Personal Challenge

So my personal challenge was to record at least one song. My friend and I actually did that over the semester. He had a studio at his house out in Elgin where we recorded it. The song itself just came about from us messing around. It was a challenge because we could never get anything done, we always ended up goofing off. So us finally getting a song recorded was an accomplishment. It was actually the first time my friend recorded a guitar. He was able to record keyboards and drum machines but never had the chance to record a guitar. So it was an experience trying to get the tone right. The biggest challenge was the rhythm, since we had a fast rhythm at the end of the song. The song itself is mainly industrial but ends in thrash. So that was my challenge.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed University 101 actually. I thought it would just be a complete waste, but it helped me transition from high school to college, mainly in the class atmosphere. In most of my classes, people rarely talk together or participate in class discussions. But in U101 we all were open to talk to each other. It was really nice to have that, especially in the first semester. I doubt I'll find it again anytime soon. Blogging has been both beneficial and a burden. Sometimes I had a lot to say and blogging helped me organize my thoughts and put perspective on the course content. Sometimes I had absolutely nothing to say and had to find ways to make my responses long enough. I won't continue blogging though. I usually keep to myself and don't like to put out personal matters. So I guess this is the end. Oh, so now I shall reveal the meaning of the title "Between the Blog and Me" First: Blogging is kind of like a public journal. Second: It's a reference to my favorite band (the one you'll usually find me going on about how they are one of the best bands around and they are on the level of Queen in musicianship, but that because they are) Between the Buried and Me. So that's the end...

Capstone Conversation

So I went to listen to Steven Garcia speak a few weeks ago. It was pretty short, only about 15 minutes. He just answered questions people had. Some of the questions were trivial while some were more in depth. Overall it was fun. He didn't seem to have the typical football player ego that I knew in high school. He was really chill and didn't seem full of himself. One question someone asked was "how do you feel playing in front of all those people?" and he said "I just try not to think about it." This one interests me a lot since I get quite nervous in front of a large group of people and I actually hope to one day play live with a band. Hopefully I can take his advice to heart and just not think about the people there and just play as if it was by myself.

Capstone Cinema

So I missed the Capstone Cinema, but I was able to watch the Story of Stuff online. I got an email with the link and it said to watch it if I didn't go to a cinema and write a page long reflection on it. So The Story of Stuff was pretty interesting. I thought it was very biased though. But then again I think it was made as a short film so there is very little room to cover all the view points. But really liked one point she made, consumerism. I agree with her on that we fell into this scheme over consumerism, where we value our lives solely on what we have. I know that many people go out and buy things to feel better, even I'm guilty of that sometimes (but I buy music, so I think it does a lot less damage than buying a whole bunch of clothes or some really expensive electronic). In order to solve the crisis of dwindling resources and excess garbage we have to cut back on the consumption.

Hot Cookie Friday

So I went to Hot Cookie Friday, almost a month ago I think. I went with the people I carpool with to Hand. We didn't stay that long. The cookies were... hot and melty. Still tasty. I felt out of place there though. I mainly stuck around the people I knew and even still I left after like 10 minutes of being there (but that's because I had plans with a friend). People seemed pretty social, but mainly among their friends. But then again I'm a fairly shy person, so I can't say that I tried really hard to mingle. So I didn't really meet anyone. So speaking of socializing among Capstone Scholars, I have yet to meet another Capstone Scholar whose into metal. I'm starting to wonder if I'm the only one out of all that does. But then again, I don't live in Capstone, so I haven't met all of them. But at least at all the social events I haven't met another metal head. Eh, I guess I just have to keep looking.

Thanksgiving

Ok... this one's kind of hard. My family is British, so we don't exactly have traditions or anything for Thanksgiving. What used to happen was that our neighbors would all come over and my parents would have cooked the whole traditional meal and what not. But since we moved we don't do that anymore. Now it's just a small traditional meal among us. We don't do anything crazy or interesting. We just follow the playbook, say what your thankful for and eat turkey. That's it. So... this year we're going to England. We're going to go visit relatives since we didn't visit over the summer. I doubt we'll do anything on Thanksgiving but then again we may. It will be fun either way, I love going there. It's a really beautiful country and I kind of associate it as my actual home, even though I was born and raised here in the U.S.

Leadership

My strengths as a leader are that I'm determined, can play off other people's strengths, and can be pretty organized. My weaknesses are that I'm shy, have trouble keeping people's focus, and I can be lazy (but when your a lazy leader, you can just hand off all the work you have to do to someone else). I've learned of these strengths and weaknesses only recently, as I have become the president of the USC Metal Club. I had to get everyone organized together so that I could actually make the club official (all the stuff is ready to be turned in at this moment). I hope to make a difference on campus through the USC Metal Club. Uniting all the people interested in metal will be awesome and will hopefully churn out some really awesome bands from musicians meeting each other in the club (almost everyone in the club so far plays an instrument). Also, we can probably educate some screamo scene kids on what metal really is (they are a huge problem at local shows...).