khaki

i really wish i were in elyria tonight to see straight no chaser.

it's hard being away from home sometimes. i talked to my mom on the phone last night and for some reason i seriously got choked up when i was talking to her. you would think that it would get easier to be away from home since i'm not new at it anymore... but sometimes when things are tough and i'm stressed and unmotivated, my family and friends are the ones that rejuvinate me. and they're not here.

i just watched the movie "Shrink". it's with kevin spacey. (i know all of you are rolling your eyes at me right now...) but i think it's a really great movie. it's about a therapist who is dealing with his own issues so he can't/doesn't deal with his patients'. it's a thought-provoking movie, kind of sad, and the ending is vague... but for this kind of movie it works.

last night lauren and i went out. we pretty much made the run of campus... started out at one corner at burger king. i didn't realize how big whoppers really were. after that we went to the beta house for their "rave". lost epically at my game of pong; at least we didn't have to do a naked run. by the time we got there most people had left to go to the bar, so we didn't stay long. when we left beta, we went to our friend jared's house. by that time everyone was pretty worn out... so we didn't stay very long there either. lauren came back to my room with me and we played war for an obscene amount of time. didn't go to bed until about 3. maybe later, i wasn't really paying attention to the time, haha.

i've just been kind of sitting around today. got some homework done, and i'm starting to work on my marching band project - we have to pitch three band shows, pick the music, and pick the guard costumes. i am so excited!!

well, the buckeyes just won, so now i have to find something else to watch on tv. until next time.

under the table

i am so frustrated.

is there no hope for me?!

cannot i not find one decent male who's not a creeper or a freak?!?!



anyway. three days until the weekend!
lauren and i are going shopping tomorrow afternoon. i'd like to get some new cute tops.
today was decent, i guess. tuesdays aren't my favorite, and thank god i have these classes only two days a week. i have to start off at 8:30 in the morning... and i am NOT a morning person. but brien and i went to get chinese today, so that was awesome, haha. string methods was okay. i was trying my damndest not to fall asleep in that class, and i could totally tell brien was struggling too. after that, i have my child development class where we take notes for an hour and a half. funnnnnnnnn. and then band, so that's an hour and a half gone again right there. i've got a test tomorrow in history, and it really shouldn't be difficult. trudy faber recruited me to play with the handbell choir, because they need another person in the bass since the girl who's there now isn't very good apparently. that's another hour tomorrow afternoon, but i'm really excited about it. trudy seems to like me anyway, which is helpful, lol.

umm.... what else is important enough to post...

not much, haha.

i'm just trying to stay afloat.

it's not your size, it's how hard you try!

that's what she said.
actually, that's what benford said.

anyhoo...

i got back from my weekend home earlier this evening. it was so nice to be home with my parents and friends, albeit for just a few days. friday night brenda and i gave the east side a serenade of the alumni band music, we played outside over at east rec! and tried to play softball...but i realized my depth perception goes wayyyyy down when it starts to get dark. saturday i woke up early to go to alumni band practice; we finalized the last drill and had a few run-throughs. jessica showed up and i was so thrilled because i haven't seen her in a long time. after practice, benford, jessica and i went out to lunch. i really enjoyed having a real conversation with benford; two weeks ago when i was home for the funeral it was mostly just a "hi how are you" kind of thing, but this time we actually got to talk about some real stuff. he paid for lunch, which is not going to happen again. after lunch, i went home and relaxed for a few hours before having to go up to the stadium again for alumni band. we ran through the drill once more, and i felt pretty good about things. we were first to preform because we're the old farts, and except for a few spots, the show went really well. the crowd loved it, at least which is what we're all about. i got a lot of compliments about the band, so that's cool. i was surprised at how well i personally played; it's been a while since i played in marching band style - loud and fast and obnoxious - and while i wasn't perfect, i thought things sounded pretty good. brittany and stephanie are trying to convince me to play drums next year. i really want to do it... but i don't want to desert the trumpet section since there are only four of us, haha.

today i went to church, got dragged into playing handbells again, saw a few people i hadn't seen in a REALLY long time, fell asleep in a meeting (it was my mom's meeting, i was over in the corner waiting for her), ate junk food at the apple festival, and took the three hour drive back down here. i am so tired. as soon as i finish this, i am going to bed. honestly. pathetic... but seriously.

so... another thing...
there's this guy.

inbox: 1

four hours ago i hated my life. i hated everything. i wanted to punch things.

three minutes ago?

i have a smile and upcoming plans.

therefore; poetry.

----------------------------------------------
inbox: 1

funny how the mood can change
with a simple click of the mouse.

angry at the world;
hating humanity;
kicking puppies;

what can i do to bring things back from the edge?
bitch, moan, complain to mom.
grasping in the dark
for something cheerful
in a heartless world.

alas;
i have mail.

two sentences.

i smile.
-------------------------------------------------

wrote that in about two minutes. totally not the best, but it was more of a stream-of-consciousness. whatevs. i now have something to look forward to.

love shaft

just a small update type thingamajig.

this past weekend was crazy shenanigans. i partied two nights in a row... badddddd life choice. friday night was really fun. i went to my friend jared's house, we played innumerable games of pong and watched a movie. met some cool people, including this guy who asked me if i had a boyfriend. ummm... what? he's a freshman, seems pretty cool i guess. whatevs. saturday, i went to wilmington ohio with lauren. she sang at this festival (got $125 for an hour of singing :O) and i worked her sound for her. it was pretty sweet actually, reminded me alot of the fair. we came up with the great idea of jazz trumpet/jazz singer, since she loves to sing jazz and two heads are better than one! ;) then that night, we went to brien's house for yet another marathon. things were sooo damn crazy. his next door neighbors were doing a beer bong on the porch, which i was NOT cool with because cops were driving by like every 15 minutes. i started to feel pretty crappy towards the end of the night because i was catching a cold, so went home. later that night, i ended up getting sick in my dorm room. now i know it wasn't cause i was hungover or anything... but i felt like i was dying. when i got up later on sunday, i seriously felt like i was clinging to the edge of the cliff. i got sick again...called my mom and cried to her cause i hate getting sick away from home. did absolutely nothing all day besides nap and watch tv/movies. when i went to bed, i seriously thought i had swine flu. i was laying there just thinking "i have swine flu, i know it, i'm dying". monday i got up and i felt mildly better, and have steadily gotten better since then. my visit to the health center was a complete waste of my time; they told me to buy benadryl, mucinex and sudafed. wow, great work. since then, i've just been doing classes and work. i seem to be on top of everything pretty well right now, and for that i'm grateful. we had marching band techniques class today, and i don't know what it is but i always leave that class so energized and excited. i looooove it. we talked about the fundamentals of marching today, so we got to demonstrate what we were familiar with. :D lauren and i are going to have our own little "show and tell" tonight with our band dvds. and right now i'm just chilling until 3, when the student recital is going to start. i have to record it, which is sweet cause i can put it on my work time card. and then lauren and i are going to watch toy story. don't judge me... sometimes you just need some disney in your life. but i think that's it for now... probably won't write for another week haha.

till then... xoxo

09-09-09-09-09-09

well things have been really eventful the past few days.

where i left off... last friday... it was the funeral service for my great aunt. i got to see my uncles, her sons, that i hadn't seen for a really long time. like my uncle jim, he's the stereotypical crazy uncle, but he lives in canada so i get to see him once every five years or so. after the service, there was a luncheon and my cousin finally got into town. he's the one that has been in iraq, and he came to ohio to see the family. it was the first time i had seen him, cause the family got together last sunday but obviously i couldn't be there. his daughter, emma, is now six freaking years old... the last time i saw her she was 18 months. it was kind of cute actually, mom and i went to my grandma's the next day cause that's where cevan and emma are staying. we went out to the cemetary to visit my grandfather, cause cevan wanted to. as soon as i got there, emma asked me to watch her ride a two-wheeled bike. from then on, she didn't leave my side the rest of the night.



when we went to the cemetary i had a little moment. i know emma is still little, and she doesn't really understand the wieght of a place like a cemetary. i told her not to step on the gravestones, and she was actually really careful watching where she stepped. we walked around the area where my grandfather is buried, and i helped her read the names of people. i thought it was really cool... i mean, how often are all those people thought about? but for a few seconds we thought about them and their life and family. we finally got to my family's area. i am kind of ticked off... apparently the cemetary staff BROKE my grandfather's headstone. when they buried my other great aunt earlier this summer, they use this pulley machine on wheels, like a mini crane, to lower the casket into the ground. well, some dumbass didn't watch where they were going and drove over the headstone... and BROKE IT. IT'S FREAKING GRANITE. wouldn't one think to check those kinds of things out first before doing something???? ugggggggggh. so later that day, most of the crew went to the high school football game. it was their first home game, so there were a lot of people there. it was actually a great game, we won 34 to 20, with three interceptions. after the game and the post-game band shakedown, we went to stephanie's house for a bonfire. hilarity ensued. we were all pretty hyper, and there are quite a few interesting pictures to prove it.



a few of us stayed the night after the fire... meranda, kelly, brittany, steph and i. five people in a tiny room... wow that was interesting. stephanie and i ended up sharing a twin bed, haha. we watched hunchback of notre dame and i am so TICKED cause i fell asleep when they were in the court of miracles. i absolutely love that movie. in fact, i'm listening to the soundtrack right now. great orchestration.

saturday was already discussed...

sunday i went to church, lunch, and then packed up my stuff. we headed back to campus around 3ish and got back around 6.

the past few days have been uneventful for classes... however, last night was extremely crazy. while in band, this giant thunderstorm rumbled through the area. when we got out of band, it was raining crazy hard. a few of us living in myers called escort, and when we tried to run into the street we had to jump over 7 inches of a freaking river. i think that's what you'd call a flash flood. i went to hollenbeck because we were going to have a fishing club meeting, and i met savannah in the math workshop. while i was there, the power went out. yeah. people were in there doing physics by cell phone light XD talk about dedication! there were only the emergency light strips on in the buildings, so i sat in the doorway to get light from the hall in order to do my homework. after about an hour, the power came back on. oh, and i didn't know this at the time, but myers hall was hit by lightning last night!! how cool!!!! but the rest of the night was calm, i finally got my homework done at like 1am, lol.

today was pretty tame... classes were shortened because of opening convocation, so 45 minutes instead of an hour. lauren and i got chinese instead of going to convo, LOL! i had theory this morning, and a very interesting fact happened while we were in there: 09-09-09-09-09-09. the ninth day of the ninth month of 2009 at 9:09am and 9 seconds. how many times would that ever happen?!?! it was so funny because dr. b even set an alarm a few seconds before so he could count it down. when his alarm went off, he jumped up and told us to be quiet. i thought there was a bomb or something! but hey, it was pretty cool though. he was actually in a good mood today, not the tyrant like usual.

right now i'm just relaxing until i have to go back to krieg to work for an hour. glad i'm getting some money... and i'm happy i've gotten caught up on all my work. i just need to read a chapter or two for my child development class.

anyway, i think that's the end of my post for now. i gotta finish the rest of my hunchback soundtrack!

god, i just realized how emo sounding that last post was. sorry.

if i were giant-sized

well today didn't go as well as planned.

benford emailed me last night... one of his friends was killed last night and we wasn't coming to school today. i figured out it was the same guy that was in the newspaper, who was in the ATV accident in eaton township. as much as i'm really disappointed not to be able to learn how to write a drill with him... i just can't feel that way. i've been thinking about him a lot today. i can't even believe what that must be like, to lose a friend so suddenly. i don't want to think about it. half of me really wants to call him up, and the other half doesn't want to talk to him for a while. so, it looks like things won't work out...again...

stephanie, brittany and i went to thursday night practice tonight. i was kind of excited to go, to see what's going on, but once i got there, i just felt sad. i know things change and we all need to move on... but that band means so much to me and it's so different and it breaks my heart. stephanie and i were talking about ex-boyfriends, and junior high, and all that past stuff, and part of me really wants to just go back a few years. i wish i still felt that totally comfortable feeling, that ownership i had of my school and hometown. i mean, i feel like i am a part of wittenberg, but it's not really *mine* yet. and elyria, there are so many changes going on i hardly recognize it sometimes. it's wierd to think that this is the last generation of band kids that will know me... the sophomores that i taught are graduating this year. after that, i really will have no place there. i mean, i already feel awkward being there at practice, and it'll get even more awkward.

another thing that makes me feel sad is what stephanie said earlier at their practice - you can tell that they're pruning mr. k to be the next director. i mean, it's apparent. he's already gotten to write a drill for pete's sake. and a little part of me died when she said that (no offense, steph, if you're reading this). but i always had this hidden fantasy that I would be the next director. i would follow and carry on the murray-benford mentality. i know it's so far-fetched... but a little part of me i tucked away always had the vision of being next-in-line. and i guess it's just not going to work that way. i know i'm kind of being selfish, and i really like mr. k and i think he'll be awesome... but i still can't help but feel a little disappointed.

tomorrow morning i have to face reality once again. my great aunt is being interred tomorrow. i hate it. i hate being away from home when this sort of thing happens. when my mom called me with the news that she passed away... it was all i could do not to completely fall apart. i hate the fact that my whole family was together for the first time in in i don't know when (my cousin is home from iraq) and i wasn't even there. i will obviously get to see them tomorrow, for which i am grateful. but two days later i have to turn around and go three hours away again. on top of my great aunt, one of my friend's mothers passed away, and so did benford's friend. so i've been thinking of them all along with my own family. it's so difficult to not curl up into a little ball and disappear for a while. that's what i really want to do - just go to bed for a few days and hide. i don't even know what to do with myself. ugggh. hopefully tomorrow will be better because then i'll be with my friends and i can just forget about it for a while. writing poems doesn't even help anymore.

all you need is, what is you need is, love

so i'm just going to nerd it out a little bit. if you don't want to read my nerdiness... feel free to skip this one.

so i came home a day earlier than originally planned, because we have an alumni band for people who were in marching band and want to make a comeback. it's always percieved as the "has-been wanna-be's", and i'll admit i called them that at one time too. but since i've been in it... i'm not gonna lie, i really like it. it's got the aspects of marching band that i loved, and you don't have the jackasses there like you would in regular high school. (well, i mean you still have jackasses... but that's a different story.) anyway, tonight was one of our practices so i made it to this one. i got the music for our show - we're playing at parade of bands in two weeks. we put one of the pieces to the field, and learned it all in like, an hour. granted, it's nothing of the caliber of what i'm used to. but it satisfies my marching band fix just enough.
i finally got to see benford. FINALLY. it's been almost three months since i had seen him. i feel kinda bad though, 'cause i was going back to brenda's car to get my glasses, he was walking towards the field, and i tackled him, really hard lol. i like plowed my shoulder into him... a little rough. whoops.
so he and i talked afterward, cause i wanted to know what his schedule was like the next couple of days since i am obviously home. well, he hasn't started band yet because the elementary schools just started classes this week. so tomorrow he has really nothing to do... so he asked me if i was free tomorrow. and then pointed at his drill charts.
yes, that's correct.
i am meeting up with benford tomorrow and we are going to sit down and chart a drill for the alumni band to march to in the parade of bands.
an entire song.
oh. my. bloody. god.

I AM SO FREAKING EXCITED.

i mean, this is what i've wanted to do for a long time. and i am finally going to be able to put things on a field and see people march them.

i cannot express my joy.

i know it's a really nerdy thing... but look. this is what i love. so if you can't respect that i'm doing something that is totally fulfilling for me, then get a life. i don't need you. things have gotten better since i came to college, people don't judge me because of my major or stuff like that. which is nice.

okay. done.