Last night was our Band Banquet, and it was my last one : ( I'm really going to miss this band!!!
Everything looked great (it was held at the Holiday Inn) and the slide show was really nice. Best picture had to be the one of Walker's nose. But all of them were great. The food was pretty good too. The highlight of the night (besides the slide show) is always the band officer awards. Walker got one for being the most "nosy" (he managed to hurt his nose at a competition....watch out for Frisbees) and Phil got one for being the biggest bully (he was the one who hurt Walker's nose) and he got a Frisbee. Jenna got the "always on time award" because she was always late for jazz band, except on the day we had a snow day and actually showed up on time. So she got a power ranger watch. Keister got one for always being on the field first and always being quiet. I got "The Glue Award" for keeping the band together through all the mess we've experienced, and it was a bottle of Tacky Glue (endless jokes right there). That was the best award I received (even counting Senior Award Night0 and I loved it. The students who participated in All-County, Area All-State and All-State also got awards. I received the New York State Field Band Conference Award. Then there was the senior recognition ceremony. We received our graduation cords and our old band folders that had our names still on them as they put up baby pictures (which were really cute). It was a great night, and I had a lot of fun. At the same time, it made me a little sad because I really don't want to leave this band since it's become like a family to me. A very messed up, dysfunctional family, but still a family.
All these end of senior year things seem so surreal. I think part of that is because I have so many friends who are juniors. And I really don't want to leave them, and it's really hard to face the fact that these people who I've gotten to know so well over the past four years I will probably never see again. They have been my support system. They keep me entertained, teach me things I never knew, make me laugh when all I want to do is cry, give me a shoulder to cry on when I really do have to cry, listen to all my venting and rants about every topic from A to Z, put up with and - in some cases- actually understand by band geekness, and always let me pick on them in the most loving sense (once again, a dysfunctional family). My friends are the most amazing people in the world, I love each one of them, and I will miss every single one of them.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Memorial Weekend
This past weekend was so much fun. For starters, it was my first weekend without IB. Wow. I actually had free time, and I actually had to ponder what free time meant and what you were supposed to do with it. So I got to do a little of everything:
Friday I slept in and fulfilled my "lameness" quota for the weekend. In other words, I beat my friends Laura in the House trivia challenge by getting to 10,000 points before she did (it's been an ongoing battle). Pretty lame, but still gave me that feeling of accomplishment
I did other things are random times over the course of the weekend:
As I already posted, I finished reading one book and now I'm working on "The Rest Is Noise" By Alex Ross. It's basically a bunch of anecdotes about the development of music in the 20th century. So I consider it a pretty cool book.
I did a little more scrapbooking
I worked on editing the millions of band videos, and finally got a copy of some video from the Florida trip done (aka the section where Peter/Carole played twister in the hotel hallway without a mat)
I went to Church, which is fun because I get to hang out with my Church friends that I almost never see.
I didn't have youth orchestra (because it's over) and that was nice to have my Sunday afternoon
I went (Friday night) to see "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" since HC was playing piano, and I thought it was really funny. Of course, I kept critiquing it, and comparing the structure of the show to Les Mis ("there's dialogue?!" "I think I hear a vamp...and another....and another...")
Sunday night we had a fire and made s'mores, which means that summer is finally here! We also had some friends over which made it even more fun.
And Monday of course, was the first parade of the season. While the actual marching in the parade wasn't fun, getting to hang out with all the band people was so much. Plus we got to time how long it took Peter to get the ribbons out of his helmet (with help from Dan and Keaton's Mom). 5 minutes: Keister has got to work harder on his pranks. The performance itself was iffy, but that was to be expected
So yeah, it was a really fun weekend!!
Today everyone was complaining about how terrible we sounded yesterday and trying to figure out ways to fix it. Apparently it comes down to the drum majors and drumline. We moved the saxes back, but we're still having tempo issues because the drum majors (allegedly) aren't together. I have no clue what's going on, and at this point, I have no clue how to fix it if the drum majors are off. Which really annoys me.
Tomorrow the percussion ensemble is doing a performance someplace during the school day which gets us out of class, which means that its cool.
And the Band Banquet is this Thursday!!!!! I'm really excited, but also a bit sad that it's my final banquet : (
And for any Houghton EMW people reading this : WE'LL BE OUT OF THE COUNTRY AT THIS TIME NEXT YEAR!!!!!!
Friday I slept in and fulfilled my "lameness" quota for the weekend. In other words, I beat my friends Laura in the House trivia challenge by getting to 10,000 points before she did (it's been an ongoing battle). Pretty lame, but still gave me that feeling of accomplishment
I did other things are random times over the course of the weekend:
As I already posted, I finished reading one book and now I'm working on "The Rest Is Noise" By Alex Ross. It's basically a bunch of anecdotes about the development of music in the 20th century. So I consider it a pretty cool book.
I did a little more scrapbooking
I worked on editing the millions of band videos, and finally got a copy of some video from the Florida trip done (aka the section where Peter/Carole played twister in the hotel hallway without a mat)
I went to Church, which is fun because I get to hang out with my Church friends that I almost never see.
I didn't have youth orchestra (because it's over) and that was nice to have my Sunday afternoon
I went (Friday night) to see "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change" since HC was playing piano, and I thought it was really funny. Of course, I kept critiquing it, and comparing the structure of the show to Les Mis ("there's dialogue?!" "I think I hear a vamp...and another....and another...")
Sunday night we had a fire and made s'mores, which means that summer is finally here! We also had some friends over which made it even more fun.
And Monday of course, was the first parade of the season. While the actual marching in the parade wasn't fun, getting to hang out with all the band people was so much. Plus we got to time how long it took Peter to get the ribbons out of his helmet (with help from Dan and Keaton's Mom). 5 minutes: Keister has got to work harder on his pranks. The performance itself was iffy, but that was to be expected
So yeah, it was a really fun weekend!!
Today everyone was complaining about how terrible we sounded yesterday and trying to figure out ways to fix it. Apparently it comes down to the drum majors and drumline. We moved the saxes back, but we're still having tempo issues because the drum majors (allegedly) aren't together. I have no clue what's going on, and at this point, I have no clue how to fix it if the drum majors are off. Which really annoys me.
Tomorrow the percussion ensemble is doing a performance someplace during the school day which gets us out of class, which means that its cool.
And the Band Banquet is this Thursday!!!!! I'm really excited, but also a bit sad that it's my final banquet : (
And for any Houghton EMW people reading this : WE'LL BE OUT OF THE COUNTRY AT THIS TIME NEXT YEAR!!!!!!
Saturday, May 24, 2008
A Grief Observed - C.S. Lewis
This morning I finished the first book on my list - A Grief Observed. It is a small book, but it is filled with intense emotion. It comes from C.S. Lewis' notes that he wrote while grieving the loss of his wife Helen (he only refers to her as H in his notes). To anyone who has suffered a loss, this book is a great comfort, recounting the internal struggles that you face when you lose someone dear. Even if you haven't lost someone, this book is still a powerful read, as you witness Lewis stuggle with his faith, doubts, and every other thing we've ever questioned in our lives.
One interesting part that I would like to point out for those avid C.S. Lewis fans is that he presents two, "views" (for lack of a better term) that he also presented in "The Last Battle" (from the Chronicles of Narnia). Here is the first excerpt:
"I ought to have balaned with. I ought to have said, 'But also like a garden. Like a nest of gardens, wall within wall, hedge within hedge, more secret, more full of fragrant and fertile life, the further you entered.'"
That is similar to the onion analogy which he uses to desribe the new Narnia
A second excerpt:
"Imagine a man in total darkness. He thinks he is in a cellar or dungeon. Then there comes a sound. He thinks it might eb a sound from far off--waves or wind-blown trees or cattle half a mile away. And if so, it proves he's not in a cellar, but free, in the open air."
That section is similar to the scene with the dwarfs who believe they are in a barn, but are really in the open air.
Just some thoughts. Please comment!
One interesting part that I would like to point out for those avid C.S. Lewis fans is that he presents two, "views" (for lack of a better term) that he also presented in "The Last Battle" (from the Chronicles of Narnia). Here is the first excerpt:
"I ought to have balaned with. I ought to have said, 'But also like a garden. Like a nest of gardens, wall within wall, hedge within hedge, more secret, more full of fragrant and fertile life, the further you entered.'"
That is similar to the onion analogy which he uses to desribe the new Narnia
A second excerpt:
"Imagine a man in total darkness. He thinks he is in a cellar or dungeon. Then there comes a sound. He thinks it might eb a sound from far off--waves or wind-blown trees or cattle half a mile away. And if so, it proves he's not in a cellar, but free, in the open air."
That section is similar to the scene with the dwarfs who believe they are in a barn, but are really in the open air.
Just some thoughts. Please comment!
Can you say "BUSY"
Wow. It's been just a few months since I've updated this blog. I guess that just shows that I've been living life rather than writing it! :P The only problem is trying to summarize the second semester of my senior year. Let's see if I can pick up where I left off:
College Auditions/Acceptance/Decision: These went very well. I was accepted to both Houghton College and Roberts Wesleyan College, debated which one I should go to, and now I'm going to Houghton!! At Houghton I was also accepted into their First Year Honors Program - East Meets West, which occurs during second semester and then during the May term we take a trip to the Balkans. I went up over Spring Break for my orientation (which was awesome), got my lap top, made some new friends, and did my schedule which includes Theory I, Music in the Christian Perspective, Biblical Literature, Percussion Instruments, Chapel, First-Year Introduction, Work, Advanced Composition: Formal Essay, Aural Skills, Symphonic Winds, Applied Clarinet and Clarinet Choir.
EHS Band: Okay, this is the hardest to sumamrize. Ms. Thomas is our new band director (used to work at Northside, helped out at band camp for 2 years, played in the musical pit with me) and she is basically AMAZING! She did an incredible job with us in both concert band and jazz band. With jazz band we actually went and performed at a jazz festival, the NHS induction, and the band welcome night!! So that was really cool. I've joined the Percussion Ensemble, and we played at the welcome night as well, and this wednesday we're going to go play for some day care kids I believe. We're into parade season now, and we're doing "Swing Swing Swing" which is an awesome song. It's a little challenging to keep up the tempo, and they decided to stick the saxes up in front, so that's been a pain getting used to that. Monday is our first parade, so it'll be pretty interesting to see how that goes. Oh, and at the final band concert I got to perform the Rondo form Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, which was cool.
IB: I'M FINISHED WITH IB!!!!! I had my last test on Tuesday, and so now I'm officially free!!! It was really weird yesterday waking up and realizing I didn't have any projects to work on. Minus the fact we have a "final project" in every single class, but we're doing those during class, so that means no homework!!! Yeah, I'm pretty excited about that. The History of the Americas exam was okay - the DBQ was easy since it was on the Cuban Missile Crisis, Paper 2 was easy because we guessed the topics, but we were off the mark on Paper 3, so that wasn't easy. English Paper 1 was pretty easy - I did a commentary on a prose passage by C.S. Lewis and Paper 2 wasn't too bad either. Biology SL turned out to be easier than expected, and Spanish was so-so. Music was by far the easiest exam, and it was actually kinda fun. HC guessed the 2 question on "Dido and Aeneas" exactly right, and our 2 unidentified pieces included a bagpipe music (world music) and a weird 20th century German vocal piece. Our identified with a score was Haydn's Symphony No. 104 (excerpt from the opening of the first movement) and the other one without a score was a dixieland tune. Boy, and I glad that's over!
End of the Year Senior Stuff: I didn't participate in Senior Skip Day, because the girl I was going to skip with wasn't allowed to skip after her French exam. Bummer. We had the Senior Honor Recognition night thingy at West, and it was really long, somewhat pointless. The other night we had the Senior Awards Night. I received the NYSSMA award for participating in All-State, The Nello Martini award (outstanding clarinet player) and the John Philips Sousa award (for being an amazing band member, duh). Oh, a while back I was voted (along with Marty) for Most Musical for Senior Mosts. I've picked up my cap and gown, I'm figuring out my grad party date, and we got our yearbooks on Thursday (Java Jam). WOW!!!!! Congrats to Sarah, Caitlin and Dave - the yearbook is AMAZING!!! It is by far the BEST yearbook I have EVER seen.
Other random thing: We're doing a prepared piano piece (actually, we're going to write one) in Music class, since we're cool like that. We're doing it to the firewood piano in the band room (it is beyond the point of being out of tune).
Spring Musical: LES MISERABLES!!! We sold out 3 nights, it was incredible, and yes, it was life changing. And no, I'm not just saying that. The cast (including crew/pit) became really close during the time, and I miss it terribly.
Poignant Moment: (I'm even going to summarize this section) As excited as I am for college, I really don't want to leave all of my friends because I love them and they're the best and especially since I've gotten to know them and so many other people so much better over this past year. The Lesson: Don't wait until your last year to make more friends.
Okay, moving on.....
Each summer, I make a list of books that I want to read. Mainly because I have nothing better to do in the summer than get caught up on all the reading I haven't done all year. And every year, I make my list WAY too long. But I consider making the list half the fun. And this year I'm sticking to books that are sitting on my shelves (and I'm including the half dozen or so books I'm in the middle of reading....I can never read just one book at a time....)
So I present my 2008 Summer To Read List
A Grief Observed - C.S. Lewis
The Problem of Pain - C.S. Lewis
The Rest is Noise - Alex Ross
Musicophilia - Oliver Sacks
The Seuss, The Whole Seuss and Nothing But The Seuss - Charles D Coben
Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare
Split Ends - Kristin Billerbeck
What To Listen for in Music - Aaron Copland
(more that likely, that's as far as I'm going to get....but here are the rest that are still on my list)Silas Marner - George Eliot
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
C.S. Lewis - Sam Wellman
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and other stories - Robert Louis Stevenson
Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Roots - Alex Haley
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
(now that I've decided to become more faithful in writing in this blog again, this note slightly overlaps with my last facebook note, sorry about that!)
This is the point where I'd normally insert some meaningful quote that describes my state right now, but I really can't think of one, so I guess this is it!
College Auditions/Acceptance/Decision: These went very well. I was accepted to both Houghton College and Roberts Wesleyan College, debated which one I should go to, and now I'm going to Houghton!! At Houghton I was also accepted into their First Year Honors Program - East Meets West, which occurs during second semester and then during the May term we take a trip to the Balkans. I went up over Spring Break for my orientation (which was awesome), got my lap top, made some new friends, and did my schedule which includes Theory I, Music in the Christian Perspective, Biblical Literature, Percussion Instruments, Chapel, First-Year Introduction, Work, Advanced Composition: Formal Essay, Aural Skills, Symphonic Winds, Applied Clarinet and Clarinet Choir.
EHS Band: Okay, this is the hardest to sumamrize. Ms. Thomas is our new band director (used to work at Northside, helped out at band camp for 2 years, played in the musical pit with me) and she is basically AMAZING! She did an incredible job with us in both concert band and jazz band. With jazz band we actually went and performed at a jazz festival, the NHS induction, and the band welcome night!! So that was really cool. I've joined the Percussion Ensemble, and we played at the welcome night as well, and this wednesday we're going to go play for some day care kids I believe. We're into parade season now, and we're doing "Swing Swing Swing" which is an awesome song. It's a little challenging to keep up the tempo, and they decided to stick the saxes up in front, so that's been a pain getting used to that. Monday is our first parade, so it'll be pretty interesting to see how that goes. Oh, and at the final band concert I got to perform the Rondo form Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, which was cool.
IB: I'M FINISHED WITH IB!!!!! I had my last test on Tuesday, and so now I'm officially free!!! It was really weird yesterday waking up and realizing I didn't have any projects to work on. Minus the fact we have a "final project" in every single class, but we're doing those during class, so that means no homework!!! Yeah, I'm pretty excited about that. The History of the Americas exam was okay - the DBQ was easy since it was on the Cuban Missile Crisis, Paper 2 was easy because we guessed the topics, but we were off the mark on Paper 3, so that wasn't easy. English Paper 1 was pretty easy - I did a commentary on a prose passage by C.S. Lewis and Paper 2 wasn't too bad either. Biology SL turned out to be easier than expected, and Spanish was so-so. Music was by far the easiest exam, and it was actually kinda fun. HC guessed the 2 question on "Dido and Aeneas" exactly right, and our 2 unidentified pieces included a bagpipe music (world music) and a weird 20th century German vocal piece. Our identified with a score was Haydn's Symphony No. 104 (excerpt from the opening of the first movement) and the other one without a score was a dixieland tune. Boy, and I glad that's over!
End of the Year Senior Stuff: I didn't participate in Senior Skip Day, because the girl I was going to skip with wasn't allowed to skip after her French exam. Bummer. We had the Senior Honor Recognition night thingy at West, and it was really long, somewhat pointless. The other night we had the Senior Awards Night. I received the NYSSMA award for participating in All-State, The Nello Martini award (outstanding clarinet player) and the John Philips Sousa award (for being an amazing band member, duh). Oh, a while back I was voted (along with Marty) for Most Musical for Senior Mosts. I've picked up my cap and gown, I'm figuring out my grad party date, and we got our yearbooks on Thursday (Java Jam). WOW!!!!! Congrats to Sarah, Caitlin and Dave - the yearbook is AMAZING!!! It is by far the BEST yearbook I have EVER seen.
Other random thing: We're doing a prepared piano piece (actually, we're going to write one) in Music class, since we're cool like that. We're doing it to the firewood piano in the band room (it is beyond the point of being out of tune).
Spring Musical: LES MISERABLES!!! We sold out 3 nights, it was incredible, and yes, it was life changing. And no, I'm not just saying that. The cast (including crew/pit) became really close during the time, and I miss it terribly.
Poignant Moment: (I'm even going to summarize this section) As excited as I am for college, I really don't want to leave all of my friends because I love them and they're the best and especially since I've gotten to know them and so many other people so much better over this past year. The Lesson: Don't wait until your last year to make more friends.
Okay, moving on.....
Each summer, I make a list of books that I want to read. Mainly because I have nothing better to do in the summer than get caught up on all the reading I haven't done all year. And every year, I make my list WAY too long. But I consider making the list half the fun. And this year I'm sticking to books that are sitting on my shelves (and I'm including the half dozen or so books I'm in the middle of reading....I can never read just one book at a time....)
So I present my 2008 Summer To Read List
A Grief Observed - C.S. Lewis
The Problem of Pain - C.S. Lewis
The Rest is Noise - Alex Ross
Musicophilia - Oliver Sacks
The Seuss, The Whole Seuss and Nothing But The Seuss - Charles D Coben
Julius Caesar - William Shakespeare
Split Ends - Kristin Billerbeck
What To Listen for in Music - Aaron Copland
(more that likely, that's as far as I'm going to get....but here are the rest that are still on my list)Silas Marner - George Eliot
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
C.S. Lewis - Sam Wellman
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and other stories - Robert Louis Stevenson
Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Roots - Alex Haley
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
(now that I've decided to become more faithful in writing in this blog again, this note slightly overlaps with my last facebook note, sorry about that!)
This is the point where I'd normally insert some meaningful quote that describes my state right now, but I really can't think of one, so I guess this is it!
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