30 May 2008

SAT's, The Eagles, and my Secretarial Run

So now I've finished my AP exams, and received my SAT score - my first attempt I got a 1990, particularly due to a poor score on the Critical Reading section and the Writing section Essay. I plan on retaking the SAT in October after revamping my Reading skills over this summer. Other upcoming exams I have include finals for Calculus and Spanish next week, and projects for the AP classes US history and English literature.

Anyway, in other matters, a web feature I read regularly is the "VH1 Rock Clock", a listing of certain events in music history that happened on a certain day over the 20th century. For May 31 (that's tomorrow), in 1975, "The Eagles release their single "One of These Nights."".

After I read that, I went to Windows Media Player and began playing several Eagles songs, beginning with "Nights". I've enjoyed listening to the Eagles since discovering their song "Hotel California" in 2005 (from a commercial for local soft rock station 96.5 KOIT) Their music is a pretty darn good combination of classic rock and country, but at least it ain't as cheesy as most of the garbage you can hear locally on 95.3 or 95.7...sorry I'm not like a 40-year-old white guy living in the Midwest, so I definitely ain't in the country music target audience. My favorite Eagles songs include "Hotel California", "New Kid in Town", "Take it Easy", "Lying Eyes", and "The Long Run". I credit local rock station 104.5/97.7 KFOG for introducing me to "Long Run".

It's amazing how the legacy of the Eagles has carried on over the years. According to William Ruhlmann of All Music Guide: the Eagles albums Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) and Hotel California (both released 1976) "ranked among the ten best-selling albums ever, according to the certifications of the Record Industry Association of America." And in October 2007 their ninth album Long Road Out of Eden was released! I don't recall listening to any songs from that album (maybe I did from 107.7 a while back), but I feel eager in listening to it, as the Eagles don't require as much energy as Metallica do in playing music and thus won't sound like retirement-home people trying to hard to sound "hard". (If any Metallica fans remember that silly 2003 effort of theirs, St. Anger, then you'll know what I mean.)

And finally, I'd like to thank all EVHS students, ESPECIALLY those of the Class of 2009, for supporting me in my run for Class of 2009 secretary. I'd like to thank each and every one of you for praising my great speeches at the Wednesday lunchtime Q&A and Thursday morning announcements. You and me can all agree that I can win or at least gather a lot of votes. If I do win I promise to perform my assigned job with all due respect and good attitude and to respond to as many of the students' requests as I can. Once again, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU and wish me good luck in all my future endeavors!

Until next time,

Andrew

05 May 2008

The early bird gets the worm

Just a few minutes ago I was registering for the SAT Subject Tests in Spanish and Biology for the June 7 administrations, whose deadline was tomorrow (May 6). Unfortunately I learned a pretty damn bitter lesson from registering at the last minute: although my first choice was my home schooL (evergreen valley) apparantly all its testing spaces were full so I got bumped over to my 2nd choice, Andrew Hill, which is a bit further away from where I live. Lesson learned: Plan your SAT/ACT registrations WELL in advance to guarantee that you get your local/closer school's test site!

In the meantime, sometime after the AP Exams are over I'll be writing about the Parents Television Council again, specifically on their latest report (some say would be mind-rotting garbage) The Rap on Rap, a content analysis on rap music videos shown during daytime hours on the cable networks BET and MTV. Now, I need to go back to studying American History and Calculus.