The Holidays Are Here....

And we're popping out the Christmas music. :)
I got this piano book for Christmas last year filled with all of the piano music from Charlie Brown (Peanuts) movies. I love it, there's EVERYTHING, from the original popular Linus and Lucy to cute little personal favorites of mine, like his version of the Little Drummer Boy. This is one I learned for today and I love it. :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14z7IHsPVyc (the Thanksgiving Theme). (learning it last minute, I didn't get all the little frilly runs and EVERY chord down.. it was fun and easy reading anyway, though. :) ) Oh, and no drumset or trumpets. :P
so.....
Happy Thanksgiving to everybody! :)
I have to say, this is the first Thanksgiving in my memory where something was not spilled at the dinner table for Thanksgiving dinner. It's a miracle.. haha.
Tomorrow we put up the Christmas tree and I finish putting up lights and garlin and stuff outside. I already have the fence garlin and lights and the net lights on the bushes. The porch has garlin, now I just have to put up some little decorations and possibly more lights. -____-
And I am NOT going shopping tomorrow!!!! I will go to the Y for an hour and that is IT. Thank goodness the YMCA is 2 blocks away... hahaha...oh my goodness...haha... wow. Yes that's another thing to be grateful for.. VERY grateful for.*SIGH*. Black Friday traffic... icky.

I'm going to go listen to some Celtic Women Christmas music now... :)

You know what sounds like pure, absolute heaven to me right now?

A quiet place where it's warm and sunny and where I can lay down on anything light as a cloud and just spend an entire day there, relaxing and listening to my favorite relaxing music (classics, of course :) )and reading a really good book, and just being with somebody who can enjoy it and appreciate it as deeply as I would.

That sounds pretty amazing right now.

So, on a happier note than the last few posts have been... I'll update on the family. :)

Oliver was a vampire for Halloween. I did his hair and makeup. :) Oliver is part of the Green Team at his school and (a program that teaches kids about recycling and how to be more "green"-they also get to go on field trips to special places) - oo it started snowing outside - haha, anyway. Oliver loves his first grade class and has a lot of friends, who he keeps on trying to invite over to his house without their mom knowing or his mom, so it never happens. :P

Grace was a Genie for halloween. Grace is also a part of the Green Team at her school. She is also learning how to play the flute and is doing very well. She's been playing for about 4 weeks and has 5 notes down that she can play fluently without guessing where they are. She's very excited for it, and we're all very excited with her. :)

Sally dressed up from the 80s for the church party and a "wet paint" sign on Halloween night. Sally is liking her honors classes in 8th grade (except for algebra...I didn't like it, either!) and has just started swim team season. She swims with the YMCA Dubuque Dolphins. She made state last year (Molly did, too) and she hopes to make it again, and do even better this year. Sally was also accepted into the Jr. Honors All-State Orchestra with her viola, but unfortunately, the timing conflicts with my all-state and there would be nobody for her to ride home with. She'll still be eligable next year to be in the Jr. All-State, but our conductor will probably make her audition for the actual all-state orchestra (and if she works at the same pace she's working now, she has pretty good chances of making it).

This is what I did for Halloween. I dressed up like a stuffed scarecrow and grabbed people's hands as they took candy. :) (by the time this picture was taken, the makeup was started to fade) My truck also won 1st place in car decorations (you can't see it, but the entire right side of the trunk is one big spider web that I made with fuzzy white and black yarn. I'm leaving for Ames, Iowa for the All-State Music Festival on Wednesday, and I'm very excited for it. :)

Molly was little Dracula's big sister :) Molly is still busy with her classes, but finds them getting better. She is busy with her calling as Nursery leader and her work at a local day care. She's really busy and I don't get to see her that often, and when I do see her, she's either trying to rest or do homework.

Choices

I've always known that the choices we make have consequences, and over the past few weeks I've been realizing more and more how your choices can not only have an effect on yourself, but they can effect everybody around you. Good or bad. In church I always get the lesson of the personal joy and pain you go through when you make a decision. In young women's lessons, they always briefly touch on how your choices can have an influence on your friends and family, and how your friends can have an influence on you. But what finally hit me today isn't completely about influences. Just the choice somebody made, and the effect it's having/will have (not many people know about it yet). It has now effected everybody this person ever knew and many people this person has never met. I can't say I can't believe it happened, because I knew this person and knew of this person's ...view on standards. So I can't say I never would have expected it to come from this person, but now that it has, it's quite a shock. I do believe it happened, and even though I so wish I could say that I never would have expected it, and that this person is too good to do something like that, I can't. This person is a truely amazing person, extremely smart and wonderfully nice, considerate, and a VERY hard worker. But when it comes down to choices and what this person decided to do.. I'm very ashamed. And scared. For this friend.


I know I NEVER will.. but please.
Don't drink and drive.

Politics + School = BAD IDEA

Yesterday was the worst day of school ever. I don't think I've ever been harassed more in an entire week than I was in all of school yesterday. It was not fun. And to top it off, I was feeling extremely crummy (and am not going to school today because I still feel really sick).
Before I get into what happened, let me lay out my view on politics.
I have been raised republican, and after having taken serious studying on both sides, looking at views with out bias or input from the other side, I have decided that I prefer the republican views over the democratic views. However, just because I'm republican it does NOT mean that I hate the democrats. There are some nice things about their views, but there's too much that I don't agree with. So I don't hate Obama. I never have. I don't hate Biden. I really preferred John McCain and Sarah Palin. Overall, I think all of them are pretty nice people (well, I never got to study Biden, so I don't really know much about him, besides his views and plans.)
So I wore my McCain/Palin shirt and button yesterday (and was given a sticker that I put on my shirt), because I wanted to be patriotic and everybody was wearing their Obama shirts and stickers, so I felt I had every right to wear what I want to wear. Now, I was expecting some negativity, but I was NOT expecting the ammount that I got.
Before school: some negative (but joking) comments from some friends. Expected.
1st hour: Intro to Business. We had to watch Saturday Night Live, the one where McCain and "Sarah Palin" come and try to sell stuff. Dumbest thing I ever saw. People made fun of McCain. Nothing was made fun of Obama. NOTHING.
2nd hour: Choir. I hate choir. I might quit. I hate it so much. I am surrounded by these evil little sophomore brat--I mean, girls. They're just evil. Too long to explain. I won't explain what happened (also too long), but they're the most evil creatures in school. And I'm surrounded by them for 50 minutes every day from 8:29 to 9:17. Yesterday was the worst by far with them.
3rd hour: Genetics. In between 2nd and 3rd hour yesterday, I needed to stop by the nurses office, and my genetics teacher knew that. So I walked into class a couple of minutes late. I walk in and walk along the edge of the room so as to not interrupt my teacher and distract the class. But this one girl sees what I'm wearing and shouts "OH MY GOSH" *she uses another word... and more vulgar that I'll also replace* "MCCAIN?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! UGGGGG BLEEEACCCHHHH!!! *mime vomits*" so I just smiled and said "yep!" and sat down in my chair and hoped that would be the end of it. Nope. She turns around and starts shouting at me "YOU KNOW HE'S GOING TO SCREW THE COUNTRY, RIGHT?!?!?!?! HE'LL DIE ANYWAY HE'S SUCH AN IDIOT AND YOU'RE AN IDIOT FOR SUPPORTING HIM! UGGGG BLECHHHH!!!!! OH MY GOSH!!! AND PALIN IS A WHORE" and on and on. She was just shouting crap out and had no idea what she was talking about. So I shouted back (not as loudly) "You know what, maybe I don't care, and MAYBE" (she was starting to shout back again, so I shouted over her) "MAYBE I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT AND I WANT TO FOCUS" (I gestured toward my teacher, who looked kind of shocked about the whole thing), "ON GENETICS. THAT'S WHAT WE'RE HERE FOR. SO LEAVE ME ALONE." we had to take a test. It was really hard to focus with her muttering 2 desks away and glaring at me.
4th hour: Study hall. 2 friends and I get passes to go to the choir room and we do homework there rather than sit in the rowdy room full of people who got a study hall because the slacked off. The 3 of us got study halls because my 2 friends got D+s in an AP class that was really hard to pass anyway, I got a study hall because I was sick and had to drop a class. 4th hour really wasn't that bad. I just started feeling really sick and just lay down on the floor the whole hour.
5th hour: is normally orchestra, but a group of us had to go get our pictures taken for All-State. So I had gotten dressed and had to walk across the building in my nice concert black clothes and my cello (with a group of friends also in nice clothes and carrying violin/viola/trumpet cases). There was a crowd waiting to get into lunch and some people said "watch out, big instrument coming through" and it was pretty easy. But these 2 girls who weren't listening (big surprise *sarcasm*), tripped over my cello case (which has wheels and rolls behind me) and knocked it over and started shouting all sorts of profanity that should have gotten them in huge trouble. I just said "oops you just gotta watch where yer going... sorry!" and both of them started throwing the F-bomb at me. Telling me I'm retarted and an f-ing loser and something about McCain and it was ugly. So, I lost my standards for a second and flipped them off as I turned the corner.. I know, bad thing bad thing, but things were just piling up.. I can only be a door mat for so long.
6th hour: I got to class late because of the pictures (had a pass, it was excused), and as I was walking down the hall, I saw/heard a teacher in a classroom say "and Sarah Palin- uggg blech oh my gosh.." so after I passed the door (he hadn't seen me) I shouted "WOOO GO SARAH PALIN!!!" and ran to my class.. hahaha. Over all 6th hour was pretty good. I sat inbetween a quiet republican and a quiet democrat. We watched a movie over a book we've been reading, so it was pretty quiet.
7th hour: I walked in and one of my friends (democrat) was talking about how one of our friends (a republican) was complaining about stuff and he said she should just get over it. I asked if it was Audrey (our friend) and he said yes. Before I spoke up, somebody walked passed my desk, saw my shirt and said "ugggg blech" *mime vomited on me*. So I said "See??? This is what we're sick of. I'm SO TIRED of being picked on and shouted at because of my beliefs! You don't see anybody wearing McCain going around and doing what she just did!" (I pointed at the girl) "We don't go around saying 'Screw Obama!' and 'you suck!' If Obama's going to win tonight, your side is going to be the one representing what America is! And when you mime-vomit all over people who just simply don't agree with you, that makes you look pretty un-intelligent. So yeah, Audrey has every right to complain. We've been harassed ALL DAY LONG." and nobody could retort. It felt great. To break the silence, the girl behind me said "well, I'm independent and I can't even vote, neither can most of you, so how about we just drop it? Yeah! :D" And then a teacher in the room spoke up and said "there are 2 things you just cannot argue about in life with people and you should NEVER try and change their minds, because you just can't. They are politics and religion. So just don't even argue about it. It's not going to do any good."
Later in class I had to make a trip down the hall and a teacher in the hallway saw me and said "Oh! You've GOT to show your shirt to this guy!" and he pulled me into an empty classroom with a teacher at his desk and I said "Yeah.. McCain...?" and he said "ooooooo EVIL!!!" and I retorted "more like SMART! haha" and he laughed, he said "you know, you're probably right". That wasn't so bad, but the fact that a teacher wanted to use me to get a negative comment out of a teacher.. I don't like being used.
So by the end of the day I was pretty upset, and I talked with my favorite teacher (who is pretty much just a family friend who happens to teach) and I explained to her what had happened and she was shocked by all of it and told me that she had seen some of that happen in her own class. People had asked one girl who she supported and she said "McCain" and people just jumped on her.. So this teacher told me that she's sending an email to the principle about the behavior of people in school.
My mom wants me to write a narrative of my day and show it to my guidance councelor...

So today I'm not in school... I really don't feel good, and after yesterday, I don't think I could handle today without breaking down or totaly freaking out at some point.
Today is my break. I don't need to deal with life today.

All-State: After Auditions

If you have not yet read the previous post, do so before you read this please.

So I auditioned on my cello this morning. Overall I thought I did very very well. I felt I could have done a better, and I was pretty dissapointed by that, but everybody says they could have done better at anything they do.
I waited and waited for the call backs to be posted. I was assuming that if I made call backs that all was good. If I didn't, I assumed I probably wasn't in. The list was posted and my name wasn't on there. I started feeling really down and just knew I didn't make it. My good friend Sarah and I talked about it and I talked myself into the mode of being ok with not making it, that all-state isn't everything, and there are plenty of other things I will audition for that I will make, and over all I should just be proud of what I did.
About 5 minutes after saying this and finally believing it, the final list was posted, and my name was on it. I made all-state orchestra. For a good 10 minutes all I could say was "Oh My Gosh!!!!" and squeal. I cried.... I was so happy. I'm STILL so happy.
This has been the longest day of my life.
I'm ready for bed.

All-State: Evening Before

For the past year I have been preparing myself for the all-state auditions tomorrow. I got the 5 excerpt pieces (2 of which I will be required to play-they will tell me which 2 to play) back in July and have been learning them and perfecting them for the past few months. The excerpts are of the 3 songs that will be played in the All-State orchestra (one of which is on the playlist-"Overture to Candide" by Bernstein). I also picked a solo to play in July. For the last year I have been practicing my scales. My audition tomorrow will be: My solo (which has a time limit of 60-80 seconds-no shorter or longer), two 3-octave scales in 16th notes at 88 bpm (pretty fast), and 2 of the 5 excerpts.
Last year, I totaly bombed my audition. The excerpts were lousy, my solo wasn't very musical, and my scales-ugggg horrribbblllleeee. This year however, I have learned SO MUCH, and I've grown more than 10Xs in the last year, I almost can't believe it. I'm a much more confident player. I feel that I have improved in every aspect of playing the cello in every way a LOT. It is my dream while in high-school to make the all-state orchestra. While I know that it is very possible that I won't make it, I feel I have a far greater chance this year than I did last year by FAR. I'm totaly prepared. Every single scale, every note, every bowing, every dynamic level of every excerpt, every emotion in the music is ready. I'm very nervous. But it's good to be nervous. I'd much rather be nervous like this than scared and freaking out from not being prepared.
Please pray that I'll do well at my audition if you read this in time.. my audition is in less than 12 hours at 8:30 in the morning (central time) in Oelwein, IA. Call-backs are posted at 9:30. The final list of those who made it will be posted at 11:00 at the very latest.
I should head to bed. I need to wake up at 4:45 am in order to get ready and get to school by 5:30.
If I make it, I might cry I think... haha. If I don't, I'll be a little dissappointed, but my over-all goal is to do my ultimate best ever in that audition room and to walk out of there at 8:35 proud of what I've accomplished.
Lately, all of my hard work has been paying off. I've been working very very hard, and in the last 2 months, harder than I've worked all year. Maybe my hard work will pay off again. Just maybe...

To Have Patience... Boy Wouldn't Life Go Faster?

All around, I guess I could say that I'm very happy. Things are going great, I'm excited for 2 of my cousins (one from my mom's side of the family, the other from my dad's), both of whom are getting married, and both of whom are rather fresh return missionaries. I think one has been back for almost 2 years, but still... about time! hehe :) But I'm very very very excited for both of them and can't wait to meet their future wives (and my new cousin-in-laws!). :)
However, I am no longer dealing with Crohn's Disease, but rather a new and equally frustrating "disease". I have caught "senioritis", and I have it bad. I'm so eager to get out of highschool, Dubuque, the midwest, live life on my own for a while. Meet new people, have some independence, work towards my goals in a new environment. I really want to major in music education, and maybe get a degree in conducting. (I think there might be a more formal name for that, but whatever it is... I'd like to conduct orchestras/symphonies and earn my degree to be able to do that.) However, I need to spend a year at Clarke College before I can go anywhere else. 1) I get free tuition at Clarke (can't pass that up), 2) if I get sick with crohn's again, it'd be best to be at home, and 3) my parents say it will be good for me to ease into college this way, stay in the same environment yet transition into a new school environment. I know they're right, I'm just being really impatient. And eager. :P But once I'm done with at least 1 year at Clarke College, I want to head out west and go to, of course, BYU Provo. I have family out there who I can stay with and it's a great place to go to college I've heard. (oh and I'll just say it.. I kind of really want to get married within the next DECADE, and I'm sure I'd have a better chance of finding my man out in the mormon bubble than I would in the midwest. I know I could be wrong, but I'm not going to sit here and wait. I'd rather explore the world and be wrong than sit and wait and be unsuccessful.)

I wrote a song about senioritis last night. It goes to the tune of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". It's very cheesy, but it works, and it's accurate.

Get me out of highschool
Get me out of here now
Graduate early or skip a grade
Find a good college then I'll have it made
But until I get that diploma
I'll sit and try not to pout
For just ONE MORE YEAR out of 12
Until I'll be out!!!

I have 31 weeks left of school.
I really should be more patient.. and try and enjoy what I have while I have it.