Jacks Met Journal

laptops and such

2008-06-10T18:49:00.000-07:00

well, the time has finnaly come when i must return this trusty peice of equipment back to the hands of its rightfull owner namely the met. I cannot express how much this little wafer of genius has provided me with a resource, a form of entertainment and so many other little bits wrappled all up into one gigantic bundle. Olaf will be sorely missed but hopefully when i return from Norway, i will be able to resume the search for a laptop. The laptop has been most revolutionary for me in terms of its musical connotations. with the portability of the laptop i have been able to take it to the cellar or up to my room depending on my mood

building tensions

2008-06-10T18:36:00.000-07:00

As the end of school approaches and people are getting all anxious about exhibitions, i have noticed that most people are operating on much shorter fuses, I have had a couple of people snap at me over actions that would previously been humourous or ignorable.
I know that i'm guilty as well, i know that i have been rather short with ivy and the rest of the family,
I have yet to have a serious conflict with anyone in the addvisory (i'll keep my fingers crossed for the next couple of days) but i have definetly noticed the subconciuos pressure put on everyone by the end of the year.

musing on the weather and other small talk

2008-06-10T18:07:00.000-07:00

Today, I had to ride my bike home from wakefield mall in the 98 degree weather! by the time i got home I was drenched in sweat. it looked like i had been swimming! about five miniutes into the ride i had polished off a nalgine bottle full of water and was steadly becoming thirstier and thirstier. Ivy says that rhode Island broke a record yesterday for the highest recorded new england temperature in june 104 degrees! i couldnt believe it, yesterday i was skating at the skate park in 104 degree weather and didnt even know. I wonder if this is global warming's way of warning us, you know, kinda a like a dont mess with me sorta thing? i have know idea regardless its pretty freakin hot out. I have very strange feelings about this exhibition, i cant tell if i am so worried that im in a state of denial or if i am just confident that i will perform well. anyway the whatever the cause its nice not to fret to badly over the exhibition. anyway, i look forwaqrd to tomorrow!

2008-06-10T08:55:00.000-07:00

I think that the other day, when i announced to the advisory that i was leaving, i really realized for the first time what an advisory was all about. I hadn't really thought about how much people would miss me, i kinda assumed that that they might not care that i was leaving, but i was wrong. I really got an incredible sense of belonging, not something i usually associate with school and as i look more and more at the met i realize what a cool place it is, it may not be the place for me but that doesn't change the effect that it can have on other kids.

Heggnes 08

2008-06-05T18:33:00.000-07:00

I just got a postcard from a councilor who will be at camp with me, and it reminded me how soon i will be leaving i mean, next next Friday i will be on my way to Norway once more! I'm so stoked to meet all the new people and hopefully there will be some old friends that i know but even if there aren't ill be fine. i look forward to being able to show kids around the house and the surrounding territories, I cant wait to see what other people will be doing as far as art is concerned. (it is after all specially designed for the artistically inclined this year) The councilor said that she wanted to start a camp band, and perform in the nearby town! how cool is that? anyway I'm very excited and cant wait to get going.

learning how to cope

2008-06-05T18:23:00.000-07:00

After breaking my wrist skateboarding, its been really hard figuring out how to play guitar and participate in intramurals, skateboard etc. etc... but i think im getting the hang of things now, sure its harder to tpe and I cant play guitar for as long or as fast as I could before and I have to be extra careful when doing strenus activity not to bend it around to much, but it could be so much worse. The orthopedic surgeon says that I will probably have to keep it in the cast thing that i wear for about six to eight weeks (yikes!) but he also says that if i had sustained what is know as the "smith fracture" (the most common injury for skaters) i could have been laid up for half a year! i just keep gettin lucky! (Knock on wood!)

2008-05-31T20:11:00.000-07:00

This year has gone by so quickly i don't know where the time has gone. its like just last week that i was getting used to calling myself a softmore and now I'm getting ready to pass gateway. I feel like a completely different person as well, so much has changed in these nine or so months. coming in as a freshman there was no way for me to know how things would turn out but i think it's all gone incredibly well and i think that my met experience has definetley helped me to become a better person. it has expanded my borders in ways that i never assumed possible, broadened my mind and taught me things that would have been hard to learn in traditional school.
I am very grateful to everyone who has helped me this year and last and I am glad that i had the opportunity to know them all...

in response to my last entry

2008-05-30T08:46:00.000-07:00

I didn't mean to incite that i may not pass gateway, i expect to. I was just simply wondering what would happen. i dont need you guys jumping on me just because i asked a question. I am on track with most of my work and so far today i have done several things to further my redieness for gateway.

Gateway

2008-05-28T07:32:00.000-07:00

So I've been thinking about gateway latley cause, welll its coming up and ive been wondering about what would happen to me if i were to not pass gateway. I mean if i didnt pass, i would still be interested in going to SK, but i want to know, would i have to stay back, or would i be able to finish up my work over the summer and still be in 11th grade or would you have to stay back no matter what? I only say this because im worried that if i didnt pass you wouldnt be able to change the info you put on my transcript. i'm not saying that i dont intend to pass gateway, im just wondering aloud.

2008-05-27T16:38:00.000-07:00

The end of the year is coming up so fast! The past nine months seem to have gone by so fast... I am constantly thinking about my decision regarding a school switch and all. I keep trying not to second guess myself but I'm finding it so harder and harder to have faith in anything. As I grow more and more my and as my conscious expands, I begin to realize that there is so little in this world that is reliable. Last year when we were asked to wright our 'This I believe" essays, I remember being fascinated with the phrase: "the only constant is change". I don't think that at the time I truly understood what that meant, although, I may just be underestimating myself (it wouldn't be the first time !). Anyway the world is moving below my feet and I cant seem to find a solid place to place the next step. The only constant throught all of my (I hate this phrase) "inner turmoil" has been my music. I know that I will be able to put the pen to paper and write a song about it no matter how deep I'm in it.

Everybody makes mistakes

2008-05-14T06:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Chase and I had a visitor. He was a kid from Germany. he was staying with my teacher from Meadowbrook and she asked if he could come visit us. anyway... I think he had fun and all, he definetley helped the project along by finish sanding one of the guitar bodies. so the day was moving along very nicely, and the guitars were coming out great until (du du duhn) I drilled the control cavity all the way into the bridge pocket! well, I fumed about it for about five minutes and tried to think of a way to fix it and then decided that the best thing to do would be to make a gigantic wooden patch and then sand it done until it looked puuuurfect. so that is what i did, and it came out pretty acceptable and i definetley learned alot more than i had intended to!

where should I go?

2008-05-02T07:42:00.001-07:00

Well... I have been thinking alot about where I want to go to school next year, but there are so many different elements that I need to take into consideration. I really like the met and I have alot of friends here, but I'm not really exposed to alot of "cultured" or "worldly" discussions. I really love the whole idea of LTIs but then again, I need a more structured way of learning to achieve the best I can do (so they say). I cant decided what I want to do , and I can't decided what my parents want me to do either. Oh well....

Drivers ED

2008-04-23T10:41:00.000-07:00

Over vacation, I had to do drivers ed! It was really hard for me to sit in a classroom and listen to a guy lecture about driving for six hours a day especially after not having to be in a "classroom" situation for the past two years. The guy that was teaching was really cynical and kinda depressing to listen to. I really didnt learn to much that I didnt already know. I mean, I learned about right of way and which side of the road to drive on, but as far as what to do in emergency situations. I have a felling that the deplorable state of the american Drivers ed system may have something to do with the rising number of vehicle related deaths among teens.
Alot of the information that is spoon fed to us isnt even relevant, they gave us mathematical formulas to calculate stopping distance on the highway... how will that ever work? with a quarter of a second to react, even a computer would have a hard time calculating the out come. how the hell is a human supposed to do it?
"education should be the lighting of a fire, not the filling of a pale"

next years project

2008-04-09T10:58:00.000-07:00

well... I've been thinking alot about what I would like to do next year. I want to do something musical to make myself as appealing as possible to a music school. Until recently I was think about things like getting an LTI at a studio or something but the other day I had an epiphany, Why not try to get an LTI at somewhere like Lupos or another venue. I would learn to do things like live sound and set up for shows. i would look awesome on my resume, would be super educational and not to mention beneficial to my personal education about Live Sound Reinforcement. As for a project, I could do work with the Wakefield music initiative "project venue" they are raising money to start a venue in Wakefield or URI and are always looking for help with their work that would also be a really good project to get involved in in terms of helping the community and learning alot.

The trouble is...

2008-04-09T10:43:00.001-07:00

The other day, I was talking with my mom about my guitar project and it came up that because she is teaching this semester at URI, she wont be able to bring me to Chase's on Tuesdays and Thursdays! this means that I will have to find some other means of "conveyance" and that I will actually end up having to adjust my timeline in order to accommodate this problem, it is as if the end of the year got bumped up a month without my knowing!!! I'm gonna have to really get moving on the project in order to finish up the bits I need help on so that i can finish the project, I also just learned that the guy that has helped me with routing at my dads shop will be out due to surgery until late may, I may need to finish the third guitar outside of school due to the fact that i wont be able to rout the body until the last few weeks before I leave. But we'll see what happens, it may all pan out and work out fine.

Mansfiel CT

2008-03-27T05:06:00.000-07:00

Last night, me and three other students went with Joe down to the Big Picture school in Mansfield to talk about the big picture model during an open house for the school. They are hoping to start in about a month with ten students in a tiny building way out in the boonys. it was pretty cool to be able to see a school like "the depot" as they call in the developmental stage. It's pretty funny how much of what they do is pirated from the met, they use all the same catch-phrases and acronyms that we do, and they have all the same posters up on the walls. It's kinda like a mini-met but they have interpreted some things slightly differently than they are at the met they have slightly different views on the freedom of their students, the depot students are still technically students of the local high school but just attended a different campus but hopefully it will all work out well got to go and work on my guitar project now, im routing out the bodies today!

Seaworthy

2008-03-24T15:39:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago, i had the sudden dsire to go sailing. for about a month i had been talking alot with chase about boat building and such and decided that it was time to go sailing. So, i went up to the barn, found our old and beat up opti, which is so aptly named "puke it up" due to its sickly green paint job (it's second hand I promise!), dug the sail and mastout from under the old bath tub and minivan seat and dragged it all the way down to the lake. When I went to set off on my maiden voyage however, water started pouring in from all sides and if i hadnt used my better judgement and taken evasive actionit wouldve been down to the bottom of the pond for me! so....i have taken upon myself to get the the puke it up ship shape, as soon as it gets warm enough, i will get some paint stripper, some sandpaper and some epoxy and fix 'er up so that i will be ready to sail for the summer, of course im going to be gone most of the summer and the bit of the summer that i wont be gone i hope to be surfing, but anyway it wil be nice to have something to sail around in. i think its going to be alot of work to get it all stripped down and paint it and epoxy it, but as my dad explained, part of the fun of having a wooden boat is getting to fix it all the time. I think that in the future I'm gonna try and chooses more low maintenence pursuits!

A New Band?

2008-03-19T16:02:00.000-07:00

So today i found that someone had posted up all over the school bunches of posters saying that some guy named john was looking for people to play in a band. he said that he neeeded guitar players a bass player and a drummer. he said only serious musicians need apply. i sent him an e-mail and told him a little bit about myself and my influences, and hopefully i will here back from him within the next couple of days. then i can get back on my feet with the whole band thing....sweet!

March For Peace

2008-03-19T15:46:00.000-07:00

After school to day, i went down to kennedey plaza and participated in the peace march! it was so cool. we started up on waterman st. by brown and wound our way down the hill singing and chanting accompnied by a brass band. thier were policemen on horses walking around us and thier were people coming out into the street in the rain to cheer us on sadly after we got to kennedy plaza i had to head over to my bus station and catch a ride home, but the rest of the people continued on to the stae house and waited out front. it was one of the coolest experiences of my life i think, just to be part of all the activity and excitment their was so much energy, there were kids running around with 5-gallon buckets duck-taped to thier stomachs beating them like drums, there were grandmas in army suits shouting and yelling. i felt so special just to be wrapped up in it all, i think its the kind of experience that every one at some point in their life should have. i only wish that more people had wanted to come from the met. there were a couple met kids thier and some people from school 1, but all and all it was mostly college age kids and other young adults, i wish there was a better high school representation, but het, thats what my CAP is all about getting people active!

Divers ED?

2008-03-18T16:34:00.000-07:00

To day was the first day of my drivers ed class and guess what? I wasnt enrolled! it seems that after making several frustrated phone calls to CCRI, they somehow "missread" my application and put me in a class in pawtucket that begins in a couple weeks! Now not only do i not want to ever find myself in pawtucket for an extended period of time for any reason whatsoever, but i have no means of getting there at 8:30 in the morning on a school day! SOOOOO...... I have signed up for a class that will be at cranston east all throughout vacation week (its gonna cut down on my surfing time in a big sorta way!) but im gonna get it over and done with and hen i wont have to worry about it, and i figure that its deffinitley gonna be worth it to have my license! ive always kind of thought that the world will only be able to screw me if i let it, but in this case i did everthing in my power and im still stuck in classroom from 7 am to 2:30 pm everday during vacation week.....damn!

a new band

2008-03-17T10:15:00.000-07:00

So I've been trying to put together another band, but i had forgotten how hard it was. I've been calling people and asking them if they want to do something but usually people just want to jam or hang out. i think that for me, being in a band is essential, i need to be doing something colaborational, like when I work with other people so much more comes out of that than just me sittin in the basement trying to write. its also hard for me to produce a set of songs that sound individual and interesting. i have a bass player and a keyboard player, but im trying to convince a friend to start drumming for us. the bass player writes songs and music two , which is great because it takes quite a load off my shoulders, i dont have to work quite as hard because song production isnt all on me. if i can just get this whole thing off the ground, i think it will fly!