best of 2008 (...and 2007 in retrospect)

paste already gave its signs of life 2008. pitchfork has dealt out half of its best albums of 2008. so, it is about time i dished out my top 10 of 2008.

disclaimer:  there are more albums i want than i have money to buy. so there are a lot of albums that i didn't event consider for my top 10 because i have not  purchased them and given them a full listen yet... including devotion - beach house, microcastle - deerhunter, dear science - tv on the radio, women - women, let the blind... - atlas sound, parc avenue - plants & animals, april - sun kil moon

10: volume one - she & him

9: in ear park - department of eagles

8: vampire weekend - vampire weekend

7: house with no home - horse feathers

6: the rhumb line - ra ra riot

5: alpinisms - school of seven bells

4: fate - dr. dog

3: fleet foxes - fleet foxes

2: we brave bee stings and all - thao w/ the get down stay down

1: for emma, forever ago - bon iver

honorable mentions: all we could do was sing - port o'brien, all is well - samamidon, in ghost colours - cut copy, með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust - sigur rós, saturdays=youth - m83, the second gleam (ep) - the avett brothers, sad robots (ep) - stars, canopy glow - anathallo, caught in the tree - damien jurado, the odd couple - gnarls barkley

albums i feel show the most promise: nests - she keeps bees, everything is alive - pomegranates 

biggest disappointment: skeletal lamping - of montreal

2007 (in retrospect)
 i find it easier to create a list for 2007 now that a year has past and i've had the chance to listen to more albums as well as given a deeper listen to albums. now that the novelty has worn away, what albums have remained on my playlist? here's a look at how at my top 25 (plus a few honorable mentions) for 2007:

25: under the blacklight - rilo kiley
24: the historical conquests of josh ritter - josh ritter
23: alright still - lily allen
22: the stage name- okkervil river
21: person pitch - panda bear
20: wincing the night away - the shins
19: is is (ep) - yeah yeah yeahs
18: friend and foe - menomena
17: armchair apocrypha - andrew bird
17: flying cup - beirut
16: hissing fauna, are you the destroyer? - of montreal
15: in rainbows - radiohead
14: all hour cymbals - yeasayer
13: friend (ep) - grizzly bear
12: the reminder - feist
11: raising sand - robert plant & alison krauss
10: challengers - new pornographers
8: marry me - st. vincent
7: kala - m.i.a.
6: sky blue sky - wilco
5: the con - tegan and sara
4: ga ga ga ga ga - spoon
3: emotionalism - the avett brothers
2: strawberry jam - animal collective
1: cease to begin - band of horses

honorable mentions: hymn for a dark horse - bowerbirds, we were dead before the ship even sank - modest mouse, graduation - kanye west, made of bricks- kate nash, random spirit lover - sunset rubdown, friend opportunity - deerhoof, some loud thunder - clap your hands say yeah

when i grow up

i want to be zooey deschanel.

quote

"Let's set aside our weapons for the culture and pick up the first aid kits for the wounded."

(This is from a book I'm reading for one of my classes. While I don't quite agree with the author on all of his points, I really liked this statement).

mumbai

i spent my thanksgiving overeating and thinking of black friday sales.

i can't begin to comprehend how blessed / lucky / fortunate / etc i am. i cannot begin to comprehend suffering.

i cannot begin to comprehend what is happening in mumbai, but i am trying.

thanks-a-giving

happy thanksgiving.

on an unrelated note, i was talking to somebody about myers-briggs personality types today. i've taken three or four myers-briggs tests throughout the past few years (for psychology classes, career inventories, etc), and every time i take it, my results are the same: infj.

each time i read descriptions of infjs, i am amazed how accurately it describes me. it also intrigues me to learn what "types" other people are...

anyways, if you feel like it, go here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INFJ

it might make me a little more transparent.

i'm for real this time, i swear.

remember that last post when i said i'd update this regularly again?

oops.

i'm not sure if anyone still checks this, considering i pretty much abandoned it, leaving it without any updates for a couple months. so, if you are reading this, spread the news-- i'm back baby!

this semester has been nuts. i'm taking 17 credit hours, working as a TA, doing ifc, and becoming involved in numerous side projects that come my way. oh and i'm happy to say i'm becoming a part of signature entertainment (more to come on that in the future)!

as for right now, i'm on thanksgiving break, relishing in the fact that i can sleep as much as i possibly can. i have a decent amount of work to get done, but honestly, the biggest dilemma i'm facing is finding a dress for gretchen's wedding.

i think the last time i wore any kind of formal / semi-formal dress was sorority / fraternity formals during my freshman year at gcc. so, i need to buy a dress.

(one thing you should note: i love clothes, fashion, but i hate shopping. well, it is fun for maybe 15 minutes then i get bored and cranky. i also am super cheap, which doesn't help the situation).

shopping for a dress shouldn't be too hard, right? i mean, i'm not the bride, so it doesn't really matter what i wear, so long as it is appropriate and i feel at least a little comfortable in it. however, i'm finding that it's not as easy as you think.

although i am 22 years old, i still shop primarily in the junior's department, so naturally, i started there. here's an example of the typical dress (yes, it is a dress, not a shirt) i find:

Okay, not so bad if you are looking to bump and grind the night away at your high school homecoming... but not quite what I had pictured for my friend's big, beautiful wedding she is planning.

So, after seeing rack after rack of this type of dress, I thought to myself, "Maybe I'm just too old for the junior's department." After all, I am 22 and their target audience is probably 15.

So, I ventured off to the women's department to see if I'd have better luck.

Well, I learned that apparently, if you are old enough to be shopping in the women's department, you should just settle with covering your body in dresses that closely resemble burlap sacks. Exhibit A:

After unsuccessfully bouncing back and forth between the junior and women's department at a few stores, I decided a new tactic: try cooler stores.

So, I started off with Forever 21. Not the classiest, I know, but it is cheap and I have no money. Normally, I find Forever 21's oversized jewelry and glitzy clothes kind of endearing (let's face it, tacky jewelry is kind of my thing).

But seriously, going to a wedding in something like this? Really?

So, I decided to give in and try somewhere a little more expensive. I wasn't quite ready to go to BCBG or Anthropologie, but I figured I might be able to find something reasonable to Urban Outfitters. 

They've got some cute dresses there. Like this one. It is conservative without being a burlap sack, young without being tween-y. Besides me still being unsure if there's a unspoken rule against wearing a black dress at weddings (I think it's okay in the winter??? I don't get these things.), I was sold on it.

That is, until I saw the price tag. 

$264

...where's the burlap sack?

an update finally..

i really want to start writing in here more often again. i feel like as soon as i got back to taylor, i got so overwhelmed that i've slacked in keeping in touch. 

being back here has been tough for sure, but not as bad as i thought.  i have a couple amazing friends here that have really made it worth coming back. there have been disappointments and frustrations, but when you have a couple amazing people to lean on, it makes it all seem pretty tolerable.

i have also been submerging myself in music, just trying to stay involved however possible.

listen to "soil, soil" by tegan and sara.