First Gig

Disclaimer: That is not me, nor is it my guitar.

Apathy and distraction suck, let me tell you.

I rue the day that teachers invented BlackBoard (online homework system). I had a tough enough time doing homework in my room all alone. I'd get distracted even then. How did they think it was that good of an idea? Wasn't it obvious that people would end up on Facebook, or YouTube, or anywhere but where they are supposed to be?

Ugh. It sucks. My grades for this semester aren't going to be too hot, not at all. My grades this first quarter were really bad with Dad and all, and I'm not having much luck trying to make up for it this quarter.

But it doesn't matter, and you know why? I've already made up my mind about my career, and I'm fairly certain that I'll want to do the same thing for ages. I want to be a musician, plain and simple. I actually just played my first gig this last Friday at the Dream Cafe. It didn't turn out like I expected (I was double-booked, took shifts with two other musicians, and ending up playing (and singing) mostly on guitar) but for the most part it turned out well. It's a miracle too - I got the job just as I ran broke, and now I've got enough to make it through the month. Barely, but still.

So I'll try to keep up with schoolwork, but I'm not honestly too worried about it. With my music, I've got plenty of backup plans. In fact, if I do go to college, it will be mostly to try to do something more with my music, maybe join some cool music program.

Also, I kind of lied about Save For Rachel. Underestimated production time and what-not. Still looking to get cover art and booklets and what not. So may be a couple of weeks, because I'm heading to Seattle this coming weekend. Sorry, any BK readers.

For now though I'll try to keep up with my homework after practicing piano. That's my priorities right there.

Boredom VS. Stress

Well I'm stuck again. This time it's at school. I've basically decided that I'm not going to do any homework. I just don't want to work right now so soon after spring break. Luckily, this hasn't hurt me too much because BK has kind of been going easy here, letting there students down easy. It's a good thing too, I wouldn't be able to handle regular weeks of school right now.

Since I stopped doing homework, I've actually felt better as far as my health. But to counter that, I have become tired and bored at points in the day. It's almost seems synonymous with how energy is always conserved. General mood seems to be conserved as well, at least for me. I can switch some of the stuff around, but it'll probably stay about the same.

So what's better? Being unproductive, but bored and tired? Or being productive, but feeling stressed? Most people would agree that it is the second choice, because the second choice allows for doing homework and projects and all that. In fact, most people try to stear clear of that first choice. But I'm trying it out for a little bit. I think it's best to find a balance between these two. It's not good to be lazy all the time, but being obsessed with work is probably not good either.

And so I find a balance. And it's what I call living. I'm not constantly working and I'm not always lazy, but I'm able to do both. Sometimes this means that I miss a homework assignment. So be it. I will not sacrifice all of my spare time and energy micromanaging my life just so I can get good grades. But I won't sacrifice all of my schoolwork so I can live a stress-free, boredom-riddled life.

So when it comes to Boredom vs. Stress, I use an old trick that any skilled musician does when he doesn't know exactly what to do. Improvise. Go with the flow. And for Goodness' sake, try to make it look good.

Weekend In McCall: On The Road Again

Here is the final chapter of my McCall quadrology (yes I made that word up). But anyway, read through the last few, because this one may be a little bit dull. This is the day that Mom, Dad, Andy, Julie, Brian, Billy, and Annie, and I all pack up and go home.

There's not much to say about the actual packing up, except that it was accompanied by the normal "where's all my stuff" panic and the normal "you should have kept track of your things" scolding from Mom. Sometimes I wonder if my family is normal... I know that I'm not.

And this of course was accompanied by the normal shuffle into the cars. Back to the long drive home. Like I've said in the first chapter of the quadrology, the road is unnerving and difficult. This was not helped by the fact that we were driving in blizzard conditions. Usually the drive takes two hours, and this time it took two and a half. All I could do was listen to my iPod.

Julie, Brian, Billy, and Annie split up with us once we rolled into Boise to visit Kurt & Amy & Ali (Brian is Dad's brother and Amy is Dad's sister, so all three are siblings). We went home and I started working on my homework. Of course, distraction is a dangerous game, and I often end up wasting hours off-topic. Yeah, it happened again. I'm acutally supposed to do homework right now...

Julie & Brian and their kids are staying with us tonight and they'll be gone on Tuesday. So there's the happy ending to the McCall quadrology...

The DWA and Hockey Events...

Well. I was right about one thing. Today was quite a big day. My final grade in a couple of classes could have been made today with out my realization. I had two friends that copied workbook pages for me. Only one of them succeeded. I couldn't expect them to be perfect though. I now am missing assignments in C. Phyz, bu this is nothing new. I can't blame him. Next time, he'll remember. I'll recover. I always do.

At any rate, that was not what the big event of the day was. As I talked about in my previous post, I took the DWA today. For anybody reading this who took it yourself, know that I sympathize with you. Ninety minutes of straight writing can be pretty tough, especially when you get a prompt that you don't know alot about. Luckily enough, we got a decent one this year. We had to write and expository for why the driving age should be 16 or 18. I think I did pretty well. I finished ten minutes early and had to scrunch the words up to fit it all on the page. Definite four or five there.

But from what I've heard, it don't matter whether or not you ace the DWA. What's up with that? The school sets up a huge writing assessment and none of the colleges even bother checking our scores on it? Are they just trying to screw with us? That's actually quite likely...

Speaking of school, I had practice today for the school hockey team. And afterwards, we recieved some bad news. We had been getting complaints from the other players in the Junior Varsity League that we were too big and bullied them. The coaches took interest in this and tried to talk to our coach. So now we're essentially not supposed to play a physical game unless they're as big or bigger than us. Which sucks. We're just supposed to throw away our competitive spirit because a couple of eighth graders didn't like being pushed around. It's a physical sport; what did they expect? You don't take a career in football and expect not to get an injury or not to get hurt. Well, there's nothing we can do about it for right now, but make sure we don't get disqualified because our players are too big...

Saturday School

Unfortunately, I spent about three hours of my Saturday in a room like this one. Because I had Saturday School, as my title would imply.

But how would someone as responsible as me have to go to Saturday school? Well, that's a good question. Apparently, they count tardies for zero hour classes. So they sent me to saturday school for three hours.

To be honest, It was fine. I got some homework done, where as I usually would do all of it on Monday morning. They just made us sit down and shut up for three hours. We could do homework or work on the computers or anything so long as was school-related. For some people it sucked, but for me, it was a good chance to get some work done. That's luck for me. A blessing in disguise.

But luckily, that's not all that happened Saturday. Otherwise, this would be a very dull post, nay?

Like last Saturday I had a hockey game. This one was at 6:15 P.M. I showed up about a half-hour early and played in the arcade until it was about time to get dressed. This time we did have a goalie; a goalie and eleven other players. We won. the final score was four to three. We whooped ass.

Afterwards, I got a ride home from the coach because my parents were out. We talked about the game on the way. Once I got back home, it was pouring out. But I was hungy. So what did I do? I ran in the pouring rain to the nearest burger king and promptly ordered ten dollars worth of fatty goodness for me and my brother.

And to finish off the day, I relaxed and wrote in my blog. So now I'm wondering: what's in store for Sunday?


“There aren't enough days in the weekend.” - Rod Schmidt quotes