Green Day - Basket Case

In high school, my friend Mike and I would sit around before school in the cafeteria. Only a masochist or a nerd would show up EARLY to school, right? I'll leave it to you to figure out which one of those categories I fell into. I often rode my bike to school - about a 7 mile ride each way. If I hammered it, I could get there pretty quick. When I'd drive, I'd get there early just for the parking.

It was our time. That's the real reason. We'd brainstorm, play games, talk, whatever. We got on this kick of selling the service of installing programs onto Texas Instruments and Casio graphing calculators. These could be anything from programs to look like you erased your calculator's memory (so that you could convince the teacher that you didn't have any cheat notes typed in) to algebra solvers, to silly games for your calculator. One of the programs we found would allow you to store and play music via your calculator. Basket Case. That's what we copied, in uber-low-one-bit quality to his calculator. It was awesome.

So yes, this reminds me of geeking out with graphing calculators before school. Pretty sad, isn't it?

Gin Blossoms- Hey Jealousy

This song reminds me of my 11th grade English class. One day, one of the students wore a Gin Blossoms t-shirt to class and this song got stuck in my head while I was writing an essay. The class was taught by my Aunt Kathy. Technically, she was my first-cousin once removed -- the daughter of my grandmother's sister and parent to some of my second cousins. To me, she was just "Aunt Kathy" outside the classroom and "Mrs. Adriance" in the classroom.

Kathy died from complications of breast cancer the summer after I took her English class. :(

The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony

I forget the reason, but I had to take my dad to work at 5:00AM one morning so that I could use his Altima to get around. It was a chilly spring morning. What sticks in my mind is hearing this song on the radio as I drove towards JCCC where I was both working and taking classes, but the whole day gets brought back to my memory when I hear this song.

I was taking photography, small-engine repair, technical writing, and a few other classes. After my dad got out of the passenger seat, I reached into the back and grabbed the rugged-yet-tattered camera case, bringing it to the front seat to keep me company. The rest of the day was totally mundane. In fact, being awake at 4:00AM and using my dad's car were the only thing out of the ordinary.

Crash Test Dummies - Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm

I'm printing contact photo proofs from the film I just developed in the makeshift darkroom at my grandparents' house. This is another home-school era memory/song combination. I was humming this song, perhaps even singing it to myself as I waited for the seconds to tick by on the timer for the contact proofs.

Ace of Base - The Sign

I was doing home-school Algebra in 1993, sitting at the round, hammered-glass topped kitchen table at my grandparents' place. It was a little before lunch time, and I was anxious to get through my studies so that I could go work with my grandfather in the shop. While I wasn't listening to this song at the moment, it was stuck in my head all day long that day.