Night to remember.

It’s been a busy week! So sorry for the delay.

I drove home after classes on Friday, arriving back in Mesquite about 20 minutes after the Friday night performance of the Variety Show had finished, so I met up with my family at the school. Granna and Poppa took some family friends who had come along back home while Mom, Dad, Blake, and I (as well as a couple of Blake’s friends) went to Chick-Fil-A for dinner. Mom, Dad, and I left earlier than Blake and his friends so that we could get dessert at Braum’s. When we got back home, I did my flute playing quizzes for my woodwind methods class and then got in bed after a long day.

On Saturday, I woke up relatively early and got dressed. One disadvantage to living in Lubbock is that there’s not an IMAX screen at any of the theaters, but Mesquite DOES have one, so, while I was in town, I took advantage of Mesquite’s IMAX screen and went to see Titanic 3D in IMAX with Dad, Poppa, and Granna. It was awesome! Mom stayed behind since Blake wasn’t able to go (he had to be at the school to prep for the Variety Show), but Granna and I met up with Mom after the movie and went to a store to put together a goody basket to give to Blake after the performance. The Variety Show itself was really good; the women especially impressed me with their rendition of Adele’s Rumour Has It, but the guys sounded great too. Seth came in town as well, so we were the only two (real) alumni to join the group onstage to sing the traditional song. Of course, since Mrs. Westgate is leaving after this school year to take care of her baby, she was invited onstage as well; after all, she IS a Poteet and Variety alumni as well. It was a fun show, and I was glad to be able to make it into town to support Blake. Seth joined us for dinner (minus Blake, of course, who was still doing cleanup at the school) at Applebee’s, after which we went over to his house and watched The Strangers. It was some good hangout time.

On Sunday, I made the decision to skip church and sleep late because, if you remember, I had a research paper to do, and Sunday was the night that I designated as my all-nighter to knock out the paper in one clean cut. So I slept late (until about 12:30), loaded my stuff, said goodbye to my family, and hit the road. I rolled into Lubbock at about 6:15 or so, which was good timing since I had a choir rehearsal at 7. Before heading to that, however, I filled up my gas tank (gas was about 20 cents cheaper in Lubbock than back at home!) and drove through a quick car wash…my car needed it after last weekend’s “raining mud” incident. Choir rehearsal went fine, and then I returned to the room, ate a quick dinner, and then made it to the library by 10:15 to get started on my paper. I had stocked up on supplies to keep me awake and focused: two Coke Zeroes, two bottles of water, two 5-Hour Energies (something I hadn’t tried before), and a package of Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies (which are AWESOME).

I’ll admit…it was very slow-going at first. I had lots of trouble with getting focused on my research, particularly because everyone else was still awake, posting interesting things on FB and Twitter. I settled into my productive groove by about 3:30am and worked pretty hard until 7, about 6-7 pages into the paper, when I decided to move my car before it got ticketed at 7:30 and to get ready for class at 9. At this point, I was still running on the first 5-Hour Energy; I had taken it at 3am, and it worked pretty nicely. I got back to the room by 7:30, changed clothes, and shaved (you’re welcome, family!) before heading up to the music building. I grabbed some coffee and a couple of blueberry bagels (my new addiction) before heading to class.

For not having slept a wink in nearly 24 hours, I functioned and focused relatively well throughout all of my classes, the exception being woodwind methods…we didn’t play that day, so it was pretty boring. After that class, I grabbed my second cup of coffee before music history, where staying awake wasn’t a problem because we were taking notes the whole time. Nothing to speak of happened in my final classes of the day. When they were done, I gulped down the second 5-Hour Energy and got back to work. I finished my research paper after only a couple of hours…woohoo! To celebrate, I went to Cici’s for dinner; I ate Cici’s while working on my previous two research papers, so I continued the tradition. After eating, I came back to the campus, did my homework, took a shower, and got in bed at about 10:30…for those of you keeping score, that’s 34 hours of no sleep. I was EXHAUSTED, BUT my paper was finished, so it was worth it.

Other than finally feeling rested on Tuesday, not much happened. I went to class, which was all pretty uneventful, and then Andrew and I had choir rehearsal from 7-9. You see, all of the Tech choirs and the bands/orchestras join together once a year for the Scholarship Concert, which is how they fund all of the music scholarships given out each year. This year, we’re singing Mozart’s Requiem, which is actually pretty cool. The concert is on Saturday and should be lots of fun!

Today, I went to my 8am class and grabbed some coffee before my 9am class. When we got to music history at 11, we turned in our papers and were then let go for the rest of class…huzzah! Conner suggested that the two of us go back to my room and watch Back to the Future Part III during our free time, so we did. We got a little past halfway before I had to go back to the music building for band, but we had lots of fun during that time while watching. I’m so glad that Conner can quote the BTTF movies (almost) as well as I can!

I went to my remaining classes before meeting up with Rachel, the other horn section leader, at 4 to talk about what we want to focus on and accomplish in our section next year. We talked for nearly an hour; we’re so awesome! We even scheduled a meeting with our band director for Friday; he’s treating us to Chipotle, and we’ll all discuss next year as we eat delicious Chipotle goodness. Should be cool!

Anyway, back to my day. After Rachel and I met with each other, we said our goodbyes so that I could be on time to this week’s voice lab. I sang tonight, and I’ll be singing again tomorrow night for a bigger audience. Tonight’s performance really well, so I can’t wait for tomorrow’s!

The rest of the evening has been spent hanging out in the room and basically doing nothing. Of course, I did do some reading; last night when I went to Walmart to buy more mouthwash and a new toothbrush, I bought a copy of TIME Magazine’s 100th anniversary Titanic book/magazine/thing, which was very interesting. I read the whole thing tonight! The Titanic is still one of my favorite things to read about.

Now, I’m about to hop in the shower and then get in bed. So goodnight!

Chad

Arise

Hello there everyone!

This week has actually been fairly boring, so there’s really not all that much to talk about. Here’s stuff that happened this week, in no particular order.

Remember me saying that my science class was actually being co-taught by two different professors? Well, the part of the class taught by the first professor is over (thank goodness). This was the teacher with the stupid tests…by the way, I ended up getting an A on that last test I told you about. So that’s good, I s’pose. Anyway, the “new” professor is the guy who has been in charge of our lab all semester long, so no he teaches both our lab and our normal class. He’s a lot better, in more ways than one: 1) he does more teaching than just reading off a Powerpoint presentation and assigning readings; 2) he doesn’t give stupid tests; 3) he’s more likeable as a person. We had our first test over this “new guy’s” material today, and I actually struggled with it a little bit because it was the first time we actually had to bother with knowing content in this class, but don’t worry, I think I did okay.

I downloaded an app on my iPad the other day called procreate. It’s a drawing app that is actually really kind of professional, meaning that a legitimate artist could pick it up and make a masterpiece right there on his iPad. Since I am not a professional artist, I started off by drawing Perry the Platypus. It turned out pretty awesome! Since then, I drew several Muppets, and by “draw” I mean “pasted the picture into the app, traced it, and then colored it in”. They look pretty awesome…maybe one day I’ll be able to draw them without having to trace!

I started a sort of tradition this week; well, I CALL it a tradition, but we’ll see how long it actually lasts. First, I need to tell you about an iPhone/iPad app called GetGlue. This app is designed to help you share with your friends and with the world what you are doing, i.e. what movie you’re watching, what musician you’re listening to, what book you’re reading, etc. As you use the app more and more, you unlock stickers related to whatever material you may be doing, and, eventually, you can get the actual stickers that you’ve earned sent to you in the mail. Anyway, back to the tradition I mentioned. On Monday, during my lunch break, I pulled out my headphones and picked a movie soundtrack to listen to. Then I open the GetGlue app and tell everyone what I’m listening to and tweet it with my Twitter hashtag “#soundtrackoftheday”. The first day was Michael Giacchino’s Star Trek, the next was Daft Punk’s TRON: Legacy, then Thomas Newman’s Finding Nemo, then James Newton Howard’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and then today’s was Jerry Goldsmith’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a soundtrack that I actually own (and listened to) on vinyl. It’s fun to listen to these on a regular basis, especially since I own so many of them, and to share my favorites with everyone else.

Speaking of vinyl, I used my record player for the first time in a while this week. As the semester rolled on, a pile of stuff built up on top of the record player, but, because I cleaned up a bit due to Andrew’s family coming in town last weekend, the player was clear and ready to be used. Before I left Mesquite Easter weekend to come back to Lubbock, I bought The Eagles’ Greatest Hits on vinyl, so that was the first album I listened to on my record player this week. I then listened to Paul McCartney and Wings’ Wings Over America live album, followed by The Beatles’ 1962-1966 (the so-called “Red Album”), and then today was the Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It feels good to get the vinyl back out again.

As you should all know, I have a British penpal who I met on Twitter. Well, through tweeting with her and exchanging letters, I learned that she’s only had Reese’s once before because they are not readily available over in the UK where she lives. Deeming this unacceptable and being the best penpal EVER, I decided to take it upon myself to properly introduce her to Reese’s. I bought one of just about every single kind of Reese’s available, including normal, dark chocolate, white chocolate, egg-shaped, Nutrageous, Fast Break, Crispy Crunchy, Big Cup, Pieces, etc., stuffed them into a box with my letter, and put it in the mail today. How awesome am I?! Haha. I was surprised to find how inexpensive it was to ship this package, which easily weighed a pound or two, to the UK; aside from the cost of the candy itself (most of which I picked up with my Raidercard dining bucks), I only payed $20 to ship it to England. Awesome! She’s agreed to send me some British candy with her next letter as well, so I’m plenty excited!

Tonight, we had a 2012 Goin’ Band section leaders meeting, at which we got our first glimpse of one of next fall’s marching shows. The particular show we looked at was the show that the members of Goin’ Band voted on, a Villains show. Music playlist consisting of: “O Fortuna” from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Thriller by Michael Jackson, the Imperial March from Star Wars by John Williams, Back in Black by AC/DC, “Mars” from The Planets by Holst, Another One Bites the Dust by Queen, Bad by Michael Jackson, and the Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Quite a set list, huh? It should be lots of fun. Rachel, the other section leader, and I decided to meet up some time next week so that we could establish our goals for the horn section in the fall…we’re gonna have an awesome section!

That’s pretty much it. Tomorrow, after classes get out, I drive home. Blake’s Variety Show at Poteet is this weekend, and I’m able to drive home and see it. I won’t make it to tomorrow night’s performance, but I’ll definitely be at Saturday’s! Then Sunday I get to drive back to Lubbock, go to a choir rehearsal, and then type up my research paper. Lots of fun in store for me in this coming week!

Goodnight, everyone!

Chad

It’s been a privilege.

Hey all. Time for my weekend post!

Nothing worth speaking of really happened on Thursday, and not much happened on Friday, either, at least, not until after classes were done for the day. Andrew’s parents flew into town early that morning, but we didn’t see them until after 4 or so! They stayed in our room for a while, hanging out, until they left so that we could get dressed and prepared for our choir concert. The concert went really well, and we had a great time performing. Afterward, Andrew was surprised to see Scottie and his girlfriend, Laura, had also made the trek into town, something he hadn’t expected. It was a nice little surprise for him (Mrs. Grant had told me earlier). The six of us went out to eat at Ruby Tequila’s for dinner before parting ways for the night, making plans for breakfast the next morning. Andrew and I went back to the room and stayed up for a while, watching a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother before going to bed.

We woke up a little late on Saturday, but we still met the others at IHOP not too long after they had shown up themselves. We ate breakfast and then went back to the room, where we all relaxed for a bit before Andrew’s parents, Scottie, and Laura left to take care of some airport/rental car stuff. Andrew stayed behind in the room, but I went up to the music building at noon to attend a recital. It was Zach Houston’s percussion recital; he graduated a couple of years ahead of me at Poteet. His mother and his brother, Aaron, who’s my age and is a good friend of mine, had driven into town the night before, so they were also in attendance (which, admittedly, is the main reason why I went). With two other Poteet graduates sitting next to us, we had a nice little sort of reunion going on. When Zach had finished his recital, I said goodbye but not before making plans to meet up with Aaron later in the day.

I went back to the room, where Andrew’s family had regrouped. We watched the Rangers game for a while before we went for a tour across the campus. Laura had never been to Lubbock before, so it was mainly for her benefit. We literally walked from one side of the campus to the other and back, which took a little more than an hour. We were slowed down just a bit by the excessive wind…expected, I suppose. It IS Lubbock, after all! Unfortunately, all of Andrew’s family had to leave once we had finished our little tour, so we said our goodbyes and they were on their way.

I attended another recital at 4:30, this one for a fellow horn player, and I even stuck around afterwards and practiced on my horn for about an hour! I was proud of myself. From the music building, I contacted my friend Lexi. Recall that I first met Lexi on Twitter back in May or so of last year and officially met her last fall when I visited her church, which I now attend. Through me, Aaron started following Lexi on Twitter, and they got to the point where they tweeted each other quite a bit. So I arranged for the two of them to officially meet. Lexi and I went and ate at Chipotle while Aaron ate dinner with his family, and then Lexi and I picked Aaron up. The three of us went to Bahama Buck’s and talked for a while before driving back to the Tech campus and watching a movie in the room (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which neither of them had seen before). It was a nice little get-together, and Andrew even got to meet Lexi for the first time; he had been working at Relay for Life with his fraternity, but he made a quick visit to the room when he learned that Aaron was here. Such a good evening!

I woke up this morning a little late, but it didn’t matter that I showed up 20 minutes after bible study had started because our teacher had lost his lesson book, so we just socialized until service started, which went well. I left the church and went straight back to campus for a Goin’ Band Leadership meeting, where we practiced teaching a couple of techniques to each other; I did really well with it! No worries there. I went straight from the meeting to another horn recital and then back to the room for a while.

At about 7:25, I met up with Lexi at the movie theater to see Titanic. You see, I had never seen it before tonight. I don’t know why; I guess my parents never made it out to be a big deal when I was a kid, and, despite my fascination with the actual Titanic as a kid, the idea of the film never really appealed to me until pretty recently (the last couple of years or so), at which point a 3D re-release had already been slated, so I decided to wait and see it properly. And what better day to see Titanic for the first time than on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the original ship?!

I LOVED it. I couldn’t believe I had never watched it before, but, then again, I’m glad I waited and saw it for the first time on the big screen. I’ve always said that that’s the proper way to see movies (which is why seeing Back to the Future on the big screen for the 25th anniversary re-release was such a big deal), and this didn’t disappoint…the 3D was even excellent! It’s hard to point out everything I liked about this movie, let alone what I DIDN’T like (there wasn’t much, if anything), but, overall, it was magnificent. Definitely one of my favorites now, and I only have to wait five months for it to be released on Blu-Ray for the first time! Woohoo!

Now, I’m back in the room. I’ve finished my homework, and now I’m about to shower before bed. Goodnight, everyone!

Chad

Not Nap Day.

Hello!

It’s been a long two days, which kind of sucks, but I guess it’s better than the long three days it would have been had we not been out on Monday.

Yesterday (Tuesday), I went to my science class at 9:30 only to leave by about 9:45ish. Our professor had some sort of meeting to attend that would last most of the day, so our lab from 2-5 (not that we ever use the full three hours anyway) was also canceled. Hallelujah! I rode my bike over the music building and practiced on my horn for a good half-hour or so before heading to aural skills, where we did a lot of nothing, as per usual. I ate lunch and went to band, which seemed to take longer than normal because it was first rehearsal of the week was 90 minutes instead of the usual 50. Awful. I went back to the room after band and did some light catnapping (REALLY light napping…didn’t even count as a real nap). Horn studio at 5 was boring since I didn’t have to play, for which I guess I should be thankful. After I got back to the room, I decided that I was going to study for my music history exam, but it didn’t happen for several hours.

Today, I woke up 15 minutes before class at 8, but I made it to the music building on time. Intro to music teaching is a waste of a class so nothing worth mentioning happened, but, after staying up late studying, I made sure to get coffee from the SUB afterward. Theory and woodwind methods went by with nothing special happening aside from me getting good grades back on theory homework assignments (theory has been a BREEZE for me this semester!).

Then it was time for my music history exam. I did some decent studying last night, despite it being late, but it’s difficult to gauge exactly how I did on the exam. I felt really confident on some of my answers, but some of them I was less certain. I’m fairly positive that I at least passed, so I suppose that’s a plus. It’s just a matter of seeing what grade I end up with.

After finishing my exam, I had a full hour and a half before band at 1, so I just sat in the SUB, ate lunch, and played around on my iPad and listened to music while I waited. Band was pretty boring. The brass and woodwinds were split during class, and the brass had one of the graduate teaching assistants in charge. We worked on the same piece the full hour, but it was one of the better, more exciting pieces so I didn’t mind so much. Choir afterward was decently enjoyable. Our concert is on Friday, so class was spent running through and spot-checking bits of the program. I think the concert will be pretty good! Piano was after choir…I’m SICK of group piano class. I do fine and get As every semester, but it’s just a frustrating class that I can’t wait to be rid of. I talked with Mrs. Shotts at Poteet the other day about possibly returning to her for summer lessons (I took about 5 lessons from her a summer or two before I graduated), so we’ll see if that happens.

When I was done with all of my classes, I sat around the SUB and was eventually joined by Andrew. Normally, Wednesday is designated “Nap Day” since neither of us have evening commitments, but today was an exception because a guest speaker was speaking on campus at 5:30. Her name was Rachel Ramsey Cruze, and she’s the daughter of Dave Ramsey, the financial guy. Remember, I read his book The Total Money Makeover a month or so ago, and I learned a lot of great things about money management from it. I just happened to see a tweet from the official Texas Tech Twitter account announcing that she’d be speaking today, so I made sure to go, and Andrew joined me.

Her presentation was actually pretty short. She didn’t get started until about 5:40, and she was completely done by 6:20ish, but it was still really cool to be there to hear her talk. Everything she said I had already heard from Dave himself on the Financial Peace University videos or read in his book, but, like I said, it was just cool to be there. Despite being familiar with everything she mentioned, I still took notes, as did Andrew. If you haven’t looked into any of Dave Ramsey’s stuff, I HIGHLY recommend you do so! The Total Money Makeover is a good start, but I’m considering adding his first book, Financial Peace, to my reading list as well.

We ate at Chili’s for dinner before splitting paths; he had a meeting with his fraternity and I just went back to the room. I did my intro to music teaching assignments (including one that’s not due for two more weeks!) and then just lazed around until Andrew got back to the room, at which point we watched a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother. Now, it’s almost 1am and I’m about to shower and get in bed…I’m pretty exhausted, so it’s an early night for me (yes, this is early!). I don’t have class until 9:30 in the morning, so I’ll be getting a full 7+ hours of sleep.

Goodnight!

Chad

Unexpected places.

It was a good weekend.

Friday, as far as classes went, was pretty simple. I had theory at 9 and then nothing until voice lessons at noon, followed by band and then choir. Easy! Andrew and I packed earlier in the day, so we were on the road half an hour after choir was finished. The ride was pretty uneventful, but it started out pretty windy. We even saw a dust tornado or two in the fields outside of Lubbock! It was pretty cool. This was Andrew’s first time to make the trip with the faster speed limit, so it surprised him when we made it back home in 5 hours…a much shorter time than it used to take.

On Saturday, I went out to eat with Andrew and Seth at Chili’s, which was great. It was the first time I had seen Seth since the end of Christmas break, so it was nice to spend some time with him. After we had eaten, we went back to my house and watched The Muppets…Seth hadn’t seen it yet! Andrew left after the first song, but Seth stayed and really enjoyed it. Later in the night, after Seth had left, Mom, Dad, Blake, and I ate spaghetti for dinner and watched a few episodes of Criminal Minds together. It was some good family time.

The next day, of course, was Easter. We went to church before heading over the Granna and Poppa’s house. We all got our own sort of little goody basket, and mine had some Reese’s eggs, some Dove peanut butter-filled chocolate, some beef jerky, some Jujubes, and some other things. I also got War Horse on Blu-Ray (haven’t watched it yet, but I will within the next couple of days) and the soundtrack from Titanic (which I also haven’t seen…hopefully that’ll be fixed within the next couple of days as well). We had a nice dinner of ham and creamed potatoes, and I later napped for a while. It was some good relaxation time. Unfortunately, we eventually had to leave, which meant goodbye to Poppa and Granna for at least a month.

Today, I visited both the honors band and the Variety at Poteet. For the band, I just sat in the audience (they were in the auditorium) and listened the whole time, taking notes on my phone; I actually had an assignment for my intro to music teaching class that required a “professional observation” of a music teacher, so I used Mr. Newman as my example. They sounded pretty decent, and they’re even playing a song that I played here at Tech earlier in the semester, Folk Dances by Dmitri Shostakovich, which is lots of fun. I think they’ll do well at UIL next week!

In Variety, I helped to teach a new song that they’re singing at Variety Show next week, since we sang it back in my junior year. When class was over, I said goodbye, left, said goodbye to Mom, drove by Dad’s work and said goodbye to him, and then hit the road. I made it back in Lubbock before 9. Upon arriving, I filled up my gas tank and drove through a quick car wash to get rid of most of the bugs before coming to Sneed. I unloaded all of my stuff and took it to the room, at which point it started pouring rain and storming outside. So much for a car wash! Unfortunately/fortunately, I still had to take my car over to the parking garage, so I did that and ended up riding my bike through the pouring rain across campus…which was the most fun thing EVER! I definitely unleashed my inner child a bit as I sped across campus, splashing through puddles and getting soaked to the bone.

Getting back to Sneed, I changed into my pajamas and threw the wet clothes in the dryer before adding them to the hamper, and I watched Ratatouille for the first time, despite owning it since Christmas. I loved it! I went ahead and bought the soundtrack on iTunes while I was at it; the music was composed by Michael Giacchino, who also scored the Incredibles, Star Trek, and Up, so I knew it would be worth it.

And now, it’s time for bed. It’ll be weird to start the week on a Tuesday, but I’d say that it’s preferable to starting with a Monday. Goodnight, everyone!

Chad

Headline boulevard.

It’s been a busy couple of days, but tomorrow I’ll be home!

Yesterday was long. I made it to my 8am on time and listened to a guest speaker who used the whole class to toot his own horn (figuratively because he was a double bass player), so that was LOADS of fun (/sarcasm), and then I grabbed coffee from the SUB and went to theory. Theory wasn’t anything worth talking about (except for the fact that I had 100s on all of the returned assignments and quizzes), but we started really playing for the first time in woodwind methods on our new instruments. I’ve got a sort of knack for the flute that I didn’t have with the clarinet. It’s not that I’m super awesome at it, but I’m not having any difficulties so far (I think I already said that in my last post, but whatevsies). Anyway. Music history proceeded normally and then I had my salad for lunch before going to band, choir, and piano. After hanging around the music building for an hour or two after piano was over, I came back to the room, where Andrew and I watched a couple of episodes of How I Met Your Mother before he left for a church meeting…at which point I napped for three hours. No regrets! When I woke up, I did my science homework and started studying/preparing notes for the science test I had this morning. It was a late night.

Despite not getting to bed until 4, I was awake a good half hour before my first alarm went off at 7:45, and my science class wasn’t even until 9:30. That nap sure came in handy! I ate a couple of slices of warm cinnamon bread for breakfast and grabbed a bottle of water before making my way to my class. The test went fine; I’m sure I got a decent grade, if not an A. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t get an A. I finished my exam and made it over to the music building more than half an hour before my aural skills midterm, so I went to a practice room and made sure that I was singing my stuff right. My midterm also went really well…no worries there! Once that was out of the way, I was essentially done with classes for the day. I didn’t have band today; only the woodwinds were called in today, and tomorrow it’s only brass. I ate a spicy chicken sandwich from Chick-Fil-A for lunch and just hung around the music building, practicing my horn for a bit before my lesson at 3. We finished a bit earlier per my request so that I had time to go back to the room, shower, and get dressed for the voice recital at 5. I even shaved! This was my third time in as many weeks…not likely to happen again for a while.

My performance went really really well! I had no memory lapses or mess-ups, and I sounded great (if I may say so myself). I got lots of compliments, and a couple of people (including someone who I had never met before) recommended that I audition for next fall’s musical, Jekyll & Hyde. And I’ll be honest…I’m definitely considering it. Granted, I have a lot to consider since I’ll be in Goin’ Band during the fall, but, if a schedule can be worked out that allows me to do GB, get good grades, AND be in the musical, all without killing me, I’m definitely willing to give it a try. I’ve already emailed the guy in charge of musical theatre here at TTU (it’s the same guy who wanted me to audition for the summer musicals here in Lubbock), explaining the situation, so hopefully we’ll work something out! Back to my performance tonight: I meant to have Conner record it for me, but he showed up too late, so we didn’t get a recording. A bit of a bummer, but oh well!

To celebrate my good performance, I ordered Chipotle for dinner. When I had finished and gotten back to the room, I started work on my music history background paper that was due tomorrow at 5pm and theory homework, and when THOSE were finished, I watched Cars 2 for the first time. I’ve had it on Blu-Ray for a few months now, but I suppose I was a bit skeptical about whether or not I’d enjoy it. I was never a huge fan of the first one, and the second one got awful critic reviews (I generally agree with critics), but I’ve got to be honest…I really enjoyed it! It was lots of fun and I enjoyed it more than I thought that I would. It was a pleasant surprise!

Now, I’m about to go to bed. This’ll be the earliest I’ve been in bed this week (to be fair, I took naps most of the other days, so I didn’t really lose any sleep), which is good because I’m driving home tomorrow! Classes should be easy: all I have is music theory at 9, band at 1, and choir at 2, and then I’m home free!

Goodnight!

Chad

America’s favorite.

I’m just ready for school to be over. Summer, bring it on!

Despite being one of my long days, and even longer than most Mondays, yesterday was actually pretty good. Theory went as usual. I’ve been doing really well in theory this semester; all of our recent stuff has been on “integer notation”, that is to say, music with numbers instead of note names, and I’ve managed to wrap my head around it really well, so I’m thankful for that.

Next in the day was woodwind methods, in which we’re still in the process of beginning to learn to play the flute. As it turns out, I’ve got a sort of knack for the flute that I didn’t really have with the clarinet, though I was decent at that too. We haven’t done much with the flute just yet, but I’ve managed to do everything required of me without trouble so far. I like it more than I liked the clarinet. It feels a heck of a lot more natural on my face, and it’s definitely tension-free, which is great.

Music history was music history. Not much to discuss there. I grabbed a cup of campus coffee before class, which I’ve discovered is actually pretty good. Of course, it’s not the campus’s own brew…it’s just Maxwell House, but I like it quite a bit. But Dunkin Donuts’ coffee is way better! I brought the K-cups that I bought this weekend back to Tech with me, and Andrew decided that it’s excellent coffee as well. A great purchase!

I’m back to watching what I eat the best that I can, which was a lot harder to get back into than I thought it would…spring break was difficult in more than one way because it managed to both tease me with a pseudo-summer and with eating lots of food. BUT I’m working hard to get back on track. I had salad for lunch both yesterday and today, and dinner was a ham/turkey/cheese/bacon/olive sandwich at The Market yesterday and a Healthy Choice chicken alfredo meal tonight. I’m already down a pound or two from where I was at the end of spring break, so that’s a good sign. Gotta keep working!

Band and choir went as expected. Band is a lot more bearable in preparation for this concert than it was for our second concert because the music is a lot better, so I’m thankful for that. We’re also getting lots done in choir right now because our concert is just a week and a half away!

I’m glad this is my last semester of piano. I’ve enjoyed getting some basic skills down, but now the class itself is just a burden…I’m tired of it. Voice lessons after piano let out was a blessing, though. It was my first voice lesson of the semester with a pianist present, so it was likewise my first time to hear the piano parts of the songs I’ve been working on (with the exception of “Sunset Boulevard”, of course). Speaking of SB, I’m officially signed up to sing it at the voice area recital this Thursday! Super excited, and I’ll make sure to have Conner record it on my phone or something.

Speaking of learning secondary instruments, I’m deeply considering purchasing a guitar. One thing I love about being competent with a piano is that I can somewhat accompany myself. The guitar has the same appeal, so I really want to get my hands on one so that I can start learning. Who knows? I might not have to purchase one; why purchase if I can just steal my brother’s? Not like he’s touched it more than five times since he got it for Christmas two and a half years ago.

Classes went well today too, though there were significantly fewer of them. Aural skills was boring (our teacher is pretty awful), and I had my salad for lunch directly afterward. Band went faster than I expected it to. We worked on only two pieces in the entire hour-and-a-half long class, but it didn’t go by unbearably slowly, so that’s good.

My 3-hour science lab only lasted about 20 minutes today, which rocked. We each gave a short presentation over the progress of our self-designed science projects, and I’ve gotta be honest…everyone else’s experiments are pretty lame compared to mine. Of course, that’s just my opinion, and it would be perfectly reasonable for someone else to think that mine is boring compared theirs, but still. I’m very proud of my project and can’t wait to see how it all turns out!

I napped after studio class tonight. Andrew and I were up really late last night, despite going to bed at a somewhat decent time. We ended up talking to each other for about an hour and a half to two hours just about our lives and what was going on and stuff like that. It was a very nice talk, but it made me tired for today, which explains why I’m still awake now. But don’t worry…I’ll be getting to bed shortly, right after I shower.

In fact, I’m finished. Time to shower and get some shut-eye. Goodnight, everyone!

Chad