If I still have any readers out there, I'm back and ready to resume blogging on a more regular basis. I've just started two weeks of vacation, and while I've planned some little days away, I intend to stay home - work on some de-junking, catch up on some blogging and photo editing, and crack open a book or two.
I've just had the idea to do a series of posts - kind of a retrospective. Favourite things from years past - music, trips, friends, stories. I think I'll try to do this once a week. I don't know if I'm just feeling overly nostalgic today, but it seems like a good idea.
So this first post will be about saying "hello again" to some old music, and 1992.
I think I started collecting music when I was, oh 13 or 14. When I started earning money babysitting. Before that, I used to tape songs off the radio (I know I'm not the only one who did this!). I SO wish I still had some of those tapes. I do have a couple of cases of cassette tapes sitting here in my room - and the funny thing? I don't have a cassette tape player. I don't even have a CD player anymore, other than my computer. I've gone completely digital. My CDs are boxed up and sitting on a shelf - and my iTunes library contains 4000+ songs. I haven't quite finished ripping all of my CD's, either.
I turned off the TV tonight (I usually have it on in the background when I'm on the internet) and put iTunes on shuffle. Third song in, Rain Down On Me by the incredible band, Blue Rodeo. I bought this tape in 1992 and wore. it. out. The biggest reason I'm a fan of Blue Rodeo is the beautiful voice of their lead singer, Jim Cuddy. He has one of the most amazing, goose-bump incurring voices I've ever heard. I love Jim, and I love this album. Surprisingly, I hadn't listened to it in a very long time. Most surprising? That I remembered so many lyrics. Must be the Brain Age 2 training. :) (Have I mentioned that I bought a Nintendo DS lite and I love it?)
Listening to this album took me right back - to when I was living with roommates the year after high school, my first year of university - to all the ups and downs and craziness and homesickness and everything else. Even though it was tough - it was a good year for me. I do wish that I had stuck to my studies and finished - but I wasn't ready. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And the funny thing, now that I'm doing what I want to do (the perfect mix of biology and technology and playing with school supplies all day), I often get comments like "why don't you go back to school" or "you could do so much more" or "you're too smart for this, don't you want to do something else?" I don't know whether to be insulted or complimented, so I usually just go with the latter and move on. I guess we all have different ideas of what "the perfect job" or "the perfect life" should be like. Makes life interesting!
Back in 1992, I was:
19 years old (wow!)
living away from home for the first time
attending the University of Lethbridge
learning that you never take a class where the prof uses slides all the time, therefore darkening the room, at 8:00 a.m. EVER.
learning that people are not always as they appear and can't always be trusted (a yucky, hard lesson to learn)
attending indie concerts and witnessing (dancing on the edge of) a mosh pit for the first time - and thus learning what burning marijuana smells like (no I never tried it!)
missing my family (my youngest brother was only six when I left home. it was hard to leave.)
taking the loser cruiser (the bus). a lot.
meeting up with old friends from the places I'd lived over the years (some from Bow Island and old Taber Stake buddies, Rebecca and Caprice from Lethbridge, even seeing some familiar faces from Melville)
experiencing how different life is outside of high school. (and realizing after so many years that it's really not that different - people change but work politics and social hierarchy don't)
writing in my journal, a LOT.
writing a lot of poetry.
having a serious crush on_______________ (har har, like I'm going to say who)
trying to grow my hair out (it was curly and permed and just about chin length. It's been long ever since)
starting to develop a really good relationship with my younger sister (and seeing her as more than a pesky little brat!)
Just starting out.
I can't believe 16 years have gone by so quickly - in a blink, really!
Next week: old journal entries/reflections on Jr. High. Should be...errr... interesting, to say the least.
Peace,
J
