switch sides

okay, so one of my new years resolutions is to write more. beginning with this blog.

so the last time i wrote i was in the midst of the holiday break. christmas came and went... it was pretty nice and relaxed. not much family drama, which is a nice change.

after christmas, i finally got Bowling with Benford organized. it was so awesome! i think benford really liked it too, because we all love him and don't get to see him nearly enough. it all started when i told him i was going to be taking a bowling class this semester for a gym credit. we seriously talked about bowling for half an hour. when our conversation was wrapping up, i asked if i could see him when i came home for break. he said yeah, we'll go bowling. so i took him up on it. i got the group together and we had a blast.



i am so happy that he and i still have a close relationship. i know i've talked about it again and again, but he is seriously one of my best friends. i love him to death.



after christmas and Bowling with Benford, the biggest thing i did was sledding. brittany and i went out maybe about eight times. i've never been sledding so much in my entire life, haha. we went to cascade a few times, which was scary and awesome.



so - now break is over, and i am back into this "school" idea full swing. i really like my classes so far, so we'll see if in a month or so i am still a fan!

** musics of the world is... wierd. i don't mind the music, i'm pretty open-minded about that kind of thing. but it's a lower level class, so we get a lot of general ed. people in there. i know three other people - we're all music majors that sit in the back. and i happen to really like dr. kazez's sense of humor. so he'll say something hilarious in a completely straight face, i'll get it and start cracking up, and the rest of the class is just like, wtf? who is this crazy person sitting in the back row?!
** analysis of music after 1900 is scary. it's all the crazy stuff that happened in the 20th century - basically everything we've learned in theory so far is thrown out the window. and the thing i hate is that kazez glosses over so much... i still don't think people understand some things, and he just moves on to the next section in the book. whatever. looks like i'll be cursing theory again for another semeseter.
** psychology stats. omg so easy. basic algebra is all. making tables and graphs... oh lovely. i'm happy i don't have to stress over it.
** vocal pedagogy has a giant lurning curve. not being a vocalist, there are a lot of terms and techniques that i just don't know. but it's been okay so far because i am cool with everyone in that class, so i am not afraid to ask questions. dr. schubert is a great prof, too, and that always helps.
** instrumental music in the schools is exciting. basically - how to be a band director. this is TOTALLY my area. i am really looking forward to getting into this one.
** bowling. ahahaha. basically, i get an A for going to the bowling alley and bowling two games. awesome. it's really nice because i get to relax and chill for an hour and a half. very de-stressing, i like it.
** piano lessons... oy. i am very nervous for this one. dr. d is a great prof, but i am worried i am going to murder myself over the piano because i am not the best player, and it takes me a long time to get a piece down. it's not like i'm not looking forward to it, cause i really am. we'll see what happens i guess.
** trumpet... hasn't started. lolz. his wife just had a baby like a week ago or something so they're dealing with all that. so i think we might start at the beginning of february. but hey, it's cool with me. i really need to start playing more though. i mean, i play, but not enough. as usual.

soooo that's my life. besides band and handbell choir. i am a manager for bells, which is sweet cause i think i am getting paid $7.80 an hour. plus i get to be dr. faber's shadow, and i love her so it's all good.

ooh! i found this awesome site where you can take the audio from any youtube video and convert it into an mp3. so there's no need to download itunes or limewire. yay!! i have been going crazy with it, cause there's so much music i still want.

whew. so that's been my last three weeks. i think i have work to do now, and i have to write a letter, so signing off. adios amigos!

don honny

BREAAAAAAK.

halleluiah.

got home last wednesday afternoon. brenda and stephanie ambushed me as soon as i pulled in the driveway! it was so funny - they made signs. hung out with them plus jessica at mcdonald's for like, an HOUR while brittany was making chicken nuggets. (aka britteniggets). then i went to jessica's for the routine dinner - steaks, mashed potatoes, corn, and crescent rolls. yum!
thursday, my cousin graduated from ohio technical institute. had to drive into downtown cle. i didn't realize how much i missed that city! we made it there in 12 minutes... which says something about the way my uncle was driving. we went to olive garden to celebrate. later that night i went to the high school band concert with jessica. let's just say that i'm used to listening to a collegiate symphonic band....
friday, i actually got to sleep in! holy cow! didn't really do much... just relaxed and watched t.v. for the first time in like, two weeks. did i mention that finals week was complete HELL?? i had four, yes, four finals, on tuesday. granted, three of them only lasted 15 minutes, but still. monday was our piano final which i kind of screwed up on, but managed a B+ overall. then tuesday was my string methods final, playing stringed bass. got an A in that class. then i had to run upstairs to dr. k for my skills proficiency exam... easy peasy... got an A-. thennnnn i had to run back downstairs and warm up for my trumpet jury. it went great! i was asked to play the F and E flat scales, which are two of the easier ones. my solo went really well also. i only missed one or two notes, and i stayed relatively in tune. after i was done there, i met up with dr. w and S., and we went shopping for fishing club stuff. it was really fun to hang out with them outside school. we bought about $300 worth of fishing club gear, using up our funds for this semester for student senate. then we ate lunch at a mexican restaurant. we headed back to school and i took my students with special needs final at 4. i thought it was pretty easy, actually. everyone was making it out to be some behemoth, but it wasn't bad. once i finished that test i was FINALLY done for the day, but i spent 6 hours in the damn library studying for my music history final the next morning. yeah... that was horrible. the stuff i knew, i knew REALLY well, but the stuff i didn't know...i had NO clue. ugh. whatever, it's done. so far, i've calculated a 3.846 gpa, and i'm still waiting on my music history final grade. not too shabby... not to brag or anything. whoo, that semester is done!
anyway... saturday, i woke up early to go to a rehearsal at church for the choir. we sang a cantata in the service the next day, sooo i thought i might need to practice a little if my mom was going to recruit me to sing in the choir. after that i didn't really do much the rest of the day.
yesterday was the performance of the cantata. it went really well, though i screwed up once and added "and" on "go tell it on the mountain". bad habits are hard to break. it was actually pretty cool to sing in the choir, now that my skills have gotten better. i might do it more often.
and today... wow, today. it was awesome. i went up to prospect to meet up with mr. b. i haven't seen him since september, and i really missed him. we hung out there for a while, because he had a few errands to do. then we went to lunch at lowell st. cafe. he had a $5 gift certificate. i insisted i would pay... the bill was $4.77. hahahaha. then we went to oakwood. his students didn't come today because they're doing the holiday parties and all that. we had a serious conversation about education. he's frustrated because his students at oakwood are not on the same level as windsor or prospect, and the administration is wondering why. well, obviously because the entire demographic of the school is different, and what might work in one place just doesn't in another. after hanging out there for a while, we went to eastern heights for their band concert. i got to see my band teacher, science teacher, and history teacher. it was so weird being back there after not being there for almost four years. i was worried mr. b (different than the band mr. b) wouldn't remember me... but he actually called me by my first name! and gave me a hug. i didn't realize how much i missed him and the rest of that school until i actually walked in. so wierd how much comes back to you. i went down to the band room after the concert, and boy it was so wierd. after we left the school, i gave mr. b his present.
yay for christmas! yay for break!

pick me up love, from the bottom

yes i know it's been three weeks since i've posted a blog. honestly i just haven't been turned on to the idea of writing and i've been lazy and too busy. it's this time of year where all the profs try to cram in that one last project or paper or something. i am in the midst of finishing a 9 page paper, writing an original composition, playing a piece on trumpet and piano, preparing a presentation for a movie in my education class, writing another assignment for education, preparing for the proficiency test in skills, re-doing my test in music history, and working on stuff for my piano final. this is all taking place in the next week and a half. i am SO counting down to the 16th because that will mean that i am done, i can go home and never see this hell of a semester again.

besides all the work and craziness, i have to say that this is close to being my favorite semester yet. i finally feel comfortable, i have friends all over, i feel independent and i have the guts to do stuff i didn't think i could. i have learned to manage my time and am on top of everything (for the most part).

so i went home for thanksgiving. not that special. i mean, i loved being able to see my friends and family, but there was some drama at my grandmother's house when we went for thanksgiving dinner and i saw just how dysfunctional my family really was. on the other hand, my grandma has started going through all her pictures, and it was so awesome because she has original pictures dating back to the 1870s. can you believe that?! i saw pictures of my great-great-great grandmother. almost unfathomable. i think when i go home for christmas i will help her with sorting through some of them.

this past week was just crazy. i got charged for overloading on credits - almost $1100 dollars. and on top of that, they're getting rid of the Pell grant, so there goes about $2000 of my tuition. So even though i got the credits thing fixed (the registrar's office had made a mistake...) i am still going to be short about $2300 for next semester. i mean, it could be a lot worse, considering full tuition and room and board is $45,000, but still. i don't have $2300 just laying around... let alone $23. so that financial stuff on top of all the stress of finals just sucks. i just feel sad today.

on one good note, though, i finished my trumpet lessons for this year today! no lessons until january 18th, praise the gods. and we had our band concert this past sunday, so i don't have band until next year either. i'll finally have my tuesday and thursday nights back. not that i'll really be using them for things other than homework and papers and crap...

blah blah blah. i hate those days where you feel melancholy and you don't know why. well, that's a lie, i kind of do know why but it involves someone else and i guess i should just never get my hopes up in the first place because i always come out of it feeling bummed. ugggh. but i do feel melancholy. yeah, i like that word, deal with it.

ooh! we got snow this morning. about freakin' time.

ugh, i just want to go home right now. the band concert on sunday depressed me kind of too, because there were maybe three people that i knew that came, two of them professors. it's just hard to perform for people i don't know... and then i get bummed because people i want to come and look for don't come at all.

i miss northern ohio. i miss walking down the street to my old schools. i miss my friends. and my family. i miss the roads being plowed every two hours because of the snowfall. i miss making snow forts with jessica. i miss singing songs while walking home from school. i miss my dad. and my mom. and my brother. I MISS MY BED. i miss benford. i miss not having to shower with flipflops on. i miss not having to pay quarters to do my laundry. i miss having a boyfriend. i miss my old teachers. i miss walking around downtown. i miss the library. i miss RALPH. i miss making odd concoctions for dinner because i'm too lazy to actually cook anything. i miss practicing my trumpet in my room and my dad coming in to ask me some stupid question. i miss shopping with my mom. i miss sleeping over at jessica's house. i miss sleepovers in general. i miss everything right now.

wow, sorry. melancholia makes me nostalgic.

let's hope i'm in a better mood the next time i write.

dark dizzy merry-go-round

hey, it's only been two weeks since i posted! i'm getting better - at least it's not almost a month since :P

so. in the past two weeks, the biggest thing that's happened to me is going to chicago. yeah, chicago. the art league offered a trip - $35 for the hostel and admission to two art museums. lauren loves that city, so she convinced me to go and i am happy i went. apart from the people we had to spend time with: the art majors that were in charge of the trip were really rude and condescending and not open at all. i mean, if you didn't want us on this trip, don't offer it to everyone. so we had to spend two 6 hour trips in the car with them... ooh it was frosty lol. but apart from that, lauren and i pretty much just wandered around the city by ourselves. we did the usual touristy stuff:

the bean



navy pier



i took this on navy pier too. it's probably one of the best shots i've gotten in a while



john hancock observatory



caught a comedy club



generally caused shenanigans



and saw some really cool art





so yeah. that was definitely an awesome time. i want to go back! there are so many things i haven't seen.

since then, i've just been doing schoolwork and more schoolwork. i am fairly well caught up on everything, it's just a lot to do all the time. i have finalized my schedule for next semester, everything is the same except the gym: i'm taking bowling for credit instead xD i'm so stoked lol

so today, five of us music ed. majors went to indianapolis. the Bands of America semi-finals were today, so we took advantage of free tickets through MENC (music educators national conference). too bad we got there late, couldn't find the ticket booth and went all around the stadium until an hour later where the lady in charge was finally contacted. it was ridiculous. first of all, the indy colts stadium is fricking huge! and the bands... oh the bands. i have never seen that caliber of marching band. makes the ehspmb shrivel in comparison. i can't believe the time and money put into these competitions. such elaborate sets and costumes and themes oh my god. i'm actually chatting with brenda right now online and she's already talking to me like i'm going to get the ehspmb director position and if i'll compete. HAHA. with the way things are going, i'll be really relieved to get a freaking JOB. i'm actually working on a marching band project right now for my class. we have to chart the drill for a halftime song. i'm doing Takin' It To The Streets. i know, how original, but i already had it in one of the pitches for my shows so i just decided to use it. i can't wait to finish it!

so anyway. i think this is it for this post. bai!