"If the tillerman taught me anything, it's that a hard-headed woman is what I need to help me to always do my best. Baby, my life is blessed." ~dustin kensrue

Spinner listed Dustin Kensrue as a new artist to watch, so I checked him out. I wasn't so sure at first; his sound isn't all that original. To me, he comes off as a Ryan Adams wannabe with a little less edge. It's not necessarily a bad thing to want to be Ryan Adams because Ryan Adams is absolutely brilliant, but you've got to establish your own sound by piecing together different musical influences rather than just imitating another artist. But I kept listening, and Dustin Kensrue grew on me. That line quoted above from his song "Pistol" made him a little more appealing to me. Anyone who alludes to Cat Stevens' album Tea for the Tillerman, especially the amazing song "Hard-Headed Woman," is okay in my book.

So. Yesterday. It was Pig Roast and St. Patrick's Day, which, at my school, should have meant that I partied all day. Instead I got up at 6:20am to go and take a 4-hour test. Yeah, that was fun. It was the VCLA, a test that is required to receive my teacher's certification in Virginia. Just to warn you, this is going to be a paragraph of complaints. They told us to be there BY 7:30am, which, to me, means be there NO LATER THAN 7:30am (but I guess that's just me). I got there at 7:15am, and they made us stand outside before finally letting us in the building a little after 7:30am. It was freezing. So that was a great start to the morning. The actual test lasted 4 hours. There were no breaks in that time period. There were multiple sections to the test (reading comprehension, rewriting sentences that had grammatical/spelling errors, essay-writing, summarizing, and some other stupid stuff). They gave us 4 hours to complete everything; there was no guidance as to how long we should have spent on each section. They just gave us each a bunch of test booklets and told us to finish everything in 4 hours. Luckily I had a watch, because there wasn't even a working clock in the room. The whole thing did not seem very well organized to me. And the test was stupid. I had to write an essay on whether or not I think term limits should be in place in the Senate and House of Representatives. And I had to summarize a long passage about fighting forest fires. You'd think they could have come up with some more interesting material. Anyway, at least it's over. Hopefully I passed so I don't have to deal with that crap again. I know I wrote a very strong essay, and I think I did well on the whole writing section in general, but it was the reading that gave me the most trouble (which is strange, because that's usually my strong suit). Anyway, I don't think I could have failed.

After that lovely morning of test-taking, I didn't feel like going to Pig Roast and being cold and surrounded by drunk people, so I went to the mall with three of my friends. It was a nice way to wind down the day. I feel like I'm pretty much over the whole college thing, so I don't feel bad about missing something like Pig Roast. I went freshman year and had a blast. Sophomore year I was disappointed that I couldn't go because I was in Florida for synchro nationals. Junior year I considered going but finally decided I wasn't in the mood (even though I lived in Pac House, right next door to the Row, and could hear everything going on loud and clear from my room). This year it didn't appeal to me at all. Most of the time I don't even feel like I'm in college anymore. I basically have a real job (the only difference is that I'm not getting paid). I don't even get around campus; I mostly go back and forth between my apartment and my high school. I think it's a good way to transition out of college, though.