Finals Time

Dec. 14th, 2009 09:01 pm
carvinkeeper12: (Original)
Man the last couple of weeks have been hectic. I've got most of one of those lined Post-Its stuck on my computer next to the track pad with my to-do list for the last two weeks on it.

[x] Capstone Proposal
[x] Personal Marketing Plan [ ] Final
[ ] Internship Journals
[x] Marketing Plan [x] Presentation [ ]
[x] Business Plan [x] Presentation [ ]
[x] Essay [ ] Concert Review

Each line is a class, and it's pretty much in the order they're due:

Emerging Trends
Intro to Marketing
Internship
Music Marketing
Entrepreneurship: Developing the Music Business Venture
Writing About Popular Music

I was supposed to be done with Music Marketing and Entrepreneurship after today, but we didn't get through presentations in either class. So, today is the second to last day of classes, but Wednesday is going to be more presentations and we're changing in both those classes to a take-home final due Friday. The journals for Internship are due Friday as well. I fly home on Thursday, so guess what I'm going to be doing on the plane? Originally the finals for those classes were supposed to be NEXT Wednesday too, as this Wednesday is officially Reading Day, but we convinced him to move them up because the 23rd is just way too late.

I'm really excited to get this all done with. My business plan is 18 pages long if you include the spreadsheets. That's not that much for a business plan, but still. My essay (on the first incarnation of Rough Trade Records and why they revolutionized the indie scene in the UK and why they ultimately failed) was 11 pages. This is the most writing I've done since Freshman year I think.

Right now, I'm procrastinating on that Intro to Marketing final. It's all essay questions, but we're limited to one page double-spaced per question. It's due by 11am tomorrow. Then my last concert review thing only has to be 300 words and is due at 6pm. Then I need to do laundry and start packing and rehearse my presentations a couple of times. Oh NYU, how you work us through the very last minute.

Break should be really fun though. I'm getting home, changing, and going out to dinner with the family & Grandma at the country club we randomly decided to become semi-members of. Saturday I'm having a bunch of people over to watch the Waters of Mars US premier. I think most of us will have seen it already through the magic of the internet, but we're trying to offset our impatience by boosting the ratings. (Not that I have a Nielson box...) Then Sunday I think I'm taking the train down to Portland to join the rest of my family at my other Grandma's house. Then we're doing Christmas early before going up to Whistler and skiing until just before New Years. New Years is probably going to be at Carolyn's cabin again, but might be at Whistler with family friends, I have to decide. Then a week at home, probably with more skiing at Stevens, before the whole group of high school friends & local college roommates heads up to the cabin at Whistler for a weekend. Then I fly back and have a week here before my classes start again.

Oh, and I've joined yet another site that's probably gonna take me away from here. First Twitter with it's easy, quick, tiny updates. Then DailyBooth, with pictures accompanied by captions of any length. Oh boy.

I've decided Lady GaGa is actually really really good. I was all prepared to not care, just like with almost every other artist in the Top 40, but then her songs started getting stuck in my head. I have to give her props for keeping up with her "I'ma do my own thing, so deal" persona no matter what, and I have to concede that her music is just fucking catchy. Also, she dropped out of NYU, and would have graduated last year, so that's kinda cool.

Anyway. I want the semester to be over already, so I should probably get on that Marketing final.
I just finished a class titled Artists & Audiences. It was taught by Robert Christgau, and was a combination music history and music criticism class. The first paper was a short discussion of one of your favorite bands (I did Mindless Self Indulgence), the second was about a pre-rock figure (I wrote about Richard Wagner and The Ring Cycle), and the final was again writing a long discussion about a band.

For this third paper, I had a tough time deciding who I wanted to write about. I'd already tackled They Might Be Giants, so they were out. The Dresden Dolls have also appeared in papers for two separate classes, so they were also out. I thought about writing about Led Zeppelin, as they were the first band I got really obsessed with, but a part of me decided I didn't want to. Then I realized that since this was supposed to be partly a research paper, I should do The Grateful Dead.

My parents are Deadheads. I've always known that. I know the basic members of the band, and many of the songs, but I never actually knew the full history of the band. So, I decided I could use this as a way to maybe figure out my parents a little better. I did, but not in ways I expected because I decided to focus the paper on the Dead's attitude towards the bootlegging of their shows and how it greatly differed than most other bands' views on the subject. I went and found some really interesting articles on the subject, and even formally interviewed my mom. It's been fun, and multiple of my parents friends requested copies before I even had decided what I was focusing on. I decided to reproduce it here as well.

Be warned: It's 9 pages long in my word processor )

It was also a lot of fun to write this because I'm heading to my first Dead show three days after I get home. May 16th they finish up the tour they're currently on at The Gorge in George, Washington. I'm not completely positive it will be my first Dead show, but the concert I do remember was when I was small. I can really only remember being surrounded by my parents' Deadhead friends and tye-dye. It was at Memorial Stadium in Seattle, so it may have been during Bumbershoot, but my dad thinks it also might have been The Jerry Garcia Band or several other acts that attracted the same Seattle hippie scene. So, this May will be my first official Dead show. It's going to be a great time, and researching for and writing that essay has given me a nice anticipation.

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