music. . . .

When I was younger I would watch Disney movies all the time. One time when I was watching The Little Mermaid I had an epiphany and knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, a singer. Not that The Little Mermaid was one of my favorite movies, I just thought that I sounded extra good singing those songs.

I took up guitar, piano, and voice lessons so that I could be a singer. I soon realized though that my stage fright was going to be what brought me down. And now I'm just someone who is cynical and will probably end up at an everyday boring job. But that's life.

Even so, music has always been there for me.

I grew up in a pretty weird household. Music was no exception. My mom only listened to country music and my dad listened to oldies and some old rock. In my mom's car I would hear Faith Hill and The Dixie Chicks and Martina McBride. In my dad's car I would listen to The Animals and Diana Ross and the Supremes and Hall and Oates.

So when I was younger I just took in what was around me and there it was. I liked a mix of older music and country. And it was just plain weird. But I have to say, I guess it makes me who I am partly. And yes, this is about how it was until I was sixteen. Not that I didn't listen to other things but if you know anything about me, I had no control of my life until I was sixteen.

As soon as I could drive and I was in control of the music I became really interesting. I don't know how to describe my music taste. I have something for every mood. I love to listen to the 80s. This type was introduced to me by my babysitter when I was about seven I suppose. We'd be going somewhere and belting "Little Red Corvette" at the top of our lungs. (Which is actually super dirty.) And we listened to "Jessie's Girl" which is like one of my favorite songs now.

I have some old rock that's from my dad and some that he didn't really care for like Led Zeppelin. I would have to say I get along more with my dad's taste in music than my mom's, but there is some country that I don't mind. Sara Evans is a country singer and she has an amazing voice. Her first CD was the best though, in my opinion. Brad Paisley has some stuff that is hilarious and even though it's not something that I really listen to that much if I'm flipping channels on the radio and one of his songs is on like the one about how he's cooler online then no I probably won't change it.

I surprise a lot of people on this point. I don't dislike screamo, hard rock stuff. I like Disturbed especially "Down With the Sickness." I like "Lonely Day" by System of a Down, but I really like most of their stuff. They have this really cool version of the Link theme song thingy that's called "Legend of Zelda."

I also like some newer stuff like Augustana, Panic at the Disco, and The Shins. I don't really like rap more supposedly "cooler" stuff like that but I do like Usher's new song "Love in This Club."

Well it's that time. You all knew that it was coming (if you know me AT ALL.) I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE THE KILLERS!!!!!! They are the best band ever and I would listen to them anytime of any day. I will never get tired of them, they are that amazing.

I also love Modest Mouse because they are amazing. We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank is my favorite CD of theirs, but Good News for People Who Love Bad News was great too. "Dashboard" is one of the most carefree songs and I love it because of that. "Parting of the Sensory" and "Missed the Boat" are pretty much completely depressing and I love them for that. The band is just amazing.

"I'll Be Right Behind You Josephine," by Josh Woodward is an awesome song. It's like a mix of depression and intense love and it's great.

"Romeo and Juliet" was originally done by Dire Straits and it was one of my favorite songs that wasn't done by The Killers and then on their most recent album The Killers redid it as if it was a gift especially for me. It is a great song.

A song for every mood:

I like Nirvana. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is like one of the best songs ever. No it's not deep or anything but if I'm really mad thats like the perfect song for me to listen to. The Foo Fighters are pretty good too. They were formed by Dave Grohl who was in Nirvana originally after Nirvana came to an end. "The Pretender" is my favorite song of theirs.

I like Bright Eyes. "A Perfect Sonnet" is a really great song and I like to listen to it sometimes when I'm in a mad slash sad mood, ya know? There's usually a guy involved.

I like "You and Me" by Lifehouse. I agree with Brianna this is like one of the best love songs EVER!!!

I like "Numb" by Linkin Park because sometimes that's the way my parents make me feel.

I like to listen to Prince when I'm in the car by myself because the dancing is too embarrassing for others to see.

I have to say when I wrote this post I didn't like it. And I still don't. Theres a quality to it that I actually hate. But alas I don't know what else to do.

I got a few quotes from people about music, so here they are:

"music is my life, totally and completely, i could never ever live without it; it helps me get through any crisis, its like another best friend" -Blair

"i don't really know what to say about music. i just listen to it." -Jack

"Music isn't just refreshing, it's more of an escape from reality for a few moments, and end to end, those few moments are well lived." -Patrick

"To me music means being able to express everything..... your beliefs, your thoughts, and your dreams. Its a way to express your individuality without worrying what others think of you. Music allows the real you to come alive....." -Lyndssey

" actually
i really don't know what to say
I guess

i love music

It's an escape when I need it to be

it's a shelter when I have nowhere else to go

it's what keeps me sane

lol" -Shuyao

I hope you enjoyed.

-Lacey

PS I know this post is long and I'm sorry but you ask me to write about music what do you think you'll get.

I left out sadly but want to mention:

THE BEATLES!!!- Possibly the greatest band of all time.
"Sister Golden Hair" by America One of the best songs ever.
THE BANGLES!!! Who doesn't like "Manic Monday."
The Backstreet Boys- You know you listened to them. . . I was never an NSYNC girl.
The Cars- one of the influences of The Killers and also awesome
The Cure- LOVE LOVE LOVE "Just Like Heaven" Great band.
A FINE FRENZY- Okay one of my favorite female singers leads this band in their awesomeness. Check it out for real!!!
Fleetwood Mac- If I ever actually became a singer I'd audition with one of her songs. Probably "Dreams"
Paramore- "Misery Business" is the best mad at your boyfriend for cheating on you song. Like even if he hasn't . . . listen to it anyways.
The Sweeney Todd Soundtrack -It was amazing (shout out to Blair, because we sing it amazingly) and so was the Chicago soundtrack.

We will save elaborating on the wonder of the 80s for another post. Thank you and goodnite.

You Are The Music In Me

The month of August is very special. This month we'll be having themes every week. Yeah, I know. It's awesome! I'm not really sure if I need to 'introduce' the themes each week. You'll probably be able to figure it out by the end of my post, and you'll most definitely know by the end of the week. So, yeah. Here we go!

So, I was thinking about what I wanted to focus on in this post. I figured I would talk about one of my favorite bands, or someone I had recently gotten into. But, I couldn't decided on one. So, I decided to make sort of a superlatives type thing of music. I'll list that below. But first I'd like to explain something. I listen to a lot different types of music. Not because I like them all. I just do it so I can always have something to talk about with other people. Since everyone listen to music. So, my list will have a bunch of different genres, although my favorite music (ROCK!!!) doesn't vary much. Let the list begin!

Favorite song lyrically: What Sarah Said by: Death Cab for Cutie
Favorite song musically: Thriller by: Michael Jackson
Favorite music video: Savin' Me by: Nickelback (link in the title)
Favorite to blast in the car: Livin on a Prayer by: Bon Jovi
Favorite happy song: Perfect Day by: Hoku
Favorite sad song: Stole by: Kelly Rowland
Favorite love song: You and Me by: Lifehouse
Favorite boy band song: Affirmation by: Savage Garden
Favorite inspirational song: Man in the Mirror by: Michael Jackson
Song on the radio I actually like: Stop and Stare by: OneRepublic
Favorite dance song: Dance Floor Anthem (I don't want to be in love) by: Good Charlotte
Favorite whiny song: I'm Just a Kid by: Simple Plan (although all their songs are really whiny)
Favorite corny parent song: In My Daughter's Eyes by: Martina McBride
Favorite song to whistle: Change Your Mind by: The All-American Rejects
Favorite song to sing: Beautiful Day by: U2
Song that fits my life right now: Revolution by: The Beatles
Way too overplayed on the radio: Keep Bleeding by: Leona Lewis (it's not even a good song!)
Song I despise the most: Teardrops On My Guitar by: Taylor Swift (I despise most of her music)

So there you go. I think you can learn a lot about a person by the music they listen to. So I'm really excited to read everyone's posts this week.

We got a view from Romania. I'm not actually sure where that is, but it's still really cool! Yeah...

-Brianna

PS- I don't actually like High School Music, the title just fits.

PPS- To the other Power Bloggers expect something in the mail...soon.

Revolution

Wait!! This isn't what it seems!! This post isn't going to be a history lesson on the war between the English and the Americans. This isn't going to be a post about my feelings to mutiny against the government or to lead a religious front against the people or to try and convince you to rebel. This is a post about a revolution in our everyday lives. A post about revolution in our towns, in our schools, in our neighborhoods, and in our hearts. Please, just give it a minute and see what I am talking about.

So one day, I was walking to my sixth period pre-calculus class, when all of the sudden my precalc and chemistry textbooks slipped out of my hands and onto the floor. When I bent over to pick them up, my binder fell and papers flew everywhere. A girl whom I didn't even know stopped to help me pick up my things while everyone else around me was pointing and laughing.

This is the kind of revolution I am talking about.

Many times, I have seen similar situations, but unfortunately, I am usually the one that just walks right by, feeling as if their problems were nothing that I should worry about. Is it so hard for us to lend a helping hand once in a while?

Or what about the new girl, who sits all by herself at lunch while you and your friends gossip about her past and her choice of clothing? Why do we find it so difficult to invite her to hang out with us? Why is it hard to be friendly?

What about the dorky kid who sits next to you in, oh, engineering, reading nonfiction war novels and talking about battle reenactments all the time? Would it kill you to get to know him, help him with his CAD assignment and listen to his stories about island hopping in World War II?

You may be reading this and thinking, "Oh, I am nice to everyone!"

Thats B.S. I know that for a fact.

Some people consider me the nice girl, yet I sit at a lunch table and talk about people for forty five minutes. And I'm not saying, "oh, so-and-so's project was phenomenal" or "I love what she is wearing today!". Its stuff like "Oh my gosh did you hear that stupid question that so-and-so asked today? How are thay even in AP classes?!" And normally, I'm not even the one talking. I sit there and go along with it, telling myself that its okay to gossip as long as I'm not the one spreading it. In reality, the fact that I'm not putting an end to it makes me even worse.

Its the worst when people are just ignorant. When you forget that others have feelings, too, and you just go on with your life without a single care about those around you. Thats what this revolution is about.

Its about finding the strength to be kind, in a world where kindness is out of style. Its about reaching out towards others even though people may talk about you behind your back, even though it may jeopardize your social status. Its about breaking away from the people who influence you to hold back and judge you for making the right decision.

You may think that you can't make a difference, but a revolution like this could transform your friends and the lives of the people you reach out to.

It can transform your life, as I hope it transforms mine.

-Caroline

Adventures In SAT Tutoring

Sup guys (i said sup. im so cool). Green power blogger here with Saturday's post. If you love this blog and you haven't joined the facebook group, GO JOIN NOW! (strangers welcome) Nothing interesting happened to me this week and I don't have much to talk about. So let's explore the world of SAT tutoring. Yay!!!!!

It's my first day of SAT tutoring and I'm very annoyed that I have to resort to $1000 tutoring. But my mom paid for it so I really had no choice. So I walk through the doors and there's a very bored looking security guard. He looks at me really surprised and asks me,
"How did you get through the door?"
Me: "I pushed."
"But I locked it."
Me: *shrug*
So he walks over to the door and locks it. Yeah, that will definitely let the other students in. I walk towards the classroom and everything about the room is plain, white and boring. Even worse, there were no boys present in the room. Five other girls were in the class and I was the only guy. So I sit down and immediately the mood was.... well think of it as trying to stick two same ends of a magnet together. They repel. It was like everyone was claustrophobic. So I say hi to strike up a conversation and it works! That's when I learn everyone is a senior except me. So I'm the only guy in the class AND I'm the youngest. And now that I got the mood lighter, I'm in a room full of giggling senior girls.
Interrupting Note: Stop thinking I'm a player.

Finally the teacher comes in and to my relief, he's a guy. So we go around and say our intros and then we start. Two of the girls are from a private school, one is home schooled, and the other two are from rival tennis schools. We start with the math section and I'm breezing through the whole session without even trying. It turns out that we're doing math the whole day and so I'm stuck doing extremely easy problems and three hours slip by in an instant. I feel a bit bad because I know most of the problems and I'm sort of showing it off to those who don't.

The session finally ends and we go home with two new ginormous SAT practice books. As I walk towards the door, the security guard is having a fit. It turns out that my dad walked in through the doors as someone was going out (doors are locked outside but can be opened from the inside). The guard was saying,
"No no no. You can't do that. Only I can open the doors."
My dad is barely holding back a laugh as he's trying to understand why nobody but the security guard can allow people to pass.
"No no no. That's final. You can't go through the doors unless I allow it."
Is his job really that boring? And so we finally get through the protective guard and his doors and I'm home free.

More on the security guard:
1. He made all the parents wait in the rain till the session was over.
2. He won't let you go out for some air. If you do, he won't let you back in.
3. The chain full of keys is like his life.
4. Half the time, he's not even in his station. Nice guarding.

So that's all I have for this very boring week. So stay tuned for the blue power blogger's post because she's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
A friend of mine told me to do this post on whether I preferred red or pink dresses. Yeah right.

-June

Good eye, sniper. Here, I'll shoot; and you run.

Jerrod: i like reading them
but i dont think i would like to write them
"Hello, im jerrod, ill be taking the place of kejing today. Okay, sooo what should i talk about. Hmm. Well, i was doing autodesk the other day...And so i was listening to jacks mannequin earlier today and his songs got me thinkin..."

Okay, but seriously (no offense, dear), if anyone is interested in writing as a guest, feel free to leave a comment or contact us in any legal way.
Yesterday, Brianna, our marvelous creator, made a group of Facebook, so I literally invited everyone I knew, except the three grown-ups on my limited profile list. As it says kindly to the left, "We hope you enjoy." And I mean, we really do. Almost ten weeks later, I can tell that every day a post is made, it is written with heart, driven to allow The Power Bloggers to keep in contact with each other, as well as to entertain our growing audience.

Please do not take this as an attempt to divert your attention from The Power Bloggers. In 2006, I began my own personal blog. If you ever want to read that, the link is here.

This was pretty early in the morning, so I wasn't completely awake. On the way to the dentist this morning, NPR had a talk about the clash between various secret government agencies. I wish I could say, "Oh, I listen to NPR all the time because it is amazing and educational and the best radio station ever," but I can't. In fact, this was the first time I really listened to it at all. I just noticed a cat in our yard. Anyway, throughout the world, the same people have been pursued by different agencies. This didn't really work out, like the time the US paid the same informant five times for the same information.

I think I am probably hopefully not the only person in the world who gets a kick out of playing my piano right after it's been tuned. Actually, it hasn't for probably a year now, and actually, I forgot how often it does get tuned. But it's a good thing. You should try it some time. (Getting it tuned.)

If your boyfriend's mother decided to tell your friend's aunt that their family would be staying in a foreign country for him to finish high school, would you want to hear the news in person from your best friend, or as soon as possible on the phone from anyone? Fortunately, this is not a common situation. [However, we can expand it to all bad news and assess it from there. Though of course, no two pieces of information require the same actions to be taken.] Recently, a sisterly friend of mine had to make the decision about how to break the news. She chose to wait for our good friend to come back from vacation they could be face-to-face. For some reason, our good friend didn't think was the best idea, and she wished she had been given the news immediately. She has absolute power to say that, but I want her to know that no one was trying to hide things from her by delaying the news for a few days. Maybe she doesn't read this blog, or maybe she does. But please, remember the friend you have had for two years, who thought about you every day, saw you almost every day, and is looking out for you the best way she can.

Well well well, it is the first day of August, the red power blogger's favorite month of any year. Have a good one, and I hope you too are looking forward to my big brother's post tomorrow.

-Kejing

My Scarlet Letter

Hi! Megan Treadwell; filling in for Jonathon.

In the Scarlet Letter, a woman is damned to wear the letter "A" on her chest for committing adultery while her husband is lost at sea. This is revealed when Hester (adulterer) has a child. As if life didn't suck already for Hester, being all isolated and condemned and what not, it gets worse when her husband comes back to Boston, where Hester lives, and plots revenge on she and her lover asses. What started out as a sexy love affair ended as quick deaths and a shared tombstone.

I realize that the theme of this book is really the shame, guilt and remorse that a person can harbor in their lifetime for past decisions made. It's really easy for me to say "Hey, Hester had it comin' ", but instead I think of what my scarlet letter is. It's one that everyone can see, though I don't wear it on my clothes. Out of all of my flaws, my extreme fear is the most detrimental. "F"

For me, fear isn't like the kind that comes from anticipation of riding a roller coaster, waiting to hear a punishment from parents after lying, or being alone in the dark. It is a fear of failure, rejection, my shortcomings, and being revealed to others. I know I'm not alone when I say that these are things confronted every day, but I try to eschew them as such as possible. That only makes it worse. Somehow, at the end of the day, I end up staring all that fear in the face.

• sometimes I feel like I cant compare, my shortcomings don't seem so short; they seem to be off by a mile
• my parents are constantly pushing to me to try new things and master them. shoving things into my ears like test grades, scores, comprehension and the unanimous "bar". you know, that thing that always seem to be set too high.
• The never ending struggle to fit in with your surroundings are not just mental, they are also physical. Its hard going to a place everyday where no one really looks like you
• rejection is killer, but even harder for me because i never like to be vulnerable, yet it happens so fast....

Hester lived a life where her crime or sin defined her and ultimately killed her. I don't want that to happen to me. When people think of me, I don't want them to think "hey, that girl was a ..... wait .... who is that?" Never risking anything and always trying to impress others. I'm going to look at this issue as a stone to step over and make that move.

For those of you who are like me and have this issue, here's a suggestion, let the shit go. truthfully, life is too short and it'll all seem funny after a while; just ask Hester!


megan treadwell

The Power Bloggers and the Fundraising Fiesta

In 2000, the UN held a Millennium Summit. From this meeting, eight Millennium Development Goals were formed with the goal of eradicating extreme poverty and many of the problems associated with it; lack of education, gender inequality, and lack of sustainable development by the year 2015. The eight goals are as follows:

So I was looking more into this when I stumbled upon a site called Millennium Promise and I completely geeked out. Basically, Millennium Promise works by building millennium villages, and working from the ground up. By focusing on a small area, they are able to attack all the problems at once to reach the eight goals.

When you work towards one goal, such as achieving primary education for everyone, you have to address other problems as well at the same time. If the family isn’t able to make enough food with the kids attending school, they’ll have to stay home, and if there’s a lack of gender equality, many girls won’t be allowed to attend school. But if you attack all the problems at once, it’s the fastest way to escape the poverty trap.

This local approach has worked really well in micro financing, whereby giving small loans to individuals, they can pursue ventures that they could not have otherwise. This not only helps them to support themselves, but it helps the community develop in turn. This tactic is based on the idea that by attracting small pockets of larger income, this money in turn will stimulate the local economy, which will stimulate a bigger economy and so forth. So, the millennium villages are kind of like the Grameen Bank on steroids (see, we did learn something in HUG).

I decided that I wanted to donate something, but I realized that I don’t have enough money on my own to make as great a contribution as I’d like to. That’s when I thought of having a fundraiser, but I didn’t know who’d want to help. And then it hit me. I’m part of a SuperBlogging Team am I not? Surely my fellow Power Bloggers will help me ( and obviously, anyone not an actual member of the Power Bloggers can help out too, we’ll need all the help we can get).

So think of it as our first mission, are you up to the challenge?

-Viv

P.S. You can visit the UN site for the Development Goals here: http://www.undp.org/mdg/

And the site for Millennium Promise here (or just click on the title) : http://www.millenniumpromise.org/