Hello for the third time, goodbye to a short break.  Two important things I have learned from ODU; optional homework should be renamed mandatory homework, and just because it’s less interesting to you doesn’t mean you don’t have to learn it.  I guess I went into college thinking, “I’m going to find out what I want to do with my life and they’re going to teach me how to do it.”  The two things I found to be wrong in my original thoughts were, that as of now I could not be more unsure of what I’m doing, and I’m going to be doing a lot more teaching then my professors are.  The first semester, as I’ve been told by millions, is supposed to be the hardest and it did not disappoint.  Although I did well in most of my classes, college is going to be a lot more work than high school, and I’m strangely excited about it.  I guess I’ll go over my favorite and least favorite classes then give an exciting peek at what next semester holds.  My favorite class, hands down was Music in history and culture.  I think I enjoyed this class so much because it was actually new information, a subject I have never been taught.  Some of my other classes were just high school classes with the word college attached to the beginning, those were the ones I struggled in most.  It wasn’t because the material was too difficult to understand but because I felt like I was wasting my time learning things I already studied in high school.  I just had to realize that it isn’t algebras fault that I keep having to relearn it year after year, and its not a waste of time to brush up on it now and again, and again.  Sadly I’m still stuck with some normal (inside the box) classes in this upcoming semester, but I’m still going to learn every ounce of whatever there is to learn from them.  I tried to incorporate some odder classes but there are still many general education classes to knock down.   My schedule is still in the creation process so I’ll have to cut to commercial before I can reveal what I’m taking but try not to be too distraught in your state of suspense:p  Happy new year to MRC and everyone else, hope your 2010 has had a wonderful start and continues to get better and better.

-Vince

Hello again, I know you have all been doing a lot of waiting.. waiting for the new alice in chains album, waiting for where the wild things are to come out, and most of all waiting for a great blog.  I’m sure you all have your albums and have seen the movie by now but it still feels like something is missing, well the wait is finally over, I hope.  ODU has been a great experience so far,  I’ll start with the class aspect of college.  My favorite class so far has been music history and culture .  In this class we basically started with the question, “What is music and how did it get here.”  Out of the millions of answers that came to mind the most logical answers to me where, music started with drums, drums for war, drums for celebration, and it is one the simplest instruments to make.  My second answer was music started with the whistles from birds.  Cave man sat in his quite cave and then heard the sweet melody of a turtle dove flying over head, and for one reason or another he decided he liked that formation of pitches better than that of the wind blowing or water flowing.  And from there he, (he still being the lonely quite caveman), inspired by the passing bird sung out in his own collection of melodies and pitches.  Thus forming his “favorite” melodies and connecting his melodies into what we would now call a song.  I think the reason I enjoy this class is it has so many questions that have no firm or definite answers to them.  My MIDI (music in the studio oriented) class is also enjoyable, but after having Cory to teach me the basic ins and outs of the studio life in such an expert manner, it seams my current professor is lacking in charisma:p  My next music class, music theory, is also fun but very challenging.  It is fun because as the class goes on I realize that all of the things I am being “taught” or shown, are for the most part things I have already discovered.  I am now just learning the “correct” terms for them.  I also enjoy my college algebra class because it is all stuff I have been shown in high school.  And I don’t just enjoy it because I have seen it which should make it is easy, but because it’s just a matter of remembering the patterns and steps to solve the problems.  But most of all I enjoy the freedom that comes with college.  I know, shocker right?  But I enjoy being responsible for waking up to go to class , doing work, cleaning my things, and buying what I need…food, toilet paper, etc.  I feel like this could be the last stepping stone to becoming an actual “adult”.  Well I think that about covers most of my current thoughts on college life, how music started, how awesome Corey is, and lots of other things I stumbled upon in the entry.  I hope all is going well for the MRC and thank you again to them for giving me this opportunity.

I’d like to start by saying thank you so much for this opportunity, I am more than thoroughly excited to take complete advantage of everything MRC has done for me and hopefully I can do something cool in return for them.  I would also like to say please disregard any spelling mistaiks; or grammar error’s you might come across, because it is still summer and I have written nothing but songs since June 9th.  And now we can get down to business, I’ll start with classes.  It was orientation and ODU herded all the new students into separate rooms to sign up for classes.  I was browsing through the music selection; music history, string ensemble, marching band, intro to CD grooming, and just couldn’t decide what to take.  (CD grooming wasn’t an option I just wanted to wake up anyone who might have dosed off by now)  I also knew I had to take some “real” classes; english, math, science, etc.  I was busy working out all the different combinations of classes, trying to get the number of credits I wanted while making sure none of the class times over lapped.  I finally finished and typed my selections into the computer and about three out of my five classes were already filled.  Long story short, I decided to say, “Just give me as many music classes as you’re allowed to and then what ever is left I’ll take a math and english.”  I ended up with Piano 101, Intro to sight singing, Intro to MIDI, College algebra, and English 110.  And I could not be happier with how my schedule turned out.  Well, I’ve got my last show tonight as a member of my band here (VTX), so I should probably head out so I can help load all the equipment up.  But I would like to end my first blog by saying support new Alice in Chains and thank you again to MRC.         RIP Les Paul.

-Vince Tarrance