Concert Review: Lights

Hello everyone.

It has been a very busy week for me, both in good ways and bad ways. Yesterday, however, was the best way to end a month and celebrate a leap day that I could imagine. As an avid concert goer, I can never turn down the invitation to attend a concert, especially not one with an artist I enjoy. Yesterday, I had the privilege to go to a concert featuring an electronica artist named Lights. And I’d like to advise you to do the same.

Lights is a gorgeous, tiny Canadian girl, dubbed at birth Valerie Poxleitner, who traveled around the world as a child of missionary parents and has apparently been making music from a very early age. She didn’t show up on the radar until a few years ago, but she has quickly gained popularity and is a rising star. I had heard of Lights a while ago, through a friend’s suggestion to listen to her, but I must say, and I did like her music, listening to it occasionally. After her concert, however, I now consider myself to be a big fan.

I have been to quite a few concerts in my short time on earth, but Lights’ definitely ranks in the top five of the best shows that I’ve seen. The combination of the infectious, bass heavy electronica, her gorgeous voice, and the amazing lightshow was one of the best I’ve ever seen. It was impossible not to enjoy everything coming together in a way so perfect that I haven’t exactly seen in many other concerts. Plus, Lights’ energy is also more than infectious. You can’t help smile at her; she wore a constant grin and was always dancing on stage, and she gets very into her music, obviously enjoying herself. I was in love with the concert after the first few songs, but the one that really seized me personally was her song “Flux and Flow.” Everything fell perfectly in place on that song; not only is it pretty intense to begin with, but the heavy bass combined with strobe lights and laser pointers timed perfectly to the music and Lights just rocking out on stage made it amazing.

The night was wrapped up perfectly when my friend with whom I went and I got to meet her. After waiting nearly an hour after the show, she finally stepped out of her tour bus and my friend and I got her autograph and pictures with her. She was super nice, and her equally fantastic fiancé Beau Bokan of Blessthefall was there as well.

Lights and I.

All in all, it was a beyond fantastic night. If you have never heard of Lights or haven’t give her a listen, I encourage you to do so. And then I encourage all of you to try and get to her concert. You won’t be disappointed.

Have a good one, and make as many adventures as you can.

Sarah.

Donkey Basketball: If You Never Get to Try It, At Least Watch It.

Sorry to everyone for my lack of blog posting recently. I have been being lazy and that is very bad of me. Again, apologies.

But I would like to jump right to the point. There is something I did last week that, up until that day, I swore that my teacher was making it up. It was a little something called Donkey Basketball. It is exactly what it sounds like: the players ride donkeys while attempting to play basketball.

Now, this all got started because I am in a club called Science Olympiad. I’m sure some people have heard of it, others not. Basically, it is a scientific competition where we compete against other schools in varying areas of science. For example, last year I won a medal in ornithology, which is the study of birds. There are scientific areas ranging from biological things such as that to physics and chemistry. Anyway, enough about that. That’s not what I’m trying to tell you about here.

Our club needed to do a fundraiser so we could go to the competition this year, and our advisor right off the bat said that we were going to do Donkey Basketball. I had never even dreamed of such a thing, let alone heard of it, and for months I was suspicious of whether or not he was being serious. That is, until I found myself selling tickets to the students and general population. Even then, it was hard to believe I was going to do something as ridiculous as ride a donkey and play basketball at the same time.

Well the night finally came, and I found myself standing in a room with the Donkey Basketball owner, having him explain the rules to us. Needless to say what followed was probably one of the most interesting things I might ever see, no matter where I go. I don’t remember my first donkey’s name, but it was white and tall and hard to get on. At first, I just pulled on it’s reins and led it around the gym attempting to get the ball so that I could pass it to someone on a donkey on my team. In order to score a basket the team member who was shooting had to be on the donkey. My donkey was pretty easy to drag around, so I figured I might as well try and climb on it and ride it around. I figured it couldn’t be much worse than riding a horse, which I have experience doing. How bad of me to assume things like that.

The donkey started going really fast, as the man that owned the company was chasing them around the court with some stick that make noises when he hit it against the ground. I must’ve gotten freaked out or the donkey must’ve bucked or something, I’m not entirely sure, but the next thing I knew, I had fallen off my donkey and was laying on the ground with a throbbing left leg. Poor me. I stood up, and naturally limped painfully after my donkey. I didn’t let them take me out for a while though; I guess the reason that they did end up taking me out of the game was because I continued to limp for several minutes afterwards, something I didn’t notice until later.

For the next few days (and even until today) the lower left area of my back is in pain, though it was the worst the day after. My whole leg just stopped hurting yesterday. Ouch.

When I did convince them to let me back in, I managed to snag a donkey that was very… easy to ride. You must understand, I stand very tall for a girl at six feet, and this donkey was only about three feet, at the tallest. So for the rest of the game, instead of riding my donkey, I sort of just walked while I was on its back. Yeah. People got a kick out of that.

The picture to your left would be me (in the tie dye and the blue helmet) riding (or more or less walking while on its back) that tiny little donkey.

It was an interesting experience. If you ever, ever get the chance to see or even participate in something like this, I would highly recommend it. The laughs are endless, guaranteed. That is, unless for some reason you view it as animal cruelty. Then the laughs are rather limited, I would say.

So get out there and try it. Or just try something as wacky and bizarre as it. There are some pretty awesomely bizarre things out there. Maybe I’ll make a blog post of all the weird hobbies people have that I want to try.

Until then, te amo.

Sarah.