My tuMBLr
I like some things.
I don't like others.
Here are mostly things I like.
(via hellogiggles)
(via hellogiggles)
I had an absurd amount of energy begging to be focused this afternoon. I think it’s because work has been incredibly slow, so I spent most of the day reading paper after paper on automated scoring research, and I hadn’t used enough energy to even burn one of the grapes I ate during my afternoon snack.
So, in the past 5 hours, I’ve: Made and eaten dinner. Learned as far as making tables using Python. I can make it do math for me, and I can create lists, and I can make these lists into tables. After doing that for a while, I remained antsy, so naturally, I danced around my room to some songs from 19 by Adele, pretending I was a ballerina. I then, for a while, stood in front of this ridiculously dishonest mirror I inherited, at once thinking about how I am not as thin as it tells me I am and thinking of a good self-portrait I should photograph or even draw. Oh right, so then I decided to test out some of the charcoal I took from my dad, and I doodled an imaginary person’s portrait on a post-it and decided I like charcoal. I then decided to read the first chapter of Samantha Bee’s memoir, which is turning out to be pretty entertaining.
And that’s really what I did with my evening. Because I really need to find friends.
So I pretty much abandoned the 30 day music challenge. I still have a text file on my computer with the list, so maybe I’ll just go through them and list them without explanations and post that one day.
Anyway, I figured it was about time I actually used this tumblr. Why? Because I put it on a list of things to do, which I will now describe to you, the maybe two people who know this tumblr exists, but mainly to myself for the record of my sometimes OCD tendencies.
So I’ve gotten really into Post-Its lately. And list-making (which usually takes place on aforementioned Post-Its but sometimes on random scraps of paper, and sometimes I get real crazy and use an actual notebook page). Hyperorganization is a hobby I dabble in when I have too much alone time and/or when I want to procrastinate.
Lately, I’ve created daily post-it schedules of how I’m using my time at work (because it all needs to be broken up into different projects when I enter it into the system for the day for research budget reasons). I’ve recalculated my budget and checked my real numbers against it a bunch of times just because it’s fun(?). I’ve spent a while figuring out how to arrange my vacation/PTO hours. And, of course, the occasional random “to do today/this weekend/this week/this month” list pops into my mind.
Another thing I’ve been doing lately has been trying to figure out good ways to maintain a good/healthy life/work balance. So far, I’ve taken steps such as joining a “walking team” at work, which isn’t actually as ridiculous as it sounds. (And I got a free pedometer, so suck it!) I also signed up for a lunchtime fitness session for the next two weeks, so every Tuesday, I’ll be foregoing eating in the cafeteria and instead getting my ballet/kickboxing on. I’ve also considered joining a gym, but I guess that decision can wait till it’s too cold to run around the park a couple of blocks away. Anyway, that’s the health aspect. I’ve also been looking into the adult school schedule for language and art classes. I’m not sure what I might take there, but we’ll see.
Anyway, how do these two things relate to my tuMBLr?
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Day 11: A Song From My Favorite Band
With Arms Outstretched - Rilo Kiley
Like my favorite song, I’d have to say “my favorite band” is a very fluid title. It changes quite often. In fact, I think I have a love/hate dynamic with most. I guess that’s not quite right.. it’s more like a love/I’velistenedtoyounonstopfor2weeksandnowIneedabreak deal.
Interestingly, the only two band t-shirts I’ve felt compelled to buy at shows are for bands with primarily female vocalists, Rilo Kiley (Jenny Lewis) and She & Him (Zooey Deschanel). I’m not sure what that says about me, but it’s a piece of information I just realized myself, and I’m sure it can serve as some kind of segue into this next paragraph.
I’ve chosen Rilo Kiley to be my favorite band in today’s post, and I guess I have a slight idea why. It’s not because Jenny Lewis is super hot, which she is. See her perform sometime, you’ll completely understand. I think it’s because of the band’s always slightly offbeat versatility. The music is not crazy experimental, but it’s not the same as everything else, nor is it the same as itself. If that makes any sense. For example, the sound on their first few albums can range from folksy to electric to carnival-like to motown. (The last album didn’t quite have the same feel, but it still had some distinctive elements.) Some songs are pretty bare, while others are filled with special little themes and sounds.
I really like the lyrics too. I feel like they balance poetry and directness. While there is sometimes a requirement for extra thought to figure out what exactly is being said, it’s never too far beneath the surface. It’s not a jumble of words meant to sound or be exceptionally profound. It’s statements, it’s stories. It just is.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Day 10: A Song That Makes Me Fall Asleep
White Winter Hymnal- Fleet Foxes
This song doesn’t necessarily make me fall asleep, but it reminds me of sleeping. I became good friends with this guy who lived with me last summer, though I guess I shouldn’t even start there, because this happened before we were even good friends.
Most of last summer, three of us would spend a lot of our time lounging around the living room and smoking hookah. Some nights, he would really excitedly talk about a certain band or type of music and we’d listen to it and lay on the futon. One of the albums included in this was by Fleet Foxes, among other things like Bon Iver and Al Green and Passion Pit and a whole random assortment of things.
Anyway, I had never really listened to Fleet Foxes, but it definitely grew on me. And my first memories of it were these times we’d spend just laying on the futon soaking it in. And actually, quite a few of the times I heard the album afterward involved sleep. When he would sleep on our couch or in my bed after he moved out, we would sometimes listen to it late at night (or early in the morning, whatever you want to call it) as we fell asleep. So it’s more the entire album than specifically this song, and maybe more just the echoey woodsy quality of the sound than the actual album, but this song helps me to sleep.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Day 9: A Song That I Can Dance To
Stop- Spice Girls
OK, I’ve been slacking. But here goes. A song I can dance to. There are many songs I can attempt to dance to, but I’m gonna go back almost 3/4 of my life to the days when girl power meant very little more than looking sexy and tossing up a peace sign. Any Spice Girls song is also qualified for Day 8’s challenge… since I’m pretty sure I could sing every song from the first two albums.
Anyway, Spice Girls were a huge obsession. Examples, you say? I had every Spice Girls Barbie from the legit concert tour collection, for which my friends and I made pretty sophisticated stages from cardboard boxes. We held concerts for our neighbors and each picked a persona. I actually made the beginnings of a group called the Sweet Girls with two of my friends. I collected stickers and pictures and lollipop wrappers and unauthorized biographies. I started taking dance classes in hopes I’d learn some of their dance moves. And I obviously owned Spice World (which came with a free poster) and watched it many, many times.. though that mysteriously disappeared over the years.
Basically, I loved them. And they have never been an embarrassing thing about my past. They hardly did stupid things that ended up in the press, and their music is actually pretty different from the boy bands and teen queens that followed. I think I would actually still listen to the more upbeat tracks to exercise if I ever remembered to transfer them from my CDs to my computer. When I look back at my later obsession with BSB, it feels kind of silly… but I think mention of liking the Spice Girls is just fact.
So anyway, Stop is one of the many songs I made up or learned dances to. It’s great. Listen to it! Dance to it!
This is pretty.
