majors?

welcome to LETS CHOOSE BRENNAS MAJOR! I have taken two classes in music, art and government, so am at an equal place to do any of them.
FIRST CONTESTANT STEP RIGHT UP!
1. MUSIC:
Last fall it was "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes", this week its Pure Prarie League's one hit wonder "Amie", who knows what will be next. Music always seems to be creeping its way to the front lobe of my brain and taking up more and more room in my heart. Now having taken two music classes here at Skid, I am tempted by the thought of taking more. The Beatles last semester changed my life, and not in like a "OMG, now I love the Beatles" kind of way, but just brought into focus why they are such a big part of my life and I know have the answers to pretty much any Beatles related peculiar question. I love listening to the songs of the 60's and 70's, it reminds me of home, my parents, my childhood and I love that something I have considered a hobby and "distraction" from real work, is a legitimate and recognized area of study here. Isnt it everyones dream for a lifetime hobby to become a career? Could it happen? I feel like a record label wouldn't make me cover up the tattoo.
stay tuned for contestants 2 and 3.

also bretty's 17th birthday today, not to sound like the most cliche big sis ever, but I remember the day he came home from the hospital. I love that boy so much, even though he is still in asshole mode most of these teen years, hes soft spot occassionally pops out and it reassures me that we will be best friends forever.
i am so lucky and grateful to have a brother to bother and love whenever i want!

wowza. time flies

ok this is just creepy
its been exactly a year since i created this blog. yes i have dissapointed my readers (aka dad and one anonymous follower) with my lack of consistency. but how did i somehow decide to check on this ol' thang today and not tomorrow, last week, or in a month. the universe works in mysterious ways ma friends.
well i guess my biggest news is that i did it. after years of scribbling those three precious words on my wrist under the desk in math class, about a month ago i went and got it put on forever. the tat has arrived.
let it be is now a part of me forever. despite mixed reactions from friends and family- i love it. the whole Jewish thing really has know effect on me and i do not in any way view this as "betraying my religion. i guess if Mimi were still alive, that would more because she was a real symbol of my attachment to Judaism, but personally i don't see why if it a decision i can live with, my fellow Jews can not.

heres a pic for ya (excuse the awkward photobooth, myspace-esk pic facial expression)
so despite the massive amounts of work (both home and life- as in homework, and lifework. failed joke- anyway moving on), i have been trying to prove this tattoo and the message right, but its hard when there is so little time and so much to do (just like the mk and a show).
i cannot believe a year has past since i got the urge to share my silly words with the world wide web. its kind of crazy actually. i have realized how much i love love love to just write, no proof reading, no symbolism (a literary concept i never got) so maybe i'll keep at this more this year. no promises though!
i have to write an essay for my class on The Beatles now, the assignment is to compare two songs and while let it be seems like an obvious choice, i dont feel there is another song that compares and while the assignment requirements usually do not hold me back, that seems a little too ballsy right now.
til next time.
remember "there will be an answer"... you know the rest :)

Ferris said it right

It may be cliche, unoriginal, whatever- but its the perfect way to describe it. (It being life, or whatever "it" is that we always describe as the vague, undefined, general concept we refer to as life.)

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Ferris Bueller

I really couldn't agree with anything more. I don't know if its all the time, but right now it is so true. The late teen years are heavily focused on thinking about the future- whether I'm looking forward to it or dreading it, I'm always thinking of whats coming up next. It is very rarely that we actually clear our heads and stop what we are soooo busy doing constantly, to just sit back look around, think and appreciate the little things.
The point is that he said it right, and therefore no more words need to be spoken


Also- just on a side note- I am just noticing how insanely cool sunsets are, especially how awesome it is when they occur after 7pm, and how they really have the ability to put a smile -and/ or look of shock/  speechlessness in my case- on your face and put you completely at ease. Why must something that has such a great affect on people and is so beautiful is the rawest definition of the word last for only 10 minutes of the day. I'm going to go ahead and find the silver lining on this bad boy and realize that while it sucks that I haven't been able to appreciate this marvelous aspect of our day for the past 18 years, I am now and from here forward. I encourage you to find something in your world that puts you completely at ease and instantly paints a smile on your face. You can't beat the price or the feeling of being warmed up by a indescribable sunset.

Skid Kid (Freshman edition)

Here's the setting, for those of you who dont know, which is probably no one cause who is reading this besides the 7 people i've told about it, but anywho.
Saratoga Springs, NY- upstate NY, where i'm pretty sure the "fall foliage" people in Florida and Figi here and dream about was discovered. Literally never seen anything like this, of course its post-peak and the trees are pretty much bare now and the snow is a comin, but just a few weeks ago you walked outside your small dirty- well atleast my- to see what could easily be a painting turned 3D. From purple to yellow to red to orange all tye-dyed together to create a surreal collage. The only bad part is that they've come and gone before you know it.
Anywho the trees are just one example of something I knew woukld be here, but not the extent of awesomeness about.
The main point of this whole thing is too say that I am OBSESSED with this place. Everyday im re-blown away by how incredible everything about it is. I know I sound like some over-dramatic high-school cheerleader, but its so true. I knew I really loved it, but I believe it was 2 fridays ago when driving back from the movie theater that it hit me. Every since I got here, I have been extra-grateful and appreciative for how awesome my life is. While I know and believe how lucky I am, its a weird thing to say outloud, especially at the beginning of college when you are meeting all new people who come from all sorts of backgrounds. So with my new found appreciation fro life, I have found myself getting happier and happier, like literally even when im a little sad, im still so happy. I am in love with everything about this school, town, people here, everything. After seven years in a bubble of a high school with majority of gossip girl wanna-be's and only a handful of real people, and then really only five people who exceed any expectation I have ever had of a "best-friend", it is nice to find that the statistics are a bit different here. Everyone is a real person, down-to-earth is no longer a quality I look for in people, it is something I know is in every friend I have made.
I am most happy that i am at someplace I really feel at home. I belong here, and I just feel lucky to have found it.
Let's check back next year....

Fear is the lock, and laughter the key to your heart

I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are.

Welcome to September 1969, Stephen Stills is the man we are admiring today for his masterpiece of Suite: Judy Blue Eyes. A compilation of a few short songs about his former girlfriend Judy Collins

I find this song the thing I can turn to walking to my 9:30 am art class on 5 hours of sleep, sitting on the patio after finishing classes and watching the life of campus go on amidst this perfect fall day, while sneakily hiding my earphones under my long hair in my never-ending calculus class that should be when i'm eating lunch, when trying to fall asleep over my roommates loud keyboard, to always put a smile on my face. 

The beat, the lyrics, the simple idea of happiness flows out of my earphones into my brain swimming to whatever lobe/ brain part controls my happiness and bumping it up by a thousand. Not to be a cliche unappreciative modern day hippy, who "was born in the wrong era", but it really puts me back in a simpler time and suddenly the stress of fitting homework, clubs, the gym, laundry and sleep into the next 72 hours doesn't seem to hard. It actually doesn't even come up on my radar anymore, the repeated lyrics and harmony of David Crosby, Graham Nash and Stephen Stills ease me back into my care-free happy, smiley-self. 

I think it has something to do with the perfect combination of mellowness to upbeatness. It calms me, while keeping me bopping along and paints a big 'ol smile right across my face everytime. The beginning puts me on a farm in the middle of nowhere, then they begin singing and i'm around a camp fire singing folk songs. Then your hit with "I am yours, you are mine, you are what you are" and that immediately translates into an immediate breath of optimism for me. The same way Bob Marley, John Lennon and Ghandi promise inevitable happiness and peace in there work, Stills just joined the club. 

After probably about 50 times listening to this song in the span of a few days, I pick up on the line "Fear is the lock, and laughter the key to your heart". To be honest, it was probably the word laughter, my favorite activity/ hobby/ exercise form, that caught my attention. But after a draining three hour art class this morning I really dissected the phrase and tried to figure out the point getting across. Fear is the "lock" on her heart, and in order to get into her heart you need to unlock it with the "key" of laughter. This line continues to resonate more and more with me and I have now really grown a connection to it. I decide to translate the line into an image. a dark heart blocked by a padlock with the letters F.E.A.R written across it. Lying near by is an old fashioned key, now seen on trendy celebs as necklaces or belt hooks, with the letters L.A.U.G.H.T.E.R down the vertical portion. 

What it all comes down to is that this is something much like a friend, favorite dessert, bath salt flavor, that I can turn to anytime that guarantees me a smile and happiness, even if only for seven and a half minutes. I am well aware of music's ability to do this and I only hope others can find the same, if not in music, in some other form of creative expressionism.