in silence find we meaning (includes episode three three in one project).

"silence is a source of great strength."

  --lao tzu

(that means this blog has grown very powerful.)

it's been a while. even by my standards. a lot has gone on since june twentieth, but not too much that you'll care about, so i'll streamline.

first of all, there are two musical projects that i need to get posted. the first was another three in one project. they're already on facebook, but in case you missed them (heaven forbid), here they are (there's more blog-vomit to read after the videos, if you're interested).

 three in one project, episode three:

"psyanky."

 

 "he's all ober this."

"two men, two kites."

the other musical project was my one in seven project. that is, one album in seven days. the whole thing is extremely rough, but at the end of the seven was a collection of thirteen tracks. i'll do another post for those soon, but if you want the album, just get a hold of me and i'll e-mail the whole thing to you in mp3. 

beyond the world of music, i've had a few entertaining experiences. i trained for and was able to finish a sprint length triathlon and a half marathon over the last few weekends. my times were unimpressive in comparison to most people in my age bracket, but for me and my habitually sedentary self, these are nice accomplishments. my right ankle didn't take as kindly to my half marathon, so i've been neglecting the running as of late. however, i'm taking a swimming class this semester which has been a great thing. it's basically a required bit of exercise every few days, and its helping improve my awful swim times. win win. i do have to use the locker room though... so win win lose, i suppose. just the same, it's a great time (the pool--not the locker room).

and the last bit of big news, i'm graduating in december. this is exciting, though also terrifying as i read dozens of articles noting that graduates are having a difficult time finding jobs, and likely will for some time. in case your graduating soon and would like some halloween reading:

college graduates unemployed.

no job for college graduates, so why go?

increase in unemployed graduates.

fresh out of college, slim hope for a job.

and the personal favorite:

jobs crisis could spark riots here

if i don't get a job, at least i can get tear gassed.

still, i'm really excited to graduate. i confess, worksheets are becoming a greater and greater challenge to complete. besides, we all know what happens after i graduate--the chops return and remain in triumph!

--trace.

three in one project: episode two. (june 19, 2011; 17:54-18:54)

this is episode two of my three in one project. in case you missed the first one, you can find it here. with the explanation given already, i'll cut straight to the tracks. hope you enjoy. or are at least mildly amused.

"turtles and hellhounds."

this song's suggestion by annie. quote: "a chipper/catchy song, with lyrics narrating some pathetic event as it unfolds before our eyes? i.e. a dog eating your birthday cake."

thanks again for the suggestion.
song title: turtles and hellhounds.

"dewey's departure."

this song's suggestion by neil. quote: " Dewey's first day at army camp, he is sad, misses his friends trace and neil, and he relizes he forgot his pants."

thanks again for the suggestion.
song title: dewey's departure.

"thundering cultural hall."

this song's suggestion by steve. quote: "44 dwarves and a bearded woman playing church ball in the thunder dome.

"thanks again for the suggestion.

song title: thundering cultural hall.

fifty thousand words.

"when asked, 'how do you write?' I invariably answer, 'one word at a time.'"

-stephen king.

today i'm beginning my june project. rather than sitting around to relax in my scheduled downtime, my goal is to write a novel (albeit an awful one) in that time instead. this was inspired by a few things: the first is that fact that i've been meaning to write a novel for several years now; the second is wanting my downtime to go towards something besides high scores; and lastly, the suggestion of my friend eric. eric gave me a lead to national novel writing month (http://www.nanowrimo.org/), which basically is an event that invites you to take one month and write a novel (at least fifty-thousand words in length) from scratch, start to finish. the actual month takes place in november, but i decided to give it a solo run in june--we all know i'm impatient.


for my mother's sake, i'll remind you it's a downtime project, and my schoolwork, work, etc. come before it. just the fact that i'll have a pet project for a month is a wonderful thought. 


it will never be published, likely never be read. but it'll be written--that's worth something, right?

three in one project: episode one. (may 28, 2011; 21:51-22:51)

"all growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience."

--henry miller. 

for a long time, i've been trying to find a venue/excuse/program of forcing creativity. those of you who've followed me or this blog will recognize these in some of my failed efforts of past including "the real reason for notebooks" and "the weekly wikicast." anyway, i may have stumbled onto one yesterday that i can actually do and keep up. i've decided to call it the "three in one project."

the three in one project is this: obtain three ideas for songs from exterior sources and write these three songs in one hour. following the hour, the songs are recorded and posted.  

the idea came, the invitation posted, songs written, then recorded and posted within a few hours (compliments of the time it took to collect three ideas via a facebook status update and technical difficulties in recording them). the songs were written in the hour, though, and now i've three songs as a result. i've posted them below.

hope you enjoy. but if not, i did.

hugs,

trace.

wintermute.

"measure twice, cut once."

--zion base founder

(neuromancer, william gibson)

for time first time in a long time, if ever, i'm in a spot where i need to organize on a level far past my experience. this is in no small part due to the fact that much of my planning is reliant on computers.

i've an able enough hand at hum-drum activities on a computer, but utilizing them for planning and record keeping (activities i typically reserve for paper and pen) is a matter foreign to me. so... what to do? it's strange that one of the greatest challenges of my near future is becoming more familiar with computers where for the past three years, i've been more than competent. 

for better or worse, me and my lappie will be getting to know each other even better. we'll see what happens.

tic tacs.

i remember once getting a box of orange tic tacs when i was about twelve years old. my brother worked at the vans shoes shop in the local outlet mall and i'd gone with my dad to pick him up, making a pit stop at a gas station along the way. my father was kind enough to let me grab a treat of some sort, and i bought the box of orange tic tacs.

for whatever reason, the wait was a little longer than my twelve year old self had planned on and by the time we had picked up my brother and made our way home, i'd gotten through more than half the container. when my mother found out she was none too pleased and informed me that "they're breath mints, not candy. you can't just eat them like skittles."

i've a box of tic tacs i've been working on for the last few days. i just barely hit half empty.

my mother would be proud.

l'blog pour l'blog.

"l'art pour l'art."

("art for art's sake.")

--french slogan (source debated)

i recently was reading my friend laura's blog where she discussed the purposes behind her blogging. it was a good read, and had me start thinking the my own blog's roots. my first blog post was four sentences long.

quote: 

disaster has struck, and i'm now a "blogger." or, you could take the immature route and think that i'm a "booger." i personally think that's the funnier option.

and on that note, my first blog post is complete.

this was the beginning of something that has now been in progress for two years,one month, and fifteen days as of the time of this post. while this description may make it sound like some sort of noble quest, you, my two readers, surely know otherwise. what it is, in fact, is a little nook of lund on the net. a place for me to ramble and for you to wish i didn't. 

this blog has roots in things since passed and addressed in posts previous in a variety of, at times absurd or stupid, ways. at these times i mainly wanted an outlet besides punching a wall. nowadays, however, i find myself punching fewer walls and needing less frequent bizarre allegories.

so why do i keep this up, my dear two readers?

l'blog pour l'blog.

the point (radio version).

 

"it is easy to answer the ultimate questions - it saves you bothering with the immediate ones."

--john osborne

i just wrote about two pages worth of fury notes animating my feelings toward math, the math department, and the remarkably frustrating feeling of your effort having no bearing on your grade.

after writing this, though, i realized that it would be of little interest to you, my two readers, so instead of posting it, i did as i have in the past--i e-mailed it to myself for keeping and am replacing the post with a brief description of what the original said, along with something that i found to cheer me up and hopefully brighten your day, if only just a little.

and what brightened my day? shaolin monks, of course! here's a taste of what i'm watching, but youtube is stuffed with other clips. what a time.

hope it buoys up your day like it did mine.
best,
trace.

tuesdays with little trace.

 "when i get a job, i'm not going to be a suit. i'm going to play drums in a punk band and rock 'til i die on stage."

--little trace.

there are times i look at my life, goals, etc., and wonder to myself what little trace would think them. would my high school self be pleased with my college self? in some cases i'm thrilled when my current track matches what little trace would have hoped for and saddened when the two diverge. other times, i'm extremely grateful when they are different and a little saddened when they're one in the same.

this year, though, i've been looking a bit more to my high school self for wisdom that i may have lost since i stopped putting elmer's glue in my hair. my priorities have undergone some substantial reevaluation and plans i've taken for granted a good portion of my college career i've been inclined to reconsider. this is no small part thanks to some recent reminiscing as i went through old junk and yearbooks, as well as taking the time remember back to what i wanted from life when i was sixteen.

some goals of little trace, ranging from childhood through adolescence*:

• speak a foreign language (several if possible).
• live overseas.
• play music beyond drumming along with my cd collection.
• study something when i get to college that was as much about being cool as paying the bills. 
• learn some sort of martial art.
• wear glasses.
• be famous in a way that meant i could see my name in the news without seeing my picture.
• be just like my older brother.
• never admit to the last point.
• consistently stick it to the man.
• get rich and donate a large chunk of my wealth to a worthwhile cause. 
• eat a lot of foreign food that looks or smells disgusting.
• finish with school quickly so i can get on with my life.
• go vegan.
• go bald.
• shave my head once i go bald.
• learn to juggle pins.
• get a bunch of tattoos.
• have a job where i worked with people rather than papers. 
• have a family. 
• have a dog.
• live punk rock til the day i die.

now. some of these things make lots of sense. i've wanted to learn karate or some other martial art since i saw 3 ninjas as a child and the vegan ideology was big with a lot of the bands i listened to. others, such as "go bald," i have to question--especially as they seem to be coming to fruition with or without my wanting them to. either way, as i've reviewed these priorities and others i've made some changes and undertaken some new efforts. this is because, in some (but not all) ways, little trace was much wiser than balding trace (also known as current trace). 

since i abandoned my plan for med school back in the day, i've run with the assumption that i'd be going to school until i got a phd in some field of psychology. why? a few reasons: i didn't want to feel like i failed in not going to med school, and a phd in some branch of psychology, i felt, would prove that i hadn't; i love psychology and figured more of it would be all the better; and i had no idea what else i'd do if i didn't go to grad school. so why am i no longer feeling this way? first and foremost, because i hate school. i love learning, i love research, i love reading, i love many of the people i've been able to work with, and so much more. what have i hated? the school portion of my learning. i can spend hours on the random article generator of wikipedia and on link connections (which, to my discredit, happens more than i'd like to admit) but i genuinely struggle at times with reading ten pages of a text book. however, more than this (somewhat sad) reason, are reasons number two and three.


reason two: somewhere in my academic progression i forgot that i wanted to work with people and not paper--which is exactly the opposite of what i started planning to do as of a year and a half ago. as i reviewed the goals of traces past, this came to my attention, and it sincerely shook me. i've since began making plans for how i can work with people as i wanted to for the majority of my life. what does that mean? well, hopefully it means that i'll be able to work with the people of other countries in developing programs and establishments that are needed. whether or not this particular career path is what i end up in, it's far closer to what i really want to do than anything i've planned on in the last few years. 

reason three: i want to start doing things instead of studying for the next four to five years because i can't think of anything else to do. that was an extremely stupid reason for wanting to go to grad school, and i'm a little embarrassed to admit that it was a key reason to my wanting to go to grad school. i don't know what i'll be able to do when i graduate, and i very well may wind up furthering my education in a formal university setting sometime in the future, but not now.

this has been the major change (or collection of changes) that's come from my re-acquaintance with little trace, but others are also present. i've signed up for a basic martial arts course after approximately eighteen years of wanting to do so (bringing me one step closer to my dream of competing in a fighting tournament ala bloodsport), i've started downloading french webcasts to listen to in a baby-steps effort to learn french, and i've started undertaking other efforts that i feel my little self would be pleased to learn of. 


at the end of the day, i've been reminded of what i really wanted to do and be by what i use to do and be. 


to my dear, unpleasant, punk rocking sixteen year old trace, i give my sincere thanks and apologies for not getting in touch with you sooner. i also apologize for not living up to some of your goals and aspirations that i won't be returning to--you'll understand why when you get to the point where you write this blog.


best wishes,
bigger little trace.



*some goals from earlier childhood were initially included, but ultimately omitted from the main list to avoid confusion. they were: live on an island with monkeys, marry megan c. from my fourth grade class, own a racing motorcycle, and play for the utah jazz or be an astronaut if i didn't make the team.

dr. dohn m. denison secondary school.

"Dr. J.M. Denison S.S. is a public high school in the York Region District School Board located on 135 Bristol Rd, Newmarket, Ontario, Canada and it opened in 1989. Additions were built in 1991, and a new technological studies wing was completed in late 2009. The school is just south of the border between Newmarket and East Gwillimbury, but the school address is in Newmarket."

--wikipedia 

 
sometimes i'll commit to doing thing only because it'll make me do something i wouldn't do if i just had to say yes or no at the moment of the opportunity. such is the case with a local music venue's singer/songwriter competition. i received an e-mail last monday saying that they were having a week long equivalent to a battle of the bands where five (i think) people will play a twenty minute set of their original stuff. winner for audience and judge's choice. realizing it was an interesting opportunity, but i wouldn't do it if i got there and didn't have to, i immediately wrote back and signed up. so now i have to, which is a good thing. it's intimidating, but i'll survive at any rate.

the predicament this puts me in now is what songs to play. my current game plan is to do two songs on guitar and then two to three (depending on time) on the ukelele. i'm deciding on my guitar ones, as i've a few i can readily use. however, my ukelele ones present an opportunity to spew some creativity as i've got two songs with the music laid out that i would love to use, but no lyrics as of yet for either. so i'm looking for things to write about. wikipedia's random article generator (a favorite passtime)has been helpful for this sort of thing in the past (and is the source of the article at the top of the page), but it's still not proving very helpful. 

so. here's the scoop. i'm posting two songs up with their working titles i had pertaining to where they might go. it would be very helpful for me if you could post a comment stating what each, or one of the songs make you think of so i can possibly use it as a basis for writing the lyrics. you can feel free to use the working titles as a basis for your ideas, or forget the titles altogether. if i choose yours, you won't get much out of it... but i'll mention your name and buy you a soda sometime. 

the songs.

(oh, and as a sidenote, these aren't the whole of the songs, just the gist so you get the general feeling. also, i look angry in both videos. i'm not sure why that is.)

good day to grow a beard.

peruvian tracy. 

thanks again in advance.

flourescent gore.

poetry is a habit of mine that fluctuates in its frequency. typically it comes when i've a few minutes to spare or my mind is wandering. because of this, bedside scraps of paper and math notebooks tend to attract a lot of it. 

i think i'm going to start posting some of it from time to time (starting with this post) to help keep them somewhere that isn't as readily lost or thrown away. also, it may help flesh out the blog with some more regular posts. or perhaps just flood it with garbage. but if i was afraid of posting garbage, i wouldn't both posting anymore. 




1:07

in less than a minute you will change--
color soon will rearrange
from the red shapes on black i saw before
and again you'll adjust in a minute more. 
electric black and florescent gore,
the devil's cattle on on a midnight range.
    yes, you've no hands to tell of time.
    you need them not, small clock of mine. 




bean of light


kidney bean on my wall,
what's your point in being?
have you a goal you're chasing?
have you a fear you're fleeing?
or is fate with you agreeing
and softening you with good intentions?
or do i label you with my own fears and contentions?
you're likely just another false projection i am seeing.
     i confess, the latter smacks more true,
     but i feel less concern for me than you.


p.s.--a quick note: though i love poetry, i've never been able to take it very seriously. feel free to read anything you like into this stuff, but know that what i put into it is of consistently shallow substance.

captain ahab.

over break, i had the pleasure of not shaving for a length of time. when i did shave, i had the pleasure of leaving a set of chops. more particularly, "whaler's chops," "1800's banker chops," "amish chops," or "leprechaun chops" depending on which term you fancy using.

it was a pleasure.

in order to remember the good times before i began school once more and had to shave them off, i decided while in the parking lot of big lots to get a photo or two of me with them. the shot i share with you now is the combination of an afternoon sun, quickshot autofocus, and a car to the side of me squeeling; all at the perfect moment to make this photo look like an abercrombie ad. it doesn't really even show the chops because of the extreme lighting, but oh well. it's for me to remember the good times, and that it does effectively.

lie detectors.

i'm writing this post from my phone as a test, so if formatting seems wacky, accept my apologies.

i recently realized that i would fail any lie detector test. this is not because i'm a poor liar (though i am), but because although i respond well to pressure when it comes to schedules, assignments, etc., i am absolutely terrified of interrogative situations. for whatever reasons, i can't handle it. whether or not i know something, did something, or anything else my nerves loudly rattle when someone interviews/interrogates me as if i do.

i can handle interviews for work or the like, but if i were wrongfully accused of even a petty crime and given a lie detector test, my physiological responses would betray me and i'd likely be found guilty. at least based on the test.

i hate that.

on a side note, i've once again grown the christmas chops.