Yes, it has been forever since i posted on here. Obviously says something about the way fall semester ended... it was by far the hardest semester I've ever had to deal with. in high school, i was pretty lucky because with the exception of physics and calculus, i didn't really have to work at anything. and really physics and calculus was just tedious work that i didn't want to do. but this past semester, god. for once i actually had to work at a lot of things just to keep my head above water. much more textbook reading, much more studying. i practically had no social life outside of krieg hall, and even then i'd leave and go home to my empty apartment and study some more. taking cave ecology was a bad decision. i did learn a lot, and most of it was interesting. but i did not expect to work that hard on a class i'm only taking for the damn B credit and will never talk about again in my entire life. it blew big chunks.
so - here's hoping that next semester is much better. i've gotten most of my textbooks in the mail already (all hail amazon.com) and am trying my hardest not to begin to read them. and ALL of my classes revolve around my major, so they're all either music or education classes. which i think will make my life easier. at least i don't have to huff it across campus to the damn science building, i only have to go between two buildings during any day, and they're down the street from each other. the tradeoff is that DAMN 8:00 class. i think that's gonna be my downfall. i don't know how people survive on four or five hours of sleep... if i don't get at least seven, i'm a freaking zombie and can't speak in complete sentences. with three writing intensive classes and that god-awful early wake up call, i know already that i'm going to be sacrificing sleep. i don't mean to bitch about it a lot. i'll suck it up and deal with it eventually. but from the comfort of my own home on winter break with nothing to do... allow me this tiny pity party?
one thing that's been bugging me recently is the friend group and how it changes as we get older. i hate being so far away from everyone. and i'll just say it - yeah, i'm jealous. there are things that i want to do up here that i've missed because i've been down at school. plus, there are memories being made and i am not a part of them. i don't want this to turn into a woe-is-me session but sometimes i feel really left out. i know i made the decision to go to school three hours away but there's no bloody way i was staying up here after high school and witt was an offer i couldn't refuse. i guess i just don't feel especially close to anyone anymore because they're all changing and maturing and doing things and i got to see them four times in four months or so. it's depressing. especially because most of us have jobs now, so when i'm home it's a struggle to get everyone together because they've got their own schedules. and while i'm sitting at home doing nothing they're doing their own things. it is saddening.
one more thing before i finish this exorbitant post.
i caught an interview with gustavo dudamel tonight on pbs. he's the conductor of the l.a. philharmonic and has created programs in california to get kids into music. with funding they've gotten kids instruments and teachers who would otherwise not be able to do so. he's a champion for music education and is doing lots to help keep it in schools. and i just have to say that i am really happy and grateful i found a life/career path that i love. i love it. i love everything about it. and it really bugs me that people are so pessimistic about the future. yes, i realize the economy sucks and budgets are shrinking and stuff like music is being cut. hell, it's happened right around here. but - people like gustavo dudamel are doing everything they can to keep music a part of schools' curriculum. and this gives me hope. i'll be lucky to find a job when i graduate, but i haven't lost hope. i know things may look bad, but there are also good things happening everywhere. i just can't let myself get bogged down by the-world-is-going-to-hell mentality. sure, i can bitch about it for a while, but even after a major bitch session i can still find stuff to be hopeful about.
so guess what people! have hope! things are gonna be okay!
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Gangbusters
Well. This has been an interesting few days.
Friday night was the band concert. It was. So. Good. I mean... Dr. J sent an e-mail out afterwards, saying that he hadn't experienced what we did ever before. He calls it 'flow'; where we're all moving, breathing and making music together. Not just notes. I do have to say that I thought it went stellar. There were only a few moments of raised eyebrows: let's-reign-this-back-in-guys. Everyone played beautifully.
Saturday night was the Symphony concert downtown. The cirque de la symphonie came, and it was awesome! They're like a small-scale cirque du soliel (which I had the pleasure of seeing in the CLE) and it was just really neat. At one point they played Ride of the Valkyries, and both of my friends (one of whom being a music major) said, "Oh! Star Wars!" Urrrggghhh. IT. IS. NOT. STAR WARS. Ahem. Anyway.
Sunday afternoon was Dr. K's recital... it was, in a word, AWKWARD. He didn't print any programs as to be 'ecologically friendly', which is totally cool and frankly pretty smart. But - they wrote the program on the chalkboard behind the piano. Like, what?! It was just pretty informal and didn't feel all that professional and I was a little disappointed. Though he did play a Bach cello suite which is so lovely, you know, so yeah that was nice. He said he missed a note at one point because he was thinking about me (uhhmmm... what...) because he wanted me to get up there and show where the accent was on beat two. Who the hell knows what he's talking about most of the time.
Last night I'm pretty sure I aced my percussion playing test... and, considering my state of mind at the time, that's a feat.
Tonight, we had the band/orchestra party down in Founders. It was surprisingly really cool... not too many people showed up so it was chill without being overly obnoxious. Towards the end we just sat around in a big group chatting. It was nice. If we had more time I wish we could do more stuff like that... I love the band but sometimes I don't feel the band family. I know we're in college now blah blah blah but it's just nice to be a part of something you can really identify with.
So I'm still getting those mixed signals. And others are picking up on the ones being sent my direction. Hmm.
Gah. I suddenly got nostalgic and homesick. I can't wait to go home in eight days.
Friday night was the band concert. It was. So. Good. I mean... Dr. J sent an e-mail out afterwards, saying that he hadn't experienced what we did ever before. He calls it 'flow'; where we're all moving, breathing and making music together. Not just notes. I do have to say that I thought it went stellar. There were only a few moments of raised eyebrows: let's-reign-this-back-in-guys. Everyone played beautifully.
Saturday night was the Symphony concert downtown. The cirque de la symphonie came, and it was awesome! They're like a small-scale cirque du soliel (which I had the pleasure of seeing in the CLE) and it was just really neat. At one point they played Ride of the Valkyries, and both of my friends (one of whom being a music major) said, "Oh! Star Wars!" Urrrggghhh. IT. IS. NOT. STAR WARS. Ahem. Anyway.
Sunday afternoon was Dr. K's recital... it was, in a word, AWKWARD. He didn't print any programs as to be 'ecologically friendly', which is totally cool and frankly pretty smart. But - they wrote the program on the chalkboard behind the piano. Like, what?! It was just pretty informal and didn't feel all that professional and I was a little disappointed. Though he did play a Bach cello suite which is so lovely, you know, so yeah that was nice. He said he missed a note at one point because he was thinking about me (uhhmmm... what...) because he wanted me to get up there and show where the accent was on beat two. Who the hell knows what he's talking about most of the time.
Last night I'm pretty sure I aced my percussion playing test... and, considering my state of mind at the time, that's a feat.
Tonight, we had the band/orchestra party down in Founders. It was surprisingly really cool... not too many people showed up so it was chill without being overly obnoxious. Towards the end we just sat around in a big group chatting. It was nice. If we had more time I wish we could do more stuff like that... I love the band but sometimes I don't feel the band family. I know we're in college now blah blah blah but it's just nice to be a part of something you can really identify with.
So I'm still getting those mixed signals. And others are picking up on the ones being sent my direction. Hmm.
Gah. I suddenly got nostalgic and homesick. I can't wait to go home in eight days.
Saturday, December 04, 2010
Don't throw away your playful beginnings
Once again, too much time has passed and I haven't even thought about this damn blog.
Since the 17th:
1) Thanksgiving break was pretty uneventful... considering that it wasn't really a "break", more like an "oh-shit-this-4,000-word-paper-is-due-monday" kind of thing. I worked on it a lot at my grandmother's house, which was pretty nice because it was a quiet warm place to work and I had a nice fast mac to work on. I finished it friday night after about a 6 hour marathon, and then met up with the Crew at Chipotle. We ran around the mall after that for a while, which was quite interesting. I miss all my friends so muchhhhhhh. I miss the way we used to hang out, because now it feels different and I'm not sure why. I guess that's part of growing up.
2) I am not sure what to make of a few people, both at home and here. They're sending me mixed signals, and I'm not sure if it's just myself and the terrible trait of overanalyzing everything, but I can't help shake the feeling that I'm not - that something is actually going on. I'm not going to go into details, partially because I just had a marathon talk with a good friend for like an hour and a half and we talked about this and frankly I'm a little tired of talking about it right now. Half of me wants to go crazy and be reckless, and half of me is scared that I'm just looking too much.
3) Surprisingly, I don't have that Final Exam Drowning Feeling. I have three finals (plus trumpet and piano juries) and I think that if I put some real time in, things will be okay. It helps that band is now over, so I don't have to take two hours two days a week out of my schedule, and tutoring is now over which was three hours a week. Granted I'm going to lose that time on my paycheck, but hopefully I can make up for some of it by getting back to organizing the band library which I've neglected recently.
4) The more I think about it, the more excited I am for next semester. Dr. w and I met up this morning because it had been a while since we'd seen each other, since before break, and we talked some about the poverty honors class. He sent out an initial framework for the class and encouraged us to think about it in preparation for a pre-class dinner meeting next weekend, and today he asked me about it. I think right now I'm at the point where I'm excited to do work, but don't know where to start and the whole issue seems so daunting. It is hard to change the world. It is hard to change people's mindsets and really make a difference. We talked about the starfish story, you know, and that's great and all but at the same time there's this little voice in the back of my head that says "what about all the other starfish we might pass up?" What about them? What about those it is impossible to reach, or frankly cannot reach because there is not enough time/energy/resources/daylight? Right now I am stuck. I want to make a difference in something, somewhere, so badly, but I don't know how. I hope, obviously, that this class will help there. w also said something about possibly being able to actually go to Kenya, where he went this past summer, where they're doing a lot of the same things but even on a more basic level - clean drinking water, books for the kids to read, things like that. Jeez, I couldn't even imagine that. What if I got to go to Africa? Ugh, I can't even let myself think about that possibility right now.
5) I FINALLY got the petition for my H credit back. Witt has this requirement where you have to take 8 gen. ed classes from 8 different departments as part of the gen ed curriculum. Well, with my ridiculous schedule, that is nearly impossible. So Dr. w and I worked on a petition to waive that rule so I'd have 8 classes in 7 departments. On Thursday (while I was feeling like death, 24-hour stomach flu) I got a call from the Registrar's office saying it had been granted. HALLELUJAH!!!!! One more thing to cross off my list and get me that much closer to graduating on time. Now I need to submit a credit overload petition and pray that they offer Spanish next summer, so I can get those pesky gen ed requirements done with. But - I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel - things are not so insurmountable.
Praise God.
Oh - Yay for snow! December 1, first snowfall that I've seen. So grand.
A week and a half and I'll finally be done with this hellacious semester. Looking forward to it with all my being.
Since the 17th:
1) Thanksgiving break was pretty uneventful... considering that it wasn't really a "break", more like an "oh-shit-this-4,000-word-paper-is-due-monday" kind of thing. I worked on it a lot at my grandmother's house, which was pretty nice because it was a quiet warm place to work and I had a nice fast mac to work on. I finished it friday night after about a 6 hour marathon, and then met up with the Crew at Chipotle. We ran around the mall after that for a while, which was quite interesting. I miss all my friends so muchhhhhhh. I miss the way we used to hang out, because now it feels different and I'm not sure why. I guess that's part of growing up.
2) I am not sure what to make of a few people, both at home and here. They're sending me mixed signals, and I'm not sure if it's just myself and the terrible trait of overanalyzing everything, but I can't help shake the feeling that I'm not - that something is actually going on. I'm not going to go into details, partially because I just had a marathon talk with a good friend for like an hour and a half and we talked about this and frankly I'm a little tired of talking about it right now. Half of me wants to go crazy and be reckless, and half of me is scared that I'm just looking too much.
3) Surprisingly, I don't have that Final Exam Drowning Feeling. I have three finals (plus trumpet and piano juries) and I think that if I put some real time in, things will be okay. It helps that band is now over, so I don't have to take two hours two days a week out of my schedule, and tutoring is now over which was three hours a week. Granted I'm going to lose that time on my paycheck, but hopefully I can make up for some of it by getting back to organizing the band library which I've neglected recently.
4) The more I think about it, the more excited I am for next semester. Dr. w and I met up this morning because it had been a while since we'd seen each other, since before break, and we talked some about the poverty honors class. He sent out an initial framework for the class and encouraged us to think about it in preparation for a pre-class dinner meeting next weekend, and today he asked me about it. I think right now I'm at the point where I'm excited to do work, but don't know where to start and the whole issue seems so daunting. It is hard to change the world. It is hard to change people's mindsets and really make a difference. We talked about the starfish story, you know, and that's great and all but at the same time there's this little voice in the back of my head that says "what about all the other starfish we might pass up?" What about them? What about those it is impossible to reach, or frankly cannot reach because there is not enough time/energy/resources/daylight? Right now I am stuck. I want to make a difference in something, somewhere, so badly, but I don't know how. I hope, obviously, that this class will help there. w also said something about possibly being able to actually go to Kenya, where he went this past summer, where they're doing a lot of the same things but even on a more basic level - clean drinking water, books for the kids to read, things like that. Jeez, I couldn't even imagine that. What if I got to go to Africa? Ugh, I can't even let myself think about that possibility right now.
5) I FINALLY got the petition for my H credit back. Witt has this requirement where you have to take 8 gen. ed classes from 8 different departments as part of the gen ed curriculum. Well, with my ridiculous schedule, that is nearly impossible. So Dr. w and I worked on a petition to waive that rule so I'd have 8 classes in 7 departments. On Thursday (while I was feeling like death, 24-hour stomach flu) I got a call from the Registrar's office saying it had been granted. HALLELUJAH!!!!! One more thing to cross off my list and get me that much closer to graduating on time. Now I need to submit a credit overload petition and pray that they offer Spanish next summer, so I can get those pesky gen ed requirements done with. But - I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel - things are not so insurmountable.
Praise God.
Oh - Yay for snow! December 1, first snowfall that I've seen. So grand.
A week and a half and I'll finally be done with this hellacious semester. Looking forward to it with all my being.
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