Links


this talks about how depression can lead to substance abuse

this ted talk talks about people who have attempted suicide

in this conversation, people talk about how depression and anxiety have affected their life

this talks about what can happen when depression goes untreated

this talks about how it can affect communication

Second Semester Senior Year...

So far, this semester has been pretty uneventful and really easy. At this point, I only really have three classes that I actually do things in, and those things are relatively easy and quick. You could say that I spend most of my day sitting quietly in my seat waiting for the bell to ring so I can go do the same thing in a different part of the building. A lot of it comes from the teachers, they understand the work ethic of the second semester senior and I don't think they expect much from us.

The phenomenon known as Senioritis hasn't really set in for me yet. I've been stressing about a lot of different things that haven't let it really sink in. A lot of my priorities have gone from my academic life to my music life. I have so many different projects going on that I don't know how to budget my time with all of them. I've got two college auditions in February that I just started putting together that play a big roll on whether or not I get into the school and/or get any scholarship money. I've been under a lot of pressure about how the hell my friend and I are gonna write, score, and record all of the music for the spring play this year -BTW it's gonna be dope so everyone should go see it. I'm doing Blue Knights again this summer, which is adding a lot to the stress load, but it also pumps me up. With everything going on, finding time to work on my own music has become hard to find. Overall, stress isn't letting Senioritis get its full effect on me yet.

Second semester senior year has and hasn't been as awesome as past generations of seniors cut it out to be. I thought it was just gonna be a lot of partying and not caring about anything. But, for me at least, there is so much other stuff going on that doesn't leave time for much just chillin out with friends.

My Personal Narrative Essay

An Abundance of Sound

    I sat in the back of a dark colored van. The sun was setting, I could tell it was getting late. The man behind the wheel was an unknown face to me. He looked over his right shoulder to see if another car was in the other lane. He had droopy cheeks, and by the look of the grey stubble on his chin he hadn’t shaved in a few days. He had bags under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept in a while. I glanced suddenly yet obviously at my friend sitting next to me, he glanced back, we had a kind of telepathic conversation. I could tell that he wanted to  know if I was ready for this, I was. The car veered to a stop and we piled out. The man said that he would come get us at  two am, and to stay out of trouble. That was Kyle’s dad.
    We walked in the cold night over to the theater. We turned right off the sidewalk into the entrance. They stamped our hands with Xs to signify that we were under the age of 21. We walked excitedly into the main hall and stood in the front, prime placement for any show. Other people who appreciate this culture music started flowing in, every one of them excited for the main event. I remember the angle my head had to be to look at the first few performers on the stage. The first one was a college kid, who had broken his wrist snowboarding about a week earlier and wore a blue cast on his left wrist. After he was done, another performer under the alias Kill The Noise climbed up onto the stage, where he proceeded to mix, mash, and create, an amazing set. By the end of his set, our faces were shiny with sweat.

The guard rails in front of us were cold to the touch, they were soothing. The stench of the hundreds of people packed into that small theater was like if a skunk was used as a sweat mop, disgusting yet unforgettable. The stage was cleared, a black sheet suspended from the ceiling dropped, unmasking it. An 18 foot wide, 10 foot tall demonic smile with thousands of LEDs programmed for the perfect show. It was known as Teeth. All of my friends faces, including my own, lit up with amazement. The complexity and simplicity of it blew us away. The sheer size of it made us speechless.

    The auxileration that rushed through the crowd was shared by everyone. We were all connected to one entity, expelling its overwhelming power into us. It took over our bodies and our minds. An unforgettable abundance of sound rushed into our ears, and put us into a trance-like state, making us pump and flow with the feel and sound of the music. The time flew past at a million miles an hour. The last song was starting he climbed out of the booth at the beginning, and right when it dropped, the leaped into the crowd. We put our hands up to catch him, our arms acting as shock absorbers to comply with the weight of his body. The song ended and it was time to map our root through all of the people between us and the exit. I didn’t want to leave, I wanted more. I remember pushing through the crowd of sweaty people like a small child who lost his mom in times square.
    We made it to the exit, a great accomplishment on our part. We walked outside and there stood the scary man again. He wore long pants and a hunting jacket with a bright orange vest on over it, not the best fashion choice in my opinion. He took us back to the van, we crawled in, our ears ringing from the 5 hours of nonstop, intense music we just endured. The car ride was quiet, we pulled up to my house and I navigated my way out of the dark automobile into the silence of the night. I thanked the driver and Kyle. The night was over. I stumbled through the darkness into my house, tiptoed to my room and fell asleep.


Writers Memo:

This story shows that I live for music. Music is already a large part of my life, and going to this concert shows my appreciation for the evolution and advancement of modern music. It also inspired me to move forward with my own electronic music project. I very much enjoyed reliving and writing this story of my 2nd experience seeing Feed Me live in concert. This performance was the first time I saw him with the teeth however. I thought that I went into great detail and showed rather than told my experience. I loved writing this and believe that it will really help me with my college essays.

Motivation

Motivation is defined as a psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal and elicits, controls, and sustains certain goal directed behaviors. Researchers have shown that you can influence your own levels of motivation and self-control.
Dan Pink in his piece called The Puzzle of Motivation, talked about how by rewarding someone if they do something well motivates them to do it faster, but they do the job worse because of it. He talks about the candle experiment, where people are given a box of thumb taks, a candle, and matches and are told to attach the candle to the wall so the wax doesn't drip on the table. He talks about how the scientist who invented this test did two trials with it. One to see how fast it takes people do solve the puzzle, and one group that he said he would reward if they solved it faster. The result was that the group who was going to be rewarded took three times longer to solve the puzzle than the "control" group.This is evidence that motivation with reward often causes harm. Pink later stated that the scientist presented the test in a simpler way, so that the answer was in clear view. He did the same two trial groups, control and motivated with reward, and the rewarded group solved the puzzle way faster than the control group did. Pink said that the group that had the insensitive to solve it faster, did because "rewards by their very nature narrow our focus, concentrate the mind, that's why they work in so many cases"
People are driven to do anything because of the feeling they get during or after what ever it is they are doing. Whether that's happiness, pleasure, pain, uncertainty, or just a rush of adrenalin. People sometimes do things for the purpose of having closure on some aspect in their life and getting the satisfaction that comes with that, or because someone is making them to do it. Whether or not we actually want to be doing what ever it is that we are doing, we are doing it for a reason.

This is my response to the question: Why was that one bus left. After reading the first few chapters of the book, I learned that the trail that the bus resides used to be a trail to a mine. They used busses to get workers up and down the trail. When the mine was eventually shut down, they took two of the three busses that were used down, and left the third as a shelter for hunters and fishers who would be in the area. It was outfitted with beds and a stovefor who ever was inside it. This was bus 142.

Greeting Message

Hi,
    

        I'm Caley, 5th period Zerwin. This is my first experience with the whole blogging deal, so far it seems alright. I'm pumped for senior year and all the adventures that will be had this year.