See ya.

So it's been awhile! And this is my last post.

I know I haven't been good about keeping up with my blog. Part of it is due to my crazy life of work, school, friends and family. But a bigger part of it is because I'm trying to slowly kill off of my online presence.

These days it's all about being someone online, whether it's the true you or someone you want to be, and I'm getting tired of it. I used to post photos on Facebook, but stopped after the summer because I realized how many things I have out in cyberspace, and was alarmed by how much I didn't care about my lack of privacy.

I'm also doing it for my sanity and my eyes and neck. I sit in front of a screen for at least 80% of the time I'm awake. Some nights I even lay awake and check my phone in the middle of the night. And I'm no expert on sleep habits, but I'm almost certain that my phone and all the screen time are contributing to my changed sleep patterns. I rarely sleep through a whole night anymore.

In short, I'm slowly walking away from Facebook. I've stopped my tweeting almost completely. I now have a smart phone, so I am on Instagram and Snapchat, but only a selected few can see my posts. I turn my phone on "do not disturb" mode every night at 10.

I've even started sending my friends letters in the mail. Reading is my new way to kill time. And I even began keeping a daily journal just to get a break from the screens.

And so yes, I'm ditching the blog world.

So sorry to whoever is still reading this, but this is my official goodbye!

From NYE magic to a working reality

The end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014 was nothing short of magical for me. It all began with a 3 AM ambush from two of the gooniest kids I know. I was abruptly awakened in the middle of a deep sleep with a blinding light and "aw look, her dumb phone is next to her," then two bodies body slammed me in my pile of blankets and pillows. I knew those two voices and jokesters, Mike and Hayden. They just arrived at my cousin Mitch's house, and couldn't help but hassle me the second they arrived. Figures.

This set the scene for the rest of our trip. From Stillwater, Mitch, Hayden, Mike and I loaded up the toaster the next morning and were Milwaukee bound to Mitch's friend Nina's house. 5 long hours of driving across Wisconsin later, we got there in one piece, and the festivities began. Long story short, after getting to the Riverside Theater in downtown Milwaukee to see our favorite band Trampled by Turtles, we all had a great time. We struggled to find seats at first, but made it to the front by the end of 2013.

At roughly 11:30, we were down there, and all jammed together until TBT ripped through their last song of 2013, "Alone." During that song, I reflected on what a killer year we all had, although we all experienced our fair share of rocky times. It was a year of change, good and bad. I've made some friends who I know will be in my life forever. My family went through a storm in early autumn, but things are looking up. I got hired at Kohler Co., and actually just finished my first day (so exhausted but excited too!).

Then TBT took a moment as confetti and balloons cascaded down upon us. 2013 was gone as fast as it appeared. What a year. Hugs all around, then they dove right into a knee slapping tune that sent all of our spirits to the ceiling and hopes high for the year to come.

Ringing in 2014 (photo by Adjomi Creative)

And here I am on my couch in my new house in Sheboygan as the wind brings the temps down to -45 outside. Crazy, but overall this job seems like it'll be a really good experience. I'm already meeting some really cool people and scoped out some pretty gnarly ski trails. Hoping for warmer weather now!

Happy 2014, may we all kill it as hard as we did in 2013. Peace&blessings.

Singing the wrong words: Grammar in today's lyrics

Grammar seems to be one of the last things today’s popular musical artists think of when creating songs. Turning on my radio, I hear pop song after pop song featuring lyrics like “I got the eye of the tiger,” or “I be in the club,” and although I don’t consider myself a “grammar Nazi,” I still cringe.

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article this summer about a new style guide with “aims to establish basic rules” for the music world in terms of capitalization, punctuation and other grammar issues.

Personally, I can see this new style guide helping, but I also wonder if artists will chose to use it. Because music is truly a form of art, I can see how artists can be creative with it from time to time. Simple grammatical errors in music lyrics have been around since the rock n roll ages, with song titles like “Lay Down Sally,” by Eric Clapton, and of course, “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones.

These three selections use the words “lay” and “no”incorrectly, respectively. In Clapton’s song, he writes the main chorus lyrics and the title using the word “lay,” in “lay down Sally.” This is an issue of “lie” vs “lay."First of all, this sentence is written in the present tense. Therefore, the use of “lay” is incorrect because “lay” requires a direct object along with a subject, whereas “lie” doesn’t require a direct object. (For example, you can “lay” a potato on the couch, and you can “lie” down on the floor.)

As for the Rolling Stones, they are guilty of using a double negative in “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.” Double negatives are often frowned upon because they simply don’t make no sense. If you think about it, if you say “they do not make no sense,” you’re saying that it does make sense, which isn’t what you’re initally trying to say. What you may mean is that “they don’t make ANY sense.” So it should be “I Can’t Get Any Satisfaction.”

 

Another grammatical error that comes up in song lyrics is use of the passive voice. In the Beatles “All you Need is Love,” the passive voice is everywhere. Lyrics switch from “All you need is love” to “love is all you need” throughout the entire song, and ultimately switch from active to passive voice. The subject of “All you need is love,” is “you,” the main verb is “is,” and the direct object is “love.” In the active voice, these slots are all in the correct place, but in the passive voice, they are inverted, putting the direct object before the subject and connecting them with the verb.

In addition, there are times when artists make up words in order to get the rhyme. Gwen Stefani is guilty of this in “Bubble Pop Electric,” with lyrics “I’m restless, can’t you see I try my bestest.” Justin Timberlake also falls victim to making up a word in “What Goes Around,” featuring lyrics “When you cheated girl, my heart bleeded girl.”

For sake of rhyming, I can definitely see why artists would go to certain lengths to make up words and violate grammar rules. Like I said earlier, music is indeed a form of art, and isn’t meant to follow the rules in the first place. Especially in the Beatles’ song, “All you need is Love,” they alternate from active to passive voice perhaps to put emphasis on the word “love,” because that is the main theme of the song. But when looking outside the classic rock era and instead at modern day pop and hip-hop songs, grammatical issues are growing to a whole new level.

 

I personally find it hard to believe that people like Miley Cyrus and Pitbull are true “artists,” rather than famous people simply reciting lyrics that contain multiple grammatically incorrect phrases. Timbaland’s “The Way I Are,” is a prime example. Sure, for rap and hip-hop songs the syllables of words need to match up with the beat, so it’s often understandable for artists to alter words and sentence structures. But for example in Kanye West’s “Jesus Walks,” he raps “Yo, we at war/We at war with terrorism, racisim, and most of all we at war with ourselves...” instead of “We’re at war,” etc. Same number of syllables, so why doesn’t he follow the grammar rules to make himself seem at least a tad smarter?

Then I wonder if these grammatically incorrect phrases are actually a reflection of our pop culture and our society today instead of a sore attempt to be creative. I’ve for sure been guilty of sending texts or speaking in grammatically incorrect sentences, including the occasional “I be in the library,” or “where you be, dude?” I do it to be funny or add some personality to the conversation.

So in the end, bad grammar in today’s pop music seems to be more of a question of our society, and what is making us talk like uneducated goons when most of us are in fact capable of using grammar correctly. This is a whole different topic, and is one that I may dive deeper into in the future, but for now, I have to make it through the next few weeks of finals and such. Off to make a playlist for studying that most likely consists of upbeat songs with horrid grammar. 

January 6th, comin' in hot

Once again, I've been swept up in a rush of college life and haven't found time to post on here for another month and a half....oops. Now here we are in December, and Houghton is getting its first snow dump. Been snowing all day, and expected to continue for....well, only Lake Superior knows.

I admit, I should be focusing more on studying for finals here in the library, but I just took a quick e-mail break to find a new message from Kohler. I've been waiting! After skimming it, then reading it a few more times in greater detail out of excitement, it told me that I would be starting a little over a month, on January 6th. WHOA, hold up.

That's in what, a month??! I have a week and a half left of school, and a week of finals between me and Christmas. Then I start....work? My first "big girl" job, too.....I'm so excited but yet so nervous. Sure gonna miss these folks in Houghton, but I'm sure I'll be making plenty ski trips on the weekends.

In order to send me off and to kick off 2014 the right way, I just purchased tickets to the Trampled by Turtles concert in Milwaukee for New Year's Eve! Mitch, my cousin, is back from his adventures in New Zealand and we agreed that it'd be fun if we could get a crew together for one last bluegrass concert of the year. So as of now, me, Mitch, Hayden, Mike and Mitch's friends from NZ are all gonna be there for NYE. Words can't describe how excited I am! I LOVED their concert in Duluth this past summer and since then I've been so anxious to see them again.

So that's that. Life just keeps happening. Gotta get back to studying now...gah.

Waste no time.

It's been awhile since I've been on here! It's been a hectic month, lots of ups and downs. But here we are, in the middle of October already! I just read my last post and couldn't believe I posted the night before the first day of school, like where did that time go???

Between then and now, I've been on numerous adventures with friends and family. From afternoons spent fishing with my closest guy friends to nights dancing on the floor of the Orpheum to rocking bluegrass music (courtesy of Greensky Bluegrass - great music, greater time), looking back on the past month or so is both fun and bittersweet for me. Can't wait to see what the second half of the semester has to bring, and I don't wanna waste a single moment to spend with my loves in this beautiful town.

My fam came up last weekend, what a blast. We kayaked in Copper Harbor with Hayden and Mike, my two good friends and all the dogs and family. We then hosted a huge cookout for everyone at our house later, and had one heck of a time.

Oh! And how could I forget. Next semester brings more change! Mitch will be back in a month, but I landed a co-op position at Kohler in Wisconsin that starts in January and ends in August. I am more than excited and anxious to see what this experience will bring. I'll definitely miss my friends and Mitch here in Houghton, but quite honestly, I'm eager to get out for a semester. The small town of Houghton is starting to get, well, small town.

So yeah. That's a quick update of life for me.

Changing seasons, changing times

With the end of summer comes change. Not only the change of schedules and daily life, but the changing of seasons, and for me and my dad's family, other changes. I won't go into detail, but it's been a bumpy ride this week for our family. To make things more challenging, we are all in different places in the country, and the world.

One major thing that I've learned over the past week is that no matter how separated our family is, we are still a family, and together we are stronger than any of us could ever be alone. I'm beyond grateful for them, and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of them and miss them. Stay strong, Kirby's, stay strong.

Anywho, long story short, we have to move on, and embrace one of my favorite seasons, autumn. School starts tomorrow, and everyone is finally back in Houghton. Well, almost everyone. Still missing cousin Mitch, it will for sure be a weird semester without him, but lucky for us we have Skype, Facebook, and all our friends here in Houghton. He's having one helluva time down under, and I'm really happy for him. And jealous.

Anyways, it finally got chilly today, and I'm loving every bit of it. Soon the leaves will start changing, the jeans and boots will be broken into to again, and the winter winds will start blowing.

Welllll, off to organize my life again. Got 9:30 Economics tomorrow, yeeeeeehaw. Less go, Junior year.

Weekend madness

The 14 hours in the car, countless bug bites, scrapes, bruises, aches and pains were all completely and totally worth it this weekend. We spent the night on Mt. Houghton Saturday, and it was nothing short of spectacular.

hiking in

campsite view

me and Camille! this was her last weekend here, and I think she really enjoyed herself while on da Yoop. 

great camp crew

my 'mock spot

me and Cam on a sandy beach celebrating Lake Superior Day on our way home