by Elizabeth Chirico
It seemed that this year fall came right on cue. Exactly on the 1st of September, I woke up to hear not the sound of my window unit air conditioner humming and whirring away, struggling to defray the humidity that assaults my apartment and has its way with my hair daily during the summer, but to hear the actual outside noises of the morning.

Rating: 4.0/5

by Elizabeth Chirico
I thought it would be interesting to really delve into a pop song's lyrics and examine what message the song is really communicating. I picked a relatively mild song to analyze, one of Kelly Clarkson's latest hits: "My Life Would Suck Without You." This song invites the listener in with a catchy melody and a fun, almost techno sounding beat and pushes Clarkson's tune more into the pop category than anything else. We hear a beautiful vocal performance from Clarkson imploring that she and the subject of her song "belong together," but she then goes on to say how dysfunctional they really are. Once one has read the rest of the lyrics of the song it is evident that the relationship is clearly not a healthy one.

Rating: 5.0/5

In the last few weeks, my sister-in-law has asked me several times about the appropriateness of certain songs for my nine-year old niece. As an avid music listener and music-lover, I was more than happy to provide her with an "appropriateness review" for each song she mentioned.

Rating: 4.5/5

The day that I was let go, fired, or set free (depending on how you want to look at it), I felt ill all day long. A horrible anvil of anxiety landed in the bottom of my stomach, and panic stricken questions echoed relentlessly through my brain. First came the somewhat practical questions: How was I going to pay the rent? Where was I going to find a place to work in an economy like this?

Rating: 5.0/5