James's Blog

I love music for a multitude of reasons. Sometimes I like to listen to music that will elevate my mood. I'll listen to country music because the lyrics often talk about a simple yet enjoyable life full of beer and ex-girlfriends/boyfriends. Sometimes I want to listen to music to be energized with adrenaline. The Grateful Dead and reggae as a genre do the trick too.  For this category, I often listen to 90's rap and alternative rock. In particular, I love listening to Dr. Dre, Biggy, Wu-Tang-Clan, Gang Starr, LL Cool J for 90's rap and Red Hot Chili Peppers, Led Zeppelin, and Green Day. However, sometimes I want to listen to music that will lower my mood. If I'm having a down day sometimes it just can't be swayed and I have to give in. In these cases, it just feels right listening to music that's agreeable with your current mood. For this category, I like listening to Gorillaz, Wilco, Pearl Jam, and Eminem. I'll usually bring my air pods to school in case I n...

As a person that doesn't read in their free time often, annotating feels a bit unnatural. When asked to annotate, I've always written down anything that I think is important in character development and the plot. I also jotted down notes if I thought I found symbols or passages that related to the theme. I've always been a very slow reader because I like to process everything that I just read before I move on. I tend to stop reading after every few pages just to recap. While my thoughts after every few pages serve as good annotations, I struggle with writing them in the book. I have very large handwriting. If I don't write large, my handwriting becomes illegible. It's hard for me to write in the small margins of a book. Its also hard to underline important lines in the book because I don't have a steady hand. Since I use a pen for annotations, messing up my handwriting or underlining could prove to be calamitous. While I do think jotting down my thoughts helps m...