Songs about pressure

Queen and David Bowie, "Under Pressure."

Tegan and Sara, "Floorplan."

Other songs about pressure?

Turning 20

Tomorrow is my 20th birthday. There's a lot going on in my life, so much so that I don't know where to start and some of it is unbloggable.

So, a playlist of songs that mean something to me from this year.

1. The Fear - Lily Allen

2. Cemetery Drive - My Chemical Romance (more significant overall than from this year. It's just a song I love for no logical reason)

3. Her Morning Elegance - Oren Lavie

4. The Night Starts Here - Stars

5. Hearts on Fire - Cut Copy

6. Weightless - All Time Low (lyric "And I'm over getting older.")

7. Wish -Paper Route

8. I'm Ready - Jack's Mannequin

9. It's Alright, Baby - Komeda (see if you can listen to this without feeling at least a smidge better)

10. Nineteen - Tegan & Sara

11. Breakable - Ingrid Michaelson

12. This Modern Love - Bloc Party

13. Don't Stop the Music - Rihanna

14. Oh My God - Ida Maria

15. Just a Girl - No Doubt

16. I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You - Black Kids

17. Under Pressure - Queen

18. So Long, Astoria - The Ataris

19. Grow Old With Me - The Postal Service (a cover of John Lennon. Melancholy and beautiful.)

20. Dancing in the Dark - Tegan & Sara

Turning 20 is bittersweet. Wonderful and odd. New. Old.

Four hours from now, I'm 20.

Blown away and blown down

Jack's Mannequin was spectacular. I usually measure the greatness of a concert by how I feel when the performer walks off the stage, and I felt both sad and surprised when he and the rest of the band walked off the stage (before coming back for an encore). They played for over an hour and a half, and I still can't believe how quickly the time passed.

At the concert, I learned an important thing about Columbus-dwellers/Ohioans. They don't fucking dance. Seriously. Out of a crowd of at least 300, I was the only one dancing that I could see. At the end of the show, I got a fist-bump from the event staff/security guard person, who said "You were rocking tonight!" Well, yeah. JM isn't the most danceable music in the world, but I was so jazzed to be there that I didn't much care if it was or not. 

I had my digital recorder with me, and I recorded the show, not sure if it were turn out decently or not. It did, but it's just for me. I often struggle to remember stuff if I have no record of the experience, and to get to repeatedly relive this experience is something I cherish. I also snagged a few photos with my phone. They turned out pretty decently for how tiny and bad they looked on my phone. Here's one from his encore, feel free to ignore the camera in the lower left hand corner: 

So there is that. Amazing. If you have the chance to see him this summer, DO IT. He is touring as the headliner for the next few months, then he will be touring with the fray. You can check out his site here. 

On the flip side, I came home, went to bed, and woke up to an e-mail from the Ohio Board of Regents, informing me that the scholarship I was awarded last year (the Ohio Academic Scholarship) is not being renewed next year. At the moment, there are no funds in Ohio's budget for this scholarship. On the one hand, I understand there is a financial crisis. I understand there is a massive meltdown of budgets right now. But this is a scholarship that I earned, a scholarship I received based on merit. MERIT. 

I will still be able to go to school next year; I was reassured of this by one of the workers at the financial aid office. But a lot of the aid I will be receiving is need based. It is hard to feel proud of my accomplishments at OU at this point when my aid is so heavily funded by 'need.' Yes, I NEED the money, but I was SO PROUD of the fact that I had more than one scholarship that I could point to as something I earned for working my ass of the past few years. I have studied myself to the bone, to the brink of sanity, to the point of severe sleep deprivation, and I am quite probably losing a scholarship because of a mismanaged budget and a financial crisis that I did not cause, that I am a victim of. I am so angry. I am also disappointed. 

I was given an e-mail for someone to contact, and hopefully she can lay out some sort of game plan for what I should do if this scholarship is eliminated. Because going to a bank and punching a CEO in the face is, sadly, not an option.