Unsettled

I have no clue what's up? I just feel very, actually extremely unsettled right now, and I have no idea why. It may just be that I have free time on my hands and I forgot what it feels like, but I don't think that's it. I feel like somethings about to happen. At first I thought it was just a need to do something, and since I had already cleaned the apartment, done laundry, and all other things outside of school, I decided I just felt the need to go practice. So I head in and start my warm-up, I can't concentrate at all on what I'm doing, and didn't feel motivated to practice, so I finished a brief warmup just to keep up. I tried reading through May's Ensign talk by Elder Nelson as I'm giving a devotional on it in institute next week. I couldn't keep my thoughts on that either. So after a brief read of it, I just kept feeling weirder and weirder. I figure some food will take my mind of, so I go by ice cream and rootbeer to bring home and share with my brother. As I'm driving home, I still feel this sense of... who knows what. Only more strong. Now I'm at home, my brother is taking a nap, so I put the stuff away, and now here I sit pondering what the heck is up? I don't have a clue. It's really annoying as I never felt like this before, at least that I remember. I feel I should be doing something, yet I don't know what. Something urgent. Maybe I'll figure it out, or it will pass, or something, I just hope whatever it is it passes quickly. Aaarrgghhh.

I AM...

When the question of colors came up on the board, I was curious what I would show up as, but as I've made two comments the past two days, I decided not to post it there, and instead post it here.

Now... this might be a big surprise to all those who read the board(sarcasm added). I am in fact... yellow. Yep, no if, ands, or butts about it. It was very decidedly yellow. Who would have guessed?

On a side note. The test they do out at BYU, with I believe, red, white, yellow, and blue, my sister is exactly half red and half white. This is the same results she gets every time. I call her the angry peacemaker. If something's amiss, she'll rip everyone apart and have them all make up. Or attempt to anyway.

Speaking to sister at BYU, I've assumed by now you've found this site, and found out some surprising things about me. You'd be the only person to read this who actually has met me. If you have located it, feel free to mess around with how to do things on this site which I can't figure out. Add links on the side, have it show up something other than N/A, etc. Fool around with your mad computer science major skills. You already know how to access my site without me even telling you. Am I predictable or what?

Another side note from the Board, the highest Tetriss level is 10. You hit that around 20,000 points, or at least we did. You should see our Tetriss-like wars though. Tetriss Attack, I forget what game system, we'd spend hours trying to best one another in that game. I got my brother in trouble with his wife so many times doing that. He was the better, but after my mission, I came out on top. There's also the similar Pokemon one. I beat the top level in only 8 continues. Good times.

Voting?

I think I've got some weird political gene in me. Not a single person in my family has a political bone in their body. I can understand the importance of taking any type of role in voting and making sure that our politicians hear what we have to say. I just can't bring myself to really care. I think of all the excuses on why I don't. Do I not know where to start? I don't think that's it. Enough people of the board have asked that, that I could get a good idea. Do I feel uncomfortable with it? To a degree, since I'm completely unfamiliar with it. I've been so bad, that a couple of years ago, I couldn't have told you who the president was, let alone the local people. Do I not have the time? To a degree. But how much time would it take? It's obviously not something that's a priority in my life. Yet I can't seem to make myself care enough to change that. Maybe someday I will change that, but I seriously doubt in time for the elections, which by the way, I couldn't tell you when they are. Oh well, only time will tell.

Stop and Smell the Roses

You know, I haven't done this in a really long time. The last time I had a full day to myself has probably been since before school started. I've had days off, but I still did things and kept up with things. This weekend is the first time this semester that I haven't had a football game, performance, rehearsal etc. Marching band cancelled their Friday night practice, I cancelled my school observation, so I finished school at noon, with full intent of going home for the first time since June and do absolutely nothing.

I load up my vehicle and take off for home, about a two hour drive. It's about the time I hit the highway that I realize that it's fall. Then I fell in love with Kentucky all over again. The whether was absolutely perfect, just a slight chill to the air that you may need a jacket. A nice little fog settles over the land, giving it a peaceful feel. The trees are just absolutely beautiful this time of year. You've got your brilliant red leaves standing out among the other colors. The oranges and yellows and greens and all the shades in between provide a nice collage for your eyes. As I travel along even further, I see fields with some cattle in it. The hay rolled up in bundles. The many barns and silos that dot the way. The nice houses that are fairly close by that the family live in. The tobacco hanging out to dry. The Baptist church at the top of the hill. The three crosses on the right that marked the sight of the deaths of three people who died in a car accident there. Traveling through the rolling hills of Eastern Kentucky. It was absolutely awesome.

I get to my exit onto Route 5. This road is one of the curviest roads, and loads of fun to travel on. You can always tell a person foreign to the area, where they drive at about 30, when the locals go about 50. I know every sweet curve and passing zone and strait sections like the back of my hand. They've made a strait highway that actually cuts down on time, but you've definitely got to take the scenic routes through Kentucky, they're great. I pass another typical southern Baptist church, actually about 6 altogether on Route 5 alone. You find your lots that are full of cars that are being worked on. I pass the old blue bus, that's sat in the same spot for as long as I can remember, at least 15 years. I always used that blue bus as a landmark of where to turn to get to one of my friend's house. It now being overgrown by the forest. You've got your typical roadkill, I only saw about 4 this time. Usually it's more. At least I haven't hit anything, although I've seen several deer passing through on several occasions. I pass about 3 other churches. I'm finally getting close to home. I pass the LDS church, the only one in about a 40 minute radius. I'm about 1/2 a mile from my house now. I continue to drive through the area I've lived my entire life. A nice small town of about 10,000 people and three stoplights. Two have been added since I was born. I drive down the dead end street we live on. Our neighbor's out in her garden where she's been working all morning replanting her bushes and shrubs after the plumbing company tore it all up. Have a nice little chat with her. I love our neighbors. On the other side is the Rice's. Their an old retired couple. Willing to help out with anything. Across the street is a new family, so I never met them, but at least they're replenishing the neighborhood with kids, as we're all grown up now. Also across the street is my best friend's house. Her car is sitting right out in front covered with leaves, as she's still out of state and will hopefully come home for Christmas. Her grandma is just another house over. You'll never meet a nicer person and one who cares so much about everyone.

I used to not like where I grew up. No diversity, very much backwoods Kentucky, not the best educated people etc, etc. I think it took my mission to Vegas to let me appreciate what I have here. The beauty of the land. It's absolutely awesome. Your picturesque scenes of a good ol' Southern atmosphere, even if we are a border state. The people here are great. We have at least a little Southern charm here, not a lot, but enough. It makes you feel like parts of America still carry the values that have been lost in larger cities. Not to mention we've got the absolute best State Song in the entire United States. No one else can come close.

I've lived in Kentucky 21 years now. My parents live in the same home that I was born in. You know, even if they move, and I move out of state, or wherever life takes me, Kentucky will always be home and have a special place in my heart.

If a picture's worth a thousand words, I should have a million here for what I saw and felt. Unfortunately I don't have the time or the writing skills to tell you what I saw and how I felt. And you would NEVER hear me say this out loud to someone, but I felt like sharing it anyway. Too sedimental for my taste...usually. Well just to tell all, stop and smell the roses. It can be quite refreshing.

Today's Excitement

It's amazing how much of America is ignorant of concert etiquette. It's now Octubafest at UK. Basically we've got six concerts over the period of two weeks. Well today's was the graduate and upperclassmen solo recital. So I'm about midway through the program when I play my solo. Doing a pretty good job of it. All of the sudden, right at the bottom of the stage a photographer appears and starts snapping away. While surprising, I tried not to think about it as I'm trying to play through the cadenza of the Hindemith, but I still managed to make quite a few mistakes as this distraction continues, but really I didn't give it too much more thought about what was going on. I finish my solo, bow, and walk off stage.

Now here's where things get interesting. The next performer gets on stage, and before it starts, the photographer snaps another picture. The tuba professor then got quite irate, actually that's way too nice, let's try absolutely ballistic on this guy. He just ripped this photographer a new one and then some, right in front of the entire audience where everyone could here. I couldn't hear it backstage, but I was able to listen to the recording afterwards. It was ugly. The poor photographer was just at a loss. He was just a student getting pictures for the school's newspaper who had absolutely no clue about the arts or concert etiquette. Anyway, he took off rather quickly after that. On a side note, my professor then chewed out the employees for not doing their job quickly enough.

Anyway, that's the story, the rest of this is just my thoughts on the matter. I felt this whole incident was very unprofessional on all sides. First of all is the ignorance of the photographer. The very unprofessional attitude my professor took towards the matter, and the employees for not doing their job properly. I'm trying to think of where to start, and it all leads to the direction I want to go with music though.

People are very uneducated about concert etiquette, especially in this great state of Kentucky. Unfortunately, we are not doing a great job at educating them. Here's a student, trying to get some pictures for the paper, going into an area he's never been before in complete ignorance, and maybe some curiosity, to provide publicity to the arts program here, and what happens? He gets quite an unforgettable experience. Well there goes another person who will have no appreciation for the classical arts. I hope experiences like this aren't as common as I think they are. I guess we'll just keep classical music for those elite few who already know about it. For those anal musicians out there, yes I'm using "classical" very broadly. I know at times I can be a pretty anal musician, but frankly, I'm quite embarrassed by the actions of my professor. If that photographer had any type of rash bitterness in him. I can just see the front headlines with a picture of me blowing away on my tuba with "Musicians are Assholes" right under it. Fortunately his voice sounded more like the deer in the headlights type, and he probably got rid of the film as soon as he could and block it from his memory.

So who's fault is it that this incident happened? Is is the university newspaper's, the administration of the performing center? My professor, who holds everything and everyone to the highest standards possible, and if you don't meet them, you might as well leave?

More and more, I feel it is the fault of school administrators and our music educators. Most of the elementary school programs that I have observed and experienced have one hour, one day a week dedicated to music. A good one is considered to be three times a week for a half hour each. If you take a look at the national standards of what a child should know about music at the end of their fourth year in school, it is not possible with this limited amount of time, but it is absolutely possible if time is given. Most other cultures seem to have this down better than America. Some countries provide two hours a day of just music for their children within the schools. The citizens know and understand music in ways that most of us, even those specializing in music here have a hard time grasping some of the different concepts of music, myself included.

Now do I mean that everyone has to be able to play an instrument and perform at high levels. No. There is so much more to music than that. Within the standards, there are nine categories that are addressed to have a well-rounded person within music. You have performing, composing, arranging, and improvising. These are generally associated to musicians and those of us who are music majors. America does a decent job in these areas. The other areas are those that make a well rounded person within music. I can't remember them all, but they include listening, critiquing, something dealing with history and culture, wow, I can't remember them at all. This shows you how well they're being taught. It just shows that we're so bent on the performance aspect of it that we are losing the world in our search for the perfect performance.

So how do we correct this. I think it starts back at the beginning. It's going to have to be a process between the school administrators and music educators to reevaluate each individual school to find out how best to really educate the society on what music is. The standards have been set, but who's rising to the occasion? Not many, that's for sure. Now obviously this is a very idealistic goal, as much as I wish it were that easy, it's not. But this shows why I'm very much considering a career as an elementary school teacher, because I feel the difference will be made there, not as grown adults.

Stupidity

You know, the more I think about it, the more stupid I seem to be about some of the random crap I do. I get up at 6:30 in the morning and get ready for the day. I run straight until usually 10 at night or so. I manage to do this with little sleep and little food, which definitely is stupid. Yet I take pride on being able to run like this day after day. Almost like I want people to recognize my stupidity. Granted, I don't know too many people who have the willpower to skip three meals a day while running at full speed, crashing every now and again for a nap. Scarfing something just before going to bed, and get up and do it the next day. Honestly, why in the world do I do this? Is it because financially I don't feel I can afford it? Is it because I'm too busy to actually take the time to eat? Is it because my dad did the same thing in college? Is it because I feel like suffering? Do I like the attention I get from doing it? Am I just too lazy to go to the grocery store? Is it because I'm the worst penny pincher in the world? Who else would pay in nickels to get a loaf of bread. It takes two seconds for me to eat something. My parents will at least make sure I don't starve. It wouldn't take too long to make a trip to the grocery store. There isn't a single good reason I do this. It's just plain stupid.

Last week was a pretty terrible week. I ran out of powdered milk and bread, so I just didn't/don't eat period. I still managed through everything, although with less success than usual. And yet I still haven't gone shopping. This week has gone better for these first two days. I've run from 6:30 to after 10:00 both days with no naps, and of my personal food, I've eaten about 7 crackers. I actually have eaten more just from offerings of other people(cookies and candy), which doesn't happen all that often. Maybe that's what I need... a girlfriend who'll feed me and take care of my physical needs so I don't wither away. That'd solve the problem, but unfortunately, that isn't an option right now. Guess I'll just have to quit being stupid. And that's all it is, is stupidity. Well I can't spend too long on here, gotta sleep and the do it all again tomorrow.

No motivation and all procrastination

You know, this is one of those times I absolutely don't feel like doing anything. My Teacher Education Program Portfolio is due tommorrow. It's basically my resume and three different essays on music education. I haven't even started on it. I probably won't start on it till tommorrow. Now if you look at all I have to do and the total time... let's see, 3 hours of practicing, 6 hours of classes, 2 hours study, I think slow so about 4 hours on my TEP, another hour of essays for a different class, church activity hour and 1/2. I think that's about it. Since I don't eat lunch or dinner, let's see, an hour to get ready. Start at 6:30, that means if I accomplish all I set out to do, I won't get home till..... midnight. Yeah for college life.

The Girl Next Door

There always comes a point where girls would enter into my blog. And I guess it will be this one. After reading j garza's blog, it's comes down to that whole 'best friends' thing yet again. As I've pointed out earlier, I basically rely on just two people who really I don't get to talk to too much on a regular basis. Actually, one of them I ran into last week on campus. Nice talking to him, but that's beside the point. Alright where to start.

When I say the girl next door, I mean that literally, she grew up right next door. I grew up with her brothers, and she grew up as my younger sister's friend. So we've always had that connection to each other and each other's family. We were basically in the same social circles at school and church.

It was when I was in college/church mission and she in high school that that started to change. One night we had a really serious talk, one that both of us share things that you just don't share with anybody. I then left back out on my church mission for another year and a half. All right, I get home from that. She's now a college students at a different university, but only an hour away. We spent some time together over Christmas, did a lot together, and really, really understand each other and what each other have gone through. She was also dating a guy at the time who had absolutely no clue what's involved in a relationship. Not that he was a bad individual, he was just clueless. Me being a very close guy friend and basically like a brother, I help her through her two bad relationships. She also helps me through my... I wouldn't say relationships, but my trials of life. She's the only person ever to see me cry, and I never cry. Just so you know, at this point it was truly best friends. We knew just about everything about each other. Things continue to be perfectly fine. Summer comes and she finds a job out of state where she really can't keep contact with anyone but family. So the next time I talk to her is just before school starts... this is when things got bothersome for me.

All of the sudden, my feelings about her change, it caught me way off guard. I had no clue what to do about it. We had never actually talked about us, although everyone else and their dog had. I can't tell you the countless amounts of people that have told us that we should get married, etc, even strangers would tell us that. Anyway, these thoughts consumed me as far as what to do about it. I decided really not to do anything until Christmas and see just how she felt. Well, it so happened when I went home for Christmas, my parents and sister decided to fly out to California to visit my sister out there. Basically I was at home alone for the week during Christmas, so I stayed basically at my best friend's house most of those days, catching up with her brothers and her family, played games with them all and had an absolutely wonderful time. Obviously, I had a second purpose in being there too. I wanted to see how she felt about me. I never did ask her exactly, I just watched her. I know her well enough to tell exactly what's going on in her life. You live beside someone their entire life and know a lot of how they feel about things without them having to say anything, it's not that difficult. I could tell that she only thought of me as a best friend and nothing more. I took that as my answer.

At this point, I told myself, that's fine, we can just be friends like we've always been, and I can just ignore my feelings for her. Okay... like that was ever going to happen. I still saw her fairly often for being as insanely busy as I was. Each time, it would get worse and worse though. I would absolutely love the time we spent together and have fun, or talk about the serious things that are going on in our lives. And afterwards, I would just feel completely frustrated and depressed knowing that she didn't feel the least bit like that towards me. This continued to build and esculate inside my soul, more and more. Having never liked a girl so much, who didn't return that same type of love continued to eat away at me more and more. I can't tell you how much it hurt when she was mooning over a particular guy she dated for a couple of months, then went to Russia for two years, and was going to be returning back to the US that summer. Just so you can get a timeline of what's going on at this time, compared to my other posts. It was that past Christmas that I quit relying on music to bury all my problems. She saw all of that also, the second time she's seen me cry. No one else has ever seen me cry, or will ever. As a side note, this is when she found out why I love music so much, which to me is so personal, I won't even share it on this blog, or anybody else. So anyway, now I'm left quite vulnerable to my feelings.

Summer starts and I finally decide to tell her how I feel, but I also started a landscaping job that had a ton of mandatory overtime, and for a little while that kept me busy. Then absolute hell turns loose. My shoulder dislocates on the job site. This has been an ongoing problem, and I have to quit the job, much earlier than intended. So that screwed up a lot of my plans, and gave me WAY too much time on my hands. I end up going home for a week or two. The girl next door is leaving out of state in a couple of weeks for her summer job. Had a wonderful time talking to her the first night, just making me realize what an absolutely wonderful person she is and how much I want to be with her and around her. She though, is keeping really busy and I couldn't work up the courage to tell her anything. I picked up running to try to passify my thoughts. I'm not a runner. The longest I ran was 4 miles at one time. The day before I'm about to leave my parents home to come back to my apartment to find a job I ran stinking 10 miles to try to clear my thoughts. I tried to tell her that night, but she kept way too busy with everything for me to sit down and actually talk to her.

The dreadful next morning... I get up, I vowed to tell her before I leave, and by God I will. I call her up and ask her to come over. She did, and I absolutely unleashed it all on her. Every bit of it. How my feelings for her had changed, how I knew she didn't feel the same way, how I felt frustrated about it, and how I had absolutely no clue what to do about it, and really nobody but her to talk to about it. I told her I didn't know what to do, if I should just not see her anymore, because it was hurting me so much, or whether telling her might have changed something for me, and the thought I left implied that a great way to change it was that she could like me in return. I think, no I'm sure I absolutely shocked her. She was completely oblivious to the hell I was putting myself through and how I felt. She had no clue of what to say. After talking for about an hour about that and a couple of other things, I loaded my truck up, said goodbye, and left. She sent me an e-mail for my birthday a few days later. After that she left for her summer job where I would lose complete contact with her till she got back.

By the way, any girls who read through this, how in the heck are you supposed to do the above mentioned properly so it's not so, oh.. I don't know... insane, maybe a little smoother, less shocking? Just curious, cause it's too late now.

So afterwards, I'm all alone, job-less, and absolutely too much time on my hands. All I can think of is back to that conversation I had with her last, what I could have said different, said better, anything that I could have done to have changed it so that she may actually like me in return. I'll spare you what my thoughts actually were, there's too many. I thought it was just girls that think about relationships so much. Yeah right. I apply for jobs, but me being the absolutely honest person I am, nobody wants to hire somebody halfway through the summer when they've got to start school and quit the job. So I continue through my dark thoughts and personal hell for the remainder of the summer. When school finally did come around, I have never been so excited to start school.

So at this point she should be back now. Right? Well, she decided to stay at her out of state job because of the tuition hikes across the state that she would keep the job she has out of state and earn a little bit more money. At least, that's what I heard through the grapevine of the R.S. So I start off the semester completely ignorant of what's going to happen. No problem, I threw myself into school like there's nothing more important. I'm not sure how many people could handle the brutal schedule I hold myself to, just to keep my thoughts from being too depressing. I get up 6:30 in the morning, get ready, eat, then from 7:30 till at least 7:00 at night, I don't stop for anything. Since school started in August, I've eaten lunch three times. Otherwise, I basically don't eat lunch, and then usually a very late dinner at 10:30-11:00.

Well things have gotten better for me. I don't think about her as often, but certain things can set me off, like when we played her former school in football, and since I'm with the band, I had to go to it. Just seeing everything again of the places we've been to just brought it all back up. I'm still as busy with school, although I obviously make time to write this blog among other things.

I even tried to date others girls, or like them or something, yet I can't. Even if I see a girl that I think would be fun to date, it just has absolutely no appeal for me. Not to mention as socially declined as I can be sometimes, the chances are slim to none. I can't seem to make myself move on out of this. In my mind, there's only a couple of ways this will resolve itself. Either she's going to have to be in a very serious relationship with somebody else, or she's going to have to change her feelings about me. Obviously I very much wish the latter.

Well the next time I'll see her is probably this upcoming Christmas, and only God knows what going to happen. Although if it happens the way all things happen in my life, it won't be till March that this issues will resolve, if it follows the example of my other life changes of every nine months. Just so you can see what it is. December 2002 - get home from mission, continue to develop relationship as purely best friends... nine months later Sep 2003 - my feelings change.... June 2004 - I tell her how I feel... nine months after is March, but December is when I most likely will see her again. So basically, I'm in a period of waiting, where things are in limbo, and I can't do a thing about it. This part of it is just plain annoying.

Alright just some side notes really quick - why I never shared this with anyone... people who I'll tell how much I like her with try to sympathize with me about how she doesn't feel the same way, and I don't want sympathy, I want resolve. My younger sister who grew up with the girl next door, would be absolutely digusted with the idea that I would like to date one of her best friends growing up. I wouldn't ever tell her how I feel about this, or other family members. Actually, one brother does know, because he strait up asked me, and I won't lie about it, well I guess two know, because he told another brother. And another brother's wife I think suspects something. Gotta love extremely large families of four brothers and four sisters, not to mention spouses, neices and nephews, etc,etc. I love em' all.

Another side note, knowing me and her and how well we know and trust each other, I would have no trouble showing all my blogs for her, even this one.

In some ways I feel like a crazed psychopath. Here's a girl I've never even dated, and I put so much thought into her, like her so much more than I could have imagined, rely on her more than I have any person. You'd think I sound like a stalker or somebody. You shouldn't think about this as much as I do when you haven't even dated them, even if you are best friends. Oh well. Only time will tell what happens. Didn't know love hurts so much.

Thoughts

As I've focussed on what I need to do to make myself better, I've come to the realization of a couple of things, granted that I haven't thought on them long enough to come to an inteligent conclusion about it, here's my thoughts, scattered and broken as of this moment. As my last post pointed out, most of my focus on life has been about music, and that's starting to change. I'm really not much of a social person. I was reading through the October 2004 New Era, because I heard it related more to singles than youth. One article talked about the need of friendship in general and how important it is in everyone's life. At one point in my life, long ago, I felt that need. Instead of feeding that need, I destroyed that need, and for the most part, don't rely on socialization and friends. I may feel the need to get things off my chest, but that was never through the use of friends.

There are obviously flaws and shortcomings that come from this. My love for people in general is very much so lacking. Granted you can say that for the same for my relationship with God too. All of my emotions I saved for music, and everything else got the short end of the stick. So how do I learn to love? I'm having a hard time figuring that out. I am generally a very nice person. In the tuba studio the one adjective that all of them would describe me as is nice. I would do anything for you, I'd give you the coat off my back, if I actually used one. I wouldn't in any way do anything to ever offend you or do something to piss you off. But you will never ever get to know me personally, and I wouldn't you. I just can't seem to care about people's emotional welfare. Would I mourn with those that mourn, comfort those who stand in need of comfort? If I was close to them, but that'll never happen.

My relationship to God has always been one of duty. I know what he's done for us, and what I need to do in return, but I can't say that I've got any emotion to say that I love him for what he's done for us. Course maybe I truly don't know how much Heavenly Father has done for us or understand, otherwise I would feel love for it. Who knows?

Anyway, back to the question of how do I learn to love. That was one of my questions that I had a goal of finding the answers to over General Conference. I believe I've found the answers, but have a hard time comprehending it, I guess. One of the conference talks mentioned praying to God with all your heart to be filled with His love. I find I lack the sufficient amount of faith to actually do that. Explain that one to me. I can find the faith to finally rely on Him in all that I do, more than at any other time in my life, and I can't seem to find the faith to love Him. Maybe that will come in time, if I continue to actively pursue my answer. Well, I guess I've written enough of my thoughts down tonight. This week I've averaged about 4 1/2 hours of sleep a night, and considering it's 12:30, regardless of whatever time it shows up as, I need sleep.

House Upon the Sand

I am a foolish man. I took me a lot longer than I would have liked to realize that. Course it was about a year and a half ago when I figured that out. When you really think about that little primary song and how it can really relate, yep fits perfectly. Have you ever wondered what the sand stands for. Well for me it's almost always been music. There's been times where it may have temporarily switched, never for more than a month, but it's music. I've pretty much known I was going to do music from when I was a child. I can't give you a particular when, but it always has. With that, I've also relied on music more than anything else, family, friends, material objects, God, hardly ever. When I have a problem, for me there's nothing better than to express it in what I play, write down how it feels(in compositions of course) Whenever I feel lonely, angry, frustrated, happy, sad, bizarre, scared, there's nothing like tickling the ivories or blowing a few notes. I can't tell you how addicted I am to music. One person knows the BIG reason and no one else, and it'll stay that way.

Now when trying to build your house, it doesn't work when your main focus is on the sand. It may work for a period of time, but I tell you what, when those storms come, I'm sure my house got trashed more times than I'd care to admit. Of course, I'd pick up all the pieces and start all over in my vast sea of sand. Only to have it knocked down again.

A year and a half ago, this point was actually brought to my attention just how much I was delving into music. It actually bothered me quite a bit. A lot I should say. The only problem I had now, was what to do about it. For me that was a particularly hard question. Music is what I do whenever something goes wrong, so what happens when what you use to solve problems becomes the problem. Talk about frustrating.

Well, I went through my nine-month pregnancy. I guess I should explain that. I am a slow thinker, and think things through very carefully before I come to a conclusion. In almost every idea or change(my babies) that I make, it is always very close to nine months before I make my conclusion and change.

I found several sources of inspirations in order to help me what to do. One example I found was that of President Howard W. Hunter and what he did with music. Also I had to give a talk based on Elder Worthlin's Talk "Follow Me" from May 2002 Ensign. I know that talk was for me more than anyone else in that congregation.

After much thought and prayer, I decided to cast away my nets of music. That was probably the hardest decision I've ever made up to this point in my life. Getting rid of the most important thing in your life and longest you've known. You're probably wondering why I still do music then? I came to the conclusion that I could drop doing music for the rest of my life, if I had to do so. Before that point, if the Savior had asked me to stop playing music, I most likely would've said no. The bishop in my home ward happened to major in music and now works on cars instead, so I decided to pick at his mind and get his insight. So with this decision, I broke myself from my chains to music as far as relying on it.

This left me quite vulnerable. I had lost any type of foundation to build a house upon. I basically swam at sea for yet another nine months. I can't beleive I actually survived it. It was absolutely brutal, and at times I felt quite lost. Even other people could see it. I'm not one to show any type of emotion and people could tell something was up. In ways that bothered me more than anything else. I think it comes with me being fiercly indepedent, like the rest of my family. I think that's also why it took me nine months before I learned what I needed to do. My family takes PRIDE in being able to do everything on our own. So I guess I needed to be beat down to the point where I knew I couldn't do it on my own.

This past month, I finally found that foundation that I need to build upon and grasp ahold of. That in and of itself required a leap of faith on my part. I can feel the difference too. Anytime during the past year and a half when I would read scriptures and pray, I never felt a sense of permancy to it. I don't think that made sense. Basically if I stopped, I wouldn't have felt that it'd be a big deal, and whenever the floods came up, my shack would be thrown from it's shaky foundation. Now I feel a permanance to it. I can withstand those buffettings, and continue to build my house upon the rocks.

I love drunks

It's now 2 A.M. in the morning. I've gotten about five to six phone calls since 1 A.M. in the morning. General conference is tommorrow. I also have a football game tommorrow. I also have several projects and a six page paper all due on Monday. Instead, I'm up waiting beside the phone trying to help a bunch of drunks. My brother, wife, and his friends decided to all go out, I guess it would be last night, since it is now the morning. We get the first call around 1 in the morning, my other brother and I. Because my brother I live with has more experience in dealing with drunks and knowing downtown better than me, he goes to pick them up. Five minutes later, another call. "Yes, other brother is on his way to pick you up. No, he's not riding his bike to pick everybody up. He's driving his van. Sorry I can't play raquetball tommorrow, too much going on. Yes, I'll be at the football game. Where will I be? I'll be with the band, as usual, we're kindof hard not to miss." Seven minutes pass... next call... "Yes, he left after you called the first time... am I playing raquetball tommorrow? No I can't... Will I be at the game? Yes. Bye. I'd say about another ten minutes later... "Hi brother, other brother should be there by now, he hasn't made it yet. No. What's he driving? He's driving a van, the color is white, oh you'll be at the game too... how exciting. Bye." Two seconds later.... "Hello? Hi other brother... you can't find him? Well... considering brother said for sure where he was, just wait right in front of the bar, when he calls again, I'll tell him you're right out in front, if something else happens and you don't see him, call back in ten minutes... Well at least it's been ten minutes and I haven't gotten a call, but frankly, now I'm too annoyed to go to sleep.

Now I know if you add up my minutes it won't equal sixty, and there's actually a lot more of the conversation left out, that was either unintelligel...unintelligble... however it's spelled, it's late... anyway, it was a whole lot of stupidity. I guess I don't understand the whole drinking thing and would never want to. I could tell you a lot of stupid stuff, I am in the tuba section, you know. Frankly, I hate it with a passion when people are drunk around me. I feel very uncomfortable around them, and just have the desire to get away from them as much as possible.

Well, I feel sufficiently prepared for general conference now. I'm in the perfect mood for it. Absolutely wonderful. I think I'll grab a midnight snack...