3/1 Well, there's really nothing too much to report. I got my Government paper done in a lot less time than I thought it might take. It really wasn't that bad, all things considered. So I turned that in this morning. Other than that, not much is up. I might recommend, however, that if you have a chance and you want a laugh, call Sara and me and listen to our answering machine. We tried to do the speaking in unison thing and failed, but left the outgoing greeting as it was... so that's fun for all. 940-FOX-UCAN.
3/4 Well, I'm writing from Plano tonight, the night of the BSB concert. I'm not there. I will never be there. It's quite sad, actually. But, life is good and home is good, so I don't mind all that much, I suppose. One week till Spring Break... that's very nice to know. My family will be doing a lovely Texas Tour of our own... I don't think we've decided where we're going yet, but it promises to be jolly good fun for all, I'm sure. The week after Spring Break is my choir tour, which should be equally jolly good fun. But, in the meantime, there's not too much of anything new to report except that I discovered that I really didn't have to worry about my Aural Skills grade, because I just found out that all I have are A's so far! neat! But, as I said, other than that... not much.... I'm going to do a little updating to the site... I just had a thought for a new section... so I think I may go make it now... ta-ta!
3/6 Let's see... a little news today... got back my gov't paper, and I got a...... 92!!!!!!! woo-hoo!!!!!! not bad, eh? And, I did the first part of my Aural Skills midterm today, which went pretty well... I have the second part Wednesday. Tomorrow I sing for the scholarship auditions for next year. And on an unrelated note, we're getting a visitor on Thursday, yea! (Clint!) So that will be great fun, I'm sure... haha... later, all
3/8 Well, I just finished my much dreaded Aural Skills midterm. I have an entirely less than good feeling about this. There was a LOT of interval recognition on it, and I HATE THAT STUFF! I think I did ok... and I think I'll pass, but I'm not betting on a whole lot more than that. ergh. I'm mad. ergh. Oh, and the sppedwriting part... THAT makes me mad too! (at myself, I suppose) I did Happy Birthday fine. perfect even, but I know I got off somewhere in God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen... ergh!!!! I got the rhythmic dictation fine, and one of the melodic dictations, but I screwed up the second melodic dictation too, which is normally my strong suit! ergh!!!!! I'm so mad right now.... ergh!!!!! ah well, time for lunch, then Physics, then practice, then choir, then lab, then aerobics, then Dawson, the homework.... ugh! I am so mad.... ah well.... [sigh] [deep breath in, deep breath out, deep breath in, deep breath out]
3/12 Well, I just got home from church and I thought I'd do one last little update real quick before we leave on our family field trip. We're leaving in probably an hour or so to have a little trip just driving around Texas. I will be back sometime on Friday, just in time to practice my part of the FUMC talent show/dinner thing on Saturday... I would encourage anyone who loves me or loves auctions to come! FUMC Plano, doors open at 5, dinner at 6, show at 7:30. I think that's right... anyway... so, I'm occupied for at least some time on Friday, and a good deal of Saturday, I would assume... so unfortunately, I have hardly any time to see any of me friends here at home. =( I have to leave for a choir practice in Denton on Sunday... so I guess that most of my socializing will have to wait for the summer. But anyway... guests are always welcome in Denton!!!!! Well, gotta go help pack.... love to all!
AND NOW... [drumroll]... WORLEY FAMILY FIELD TRIP 2000!!!!!!
Writing now on 3/13 from a Best Western in Midland Texas, at the end of our second day on the road. We left Plano yesterday, headed west with no real destination in mind, and ended up in Abilene. But that was only after passing through Thurber Texas, population 5. No joke. It was neat. Their whole lives are based around promoting tourism about having only 5 people in the whole town.
We woke up this morning and spent a good deal of time exploring the Abilene Christian University campus while the students there enjoy their Spring Break. From there we traveled to dowtown Abilene and just sort of walked about... we saw this awesome old hotel that has been fully restored and is now a swank retirement home... way cool. Then we had lunch at some kind of old train depot place and then we toured the Abilene Paramount Theatre, which is also way cool. Then we looked at a number of old planes and such at the local Air Force base. After we grew tired of Abilene, we did a quick drive-through of Big Springs and then went here, to Midland.
We scoured the wrong side of Midland looking for a pizza place, because we felt like pizza, and we couldn't find anything that looked like a decent restaurant, except for Taco Bell. So after Taco Bell we drove back to the hotel a different way, on which route we saw a Mr. Gatti's, a Little Ceasars, and two Pizza Huts. heh heh heh... Anyway... That's it for tonight.
3/14Well, we started out this morning by going from Midland to Odessa, where we saw what had been advertised as the world's largest (statue of a) jackrabbit, at supposedly 10 feet tall. Well, upon reaching said jackrabbitt, we found him to be entirely less than impressive, at certainly no more than 8 feet tall. From there, we hastened on to a large meteor crater thing, also in Odessa. From there, we went to what my parents told me was the "million barrel museum".... otherwise known as "here's a big hole in the ground that's got concrete all around, vaguely reminiscent of the drag racing venue in Grease, which holds a million barrels of oil when its half full, and we locals think it's particualrly cool because some freak millionaire tried to turn it into a lake but failed because, hello, this is drought country baby, and his lake evaporated!" heh heh heh.... So anyway, after the evaporated lake, we went to Pecos, Texas, where we finally had Pizza Hut! yay!!!
Then we went to another museum, but this time, I actually liked it! (I bet you were starting to think that never happened!) It was cool... yet another example of a well renovated hotel put to good use. The museum itself was just your basic Old West artifacts and stuff, but it was cool. So, after a stop at Wal-Mart, we left Pecos and headed to Balmorhea State Park, which has this bizarre huge swimming pool from a natural spring... which isn't all that odd except that, once again, this is drought country, people! So, following our quick stop there, we headed across the Davis Mountains to the appropriately named Fort Davis.
And if you thought the adventure was over, you were wrong! We moseyed around Fort Davis for a little while and then looked through our hotel guide and found a grand total of two hotels and one bed & breakfast place listed. We checked the B&B and found that it was full. Then we went to another hotel, where we had seen a Vacancy sign earlier... Dad went in and found that the only vacancy was a one-bed room. So we checked the other hotel and found that it was full. We called a few hotels in a couple of other cities that were only about an hour away, but neither of those cities had any vacancies... So we went back to the one-bed place and got the room. The neat thing is, it has a kitchen, so we went to the store and had Tuna Helper and peas and biscuits for dinner with Ben and Jerry's ice cream for dessert! It's been great!!! So, that's about it... except unfortunately, we can't seem to dial in and connect, so I'm writing this now, Tuesday night, only to upload it later.... Wednesday, I suppose....
3/15 Well, today we traveled from Fort Davis to the Mexican border...
after stopping at the actual Fort at Fort Davis... then we went through Alpine, home of Sul Ross State University and a McDonald's. Then we went into Big Bend State Park, through more mountains and such to a trail that leads to a canyon, which is the Mexican border, as determined by the Rio Grande.
So, at about sunset, we left the border and headed back through Marathon, to Fort Stockton, where we are now....
3/24 Well, I didn't really have a lot of opportunities to continue to update at the end of the trip, so... to wrap up my extensive coverage of Worly Family Field Trip 2000: we came home! [the crowd goes wild] Yes, well, I know it was an exciting adventure for all concerned, and a lovely item for the webpage. But, you ask, why have I not updated all this week that I've been home? Well, I've NOT BEEN "HOME"! I've been in Amarillo with the A Cappella choir... All that went very well, and now I'm back at school! So, that's it kids... That's all I'm saying... I'm kinda tired and a wee bit ill, so I'm going to not worry about updating today, except to say I have a choir concert tonight... come if you can!
3/27 Well hello all... a few things have happened since my last writing, albeit not too much of importance. Not real importance anyway. Chronologically, let's see... the concert went quite well on Friday, I thought. We sang well, and Mom and Dad got to see me, as did Wayne and my lovely wonderful beautiful polite talented and otherwise great nephews, Michael and Adam. A few pictures were taken... hopefully I can get those developed and up soon. So, moving on, Saturday: if you will recall, I was on tour all week. On Tuesday when the new *N Sync album came out I seriously walked roughly a mile in literally freezing rain to buy it. That's what a freak I am. Well, unfortunately, I was in a cable-free hotel room when their concert dates were announced, and I had no clue that tickets were going on sale Saturday. So when I turned on the radio at like 11 am on Satuday, only to hear that KISS is giving a way tickets to the "Sold Out *N Sync show".... I hate to admit this, because I like to think of myself as a more balanced person than this.... but i cried. I really did. I mean, it was just the fact that I didn't know! If I had known I would have been first in line at my local ticketmaster outlet, I assure you... so I was really really really disappointed... So Sara and I went online to ticketmaster.com and looked at other dates and lo and behold we now have tickets to the San Antonio show! Not necessarily particularly good seats, particularly given my height... floor level, row 30.... but still.... we will be there, and that's at least part of the point.... So, after we got the tickets, I came to Plano for a few hours, which is of little importance. Not much really went on this weekend, aside from trying to study Physics. At one point I ventured to a laundromat in an effort to do all my laundry at once.... It was a failure... crowded, busy, lots of smoking going on, distraction, etc.. by the end of the day, I had come back home disgusted with said laundromat, and I eventually ran out of quarters to dry clothes, and the change machine was Out Of Order... so I had to go Colonial, and some of my clothes are still drying on hangers and racks in the room. I took the Physics test today, which ended up being surprisingly not hard, and I think I did well. Maybe one of these days I'll update the grade part of this page... regardless, having finished the test, I've moved on to my newest extracurricular endeavor... Justin Timberlake of *N Sync has his own charity, the Justin Timberlake Foundation, which benefits music education. And basically, looking over all of the random charity work I've done over the last several years, with church and school and all that... I can't think of a cause that I identify with any more than Music Education and the preservation thereof. And particularly after hearing about this Foundation and then immediately going on choir tour and seeing all these high schools and their programs.... anyway, I was suddenly inspired to write *N Sync to not only show my general support, but also to volunteer in whatever way may be possible... depending of course upon the basic structure of the foundation and the way it is run.... etc etc etc. So I wrote a letter in MS Works and made it look professional and printed envelopes too, so as to keep from looking like potential bride #8,452,971,476.... and wrote RE: TIMBERLAKE FOUNDATION FOR MUSIC EDUCATION on the envelopes... anyway... chances are nothing will come of it... but I wanted to do it... part of my basic life-long plan of living with no regrets... But anyway, that's pretty much today's news.... I'll look into posting the letter here soon....
3/28 Well, I posted the letter.... and other than that, not much has really gone on.... I had a really "fun incident" happen to me online last night, but it's all been basically taken care of now, or at least as much as can be... but basically, it was a little weird thing and now it's over, but it has more or less dominated the last 24 hours... besides of course a trip to Wal-Mart. I got the Jessica Simpson CD and a few other things.... Father of the Bride! Yea! Hi, Thomas! Watched it tonight! Thought of you! haha.... anyway, that's been pretty much everything, so I'm signing off.... later!
3/31 Well, I got a 92 on my Physics test! That was gorgeous... Other than that, let's see.... just sort of trudging through the school work.... only a few weeks (4?) until juries and stuff.... The most interesting news recently is that Lindsay and Alicia and Sara and Erin and Emily (C) and of course myself will be performing a bunch of random selections for a banquet at Lindsay's church on the 14th. Same night as the Jazz Singers concert... but of course, this would be a paying gig, so it takes priority.... But anyway... we're looking at doing When You Believe, Wide Open Spaces, And So It Goes, Butterfly, This Day, and possibly For All We Know, or Workin' On A Groovy Thing... but anyway.... that's it for now.... and therefore, that's it for March!
FUTURE PLANS
F 4/14 Jazz Singers Concert vs. gig at Lindsay's church
T 4/25 Grand Chorus Brahms Requiem at First UMC Denton at 7pm
TH 4/27 My sheet says "ACappella Concert with Chang" (i don't know who Chang is) in the Concert Hall at 5pm (the Concert Hall is NOT the Dillo)
