When I asked one of my friends to recommend me an amazing piece of music, she told me to listen to the A Capella group Pentatonix. At first I was hesitant because the assignment was to listen to an amazing piece of music and Pentatonix does covers of music written by other people. But as soon as I started to listen to their music I began to understand why they still fit the assignment. While Pentatonix sings other artists songs they re-work them and make the songs their own. Each piece is unique while still recognizable and every singer in the group gives the performance their all. The end result is truly fantastic music. After making this discovery I have come to the conclusion that how much a piece effects you and in what way a piece effects you is determined not necessarily by the lyrics or melody but by the soul that the performer puts in.
It is not necessarily about the song, it is how the piece is sung.

The piece of music that I chose to listen to every night before bed was Beyonce's version of Ave Maria. Listening to this song at night was very calming and improved my mood before I fell asleep. I really enjoyed doing this assignment and I was surprised at how greatly the music impacted me. I slept better at night after calming down and it was something to look forward to after doing homework. Ave Maria also has a personal connection for me to my grandmother who past away several years ago who I have been missing very much lately. Listening to this song at night helped me feel closer to her and while it made me sad, by the end of the song I didn't miss her as much. I believe that music impacts our lives greatly because it has an amazing ability to make us feel all kinds of emotions. These emotions then play a large role in how we act and respond to certain situations.

I chose to interview several of my friends and family about their opinions on male-female friendships. I interviewed my mother, my brother (Dan), and three of my friends (Lydia, Eric, and Madison). My interview with my mother was simple as she and I agreed on this topic. We both believed that male-female relationships are completely possible and are not always threatened by romantic feelings, even if some are. I got the same answers from my little brother. The majority of his friends are girls and though these relationships are young and he developed feelings for some of his female friends in the past, most of his friendships are still simply friendships. It is for this reason that he agreed with me, males and females can simply be friends. The last of the people I interviewed who shared my view was my friend Eric, who is just that, a friend. It was for this reason that he believed males and females can be friends without romantic pressure, because he and I share that relationship. My friends Lydia and Madison both said that they believed eventually male-female relationships fall apart or develop into something more due to romantic pressures. Madison explained that she feels this way because she and her best guy friend recently began a romantic relationship. I argued that I have been friends with Eric my whole life and we have never been more than friends. She said for all I know he has liked my as more than a friend, I said I would have known, and we continued to argue for almost half an hour. Lydia and I also spent a significant amount of time arguing our points without making any headway. In the end we had to agree to disagree on the subject.

5 Things I Have Always Wanted to do With my Friends
- sneak out of the house
- sing in the rain
- play in a sprinkler
- pull an all nighter
- sleep outside

The item from my list that my friends and I did was sneak out of the house at night. The night as a whole was spontaneous. A group of us planned a sleepover last minuet and spent several hours running between friends houses in the middle of the night. When we finally settled into someones living room 10 of us watched funny youtube videos until we cried. Once the majority of the group had gone home there were only three of us left huddled on a sofa for the night. It didn't take long for us to realize that despite the fact that it was almost 2:00 in the morning, we were far from ready to give in for the night. That was when my friend suggested we sneak out to meet one of our friends. Before any of us could second guess the decision we were wrapped in sweatshirts and half way down the street. We meet our friend and spent about an hour talking and walking around. When we got home, we watched Disney movies and ate pasta until we fell asleep. Even though we didn't do anything particularly exciting while we were out or at all during the night, we had fun. We bonded over our adventure, though you can hardly call it an adventure, and the risk of getting caught. My friends didn't think the night was nearly as exciting because they are a bit more practiced in the art of sneaking out, though they did agree it was fun. One of my friends even told me that half the fun was watching my reaction to sneaking out and getting away with it. I decided to take this as a complement and I can't wait until we are able to go on another adventure.

I spent a weekend playing the role of Yes Man several months ago with a group of my friends from the Sharon High School Theater Company. I spent the weekend saying "yes" to as many situations as was reasonable without causing me too much stress or skipping my shifts at work. I had one of the best weekends that I had had in a long time, although it was stressful. I took chances that I wouldn't normally have been willing to take and I talked to people I wouldn't normally have spoken to. I met many new people that I am still close to and I made new memories. The stress I experienced over the weekend was the result of my missing my only non-manditory dance class,  this always causes me a significant amount of anxiety but the over all experience was worth it. As a whole, it was without a doubt a positiveevent for me, and the few offers I did have to turn down (sleeping over a friends house and blowing off my shift at work) I regreted not being able to accept. The people that I spent my week with noticed that I was considerably more relaxed than normal which made me more fun to be around. I absolutly feel closer to the people I was with and find that I am more willing to take chances as a result of this experience.

This past weekend I decided to spend time with my little brother working on a piece for our dance class. In some ways this was an excellent activity for us to do together and in some ways it was exactly the opposite. On one hand we create fantastic work together and and enjoy rehearsing what we create. Unfortunately, we have a tendency to fight quite a bit while we choreograph. One of us usually storms out of the room at some point but we are always drawn back together by the need to finish our piece. All in all the experience is usually beneficial for both of us and we enjoy working together, otherwise we wouldn't do it. Our only barrier for us spending more time together working was that we got tired around 10:30 pm and my brother had to go to sleep. The best option for us to spend more time together would be to work on pieces on Sundays and Fridays. We actually have plans to choreograph a new number on Friday. This week for the first time my little brother will take the lead choreographing and I am only allowed to help when he gets stuck. I hope that this will mean less fighting although I won't know until we try it. With any luck, our choreography sessions will become a ritual part of our week and we will get to spend more time together.

This week I made an effort to thank the janitors in school and my teachers more often than usual. It was easy to thank my teachers because it is something I usually do but the janitors were more difficult because they aren't expecting to be thanked. This means that when passing them in the hallway they don't slow down or stop to share conversation, they may say "hi" in passing but I found it difficult to slip "thank you for cleaning up the classrooms everyday" into about one second. Eventually at the end of the day I was able to talk to one of the janitors and thank him. He seemed happy to be thanked for his work and the look on his face made me smile.  My teachers seemed to enjoy being thanked but not as much as the janitor did, my best guess as to the reason would be that I think teachers most likely get thanked more often.