30 Day Song Challenge - Day 20

A song that you listen to when you’re angry:



I should really finish the things I've started. It took me a long time to think about the music I listen to when I'm angry, and I think it is because my anger is always very fleeting. So fleeting, in fact, that I rarely take the time to change my music from what I was otherwise listening to.

For anyone who cares, this means that if you anger me, that I'm really only bothered for like an hour before it ceases to bug me at all. Lucky? Perhaps.

and i'm not sleeping now, the dark is too hard to beat

good chats. more some other time.

Sending April off with a bang!

April has been an otherwise annoying month. Thankfully the end of April is beginning to turn itself around (which still brings high hopes for May, which has some exciting things planned in it). I look forward to seeing what the future has in store.

I'm currently editing a paper in my office. I tidied my desk early (both a form of procrastination, and for my sanity). The paper is significantly better than the previous versions, and I think that that ought to be true, since it was first written by Josh in his second year, long before he had really gotten into his research. Now as a fourth year it seems to be a much more together and focused paper. I'm proud of it.

I got a goldfish plant for the office. Meghan said that she liked it. I really like it, it brings a bit of life to the office, and will make me feel less depressed while working here in the summer. I also brought in a butterfly chair. Granted, it's not as nice as JD's new office chair, it's a real improvement on the current sitting situation in the office. Maybe sometime over the summer I can replace my desk lamp.

Since my last post a lot has actually happened. Some of the highlights include: meeting Jorge Cham of PhD comics, sitting through the first GASP meeting of 2011-2012, booking the first stage of my trip to Colorado, permanently changing my appearance, and spending more time with my fellow classmates (no sign of desirable number one, but i'm pretty sure that that is destined to go nowhere, so i'm glad to at least be seeing more of the others). Sana and I started talking again and I'm glad.

Anyways, back to listening to Parachutes (Coldplay) and editing!

if you doubt that i'll be there don't despair, don't you dare

i'm a little bit impulsive, and i guess i force the others around me to be a little more spontaneous at times than they might ordinarily be, but for the most part none of them seem to hold this against me (or at least not openly). as a result, i find that i have plans to be in nyc in february. to say that i love new york would be an understatement. but before you categorize me as a sex-in-the-city-fanatic or shopaholic, you should know that i am neither. i have only ever seen the SitC movies, and i spend almost all of my money on travelling, food, jewelry, and music (seriously, i have no discernible talent for putting together outfits, i take "function over fashion" pretty seriously - winter requires a winter coat, and waterproof boots, not stilettos).

in other news: i'm baking matcha shortbread cookies at the moment, one of my friends from school found a new direction in her research and decided to stick it out for the long run (which is great news, i was already mourning her loss 1.5 years in advance, because she is quite fantastic), and i have fallen in love with s. carey's "in the dirt" (in case you hadn't guessed by this post title). anyways, back to cookies!

subways in pittsburgh

just a quick post because my ears are ringing, and i need to watch the season finale of merlin. my ears are ringing because i just got home from the dinosaur bones, the reason, and arkells show. but, lets talk about the past few days in order.

Thursday:

As previously discussed two friends stopped in for dinner and a movie, which went exceptionally well, other than the fact that i made a large salad that only i could eat. we ate the lasagna (carrot, zucchini, spinach, mozzarella, and ricotta), drank some red wine, and watched amelie. my friend sana had never seen it before, and as she claims to be a lover of romantic comedies i thought that this was a tragedy. the movie was wonderful as always, christie managed to get over her desire to kill my downstairs neighbours, sana fell in love, i missed my garden gnome days, and we discussed people and places we know. i greatly look forward to our next movie night.

Friday:

Woke up early, scarfed a couple of muffins and ran to catch the bus to toronto. em and i went out for a delicious sushi lunch before trekking out to the Ex for the one of a kind show. we spent a good 5ish hours looking and shopping. while there, i ran into an old friend and got caught up. before and after meeting up i managed to snag a number of wonderful pieces, my favourite being a silver giraffe pendant on a silver chain. it's very cute.

all in all friday was an awesome and exhausting day. after the show em and i grabbed dinner at marche (rosti and cheese cake!). though we initially had plans to try to convene with others for drinks post-show, we were too exhausted to do anything other than sit and enjoy dinner.

Saturday:

Had lunch with the family, and then decorated the christmas tree (a tradition i have only ever missed once - thanks to an ill timed set of exams in the early years of undergrad). following that i jumped on yet another bus to head back home to the arkells show. my brother only had good things to say about their shows, so i was pretty excited. when i got to wax, i found out that the opening bands were dinosaur bones (of toronto), and the reason (woah, flashback to a band i loved in highschool). while at the show, i met a nice lady who was in attendance with a short tempered man, and a young kid who looked like my old friend bill (ian's younger brother). i also got to watch the final shootout of the leafs game, while sneakily trying to check out the guy standing next to me (he looked kind of like the college-aged version of dexter/michael c. hall).

anyways, reviews of the bands!

Dinosaur Bones:

I was unsure of what to expect when a group of hipster like guys wandered onto the stage. They played a super short set, and promised that they'd be putting out a new CD sometime next year (i'm guessing sometime soonish, otherwise it seems sort of crazy to be promoting it already). they had a good sound, they reminded me of the reason why i used to like seeing moneen, and some of the reasons i didn't (mostly that their kind of music isn't well suited for some venues, it seems like i was missing a lot of the vocal harmonizing, and guitar mastery due to weird sound meshing).

The Reason:

I thought that they were a bit of an odd choice after hearing dinosaur bones, and reflecting on their old 2003-era sound. i recently added their old CD to my ipod, and i was reflecting the other day about how different their music is from what i normally listen to (they used to be a bit screamo, but i loved them dearly). anyways, the newer stuff by the reason is much more calm, like how alexisonfire became after dallas started taking over the vocals, and more mellow. it was strange. i'm not sure that i'm against it, but i really do wish that they had played more of their old songs (understandably its been like 7 years since they first started playing them, but still!). they played one old song, "subways in pittsburgh", which was fantastic.

The Arkells:

They were seriously fantastic. Just like on the record but better (how rare it is to find a band that is actually better live than recorded!). I think that the highlight of their setlist was when they played "champagne socialist", because dan broke out the harmonica and played it like a master. i mean, the song usually has a harmonica in it, but when he played it live, it was just unbelievably good. their sound was clear, and they had a lot of fun. i had a lot of fun. seriously.

i guess i lied about this being a short post. at least i didn't ramble on more about the girl standing in front of me for the arkells. i could write a whole post about her; she's the rotten, annoying kind of girl that is easy to hate. a few quick words: 1) she started a fight with the woman standing behind me that i had been chatting with, because she saw nothing wrong with her and her tall boyfriend standing right in front of her after she waited there for 3 hours, 2) she then ignored her boyfriend (except to spend lots of time making out with him in the middle of songs, while he tried to listen), only to flirt with his friend (who apologized to me for standing in front of me, and said to ask him to move if he got in the way - nice offer), 3) bumped into people and thought it was rude that they asked her to try to control her movements, and 4) talked through all of the songs, because she clearly was not as interested in the band as she was interested in having both boys attention (i'm surprised that they weren't more annoyed that she kept interrupting their sing-along).

right. anyways, off to watch merlin!

good night, world!

sitting, waiting, wishing

i'm madly addicted to this song, especially the jack johnson ft. ben harper live version. i find myself sitting at my desk singing along as loudly as i can.

anyways, despite being hesitant about new social interactions, i have invited two new friends over for dinner and a movie (girls night in?). i can't stay. i need to tidy my house, and then prep a lasagna. update later with lasagna pictures!!!