Why do I feel such an ingrained need to take a class on EVERYTHING?
They should make a class about Life, the Universe, and Everything. Oh wait, that class probably would be taken as too broad for serious folk. Bleh.
Time-turners would be nice.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Welll that was my random rant of the day, I guess. Don't feel like looking at it again cause I'll probably think it's crap as usual but whatever. It's more than halfway into spring break right now and I really don't feel like doing work, although I've got a midterm next week to study for.
Ehhh I'll start at it tomorrow.
Life's moving along as usual and I'm still not really sure what I want to do yet. Well, I have a general idea of what classes to take. It's mainly trying to narrow the list down to a more manageable pace/finding extracurricular stuff that really interests me. Like my friends that are already doing work-study/extracurriculars/actual interesting stuff. I'm jealous of the passion they have in finding and doing these things. All I ever seem to care about nowadays is learning by the book while playing video games.
Sometimes I really wish I could go back and redo some parts of my life over. Maybe say, starting from the beginning of high school, back when I didn't know anyone other than my middle school buddies who were already starting to drift away. That way I could still... try to keep in touch with them more often. Maybe open up more to Carol and Mike and co. when I met them at the time. Wouldn't things be a lot more different.
I dunno, really. Lately I've been feeling as though there's a lot of people I know that I could've been better friends with given the proper circumstances, although I know that half of the time I just didn't bother talking more myself because of the whole "I don't want to bother you too much" mentality I've been carrying around since forever. And by now it's probably too late to do anything else since if I bothered trying any harder to talk to a person it'd seem odd out of character or weird-to-stalkerish given the way we are right now. That's why I liked the dorm environment that I got at Berkeley; it gave people the excuse to hang around with whoever they wanted to for the first time since everyone was new to begin with. I've been pretty content with the people I've met, but there's always still that extra case of what could've been. It's nice to keep in touch with people when you can.
Oh and I wish I'd applied to the College of Engineering when I applied to Berkeley originally. And did all this crap schedule planning BEFORE coming there. Would've made life so much easier.
To do:
Ochem problem sets and practice midterm
CS program and all assignments up to recursion
Math 54 ch 6 hw
Poli Sci Egypt reading
figure out housing
pay off that parking ticket
eat more fiber
join a club? or figure out some work/possible internship if possible over summer
figure out summer timeline
for fun?
finish brothers karamazov for once
and john
maybe seiken densetsu 3?
uhhh I'm going to try and put everything else off until I actually get my work done for once, if ever.
Ehhh I'll start at it tomorrow.
Life's moving along as usual and I'm still not really sure what I want to do yet. Well, I have a general idea of what classes to take. It's mainly trying to narrow the list down to a more manageable pace/finding extracurricular stuff that really interests me. Like my friends that are already doing work-study/extracurriculars/actual interesting stuff. I'm jealous of the passion they have in finding and doing these things. All I ever seem to care about nowadays is learning by the book while playing video games.
Sometimes I really wish I could go back and redo some parts of my life over. Maybe say, starting from the beginning of high school, back when I didn't know anyone other than my middle school buddies who were already starting to drift away. That way I could still... try to keep in touch with them more often. Maybe open up more to Carol and Mike and co. when I met them at the time. Wouldn't things be a lot more different.
I dunno, really. Lately I've been feeling as though there's a lot of people I know that I could've been better friends with given the proper circumstances, although I know that half of the time I just didn't bother talking more myself because of the whole "I don't want to bother you too much" mentality I've been carrying around since forever. And by now it's probably too late to do anything else since if I bothered trying any harder to talk to a person it'd seem odd out of character or weird-to-stalkerish given the way we are right now. That's why I liked the dorm environment that I got at Berkeley; it gave people the excuse to hang around with whoever they wanted to for the first time since everyone was new to begin with. I've been pretty content with the people I've met, but there's always still that extra case of what could've been. It's nice to keep in touch with people when you can.
Oh and I wish I'd applied to the College of Engineering when I applied to Berkeley originally. And did all this crap schedule planning BEFORE coming there. Would've made life so much easier.
To do:
Ochem problem sets and practice midterm
CS program and all assignments up to recursion
Math 54 ch 6 hw
Poli Sci Egypt reading
figure out housing
pay off that parking ticket
eat more fiber
join a club? or figure out some work/possible internship if possible over summer
figure out summer timeline
for fun?
finish brothers karamazov for once
and john
maybe seiken densetsu 3?
uhhh I'm going to try and put everything else off until I actually get my work done for once, if ever.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
I have issues with people who like to collectively label certain music as "indie crap."
Well, I'll admit that there bands out there such that if I had to create a genre called "indie crap," I would lump them in that (considering how much indie I apparently I do listen to). I do sometimes get the sense of dull repetition and "whininess" when I hear those bands. But to characterize every indie band out there as a load of bull owing simply to the fact that their name isn't mainstream is another thing altogether.
Especially if you diss Yo La Tengo. ESPECIALLY From a Motel 6 Yo La Tengo. That song is anything but typical indie crap.
Of course, what makes music enjoyable to a person is largely subjective based on that person's tastes, but I do believe in the existence of objectively "good" and "bad" quality music like others do. However, I also tend to disagree with the way some of these people identify music as "good" or "bad."
Good quality music is more than just lyrics, a chorus, melodies, etc. By that measure, you could also analyze a song for its lyrical or melodic complexity and interactions, or the musician/singer's prowess and execution at carrying the song through, but that's not entirely the kind of good or bad scale that I'm getting at right away, considering that there are songs out there that can still come across well without being that "complex;" how enjoyable a song is also plays a major factor into this scale. A lot of mainstream music is like that: it's fun to listen to because it's simple or conventional, catchy, pleasing to the ear, or inspires a feeling in you. That's why I don't really mind it when other people play their music, or at least usually; I can see why they like it. I might like it myself.
And then of course there's other, obscure music that's... not so pleasing to the ear. (Noise rock! Screamo! etc. etc.) Or, so to speak, others that would come across as unconventional to your average listener. This doesn't make them bad by any means; they might just be innovating a certain aspect of their music in a way to achieve a different result. And sometimes it just takes a shift in perspective to realize what exactly this result means; I've had times when I've listened to a song once and disliked it, only to randomly hear it again (or a couple more times for that matter) and suddenly have something click in my mind, and all of a sudden it seems like God's next best gift to mankind (seriously). Repeated over time, this builds up to the point where music taste changes or expands as one comes to experience a wider variety of tastes; it's how I've managed to move on to liking groups in genres such as hip hop (well, knowing the kind of person I am) and some avant garde bands that I guess some would call "noise."
It may seem unfathomable how a song with a lack of a "catchy" tune or other conventional musical elements could ever be "good" music, but trust me, it's possible. Mainly because it's here that the subjective factor comes in: what kind of music a person is likely to enjoy is largely dependent on how susceptible they are to this "realization" or change, or to put in better terms, how open they are to new experiences. And I say, the more open a person is in his or her music taste, the more likely they are to be able to recognize the other factors in unconventional music that still makes it enjoyable.
Of course, this doesn't mean that they have to like every single random song that is thrown at them. It just means that they are more likely to be able to recognize good quality songs regardless of how obscure those songs are... songs that can still inspire something in a person without needing to rely on trite techniques or cheap conventionalities like a lot of the so called "bad music" out there. (which is why they call bad music "soulless.") And quite honestly, I find unconventional "inspiring" music more impressive than conventional ones because it usually takes extra skill to pull that off; hence the contribution of factors such as what I refer to as musical or lyrical "complexity." Good lo-fi music isn't good simply because it's lo-fi; it's good because of what else it does to inspire its listeners without turning them off by its low audio quality. And conversely, it takes an open listener to get around the fact that the music is atypical and realize its true capability; an ignorant person would simply walk away assume the worst from a cursory glance (or listen). This leads to what I call music mislabeling. Of course, these people fail to understand why other people can enjoy the same music; some of them even like to rant about it.
Then again, some people can try to listen a thousand times to a song and never like it once regardless of how open they try to be. That's where REAL personal taste comes in. I have no problem with that. And others by nature just aren't that open in general; maybe they just like feeling comfortable with what they have. I'm fine with that too. It's when people in either category go a step further and try to make overbearing generalizations about the music they don't understand (hence, "all this pretentious indie crap; music nowadays is soulless") that I have issues. Or even worse, they make these generalizations about the people who like them. Yes, I have listened to Joanna Newsom's Is; more than 10 times, in fact (considering how long each song is). Yes, I actually do like her (her songs are calming to me; they're like beautiful majestic lullabies) and I don't mind her singing voice. Got a problem with that?
Typically, I only find music totally unlistenable when it either:
a: literally tries to scratch your eardrums out. for good medical reasons.
b: is overplayed too many times that I get sick of it.
c: comes across as overdone or repetitive, pointless, or "soulless" - true bad music
I think most people would tend to follow the same or similar rules for themselves. That last point is the real matter of contention in this case, but I believe that how much that changes depends on how willing a person is to listen to music objectively. They should look at the reasons why other people do like it first and try not to let the exotic nature of the music or their initial impressions affect their overall absolute judgment. Then they might have a better understanding of how it is possible to have good music out of so called "pretentious indie crap;" or otherwise recognize what really is good and bad music.
And don't even bring recognition into this debate. A lack of interest is okay, but bashing on a whole genre of music just because you've never heard more than half of its artists before is just being ignorant AND offensive to other people.
Indie rock is soulless? Give me a fucking break.
---
And on a better note, Euphoria - Oneday (album mix) is pretty awesome.
Well, I'll admit that there bands out there such that if I had to create a genre called "indie crap," I would lump them in that (considering how much indie I apparently I do listen to). I do sometimes get the sense of dull repetition and "whininess" when I hear those bands. But to characterize every indie band out there as a load of bull owing simply to the fact that their name isn't mainstream is another thing altogether.
Especially if you diss Yo La Tengo. ESPECIALLY From a Motel 6 Yo La Tengo. That song is anything but typical indie crap.
Of course, what makes music enjoyable to a person is largely subjective based on that person's tastes, but I do believe in the existence of objectively "good" and "bad" quality music like others do. However, I also tend to disagree with the way some of these people identify music as "good" or "bad."
Good quality music is more than just lyrics, a chorus, melodies, etc. By that measure, you could also analyze a song for its lyrical or melodic complexity and interactions, or the musician/singer's prowess and execution at carrying the song through, but that's not entirely the kind of good or bad scale that I'm getting at right away, considering that there are songs out there that can still come across well without being that "complex;" how enjoyable a song is also plays a major factor into this scale. A lot of mainstream music is like that: it's fun to listen to because it's simple or conventional, catchy, pleasing to the ear, or inspires a feeling in you. That's why I don't really mind it when other people play their music, or at least usually; I can see why they like it. I might like it myself.
And then of course there's other, obscure music that's... not so pleasing to the ear. (Noise rock! Screamo! etc. etc.) Or, so to speak, others that would come across as unconventional to your average listener. This doesn't make them bad by any means; they might just be innovating a certain aspect of their music in a way to achieve a different result. And sometimes it just takes a shift in perspective to realize what exactly this result means; I've had times when I've listened to a song once and disliked it, only to randomly hear it again (or a couple more times for that matter) and suddenly have something click in my mind, and all of a sudden it seems like God's next best gift to mankind (seriously). Repeated over time, this builds up to the point where music taste changes or expands as one comes to experience a wider variety of tastes; it's how I've managed to move on to liking groups in genres such as hip hop (well, knowing the kind of person I am) and some avant garde bands that I guess some would call "noise."
It may seem unfathomable how a song with a lack of a "catchy" tune or other conventional musical elements could ever be "good" music, but trust me, it's possible. Mainly because it's here that the subjective factor comes in: what kind of music a person is likely to enjoy is largely dependent on how susceptible they are to this "realization" or change, or to put in better terms, how open they are to new experiences. And I say, the more open a person is in his or her music taste, the more likely they are to be able to recognize the other factors in unconventional music that still makes it enjoyable.
Of course, this doesn't mean that they have to like every single random song that is thrown at them. It just means that they are more likely to be able to recognize good quality songs regardless of how obscure those songs are... songs that can still inspire something in a person without needing to rely on trite techniques or cheap conventionalities like a lot of the so called "bad music" out there. (which is why they call bad music "soulless.") And quite honestly, I find unconventional "inspiring" music more impressive than conventional ones because it usually takes extra skill to pull that off; hence the contribution of factors such as what I refer to as musical or lyrical "complexity." Good lo-fi music isn't good simply because it's lo-fi; it's good because of what else it does to inspire its listeners without turning them off by its low audio quality. And conversely, it takes an open listener to get around the fact that the music is atypical and realize its true capability; an ignorant person would simply walk away assume the worst from a cursory glance (or listen). This leads to what I call music mislabeling. Of course, these people fail to understand why other people can enjoy the same music; some of them even like to rant about it.
Then again, some people can try to listen a thousand times to a song and never like it once regardless of how open they try to be. That's where REAL personal taste comes in. I have no problem with that. And others by nature just aren't that open in general; maybe they just like feeling comfortable with what they have. I'm fine with that too. It's when people in either category go a step further and try to make overbearing generalizations about the music they don't understand (hence, "all this pretentious indie crap; music nowadays is soulless") that I have issues. Or even worse, they make these generalizations about the people who like them. Yes, I have listened to Joanna Newsom's Is; more than 10 times, in fact (considering how long each song is). Yes, I actually do like her (her songs are calming to me; they're like beautiful majestic lullabies) and I don't mind her singing voice. Got a problem with that?
Typically, I only find music totally unlistenable when it either:
a: literally tries to scratch your eardrums out. for good medical reasons.
b: is overplayed too many times that I get sick of it.
c: comes across as overdone or repetitive, pointless, or "soulless" - true bad music
I think most people would tend to follow the same or similar rules for themselves. That last point is the real matter of contention in this case, but I believe that how much that changes depends on how willing a person is to listen to music objectively. They should look at the reasons why other people do like it first and try not to let the exotic nature of the music or their initial impressions affect their overall absolute judgment. Then they might have a better understanding of how it is possible to have good music out of so called "pretentious indie crap;" or otherwise recognize what really is good and bad music.
And don't even bring recognition into this debate. A lack of interest is okay, but bashing on a whole genre of music just because you've never heard more than half of its artists before is just being ignorant AND offensive to other people.
Indie rock is soulless? Give me a fucking break.
---
And on a better note, Euphoria - Oneday (album mix) is pretty awesome.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Ryan Plays Too Many Games
Sooo recently I've gotten in the mood for playing games that I really don't have time for.
*insert compulsory list*
GRIM FANDANGO (Day of the Dead + Noir + LucasArts = Brilliance.)
Planescape: Torment
Freespace
Sam and Max Hit the Road
Fire Emblem: Sword of Seals
Front Mission DS
Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village
And books.
The Brothers Karamazov (Nathan doesn't know what a lecher is. Mech-e.)
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mrs. Dalloway
The Waves
Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass
The Satanic Verses
East of Eden
Absalom! Absalom!
- Among others.
and of course, musakk.
- too many to list.
and schedule planning.
-... I'm not even going there.
Eh, I'm full of myself sometimes.
I have The Magnetic Fields - When My Boy Walks Down the Street stuck in my head right now. And I feel too lazy to do work. Screw Physics and Ochem.
I feel like a recluse sometimes. asdffg.
*insert compulsory list*
GRIM FANDANGO (Day of the Dead + Noir + LucasArts = Brilliance.)
Planescape: Torment
Freespace
Sam and Max Hit the Road
Fire Emblem: Sword of Seals
Front Mission DS
Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village
And books.
The Brothers Karamazov (Nathan doesn't know what a lecher is. Mech-e.)
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mrs. Dalloway
The Waves
Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass
The Satanic Verses
East of Eden
Absalom! Absalom!
- Among others.
and of course, musakk.
- too many to list.
and schedule planning.
-... I'm not even going there.
Eh, I'm full of myself sometimes.
I have The Magnetic Fields - When My Boy Walks Down the Street stuck in my head right now. And I feel too lazy to do work. Screw Physics and Ochem.
I feel like a recluse sometimes. asdffg.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
To be honest, though, I never really wanted to believe what I said last night. One circumstance just led to another, leading it in that direction... But I can still see some of the things that I do want to believe in sometimes.
Well, if people feel like talking, I'm still always available. And if not... then that's okay too.
I'll just leave it at that.
Well, if people feel like talking, I'm still always available. And if not... then that's okay too.
I'll just leave it at that.
Monday, January 14, 2008
I've been disappointed by people. Plenty of times. Though it's not something you really talk about.
Of course, up until last year I tended to blame it all on myself. Nowadays I just figure it's because everyone sucks.
But you won't be hearing that from me aloud anytime soon.
God damn I'm so jaded it's not even funny.
Of course, up until last year I tended to blame it all on myself. Nowadays I just figure it's because everyone sucks.
But you won't be hearing that from me aloud anytime soon.
God damn I'm so jaded it's not even funny.
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