Sunday, March 20, 2005

Thursday, March 10, 2005: "Why don't we get huge rooms like that?"
So ... we had to come in, rest for a few minutes, put on nice clothes, eat, and have a rehearsal after that night ...

And then, we had to give our concert less than 12 hours after arriving.

But actually, the concert went qute well.

And, we all got to wear name tags on lanyards! We all looked so official, especially since we all had be dressed up the whole time.

That night, they had a social/dance thing at the museum, but our band only stayed an hour, because we had sleep to catch up on. Rather than be part of a mosh pit, a few friends and we went to check out the pendulum that knocks over dominoes.
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Wednesday, March 9, 2005: "Sorry about the 27 hour bus ride through hell, guys."
Got up at 4. Was at the school at 5. We were all hyped up on Tropicana fruit juices and PopTarts by 6, when we had to board the buses and depart for Indiana. Here is where we will explain what this is all about.

The Bands of America invites bands that audition to play at their National Concert Band Festival every year. Fifteen were picked this year, and our band was one. This means that we got to buz out to Indianapolis and play 40 minutes of IV, V, and VI level music. We get clinics, do master classes, hear other bands, the Indiana Symphony, then go home.

That day, we headed out. Of course, it had snowed after raining the night before, so no salt could be laid out, so the roads were horrible. At noon, we had only gotten from Massachusetts to the middle of Connecticut. We spent 2 hours behind a car fire in Connecticut, then managed to get to the middle of Pennsylvania by 4. At this point, we pulled over because one of buses had broken down.

Yes, folks, the 79 members of the band, our 10 chaperones, and our 4 bus drivers spent almost 4 hours in a Country Buffet in the middle of Pennsylvania.

Back on the road again, we watched movies till 10, when they made us try to go to sleep. It was a good trip till then, and we were all sitting there, listening to eachother fall asleep to light, Latin-flavored jazz, and we actually had an "infinite" moment, if you know what we mean.

Of course, it only lasted until we realized that we were incapable of sleeping on a coach bus.

And do you know when we finally got to Indianapolis, after only about 2 hours of scattered sleep to work off of, with a concert at 6 that night?

7:30 am. We'd managed to miss half of breakfast, and the airplane-transported Texans in the elevator as we worked our way up there to rest some before a very late breakfast laughed.
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Tuesday, March 8, 2005: Breaking our legs ... and arms ...
Dress rehearsal. The night before we sally off. In concert dresses. That needed to be packed.

What a grand idea! Not like we'll be tired or anything ...

But people seemed to like us ... and we survived "Profanation" pretty well ...
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Monday, March 7: Thank you, band, for our* life.
A 6 pm to 9 pm rehearsal is responsible for my absense. It was rather a bad rehearsal too, if we* recall. One of those ones where the director, the retired professor, and the student teacher, with their combined experience to lack thereof, were all shaking their heads, going, "What does BOA see in us?"

*Just for you, DarkSpirit!
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Saturday, March 19, 2005

Anyone miss me?
Yes, well ... I've been around somewhere all along, but it's actually been over 2 weeks since I've been online to boot ...

There were evening rehearsals, a trip to Indiana, the flu, and a dance.

And eventually, I'll get around to detailing that stuff, but right now ... I'm tired out of my skull from it all.
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Sunday, March 6, 2005

Sorry I've been out ...
We had viruses up the whazoo killing the ocmputer and I've sold my soul to band ...

Today, my friend and I were what she describes as "basketmen."

As soon as our SYG director asked for volunteers to help out at the youth mass, she tugged at my sleeve and hissed, "Let's be basketmen!"

What she meant were ushers, and if you aren't familiar with them, they are the people who seat you at crowded masses, but usually, they just collect the money for the retired preists or whomever during mass. They do this with longhandled baskets.

So, today, we were basketmen. She was very nervous and excited, and I had back pain, so I was just annoyed at the time, but after weeks of anticipation, she was very happy, even though she hit an old man in the head with her basket.

It's kind of funny, but after you collect, you all crowd in this tiny room in back and the seven ushers all shovel their money into a bag held by the head usher, who always wears a suit, and sneak out quietly, and it all looks rather sketchy and mob-like to see.



So ... today, I was listening to the radio. I like to listen to the radio, but if they keep telling me such disturbing things, I think that habit may end soon. They were there, going on about some rock band that no one had ever heard of doing a Rice Krispies jingle only year before they recorded "Satisfaction" and became actual rock stars.

While this is in itself fairly scarring, and would have been enough to make me want to kill myself, I really don't think it was necessary for them to actually make me listen to Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones singing the Rice Krispies jingle.

Thanks to you, Oldies 103.3, I will never be able to eat breakfast without thinking of Keith Richards. Thanks a whole lot.
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Sunday, February 27, 2005

We finished Christmas today.
Enneagram is bogus.

I say this not only because I just don't buy into the "understand people by labeling them as a certain kind of person, rather than getting to know them thing," since my personal belief is that some things are the same in all people, while other things are totally individual. Some things link us all, others can't be linked at all.

Example: As soon as Capt. Von Trapp says to Rolf, something along the lines of, "You won't blow that whistle. Give it here. You don't have the guts," you know that Rolf isn't going to listen to him. That links us all. However, exactly what he does is totally unique to Rolf. What he does is he doesn't blow the whistle. He yells. But, you couldn't understand why by just labeling him as a personality 1 through 9. You'd have to know him well. But it doesn't take knowing him to know that he's not going to listen to condescending comments from his girlfriend's father.

The other reason I say this is because while trying to promote understanding our differences, by IDing ourselves as types in health class to get to know eachother, we're just labeling ourselves and eachother.

Labeling is one thing I hate. Yes, I'm a geek, and I'll tell you that so you get the basic picture, but I'd hate you if, upon telling you this, you assumed that I live in front of my computer, never socialized, had few friends, and dressed like it's still the 70s.

And do you know what the girl next to me said as soon as we started this? "You're a 9, I think." I read over 9, and it's not me. I can see how she got there, but only because she barely knows me. Hooray for using labels to get to know eachother. And the teacher comes over. "So, are you a type 5? The thinker?" So she's seen my grades. And now, she's jumped to conclusions.

Labels are by far the cruellest thing that goes on in high school. Hooray for spreading the love, Health Curriculum.
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Saturday, February 26, 2005

Tuttle ... "There's a little of Tuttle in all of us. You might say that together, we made him up."
Soooooo ...

I finally saw Titanic. And quite frankly, it was halfway decent, but I think that, at 16, I may have missed my chance to be one of those girls so deeply affected by Leo's death that they had to seek Jack Dawson's grave and sit in front of it sobbing. Apparently, it's a young teen thing, and according to the back of the manga, 16 means I'm an Older Teen.

Crud. I always wanted to be one of them. Back when it first came out, everyone else at school was like that. And quite frankly, when you are like, 10 or so, it's kind of scarring not to be a blubbering ball of hormones when everyone else apparently is.

Actually, I still don't quite get the appeal of guys in general. My experience has been that they don't form cliques and they're a lot like a lot of girls I know, but more sports oriented, less into hygiene, and have a stronger tendency to ignore geeks than to condescend to us, which is just as much bad as it is a refreshing change from treatment by the girls who laugh to loud and wear their shirts too tight.

And that's all I have to say about that ...
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Thursday, February 24, 2005

Crossdressing for My Section 8 ... It Wouldn't Work If Klinger Weren't Male ... Actually, It Didn't Work Anyway ...
THE FINALE OF M*A*S*H WAS ON TV TODAY, AND I MISSED IT BECAUSE I'M THE ONLY PERSON LEFT WHO WASN'T SICK OR ON VACATION AT WORK.

I have heard all about this finale. I really wanted to see it. So I get in the truck to go home from work, and Dad goes, "Oh, the finale to M*A*S*H is on. The one where Hawkeye goes nuts. Sydney's there, and Father Mulcahy goes deaf, and Klinger gets married and stays in Korea ..."

At which point, I ignore the fact that he just told me the whole episode, and go, "Did you tape it?"

And do you know what he says? "I didn't think of it."

*sob* So I got to watch the last hour. But by then, Hawkeye was cured and Sydney was gone. Klinger wasn't married yet, though ...

Grr. I hope they finish putting M*A*S*H on DVD soon ... *whine, sob, cry, etc*

Anyway ... guess who completed digitizing the burning as MP3s 47 of her favorite CDs? Whoever she is, she's happy with herself ...
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Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Stop talking while I'm interrupting!
(I got that from the most quality recording of "Sloop John B." ever. I say this not because the Beach Boys version is crap in comparison to the song when sung in a vaguely reggae style (though that is true), but because the two guys singing it spend the first 2 minutes arguing over whether or not the song is Calypso or not because it's only Calypso if you improvize. So they argue about improvizing. So they sing it, and one guy keeps improvizing out of time to be obnoxious. They actually only sing about half the song, as the other half is spent arguing. It's on the TimeLife Treasury of Folk Songs, sung by Chet and someone or other, I think. If you dig folkies, look into it.

Other quality stuff: The Smothers Brothers. On this CD, they sing "Pretoria," and have a particularly good bit on whistling, since the only marching song they know besides "Pretoria" is the march from "The Bridge on teh River Kwai(sp?)". Whistling is because the words are naughty. They suggest that you whack all children whistling songs upside the head, as they are clearly being naughty.

Guess who only has 4 CDs of her collections left un-MP3ed?

I have a whole lot more Celtic stuff than I ever knew ...
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