oh to sing the day awayy

from a girl who likes jamie cullum, and the circumstances of the weather, i recommend listening to his version of "singin in the rain"... and actually singing along. that song has so much more POWER when its raining outside! :)

Today i learned the basics of this recording program on a mac computer. Tell me whyy i recorded TWO songs by myself! it's really awesome actually. and i got the whole barn to myself to blast the jams on the speakers and everything. i had a great time with that. Nuc (his name is Nucleo "like the bomb") taught me some things and then had to go to some meetings. You all must here the new songs i've been writing, all will be ready, and maybe even recorded on october 15th, for the concert in the barn. I have my own little time slot, and 4 great bands to share the spotlight and the rest of the night with.

It WAS gonna be free. But Nuc and I decided we could use the event to help these kids out in Guatemala who need their roof to be fixed in the school. I went to visit that school in Patzun, Guatemala the summer of my freshmen year. Those kids were SO COOL. I'm not even kidding, like i just remember walking into the school yard (its outside, with classrooms kind of walling it in) and hearing 200 hundred kids screaming and playing basketball and soccer and having the most fun i think i've ever seen little kids have. We were no interuption to their fun either. A big group formed around my mom as she pulled different objects out of her purse and said what they were in english, and repeated what the kids said they were in spanish. (and the way my moms purse is.. that game could have gone on all day). And I tried to play some bball with them, and we learned little childrens songs in spanish, ah such a great time.

Anyway back to that coffee house. It's those cool kids we'll be helping out by charging $5 admission to this incredible show! They're school roof straight up collapsed, they need some h-e-l-p. Aside from the money-cash, I'd love to see people come out and enjoy the night with me.


Some cool concerts coming up:
death cab for cutie - oct 23(would be going if it wasnt the same night as homecoming)
jamie cullum! - oct 24
taking back sunday- nov 23.
incubus.. i forget when, at merriweather soon.

My brains totally on the music wavelength right about now, but i'm gonna head out. OCTOBER 15TH 7:00 - write it down! :) love you all

Jodi

stop "trying"

I kept thinking about how I would go about writing a good essay. Things like this just take lots of effort. Try to do well, try to succeed, try to fit the mold, try to break the mold, try to fit in, try to stand out, try to be funny, try to sound smart. For lack of a better word, all of this “trying” I do myself, and that I believe many others do, is bullshit. It’s more detrimental than it is constructive. If life is about always trying to be, then I’m going to have to be crazy enough to fight against it, because I sure as hell won’t sit here and pretend that it’s working out fine.

I’m trying to be a good student. Well let’s see the reality, maybe I am a good student. Maybe I’m a horrible student, but I know how to try hard enough to get by (maybe getting-by is really what a good student is these days). But reguardless, how long do you go on trying and succeeding in grades that seem to be of no value, or even getting poor grades of no value. It comes to a point where a person has to stop trying so hard to be whatever it is you feel like your supposed to be, and start being who you really are, who you want to be, doing what you really want. This is all really confusing to me though, because you see, if no one expected anything of me, I don’t know what I’d be accomplishing. I mean I think I’d atleast have music, but even there, I wasn’t good at guitar until 2 years of always TRYING to be good at guitar.

It’s this fine frustration I have between living freely without any expectations, and always having to be trying to be something I’m just not at times.

We are invincible when we want to be, I could be studying right now for my make-up math test, and you know I really “should be”, but until I find that it is a priority to study statistics, I’ll try my luck at the make up test based on information I think I’ve learned in class. We all have our own frustrations with something in life, whether it be incompetence, or sincerity, or some specific detail about a specific thing, I don’t know, but mine is pretty rare I’d say.

And to come to some sort of temporary conclusion, I’d say that trying when you really believe and really want something is amazing, it truly is great. But when all your trying amounts to is getting a grade and getting-by, then it really sucks. So I wish school was just one of those things I aspired to my senior year. And hopefully I will stop feeling so apathetically towards grades, but I’m sick of trying to prove myself to the school system. I just want to BE and LIVE and bask in wonderful concerts and experiences with amazing people. That’s what I really want this year.

music genuis

I was sitting on the couch after a long talk about colleges and school and all that with my mom... and i'm not ready to read a story in spanish, and then i remembered-- I HAVE A BLOG, (mwuahaha), and this is just what i need right now.

For those interested, i think my top choice is lewis & clark college in PORTLAND OREGON right now. Yeah, pretty damn far away. I get excited and then worried like, what will i do if i dont like it? But overall (lately) i'm just stressed about getting forms filled out for teacher recommendations and writing an amazing essay and applying to 9 schools.

I started my mentor program with Nuc, its really cool actually. so many things to learn about music equipment and computer stuff! I'll feel good when i know how to use it all. This is like the big test, whether i can hold out and read books about writing songs and crap like that and still have a love for music after finding out "what it takes" to live the life of a performing artist (that makes money). I mean the whole mentor thing could go in any direction, but i'm learning how to communicate to people who are music-smart, because right now... it's all in my own little language of my music and however i figured out how to write music. because apparently there are formulas that lots of people follow, and i wasn't completely informed or overly influenced by (on some songs atleast).

I just have to face all the facts head on and hold some kind of ground through it all. i dont know man, i always hated those people who would talk to me about these technical things about music and expect me to think really highly of them. I'd rather just talk about other stuff and hear the music, like who CARES what year your martin guitar was constructed or the brand of mic you use. OKAY, dont get me wrong, like they mean no harm, i dont actualy HATE the people.. but its just one of those topics of conversation i nod and swallow without knowing what they're talkign about

so i'm swallowing more of my pride (which i should really just be calling ignorance), and learning all that stuff, because i SHOULD know what they're talking about when it comes to EQ and GAIN and some other stuff i learned today. have no fear, i wont make any more posts that talk about all this technical stuff, for the same reason i dont like hearing it. nonetheless, i finally came to realize that it will really be useful to know.

if i could have one more day of summer... what would i do? What would YOU do?

maybe i'll write in the next post, maybe... (i'm such a P)


Jodi

its a coldplay kinda night

Man... coldplay is SO good. We don't have school tomorrow, so i should be out having fun, but i'm so tired from my little adventure last night. I went to college perk.. at 10 30 and came home at 12 30, and woke up for school at 6. I'm sure i could go out... but it's 10 already so here i am!

I went to youth group tonight, they were talkin about prayer and i was like so.. if god knows everything than whats the point of praying? isn't writing the same thing? You know me, and my non-conformist beliefs. but it was good to just go there and say it, and people said some really cool stuff tonight.

back to last night- i wrote yet another song, i think i titled it "all i could do" on the computer... but it's coming along and i just had to play it for someone, and nobody was home and it was tuesday night, so it just made sense to go. I met someone who likes to record people which is always good, and a few other interesting people. Even heard some awesome originals from the other performers.

i've felt some assurance lately, in the midst of my unsteadiness at home and such. i dont even really know what its been, but maybe its just hearing other people be really honest, like tonight at youth group, and talking to jen the other day, and just hearing that other people THINK and FEEL too, even though most people would rather not expose those elements of themselves. maybe we're all just really dying to talk about those things that go unsaid everyday. or maybe its only us crazy people that go to open mike nights to express themselves-- but there aint nothin wrong with that!

Art club is up and running, i ran a meeting today which was a lot of fun, i feel comfortable walking through the halls at school, and running meetings and blurting things out in class. I guess it's come to the point that people know me to some degree, and there's nothing to lose. I'm just trying to come out of highschool having lived and learned as much as i could. thats not too much to ask, right? I'm off to a good start of a potentially awesome year.

as much as it will be sad leaving school... i'll be ready when the time comes to move out of the house and start my next experience: college. But for tonight, i'll sleep in my awesome room here in scaggsville, waking up to breakfast with a great friend, thankful for all of this, and ready to make the most of everything i got, cause it really is so much.


jodi


thanks to the background music... gotta love these lyrics:


"when i counted up my demons
saw there was one for everyday
with the good ones on my shoulders
i drove the other ones away
so if you ever feel neglected
if you think that all is lost
i'll be countin up my demons yeah
hoping everythings not lost."
colplay- everythings not lost

"your skin
oh yeah your skin and bones
turn into something beautiful
...look at the stars, look how they shine for you
and all the things that you do"
coldplay- yellow

talk about adding sunshine to the day

awww i just got an email from a member of the family we stayed with in burundi. He records music in burundi! (how cool is that?) and he taught me a few songs while i was there... here's the email:

Dear Jodi,

I greet you in the name of Jesus Christ. How are you. I think that you just remember me. I am Augustin Nikondeha from Burundi and I miss you so much. How is the family? Ihope that they are ok. Do you still remembering the kirundi songs I taught you and your daddy? I'd like just to ktell you how we are. And I hope also that you will write me sot hat we can keep contact. May Good bless you and your family.



if traveling to a country isn't an awesome enough experience, getting to know people is even more amazing. smiles shared in another country are way more than any conversation could translate into. a lot of me just learned to grow up when i was in africa, i saw the initiative everyone i met took to have a conversation with me in the little english they knew. there is so much to admire about human beings around the world. We're all more connected than we think, or atleast we all can be more connected.

as much as there are lots of things that can really get me down... (which i'd rather not even write about right now but lets just say school-related stuff from today), i go to work, do what i can, and find time for what's important, and that seems to be more than enough to outweigh my frustrations. i'm just thankful for that little email. thankful that people in the 3rd poorest country in the world can enter my life in small sweet ways.


now... if only i could just sit down and study for math/spanish/english. one last night of drudging through homework before the weekend! got it in the bag...


later

what to do

now that summer's over, it's almost hard to remember what it was like to wake up and not be obligated to do much of anything. There's the specific, schedule-related question of what to do (homework, chill, watch a movie, write)... but i guess my "what to do" title is coming from more than all that.

what to do when you've been pushed to the point of being powerless. realizing who you want to be, doesn't correspond with where your surroundings are. and that you can't erase where you've been. I can't erase church from my memory. But i wish i could start over.

Right now i have one foot out the door, and my other foot is comfortably weighing me down to a possibility that this stuff could be true.

What do you do when you're faced with one million arguments and answers and/or questions sitting at your dinner table. And the only thing you want is honesty, but honesty is this spider web of logical information. How can someone trying to be so right, ruin the thrill and ambiguity of all thats "wrong". how can love be so tiresome and create such hostility, such pain, such bitterness to push it all back.

i already know what to feel, or rather, i know what i feel. but what to do? i've never been faced with a harder obligation. a confrontation i wish would come naturally, an argument i wish i didn't have to have. the answers i'm not sure i'm ready for. and a person i need to learn to appreciate.

its like i open my mouth and instantly regret having said anything. if tears could talk for themselves than i could've just sat there for 2 hours. but man, is that ever enough to bring a person down. if you don't stand on the foundation already set, you're merely sinking with hope that there's something more, and no one can defend you. I prefer sand over rocks, change over stability, and for that i've been knocked down.

i guess all i can do is get back up and at least find verification in my own heart, if i can't win it in the eyes of another.

either that, or go out someplace and try not to think about it! i guess neither is bad if i dont do it too much.

i guess i should tell what happened that brought about all this mess of thoughts... my relationship with my dad isnt very cool, and i dont know if we believe the same things, which is a problem when your dads a pastor.. and i'm bad at compromising. and things always get magnified and intense when we talk, so we did this weekend, hence the magnified intense blog i just wrote. it's like a bunch of shit i just realized about myself and my dad that i dont like. i cant really gloss over it cause i'm not a "gloss-over" kind of person, but i gotta do something a little better than not talking to him ever.

the one awesome thing that came out of this weekend was seeing rach kathleen and mike, and seeing garden state. that movie was the best movie i've seen in very long time, highly recommend goin to see that! i saw it friday, and went to new jersey on sunday to see the family (which was great too), and saw it again in the actual "garden state". alright...


i'm out.

A+'s and NF's

Day 4 of school. I came home to tell my mom that we had to take a fake english AP test and that i actually enjoyed lots of the reading in it (despite the fact that i didnt know a bunch of words in the answers...) She of course informed me that INF's are great readers and enjoy it a lot. Of course this is true. I used to get really frustrated that my every move i make in life or thing that makes me happy is already explained! But lets just say that the enthusiasm i had today is not likely to last, as it has already faded just in time for me to be starting my homework before work. BUT as i was lying on the couch my mom told me that i need to "schedule a time to hang out with rachael sometime soon so i dont go crazy that my school has no NF's"

for all of you that don't know about the myers-briggs personality test that has helped run my family since before i was born, you should ask my mom about it, or maybe i'll post the website up here for some quick info.

I laughed. but it's funny cause i do get frustrated with how S everything is, the rubrics, the raising hands, being on time, tests, homework, impersonal point systems that work like the judging for an olympic sport, all those practical things that run the school system. You're getting the A+ for touching upon each topic thats already been discovered and decided upon, just make sure you pay attention cause the teacher most-likely told you already everything you need to relay back to him/her later.

Lucky for me, when i'm not in my AP classes, I get to be doing photography or music tech, and basically let the NF take over. The ultimate one is the intern/mentor program: leaving early to work on music. How beautiful that will be! Not everyone understands what makes me happy, what makes me smile, my need for meaning in the things i do, that i love reading meaningful literature, that small talk gets boring after a while. But dude, are there ever people that completely understand all that mess, and they're truly amazing. It's probably why I spent like all summer hanging out with the same people. The same interesting passionate people whom i love very very much.

I'm trying to balance the A+ that can sometimes be meaningless, with my happiness and inescapable traits the blessing/curse of the NF! We all find eachother though.. thank god, i'd be so lost without it.

peace (oh and apologies for the myers-briggs talk (NF, S, etc) ) --yes i just put TWO parenthesis!


ps- theres lots to love about the practical (S) people too, lets just say i got an overload of it this week.