End of year reflection

My junior year has been a great year. I have made so many great memories and done a number of new things; not to mention I learned a lot. However, we are still in school and finals are only two days away! Yet, it feels like it's already summer break, meaning my laziness is at a peak high. Good thing we are reaching finals week. With summer being so close I can't help but imagine all the fun I will have. But now I need to concentrate and drag myself back to the present and speak about school, no more dreaming about what great things summer will bring.

This school year from an academic standpoint was my most difficult. Large loads of homework filled my time and papers plagued my weekends. Looking back at it, I realize I have learned a lot this year. I wouldn't go as far as to say my efforts were worth it, but I did learn. This semester in particular I felt that I took the most out of our non-fiction writing class. My quality of writing definitely improved as did my knowledge of potatoes. This was by far my favorite English class that I have had at Uni. The papers were much more enjoyable than those for other classes and they were not just analyzing books. The blogs in particular were a nice change of pace. I learned how to write for a more general audience and to be a little more creative with my writing, throwing humor in occasionally. I gained experience writing about new subjects that I had never written about before in my blog posts that helped me develop my writing. I think the non-fiction writing class should continue being offered at Uni because I truly think that other student like me could benefit from it.

Although I did like the class I am overjoyed that I am finally done with the work. I hate hate hate writing papers and I'm so glad summer is almost here.

Summer Jobs

Summer is fast approaching and it seems like the big debate is whether or not getting a summer job is a wise decision. At our age it can be hard to find a job where you are going to make a very substantial amount of money so job selection can be tricky. If you are like me you probably would rather not spend a good deal of your summer working. Finding the right job to  fit your summer schedule can be a challenge, especially if you are like me and have a number of trips planned for the summer (like lollapalooza! oh yah!) that can really get in the way of things.

I have already secured my summer job "working" Gatorade at U of I youth sports camps. Basically I'm going to be paid to sit at a table and every once and a while fill up paper cups with Gatorade.  Sounds great, but trust me that can extremely boring. This will be my second year working and I'm hoping this time around I can get some more indoor shifts where I'm not surrounded by a million bees attracted to the hot sticky Gatorade that campers have managed to spill all over everything. I'm not going to be making much more than minimum wage, but working Gatorade is perfect for me because it fits my schedule. I can choose basically whenever I want to work and I can easily find someone willing to take a shift for me. Gatorade  doesn't typically require you to work that long, most days I only have to work a few hours so I have plenty of time to do other things during my day. Jobs are a responsibility and I'm happy that I have one where I can't really mess up and get fired.

I'm interested in what other people are doing over the summer. Are you planning to get a job, or do you already have one? What is your ideal summer job?

The Kollection

So recently I've discovered my new favorite music website. Here is the website check it out: thekollection.com. The Kollection is comprised of mash-ups of popular songs, remixes, and occasionally some original songs by little known artists. I like the kollection because it seems to be a nice break from other websites of the sort. For example datpiff.com, a mix-tape website, is covered from top to bottom with flashy ads and bright colors, distracting you from the music itself. The kollection and its somewhat minimal background is very refreshing. When you go to the collection you aren't required to log onto an account every time you want to download a song, nor is there a download limit. Listening is simple too, no pop up windows, all you have to do is press play.

I think more websites should follow this type of layout. These days we are overloaded with so much information on the internet and its nice to find simpler websites. They have a cleaner appearance, which in my opinion is more professional. I can understand that it may not be as profitable for websites to throw up fewer ads on their pages, but the improved appearance of the sight may attract more viewers canceling out any negative affects of removing a few ugly ads.

I have discovered a number of artists on the kollection that I would have otherwise never known about. A majority of the artists on the kollection have there own pages, and sometimes even interviews specifically for the website. For example here is The White Pandas page: the white panda. The Kollection features a lot of unique artists covering many genres. Every day they put around 2-10 songs up on theirs site giving you something new to listen to every day.

bearded man

Today I have decided to blog about one of my friends and our often dumb escapades. I won't say his name, but you can easily guess who it is from the blog title. My friend often does very dumb things, not to say that he isn't one of the smartest people I know, but he often makes dumb decisions. I'll give a few examples.

My first story takes place over the course of finals last semester. Since it wasn't a regularly scheduled school day my bearded friend drove his car to school and parked it at meter close to Uni. After finals we were we decided to head over to McDonalds. My friend offered to drive since he had his car with him. When we got to his car he had a ticket on his window because he never thought to put money in the meter. Soon after noticing the ticket, we learned that he had also left his lights on. Of course his  car battery was now dead. At the time both of his parents were out of town so we had to ask another classmate of ours to help us jump the car. Of course my friend, not knowing how to jump a car, decided he would take the jumper cables and randomly attach them while no one was paying attention to him. After telling him not to connect the wrong poles, we heard a loud sound followed by a spray of sparks from the car battery. He had done what we told him not to do ad connected the wrong poles of the battery given himself a pretty bad shock. Eventually we were able to jump the car and we made it over to McDonalds.

Another more recent incident occurred when Iain and I went over to his house. When we arrived at his house we saw someone standing next to a tree. At first we thought it was some random girl, but then the person turned around and we immediately saw the beard. We broke out laughing. After noticing the car he charged at us car and pelted us with hershey's kisses. We learned that he was "hiding behind a tree". However, he assumed we were going to come in through the most ridiculous entrance to his house and was thus on the wrong side of the tree. When I got there I learned that he had been sleeping in his steam room at night instead of his room, which happens to also be a bomb shelter. After removing his pillow from the steam room we hung out and relaxed. After that we proceeded to hang out and attempt to "hunt" deer with airsoft guns. He decided since he didn't have a gun he would use two poles as legs and pretended to be a deer so that the deer to come over. Magically it worked.

My bearded friend is extremely funny, but at time does extremely dumb things. In fact I had trouble deciding which stories to use because there are so many. Tell me a funny story about one of your friends in the comments!

OH nO!!!

So recently I dropped my iPod on the ground getting out of my car. I  didn't care too much at the time I just picked it up and went inside. When I got in I tried to turn it on... it wouldn't start up. After a lot of trouble shooting with my iPod I finally gave up and accepted that yes my iPod was broken and with that no more music.


Just about every morning when I get up one of the first things I do is grab my iPod and start listening, I take a brake from it to take my shower and thats about it; my headphones don't come off until I get to school. When I get home the same thing happens. I put the headphones in and get to work studying, doing homework, or whatever.

Now I am facing a huge change. I no longer have my iPod in the morning, nothing to wake me up, nothing to shut me out from the rest of the world. As I sit writing this blog entry I can't help but long to be listening to one of my favorite songs on my iPod. I always thought that listening to music while doing homework helped me concentrate and stay on task, but now that I haven't had it for a week I'm starting to notice a difference in my ability to get work done. For our recent history test I spent about half the time I usually spend studying and I felt that I may have done even better than I typically do. Maybe my iPod breaking was a good thing for me since it might make me work in a slightly more efficient manner.
However I do wish I had my iPod back than I wish it was broken. Hopefully I can get a replacement soon.

Food

I like food. Food is good. When I am hungry I eat food.

Concert or Prom

For those of you who haven't already heard, Wiz Khalifa is coming to champaign at the assembly hall! Wiz Khalifa is an up and coming rap artist, most recognized for his song Black and Yellow along with his large number of mix-tapes one of which, one the award for mix-tape of the year. I love concerts and I really want to go see Wiz live. There is one problem, the concert is scheduled for the night of prom. So now I am faced with the difficult decision of prom or concert.

Prom is a big deal to a lot of people and it seems to really be a big event for high-schoolers. Prom has its draw backs of course. Unlike most of the Uni dances prom has a higher price tag. The ticket price is very high, at least in comparison to the other Uni dances, but hey they provide more for you so you aren't just paying for entry in a sense. Prom has many expenses attached to including renting or buying a nice suit, not only that but as a guy I will probably have to buy expensive food for myself and whatever date I end up finding.

Going to a concert has its expense as well although it seems like relatively little in comparison to prom. The ticket price for the concert is 35 dollars which is the typical price for most assembly hall concerts. From what I have heard Wiz is supposed to bring a decent stage presence to his concerts so it might be quite a bit of fun.

So what should I do? I'm leaning towards the concert right now and I'm a junior so prom isn't quite as big of a deal. Uni also tends to have a record of not so great proms so I think going to the concert is a smart choice.

shoveling sucks

Snow days are typically lots of fun. I don’t have to go to school, I get to hang out with friends, and I have time to catch up on my work. There is one thing about snow days however that I truly can’t stand: shoveling my driveway.

My house backs up right next to a cornfield in Savoy. My drive way faces the North and there is a cornfield directly to the West with nothing to block the wind in between.  Of course the wind always blows across the field directly at my house, thus taking a ton of snow. The result is huge snow drifts all our yard and especially in our driveway. This means that I might have two feet of snow waiting for me to shovel when we might have only had a few inches of snow. When I clear the driveway there are two huge snow piles on either side of the driveway. If there is even a slight amount of wind these piles turn into giant drifts that lead to me having to plow the entire driveway yet again about two hours later. All the while I get to look at my neighbor’s driveway across the street which faces the field just like mine, but they have two giant trees that block all the snow and their driveway is perfectly clear without them having to do any work!

Most of us probably had to shovel a little bit over the weekend and those of you who did you were probably surprised to find two inches of ice at the bottom of all that snow. I spent two hours this morning, on my day off, hacking at ice and shoveling snow for two hours to clear my tiny driveway... Of course I receive little to no help from my other family members my brother is super lazy, my mom is tiny and incapable of shoveling large quantities of snow efficiently, and my dad is in a wheelchair so I get to do it all by myself or with the most minimal of help. I hate shoveling and I’m going to have a heated driveway in the future.

blog entry #1

I really didn't have much in the way of ideas for what I wanted my blog to be about. I put my mind to it and came up blank. In the end I decided to go with the music idea that was given in class and I am going to challenge myself to find new and interesting music. I want to keep my options open and not all of my blogs, hopefully, are about music. To keep it interesting I am going to try to focus on largely unheard of musicians that I have recently discovered from a wide range of genres.

My first artist is called Skrillex. Skrillex is the stage name of Sonny Moore, a 23 year old out of LA. Skrillex is Soony's second big act. At 16 he was the guitar player and lead vocalist for a band named From First To Last. The band was successful until Sonny began suffering from vocal problems eventually requiring surgery and his eventual resignation from the band. Sonny went on to pursue a solo career under his new stage name Skrillex. Like most aspiring artists these days and put it out on his website for free download. The album My Name Is Skrillex quickly caught the attention of the dance music community and Skrillex has been signed to mau5trap. Since then he has released another EP titled Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.

Skrillex falls in the genres of fidget house and dubstep, both relatively new genres of music. Since they are such new genres i will try my best to describe them. Dubstep is a sort of dance, electric music that makes heavy use off powerful base beats. Fidget house is best described as hip-hop style beats or dance beats with short voice snippets or samples thrown in and are often used in the beat and not so much for the lyrical purpose.

I first heard Skrillex on Pandora music player and researched a little further and eventually downloaded his two albums. I recently started listening to him and the general dubstep genre as a hole not too long ago so I don't know a ton about the genre. A good description would be catchy beats and a fast pace definitely something for the younger crowd. Skrillex first emerged two years ago but is already on the path for success in the dubstep community. I have put two songs by Skrillex below that I suggest you take the time to listen to. Skrillex is a great artist hope you enjoy it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSeNSzJ2-Jw ( would like to note that he uses a sample from the cup stacking girl video which I found very strange ->http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j54yGxuk0yo cupstacking girl video)

this isn't a song on one of skrillex's albums but it is my favorite remix that he has done http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uzxa1vlk43Y&feature=related