Exams and Bands
Haha, I look back at my last two non-poetry entries, and they're pretty negative, all told, haha, from anger to, at least in part, depression. I think it's important to share with you that most of my life isn't quite so "horrible" (and even the use of the word horrible is in jest, really).
This morning I had my second exam, Canada & War in the 20th Century. I went to bed quite apprehensive - a bit of this had to do with writing the exam, but largely, I was panicked about sleeping through it, haha. I've tried not to really mess up my sleeping schedules now that classes are done, and I've managed to keep it what I would call reasonable, although my typical wake-up time has been more like 11 AM. Instead, I managed to get up right at eight as planned. I didn't eat breakfast, but frankly, I never do and wasn't worried about it. I got there at quarter to 9, at 5 to 9 the doors opened, and as 9 o'clock rolled around I began a 2 hour period of furious writing. The exam period was actually 2 and a half hours, but as I was finishing up my final essay I got to slow down a bit and really work out a good conclusion. I handed it in about 15 minutes before the exam period ended, and by that point I'd say about 2/3 of the room had already left. It's funny, although most exams have a rule that you can't leave until an hour has passed, only twenty minutes after the exam started, the first person got up to leave - and seemingly inspired by this move of "courage", I'd say 7 more people got up to hand in their papers. That was only in my room too, which held a third of the class. I don't know what they're thinking - can you honestly not BS out a few more marks worth if you write for longer? I mean, the exam is worth 50% of your final mark - in handing it in after 20 minutes, you've pretty much just sealed your fate of failing the course. Ouch.
The structure of the exam was interesting. There were 8 essay questions 5 marks each, and 4 essay questions worth 15 marks each. The exam was out of 40, and therefore you had the option of either doing 2 short essay questions and 2 long essay questions or 5 short essay questions and 1 long essay question. I chose to do 2 and 2 because I felt condident about my 2 long essays. I was thinking this would be my hardest exam, but now being honest, if it is my hardest, I'll be lucky indeed. Not as bad as I was expecting. No walk in the park, but definitely not brutal either.
In other news, now that Tyler has his drums, of course ideas for a band are getting thrown around. In fact, we now have a plan for the band. Tyler created the name in a different context, and then I suggested later that we use it for the band. That name, of course, would be Al-Gebra and the Weapons Of Math Destruction. Our first album will feature Madison prominently on the cover, with the title "Have You Accepted A Drink From THIS Man?" In fact, Madison is kind of a gimmick member on the whole, as you'll see once I unveil... the line-up (in typical singer/guitarist/bassist/drummer order):
Light Urple [Dave] - Clean Vocals
FerMatt [Matt] - Guitar, Growling Vocals
Dick Dastardly [Madison] - "Bass"
Kreizhn [Tyler] - Drums, Growling Vocals
The pseudonyms were the creation of each member... I tried to make mine mathematical at least, haha (Fermat being a prominent mathematician). Dave's is an SNL Celebrity Jeopardy reference, Madison's may or may not be from Rocky & Bullwinkle (we were debating it right before the band names came up), and Tyler always uses the Kreizhn name, which is a bastardization of "crazy Asian". You may notice that Bass is in quotations... well, that's because Madison can't play the bass. Hasn't touched one in his life, and doesn't seem to have any inclination to either. No, we envision him instead miming it with a cardboard bass, and then I guess we'll either do some sort of synthesized bass or I'll just have to fill out the sound myself, hahahaha. The vocal situation is also in a bit of a conundrum... since we really don't know if Dave can sing or not, and we're not sure how the growling vocals are going to work out. Yeah, okay, Tyler and I are the only ones with instruments and Madison and Dave were thrown into the other roles arbitrarily, is that so wrong? Hahaha. Obviously, the whole thing is just a colossal joke and we aren't that serious, but despite this I'm looking forward to the jam sessions enormously. It's kind of a good thing that Madison doesn't have a musical role, since we plan on starting to practice during the summer semester and he won't be here.
Quite a few songs are currently being worked on by either Tyler or me, or by both of us (seperately for now, since my acoustic would be DESTROYED in terms of volume compared to his drums). We'll keep working on them for the next term while we're all in different places, and then we'll bring it together in May. Songs we're planning on attempting to recreate and eventually record (which we have no idea how we'll do either, hahaha, although I'm obviously not talking about a studio... casette tape recorder! Go!):
1. Avenged Sevenfold - Chapter 4 [G/D]
2. Avenged Sevenfold - Reminissions [G/D]
3. Avenged Sevenfold - Unholy Confessions [G/D]
4. Machine Head - The Blood, The Sweat, The Tears [G]
5. Metallica - Enter Sandman [D]
6. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit [G/D]
7. Nothingface - Bleeder [G]
8. Nothingface - Same Solution [G/D]
9. Our Lady Peace - Superman's Dead [G]
10. Slipknot - Duality [G]
11. System Of A Down - Old School Hollywood [G]
12. (no artist) - The Badger Badger Song (Metal Interpretation) [original, and therefore unwritten]
13. Al-Gebra And The Weapons Of Math Destruction - (untitled original song or two... concepts thrown around are "The Seeds Of Hate" and "The Mathgasm", both very inside-joke-ish, lol)
That's all I can think of right now. I've added what songs have just guitars being worked on, just drums, or both. I only know of one song that Tyler's working on that I'm not, and that's Enter Sandman. Hypothetically, we'll both get around to practicing all these songs. Right now, the only song that I think we would have a chance of really playing all the way through with some practice would be Smells Like Teen Spirit, which we both pretty much have down - although I admit I haven't got the solo down yet.
I mean, right now we're making tons of plans mostly for the sake of comedy, and it sure seems like we've put a ton of thought into this for something that is far from serious and meant to be kept just within us and our friends, but quite frankly, I think it's in part our way of dealing with the fact that our group of friends is about to be split apart for four months. Heck, I'm not going to see Madison for a whole year once this term is done. I'm thankful for having something to look forward to, even though this will probably never go past the jamming stage. It also will keep me interested in guitar over the time away from school (although really, getting an electric guitar is going to be motivation enough, hahaha). It's so weird, you know. I just get used to this life, with the freedom and the friends, and now I'm being shipped back home, without even daily school to see my friends. It's going to be very odd.
Well, that's enough from me for now. It's fun to think about things like this, since even though it may not come to fruition, not only do I know that we could get it together for it, but also that at least there will be more good times to come in the planning and the jamming. I don't have an exam tomorrow, but I do on Friday, so I should go to bed now before getting too far out of a good sleep schedule.
This morning I had my second exam, Canada & War in the 20th Century. I went to bed quite apprehensive - a bit of this had to do with writing the exam, but largely, I was panicked about sleeping through it, haha. I've tried not to really mess up my sleeping schedules now that classes are done, and I've managed to keep it what I would call reasonable, although my typical wake-up time has been more like 11 AM. Instead, I managed to get up right at eight as planned. I didn't eat breakfast, but frankly, I never do and wasn't worried about it. I got there at quarter to 9, at 5 to 9 the doors opened, and as 9 o'clock rolled around I began a 2 hour period of furious writing. The exam period was actually 2 and a half hours, but as I was finishing up my final essay I got to slow down a bit and really work out a good conclusion. I handed it in about 15 minutes before the exam period ended, and by that point I'd say about 2/3 of the room had already left. It's funny, although most exams have a rule that you can't leave until an hour has passed, only twenty minutes after the exam started, the first person got up to leave - and seemingly inspired by this move of "courage", I'd say 7 more people got up to hand in their papers. That was only in my room too, which held a third of the class. I don't know what they're thinking - can you honestly not BS out a few more marks worth if you write for longer? I mean, the exam is worth 50% of your final mark - in handing it in after 20 minutes, you've pretty much just sealed your fate of failing the course. Ouch.
The structure of the exam was interesting. There were 8 essay questions 5 marks each, and 4 essay questions worth 15 marks each. The exam was out of 40, and therefore you had the option of either doing 2 short essay questions and 2 long essay questions or 5 short essay questions and 1 long essay question. I chose to do 2 and 2 because I felt condident about my 2 long essays. I was thinking this would be my hardest exam, but now being honest, if it is my hardest, I'll be lucky indeed. Not as bad as I was expecting. No walk in the park, but definitely not brutal either.
In other news, now that Tyler has his drums, of course ideas for a band are getting thrown around. In fact, we now have a plan for the band. Tyler created the name in a different context, and then I suggested later that we use it for the band. That name, of course, would be Al-Gebra and the Weapons Of Math Destruction. Our first album will feature Madison prominently on the cover, with the title "Have You Accepted A Drink From THIS Man?" In fact, Madison is kind of a gimmick member on the whole, as you'll see once I unveil... the line-up (in typical singer/guitarist/bassist/drummer order):
Light Urple [Dave] - Clean Vocals
FerMatt [Matt] - Guitar, Growling Vocals
Dick Dastardly [Madison] - "Bass"
Kreizhn [Tyler] - Drums, Growling Vocals
The pseudonyms were the creation of each member... I tried to make mine mathematical at least, haha (Fermat being a prominent mathematician). Dave's is an SNL Celebrity Jeopardy reference, Madison's may or may not be from Rocky & Bullwinkle (we were debating it right before the band names came up), and Tyler always uses the Kreizhn name, which is a bastardization of "crazy Asian". You may notice that Bass is in quotations... well, that's because Madison can't play the bass. Hasn't touched one in his life, and doesn't seem to have any inclination to either. No, we envision him instead miming it with a cardboard bass, and then I guess we'll either do some sort of synthesized bass or I'll just have to fill out the sound myself, hahahaha. The vocal situation is also in a bit of a conundrum... since we really don't know if Dave can sing or not, and we're not sure how the growling vocals are going to work out. Yeah, okay, Tyler and I are the only ones with instruments and Madison and Dave were thrown into the other roles arbitrarily, is that so wrong? Hahaha. Obviously, the whole thing is just a colossal joke and we aren't that serious, but despite this I'm looking forward to the jam sessions enormously. It's kind of a good thing that Madison doesn't have a musical role, since we plan on starting to practice during the summer semester and he won't be here.
Quite a few songs are currently being worked on by either Tyler or me, or by both of us (seperately for now, since my acoustic would be DESTROYED in terms of volume compared to his drums). We'll keep working on them for the next term while we're all in different places, and then we'll bring it together in May. Songs we're planning on attempting to recreate and eventually record (which we have no idea how we'll do either, hahaha, although I'm obviously not talking about a studio... casette tape recorder! Go!):
1. Avenged Sevenfold - Chapter 4 [G/D]
2. Avenged Sevenfold - Reminissions [G/D]
3. Avenged Sevenfold - Unholy Confessions [G/D]
4. Machine Head - The Blood, The Sweat, The Tears [G]
5. Metallica - Enter Sandman [D]
6. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit [G/D]
7. Nothingface - Bleeder [G]
8. Nothingface - Same Solution [G/D]
9. Our Lady Peace - Superman's Dead [G]
10. Slipknot - Duality [G]
11. System Of A Down - Old School Hollywood [G]
12. (no artist) - The Badger Badger Song (Metal Interpretation) [original, and therefore unwritten]
13. Al-Gebra And The Weapons Of Math Destruction - (untitled original song or two... concepts thrown around are "The Seeds Of Hate" and "The Mathgasm", both very inside-joke-ish, lol)
That's all I can think of right now. I've added what songs have just guitars being worked on, just drums, or both. I only know of one song that Tyler's working on that I'm not, and that's Enter Sandman. Hypothetically, we'll both get around to practicing all these songs. Right now, the only song that I think we would have a chance of really playing all the way through with some practice would be Smells Like Teen Spirit, which we both pretty much have down - although I admit I haven't got the solo down yet.
I mean, right now we're making tons of plans mostly for the sake of comedy, and it sure seems like we've put a ton of thought into this for something that is far from serious and meant to be kept just within us and our friends, but quite frankly, I think it's in part our way of dealing with the fact that our group of friends is about to be split apart for four months. Heck, I'm not going to see Madison for a whole year once this term is done. I'm thankful for having something to look forward to, even though this will probably never go past the jamming stage. It also will keep me interested in guitar over the time away from school (although really, getting an electric guitar is going to be motivation enough, hahaha). It's so weird, you know. I just get used to this life, with the freedom and the friends, and now I'm being shipped back home, without even daily school to see my friends. It's going to be very odd.
Well, that's enough from me for now. It's fun to think about things like this, since even though it may not come to fruition, not only do I know that we could get it together for it, but also that at least there will be more good times to come in the planning and the jamming. I don't have an exam tomorrow, but I do on Friday, so I should go to bed now before getting too far out of a good sleep schedule.