A Year, 2010

Once again, I’ve nearly made it through an entire year.  As such (and to continue the tradition from last year), here are the accomplishments, triumphs, failures, and events that marked my past year.  Feel free to make your own to share!

• I made it through my first year of university at Truman, finishing off with a decent GPA and tons of friends to boot.
• Three and a half inch heels and four inch heels–I made them my bitch.
• I went on an aeroplane by  myself for the first time to visit my dad in Florida for two weeks, where I tried Sashimi for the first time (practically raw tuna with wasabi and pickled ginger), visited Key West and some other nifty beaches, and got massively sunburnt.
• If you caught that part about Sashimi, you’ve probably figured out that I became a pescetarian over the summer.  Half of my just didn’t care any more about avoiding fish while the other half just kept nagging about all of the great omega-3 oils and brain-helping nutrients.  This has allowed me to become pretty damn obsessed with sushi, by the way.
• I started a pretty shitty fashion blog about Midwest fashion.  Now that I have a new camera, I plan on taking more pictures for it, though.
• Which brings me to a creeper moment for this year: I definitely worked up the courage to ask random people to be models for my fashion blog since they were wearing cool outfits.  I’m actually pretty proud of myself for having the guts.
• For a failure, I definitely had a big falling out with someone who had been my friend, leaving us in some kind of acquaintance limbo.  And I’m not too proud about playing dirty and being really bitchy about it, but my life had gotten to a major point where I had to either step up or drop into obscurity, meek and silent as I get walked upon.  You all know I’m not really the type to allow the latter.
• I got a sewing machine!
• And I’ve sewed all kinds of really crappy things; mostly for work.
• Oh!  So, I got a volunteer job down on Main Street, Saint Charles at the First State Capitol State Historic Site in June.  I get to dress up in 1820s clothing, teach people history, give tours, work with kids, all kinds of fun stuff.  After a month and a half of volunteering, I managed to get a position with the Missouri State Youth Corps so that I could get paid for my volunteer work.  It’s been an absolutely amazing experience, and if all goes as planned, I will be working there next summer as well.
• Over October, my dog, Teddy, passed away after a year and a half of massive heart problems.  I had spent the entire summer preparing for him to pass away, which helped me when it actually did happen, but that doesn’t make it any less sad.  You probably already know that he meant a lot to me, but I don’t feel very burdened.  So that’s a start.
• My grandparents are still somehow making it.  My grandma was diagnosed with cancer last year, and she’s finally made the decision to quit treatment and just last these months out.  My grandpa, meanwhile, had a quadruple bypass that didn’t go as well as it could have, though he’s recovering now.
• The rest of the family is decently healthy (or at least in comparison to my grandparents), though there was a lot of tension when my brother was kicked out for his misconducts that he’d been warned for years to cease.  He now lives with my dad in Florida, which seems to be working out better for him.
• This past year, I’ve been building up a second family up in Kirksville (or at least it feels like that).  I signed the lease for a house for next school year with Jess and Noah, which is pretty damn exciting.  And we’re right next door to Ann, Ginny, and James, which means we’ll share a big side yard and have dinner parties.  Huzzah!
• This implies that I’m still friends with everyone up at uni, as well as some new folks.  I also finished up my first semester of sophomore year and started my new studio art minor.  It’s been really neat to see my artwork improve over the semester, and we’ll see how much better it gets by the end of next year.
• I went to Iowa for the first time.  No worries, it was as mundane as the sentence seems to convey.

New Music for this Year (or at least music I was exposed to this year):

• Kate Havnevik’s Melankton
• Emilíana Torrini’s Love in the Time of Science and Fisherman’s Woman
• Kingdom of Heaven Soundtrack
• Loreena McKennitt’s The Book of Secrets and The Visit
• ALL CAPS’ Bmin/E
• Amy MacDonald’s This is the Life
• Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs
• Broken Bells’ Broken Bells
• Coldplay’s Parachutes
• Florence + the Machine’s Lungs
• Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine
• Imogen Heap’s Ellipse
• Joanna Newsom’s Have One on Me
• Joe Purdy’s This American
• Kate Miller-Heidke’s Curioser
• KT Tunstall’s Eye to the Telescope
• Modest Mouse’s Good News for People Who Love Bad News
• Natacha Atlas’s Halim
• Patrick O’Hearn’s Glaciation
• Sigur Ros’s Takk…
• Vampire Weekend’s Contra
• White Lies’ To Lose My Life
• Yael Naim’s Yael Naim

New Books:

• Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Science of Social Influence
• Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451
• Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations
• Dude, I can’t remember the last time I read a new book for pleasure.  Aside from text book reading, I’ve been chilling with the old favourites: Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress, Memoirs of a Geisha, Dragon’s Bait, et cetera.
• But, I’ve gotten into some web comics: Questionable Content and xkcd.

New Films:

• HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS
• Love and Death (a quirky Woody Allen film)
• Troy
• Darjeeling Limited
• The Losers

I really haven’t done all that much this year aside from lots of music listening (shit son, way more than I thought after making that list), working my butt off, chilling with friends every chance I get, and finding some new hobbies (such as interior design/décor, art art art art art, reading webcomics, et cetera).  I’ve learned to love libraries and sushi and appreciate some of the people around me a lot more.  I hope that you all have had an interesting year with lots of learning and events.  Hope to see you all next year!

Missi

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Oh Contra.

Yesterday, I woke up around nine, and it being a Sunday morning, I decided to put the iPod onto some Loreena McKennitt and just lie in bed until I felt like moving.  After about an hour of listening to music and reading Harry Potter, my room mate awoke and started getting ready for the day.  When she climbed down from bed, we both noticed that there was a CD on the floor.  But we were lazy and kept it there.  Later, Jess’s friend walked in and saw the CD on the floor and picked it up.  On the front, it was labelled “Contra”.

Well, shit son.  That got me up.

Contra is the name of the new Vampire Weekend album that was released last month, and seeing the new CD under my door was like Christmas coming all over again.  Turns out that my neighbour in the dorm next to me got it for me since she knew that I loved Vampire Weekend.  Ah, I love my friends.

So, here’s a little review, slash, I want to talk about music time.

I listened to the full album a week before it was released when NPR had it on its website along with an article, and my first impressions were very positive.  It had the same beachy feel as the first album, and it was musically impressive.  After giving it some more listening to with the actual CD, this was reconfirmed.  I’m glad that the vibes are the same, and the background music is impressive.  I wasn’t expecting the forceful strings.  Not at all.

So far, my favourite songs are Horchata and California English.  After some more listens, I can tell you more.  But I generally approve.  Unfortunately, some of my friends did not and said that Vampire Weekend had sold out and become less of a band.  To be honest, I don’t see it.  Their new album hasn’t changed much from the first, except it’s maybe a little more mature (a little).  I’m not a nay-sayer to this album; they did a good job.

Anyway, I recommend giving it a good listening to.  Making a playlist is pretty fun, too.  I combined it with Arcade Fire, the Beatles, the Strokes, and Panic! At the Disco’s Pretty Odd album.  Very enjoyable.

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Campus Adventuring and Vampire Weekend

I’ve fallen head over heals for two things in the past two days: campus adventuring and Vampire Weekend.  And, as though planned, they go quite nicely together.

Some of us from 1North went adventuring and exploring through campus in order to take photos for a picture competition amongst our house.  We went through nearly every building, found steps that went to nowhere, dark hallways, and scary places that we will most definitely not visit again on campus.  But it was an amazing time, and now I know of some great hidden locations where I can study and never be disturbed.

I even rediscovered the hidden bathrooms in Ophelia Perish.  I swear, there are these bathrooms that no one knows about that are spacious and clean and friendly.  Every time I go in there, I feel like I’m about to go to the Chamber of Secrets, and I’ll dance around in the large spaces.

Well, turns out that there are lots of places like that on campus, and they’re much nicer than a bathroom.  So, I may go exploring some more later since it’s just so much fun.

Plus, next time I need to go study a ton (like today with psychology), maybe I can go there.

Meanwhile, I’ve started listening to Vampire Weekend and ended up creating a Pandora.com radio station for it today.  If you haven’t listened to them, I highly recommend that you do; they’re that friendly college rock sound that just makes you kind of happy.  Nothing too deep, nothing you really have to analyse.  But it’s nice anyway.

And if you haven’t tried http://www.pandora.com before, I also highly recommend using this service.  If you live in the States, it’s a free radio service where you can create your own stations.  Enter in an artist or song, and you can start making it custom and wonderful.  Honestly, it will get hold of your tastes so quickly and mould the best station you’ve ever listened to.  I’ve had an account for about four years, and it’s a cold day in July when I hear a song I dislike since you can control the exact feel of the music for each station.  Some of my stations include: Muse, Vampire Weekend, classical, Instrumental New Wave, Progressive Rock, Female Alternative Rock, Imogen Heap/Regina Spektor, Nickel Creek/Iron & Wine, Beirut Radio, and Indie/Interesting Rock.

SIRIUSLY, they’re great stations.

Anyway, not much else has been going on in my life aside from much adventuring, house film parties, and studying psychology (which is really what I should be doing).  Maybe some time I’ll write something more philosophical in here; unfortunately I’m just rather lazy at the moment.

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