Last Tuesday night I went to see the greatest band in the world, Our Lady Peace, perform at The Paradise in Boston. The show, as always, was fantastic. The show was sold out and had to be at the smallest venue I’d ever seen them in. I actually liked that better as it felt like a more personal experience.

I also discovered a new pet peeve…drunken idiots who want to record portions of the show on their iPhone. This drunk guy in front of me decided to take his shirt off and hold his iPhone in front of everyone’s face, even reaching his arm past two people in front of him obstructing their views. I don’t care if you want to film part of the show, but if you’re going to then take it seriously. Keep the recorder right in front of you where it’s not going to bother anyone and record more than 10 second clips.

Either way, amazing show. I posted the set list below as well as some HD videos from the concert itself from someone who actually knew what they were doing. I’m pretty sure this guy recorded and uploaded the whole show for those interested, but I only posted some highlights here.

Monkey Brains
Superman’s Dead
Angels/Losing/Sleep
Innocent
Clumsy
Paper Moon
Escape Artist
Is Anybody Home?
One Man Army
Somewhere Out There
4AM (A local girl joined him on stage to sing this one. He loves when the crowd sings it as well and posted to his Twitter afterward: “thank you to all those who attended the Boston concert tonite.the crowd singing 4am was the loudest i’ve ever heard an OLP song sang.CHILLS!”)
Naveed
All You Did Was Save My Life (Raine used to always climb up to a balcony to sing One Man Army, but as you can see in the video below decided to do it for this song. I love that!!)

Encore:
Bring Back The Sun
In Repair / Thief
Starseed

Encore 2:
Denied

Clumsy:

All You Did Was Save My Life:

Starseed:

I know he’s supposed to be a heel right now. Sure, he attacked Jeff Hardy out of nowhere and that’s something. However, it’s really tough for me to boo the guy when I agree with the majority of what he has to say. Preachy…yes, but correct in most aspects.

Re-posted from Facebook:

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to at least 15 people and include me. You can’t use the band I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It’s a lot harder than you think! Repost as “my life according to (band name)”

Pick your Artist:
Our Lady Peace

Are you a male or female?
One Man Army

Describe yourself:
Made of Steel

How do you feel:
In Repair

Describe where you currently live:
The World On a String

If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
Dreamland

Your favorite form of transportation:
Big Dumb Rocket

Your best friend is:
All My Friends

What’s the weather like:
Bring Back the Sun

Favorite time of day:
Middle of Yesterday

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called:
The Wonderful Future

What is life to you:
The End is Where We Begin

Your fear:
Not Afraid

What is the best advice you have to give:
Everyone’s a Junkie

Thought for the Day:
Will the Future Blame Us

How I would like to die:
Superman’s Dead

My soul’s present condition:
Innocent

My motto:
Don’t Stop

I meant to post about this last week but never got around to it. First of all, despite my last post on this subject, I’m not done teaching. I thought I might be, but I was wrong. It hit me at the 6th grade graduation at the end of the year. I wasn’t even planning on attending because I just wasn’t in the mood, but I did at the request of some of the 6th graders themselves. Teaching is what I want to do, and regardless of what one interview committee thought, I’m damn good at it. You can ask anyone else that works at the school. So I didn’t get the job I wanted, oh well. NO ONE tells me when I’m done, that’s my decision to make. I decided if I don’t have a job for next year, I might as well take the opportunity to finish up my next level license.

Last Monday I had a meeting with the head of the education dept. at UMD about student teaching in the spring. The interview is required to make sure that everything else that needs to be done is. I knew all I needed was one more class which I could take in the fall and then I’d be all set for the spring.

At least, that’s what I thought. See, I haven’t taken a class for a year. Within that year, they decided to restructure the education program and I was not informed. The original program had all graduate level courses except for the intro course, and none of those would count toward a Master’s, just for the teaching license. The new program replaced the original intro class with a graduate level one and allowed those courses to be carried over into the Master’s program. In fact, with the new program in place, I’d only have to take one more class after student teaching and I’d have my Master’s Degree…good news!!

Like a hero of mine (Randy Pausch) said, “The brick walls are not there to stop us, but to prove how much we want something.” My brick wall was not getting the job I’d earned, and when I decided to push forward anyway the universe responded and said, “Hey, you passed the test, now we’re gonna make it way easier to get your Master’s!!” Good universe.

However, the brick walls weren’t done. I was now required to take the new intro course as a replacement for the original. “OK,” I thought, “I’ll just take two in the spring.” I was then informed that the two courses I need were running on the same night at the same time. Go figure….but the universe intervened again on my behalf. That very day, the intro course had just had their first class for the summer session. It was being taught by the dept. head who I was discussing all this with. She remembered who I was from 2 or 3 years ago when I took the original intro class with her. Apparently I was a loudmouth or something. She told me I used to “go at it” with some of the other students. I can’t help it if I like to question everything. Anyway, there were no more spots left in the class, but she had one student who hadn’t shown up that day, and if she wasn’t there tomorrow then she’d automatically fail. I told her I’d be there at 9:00 am ready for class just in case.

I went the next morning and sat eagerly while students filed in. I had no idea who I was looking for so I just waited, tapping my foot nervously as I sat at my desk. 9:00 am rolled around, she closed the door and gave the thumbs up. I’m in!! Now I’m back on track to get this class done, take one in the fall, student teach in the spring, take one more class afterward and Master’s Degree completed!! Now can you dig that…