As much as I hate to admit it, this book is pretty interesting. It’s a book called Kokoro by Soseki, written in 1914 and it’s required reading for my Japanese history class. It’s a really, really, really long book consisting of 110 chapters (not including intros and other stuff), so I may not finish it by the time our final exam rolls around next Thursday. But it’s interesting, and I’ve started writing again so it’s a win-win. The only problem is that I’m reading it on my phone because I decided to go with the e-book since it wouldn’t ship in time. Not so bad, really, just small.

Read on to see what my shitty semester’s been like!

This semester has been a complete shit tank. My Advanced Japanese class was designed to fail students, I believe. And I’m not saying it out of spite due to the fact that I’ll probably manage getting a D; even the better students agree. I skipped a lot of days, ignored a lot of quizzes and homework assignments, but that’s because the sheer amount of work required was too much. We meet three times a week for 50 minutes each, and almost every single day we have a quiz and homework due (bar one day of two weeks). The lists for the quizzes would often contain up to 60 vocabulary or kanji but we would only be quizzed on 12. This was incredibly frustrating, I do not feel engaged and I do not feel properly educated in the subject because the mentality behind the classroom was, “Throw work at them and hope it sticks.” I cannot remember much of the vocabulary or grammar from earlier chapters because we rarely used it afterwards and there are hardly any exercises to help me understand and remember it.

Of course, part of it is my fault, I could have neglected it less. But seeing as I wouldn’t be getting $575 worth of education out of the class, rather, more like $100, I figured I could spent my time better elsewhere.

I neglected my business class as well because it was a joke. We were being taught the same information we’ve learned in previous classes and I was so enraged when I realized that the book the teacher required was pointless, I decided not to go to class. To top it off, we had a group project due late in the semester. This project was to highlight business norms of specific countries but a large part of the required material of our project seemed to be just busy work that was more suited for a geography class. Needless to say, this class didn’t get a nice review from me at the end of the semester.

All in all, this was a horrible semester. I plan to meet with whoever I need to in order to talk about refunding my account and fussing about the terrible education. I do not want to spend $575 per class to receive unguided education and redundant information.

Next up for writing is my review of the Atrix LapDock. Pointless, since it’s been replaced, but a whole semester of it has been good enough time to garner some loves and hates of the device.

It started with plans to run a muck at the bar/club Bullwinkles, or Bulls for short. It was $7 all you can drink, not top shelf night, but oh well. Drink I did, met some very drunk people, and knew it was time to stop drinking when I dropped my cup (plus, I wasn’t going to go pick it up). Whiskey and cola was the drink of choice between my friends and I, and we ordered random shots of whatever Trish, or bartender, cared to feed us with. Yelling was the only form of communication, so my voice had to deal with the only available drink, which isn’t the preferred choice. While there, I logged into my wordpress account and made a draft called, “The Big Spike” and wrote an odd message to myself. I only found this when I checked Saturday night and the word confused does not even begin to illustrate my emotions towards the discovery. Needless to say, that wasn’t the only weird event that happened at Bulls. I’m pretty sure one of the regular visitors to my store was hitting on me in the line for the bathroom. Yep, a male. I’m not completely sure though, as I was on my way to drunk town.

On Friday, I woke up to several blaring alarms and an unhappy body. I could feel the mini-hangover deep in my gut, and tried my best to subdue it with the last of my coffee and plenty of water. It wasn’t enough, though, and I had to really dig deep to study for my Japanese test that was about to take place. I eventually gave up, accepted the fact that it’d be a mediocre score, and tried to relax as I made my way to class. I finished the test early, skipped a section, and completely shanked another for a total of 14 lost points (out of 50). But hey, I did really well on the other stuff, surprisingly. I also had a presentation to do in Japanese for another class but I got a lucky break, as class got redirected at the last minute to do something else. That really made my day take off, cause later, I’d top it off with karaoke.

In the evening, I gathered the close friends at a local place called “What? Cafe” and we proceeded to invade their song list. And by “we” I mean Anna, Stephen, and myself. No biggie, I knew a few of them wouldn’t sing. That would have been me a year or so ago. The queue for songs was long, so I made my first choice and waited. My name was called about 20 minutes later and it began, the night of which I’d rock the stage each time I got up there. My first song was “Fell In Love With a Girl” by The White Stripes. Before me, there wasn’t really anyone singing very loudly and so I turned a few heads when I bellowed the first lines. Following right behind me was another person playing The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” and he later complimented me on my song choice. My next song happened about 30 minutes later because I put in two requests and then removed the first one, deciding that I’d save it for the next time.

The song I sang next would be “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers. This song was the apex of the night. As I hit the chorus, the whole audience got into it and sang with me. It was awesome and it fed me. Now I realize how much audience participation helps when you’re on stage. I did my thing, even got some “Whooooo!” ‘s from the audience when I hit the high note on the line “I neveeeeeeerrr.” My last two songs would be “Yellow” by Coldplay and “I’m On Fire” by Bruce Springsteen. From what Stephen and Tiffany told me, I’d do a Johnny Cash song pretty well after they heard me sing “I’m On Fire.” During the middle of the night, we did a quad-et (four people) singing “Play That Funky Music” but I pretty much just did backup. I’m not so familiar with that kind of funky music, unfortunately.

To completely ruin my voice for the beginning of the week would be gameday Saturday, FSU vs. Oklahoma. I shouted and yelled, drank beer and soda, and just all around neglected my voice. I’m still feeling it days later. Good news is, I’ve been improving my beer pong game, so I’m feeling like I could take down tons of people at the next party.

I picked up the album the next day and immediately loved how it sounded in my car. Very chill, very simple music. The music rides along the line of “80s drum beats” and “beachy guitar riffs.” But it works so well, and the vocals are fantastic. My favorite tracks are probably “Me and the Moon,” “Down by the Water,” and “Let’s Go Surfing.” I’ve already started to learn these three songs and I think “Down By the Water” is going to be the one that I master first. Like their other song’s guitar riffs, t’s simple and pretty much a heart lifter. Hit the jump for one of their videos:

If you’re a fan of the indie genre, like relaxed and hip swingin’ music with a bit of a funky kick to it (due to the synths in some songs), you’ll definitely love The Drums. They’ll be in Tallahassee soon, too, on October 26th.

Here’s a taste:

It’s a really really nice thought, don’t get me wrong. Anything that helps people have a reason to be good is good to me. However, this is just odd to me. I’m one of those natural “do-gooders,” I have a hard time taking advantages of things. I don’t have to think twice about doing good for anyone’s sake. So, when it comes to the idea that I would get good back for doing good, I see it as a reward for doing what is right, but shouldn’t need to be rewarded. Maybe I’m just a dreamer, but the concept holds little water to me, and would be pointless explaining it to a do-gooder just as trying to describe farming to a farmer.

The other part of the problem I have with karma is the fact that if it were real, do-gooders would be the most powerful social class, what with their rewards and all, and the people who did wrong wouldn’t need to question themselves. There’d be a clear line between good and wrong, not grays like how life really is. If I had good moments for all the nice things I did for others, I’d never have moments like bad days at work, moments of jilt from girls, poor grades, and trouble paying tuition. I’d never have parking trouble, I’d never have car troubles, and never have to be careful with my money. Karma is something for “bad” people who are turning good to think about, but it’s not much good unless luck comes in and keeps bad things from still happening.

Maybe you’ve caught on to where I was taking this. These moments make us who we are, we’re all molded due to experience, good and bad luck, and reaction. I’m glad that karma isn’t real, because we’d all have such a different world around us. The good becoming gooder, with the only incentive being  rewards, while the bad have to struggle with who they are and the decisions they decided to make. I could just be rambling on, but I think I’ve put the idea down. We’re all unique, good moments and bad moments are not always due to your cause, and never expect rewards for what you’ve done, if you want to be the symbol for good.

At least, that’s what I think, from my experience.

For the past month I have been focusing on learning how to play This Modern Love by Bloc Party on the acoustic guitar. I have been really picking up on it in the past two weeks, successfully completely sections of the song with little mistakes and smooth transitions. The problem I’ve been having lately is playing the more intensive parts, like when Kele sings, “I’ll pay for you, anytime.” I have begun trying to play that part but it’s so quick and full of changes that I’m a bit overwhelmed. I might just skip it with my substitute being taps on the guitar.

I’m not so worried about how to play while singing. I know the vocals like the back of my hand, I just need to adjust to playing and singing. I’ve always wanted to play this song, but only now have I been having practice sessions that are quicker, more fluid, and with passion behind it to do the song justice. I fucking love this song, it speaks volumes for me.

The song is really beautiful. It may take some time to notice where it’s going, so I’ll fill you in. It’s about a person who is having trouble showing their feelings to the person they are involved with. They can’t really explain it, although they realize their problem, and want to work on it while having their love interest at the same time. They tell their love, “Don’t get offended if I seem absent minded, just keep telling me facts and keep making me smile.” I see it as someone reaching out and being completely open and vulnerable with their love. They ask, “Why so damn absent minded? Why so scared of romance?” It’s rare, for me at least, I don’t usually do that myself. Anyways, it’s why I love playing it, I think it’s really awesomely written and it sends chills down my spine because of how real it is and the passion delivered by Kele’s voice.

I’m nearly ready to play it for others. By next week, I think I’ll have a video posted.