Well I've had an unexpectedly good weekend already.

As I'd mentioned the other day, I met this guy named Ben in the surc when I was eating my lunch on Wednesday. I had originally thought that he had sent his friend over to talk to me but it turns out his Vietnamese-American friend was the one that wanted to talk to me in the first place. I was surprised to hear that because I noticed Ben had been seriously staring me the second I walked in... Anyway the end result was the same, we ended up talking later that night (the night I was frantically looking for Marshall) and we ended up making plans to hang out on Friday.

He came over here and honestly my apartment was a little less than a wreck. The weather was beautiful and I was too busy practicing my guitar to really care. I wanted to make sure to have a good warmup before Ben came over. He plays guitar too and was a music major for awhile so I didn't know what to expect. He's not bad, he was sort of out of practice but I can tell he can play. He sings really well too.

Just the fact that I can "talk guitar" with him is amazing. He also listened to a ton of metal in highschool so we have that in common too. Like while I was making dinner we were listening to Mastodon and Iron Maiden and all kinds of good sh&t. I made chicken Parmesan, which takes forever and wasn't as good as the first time I made it when Michael was here that one night. This time I forgot to mix the breadcrumbs with the Parmesan/garlic salt which made it a little bland. I put too much milk in the eggs so the breading didn't stick right. By the time it was done we had both downed one and a half of those big cans (me on an empty stomach, so I'm sure I was acting pretty goofy at this point..) so he was too full to even eat.

I still ate. Lol I'm one of these people that can usually eat. My eating habits have been rather weird lately because of my late night studying habits and the fact that I wake up around lunch time 3-4 days a week. Late night eating and drinking beer won't do my figure any favors so I've been working out a lot more to counterbalance it.

I was just watching the first 20 minutes of this pretty nauseating documentary about modelling on Netflix called "Chasing Beauty." It's funny how so few, few people fit into what modelling agencies look for. And how depressing  it would be to have a career solely reliant on your looks. They say in the modelling business "you're old when you're 25." The first 20 minutes of the documentary was pretty much just successful, attractive models talking about how much of being beautiful gives you an edge in life and how fun it is to be on the runway. I was like alllrighty then, how long until we get to profile one of the thousands upon thousands of delusional souls that get rejected in this cutthroat industry?

I'm sure it gets there. I'll give it another shot tomorrow if I get bored.....

Because I have to admit, some of guys in the documentary that are pretty incredible looking...

Whhhew.  

peace. 

I'm sorry I'm a night person.

Hey.

Soo... I just completely unintentionally pushed my neighbor to the limits this evening by accidentally having my music up too loud. I was working out listening to hip hop, as I do on the regular, but admittedly I hadn't adjusted my volume.... She banged on my door and I ran to my computer to turn down the volume. She said, "You need to turn that down, my kids are trying to sleep. F*cking ridiculous." I'm going to write her a note to apologize and tell her that I will be more conscious of it as well as apologize for the time that she didn't say anything because I know how hard that can be.

This is my guilt face. 

I just have weird night habits. My kitchen is downstairs and my bedroom is upstairs. I'm a nightowl and will sometimes forget to turn off the heater so will come down to turn it off or grab a glass of water or snack or whatever. I need to remember to be more courteous, especially at night. I exercise at weird hours. Like here it is almost 12 am and I'm up working out.

Oi.... Well, I'll write a note and hopefully patch things up... and again be more conscious of it. I'll likely leave a note before I go to bed. I'm planning to wake up early to meet with Debi B. and talk about this office assistant position that I applied for but didn't get a call. Then in my macro class today my friend Kevin told me that he got a call for an interview this Friday. I'm like what, you got an interview? I haven't gotten a call for an interview...

So I'm going to hopefully rub elbows with someone tomorrow and get in for an interview.

peace.

Icing addict

Hey, it's 12:02 in the morning.

I really should be sleeping right now but I drank a grande coffee about two hours ago. My friend Randy and I had a plan to study Money and banking in the library but after studying for three hours this morning for my managerial test, plus taking the test itself... My motivation wasn't really there this evening, I had to relax. So I ended up meditating for about an hour.. probably dozed off a couple times but set a couple alarms to make sure I'd wake up in 30 minute increments or so. I knew I had to meet Randy at the library at 8'.. I texted him at about 7:35 saying that I'm "superrrr tired" and he offered to come pick me up! I really appreciated that...

I was also hungry... and there's not much to eat in my house right now because I've been so busy with studying I literally have not had time to do anything. Not even play guitar. Any time spent these past two days that wasn't spent preparing food, cleaning or otherwise taking care of myself was spent studying. I barely even went on facebook today which made me pretty proud of myself... sometimes that can create such a waste of time.

...Anyway Randy and I drove over to Arbys, which as you guys know is my favorite fast food place, mainly because of the cherry turnovers being so f**king heavenly but rarely ever actually available. I love that icing on top.... Come to think of it I've been eating a lot of foods with icing on it lately. Like the other day my mom came up and we had Dominoes and I got those cinnamon sticks with icing... Then I've got these weird oatmeal "whole grain" poptarts that have crunchy icing on top.

They're called "Oatmeal Delights." I got some strawberry ones at Bargain market.... for a Bargain, ha ha durrrr

No but seriously they are quite good. 

The managerial test was not as hard as I'd expected it... Granted I say this but could be eating my words when they get handed back to us but I will say that it was more understandable for me than the last test because this one relied more on formulas and finding outputs then theory.

I have my money and banking true/false quiz tomorrow. I'm *planning* to get up early in about 6 hours to squeeze some last minute reading for that in as well because I've been neglecting my other subjects almost every day since last Thursday. Studying with Randy this evening was probably pretty frustrating for him because I was *super* ADHD for some reason.. Like there was this guy listening to a song that I knew by Dream theater SUPER loud on the computer. Or maybe it was Megadeth, I don't know, it frustrates me because I knew what the song was and when I heard the solo started like jamming out to it in my seat and singing along with it....

Ha ha I've started doing this a lot lately, like I'll start "singing in guitar" without realizing it if I get a riff going through my head out or like today when I heard a solo through someone's muffled headphones. GOD I love guitar... 

Night folks

peace. 

meshuggah take me away from this damned place in my mind

Today's been pretty unproductive because I lost my wallet so I couldn't deposit my check or apply to any jobs without my social. I've been feeling quite unmotivated and depressed so I wasn't able to find my wallet but I was lucky enough that my Mom found it in the van so I should be able to get a couple apps done tonight. 

Life has been kind of hard for me lately so I've been sleeping a lot. I didn't end up talking to that guy Eric again. In fact I sent him a text this morning that said "Well I thought it'd be cool to get to know eachother but clearly we're not on the same page, goodbye." No response. I hate texting, it just leaves people hanging. Fuck I shouldn't have let myself feel that happy that night because it's made the past few days even harder. I don't know how I could have prevented myself from it.... He seemed so perfect. I don't know him though, at all. 

My heart just hurts. And my head's been sick with this bad cough... My parents have been mad at me and my car isn't working very well. I hate my job right now. It's just a lot of things have me very sad with my life right now. 

I'm lucky that my feelings have been very numbed by the prozac this summer but I definitely haven't been completely happy. I think the reality is that I will never feel 100% happy until I find someone because it's just impossible to be 100% content with being alone, as much as I try to suppress my emotions in that respect because my soul has been raked over hot coals time and time again that I just don't want to do it anymore....But it's human nature to keep some glimpse of hope there when someone comes around that you really like because they showed interest in you.

There just has to be an end to that pain somewhere. But not today, probably won't be tomorrow, and maybe not for a very long time. I just have to try to make myself as happy with my friends and hobbies as humanly possible, which I do. But there's still a part of me that is very tortured by love, which should be no surprise to anyone with my history.

I'd like to think the reason I have such bad luck is because men are intimidated by my guitar playing or intelligence. These are two things that I thought would help me attract someone but I think it honestly makes it worse. Men hate the risk of being shown up at anything, especially by a girl. Being a male guitarist turns girls on because it can make any douchebag have the confidence of a rockstar. Being a female guitarist.. especially one that plays metal... is just weird. But that's me and I'm happy with myself and I'm willing to wait for someone that appreciates me for me...

I actually haven't listened to metal in awhile because I felt like things in my life were changing but they're really not. I give up, I can't listen to music about love because I can't relate to it, I have to listen to music about primarily death, pain, killing and war because it satisfies an emptiness that manifests in the root of my soul.  For the past few weeks I tried listening to lots of mainstream artists like Beyonce.. I cannot connect with these songs about love at all.

Okay here's something a little less depressing. Sorry guys. You know me I just have to write it out to feel better. 

This weird kid drove up and down my road in his truck about 100 times today for no apparent reason. He was like practicing "peeling out" or something (I think that's what it's called when you whip your vehicle around and try to make noise with it....). It was so strange though. I actually texted Troy C. like "Are you seeing this?" Ha ha ha. He's like "Yeah I have no idea what the f*ck he's doing!!!" 

He kept stopping at random places in the street to take a drink of his waterbottle, wave at someone or check his phone. This is when he stopped in front of our mailboxes. 

Anyway this was really entertaining for me today just because it was funny and pissing my dad off. 

peace.

Teaching, and more on Prozac

Evening everyone. 

Today's been a pretty good day for a number of reasons. It's always a good day when my work pays off. Last week I managed to break up my studying into multiple days and it really paid off when I took my midterm today. I think I did pretty well, out of the 50 questions there was only a few that I was pretty unsure about. I even corrected a couple dumb mistakes so that was good.

I usually don't review my answers after I take a test. The reason being is that I know that if I do so I'll end up second guessing myself and more likely than not changes a good answer into a bad one. Therefore it's wiser for me to not look over the test. I didn't expect the econ test to be this morning because I'd wrote Wednesday on my calendar. I luckily did study this weekend so I think it paid off.

Also, I got a 9.5/10 on my finite test. I'm really stoked about that because that means I'm actually getting this material. The probability stuff can be so difficult to wrap your head around for some reason. I'm still managing to keep up considerably well in a class I thought would be a nightmare for me. I'm not looking forward to Statistics at all. I want to take a guitar class but there doesn't appear to be much offered. It's a shame they cut the guitar program a couple years ago.

I didn't make many changes to my synthesis that I printed out tonight. I thought the paper was really good to begin with. I'm not looking forward to getting my critique back tomorrow, yet I'm not worried about it. English 102 is a prerequisite to Technical writing, which I'm going to try to get into tomorrow. I'm going to go apply for my major tomorrow. 

I had my second lesson with Hassan this evening! It was so exciting to see his improvement over the last week. He practiced every single day this last week for at least 40 minutes. I feel like practice schedules really are the key to success.

I got my finite math homework done and even made a video that I had been thinking about making for awhile. 

This is a video I made about prozac. I was meaning to do an updated video about anti-depressants because I had previously made one about Wellbutrin... which turned out to be pretty awful. 

peace.

And I won't be feeling hollow for so long.

Classes today were fine, I did get to sleep in an extra hour this morning because I remembered that English class is only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I didn't remember this on Tuesday and had that lovely realization showing up to an empty classroom.

I was almost late to economics. I'm usually one of the last ones to show up in that class for some reason but I'm always on time. We continue to learn about demand curves and how price and other factors can effect it. Raise in price doesn't SHIFT the demand curve... only other factors do-- like.. uh... Customer preferences, I think growing population of people buying it.. something like that. I don't know why I'm sharing this with you guys. That's something that's really important for me to remember for the next quiz on Tuesday. Carbaugh's an awesome teacher, I really want to do well in that class so I'm going to study hard for that quiz this weekend.

This is Jessie, the girl I sit next to in two of my classes. I like her, she's really sweet, pretty and cool. I'm looking forward to getting to know her more this quarter. I'm also planning on texting Eli tomorrow and hopefully get a chance to hang out with her this weekend. Actually it would be cool to hang out with Jessie at some point this weekend too but because we see eachother for two hours a day in class, 5 days a week I almost feel like bugging her on the weekends would be too much, ha ha ha.

Anyway after finite we went to have lunch in the SURC. I haven't eaten there in forever. I got a quesadilla, like I always do. It's $6. It's huge. I can never finish it unless I'm absolutely starving and stressed out. A couple of her friends came up, a guy and a girl that look a little younger than me. I do not remember the names of either but they both had big personalities. The girl was wearing bright lipstick, very accessorized, kind of loud but still fun. The guy looked about half Asian and was also very loud, so they sort of yelled over eachother. Jessie's not this way but she's still good at talking/listening. I think loud people tend to find quieter friends. Maybe I am a loud person... I don't feel as loud at school as I do at home.

Another guy walked up to the table a little later. He's really tall, strikingly attractive (to me anyway, I don't know), and Jessie had told me he was a music major before he sat down. She also told me he's 25. I began to chat with him. Jessie and her two friends were having their own conversation that I couldn't really get into because I didn't know anyone they were talking about. They seemed to know a lot of people that walked by, though. 

Alan and I talked about well, music, obviously. He sings. He knows a wide variety of music-- he knew every single band I mentioned, even knew who John Petrucci was. I did make sure to stop myself from blah-blah-blah-blah'ing as I tend to do when I get into talking about the extent of my guitar obsession. I tried to ask him more questions and listen. 

It took me awhile to realize he had an accent, maybe because the SURC is loud. He comes from Scotland and he's doing his masters degree at Central. I originally asked if he was Canadian. D'oh!

Anyway, that made my day a little more interesting. Aside from that I studied Finite math for two hours, practiced guitar for about 90 minutes, and had a good lesson with Jake. He sent me some handouts last week that I completely disregarded and I'm going to make sure to look into those this week. One of which is a packet that states "How to improve guitar technique" and he wrote it himself. 

Jacob puts an incredible amount of work into what he does. I'm so, so incredibly lucky to have such a good teacher and mentor in my life. 

peace. 

Here's a song I've absolutely loved lately.

I discovered Nevermore recently. Such crisp guitar in this band. Some of the lyrics are a little meh but the singing itself is superb. Always nice to find a new band. 

Phil Demmel PDX-2 contest, electronic snobs and MORE! haha

"Guitar Hermit" would be descriptive enough to tell you about my day today. I practiced a lot as well as texted Josie a little. I have not talked to Josie in a long time, and at the same time I'm really trying to better memorize the pentatonic A minor scale by Thursday so I haven't hardly texted Brendan. He told me he was hanging out with his friend all day today anyway, figured we'd give the texting with him a little rest and see what Josie's been up too.

She's working at Best Buy. I could see that, I'm sure she's having fun there. There's always a lot of cool yet sort of snobby electronics people in that store. It's sort of like when you go into a music store or a car dealership. You're kind of at the will of the dealer because they specialize in the product that you're searching for. Of course, any intelligent person that's making a major purchase should really put a little extra time and effort into researching about the large purchase they're making.

Personally I've trusted the judgement of Best Buy people in the past and haven't had too much grief with it... except for that laptop that I treated quite badly and had overheating problems. I'm pretty sure all the dropping of the machine was what caused it to have that damage. That was back in about 2008, that laptop served it's purpose.

We had an insane wind storm last night that actually caused school delays this morning. Isn't that crazy, a delay for the wind! I can honestly say I slept through most of it last night, I'd gotten home at 12' and I was pretty swamped after that long day. Today's been a lot less eventful because I've felt a need to rest to avoid getting sick.

Christmas eve is in a week! Woohoo how fun! You know what would really make me EXTRA happy this holiday?!

If I won this flying V neck guitar, autographed by Phil Demmel lead guitarist of MACHINE HEAD. I entered this today, lol.

It would be sick as hell to have this baby in my collection. I love my Ibanez and I don't necessarily need another metal guitar but if I won this contest I would be quite excited. You can't ever have too many guitars. Every 1,000 hours I plan to purchase a new guitar, I'm sure one of them will be Jackson down the line.. I probably can't imagine how I will evolve as a player in the next 9,500 hours to mastery.

peace.

Reached 500 hour milestone! 5% mastery!

Today started out very good, I just found $2.25 in my purse in quarters so I can get my laundry done.

500 Hour Practice Trophy

Purchased from Boogie Man Music Store

Yesterday I spent a little of my money on something fun. I recently reached my first 500 hour practice milestone. I can't say I've absolutely had my first "click" yet, but I can certainly say it's become much easier to play in front of people and play without tabs. Like I can turn on a track and play it with decent accuracy without an immense amount of warmup anymore. I'm still doing about 20 minutes a day of warmup on average. This week I've made it a point to practice at least an hour.

My time balance for this week has been near perfect, I've been following the weekly schedule that I set up and I've gotten a solid five hours of midterm study done for my legal class. Today I plan to do a couple more if I can, the midterm itself is happening tomorrow. I'm also going to get my chapter 9/10 quiz done. My legal class has honestly become my favorite class; simply because it's the most interesting to me of the three.. But more than anything because of it's consistent. Even if I originally thought Metiner was slow we've actually been perfectly on schedule this entire quarter. He keeps the class very interesting, I like his lectures. And I've learned a ton about the legal system!

I got my strings reset on my guitar yesterday. My friend Adam came over, we hung out for a bit and we ran my Ibanez over to Boogie man where he we got the Floyd Rose fixed and restrung in no time. The shop owner actually told me that he wasn't charging me for it. I was so flattered that I literally said, "Well now I want to buy something!"  hahaha. I didn't actually have the intention of buying something besides the new string but then I'd realized I still had a bit of money from that $160 I'd gotten for my birthday. I spent about $50 of it on groceries the other day.

I had a hard time picking out a strap. I typically have a hard time making decisions in general but there were hundreds of straps there and I wanted to get the perfect one. There were some leather straps that I thought were cool, they're a bit more comfortable then the current material I purchased but I was really turned on by the design of this one and thought I'd look perfect on my Ibanez. Adam agreed so we purchased it.

Originally I thought I shouldn't have spent that money so quickly but then I realized this morning that I hadn't really awarded myself for reaching 500 hours. I think that is how I'll determine when I'll purchase music equipment so that it doesn't get out of hand...

Because seriously you guys, music equipment is the most expensive shit ever. This is an expensive hobby if you let it become more of a... "consumer" project than a creative one. I mean I see people that spend thousands of dollars on their guitar equipment before they even really learn to play. And you can see why, guitar equipment is cool. It can feel exhilarating just holding a fancy guitar but if you can't play anything, well...

So I let myself buy things periodically. For instance, I think I was at about 250 hours when I purchased the Ibanez RGT 42 itself. I've been using Sheridan M.'s old bass strap that she used when she played in band back in middle school. I always admired Sheridan for being the only female bass player, she inspired me and that was a really good strap. So for the last 500 hours I used that one, and today I'm going to try and figure out how to unlock the strap locks and retire it for this new one. I think I'll try to buy myself something cool at every 250 hour milestone.

Of course when I reach the 1000 hour milestone I'm going to get myself a new guitar! At every 1,000 hour milestone I'm going to get a new guitar... That way when I'm finally a master I'll have 10 guitars, that's practically a collection. But I would earn all of them, so instead of being a consumerist thing it's more of a trophy for the amount of work I'd done for each.

Today I've got quite a bit of work to do. Let's see...

-Laundry

-Read Accounting Chapter 13

-Accounting Chapter 13 homework.

-Legal midterm study one hour...

-Quiz Chapter 9/10 for legal

-Finish Hw 8 in math if at all possible... (I don't really understand the material yet)

-Install strap....

Wish me luck. Still feeling a little pain in my chest when I breath but I talked to Katelynn about it and she said she thinks it might be my reaction to an immense amount of stress lately. She said she sometimes has that too where it almost feels like your heart hurts and you feel like you can't breath.. It's all due to the amount of stress I've been putting myself though and probably my high amounts of caffeine consumption. I don't believe I'm significantly worse than most people but I'm thinking this chest pain is somewhat due to that. 

I sent Jed a couple pictures I'd taken around yesterday. We hadn't talked for 2 days so I figured it'd be fine. He hasn't texted back, it's been three days since we've talked. I'm having a feeling he probably partied last night, whatever that's his business. 

peace. 

Losing your identity and starting a new?

I'm really not a fan of hipsters.

One reason that I choose not to accessorize too much is because I don't want to associated with these people.

Hipsters are a subculture of men and women typically in their 20's and 30's that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indie-rock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter.

The Hipster subculture is certainly more bearable than others such as the rave/candy kids that grew out of the now almost completely dead "Scene" phase. I've been friends with some hipsters, but most of them that I've met have been really lazy. Like they've got an attitude like they're too cool to work unless it's at some coffeeshop or bookstore for a few hours a week. 

Yeah, not a hipster. Makes me happy I'm not going to Bellingham, these people would have pissed me off.

Blegh. When this becomes a known trend of my time, I can say here and now that I was never a part of it.

I don't really have a concrete look or subculture that I belong in, though I do seek the approval of other musicians. I think all musicians do, it's really important because there's no better judge of your playing than someone that's more skilled than you. It's also fun to of course be better than the next guy, so that approval is also a plus. Hipsters must get approval from other hipsters on how thrifty they look. 

I've never followed any clothing trends necessarily or tried to be something I'm not for an extended amount of time. I feel like these kids that get really into different scenes end up losing a big piece of their identity once the scene ends or goes out of style. I personally would never want something that I identify with to "die," it would be horrifying, especially if you take it really seriously and felt accepted by the other people following the trend. 

There are still stragglers to the scene trend, like this girl. 

I think Scene pretty much ended when MySpace did back in 2008. 

Gonna play guitar until me and tyler hang out.

peace. 

My party! A quick overview.

Now that a day has passed and I feel more relaxed and restored, I can talktalktalktalk about everything that's happened. This blog might be broken up into a few entries, but I'll start with writing about my party.

The party had an incredible turnout. Throughout the night I'm pretty sure I got at least 30 people, and only a few people that RSVP'd as coming flaked out. All the people that I really wanted to come showed up though, including Robert, Tyler and Logan which was amazing considering the crowd that was there. Tyler doesn't like crowds much and has never really followed through with plans that I make, but times have changed I suppose!

Speaking of those guys, I got the incredible news that Chelsea and Robert are engaged. It was so funny when they announced it to us because Tyler, Logan and I already knew but we played it off like we didn't. I admit that Chelsea and I weren't necessarily besties in highschool, and I'm sure I said some things about her that weren't favorable to Robert a long time ago, but my opinions of her have changed a lot. She was totally cool at my party, she's really made Robert happy, they love eachother so much and I'm really excited for their wedding next May.

The party started at 8' PM, which means it was pretty light out when people started showing up. I had picked up Taylor M. because she didn't have a ride, then Katelynn and Alan showed up. There wasn't much setting up to do because my Mom had it covered, and my head was still sort of on backwards like it was at graduation. 

On the left is Tim. Jessika had showed up with him, having told him I was interested in a relationship and he came to hang out with me apparently. Jessika and Tim were being very reclusive. Tim had been excited to hang out with Katelynn and Alan as well, but that was cut short when Jessika decided to leave about 20 minutes after getting here to go smoke weed with Tim. She was angry at me and acting really rude to all of my guests and I had no idea why. I ended up texting her about it and she flipped out on me but that story is for another entry.

A picture of me, Logan and Tyler. Robert was originally in this I thought but he ducked out with Chelsea. He probably felt a little awkward and didn't want Chelsea to feel excluded. Chelsea would of been fine in the picture too, though! 

The ki-be drama kids started coming in around 9:30 pm. They certainly made it a party! They all had such a good energy because they were ready to have a good time. I set up the movie in the yard but everyone pretty much talked, hung out and munched the whole time. I was sort of unprepared for food because I was slightly broke. 

Here's me and Taylor. I unexpectedly jumped on his lap to take a picture. Every person that was there I made sure to make a point to tell them that I was glad they were there and made sure to give them a hug at some point in the night. Reason being, I have no idea when I will see any of these people again in my life. Not saying I don't guarantee I'll see Samantha, Shawn and those guys again.. haha I'm going to Sam's house tomorrow more than likely. But people like those in my Japanese class that I never really had much of a close relationship with outside of class, I really don't know. I'm sure I will go to other meet ups and such if there are some, but if not I hope they all have successful and happy lives. 

The Japanese club kids were the first ones to show up at 8:10-8:30 or so. I was happy they were so timely because I always get so worried about if people will show up or not. They hung out on the benches and chit chat for most of the time, so I was concerned they were bored but there was really nothing to worry about. A couple of them messaged me telling how much of a good time they had.

So yup, everything worked out as it should! Can't say I'm going to be having any more parties anytime soon because it's nearly impossible to have a great time at your own party without stressing out and over planning, but it was still an excellent closure to my time at CBC. 

peace. 

YOU'RE THE ONE WHO'S REALLY A LOSER, THIS IS WHERE I FEEL I BELONG...

Alright, my title has no relevance to what I'm going to write what-so-ever, but it's a really awesome line in "Snowblind" that I always sing in my car when it comes on. Right now, I'm downloading the Zune software onto my new computer and then hopefully I'll be able to get my two new CDs onto my Zune and listen to them tomorrow morning.

I got a couple great, but totally different from one another CDs. Babylon by Skindred and The Greatest Hits of Canned Heat. But yes, before you ask, I DO STILL buy CDs. Why? Well, for a number of reasons...

Emily's List of WHY I Still Buy CDs (when I have the computer skills to download songs online):

1. I don't trust anything illegally downloaded online. In the past I've destroyed computers with trying to download music with Limewire, MP3Raid, etc... Fact of the matter is, no matter what site you're using, there's always a risk that you're gonna download a virus and when you buy music legally you don't have to worry about it.

2. I'm too lazy to download tracks individually. Honestly, the only time that I do that is when I'm desperate to hear a certain artist but I'm too broke to buy a CD. Typically, if I like an artist enough to want an entire album, I'll buy one. Plus, if you download tracks sometimes you don't know if you're getting the full song. Like for instance, I downloaded "Nobody" by Skindred individually a few months back, and I'm listening to the track on the CD and it's like 2 minutes longer...

3. I like to support the artists themselves. Simply put.

 I've used about 5 gb of my 30 gb Zune. The thing is though, if I ever even come close to filling the whole thing, I can always delete some of the albums on there that I never listen too. Like somehow I ended up with like... six albums of Opeth from Robert's computer. Opeth IS pretty cool but that's just-- a lot. Usually the only time that I discover music on my zune is when I have it on shuffle, but with Opeth there songs are so long that I'm rarely in a mood that I want to listen to an eight minute metal song... Unless I'm on a road trip or something. And even then... Lately, I just like listening to more upbeat music.

There's something very satisfying about owning the CD itself. It's like, if my computer crashes or something, I'll at least still have it. Now that I've discovered buying CDs on Amazon, I'm gonna buy more of them when I can.

Today was pretty long... studied math for about three hours, for the first hour and a half or so being completely confused and ready to quit. But, I stuck with it, got help, and figured out chapter 10. I'm proud, now I just need to review and study and then I'll be good to go for the chapter 10 test not this next monday but the following one. Lots of time to review. I also need to step up my japanese homework. Sensee actually counted an assignment half credit for being late. I didn't even realize that she kept track of it because I've turned in so many assignments late that have never been docked. I really need to get all of it in by next monday. Next thursday is already the Chapter 11 test! Yikes! So yeah, that's obviously on my mind too. Seems like Japanese tests and math class come at the same time.

My mom called me weird for buying a Canned Heat CD. lol. I don't really care, I think they're cool.

Anyway, it's  almost 1. Me and Ryan errm-- WERE gonna hang out tonight but plans fell through somehow. That, and my phone is shut off. Lovely..

yours,

Emily



I think I hate practically all "Happy" music. But will this change?

This song is retarded.

Yet, it has 15 million views and people love this song. Jason Mraz is now on my list of artists who I think are horrible. This list includes Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Modest Mouse, Foo Fighters, Autumn, Taylor Swift, Maroon 5, and now Jason Mraz. These 'happy go lucky', corny love songs, for some reason, make me cring. I don't understand people that like this kind of music. Some girl on YouTube told me that "unless you've been in love," I can never understand...

Well, someday, if I'm ever in love, I will not change my taste in music. I'll still listen to death metal and lots of other rock music (...except alternative). Doesn't matter who I'm with, they can put up with it. My mom told me that she used to listen to "hard" music (which was probably British punk rock because it was "in"..) but once she had babies she just thought it was "inappropriete" for a mom to be driving around blasting rock music with children in the car. This made me think. Even if I've loved rock music since the 8th grade, and it's become progressively harder over the years (from the hippie classic rock that I used to listen to my sophomore year to listening to Metallia, Mastodon and Opeth today), I wonder if my taste WILL change. Will I be listening to this corny, happy go lucky, acoustic guitar, make-me-want-to-puke-a-little-when-I-hear-this music? Time can only tell. I doubt it.

..And another thing, my mom listened to rap, hip-hop and pop in the car when we were kids. Are you telling me that that music is a better influence on kids then rock music? Probably not.

I like J-Pop, I guess that's the only break in the mold with my love and dedication to only rock music. I've only got a little on my Zune because it's hard to locate and download songs. Plus it's a pain to learn about artists because I have to weed through a lot of shitty, annoying ones. Granted, that's the same with any genre of music, but J-pop is especially hard because there's not a lot of sites in English that talk about it.

Last night I hung out with Robert's girlfriend, Vicki, and her ex boyfriend Adolfo. We smoked and had a good time. Last night there was some big football game up at the highschool, and I was at home doing my own thing when Vicki texted me. It was a very fun night. I just got really, really tired and paranoid after awhile and it was nice of her to take me home. I can't be staying out too late anyway. My parents are keeping kind of a close eye on me I think, probably because of how this summer has been.

When Vicki and Adolfo pulled up, my Dad yells "Avery some of your friends are here!" and Avery runs down, "OHH who is it?!" Like, OH YAY more people are here for ME! I'm like, "No, those are my friends..." And Avery replies, "What a surprise." Like, thus implying, 'Usually nobody comes over to see you.' My mom was like, "Well you know usually they're Avery's friends." I called Avery a stupid bitch and left. I don't give a fuck if Avery has more friends than me, you don't need to rub it in my face when I do go out.

Speaking of going out, it's Nick B.'s going away party today, but I don't think I'm going to go. Money is too tight right now and I need to save my gasoline for tomorrow. I'm going to that kickball thing. Tyler has been sort of cold toward me lately, so I don't think I'm going to take him with me and I'm going to take Ivy instead. She's really nice to me and cuts hair. : ) I'll be taking Adolfo, Samantha, Ivy, and maybe Jodi if she wants to go. I think Tyler Davis really wants her to go because he likes her.

There's only 9 days until school. I think today i'll study the hell out of Chapter 2, and then tomorrow i'll do 3, and so forth. That way I get fully caught up right on time. I've been studying quite a bit. Probably not going to make up for an entire summer of not studying but I'll be fine. I'm remembering so much already.

Today my goals are:

-Study Chapter 2

-Do Japanese worksheets

-Not laze around on the computer.

-Do 30 minutes pilates

-Do 45 min DDR

-play guitar for an hour

-Keep my sanity.

yours,

Emily

A new blog... ._.

This is intimidating to me.
I transfered over to MySpace blogging because MySpace is now full of creeps and none of my friends are all Facebook whores now. My last blog had over 300 entries. And I'm starting over. Clean slate. So here I am, at a new blog to post my thoughts and feelings, pictures, and whatever I feel like. Right this second, it's hard to focus because my sister and her friend are watching Hannah Montana. I'd like to make a quick introduction of who I am, since this is the first entry and all.

This picture is sort of old, from about five months ago or so, but I plan on posting new pictures of me soon...

My name is Emily Wilson, and I'm 19 years old. I am going to school at a community college and I am currently trying to minor in Japanese and major in English. This isn't the concrete plan-- but eventually I will know what I want to do. Someday, I'd like to study abroad, and maybe teach English in Japan someday. Or maybe I'll want to be a criminal profiler... I'm not totally decided on anything yet, but I do know that my love of Japanese culture has stretched for years and now that I'm learning the language it's coming easier to me than I expected. Along with learning the Japanese language I've also grown fond of cooking Japanese food (bento boxes, in particular). I plan on showing you guys pictures of my bento boxes whenever I can! Maybe I'll even post some how-to's.

I love rock music. As a previously depressed high schooler, bands like System of a Down, Metallica and Coheed and Cambria really helped me get through. Because of my love of rock music, some people might think I'm angry when they sit in the car and listen to the music that I like to listen to. I guess it's just the kind of music I relate to more than anything (I'm not out getting money and hoes; nor am I sitting in a truck 'cause my wife broke up with me; nor do I wake up in the morning feeling like P-Diddy). Now that I am in college, I am no longer depressed because I feel like I am surrounded by more intelligent people, and it's only going to get better when I go onto a four year university. Having come from a small town, I felt like nobody understood me and now it's easier to find people that share the same interests.

I was a big jock in highschool, you could say. I played  tennis and soccer, and took it pretty seriously. I was known as the "Tank" in soccer because I'd run into girls on the field and often caused a lot of pain before the reff could turn around. It was a great way to get out my anger. I played sort of sloppily, didn't have much ball control, but was a good defender and was used as a human shield. Tennis though, was a whole different story. I was extremely perserverant and woudn't let any balls just get away. I played singles, and would run my opponent ragid. I ended up going to State last year and got a 14-1 record. However, now that highschool sports is over, I often get minor post traumatic stress passing the old towns we used to play in or seeing pictures. It caused a lot of stress on me. However, it taught me so much. Now that sports is over, I need to find some way to channel my aggression, as well as keep in shape. I usually just run, talk walks, or play Wii Dance now.

I guess you can say I go through phases of what I do in my spare time, where I'll be nearly obsessed with something and tire myself out with it, then moving on to something else. Eventually though, that same hobby will reoccur and the cycle starts over. My main hobbies are drawing, reading, playing DS, practicing hiragana/katakana and studying Japanese, making YouTube videos, cooking, and playing the guitar. The amount of time that I spend doing each of them however varies a lot depending on what I'm doing. The bass guitar is my personal favorite, however I don't dedicate nearly enough time to it to be good. I'll play for awhile, like a couple months, then I'll fall out of it like a wet firework. I assume I'll get back into it again here once I find the inspiration too.

My Youtube channel is EWilsonLife if you want to check that out. I post videos there sometimes, so if you just happen to be here and are bored enough to watch some videos on me go check it out.

Hmm, let's see, I feel like telling you more, I'm not doing anything else anyway...

I eat pretty healthy. Right now I am on a diet, trying to lose 10 lbs. I'm not considered overweight, however I feel like I would be more comfortable in my own skin if I do so. It's also a personal challenge to see if I'd be able to do it. Rejecting the many cravings that come in a given day can be hard, which when I was doing sports I would just eat because I was burning so many calories. Today, I'm more sedentary because I spend a lot more time with academics than anything, so I have to watch what I eat. I pack bento boxes and cook fresh food, which has been working very well for me. I also drink tea. Above is a picture of one of my bento boxes. Actually, it was the one I ate today. :) And if you don't know what a bento box is I will tell you LOTS about them in later entries.

There! That should be a good start.

☆ yours

emily