Escape Reality

The bottom line is, we must take the time out of life to listen to the music.  Cliché, figuratively, and literally.  Everyone is always killing themselves to do the best they can and be the best they can be and are rushing from one point of life to the next because they feel they have no time.  I am guilty of this as well.

I don’t want to live life like this.  What’s the point of carrying burden on top of burden which could potentially just crumble down on top of you anyways?  Music is a therapy.

I’m turning this year around.  After dealing with the several hardships in the past year, my internship in electric dance music has thrown multiple opportunities right in my path, many Thursday nights through Friday mornings devoted to getting lost in the music, the lights, the friendship.  Drug-free, but I still lose myself in it and I’m addicted to the feeling. 

“Here I am transported to a place

That feels unreal

Futuristic” (“It’s Kind of Funny”, Bright Lights Big City, http://visual-symphonies02.blogspot.com/)

It’s hard to explain the feeling, but it does indeed bring you to a different place, a different dimension where all that matters is you, the music, and the love and friends you’re surrounded by.

I’ve only been to local shows; maybe one to three DJs for a night.  After the hardest semester of college and before I graduate, this New Year’s I’ll be going to Dallas, Texas for my first ever festival: Lights All Night 2012.  It is three days long.  Needless to say, this will be the ultimate therapy to start fresh in 2013.

“Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence.” (Benjamin, Illuminations)

At a festival or a show—surrounded by similar people who share the same love and passion for music as you do—there is no concept of time and space.  This place is something surreal and it’s as if time freezes for a little bit just for the people there that they may forget about life for an instant and be completely enveloped in the music.

http://dfwhappenings.com/2011/12/13/lights-all-night-music-fest-new-years-eve-electronic-festival-in-dallas/

True Life

I won’t say money is evil but it has the power to influence people and society in that direction.  It’s something we want to say not to worry about, but without it we wouldn’t be able to survive.  Without it we couldn’t do a lot of the things we love to do.

I love my family and friends and love to get them birthday presents and Christmas ones, so there’s one time where money will get you.  Going to Dallas for New Year’s requires quite a bit.   Groceries are more expensive than ever and not to mention gas. 

We work our lives away losing time and gaining money.  It’s sad, really.  Something always gets in the way.  There’s been so many times where I can’t go visit my parents because of too much with school.  We dig ourselves into a massive debt getting through college but if you don’t go to college the odds of making a living to survive are slim to none more and more as the time passes. 

It’s unfortunate to have to worry so much about where your next meal will come from and not to mention the random things that pop up along in life.  We want to enjoy life without this stress of money but it’s impossible.  This cycle is never ending.

http://www.naplesreporting.com/court-reporting-blog/bid/200659/Albert-Einstein-and-the-Value-of-Court-Reporting-Firms

http://thoughtsfromandromeda.blogspot.com/

2013

I guess I still haven’t figured out this concept of “time.”  Everything depends on it.  I think of my time well spent, time wasted and lost, times of happiness and times of sorrow, and regret.  This year hasn’t been easy by any means.  2012 has been by far the worst year I can remember in my life.  True not all was bad, but I lost someone for the first time.  And then eight short months later, another.  Husband and wife.  My grandpa and grandma.  I think of the time spent with them and think of how lucky we were to have them as grandparents.  We spent the weekend with her just two weeks before she died suddenly and went to see him when we heard of the cancer.  Time well spent.

I learned for the first time how hard it is to take your own advice you give to the stupid girls who let guys abuse them.  If you love someone, you will make excuse upon excuse to forgive them.  After the saliva to the face, he still drew me back in.  Waking up a morning after heavily drinking and fighting the night before, the bleeding scars on my arms should have been a wake-up call.  But still no.  I don’t think when he shoved me down the stadium’s steps is what did it.  It all hit me at once and I couldn’t do it anymore.  I can’t decide if this was a complete waste of the last two years of my life or if it was extreme lessons learned. Possibly time lost to find someone worthwhile. 

Now that this year is drawing to a close, I am truly relieved.  Time to celebrate and forget 2012 at this massive music festival in Dallas.  Music, especially the genre of Electronic Dance Music provided an escape from the hurt in life and what better way to kick of the New Year?  I think back for a second to the 1920s when “Jes Grew” as they labeled the outbreak of ragtime music as a plague that must be stopped emerged.  Why would people want to prevent others happiness and possibly their own?  It made no sense and this made me appreciate the time I was born.  Being a 90s baby, I’ve experienced more freedom with not only music, but religion, opportunity, etc. Not to mention this technology-inclined era.  This music incorporated and utilized so much of today’s technology; I couldn’t imagine growing up and having my younger years in any other era of time.  I’m glad the 20s made it through but thankful I didn’t come for another 70 years later.

 

Thankful to those who made the freedom of expression in music possible, it was time to let the passion fly and bring in 2013 with contentment and forgetting regrets.  It was time to let my scars heal.  Remembering those I love.  10 seconds left to midnight, the DJs shake the champagne bottles.  5, 4, 3, (everyone is screaming) 2, 1—and the champagne is sprayed in every direction, soaking us all in the promise of redemption that the New Year will bring. 

http://zhixintariq.blogspot.com/2012/10/10-seconds-til.html
http://joonbug.com/miami/firstcourse/Where-to-eat-on-New-Years-Eve/BBYcZ5WC94P
http://www.facebook.com/ElectricLiveMusic?fref=ts#!/photo.php?fbid=239526622816682&set=a.227191970716814.32807.192394630863215&type=1&theater

Drowning It Out

Tuesdays.  I hate Tuesdays.  Tuesdays are staff meeting days.  Always swamped between the days of Sunday and Thursday— the meat of the stress Tuesday and Wednesday—I typically just head straight to the unit instead of going home first.  Hopefully I remember to pack some food so I don’t starve.

That room, the room we all wait in for the 6pm meetings to start, slowly fills up and as it does, it gets noisier and noisier by the second to where you’re about to punch somebody in the face if they talk to you.  Thank God when we remember to bring our headphones. 

Today was worse than usually.  Everyone seemed to be there and they all succeeded in being annoying.  Headphones.  I quickly hit whatever on my iTunes just needing something to drown out the distractions all around. 

Bob Marley with Manley and Seaga at Peace Concert
(One Love Peace Concert, Jamaica, 1978)

           Don’t worry about a thing,

‘Cause every little thing is gonna be alright.

Singin, don’t worry about a thing,

‘Cause every little thing is gonna be alright.

 

Thanks Bob.  How can I not freaking worry when nobody will shut up and I have a million things to do?!

 But almost unconsciously I started to, well, not worry as much.  Bob Marley was successfully drowning out the voices around me; however, it brought me back to the first car ride I took with my mom and sisters to Florida State.  We were going to orientation while I was still in my last year of high school.  I was nervous as shit. 

Jax to Tallahassee

Everyone always tells you to ‘not be nervous’ and that “everything will be fine!”  Do these cliché statements ever really help ease the nerves?  No.  But “Three Little Birds” did.

It came on a random radio station while driving down I-10 and we sat in silence for a few seconds.  My littlest sister with the biggest personality began to sing along to Bob’s words and one by one we were all until the end when we started laughing and singing everything that came on the radio together therein after. 

There is one good thing about music.  It does in whatever situation, unite us.

http://labellavita916.blogspot.com/
http://www.interstate-guide.com/i-010.html

 

Four Short Years

Wasted, lying in the morning dew on the tips of the plowed over grass outside the bar, my hair was tangled with twigs and spurs and I was just so tired.  Red and blue lights flash all around but no one comes to arrest me.  Instead I feel massive arms slide under me, hoist me up, and then all is black. 

I make a microwaveable dinner after what feels like the longest day each day and just want to sit and enjoy myself for a second.  I flip on one of my favorites and even after I’ve finished eating, I swear to myself just one and then I’ll do my schoolwork.  And study for that test.  Then one by one, I’m watching continuously, endlessly putting off my responsibilities.  I awake missing my first two classes the next afternoon, the TV still on.

It’s Friday.  All I want to do is drink, let loose, and have fun after the week I’ve had.  Somehow, I think I deserve it.  First is happy hour followed by some sort of bar.  I tell myself I’ll at least clean my house the next day.  But nope it’s either a pool day or game day and then let’s be real; another bar.  Sunday is recovery day.  All I want to do is sleep.  I finally pull myself out of bed and begin working on things absentmindedly, only to give up a few hours later and pass out. Again. 

Last year.  Somehow I've changed for the better, but life is still overwhelming, probably paying me back for the time I've wasted.  I want to do everything, and I do yet I'm forced to fit at least three semesters worth of work into two; no second chances.  Twenty credit hours, NROTC, and my internship?  Am I setting myself up for failure?  I have to do what’s expected: graduate and get my commission in the Spring. It’s possible; but I feel myself falling every day.  Always on time for the extra, but never on time for classes.  I forgot about a French quiz today, but worked those freshman to the bone.  Always forgetting something, my organization-as soon as I feel I have a handle-goes out the window.  And I refuse to miss the major parts of college outside of school.  There's no way in hell I would've missed the Clemson game or any game for that matter and you can bet I'll play on your intramural sports team.  It's my fault; I look back and kick myself.  Always making an excuse to take the minimum because of Calculus.  Deciding what to do with the rest of my life at the last possible second.  So many requirements for my major, none of which overlap with NROTC.  In this continuous cycle of always being behind.  I’m rushing.  Rushing myself to fail. 

But then I think, I must not have messed up too badly; I’ve made it to my senior year.  Would I really want to look back on college and missed all those classic experiences?  True, much of them I felt stupid and compelled to apologize the next day.  But some were the best times I've had because I made my true friends through our silliness and need to break away from school for a second.   I would never want to look back on my experience and think of all the fun I didn’t have.  It’s only four short years.  Four short years to be immature and make mistakes before the real world has a chance to chew you up and potentially spit you out.   Last year.  I'll make it.

http://www.markflavinblog.com/how-to-get-backlinks-fast/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_State_University_College_of_Business