a summary of my activities in september 2001 write me!
9/4 Hello everyone! Writing this morning from the music school mac lab, which seems to be the only place I go to update the page anymore. Isn't that sad? Anyway... life is good, life is busy, but I'm ok. I'm just starting my second week of classes after the Labor Day weekend... like I said, things are ok... I haven't had enough exposure to any of my classes to really say for sure whether any of them are going ot kick my butt or not. Piano IV and woodwinds methods are probably the biggest contenders for that role in my life this semester. Hm. As to what I've been doing the last few days... well, yesterday was Labor Day and Wayne's 32nd birthday (although he's only 20 in hex... what a nerd) so I worked for much of the day, at time and a half, yessssss.... and then did family bowling, in which I was severely beaten by all other members of the family, inculding my 4 and 6 year old nephews. How depressing do you get? Sunday was a pretty good day, in that I didn't have kids choir or chimes, so I got to go home earlier than usual, which was nice. Earlier in the weekend.... Friday, Danielle and Ethan came for a visit and stayed the night, which was fun, and then I worked Saturday. (I also worked Friday, for that matter... details, details) After work on Saturday, I came back to Denton, and Sara and Pat and I had a little get together at Damien's apartment. Good times. Anyway... that's been my life. I've just finished piano class and I'm about to head out to Aural Skilz.... so I guess I'll sign off for now and catch you kids on the flip side. Adios.
9/15 Well... it's been a surreal last few days, huh? I can't even begin to try to think about what kind of comments I should make about the events of Tuesday and the days following... I really just don't even know. I know it's been crazy, and unreal, and scary, and unbelievable, and it looks like we'll be going to war again. Who knows whether it'll be a little bitty war or a big bad war... but either way, war is inherently uncool. So... I don't know... I will say that if you can donate either blood or money or both, that's probably a good thing to do. [sigh] man. Anyway... in less depressing news... life events of Terri, etc... well... I've been real busy with school and work and stuff, but not much of anything insanely interesting has gone on. Today I worked open until 3 and then went to the memorial service for Kathy Wolman, a woman from church. Then I hung out a little while, talked to Hillary for a bit, chilled with the parental units and then went out with Clint for a bit, since I'm not usually around Plano much anymore, at least not at opportune "hanging out" time. So we went to Joe's Crab Shack, where a couple of his friends (Michaels Richoux and Roberts) were working. So we hung out there and then at his house for a little bit... and then I came home. And that's where I am now... I don't know, life is good, I'm ok. I'm going to go to bed for now though. More another time.
9/18 Well, let's see.... what's up. I've got a lot of stuff going on right now... let's see if I can skim over it and give you the highlights. Let's go in schedule order, shall we? Ok! In Woodwinds methods, I'm slowly but surely learning how to play clarinet, and actually, I think I'm doing not too bad. Go me! There's several people in my class that are far gimpier than me. I can play all kinds of stuff, such as Yankee Doodle, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Frere Jacques, or however you spell that thing. All in all, I think I'm doing good in there. English Diction is fine... the last of my 4 diction classes I have to take. English is a little nutty because of all the dipthongs, but after French, it's all easy. Pop music is fine... interesting stuff, for the most part... except the class itself has a lot more sociology than I realized... but it's all good. I got an 88 on the first test, just because I wasn't sure what to expect, but an A shouldn't be hard to pull at all. Theory IV is tricky tricky stuff. We're getting into Set Theory, which is the way you go about trying to describe what's going on in crazy atonal 20th century stuff. We're analyzing this piece right now that seriously, when you listen to the recording of it, it sounds like someone's trying to put their piano through a blender set to puree. Craziness. Then, I have Phys Ed, which is like, annoying to have to be in, but then again, it's a nice healthy 3 hour dose of A, just like Pop will be. On Wednesdays (like tomorrow) I have Voice after Phys Ed, which is sort of unfortunate, because my teacher (Julie McCoy) wants us to dress up for our lessons, but I've been wearing gym-ish clothes on Mondays and Wednesdays so I don't have to "dress out" as it were when I get to Phys Ed. But ah well, guess I'll just have to change that. Then I've got ACap choir, which, as usual, is very demanding. One of those classes where they're like "here, let's sightread some atonal Stravinsky stuff perfectly, ok? What? You can't sightread this stuff?" Ugh. And we always have so much music to learn. But, whatever... I will survive, hey hey. Let's see... so that's all my Mon/Wed/Fri classes. Other days I start off with Piano... Piano IV. The proficiency. I have the first part of the proficiency next week. Scales and progressions. I don't know. I'm working on it, but man, it's probably going to be a little stressful... a little close. We'll see. Then I've got Aural Skilz IV... yet another class (like Piano and Theory and English Diction) that's the 4th of 4. Just want to get through it, get done, and forget all of it ASAP. haha. And then, there's the twice-weekly highlight of my week... Jazz Singers I. I am so desperately in love with that class. [sigh] Yeah, it's hard, and yeah there's a lot of stuff to learn and accomplish... but I feel like I'm on top of stuff, and things are alright. Today we got a little news... one of the girls (there were 6 of us, 12 in the group) has had to withdraw from school, so there's going to be only 5 girls now. Which, I mean, it's not all that big of a deal... but apparently, I didn't realize what a high profile thing the JS1 lineup is... but people I don't even know are like coming up to me asking what they're doing about the empty spot... I'm just like... who are you? But... yeah, we're just going to keep 5 and take on a 6th next semester... Hm. But really, that about does it for news from me. So I'm going to sign off for now. More later
9/26 Just thought I'd take a little time to update before bed time. Things are good... busy but good. I just had a couple of really stressful days... actually, come to think of it, about 4 pretty long days I guess. Sunday was the first of these 4. Sunday was a 14-15 hour days for me, basically consisting of church in the morning, practice from 12-3 and then church again from 3-7. Except I became ill, so I got to skip out on chimes, therefore leaving at a little closer to 6 than 7. Then I had a sectional in Denton at 9 until 10.... so, it was a long day. Monday was just as long as always, lots of class, etc... followed by work until close. Long day and all that. And a late night due to social issues. Blah blah. Yesterday I had the first third of the piano proficiency in the morning. I kinda failed it, which was unfortunate... but it can be redone right around Thanksgiving. So... unfortunate, but not apocolyptic. Then I had Aural Skilz, which, whatever, it was fine. And after that was JS1 practice, in which Paris was in kind of an unsatisfiable mood. He wasn't too pleased with us, but it was alright, because I feel pretty good about knowing my notes and stuff. So then I went home and had some practice time before my makeup jury from last semester. It went fine, thank goodness, because unlike the piano thing, this would be un-redo-able. I passed my upperdivisional barrier (read: I get to take 3000-level voice, as opposed to 1000-level... aka I'm a real junior now) So, yeah, it's good to have passed the barrier. I don't have anything like that left to do into my voice proficiency. Which is in like, a year maybe? I forget how many semesters of voice I have to have. Only two more I think. huh. It's weird to think about being done with voice. Like... that's it. We have nothing left to teach you. Riiiiiiiiight. Huh. Anyway, sorry... tangent. Um, so I passed the barrier, but got a B in the jury. That's because the two decisions are unrelated. At the end of the jury they vote on whether or not I pass, and they voted yes. As for my actual grade, each teacher gives me a grade, and mine were like, 92, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 85, 80. So, whatever. B. I still got my 3.0 GPA. And then I had Grand Chorus practice for the Stravinsky concert. And that was Tuesday. Today I had class all day from 8 to 3:30. Then I had a little practice time before a Jazz Singers sectional and another Grand Chorus practice. After that was the scary part of my day. Paris called me last night to ask me to come sing through the alto part of a couple of our songs tonight. Apparently he did this to all of us in JS1. Kind of a pop quiz. Kind of scary. But, I did well... I was pleased with me. And really, that's been about it for the day. Tomorrow is the Stravinsky concert, but that's about all. So... I don't really have a lot else to say. So I won't.
FUTURE PLANS
9/27 Grand Chorus sings Stravinsky's Syphony Of Psalms
9/29 - 9/30 Chancel Choir retreat
10/4 Student Review for music education (big deal)
10/9 Choral Fest
10/12 ACap sings at UNT Homecoming
10/17 Theory midterm
10/19 Clarinet playing test
10/20 JS1 sings at UNT Parent Weekend
10/28 Chancel Choir sings the Brahms Requiem at the Meyerson
