Finals, Adventures, and McDonald’s Coffee

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.

DANCE LOBSTERS DANCE

Love one another or die.

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