Blue Chi’s

September was a good month for Law & Music, I reviewed five albums, I purchased three. My classes start on Monday, I should be making some law related updates soon.

We had a stall for the Omani society yesterday at the Fresher’s Fair, it started quite bad, I decided to pack my stuff and go right before the event started because nobody else came, but on my way down the stairs I saw one of the Omanis so it was okay. I’ve been here for a little bit more than two weeks, there are zillions of new Omani people at Cardiff city, but ironically, I’ve been hanging out with the Qatari people way too much. My schedule in the past two weeks was a little bit too random as classes did not start yet, I am not sure of how I will ‘run’ my schedule this year.

A happening that is out of the norm is that I’ve been spending a lot of time, in my room, without using my computer. It is a weird, I am not sure if I should be happy that to realise that I am not addicted, but at the same time, I am a little bit afraid of this change. However, I started reading novels, I never really was much of a literature bookworm, but now that I started, it is actually fun, I will try not to waste too much time reading. I’m currently reading the Da Vinci Code.

Ramadhan is coming, and I have to say that I am NOT looking forward to it, it’s gonna suck, but I don’t have a choice about it. I’m living here on my own in this flat, so I’m not sure of how my schedule is gonna be. I am not a very religious person, I do pray my five daily prayers and attend the Juma’a prayer, I fast Ramadhan, but that’s about it. I don’t want to start talking about religion, whatever.

I’ve been watching Monster and Bleach, both of which are fantastic. Monster is such a scary anime, it is so damn deep and complex, it is the most mature series I have ever seen. I’m officially hooked, I am downloading episode 53 now. I really hope that this series finishes before I go back to Oman in June.

Gamewise, I am currently playing Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne on the PS2, it is an M rated traditional RPG (17+ years), the atmosphere of the game is really overwhelming, the graphics are hot, the gameplay is fantastic, but I don’t like the characters, I hate those games where the main character does not speak. I am somewhere at the first levels of the game, and I am about to lose interest in the game, maybe I’ll play a bit tomorrow morning.

Anyway, here is the list of the music albums reviewed in September:

• Toni Braxton – Libra * updated!
  
• Pussycat Dolls – PCD
• Missy Elliot – The Cookbook
• Craig David – The Story Goes
• Syleena Johnson – Chapter 3: the Flesh

This is one of those albums that I randomly downloaded, I have never heard of Syleena before, I read some praise for The Flesh, and it worked for me. The album features a rich list of big names in the RnB/Hip Hop scene such as R Kelly, Fabolous, Twista, Jermaine Dupri and others as well. The album has a good mixture of edgy dance tracks, sweaty sex rhythms, and soulful love songs. My favourite track on this album is “Still Open”, tracks that I liked are highlighted in the track listing below.

Syleena Johnson – Chapter III: the Flesh.
1. The Flesh – Interlude
2. Hypnotic -Feat. R. Kelly & Fabolous
3. He Makes Me Say
4. Special Occasion – Feat. R. Kelly
5. More – Feat. Anthony Hamilton
6. Bulls Eye – Feat. Common
7. Classic Love Song – Feat. Jermaine Dupri
8. Phone Sex – Feat. Twista
9. Slowly
10. Time
11. Still Open
12. Another Relationship
13. Leave Me Alone
14. No More
15. Apartment 4 Rent
16. Only A Woman
17. The Flesh – Outro

We had our enrollment today, our university is quite primitive, we have to go walk in queues and pass our papers around, many universities do their enrollments online, I don’t know what is wrong with Cardiff.

I am going to do five modules this year, but my schedule is crazy, I have only 9 hours of lectures each week, I don’t have ANY CLASSES on Wednesdays and Fridays, so from the seven days of the week, I have classes on three days only; Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursday. I still haven’t got my tutorial schedules, these are five hours that will be distributed on two weeks, they might just spoil my beautiful schedule and give me classes on Wednesdays and Fridays. This year, I’m doing Labour Law, Press and Broadcasting, Company, Taxation, and Discrimination and Law.

I was looking forward to Craig’s third album, I downloaded only two tracks before purchasing the album, and it is hard to say, but I am dissappointed. I was not really impressed by “The Story Goes”, it is a nice easy listen, but I couldn’t find anything memorable. I liked the track “Johnny“, but other than that, I wouldn’t even be able to recognise the names of the tracks. It could be me, but it could also be Craig. Tracks that I thought are worth listening are highlighted:

1. All the Way
2. Don’t Love You No More (I’m Sorry)
3. Hypnotic
4. Separate Ways
5. Johnny
6. Do You Believe in Love
7. One Last Dance
8. Unbelievable
9. Just Chillin’
10. Thief in the Night
11. Take ‘Em Off
12. My Love Don’t Stop
13. Never Should Have Walked Away
14. Let Her Go

Our flat is really so nice, the place is quite fancy, the rooms are big in comparison to other dorms, and the kitchen is really spacious with sofas and everything. Only five people are supposed to share a flat. Less than a week passed before I experienced my first food theft incident. It is really irritating, it is not always about the fact that you paid for this, but for someone like us to have to go all the way to the supermarket and bring it makes it a whole different story. The damn Indians are already drinking my unopened juice, helping themselves with desserts I bought, and so much more. I wrote this letter a couple of days back. They all saw it, nobody ‘talked’ to me about it. I’m considering buying a small fridge that I can keep in my room, I’ll just wait and see if they are going to do it again, we are just FIVE, how can anybody just steal.

Missy’s music has always been contagious to me, it is almost like an addictive drug that flows across your body along the beats, she is very original, kinky, and awesome. I bought the Cookbook more than a week ago, but in contradition to what I said earlier on, I didn’t like it. I did think that a couple of tracks were ‘hypnotic’, but there were way too many different producers, Timbaland only produced a song I think. There is a Rich Harrison track on the album as well, his songs are already started to getting quite repetitive. I have been listening to too many albums at the same time, that could be the reason why I couldn’t digest the Cookbook yet. I hope that it’s a grower.

1. Joy feat Mike Jones
2. Partytime
3. Irresistable Delicious feat Slick Rick
4. Lose Control feat Fatman Scoop & Ciara
5. My Struggles feat Mary J Blige & Grand Puba
6. Melt Down
7. The Right One For Me
8. On & On feat Pharrell Williams
9. We Run This
10. Time & Time Again
11. Gotta Move On feat Tweet
12. Mommy
13. 4 My Man
14. Teary Eyed
15. Smash This Place
16. Juicy

My Panic Attack post was Law & Music’s 100th post! My blog is about 8 months old, and I’m still posting on regular basis, I think that it is actually more active than before.

Their name is seriously bad, but honestly, I did not expect their album to be this good. I quite liked their first single “Dont Cha”, but did not expect their album to go much further. However, with names such as Will.I.Am and Timbaland appearing guests on this album, it was worth taking note of. Timbaland’s song was not really ground breaking, it was way too popish for me, however, I was really hooked up with tracks such as “Beep”, “Buttons”, and “How Many Times, How Many Lies”. Those three were the most outstanding tracks in my opinion, and the addition of the tracks “Don’t Cha”, “Wait a Minute”, and “Stickwitu” makes this album worthy listen.

1. Don’t Cha
2. Beep
3. Wait A Minute
4. Stickwitu
5. Buttons
6. I Don’t Need A Man
7. Hot Stuff (Want You Back)
8. How Many Times, How Many Lies
9. Bite The Dust
10. Right Now
11. Tainted Love
12. Feelin’ Good
13. Sway
14. We Went As Far As We Felt Like Going

I woke up about 3 or 4 in the morning not being able to breathe, I felt the left side of my chest pulling in, it hurted like crazy, pressuring me inside, I couldn’t breathe, it was scary. Still laying on my bed, I reached for my glasses on the small drawer thing next to my bed. I pulled myself to the other side of the bed and pulled my eternally-switched-on laptop towards the end of the desk, Google, heart+problem+symptoms. I can’t remember what the pages said, I thought that I should drink something, I grabbed my jeans off the chair, put them on, left the room on and walked slowly towards the kitchen, as I opened the door everything turned black and white, this happens to me whenever I have a breathing problem because of ultimate disgust or whenever I enter a hospital. I bumped into the bin, it fell, I felt that I might collapse at any second, I dizzily walked towards the sofas and just threw myself on one of them. I laid down on my back for a minute or so trying to catch my breath. I can still feel my chest pulling in, but now I thought that I can move, I got myself some water to drink and then headed back to my bed. On my way back I tried to make sense of what is happening, could there be a gas leak, I drifted into the nonsense, could my rusty laptop be producing exhaust gases that are poisoning me. I got inside my room, I couldn’t smell anything, however, I still switched off the heater (and shut down my laptop), I opened the window and went to bed. I still couldn’t lay on my left side, after suffering for a little while, I fell asleep.

I woke up feeling better, no more painful contractions. I went to see the doctor that I was registered to, the clinic was already closed! The working hours are from 8:30am to 10:00am… and then from 2:00pm to 4:00pm. It was 11:00am at that time. I thought that I’ll just go to town, I had lunch, and I was already recovered, so I thought that I’ll go back home and just see the doctor the next morning. It was a little bit scary to go to bed, because I thought that it might happen once more. It was even more scary cause there is nobody over here to speak to, nobody is back yet, if something happens to me nobody would know, I can’t just call my parents because this will freak them out.

Anyway, nothing happened that night, I woke up the next day early and went to see the doctor, I had to wait for about 30 minutes. When I got in I told him what happened, he asked me of what I thought it was, I told him that I didn’t know but that it was very scary. He asked me of how long it lasted, I said about 20 minutes, he asked me if I had it before, I said yes, but never this serious. He then said that it was probably a panic attack because I was stressed, he asked me if I had any health problems, I told him no, he asked me if there was any medical family history that he should know of, I told him no, he checked my blood pressure and heartbeats, both were normal, he told that many people think that they have a heart attack that lasts for that period, when in fact it was a panic attack that last for a shorter period that they thought it did. He asked me if I was stressed, I told him no, he asked me if I had any social problems, I told him no, he asked me if I had any problems, I said no, he said that I was starting my final year and it could be the stress of moving and starting the final year. He suggested that I relax and try to breathe some fresh air. He told me to come see him again if it happens again, he didn’t want to do any blood tests or anything because someone at my age would not probably have a serious heart problem.

Anyway, I’m back, and I’m still alive, it was a really scary experience, I don’t know if it will happen again, I’m not really stressed or scared of my final year, but I did actually almost lock myself up for five days in my room not talking to anyone, not even on the phone, but the day that the attack happened I was actually out visiting a friend of mine in another city. People should be back soon, I think that I’ll try to relax a little bit MORE.

There has been some confusion on which tracks are going to be actually on the official version of Toni’s latest album, Libra. Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com have different track listing from each other. I don’t think that the album will only have 10 tracks, because that is a little bit too little in my opinion. I initially thought that the album was only alright, but now that I heard the whole thing I actually think that it’s ‘GOOD’. It is very smooth and extremely listenable, it is relatively on the slow side when compared to “More Than a Woman” – her previous album. My favourite track in this album is “Suddenly“, an amazing ballad that reminds me of the classic hits of Toni, and in addition to the songs that I have heard before the whole thing leaked, Please, Take This Ring, and Trippin, the tracks “Sposed to Be”, “Midnite”, and “I Wanna Be” are all worth listening to.

Libra – Toni Braxton
1. Please
2. Trippin’ (That’s the Way Love Works)
3. What’s Good
4. Take This Ring
5. Midnite
6. I Wanna Be (Your Baby)
7. Sposed to Be
8. Stupid
9. Finally
10. Shadowless
11. Suddenly
12. Long Way Home

The album is going to be released later on this month. I’m going to start posting some affliliate links for the albums that I review for purchasing them from Amazon.co.uk.