Measures of Success.

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My chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi hosted a huge event this weekend for all of the leadership in the Western District of the United States. 

And it went incredibly well. All of the comments I received filled me with such a love and passion for this organization and what I'm doing. My chapter showed me that they are incredibly hospitable, willing to serve others, and able to work hard. I'm proud and I feel accomplished with my job as president of the chapter. 

One of the best measures of success is how the people you lead achieve. And the people I'm leading are on top of their game right now. 

Why Music Is Important:

I'm in a music service fraternity (yes, it's co-ed) and a brother from Minnesota posted online that music education is being cut in her school district. Sadly, this is not uncommon. Music programs are being cut around the nation. She asked us to help, to comment on a survey hosted by the school district that wants opinions. This is what I wrote:  

Taking away music programs in schools is one of the worst decisions you can make. Music classes are where students not only learn creativity and artistic skills, but it is where they learn valuable life skills that affect every aspect of life. Social skills, interpersonal skills, leadership, dedication, work ethic, and teamwork are all learned in music classes. Aren't these qualities you want your citizens to have in the future? 
In addition, students who participate in music programs achieve higher in other areas as well, especially in academics. Children who study music tend to have larger vocabularies and more advanced reading skills than their peers who do not participate in music lessons. Regardless of socioeconomic status or school district, students who participate in high-quality music programs score 22 better on English and 20% better on math standardized exams.
And schools with music programs have an estimated 90.2% graduation rate and 93.9% attendance rate compared to schools without music education, which average 72.9% graduation and 84.9% attendance.
Cutting music classes would impact the school district not only because the students will not do as well in all the areas I mentioned above, but also because your school district statistics will suffer! Your scores will go down. Your graduation and attendance rates will go down. Is that something you want? 

Rose Bowl.

I'm currently on a bus on the way to California for the Rose Bowl. I'm in the Oregon Marching Band and our journey to support our team started today.

Day 1 of 8. We've been on the bus since 6:30 so I've been in roughly the same position for about 8 hours already. Which is... rough. But totally worth it. Obviously. 

I'm also writing an article about my personal view on the trip with the band for the University and that gives the trip an interesting spin. I've taken so many trips with the band that it had sort of become second nature: get on the bus or plane, hurry up and wait, make sure everyone is where they need to be, perform, and have fun. 

This gives me something new to do though and combines my two passions, which is one of my favorite thing. That's also why I love being a photographer on our trips. But this is something that I haven't done before so I'm really looking forward to what I end up with.  

Now, the question is, how do I make three days of riding on a bus exciting? 

 

People in a damn hurry.

I went Christmas shopping today and it was like a push into a capitalism shitstorm. I pretty much drove on every highway in Portland as I was trying to get my shopping done and people were just going crazy. 
Every where I went people were fighting for parking spaces and bumping into each other as they rushed into stores. I got in my car and purposely didn't turn on the engine so that I wouldn't be bothered as I looked up directions because I was on the side of town that I wasn't as familiar with. Another driver must have seen me get into my car because he proceeded to pull over and have others go around him as he waited and honked at me until I moved. 
Excuse me? 
When did the holidays become so misunderstood? And how can we turn back time on this nonsense? 

On a no inspiration day.

What happens to you when you have one of those days? You know when you sit down to write something and then:

....
....
....

Nothing. I'm having one of those days today. Or come to think of it, one of those hours (or more like 2 hours and 20 minutes so far...this morning was actually pretty decent). Thank god the typical work day ends at 4 or 5 because right now -- after so many hours of thinking -- I'm drawing a blank.

I love thinking about my golden hours for work because I think it tells so much about me and how I process information, how I get things done, and when I am in my creative peak of the day. If I had more mathematical skills and/or the motivation to make a little graph on my work ability throughout the day, I think it would be interesting and actually quite visually appealing.
Alas, I am not going to go to that trouble right now because well, these are my going-on-3-hours of no inspiration time.

If you are wondering, I believe my peak hours are 9:30-11:30am, 2-4:30pm, and about 1:30-4am.* Like I can get some seriously good shit done at 3am. Which is why I'm always willing to give up sleep for something I'm passionate about. Because I can sleep whenever. Creativity doesn't work that way.

In fact, I should probably just go take a nap right now so I can get to work later.
 

*None of this applies when I'm on a deadline. Because that's actually the real way to get me to pump out some great work.

 

For Eric:

I've been thinking about you a lot lately. 

You remind me to be strong, to care for others, to love unconditionally. I think of you when I want to quit because you never did. You fought until the end, and I can deal with whatever it is that I think I'm struggling with. 

When I think of you, tears fill my eyes because you were too good of a person to leave us so soon. And I can't imagine what your family and best friends are feeling right now. 
I. Can't. Imagine. 

Because as much as I feel sorrow and regret and sadness, I didn't know you as well as I wish I did. And my heart is with those that did. Those that had the extreme pleasure of being in your presence because you were loved by all and were an inspiration to all. You still are and always will be. 

On dumb advertising.

Here is an ad: 

Go ahead. Read it again. 
Wait... what? This actually took me a couple minutes to realize that this wasn't a company trying to protect some odd animal cause. In which case, they totally missed the mark. Not only is this just a dumb misspelling due to the lack of necessary elements, but they have skewed the focus to something completely away from what they actually do. 
Some may argue that this was a brilliant advertising ploy to stir talk and conversation, but to be honest, not once (even at this point as I'm writing about this... I should've probably looked at that) taken note of what company this was or what they were trying to get across. All I saw was: Bi Lions. Again: wait... what? 
On Consumerist.com, Mary Beth Quirk takes us through some ideas of what the intention of this ad really was. She quotes Laura Northrup who says, “It’s like someone got this idea and refused to let it go despite it not working with the actual periodic table.” I feel like this is probably a likely explanation because there's no way a team of people could overlook this. It had to be intentional. 

Either way, bad move in my opinion. Even if it is generating talk, it's the wrong kind of talk that in no way even centers on their company. It's more like "Oh, did you see that dumbass company who misspelled billions?" I still have no idea what company it is or what they're selling... and at this point, I don't even care enough to find out. 

Also, the general public seems to feel the same way. Quirk had a poll in addition to her article on the subject:  

You should be happy to hear that I voted that this company actually wanted to save bisexual lions. 

Basically, this company has effectively made themselves the butt of a huge joke. Thanks for the laugh, whatever-company-is-this-dumb. 



How to Make a Hit Pop Song.

This is great because it's so true. This sounds like something that you would find on the radio. 

I also like the bassoon part because I actually know how to play a lot of instruments and I always think that when I hear random pop songs with crappy trumpets or saxophones and the people using them know like nothing about the instruments. In "Talk Dirty to Me" there's a baritone saxophone part and in the music video they show the trumpet every time that part happens. I'm always just sitting there like laughing and shaking my head. 

Skype.

One of my biggest loves in advertising is how emotional they can be. I LOVE ads that can make me cry. I stumbled upon this one while scrolling through my Facebook feed and wanted to share. 

One of my best decisions this week:

Creating a "Design I Like" board on Pinterest. 

As creatives, everything in this world is design. There are ideas all around us. But the tough job? To cultivate the good stuff. What do I like?

And also importantlly, what do I not like (and what should I never want to create myself)?

Life should be like a big Pinterest board, which is why I have a notebook to write down/draw/take note of things that I see in offline life. But Pinterest makes it easy: I can see design that I would never have in my daily life and I can keep it all in one place that I can refer back to. 

YesAllWomen.

Until recently, I didn't know how big of a problem this was. Young girls, me included, grow up being taught to be scared and it's normal-- that what we're doing could cause a man to attack us or kidnap us or rape us. 

I grew up being scared. And I didn't realize it until now. I don't blame anyone for this because this is how our culture is and my mom was looking out for me, but if I had a dollar for every time she told me to be careful in our neighborhood at night or told me to always have a friend walk anywhere with me in college or got mad at me for walking past 9pm alone. 

I feel guilty for walking alone. For being scared. 

And I didn't realize how big of a problem this is. 
But it is, and it needs to change. 

#YesAllWomen

Men, women, everyone- take a look at this: 

17 #YesAllWomen Tweets Everyone Must See. For The First Time Ever, I'm Speechless.

Also, this is terrifying: 


On Pet Peeves.

I don't know if this is just me being weird… 

But one of my pet peeves is when someone uses like five exclamation marks. Even three does it for me. 

Why? 

I don't understand why more than one is necessary. I was going to joke and use excessive punctuation to make my point, but it just felt so wrong.

Heart of Eugene.

I work at a ballet company in downtown Eugene and I don't have a car. 
It's not that far away so it's not that big of a hassle (and I have a wonderful best friend/roommate who let's me use her car way more than I should), but I find myself almost every day of the week taking the bus into the heart of the Eugene. 

Now, Eugene is pretty weird, which is great in my opinion. 
The transit system is like the hub for all of that weirdness though so the things I can see in a day or the people I interact with on a 10 minute bus ride is incredible. There are so many different types of people all jam packed into one vehicle. 

More on this later.