Sweet Digression

I’ve found that a lot of stuff I want to ‘blog’ about is really short and not full blog worthy. For such entries, I have made a tumblr. If you’d like to read my ramblings and other such awesome stuff, please subscribe here. Please. I will obviously update this blog regularly, but only with the more ‘important’ entries.

Since getting my iPod Touch about a month ago, I’ve tried to better organize my music. I’m not an incredibly organized person in general, so I decided to just clean up my iTunes and leave the rest to last.fm. I downloaded the Scrobble program and just let last.fm tell me what my favorite music is, what music I should listen to, and when I’m sort of confused, I use it to see what my mood is based on my recent tracks.

Here are some things I learned about myself since ‘organizing my music’:
1. I love Tegan and Sara. I already knew this and you already knew this. But last.fm can now vouch for me. They are my #1 played artist with 700+ plays (in the last month or so!), while my #2 most played artist doesn’t even have 100 plays. I guess they match every sort of mood I have? Last.fm also tells me that I particularly like Hell and Where Does the Good Go.

2. When I love a song, I listen to it obsessively. Kate Nash and Lacuna Coil are in my top ten played artists. Which is massively surprising, because I only have one song by both these artists. And I’ve listened to these two songs at least 20 times each. Maybe I’m crazy, but that sounds like quite a bit.

4. Sometimes, recommendations are great.Last.fm has actually recommended me some fantastic music. I’ve found Meddle by Little Boots, some great Metric songs I had never heard before, and realized I don’t actually hate the White Stripes (as I was led to believe by their cover of Walking With The Ghost).

It now appears that last.fm is my life and I cannot live without it. Not to worry, I’m not that dependent on it. In fact, I am going to stop talking about last.fm and move on to another important part of my music-life: my iPod. I have the iPod Touch, because my iPod Classic died last month.

Some general notes on my iPod:
1. I like it.

2. It doesn’t have enough space. I got the 8GB one, assuring myself that I only took up 3GB on my old iPod anyway. But now that I am organized and such, I’m starting to put everything on my iPod. Every song I love, photos I like, videos of artists and Doctor Who episodes. More than half of the space is gone already. I take comfort in the fact that, if need be, I can delete some videos I don’t really need to have on it. But still.

I’ve run out of things to say about my musical interests. Basically, last.fm and iPods are good. If you’d like to further stalk my music interests, click here.

I originally wasn’t going to blog about this, since I’m sure most of my readers couldn’t care less. But this blog is here, in part at least, for me. I felt the need to talk about it. I totally won’t be offended if you don’t read or reply for this entry though.

Spoilers will follow.
(As will silence. Ha. Ha.)

About a year and a half ago, I started watching Doctor Who. Doctor Who and I have since built quite a history. Three years ago, I saw a Rose/Doctor fanvideo. I had never seen the show and was completely confused - all I knew was that the man in the geeky glasses looked awesome. This, however, wasn’t enough to make me watch the show. Two years later, one of my friends geeked out. It was Saturday, I was bored, I clicked on my television. It might have been the best choice of my life (according to that entry, I didn’t like scifi before?!). I saw most of Season 4 (David Tennant’s last full season), and turned into a complete fangirl. Pretty soon I was buying previous seasons, freaking out over Doctor/Rose (complete with the crying of Doomsday and screaming over her return). After Journey’s End, I took a deep breath and put an end to my D/R mania, ready to move on to the new companion. I wasn’t at all ready for the 10th doctor to leave (the news actually made me cry, and his regeneration made me very sad).

As soon as The Eleventh Hour was announced, I realized I had come to terms with a new Doctor. After seeing this weekend’s episode (on youtube - it’s not in America yet!), I realized I loved the new Doctor.

Stephen Moffat is a genius. Amy Pond is already coming close to Sarah Jane Smith on my list of favorite companions, and Matt Smith is the most adorable, perfectly geeky person ever. I mean, the 10th Doctor will always be my favorite (your first Doctor always is!), but I appreciate the 11th.

(images from http://whoismattsmith.com and http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw)

Doctor Who is just amazing. It always reminds me of why I found science so interesting years ago and makes me want to love it again. It’s hilarious. It’s thrilling. It’s brilliant.

Jasmine will agree that this episode was fantastic. If you have not seen it, go see it (you may wait until the US premiere if you prefer). If you do not watch Doctor Who, start.

Anybody watch and enjoy? Or not enjoy, talk away!

I am exhausted. This isn’t very original for a teenager, but I am insanely exhausted. I realize this five minutes ago when I woke up, school clothes still on, phone clutched under my quilt, with no recollection of why I was even in my bed. I thought back a couple of minutes. I had been sitting in bed, text messaging my friend. I had been freaking out over the math test that completely ruined my day. I had been slightly sidetracked by the upcoming Doctor Who season. I think I had become a little bit tired and turned some of my lights off. Certain that I had just fallen into a quick sleep, I checked my phone. My last text message was from an hour ago.

I somehow managed to fall completely asleep for an hour. Waking up thoroughly shocked me, but after piecing it together (taking about thirty seconds), I realized it shouldn’t have been very surprising. This week was intense. It was the last week of the quarter, so teachers pushed grades in, threw projects on us and quickly tried to teach new things. Among such insanely unfair work was my math test. I think I absolutely failed it, and it has the power to bring my grade down. That’s right. Last day of the quarter-LAST DAY-and my teacher gives us a quiz to quickly ruin our grades.

The lesson from this should be to relax, but I can’t.

How about you? Are your teachers ever like that? Are you/were you completely exhausted this time of the school year?

(PS I apologize if this entry is nonsensical, I just woke up!)

Every time I text my friend around 11:00, she tells me to make a wish at 11:11. I try to avoid paying any attention to this, because I never really believed in wishing on things. If you want something to happen, you make it happen. If it’s not something you control, it’s nothing 11:11 can either.

I tend to cheat on wishes anyway. I usually just wish that ‘all my wishes would come true’ or ‘I’d always be happy’ - no big deal. Or that my favorite entertainment wouldn’t get too mainstream or something like that. I try to stay away from very specific wishes for a number of reasons (this is in the unlikely case that wishes actually come true, of course). When I was younger I would watch Fairly Odd Parents, and witness all of Timmy’s wishes go horribly wrong. Simple wishes. Wishes for items, parental attention, grades, school, everything. They all went horribly wrong. It’s been drilled into me that wishes go wrong. Even my favorite movie, The Tenth Kingdom, plays on the importance of carefully worded wishes.

You’re probably reading this and wondering why I freak out so much about something I don’t even believe in. In a way, they’re not just wishes. They represent every action I make, and how everything that seems great could have horrible side effects. To be specific on goals, to realize that great things come at a price. But mostly, they play into my paranoia that if there are some people who control wishes, they’re out to get me and will screw up my life with my own wishes.

This feels like a ridiculous entry, but how about you? Do you believe in 11:11 wishes? Or any wishes? If so, are you paranoid about being specific? Do you cheat on your wishes?

I’ve always hated running. Sixth and seventh grade, I felt the need to do some kind of exercise (I was also swimming every day, so I consider myself pretty insane at that age) and signed up for cross country. Our middle school’s version of ‘cross’ country’ was to run about a mile and a half each day. Sometimes less. At the time, I couldn’t even keep up with that. I didn’t really ‘quit’ cross country - I just never signed up again after seventh grade.

After volleyball tryouts, I completely gave up on sports. After getting over the whole ‘I can’t believe I didn’t make it, I’m so depressed, I’m such a failure, I wish I could just disappear’ feeling, I just began to hold a grudge against school sports (I’m glad I didn’t make volleyball anyway, the coach makes the whole team cry every day).

Eventually, my mum decided I had to start doing something. I managed to put off sports for another season (because of debate, mock trial and the fact that I managed to stay slim enough without exercise). When my other activities ended, however, I had no choice. Refusing to go through torturous tryouts again, I signed up for track.

I’ve been a member of my school’s huge track team (100+ people) for a week now. First day was easy, all we did was stretch for an hour. Second day, we ran 1.5 miles, and then some laps (so about 2 miles total). I was a mess, I couldn’t even breath when we were done. Third day, we did sixteen short laps up these hills. If I thought day 2 was bad, day 3 was much worse. Day 4, we ran the forest (1.2 miles, maybe) for a warm up. Realizing I was going to have to suck it up, I ran to the front of the group and ran the whole thing. It suddenly wasn’t that bad. We then did five sets of bleachers (600 steps) - it wasn’t that bad. I finally found something good in sports: they teach you to shut up and suck it up. Which I guess you sometimes have to do (though, outside of track, I probably never will).

Day 5 sucked, just because they told us to run two miles straight. I ran one then sat down.

Oh! There is an obvious bright side though: my mum agreed to buy me an iPod touch if I did track (for track purposes), so now I have an iPod touch. It is addictive. I seriously need more music though.

How about you? What is your view on running/school sports?

I’ve been going on about this forever on twitter, and I decided to just let all of my frustrations out here once and for all.

Four years ago, I got my iPod. At the time, it was somewhat cutting edge (being the first generation video). I wanted it, needed it, begged for it, paid for some of it, got it.

My iPod and I have gone through a lot. We’ve gone through my sixth grade music stage (when anything catchy was instantly purchased), my sixth grade TV show phase (when I felt obliged to purchase every episode of ‘Kyle XY’ and ‘Three Moons Over Milford’). My iPod was there for me when I began to branch out and listen to music away from the radio. My iPod even put up with my youtube downloading phase, for when I started to hate purchasing iTunes gift cards. My iPod was there when I starting feeling bad about this but, still not wanting to buy from iTunes, began to buy physical CDs from the local music shop. My iPod has my name engraved on the back. My iPod has gone through numerous pairs of headphones. Up until this year, my iPod was my friend.

Then this year, my iPod betrayed me. Lately it’s just like, ‘I don’t like this song, I refuse to play it’. (Granted, this iPod has put up with my for four years. I don’t know how long that is in iPod years, or how long iPods tend to last, but it sounds like a while). I’ve tried staying faithful to my iPod. When the iTouch first came out, I ignored my want for it. The nano chromatic had me going crazy, but I kept my iPod. When my friends began to get the iTouch, i though I needed it too. But on to the problem.

I start track next week, so I decided to update and charge my iPod in preparation. After not letting me upload videos (even though they were specifically in iPod format), I spent an hour re-converting the videos until they finally uploaded. I brought my iPod to school that day, and tried listening to it after I finished my work. It let out an insanely high pitched beeping noise, shocking everyone within a three meter radius. I did the cool reset thing and tried again. It seemed to be working perfectly, until I pressed pause. The song paused, but wouldn’t start again when I pressed play. I thought ‘okay, whatever, cool reset thingy to the rescue!’. So I reset it in order to de-freeze it. It then had some problems with playing specific playlists.

So, now more than ever, I definitely need a job. Because I really want a new iPod. Which iPod is the best buy?

The other day, I was on AmIrite.com. It’s one of my favorite websites to spend the time going through, because it’s nowhere near as dull as MLIA or FML are lately. One person said something to the extent of, ‘People who say music is their life but have never played an instrument are annoying, amirite?’, and almost everyone agreed. I moved my cursor over to click ‘you’re right!’ before thinking for a moment.

Throughout my lifetime (that of an average high school student), I’ve played piano, recorder and guitar. I’ve only truly loved guitar, but my practicing skills are awful, so I’ve started/stopped/started about three times. Same with piano. Recorder wasn’t really an instrument, just a gateway into playing others.

This experience has left me with basic knowledge of notes on guitar, as well as chords (I can also read tabs and attempt finger picking, as well as play chords by ear, the strumming pattern is the problem). It’s also left me with a very basic, easily forgotten knowledge of piano.

But I listen to music. I love music. I’ve been to two concerts in the past month (TnS and SSPU/Muse yesterday ¹), I have a wide variety of music interests (ranging from 80’s pop to rock to indie and everything). I take a Music History course and am beginning to understand how music has evolved through the centuries. I’m love buying CDs and organizing my iTunes, I try to find new music constantly.

Let’s say I still went to concerts, still loved music, but had never played an instrument (my playing is very limited as it is, so this isn’t a stretch). Obviously I wouldn’t go as far as to say that ‘music is my life’, but would that really make my musical interest any less important? What if I just couldn’t focus on making the music, was too impatient (this somewhat applies, since I could never write a song), or just lacked talent?

How about you guys? Do you play an instrument/have played an instrument? Do you think playing one is necessary to full enjoy music and be a fan?

(I hope this entry makes sense)

¹ A very good show, flashy and awesome and lots of talent from both bands. But the TnS one is still my favorite of the three concerts I’ve been to.

Having recently entered high school, thinking about the past has been inevitable. In the town I grew up in (and am still growing up in), high school was the big deal. Get there, and you’re set. You’re an adult. It was a staircase.

In the first stage of elementary school, you were the coolest of cool if you were a third grader. There was no reason, you just were. Then you went on to the second stage of elementary school, where you were cool if you did student council, or if you were a fifth grader. But once you were a fifth grader, you spent the whole year pining for sixth grade. Why? Because in fifth grade, you still walked in lines. You still had one teacher. Sixth grade was a whole new world. You were an adult. Well, you were a teenager. Tween. The terms all blurred in your head.

(Come to think of it, fifth grade was my most naive year. My friend had me convinced there was a dragon in the school’s tool shed, I tried to open the doors all year)

Sixth really was all it was said to be. You got a locker, a gym locker, separate classrooms, new folders. You convinced your parents you were ready for an iPod or cell phone (but didn’t text message). Seventh grade was the forgotten year (though my favorite by far), and then you entered eighth grade. The clock ticked throughout the whole year, ticking time away. Soon - very soon - you would be in high school. You’d be a freshman. You’d choose your own classes. You couldn’t wait. And so the year droned on, and you would have done anything for it to end.

End it did. You left the middle school happily, swearing never to visit again, and entered high school. Where you were the baby, the freshman, and not really respected by anyone. You got to the top of the staircase, only to find that you were stuck in mid air, attempting to float to the next staircase just out of your reach.

I still can’t see that staircase. It’s blue, maybe. It looks pretty high. It has high and low steps, and I don’t know where it ultimately leads. I see college, a career, real adulthood. Vague, and the top is still cloudy.

In a way, I never left sixth grade. It was the first real change in my life, at leas that I can remember. It was the first time I started blogging (shhh - those entries are long gone), the first time I realized how much I loved to write, the first time I met one of my best friends (who happened to move this year). Sixth grade represented transitions in my life. At the time, when we were writing papers on the elementary school/middle school transition, I BS’d it all. I really didn’t realize how important that year was and still is. Because when I close my eyes and picture school, I see my sixth grade hallway. Not my eighth, seventh, or current. I see my sixth grade hallway, my locker, my friends, my math class. It’d ridiculous.

This blog entry is a total ramble, and I had a completely different point in originally writing it. But that’s okay, I needed to blog. What are you nostalgic about? Is there a time in your life that seems to define your whole life so far (like sixth grade has to me?)