Current mood:	stressed
Current music:	The Get Up Kids - "No Love"

Stress too high...
This'll be somewhat long, but I don't think it's entirely cut-worthy. Music rant / reflection. Whatever.

Ended up finishing that paper pretty decently today. I don't think it's my best work, but that probably means I'll get an "A" on it.. fate likes to deal me that kind of hand on a regular basis.

As the subject says, my stress level's really starting to hit a HUGE peak. Far too many lame "group assignments" in all these IT classes with people who don't know how to coordinate schedules with their peers, a level 100 bullshit class that is demanding far more work than it should from a TA that doesn't speak the language she's trying to teach in, the general problem everyone has of professors who preach one thing and actually want them in the totally opposite way, a major that doesn't have a clue where the Hell it's supposed to be heading in, my club being audited for transactions our president fucked up LAST year, general other stuff...

This is going to sound INCREDIBLY lame, but in addition to the gym, music is one of the best things to bring me back down when I need it (meritot works, too :P). But yeah... music.

I've been listening a lot to Brand New's Deja Entendu.. a ridiculous amount. Ever since I was just starting high school and really starting to discover the punk-rock scene, there's been a few albums that REALLY hit me, and pretty much change who I feel I am as a person. I think Deja Entendu is going to be one of those albums, if it isn't already.

Hmm... what are some of those albums...

The biggest one is probably The Get Up Kids' Four Minute Mile. I first heard of the band back in 1997 when I was a sophomore in high school, and some guys that I knew who were one year ahead of me performed "Don't Hate Me" during the school's talent show. I was immediately hooked. I got the album very soon after, and it'll always be a staple of my collection. It's not that it's incredibly deep, but it's just got this RAW impact with me that I'll never be able to (or want to!) get rid of. While I don't agree with the direction the band's been going in, lately (nevermind Pryor acting like a dick in regards to Early November wanting to sample a lyric of theirs), I can't deny how big of an impact that album was on me.

The next album to really hit me was probably A New Found Glory's (yes, there's an "A" there) Nothing Gold Can Stay when I was a senior in high school, back in 1999. Again, not an incredibly deep album, but it was another example of pure RAW energy and drive that hit me in a huge way. I actually got into them slightly before the album came out thanks to thecheeseeffect and his MP3 sends (still have the version of "Hit or Miss" from the Eulogy recording sessions), but when the album hit... oh man... it didn't stop getting played.

There hasn't been any albums since then that have really defined me as an individual. There have been PLENTY of albums that I can't imagine my life without (like Finch's "What it is to Burn," which is a masterpiece), but... I dunno...

Then Deja Entendu came out.

I actually hated the album at first. "This is nothing like Your Favorite Weapon!", I proclaimed. Regardless, I had been hearing such amazing things about it, that I kept giving it a chance. I eventually started to get into a few songs, once I got past the fact that not every song was upbeat (like the last album, which only had a few slower songs). So here I am a few months later, and I can't imagine not listening to the album at least once a day (if not multiple times). I think the lyrics are absolutely amazing on an artistic level, the performance is powerful and genuine without being overproduced (they're still not on a "major" label yet, so it still sounds relatively raw), and I think the messages that slip through are extremely important and relevant to.. well.. everything.

So if you see me talking about the album, I'm sorry... I can't help it. If you're not into that kind of music, it's cool... give it a listen, anyway. Like me, you might not like it at first, and that's totally fine. If I didn't have such faith in them, and didn't keep hearing amazing things from some pretty good sources, I might have moved on, myself.

I'm so glad I didn't.

Call me a safe bet... I'm betting I'm not...

I feel a lot better. Guess I should sleep.