Congratulations! Your Nerdy Points Have Been Increased by 10%

When I tell people I'm a geek and/or nerd (yes, there is a difference), they won't believe me unless I was previously talking about something computer or Star Wars related. Now I have a badge of nerdiness plastered on my face: glasses.

Most teenagers I encountered when I announced when I was getting glasses were pretty happy for me, like I was. Glasses are cool, and now I'll finally be able to see properly. However, most adults I told felt sorry for me. When I told them I was excited to get them, they looked at me and said, "Why?" And to that I answer, "Why not?"

I tend to like physical change. Not bad change, like getting leprosy or having a giant burn on my face. Just interesting change. Like, if my eye color decided to change on me or if I were to get my hair chopped off, I'd be pretty excited. The only exception is braces, because braces cause much physical pain and get in the way more often than not. And though I really like my long hair, if it were to get cut short again like it is in my current profile picture, I wouldn't be that upset. It's kind of hard to explain why I was so excited to get glasses, but I was. Trying to explain this is like explaining why I watched the entire game of Portal 2 on YouTube before actually playing the whole thing myself. I just like things that way. Don't judge. ;)

Anyway, first impressions are good. They are bent way over my ears, like at a ninety-degree angle pretty much, which is a little weird, but whatever. They aren't supposed to come off easy anyway. I still can't get over how I look in them, but considering it's only been about twenty minutes since I got them, that feeling should pass soon. It's almost overwhelming how everything looks now. When I first put them on I thought, "So this is what everything's supposed to look like!" I was pretty giddy. Until I saw myself in the mirror, then I thought "Wow...I look...different." I think they look good, just different.

So far so good. Want to see what I look like in them? No? Then don't scroll down.

I look more like a librarian. Or a geek. Both are good things.

There I am. The new me. Or something like that.

Things I'll Never Get: "Coolness" Points

It's a common dilemma I'm sure we've all been through before. There's an unknown band/singer we love because they're "edgy" and "real." What comments do we give this band? We all want them to become popular so it gets the attention it deserves. It's almost funny how you have your own little "club" of people that know about this unknown band.

Then the long wait is over. This unknown band signs the contract and has a hit song.

Suddenly, all your friends know about this band. Unknown Band no longer writes their own music, they have someone do that for them. To reach a higher audience, the songs are about love and breakups; things they never wrote about before. The songs are no longer "edgy" or "real." Unknown Band has become just like the others. Popular.

What comments do we have to say now? Do we commend them on their success? Possibly. But in this more likely scenario, we do the exact opposite. We bash them for losing their "edge" and becoming famous. We become angry because our little "club" is non-existent. Why? Because they did exactly what we told them to do.

The usual epilogue is that this band lurks back into the unknown, but not because it became edgy again. Because another band took its place with younger, more attractive stars. True, most of these bands rarely hit zero people who like them. There's always those few that still think the songs are cool. But the cooler songs were the ones they wrote before they were famous.

This is something us humans have been doing for quite sometime that quite irritates me. Then again, many things that humans do irritates me.

Things such as bands, books, songs, movies, etc. are much much cooler when they are in the unknown. But not the bad kind of unknown. The kind of "indie" unknown where they record songs in their basement and write "real" music and the entertainment they bring to others is "original." This is not wrong in any way, and is a correct statement. Something that only you and your friends can rave about is much better than something everyone raves about. It's like someone invaded in your own personal club.

But it only makes sense in the band's perspective. Who has time to write their own music when your fans are expecting a new album every year? Writing songs is not easy, even for someone who gets paid to do so. Besides, these bands want one thing: money. So they don't really care if their original fan base who thought they were edgy hates them, because they have a bigger, much broader fan base now.

This isn't what angers me. What angers me is when these few fans of this band go on and on about how they should expand and sign a contract so they get the attention they deserve. Because they should. Right? Someone once told me that once you start getting paid to do a hobby, it stops becoming a hobby. Then you only start doing it for money. I agree with this analysis. Nothing takes the fun out of something more than putting a deadline and rules on it. Instead of writing songs when you want and how you want, you need to write songs by this time, and since you don't have time for that, someone gets hired to do that for you.

So how do these original fans react? Apparently, none of them know how bands change when they become well-known. All the fans have to say is complaints about how the band isn't "cool" anymore. There's that word. Cool. Its meaning is way too broad in my opinion, yet probably the worst thing a band can be called is "uncool." That, and "sucky." You know, as a side note, I would really appreciate if people (teens especially) expended they're vocabulary a little bit more. I am guilty of saying words such as "like" and "awesome" much too often. But learning new words is interesting to me, and I wouldn't mind expanding it more. But I digress. Again. I've been doing that quite a bit in recent blog posts.

Anyway, after the band has had their hit songs they slowly fade into oblivion once more, just as they came. No one remembers them, except the few that were there all along. But even then, those fans only listen to the "cool" songs.

This is why I admire people like Johnathan Coulton, who has never signed a contract, and writes songs as he pleases. Sure he wrote both of the credit songs for Portal and Portal 2, which will bring in some money for him. But he does all of his songs himself. He isn't super popular either, so he still has that "edgy" feel to his music I suppose.

Fans begging for more and then complaining when you do what they want is a concept I will never understand. Even if I go through that myself, I won't understand it. I'm keeping my hobbies, hobbies. Future careers will involve technology. I'm not about to go design a website for fun. Because it's a job for me still.

Ok, now that that's out of the way, let's discuss things I need to work on in this blog:

1. Conclusions

That is all.

Summer Time! ...Almost

I am having a hard time believing that the school year is coming to its end. Usually, this wouldn't be a big deal, but the fact that so many of my friends are seniors and that I'm graduating next year kind of makes it a deal of the big kind.

But first on the agenda of summer related activities is: Sun! Yes, the sun is out! The big yellow ball in the sky is paying Washington a visit. For how long? About four days. That's about as good as it gets over here. Lack of sun pretty much ruins any summer plans I have. True, many of my summer plans involve TV, the Internet, and talking on the phone, but it'd be much nicer to look out the window and comment on the gorgeous day outside while I'm browsing YouTube. Although, I wouldn't mind sitting outside reading once in awhile.

It's actually interesting to sit and remember how I viewed summer when I was still in elementary school. Back then, school lacked much homework, and I actually had fun there. Summer was always viewed with high hopes because it involved spending time with good friends of mine. A couple weeks before school ended, I'd be spending my free-time calling up these friends, making plans to spend the night at their house or something along those lines. I would think "How many sleepovers can I go to this year?" about every June.

Then things changed, as they always do, around middle school. My mindset didn't change, but my friends did. They became busier with life and didn't have time to have me over as much. I used to think that I was the one left behind, but I realize that I had become busy too. It was around this time I took up learning another language and had dedicated more and more time to that. There was still a desire to spend time with friends burning in my head, and I would sometimes. There may be one sleepover. That should have been enough. But I was disappointed, nonetheless.

High school is where my viewpoint on life changes the most. And even though this happened early in high school, I'll be lectured if I write in past tense, so I won't. These are the years that actually matter. These are the years that actually will help me acquire skills for future jobs. This means a lot of work. Hence, summer is always too far away. Even at the end of the year, when summer is less than a month away, all people can talk about is how it should start tomorrow. The end of the year is when all the final projects and exams are, so even though summer gets closer by the day, so does stress. Everyone (well, seniors mostly) are concerned about getting their grades up. I've even seen people concerned about grades when they have straight A's, because they're so worried they'll bomb the exam and no longer have their straight A's. Actually, the only students I've seen that aren't concerned about their final grades are the ones who are failing and don't care anymore. I've always found that funny. I'm not particularly pressured about constantly having all A's, but I still want to graduate. I still want good grades. I've never really been able to understand people who don't care about their grades at all. Like, they are literally failing every class and they act like that doesn't matter. But I digress.

Although summer is viewed with much happiness, there's always the sad part that people cling to as well. I know plenty of seniors this year, more than I've known any other year, so I'm going to be a little sad they're leaving. But, really, it's not like I have no way of contacting anyone I would want to keep in touch with. Despite this, I'll no doubt feel some sadness after the seniors are gone. It's going to be strangely quiet without the seven or so seniors in my Sno-Isle class. It's going to be even quieter on the bus since pretty much everyone I talk to there is a senior. Then, of course, I'll be going on and on with my friends about how quickly time passes and how excited we all are to be seniors next year. It all seems so silly now, but that's exactly what's going to happen.

I've never been a big fan of recollecting things, because it always makes me so sad. But summer seems to be known for just that. Even in elementary school, kids always say stuff like, "Remember that funny thing that happened at the beginning of the year?" or "Remember how shy I was the first day of school?" Then, in middle school, the buzz around the halls is things like, "Remember that super creepy guy that, like, was, like, obviously hitting on me on, like, the first day of school? Yeah, that was, like, so weird." or "OMG remember how long your hair was at the beginning of the year? It's, like, so weird now because I can't even picture you with it anymore!" Finally, in high school, it seems people are slightly more sentimental so they stay stuff such as, "I'm going to miss you so much! I remember when we met at lunch and you did that thing and I knew we were going to be friends forever!" or "Oh my gosh! Text me every day, ok? We totally need to hang out next month or whatever. I'll see you later! *hugs*"

This usually results in me becoming down at the start of summer. Not really down, because I'm still pumped by the fact I have no homework or anything. But in the back of my head I still miss all the friends I made. Then one of them calls me or texts me and I'm all right. Then, slowly, I get used to the summer routine. I start getting used to sleeping in, not having homework, and the sunshine (hopefully. I've stopped trusting Washington).

Then, right around that time, school starts again.

Those are my thoughts on summer. Even though summer has yet to come, I wanted to get this down now before my mind becomes nostalgic and sentimental. Then I'd just keep going. "And then in sixth grade...don't even get me started..." Yeah. I doubt anyone would read that. So, let's name this my summer post and call it good.

Guitar Lessons 5: Burst of Inspiration?

So, I'm not really sure if this happens to all great artists or just the weird ones, but when I was playing my guitar a line of a song popped in my head. An original line. It came out of nowhere, it just hit me.

I've always been the type of person who would stare at a blank sheet of paper until I would get too frustrated to think. I wanted to write a song, but all I could come up with is a poem. Poems are nice and all that, but only a few can actually be turned into songs.

So anyway, I started forming this song in my head. It was actually a pretty common theme. It was about a girl (spoken of in third person) who was never told she was beautiful, so she feels worthless. This person isn't supposed to be me, but I get mad at the fact that the media has screwed everyone up. Lots of girls and guys alike feel worthless. I hate that. So this is a subject that has been on my mind a long time.

The lines to the song came really easy to me. Which was exciting, but also kind of freaked me out. I mean, would I feel the same about this song in twenty-four hours? I've also been the type of person to write songs in a couple hours and then hate it the next day. So when the lines just started flowing (and rhyming), all I could think was, "Is this going to sound really stupid tomorrow?" However, I wrote everything down anyway, tweaked it a little, and added simple chords to make a tune. Then I went to sleep.

The next morning I woke up and immediately looked at these lyrics I wrote down in a frenzy. Surprisingly, they still looked decent. I redid the tune of the bridge (which I still think sounds...off) and played through it a couple of times. The song didn't sound terrible. It wasn't the best song because I can barely play guitar, but it was better than other songs I wrote as a twelve/thirteen year old (don't ask...those are terrible). I kept playing through it, making minor changes until I was totally happy with it, for the most part.

So then at school on Monday, these lyrics were still circling my brain because I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell people or not. I'm not sure why, it's not like it was a secret. But not all reactions I would get would really motivate me to have them listen to it. So I kept quiet until sixth period. Then I just told this friend of mine randomly that I wrote a song in ten minutes. He asked what it was about, so I told him. He knows my style of writing, so he said, "Why does everything you write have to be so depressing?" For some reason, I laughed, and talked with him about how girls felt worthless even though they shouldn't be. He totally agreed with me, and talking with him made fury toward that attitude of girls rise again. Then I wanted to record it.

So I did.

It took me a good fifteen tries before I got it right. Twice I dropped the pick. That was embarrassing. And the final recording is in two parts because I ad to redo the ending and I did not want to start over. Again.

Anywho, I emailed the sound file to myself and am going to show it to a girl in my Sno-Isle class who also plays guitar and complimented me on my voice when I had her listen to my Jar of Hearts cover. For the record, I didn't tell her I was singing before she listened to it, so I'm assuming the compliment was genuine.

I wish I could post sound files on here, but alas! I cannot. So to all five of you who read this thing, I'll have to force you to listen to my sucky guitar playing individually. Wait...I think I just proved the theme of the song I just wrote. Well, what do you expect?

This is me we're talking about.