TIIA3 (The Internet is Awesome)

You know the drill, the internet is awesome, here are a few examples.

Lindsey Stirling recently covered a Hatsune Miku song, and it was amazing.



Next is a song by Sia. Sia has become one of my favorite artists, but I have hesitated to share some of her videos, because of their controversial nature. This performance of "Elastic Heart," from Ellen, was awesome, and, as far as I know, completely uncontroversial, so I'm sharing away!



Speaking of Sia, Alaa Wardi recently covered Chandelier, and it was just as awesome as the original!



Peter Hollens just released his cover of The Hanging Tree from the Hunger Games, and it was amazing.



Next is the first musical outing by YouTuber Brittani Louise Taylor who is know for her skits, vlogs, and occasional musical parodies. She has never tried her hand at writing her own song before, and I think she did pretty good for a first try!



I recently discovered a new acapella group called VoicePlay, and if you know me, you know I love me some good acapella. And VoicePlay is good acapella. Here they are covering Lana Del Rey's version of "Once Upon a Dream" from Maleficent.



Let's finish this off with another Peter Hollens video, Song of The Lonely Mountain, from The Hobbit. If you're a Lord of the Rings fan, you should totally check out Peter's covers of the songs from all the movies. They're all so great.



That's all for now, hopefully it won't be another 3 months before I do one of these!

Life Update: ISU Year 1 done!

I decided to do a brief life update since I haven't done one in awhile. I haven't done much of anything on this blog in awhile. My computer actually is having problems at the moment, and I generally don't like using my iPad to blog. But since that's all I've got at the moment it will have to do. I bought a keyboard for it, so writing on it is not that bad anymore. I'm waiting for some stuff to fix my computer to be shipped to me. Hopefully that will take care of it. If not, I'll have to take it somewhere to be fixed.

In case you didn't know, I am now done with my first year at Iowa State. I am loving it so far. I got pretty good grades all around. One not-so-good grade, but also one very good one, so it kind of evens itself out. I took (a few) pictures and I plan to share them as soon as my computer is working properly again. Next semester I'll be taking a few more journalism classes, as well as introductory Spanish, and Photography. I'm hoping the photography class will start teaching me more about all the hundreds of settings on my camera that I have no idea what they do.

I also quit my job at the Ames Hy-Vee. I was getting barely any hours all semester. A couple of weeks I only got three hours. For the whole week. Which is not enough for anything. So I decided to cut my losses before going home for the summer and look elsewhere next semester. Right now I'm looking into getting a job at the campus bookstore. I've always loved the idea of working in a bookstore or library, so I hope it works out!

Tomorrow I turn into a saggy pile of wrinkles and begin using a walker, drinking prune juice, and going to bed at 7:30. I mean, it's my birthday. I turn 28. Get off my lawn kids.

In related, happier news, my uncle is taking me to a Lindsey Stirling concert for my birthday on Saturday! I can't wait! It will be my first ever "Real" concert, not just a classical performance at the local high school, or at college. I will be bringing my good camera and praying it makes it through security. I want good pictures!

Well, that's about it for now. I'm still working at the Harlan Hy-Vee. I'm getting way more hours than I was in Ames. Later this summer my cousins and I are tentatively planning a trip to somewhere. We're still ironing out the details, but there will be pictures. I've been going to a bunch of movies, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Godzilla, X-Men: Days of Future Past, but I haven't written any reviews. Maybe I'll do that later on. There's still a few coming up. I'll be seeing Maleficent tomorrow with my cousins for my birthday. It looks amazing. I love new twists on old stories.

Okay, that's enough rambling. Look for another True Facts post tomorrow!

A Moment of Self Reflection

Today I watched a video that caused some self-reflection. I will link to it for you.



Why would something like this cause self-reflection? I really have no idea. It's just that after I watched it, I realized something about myself, that seems completely contradictory. What I enjoy in entertainment is often the polar opposite of who I am in real life.

In real life I am, or at least I try to be, an optimist. I always look for the good in people, I always try to have a good attitude, I try to be a very pleasant person. Someone that everyone wants to be around. (And if they don't, I probably don't want to be around them anyway.) Some people would probably say that I am TOO nice. This is pretty much the opposite of a lot of my favorite characters, in all sorts of media.

I seem drawn to the characters with bad attitudes. Characters who are pessimists, gloomy, people who get easily angry over things. I always find them a lot funnier than the nice ones. I am not against the nice characters, but when it comes to comedy at least, I seem to like the "Less-Than-Pleasant" people better. Oscar the Grouch, and Grumpy Cat, are two good examples. I just find surly characters to be a great source of humor. And not just surly ones, some people that are just downright unpleasant for all sorts of reasons are some of my favorite characters.

Take Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. That kid is a nasty little menace! He terrorises Suzie, makes life miserable for his parents, and torments his teacher and babysitter constantly, but for some reason, I love him.

Another example is Hyacinth Bucket (It's pronounced Bouquet!) from Keeping Up Appearances. (A British Comedy) She's a nosy busybody, always trying to "Fix" everyone she deems to be below her standards, and she would be just an awful person to be around in real life. Yet, as a character on a TV show, I love her.

Many more examples can be found in almost any Disney Villain. The first two that immediately pop into my mind are Maleficent, from Sleeping Beauty, and Ursula, from The Little Mermaid. They are without a doubt, two of the most loathsome characters in the Disney canon, but they are two of my favorites. I just love a good villain. (As an aside, I am way too excited for the live action Maleficent movie coming next year!)

I have also found, that when I write my fictional stuff, I find that I have the most fun writing the bad characters, or the ones with attitude. The people that say and do things that in real life I would never even dream of doing.

Take Lorenzo Literate from my Facebook Friends series. I think that, in a way, he is me. He is what I want to say to people, but I never would. Sometimes I have found myself scaling back his reactions to people, and completely rewriting them because I think I finally went to far. I don't want to be mean, even to fictional characters. See what I mean? I'm too nice. :p

The other great example would be my REAL stories of various fairytale characters. I have the most fun writing the villains. By far my favorite character so far has been Goldilocks. I loved writing what a terror she was. And (Spoiler Alert!) I'm working on a sequel. :p

So, anyway. That was my moment of self-reflection for the day. I like the "Bad" characters, but at the same time, I'm glad that I'm not anything like them. Or am I...? Mwa ha ha ha ha....