Jen's Music of 2009

As the year comes to a close I started to realize how much music I had purchased/received this year. I finally made my own iTunes account this year, which probably explains how it got out of hand. It's not much compared to some people, but it's a lot compared to my music purchase history. So here's my music purchases in review:

Biggest surprise:
MewithoutYou's "It's all Crazy..." - It's so unique and has brilliant allegories. I never liked WMY until this album came out. Then I had to check out their other albums. I like :Brother, Sister" a lot. The others I can't get into yet.

Biggest Disappointment:
Apex Praise Band's "Live" album. Simply because they had to re-record all the vocals...not making it very "live".

Easiest Addiction:

Relient K's "Forget and Not Slow Down". I didn't realize much I missed these guys. I tend to associate their music with my high school days and stopped listening to their stuff, but their new album is indeed great and I haven't stopped listening to it in my car since I bought it.

But it wouldn't be fair if I didn't include Jon Foreman's EPs, because I can't stop listening to those either.

Took the Longest to Love:
MuteMath's "Armistice". I hated it. It didn't sound like MuteMath to me. Now I love it.

Best Soundtrack:
Away We Go. Touching, emotional movie. Touching, emotional soundtrack.

Best Song to Sing Along:
Arcade Fire's "Wake Up"

Best Single:
"How He Loves" by David Crowder Band (although many have told me other versions are good). This song got me through so many tough times this year.

Best Female Artist:
She & Him. I love Zooey's voice. And there are such sweet lyrics about that special someone. I made this category because I'm really pick about females singing.

Favorite Artist I Discovered This Year:
As Tall As Lions. Like, woah. Who knew I'd like the opening band for MuteMath so much!

Here's a list of all (of what I can remember) of the music I either purchased or received as a gift this year:

Anchor & Braille - Felt
Apex Praise Band - Live
Arcade Fire - Funeral
As Tall As Lions - As Tall As Lions
As Tall As Lions - You Can't Take It with You
Away We Go Soundtrack

Coldplay - LeftRightLeftRightLeft
David Bazan - Curse Your Branches
David Crowder Band - Remedy
David Crowder Band - How He loves (single)
Dustin Kenrue - Please Come Home
Feist - Let It Die
Feist - The Reminder
Jesse Remnant - The Human Cannonball
John Mayer - Battle Studies

Jon Foreman - Fall EP

Jon Foreman - Winter EP
Katy Perry - Hot N Cold (single)
Landon Pigg - Falling in Love At a Coffee Shop (single)
MewithoutYou - It's all Crazy! It's all False! It's All a Dream!
MewithoutYou - Brother, Sister
Monsters of Folk - Monsters of Folk
MuteMath - Armistice
Ocean's Eleven Soundtrack
Okay Lindon - Everything in Moderation
Relient K - Forget and Not Slow Down
She & Him - Volume One
Slumdog Millionaire Soundtrack
The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing
Thrice - Beggars

The Thoughts Journal

For a while I have been visiting a particular park, walking down a particular path and finding myself sitting on the same particular bench. And I'll think. I'll pray. And I'll just take in the outdoors, marveling at how big this world is and how small I am.

About a week ago my friend told me that the very bench I've been visiting opens up and holds a Thoughts Journal. For over a year random people have written their thoughts inside. Oh friends, you do not understand the joy I felt learning this! The very next day I went to that park and had to hold myself back from running to the journal. It is totally English Major Geek of me to be so excited about a journal. However, if you didn't know, I've kept a journal since I was 12-years-old, so journals just have a special place in my heart. Well, writing in general does.

So back to that day I went to visit the journal. I walked down the path, and even though no one was around, I held back from running. As I quickly walked, I saw my familiar bench and sure enough, the journal was inside the bench. I sat and read all the pages, finding it funny that this unique journal today, was what people did a lot more before the Internet. It was like a blog. But with pen. And paper. Imagine that. I saw my friend's entry and then I began to write my own. Of course, it being the last day of November - it was a bit cold outside - so the pen's ink froze or dried out, I guess. So mid entry I had to stop writing. I had to go all the way to my car, get a pen (a journalist always has a writing utensil) and then go all the way back to the bench to finish. It was humorous.

This journal made me realize two things. One, I hope things like writing with a pen and paper never leaves our world. There's something beautiful about the literal written language and as awesome as computers are, they are stealing that beauty sometimes. Two, the excitement I felt when walking toward that journal is similar to the excitement that has been building up inside me as I anticipate heaven. I can't wait. It's something I haven't had in years and I'm so glad God has been instilling that feeling in me. I want it to be where I can't hold back any longer, that my joy and love for Jesus just runs free.

Life Without Social Networking

A recent letter from Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook declaring the recent growth of his famous social networking site shared that soon new changes will be coming to Facebook. I'm telling you now, Facebook Users, so I don't have to hear your complaining status crap later. Because let's face it, Facebook users hate the changes at first, create a million groups declaring hatred toward Zuckerberg's changes, and then eventually completely forget what Facebook used to be like.

Anyways, in my cranky, "I've got a stuffy nose" mood, I thought to myself and tweeted how I will stop Facebooking if Suckerberg keeps changing. For one thing, I get tired of statuses talking about the changes (That's why I tweet my Facebook complains. HA.) and for another thing, the changes just get tiring in general for me.

Then I noticed a few of my friends tonight were tweeting their growing hatred toward Twitter.

And I got to thinking about how maybe we've all just got the social networking blues and maybe we all just need a break.

And then I got to REALLY thinking and I got to wondering what would happen if all my friends stopped social networking. What if there was no Facebook. No Twitter. No MySpace for you weirdos that still use it frequently.

And I smiled. Seriously. Alone in my room and I smiled at the thought of no more social networking.

Here's what would happen...

• My cell phone would ring way more often.
• Face to face interaction would have twice the value.
• Running into someone would have a purpose. You'd no longer have that awkward, "Oh yeah, I know already. I saw your status update a few days ago."
• If you wanted to know how someone was doing, you would have to ASK instead of just seeing what lyrics they had put up lately reflecting their mood.
• People would probably use photo albums again because you couldn't just stalk all their photos on Facebook albums.
• The amount of gossip would probably decrease significantly as its harder to get it around by word of mouth without the sites.
• People would have to actually eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner with me in order to know what I look like when I stuff food in my mouth, rather than just see the ridic photos I tweet. HA.

Oh man. It'd be great.

But it won't happen. And it's okay. I'll admit that I am a social networking addict. I don't like to go more than a day without checking up on everyone. It's convenient. It's fun. And it's easy in a very chaotic world to lose touch with people and social networking helps us keep in touch and encourage one another.

However, it was a nice thought. A life without social networking. Gee, that was like...ten years ago.

PS. Fun fact. I was "labeling" this post and when I typed in Facebook and Twitter it automatically guessed and linked my labels. It didn't recognize MySpace. Oh snap.

Also. Any other thoughts on what our world would be like if we all stopped social networking?