music is what we like to play

It is about a month late to begin 'best of' lists, but in order to avoid reading Charles Dickens' "Hard Times", I am going to embark on a 4-6 part blogging spree documenting my personal lifetime 'best of' lists. First up? Top ten best songs, in my own personal and highly qualified opinion. This list is result of digging through my overcrowded i-Tunes library, rando mix CDs, my last FM account, and my YouTube history (because let's face it, as much as I enjoy jamming out to Timbaland and Nelly Furtado, I don't really feel like purchasing their one hit single together and adding to disgusting amount of money already in their bank accounts). ENJOYYYY

10. 'Stars Go Blue'- Ryan Adams
Okay, this is not even the original version (we can thank the Corr's for that stroke of brilliance) but something about Ryan Adam's unrelentingly raw voice when he sings 'dancing through the underground' makes me think back to every London Underground experience I have had and want to teleport back there ASAP.

9. 'Gagging Order'- Radiohead
Radiohead is my go-to band when I am feeling depressed, strung-out, tired, sore, annoyed, etc. Basically they just let me wallow in my funks without seeming too pathetic. 'Gagging Order' is no different. The first time I heard this track I was fighting my way through a 30 page politics term paper, highly caffeinated and high strung at approximately 3:00 AM. Thom Yorke hit me hard with 'I know what you're thinking, I'm not your property', and I remember being transported back to crevices of my brain that I never knew existed, memories that I had blocked out surfaced and came alive in vivid colors. While the initial jolt of the track has worn off, it continues to soothe me nonetheless.

8. (Disclaimer: I am cheating here because in actuality these are three separate songs on the album but I think of them all as one, plus who is counting?)
'Looks Just like the Sun', 'Pacific Theme', 'Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl'- Broken Social Scene. The first time I heard this album in full, I was 14 years old. It was summer, I had just bought it for myself for my birthday. I popped it into my CD player, sat on my bed, opened a book that I immediately closed, and just listened. It was the first time I had fallen in love. It was the first time I felt music pulsate through my every pore. It was the first time I got lost in my own head. Then this trio rolls around, and I was literally dumbfounded. To this day 'Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl' plays in my head in every major life event. I lay in bed every night, listening to this song on my head phones, falling in love over and over again with Emily Haine's voice as she croons 'used to be one of the rotten ones and i liked you for that...'

7. 'Sweet Disposition'- The Temper Trap
This song makes the list because of the memories associated with it. And because it is pretty catchy, but mostly it is because of the memories, mainly from abroad. I first heard this in Koko, a hip London club. It was a huh moment, I stood still while the people around me continued to dance and bop, float and weave. Second time: running on the treadmill in the UEA gym (gotta work my bod). Third time: making a questionable decision at Mercy (ooops). Etc. Driving in circles around a deserted parking lot. Check. Crying while looking through abroad photos. Check. You get the point.

6. 'I Am Trying to Break Your Heart'- Wilco
Everybody who knows me knows I LOVE LOVE LOVE Jeff Tweedy. This song is why. I have no words to describe my connection to this song, except that the raw emotion on top of the almost happy riffs is the perfect combination of utter sadness and satire, 'take off your band-aid cause I don't believe in touch downs'

5. 'Leavin'- Jesse McCartney.
What the heck, JM, really? REALLY. Mainly cause the thang you got behind you is amazing, girl we flying on my g-(fly) g-(fly). Pure talent, makes for some awesome car rides to and from hikes in Vincent (RIP). Plus, JM is beyond supa fly in the music vid.

4. 'Fire on the Mountain'- The Grateful Dead
I would like to thank my father for his bazillion bootlegged Dead tapes that we would groove to on long childhood car trips. This track was always my favorite, for reasons unbeknown to me back then, except that I could scream 'fire on the mountain' with Jerry, so that made me feel really cool.

3. 'Hysteric'- The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
I don't like female artists that much. I have many criticisms of them, too whiny, too pop, too fake, too redone, too lame, too country too this too that. But I have no criticisms of Karen O, my large female crush. Her style, attitude, everything, musical talent, all work for me. 'Hysteric' off if 'It's Blitz!' is to me, Karen O in her prime. This is romantic without being lovey dovey, nostalgic without making me want to cry under my bed. Her voice is real, normal, and not whiny (sorry Taylor Swift). This track makes me wish I were cool and talented enough (again, sorry Taylor) to be a female rock star. Rawr.

2. 'Fireworks'- Animal Collective
The list would have been incomplete if I failed to include an Animal Collective track. I can, have, and will continue to listen to this one 38 times on repeat in one day. While I am sure that is super annoying to my poor bathroom-mate (the walls are realllly thin, hmph) especially when I blast it at 7:45 AM Tuesday and Thursday mornings, it will never get old to me. From the opening chord to the chorus, to the rando beats to the overdubbing to the lyrics to the everythinggg, this is song is pure perfection and started my love affair with Animal Collective.

1. 'Treehouse'- I'm From Barcelona
Again, I can remember exactly where I was when I first heard this. Senior year of high school, I was tabling for banning landmines at a Casual Fiasco concert (listen to them, they are gooood), and this came on in-between sets. 'I have built a tree house, I have built a tree house, nobody can see us, it's a you and me house' was forever stuck in my head, I would sing it in the darkroom, on the tennis court, everywhereee. My dad banned me from playing it. It is just so good, so happy, so morbid, so raw. I wish that someday I will meet somebody who will write me a song like this, totally organic and meaningful in it's quirky little way.

here i saw something i could not look over

Blogging is just so much better than reading. Just throwing that out there. Today it was nuttily (is that a word? eh it is now) blustery out and I think my face fell off a few times from the sheer brutality of the whipping Geneva winds. Ohhh Geneva. Deciding to not wear a hat was a really idiotic decision that my pre-caffeinated mind decided to make.

I really don't have a point to make right now, I am just chilling in my pajamas, drinking green tea and wishing I had thought to purchase milk to put in it like I did every morning, afternoon, and night in England. Also I fell in love with The XX's so am listening to them an obnoxious amount. Check them out: http://thexx.info/

I think some coffee residue is floating around in my tea. lovely.

I am super pumped about my film class this semester. I have always wanted to analyze film on a more organized level, as opposed to chats after seeing films with my dad or whoever else I see movies with. Plus I feel infinitely more hip cause I am studying film at the collegiate level. Last I saw 'Bulworth', Warren Beatty's brilliant attack of corporate conglomerates, in which his character Senator Bulworth decides to have himself assassinated for monetary reasons but then meets the underground black culture of L.A and decides to cancel that plan. The soundtrack is pretty fly, Beatty's rapping with crack you up, and the message of fighting out against the media and sticking up for what you believe in is good. Therefore you should rent it, analyze it, and be smarter for seeing it.

Also, a note on the recently added picture. That I took my third time at Camden Market in London, and I fell in love with each of the randos in it. I thought it was fitting for my blog because it random, real-life, slightly fuzzy, and completely authentic.

Enjoy the hipness of being.

and i'll drive and close my eyes in michagan

It is so easy to become so consumed in your tiny little bubble of a life that you forget that a. others exist and b. they may (shocker) actually need you.

What I am trying to get at is SNAP OUT OF IT. Realize, embrace, understand, be here and now always, put yourself second, envision, believe, breathe, and most of all take a step back and look around at the world you are probably missing out on.

Enjoy the opening of your eyes.

now you're in (upstate) new york.

Back at HWS again after a rather fabulous adventure of a semester. Feeling slightly odd in a place that was once so familiar, especially when walking into Saga. But eh, it occurs.

A rundown so far:
Burst into tears as soon as I saw the sign that so cheerily states 'Welcome to Geneva: Trout Capital of the World'. I am not sure whether I was crying at the fact that it said 'Geneva' or 'Trout Capital', but either way I was pretty pathetically bawling.

Hit up Res-ed for my key, enter my room, and much to my delight discover I have not one but TWO sweet windows, one of which looks directly into my tennis coach's office. Figures.

Unpack some stuff, have a goon reunion, mom leaves, yadda yadda yadda.

Blahhhh whatever. The point is classes are strange (sorry if I don't remember your name, it has been a while, though it is pretty cool you remember mine), the frats are filled with rando frosh who may or may not be wearing clothes which is always good, the gym is new and gorgeous and made me confused to where I was when I first walked in. But yet some things never change, such as Saga stomach, awkward run-ins while out, and ending up eating nachos at 3 AM, which leads to a fuzzy head alll of the next day, but I guess I deserved it.

It's good to be back on the tennis court, especially now that I have those sweet bright pink knee socks to wear to be extra goonish.

What elseeee, I don't know, it is not England, but that is not a bad thing. Nothing (except for the gym and new odd frosh) changed at Hobart, which is also not necessarily a bad thing. I perhaps changed slightly, I guess the bangs aka fringe make me look 'more European' and last night I was advised by multiple people to grow them out which is just a nutty proposal and sorry friends, is not happening, cause i likeee themmmm. Also I have become slightly more awkward considering as I don't really know people here anymore and then don't know what to do when see somebody I kind of know. But eh, life is pretty decent, so why change what works?

Soundtrack:
The Avett Brothers- Brooklyn
Kesha- Tik Tok
Timbaland feat. Nelly Furtado- Morning after Dark
Holiday Shores- Dens
Animal Collective- Brother Sport

Enjoy the awkwardness of the semi-newness that is the new year at Hobart hobart hobart ayyyyy.

and these strange steps take us back

flow sweetly, hang heavy, you suddenly complete me, hysterical.

I just re-read through my like 4 posts I have done so far and realized that each of them has the distinct tone of being slightly, well, depressed. Which is odd, considering as in person I am nothing like this whatsoever. But there you have it, I guess blogging perhaps bring out the emotional almost-artist in me. Whatever.

These past weeks have been almost unbearable. Coming back home was the biggest letdown of my life. After the bright lights and extreme newness of the U.K, the good old eightohtwo seemed too small and, for lack of a better description, quaint for me. Which upset me greatly because I realized that that makes me sound like some pretentious city-slicker who is now able to navigate the London underground successfully while carrying 3 pieces of luggage and not once looking at a map, someone who browsed Harrod's but couldn't find a lion there, somebody who regularly took trains to various cities and stayed in hostels, all without batting an eye. The first time I drove into Burlington I started crying because it hit me that it was one street. What. The. Heck. Then I went to NYC this past week and hated that too, which must make me completely anti-American, or just a wanna-be European. (And no, we will not be attending a comedy show tonight, thank you).

This is a typical day for me at home: wake up at the buttcrack of dawn aka 6:20, stumble into a black t-shirt and jeans, force some cereal and yogurt down, brush my teeth, start my car at 4:43 and sometimes brush approximately 33 inches of snow off of it, buzz down shelburne road at 6:50 but still end up late to work at Bruegger's at 7. Then I have to do something gross like prep turkey into 1.9 ounce sections or pour gobs of mayo into a squeezy container, all while trying to pretend to love life the instant a 'guest' walks in the door. I will typically work 7-8 hours a day, then force myself to go to the gym where i do mad reps duh or play tennis, which is sweet considering my new shoulder and stuff but annoying cause i kind of suck right now. Then I go home, annoy my mom, take a shower, eat dinner, read, and fall asleep at 9. REPEAT. EXCITING.

This just gets me thinking though, shouldn't I appreciate all of this a bit more? sure, it is not the stimulation of the UK, with new places to go and people to meet and things to see and pictures to take and dancing to do and train rides to get excited over and never being fully sure what just happened or what will or what could happen but it is home, but it is home. It should be what I know, but currently I am not sure what I know because it all got twisted around recently. Everything has to end and change and continue and begin again but secretly I was hoping that life didn't happen and I could deal with it all. But I can't and that is too bad.

So there it is. I need to recenter and get reconnected with my world here.

Thank you Karen O for getting me through the 'reverse culture shock'

Enjoy the re immersion.