Moving

Why is it that moving any kind of furniture usually ends up in disaster? This past Saturday, spur of the moment, my roommate decided to re-arrange to room. So the rest of day (and night) was spent moving with my roommate, and my friend. I'm really surprised that no one was killed in this process, by the moving was really just a crisis. First off, after we had moved the biggest pieces of furniture, i.e. the fridge, the t.v., and the beds to the complete opposite side of the room, they decided to change everything to almost entirely how the room was set up before we moved anything. Second, all of us ended up injured in some kind of respect, whether it be physically or emotionally. So I suppose the moral of the story is that moving heavy objects can bring out the worst in people.

Sore winner

This past weekend, my high school's cheerleading squad won their first competition of the season. Now, I was a part of the team for four years, on varsity as a sophomore, and a captain my senior year. Also, we won state my sophomore and senior year. Therefore, by all means, I should be nothing but happy that they won on Saturday, especially since I still know most of the team as well as the coaches. But for some reason, I was more or less angry that they won. I don't know if it is just that I feel like I'm left out, or that they just aren't allowed to win without me. I think if you are a part of any kind of team or activity like that for so long, that you feel that it is so much a part of you, that to have successes without you is like a cheating lover.

Gossip Folks

Why is that within your group of friends, people feel the need to keep tabs on your life at all times possible? I don't mean your close best friends, I mean those friends, semi-acquaintances that feel the need to more less just gossip about you. Lately, I have been experiencing this in the third degree, as I have started dating my ex-boyfriend again, and of course this caused an uproar among my friends. Is it because of the new technology like AIM and Facebook that just forces us and allows us to be extremely stalker-ish? Or is it just that all of us have some kind of creepy voyeuristic tendencies inside of us? I think it is definitely a mix of both. For one, I can't name to many college students who wouldn't consider themselves a "facebook stalker," and I think this ability to keep tabs on everyone you've ever known, makes any one's gossip tendencies to come out. So I suppose in this day and age, it is very important to watch your back.

Christmas and all that jazz...

It seems as though every year the Christmas season comes earlier and earlier, given it's a holiday with a set date every year. So of course it isn't actually any earlier in the year, it's just the insanity of the retailers, etc. This year I noticed that 99.1 started playing Christmas music the day after Halloween. Is that really needed? I think these insanely early starts to Christmas takes away any "magic" that the season might have had. I noticed now that it starts so early, that I have trouble actually being excited for the holiday when it comes. I think it just boils down to the fact that anything that gets that highly anticipated, can rarely live up to the expectations.

WCCX

So here at Carroll, I work at our radio station. I host a two hour time slot every Monday 7-9pm. Now don't get me wrong, this is probably the some the best two hours of week, however, it's hard doing a radio show that you know a few of your friends and your parents are listening to. If the radio station broadcasted farther than Catholic Memorial High School, that would be nice, but I suppose beggars can't choosers. So why is it that we feel that we need everyone to hear our voice in order to be heard? Why is it that nearly all humans don't feel comforted by the idea of reaching out to that one person, that they only validated if everyone cares? Maybe it's because we don't realize how much changing one person, can change the world.

College Life Part 2

Now that it is later in the semester, I begin to see how much of college lives up to the stereotypes that have been set out by movies like "Animal House," and the footage of kids on MTV's Spring Break. Well I'm beginning to realize that most of those stereotypes are just in fact hoaxes. And I'm not saying I wanted my life to be insanely wild, but college is definately much more tame. I can't say that college is place consisting of wild, fighting frats or wild house parties...but they are definately there is you search for them, maybe just to a lesser degree. So is this how most people get this ridicilous picture of college life? I guess it would be boring to make a movie based around real college life-going to the library, working out, and writing papers.

Creeper or nice guy?

Why is it that I truely attract the weirdest people on Earth? As I sat down to work on my homework today in the Library, the older man at the table next to me starts talking to me, seems innocent, right? Then he asks me if I work at the campus radio station, and mentions that he has seen me in there before. Now I do understand that the WCCX window is puts any of the WCCX djs on display like animals in a zoo, but it struck me as weird that he knew I did it. I continued to work on my homework unharmed, however, as he gets up to leave he says to me, "I have the perfect methaphor for you. Do you know what I Siren is?" Unfortunately I do. "You attrack people to you in the station window with your music." I never thought of Stone Temple Pilots as music of a siren, but perhaps it is.

Weekday Birthdays

This past week I happened to have my nineteenth birthday fall on a Monday. That same day I had a rough draft of a five-page paper due and a midterm in Spanish. Now I don't expect my professors to give me the day off because it's my birthday, but I can't but feel a little ripped off. So why is that no matter how hard we try, weekday birthdays are terrible. Also, despite the fact that I live fifteen minutes from my home, I didn't have time to go home, because I had to my radio show at 7 that night. I think I completely forgot it was my birthday that day. I really think it is true what they say about birthdays as you get older, they just get worse.

College Life?

During my time here at Carroll, I have been making it a habit to be up every night to at least midnight nearly every night of the week. Bearing in mind that I have a class at eight or nine o'clock in the morning. I have no desire to keep these late hours, yet my roommate and my friends insist on this. Why is there the assumption that all college students are to keep these ridiculous hours? In high school I usually went to bed every night at roughly 10:30, and I still would if I had the chance. Just because I'm not living at home or barley a year older, does not mean that my body clock should entirely change. I didn't feel the urge as soon as school started to only do my homework at odd hours of the night, and pull the "all-nighter." I guess what I'm trying to get at, is that I feel that many kids feel the pressure to instantly fall into the college-life stereotypes, and that I finding out the hard (and exhausted) way that you have to stay true to yourself even in this vastly different environment.

Still Crazy After All These Years

The last few weeks I've been haunted by an ex-boyfriend and for some reason I've been allowing this to happen. Why is it that we allow for certain people to come back into our lives? I mean he is definately someone who has come "crawling out of the woodwork," for me as of late. So, of course, like all people and especially girls, I tend to read too much into this. I know nothing may never even happen between us again, but the fact that he has come back which makes me wonder. So why is that people take so long to move on? Is it "undying" love/interest or just a series of weird circumstances? I just find it weird that they're some people in this world who just can't stay away from each other, despite how bad things had been. But thatt's just my opinion I could be wrong...

Living In The Past

Today I was sitting my room listening to "Interstate Love Song," by the Stone Temple Pilots, and I was reminded of childhood. I instantly got the feeling like I was five years old traveling to Brookfield Square with mom, and my days consisted of simplicities of childhood and the time before the "real" Internet. It got me thinking about the importance and danger of being nostalgic. It is important to reflect on the past, and hold on to things from the past, but there is a danger to never moving on. You find yourself thinking that when you see the fifty-some year old guy at the mall in his Grateful Dead t-shirt and Birkenstocks; you just want to come up to him and say, "Dude, the sixties have been over for like almost forty years now." So why do people cling on the things that define their generation? It is for safety? Maybe. For me that is part of the reason. I think every time I hear the opening to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, I feel the comfort of something familiar and also the comfort of something from my "youth." The other reason is that people just have a hard time identifying with new trends. I, someone who is only eighteen, already does not understand the whole "emo" movement at all...and I don't care to. Some things are just are to shake too. Yes, I still say "tape" and "VCR," and the Internet/cell phones still seem new to me. I just hope to God I won't be the fifty some year old woman in a Sublime t-shirt and baggy jeans. But that's just my opinion I could be wrong...

The Carroll Plague

Last week I was hit with maybe one of the worst flu's I have had in years. It was one of those illnesses where you acquire a Woody Allen level of paranoia about your health. You lie in bed at night wondering if you should start willing out your possessions, and have 9-1 dialed in case this flu is your untimely demise. Thankfully, I have started feeling better basically after like an entire week of being sick. However, I noticed while I was sick, how unacceptable being sick is nowadays. It seems as though teachers, employers, and friends expect you to be better in a matter of hours, like there's nothing an Advil can't cure. Maybe this is because of how technology makes everyone so accessible, that it feels like you can't be left alone, when you really just want to lay in your bed and stop throwing up. It makes you wonder if people would complain less about flu season if they would just take themselves out of commission for at least a day and try to get better. I know I probably got sick in the first place from one of those die-hard attendance award winners, who just couldn't bring themselves to stay home when they were sick. Life is too short to waste a week being sick, please do everyone a favor and waste a day. That's just my opinion I could be wrong...

Feel good music?

At any given time of day on the fourth floor of the Swarthout complex at Carroll, you are almost guaranteed to hear Disney's "High School Musical" soundtrack to come blaring out of some one's room. Worst yet, sometimes you hear such bubble-gum pop bygones like the Spice Girls or the Backstreet Boys. Of course if you ask any of these girls about this, and of course you get a response like "it's funny," or "I don't know I just like it, it's cute." We are at least eighteen years old, right? I understand the novelty quality that that these things hold, but with the frequency in which they are played it makes you wonder if they think they are "just funny," or it this is what they actually listen to. Well, if you look at the recent iTunes charts they seem to reflect the ladder. It is a fact that High School Musical 2 had one the biggest television debuts of all time and that soundtrack went to number one on the iTunes albums charts (and currently resides at #3). It makes you wonder what has happened to music, something that used to really thrive on college campuses. It seems we may have taken a step backwards from the "college rock" movement of the 1990's. No longer do artists start out gaining popularity among America's young; if they are lucky they gain a following on myspace. Does this mean that there isn't 'good" music out there? Absolutely not. However, it seems that a vast collection of my peers are more into music geared at the eight to twelve crowd than their own age group. It's been a long time since there has truly been a breakthrough movement in music in this country. It seems as though we hit a lull after Grunge. Rarely now do you find artists that inspire a whole new genre, or even try to create a new sound. I'm not saying that I haven't heard a good album since Nevermind, I'm just saying that I don't believe albums that top the charts now, such as High School Musical 2, will have as much as a profound effect on music or my generation. That's just my opinion I could be wrong...