Taking a cue from the great Herb Caen

ITEM: This semester is going to kill me. I get up at 5am and go to work. I leave work at 11:30, giving me just enough time to get to campus, find a parking space, and get to Japanese class at 1. Then, I have two hours until Math, which is generally sucked up by studying said math and completing anything I didn't do the night before. Then Math class, where I try not to kill anything. Most nights, I then get to go home and spend 3-4 hours on the Math homework, and try to squeeze in my Japanese homework. On Thursdays, however, I go from Math to SpeechComm, where I stay from 5:30 to 8:30 before going home and collapsing. Thank the Nine, on Friday I don't have math, so I can go home at 2 and spend the afternoon doing Thursday's homework and catching up on Japanese.

I really should have taken Math last spring as a single course. Oh, right, I tried... it was closed.
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ITEM: The fictional Michael Garibaldi once said "I'm afraid ... of what I might do... if I ever let go." Now, while I'm not quite that freaky, I understand the line quite well. I don't think anyone realises just how tightly I control myself most of the time. If I didn't, I'd quickly have very few friends (if any), either because they'd leave after I told them a few things, or because I'd beat them do death.

Like elisandra, there are things I see friends doing that I just want to say something about, but I can't. Those who need it most I know from experience wouldn't listen, and those who /would/ listen, it would still do no good, because they don't see what they do. And then there's the two or three who'd listen, then promptly ignore anything I said because it doesn't fit their self image. And this is doubly aggravating, as these same people feel wholly justified in telling me what my personality flaws are.
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ITEM: I hate this getting up at 5am thing. I begin to wish I'd just stayed with Gamekeeper, though I know that would have its own problems, especially with the changes the company is currently undergoing. The very slight increase in income is eaten by the daily 40 mile commute (round trip), which makes me wonder what I was thinking.

I've been considering asking Corrine to switch me to nights, but that won't work, as the earliest I could get here would be 6pm. Dammit. If I was working 30 hours and got benes, I'd be less bothered. But that's not likely, either.
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ITEM: In the midst of my worry for my dear friend mslulu, I find myself wishing the Mighty lubeguy lived closer to the rest of us so I could drag him, kicking and screaming, into our social circle. Lucky for him he's off in Militia Central. ;)
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A dependence on Filk? Sure, why not?

I'm increasingly listening to Filk music, mostly Lackey's stuff, but other stuff as well. And I think I know why.

My life is, more and more, bounded by mundane crap. Work is hardly intellectually stimulating, and most of my schoolwork this semester is drudgery I have to do to move on, not stuff I want to study. Add to this my growing dislike of popular music, and my boredom with most of the music of my youth (You can only listen to "Music for the Masses", "Black Celebration", or "Decade" so many times before you want to melt it into slag), and you get one bored puppy.

NPR is nice, but sometimes I want music, not a bunch of guys from New England telling me the same stories each day (the 6pm news is almost identical to the next day's 6am news).

So, Filk. It's about the stuff I love, SF and Fantasy; it's imaginative (remember, I'm not talking about the old-style, "Banned From Argo", parody stupid shite), especially the pieces based not on a story, but telling their own, and it's (at least, the stuff I listen to) well-written, well-played, and well-performed. Heather Alexander's voice can best be described as liquid honey. Cynthia McQuillen's voice is similar to that of the lead singer in a pop group I love from the early 90's, "October Project". Leslie Fish has a voice that could grate cheese, but her instrumentals and her writing make up for it. Lackey can't sing to save her soul, but she knows this and now hires others to do the singing. Her stuff and the recent "Masterharper of Pern" release are among my favorites because they're not just about the books, they're the music from the books -- the same stuff the characters sing in the stories.

The Pern release is particularly nice. The album is structured as it would be were it a live performance at a Gather -- the teaching tunes first, for the littles, then the dancing and the stronger ballads once the little have all been sent to bed. It's easy to imagine sitting back at Fort, or Ista, or Ruatha, or the Hold of Weyr of your choice, listening to the music of the Gather.

And that keeps me sane.