My Magical Moment

Although it may sound somewhat corny, I believe that everyone experiences a magical moment in their life. This moment usually comes as a profound realization, spiritual epiphany, or powerful experience for an individual. Some people experience multiple magical moments, and in my case, I've been lucky enough to have had a few.

Imagine a large room (or in my case, a bar) full of people silently and anxiously listening and watching your every move. Some stop their conversation to judge whether or not to pay any attention to you, while others just carry on with what they were doing. The room is very dim, except for bright lights shining down on you, and a microphone stands before you, your medium of creativity and expression. My guitar hangs from my shoulders as I hesitate for just a split second to quickly analyze the crowd as the silence is broken by the crack of the drums. As the music starts, I join in with my guitar and words begin to flow freely out of my mouth. I can see the crowd is getting into it. People are dancing and drinking, smiling and rather conspicuously whispering "hey these guys are pretty good." I slip into the groove and I am in the zone. My magical moment begins. Each carefully crafted verse, once scribbled down notes and scratch outs in a beat up notebook, resonate through the speakers, and much to my pleasure, are greeted unanimously with drunken grins and bobbing heads throughout the entire bar. This same music was tediously rehearsed, re-written, and tweaked hundreds of times before I was satisfied enough to play it live. The feeling is indescribable when you see people enjoying your own creative work. The fact that other people dig my music is the fruit of my labor, the food for my soul, and most importantly, the recognition I so desperately worked for to keep my nose buried in that worn notebook, hammering out tunes late at night in my room. Every one experiences magical moments throughout their life, and mine occurred on the stage of Penguin's Pub in Arbutus, Maryland during the finals of a "battle of the bands" contest that I am proud to say I won. Ironically enough, we left early to start a party of our own after having such a good show and the prize was awarded to the runners-up. However, all that studio time and free gear doesn't remotely compare to the feeling I had when I walked out of that bar. I won the greatest prize of all: my magical moment. My voice was heard and received well, and that's all I needed to consider myself a winner.

Word Count: 447

The Point: Throughout the course of life, people experience magical moments that define them as a person, inspire them to perform well, and satisfy their need for recognition and success.

The Infamous Senior Year

The Worst:

Seniors in high school have always been stigmatized for slacking off and fooling around, especially if they’ve already been accepted into college. Unfortunately, this was exactly the case for me regarding my worst experience ever: Physics.

Mrs. R. was a kind woman, but her over exaggerated love for physics made me hate her. She grinned ear to ear when she did everything, including handing back tests that the majority of the class failed. She wasn’t mean and terrible like similar woeful stories, but just a bad teacher. I consider this my worst experience because it was when I picked up the awful habit of skipping class. Who knows, maybe I would have done better if I tried harder, I just couldn’t stand Mrs. R. and her love for tedious calculations. It was the first and only class I’ve ever failed and I’m not proud of it.

The Best:

Shockingly, I did learn something in my senior year, and even more shockingly, in a class I’m not even sure how I got into: Calculus G/T.

Mr. B. didn’t believe in homework. However, he did require that everyone show up on time every day, and most were willing to compromise. For a class with no homework assignments all year, I’ve never learned so much. Mr. B.’s sense of humor was relatable, and every Friday, we did nothing! Turns out, the joke was on me though, because at the end of the year, I walked away with straight A’s in his class, and a much deeper understanding of mathematics. It seems as if Mr. B. was a professional senior teacher; he knew exactly how much lenience and exactly how much learning he needed to provide to keep his students motivated, and he did it well. With such little effort, but such great results, I feel as if I was tricked into passing the class!

Word Counts: The Worst: 146, The Best: 137

Music Is Everywhere

I believe that music is everywhere. Nowadays, one would most likely expect it to being coming out of their ipod or car stereo, but music also finds its way into more simple places. It could be birds chirping, raindrops falling, feet stepping, stomping, banging, anything that makes sound could be considered music. In a more formal display, the media sells it. They pump sounds, rhythms, and beats into our ears at all times. We enjoy this, so we pay money and in turn, strengthen the companies supplying the music to send us more. Music reaches the entire globe, dating back to ancient times, and varies widely from place to place. However, this music is all interconnected, borrowing elements from one another. You could say that R&B and hip hop music, heavy on rhythm and percussion, are similar to primitive tribal music based solely on the drums. Similarly, the fast melodic guitar solos of metal music, simply running through scales at increasing tempos and volumes, are comparable to the work of Mozart and other classical composers. The fact of the matter is that music is not just a compilation of genres and styles, but one universal sound. Other than people who unfortunately can’t hear, there are little to no people in the world who have never heard some form of music. I have been listening to music for as long as I can remember. I’ve watched music evolve through different fads and trends. One could say that music plays a large role of not only an individual’s identity, but the identity of a generation. The 70’s had disco, the 80’s had pop music, the 90’s had grunge and alternative rock, and that’s only regarding popular American music. Whether it’s coming out of the radio, ipod, record player, watched live in concert, or being made, music is everywhere.

Word Count: 306

This I believe: Music is everywhere; it is inescapable and could be considered synonymous with ones culture, thanks not only to music being a significant cultural factor, but also to corporate music companies broadcasting it through the airwaves of popular American culture.

The Surplus Generation

In my opinion, the best word that describes kids today is surplus. Kids are exposed to a surplus of entertainment and advertising, are obsessed with technology, and are always craving the latest and greatest little gadgets. They have a surplus of fast food joints that have consequently given them a surplus of weight, making this the fattest generation in history. There is a surplus of material goods sold such as clothes, video games, and even drugs. Kids today even have a surplus of money, given to them from mom and dad, which they use to buy their surplus of everything.
Word Count: 100

Ocean City, Maryland

Ocean City, Maryland could easily be considered the most popular place to vacation for the entire Delmarva area (Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia) in the summer. With swells of visitors reaching a half million each year, the resort town established around 1900 has exploded as a vacation destination in the past decades. Also, the construction of the Bay Bridge and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel in the 1960’s gave residents of the Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Virginia areas easy access to the resort, while annual migration to “OC” increased exponentially. This 10 mile stretch of beach and boardwalk boasts seafood, entertainment, and a tan to people of all ages. It is home to what seems like hundreds of hotels and motels, numerous big name seafood restaurants such as Phillips and Thrashers, The Roland E. Powell Convention Center, and infamous bars such as Seacrets and the Party Block. Ocean City sees a wide variety of people during the summer with annual events like the month long barrage of drunken teenagers during their “Senior Weeks,” families just taking their kids to the beach for a week, or even the dreaded “Bike Week.” I personally have gone down to Ocean City almost every summer for as long as I can remember, sometimes even more than once a year, and I strongly believe that Ocean City, Maryland plays a very significant role to a wide variety of people as a place to let loose and just have fun.

Word Count: 245

Ocean City, Maryland

Ocean City, Maryland could easily be considered the most popular place to vacation for the entire Delmarva area in the summer. With swells of visitors reaching a half million each year, the resort town established around 1900 has exploded as a vacation destination in the past decades. Also, the construction of the Bay Bridge and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel in the 1960’s gave residents of the Baltimore, Washington D.C., and Virginia areas easy access to the resort, while annual migration to “OC” increased exponentially. This 10 mile stretch of surf boasts seafood, entertainment, and a tan to people of all ages. It is home to what seems like hundreds of hotels and motels, numerous big name seafood restaurants such as Phillips and Thrashers, The Roland E. Powell Convention Center, and infamous bars such as Seacrets. Ocean City sees a wide variety of people during the summer with annual events like the month long barrage of drunken teenagers during their “Senior Weeks,” families just taking their kids to the beach for a week, or even the dreaded “Bike Week.” I personally have gone down to Ocean City almost every summer for as long as I can remember, sometimes even more than once a year, and I strongly believe that Ocean City, Maryland plays a very significant role to a wide variety of people as a place to let loose and just have fun.
Word Count: 235

Male Earrings: What Does it Really Mean?

After viewing and analyzing the 1968 Skipjack and the work of Andy Warhol, I have clearly found that popular culture is constantly changing and adapting to new styles, attitudes, and especially, the messages individuals attempt to portray with what they wear.

Since people have always been wearing certain things to portray who they are, I would argue that one of the best current styles that clearly personifies this is men who wear earrings. Back in the conservative era of the 1960’s, men with earrings were ostracized and accused of homosexuality. In ancient times, males wore earrings to signify power and prestige, and now in current times, this jewelry has grown accepted and adapted many new meanings. It’s true that some homosexuals express themselves through jewelry, even to the subtle distinction of which ear one is pierced, but now, this style has also been absorbed into the representation of power and wealth. In current times of material wealth, a man wearing huge diamond earrings turns heads not for the assumption of homosexuality, but the assumption that the man must be rich. By wearing expensive and flashy jewelry, these men display their wealth in a proud and prestigious way; a new age twist on the ideas of men from ancient times. Another earring style borrowed from ancient or tribal themes is known as gauging, or stretching one’s piercing to sizes sometimes far beyond the traditional 20 gauge stud. This style can portray many messages ranging from simple aesthetics to a display of current day deviant or counter-culture behavior similar to that of Warhol’s or the Punks.

Men wearing earrings can mean many things, you just have to look closer to see what message the ear studded man is trying to portray. Whether it’s an expression of sexuality, wealth, power, deviancy, or something else, the ever changing and growing sub culture of men with earrings is constantly manifesting new social meanings. After performing a semiotic analysis of this particular style, I can strongly argue that it reflects pretty much the biggest principle of pop culture: that it is ever changing and constantly used to project new meanings and beliefs.

Word Count: 356