Six shooter, Cowboy Killer...

...kept me alive.



But mostly, Avena.

Yesterday was a stretch for me. It really was. Let me see if I can start from the beginning...

Actually it doesn't really matter. Yesterday, I had an adventure. I drove up to Hollywood to see my brother, who really couldn't hang out. I picked up my buddy from the airport, and was late. I got lost.

Basically, yesterday was a fail.

UNTIL,

After dropping off Kris, I went back to Starbucks where my brother works. I needed something strong to keep me up for the drive home. We developed what is essentially a gnarly soy latte.

I can't tell you what's in it. It's a secret.

But after that, the evening improved. The drive home was a fantastic time to unwind from the stress of the preceding day. I was able to get home in half the time with no traffic, with a fantastic drink that pumped me full of sugar and caffeine. I had time to reflect on how the day had benefited me, rather than how it was disappointing. My driving skills have gone WAY up. Navigation? No problem now. Patience was definitely bolstered. More so, I was given the realization that keeping busy was good for me.

I'm a guy. I can revel in doing absolutely nothing for hours... but probably not anymore. The draw of productivity is too strong.

Lastly, I got a call from Avena, that really set the night right. You know those cliche' lines that talk about "all your problems disappearing"? That's how I feel when I get the chance to talk to, or spend time with Avena. The problems are still there, but I find solace in knowing she cares about me. It's a fantastic feeling that's relatively new to me. Even if there's nothing to be said, there's no one I'd rather be silent with. Avena's the one.

The day took me all around, and actually, it was today that I decided to write about it, because I realize that the trials of living independantly are about to begin again. Living away from home, away from friends, away from Avena.. it's all going to be hard. But this newfound resolve to be stronger than last time has brought me a new confidence. Who knows where I'll be in the future? I don't really care at this point. My life is my life, and I'm just going to do my best, and see.

"God in your eyes, and love in your heart,
We'll see where that takes you for now."

Elfing it up.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

HmmMmmMmm...

...Interesting.

I've had the whole day to myself, essentially.. but it started out pretty rough. Last night, I had a recording observation that I needed to go to, that started at 10:00pm.

At RCA Studio B.

Basically, epic..... but a mile away from campus.

Typically, that wouldn't be a problem at all. I'm not so fat that I can't walk a mile, but last night had the major factor of being around 20 degrees. Bloody hell. That's really cold.

So I wrapped up in warmness, and charged the streets. It took me about 25 minutes to get there. Not bad. I got to listen to some As Cities Burn. I love that band. New album is good walking music. When i got there (about ten minutes late), the session had clearly been going for about an hour, which frustrated me. I had to document everything, and now I had to catch up on an hours worth of work.

Anyways.. it turned out a lot better than I thought, and I was out of there by 12:30. Walking back was almost worse, though. So. Bloody. Cold.

Anyways.. when I got back, I grabbed my guitar and went to the bell tower with Paul and Sunny. Sunny knit while Paul and I went through a bunch of sweet chord progressions and songs we've been working on. Sometimes I wish that I could just.. take what little skill I have and donate it to someone more worthy. Like.. other people.

Anyways, after that, I went back to Hail thinking I would go to bed. It was 3:30. I ended up in a huge discussion with Dan and J.P. about God, creation, horror movies, and farming. Ridiculous. Eff my life. Hahaha. Waking up was hard.

Basically today, I've been rushing to get papers turned in a stuff. Simple. Not too hard. I helped Zach get to his flight on time, and the rest of the day was spent on my own.. playing guitar. I wrote a cool song. More like three, actually. They'll be hard to record, though.. so I better start practicing.

Anyways.. I need to give up on this entry.

Listen to:

"We Delete; Erase" by Native
"Ozma" by Melvins

The Calm before...

...Nothing. 'Cause this ain't a calm.

Tomorrow, I have a five page essay due in Seminar, and a final exam for Survey of Recording Technology. I'm finishing up my paper now, and I'm realizing how much of a complainer I've been. To everyone. To the people in my dorm, to the professors in my classes, and to the people I love. Sure, I really doubt I will use what I've 'learned' in First-Year Seminar. I really don't think I'll be glad I compared all the short stories and essays that I did in English, but that's just all a part of life. What we do leads us to who we are. Who we want to be.

I want this to be my formal apology to Avena. To Drew, Sunny, and Sam, my Residence Assistants. To my friends in Hail Hall.

I've been an over-dramatic, complaining bitch about everything recently, and I don't have any excuse or reason for that. If you read this, I hope you understand that I have humiliated myself, and really couldn't feel any worse about the way I've acted.

From the start, I've treated college with a cold and bitter zeal. I wanted to get the grades, and get the heck out. I didn't care about people. I didn't care about being here, or who I interacted with. I wasn't thriving at all, and I know certain people realized that quickly. Avena tried to help me create a place here so I could flourish and be nurtured, but I reacted selfishly. I can't believe people have the patience with me that they do. I didn't want to go to college, and essentially, I still don't. But I've come to realize that there's more to life that my own ambitions, dreams, and desires. It's about growing, and learning. It's about realizing your dreams, but still living the life that God sets in front of you- not the life that we want, or try to forcibly have.

In any case, to you, my readers, I apologize. I am so sorry for the way I have behaved. The way I have treated you. I hope I can make it up to you. In the meantime, I am going to do my best pursuing the education that I came here for- but this time, I'm not going to close myself to others. I'm definitely not going to close myself to Christ's calling. I just hope that by doing this.. I can make a few things right.

"...Feel like when its between what I want and you want...
...It's the choice between doing whats selfish and what's stupid...
...Because I still love you, and you're still gone..."

Music:

"Parasite" by See You Next Tuesday
"Red Medicine" by Fugazi
"Noise Floor" by Bright Eyes

Residence Life...

...is ballsack.

I wake up this morning, at 11, so that I can go to lunch with my cohorts at noon. All is well as I take my shower, I dress, brush my teeth, and choose an appropriate (yet stylish) jacket for the current weather: cool and overcast. Then, it happens.

I step into the lobby and see the walls plastered with signs.

NO VISITATION DURING FINALS WEEK

NO PRACTICE HOURS DURING FINALS WEEK

Are they dyking me?

First of all, I am extremely opposed to the idea of having set 'practice' hours in the first place. This is a university where we pay 28,000 dollars to attend. I'd like to think it's an adult setting, with adult faculty and adult students. At this point in life, we're perfectly capable of being considerate, but further from that, capable of understanding that we can ask the people next to, above, and below us if it's all right to strum our acoustic guitars. If no one cares, I should be able to play, right?

The issue lies here: I can't very well take my duffel bag of pedals, a 75-pound tube amp, and my guitar to a 'practice room' (a 6x10 room, with an upright piano usurping most of that space) across campus to practice electric guitar. Besides- those rooms are completely taken, nearly all of the time by musical performance majors. I'm fine with that, but there are many, many students who play music, and would realistically like to dedicate a significant amount of time to music without majoring in it. Where do I go? The library? Oh, wait. That's where students go to study without any noise interruptions. Hmm. Something is wrong with this system.

I'm sure a happy medium could be found.. but having an absolute rule saying that I can't play guitar after 7:00pm just blows. Are they serious? I mean.. there are so many better options.

1. I'm fine with quiet hours. 10:00pm-10:00am is reasonable. But realistically, there could be 10:00am-10:00pm courtesy hours (That's what they're called now, but they're not courtesy hours) where people can play their instruments as long as their neighbors around, above and below have given permission and/or don't care. Then, 3:00pm-7:00pm could be actual practice hours, and by that, I mean NO COMPLAINT hours, where we can actually have a time set aside to benefit us, rather than restrict us.
   
2. Practice Hours are about courtesy, clearly. I refuse to believe that the University legitimately wants to parent us in this way. Based on the model I gave in point (1), we could even abolish practice hours completely, for simple courtesy hours. This would be disappointing if any neighbors were unhappy with practicing, but I can accept the responsibility of being courteous to others. I'm not a selfish bastard who just wants to practice when I'm not supposed to. I just want to be able to practice when there's no other reasons not to.
   
3. If Belmont, a very serious music school intends to keep its students musical, it may need to build a place to accommodate more musicians. It's true, the University's number one major is Music Business, and not musical performance-- but to assume that musicians play a minority role in this school would be convoluted and stupid. If the practice rooms are not adequate, as they clearly are not, then another practice location should be provided, with far fewer time constraints. This raises an entirely new budget issue, which would make this the least appealing idea.

Clearly, the approach to take would be to change the school's policies on practicing. Not only do the hours make musical dedication (not to mention improvement) nearly impossible, but they are extremely hypocritical in the context of dormitory life. For example, after practice hours, people can continue to listen to music through their computer speakers, or watch television or movies. These activities are widely acknowledged as louder than most music practice, especially when considering the decibel (dB) level of an acoustic guitar compared to two blaring 20watt computer speakers, or the roar of a neighbors video game played through television speakers. Just the other day, my friend and I played Dance Dance Revolution, and had the volume cranked. The Residence Assistants came over to watch, and said nothing about the volume. It's because it's the principal of the matter, not the spirit of the rule that matters here, and I can't stand that.

I can't stand it.

So in the meantime, check out some of this music. Play it louder than a guitar:

"Continent" by The Acacia Strain
"Elephant" by The White Stripes
"Second Helping" by Lynyrd Skynyrd
"Sublime" by Sublime

A good day...

...Today, I hope, will be a good day.

I just woke up, about thirty minutes ago, took a nice, (very) hot shower, and got ready for my day. I think the nice thing about that is.. I had to do very little. I have an English class today at 8, but I doubt we'll do anything. I submitted my last of many papers on Friday, so today will probably just be one of those lets-waste-your-time-by-showing-up-at-eight-but-do-nothing classes. I can deal with that, I suppose.

The other good part of today is that I have no Cardio classes left, so I have an empty void in my class schedule all the way until 3:30 this afternoon. It will be a good time for me to work on my last, last, last, last First-Year Seminar paper. Did I mention it was my last paper for that class? I'm pretty excited about that. I'm pretty sure that I've never loathed a class more than Seminar.. just because it really has not benefited me all semester. I haven't really learned.. anything, with the exception of life requiring useless things of us.

Luckily, I'll probably have time to get all of that done this afternoon, before Math at 3:30 (Another waste of time, because of how easy it is.. not because I won't use those applied skills).

On a completely different note... have you ever had one of those dreams, where you can see people talking about you, gossiping about you, or asking questions about you, and all you want to do is answer.. but you can't? You want to defend yourself, or explain something, but you just can't.. because it's like you're not there? That's kind of how my life feels right now. I feel like in a lot of situations.. things go to shit because I'm not there to support myself, or my views. I guess it's conceited to think my opinion or presence holds a lot of clout.. but I'd like to think things would be different.. if I could be there.

All I can do is look in, like a little kid with a ship in a bottle.. wishing I was a sailor.

...Another horrible analogy by Seiji Inouye.

The end.

The End of an Era...

...That's what we're in.

It's weird to think that the end of the semester is drawing so close, and we're all such new, new kids. Did we really just meet each other three months ago? It was even less than that. The bonds we all create goes beyond the friendships we experienced before, because this is very much our lives now. We live here; we live here with all of each other right next door. Just above. Just below. It's a community that we've built, and that we've embraced. It's been wonderful. It's been painful. Over these few months, I think its obvious how much we've changed. People have shown their true colors, I guess. It's fine. I love seeing people grow comfortable with themselves.

What's going to be hard, though, is the end of the semester. Realistically, these friendships will not last. It's something I've been thinking about: I'll probably stay in touch with about 1/4 of the people I hang out with now. Maybe less. Maybe more, who knows. It's actually something I'm very much at peace with. I know I'll be staying close to the people who Christ leads and lets into my life. It'll all be fine.

I was talking to one of my best friends, and she is faced with so many incredible opportunities for her summer, and future in general. It's overwhelming to think of the different ways God can direct our lives, to do things we've never dreamed of. It's terrifying for me, to think that at the end of this college experience, I'll probably have wasted a ridiculous amount of time.

There are really two or three things in life that I really, really wanted in life. I've already scratched being a rock star from that list, haha. It's just not realistic for me. I don't have the talent of people who don't make it, so why should I? I'll leave that to the awesome people.

The other two I just feel don't get taken seriously while I'm at college. One was opening my youth center. My 24-hour venue/studio/gallery/cafe'/recreation center. I know for sure that I do not need First-Year Seminar for that. I know that. I know for sure that my degree will probably add to the knowledge base I need to be a good Engineer, but I also know that the knowledge I need is probably acquirable in two years, without comparing essays about grandparents, without taking medieval history. Without being able to write an old-testament synopsis in an hour.

I guess I'm just being cynical. I should go eat a banana and write my next paper.

Musix:

"Miss Machine" by The Dillinger Escape Plan
"Game Theory" by The Roots
"Come to Daddy" by Aphex Twin
"A to B: Life" by mewithoutyou