I am writing this instead of doing more work...and I'm okay with that

For some reason, amazing songs from my past have been popping up on my internet radio recently. They have provided undefinable solace in the stressful, confusing and altogether crazy time known as the end of winter term senior year. As I teeter on the verge of some major life decisions, spend WAY too much time in the library and push myself to just.keep.going, these songs stop me dead in my tracks and remind me that there is more to life than grades and practicality and being figured out...and that it is okay to slow down every once in a while.

Here are a couple that I heard this morning (I guess it's morning now):

"Mad World," Gary Jules (full song)
This one is a hauntingly beautiful song that seems so multifaceted, so fragile, so constantly in flux that it slips through one's fingers, offering only a glimpse of beauty before becoming obscured in layers of melancholy and irony. Apparently, it's also from the film "Donnie Darko."

Mad World - Gary Jules

"Colorblind," Counting Crows (full song)
I can't believe that this song is by Counting Crows. Nothing against the Crows, it just seems uncharacteristic. It was on a mix CD that my friend who had awesome and very before-her-time music taste made me in high school. Something about the collision of sad and hopeful motifs makes it really poignant, like a post-storm sky in which rays of sunlight struggle to break through the gloom.

Colorblind - Counting Crows