The Result of a Downhill Slump

As we continue on with the topic of magazines, I would like to add how disappointed I am in their current failure to stay on top and relevant among consumers.

The times are awful now. The economy is failing as the dollar is depreciating. People are having a difficult time finding jobs that can pay enough for them to make a living while still having enough spending/saving money left over. Lack of spending money means that people will resort to any opportunity in which they don't have to pay for things they otherwise don't need or don't want. People don't necessarily need magazines to survive. However, staying in touch with what is going on in the world and being entertained creates an uplifting mood for people to stay self-assured of themselves. It makes people feel that they have a sense of purpose, because they can feel that they are a part of something that seems to be calling to them.

Magazines serve that purpose. For me, they provide a way for me to be "in the know." As I said before, they are time capsules packaged in paper form. They allow you to refer to them for retrospective purposes. You can take them with you everywhere, rip them out and tape it to your wall, and share them with anyone you think will care about your discovery. With the advent of the internet, people are easily finding ways to fulfill their need to entertain themselves. The internet bill is paid for. Beyond that, most content is free. No longer will they have to wait for the scheduled times at which magazines and newspapers come out, and TV shows and news broadcasts come on. They are making the most out of their limited budgets.

These limited budgets as a result of our economy's downward slope is having a destructive effect on magazines everywhere. Time and time again, I continue to come across articles about magazines and newspapers folding. TV show ratings are going down, and work hard to keep them up. These industries now have to rely on the internet in order to stay relevant among the eyes of the American people. It's sad and disappointing. I love magazines so dearly, and would be sad to watch them disappear and phase out completely.

Once one aspect of the entertainment industry heads toward one direction, everything else follows suit. I feel like all of this began with the music industry. Napster, then iTunes. Now, iTunes comes out with albums that people can buy. I prefer the real thing where you physically flip through the booklets and hold onto the CDs. With iTunes, you are limited as to how many people can use the purchased music. With the physical CD, you can pass it on to as many people as you want. Now, CD sales are going down. CD store are going down with them. Sam Goody's closed down at Deptford Mall as well as other locations. FYE doesn't fare much better.

The internet versions of books and magazines, I find them to be largely inconvenient. They have more cons than pros. They are virtual, far from tangible. You can't physically rip them out, highlight them, circle parts that you think are important, or read them to your friends in an extremely long car ride or flight. You can't take them with you everywhere. If you're stranded in the middle nowhere with no internet access, how will you read it? If they invented a device to read it like Amazon does with the Kindle, what happens when the battery runs out?

The only thing great about internet versions of literature is that you don't have to take them with you. You can leave them at home. No need to pack them in your suitcase when you're traveling which means less weight to carry with you. This is OK as long as there will be internet access. I didn't have to pack my Biology text book as I made my way to New York City. Highly convenient, but in the end, I want my physical, tangible version with me, so that I can read it, highlight it, bookmark it, and flip through it with ease. I don't need to scroll as I get to the middle of the page. My face can get as close to it as possible and still be able to see things with clarity.

It's unfortunate that industries are resorting to digitize everything. It's a sign that the times are a-changin'. They need to keep up soon, or they'll fall far, far behind.

In the end, the physical versions have more longevity to them. There is less of a monopoly on their existence. More convenient, because you know you'll always have them as long as you haven't thrown them out. I hope magazines that have been around for years and years continue to stay. It's a pity that they have to diminish and gradually fade away, until finally they're gone. Phasing them out will be very sad.

Taking Down Thoughts and Turning Them into Something Creative

I've always admired people who have a knack for turning inspiration into creative pieces of work. How did Taylor Swift turn her experiences into catchy tunes? How did Andy Warhol decide to turn ordinary objects into mass-produced art? How did J.K. Rowling develop the Harry Potter Series into, not just a set of books, but a world that many of us want to escape into?

I have always been curious by that. During my free time or whenever I have time to think for myself, I try to come up with ideas that I could utilize for creative ventures. I don't force it. Inspiration and the words that correspond with it comes spontaneously. Over the summer, I bought a set of 3 tiny Moleskine notebooks, so that I could jot ideas down whenever they came to me. Ideas, once gone, almost never come back.

Sometimes, when I'm listening to a song, I would have the lyrics up--even if I knew the lyrics by heart. I want to study its brilliance. I want to analyze the use of the words that weave themselves throughout the song. I want to explore its structure, its rhythm, its beat, its literary device(s), its pattern(s). I want to be able to replicate something similar. I'm fascinated by it all.

I always thought that nothing determines the limits as to how far your mind can go. If that person can do it, I can, too. I can't give up. I don't want to give up.

People think I'm crazy for being intrigued by very minor things and occurrences. They don't understand that there is something special about how things work, and how things are related. Although I am no longer a child, I can still be amazed by small things that I normally don't see. They don't understand that it can open their minds up to accept that the relationships that exist from one object to another are amazing. Instead, they consider it rubbish, and not worth their time. I don't want to miss an opportunity to explore something I never will encounter again. Who knows? I probably will, but I won't know until it happens.

Hello, Everyone!

Hi! It's me, Melody.

I decided to create a blog for the sake of creating a blog. I don't expect anyone to read it, and probably nobody will, but I made one. I plan on using this as just my journal. With the stress that I deal with in college, I need an outlet to let out my thoughts and feelings. Even if no one will be there to read or hear what I have to say, at least those thoughts aren't just stuck within the confines of my memory--forcing me to dread every moment I think about them. Recording them allows me to avoid being torn between whether or not I want to remember those memories or force them out completely. You know, I don't want to force them out completely like they do in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, because the experiences I've had make up who I am. I take pride in that.

At the moment, I should be studying for Chinese class. Tomorrow...actually today, Friday, I have to recite a portion of a conversation in one of my Chinese text books. It's a lot more challenging than the ones we've had in the past. I didn't start memorizing it as soon I was supposed to...which was the beginning of this week. Now, I have to cram it all in. I'm incredibly tired, so we'll see how far I can go with it. As we were leaving class on Wednesday, I believe Huang laoshi (my Chinese professor) said that--unlike the conversations we've had in the past--this is going to be a monologue. =O

I believe I have ADD/ADHD or some degree of it. Actually, a lot of people do, but I feel like I have a higher degree of it than most do. I'll elaborate on the possibility that I might have it later. Where I'm trying to go with this is that my short attention span contributes to the ridiculous amount of tabs I have on my 2 windows of Firefox right now. To clean it up, every now and then, I would X them out. But before I do, I check to make sure that it's not an important site that I want to check out later.

As I was doing this just now, I looked at one of my style.com tabs. One of them had a link for the article Daul Kim Remembered. Anyone familiar with news articles would know that this means that someone has died. I was shocked, and eager to find out what happened. Did someone kill her? Did she have a mysterious illness that no one beyond her close circle knew about? Or was this article just an article about Daul Kim doing something worth writing an article about?

Model Daul Kim died from an apparent suicide in her Paris apartment yesterday (Thursday). It's sad. While I'm not a fan of hers, it's always sad to hear that someone has died at such a young age (she was 20). It's even sadder when you learn that the person has chosen to end his/her own life. They could have been able to accomplish more with their lives had they been alive and living. It's sad and disappointing. It gives me chills to the bone. The thought of it.

Yeah, I'm going to go know. Good first (but short) rant.