So tonight I had a long overdue session with my iTunes and the relatively new application "genius." This has resulted in more than a CD's worth of new music for me to feast my ears upon.
Sometimes I forget just how life giving music can be. Music can be the what brings you up out of your blues, or it can help to intensify whatever it is you're feeling in the moment. Whether that feeling is sadness, happiness, insecurity, hope, music seems to draw emotions out in an even purer form. Now most people would take a listen through my most played on iTunes and think that I'm depressed or sad, but actually I just love my music slow, heartfelt, and emotional. I mean every now and again a dance party is in order. But when I'm working, cooking, falling asleep, walking, driving, or just hanging out, I'd prefer to listen to music that has feeling, meaning, lyrics.
I love music dripping with the angst of the musician. I need to feel music in my heart, and that might not even make sense, but its how I feel. Music helps me to clear my head, which isn't an easy thing to do. Deeply lyrical songs help me to express what I'm feeling when I can't find my own words to do so.
I'm totally that girl you see belting her little heart out while she's driving down the highway. And, yes, it usually is actually my heart. When I'm upset I can rarely put what I'm feeling into words and it usually ends up with me crying or just mumbling incoherently. I find that music speaks the words that I can't bring myself to say, whether they are angry or heartbroken or happy, music speaks for me when I can't myself.
Long story short, tonight has been very cathartic for me and has been long overdue. Thank goodness for iTunes and for new music to express myself.
Check out some of the artists I found tonight:
Yael Naim, Caroline Herring, Chris Pureka, Tina Dico, Kerri Noble, Gregory Alan Iskanov (ok so I found him a while ago, but I'm love him!)
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Wow. Blog fail.
Hmm, where to begin..
It's 2011.. the last time I blogged was September 2010.. Apparently I have had a lot of other stuff going on and haven't quite found time to blog.
I've been inspired by some friends' blogs (and watched Julie&Julia yesterday for the umpteenth time) and think its high time for me to start writing again. That being said however, I'm pretty sure that being in academia for four years has stolen the creative and interesting writing out of my head and has left only boring, research-type writing in its wake. This breaks my heart because in my high school days I was quite the writer. In fact, I dreamed of going to university and being an English major, eventually planning on becoming a writer. This was all well and good until I reached university, took my first English course, wrote my first paper, and received a C+... I couldn't believe it, my "dream" came crashing down around me and I decided that I couldn't be an English major... I spent the rest of my first year as an undeclared (and unprepared) bachelor of arts student.
Eventually I decided that I would be a Theology major. It was interesting and less "explain the symbolism" than English was.. This new major translated into a TON of papers and a TON of reading, this became even more so when I opted for a minor in History. Thus my academic career has consisted of research papers, term papers, position papers, book reviews, source studies and the like. My GPA has reflected that I am fairly adept at these types of papers. Unfortunately this past semester when asked to write a Maclean's-type article for my American Political History class my academic brain drew a blank! I could not for the life of me remember how to write an interesting, yet informative paper and the resultant grade was strong evidence for that.
Don't get me wrong, I love the academic writing I am forced to do, but it breaks my heart a little when I think of my youthful dreams of being a writer. I like to say that university has "sucked the creativity out of me" but I think that I am just as much at fault as my school is. There is a way to write an interesting research paper, but perhaps I just haven't found it yet.
There's my random rambling for the day..
It's 2011.. the last time I blogged was September 2010.. Apparently I have had a lot of other stuff going on and haven't quite found time to blog.
I've been inspired by some friends' blogs (and watched Julie&Julia yesterday for the umpteenth time) and think its high time for me to start writing again. That being said however, I'm pretty sure that being in academia for four years has stolen the creative and interesting writing out of my head and has left only boring, research-type writing in its wake. This breaks my heart because in my high school days I was quite the writer. In fact, I dreamed of going to university and being an English major, eventually planning on becoming a writer. This was all well and good until I reached university, took my first English course, wrote my first paper, and received a C+... I couldn't believe it, my "dream" came crashing down around me and I decided that I couldn't be an English major... I spent the rest of my first year as an undeclared (and unprepared) bachelor of arts student.
Eventually I decided that I would be a Theology major. It was interesting and less "explain the symbolism" than English was.. This new major translated into a TON of papers and a TON of reading, this became even more so when I opted for a minor in History. Thus my academic career has consisted of research papers, term papers, position papers, book reviews, source studies and the like. My GPA has reflected that I am fairly adept at these types of papers. Unfortunately this past semester when asked to write a Maclean's-type article for my American Political History class my academic brain drew a blank! I could not for the life of me remember how to write an interesting, yet informative paper and the resultant grade was strong evidence for that.
Don't get me wrong, I love the academic writing I am forced to do, but it breaks my heart a little when I think of my youthful dreams of being a writer. I like to say that university has "sucked the creativity out of me" but I think that I am just as much at fault as my school is. There is a way to write an interesting research paper, but perhaps I just haven't found it yet.
There's my random rambling for the day..
Monday, September 27, 2010
Me, myself, and I
As you know, or don't, I'm living alone this year.
It has been just over a month since I moved in and I would just like to say that contrary to popular belief, I am not lonely. In fact, I have visited people, hung out at King's, and generally have been less of a hermit than I was the past 2 years when I was living with three other people. Don't get me wrong, I loved living with my fellow "batcave" roommates but this year, so far, has been incredible. Although I think this has more to do with me personally, than with who I am living with.
Obviously living by yourself has its ups and downs. For example, you have a terrible day at school, work, or whatever, and you come home and there is no one to share your heart with, and no one to give you a hug (or make you cookies). But on the other hand, having no one there forces you to think, forces you take your day and figure it out. You can blast the kind of music that you want to listen to and not worry about who it disturbs. You can come and go whenever you like and the laundry is always open.
I do miss my roommates from the past two years and I will never ever forget all the amazing times I had while living with them. But I will say that I really enjoy living by myself. This doesn't mean that I don't want people to visit me or that I don't want to hang out with people, because I do!
So I guess that's my random blog entry about the uphills and downhills of living alone.
Peace!
It has been just over a month since I moved in and I would just like to say that contrary to popular belief, I am not lonely. In fact, I have visited people, hung out at King's, and generally have been less of a hermit than I was the past 2 years when I was living with three other people. Don't get me wrong, I loved living with my fellow "batcave" roommates but this year, so far, has been incredible. Although I think this has more to do with me personally, than with who I am living with.
Obviously living by yourself has its ups and downs. For example, you have a terrible day at school, work, or whatever, and you come home and there is no one to share your heart with, and no one to give you a hug (or make you cookies). But on the other hand, having no one there forces you to think, forces you take your day and figure it out. You can blast the kind of music that you want to listen to and not worry about who it disturbs. You can come and go whenever you like and the laundry is always open.
I do miss my roommates from the past two years and I will never ever forget all the amazing times I had while living with them. But I will say that I really enjoy living by myself. This doesn't mean that I don't want people to visit me or that I don't want to hang out with people, because I do!
So I guess that's my random blog entry about the uphills and downhills of living alone.
Peace!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday Nights and Monday Mornings
So I began today with the best intentions of doing homework and getting some thinking done. Apparently, I missed the boat on homework and jumped on the housework train instead.
I find this happens to me fairly regularly. It seems every time that I have a ton of papers to write or readings to do, the cleaning of my house, the uncluttering of my drawers, or the organizing of my CD's takes precedent over my academic obligations. Let's be clear that I do not have the most hectic or heavy semester currently, so I can afford to do my laundry, make supper (and an apple crisp), sweep my floor, do my dishes, and organize my nightstand all before I do my homework.
I know that many of my friends, fellow students, and acquaintances with jobs do not have this luxury, and that after this year I won't have this luxury either. Now comes the debate: do I try and quell this response to homework now while I don't have a heavy workload (kind of as a trial run before the real deal)? or do I just relish in the fact that I can do everything else on my "to-do" list before my homework? The more logical choice would probably be the former, yet for some reason, I doubt that I will take that route.
Oh, and apparently, we can add blogging to the list of things I will do before I do homework.
Anywho, random blog post, but I was just thinking about this as I was putting in a load of laundry at 12:15am on a Sunday night/Monday morning.
Peace and Goodnight!
I find this happens to me fairly regularly. It seems every time that I have a ton of papers to write or readings to do, the cleaning of my house, the uncluttering of my drawers, or the organizing of my CD's takes precedent over my academic obligations. Let's be clear that I do not have the most hectic or heavy semester currently, so I can afford to do my laundry, make supper (and an apple crisp), sweep my floor, do my dishes, and organize my nightstand all before I do my homework.
I know that many of my friends, fellow students, and acquaintances with jobs do not have this luxury, and that after this year I won't have this luxury either. Now comes the debate: do I try and quell this response to homework now while I don't have a heavy workload (kind of as a trial run before the real deal)? or do I just relish in the fact that I can do everything else on my "to-do" list before my homework? The more logical choice would probably be the former, yet for some reason, I doubt that I will take that route.
Oh, and apparently, we can add blogging to the list of things I will do before I do homework.
Anywho, random blog post, but I was just thinking about this as I was putting in a load of laundry at 12:15am on a Sunday night/Monday morning.
Peace and Goodnight!
Saturday, September 25, 2010
"I"dentity Crisis
After a few harrowing, mind-bending conversations this week I am finding myself in a bit of an identity crisis. It seems that questioning everything about yourself and trying to figure out who you are is more than a bit of a task.
Thus, I have come to the conclusion as to why the word identity begins with "I". My best, and most educated, guess is that when searching for who you are, you are really searching for who "I" is. How can you define yourself without defining "who I am"? That's the problem, you can't. It seems that before life decisions can be made that you should really know who you are and what your "i"dentity is.
My issue, is that I still don't know who I am.... Ergo, Katie can't really make any life plans or make any decisions because she has no "I". Ok, wait, it's not that I don't have an "I".... it's more like I don't know what my "I" is... (are you getting annoyed of the excessive quotation marks yet?) I feel like identity is something everyone should have inherently built in to them, but sometimes I feel like mine got left out..
Ok, so this isn't the most brilliant post ever, but that's where my mind is currently... Though now I'm going to turn that off; no thinking about life stuff before soccer..... Maybe I'll return to this issue another day... and maybe it won't be 3 months later.. ;)
Thus, I have come to the conclusion as to why the word identity begins with "I". My best, and most educated, guess is that when searching for who you are, you are really searching for who "I" is. How can you define yourself without defining "who I am"? That's the problem, you can't. It seems that before life decisions can be made that you should really know who you are and what your "i"dentity is.
My issue, is that I still don't know who I am.... Ergo, Katie can't really make any life plans or make any decisions because she has no "I". Ok, wait, it's not that I don't have an "I".... it's more like I don't know what my "I" is... (are you getting annoyed of the excessive quotation marks yet?) I feel like identity is something everyone should have inherently built in to them, but sometimes I feel like mine got left out..
Ok, so this isn't the most brilliant post ever, but that's where my mind is currently... Though now I'm going to turn that off; no thinking about life stuff before soccer..... Maybe I'll return to this issue another day... and maybe it won't be 3 months later.. ;)
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Pet Peeves
This will be short and sweet, as it is 2:20am.
(Sheesh, go to sleep Katie)
I think pet peeves are a manifestation of our own downfalls and annoyances. I mean really, who is actually annoyed because someone has something stuck in their teeth, or they put clothes on their animals, etc etc. It seems to me that pet peeves are solely the qualities that we least want to see in ourselves appearing in other people. Take, for example, one of my pet peeves: blogs that are never updated, or have long been forgotten. This is quite hilarious, considering that my own blog, the one you are reading, or aren't, right now has not seen an entry for over a year. OVER A YEAR! I suppose when the people who's blogs I read don't update and I get annoyed or frustrated, its merely a reflection of my own disdain for my lackluster blogging habits. This irony is kind of ridiculous and hilarious. I thought that perhaps I should share it with you.
Though I don't think anyone is actually reading this.. hmm.
(Sheesh, go to sleep Katie)
I think pet peeves are a manifestation of our own downfalls and annoyances. I mean really, who is actually annoyed because someone has something stuck in their teeth, or they put clothes on their animals, etc etc. It seems to me that pet peeves are solely the qualities that we least want to see in ourselves appearing in other people. Take, for example, one of my pet peeves: blogs that are never updated, or have long been forgotten. This is quite hilarious, considering that my own blog, the one you are reading, or aren't, right now has not seen an entry for over a year. OVER A YEAR! I suppose when the people who's blogs I read don't update and I get annoyed or frustrated, its merely a reflection of my own disdain for my lackluster blogging habits. This irony is kind of ridiculous and hilarious. I thought that perhaps I should share it with you.
Though I don't think anyone is actually reading this.. hmm.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Laughter
It’s funny how a laugh can change a day, how a chuckle or a shared joke with an old friend can create and evoke such strong emotion. The sound of an old friends hysterical laugh can stir up memories from years gone by, can bring one to the verge of tears, or can cause a similar response of hysteria in oneself. Laughter must be a gift from God. To me, there is no denying the beauty in the laugh of a small child or in the deep belly laugh of a grandfather. People say that God rejoices in his people, I can only guess that this rejoicing is even more so when his people are laughing.
Laughter is infectious, contagious, and incurable. When engaged in the complete and utter helplessness of a laughing fit one can truly begin to appreciate this gift from God the Father. With tears streaming down a joyous face, abdominal muscles burning from all the tension one can then, and only then, realize the true joy in the simplicity of life. The pain and discomfort from hysterical is always followed by that unforgettable feeling of euphoria. It is amazing to think of this body that God has created, and see it in all it’s glory writhing in the hysterics of a laughing fit.
What is strange about laughing is that the more one does it, the easier it is to continue to do so. Have you ever tried to stop laughing in the middle of the aforementioned laughing fit? If so you know that this generally leads to only more hysterical, even maniacal laughter. It’s difficult to say why this happens, perhaps it is the sheer hilarity of the situation or perhaps it is because one must know that laughter is the best medicine. Have you ever felt sad or depressed after laughing hysterically for any amount of time? Have you ever felt sick? I would assume, or at least hope that you say no to this. Even today my roommates and I sitting around our kitchen table laughed hysterically about basically nothing. In those immediate, almost intimate moments of the calm after the storm of laughter, I felt nothing but bliss - sheer unadulterated happiness. Is there anything as simple as a good laugh in this life that is able to produce such a great amount of joy?
Yes, for me I must say that laughter is a blessed, glorious gift from God. And the people who can make us laugh must also be great gifts from the Father above. Really, if you think about it who was probably the first person to make you laugh? It was probably your own father, the guy who you puked on or disgusted with your “infant tendencies” ie. peeing/crying/puking/pooping in awkward circumstances.
I truly believe that if we are to embrace this life fully we must laugh everyday. Not just a chuckle, but a full blown ab-wrenching, tear-jerking, breath-holding laugh. One that shakes us to the core of our being and reminds us that life is not all business, not all homework, not all tragedy, but that there really is true joy in everything and everyone around us.
Words of advice for laughter:
1. Watch Ellen Degeneres stand up. (yes this is a definite promo... but I cannot lie... I think she is HIL-freaking-ARIOUS!)
2. Have plenty of tissue ready to wipe up those tears of joy.
3. Try forcing a laugh, it is really so ridiculous that you eventually burst into hysteria... it definitely worked for my roommate Kyla.
4. Sit for an extended period of time and talk about nothing with people you love the most something hilarious always seems to develop when you allow yourself to be surrounded by those people. Some of the best laughs in my entire life came from sitting with my brother at the dinner table when we were supposed to be eating our vegetables or in sitting with cousins at one of those extended family events.
5. DO NOT TICKLE!!!! This is a 100% DON’T!!! (the person may seem like they are laughing but really they are in complete and utter agony - DON’T EVER FORCIBLY TICKLE SOMEONE: it will only result in one of the parties getting seriously injured)
6. WARNING: Forcing a laugh at an unfunny joke can result in many terrible, unfunny jokes to be told in the future. A slight chuckle is best suited in that situation.
7. Not every “funny” email is a FUNNY email. A good thing to remember, if you are not busting your gut laughing, chances are the person you email it to won’t do so either so keep those emails to yourself.
Laughter is infectious, contagious, and incurable. When engaged in the complete and utter helplessness of a laughing fit one can truly begin to appreciate this gift from God the Father. With tears streaming down a joyous face, abdominal muscles burning from all the tension one can then, and only then, realize the true joy in the simplicity of life. The pain and discomfort from hysterical is always followed by that unforgettable feeling of euphoria. It is amazing to think of this body that God has created, and see it in all it’s glory writhing in the hysterics of a laughing fit.
What is strange about laughing is that the more one does it, the easier it is to continue to do so. Have you ever tried to stop laughing in the middle of the aforementioned laughing fit? If so you know that this generally leads to only more hysterical, even maniacal laughter. It’s difficult to say why this happens, perhaps it is the sheer hilarity of the situation or perhaps it is because one must know that laughter is the best medicine. Have you ever felt sad or depressed after laughing hysterically for any amount of time? Have you ever felt sick? I would assume, or at least hope that you say no to this. Even today my roommates and I sitting around our kitchen table laughed hysterically about basically nothing. In those immediate, almost intimate moments of the calm after the storm of laughter, I felt nothing but bliss - sheer unadulterated happiness. Is there anything as simple as a good laugh in this life that is able to produce such a great amount of joy?
Yes, for me I must say that laughter is a blessed, glorious gift from God. And the people who can make us laugh must also be great gifts from the Father above. Really, if you think about it who was probably the first person to make you laugh? It was probably your own father, the guy who you puked on or disgusted with your “infant tendencies” ie. peeing/crying/puking/pooping in awkward circumstances.
I truly believe that if we are to embrace this life fully we must laugh everyday. Not just a chuckle, but a full blown ab-wrenching, tear-jerking, breath-holding laugh. One that shakes us to the core of our being and reminds us that life is not all business, not all homework, not all tragedy, but that there really is true joy in everything and everyone around us.
Words of advice for laughter:
1. Watch Ellen Degeneres stand up. (yes this is a definite promo... but I cannot lie... I think she is HIL-freaking-ARIOUS!)
2. Have plenty of tissue ready to wipe up those tears of joy.
3. Try forcing a laugh, it is really so ridiculous that you eventually burst into hysteria... it definitely worked for my roommate Kyla.
4. Sit for an extended period of time and talk about nothing with people you love the most something hilarious always seems to develop when you allow yourself to be surrounded by those people. Some of the best laughs in my entire life came from sitting with my brother at the dinner table when we were supposed to be eating our vegetables or in sitting with cousins at one of those extended family events.
5. DO NOT TICKLE!!!! This is a 100% DON’T!!! (the person may seem like they are laughing but really they are in complete and utter agony - DON’T EVER FORCIBLY TICKLE SOMEONE: it will only result in one of the parties getting seriously injured)
6. WARNING: Forcing a laugh at an unfunny joke can result in many terrible, unfunny jokes to be told in the future. A slight chuckle is best suited in that situation.
7. Not every “funny” email is a FUNNY email. A good thing to remember, if you are not busting your gut laughing, chances are the person you email it to won’t do so either so keep those emails to yourself.
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