He just went Apache…!

So, yesterday was an exhausting days, but one of the things that I did during my consciousness was map out my class schedule on my iPad’s calendar app. Once I had done that, I figured out times to break for lunch and times to practice my horn; I don’t know how many of you know this about me, but I’m AWFUL when it comes to practicing…I just don’t do it. Knowing that about myself, and wanting to make myself a better musician, I figured that I’d increase my productivity and hold myself more accountable if I actual scheduled specific times for me to put everything else aside and go practice.

Today was my first day to put that schedule into action: my first class of the day was at 9am, so I made it up to the music building by 8. I played for about 45 minutes before grabbing a drink and heading to class, and I was nonstop for the rest of the day: practice, theory, piano, history, band. This gave me my first break at 1 for lunch, and then I spent 1:30 to 2 practicing again before symphonic band. I have more practice time scheduled after band, but I skipped it for today because I was really feeling a strain on my chops (my mouth). There was a music education meeting at 4 that I attended, and then I went back to the room.

In the room, I immediately laid down for a nap…I planned on making it at least two hours long, but I woke after an hour because Papa John’s (less than a five minute walk away) had a deal today for small pizzas – only $1 apiece – and it ended at 7, so Andrew and I left together to go get our pizza. When we got back, we turned on Criminal Minds (we’ve been watching through, like I did with Mom and Dad during the summer at home) while we ate. Now, it’s almost 11 and we’re finishing up an episode; I actually think we’re going to bed after this episode! Wow!

I’ve decided that I want to read the writings of Plato and other Greek philosophers. Random thought of the day.

Anyway, that’s all for tonight, I suppose. Goodnight!

Chad

P.S. – I just remembered that I was supposed to reveal my surprise last night! Here it is: my aunt, uncle, and cousins are visiting me in Lubbock this weekend! They’re coming to see me march at the football game, and they’ll be here until early Monday morning when they fly back home! I can’t wait to see them!

Is this possible?

I don’t understand WHY I’m so exhausted today, but I’m more tired than I have been in a long time. As a result, I’m about to take a shower and then get in bed early. Goodnight, everyone!

Chad

Buy war bonds!

Been listening to the Captain America soundtrack by Alan Silvestri (of Back to the Future fame) all day.

Today started off a bit rough; Andrew had an 8am class, and I was awake 45 minutes before he left and I remember him walking out, but, once I had laid back down for a while longer, I didn’t wake up to the rest of my alarms…I got out of bed for my 9am class at 8:50. Believe it or not, I got dressed super fast and sped to the music building on my bike, walking in the classroom at 9, with a couple of minutes to spare before the teacher officially started. What luck! I definitely won’t make a habit of that.

My schedule was more nonstop today than it was on Friday because of my first piano class; my piano class only meets on Mondays and Wednesdays, which means I have an extra hour of free time between classes on Fridays. What that meant for today is that I had classes constantly from 9am to 1pm, at which point I had an hour-long break before band at 2. This was our first band rehearsal since audition results were posted on Friday. It turns out that I’m a chair higher than a graduate horn student (!), and he’s a pretty cool guy; after band, we had a nice little conversation about film soundtracks and how I love them so.

When band had finished, I talked to my adviser about a couple of things regarding my schedule. I had been signed up for 15 hours when classes started last Thursday, but then I realized that I wasn’t signed up for a class that I was supposed to be a part of (she put me in the honors section but not the actual class). Resolving that issue added 3 more hours to my schedule, bringing the total up to 18 hours. I then noticed that I wasn’t signed up for voice lessons, so I talked to my adviser about that as well, so I’m sitting at the maximum number of hours allowed: 19. Whew.

I came back to the room after all of that had gotten sorted out, and then I procrastinated doing laundry for a couple of hours before I finally got my butt up and went to the laundry room. The laundry system is different this year: you don’t have to pay for it. Of course, it was probably one flat fee snuck into our tuition or something like that, but the key is that I’m not using my own money every time I have to wash my clothes. How nice! While I waited on my clothes to get clean, I read more comics. Today’s issues? The Amazing Spider-man #10 and the first bit of Detective Comics #10. In DC10, which was published in 1937, need I remind you, there was totally a character who used the phrase “what the deuce?”. It was SO funny…I didn’t expect that phrase to be that old!

Anyway, after laundry, I came back to the room, ate dinner, did homework, started watching Spider-man (the 2002 one with Tobey Maguire), and now I’m off to bed. I start at 8 in the morning…goody? Oh well. I’ll wake up on time, I promise!

Goodnight, everyone!

Chad

P.S. – I have a surprise for you all in tomorrow night’s post. I can’t share with you before then, so don’t ask. You’ll see!

P.P.S. – To be honest, it’s more of a surprise for me that I’ll share for you tomorrow when it’s official. Just so you know.

Forgot.

Been lying in bed for 15 minutes and just remembered about my blog. Whoops.

Anyway, all that happened today: church. Errands. Phineas and Ferb. Nap. Dinner. Criminal Minds.

And that’s pretty much it. Tomorrow’s schedule is the same as Friday’s, with the addition of piano to the mix now. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Goodnight, all, and sorry for forgetting!

Chad

In a tad.

Today was good, albeit slow, day.

I woke up originally at about 6:15 this morning to use the restroom, and then I went back to sleep until time to get up for band rehearsal at 8. We did our “march over” for the first time of the season today, which is always lots of fun; as an added bonus, I wasn’t one of the freshmen who had no idea what was going on this year! Always a plus. When we got to the stadium, we worked some pregame for a while, then some music, and we finished off with the first bit of the halftime show that we’ve learned. Finishing early was definitely a blessing…another five hours of rehearsal would have been pure torture. After we had marched back in our parade block, Prof. Hill started a new tradition in handing out certificates granting us ownership to our “foot-and-a-half” (each Goin’ Band member is said to have own a square foot and a half of prime real estate on the marching field, indicating that we’re all a part of something bigger and that we each have our own responsibility to the group and the task at hand). I think that it is a very cool new tradition.

From band, I went back to the room, and Andrew and I went across the street to Bledsoe/Gordon’s food place, “The Fresh Plate”, and ate brunch. The place is a buffet, and I had pancakes and eggs. Unlimited food for less than five dollars! Once we had finished, we went back to the room and spent the rest of the day watching TV (Good Luck Charlie, one of the two good shows on Disney Channel, and later Criminal Minds) and movies (Ghostbusters, Insidious, and Toy Story). We walked to Papa John’s and picked up a couple of pizzas; they had some sort of special tonight because we only paid $7.50 apiece for two large pizzas. Wonderful!

I finished reading Detective Comics #9 today, and I also (finally) got the letter/picture that my Twitter friend Shauna, who lives in England, sent last Thursday. She had been posting pictures of crayon drawings she had been doodling out of boredom on Twitter, and she asked for suggestions, so I requested a Back to the Future picture. She obliged, and, when she posted the picture online, I told her what a shame it was that it would be too expensive to mail it to me. She said it wouldn’t, so she sent it along with a letter at my request…another penpal! I’ll be writing my return letter within the next couple of days (maybe even before I go to sleep tonight…we’ll see), and I’m expecting to receive a letter from one of my other penpals, Lacey, who lives in San Antonio, sometime this week. Very cool.

Anyway, Andrew and I just turned off the TV for the night, so I suspect that we’ll both be fast asleep soon…I fell asleep for a while earlier while watching Ghostbusters and after Toy Story, but I’m still feeling pretty tired. I’m going to church for the first time since returning to Lubbock tomorrow morning, which I’m looking forward to. I plan on going to the same church I attended all last year, though I’m not sure if I’ll stick with it…the staff has completely changed since I first started going and I’m not sure I fit in there anymore. Just please pray that I find somewhere where I feel comfortable!

Welp, that’s it for tonight’s post. Sleep well everyone, and goodnight!

Chad

P.S. – For those wondering, I think that my toe is doing a lot better. Hopefully toenail removal won’t be necessary.

You must use the force.

Today was a pretty good day, though I was tired.

I went to bed earlier last night than I had all this week, but, for some strange reason, Andrew and I both woke up this morning just after 4am…strange. I woke up to my first alarm at 7:45 (yay 9am class!) and woke up to every alarm I had set after, not officially getting out of bed until 8:30. I again fixed some coffee (butter toffee this time) before heading to class, which was theory. This is the largest theory class I’ve been in so far, though I wouldn’t call it “large”, at least, not in comparison to my music history classes. All we did in theory today was a slight review over seventh chords (I’m definitely going to need to spend some time refreshing my memory!).

After theory, I had an hour-long break until music history, so I got a cheese danish, some juice, and a water bottle and sat in the Student Union Building, reading Detective Comics #9. I almost put it away and took a short nap, but decided against it. History wasn’t anything special, but, based on my first impression, I don’t like the teacher as much as the teachers from my last two semesters. Oh well; maybe I’ll change my mind by the time we’ve officially started class.

Marching band was a bit ridiculous today, not in the sense that we did a lot in our short amount of class time, but in the sense that it was SUPER HOT; I was wearing my new Spider-man comic shirt, which isn’t exactly “light-colored”, but I was sweating more than I expected I would. I was drenched by the time we were back inside less than an hour after starting! When we had finished, I sat down for a while and just cooled off before grabbing lunch at the Chick-Fil-A in the SUB. I then went back to the room and chilled out, taking an hour-long nap (hey, I needed it!) and afterward watching an episode of Criminal Minds with Andrew before leaving for band’s evening rehearsal at 6.

It was at this point that I saw the results of my band audition: I placed third chair in symphonic band, the same as last semester. I was bit disappointed that I didn’t qualify for SWE, but I’m not too upset because I achieved my goal of staying in Symphonic Band, and, plus, the only people ahead of me (aside from one freshman who made it into SWE and a new graduate student) are people who had already been ahead of me, so that’s good too. Who knows: with a little bit more work than I put into this audition, I could make SWE next semester! We’ll see.

Tonight’s band rehearsal went very well; our 6-9 practice was finished by 8:30, meaning I got back to the room with Andrew by 9. We grabbed dinner at Sam’s Place and then Megan came over. Andrew and I had said earlier today that we wanted to have a full-fledged movie night tonight, with popcorn and everything, and Megan joined us for that. We originally started watching Lilo & Stitch, but the disc was too scratched to watch past a certain point, so, after having seen the trailer for Atlantis: The Lost Empire (with Michael J. Fox voicing the lead character) attached to the DVD for L&S, so we rented it on iTunes and watched it instead. It had been quite a while since I last saw it, so it was a nice refresher…I’ve been wanting a re-watch for quite a while now.

And now, it’s 1am and I have band rehearsal at 8. It was originally supposed to last most of the day until 5pm, but it’s since been shortened to only three and a half hours, meaning we’ll be done by 11:30! Thank goodness I have a Saturday! I won’t know what to do with myself with all of this free time, though…I’ll find something. Maybe I’ll have my first Back to the Future marathon of the school year? That sounds promising.

Anyway, I’m off to bed. Goodnight!

Chad

FLIES EVERYWHERE

First day of classes was successful.

I woke up with my first alarm at 6:45, got up, turned it off, and went back to bed, waking up with my third alarm half an hour later. I got ready for school, ate a bowl of cereal, and fixed a cup of coffee before heading out the door. My first class was a business communication class, and all we did was go over the syllabus. I liked the teacher well enough, but he was definitely…well…interesting, to say the least. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he was involved in a theatre program at some point in his life. In fact, I almost suspect it. I don’t think the class will be a bad one, though.

Next on the lineup was my aural skills class, where, though we DID do more than just go over the syllabus, we still didn’t do very much. All that we did was go over some warmups, improvisation, and harmonic dictation. This will be my first semester with a new aural skills teacher, since I had the same teacher for both semesters last year. However, this teacher, like last year’s, is also a graduate student.

I had a bit of a break between aural skills and strings methods, so I pulled out my horn and went over the audition music for about 20 minutes before going to class. I was slightly disappointed to learn that we didn’t get to pick which string instrument to learn, meaning that we’re ALL learning to play the violin, but I suppose it’s not the end of the world, even though I wanted to learn the cello…maybe some other time. Who knows? Maybe I’ll enjoy the violin more now than I did when I first learned to play it 8 years ago (geez, was it REALLY that long ago?!). All we did in strings was, in addition to going over the syllabus, get a locker and a violin to learn to play (this makes my third locker key, bringing my college key total to five).

Once strings had finished, I got my horn back out and prepared to audition. When my turn finally came, I feel like I very nearly nailed the audition music, though my sight-reading could have been better. All-in-all, I feel confident that I at least made Symphonic band again, though I’m hoping for SWE; there were other horn players, including ones who had placed ahead of me last year, who said their auditions went horribly, partially due to the fact that there were flies flying around everywhere, being swatted at by the judges on their tables or landing on their faces and hands while they were playing. Thankfully, I wasn’t affected by that and kept my focus throughout my audition, so here’s hoping for good placement! Prayers would be appreciated.

My last class of the day was music technology, which I nearly fell asleep in…the guy had a super boring voice and it had been a long day, but I fought through it and managed to keep my eyes open. The course is going to be an interesting one, and I’m ready to see what I’ll learn.

I went back to the room to find two packages from Uncle Craig, Aunt Brenda, Summer, and Carson filled with snacks, candy, and goodies, wishing us a happy start to the semester. It was very unexpected! We made sure to call them and thank them later. I went back up to the School of Music for a required faculty recital (which was actually really cool; I recorded the last half), and then I was back at the room for the rest of the night. I recorded my Close Encounters of the Third Kind vinyl onto my computer via audio cable, and I’ll be going to bed pretty soon…I’m tired.

And that’s all. I’ll talk to you all tomorrow!

Chad

Take that, bad habit!

There’s lots of stuff happening tomorrow: first day of classes, band auditions, etc., so you can expect a full update tomorrow night.

However, tonight I’m afraid I must disappoint: time for bed.

Goodnight!

Chad

Soak a toe. Uh…

Ingrown toenails are awful. Do whatever you can to avoid getting them.

I woke up a little bit later today, but it wasn’t “late”…I was up by 7:30 for 8am rehearsal, and I was five minutes early. I even made my bed! I made sure to wrap my toe in a bandage in order to relieve pressure and to staunch any bleeding that may (and did) happen. Once I figured out a way to still march to the best of my ability while still being careful about how I marched, my toe didn’t bother me too much (aside from the dull throb it had turned into). When lunch break rolled around, I decided to go ahead and go to the Student Wellness Center and set up an appointment to get the toe looked at, and, after getting permission from both my band director and my section leader, I left band at 4 and showed up at my appointment. The doctor confirmed that it is indeed an ingrown toenail, and that it’s infected, for which he prescribed me an antibiotic. He also told me to soak my toe (ah, NOW you understand the title) in a solution of hydrogen peroxide and warm water. I picked up my antibiotic at the pharmacy located across the hallway, bought hydrogen peroxide and a tote to put the water in (as well as a cushioned bandage to wrap around my toe when out and about), and went back to the room and soaked it. So far there’s not too much of a notable change, but I’m hoping that all of this does the trick…if my toe isn’t better in a week, the doctor is going to cut off the part of the toenail that’s causing the problem…so here’s hoping.

As far as band goes, I’m enjoying it more, but today I was just in a bad mood, moreso in the morning than anything else. I suppose I have the pain from my toe to blame, but when lunch break came around and I took to complaining on Twitter, I stopped myself and said, “you know what? I’m going to stop complaining because God is good” (true story; I tweeted that). After that, the day was better: I ate dinner with Andrew at Chipotle (first trip of the semester!) before getting Poppa some peanut brittle he really likes from the Lubbock-based company and heading back to band. I’m just ready for this week to be over; once school gets underway, band will slow down, which will be a blessing. At least we got away from only doing fundamentals though!

So, I’ve been bragging these past few months about how I’m taking a Beatles class this semester…but, apparently, I’m not. I looked online and, thinking it was a mistake made by my adviser, decided to register for the class myself before discovering that the Beatles class is scheduled at the same time as Symphonic Band…I now have FURTHER incentive to make SWE this semester (SWE, or Symphonic Wind Ensemble, is the top band). I met with one of the horn student teachers tonight after Goin’ Band rehearsal and got him to help me with my audition music since I didn’t work on it as much as I should have over the summer, but it’s coming together really well, and I have high hopes for band placement…even the student teacher thinks I have a good chance! Please pray!

Anyway, here I am, soaking my toe again, about to put it away, hop in the shower, and get in bed. Tomorrow I have band at 8 again, but we finish at 5:30…a true blessing!

Goodnight, everyone!

Chad

¡La banda!

All I really have time to say tonight is that I’m very happy with my Goin’ Band audition results: I made fourth chair of band 1, which is one higher than last year, and it also means that I’m still on first part, which was my goal.

Today was a long day, but it wasn’t as stressful as I thought it would be; we only marched for a few hours in the morning and for a couple of hours in the evening; everything else was either lunch, dinner, or playing. During my lunch break today, I bought my parking permit and went to the bookstore to make sure my textbook affairs were in order. After band was over for the night, I practiced my concert horn audition music for an hour or so before meeting up with Tessa, Jenny, Megan, and Andrew to go to Target’s Tech night. I didn’t buy anything, but it was nice to be with Tessa and Jenny and Megan again; it was the first I’d seen Jenny since before we left Tech last semester. The five of us also ate lunch together at the Market, where I discovered that my dining plan ROCKS this year…I have nearly $1000 on my Raidercard, which will be used for mostly foodstuffs. Awesome.

Anyway, I need to take a shower and get to bed, since I’ll be up early again tomorrow. Goodnight, everyone!

Chad