The big move has been accomplished! For the last five months, KMSC was moved to the third floor of Lewis Hall due to the construction on the back of the Library Building and the construction going on around the building, but we are finally back in our old home! We were stuck and crammed in this no bigger then 8 feet wide by 30 feet deep closet, with no windows, no air, and machines that ran 24/7 and heated up the room an extra 20 degrees, not to mention the flights of stairs that had to be climbed just to get to this closet. I had to work in this closet five days a week for four months, spending anywhere from two to three hours in this room.

Now we are back in the original studio, where it gets hot yes, but because the room is bigger, and we can keep the door open, since there aren’t students just hanging out talking loud in the hall, waiting for their next class to start. There’s also a window, which although the window just looks into the production room it still makes the room feel a little less lonely, and bigger.

My first shift on air wasn’t the smoothest, can’t expect much when everything has been moved from one building to another, unplugged and plugged back in. We also have our old soundboard back so we are still setting those setting back to normal. When I walked into the studio I instantly was nervous that after five months of using a completely different soundboard that was four times less complex then the soundboard in the normal studio, I forgot how to use this soundboard, and I went on air in four minutes! I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t go bug Doc about for a couple reason. One I didn’t have time. Two, I didn’t want him to be like “really Caitlin come on, just look at it and figure it out. It wasn’t that long ago”. So instead I just sat down, found the right mouse (there’s two computers with two different mouse, so I had to make sure I had the right one for computer one). I took a deep breath and just started to think. What I needed to know right away came back, but some things like recording a voice track didn’t come back and I figured I’d just worry about that when I need to make a voice track.

By time I remembered what I needed to remember I had about two minutes left before I needed to go on air. So I put the headphones on, grabbed the right mouse and opened Virtual DJ picked Welcome to Paradise by Green Day and dragged that into slot one, then I dragged Ain’t It Fun by Paramore and dragged that into slot two. I was good to go, now all I had to do is watch Zara, which is the program we run when someone isn’t actually live in the studio on air. And watch the time tick away on the song that was currently playing. With about ten seconds left I turned the mic on on the soundboard and raised the fader of my mic, quickly thinking about what I was going to say, before I knew it the song was over and I just started talking.

“You’re listening to Fusion 93 KMSC, I’m DJ Shy I’ll be in the booth for the next two hours, to start off my show here’s Welcome to Paradise by Green Day.”

I hit play on Virtual DJ, faded my mic down and clicked it off. The song was playing yet I was freaking out. I sounded horrible! It sounded like I was getting reverb and I was talking in a very hallow and echoy room along with my voice being deeper and more raspy. But I didn’t know if it was my headphones or me! I walked around the corner and down the hall to Joan’s office and asked if they could hear me, they didn’t. Doc was in his office and he came and looked at it. He worked his very confusing to me radio magic and figured out it wasn’t me. It is just a bad connection in the headphones and had to just ignore it. I played the next song. Still getting major feed back I changed the headphones. Continued playing music and talking after every three to four songs, yet it still sounded bad! Of course right when Doc left it went back to sounding bad, so I just gave up and left it. I knew I was the only one hearing the weird noise so I just stopped worrying about it.

After a while I realized there was a deep hum that the audience could hear if  either a song was too quiet to start or finish or if I was talking too quietly and the hum would over power my voice, so I just turned my mic up when I talked and made sure that I never had a real quiet moment. Moving forward with my show I wasn’t worrying about the sound problems and what not I just sat back, played Hay Day and texted. I paid just enough attention to know when to talk, and know when to play the next song. I had to keep log of all the songs I played and I had to at some point do a PSA and weather and I had to watch the clock so that at every top of the hour I made sure I said the legal ID.

For example at 12:00 I said, “That was Ash Tree Lane by MRMS, and you’re listening to KMSC Sioux City the Student Radio Voice of Morningside College. Coming up next is Forever by Papa Roach.”

Going into my first shift back on air in the original studio I knew there could be problems but I wasn’t complaining the problems I had where simple problems that didn’t effect me and my show so I was able to just let it go. It’s a college radio station the listeners can’t expect us to be perfect every hour of the day. We are learning every day. We aren’t pros…just yet.

This was a hard scavenger hunt for me, as easy as it sounds to just pick up and find out what’s underneath it is actually really hard for someone like me. I’m a clean-cut person. I don’t like getting dirty; I hate spiders and even spider webs. This whole area just screams spiders and I could just see it was caked in spider webs. I had to build up so much will power to do this assignment that it came out to being impossible for me. So, I came up with a better idea. I went into my garage and was planning on grabbing a shovel and was going to try and lift it up and just quickly peek under this pile of doom, but as usual a college student living in a house full of other college students we don’t have a shovel. So I went with a rake!

I marched right up to that pile with that big red handles with black teeth rake in hand and lifted all those fallen branches up (keeping my distance as far away as possible of course). Trying to keep all the branches up and squatting down to see what was underneath was no easy task, I tried taking a picture but I just couldn’t balance and honestly didn’t want to hold it up too long, giving whatever underneath time to scurry out and run off.

Under all that tree ruble was more leaves, wet spots, more spider webs, and all different kinds of insects that I don’t even know the name of all of them! Some bugs I saw were rolly pollies, daddy long legs, some form of worm, and of course spiders. The second I saw a spider I threw that rake down and was down with that entire area. Also I found more bricks. It also seemed pretty moist under there, that kind of confused me because I don’t remember the last time it rained, but also because that area is somewhat covered.

Yes, I do realize that area needs to be cleaned up. I mean our house grill sits about 5 feet from that pile of terror. But I’m not about to be the one to clean that mess up. No way and I letting spiders get near me I will run off shaking like a baby with no shame if I feel a spider crawling on me or even a spider web on me. I just can’t stand that feeling of a spider web on me! Basically what I learned from this scavenger hunt is I’m most definitely a clean city girl.

With their 7^th album out called Southern Air the band Yellowcard has gone from starting off as a “hardcore punk” band to now being considered “pop punk” or “alternative rock”, basically the perfect KMSC music. They don’t have a lot of curse words, which makes this band very alternative radio format friendly. Yellowcard’s band members consisted of vocals and guitar Ryan Key. Violin and vocals Sean Mackin, Ryan Mendez on guitar and vocals, and Josh Portman on bass they have been together since 1997. Sean Mackin is known for doing flips during shows on stage. Florida natives and the perfect band to compare them too and also a native Florida are their real life friends from We The Kings. But they aren’t any normal punk rock band, they have a violin in all their songs, some songs you cant hear it and others you can really hear it. As weird as that sounds for a punk rock band, they make it work extremely well!

Southern Air released in 2012 and was recorded with Hopeless Records, is a shorter album. With only 10 songs, and only taking 40 minutes exactly to listen to it, it leaves you wanting more and wondering why some of their songs didn’t end better then how they ended it. For example, Here I am alive, just stops. As he’s singing and music is playing and next thing I know I’m thinking something is wrong with my iTunes or computer because it just stops playing, and I quickly go into iTunes and realize the song just stops and that’s how it ends. Same thing happened with Always Summer.

Sleep in the snow, Surface of the sun and a vicious kind really where just “eh” songs. Telescope has very repetitive lyrics, which leaves me bored and tired of the song really quickly. Awakening is a good upbeat song, probably one of my top songs from this album. Rivertown is too “hardcore” for me. Very “mosh pit” “head banger” song to me. Ten is my number one favorite from this album. It’s laid back more acoustic sounding song. It sounds like there’s some type of sliding guitar, which makes it seem very country but they really pulled it off! Very cute lyrics and a nice break from the hard punk that the last song (Rivertown) was. Also the longest song on the album but I never got bored of it. The violin really stands out in this song I really enjoyed that. The last song on the album is the title named song. Southern Air just like a few other on this album is just a “eh” song to me. The chorus is good but the versus are just eh to me.

Before I was handed this album to listen to and review I didn’t think I knew them. I thought I’d maybe heard of them before but now sure where or how. Then after researching about them I figured out their most popular song is Ocean Avenue. They also have been on Warped Tour a handful of times and since I’m a We The Kings fan, I know a little about Warped Tour and a few of the other bands who are apart of it, like Yellowcard. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this album but I won’t recommend a few of the songs. Like Ten, Ten is my most favorite with a close second of Here I am alive.

Here I Am Alive (Music Video)

Even nap on the way to tournaments

Please Don’t Call Us Lazy – 3 Myths about Busy Student-Athletes

A typical day: wake up, go to class, eat, and do homework; plus if you’re an athlete  you may have practice or conditioning. For student-athletes they also miss a lot of class time in order to compete for their school. That’s the life of a very busy student-athlete.

For some student-athletes there is very little recreation time and that little bit of extra time while often interpreted, as laziness may not be a fair assessment. Here are three myths about busy student-athletes:

First, student-athletes love to sleep every chance they get. Student-athletes will grab a nap when they can as their body may really need it to re-energize and be ready for the next practice or recreational activity. Power naps can give you that “second wind” to help you put forth good effort. For example, swim team members tend to practice very early in the morning, so an afternoon siesta is not out of the question.

Second, student-athletes sit around playing video games in their spare time. Most student-athletes are fairly competetive so video games can be a good outlet for pent up energy and feeding that competitive spirit.

Finally, the third myth, student-athletes waste time hanging out with friends or watching TV. Actually, most student-athletes quickly learn to be good time managers. They are very schedule driven and have to be fairly organized. So if you look past that remote control you might find someone who has many hours of the day committed to school and athletics and just a few minutes to anything recreational.

My personal experience is with the golf team. Some people don’t give golf much credit as a sport, but actually it is very strenuous and time consuming. You need to be in condition to be ready for the terrain and the elements. Golf is only called off if there is lightening in the area or extremely cold temperatures. Therefore, heat, rain, wind or even with light snow, you’ll find the golf team out on the course! Golfers also have to work hard at the mental part of the game. You play for yourself, but you also play for the team, and ultimately you want to do your best, so practice, conditioning and some spear time recreation, play an important role in your success.

Every team and their coaches have a differnet outlook on conditioning and practice.  For instance, softball and soccer tend to split up their activities, conditioning in the morning and practice in the evening. If a team has not been playing well, or has lost their focus, a coach may have them practice an extra time or two to get the discipline back.

All sports tend to consume a lot of time away from class and away from friends. Most spare time is given to making up class work and catching up on reading and notes. For example, Shelby, a freshman golfer, said, “I go to bed everyday about 1:00a.m., if not 2:00a.m. If I go to bed at 11:00p.m., that’s early for me. So I don’t have much recreation time and if I do I’ll nap.” A number of the freshman guys on the golf team work together on homework and then enjoy the occasional game of pick-up basketball. They make time to escape from school and golf.

One of the biggest challenges for student-athletes is missing class. In one of my classes I get my notes from a volleyball player when I miss and she gets mine when she misses class. The buddy system in class can be a real life and grade saver.

When a sport is not in season, like basketball is not right now, the team members still have conditioning every day. Steven Husk is a transfer senior on the men’s basketball team, although he has more recreation time now than he would during basketball season, he still is a busy guy with school, conditioning and, he even works part-time! When he wants to get away from everything he watches “a lot of Netflix and sports.” Steven said sitting on the couch may look lazy, but he is often thinking about what he needs to do next. “Lately I’ve been watching the FIBA World Cup (basketball) games; if not that, then I go out with friends.” Steven is also into social media, spending time on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram or playing an online game called Clash of Clans.

While it may appear that student-athletes are lazy; they like to waste time napping, playing video games, watching TV, or just hanging with friends. Those short opportunities away from their chosen sport or from class are most likely precious minutes of relaxation and recreation. Time that is often well deserved.

Wake up, class, workouts, and homework. With breakfast, lunch and dinner at some point between all that, hopefully. Add in the actual sport event and you have one very busy student! That’s the life of a typical student-athlete. ’You’ve heard from me before about being a student-athlete, this time around I’m going to focus on the time in their life when they aren’t a student or an athlete. That little bit of time during their day where they can just relax and kick back for maybe as little as an hour a day.

Obviously, sports vary as to how much conditioning and practice their sport and coaches require.  For instance swimmers have to wake up some mornings at 5 a.m. to make it to their morning practice. Softball they have morning practice and conditioning at 6 a.m., as well. Soccer has night practices on Fridays, along with during the day or morning practices. Some coaches schedule practices at certain times for different reasons. One reason may be punishment or a consequence of poor performance, or maybe to keep them out of trouble, or maybe even the simple fact of that it’s the only time the whole team can get together for practice.

I’m a golfer and some people think it’s not much of a sport or that we have it way to easy, neither of which is true. It’s a sport in a lot of ways. You try walking up and down hills in freezing cold or extreme heat, windy, rainy and even snowy conditions, all with your clubs on your back! Golf is a mentally and physically exhausting sport, just like football is or soccer. We don’t do a lot of conditioning, but we practice everyday for two plus hours and that’s conditioning in itself for us golfers. We work at both the physical skill of the game and the mental part of the game.

I was talking to a volleyball player today in class, and when I miss class, she gives me her notes, and when she misses class, I give her my notes. It works out perfectly! All until we both miss the same day. I was telling her in four days of our Monday-Wednesday-Friday class (Monday to Monday) I’d miss three of the four! She was in complete shock that golf misses so much class time! So the people who say “yeah, we practice for an hour and a half everyday and then have conditioning three times a week,” I say to you, “we have golf practice every single day for two plus hours and we also miss twice as much class as you.” With all the class time missed, leads me to this, no free time! When do we get our free time? Since golfers miss so much class that means make-up work. How do we even have time for relaxation? Golfers actually don’t have a lot of down time. Our down time is when we go to sleep.

“I go to bed everyday around 1:00am if not 2:00am in the morning, going to bed at 11:00pm is early for me, so I don’t have much free time, if I do I’ll nap.” said Shelby who’s a freshman on the woman’s golf team.

Each and every person is different with how much homework they have and how much time they devote to it. So some people, even though they are participating in the same sport,  might find a way to eek out some time for fun. For example, Kelyn, Austey and Collin, are freshmen on the men’s golf team, usually get together almost every evening and play a couple games of basketball in the HPER with their roommates. They make time to escape from school and golf.

***

Basketball isn’t in season right now but they do have conditioning almost everyday. Steven Husk is a transfer Senior on the men’s basketball team, although he has more free time now than he would during basketball season he still is a busy guy with school, conditioning and work. When he wants to get away from everything he watches “a lot of Netflix and sports” Steven said sitting on the couch trying to think of everything he needs to do in his down time. “Lately I’ve been watching the FIBA World Cup Qualifiers on TV, so basically I either watch a lot of TV, or go out with friends” he said. He also sits on his phone a lot, checking Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and playing a game called Clash of Clans.

Ashley, who is a former volleyball player, but current student says, “well obviously this time of the year, any year, its Big Brother time.” Which means every Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday she’s watching Big Brother on TV. She spends a good chunk of time on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as well.

It seems to me that the common thing for student-athletes to do to get away from everything is to watch TV or browse the Internet and hangout with friends and roommates.  Not very exciting or productive, but a great mental escape in the small bits of spare time that come up.

Sitting in the deepness of the Spoon holder where I feel too close to books and some serious studying, I sit here with headphones in and my music off. Right in front of me is a strong, very freckled ginger, with a red dyed Mohawk. In front of him is another guy strong as well but looks a lot less hard core then the fella in front of him. Next to this guy is a girl. Dark dark hair, fair skin, petite in size, and light jacket for the rain that’s falling outside, even though her jacket isn’t water proof. She talks very little with the other two guys, even though they are clearly working on a group project. Behind me is another girl; all alone just working on her studies, she keeps messing with her hair, can’t decide if she wants it up or down. I can’t give too much detail on her since she is behind me and I’m trying to be discreet about my creeping. There’s one last table sitting in this area, they are two girls, who seem to be just friends doing homework, they aren’t working on a project like the other three people. One girl has a very dry cough, and the other girl won’t stop shaking her foot that is hanging over her ankle of her other foot sitting cris-cross under her chair. Both are blonde, both seem to be on a sports team together, just guessing by the way they both have *girl just coughed* more muscle on their bodies then the average girl that isn’t involved in sports.

Everyone around me assumes I’m probably just working on a paper *girl just coughed* and listening to music. But I’ve become a pristine creeper, as sadly as that sounds, and know how to look like I’m doing something completely different then I actually am *girl just coughed* doing. These two girls don’t seem to be too worried about their homework *girl just coughed* because they keep talking about people who just walked in or are talking loud enough that they can hear and listen in and comm *girl just coughed* comment on what they heard *girl just coughed*. I hope this girl is talking *girl just coughed* some cough meds! That last cough was a big one! Anyways! *girl just coughed*

I chose to sit here for a couple reasons, I’ve never sat this deep into the Spoon Holder, and I feel the further back the more intense the studying is. For instance, *girl just coughed* one girl who works for KMSC and her name has slipped my mind was just talking on the phone, if she would have been on the phone back here she probably would have been annoying to some. But since she is *girl just coughed* up further and about 10 yards away from the group studiers, it wasn’t that big of a deal.  I’m really just focusing on the back six tables because once you hit carpet it gets more serious, the table up *girl just coughed* *girl just coughed* on the tile seems much more laid back.

I’ve been sitting here for probably 20 minutes now and as I start to eat my salad *girl just coughed* and drink my mocha that I got from the Spoon Holder, I’ve realized it’s got a very dead feeling back here.  There’s talking going on around us but it’s *girl just coughed* up on the tile, just because I can hear them *girl just coughed* doesn’t make back here feels anymore alive. The guy in the group with the MoHawk who’s doing most of the talking is talking softer and quieter. The ladies at work in the Spoon Holder but at the moment are at the high tables on the tile are talking in a louder more normal voice. After doing this assignment *girl just coughed* I feel like I don’t belong way back here. I think I’ll stick to the high tables on the tile.

Now its time to actually turn *girl just coughed* some music on before I go insane by this girls painful to the throat sounding cough!

The song I chose is by Parachute called forever and always. Verse after verse is like a new chapter in the song. Verse one, is about this guy’s girlfriend waiting for him to come pick her up, and he’s running late. She’s getting antsy and worried, he’s getting later and later, he doesn’t show up, she starts to think something is wrong then the phone rings and she has a flash back to when he proposed, then the chorus which is the flash back and how he proposed and asked her to be his “forever and always”. Verse two she’s at the hospital, her mind is going a mile a minute and isn’t hearing what the doctors are telling her as they escort her to his room. Once she gets to the room she tries to stay strong and smile but can’t. She just sits next to him and what their future holds together. Kids, house, ect. then the chorus.  Bridge, an idea pops into her head and wants to marry him right then and there, they barrow the rings from the couple next door, the Chaplin comes in and says a couple words, everyone is smiling and crying at the same time. They are getting married, she says her vows which is the chorus and he try’s to say his vows but is slowly going down hill, he try’s his hardest to get his vows out, says his vows on his last words and passes away. The song ends with his vows and no music.

It’s the saddest yet most beautiful song and story I have ever heard. You can just picture this happening to someone in real life, you can play out the music video in your head even though there isn’t a music video for this song! This song has love, tragedy, happiness, goose bumps, tears, all in a matter of four minutes and six seconds. So many emotions in such a short amount of time that you just sit there in “awe” with a tear in your eye as you listen to the song and hope and pray you personally never have to face something like this and that no one for that matter has to ever face something like this. Everyone wants a love like these two, but don’t ever want it to come to a quick end as their love did. This song really tells you to love everyone and to never take your love and life with that one significant other for granted, you never know when a freak accident could happen and everything could come to a tragic end. But leaving this on a happy note, that man still loves her, even though they are together in person, he will always be in her heart and that’s the best thing she can have and all that she asks for since she no longer can have him in her life. He’s in her heart forever and always.

Song Link

The article I chose for my feature story assignment is actually the second story I read. The first one was so boring I couldn’t read it anymore, and I couldn’t even tell you who or what it was about. This one was about a guy named Nate Woods from Lincoln Nebraska who’s having built a memorial for his grandfather and other people from the 20s and 30s who helped with the Lincoln’s black community with equality. This monument will feature people as famous as Martin Luther King Jr. and Jackie Robinson who both have visited Lincoln during this movement.

The article starts off with “Nate Woods remembers little about his grandfather, Millard Woods.” That’s the lead, short yet simple. But the very last line of the article in my opinion would have been a better lead, even though you aren’t suppose to start leads with a quote. The quote is “I think he would have a big smile on his face,” which is a quote that Nate said referring to his grandfather. “I think he would have a big smile on his face,” Nate Woods says referring to his grandfather who helped with the Lincoln’s black community movement. To me the lead the writer chose is confusing because how can you think someone would have a big smile on their face when you can barely remember that person, and you were only around when you were a little kid. I don’t remember a lot from back when I was six years old!

The spin that could have been put on this story is talking about how Nate raised the money for these panels, and why he even wanted to or thought of doing this. Also, why he picked the location he did for the panels to be put. I realize he’s doing this because he’s proud of the work his grandfather did, but I don’t think I really need to know that he doesn’t really remember him. I’d be perfectly fine not know that information. It’s very understandable for him to not remember him. Especially when Millard Woods (his grandfather) died when he (Nate) was only six years old.

Article Here