Study Playlists
I’m sure this is not a unique thing, but I don’t just require music to study–I require different playlists for different subjects. And, because it’s me, there’s a thought-out, logical explanation for each playlist.
French: When studying French, I need background noise to drown out my own thoughts. Why, you ask? No, not because I’m so emo I need to escape my sad sad robot thoughts. It’s because I think in English, and I’m in that “two different channels” mode with languages right now, where I can’t think in French if I hear English. So my music tends to be lyric-less, so I don’t catch English words and accidentally switch back to an English train of thought. That means I lean towards lyric-less Apocalyptica songs or iTune’s classical radio station. I can also listen to French music, and in high school I used to very consistenly study my French while listening to Indochine. Since I lost that album, though, I mostly will listen to Camille.
Journalism: This requires splitting, because (this quarter, at least) I’ll either be reading for my history of journalism class, or I’ll be writing for my newswriting class.
Journalism/reading: This is true of almost anything I read, but I dislike background noise. When reading for pleasure (and this textbook, thankfully, definitely falls under that category), I like being in a coffee shop-esque place, where there is a murmur of people talking around me. White noise is really productive for pleasure reading, which is why I’m more apt to study for my media history class in Adagio as opposed to the library. If I’m in the library and I need to catch up on reading for that class, I’ll usually just suck it up and read in silence, or (if fuckers start talking) I’ll turn on one of my free iTunes lectures on Middle Eastern politics and turn it way low (oh I’m almost embarrassed at how nerdy that made me sound).
Journalism/newswriting: For this, all my other rules go out the window. I don’t require soft white noise or something that won’t distract me. When I’m writing an article for The Front, I like music as loud and as screamy as possible. I’ll usually work on my stories in my apartment just for this reason, and blast Breaking Benjamin at a volume that makes me concerned for my speakers. Why this odd switch in music volume? Newswriting makes me nervous. It’d take way too long (an entirely different post) to explain why, so we’ll just leave it at making me very nervous and stressed. And when I’m nervous and stressed, I overthink things. If I blast music so loud my brain can’t think, then I tend to transcribe instead, which actually makes for better newswriting. My connectors between quotes are vastly simplified and quotes take up the bulk. Any explanations in my articles loose excess, unnecessary words. If I need to go back through the barebones of a story and spice it up, I’ll write in the computer labs where there is ample white noise, or switch my music to a tolerable volume level and change it to And You Will Know Us…
Biology: Right now, I’m in the library and I’m listening to Tegan and Sara on my headphones. I have two albums playing on random, and it’s perfect for transcribing the end of the chapter notes, which is one of the best ways I ingest knowledge from this bulky textbook, filled with superfluous descriptions. If I do read the chapter, I’ll hunker down in the reading room of the library, where it’s so quiet you can hear a pin drop. I’m not super interested in my Biology textbook, so unlike pleasure reading, where I require white noise, I need no noises that could distract me.
Ta-da!
First Day of School Checklist
[ X ] Outfit
[ X ] Books (in a super cute new bag)
[ X ] Coffee (still exhausted from Chris Burke concert, more on that later)
[ X ] Planner, Schedule, and list of class locations
[ ] Self Esteem and Confidence…..
I’m nervous. I haven’t been this nervous on a first day in a long time *pre-college, to be a little more specific.
I’m in a class I failed last fall, and it’s nerve-wracking. Why? Because I failed a class! The humiliation is huge (but apparently not too huge to broadcast all over the internet), and I’m worried about a repeat. Not that there should be one, but still. I’m only super-interested in one class, the rest are just requirements. So I’m nervous. I don’t want to mess it up. I want to make new friends. I want work to go well. I want to like my teachers. I want to speak up more.
That’s a lot of wants.
Wish me luck?
Go Fags, Go!
We had a debate in class last Friday. I was to present, with the fellow members of my group, a con side to the question “Are civil unions democratic and just?”
Acknowledging that there are many ways to argue a con to that question, the gay/gay supporting among us chose to argue that civil unions were undemocratic and unjust because they institutional segregation–their existence serves as the excuse to keep gay men and women from marrying, from the term “marriage”, as well as deny them the rights at both a federal and state level that accompany such “married” status.
After some back and forth, “marriage” was defined as having both a political definition and a religious definition, and the religious one should have no bearing on the political.
And yet it does. The debate continued, and since neither side was against gay rights, it mostly consisted of how to achieve those rights. Yet the Q&A from the audience raised some points* about when the people will be “ready” for such action, and asked how we respond to those who argued that progress is a slow-moving, yet steady process.
That was were my hurt lays, where the point of this whole entry lays. I couldn’t help but feel tempted to respond to them “it doesn’t fucking matter how long it takes YOU to feel comfortable with ME having equal rights!”. It hurts that people, time after time, feel that they have the right to use their emotional and religious beliefs to justify withholding rights to others. Yes, on an emotional level, I feel gay people should have the right to a political marriage. I feel that it is unfair that I can marry a man but not a woman. I don’t like it, and it hurts.
That said, For a debate, to actually try to convince an opponent that I’m right, I rely on facts. I rely on logic. I don’t say DOMA (Defense Of Marriage Act) is wrong because it is biased and judgemental and full of bigotry, I argue that DOMA violates certain constitutional rights guaranteed by the Equal Protection Act, and acts with blatant disregard for the rights that are supposed to be protected by the Full Faith and Credit Clause (Art IV, Sect I of the Constitution).**
What bothers me is that it’s not enough. It’s not enough that I, with NO legal training, can point out what is wrong with civil unions being the only option available to gay couples, with DOMA, as they are used today. Certain rights are denied to a certain group of people for no reason other than the bigotry in a majority, despite the protection of the Constitution, and that bothers me. It’s really frustrating that institutional segregation exists even today.
It’s frustrating, and it hurts.
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* It should be noted that those who asked the questions were all very respectful, and were not anti-gay rights. They were simply posing hypotheticals, and pointing out the arguments of others. They were a really nice audience.
**I assume it goes without saying that this is a more personal complaint that an argument against DOMA or civil unions as they are used today. If you want to hear that argument, or participate in a civil debate with me about it, feel free to engage. But don’t think that this is all I’ve got.
Anti-Life
Who is ever, honestly, going to admit to being anti-life? No. You always have to be “pro” something.
That is my biggest pet-peeve in debates. You have to make it sound horrible to be against you. You can’t win that way! Even if I don’t want to call myself “anti-life”, I’m not changing my opinion. I’ll stick with the friendlier sound of “pro-choice”. Who doesn’t want choice? I know I do. What? You mean you’re against CHOICE? What kind of fascist are you? Yeah. You can’t argue because I’m using the word fascist.
I guess the abortion debate is a highly emotional one, though, so it makes a little bit of sense that it becomes such a charged issue.
Still. If you ever start a formal debate with the words “Raise your hand if you like freedom. Yeah? You do? Well, then you’ll know I’m right. I’m for freedom”, I will have the urge to hit you in the face. I’m pro-peace, though, so I won’t actually do it.
I’ll just think it really loudly…..
But seriously. Present facts. Present logical statements. Present arguments with a point–not some meaningless drivel that makes me feel emotionally guilty if I don’t agree with everything that comes out of your mouth. Do you really want people to agree with you only out of guilt of saying no? Even if they’re really passionate about the other side of the argument? Wouldn’t it be a better feeling if you won a person over to your side of the debate because you had a stronger logical argument, as opposed to them simply being afraid of calling themselves “anti-life” or “anti-choice”?
I think so… I think it’s a much better feeling.
