Hello hello. Hope all of you had a great day today/yesterday (depending on when you read this) and that Sunday is a good day for you as well.
First bit of news: yesterday’s post was really popular for some reason. It got 38 views (which isn’t really a lot, but…), which is 14 views more than the previously most popular post. Maybe it’s because today was Saturday? Who knows?
Today was fairly uneventful for me. I slept until around 10:30 or so, I think, and I stayed in my bed on my phone for a while. Andrew had had an Animal Science exam, so, when he got back sometime after 11, I helped him to study a bit for the calculus exam we had together at 1:30. As for the exam itself, I didn’t think it was too difficult; I know for sure that I passed it, hopefully with at least an 80 (though I think I MIGHT have gotten an A, albeit a low one). We’ll see; I’ll make sure to post it whenever I find out.
After calculus, Andrew and I were pretty hungry (all we had had to eat earlier was the rest of the pizza we had ordered the day before from Domino’s, which wasn’t much), so we walked to the Subway on University (don’t judge; Subway is good food and we have gift cards). I got my usual (of course) with some pink lemonade, and, after eating, Andrew got a call from someone in his fraternity asking if he wanted to come over and watch Disney’s Hercules with them, and I was invited. We went ahead and decided to go over (they picked us up). We sat and watched the movie, with Andrew and I singing along the whole time and me answering everyone’s questions about who played who, mostly off the top of my head. Yay for useless movie trivia (I ❤ trivia in general). I enjoyed the movie, but I’ll admit it was a bit awkward because I didn’t know these girls at all. Oh well.
When the movie ended, we sat around and watched a few YouTube videos, then, around 7:30, I was dropped back off at the dorm and they all departed for a dinner they were having for another member’s birthday. I went back up to the room and sat around for a few minutes. I had originally planned on doing my laundry tonight (since I have been putting it off since last Sunday), but, since things didn’t go according to schedule and because I didn’t want to start it so late, I decided to run to Wal-Mart instead. I bought a gallon of milk and another box of Lofthouse cookies, justifying the purchase by saying that they were for Santa…that works, doesn’t it? I left Wal-Mart and ran by Starbucks on my way back to the room, using my gift card (I’ve got lots of gift cards!) to buy myself a Vanilla Latte. It was alright, but, frankly, I think that McDonald’s Caramel Mocha with whole milk is a LOT better. Oh well; I need to experiment my way around the Starbucks menu and find something I really like besides the Vanilla Frappuccino (the one without the coffee in it; I WANT something with coffee in it). Something that IS really good at Starbucks: the salted caramel hot chocolate. I’ve never been much a fan of their normal hot chocolate because it almost tastes like it has coffee in it, but the salted caramel version is REALLY good. Definitely worth trying out if you want something good.
So I got back to the room, turned on my computer for the first time all day, and that’s pretty much all I’ve been doing since. Andrew got back just after midnight. He came up to the room, finished eating leftovers from the dinner he had been at, and we watched Family Guy until he started snoring. I then started typing up this blog. Fun stuff.
I got a bit distracted while typing this up because I suddenly remembered something I had thought up a while back: how cool would it be to have a video projector? We could put it on the floor, point it at the ceiling, and watch a movie while lying on our beds on our backs. The only problem is to buy a brand new, decent projector you have to spend hundreds/thousands of dollars, which I’m not willing to shell out when I’ve got a TV that works perfectly fine. It’s just a fun idea to entertain. So, that being said, if any of you have a decent projector, or know someone who is giving one away at a decent price, let me know and I’ll see if it’s something I’d be interested in taking off of your hands.
It’s getting closer and closer to break, and I’m so ready for it. I’m ready to go home and spend the small amount of time I’ll be home with friends and family I haven’t seen in a while. Three more days and I’ll be there. Just THREE MORE DAYS. I can’t wait to go give my parents hugs, to see my cat, to listen to records on my record player, to see my grandparents, to visit my church, to visit Poteet, to spend time with friends not at Tech, etc. etc. etc. I can’t wait for CHRISTMAS! It shall be a grand ol’ time, despite the fact that my break essentially ends on December 29th. Eh. I’ll make the most of the time I will have at home.
Speaking of Poteet, I’d just like to offer my congratulations to the football team this season. To go from nearly bottom of our division last season to state semi-finals this season is an incredible feat, and your hard work is incredibly evident. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t make it all the way to state this season – you showed everyone that Poteet can be better at something besides fine arts. I wish you the best of luck next season. Keep working hard.
I’ve discovered that I dislike typing numbers instead of spelling out the actual words (e.g. “two” instead of “2”, “ten” instead of “10”). Weird habit, but one I’ve always been fairly consistent with.
I’m supposed to be getting an email from Karl Dent (one of the vocal professors at Tech) any time now, at least, according to my voice teacher. You see, since there’s no marching band in the spring, I figured I could use that extra time to be in a choir, ANY choir, so I asked my voice teacher about it and he talked to Prof. Dent. He said all I might have to do is sing a song I already have prepared and maybe test my sight singing skills because he supposedly gave Prof. Dent his “highest recommendation” for me. Rockin. It looks like I’m going to be in a choir next semester, provided he remembers to contact me…I miss choir so much. I had a blast in choir in both middle school with Mrs. Flores and in high school with ADub, and it’s something I’ve really missed this first semester; until now, I had been in a choir nearly nonstop for 12 years. It’s only natural I’d miss it.
I was first to answer a few more Harry Potter trivia questions today on Twitter. Yay! In case you’ve forgotten, here’s the link to my Twitter account: @Chadadada
Anyway, that’s just about it for tonight. Church in the morning; other than that, the only thing I have to do is laundry (FOR SURE THIS TIME; NO EXCUSES), a little playing on my horn, and maybe a little studying for my last two final exams. Goodnight/good day, everyone.
Chad
P.S. – Here are two YouTube videos to brighten your day a bit; enjoy:
Good morning, everyone. I hope everyone’s day yesterday/today (if you’re more of a “it’s not a new day until I wake up in the morning” kinda person) was a good one. I know mine was.
First off, as mentioned in my last post, I took a nap yesterday afternoon that I very much intended to take; however, the length was most definitely unintended, as it ended up lasting five hours. Needless to say, I was up pretty late last night (go figure), but this time because I simply wasn’t tired. I didn’t end up going to bed until around 3:30am, and it still took me a while to fall asleep from there. Once I managed to nod off, though, I slept better than I would have imagined, only waking up twice, finally waking up at around 6:30-6:45am wide awake. I got up, got dressed, finished up the milk in the fridge, prepared some instant green tea in a water bottle, made my bed, and made my way to my music theory exam, which took place at 7:30.
I felt really good about this test, before, during and after; I never stressed about it because I was pretty confident that I knew the material. I walked into the final exam room with a 94 in the class, and I made it a personal goal for myself to strive to do well enough on the final exam to bump my final class grade up to a 95, which didn’t leave much margin for error. Other than a couple of sections taking a while to complete, I walked out feeling great, knowing that I had done well. Sure enough, when I checked online to see if my grade had been posted just a while ago, I found that it was already graded: a 97, raising my class grade from a 94.35 to a 95.02. I made my goal; it’s a good feeling.
I had a bit of a break after my theory final, a break I spent in my room. Andrew got back from his first final exam a bit after me, and he felt pretty confident about his grade too (economics). Rockin. I hung out on my computer until around 10:15, when I made my way back over to the music building for the last marching band rehearsal on the band lot of the semester. It was set to last from 10:30-1 – something I definitely wasn’t looking forward to – but we ended up getting out about half an hour early. The first hour of the rehearsal was spent nickel-and-diming the first movement of the Dave Matthews Band, which we’re performing at the bowl game on January 1st. It dragged on for forever. Then we moved on to the third movement (we skipped the second since we don’t move and since we only have 6 minutes to perform), which took a lot less time than the first movement had, which was a blessing. After that, we got in position for Cotton Fields, the second movement of the Traditions shows (the very first show we learned this season), marching through that and the subsequent March Grandioso. Then we finished up with running through the pre-game sequence (why, you ask? We were all wondering too…we’re not performing it at the bowl game).
After band, I was free again until about 2:30, when I needed to head to the music building for the third time today to practice before my piano final at 3:10. During this time, I sat around on my computer, watched Family Guy with Andrew, and ordered Domino’s Pizza for lunch (I HAVE A PIZZA ADDICTION). The I made my way up to the music building, practiced my etudes that I was supposed to play, went over my I, IV, and V chords, and practiced sightreading with chord changes and transposition. When it came my time to take my final one-on-one in front of the teacher, I did pretty well, minus a couple of chord fumbles and melody mistakes. The professor seemed to take it easy on the grading though, judging less on pitch accuracy and more on technique, rhythm, and musicianship, so I got really good grades. We were given separate grades on each section of the final, and here’s what I got: Repertoire – 98, Harmonization – 99, Sight Reading – 93, Transposition – 100. Not bad. Averages to a 98 for all four. That brings my finals grades to the following so far: Aural Skills – 98. Theory – 97. Piano – 98/99/93/100 (98). Raising the bar. Rockin.
After piano, I was done for the day. I went back to the room and got back on my computer (bet you didn’t see that coming) and put Family Guy back on, watching it until I heard Andrew snoring once he dozed off; we both had to wake up early this morning. I messed around with an image morphing software for a long while, a software called “Sqirlz Morph” (it’s FREE! just search it on Google). Now, I, Chad Hopkins, present to you the fruits of my labor, a personal project titled:
CELEBRITIES I AM NOT
(open each picture individually in a new window by clicking “Open Image in New Tab” via right-click; give each one time to load, especially the third)
Doctor Emmett L. Brown – Back to the Future
Forrest Gump – Forrest Gump (/unnecessary)
Indiana Jones – Raiders of the Lost Ark
I hope you all found those amusing. I enjoyed making them.
Anyway, around the time I finished making these, Kate called me about something (it’s not my place to tell the story, so if you’re really interested, ask her and she can decide). I guess you could say we went out on an “adventure”. We weren’t finished until around 11:40, at which point Andrew and one of Kate’s friends, Rachael, had joined us. A little before midnight, Rachael and Kate went to wait in Kate’s room whilst Andrew and I grabbed us all a light meal from McDonald’s (irony intended), including my second night in a row of having their Caramel Mocha with milk (whole, of course; unless you’re drinking milk by itself, in which case 2% is the way to go). We went back to Kate’s room, watched another episode of Family Guy (we’re not obsessed or anything…), and then headed back to our room.
And that was my day in a nutshell…a rather large nutshell, I suppose. I have my calculus final tomorrow afternoon at 1:30; I’m a bit nervous since it’s quite a bit more difficult than the finals I’ve already taken, but I think I’ve got a firm enough grasp on the material and how to work it all that I’m fairly confident I’ll get at least a B…*knock on wood*. Just keep me in your prayers, and Andrew as well: he’s got his Animal Science final in the morning, and we take our calculus final together. Pray we do well, please. It’d be much appreciated, from both of us.
OH YEAH I ALMOST FORGOT SOMETHING. Ha, not like it’s really important, just something that I meant to include in this post. Another Twitter-related paragraph. I came across a Twitter feed run by a group of people who produce a Harry Potter-themed podcast called @HogwartsRadio. I don’t listen to it (@MuggleCast is where it’s at!), but they do one thing that I really enjoy: daily Harry Potter trivia. I LOVE trivia, especially when it’s something I’m knowledgeable about like Harry Potter. I have a strategy for whenever trivia time comes around every night: once they make the announcement that trivia starts soon, I have my phone open to the Messages application, “@hogwartsradio ” already typed in the text box. Since I get their tweets forwarded to my phone via text message, as soon as they send out the tweet with the question, the phone is already in the position to send a quick reply if I know the answer off the top of my head (which I usually do). If I don’t, I switch to my Wikipedia app or to Google, find it quickly, and send it off. I’ve been the fastest responder somewhere between 5-10 times; I couldn’t tell you exactly how many. It’s so much fun. I really enjoy it.
Anyway, that’s all for this post…it’s time for bed. I’ve been up since 6:30 this morning. Getting to sleep somewhat late in the morning is something I look forward to. Goodnight, everyone. I hope you all have a wonderful day.
Chad
P.S. – According to the poll I posted on the past two posts regarding whether or not “Linus and Lucy” by the Vince Guaraldi Trio is a Christmas song or not, more voters said that it was NOT a Christmas song than those who said it was. Of course, the vote was only 4-2, but still. Either way, I’m not going to force my views on anybody; you’re free to think of it as a Christmas song if you want, but if YOU try to tell me otherwise, I WILL argue my point. Haha. Now bring in the dancing lobsters.
Woke up this morning feeling like P. Did- No. I didn’t. I woke up this morning pretty tired considering how late I had stayed up without really realizing it. I didn’t have to wake up when I did since the calculus review this morning at 9 was only optional. By the time Andrew and I woke up, I had only gotten about three and a half hours of sleep (in addition to the two-and-a-half hour nap I had gotten earlier). We went to the Student Union Building (SUB), got Blue Books to give to our calculus teacher for the exam, grabbed some Starbucks at Barnes and Noble (Venti Cappuccino Vanilla Latte; yummy), and made our way to the math building. I was actually pretty okay with post of the stuff we learned this semester, so I didn’t have many questions and just followed along with what she did on the board as she went. It helped a bit, I suppose.
When the review session was over at 10, Andrew and I threw away our empty coffee cups and made our way back to the room. I had originally planned on sleeping another couple of hours at this point before I had my jury rehearsal with my accompanist at 2, but the coffee destroyed that plan. Instead, we just sat in the room for a while, watched a few episodes of Family Guy, and then, around 12:30 or so, we decided to walk to the Subway on University Dr. and use our gift cards (thanks, Granna!) to buy dinner. I got my usual; a foot-long Subway melt (ham, turkey, white American cheese, and bacon) on Italian Herbs and Cheese bread, with lots of black olives and Parmesan cheese (the candy of cheeses) on it as well. Good stuff. With a large pink lemonade and a bag of kettle-cooked jalapeño potato chips, it made a great meal.
We finished relatively quickly and made it back on campus around 1:20, where we split paths at the music building (where I was to have my accompanist rehearsal); he went back to the room. I went inside and warmed up a bit while I waited on the accompanist to show up, and, once she did, we played through all of the Strauss horn concerto I was planning on playing for my jury. I timed it from start to finish, and, unfortunately, 16 minutes and 57 seconds is far too long for a jury, so we’ll have to skip around a bit. Oh well. Hopefully, whatever I play from it will sound alright. Who knows, maybe it’ll sound better since I won’t be playing the whole thing start to finish! Gotta consider the possibilities.
After accompanist rehearsal, I re-joined Andrew back in the room, where he was working on Chemistry homework and I just sat on my computer for a while (which is still functioning marvelously, I might add). Around 4:15, I decided that it was due time for a nap, so I shut down my computer, ate a Lofthouse cookie, put on my favorite radio station from home (TuneIn Radio app for iPhone, if you’re interested), and went to sleep…and didn’t officially wake up until 9:15. WHAT THE HECK. When I woke up, Andrew was gone and I only had my Christmas music to keep me company (I think it was around this point that Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” started playing). I texted Andrew the following: “HOW COULD YOU HAVE LET ME SLEEP SO LONG” (word-for-w0rd, caps lock and everything). I laid in bed for a while, messing around with Twitter and Facebook on my phone, and then, around 11:15-11:30 or so, I decided to walk to the parking garage, get in my car, and drive to McDonald’s down the street for a late dinner (since I had slept through the time when normal people eat dinner). I got my usual there as well: two McDoubles, plain and dry with a large fry, and I decided to get a Hot Caramel Mocha, with whole milk, to drink. Lemme tell you, that is some good coffee. I really enjoyed it (am I turning into a coffee addict?!).
Speaking of drink obsessions, I am proud to announce that I have officially been completely soda-free for nearly four months now, since mid-August. I didn’t think I could do it, but I’ve pulled it off so far. I think I’m gonna try to shoot for at least a year and see where I stand at that point. You see, there are a couple of reasons why I gave up soda. The first reason had to do with the fact that I was becoming over-dependent on it. When I woke up in the morning and was tired, I’d grab a soda. Headache? Grab a soda. Feeling sick? Grab a soda. Eating? Grab a soda. Woke up in the middle of the night? Walk to the kitchen and get a swig of soda from one of the 2-liter bottles. At Poppa and Granna’s house? Grab five sodas. You get the picture. I was too reliant on the effects of the sugar and the caffeine, or maybe even the carbonation. Who knows? My other reason was inspired by Logan Mitchell, a good friend who I mainly keep in contact with through Twitter, who gave up soda more than two years ago, losing him a lot of weight and making him look super great. Now, I’m not saying that I’m fat or that I’m super chubby or anything, but I could definitely stand to lose some weight, and, since eating habits are more difficult to change since I’m a generally picky eater and I really enjoy my food, soda seemed to be a good first step on the path to being skinnier. So far, I haven’t noticed much difference, but I don’t think I’ve gained much either, which is a plus. Maybe the change is more long-term than just four months. I’ll find out, won’t I?
Anyway, by the time I got back to the room with the burgers and coffee (I had eaten the fries during the drive back, like you’re supposed to with fast food French fries), Andrew was back from doing whatever he had been doing with Chi Ro (I believe they were studying together). After eating and watching a few YouTube videos, Andrew went to bed and was asleep less than five minutes from the time he stopped talking, and I began typing this out. You know, I’ve been keeping up with this blog more than I had expected; my previous attempts at blogs were basically complete failures. Oh well. I really enjoy typing this out; it’s fun to talk about my day and put other thoughts out there for others to read. That’s why I like WordPress a lot more than I liked Tumblr (which, incidentally, I didn’t like very much): it allows feedback on my what I type via comments and the like. It’s great. I hope you all enjoy reading these as much as I enjoy typing them; at least, I assume there’s several of you who read this since I’ve gotten 144 profile views since I made this just over a week ago. In fact, if you read this, how about you let me know (if you want) via a comment on here, on Facebook, through a mention on Twitter, any way you’d like. I’m just curious. I know that my Granna and my Memaw both read it, but they’re the only ones I know of for sure.
After mentioning Twitter, I’d like to stress to you all how much I enjoy it. I first made it back in April of 2009 when I first got my iPhone, just because having an iPhone with a Twitter app made it easy to tweet frequently. I started off slowly, but after getting back in contact with Logan Mitchell via Twitter and interacting with him and others, I got to where I tweeted more and more, and now I’m at nearly 6300 tweets. What’s so great about Twitter is that it’s a lot more personal than Facebook is; on FB, I have 440 friends. On Twitter, I follow 97 people and 122 people follow me, but most of those people, both sides, are not really people; I follow CNN Breaking News, a deals site, a couple of various news sites (BTTF.com [Back to the Future news] and Mugglenet [the best Harry Potter fansite]), as well as a couple of Harry Potter-related Twitter accounts that have daily trivia that I enjoy participating in and stuff like that. It’s really cool. With Twitter, I don’t have to be careful with what I say (not that I say anything that I SHOULD be careful about, I’m just making a point) so as not to offend people, and if someone annoying is clogging up my Twitter feed I can unfollow them and there’s no harm done or questioning of friendships; honestly, most people you interact with on Twitter are people you don’t know, and you make friends that way. Based on what you tweet about, people with similar interests can find you and follow your feed. A lot of you may think that Twitter is stupid and may not understand it, but if you give it a try you just might like it; it just takes some getting used to. It’s not about telling people about everything you’re doing all day long; it’s much more than that. You can keep track of news, share an article you’ve been reading, keep up with celebrities via their Twitters, and other stuff like that. It’s a great online experience. I urge you all to at least try it. My Twitter feed is linked below. Be warned: if you follow me, I’d recommend not getting my tweets forwarded to your phone; I tweet a LOT: @Chadadada
I had a mini-conversation with my good friend Regan on her status on Facebook on Internet abbreviations, namely the ones relating to laughter. I had jokingly said that something she had posted had “made me rofl”. Now, I’m a well-educated person, and I am what I like to think of as a gifted writer; that’s not to toot my own horn at all (get it? I’m a horn player!), but instead just stating fact; I’ve always made good grades on papers, whether the content was good or not, simply because I’m good at wording things in a way that makes it sound like I know what I’m talking about. Anyway, the point: I use proper grammar and proper English language when I write, say, or type anything. I feel like it makes you seem stupider when you rely too much on abbreviations on the Internet. Now, I realize that on places like Twitter, where you only have 140 characters to say what you want, you do what you can to make it all fit, calling for bad grammar and spelling liberties. But Facebook? Come on, people, is it too hard to spell things out, and spell them correctly? “lol”, though a term I use often (e.g. “That video made me lol”, “I lol’d pretty hard after reading this”), is a stupid term and one that is used far too often, which is why I stick to some variation of “haha” when I think something is funny. That way, I’m not lying (who ever actually “laughs out loud” every time they post that?), and I don’t look stupid. Also, who ever is literally “rolling on the floor laughing” when they type “rofl”? I don’t understand. Learn2English, people.
Anyway, this blog post ended up being a lot longer than expected, though I don’t mind at all. Like I said, I really enjoy this. That’s all for tonight, though; I need to try and get to sleep (despite the excessive nap I had earlier) before my theory final at 7:30 in the morning, with band soon after. Goodnight, everyone.
Chad
P.S. – I’d like you to still cast your vote in the poll on my last post regarding whether you think “Linus and Lucy” by the Vince Guaraldi Trio is a Christmas song or not: read my argument in my last post, but decide for yourself and cast your vote. Here’s the video and the poll. Make sure you listen before you decide, and ignore the fact that the background is from A Charlie Brown Christmas – my point is that just because it was composed for the Christmas special does not make it a Christmas song, nor does the fact that people associate it with that Christmas special. It was used in all of the subsequent specials as a sort of Peanuts “theme song”, so it’s not solely Christmas. Anyway. Here you go.
Good day, everyone. I hope everyone is enjoying themselves. To my fellow Tech students, I hope you’re enjoying your dead day before finals officially begin, and I wish you all the best of luck.
My day started unfortunately, with me waking up for my last 8am theory class of the semester at 8:25. No, it’s not because I was up too late – it was because I had forgotten to set an alarm to wake me up on time. At least I made it to class, even if there were only fifteen minutes left by the time I got there. No grades were taken today and it was basically just going over a review that we had done, so I didn’t really miss anything; I’m not worried about having missed the review because I have a 94 in that class at the moment; I’m hoping that I can possibly bring that up to a 95 with a good final grade. We’ll see.
After theory I had an hour-long break and then I had my SHMRG class. I feel a bit guilty for saying this, but today’s last class was my favorite one of the semester, and we didn’t even cover anything that was part of the curriculum for the class. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, today (well, now it’s yesterday), December 8th, was the 30th anniversary of the death of singer/songwriter John Lennon, of the Beatles fame. Being that, today in class we had a discussion with a guest professor stemming from how John Lennon and the rest of the Beatles affected popular music and whether we felt that popular musicians had a right to their own opinions and whether or not we felt that we should judge their music based on their personal opinions. It was a great discussion (when people weren’t saying the same thing over and over and over again about how much Ke$ha sucks, though I agree), and I had the opportunity to talk to the class about the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album and why the medium of the vinyl record versus the medium of iTunes individual song downloads was important. I really enjoyed it all. Fun times. Rest in peace, John Lennon. We love you.
Though this doesn’t follow my day chronologically, to stay on subject of the Beatles, I’d like to share this link that my good friend Connor shared on Twitter today: Clicky
Read through the whole thing if it interests you. If you haven’t heard of the “Paul is dead” hoax, search “Paul is dead” on Wikipedia. It’s not a long article. Back to the link I just posted: I think that this person, whoever he is, presents interesting ideas and what could be some pretty solid “evidence”, but I still find the whole thing pretty hard to believe. The idea that Paul McCartney died in the late 1960s and was promptly replaced with a lookalike who stepped in where the “real” McCartney “dropped off” to continue his musical career seems absolutely ludicrous to me. Now, I can’t explain the supposed changes in Paul’s alleged appearance changes presented in that article, but I’m sure there’s some sort of logical reasoning behind it besides Paul being dead and having been replaced by a lookalike/soundalike. That’s just silly. But who knows?
Picking up after SHMRG, I had a history exam. Unfortunately, this wasn’t my final, which I find a bit ridiculous. On the last day of class we have an exam right before the final? I dunno. It didn’t make much sense to me, but what do I know? I’m just the student. I’ll let the teacher do his job and follow his instructions. The exam wasn’t too bad; like usual, it was an essay exam, covering everything from Brown v. Board of Education to the Kennedy Administration to the Watergate Scandal to Reaganomics. I got in some good study time in the hour between theory and SHMRG, so I felt decently prepared; I’m hoping for at least a B, like usual.
Goin’ Band was next, and all we did was go over what we’re doing at the bowl game on New Year’s Day (bleh). We’re doing the part of the first show we learned this year as a sort of pre-game show, and for halftime we’re doing part of the last show we learned, the Dave Matthews Band show. Fun stuff. We even managed to finish early today, which was definitely a plus. The end of band today marked the end of classes for me for the semester: it’s a good feeling. Only finals to go!
Finals schedule: Theory Friday morning, Piano Friday afternoon, Calculus Saturday afternoon, horn jury Monday morning, SHMRG Tuesday morning, and History Wednesday afternoon. Then, I’m HOME FREE.
From band I went back to my room and hung out on my computer. I had gotten a call from Dell during band saying that my new computer parts were in and asking when I would be available for a technician to come and get the job done. The technician lady ended up coming at 3 on the dot. I think I had mentioned this before, but my computer screen had been faulty. It would blackout occasionally when the computer was being used and charged at the same time, leaving only my TV to display what I was doing. It had done this almost since I first got the computer, but it had never lingered for more than an hour or two and only happened once every few weeks or so, at least until last Saturday. Then, it blacked out and would black out every time it was plugged in, except for yesterday, when it worked great all day. It was even working fine for the first hour or so of usage after band today, but then it blacked out, and I thought, “Yes! Now I have something to show them!” So, I showed the technician from Dell when she came, and she recognized the issue straightaway and proceeded to dismantle my computer, remove the screen, and replace it with a shiny, brand new one, as well as replace my AC adapter since it might have been faulty as well. All for free since it was still covered by warranty. Rockin’. It’s been working fine ever since.
After she left, I went downstairs and bought a foot-long sub sandwich with ham, turkey, cheese, bacon, white American cheese, Swiss cheese, Parmesan cheese, and black olives (the Swiss makes it fancy/gourmet). Good stuff. I also bought two packages of Sour Punch Straws (<3) and a bag of Twizzlers, with a large Mountain Blast (Blue) Powerade to wash it all down with. Heading up to my room and eating at my desk, I decided to take a nap afterward, a little before six, not waking up until Andrew got back to the room around 8:30 after doing who-knows-what all day. From there, I laid in bed messing around on my phone and later talking to my parents until just after 11.
At this point, I was at a loss of what to do other than sit at my computer for several hours, when I looked up at my bookshelf and saw Tuesdays with Morrie. In case you don’t know, this book, written by Mitch Albom, is the book I’ve read more than any other in my life (6 or 7 times, once a year since 8th grade with a possible extra time in there as well). I love this book and have taken so many things away from it; it’s the only book I’ve ever highlighted stuff in of my own accord. So, around 11:30 or so, I started reading it again, finishing it a little after 3, I believe (what? I took a two-and-a-half hour nap, remember?). It was just as good as always, and all through reading it I posted on Twitter nearly everything I had highlighted (which is a lot, so I sorta apologize to my followers on Twitter, even though I think there’s lots to learn from all of those tweets). I’d like to share my favorite passage from the book, probably the most important thing I’ve learned from Morrie Schwartz. In the chapter titled “The Sixth Sunday: We Talk About Emotions”, Morrie talks about what he calls “detachment”, shown below:
“…If you hold back on the emotions – if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them – you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.
“But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely. You know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, ‘All right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.’ ” (p. 104)
Isn’t that an awesome thing to think about? I think it is, anyway. The idea that by fully recognizing emotion, or pain, or, heck, even the freezing cold (why not?), you can embrace it, know what it feels like, and then let it go. Push it aside. You’re not ignoring it at all, which tends to make it harder for us. I use this system all the time; it’s a really good tool to be able to utilize, I think. Morrie also quotes his favorite poet, W. H. Auden, frequently throughout the book: “Love each other or die”. What an incredible statement. Morrie has taught me so much just through this book; I almost feel like I know the guy. I hope I have a Morrie sometime in my college career. We’ll see.
A couple of weeks ago, I had a mini-argument with a couple of friends over whether or not the song “Linus and Lucy” by the Vince Guaraldi Trio, which premiered in the A Charlie Brown Christmas TV special, is actually a Christmas song or not. I argued that, since it was used in the subsequent Peanut specials and not only for the Christmas one, it was more of a “theme song” instead of a Christmas song. I’ve always been upset when Christmas stations play it on their radio playlist because I simply don’t think it’s a Christmas song. One of my friends argued that, since it was written for the Christmas special and because people associate it with Christmas. I didn’t argue my point further (even though I strongly disagreed with this point; sorry Ben! ;)), I lated mentioned to Andrew that associating a song with a holiday does not make it a holiday-specific song. The content does. Let’s say that my family had a tradition of dancing the Macarena on Christmas Eve before we went to bed time. I would associate that song with Christmas, wouldn’t I? Does that make the Macarena a Christmas song? Heck no! I think the same thing applies to “Linus and Lucy”. The only reason I bring this up now is because Andrew heard it on the radio today and sided with me – “Linus and Lucy”, while an excellent song by the Vince Guaraldi Trio, is most definitely NOT a Christmas song. “Christmas Time is Here” and “Skating” from the same special and by the same group are DEFINITELY Christmas songs, though. Take a listen and feel free to decide for yourself (though you know where I stand; in fact, I wanna set up a poll and see what you all think):
Welp, that’s all I have for this long post; my longest yet (2100 words; I had a lot to talk about tonight)! I have an optional Calculus review period tomorrow morning that Andrew and I plan on going to, as well as jury accompanist practice at 2; other than that, I have nothing to do tomorrow. I hope everyone has a great day!
Chad
P.S. – One more short passage from Tuesdays with Morrie for you to enjoy and learn from:
“Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too – even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.” (p. 61)
P.P.S. – I didn’t use proper citation, MLA or Chicago Manual of Style, for either of those quotes!
P.P.P.S. – Quick story before I’m officially done; while I was typing this, Andrew sat up, asked (very clearly, I might add) “You wanna dance, pretty boy?”, flipped over, and resumed snoring. /amusing
Today was a great day. I slept until about 9:10 (yay for not having to worry about aural skills final this morning!), which meant that my first class today was Calculus. We turned in our homework, which I had understood fairly well, and we proceeded to talk about the things we absolutely needed to know in order to do well on the final exam. No worries; I think that I will do fairly well on the exam. I feel pretty prepared, for the most part. There’s a review sheet with a few practice problems, so I’ll definitely take a look at that.
After Calculus I had an hour and a half break (isn’t my Tuesday schedule wonderful?), so I went to my room, printed something out that I was going to need later, called up Landry, and the two of us headed out to Chick-Fil-A. Yes, there’s two Chick-Fil-As on campus, but they only sell fixed items; you can’t order what you want, and I wanted a spicy chicken sandwich. We drove out there, originally intending to just go through the drive-thru and head back to the school to make sure we weren’t late, but the drive-thru line was so long that we ended up parking, walking inside, ordering, and then leaving. We made it back on campus in plenty of time for me to eat my sandwich (I had eaten the fries while driving) and still make it to band on time.
Andrew is snoring…what else is new? /expected
In Goin’ Band today, we were inside Allen Theatre to record all of the music we played this semester; needless to say, by the time we were finished my chops were completely blown. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it, though; the horns had some good stuff to play this year, and the music was rockin’ overall.
Some guy is outside on the basketball court singing “I Believe I Can Fly” by R. Kelly. I think he lives on my floor. It is 1:15 in the morning. GO TO BED.
From band I went back to my room for an hour and a half, surfing the Interwebs and probably eating a Lofthouse cookie or two.
Who can resist Lofthouse Cookies?
At 3:30 I went to piano class, which was fun considering it was just a quick review-type deal and we were done super early. Then I had a quick 25-minute practice with my accompanist for my horn jury on Monday. It went well, despite the fact that my face had died playing my horn earlier that day (thank you, Goin’ Band). After that, we had our last horn studio of the semester at 5, where we went over some etiquette stuff, did course evaluations for our lessons, and, most importantly, ate some Little Caesar’s pizza.
Not to be confused with the Caesar who is about to be murdered in this picture.
As pathetic as it may seem, that was basically my whole day. The rest of the day was spent in front of my computer on my desk, looking up handheld laser prices (yes, I’m lame), watching Family Guy, and doing theory homework. And here I am.
On the subject of lasers, I’ve gotten obsessed with them in the past few days, and it’s not the first time. Lasers are some of the coolest things ever, especially if you can get a really good one; if you get a good, well-made laser that’s got the proper specifications, you can pop balloons, light matches, melt through electrical tape, and even melt some plastics/rubbers. I WANT ONE; unfortunately, most quality lasers will cost you at least $200, which is a bit on the ridiculous side as far as something as simple as a laser goes. Maybe one day. Actually, I did find these:
Pretty legit looking, eh?
These only cost $49.95-99.95 apiece (not bad at all, really). These particular lasers are 200mW, which means they can do all of that awesome stuff mentioned previously. They also specialize in stinging skin and burning retinas if used improperly. Anyway, I’m actually considering shelling out the money for one of these (probably the green one with the 200mW upgrade option) after Christmas/my birthday; I think it’ll be worth playing around with it. And no worries, I won’t set anything on fire. For educational purposes, here’s two videos of good lasers:
Moving on: I don’t know how many keep track of things like this, but today, December 8, 2010, is the 30th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon (“L” is for “L”ennon too!) by Mark David Chapman. For you uncultured people of the world, John Lennon was one of the four members of the Beatles, arguably the most influential rock group of all time. Lennon, along with Paul McCartney, helped to write the majority of the band’s catalog, and he even managed to maintain a successful solo career after the band’s breakup. He’s missed by many, including myself, though I wasn’t alive at any point when he was. He was a heck of a musician and it’s a shame he died so young. Rest in peace, John Lennon, and God bless.
And, in light of the Christmas season:
That’s just about all I have for tonight. At least, I can’t think of anything else off the top of my head. Let’s see: I covered my day, I had my little laser paragraph, I mentioned Lennon…hmmm. OH. I just thought of something.
How many of you knew that today (December 7) was the anniversary of Pearl Harbor before someone else mentioned it? Anyone? It seemed to me that hardly anyone noticed or that anyone cared, for that matter. It’s a shame. I wish that people paid more attention to the past, to events like this. “A date that will live in infamy…” Maybe eventually people will learn to care about our nation more. I sure hope so.
Welp, that’s it’s for me tonight. I’m off to bed before my last day of classes for the semester! Yay! I’m pretty excited. Goodnight, everyone, sleep tight, and something about bedbugs.
Happy December 7th, everyone. I hope everyone remembers that 69 years ago today, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, giving the United States sufficient motive to enter World War II. Take a moment to consider how blessed we are by God; we have a military filled with individuals willing to sacrifice their lives so that we may live in freedom and in comfort. If you believe in such things, please take a moment to pray for those in conflict at this very minute and for their families. They need prayers.
Moving on, today was a pretty fun day. Woke up for music theory, where we just went over review stuff. It’s funny; I had thought that I was running late to class and that I just barely made it before class started, but I ended up being the third person to show up; everyone ELSE was late. /amusing
After theory I had horn lessons, which went well. I just need to work my scales up to speed and into all three octaves, as well as learning/perfecting my minor scales now that I know how they work. I also need to work a bit more on my jury piece. For my jury (end of the semester final for music majors) on Monday, I will be playing all three movements to Richard Strauss’s Horn Concerto No. 1 in Eb Major: a fantastic solo. I played the first movement at Texas State Solo and Ensemble Competition my sophomore year (my first year at TSSEC; I walked away with a silver medal), and I played the third movement at TSSEC last year and earned a 1, giving me a gold medal, so I was already familiar with this piece, though I had never played the second movement before. I’m hoping to do pretty well for my jury, so I just need to get in a little more practice time this week and I’m sure I’ll be fine.
From lessons I went straight to my SHMRG class (don’t ask), which was a joke. Just simple review stuff. I let my eyes close for a little while (to Granna (and Mom), who I know reads these: don’t worry, I heard every word! :)) I also found out that I made an 85 on my last test, which means that I should still have my A in that class. Hopefully. Boo-yah.
Probably the best part of my day was history class. Never thought I’d say that. You see, last week, right after Thanksgiving break, I had a paper due on Wednesday over a history monograph of my choosing. Sunday came along and I had not even thought about what I wanted to read, so I went to the bookstore, picked out a book about JFK’s assassination and the conspiracy theories surrounding it, but I never read it. Instead, I flipped a few pages, found a few ideas, and pretty much pulled the paper out of thin air. Finishing late Tuesday night, I told myself that it was the worst paper I had ever written; I expected a terrible grade. I turn it in, and, finally, today I get it back, a nice, big 90 marked on the last page. Best grade I’ve gotten in that class on a paper this year, and this is the third paper; I even read the first book (I made an honest attempt at the second one, but it wasn’t as interesting, and we had had a class discussion previously over the material). I was beyond mind-blown. Here I was, thinking I had written an absolute piece of garbage, yet here it was in front of me with an A. Go figure. I guess I’m a good enough writer to make it sound like I knew what I was talking about. That’s a plus. Go writing skills!
After history was Goin’ Band rehearsal, but all we did today was meet in Hemmle Recital Hall in regards to officer elections, Outstanding Bandsman Award nominations, and bowl trip information. Speaking of bowl trips (ugh), Texas Tech is going to the Ticket City Bowl, which, conveniently enough, is at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, which is pretty much where I live. So that’s a plus, I suppose. Honestly, I’d rather not have to go at all since my break was being cut 8 days short for the musical I’m in anyway. However, since it’s on January 1st and I have to be back in Lubbock on the 2nd, I guess that it’s good that the bowl game isn’t interrupting my break so much as it is cutting it a day or two short. Whatever. I still don’t wanna go. Tomorrow during class we’re going to meet in Allen Theater and record most of the music we performed this season. Fun stuff.
Following the band meeting, I was a free man, able to go anywhere and do anything I wanted (within legality), since it was my last class of the day. I ended up just hanging around in the room all day, playing Snake on Facebook (frustrating as heck, especially when my 500+ point game got reset midway through since I accidentally pushed one of the keys adjacent to the arrow keys), snacking on delicious, sent-from-God Lofthouse Cookies, and playing with a few new laser pointers (red, green, AND violet; the violet one writes on glow-in-the-dark material: it’s amusing). Andrew and I hit up Cici’s for dinner (thank you Granna for the gift card!) and then did our calculus homework upon our return to the room. I think we finished it before midnight for the first time. Rockin. I understood the assignment pretty well, and Andrew did too after the first few problems.
(((((((((((((((((Apparently, I like parentheses just as much as I like semicolons))))))))))))))))) ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
Andrew also had a couple of quick papers to type up tonight for class tomorrow, but, since his computer has been…well…under the weather?, he needed to use mine to type it up. While he used my computer, I decided to take a look at his computer to see if I could do anything to save it before it exploded. I managed to get the Internet working on it again, downloaded an antivirus software, scanned, and deleted the 18 files it found (all Trojans). Hopefully that did the job; I told him to run the scan first thing again tomorrow. WE WILL DEFEAT YOU, YOU TROJANS!
And that was my day. I talked to my cousin Summer for a while via text message, so that was fun (her 15th birthday is on Wednesday [tomorrow]). I’ll call her either at midnight (if she’s still awake; it’ll be a school night) or sometime during the day on Wednesday. Either way, I’ll probably at least text her at midnight if I don’t get to call her. I’m so looking forward to seeing all of my family next week; Wednesday night and I’ll be home for a good while! I’m definitely ready for that and for Christmas. I love this time of year, in case you couldn’t tell.
With that, I leave you with a goodbye and an amusing video of a ninja cat:
Chad
P.S. – It wouldn’t be a Chad blog post without a postscript, would it? Well, I’ll give you another video, this time of my favorite Christmas song:
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Frank Sinatra
…that last post seemed a LOT longer when I typed it on my phone…go figure.
Anyway, today’s been a good one. Let’s just say I’m completely done with aural skills for the semester (I can’t give details about this one; it’s supposed to be hush-hush), and I got an 83 on my last calculus exam, which I’m happy with. Calculus is HARD (I just had a strong urge to put a Twitter hashtag, but, seeing as this isn’t Twitter, it wouldn’t make much sense; #twitteraddict).
Band was alright. Personally, I’m not a fan of playing above the treble clef consistently four times in a row with other things in between, but that’s just me. I’ll survive. The reason we played the same things so many times is because we were testing out a few drum major hopefuls for next year. I’m hoping that Chelsea (GO FRENCH HORNS!) and Shane (alto sax player, but I won’t hold it against him) get the positions. They did really well.
I came back to my room after band to find that my roommate had opened the box of Frosted Cheerios we bought at Wal-Mart last night, and, failing to resist the urge, proceeded to devour several handfuls of the delicious Os. I ❤ cereal, and Frosted Cheerios is a good one.
I like milk too. I’m about to pour some milk into my fancy new mug (see below post; keepin’ it classy!). Cereal + milk + whatever I decide to officially eat for lunch = a good combo.
Speaking of lunch, have you seen the funny Randy Newman parody I posted on Facebook the other day? If you haven’t, here it is:
“Lunch, oh lunch, let’s all eat some lunch…” That video is hilarious. I hope you found it as funny as I did; if not, it doesn’t really matter to me, though, so no worries. Ha.
I played a bit on my XBox yesterday for the first time since probably September. I don’t think we even played it when Seth visited during parent weekend. I don’t really remember. Anyway, I learned something important: leaving Halo 3 alone for 2-3 months and then suddenly coming back to play online = bad idea. I royally sucked it up. I was terrible. Not fun times. But then I took a nap, ate dinner, got some Starbuck’s, went to Wal-Mart, and watched a movie with friends, so it all balanced out and then some in the end.
It’s almost time for my piano class today. It’s generally my favorite class because it’s hands-on. We get down to business in there, and it’s so cool to be playing an instrument for a grade, especially since I’m somewhat decent at it. I just wish that I had learned at an earlier age. Of course, I took five lessons from Mrs. Shotts back a couple of summers ago, but all I really did was learn the basics and my pentascales. I mean, yes, I’m thankful that I at least had that much experience going into it, but it would be nice to be more fluent. It’d definitely help with my voice stuff a bit. Oh well. I’ll get better eventually.
I can’t think of anything else to say in this post. So goodbye.
A Day in the Life 