I like to think I’m a musical person, and to an extent, I am. For six years, I’ve played the alto saxophone in band. I had an on and off relationship with the piano since first grade. I can blast about four notes on the trumpet and baritone. I crash and slam the percussion “toys”, and I sort of can play the beginning chords of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on Water” on the guitar. While I love to play instruments, I love hearing other people perform more, especially if they are really good at the instruments to the point of being professional. Here are my favourite instrument to listen to while I’m being “serenaded”.
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Tags: alto saxophone, antonio vivaldi, baritone, cello, charlie parker, deep purple, fab faves, film, final fantasy x, french horn, games, guitar, jazz, kenny g, louis armstrong, music, percussion, piano, romance, tara popp, trumpet, violin, wynton marsalis, yo-yo ma

For my last 2008 “Fab Faves” entry, I’m going to end with a list of my reflections this year. Despite my health going kaput this year, I’m amazed by how much had happened in a single year! I hope you all had a great year! I’m looking forward to 2009 and hope it will be better than 2008!

Girl Gamer: Expanded my game selections for the DS. In fact, the DS is the only system I played on all year long! I even played games I never would have thought to play! (ie: Princess Debut)

Proud Nerd: Discovered that I graduated cum laude with a 3.85 gpa from my uni, to which my mother heard me say it as “cula” and “goon goh goo ma” (sweet potato in Korean).
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Tags: cum laude, digital perm, fab faves, Gadgets, games, girlybubble, guam, japan, livejournal, myeong-dong, ningin, nintendo ds, nokonoko, princess debut, seoul, shopping, south korea, tara popp, tokyo, united states, yaoi

You know, I always think it’s difficult to buy presents for “adults”, especially for like my mum and dad. My mum wants something expensive like a diamond, and my dad doesn’t want anything. Well, he wants a sports car, but that’s way beyond what I can afford.

I lucked out on my mum and aunt this year, though. I ran into this Elizabeth Arden Stack Your Colour 3-tier Make-up Set for $21 bucks. It’s funny, though, since I didn’t bother to look at the colours or anything. I just bought the thing because after spending 45 minutes in the store looking at expensive perfume set, I grew discouraged and when I saw what a bargain this was, I bought two of them.

Even though it isn’t Christmas yet, they both opened it upon my command (had fun watching them figure out how to open the thing) and both gushed about how the colours were the kind they liked. That’s great. I’m glad. This was a great gift idea for them. Good thing I don’t wear make-up or I’d steal my mum’s.

Tags: christmas, elizabeth arden, tara popp

Christmas is just around the corner, and I can’t wait. I actually want December to hurry up and end! Anyway, last week, I had posted up my favourite holiday music. For this week’s fab faves, I will be doing a continuation. However, it will focus on Trans~Siberian Orchestra’s music. This rock orchestra is amazing. I’ve been introduced to them only a couple of years ago, but as the years go by, I like them more and more! It’s strange since I’m not a fan of heavy metal or electric guitars, but I like heavy metal music that remixes a classical song, and in this case, TSO are known for their holiday music! Here are my faves!
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Tags: christmas, fab faves, johann pachelbel, music, pyotr ilyich tchaikovsky, tara popp, trans-siberian orchestra

As a former concert band saxophonist, an on-and-off pianist, a pseudo-arranger, a wannabe conductor, and a former substitute teacher/teacher’s aide for the band teacher, it’s safe to presume that I like music. In fact, after performing in five holiday concerts and attending eleven of them, holiday music are an addiction for me. Therefore, for this week’s “fab faves”, here’s a list of ten holiday songs I like. Keep in mind, I probably have over 50, but to spare you all, here’s only ten.
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Tags: alvin and the chipmunks, chanukah, charlie brown, christina rossetti, christmas, corrinne may, fab faves, grinch, gustav holst, john williams, judy garland, leroy anderson, music, mykola dmytrovych leontovych, peanuts, peter wilhousky, tara popp, violin

My “fab faves” image has a Nintendo DS with bunnies on the screen. My fascination for bunnies stems from the fact that I own a grey-coloured, female bunny named Grumpy. She’s my baby, and she might as well be a dog considering the way she likes to beg and wants to be petted like one. The only characteristic she lacks is that she doesn’t know her name so calling her to come is pointless. But fear not, she’s cute and makes up for it by being the cutest thing when begging for more of her favourite treats. Here’s a video to prove so; a video captured by my digital camera, and a video that’s been edited on Windows Movie Maker.
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Tags: bunny, cute, grumpy, nintendo ds, rabbit, tara popp, windows movie maker

Quite honestly, I am not a huge Christmas person, probably because I am not a Christian, but I did grow up in an environment that exposed me to Christmas, especially by television. When I was growing up, I watched a lot of cartoons and films, like any “normal” child. Because of this exposure, I discovered that the cartoons and films I shunned as I grew older had somehow affected me on a subconscious level. Several years ago, I went on a nostalgia trip, and I found myself wanting to watch these shows that made up my childhood. Now I try to make it a tradition to watch these every year.
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Tags: boris karloff, care bears, charles dickens, charlie brown, christmas, fab faves, film, grinch, holiday, mickey mouse, new year, nutcracker suite, peanuts, rudolph, scrooge mcduck, snoopy, tara popp, television

Not to sound egotistical or anything, but I’ve been told by more than one person that they liked my fringes (bangs in American English XD). For the longest time, that baffled me. I had no idea why some people kept gushing about how they like and want my fringes, and I just give them a blank look and go, “Wha–?”

Finally, I asked one of my friends the reasoning behind it. She told me that my fringes have volume (or body?), and because of it, they don’t exactly stay flat on my forehead. After she told me that, I realised that she’s right. My fringes have volume. And that was the cause of my horrible trims I had for my fringes!

See, in the past, whenever I went to have them trimmed, I always tell the person to cut below my eyebrows because I look stupid when it’s shorter than that. I hated the end results because my fringes came out ending above my eyebrows, and I would become one unsatisfied customer. Well, it took me a while to realise that my fringes needed to be trimmed DRY not WET. Now that I know the reason why, I always ask for dry trim and tell them to cut where it meets the bottom of my eyes.
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Tags: bang, fringe, hair, tara popp, trim

I’ll admit unabashedly that I’m an English major. Not only that, I consider myself a semi-feminist. Which is why I decided to combine those two aspect and compile a list of my favourite female literary characters from novels, the Bible, and plays. And this is all thanks to Tiffany’s post for giving me this idea.
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Tags: anne shirley, beatrice, bible, brett ashley, cordeilia, ernest hemingway, esther, fab faves, feminism, jo march, l.m. montgomery, literature, louisa may alcott, novel, play, ruth, shakespeare, sula peace, tara popp, toni morrison

I always had this thing about tea sets. Something about them strike me as pretty and elegant. Strangely enough, even though I grew up in Asia, I was more fascinated by the western-style tea sets. Those gorgeous garden parties I see in Victorian era must indicate that not only was I British in my past life, but I came from the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Or something like that. Now that I’m older, I also find myself liking the Asian tea sets as well. Every time I go to one of those stores that sells Korean pottery and whatnot, I look at the tea sets and muse on which one I’d like to buy in the future. Anyway, here are some tea sets I found on the net that I think are really prettyful.
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Tags: asia, edwardian, korea, tara popp, tea, tea sets, victorian