cute video I received was from my friends who were climbing Yushan (Jade Mountain), the highest peak in Taiwan. The video is honestly so adorable, listen closely to the other people speaking in the video. And they obviously didn't plan this, so when they suddenly started to sing the birthday song, their faces were so hilarious.

It made me very happy

Then after dinner, Xuncheng jio me out. Turns out he wrote a song for me. It was a song we wrote when we graduated from New Minyaotuan and he upgraded it. It's really nice, although you can hear me try (and fail) at harmonizing to this song haha. They lyrics are in Chinese and I damn lazy to translate lah, so just enjoy k

Lyrics:
在太夜的夜裡
有滿天的星星
看著看著喔
毛兒站起來了

太夜的夜裡
看見睡著的小狗
阿貝說牠
發了個夢

太夜的夜裡
我們對著影子彈吉他
唱著那些
充滿回憶的歌

不知不覺時間又滴答過去
荒唐虛度 太多太美有星星的夜
漂亮寶貝 妳不要哭
順著感覺去

在太夜的夜裡
有熟悉的人影
看著看著喔
心頭暖起來了

太夜的夜裡
你我訴說著心情
阿貝你曾說
你要勇敢追夢

在太夜的夜裡
躺在木舞看星星
好希望這些
不要成為過去

在每個太夜的夜裡
都有一道晨曦 
劃破夜空
提醒我們
要跨越現實前進


Of course, I can't forget all those cute and random DM's that I received, there are reasons I'm friends with all my friends. And through those DMs I remember why.

I guess, being 19 looks like it's going to be a hell of a ride :)

Thank you for being a part of it.

Nineteen Year Old Angel