Well. since once again i've slacked off at blogging... let's recap.
last wednesday i took the hardest midterm ever. music history, 20th century style. it was really frustrating because i really had no clue how to study for it. dr. s is really narrative when he talks about composers, and i don't really know what information to dismiss and what's important. there were a few long essays and i was pulling stuff from god knows where. i left the building after that test soooo bummed... it sucks when you know you could have done better. went up to the chapel for handbells. after rehearsal, i saw that w was still around, so i stopped by blair hall because i needed a w hug. we ended up sitting on the benches outside talking for an hour.
thursday was mostly uneventful. i did really well on my cave ecology quiz. my trumpet lesson sucked like usual. i really hate the fact that bryan has nothing positive to say about my playing. i realize i am not the best player in the world, but encouragement goes a long way. he was going on again about how this is my primary thing, blah blah blah. and i explained to him that i can't do everything 200% like he wants me to. my first priority is education. that is what i am in college for and what i am planning my life around. it's NOT performance; he says that in order to be a good teacher, i need to be a good musician. i realize this, but i have to prioritize because i don't have the energy, stamina or sanity to do it all. i will have to say, though, that yesterday's went pretty well overall. he actually gave me a compliment, miracle of miracles, and it was more collaborative than him harping on me the whole time.
this past weekend i went home for fall break. since it was just midterms week, they gave us monday and tuesday off. mom came down saturday morning. we got back in the afternoon to go to jane's wedding. i didn't realize how difficult it would be... seeing her again and in a new relationship naturally brought up memories of her last. he was the pastor of our church and was around for most of my entire childhood. i looked up to him immensely, even though i never got the affirmation i wanted from him. i know now why that is, i won't go into details, but he broke a lot of people's trust in that church and we were a little screwed up from that afterwards. but it's wonderful to see jane with a new man. the wedding was simple and touching. how i wish i could have that one day. it's obvious they care for each other very much.
after the wedding when we got home, my dad and i got into a discussion about the damn computer. it ended up blowing up into a giant ordeal and i of course ended up crying and leaving the room. it is so bloody frustrating to be around my dad. we're very similar, even though he thinks i'm more like my mom. but we know exactly how to push each other's buttons. soooo needless to say saturday night could have gone better.
sunday was church like usual. i sang with the choir, which was quite enjoyable. afterwards we went to brunch and then to see my grandma. we ended up staying there for most of the afternoon. later sunday night, some of the crew met up at meranda's aunt's house for pumpkin carving and rocky horror. i'm not really sure where things went wrong, but meranda got upset with stephanie and things went down the tubes. i don't know what her beef is with stephanie, but frankly i feel it's a little juvenile. i realize i don't know the whole situation, but it just feels too high school-ish for me and i'd like to think we're past that now. i'm not going to let it bother me, though. wish we could just all get along.
monday mom and i went to the library because i had to pay my electric bill online lol. we missed ralph, unfortunately, but i left a note so hopefully he smiled. after that, we went to my other grandma's house. i hadn't talked to her in a long time because things have been so crazy. she's been having some wierd pain issues, in and out of the doctor's and emergency room... i think everyone is a little worried about her because usually she's in great health. let's hope they figure out the problem soon.
tuesday, i got my hair cut and then jessica and i went to the new high school. it is, in a word, astonishing. however, it lost a lot of character and uniqueness that made the old school so awesome. it's hard to believe i'll never walk those halls again - the same ones my great-grandmother walked. all the classrooms look the same, as do the hallways. apparently there are some things that need to be finished in the new school. but the performing arts wing is amazing!! it was hard not to see myself walking down the hall and teaching in the new band room. we got a sneak peek of the auditorium, which isn't finished, but will look amazing. jessica and i spent most of the time with mr. b - he showed us the auditorium and library. i didn't realize how much i missed him until we said goodbye. we talked about a lot of nonsense when we saw him in his study hall, and sometimes i wish we could have a serious conversation, but it was enjoyable all the same. after we visited the high school, i got my stuff into the car and we came back to school.
since i've been back - let's just say it's REALLY nice to have a three day week! wednesday, after my conducting class, dr. j asked me and another person to stay after class a minute. he told us he'd be nominating us for an honor band with the ohio instrumental conductors association (or something like that). that means the third weekend of january, we'll go to ashland univ., play five pieces (with dr. j conducting one), rehearse saturday and sunday, and perform a concert sunday afternoon. it sounds amazing, if a little scary. resume booster for sure! rachel and i decided to move our recital date partly because of this. we'd have to have our pre-recital jury out of the way a month before the actual recital - that puts us at a week after class starts. we thought this might be too short a time to work together and get things polished, along with the craziness of me learning five pieces for the honor band. so now we're doing it march 27th. this should work better for everyone. i am breathing a little easier.
like i said, my lesson yesterday went very well. so that, combined with the honor band, combined with the 85% I GOT ON MY MUSIC HISTORY MIDTERM have made this week pretty damn good!!
i am off to read a bit and probably youtube something.
sorry my posts always end up so effing long.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Lint is a shell's best friend
a short update.
thursday: really sucked because both people (kat and w) that i had plans with bailed on me. i know i'm being selfish but i really hate it when i get really excited and look forward to something and then it doesn't happen. though i did skype with aaron.
friday: mom and judy came into town!! mom had the day off, and luckily enough it was both homecoming weekend and our band concert. so they came down in the afternoon, we spent some time on campus, and then they came to the concert. the concert itself went pretty well overall, i thought. there were a few scary moments where we teetered on the cliff of total chaos, but reigned it back in. had a late dinner with mom and judy and went straight to bed lolz.
saturday: i met with w at 10:30 since our plans didn't work out on thursday. we went to panera and had coffee and split a pecan roll, and talked about banal life things like my work for dr. k and the honors class i'm taking. then we went back to school and worked on scheduling stuff for a while because i'm trying my damndest to graduate on time. i think there are only a few classes i have left to take: science/math (there's a class i think i can get into that counts for both), foreign language (this is going to be the death of me) and another art credit because this school has the dumbest requirement of making you take classes from eight different departments. so even though i have a shit-ton of music art credits, only one of them will count. so w and i tried to figure out some options (summer classes: FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS PER CREDIT). w has hope and that means a lot, but it still sometimes looks bleak because i feel like there's still so much to do and not any time to do it.
anyway, saturday night i hosted a birthday party for karen at my house. it was themed after mario (the video game). i was a banana. get it? like a banana in the road in mario kart? things were great, if a little crazy. rachel locked my bedroom door and my keys were inside my bedroom... so i had to break into my own room by taking out the screen and climbing through the window...
that party was basically the biggest event in recent history... today was classes as usual, though they went by pretty fast (for which i am thankful). i have a few tests this week, but after that i'm going home for a wonderful fall break! i hope to meet up with a few. and definitely reconnect with the e gang because i am terrible at keeping in touch.
so what was intended to be a short update didn't really end up short at all... anyway, that's the life.
oh p.s. go look up "marcell the shell with shoes on" right now. go. i am obsessed with it. most adorable thing. EVER.
thursday: really sucked because both people (kat and w) that i had plans with bailed on me. i know i'm being selfish but i really hate it when i get really excited and look forward to something and then it doesn't happen. though i did skype with aaron.
friday: mom and judy came into town!! mom had the day off, and luckily enough it was both homecoming weekend and our band concert. so they came down in the afternoon, we spent some time on campus, and then they came to the concert. the concert itself went pretty well overall, i thought. there were a few scary moments where we teetered on the cliff of total chaos, but reigned it back in. had a late dinner with mom and judy and went straight to bed lolz.
saturday: i met with w at 10:30 since our plans didn't work out on thursday. we went to panera and had coffee and split a pecan roll, and talked about banal life things like my work for dr. k and the honors class i'm taking. then we went back to school and worked on scheduling stuff for a while because i'm trying my damndest to graduate on time. i think there are only a few classes i have left to take: science/math (there's a class i think i can get into that counts for both), foreign language (this is going to be the death of me) and another art credit because this school has the dumbest requirement of making you take classes from eight different departments. so even though i have a shit-ton of music art credits, only one of them will count. so w and i tried to figure out some options (summer classes: FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS PER CREDIT). w has hope and that means a lot, but it still sometimes looks bleak because i feel like there's still so much to do and not any time to do it.
anyway, saturday night i hosted a birthday party for karen at my house. it was themed after mario (the video game). i was a banana. get it? like a banana in the road in mario kart? things were great, if a little crazy. rachel locked my bedroom door and my keys were inside my bedroom... so i had to break into my own room by taking out the screen and climbing through the window...
that party was basically the biggest event in recent history... today was classes as usual, though they went by pretty fast (for which i am thankful). i have a few tests this week, but after that i'm going home for a wonderful fall break! i hope to meet up with a few. and definitely reconnect with the e gang because i am terrible at keeping in touch.
so what was intended to be a short update didn't really end up short at all... anyway, that's the life.
oh p.s. go look up "marcell the shell with shoes on" right now. go. i am obsessed with it. most adorable thing. EVER.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
clowns to the left, jokers to the right
man oh man, last week was totally effing crazy.
first of all, i had my first giant paper due for my honors class. it was originally due wednesday, that's why i borrowed w's computer over the weekend, but thankfully Dr. Kazez changed the due date to friday. we also had to do presentations... guess who gets to go first on friday while everyone else gets to wait until monday *raises hand*. i was upset since i was the only one presenting i had to have everything prepared while everyone else got to have the extra weekend. but, honestly, it wasn't as bad as i thought. first presentation - low expectations - and he kind of used me as a guinea pig to show the rest of the class what he wanted out of the presentations. at one point he said i was doing very well so far, so i guess that's a good thing.
friday night, heather and brittany came down to take me home for the weekend. we had so much fun in the car ride, though it took an extra hour because they seriously have the smallest bladders in the history of the world and had to stop to pee so much. at one point brittany actually peed in a cup because we didn't want to stop again but she had to go. and then she threw an entire 16 oz cup of NOT SODA out the window. we got home around 11 and i basically went straight to bed because i was exhausted. saturday morning i was up bright and early because we had alumni band practice. we only practiced for an hour and a half because it was sprinkling on and off and the field was getting too bad to march on. after band we had a drummers practice to polish off sequence for that night. i ended up getting really frustrated with myself because i should have been playing better than i was... but it's hard when you're away from the group so long. after practice, heather, brittany, jessica and i went back to heather's and we got pizza and passed out on the couch LOL. we were going to watch Dogma, but we were all so tired from the night before that we ended up taking a nap. we had to be back up at the school at 4:45, so we got there early to fix and tune drums and have a short band practice again. before the parade of bands started the drummers did their sequence. i have to say that it was incredibly fun - though i ended up faking it through a few of the cadences. got to play the short little solo intro to the big quad solo near the end. i realized that i'm glad i didn't do drums in high school. you have to be so serious when you're in the drum section, but now we can dance around and have fun and act stupid. and play some music while we're at it.
sooo we finished the drum sequence and then went directly over to pass in review - so i played quads for that. then i had to run back, get my trumpet, and get ready to go on field. i played with music (not memorized) for the first time EVER. our show kind of sucked because it was raining so hard and the field was so muddy. but - we had fun, and i guess that's what counts. i'm really happy i got to go home because i saw all my high school friends, plus people like benford and rick.
sunday i went to church hella early. yeah, no sleeping in for me this past weekend... i ended up playing handbells because one person apparently didn't show up so i covered her part. did the usual after-church brunch thing, then i packed up my stuff (including cold weather clothes because it is effing COLD now), stopped to talk to my uncle and then got back on the road to school.
and now it's back to the grind!
apparently i am getting a package from Aaron of some sort. he called savannah recently and asked for our address, and he wouldn't tell me why he needed it. so something's coming in the mail from him?!
it's going to be an exciting few days coming up. we're preparing for our band concert on friday night - and my mom is going to be able to come down and see it! this will be the first college performance she's seen. she's also bringing Judy, a high school friend, since she graduated from here and hasn't been on campus since.
thursday i'm getting milkshakes with w? he randomly brought up milkshakes one day and since i haven't seen/talked to him very much recently besides a quick "hey how are you" we're hanging out thursday afternoon.
since that honors project is over, i feel like i can breathe a little easier. i've still got stuff to do, mainly practice playing trumpet out the wazoo, but i feel more in control of things and i don't feel like i'm drowning. which is a great feeling, let me tell you. for once my head is above water.
anyway, i need to finish a short assignment for my cave ecology class. no distractions need to be around!
first of all, i had my first giant paper due for my honors class. it was originally due wednesday, that's why i borrowed w's computer over the weekend, but thankfully Dr. Kazez changed the due date to friday. we also had to do presentations... guess who gets to go first on friday while everyone else gets to wait until monday *raises hand*. i was upset since i was the only one presenting i had to have everything prepared while everyone else got to have the extra weekend. but, honestly, it wasn't as bad as i thought. first presentation - low expectations - and he kind of used me as a guinea pig to show the rest of the class what he wanted out of the presentations. at one point he said i was doing very well so far, so i guess that's a good thing.
friday night, heather and brittany came down to take me home for the weekend. we had so much fun in the car ride, though it took an extra hour because they seriously have the smallest bladders in the history of the world and had to stop to pee so much. at one point brittany actually peed in a cup because we didn't want to stop again but she had to go. and then she threw an entire 16 oz cup of NOT SODA out the window. we got home around 11 and i basically went straight to bed because i was exhausted. saturday morning i was up bright and early because we had alumni band practice. we only practiced for an hour and a half because it was sprinkling on and off and the field was getting too bad to march on. after band we had a drummers practice to polish off sequence for that night. i ended up getting really frustrated with myself because i should have been playing better than i was... but it's hard when you're away from the group so long. after practice, heather, brittany, jessica and i went back to heather's and we got pizza and passed out on the couch LOL. we were going to watch Dogma, but we were all so tired from the night before that we ended up taking a nap. we had to be back up at the school at 4:45, so we got there early to fix and tune drums and have a short band practice again. before the parade of bands started the drummers did their sequence. i have to say that it was incredibly fun - though i ended up faking it through a few of the cadences. got to play the short little solo intro to the big quad solo near the end. i realized that i'm glad i didn't do drums in high school. you have to be so serious when you're in the drum section, but now we can dance around and have fun and act stupid. and play some music while we're at it.
sooo we finished the drum sequence and then went directly over to pass in review - so i played quads for that. then i had to run back, get my trumpet, and get ready to go on field. i played with music (not memorized) for the first time EVER. our show kind of sucked because it was raining so hard and the field was so muddy. but - we had fun, and i guess that's what counts. i'm really happy i got to go home because i saw all my high school friends, plus people like benford and rick.
sunday i went to church hella early. yeah, no sleeping in for me this past weekend... i ended up playing handbells because one person apparently didn't show up so i covered her part. did the usual after-church brunch thing, then i packed up my stuff (including cold weather clothes because it is effing COLD now), stopped to talk to my uncle and then got back on the road to school.
and now it's back to the grind!
apparently i am getting a package from Aaron of some sort. he called savannah recently and asked for our address, and he wouldn't tell me why he needed it. so something's coming in the mail from him?!
it's going to be an exciting few days coming up. we're preparing for our band concert on friday night - and my mom is going to be able to come down and see it! this will be the first college performance she's seen. she's also bringing Judy, a high school friend, since she graduated from here and hasn't been on campus since.
thursday i'm getting milkshakes with w? he randomly brought up milkshakes one day and since i haven't seen/talked to him very much recently besides a quick "hey how are you" we're hanging out thursday afternoon.
since that honors project is over, i feel like i can breathe a little easier. i've still got stuff to do, mainly practice playing trumpet out the wazoo, but i feel more in control of things and i don't feel like i'm drowning. which is a great feeling, let me tell you. for once my head is above water.
anyway, i need to finish a short assignment for my cave ecology class. no distractions need to be around!
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