YouTube Sensation Charice Pempengco as Sunshine Corazon on Glee Season Premiere

Glee is a musical comedy drama TV series and its second season premiere was aired 21^st September 2010. I was anxiously waiting for this after watching all of the episodes of season 1 and I loved every single one of those episodes. Many of the stars of the last season were back to bring an awesome season premiere. What I love most about the show is the songs that they perform. They take the most influential song of all eras into the storyline and make every episode a fun filled one to watch.

Charice Pempengco acts as an exchange student from the Philippines on Glee Season 2 premiere. Before this episode went on air, I’ve never heard of this name or that she is has become a sensation on YouTube. From the first moment that she started singing the song “Telephone” (originally sung by Lady Gaga) I was blown away by her voice. For a person of such a small build she has one powerful vocal chord. And then later on the show, when she sang “Listen” from Dream Girls, which is also not an easy song to sing, I was yet again mesmerized by her voice. I could see she was making such tough songs look easy to sing.

After watching the show I really wanted to know who this is, and when did some searching on the internet I was thrilled to see that she is an upcoming artist who got her big break on the Oprah and on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show “. Watching the two songs that she performed on Ellen DeGeneres Show I was yet again captivated by her singing skills and her performing skills. The two songs “And I am Telling You” from Dream Girls and “I Will Always Love You” By Whitney Houston are two awesome songs and she sang both of those songs magnificently. She has been called on the show after Ellen saw one of her performances on YouTube.

I would love to see her more on Glee and also listen to her upcoming albums.

How I utilize my travel time

In the modern day almost all the people travel long distances to get to their workplace, school, or may be on vacations and so on. Have you ever wondered how much of your time is spent on travelling alone?

Well, in Sri Lanka, travelling even short distances takes a considerable amount of time. For example to get to my workplace by bus it takes around 1 ½ hours and to come back it takes nearly 2 hours. This is merely a 25 km ride. Doing a small calculation I found out that it is approximately 20% of my active day time.

When travelling I see that most of the people just do nothing while they are travelling. This article is about the way I utilize my travel time and if you agree with me you could also do the same or do something better.

So what activities could you do while travelling in the bus, train or even in Aero plane? I don’t travel at all by plane or by train. My usual method of public transport is by bus. And the following are the activities that I do while travelling in the bus.

1. Read a book
2. Sleep
3. Thinking about articles to write on

From what I see, handful of people sleeps, like I do while some listen to music or radio stations on the phone. But I hardly see people reading in the bus.

Sir Francis Bacon once said that “Reading maketh a full man”. In this age of information technology fewer people have an interest in reading. Even I, a software engineer by profession, (just started) am having a very hard time in reading. If I do get my hands on a good novel I can read it without much of a problem. But when it comes to text books and the newspapers it’s not easy to sit and read. But that is something that I should improve on.

When I tell people that I read in the bus, they tell me that it gives them a headache. It is not surprising that people get headaches because the roads in Sri Lanka aren’t the best in the world. Even in the city of Colombo you can find roads with pot holes right in the middle. Therefore it is not surprising people having headaches while reading in the bus. I also do get them from time to time but that doesn’t make me stop reading.

I have heard my mother telling me that in Japan people read newspapers while going in the bus. Since the text is in small columns, what they do is fold the paper as much as they can so that they can read it column wise and also not disturbing the person seated beside. She has also told me that in England, when the harry potter mania was at its peak she has seen people of various ages read it while travelling in the bus.

You might think that how come sleeping in the bus isn’t a waste of time. The profession I do involves in me looking at the monitor screen full 8 hours. And also when I go home most of the time I’m on the computer. This makes your eyes really tired and sleeping that hour in the bus makes a lot of difference. And on top of it when you wake up you feel refreshed. I mostly sleep on the way home, when it is too dark to read. Another thing that people say is what if you miss the stop? Over the years of travelling in the bus I have figured out that people have a sense of where they should wake up even while sleeping. For example, if I happen to fall asleep while going to work, I wake a halt or before the halt that I should get down. The fact that Sri Lankan buses travelling in extremely slow pace may also be one fact that I don’t miss the halt. But on the way home I get down at the bus station there it is perfectly ok to sleep to my heart’s content. But even so, I wake up before it stops at the station.

I should also mention that, some of the most creative ideas come when you travel. There are numerous incidents where people have come up with such ideas. One such incident that I can think of is where J.K. Rowling came up with her life changing idea of “Harry Potter”. It was when she was travelling from Manchester to London on the train (flowrider, 2008). May be you could also come up with an idea worth multi-millions. All you need is a creative mind and time to think. Travelling time is ideal for it.

Taking that into consideration, I also think about that what articles to write from time to time, while travelling. Most of them are just ideas, sometimes I write them but I don’t feel like putting them up for display.

So don’t waste precious travel time chatting nonsense with people, hanging on the phone chatting or staring outside aimlessly. Do something worthwhile.

Another major chapter of life comes to an end

In the wee hours of the 31^st May 2010, I got up because my mind was telling me to wake up. I had set the alarm to 6.30am but when I got up to see it was still 4.30am. If it was a regular day I would have said to myself “Oh! What the hell, I’ll go to sleep again”, but this was no ordinary day. It is day that the second biggest chapter of my life comes to an end.

I was to conduct a presentation about the Final Year Project I have done, and Viva to conclude it. I said to myself, “Why don’t you practice your presentation instead of going sleep like every other day”. That’s how the last day of my B.Sc (Hons) Software Engineering degree started.

After the usual “getting ready” war with my mum in the morning, I was there at IIT by 8am. I was the first to arrive at the lab as usual, and setup my laptop to start practicing my presentation again. My presentation and viva was scheduled at 2.30 in the afternoon so I had plenty of time in my hands to practice.

As the day went by fellow undergraduates trickled into the lab to setup their computers and start practicing their own speeches. Some had it all covered, confident about themselves about making it through this last day. Some were anxious to getting this done and over with. While others were there it see how things go and find out what are the probable questions that they ask so that it’ll assist them when their day of viva comes.

One of my best friends was up first in 4LA lecture hall. I envied him a bit he’d got the better hall to conduct his presentation because it had the better projector, and also for the fact that he is the best bullshitter I know when it comes to presentations. So I stayed in the lecture hall to support him and listen to his great presentation. And as always he pulled out a brilliant presentation. But unfortunately for the rest of the people who was there to listen to the questions that the panel asks, we were chased out of the lecture hall so that they could ask the questions peacefully without any one listening to them.

Well, time went by and it was my time for the presentation. I should say that I was a bit worried, but with my usual stammering for words I finished my presentation without any big drama.

The questions asked in the Viva were a bit tough but I know I handled them well. Thus, concluded my last day of my degree program and coming out of the lab in which the presentation was held I felt relieved and free after a long time. All the months of hard work I put through came to an end and all that I could do now is hope for good marks.

Now, it’s time to face the real life, where you have to go to work to make a living and start a new chapter in life. Honestly though I looking forward for it. There some companies in my mind that would so love to work in. If I can get into one of those I would be very glad.

Thanks for reading this boring update of my life. Well, all the best for your future endeavors.