Waldon here! Sorry that we've been updating a little... Oddly, but school comes first you guys. Actually, I was doing a lab report right up until a few minutes ago. If I hadn't checked my email to see what was happening with everybody else, I'd still be doing it. As it was, I did an extra like, 13 questions that I didn't need to do.

So, I just checked the stats on the site, and right after Bre posted the last time, we went right up to almost 92 hits. :S That's intense! We average like, 14 a day, usually. Now, We WERE getting about 75 a day before this new (unintentional) update schedule came about. So, I think that this incredible surge of views has to be because of the math in Bres post. It's the only thing different about the posts! xD Maybe I should start posting more math?

Speaking of Bre, today is her birthday! :)

Happy Birthday babe, I love you! :) xoxox

Now, I'm going to bed. After that long, pointless, 6 hour trek through the bio lab that didn't need to have that much done, I need sleep. Good night all!
-Waldon

Ah, Math. It makes for a lovely title. For those of you who may not know, the title actually DOES make sense. It's something that we're doing at the moment in Calculus II called integration by parts... Basically, you have a little squiggly line with a bunch of x's and arcs and trig functions and lns and dxs next to it, and you have to find the original function. It's fun. We have a test on it tomorrow, so I need to get back to studying it soon.

SPEAKING OF TESTS, we have a bunch of stuff to do this week! So much stuff, in fact, that it needs to be put in a list.

Stuff that needs to be done/will happen this week:

- Math test tomorrow: not too bad. I'm pretty good at Math, so I'm not overly worried about the outcome of the test.

- Chem quiz on Wednesday: hm. A little worried, but not too much. I'm more worried about Junior and his... Difficulties with Chem.

- Chem pre-lab due Wednesday: I need to check qith Rami about something tomorrow, then I should be able to do everything no problem?

- English presentation on Wednesday: honestly, this came as a bit or a surprise for all of us. On Friday, Tony asked us to start writing our draft for our essay (we had to analyze an ad of some sort). We knew that we would eventually have to make a little presentation of it, sure, but today's news came as a surprise. Apparently, we need to do the presentation on Wednesday. Of course, very few (I won't say the entire class) had anything done, and I have a feeling that most will be in a panic soon.

- Physics test on Thursday: well. We had a test last Tuesday, but we did so horribly on one question that Ranjan took it out of the marking and told us that we'd have another test on the SAME MATERIAL this Thursday. He's going to be out of town from tomorrow to Thursday, so Rami will be watching us. :p

- Psych test Thursday: we all knew this was coming. Michelle told us at the beginning of the semester when all of our tests would be. This is just unfortunate.

- Physics assignment due Thursday: this is just the online stuff... No biggy.

- Physics assignment due Friday: what is this, you may ask? A typo? Am I going crazy? No. It's not a typo. I'm not crazy. We have a second Physics assignment that's due on Friday when Ranjan comes back. Yay.

And finally,

- English essay due Friday: sigh. Another one.

Yeah. We're going to have a busy week, but that's okay! I'll get everything done with enough time to help Junior out, haha. On the plus side, I got to work on the English presentation with Junior tonight! We're partners and, so far, it's working out well. I haven't had a panic attack yet. Tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to study Psych with Cody for a bit, before I go to the airport with Nan. She's going out of town for a week to see my cousin's song release. It's exciting! Then, tomorrow night, Junior and I will be working on our English. Again.

Well. This was longer than I had anticipated. I need to go study! Good night!

- Bre :)

P.S. The cafeteria is STILL closed. I doubt it'll be open tomorrow. David and I have been doing Tim Horton's runs for the past couple of days, and I don't think I can handle anymore Tim's! xD

Waldon here, and the smell of my hot chocolate is driving me crazy, but I don't want to get another one cause I'd wake up the house. XD

Anyway, for my first post since getting out for March break and Weebly letting me log back in, I'll finally do a post that I've been thinking about for a day or so; Music.

I'm branching out guys. I NEVER talk about music.

(Apologies in advance, I doubt this is very coherent. I didn't exactly plan it out before writing it.)

I was listening to Breaking Benjamin the other day, and I realized something about the genre of metal that linked it to classical; even to things like folk and spiritual music. You see, heavier rock or any of the sub-genres of metal (That's really vague, but believe me, there are hundreds of ways I could classify this. I'll just use these two categories.) ARE passive music. You can sit down and listen to it while working or relaxing, but it's also involved in the active mind processes. It is thought provoking and stimulating. It will give you ideas that you've never had before, or create mental channels that you've never used. Because you have to TRY to hear it.

When I'm listening to metal or heavier rock where others can hear it, numerous times, I've been told that it's not really music, or that it's just senseless noise. It's not senseless at all. It's HEAVY. That's the point of the message of that particular song. It's when the emotion is so strong in a piece that the singer has to yell it out. That song has to get out; it has to get out, or the emotion is gone. The genre is almost pure, if you look at it that way. But that isn't the point that I'm trying to get across here.

What I'm trying to say (albeit in a roundabout, convoluted way) is that you need to actively LISTEN to the heavier genres. You need to concentrate on the song itself and filter out the "noise" about it, so that the vocals are clear to you, so you can distinguish between the individual instruments and listen to the song itself; how they all fit together.

Now, I know at least one person reading this is going to wonder; where do genres like Classical come into this?

Simply put, classical music is open to interpretation as well. As is Folk, Trance, Spiritual music and all the other non-canon (I do not believe canon is the word I'm looking for, but alas.) musical genres that are considered weird by a majority of the population.

This is because a good portion of what ends up being mainstream music, or the music that the average person listens to, is passive. It allows you to just turn it on, and let the words and beat, rhythm and meaning come to you and influence you. It tells a story or presses an ideal forward that we can readily agree with, whilst that message may not even be what the artist intended, because we've all decided to make the song mean what we want it to mean.

People, en masse, do not want to have to work to hear a song or have to focus to understand a message. Music for most people is for relaxing. They listen to music to hear bands or artists that they relate to "talk" to them. People want to feel like they're listening to a friend. They want to turn on the radio or iTunes or browse youtube and listen to things that aren't harsh or directly related to themselves, and I completely understand that.

Think about when you listen to a song and the vocals aren't clear. Now, I want you to think about how often you subconsciously dismiss something that's just gibberish or pointless rambling? That's because we process all of those things on the same mental level; white noise.

If I may step back to a previous point; people say metal or heavy rock is just noise, and I personally I hear the most objections about metal or heavy rock that have to deal with how the words of the song are all just growling or too jumbled to hear. "White noise."

When I started listening to metal and heavy rock, I couldn't tell what the vocalists were saying. I didn't have a CLUE. But, I kept listening to it. I wanted to know what they were saying, I wanted to know what they were trying to tell me. Slowly, I began to actually hear the song itself and not just some amalgamation of cacophony (That would make an awesome band name, btw) that's blaring from my speakers.

And I slowly began to enjoy more, and more of the genre. I noticed that bands that I thought were just yelling at me, were actually just angry; angry at themselves, at the world, at the unfortunate things that happened to them. And then I noticed that people expanded that again, they made the genre into it's own breeding ground. Comedy, drama, serious musical compositions. It was all there. It was just under the surface of that harsh exterior.

Similar to the wordlessness of classical or trance, wouldn't you say? It's almost impossible to tell what the maestro is trying to tell you, exactly what the composer was trying to say, even though the sounds are clear and concise. Classical and trance music are the equivalent of images without pictures. You paint your own, you create an image from the sounds you're given. It's similar to hearing a soundtrack to a well loved movie; you can see the actors going about their assigned roles.

Since starting to listen to metal and the harder rock, I've found myself liking more and more of the other types of music. Including hip-hop, rap, blues, jazz, trance, electronic, folk, acoustic and classical. I started to really listen, and I guess I just couldn't stop.

The genres of metal and hard rock make you start to think. They make you sit down and process their music. It creates a fandom within itself. You feel more personally connected to the song. Like listening to a well loved soundtrack... right? It makes you actually hear what the band or artist is trying to say, because if you don't actually LISTEN to them you won't even hear the song. It'll just be noise. It makes you think and process... and if you listen to the music and say you love it just because it's harsh and you're an angry individual, all the power to you.

But you're not really listening, if you're making a generalization like that, are you?

Now, I may have just made a few people irritated with me after hearing that, but I want you to look up two songs by Breaking Benjamin, and one by the universally loved Eric Clapton.

Layla [Unplugged] - Eric Clapton
Rain - Breaking Benjamin
I Will Not Bow - Breaking Benjamin

You'll notice that Layla [Unplugged] and Rain sound fairly tame, don't they? They sound like something relaxing, pretty, even. But I Will Not Bow? I bet a bunch of you didn't enjoy it, even though it was by the same thought provoking artist that made Rain. Within metal and hard rock, it isn't all just "yelling" and sacrilegious intent. Is music about the sound, or the message? That's entirely up to you, of course. After several years of listening to metal and heavier rock, I don't even need to try to filter them anymore, the words are clear to me. Musical preference is subjective, and I'd guess that a good portion of people if they ever read this, just dislike metal and hard rock just because. But if you've read this far, then I guess you're of a similar mind to my own, and I implore you and everybody around you...

Listen.

Just please. Sit down, and actually listen to the song. Listen to the sound of the song, and how it influences you. Listen to the words being said, and how they change your mindset. Listen to them both, together. Listen to the actual song.

Don't just dismiss metal and hard rock as pointless noise. It's a message, and a message left unheard can only hurt you, in the end.

Every thought you have that you've never had before, will enrich you.

Thank you all for listening to me.
-Waldon