241. Answering questions

I’ve been a little stuck for writing topics lately, so I’m going to get some inspiration from writing prompts. I googled writing prompts and I landed on this from the New York Times. I’ll eventually get back to jotting down my thoughts, but right now I just want to catch up on these blog posts. So here’s a question I landed on: What personal essay topic would you assign to college applicants?

I thought about something like this for a while. I think I would assign something along the lines of, “Describe a time you were vulnerable. How did you realign and recalibrate yourself?” I’d probably write a more succinct question, but I like to know when people really struggled.

I’ve found that I’ve come to gain a lot of respect for people when they are vulnerable or willing to open themselves up. I’ve grown a lot through my successes, but I think I’ve developed just as much, if not more, through my failures. As a society, we don’t like failure. We ignore it. We view  failing and vulnerability as negative characteristics. I think that’s a load of bullocks.

I think people show their true characteristics when they’re faced with a challenge or something that takes them out of their comfort zone. Granted, some people face a lot more challenges than others. (I don’t think I’d be able to match up with someone who lived in Syria and had to work their way up through a place like that.

I’ve always been bothered by the whole college application process. I’ll put it right out there that I don’t have any other better ideas, but it’s hard to glean much from (some) people’s essays. That’s for another time.

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Question 2.

222. What are you listening to?

I’ve been listening to two different bands a lot lately: Weezer and Wilco. I saw Wilco a few weeks ago and I’m going to go see Weezer tomorrow night. I only have one Wilco album on CD, their “Kicking Televisions” live album. It’s a fun one to blast in the car. I’m not much for live albums usually, but this one is really good. It’s easy to sing a long to and it moves along nicely. Good live albums make you feel like you are there.

I’ve been prepping for the Weezer concert by listening to a few different albums. I decided to get tickets after listening to their latest album. It’s a good sing along song and I’ve liked running to it. The woman I stood next to at the Wilco concert recommended I check out their previous one, “Everything will be all right in the end.” I’d heard a couple songs off of it, but I listened to it more closely. That one is a lot of fun as well. I think that Weezer is a band that you either really like, somewhat enjoy, or really, really hate. There is no lukewarm hate for Weezer. I’m not quite sure why.

I also like the song “The Good Life.” I’ve been listening to that a lot at work.