I’m not sure exactly when I decided that I liked electronic music.  When Ricky and I started dating, I quickly found out that he had a love for the genre.  I remember listening to it at his place and thinking what I’d always thought, that it was just repetitive beats that got old quickly.

At some point, I found out that some other friends of mine were also pretty into electronic music and were planning on going to see a DJ that I’d never heard of, Paul van Dyk, at a local club, Talbott Street.  When Ricky found out, he decided to see if he could get tickets.  He writes for IndyConcerts.com and is often given press passes to concerts and show so that he can write about them for the website.  He got passes, and I went with him.  We got there pretty early and laid claim to spots right up in front of the stage.  I remember that once the music started and everyone around me started dancing, I started thinking that maybe I understood now why people liked electronic music.  And maybe, just maybe, I could get into it after all.

Once Ricky discovered that I had somewhat of an interest in electronic music, we started making plans to see more DJs.  At first, I hadn’t heard of many of them, but quickly became familiar with the bigger names such as Armin van Buuren, David Guetta, and Paul Oakenfold.  Now I’ve seen each of them live and even had the opportunity to randomly meet Armin.  I loved his show in Chicago that we went to.  It was a great venue, at the Aragon, and the crowd really got into it.  I can’t help but think that everyone felt a sense of community dancing together to the beats.

When I think back to how I really got to loving this genre of music, several times come to mind.  The Paul van Dyk show at Talbott Street, of course, and the Armin van Buuren show in Chicago.  When we went to Las Vegas last year (my first time there), Ricky had gotten tickets to some clubs.  We didn’t realize until we were there that Paul Oakenfold was actually going to be at one of them, Rain, while we were there.  We jumped on the opportunity to see him mix beats live.  That ended up topping my list of experiences as well.

One show I will never forget is seeing David Guetta at BoMA in Columbus, Ohio.  When Ricky introduced me to David Guetta, I almost immediately fell in love with his music.  Honestly, I think that the best word I can use to describe it is “fun”.  Guetta isn’t for everyone, but if you like to dance, and you just like music that is easy to get into – he’s great.  I have all of his albums on my iPod, and I think I know the words to almost all the songs.  He has become one of my favorite ways to get my day going or as a pick-me-up when I’m in a bad mood.

Armin was probably my first venture into the world of trance.  I remember being at home and trying to focus on some reading I had to get done for school one day.  I had just downloaded one of Armin’s albums, so I started listening to it while I was reading.  I loved it!  The music just put me into a, well, trance.  I can see why it’s called that.  It just got me in the groove, made it easier to focus on the reading.  Great music to play in the background while you are working as well.  I have several fellow programmer friends that I know listen to electronic music while they are coding, and I can see why that is.  It gets you going without being distracting.  It’s almost like a state of Zen sometimes.

So now, I’m hooked.  I listen to almost exclusively electronic music most of the time.  So when I heard that several of my favorite DJs as well as some recent discoveries I’ve made were going to be at a music festival that went all day for two days in New York City, of COURSE I wanted to go.  And so did Ricky.  So we acquired passes, bought a plane ticket, booked a hotel, and later this afternoon will be on our way.  Friday evening is my one chance to see New York City (my first trip there as well), as I will be spending most of Saturday and Sunday dancing my face off to the beats of some of my favorite DJs.

This is only the second year for Electric Zoo, but it has already established a following and appears to be very well organized.  It’s held on Randall’s Island, an island smack dab in the middle of New York, just a ferry ride away from Manhattan.  I can’t wait to enjoy the music with the epic skyline of the Big Apple in the background.  Last year’s festival brought 15,000 people on Saturday and 11,000 on Sunday, with this year even more tickets already purchased!

So I hear I go… only a few more hours until I board a plane and head to the city to meet some DJs, make some new friends, and get my dance on.  Electric Zoo, here I come!

So since seeing that Isha posted an update and list of summer plans, I thought I would do the same. Right now, I am currently smack dab in the middle of finals week of my second semester in the Kelley MBA program. I have heard from a lot of people (the program chair included) that this is quite possibly the hardest semester of the program. I’ve taken a total of 4 classes, 7.5 credit hours. And keep in mind that 8 credit hours is considered full-time if you’re in grad school, so I’ve basically been working full-time while also going to school almost full-time. This is also one big part of the reason I am not on Twitter or Facebook right now. They both just became a big distraction while trying to make it through these last few weeks. I’ll likely be back this weekend, once finals are over.

I am SO looking forward to this summer. I made it through my biggest final yesterday (Finance) and am hoping I managed to do better on it than I did on the midterm. I have one more final left to take online tomorrow and then I am home free! …for a week. Summer classes start next Thursday. However, I’m looking forward to starting fresh and being basically done with finance/accounting/money/math classes. They have been killer, and I even came close to quitting earlier this semester, but I managed to stick it out. My summer classes are Business Law, which meets on Thursdays, and IT for Managers, which is online and only 1.5 credit hours. And I will be done with the IT class on June 23, and then done with the Law class on July 8 – which means over a month of no classes! Definitely excited about that. So – that being said, summer should be pretty good. Here’s what I’ve got going on this summer so far…

May
6th – Macroecon final (last one!)
9th – Mother’s Day – special lunch with my mom
13th – Summer classes start
14th – Swing dancing double date with Ricky, Ian, and Heather (Ricky’s first swing dancing experience!)
15th – Special surprise planned for my sweetie – we get to dress up!
22nd – Nickelback concert at Verizon
23rd – LOST finale party at our new apt

June
23rd – End of IT class

July
4th – Spending the weekend with Ricky at Forest Dunes
8th – End of Business Law class
19th – Sophie’s “birthday” (2nd anniversary of the day I got her)
22nd – Ricky’s birthday

August
14th – Mom’s birthday
24th – Fall classes start – Marketing, Operations Mgmt

If you are friends with me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter, you’ve likely already grown tired of hearing about the trip to Hawaii that I’m taking next weekend.  If you’re not, well, then maybe you’ll actually be interested in this post.  I’m hoping to do sort of a travel blog about the trip while I’m there (including plenty of pictures), so I thought I would start with a post before I go about how this trip came about and what has been planned for it.

Sometime shortly after I started this semester, I started already thinking about spring break.  I’m not sure how much time off I will get from school this year, so I thought maybe it might be a good idea to take advantage of time off while I get it.  I didn’t think Ricky would be interested in going with me, since he pretty much already had his vacation planned out for the year, so I thought I would be going by myself, and among my destinations (all somewhere warmer than here) were San Francisco or San Diego.  I thought at first I would only be planning for a shorter trip of only a few days.  I got to thinking more about it, and decided… hmm… if I’m going as far as California, why not think a little bigger?  Hawaii has always seemed like a fun place, and somewhere I’d like to go someday – why not see how much it costs and go for it?

And the planning began.  The more I researched Hawaii, the more I wanted to go there.  So I decided to go, whether it meant only a few days by myself there, or, as it turned out, a week there with Ricky.  I was able to talk him into using up some of his precious vacation time for a week with me in paradise.  (Wouldn’t you go too??)

We started out deciding to only go to Oahu, and to stay near Waikiki (our hotel is only a 5-minute walk from the beach) and rent a car to explore the rest of the island during our stay.  Since then, however, we’ve ended up splurging and paying for a flight to the “big island” (Hawaii) to see the volcanoes on one day of our trip.  Other plans include a luau on Wednesday night (what better way to spend St. Patrick’s Day?) and a trip to Ocean’s 808 on Friday night.

I simply could not be more excited.  Hawaii has been a dream of mine since I was a kid.  I wrote a report about it for school in 5th grade, which my mom found the other day.  My family never traveled much or went on too many vacations, so to me, getting to explore as many places as I have the opportunity to now as an adult is simply a dream come true, something I never imagined I would be able to do.

Another fun part of the trip that we are planning to do is visit some LOST filming locations.  Most of the TV show LOST is filmed on Oahu, and we plan on hunting down some of the locations they have filmed and seeing some of these places that we have only previous seen on screen.  Yes, I realize we are dorks.  But if you are a true LOST fan, is there really anything much cooler than getting your picture taken in Dharmaville?  (You can actually see “Dharmaville”, or the Others camp, on Google Maps Street View here.  It’s a YMCA camp on Honolulu, Camp Erdman.)

So we are steadily counting down the days (as of today, only 6 left!) until we hop on that plane and take our three-leg, sixteen-hour journey to paradise.  Can I make it through this week without exploding with anticipation?  We’ll see… but on Saturday morning, paradise here I come!