Thanksgiving Weekend

All in all, a good weekend, although no work got done outside of the two hours of practice. I also didn't complete my final for a class as I needed to. Yes the final. The teacher is flying out to Japan, and had us do a takehome final that was due the day before Turkey Day. Didn't turn it in. I had all the plans to do it this weekend, but do you know how hard it is with 7 nieces and nephews reaking havoc on the home. I had 5 brothers and sisters there, and a brother and sister in law there as well. Of course competition was involved too. Our normal favorite game, which my brother trounced me quite throughly in. Here's a count of other things that happened.

First off there's my oldest brother's relationship to my mom, and authority figures in general. It's a very love to hate, or hate to hate relationship there. My older brother inherited all the smart genes, which we have a ton of, and none of the social skills, which we have little of anyway, making it all the worse. Basically, he seeks stupidity in everything that happens and in every decision in the decisions that figureheads make. My mom can be quite... strongheaded at times and given to worrying about the smallest minute details of everything. Basically, we are still 4 year olds in her eyes. Now a near genious brother is being questioned by a mother about every little detail. Since I'm on the younger side of the 9 kids, I never heard these arguments, and if I did, I didn't comprehend them. Now, as I listen they are hilarious. They bicker constantly back and forth the entire time, and both are too stubborn to change their ways. My older sister, also a music major and the closest to the carefree personality that I am, just laugh about it, with some proper guilty feelings for laughing at their inability to communicate without getting on each other's nerves. It's not funny, but man, it certainly is.

Another point of interest to me was that I thought my intense reading days were over. But I seem to take my breaks from school as seriously as I take my schooling. I read five books over the break, the shortest being 250 pages. I've slept 5 hours the past two and a half days. I started a series of books yesterday at about noon, started strait into the next one, devoured that one, and at five in the morning I started the last book, attempting to finish it before I collasped, or had to leave, as I got a ride with another family member. Well, at least I finished it as we entered Lexington. The other reading marathon I can remember was right before college started and I wanted to finish as much of the work and glory series as possible, so I read 23 hours straight, the only thing I got up for was for bathroom breaks, and nothing else. At least this time around a took a couple of naps, I went to bed one night, but nephews are rather unforgiving in the morning.

Already, this is counted as my best Christmas ever. Since there's no Christmas at home, some gifts were exchanged early. I got a trumpet and a mute from my brother(the very intelligent one), I was very pleasantly surprised, and along with the plane tickets to Salt Lake to visit my sister at BYU, my mom gave me a small refrigerator to put in my office. Since she knows I neglect my body while at school, and lets face it, I've eaten lunch probably about 15 times this semester, if even that, she left no oppurtunity for me to starve myself. I now actually feel obligated to eat so as not to waste such an expensive gift. It was very thoughtful of her since I only mentioned it in passing, and it really is something I can use, and something I would have never expected. This by far has been the best Christmas for me. And I've been very thankful for it. Well, considering I'm dead on my feet, and have a very large headache from reading to much and lack of sleep, I'm going to bed now.

I'll be in your neck of the woods

Let's try this again, it deleted my entire writing, at least it wasn't long, for me that is. I've even copied it, just in case it decides to delete it again.

First of all, I must say that I'm pretty flattered from your responses. Really, I'm touched, and I don't even have power to fire you or pay you. I might be able to order you a pizza, and at least that will feed a family of four.

About a week ago, a question on the board was posted by Nobody Vespucci. Since she is my sister, I called her up to get her plans for Christmas. Paraphrasing her words, it goes something like this... I plan on getting up, fixing myself a nice breakfast on Christmas morning, and that's it... Well I couldn't have that, so some action had to be taken. My parents are flying out to Texas to visit yet another brother, so I couldn't really go home for Christmas. I e-mailed my mom and told her that for Christmas, I wanted to fly out to Utah and visit Nobody Vespucci(insert real name), and that since I've given a definate answer instead of being my usual wishy-washy self, she should send me. So I'm going to be flying out to Utah. I'm really excited. I've got to remember to give my mom some mad props for doing this too.

There are a few problems though. I can't bring my tuba with me. That will be the longest period I'll have gone without playing since returning from my mission. That would be a week and a half long. My sister doesn't have work or school, and she runs about the way I do. We going to have a week and a half without anything to do, or a vehicle. This will make it very interesting to see what we'll end up getting into. The other thing that stinks is that my flight leaves from Louisville to New Jersey, then out to Salt Lake. Ugly.

One ironic thing I find funny. Most everyone from BYU is going home for Christmas and leaving the bubble. Not me, I'm going to BYU and into the bubble for Christmas. A departure from the norm, but a really anticipated fun departure.

Educating the Masses

So Friday I was able to teach 3rd-4th graders and K-1rst graders in the classroom setting for the first time, and really the first time I've ever taught both those age groups. It was a really good experience for me. I just had the time of my life teaching them. Granted teaching brass instruments to elementary school is a lot easier than other subjects.
There were a couple of things that made it a lot easier. First off, after following my schedule as much as possible, by the time Friday rolled around, the lack of sleep finally got to me, so I was pretty slaphappy. You know how it's usually a late night slaphappy, nope, 10 in the morning. We were doing our final teaching for MUS 360 and since we're technically being kids for these, so I acted the part. Everything went downhill from there. At least by the time I got to where I had to teach, I was pretty much on the level of the kids, and I guarantee they could easily relate.
So anyway, onto the lesson. I was able to set up everything before the class enters, so I kept all the instruments in their cases. I started off reviewing all the different types of instruments and the differences between each. They learned that the week before from their actual teacher. I also discussed where you would hear the instruments at with them. They had a pretty good idea. I then showed them a rubber tube, and asked if this is an instrument, then series of questions to help them think through the process of how to make a sound on the instrument. It did take quite some effort for before one finally recognized that vibration was needed to make a sound. I used several visuals from strings to show that and get the idea of sound. They didn't get the buzzing concept though until I told them. Then I showed the defining factor of what a brass instrument is, the mouthpiece, and placed that on my rubber tube to make a brass instrument. Then I showed a picture of a brass instrument, and asked them to name what else is missing from my 'instrument'. Surprisingly, one of them said valves. I couldn't believe they got that one. Although I didn't have a way to add valves to my instrument. I just showed them that it was the bell. I explained what the bell was for and then added a funnel on the other end. You know, that's a fun instrument to play with. With as much flexibility as you have, you can turn it ever which way and so eventually I spun the instrument while I was playing it. They had a fun time listening to that.
The next section was getting them to do it themselves and understanding the idea of making a sound on a brass instrument. So I had different sizes of PBC pipe smoothed down so the kids could buzz on them and experiment. I also showed the concept of short versus long by adding and taking away lengths of PBC pipes to get higher and lower pitches. So I got them all experimenting with the instruments and making sounds, one kid in particular was really good and had a nice strong buzz. So I got them to repeat after me for a little bit. Then we finally get to the instruments. I took out the trombone first as it's the most visual one to see the changes of pitch. So afterwards I could relate it to the valves, which they picked up on rather quickly. So after explaining it, I played When the Saints for them, they enjoyed that. The next was trumpet. They already knew this one fairly well and knew that taps and things were played on it. So I played taps and a couple of versions of it for them. Next was French horn. I played the theme from Superman for them. I really wanted to do the theme from Harry Potter. In my head it works exceptionally well on French horn, but the only versions I could find on CD were electronic keyboards that had a similar sound to French horn, if even that. French horn was by far my weakest performance. I couldn't get a mouthpiece until the day before, so I didn't have a chance to redevelop some French horn chops. The next I showed was euphonium. That was one they weren't familiar with at all, and had trouble remembering the name. I played "My Old Kentucky Home" for them. The only popular euphonium lick is Mars, and that isn't very characteristic of a euphonium. Then I finally broke out the tuba. This is the instrument I actually ended up played the ride on, although I did it with music in it's proper key of B major. Ugly, but it worked rather nicely.
I then played a CD of different movie themes and had them tell me the instruments being used. They did really well at that. Much better than I expected. I played 2001, Indiana Jones, Superman, and maybe a couple of others.
It was amazing. For an entire hour, I held the attention of these kids without a hitch. They really wanted to be involved, and some a little too much involved, but it was great.
With the K and 1rst graders I didn't have as long because of a school assembly, so I only had time to show and tell with the brass instruments and nothing else. Only with them I took requests on all the brass instruments and played the dragon solo on tuba for them. The dragon solo is a Wagner excerpt where basically a dragon wakes up, scares the people, then goes back to sleep, so while I played it, I had the kids act it out and be sleeping dragons, wake up and scare people, then fall back asleep. They absolutely loved it, so much they wanted to do it again, but they had an assembly to go to. All in all, a really good experience for me. The kids wanted me to come back and teach more. So I guess that's a good sign I'm doing something right. It was a great way to end the day, that's for sure.

The Damage

Here are some results from the past 5 days.

Total hours productive(excluding naps, eating, and breaks) - 60 hours
Most hours in one day(Wed) - 15 1/2
Least hours in one day(Fri) - 9
Total number of hours playing - 23 1/2
Total individual practice(not all tuba) - 11 1/2
Total hours on tuba - 16
Total hours not completed from list - 5 1/2
Number of hours that had to be changed and rescheduled - 8
Classes slept through - 1
Concerts slept through - 1
Extra hours done not on schedule that were productive - 4 1/2

Usually I'm NEVER this organized. I just decided to try it this week to see how things go. All in all, I felt I got a lot more accomplished with my studies and practicing. Although I did spend less hours on practice than normal, but having exactly what I needed to work on helped out a lot on improving more in less time. My worst day still felt like Thursday. I love Monday's unlike Garfield, but Thursday is by far the day I still hate the most, because that's when I really start to slack and my body and mind tells me to quit. All in all a good experience, we'll see if I can actually do this again.

This week's schedule

Lately, my schooling has slowed and slowed till it has ground to a halt. I still manage to practice, but it's highly unfocused and nothing is getting accomplished. My studies have almost vanished completely from my schedule, although the past week has been a little better. So I've decided to write out my goals of what I want accomplished when, and not just 'study' or 'practice'. I can always justify using study time for naptime. It's really not a hard process. When you sleep, you're mind orders and catologs everything it's taken in, (I'm fairly sure, you can correct me if I'm wrong), so in a sense, when you sleep, that information you learn in class is being ordered, thereby, you are studying. How's that for justification? So I'm going to write out each day and what I plan to accomplish when.

Monday
6:30 - get up, get ready, eat, bike into campus
7:30 - scripture study(read through talk by Elder Scott, #paragraphs)
8:00 - Daily Routine
9:00 - Music Methods and Teaching
10:00- General Music
11:00- String Methods cancelled(write report #1 for observations for EDP)
12:00- Tuba Euph Ensemble cancelled(practice F-tuba)
focus on low excerpts and developing bottom register
Penderecki - run through
- 3rd page top, get proper alternate fingerings down and rhythm and speed correct
- 3rd page bottom, get pitches in head and sounding properly
Horovitz - 1rst movement - metronome work
- 2nd movement - look up terms and find the phrasing
1:00 - break(check e-mail, e-mail family, 100 Hour Board, and blogs)
2:00 - C tuba practice
Wagner excerpts
Snedecor - 5 excerpts - fff!!!
Meinz - learn first half of piece, become familiar with the rest
3:00 - Write observation report for general music
4:00 - Practice piano, get daily routine book from George, instrument cage errands
5:00 - Band
7:00 - FHE
8:30 - Prepare lesson for elementary students on brass instruments, songs to use(sorry, no Flight of the Bumblebee), practice all instruments, etc.
9:30 - Prepare my section on communication disorders

Tuesday
6:30 - get up, get ready, eat, bike into campus
7:30 - scripture study(find main points in Elder Scott's talk and study them)
8:00 - meet with group to create presentation on communication disorders
9:30 - Teaching Exceptional Learners in Classroom Environment
11:00- Daily Routine(use George's daily routine book to reevaluate my now obsolete routine with relevant material) focus on looking for range excercises, slurs, touguing, wide jumps, interval studies
12:30- concert
2:00 - piano
2:30 - raquetball
4:00 - home/shower/eat
4:30 - F tuba practice
low register
Horovitz - 1rst movement - run through, find problematic areas
- 2nd movement - make it have some musical sense
Penderecki - run through, build enderance
- 3rd page middle - focus on style
- 4rth page - note hacking, focus on intervals
Meintz - learn middle third, work top third up to tempo
5:30 - write up lesson plan for general music
6:30-9:30 - Band

Wednesday
6:30 - get up, get ready, eat, bike into campus
7:30 - scripture study(study scripture references made throughout talk)
8:00 - New and Improved Daily Routine(definitely needed it)
9:00 - Music Methods and Teaching
10:00- General Music
11:00- String Methods(cancelled again)practice F tuba
low register
Pederecki - run through
- 4th page - smooth out rougher passages, work on rhythm
Horovitz - 1rst movement - take care of problematic areas
- 2nd movement - continue making musical sense
12:00- Tuba Euph Ensemble(cancelled again)study EDP chapter 10
1:00 - break(check e-mail, e-mail family, 100 Hour Board, and blogs)
2:00 - C tuba practice
Wagner excerpts
Snedecor - 5 excerpts - fff!!!
Meinz - learn first half of piece, become familiar with the rest
3:00 - Write 2nd observation report for General Music
4:00 - nap
5:00 - Band
7:00 - write EDP listserve, practice all brass instruments and finalize teaching preparations, any other assignments and stuff that need to get done

Thursday
6:30 - get up, get ready, eat, bike into campus
7:30 - scripture study(read through chapter for institute)
8:00 - Daily routine
9:30 - Teaching Exceptional Learners in Classroom Environment
11:00- lesson
12:00- eat, donate blood, break(e-mail, 100 Hour Board, and blogs)
2:00 - piano
2:30 - raquetball
4:00 - home/shower/eat/relax
5:30 - F tuba practice - depends how my lesson goes
7:00 - Institute
9:00 - Final practice and making sure everything is in order for teaching for Friday

Friday
6:30 - get up, get ready, eat, bike into campus
7:30 - scripture study(not sure what)
8:00 - observe elementary school band class
9:30 - brief daily routine
10:00- teach general music class brass lesson, get feedback
11:00- String methods, not cancelled, I finally get to play cello again
12:00- Load up, travel to elementary school
Teach 3rd and 4th grades, K and 1rst grades
3:00 - break(e-mail, 100 Hour Board, blogs)
4:00 - practice C or F tuba and piano or brass instruments
5:00 - no band, go home, relax
7:00 - dinner and talent show

If I actually get through this, expect me to be in a coma by the end of the week. Usually I hit a wall on Thursday, and get nothing accomplished the rest of the week, but I've got too many things to get accomplished to allow myself slacking time this week.

Last Game

First off, these blogs are starting to get very annoying. It seems like whenever I decide to post a comment on someone else's, it will decide to put it up whenever it feels like. Case in point is when I made a comment on mine to I think it was Benvolio, and it didn't post, so a couple of days later figuring that it wasn't going to post, I wrote it up again, and lo and behold, they post together at the same time. Wow, do I look stupid with these things or what? Although some might find it interesting to see what my tendencies in writing are, and how similar my same subject comments are.

Now onto the game. Today was my last football game ever that I'll be playing in for the rest of my life. In a previous post, I mentioned Kentucky Football in general. Let me make a list of my observations of what the fans do for fun and reasons why they still come when the football game has become a lost cause.
- Blow-up balls. They're all over the place being thrown around.
- Third quarter wave. The band or student section starts the wave and see how many times we can make it around the stadium. I think the highest is four. We haven't done this so much this year as the fans are all usually gone by the third quarter.
- Not returning footballs. Everytime the opposite team scores a field goal or make the extra point. The crowd grabs the ball, keeps it from security, throw it once around the stadium, then launch it over the side on somebody's poor, now dented car. I think they lost three last game and two this game. This has only started recently. It's only when the opposite team scores, which is all the time.
- The shows we put on. We've had combined shows with other marching bands, 400+ on the field. We've had a 50 yard American flag spread across the field, and a fly by at the climax of the National Anthem. It was timed just perfectly. It was pretty impressive. But we generally do a decent job.
- To watch our cheerleaders, they're incredibly good. I really didn't notice till I saw the other team's cheerleaders who were just terrible, and they announced how for the sixth year, they'll be defending their position as national champions.
- To laugh at our dance team, they're incredibly awful. I could do just as well as them, and I can't dance to save my life.
- Our mascots. They're usually pretty cool.

We actually won the game today. 14-13. They were ahead 0-13 at the beginning of the fourth and we came back and won. I'm sure all the seniors were happy, as today was the last home game, and senior day. Since this is my last home game, I just want to put the parts of the game I'm going to miss.
- BYFBO. I won't say what this acronym is. Trust me, you don't want to know. Let's just say I'll miss playing at ungodly loud and obnoxious volumes. I didn't choose my name as trueblat during high school without a reason. When marching band judges tell you, and just you, to quiet down, you can listen to the recordings and tell where you breathe, yeah, let's just say I was a little overzealous in marching band. How many judges tell tuba players to be quiet? At least college it doesn't matter as much. They always want more, with a good sound of course.
- Sousaphone in general. Nothing beats these things.
- Watching the poor freshman in their ignorance get trashed the night before, then come for an 8:30 A.M. call time. I get a kick out of it, and have absolutely no sympathy for them whatsoever, especially when they do it more than once.
- "My Old Kentucky Home" This is by far, the best state song ever written. None others come close. Well maybe a couple. If you haven't heard this, you need to, learn it, memorize it, love it. Ill never get sick of it, and with the marching band you hear it at least 5 times a week. Knowing the it was the last time I'd be singing it with the band, I almost had a tear in my eye, almost.
- The tuba players in general. That's all I'll say about that.

Things I won't miss
- The amount of time. Everybody who's been in marching band know this.
- Band camp. It may not be a problem for BYU, but frankly I get sick of 24/7 strings of perverted jokes, where there isn't ever a real conversation.
- Terrible games.
- Jokes in college about making it to state. You know you've been in it long enough when you want to make fun of the college kids who make fun of the seriousness of high school marching band competitions.
- Senior assistants and graduate students who don't know how to lead a band, or when to play.
- Trips. They just are never fun for me when everybody's highlight for them is to go and get drunk.
- Being mistaken for being a leader. While certainly capable of it, I never want to. But being older, more mature, confident, maybe borderline conceded, people always deferred to me in issues. Course there were times when I got sick of the ignorance and took control of half the band in instructing them. That probably didn't help, but there was too much dissention in the band and SOMEBODY had to take charge who knew what was going on.

Altogether, good times... good times...

"I don't care about your moral lives!!!"

This was the funniest thing I heard on Wednesday. It was absolutely hilarious. The string methods teacher here is probably the most serious guy you'll ever meet. Any time you ask a question, he gets on a soapbox for about 15 minutes, and rants and raves about how things should be done within music. All the while, he continues in extreme seriousness and it's ironic that it's one of the highlights of my day because it's just so funny. The question that eventually prompted this saying was, "Can you clarify what we're supposed to do for the assignment due Friday?" This leads to him talking about why he's having us do the assignment, followed by more random thoughts, followed by asking us if we've ever done church choir. Nobody has a chance to raise their hands yet, so he yells out "I don't care about your moral lives!!! I just want to know if you've done church choir before!!!" I busted out laughing. This guy doesn't try to be funny, but he is the funniest. You may have had to be there.

Don't get me wrong, this guy is an outstanding teacher and an awesome guy. I've never seen someone so passionate about teaching string methods. It's like he expects you to actually go and teach strings after you take his class, actually he probably does. His goals are very clear and focused, and his reasons why are very clear. He is a man with a purpose. But he's definitely a funny man.

Feeling Bad

I feel evil today. I'm never one to use any type of malnipulation on a person, until today. Since moving into our new apartment, my brother has cleaned the place once on his own in five months, and I wasn't going to take it any more. I've stayed quiet, politely reminded him, got semi-angry at him, etc. Anything, I've done it. I usual clean the apartment really well on my own once a month, and pull teeth to get him to help me straighten up the rest of the time. Well, today I get home, and I'd like to actually get the place clean, knowing full well he'll drag his feet and won't do a thing, I start working, while he sits and plays the same computer games he's played 10 hours a day minimum for the past week. When this happens, it usually pisses me off, which is exactly what I wanted to happen, for the express purpose of strait up telling him exactly how I feel and what he needs to do. I was downright plain mean, no holds bar on him. Well, after reaming him hardcore, he says, fine I'll clean the place if you go get shopping done. This is after I've gone off on him about 3 times already to help out. Well I've just got the shopping done, and stopped by school to write this up. I purposely put him into a position where he has to clean, no ifs ands or buts about it. And I feel really guilty doing it too. I don't like to malnipulate people into doing what I want. Well, I've got to go, I'm illegally parked on campus.

Mountain Biking With Moving Trees

That's my definition of biking throughout campus, and any inner city biking. Most people would consider mountain biking the more dangerous of the two, but I'll be the first to tell you that it isn't. First off, trees don't move, so the only way you're going to hit one is by losing complete control and slamming into one. I've never hit a tree while mountain biking. On a side note, my first bike was mercilessly split in two by my sister running it into a tree. In all my life, I've never seen that again. Anyway, on campus, everything is moving, and none of it goes where you would want it to go. So far my record is hitting two cars, one pedestrian, and so many near misses that I can't count them all. So I'll give a quick recap of the stupidness involved in all of this.

Alright first off, the two cars I hit. Neither of these were my fault. The main road through campus is Rose Street. Traffic is always at a standstill, there are more pedestrians than anywhere else, and bike lanes that remain fairly empty most of the time. Biking here is the worst obstacle course you'll ever be on. Actually come to think of it. Every accident I've hit somebody has been on this road. Anyway, both car accidents were really stupid. There's a section of road that allows cars of to the side to drop off passengers, yet cars do not like to lose their place in line. So everybody who drops somebody off just waits till traffic stops, then passengers step out in the middle of the road. Gee, when they open their doors, where do the doors happen to be. In the bike lane. Normally, there's enough room for me to avoid these doors that appear five feet before I pass them, but when it snows and the snowplows come through. Guess where all the snow piles up. Yep, you guessed it, the bike lane. So with three feet of snow in half the bike lane and a door covering the other three feet. I'm left with virtually no choice but to take out somebody's door.

Alright the pedestrian. For an amusing(morbid) account of this one checkout this board question, which somebody brought up today on the board. Yes, that was me. I didn't sign it my usual name because I knew some people would take it the wrong way. I explained it a little better on a different post. My sister read the account, and laughed her head off, she knew it was me who wrote that right off the bat. We can be a VERY morbid family at times. Speaking of that, The Redhead might know my sister. If you understand this next statement, you know who my sister is. If a nuclear bomb were to drop _____(somewhere), my sister would be the one who would laugh maniacally about it(or to drop it, I don't remember). I think she did orchestra at some point too. I wouldn't be surprised if FCSM might also know my sister also, since she's also a FCSM, and doubling in Chemistry.

Next is this year's adventures. I finally got a good bike with really good brakes. If that didn't happen, I would be dead right now. Alright the first one. This one, I might be at a partial fault. I'm flying down a hill on the sidewalk. The light has changed green beforehand and traffic has started to move, but I'm still faster than them. I watch all cars in the right lane. I focus on every single turn signal that is on so I know if I can cross the intersection. Well about 10 feet away from the curb a car without a signal turns right. I'm going about 20 mph or more at this point. I slam on my brakes and turn my bike hard to the right. That will be the first and only time that my bike will BOUNCE to a stop. I bounced at least ten times on my tires before I came to a stop. It was so jarring to the bike that the chain had fallen off. Of course the car that hadn't signaled didn't notice a thing, and while I'm putting on my chain, people driving by had the courtesy to yell obscenities at me.

Next near miss I actually did wreck, but at least I missed the car. It was close to 10 at night, and I'm pulling into the road of my apartment complex. The parking lots are immediately to the left and right on this dead-end road. Well I turn onto the road and a car is coming up the road. I figured the car was going straight and leaving the apartment complex. I even waited a couple of seconds to make sure he wasn't turning. There was absolutely no signal on, so I started pedalling straight when the car suddenly makes a left turn right in front of me. Now I have a bad habit of putting my front brakes on too hard. So I slam on the brakes, the front one catch and I flew over the front handle bars about a foot away from the cars. At least the guy apologized, quite a few times actually, since he was totally at fault. After I said it was fine and he left, several black were telling me that I should have sued him or something but I'm too nice. I just told him to make sure he signals from now on.

Just some fun from teachers

SCHOOL ANSWERING MACHINE
This is the message that the Pacific Palisades High School
(California) Staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone
answering machine. This came about because they implemented a policy
requiring students and parents to be responsible for their children's
absences and missing homework.
The school and teachers are being sued by parents who want their
children's failing grades changed to passing grades even though those
children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and did not
complete enough school work to pass their classes.

This is the actual answering machine message for the school:
"Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your
school. In order to assist you in connecting the right staff member,
please listen to all your options before making a selection:
"To lie about why your child is absent - Press 1
"To make excuses for why your child did not do his work- Press 2
"To complain about what we do - Press 3
"To swear at staff members - Press 4
"To ask why you didn't get information that was already enclosed
in your newsletter and several flyers mailed to you - Press 5
"If you want us to raise your child - Press 6
"If you want to reach out and touch, slap or hit someone - Press 7
"To request another teacher for the third time this year- Press 8
"To complain about bus transportation - Press 9
"To complain about school lunches - Press 0
"If you realize this is the real world and your child must be
accountable and responsible for his/her own behavior, class work,
homework, and that it's not the teachers' fault for your child's lack of
effort: Hang up and have a nice day!"
If you can read this thank a teacher. If you are reading it in
English thank a veteran.

Kentucky Football

I don't understand it. I just don't understand it. Kentucky football is up to it's usual self. What I don't understand is we still get really good turnouts to these beatdowns. I haven't for the life of me figured out why. In one college rating we're number 17 for students packing the stadiums. I do find it amusing also that we're 11 for dorms like dungeons. I lived there my freshman year, and will never do it again. It was absolutely terrible. At least I had a great roommate.

Anyway, let me give you a recap of the game, or the way every game goes for that matter. We start off the first drive of the game, and end up punting. They get the ball at the 8 or so. We held them to a field goal. Sad enough to say that we thought that was pretty good. We were actually doing good for the first half. The score by the end of the half was 20 - 3. I must say I was rather happy with that, sad as that may be. There was one game where the first quarter our combined yards was -3. Ouch. The second half is where we always make so many mistakes and errors that it's horrid. How many college teams have you seen not catch the snap? We lost 13 yards on that play. That would sum up the rest of the game. Georgia went on to win 62 - 17. We did actually score twice during the third quarter. That kept our fans happy enough that they at least stayed through the third quarter. There's been one game this year that the fans stayed till almost the very end. That's the only time traffic's been bad after a football game. We are now ranked last in yards gained during drives in the Sec.

Yet the fans come back for more of this slaughter. We must be doing something right, for the fans to at least be coming for more. Whether it be the shows, tailgating parties, nothing better to do, ect.

At least the band has fun, or I should say the tuba players more than anyone else. Unfortunately I'm not in the tuba section anymore. I had to switch to baritone as I have a really bad shoulder and sousaphone makes it worse. I'm sorry, but our baritone section isn't just about a square as can be and don't know how to make the games fun or exciting. I miss being in the tuba section. At least I always make a fourth quarter switch with the tuba section leader and play tuba, while he plays my baritone. Well, there's always basketball. That's the redeeming value of Kentucky... there's always basketball.

The 124 Hour Board, Thanks, and Venting

Sometimes I feel like a very unofficial board writer than a reader/questioner. So far this past week, I've had three comments I've made to the board and one question. If I didn't lump my comments together, I think it would have been five. How sad is that. I'll be the start of the 124 Hour Board. I'm a person who feels my two cents about random subjects is needed, don't ask me why. Maybe I just like seeing my name up there. Anyway just making a note.

Well it's 2:32 A.M., I need to learn how to fix the time on this thing. By the way, props to Benvolio for showing me how to get the links in there, I may have had no clue what it all means but I got it done. Gee it looks a lot like his, except where my name was is now his. Maybe I'll change it around and add some others that I like to read, we'll see. Sorry, that was a side track.

Anyway, as I can't sleep and I don't have classes tomorrow becuase of election day, I'm going to stay up and write about stuff. First off, some venting of frustration. Starting about a year and half ago.

I finished my mission and one semester of school. My brother had just graduated high school. He basically didn't have any plans except staying at home and going to the community college and hanging out with his girl off and on for the past three years. Personally, I thought he could do a lot better in his life than that, and told him to join me here in Lexington and go to school. I did this for several reasons. First off, I felt his girlfriend was a bad influence on him, second I felt that as the older brother, I could show him the ropes of college life and help him out through his first years of living on his own and help him continue to grow. Wow, that sounds like I'm trying to control his life or something. Anyway, he applied too late to get accepted to UK and went to the community college here for a semester instead, then transferred over to UK the next semester. That whole situation was pretty sad. Since my brother did Governor's School for the Arts and got above a 28 on the ACT, he had a full ride to any Kentucky University. Well he lost that by attending a semester of cummunity college instead of aspiring to what he could be.

I had very high expectations of him and what he could do. Well anyway, the first semester goes by, and I was just a royal pain in the ass. As things that semester weren't the greatest for me, and by far the most stressful, I waylaid into him a lot without really realizing what I was doing. It was really stupid of me. Anyway, he never said anything to me, and then over Thanksgiving mentioned it to my sister and mother, who set me straight on the matter. I put him down so freakin' much that semester.

Spiritually, I was hoping to help him out to, make sure he didn't pull the same thing that another older brother with the same personality traits as him. So again, I had high expectations here too. The first night, I got him to read scriptures with me, yeah, he ended falling asleep, so I just gave up, after the first night. Not that I was doing all that great on my own, either at the time.

Well anyway, the semester ends. I go home for Christmas for the whole girl next door situation and feel that out. My family travels to California to visit my sister out there. My brother stayed in the apartment in Lexington. He spend Christmas with the Brach President and his family. Anyway, I get back from Christmas break and brother has found himself a job. A job that he purposely had them work him on Sunday, so as to give him an excuse not to go church and to not experience my wrath if he just sat at home and chose not to go to church. The next three months, I bit my tongue, and I mean hard. There were so many times I just wanted to beat some sense into his mind about the stupidity that he's doing. I know full well everything he's experiencing, and then he finally just decided to give up on what he KNOWS he should be doing. I'm not going into any more detail about that because that's his story, not mine. Let's just say that I never said a word, because I knew it wouldn't be a kind word and that wasn't what he needed to hear. I learned that lesson earlier, yet it was still probably too late. Eventually he did talk to mom about his reasoning and why he's chose to make the decisions that he made. I'm actually surprised how well and lovingly my mom was about the situation from just listening to her end of the phone conversation. Definitely not how she ussually is, but I've felt more respect for my mom at that time than any other time before. Usually she's blows a casket on any little detail and all the small stuff, but when it's the serious stuff, she handles it well.

My families not the greatest at communication, and we're even worse when it comes between each other. My brother had very strong peer relationships within the gospel, and I have a feeling that that's what kept him going. Once he got here, it just didn't work for him at all. He's probably the worst one in the family at communicating with others, so for half a year of church with just casual hi/goodbye conversations with the branch, no peer support, scriptural support, to an extent family support, girlfriend dating somebody within several months after my brother moves here, he gave up. Not just with the gospel. The kid tried to replace it with all the little gadgets we use to occupy ourselves. The whole misery loves company thing. He buys computers, TV, playstation, DVD, VCR, little stupid ceramic things from E-Bay, more pizza and fast food than I've eaten in the past five years. Obviously he found out that that's very temporary and he jumps from one band wagon to the next, finding himself bored within the week and tries something else, in an entire state of limbo. My other brother who went inactive is like that, so the brother I'm living with is trying to emulate the 'happiness' of my older brother who's been inactive for ten years. Yeah, tell me if living with a girl for five years, have a $10,000 dollar wedding with the huge social surroundings, only to be divorced a year later, then lose your employment while in debt. He had just gotten out of that and remarried to a much better individual, found a job, yet right back into the whole material possession stage, which my brother is trying to emulate. Whatever.

Anyway, this past semester, school starts up again. His grades were quite poor from the year before from skipping classes and sleeping through them, etc., etc. Well, he finally decides that school isn't for him and he drops out. When you think he's dug himself a deep enough hole, he finds himself another shovel and continues to dig himself deeper into despair. I see it, I know he's hurting, yet he can't reach out to anyone, he doesn't know how. I know I should reach out to him, yet years of conditioning in our family to become the unemotional rocks creates too many barriers in my family to break through. I don't even give it the good graces to try.

He's now just recently quit one of his jobs, and the rest of the time plays computer games, with no real attempt of finding a job. His aspirations in life have disapated into nothingness. His life has become a meaningless empty shell.

And I can't help but feeling that I helped cause this. I had such high hopes of success for my brother as we would live here and continue to grow and progress. No, instead my brother spins straight downward as I put him down all that first semester, offer no words of encouragement after he become inactive in church. No help as he tries to reach out to someone. No help in alternate solutions with his school situations. I have daily interaction with this guy in which I should be able to help him, and I involve myself in my own activities and leave him largely on his own.

I feel so stinkin' frustrated and disappointed. At myself mostly. I can't even imagine how it is for my parents, or whether since they don't see him on a daily basis and provide parental support that they don't feel at fault. I wonder how miniscual I feel compared to what Heavenly Father feels for his children among the world, who he so painstakingly prepared to come to this life, and prepared the paths for them to follow, only to see them slide further and further away from him. Geez, this is getting very depressing, I shouldn't have even brought this up, as it rekindled a lot of things that I'd rather not think about. Perhaps it must be so, if I ever decide to address the issues at hand and do something for my brother, he's definately not going to make it on his own. Now I know I shouldn't blame myself at all for my brother's choices in his life. I just can't help the feeling of dread that there is way more I can help him out with than I have. I need to stop. I need sleep. I need closure.

Singles Branch Life

Gotta love this topic, and it's just been so amusing lately that I'd figured I'd write about it. It all starts off with this girl. Gee I wonder how many stories start off like that. Anyway, at a Friday night activity I happened to go to, I met a girl that just moved into the branch, and happens to be the first one in a year and a half that I actually seem interested in. We had a really good conversation that night, it was pretty nice and pleasant. Course there's the whole girl next door issue, which by the way sent me an e-mail last week, making the first time I had contact with her in five months, but I can try to get my mind off that issue like I probably should. Anyway, at the next FHE activity, we are playing sardines. For those who don't know what it is, it's a version of hide and seek where one person hides and everyone seeks, and when they find the hider, they join them in the hiding spot till everyone is there, in whatever tiny spot, and the last person it gets to hide or something like that. Anyway, they chose a spot on the stage without the lights on. So by the time I get there, I'm still used to the light and jump in. Well I can't see a thing and basically stare straight ahead, whereas everyone there has adapted to the lack of light and can see. Anyway, I happened to be staring directly at the said girl for about two minutes straight before my eyes adjusted. Now girls, if a guy you barely met a couple of days ago stares straight at you from a foot away for several minutes, you would probably be a little freaked out by this, am I right? Well that's what happened. She wouldn't even look in my general direction. It was rather humorous. Most people probably wouldn't have liked the situation too much, but I guess I've learned not to let what other people think of me bother me, so basically whenever I saw her and she would ignore me, I'd just have to laugh at the whole stupid situation. Forward one month...

Alright, it's 30 minutes before church starts, I'm waiting for the ward to get out so I can get the number for sacrament and take care of my duties. She walks up to me and starts talking to me. Again we have a really good time talking to each other. At least I was. I think she was, anyway that's beside the point. An older couple serves in our branch as institute teachers among other things. Anyway he comes up to shake our hands. Well I happen to have a one track mind. Once I start doing something, I am very intent on that activity and nothing can distract me easily. Well, I didn't even notice him because I was so involved in talking with this girl. He then makes fun of me right then and there, saying that he knows that the girl I'm talking to is much more attractive than him, but that I could at least notice him enough to shake his hand. It was rather embarassing, because what he said was dead on. I know my face turned several shades of red, and she saw it all. Then, I was so distracted by her, that I didn't get the numbers up one the wall, and had two seconds to do it. She offered to help and did one side, while I tried to do the other before opening hymn. Well the numbers on my side read, 1924, 13, blank, and the last number was actually right. Terrible. Well afterward sacrament he continues to tell me to ask this girl out, tease me about it, etc, etc. I think he was just excited to see me doing something other than music also, he probably thinks I need a good woman, the way I'm going. Anyway, that Friday night activity afterwards everyone's around talking and I've talked to her several times throughout the night. Well everyone's decided to go to a movie and I have absolutely no money on me. She offers to pay for me. So I go with them. Now, I definately wouldn't consider this a date, since we drove with another guy and there were several other groups of cars also. Afterwards, the guy we drove with drops us off at the church. We spend a little over an hour sitting there talking. But me, being very socially stupid at times, and feeling very comfortable talking to her, unleashed a lot of things I had thought about for the past 5 months. Since girl next door hasn't been around for me to talk everything, and this blog just isn't the same as talking to someone, I just unleashed on her. It's a good thing I can laugh at my stupidity and mistakes. She still seemed okay with it though. Well I decided to ask her out, and offer the same courtesy she offered me. I never did it though, I just don't think it would work out at all, so left it at that. But that's a different story from where I want to go with this mayhem.

Now, onto the Relief Society grapevine. Well, apparently she told her roommate some of the things that I told her. Her roommate happens to be Relief Society President and her brother happens to be my hometeacher. As today is the 31st of the month, today is when they came. Since we didn't have a lot of time, as it was just an hour before church, and they had to visit other people. Well he seemed to know exactly what my thoughts have been over the past months, and addressed several of them rather untackfully. None of the usual foreplay in trying to get someone to trust you enough that they'll tell you what their thoughts and concerns are. Well he tried to address and give suggestions for my concerns that I didn't address as concerns the entire time. It doesn't help that I'm a usually a very independent and private person and don't like anybody knowing anything about me, let alone try to help me with it. It bugs me if people know about me and sees my weaknesses and try to sympathsize, or whatever it is, with me. That's probably yet another thing I need to work on. Being more sensitive to what I need from others and others need of me. Growing up in a family of nine kids, being LDS, and well known by much in the backwoods community where I grew up, perfection was required of us, so we gave them that on the surface, and kept the imperfections buried deeper than most everybody else. In a way that has hurt us quite a bit. But I'm getting off track. All right, where was I? I must say though, that I was impressed with my home teacher's faith and prayer, and you could tell that he was concerned and genuinely cared about my well-being. I do like the guy, and really I'm not too upset about his retrieval of information through the grapevine. I just find all of this pretty typical Singles Branch Life. Am I right?