1.8

Hello! Today, I come to you writing from the laundromat because the washers at my apartment suck, and I was out of quarters.

Goodbye, Spotify

I’m finally doing it: getting off of Spotify. I’ve been considering switching for months, but I’ve been iffy because my stats had ‘sentimental value’ to me. But then I realized, I don’t even own any of the music. The artists I love are getting minimal benefits from my streams. What sentimental value am I talking about? And so I’ve begun the process of remaking my playlists on BandCamp, and adding everything not on BandCamp to my physical collection. 

finally putting my decade worth
of Vanilla gift cards to use..

It’s a pricey process, but it’s really made me dive into my music and decide how much it all really means to me. Which artists are so important to me that their music is worth every penny out of my wallet? And it makes me happy to know they’re getting a much better pay cut out of me using Bandcamp and buying their CDs and vinyl. The numbers don’t matter if they’re not actually worth anything.   

oh..that's the sentimental
value I was talking about!

If you're on Bandcamp, you should follow me!

My Winter Math Studies

Though I’m mostly a music student, I have this undying love for math. I’ve been a PreCalc LA for two years. I love helping people figure out the labyrinth that math is at times, and I'll probably still try to do that after college. This upcoming semester, I’m taking the final course towards my math minor: Complex Variables I. I believe the more common name I see online is Complex Analysis? I’m super excited to take this course because the last two math classes I took were Discrete Structures I and II, which I didn’t love as much as calculus-based math. 

But that’s also where my issue is: the pre-req course for this class is Calculus III. No problem, I took it already, except that was in the fall of 2023. It’s safe to say that I’m a little rusty on all things calculus (and I took Calc BC -the I and II college courses’ equivalent- in high school, which is forgotten history at this point). So, I’ve taken it upon myself to relearn as much as I can this break and make myself a digital textbook of everything I’ve covered. 

SO thankful I kept all of my notes
from high school and Calc III. also, learning
the Ram Ranch lore was harrowing. 

I got through Calc I in three days, but Calc II is taking me a little longer. I struggled with it so much in high school that I failed just about every quiz I had and then got the minimum passing AP exam grade, even with help from a weekly tutor.  But coming back to it with fresh eyes has been so wonderful. There were problems in my notebook that I never finished solving because of how lost I was, but now I’ve been able to do them with relative ease. I think the biggest thing that was hurting me back then was that PreCalc was still a new subject to me. I made the mistake of not making sure I fully understood every topic before jumping into calculus. I’ve obviously been forced to get to that point with my job, and now things like trig make sense to me, and I make a fraction of the algebraic mistakes I used to. We still have to see how Calc III will go (and hopefully I can get through it before my first lecture in two weeks!), but for now I remain cautiously optimistic and excited for my math class. Maybe I’ll even try to expand my range of tutoring from Pre-Calculus to at least Calc I. 

My Music Collection

Today's record is Vespertine by Björk! Growing up, I would occasionally hear Jóga in the car, and this led me to check out her other work when I was older. 

yes, this is also in the kitchen

I've realized that I visit Björk's discography way less than I should. The moment I heard Vespertine back in 2021, I knew it was good, but outside of buying the vinyl, I never listened to it in full again. Now, five years later, listening to it for an honest-to-god second time, why wasn't this in my regular rotation for all these years?! It's absolutely stunning. Björk's vocals demand your attention. They're accompanied by a beautiful collection of instrumentals, which often feel like a surreal combination of art pop and trip-hop. I think my favorite is the opener, Hidden Place. This album is begging to be listened to on a walk on a snowy day, and I'll make sure that happens before spring.

Thanks for reading! See you tomorrow. - G