I’ll have the Caramel Hazelnut Macchiato, please.

Good day, everyone. I hope everyone is in a good mood and I hope that my fellow college students are doing well with their finals.

 

Speaking of finals, I only have three more to go (well, technically two plus a horn jury): my jury is tomorrow morning (don’t worry, I’m about to go to bed; I’ll be fine), my SHMRG final is Tuesday morning bright and early, and my History final will be Wednesday afternoon, unfortunately; I wish it was earlier so that I could be home earlier, but oh well. Nothing I can do about that except for skip, and I’m definitely not going to do that.

 

Today was decent. Woke up around 9:30-9:45 or so, got dressed, and made my way over to Conner’s house. He hopped in my car and we made the twenty minute trip to Wolfforth, where the church we go to together is located. The normal pastor was back today after a three-week hiatus (I’m not sure where he had been), which was great. Don’t get me wrong, the man who spoke last week was decent, but you could tell that he was doing something he wasn’t entirely comfortable with/used to. Today’s message was titled “Missing Christmas While Waiting in Line”, which is pretty self-explanatory – we need to make sure that Christmas isn’t about what presents we get (though I’m not saying that those gifts are the root of evil or anything like that), but rather about the people we get those presents from. Most importantly, however, it’s about God and how He sent His only son Jesus down on earth to be born to a virgin and later to save us all from our sin and from the fate we all deserve. Be thankful for your situation in life, whether you’re poverty-stricken or well-off, because God loves us all and He always provides for us.

 

After church, I dropped Conner back off at his house and headed back to the room. I called Andrew on my way back to see what he was up to and to let him know that I would be there soon, but he didn’t answer. I shrugged it off, thinking he might have gone to his church’s 11am service. After I had parked in the parking garage and had started to make my way back to the room, he called me back: believe it or not, Andrew had just woken up. Blew my mind. You see, Andrew is NOT a late sleeper at all; this is the only time I’ve seen him sleep past 11, and I’ve rarely even seen him sleep past 10 at the latest. It was definitely a landmark in the sleep habits of Andrew.

 

Once I got back in the room, we just hung out for a while, had a glass of milk, ate a cookie (Lofthouse, of course!), watched Family Guy, the usual. Oh Family Guy, why do you amuse me so?

 

Speaking of amusing, here’s something that’s NOT. It’s a Flash game called “QWOP”, and it’s the hardest Flash game I’ve ever played. Basically, you control a runner at the Olympics, and your goal is to finish a 100-yard sprint. Simple enough, amirite? Wrong. To make the run, you have to control of each the runner’s leg muscles separately; the Q and W buttons control his thighs, while O and P control his calves. If you don’t time it correctly, you fall over and crack your head (you don’t see it, but the sound effect for some reasoned sickened me a bit). The best I could do was 32.2 meters. Here’s the link below; see if you can get any farther than I did:
Clicky

 

Anyway, after a while of failing at that game, I decided that I had put off my laundry for long enough, so I put everything in my hamper, packed my laptop in my backpack, and trekked down to the basement/laundry room. Andrew would have joined me, but he had student mass at his church at 5pm, so I went alone. The laundry room was pretty busy tonight; I was only able to snag two washing machines at a time. Laundry was pretty boring (not that I expected any different), and as soon as I finished and had gotten up to the room to put everything away, Andrew called me asking me to pick him up. You see, our friend Megan was accepted into the Disney College Program and will be working at Disney World in Florida as a paid intern next semester, so we won’t see her for months. We decided (well, it was Andrew’s idea) to get a few of us to go out to eat and then go see Tangled at the movie theater as a sort of “send-off” shindig; however, plans changed, and we ended up just going out to eat at the Olive Garden. I had raspberry lemonade to drink (very tasty, as our waitress could tell you; she refilled my glass countless times throughout the evening) and ate lots of bread sticks before our meal came out; everyone knows that the bread sticks are the best part about the Olive Garden. For my meal, I ordered what I normally get there: the fettuccine alfredo. Good stuff. When we had first looked through the menu to order, we saw the dessert menu, listing several delicious items sent down to the restaurant by God Himself, including the Caramel Hazelnut Macchiato.

SO GOOD

Now, since I’ve gotten into coffee lately, I was all too eager to try this macchiato, so I resolved to order it after my meal, as did Jenny (one of the girls we were with). When it finally came (without whipped cream, of course; whipped cream is disgusting), it was delicious. I didn’t have to add any creamer because of the caramel and hazelnut syrups already mixed in. Very good stuff; Andrew decided to order one too, and, as we drank it down, we made sure to keep it classy by keeping our pinkies out. Would you expect anything less of us? Haha.

 

After dinner and dessert, we went back on campus, where we all re-grouped in Tessa and Jenny’s room (they have the big TV set), where we proceeded to play with the Wii, games like Mario Kart (Tessa wins), Super Smash Bros. Brawl (I win), and Just Dance 2 (I did not participate in such shenanigans). We played that until about 1:30am, when I said, “Listen, I’ve got a jury in the morning and I’ve gotta go. Goodnight.” Gave Tessa and Megan hugs, Jenny a high five (she was lying on her back on the ground, exhausted from dancing), and then Andrew and I headed out the door and went back to the room. And here I am.

 

I think I had mentioned the other day that my voice teacher had talked with one of the voice professors at Tech, Prof. Dent, and that he would get in contact with me to talk about a choir audition. Well, after waiting somewhat impatiently, I received an email today from Prof. Dent, who proceeded to set up a time for me to meet with him and get things in order. We will be meeting tomorrow afternoon at 2:30, at which point I’ll sing for him a bit of a song I have prepared, and I’ll also sight-read a bit. In other words, nothing I haven’t been doing for two-thirds of my life (singing in a choir, at least; I’ve only been sight reading since seventh grade and performing solos since fifth grade). I’ll keep you all posted as to how it goes.

 

Random: I want to learn how to rip a phone book in half. It’s not a particularly difficult feat, and it doesn’t require a lot of strength if you know how to do it properly. So I will learn, and then I will record myself beast mode-ing it up, and then I will post it on here for you all to see. Sound like a plan? Awesome.

 

For some reason this post seems shorter than normal, but, according to the word count below this box, I just passed 1200 words, which is around the same general amount as usual. I could probably keep going at it, but I have my horn jury in the morning and I want to be able to wake up on time, not be in a hurry, and do well. I’m not too worried about the jury itself; I’ve practiced what I’m going to play and I know how to do it well, so it’s just a matter of doing it.

 

Anyway, that’s all for this post. Goodnight/good day, everyone. I hope it’s a good one.

 

Chad

 

P.S. – Two more days.

Image Humor at Its Best

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