Talented Lives Taken Away?

We all try to find the meaning of why we, humans exist. Some people try to make sense of life and others don’t. At the end of a person’s life, we mourn and recognize by appreciating who they were, how much they’ll be missed and sometimes what great achievements they accomplished – the positive impact they had on others.

Living a good and long life is often celebrated, instead of grieved. The person is missed, but the feeling of loss isn’t as big as someone who dies young. How can we make sense of someone who dies at a young age, especially a person who didn’t try to take his or her life by suicide or drug use? For that reason, sometimes life can make no sense and we can’t find any reason why it wouldn’t happen to such an innocent life.

With the media, we are informed by deaths of public figures and even ‘everyday’ people in a community from the local paper in the obituaries section. A death of a well-known person is absolutely newsworthy and people from all of over the country and the world express sadness. Why do we have such heartbreak of public figures that pass away? They never knew us and we only knew them through their work or presence. It makes sense why we do; the person might’ve been an actor, politician, activist, writer, musician, and so on and that particular person touched you with their actions/work.

A gloomy morning on March 18, 2010, I logged onto Facebook like I religiously do when I start my day. Reading through the daily news feed, five or more people had their status as: RIP Nujabes. Oh no! Okay, so Nujabes is an underground Japanese artist who creates beats of soul and hip-hop. He doesn’t sing on his tracks but many of them feature underground lyricists, singers and rappers.

Nujabes is recognized internationally and his music includes artists who carry on a ‘real’ message. I Googled his passing to find out how he died and while I was doing so, I had a prejudgment that his cause of death had to do with drugs. Of course I have this stereotype of musicians; generally, many of them do die from drug overdoses. I found an article from LA Weekly and it wasn’t because of an overdose!

“Nujabes (born Jun Seba), a Japanese hip-hop producer, was killed in a car accident in Tokyo. Nujabes crashed when leaving the Metropolitan Expressway in Tokyo's Minato Ward. Nujabes was 36 years old when he died. The car crash that killed Nujabes took place on February 26, 2010, the same day a magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck off the coast of Japan,” LA Weekly.

From a car accident…truly saddening for such a talented artist. I felt sadness because his music made my day better, I could relate to the lyric content and the beats are amazing. This public figure touched my heart and a person who I didn’t know at all, touched me. Music is art, art is what I love and Nujabes was one of the many artists I appreciate.

Nujabes death is an example of how life can make no sense. A good person (or at least from our knowledge) with a gift from God, dies so young. For that reason, I feel like life isn’t fair but we all need to be confronted with death to be able to deal with one and realize it does happen. The truth can hurt.
One more thing I want to share is that, I noticed many popular musicians have died young. For example, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Tupac, Biggie, John Lennon, Elvis, and the list continues. Why does God allow such gifted people to leave the earth and take away a talent that many of us love? It’s almost like they’re too amazing that God only wants them to stay on the earth for shorter period because he only knows all the amazing creations they can continue to produce and it can’t be revealed. Sounds ridiculous, I know but regardless, I can accept it.

Enojoy the beautiful music by Nujabes - Eternal Reflection.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnL3aTVQS9k

Talented Lives Taken Away?

New Ticket Policy

Coachella, the modern day Woodstock and a yearly event since 1999. If you’re not familiar with Coachella, it’s a gigantic music and art festival. Music is the main event and art for ambiance. The annual three-day event has more than 60 artists performing simultaneously on several different stages.

The genre of artist includes indie rock, electronic, hip-hop, and whatever other category you consider your favorite band. Just to name a few, former Coachella performers include Daft Punk, Radiohead, Madonna, Paul McCartney, John Legend, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

So, on March 2, 2010, I went online to purchase my tickets for Coachella with the plan on going Saturday and Sunday. I looked at the line up and knew Saturday and Sunday would be perfect because The xx and MGMT were playing those two days. I went to the ‘buy tickets’ tab but realized I couldn’t purchase single day tickets!

I didn’t understand what was going on; I only had the option to buy the whole events’ three-day pass. Purchasing a three-day pass for a little over 300 dollars is definitely out of my budget and I wouldn’t be able to make it to Friday’s event, even if some good bands were worth ditching work.

Two days later, March 4, the Los Angeles Times wrote an article titled, “Coachella’s 2010 ticket policy inspires online petition.” So it wasn’t a lie, I’d have to pay an extra 100 dollars, plus the extra costs of food and rooming for Friday. A number of regular Coachella goers were upset and a Facebook group was created to petition the event. How could Coachella not allow single day tickets?!

The Los Angeles Times explained why Coachella would do such a thing. “In an earlier interview with Pop & Hiss, Goldenvoice leader and festival architect Paul Tollett said his primary goal was bettering the experience for those who opt to buy three-day passes, pointing to a lack of hotel rooms in the Indio area as well as increased festival traffic for those coming down for just one day.”
"We’re really trying to make it great for the fan," Tollett said. "We understand it will affect some people who want to go for one day, but we have to protect the three-day people. It was a complex decision. We put some thought into it, and we’re trying our best to make it a good experience."

Okay, I understood why they created this policy after reading the article but being a ‘getting by’ college student, I can’t afford to miss a day of work and pay about 250 extra dollars to attend Coachella on Friday. Truly sadden by this reality. You might think it’s just a music concert, but it’s no ordinary one. A whole line up of great artists, the chill vibes, feeding the souls of many, and experiencing all outside on the grass…I’ll be missing some of my favorite bands and a memory that will never be made.

Sorry Coachella, I’ll reunite with you once I make enough money.

Branding - MTV edits their logo

Growing up with the television as my babysitter, I not only watched my daily cartoon favorites like Tom and Jerry, but religiously watched MTV and VH1 programs. MUSIC VIDEOS! Those were what kept me frequently flipping the channel to MTV or VH1.

Around 1995, MTV and VH1 both started adding more programs related to music and some not related at all. Dating and reality shows on both channels began growing and hasn’t stopped growing since. The amount of air time of music videos and musician interviews declined as reality shows increased.

Ever since the noticeable steer away from music programs, especially from the infamous MTV, viewers have been questioning why MTV calls itself music television. VH1 has also been questioned for its original television programming being music, but their logo stays the same and MTV’s has changed.

MTV officially removed “music television” from their logo recently. Removing “music television” from the logo doesn’t make us forget it still stands for “music television.” I can agree that removing the words helps MTV’s brand to be clearer on their programs, but just like VH1, we all know the programs were originally music focused. Generally, most viewers don’t refer to MTV as real music television anymore.
Tina Exarhos, MTV’s head of marketing told the Los Angeles Times, "The people who watch it today, they don't refer to MTV as music television.”

Exarhos justifies that MTV is really no longer music television and it isn’t. Branding is becoming a significant part of how companies publicize and market their business and MTV removing “music television” from their logo is an example of how every detail counts.

Personally, I don’t see how it is absolutely necessary to remove the words, because most people still know what it stands for but I can agree with MTV’s decision. Their logo is their brand and soon we might forget all together what it really means.

Global Warming - A.S. Recycling Services

Looking at a campus with dry, yellow-brown grass with pieces of paper all over and crushed cans, the view of the place is uneasy to the eye and unpleasant to look at. This is the college campus of California State University, Los Angeles. A campus that does not help prevent the causes of global warming.

On the contrary, if you see the campus at California State University, Northridge the atmosphere is green and clean. The Associated Students (A.S.) Recycling Services is part of the reason why the campus maintains its beautiful ambiance. A.S. Recycling Services allows the campus community to be a greener place and does their duty to help reduce the affects of global warming.

A.S. Recycling Services provides recycling services to California State University, Northridge. They help make the university a cleaner and eco-friendly environment. A.S. Recycling recycles cans, bottles, paper and more. By recycling and preventing waste, A.S. Recycling Services is reducing greenhouse gas emission.

Reported by the United States Environmental Protection Agency Web site, “reducing waste and recycling it can reduce methane emissions from landfills. Waste prevention and recycling (including composting) divert organic wastes from landfills, thereby reducing the methane released when these materials decompose. Waste reduction and recycling can also reduce emissions from incinerators.” Not only does recycling reduce greenhouse gas emission but it also saves energy and fewer fossil fuels are burned.

“…recycling and waste prevention allow some materials to be diverted from incinerators and thus reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the combustion of waste. Recycling saves energy and reduces emissions from energy consumption. Manufacturing goods from recycled materials typically requires less energy than producing goods from virgin materials. Waste prevention is even more effective at saving energy. When people reuse things or when products are made with less material, less energy is needed to extract, transport, and process raw materials and to manufacture products. When energy demand decreases, fewer fossil fuels are burned and less carbon dioxide is emitted to the atmosphere,” according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency Web site.

The A.S. Recycling Services team is at work every school day. Salvador Preciado, the recycling team leader for A.S. Recycling Services said, “We pick up cardboard on campus, we have routes for bottles and cans daily. One day out of the week, we go around and check the paper bins that are all around campus and housing. Every day we go to a location where we pick up laser toner cartridges and after picking up bottles and cans, we sort them out,” as he concentrates on driving the recycling cart to one of the recycling bins.

As soon as we make a stop to one of the bins, Salvador opens it up with a key and dumps the material in the bin to the trunk of the cart. He gets back into the cart and drives to the next stop. Squinting his eyes from the sun, he says, “We reduce waste and we keep the campus cleaner by recycling itself. It is one aspect of reducing global warming it’s the most common.”

Not only does the recycling team pick up recycled material, but they educate the campus community. On the Associated Students Web site it explains that the purpose of the recycling services is to implement a comprehensive program to inform, educated and encourage the campus community to recycle. Also to set an example to others in the campus community by active participation to decrease adverse impacts on our environment and conserve precious natural resources.

The recycling services host annual events, Earth Fair and America Recycles Day to bring awareness. “America Recycles Day is November, we usually just promote for students to recycle more, and we table on campus and bring the event to students. Earth Fair is usually on the day of the national holiday, Earth Day, which is in April,” Salvador said.

Salvador continued, “We bring different people and environmental organizations for the Earth Fair…that help educate students to reduce global warming. Many of the organizations educate on different things. For example, not cutting trees, doing certain things different and informing about animals that are close to extinction.”

It is not only America Recycles Day and Earth Fair, when the recycling services educate the campus community. They reach out to the campus whenever they can. With a positive tone, Salvador said, “When we can…we try to do tabling for different campus events and we try to tell our classmates to recycle.”

The recycling services do their duty in educating as much as they can and recycling materials that are properly discarded, but not the whole campus population recycles with the recycling services and that can lower the possible expansion of the services. “We provide a lot of services, but the problem is that not even students use us to recycle. Since money is involved they prefer to recycle themselves, instead of the recycling program. The program can expand its just getting more support and awareness,” Salvador said.

How-to Manange Your Time

Is school and work becoming overwhelming to the point where you have no time for yourself, family or getting things done? Well it may be that you need work on your time management skills. Managing time wisely takes beating procrastination, prioritizing, making a to do list, planning and setting goals. It may be tempting for you do something more pleasurable than focusing on what needs to be done; this is the sign of procrastination.

According to the Web site, Mind Tools, “ Procrastinators feel overwhelmed by a task and may not know where to begin…they may feel that they're doing the right thing by reacting fast. Or they may not even think about their approach and simply be driven by the person whose demands are loudest. Either way, by doing this, they have little or no time left for the important tasks, despite the unpleasant outcomes this may bring about.” Prioritizing your tasks can help beat procrastination.

Knowing your important tasks and prioritizing them by the time constraints and level of significance can better your awareness of what should be done first. In the Web site, Study Guides and Strategies, it recommended to list your goals or objectives and ranging them in the order of importance from highest to lowest. You know what tasks you have and how much time you think the will take you to do, prioritize to have an ordered tasks list and to know exactly what to do first. Prioritizing is similar to a to-do list because you are listing what needs to be done.

To-do list are prioritized lists of all duties that need to be accomplished, like prioritizing, a to-do list should have the most important task at the top of the list. In Mind Tools, it stated, “…by keeping a to-do list, you make sure that you capture all of the tasks you have to complete in one place. This is essential if you're not going to forget things. And by prioritizing work, you plan the order in which you'll do things, so you can tell what needs your immediate attention, and what you can quietly forget about until much, much later.” A to-do list is a reminder of what needs to be done and it is a part of planning. Planning can be seen as a to-do list but planning is usually mapped out for daily, weekly and monthly duties or engagements.

Planning your day, week or month is significant for not forgetting what is coming up or needs to be done by a certain time. Alex Shalman, from practical personal development said, “No matter how much you accomplish, there will always be this feeling of having forgotten to do something else, possible something very important. Make it your habit: write your plans down!”

To make carry your plans out effectively, you must set realistic goals. Setting goals can motivate you and give you achievement with more focus. In Mind tools, goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn this vision of the future into reality. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts. You'll also quickly spot the distractions that would otherwise lure you from your course.

If you are having trouble managing your time, set your goals to manage your time more wisely and plan, create a to-do list, prioritize and beat procrastination. From Darthmouth’s academic skills center is says, “managing your time allows you to gain time, motivate and initiates, reduces avoidance, promotes review, eliminates cramming and reduces anxiety.”

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