Mankind- as demonstrated by the internet

Over this summer, I'll admit, I spent probably too much time on the internet. A bit. But I kinda want to talk about what I learned about how people act when they can say anything they want to an audience that doesn't care about them in a venue where anyone can be. I'm kinda a regular on sites like Best of Youtube, Failblog (g-rated), even Facebook. What I've found is that all respect to people as human beings immediatly goes out the window. They're not afraid to announce their opinion loudly and boldly (although I'll never say stating your opinion is a bad thing, it's just how they do it) and a lot less careful about their word choice.Everyone else you communicate to becomes just a half inch avatar and misspelled words. Yes. Right there they are. But I think this carried over so well into our daily lives, that people you see walking down the street or in your class become nothing. That's what happened to respect and decency. The fast communication to nobody destroyed our natural ability do communicate effectively to somebody. I'm in California right now, and we just drove through San Francisco. About half the people there had mp3 players on. The rest were with a big group of friends. Now, I've got to sound like a bit of a hypocrite since I had my mp3 in, but it got me thinking about what's changed since before them. Back then, you'd have to ineract with everyone you saw, because there wasn't any reason not too. It would be almost rude to look into the eyes of some guy you see and not say "Top of the morning!". But now we're all deaf and scared that anyone you see can pull out a gun and shoot you for no reason. Why would people want to live like this? Why would anyone want to elect to be afraid of their neighbor? Can't we all just be nice?

Sched for this year...

I'm too lazy to type the whole thing so here's to copy and past:

Trimester
Period
Course Name
Course Number
Section Number
Course Key
Teacher
1
0 Marching Band (North, Dan)

1Marching Band (North, Dan)

2Honors Alg2/Trig (Hart, Cherri)

3Biology A (Call, Ron)

4Journalistic English (Barrus, Steve)

5Debate (Benson, Bruce)

2

0 Release Time A

1Network Tech. (Wills, Erick)

2Symphony Band (North, Dan)

3Honors Alg2/Trig (Hart, Cherri)

4English 10A
New Teacher, B

5Adv Spch/Debate
Benson, Bruce

3

0Music Theory
Hinck, David

1Health
Walker, Jamie

2Symphony Band
North, Dan

3Biology B
Phillips, Travis

4Honors Alg2/Trig
Plank, Christina

5Release Time B
Staff

Yes, I did totally fill my schedule with every zero hour and fifth periods... but it's worth it to me!

Eugh, computer...

I kinda just remembered I haven't posted for a while, and that the one before was just a review, and the one before that was some stuff I drew and didn't take any effort... so I wanted to post something. But then I couldn't think of what. Most of my ideas were either too stupid or depressing. So I decided to talk about how stupid and depressing my life is. But that's a stupid and idea.

hm...

well...

I listen to stupid and depressing music for several reasons. Mostly I like the sound of it. Happy, upbeat, and catchy music only goes so far. When your in a mediocre to downright bad mood, you just can't stand the stuff. Depressing music contains all of the loud, obnoxious songs like "Iris", "How to Save a Life", or "Marching Bands of Manhatten" (by Death Cab for Cutie, a very sad, slow, agonizing song). You can always turn to depressing music for anything. Coldplay played basically all sad songs until their Viva la Vida album (though Viva la Vida itself is something of a sobering song, poor king) which had tons of upbeat, catchy songs (which we'll get to later.) The Fray, so far, have like one actually happy, toe-tapping song, and the lyrics are still depressing. Matchbox Twenty's Happiest song is about the end of the world! And it's awesome! But seriously, people write music because they have an emotion to get rid of. I feel better when I'm sad if I play some angry scary music. But I'm less likely to want to get rid of a happy emotion, so I'm more likely to do something else. That's not to say people aren't expressing themselves when they play happy music. Happy music is for fun. But, going back, anything from apathy to depression warrants music that isn't upbeat and and major-chord'ed. I listen to something that agrees with me. Let's face it, catchy songs just get annoying after a while. But, rockish, emo, and sad songs you can listen to over and over again, progessively putting you in a worse and worse mood.

And I don't listen to rap, and I'm not sure what emotion it expresses. (Besides "I like to beat up people, steal cars, bad words, and Women.)

Anyways, besides rap:
rock-either really really sad, or really really angry, and sometimes, but less often, kinda upbeat
pop- usually just upbeat
techno- is it EVER sad?
jazz- pure, simple, bliss
blues- technically jazz most the time, but sad.
country- country
classical (like Bach and stuff)- whatever it seems was on their mind
film scores- whatever mood the movie is in (duh!)
polka- um... that's not fair, I don't listen to polka.
gospel- asking the lord for help, either really hapy or really sad

Green Town

I recently finished the book Summer Morning, Summer Night by Ray Bradbury (Bradbury, Ray) who sounds familiar because he wrote Farenheight 451. It's not a novel, but a collection of stories he wrote about one fictional town that sits quietly as a suburb in Illinois. Some of them are sweet, uplifting, some are scary enough to keep you awake for months, and all of them are thought provoking and unique. In one titled "Love Potion", two sweet old ladies give a girl an elixer that has startling but not exactly magical consequnces, while others, such as "At midnight in the month of June" and "The Projector" really do have magical components. Most are simply amazing in their simplicity and beauty. Many are love stories, such as "Night Meeting" about a man who meets his one true love on a bus but doesn't have the courage to ask her name (which contains a passage I may share later, it's simply wonderful), "A Walk in the Summer", and "Arival and Departure". "The Screaming Woman" is one of the most frustratingly horrifying ones, about a girl that hears a woman screaming underground in an empty lot but no one beleives her for about a week.It serously gave me chills. This one with "I got Something You Ain't got" are dark and frankly have some of the most amazing story telling I've ever seen. You know exactly what will happen, and even though you're totally right, it happens in a way no one would ever dream of, like Clarisse's "suicide" and and the appearance of the screaming woman. If you like Farenheight 451 -just the way Bradbury works with plots- then read it. I should be turning it in today anyway.