New music.

My friendy-friend lent me Death Cab for Cutie's new album, Narrow Stairs. I was really excited, because I love them.

The first time I popped it in, I loved it. But I was surprised. Though this is often the case, it catches me off guard when it happens. It didn't sound like their previous album, but like their early albums. It sounded a lot less studio-perfected and a lot more raw.

I'm not saying I don't like Plans. I do. I think it's one of my top ten favorite albums. I just find Narrow Stairs to be a lot more honest. It brings back memories of their older, more honest, less corporate stuff.

Woah woah woah. Did I just say less corporate? Let me clarify before you give me up as another ranting indie kid.

Before Death Cab signed with Atlantic Records, their stuff was a lot different. More sprawling, less perfected. It's just what normally happens when a band signs with a more mainstream label. They're cleaned up. Their music is honed down to make the best singles.

Once again, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Plans is perfected, and I find it nearly perfect, despite some people's dislike for its perfection. I love every song. I just also like it when an album sounds raw and honest. Gosh, I've used those two words like eight billion times.

Anyway, now that I'm done justifying and clarifying, let me move on with what I was saying. Death Cab's new album sounds more like their older ones than Plans. It sounds more pre-Atlantic. Ok? Ok.

One of the main reasons for this is the length of the songs. The second song "I Will Possess Your Heart", is around eight minutes long, and it's a single.

......what? But that's what amazing about this album. I found myself saying, "What? They're allowed to still do this kind of stuff?" But not in a despairing way. In a pleasantly surprised way.

Ok, I feel I'm beating a dead horse.

The other thing I really like about this album is the lyrics. They're open and honest and....raw? Haha, you bet.

I think I may be done with this, because it's crashing and burning extremely fast.

Lots of good feelings toward Narrow Stairs, ok?

Does Anyone Still Say Slovenly?

I am lazy by nature. I know that this is not a very appealing description for me to give, but it's the truth. I really am just a lazy person.


I don't have much incentive to do most of the things that I'd like to do, like work hard to get good grades, etc. I am a coaster. No, not the cork kind that protects wood tables from cup rings. The kind who coasts through school, sometimes barely scraping by with an acceptable grade.


When I say acceptable, don't be fooled. I'm not talking about acceptable to me. I don't even have that type of standard. I mean acceptable to my parents. The reason I want my grades to be acceptable to my parents? I may get grounded from doing something fun if I don't.


Here is another pathetic but true facet of my already sparkling personality: my standards fluctuate with my grades. If I get a C in Algebra 2, well, it's a hard class, and I tried my best. If I get a D in Physics, well, the teacher's an idiot and it's really hard. I don't know why I am admitting these things. But it's true.


I could have avoided so many grounded weekends, ridiculously late cram nights, and fights with my parents if I'd just put a little more effort into things. But, as Jimmy Eat World would say, "ain't that the way it always goes?" It's so easy to look back on your past mistakes and think, "Man, I could have done so much better," but it's so hard to make the effort when you actually have the chance.

At least, it's hard for me. Or as Billy Madison would say "Well, it was hard for me SO BACK OFF!"

I feel no incentive to type more about my laziness, shockingly enough.

Peace and love until I write again. Which will probably be in a few weeks when I realize I haven't been writing.

The Ice Bowl

Every year, my youth group has "The Ice Bowl" at the Cedar Rapids Ice Arena. We wear jeans and sweatshirts, (gloves for the less hardcore kids) and we have a battle royale on the ice. what happens is we get these huge helmets to wear, and these sticks with a little black thing on the end. I couldn't tell you what shape the black thing is...it looks like something fell off the end of the stick.

So after we've slapped our huge helmets on, we take our incomplete little sticks and go play. There's a red ball a little bit larger than a fist as our puck. We put the two nets not long ways on the ice, but short ways, because no one wants to skate so far for one goal. Then, the game begins. Usually only ten or twelve people show up, so it's five-on-five, hardcore broom ball. Sans brooms. That's the other thing I don't understand. We don't use brooms. But that's okay.

So once the game is on, I think we all feel our inner Wayne Gretzky take hold. Wearing not skates, but tennies, we slip and slide around after that little red ball.

I have to say, this may sound a tiny bit lame, but it's not. It's really fun. For one, it's fun to ice....skate. If that's what you call it when you're not wearing skates. That part is fun, as well as the whole scoring a goal part. I'm one of those players that stays mostly over by the net...so I can receive passes and score a goal. (I'm sure that I am completely slaughtering hockey terms, but ohhh well.) So after I received a pass, I'd shoot. And usually, I'd have shot it in a way to make it go not at the angle I was hoping, but straight in front of me, slipping right past the entrance to the goal, into the enemy's hands. Ooops. But I did score three or four goals (pure luck, I assure you) and it's very exciting. Plus, I'm not the sportiest person ever (understatement alert) and so it made me have that teeny taste of sportsdom....which is nice.

So after a good two hours, we trudge back off the ice, peel our helmets off our oh-so sweaty heads, giggle at everyone else's horrible helmet hair, and flop down, sweating and tired. Our faces are red and our knees our soaked (as well as other places, for those with unfortunate balance) but it was fun!

Every year, I go a little reluctantly, thinking that no one will go, I'll be cold, I could be doing homework (yeah right...), or something else, but I leave saying "Oh my gosh...that was so much fun. We should start a league!"

Yeah, a league. Who knows? We may just give the Rough Riders a run for their money.
Maybe. But first we'd have to use real skates, I think.

Summer Summer Summer Summer... Can't Get Enough Of It.

I love love love love LOVE summer. It is magical and amazing. It's full of late nights and good memories. It has so many fun things. Summer....when I hear this word, it only connotes good and wonderful things.

One of my favorite things to do near the end of the school year is get pumped for the summer by listening to some classic summer songs. These are classic songs for MY summers, not necessarily everyone's. But there are a few that are simply summery. First off, pretty much any of the songs by The Ataris have something to do with summer. But my very favorite summer song by them is "In This Diary". Here are the lyrics, and it'll be pretty obvious why it gets me READY for summer.

Here in this diary,
I write you visions of my summer.
It was the best I ever had.
There were choruses and sing-alongs,and that unspoken feeling of knowing that right now is all that matters.
All the nights we stayed up talking
listening to 80's songs;and quoting lines from all those movies that we love.
It still brings a smile to my face.I guess when it comes down to it...

Being grown up isn't half as fun as growing up:
These are the best days of our lives.
The only thing that matters is just following your heart
and eventually you'll finally get it right.

Breaking into hotel swimming pools,
and wreaking havoc on our world.
Hanging out at truck stops just to pass the time.
The black top's singing me to sleep.
Lighting fireworks in parking lots,
illuminate the blackest nights.
Cherry cokes under this moonlit summer sky.
2015 Riverside, it's time to say goodbye...
Get on the bus, it's time to go.

Being grown up isn't half as fun as growing up:
These are the best days of our lives.
The only thing that matters is just following your heart
and eventually you'll finally get it right.

This song just gets me pumped for summer...a few more summery songs are:

1. The Boys of Summer- The Ataris
2. Dani California- Red Hot Chili Peppers
3. Fun, Fun, Fun- The Beach Boys
4. First Day Of My Life- Bright Eyes
5. Melt The Sugar- The Summer Obsession

I also love that everything gets prettier. Green grass, leaves, flowers, warmer temperatures, and more! I love the feeling of grass between my toes, and I take any opportunity to kick of my shoes. I love the warm sun and a cool breeze, and that breathtaking, endless blue sky that makes you feel infinitely small and yet totally content at the same time. I love being able to wake up leisurely and saunter out into the warm air, unsure of where the day is going to take you.
Summer...summer. Oh, dear summer. I love it. I must write more on this later.

Timshel

My sister keeps making fun of me. She says that Timshel sounds like the name of a dragon. I then tell her she shouldn't make fun of me about stuff like that when she's an avid fan of both of the Eragon books.

Anyway, I thought I should explain why I chose this dragonesque. Anyone who has read East of Eden by John Steinbeck knows why. Basically, a character, Lee, tried to get to the literal translation of Genesis chapter 24 of the Bible; the Cain and Abel story. He did many months and years of research to come to this:

“Don’t you see? . . . The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’—that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open.” (Sparknotes.com)

He found the Hebrew translation and saw that it wasn't an order or a promise, it was permission. It meant that men have a choice to triumph over the sin and temptations in their lives, and this is what the book is really about.

In the book, Cal's family has a history of evil, and Cal struggles with overcoming this legacy. Lee's discovery that God didn't promise or command Cain to overcome sin, but told him he had the ability to overcome sin was hope. This was hope for all the people who have something haunting them, who have temptations, who have sins they feel they can't escape.

Ultimately, Lee's timshel helps Cal see the truth in this and overcome his family's dark past.

I really liked this because of the hope it gave me while I was reading it. The thought that I have the ability to overcome my sin or my past or anything else that may be hindering me is encouraging, and it was presented in such an awesome way.

Not only is this one of my favorite books, timshel has become one of my favorite words, even if it does sound a little bit like a dragon.

No Country For Old Men

A few months ago, my sisters and I went to see a movie. We decided that we should see No Country For Old Men because it had gotten such awesome reviews. We had no idea what it was about. Had my sisters known, they would have refused. I probably still would have gone to see it.

This movie isn't like most movies. (Uh oh...sounds just as promising as "she has a good personality") It doesn't have much music, and it doesn't have much dialogue either. It starts out with Tommy Lee Jones talking about how he doesn't know how the older men who used to be sherriffs around where he lives would handle the kind of stuff that goes on these days. ("These days" being in 1980-something.)

The movie is basically about Llewelyn Moss, a man who finds about a billion dollars in a bag at the scene of a drug deal gone wrong, and takes off with it. Little does he know that the psychotic Anton Chigurh is following him, dead-set on getting the money. Not only does he want that money, he's going to kill Llewelyn no matter what, even if he gives Chigurh the money straight up.

Chigurh is what kept me watching. I wasn't terribly attached to Llewelyn, though I did want him to die because I liked his cute little wife, Carla Jean. But Chigurh is this psycopathic, horrible person. He barely seems like a person. He shows absolutely no emotion as he kills seven, eight, nine people onscreen. He needs a car, so he simply pulls someone over and kills him. He couldn't just take the car, he had to kill the guy. So goes the rest of the movie.

The acting in this movie, the filming, the lack of music, all these things made this movie chilling and extremely creepy. I liked the way a look from Chigurh could send shivers down my spine.

This movie's no feel-good family film, however. With ample blood and gore, and just enough plain suspense, this movie scared me a lot. But it is interesting and stuff.

I dunno, I've lost interest in this review....unlike the movie, which held my attention until the very unexpected rolling of the credits.

I Got This Guitar And I Learned How To Make It Talk

I realized the other day that I'd been taking guitar lessons for over a year. It was kind of a shocking realization, because I remember being very frustrated the first few months, thinking that I'd never be able to play more than a convoluted rendition of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams".

This, however, is not the case. I have to admit, I haven't always been completely faithful in my practicing. Especially for the first few months, when I couldn't play anything but Green Day and some very watered down Beatles songs, I was frustrated. I decided I'd rather just learn the piano or something, because this wasn't worth it.

But somehow I stuck with it. I got more into it when I learned how to slowly play songs I like, or at least songs I liked then. I learned "Swing Life Away", "One Year, Six Months", and "We Are Going To Be Friends". These songs I knew and made it fun to play.

But then over the Christmas vacation I sort of fell off the wagon. I stopped practicing for at least a month, maybe two. This wasn't good, and I'd stare at my dusty guitar case and think, "Hmph, I should probably practice soon...."

Over the past few months, I've gotten back into practicing. I recently learned how to play my favorite song in the world, "A Minor Incident" by Badly Drawn Boy. Also, I learned "Wonderwall", which is a classic song for learners, but I'd never learned. I realize why everyone learns it; it's pretty easy but it still sounds really good.

So while my journey hasn't always been easy or fun, I feel as though I've weathered the worst of the storm, and now I know at least that I can make a few songs come out of my good ol' guitar.