Say Anything

I needed one more blog this week so here it is. Just bought my ticket to the Say Anything show at the House of Blues in November and I'm really stoked. Should be insane. I've never seen them live before but I hear they play a great show. Never been to the House of Blues either so it's an entirely new experience! I'm used to seeing bands in tiny venues where you can go hang out with the band after out back. So I am pretty excited to rock out in a huge venue like this. Guess I'm not in Beacon anymore! Thats one of the reasons why its so cool to come to a city like this. The opportunity to experience things that you could never experience in Dutchess County New York. To go from seeing local bands every weekend too seeing huge bands at famous venues and sometimes even for free on the quad is incredible. While the only instrument I ever played was violin, I have always been really into music as my uncle is a drummer by profession and many of my close friends are in bands. I grew up spending saturday nights in small venues jamming with guys twice my age. I always loved that atmosphere, but as I've grown older my appreciation for good music has grown as well. I still enjoy seeing less exposed bands. I actually love it. And sometimes they are even better than the bands that make the big bucks. But its nice to be in a situation where I can now chose which show I want to go to, and have at least 3 very differant options. Big city living baby!

My First All Nighter

Last night I was up until 3 am completing my college writing essay. The next 4 hours were reserved for studying for my History of Espionage test. Then my day began. I arrived at study hall at around 8:30 and realized a few issues with my all nighter. For starters my essay is entirely incoherent. Even I am not positive about what I am trying to say. Reading it is pretty much the equivalent of reading the diary of a schizophrenic. Chances are that will become an issue in the near future. On top of that I remember practically nothing from my study session. I might as well have just went to sleep! So now, instead of fixing my essay or restudying, I chose to blog about my problem instead. Why did I do this? Because I like to complain. It is in my genes as a Jewish person. Also, with my math work piling up fast as well, I could not imagine even deciding where to start. So this gives me the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. I am now complaining about how my study habits (or lack thereof) have translated poorly to college, and I am getting work done as well. At least I am finally getting somewhat effiecent :D

After High School

I am not far removed from high school. Yet while it has been only a few months, I feel that I am on a good track. Currently I attend a good college and I am on a good track team. Unfortunately, I have recently learned that a few friends from high school are already off track. For example I competed for a track club in my area and all four of the athletes on our relay team received track scholarships. One signed with Buffalo, one signed with Wagner, one signed with Mississippi State, and I signed with Northeastern. It seemed we were destined to compete against each other at the highest collegiate level. Yet I learned some surprising news when my coach called to check in on me yesterday. The athlete that signed with Buffalo, Repeat, will not be attending the University. He discovered his girlfriend was pregnant and decided he had to stay with her. Now he attended a community college that does not even have a track team. I was shocked to hear about this and my coach seemed extremely disappointed. It is such a shame, for Repeat was one of the top jumpers and sprinters in New York. It just amazed me at how fast a person's situation can change. When I last spoke to Repeat he was buying books and sheets for school. That was in July. He must have kept this a secret because I have talked to the rest of the team as recently as last week and heard nothing about it. The situation really got me thinking how lucky I am. I was brought up in a culture where everyone who works hard was rewarded with a free pass to college under the title of a track scholarship. To see how fast it can all be taken away was a real wake up call. I need to be thankful for the opportunity I have and take full advantage of it. It is important that I take care to protect this opportunity, for I could just as easily be back at home stuck in neutral.

Nicknames in Writing

Recently we were introduced to fellow named Strong Bad. He had a firm belief that a good nickname was the key to a good grade. Now while we berated him for that notion, I think it deserves a little bit of thought. Think about all of the great authors with nicknames. Dr. Seuss and Richard Bachman are great examples. While I hate Stephen King, Geisel was an inspiration to all white rappers. He was truly the king of bad rhymes. A writer with a solid nickname is practically guaranteed fame at the very least. However what about the notion that the nickname will get you a good grade? I believe that idea holds water as well. If you think about it, only your friends call you by nicknames. Who better to have as a friend than the teacher? When someone reads a paper as a teacher, they are looking for its flaws. When they read it as a friend, they look for its strong points. For that reason, the closer you are to a teacher the better. Now I am not saying everyone should go out and sleep with their teachers. That method is simply too hit or miss; either you get an A or you get kicked out of school. But creating nicknames and little inside jokes with teachers could go a long way toward getting a good grade. Who knows, maybe the teacher will even turn out to be really cool, like Professor Jen :D.

My Opinion Of Dave Eggers

Do you remember that kid in high school that all of a sudden decided at age 16 he was all grown up? Every school had this kid. One day he came in with his shirt tucked in and talked about the stocks he was going to invest in using his Mickey D's paycheck. This fellow was the one that was all of a sudden to good for bathroom jokes and couldn't laugh at himself when he spilled his milk at lunch. How annoying was that kid? Pretty much as annoying as Dave Eggers. That man broke onto the scene as "Davie" and is now "David". His first work was a playful work of partially fictionalized non-fiction. Now all of a sudden David writes a rigid, absolutely journalistic piece. Yet for some reason it comes out even less believable than his first book. Okay, now maybe that isn't fair. I never read his first book. Maybe both books are entirely fantasy, but that isn't the point. David went from saving his tips for a new skateboard to asking his college student manager about his chances at a 401k. Basically what I am getting at is that in the end, what he wrote wasn't the problem, it was how he approached the work and presented it to the public, which in the case of Zeitoun he did very poorly. If he wanted it to be a serious work (which would make sense if he really wanted to highlight a social issue like it appears he did) then he could not write it in the same voice (Foucault reference! Bonus Points!) as a book that he himself admitted was probably partially fictionalized. Its not that I hate Dave Eggers, its that he wants to be David even though Davie seeps through with every word he writes. Let Davie out! We miss him!

HW VS NFL

I have found that I do most of my homework in front of a football game. The probable cause would be that I am 100% against homework on Saturdays, and the odds of me missing a Jets game are somewhere between 0 and .001. This has made me wonder if that has negatively affected my studies in any way. It probably has. In all fairness no matter how important an essay I may be writing, I would much rather see Mean Shonn Greene take one in for 6. Yet if it has affected my grades negatively, then how did I get into college? Quite a confusing situation, unless football actually stimulates the mind. Perhaps New York Jets football allows one to think more freely by releasing tension. I must admit after a victory I feel much more relaxed. In that same breath perhaps watching the New York Knicks basketball games has the opposite effect, because after their games I feel stressed to no end. This would be a fantastic study for one of the psychology majors. It would be nice to have a final test on this idea after my many years of personally testing it. In the end it seems there are only two possible conclusions. Either the Jets stimulate the mind, or I am amazing for getting into college despite doing my homework during Sunday Night Football. J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS

That Tool Foucault

After researching Foucault so I could have a vague idea what he was talking about, I've come to the conclusion he was wasting our time. He was quite the vindictive fellow, eh? No need to write a piece because you have an idea. That would be silly. That doesn't eve make sense. Instead good old Mikey wrote this essay in order to put down his rival philosophers. That gave the essay a bit of a high school clique war aura. In the end he did manage to stumble upon a few decent ideas, not the least of which being the question of your opinion changes depending on if you know the author. It's an interesting point to think about, but in the end all Mikey gives us is food for thought. I am aware most philosophers avoid concrete ideas like drivers avoid concrete walls, but normally they at least have an opinion and therefore a basis for writing what they are writing. This essay was more along the lines of those guys are wrong, I proved them wrong, but still have yet to give an idea of my own, now think about this....". That makes for interesting writing, but being able to slap together some interesting thoughts doesn't mean he wasn't entirely full of it. Next time we have a philosophical rivalry I say we just have them strap on some gloves and duke it out. I get the feeling most philosophers probably don't spend a whole lot of time in the gym, so it should be fairly evenly matched. Lets get ready to rumbleeeeee.