Mixtapemotions

  • "Lilac" (라일락) by IU (아이유), Saturday, March 25, 2023 (updated repost)

    K-pop listeners have watched the once teen star IU grow up. Debuting at the age of 15, the star is turning 30 this year. The soprano singer has been called Korea’s little sister, and her (mostly) squeaky clean image has propelled her to lasting success in Korea’s music scene. Flowers and spring are no unfamiliar topic to this singer, and her sweet, yet powerful voice is perfect for a spring day. My first exposure to the singer was her song “The Meaning of You” (너의 의미)  and her feature on HIGH4‘s “Not Spring, Love, or Cherry Blossoms” (봄 사랑 벚꽃 말고) and she’s constantly played in Korea whenever the mood calls for easy listening.

    IT’S LIKE THE FALLING PETALS, OUR IVORY COLORED SPRING CLIMAX.  IU’s  Lilac album is a pretty spring album. And it’s no secret I’m a sucker for a good saxophone part in a pop song. “Lilac” offers that and more. Growing up in central New York, I always considered lilacs to be a late summer flower. However, the timeline for the blooming is sped up in the south. In Korea and Japan, cherry blossoms (벚꽃, sakura) are blooming earlier and earlier due to climate change. In 2021, the blossoms bloomed the earliest since 812, which has scientists worried about what this says about climate change. Earlier this week in my area, the cherry blossoms started blooming and most of them are out today. The peak may be Monday or Tuesday, but it felt cold today and the weather was cloudy. It’s still the cold part of spring and lilacs aren’t due until at least next month. But it’s that fresh feeling of spring that we can celebrate in today’s song. IU’s music celebrates youth and young love, and “Lilac” is no exception.

    LIKE THE WARM BREEZE. “Lilac” symbolizes IU growing up, passing her 20s and entering her 30s. The music video is fun in every sense of a K-pop video. We see the singer boarding a train. The timetable at the station is a list of her previous releases. We see several looks for the singer, looking sweet and cute to sexy to tough, showing different eras of her career. The end of the video is a bit terrifying. The singer gets off the train. The cinematography of the video up until that point had been warm. The singer wearing vibrant colors and even the dark scene of the night club doesn’t feel lonely and the night on the train where she is fighting, the singer has a smile on her face. However, the last scene looks lonely. The singer is dressed in dull clothing and the expression on her face looks lost. Then another train arrives bathing the singer’s face in light. She smiles, but I can’t figure out if she is feeling excited or just pretending to be brave. The video ends with the words in English: “Spring is short, but it comes again.” The singer has commented on this album as being a transition to her thirties, so if springtime is a mindset, it can come again. But if it’s an age… Welcome to your thirties, IU. There are certainly benefits to casting off the cares of other people that weigh you down in your twenties. 


  • "Cold Air" by Acceptance + Wild, Free Track by Track, Friday, March 24, 2023

    When Acceptance released their 2017 record, 12 years after their cult classic Phantoms, the band’s fans had mixed feelings about Colliding By Design. On the hand, listeners thought it was great to hear the vocals of Jason Vena and the riffs of Kaylan Cloyd and the moody atmospheric rhythm guitar of Christian McAlhaney all produced by the band’s “sixth member” Aaron Sprinkle. But some listeners didn’t like the pop direction the band took. In 2020’s Wild, Free the band offers less guitar, but Sprinkle takes the band further into the pop world, making the band feel even more distant from their 2005 classic. 

    1. “Midnight.” The album starts with a slightly musically underwhelming track. It seems that the record deals with Jason Vena’s romantic history, “Midnight,” perhaps addresses his divorce and how the singer was put in the spotlight when his ex became a constant on The Bachelor. The band filmed a video for the song.

    2. “Cold Air” is by far the best track on the record. As the lead single, it shows the electronic direction the band has taken. Guitars are minimal as are lyrics. It’s all atmosphere, but a perfect marriage between the musicality of the band and Aaron Sprinkle’s Northwestern tones. 

    3. “Release & Let Go” returns the band to guitars, but the emphasis is on Vena’s lyrics and the keys on the chorus. This is one of the few Acceptance songs with female-backing vocals. The lyrics explain that rather than holding onto a relationship that is over just to release it and let it go.


    4. “Son of the City” is another interesting song musically with an ’80s-sounding off chord. Lyrically the song is vague. Although it paints a picture of a city and draws on the superhero crazy with the speaker saying, “I’m not a normal hero.”

    5. “Dark Age” is another track that seems to deal with Vena’s “only failure.” 


    6. “Bend the Light” is another etherial track on the record. It’s perhaps the softest moment full of mood. 

    7. “Wildfires” features guest vocalist Jessie Villa in the closest Acceptance gets to a duet. The song references the destructive wildfires in the Western states and draws a comparison to the damage done after love.

    8. “Wasted Nights” describes the time spent in a new relationship. The time seems wasted if you think of all the things you could be doing instead–gaining a skill, building a business–and the time feels especially wasted if the relationship ends. 

    9. “June 1985.” I’m not sure what the significance of this date is. I’m assuming that the band members were born in between 1979-1984(ish), so the timeline and lyrics may be about a divorce or losing a friend at a young age. Jason’s vocals on this record are more muffled in spots than any previous work the band has released and the verses of this song are maybe the least perfect.

    10. “At the Edge of the Earth.” Two of the songs on the record were co-produced by J. Hall. The last track on the standard edition of the album has an epic sound. It’s a kind of “Where the Streets Have No Name” closing, or on the record a neat wrap up to the issues presented in the record of lost love. In the end everything will be okay when “we meet in the fields at the edge of the earth.”

  • "Sad Boy" (Get Better!) by Henrik Heaven + Sad: a playlist for sad boys and girls, Thursday, March 23, 2023

    Henrik Heaven started his musical career at age 9, winning a talent competition at his school. A few years later, he began touring his home country of Norway. In 2013 he won second place to be selected for Euro Vision Junior. The singer-songwriter is also a dancer and has been releasing music since his 2019 EP, ALLSTAR.  In 2021, he released Sad Boy (Get Better!), three tracks including the title track. I’m not sure how this track showed up in my library, but I thought it would be a good jumping off point for a playlist that I’ve wanted to make for a while: sad: a playlist for sad boys and girls.

     

  • "Blue" by Taeyeon (updated repost) trigger warning: discussion of suicide, Wednesday, March 22, 2023

    When March comes, it either appears as a lion or a lamb.  I’ve also taken a more superstitious meaning to this saying. In Korea, it’s the beginning of the school year; however, March 1st is a national holiday. Will the school year start out smoothly or with its own set of thundershowers? If it starts out smoothly, is trouble ahead? So much uncertainty leans on this temperamental spring month as the air warms, clashing with Arctic blasts. And if you throw climate change into the mix, who knows what we’re going to get? March is almost half over and I wonder if it started like a lamb or a lion? And more importantly will it get calmer or more chaotic?


    WHEN I GET FARTHER AWAY, MY SIGHS GROW DEEPER. Taeyeon is one of the most successful female solo artists in Korea. From her start with the bubblegum pop girl group Girls’ Generation, she’s not the only singer to find success after the ending of her group. In 2019, Taeyeon bravely explained to her fans that she was battling depression. She had lost many fellow friends and colleagues to suicide in the years prior as many K-pop group members took their lives. Taeyeon’s admission that she too was battling depression broke rank with her training as a K-pop idol, which involves years of cultivating young stars’ images. K-pop singers have to be branded to appear fun and flirty, but innocent. They shouldn’t take stands in controversies. Lyrics also shouldn’t be controversial. And while American pop music gets political and deals with issues like sexism, homophobia, and depression, sad songs in K-pop tend to deal only with the sadness of a break-up, like the lyrics of this song. 

    I CALL YOUR NAME, BUT THERE’S NO ANSWER. Looking at the bigger picture, Taeyeon’s revelations of her battle with depression has the potential to start a long overdue conversation on the topic of suicide in Korean society. As of 2016, the World Health Organization listed South Korea as the 10th highest suicide rate in the OECD. In a country with some of the best, affordable healthcare in the world, a cut-throat world of competition is often the culprit leading teens and adults to take their own lives. Teenagers face pressure to do well on a single test to enter university. How they score on that test determines what opportunities they will have in the future. Will they live the Korean or American dream? Own a nice apartment in Gangnam, work for Samsung, and marry a beautiful or handsome spouse and have 1.5 children? Or will they be stuck in a small town delivering chicken to the ones who scored better on this test? The world of K-pop is also fiercely competitive. So many kids want to be a K-pop singer, but not all of them have the look. So mom and dad spend money on plastic surgery and put them on diets. K-pop stars train for their late teens and early ’20s for a future that’s not certain. Not every group makes it big. And only the wildly successful SHINees and GIRLS’ GENERATIONs can maintain fame into their 30s. Most stars will age out of music. And while depression is not an easy topic to talk about or listen to, it’s important to drop the facade that everything is okay, before it’s too late. 

    If you struggle with depression, talk to a trained specialist in your country. Seoul Counseling Center offers counseling in Korean and English and is located in Seoul and Pyeongtaek, South Korea. Also, checkout the crisis hotlines.

     

  • “Happier” by Bastille & Marshmello (partial repost), Tuesday, March 21, 2023

    British pop-rock band Bastille had what it took to survive the changing landscape of rock music. Today, the band has 18 million monthly Spotify listeners. Prior to “Happier,” a collaboration with anonymous DJ/producer Marshmello, the band has already explored EDM and had cultivated a rather radio-friendly pop sound. Propelled to fame with their number 2 British single “Pompeii,” Bastille is a band that has accomplished what few bands could achieve in the 2010s, relevance. 

    WHEN THE MORNING COMES AND WE’RE LEFT WITH WHAT WE’VE BECOME.  We all sang “If You’re Happy and You Know It” when we were children. It was a standard in Sabbath school, but we also sang it at school. I can’t remember if it was on a children’s television show or at school where I first heard another verse: “If you’re angry and you know it, stomp your feet.” I don’t think that I was emotionally stunted by my church upbringing, and if I was school may have made the difference, but looking back on the verse omitted from the Sabbath school curriculum, I realized that the church never really taught children (and maybe adults) how to deal complex emotions. If you’re teaching children, you might be tempted to gloss over real or perceived unfairness or injustice and tell them to be happy, even to “stomp your feet” in happiness, but as children grow up, nobody ever teaches us how to make choices so that we can be happier. We may have been taught that question is selfish and we should try to make others happy, but how many of our problems would we solve if we looked at happiness in the long term? This becomes essential when we get depressed or feel like a choice we made is no longer effective. How can I not be miserable? How can I be just a little happier?

    WHEN THE EVENING FALLS AND I’M LEFT HERE WITH MY THOUGHTS. “Happier”’is a song about a relationship nearing its expiration date. Being together doesn’t make each partner as happy as they could be, and the singer feels that if he leaves, his partner will be able to recover and find true happiness, whether with another person or pursing a dream. Sometimes the best way to love someone is to let that person go rather than to hold on tightly to the relationship. My last relationship was like that. It started out fun and there was a point that seemed like we could beat the odds–an age difference, a language barrier, long distance. Only after a while we both lost sight of what drew us together in the first place. I had similar problems in my current relationship, but love and communication along with relationship reassessment got us healthy again. I’m certainly not one to say that all relationships should last forever. I believe in divorce, but I also think that love that’s not worth fight for was never love.

  • "I Don't Live Here Anymore" by The War on Drugs ft. Lucius, Monday, March 19, 2023 (partial repost)

    In 2021 The War on Drugs returned after four years with their critically-acclaimed album, I Don’t Live Here Anymore. The title track and lead single features indie pop group Lucius as backing vocals on the chorus. Like their previous works, such as A Deeper Understanding  (2017) and  Lost in the Dream (2014), The War on Drugs is able to play two chords back to back for six minutes and create a song that you never want to end. Those two chords create a warm cadence that’s like a bonfire on a cold fall night. And that’s reason enough to curl up with a blanket and enjoy The War on Drugs all day long.


    A CREATURE VOID OF FORM. In addition to producing their own music, The War on Drugs has also produced two seasons of a podcast titled Super High Quality Podcast. The second season is a four-part documentary about how the band wrote and recorded their fifth record. In addition to the band “talking shop” and sharing their demos and jam sessions, listeners are transported into the band’s world–a snowy cabin in Upstate New York where they secluded themselves to record the 2021 record. The record was recorded over three years. After rewrites and re-recordings in multiple studios in multiple cities and a pandemic, the record arrived on October 29, 2021. The single “I Don’t Live Here Anymore” started showing up on some of the music podcasts I had been listening to as a recommendation for new music. Song Exploder did an episode in which lead singer Adam Granduciel talks about how seeing his musical idol, Bob Dylan, in concert inspired the song about losing a past relationship.
    I NEED A CHANCE TO BE REBORN. I’ve talked about how “I Don’t Live Here Anymore,” to me, sounds like an anachronistic ’80s or early ’90s hit, adding it to my Pseudo ’80s Hits playlist. It’s kind of like what Mic the Snare said about “Blinding Lights“: “It’s just like that one song. Uh? Which one?” Is it “The Boys of Summer“? something by Springsteen? In some alternate universe, “Blinding Lights,” “Run Away with Me,” “Somebody That I Used to Know,” and “I Don’t Live Here Anymore” were the ’80s hits.  The song features Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of the Indie pop group Lucius, crediting the backup singers unlike many other artists who record with other artists in the studio yet only a close reading of the linear notes reveals who the musicians on the track actually are. The band is actually a f0ur-piece but vocalists Jess and Holly are the most visible members. Jess and Holly have appeared in several collaborations with other artists including Roger Waters, Sheryl Crowe, Brandi Carlile, Jackson Browne, and John Legend. In today’s song, Lucius adds the female perspective to the relationship that has ended. It’s wistful and teary, and ultimately a great song. 

    Music video:

    Live on Ellen



  • "Yosemite" by Lana Del Rey, Sunday, March 19, 2023 (updated repost)

    In 2020, Taylor Swift released a documentary titled Miss Americana which talked about her music up to the release of 2019’s Lover. While Swift’s country music past and her latest ventures with Folklore  and Evermore certainly can touch on  Americana, if you placed Taylor Swift’s CD leaflets on a table next to Lana Del Rey‘s and asked anyone on the street to which lyricist better embodied the dictionary.com definition of “things associated with the culture and history of America,” Lana Del Rey would probably be crowned the real “Miss Americana.” But being the real, unrecognized “Miss Americana” can be just as problematic as the tainted past of the great country. Lana Del Rey is no stranger to controversy or acclaim. She is a polarizing star on the pop charts (when she chooses to release a hit) and pop culture.  Sometimes called regressive to feminism, Lana Del Rey has been cancelled more times than most celebrities. Yet there is something about her words that many cling to satirically. 

    THE ONLY THING WE’LL TURN IS THE PAGES OF ALL OF THE POEMS WE BURNED. My first encounter with Lana Del Rey was the 2013 The Great Gatsby   soundtrack with her song “Young and Beautiful.” The anachronistic soundtrack added modern interpretations to the 1925 novel that I would have never made from my several readings of the book, and “Young and Beautiful” deepened Daisy’s seemingly shallow character to me. After hearing “Young and Beautiful,” I delved into Born to Die and discovered a dusty old closet, filled with elegant gowns, talk of old films and books, tales of yesteryear, hiphop beats and sixties style vocals. It was like meeting your grandmother as a teenager. I couldn’t get into her follow up Ultraviolence, although many fans consider it her best album. By her third record, Honeymoon, Del Rey settled into a not-so-Top-40 style of ’60s dream pop, losing the hip-hop catchiness, but keeping up with the lyrical intensity. LP number 6, Chemtrails Over the Country Club sees the singer become a California folk singer and adding higher registers to her normally alto voice.

    TELEVISION STATIC WAS QUITE OVERWHELMING. Bruce Springsteen has called Del Rey one of the best songwriters today. However, as a listener she is not always accessible. Just like you need to sit down to watch a movie, you need time to listen to a Lana Del Rey album. And 2021 is not a year with long flights or car rides. Furthermore, what’s the pay off? One listen may not do it, particularly with the experimental direction the singer takes. And with all that time sitting and listening to these lyrics that could be satire or serious, glorifying the old-timey pop culture built on racism and misogyny that is best left in the past. Having not gone too deep on Chemtrails,   “Yosemite” is a pretty good song, featuring some interesting drumming, a folk guitar, interesting production, and a stunning music video. If you do spend some time with this album, I would like to know–genius or pretentious? 

  • "I Won't Give Up" by Jason Mraz, Saturday, March 18, 2023 (reworked repost)

     

    In every small town to major city in South Korea, there are private karaoke rooms called noraebang (노래방). These are used by everyone from middle school students escaping the stress of studying for exams to middle-aged office workers, pressured into going out and drinking with their boss. Since I’ve been in Korea, I’ve heard them mentioned in American TV shows or movies in major cities; however, noraebang culture is much more permeated in Korean culture than karaoke is in America. So what is sung in these karaoke rooms? You can spend hours browsing the song selection from old Korean throat music (트롯), a kind of old-timey, often disco-sounding music that Korean ajoshis or ajumas (아주씨, 아줌마), or middle-aged people, love. There are K-pop songs throughout the ages and international songs like Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Spanish, and of course English pop, rock, and traditional songs. When you go to a noraebang, you select the song you want to sing and the lyrics appear on the screen. There’s sometimes the music video, but usually a generic backing video that accompanies the song. After the song, the machine will measure your pitch and timing and give you a score based on how well you followed the song. It’s quite a fun evening, and a karaoke room is usually about $20 for an hour if you have a big group and less for a smaller room.


    HOW OLD IS YOUR SOUL? It was October of 2012 when I first experienced the noraebang. There was a talent show at church on a Saturday night and a bunch of other English teachers came from other parts of Korea. After the talent show a bunch of people went out for dak galbi (닭갈비) a spicy chicken dish that was the most famous dish in the city I lived in Chuncheon (춘천). As the evening drew on, we lost more and more people, the way that all large nights out do, but after dinner and maybe a cafe, we headed to sing karaoke, which, in my American culture of just getting to know people would be terrifying. American karaoke is usually in public on a small stage in a pub, but Korean karaoke is a private event. I sat and watched the karaoke and sang Oasis‘s “Wonderwall” toward the end of the night. The evening consisted of songs like “Diamonds” and “Umbrella” by Rihanna, Alicia Keys/Jay Z, Beyonce, songs from movies, old songs, Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out,” a few Korean songs like “Monster” by Big Bang, “Ugly” by 2en1, and at some point someone sang the new Jason Mraz song “I Won’t Give Up.” I had heard the song before, but seeing the words made them stick out and resonate with me. 

    WE’VE GOT A LOT TO LEARN. At most points in my life, I had carefully curated the influence I allowed in. My blog is a pretty good reflection of that. I grew up allowed to watch R-rated movies when I was 17 (with a few exceptions). I had to hide my record collection from my mom, but I chose to listen to mostly Christian music. I cut off friendships I thought would lead me away from the Lord. In college, I felt a duty to catch up on the culture I had cut myself off from. I started listening more broadly, watching questionable movies, especially if they were artistic, and reading everything I could. I wanted to be well-versed in my Christian apologetics. There was a culture war, and I didn’t want to be an ignorant soldier in it. But when I came to Korea, I met up with some pretty conservative Christians who were all about sheltering themselves from worldly influence. I was very frustrated with that stance, and I felt Christians should be allowed to explore art for what it is while understanding that it is not holy and that the answers come from the Bible. What was interesting about Jason Mraz’s song is his evoking God’s name into his message. Of course, artists do this all the time, calling on the name of God without it being the God of the Bible. However, something about when Mraz declares, “God knows we’re worth it,” reminded me of Christian humanism, a philosophy I had flirted with in college, but ultimately rejected because of the little Calvinism that crept into Adventism, telling us that humans are nothing outside of God. This song helped to spark the journey that I’m on today. Love is worth it. Who I am is who God created me to be. I have worth because I have worth.

  • "Video Game" by Sufjan Stevens, Friday, March 17, 2023 (updated repost)

    March 15th was the Ides of March, the day when Julius Cesar was stabbed. I realized that I didn’t celebrate Casimir Pulaski Day (March 1st, also a Sufjan Stevens song), nor did I celebrate Pi Day with a song about circles on Tuesday, nor am I posting a St. Patrick’s Day song today, but I thought that it would be fun to analyze Stevens’s most ironic song of all, in which he states to his fans that he doesn’t want to be their “Julius Caesar… [nor their] personal Jesus.” The pairing of the two figures I found fascinating because in Dante’s Inferno we meet Judas (betrayer of Christ), and Brutus and Cassius (betrayers of Caesar) in the deepest layer of hell, tortured by Satan himself. Beware indeed the Ides of March.

    I DON’T WANT TO BE THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE. Just when we thought we firmly established Sufjan Stevens as a folk singer, perhaps an heir to Woody Guthrie or Gordon Lightfoot, he goes and makes an electronic album. While the singer-songwriter had incorporating synths into his folk sound prior to 2010’s Age of Ads, the album was polarizing to his fans. He did it again for his 2017 Planetarium album, but because the album was largely instrumental, I mostly wrote off the album. But 2020’s The Ascension was what happens when a folk musician record an album in the middle of a move, while all the instruments are in storage. The song “Video Game” uses the metaphor of something popular controlling the masses, yet the singer doesn’t want to partake; however, in the end, he realizes the necessity as a “procedure.” Is it the rules of society? The music industry? social media? 

    I DON’T CARE IF EVERYBODY ELSE IS INTO IT. Every year we gain a few new social media platforms. In the early ’00s, MySpace was so instrumental in building the modern music industry because it was the first time that people could not just follow, but friend their favorite bands and musicians. MySpace wasn’t the first social networking site that musicians used, but it became a preferred medium because band members could share status updates, inform followers of upcoming tours, and even preview their upcoming albums, all between your status updates and photos of your high school friends. MySpace virtually replaced its band predecessors like MP3.com and PureVolume. And although the bands’ MySpace hay-day didn’t last long at all, music’s relationship with social media was just beginning. I remember hearing an interview on a podcast talking about how social media is not optional for musicians today. The example given was that a band could be cryptic and insular between rare insights from interviews gleaned from Rolling Stone articles, but now, fans would feel neglected if they are ignored. Sufjan Stevens has maintained his privacy in this digital age. The rumors of his song meanings have listeners guessing what he really thinks. Yet, while refraining from social media, the star of “Video Game” is viral TikToker Jalaiah, dancing throughout the entire video. “Video Game” is Sufjan’s most pop song in his discography. He’s using pop music to scrutinize the dangers of pop culture. And he’s using a TikToker to help spread his message of non-conformity. Beware the Ides of March, ya’ll.

    Read the lyrics on Genius.

  • “Hide from the World” by Tyson Motsenbocker, Thursday, March 16, 2023

     

    Today we take another dive into my #1 album from last year, Tyson Motsenbocker‘s Milk Teeth, specifically a song that seems unmatched with the other tracks, “Hide from the World.” The song breaks up the musical themes established in the first four tracks. But “Hide from the World” adds whimsical guitar chords and equally whimsical lyrics. Then it’s back to the serious musical tone by track six, “UC Santa Cruz.”

    I WANT TO HANG IN SNOOPY’S DOG HOUSE AND HE SHOULD BE THERE TOO. Unlike the other songs on Milk Teeth, in “Hide from the World” Tyson Motenbocker chooses easily accessible references. On other tracks, Motsenbocker references locations, alcohol brands, and bands, and uses vocabulary that merits a Genius annotation. But except for extremely sheltered evangelical or ex-vangelical kids particularly with the Harry Potter reference in “Hide from the World” most listeners quickly assimilate the meaning that Motsenbocker suggests with the allusions in the song. The sentiment is shared on other tracks, but most succinctly expressed in today’s song. Some days you’ve just had enough and it seems like there’s nothing else the world can give you. It’s “I Blame the World” 2.0. The music video features a man who wants to be alone, but another man, played by Tyson Motsenbocker, tries to impose on the protagonist with a cheerful attitude. At the end of the video, the protagonist discovers a tent in the middle of the forest where he can be truly alone. 

    I WANT THE TENT FROM HARRY POTTER WITH THE FLAP TIED SHUT. Being a teacher, I have to perform a lot for my students. I have to put on a happy face, and support my students on their good and bad days. It’s a profession I gladly chose. However, I am an introvert. My resting state is not going out after work. And this is especially true when things get busy or I have a bad day. What’s worse is that my workload has steadily increased every year of my teaching. I’ve taken on or have been tasked with more responsibilities, whether it’s supervision or extra classes. This year is a particularly difficult year with incredibly large class sizes. It feels like I’ve been training my entire career for this year when I feel like I’m on all the time. And when things go wrong, they cause other problems. At the end of the day today, I just felt done. I wanted to hide from the world. I wanted to hide from everyone no matter how kind they were today. The last two classes of the day were with pubescent middle schoolers trying to have their way and lying that they didn’t do anything wrong. There wasn’t enough coffee in the world. But the day did end. Thank God tomorrow’s Friday!