"We're coming down to the ground. There's no better place to go."
Wow. I haven't posted here in two years. I always thought I'd sort of end the journal with the last entry, and let this be an echo of my high school years. But I guess that just didn't happen.
The last two years were about as crazy as you would have expected them to be. I ended up taking most of my freshman year off, and it took me until sophomore year to really make any friends at F&M.
But when I did make friends, they were some of the best friends I could have ever hoped to make. And yeah, I still had some issues, but without them, I never would have made it as far as I did. Thanks to them, I ended up using the beginning of this summer to get the sort of help I really needed, once and for all. And I've been managing well ever since- there have been plenty of rough patches in the last couple of months, but I know I can deal with them, and have been for once.
So it's pretty strange to go back and read this livejournal, and realize what I was like in high school. So much has changed since then, and I don't even know what I'd write in here.
I've been working on a song lately, actually. Basically, there was this song called "Audition" that I wrote at- surprise! - an audition in 8th or 9th grade (8th, I think). The melody was pretty cool, and there were some great harmonies in the chorus. But I never really adapted it for guitar, and eventually it just sort of faded into the background along with most of the other songs I wrote between 6th and 9th grade.
Then about a month ago, I was in the back seat of my dad's car with Kelsey, with my dad and grandfather in the front seat. Kels and I start talking about each others songs (mostly hers) and start singing them for fun.
At one point, we start talking about my songs, and she comments that the only one she ever really liked was "Audition." We start singing the chorus- me on the melody, and her on the harmony- and I start thinking about it. Musically, she was right- the song was good. I asked her to help me figure out what chords I needed to play it, and she figured it out on keyboard that night. I battled with adapting it for guitar, and it ended up sounding very pretty, all finger picking and acoustic guitar.
The only problem was the lyrics. They were some of the worst lyrics I have ever written, and that's saying something. So I got to work rewriting them.
The first draft of the song was a poorly disguised analysis of how I feel about the guy I like at the moment. It was pretty bad, so I scrapped the first verse and changed the bridge, and suddenly the song was about rejection in general. Of course, the lyrics still weren't working the way I wanted them to.
A friend of mine who had been helping me with the rewrites suggested that I put the lyrics aside and write a new set. Then, if I wanted, I could compare them to the old-new lyrics and decide which ones were more worthy of revision. When I asked him what I should write about, since I was drawing a blank, he suggested either stage fright or social anxiety.
"Ok, well, I don't really get stage fright, but social anxiety I can do," I told him. Of course, I had no inspiration for weeks, and the song just sort of went to the wayside.
Then a couple of nights ago, I had a fight with my mom. I was pretty upset about it afterwards (it was a stupid little fight, but for some reason it affected me anyway. Basically, she accidently took my glasses instead of her reading glasses and then lost them, which didn't really bother me that much- but when she started yelling at me and saying it was my fault for leaving them home- that upset me). So I tried all of my helpful self-talk- about how this was not the end of the world, and I could get through it, and about how I didn't need to be hurt, and all of that- and it did work. But I still felt a bit upset, so I decided to distract myself with the internet.
I went to every website I check regularly, including this one message board. The thing is with this message board is that every single post is an attention-seeking whine about how the poster is in "so much paaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiin!" and just wants to end it all, or hurt themselves, or whatever other form of self destruction is his or her favorite. Basically, less grammatically correct versions of what I used to write on livejournal. Usually, I just read it for my own amusement, and occasionally to offer advice to people I can give advice to. But for some reason when I read it that day, it just angered me. Reading those posts, combined with my anger at myself for being so upset over that little argument with my mom, just got me to write the most recent draft of the lyrics. And no, they aren't about social anxiety.
So I'll probably record the song today and figure out some way to post it on here, if anyone even still reads this livejournal. I think I'm still listed on a couple of friends' lists here and there. I won't guarantee that I'll post here regularly- I'm not even sure I still like the livejournal idea- but I'll give it a try for now. So, see you all later.
-Steph
The last two years were about as crazy as you would have expected them to be. I ended up taking most of my freshman year off, and it took me until sophomore year to really make any friends at F&M.
But when I did make friends, they were some of the best friends I could have ever hoped to make. And yeah, I still had some issues, but without them, I never would have made it as far as I did. Thanks to them, I ended up using the beginning of this summer to get the sort of help I really needed, once and for all. And I've been managing well ever since- there have been plenty of rough patches in the last couple of months, but I know I can deal with them, and have been for once.
So it's pretty strange to go back and read this livejournal, and realize what I was like in high school. So much has changed since then, and I don't even know what I'd write in here.
I've been working on a song lately, actually. Basically, there was this song called "Audition" that I wrote at- surprise! - an audition in 8th or 9th grade (8th, I think). The melody was pretty cool, and there were some great harmonies in the chorus. But I never really adapted it for guitar, and eventually it just sort of faded into the background along with most of the other songs I wrote between 6th and 9th grade.
Then about a month ago, I was in the back seat of my dad's car with Kelsey, with my dad and grandfather in the front seat. Kels and I start talking about each others songs (mostly hers) and start singing them for fun.
At one point, we start talking about my songs, and she comments that the only one she ever really liked was "Audition." We start singing the chorus- me on the melody, and her on the harmony- and I start thinking about it. Musically, she was right- the song was good. I asked her to help me figure out what chords I needed to play it, and she figured it out on keyboard that night. I battled with adapting it for guitar, and it ended up sounding very pretty, all finger picking and acoustic guitar.
The only problem was the lyrics. They were some of the worst lyrics I have ever written, and that's saying something. So I got to work rewriting them.
The first draft of the song was a poorly disguised analysis of how I feel about the guy I like at the moment. It was pretty bad, so I scrapped the first verse and changed the bridge, and suddenly the song was about rejection in general. Of course, the lyrics still weren't working the way I wanted them to.
A friend of mine who had been helping me with the rewrites suggested that I put the lyrics aside and write a new set. Then, if I wanted, I could compare them to the old-new lyrics and decide which ones were more worthy of revision. When I asked him what I should write about, since I was drawing a blank, he suggested either stage fright or social anxiety.
"Ok, well, I don't really get stage fright, but social anxiety I can do," I told him. Of course, I had no inspiration for weeks, and the song just sort of went to the wayside.
Then a couple of nights ago, I had a fight with my mom. I was pretty upset about it afterwards (it was a stupid little fight, but for some reason it affected me anyway. Basically, she accidently took my glasses instead of her reading glasses and then lost them, which didn't really bother me that much- but when she started yelling at me and saying it was my fault for leaving them home- that upset me). So I tried all of my helpful self-talk- about how this was not the end of the world, and I could get through it, and about how I didn't need to be hurt, and all of that- and it did work. But I still felt a bit upset, so I decided to distract myself with the internet.
I went to every website I check regularly, including this one message board. The thing is with this message board is that every single post is an attention-seeking whine about how the poster is in "so much paaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiin!" and just wants to end it all, or hurt themselves, or whatever other form of self destruction is his or her favorite. Basically, less grammatically correct versions of what I used to write on livejournal. Usually, I just read it for my own amusement, and occasionally to offer advice to people I can give advice to. But for some reason when I read it that day, it just angered me. Reading those posts, combined with my anger at myself for being so upset over that little argument with my mom, just got me to write the most recent draft of the lyrics. And no, they aren't about social anxiety.
So I'll probably record the song today and figure out some way to post it on here, if anyone even still reads this livejournal. I think I'm still listed on a couple of friends' lists here and there. I won't guarantee that I'll post here regularly- I'm not even sure I still like the livejournal idea- but I'll give it a try for now. So, see you all later.
-Steph