In the best news i’ve recieved in years, it turns out that getting an apartment turned the frown created by my financial aid situation upside down. Without delving too deeply into my own personal finances, i can say that my tuition bill is now low enough (after various grants and scholarships) that i could pay it with half a year’s tips from the coffee shop. Of course, i don’t have to do that, since i’ve got a bit more than half a year’s tips in my bank account (which isn’t really all that much). This means no post college debt, aside from my first year loans!!! Never have i been happier to not be at an Ivy! Now all i need to do is keep up my 3.5 (actually, a bit higher) GPA so i don’t let any wonderful awards slip away… who would have ever thought that my family wasn’t lying when they dotingly told me i would pay for college with scholarships when i brought home A’s in second grade.
Archives for 2000
819961
You know those signs outside of new apartment buildings that read “If you lived here you would be home now”? I hate them. I wish i could smack whoever thought of them in the face. More blogs to come.
Trio: Season 1, #2
New Trio is up and featured a bit more prominently on the sidebar (god only knows how people were expected to find the link from last week, ‘cuz i don’t). I encourage you to listen to it, since this entire site really did start from my music (which remains the center-piece). This blog just adds background to where i’m coming from in my songs.
On that note, i’m gonna talk about “deadweight,” which is one of the songs from this week. I originally wrote the lyrics in July of 1999, and then arranged it in early August. When i first wrote the lyrics i thought they would head in the musically jerky direction of Elastica’s “Hold Me Now,” but i wound up being more influenced by my summer obsession with Melissa Ferrick (one part Ani, one part Melissa Etheridge, shake well). I actually didn’t think “deadweight” would amount to very much at all, which is evidenced by the fact that i wrote it upside down in the margins of another song (which remains unused).
The chorus came first to me first: here i was headed to college while some people seemed to be intent on keeping me rooted to the spot where i stood in every sense. While most people tend to think the song is about my mother once they hear that much about it, it’s actually about a friend of mine from highschool. He was perfectly fine as a friend, but his whole life was centered very much around secrecy, competition, and negative energy. I increasingly found that being with him kept me rooted in the catty snappish spot i spent much of high school in, and i didn’t want to be there anymore. However, as many times as i tried to “cut him loose” in the past, i always wound up friend with him again. Realizing all of this in “deadweight” put an end to the vicious cycle; i haven’t spoken with him since.
For more commentary you can head here or here. Audio of “deadweight” and most other songs i mention can be found in the AMkitchen, which is the core of my webpage.
813374
Just got done recording this week’s Trio, and it doesn’t rock quite as hard as the first one, but that’s what you get for missing out on the first one! The glorious songs i play are Madonna’s “Lucky Star,” and my “Crashing” & “Deadweight” (in which i barely stumble across the finish line). It’ll be up for your enjoyment in an hour, so that’s all the time you’ve got left with last week’s Trio. Love it while you can!!!
811503
Dude, can i tell you how much i love my job with NSW? Let my try… today, the alpha-team met at our director’s house in the ‘burbs where we worked on the schedule for Freshmen all day while intermittently sunbathing, eating fresh vegetables, going for a swim, and barbecuing. The day wasn’t incredibly productive on the results end of things, but very productive in terms of planning for things that will lead to results. Err… anyway, i swam lightly in accordance to doctors orders. I get a new set of x-rays of my collar tomorrow, so we’ll see how much additional damage i’ve managed to put onto it within the last month. Anyhow, how much does my job rock? Of course, now i have to commit the next two weeks of my life to NSW without pause (or much sleep), but they’re gonna keep feeding me, so i’m cool with it.