life's planned out

I'm going to minor in design! It'll be great!

Back to writing scholarship essays...

New Year's Resolutions for 2007

How exciting! If you were wondering, here are my resolutions for 2006. I think they went okay, except for the dream one. It's not too surprising; I'm kinda lazy.

So anyway, here's what I've decided.

I resolve to:

1. Continue to improve at drawing. Just like from 2005. :)
2. Beat a bunch of RPGs! Hmm... I might be kidding.
3. Oh this one can be a secret! I bet Marquis can figure it out.
4. Do plenty of partying in college... but not so much that it will interfere too much with actually working. I've got the Internet to do that.

If I think of anything else I guess I'll add it later.

this is me planning for the future

I'm going to drop Physics second semester. Noam et al seem to feel a strange nostalgia for being totally lost every day in Physics C, but that is not really a feeling I want to cultivate. So I was considering taking Anthro instead, but after talking to my mom about it, I remembered that the only time I've ever failed an important test was in Mr. Vaughn's history class... so no. My two choices now are Social Ad II and Film Study. Social Ad II needs Social Ad I as a prerequisite, but I'm pretty sure I could get around that since I've been doing work for Social Ad and Ms. Linder seems to like me. The main problem is that it might be a lot of work. I suppose, though, that I will really, really enjoy and feel good about the course. It's probably what I'll do, but I'll talk to Ms. Linder (and Emma, who will be very excited) about it. Film Study, which would also be fun, is my backup. Yeah, it's during my Independent Study free period, but that'd probably be okay.

In other news, I've been listening to a lot of Sufjan Stevens lately. I just got his Michigan album from the library, and it is so enjoyable! So then I went and listened to Illinois again, which of course is also really great! Yay. Besides the rest of his albums, I am looking forward to someday (be it on Christmas, or a few days later when I buy everything I didn't get off of Amazon) getting stuff by THE DECEMBERISTS, DID YOU KNOW THEY ARE COOL AND INDIE. I will be a true hipster then, maybe.

blah

Instead of doing Calc homework I've been drawing pictures.

On my Calc homework.

standing in the trenches of the new underground

So my parents decided that I can't go on the habitat trip (they feel there are other volunteer opportunities in the community, they don't want to pay that much, other people are willing to go too so if I go the work will still get done, etc.). However, they will let me go to the GUSTER CONCERT on Feb. 21, the Wednesday of Agora Week! It's going to be SO AWESOME.

I guess I better get that paper done...

woohoo weekend :/

Yesterday, I watched a U of I volleyball game half-asleep (you would think it would matter enough for me to pay attention to...) and came home and slept for 14 hours. Am I ready to take on a research paper, college apps, and java homework?

Maybe.

This one goes out to the one I love

That is, I am dedicating this blog post to Annie!

I would love to post more. I wish I had blog-worthy ideas come to me every day, but it just doesn't seem to happen anymore. How can I talk about my social life? It changes all the time--or doesn't change, depending on how you want to look at it--and even if I talk about it with everyone, I don't really want to say things explicitly about it on a blog. It might be convenient to know what I'm thinking all the time, sure... so just look at my Facebook status then. I'm not running a LiveJournal here. :P

So what should I blog about here? General school events, to benefit Noam and/or possibly incite discussion among my 2-3 in-town readers? That's probably what's going to end up happening, at least to some extent.

Or maybe I could even cross-post blog entries to Facebook, and everyone could comment on my notes. But that's not really what I want, either.

What about tech articles or just links to interesting websites? Well, what is there that I don't already discuss with the few friends of mine who would be interested? Oh em gee guys, the Zune. What an interesting piece of technology. I hear it comes in the color BROWN, which kind of sounds GROSS. LOL?

No, the thing to blog about is definitely music: Guster, currently the most overplayed of my favorite bands; Tom Petty, the accessible not-quite-classic rock dude; Enya, whose songs get stuck in my head at the weirdest times... I could list all of the artists I've been thinking about recently.

But I don't really feel like blogging right now. After all, I've been spending a lot of time journaling today (and I'm not even done!)... I'm only posting because Annie wanted me to. :)

Maybe tomorrow.

Boo!!

In about 20 minutes it will be Halloween, the best holiday ever! I am so ready for the awesomeness! Here's an outline of some of the cool things that will be happening:

• I get to wake up and put on a totally cool costume (except for the facepaint; I better wait until after fitness for that)
• Orchestra: party!
• At 3: party!
• With Aria after school: party!
• With Aria: trick-or-treat (a.k.a. candy party!)
• At this time I will now be in possession of a lot of candy. And all my homework will be done, hopefully...

I have to enjoy these kinds of kid experiences now before I go off to college...

Answer me in one word.

I've been working a lot on college apps today. While stopping by Carnegie Mellon's website to find their policy on supplemental teacher recommendations, I noticed that it got totally remade! FINALLY! It used to be one of the lamest college websites ever, but now it looks pretty good. I suppose it's worth noting that the undergraduate site hasn't changed, but that looks all right anyway.

After dinner, I'm not going to the dance, but I suppose I will stop by Luke's house to buy his sister's stuff. By Thanksgiving, I'll be done with all of my college app stuff (my dad made that decision), so I'll be able to do fun stuff even more often.

Everything I know about you I learned on the Internets

I joined Facebook yesterday. People have been trying to convince me to do this for awhile, but I guess it was TANYA who finally convinced me. Maybe she just made me realize that I was not joining Facebook for no reason.

Okay I better get some stuff done...

learning to trust your teammates

I have not posted in awhile. This is mostly because I have been fairly busy lately. Last weekend, I went to Indianapolis to get interviewed by a University of Rochester guy. That was kind of cool. (I also went shopping.) The weekend before that, I stayed overnight at Grinnell. At the moment, my college list looks like this (in order of preference):

1. Carnegie Mellon
2. University of Rochester
3. University of Illinois
4. Wash U (a distant fourth)
5. Grinnell

There are some days when I really want to go to one of my top three... but most days I want to go to CMU the most.

Anyway. Tonight was Senior Night for volleyball. It was ridiculous. Perhaps sometime I will scan in part of the program because everything about me is absolutely correct.

there were some videos of jono but he just acts like that all the time so they weren't very interesting

There's a home volleyball game tomorrow; I think it's the last Friday home game of the season. That means everyone should go!

I was taking a lot of videos in English today, hehe. Here's one of Luke.

I really should not be so distracted by the Internets

I have decided to start posting amusing videos of people on YouTube. This will be a much better use of my camera than taking pictures of Jono, Luke, and Mr. Rayburn in English class.

My only video up right now is a video of Mr. Sutton I took last year. It was good timing on my part.

All right, time to go to sleep.

Why bad songs get on the Top 40 (and other stories)

Independent labels suffer most from the major label monopoly-- major labels' pay-for-play domination of radio makes it impossible for independent musicians to get airplay, confining independent artists to the margins.

Reading this on Downhill Battle helped organize my thoughts on why I dislike major record labels and why indie music rocks. Here's what happens. Artists sign to major labels because if you are on a major label you are famous, right? And major labels have a lot of power in terms of publicizing music and getting radio stations to play it. But major labels also have a lot more control over what the artists do; unless you're Radiohead you pretty much have to do what they say. That's why (often) music from major labels isn't as good: the label wants the band to make as many radio-friendly hit songs as possible and doesn't want to wait around for them to be creative. Their biggest concerns are speed, marketability, and accessibility.

So this means that pop radio stations are filled up with what the major labels want. Some people listen to this because, well, the music is very accessible. (And quite a few people did vote for George Bush, right? Popular opinions are not always reasonable.) If you're interested in art instead of poppy lyrics and danceable beats, though, you'll probably be out of luck with 94.5 and 96.1. Good songs are complex, innovative, and clever. This is not what major record labels are all about. The people who listen to poppy stations like poppy music, so the cycle perpetuates itself.

You may want to point out that there are indie stations; 107.1 does seem to have a rather big fan-following here (college radio rocks!). However, these independent stations aren't affiliated with Mediabase, which compiles data for American Top 40 and other countdown things. Mediabase only takes its data from major label-dominated stations, so it's hard for indie music to find its way in.

Of course, there is some good major label stuff, but most of it is just accessible, not-too-arty junk that is easily replaceable by the next hit song that comes along. The artists may have good voices or good guitar skills, but they are often wasting these skills on making bad music! There are also some good songs--maybe even indie songs--on the Top 40 sometimes, but not often enough. In summary: dear Annie, please listen to some Mogwai for a change!

I dream of cherry pies, candy bars, and chocolate chip cookies

For the past few days, Stephen--the lead singer of The Living Blue--and I have been sending e-mails back and forth about a new website for the band! I'm going to be redoing their current site, which uses flash, but I'll just edit the preexisting code. It's not like I really have time for this, but it is just SO AWESOME that I am doing it anyway. Perhaps I should get my Calc done before school so I can work on web stuff... Heh. Too bad my parents won't let me bring in my laptop during 2nd; I really would like to use 1st for Calc. And now I have to use 3rd for Java (heh, in theory) because my book is in. I suppose I can multitask...?

In other news, there was a big collegey meeting thing after practice today. The U of I app sure sounds easy, but all those deadlines will be stressful.

This week sure is going by at a reasonable pace. Maybe this weekend I will get a chance to relax.

a feeling of foreboding

The funny thing about this blog post is that everyone who will probably read it is already in this room.

So I guess I don't really need to say anything else...

Give me a couple, don't give me a couple of pointers, turn to lies and conversation fear

I suppose I should mention that this blog now includes a list of recent del.icio.us links in the sidebar. I plan to link to vaguely interesting articles, blog posts, and that sort of thing.

You'll never find your way home no matter where you go

Both the new R.E.M. collection and the new Radiohead DVD are available for preorder! How excellent. I definitely have to at least get the R.E.M. thing...

So today was a Volleyball tournament. I don't feel like talking about it, though; you can ask Annie if you are interested in stories from it or something. It went fine.

I have so much work I need to do: a bunch of Japanese to memorize, some Calc, some English, a bunch of Physics to study, that UFU website... And next week I have something going on every night, including Saturday: there's a freaking dance. I guess I should just not go to it. Sunday I've got an UFU meeting, too, so I... am just busy forever. Too bad I'm so tired right now...

That's all I want to say until I find a way...

I told Marquis yesterday that I wouldn't blog until he did, and now that he has I suppose I better post something.

So. Calc test tomorrow, Volleyball game Friday (so everyone should go), tournament all day Saturday, Physics quiz Friday, Volleyball games every day next week except Wednesday (a college meeting thing). I guess I'm pretty busy.

I have a bunch of CDs I need to burn but I'm having issues... so anyone who needs a CD from me (pretty much everyone), I'm sorry!

Happy... get-out-of-school day

First off, this is totally awesome.

Last night I went to Best Buy to get a case and some earclip-style headphones (a picture of which I cannot find on the Internet). I also saw Snakes on a Plane! Pretty cool.

All right, time to eat breakfast and go to Volleyball practice...

So trust me dear you're better off this way

So you had a little trouble in town, now you're keeping some demon down

Today was our first Volleyball game! It was pretty fun, even though both JV and Varsity lost in 2 games. (Both of our second games were better than our first games.) Noam was there, cheering REALLY LOUDLY. :D

On Saturday we have an all-day tournament of five games. It's a good thing we have Monday off; I have a lot of stuff to get done. And on Friday I get to go on a very important adventure with Noam before she leaves on Sunday... Okay, I really don't want to think about that.

Well, a rumor that R.E.M. might start a new album! Maybe. Eventually? Oh well, I suppose I'll take what I can get.

So today near the beginning of 1st period Luke is in the lounge instead of the CRC, so I go in there to get him to help me with Calc and he's like "just let me listen to this song one more time..." and it's Svefn-g-englar! A Sigur Rós song! So I say that I have it on my iPod, and we play Sigur Rós in the CRC for the rest of the period. And then Luke says he wants me to burn him a CD of some Sigur Rós and U2 stuff! Awesome. It's great when people decide they like music I like; perhaps it is even one of the best things ever.

I will build a wall, sensing trouble from a mile away

As an afterthought, the Howdy Hop was indeed better than any other dance I've been to since the Valentine's Day one. Interesting.

Last night I didn't get any homework done (no Calc homework due today or tomorrow, but there is that quiz...) or go to bed early. I didn't even get to go to Best Buy--ugh, parents.

It's been a year since Hurricane Katrina. It really doesn't feel like it's been that long...

I guess I better try to study some more Physics for the SAT II.

The reader may think that in a book that deals with the permanent assumptions of the Elizabethans I have made too much of angels.

Marquis found a nice link for me that told me how to get iCal to subscribe to my Google Calendar! This is useful because that means I can have it on my iPod. I'm sure, however, that everyone else already has done this and I am just ridiculously behind the times.

Also, I thought of a good use for those chumby things: put in a better battery and attach it to your locker! Catch up on RSS feeds and e-mail in between classes! And then take it home every night to charge it, I guess.

There's a Calc quiz tomorrow. I better study... and finish that English book (without falling asleep).

Ouch

Today was the first day of school and Mrs. Boca jumped into Calc II with no review. It's seriously way too hard.

I had forgotten...

A new beginning

This is my new Senior Year Blog. I'm using a template now because Blogger Beta doesn't let you edit the HTML of the layout yet. :/ The labels should keep everything nice and organized, though.

Today is the last day of summer. I hope I'll be able to make good use of it...