grayson’s blog :)

 Final post of the month! I've been less active on here, but that's only because of how busy college has me. I'll probably only be posting once or twice a week during the semester.  Apocalypse Now freaks me the fuck out (This will contain some spoilers.) A youtuber I regularly watch, Wendigoon, somehow got the rights to Apocalypse Now. I woke up the other day to a notification, thinking it was just an analysis of this film, but it was actually just the movie itself. Before today, I've only seen bits and pieces of this movie through a roommate I had my sophomore year of college. Me and my friend got put with her and two of her friends randomly that year, and to put it lightly, her and her friends were fucking weird. I always felt she was a little off, but one of my biggest turnoffs was her uncomfortable obsession with this movie. There were times when she would sit in our common room and watch this movie over and over and over without a pause and even called it her comfo...

 My First Complex Analysis Class and a Rant about RateMyProfessor drinking one and only one beer when you're trying to Get Shit Done is the key to success by the way It was over Zoom because of the snow day on Monday. I really hope we don't have another snow day on Monday again because getting through this material with just a 3 hour recording just felt exhausting.  On the other hand, I think I accidentally picked the perfect minor class to accompany my major classes? We're working with complex numbers in my Fundamentals of Sound Recording class and that's what Complex Analysis is all about. The review class for both of these classes has been an overview of complex numbers, which I actually wasn't that familiar with until now (maybe they teach that in Calc I and II at my college? I don't know since I took it in high school).  Contrary to popular belief, my professor is totally fine. The past five reviews for him on RateMyProfessor have been 1/5 for his droning v...

 Coping through Multitasking Today is day two (of now three) of the blizzard. Classes got cancelled again tomorrow, which is good for me because I spent the entire day distracted by a ton of things all at once. There was a point where I was rotating three things at once: getting my daily practice in, studying calculus, and watching the Pitt.  It's been nice to find myself indulged in different hobbies and media outside of college work for the first time in god knows how long. I hate how it's resulted from the unexpected loss of so many friendships, but maybe this will turn into a good thing in the long run for me. In the past, I've always coped in self-destructive ways, so this has been a nice change. The Pitt and the looming presence of death The Pitt is the first show I've sat down and watched in its full in four years (the last one being Better Call Saul in 2022). I started last night at 11 PM and just finished an hour ago. I won't spoil anything but it's rea...

 For the next two days, I'm entirely snowed in. I moved my car to the college campus garage so I wouldn't have to deal with the snow at my apartment. They told us to just move it to the city garage and walk back but 1) the road back honestly isn't safe to walk on your own and 2) I was also not about to walk back in a blizzard when it feels like 8°F (-13°C) outside. So until my friend picks me back up when the blizzard ends tom orrow night, it's just me, Creepcast, the groceries my mother graciously bought me (she's treating this storm like the apocalypse), and this blog.  this guy's in for a treat when they eventually try to drive (if my landlord doesn't have them towed for the plow trucks) ily creepcast Haywire Today I want to talk about Haywire, a local hardcore punk band whose big gimmick is how much they love Boston (me too). They've really blown up in the past year for their dedication to the scene. They're so interesting to me because I never e...

 After writing about nothing for the past while, I finally have a decent blog post for you guys. Bass Tour! in all their glory, partially featuring my one guitar on the little stand to the left As of now, I have five basses (this number will probably go up before we reach 2027). I figured I could talk a bit about each of them because there's a story behind buying each of them. This is the first bass I got back in 2021! What got me hooked on bass was discovering the band Muse a year prior when I was 16. As soon as I heard that opening riff on  Hysteria , I knew I wanted to learn bass. Hysteria and Sir Duke (because every bassist must inevitably learn that song) ended up being my two audition songs for music school. My technique was total shit, and I learned those two songs by sheer brute force. I would get home from high school and play those two over and over again for hours every day.  I actually used this bass for my first gig ever, because I had to slap and I couldn't ...

 20 Posts! I can't believe I've kept up with this for this long. Having a digital diary like this has helped me take way more control of my thoughts. I've been exhausted at the end of every day this week because of college, but I still find myself writing when I get home anyway.  Perc Ensemble 1 Percussion ensemble started today, which was great. According to my director, we're playing one of the oldest percussion ensemble pieces he knows of. I'm gonna take his word on it, considering he was taught by THE Vic Firth. the score is so old it looks like parchment. Seems like Allison was struggling to count at the tempo  change That first section was tricky to sightread, but I somehow played it without messing up the first time. The other bassist is gonna conduct this piece (he's a music education major), and my director turned to him and said that I was doing a great job. I overheard my name since I was close enough to the front, and he ended up glazing me in front ...

Last Semester (the most American tale you'll hear) Since the start of this semester, I've been trying to figure out exactly why I feel like it's already been so much better than last semester. Two of my closest and now ex-friends hurt me in ways that I have never been harmed before within the last few weeks, but regardless of being borderline traumatized, everything has still felt better than it did last semester. It's really baffled me until just now, when I was watching the newest Papa Meat video about airsoft guns. That's when I remembered that on the first day of last semester, for about two hours, I was convinced I was about to be in a school shooting. We were in our first acoustics class when suddenly, we all got this insane message from the university: So obviously we were all a little freaked out. Once class ended, I ended up downstairs in the lobby with a ton of faculty and students that weren't really sure what to do. After this message there wasn'...

My First Choir Rehearsal since 4th Grade Today I did something I've been trying to avoid doing ever in music school: I sang in a choir for the first time since I was ten years old. I hated choir then and swore off doing it forever, but today I actually had a pretty good time. Lucky for me, many of my friends are in the same boat. If you're not a wind, brass, or voice primary, getting your conducted ensemble requirements is a pain in the ass. That means that many of my bassist, guitarist, and drummer friends are singing with me this semester. To my absolute delight, they're mostly tenors too! We can fuck up the parts together! I found the whole thing pretty funny. Going to a rehearsal without my instrument made me feel totally naked and I had to read a treble clef for the first time in a year, so things felt awkward, and I laughed a lot. This annoying as fuck grad student that just transferred in decided to sit right next to me for some reason. He tried looking up at me a fe...

 A sixth first day & the potential Whiplash of my college career Today marks the first day of my 6th semester. The classes I had today were fine. We spent 90% of the time talking about syllabi and what we wanted to get out of the classes. I'm not sure if I'm going to like my multitrack lectures. I hate when professors make you do icebreakers. Also, everyone in that class has known each other for three years. The dude talked and talked and talked about nothing today, and I kept nodding off. I made a promise to myself to go to every class this semester (unless I have a very good reason not to), so while attendance is optional, I need to keep going. This class is self-graded, and I want every reason to justify an A for myself when I have to write my self-evaluation in May.  I have to remember that I have no safety net anymore with my GPA. If I get one more C, it will ruin everything. I'd have to wait a year to take my final classes, and I'd have to move back to my mom...

 There and Back Again (from my apartment) Today I got to kick something off my bucket list: watching all the Lord of the Rings movies in theaters in one day! I always watch the whole trilogy every year in winter but seeing it in theaters with friends added so much to the experience.  I think I cried as much as I laughed in those twelve hours. These movies have always been special to me, ever since watching them for the first time when I was twelve. When I was younger, I really enjoyed them for the action and maybe for a couple of characters, but as I've gotten older, I've found myself really seeing parts of myself in these movies.  My focus changes every watch. Two years ago, this movie was about friendship. Last year, it was about keeping hope. This year, it was learning to live despite the things that have happened to you.  The past year has been very hard for me in a lot of different ways. It's caused me to change so much that I don't think I'll ever fully feel l...

Hey all. I had a really eventful night, which is why I'm writing so late. I experienced a really intense rollercoaster of emotions, and I'm still trying to process everything.   I Promised (You) The World I had a friend named 'John.' We met when university room services randomly threw us together in a suite. Honestly, I couldn't stand the guy at first. I thought he was cocky and arrogant, but halfway through the year, I found myself on a similar schedule to his, and we ended up spending a lot more time together. We realized we had way more in common than I thought. I even ended up covering for his band's bass player that year.  After a few deeper conversations, it became clear that although he was graduating, that wouldn't be the last time I saw him. On our final day in the dorm, he told me about this show he was going to the next day. I impulse-bought a ticket and found myself at my first hardcore music show ever. I loved everything about the energy of that...

Tool Fans Today's topic is fans of the band Tool because nothing new is going on in my personal life. I can say that Tool is deeply rooted in my development as a person, but not in the whole "holy shit, I took DMT when listening to Lateralus and shitting my pants activated my third eye" way. When people find out that I don't talk to my dad, they tend to ask why. It's not something I like talking about, but luckily, "He's a corrections officer" suffices as long as the person I'm talking to has also encountered a corrections officer before. (Just about all of them are the same. It's a very interesting yet tragic phenomenon.) However, if they haven't, the next best thing I can say is, "He's also a lifelong Tool fan," which gets nearly the same reaction as the prior. It's hard to explain a Tool fan to someone unfamiliar with them, but I think you can get the picture from my earliest memory of Tool: There was a day in fifth ...