Soundtrack to My Life

THE SOUNDTRACK OF MY LIFE

Butterfly Kisses—Bob Carlisle
Down the Road—Kenny Chesney
Bless the Broken Road—Rascal Flatts
You Can’t Lose Me—Faith Hill
Country Man—Luke Bryan
Space Jam—Quad City DJ
The Night Before(Life Goes On)—Carrie Underwood
I’ve Had the Time of My Life—Dirty Dancing
Ain’t Nothing Wrong With That—Robert Randolph
The Way You Make Me Feel—Michael Jackson

Going through my extremely long iTunes library, it was hard to only choose ten songs that relate to my life. The majority of the songs in my library are there because they evoke some kind of emotion or memory. The ten songs I did choose each have a specific meaning to me. A lot of the country songs on my list remind me of my boyfriend, country music is pretty much all he listens to and it has started to grow me. He is an important part of my life so these songs are close to my heart. A couple of the songs on my list remind me of my parents and when I was little. They used to play these songs for me and we would dance around the house and sing all of the lyrics as loud as we could. These memories are also a vital part of me and these songs evoke very happy memories of my childhood. Others on the list have to deal with my first dance routine, and car dancing with my best friends. I encountered most of these songs through the radio and other people. Music is a big part of my life in the sense that it helps me portray the emotions I am feeling at any given time.
My soundtrack to anyone else would tell them that I am extremely random when it comes to music choices. I have every genre on this list from rap to country to techno and more. I guess that shows my personality perfectly. I love being spontaneous and I enjoy anything that life throws at me. I don’t limit myself to liking just one type of music. I love the different emotions different types of songs allow me to experience, and the different variety is also a good thing. By looking through this list, I realize that there are many different subcultures I could be a part of. In other people’s minds I could be a hick from the south with all of the country songs. My soundtrack also shows that I am a part of the dance culture, or that I enjoy dancing in my free time which is true. You can judge people a lot by their music choices. However, they may not even be a part of these subgroups. I am a prime example because I am not from the south, and I am definitely not a “hick.” I just enjoy country music. I have a great sense of self, granted my music choices may be random, but I know who I am and what groups I belong to, and the type of music I listen to should not define me as a person, even though often times it does.
Like I said before, people would learn by listening to my play list that I am a very outgoing, random and spontaneous individual. My music choices are fun and energetic so they may gather that I am very friendly. When they listen to “Butterfly Kisses,” or “You Can’t Lose Me,” they will be able to understand that family means a lot to me. This could also show the listener that I am very sentimental as well. Someone may not be able to realize that I am not a typical country music listener. I don’t wear camouflage on a daily basis or drive a Chevy or any other stereotype.
Each and every individual contributes to a larger culture by being a part of various subcultures. The soundtrack to my life shows me in a light that others can put me into the various subcultures that exist in the world. Although some of these may not necessarily be true, they are how others see me. Every individual has different tastes and likings of different genres of music. It is all a matter of how others perceive you. Whether we choose to believe it or not, we judge others on a daily basis. The clothes they wear, the language they speak, their habits, and even the type of music that they listen to. Even if we do judge, we need to realize that all of the different subcultures each individual is apart of create the amazing culture we belong to.
When I was going through my classmate’s soundtrack I was able to determine that this person was most likely a music major. They chose a lot of jazz music that some of my band friends know and listen to. I am not sure if I was accurate on anything else, but it was interesting to hear a different type of music that most teenagers do not listen to. We can never be sure of our inferences or assumptions about others, but I feel that I did a pretty good job.

Dressed to Impress...NOT!

On February 26, 2009 our entire English 110 class dressed up in the craziest outfits you would ever expect college students to wear. Not only were these outfits extravagant, but they were far outside our comfort zones. I even felt uncomfortable in my own skin for the entire day I wore my crazy mismatched clothes.
It was a challenge deciding what to wear for this special day. I had no idea how much the other people in my class were going to get into this assignment. It worried me while I was picking out my outfit that I would be the only one really going “all out” for this assignment. To be honest, my outfit was pretty tame compared to most other individuals in my class. Some came I in prom dresses, others wearing cowboy attire, some wore mismatched colored clothes like myself, and others simply wore shirts or dresses they would never be caught dead wearing. I wanted to make sure my outfit was not too outrageous where people would view me differently, but I wanted it to be out of my norm enough so people would notice. I guess you could call me a chicken, but I worry so much about my appearance that I tried to make my crazy mismatched outfit “cute” by doing my regular makeup and hair to the best of my ability. I did this hoping that people could concentrate on my pretty face rather than the outrageous attire I had chosen for the day. So those were sort of my boundaries I set for myself when choosing what to wear: wear enough to be seen by others, but not so much that they would judge me.
Most of my friends were already aware of the assignment because I talked about it over and over again. I tried getting their advice on what to wear throughout the previous week so they knew what to expect when I walked into classes. When I approached the people I knew they basically let out a good laugh and cracked a joke at my crazy outfit.
“You look like some 70’s GoGo Girl Fashion Disaster,” my friend who let me borrow a larger flannel long sleeve shirt for the occasion. He needed the shirt back before I could take my pictures for the blog, but I basically put the shirt over my bright colored t-shirts and tied it up in the middle.
“You look like you are a sophomore….in high school!” my classmate Dave commented. I replied with a sarcastic thanks. I didn’t know a crazy outfit could actually make me look younger. I already look young because of my size; I didn’t want to make myself seem too immature.
As far as the people I didn’t know, they really didn’t say much to me. They gave me funny looks, but no one asked me why I was dressed the way I was. They seemed to talk to me as if nothing was wrong, but I know as soon as I turned away they would talk about my crazy fashion choices after I left. No one wanted to come up to me and say, “What’s the deal with this insane outfit you are wearing?” If they were to ask it would make me feel so much better than if they were just guessing how loony I was.
My peers joked around every time I tried to talk to them. One time I was trying to have a conversation with my friend Chris in the cafeteria of Davies and he simply said, “Who is this crazy girl talking to me, do I know her?” They really didn’t treat me different other than cracking a lot more jokes than they usually do. Professors treated me the exact same, however I participated a lot less in lectures and discussions for fear of attracting people to look at me.
Only those who really knew what I was doing commented on my clothing. They commented the most on how crazy my outfit really was.
“Wow. Just Wow. I can’t believe you managed to get all of those clothes to go together so well,” my friend Drew remarked.
I was shocked to notice that others around me gave me weird, judgmental looks, but they never straight out asked me why I looked the way I did. It made for an extremely interesting day hearing whispers amongst friends as I walked past, and the jokes made by my friends made the day even more memorable.
Now that I have been on the other side of perspective to the phrase “clothes make the person,” I definitely agree with it. The uncomfortable feeling I had in the gut of my stomach the entire day showed me how important it is to dress to impress. Granted, I left a big impression on others as a “70’s GoGo Girl Fashion Disaster,” I do not want to ever deal with the looks and laughs from others after that day. Looking your best and dressing to impress makes you feel good about yourself and it even makes you behave differently. Like I said before, I did not participate as much in my classes on this day because I was too afraid if I started talking people would look at me even more. I figured I would just fade into the background and no one would notice. The experience of dressing up was fun and interesting, but I now understand how important the way you dress is to others. People will judge you no matter what you do, and we all have to learn to deal with it because it is just a never-ending fact about our society.