Sunday

I just wanted to post a couple of things about today, one is an event that inspired me, and the other pissed me off.

I guess I'll start off with the good. After hometeaching before church today, I went with my companion to his place where we cooked a breakfast. His hometeachers came over to hometeach. One of the individuals happens to be autistic. I've had a few short conversations with him, and his mannerisms are all fairly typical of an autistic individual. While hometeaching, his companion gave the lesson, then he looks at us straight in the eye, and bore one of the most powerful testimonies I've heard in a long while, portraying no traits of somebody with autism. I was in awe of this guy. I had never heard him teach or bear his testimony. I knew that he was able to serve a mission, but I never knew of his capabilities. It's very uplifting to see individuals overcome the trials that they have in this life.

Now the rant. For Sunday, I try to choose one hymn a week that is unfamiliar. I chose hymn 115. It's actually a very easy hymn, but one not often sung. So as I'm conducting, I hear only about two voices from the congregation loud and clear, and a number of others attempting to sing it, but lack the confidence to sing out. I see one individual not singing at all. It happens to be the girl who I posted about my FHE rant about. Now, normally I probably wouldn't mind if a person in the congregation doesn't sing, but this girl can sing, and sing well. But it's the same regular songs everyone knows. She doesn't even take the chance to learn a new hymn. Come on, peoples, I may have a critical ear, but at least take the effort to try to sing a basic hymn, instead of those few that you like. She pisses me off. She could easily use her voice to help others find the correct pitches. I'm an octave lower and away from the congregation. Girls would have a better time matching somebody in their own octave. So anyway, the girl next to her decides to share her hymnbook with the FHE girl, to which she STILL decides not to sing. Oh, she sang the rest of the hymns alright. Stupid people who don't make the effort to actually learn something and decide to live in their ignorance. Alright, that's enough of a rant.

Just to not end on a bad note, a guy in our ward is leaving on his mission. This individual isn't the most socially compotent and tends to be a little off. But this guy has made great strides to come back to church and to serve a mission as an older individual. I am always impressed by the power of his testimony and his love for the people. His ability to go out of his way to share the gospel and share it with anybody no matter how inconvenient the situation may be. I think that may go back to not being the most socially compotent, but he is still an inspiring individual to me. While I may not like the idea of farewells, open houses, or any social aspects relating to missionary work, I will head over there tonight to see him off, because I will sorely miss this individual and the example he has set.

Disconnected Thoughts

So after institute last night, This Girl and I were sitting there talking... till they kicked us out of the church. We drove over to my apartment, listened to You're A Good Man Charlie Brown, while talking even more till a little after 1 in the morning. My brother sat there and played computer games and listening to us talk for over two hours. After This Girl left, I asked my brother, "Are you sick of us yet?"

To which he replied, "When wasn't I?" Good stuff.

It's interesting when I talk to this girl. Whenever I am talking to her, and she really wants to know how I feel about something, I tell her. But I'm not just telling her, I tell her, and find this passion there that I didn't know existed. Last week, she wanted to know my favorite books and why. If a family member asked that question, I would have routinely answered it is some basic way. But with her, it's deeper and more passionate. Feelings that I didn't know existed in me about these subjects other than music. She has this uncanny ability to draw it out of me. With everybody else, I am reserved, and keep with me the calm exterior that I've developed over the course of my life.

Today, I was riding with other tuba-euph students to a performance. On the way home, they wanted to listen to a CD. They checked with me first to make sure I wouldn't be offended in any way by it. I told them to go ahead and play it. I ended up really liking the group, which I think surprised them.

The view of most of the tuba-euph students have of me must be a weird one. I tend to be so reserved and quiet, coupled with the fact that I am LDS, that they consider me a lot more conservative than what I really am. The fact that they thought I would be offended with a CD that I ended up really liking is just one example. I do have my limits, yet they tend to not realize what and where they are, and for the most part stay well away from those limits. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I don't have anyone really trying to push those limits then.

Yet another disjointed thought to all of this madness. It's amazing how much I don't know about music. I understand the theory, the classical, and a lot of other categories, yet I don't know a lot of music. There are so many bands, songs, and genres out there that I don't have a clue about. I have a few favorite groups and outside of that, I know nothing of modern rock bands or musicals. Our institute director and This Girl carried on a conversation about all these musicals and who played in them, and how well they were done, and I had no clue what any of it was. It was easy for me to follow the conversation, but I couldn't contribute unless they played an example for me of what they were talking about.

I've run into many people who understand all these different rock bands and styles, influences, etc. I don't have a clue, and in these conversations, there are even parts I can't follow, surprisingly enough. A movie that has so many jokes that I would really like to know what they're talking about is High Fidelity. I see the jokes flying right over my head. I just am ignorant to modern rock music. While listening today to that CD with the tuba-euph students, there's just so many groups that I probably should know about. That's what I was thinking. The group, which I can't remember the name, was a progressive rock group. Something like Cabeen and Cambiata. I think that's their name. This is yet another untapped resource for music education, the modern stuff, that is. While they get enough of it, we could at least get them to think somewhat intelligently to what they're listening too. I'm sure there are also many songs in this category which have a decent message and correspond to what your trying to teach them. Granted, I wouldn't go to the point of School of Rock does, but still, it's not a bad idea to include that, since it would be something they are familiar with, and build a basis of knowledge off that.

I need to focus on words more. I'm such a focused instrumentalist that I tend to ignore many of the words. The hymnbook for instance. This Girl and I got on the subject of hymns and our favorite ones. Of course I have a hymnbook at my apartment, so I drag it out, and explain my favorite hymns, and why, which tended to be the harmonically complex hymns, and many aspects that dealt with music. When she shared hers, and really got into the words explaining why she liked them and the way they impacted her, it was amazing. I wish I could do that. It's very tough for me. I don't understand poetry, I get things totally wrong all the time.

I need to learn how to teach basic music terms. This was rather funny. When sharing my favorite hymns and why, I started off by saying, "I really like the start of this one because the harmonies that coincide with the pedal point..." I lost her at that point. Pedal point was easy to explain. 4-3 suspension took me about 10 minutes(I had no piano to reference to). Cadence took a while too. I wasn't going to try V of V. As a music major, these terms flow so naturally, that they've become the basic words that I use to explain more complex musical terms. I don't know how to simplify them anymore. Course it probably would have helped if I had set a foundation up, instead of going straight to the complex. At some point I mentioned formata, to which she replied, "Is that the one-eyed smiley?" It was really funny. I've forgotten that most people don't know these like I do. Out of curiosity, who remembers the term for "train tracks" or possibly "railroad ties"? I forgot the real term. That's what my band director always used, so I don't remember the real term.

Anyway, sorry about the random jumping from topic to topic with no real purpose. It's just what I've thought about today.

Just right

I've been meaning to write about this for a few days now, but I've been quite busy. First off, my last several blog entries haven't reflected how I've really felt while I wrote those. I mean my last three have been bashing aspects of LDS life, which isn't at all remotely close to how I currently feel. Second off, I think I don't write this stuff up, because it is goo, and my family doesn't do that. So I've been avoiding it as much as possible. Otherwise I probably would have written these things up last week.

I'm in a really great mood. I have been for quite some time. It's actually really weird. These past several weeks everything has improved. There is not any area that hasn't vastly improved within me. It seems that I've always had to struggle an exceptional amount to improve. I would always screw up, pick up pieces and continue my uphill battle to try to improve all the different characteristics of my life. These past couple weeks have just been phonominal. I also mentioned this a week ago, and my feelings on it haven't changed. It feels so much easier, everything feels just right. I don't think there's a morning or night that I don't thank Heavenly Father many times for allowing things to be the way they are right now.

I can't seem to attribute this to anything in my life but This Girl. I started feeling this way about the same time I took her on our first date. She is such a wonderful person. I find myself wanting to do everything possible to make sure I remain a worthy individual for her. I feel like somebody is helping me fight the good fight and wants me to succeed. It's really odd, but there are two adjectives that I would describe our relationship to each other that I would never really would have considered. Those to words I would use are proper and right. Kindof weird ones to choose, but that's how I feel to describe it best.

I'm kindof surprised I feel this way so immediately and early on in a relationship. I still feel there is so much more potential with the way things are going. Okay enough of the goo, onto what we're doing just for keepsakes.

Last weekend we learned some basic swing dance and waltz steps during the Friday night activity. She's really into dancing, so she knows these things and is teaching me to the best of her ability. Saturday, after we had a ton of meetings, we stopped by my place and talked from 5:30 till 12:30. We also fixed us a nice meal. She even had me pull out some vegetables from the back of our cabinet to eat. It was really funny. Afterwards, I went to another friends house to play Halo 2. You know what? It wasn't nearly as fun as I remember it being. It guess interests change.

This weekend we're either going to go contra dancing again, or we'll be going to a play that a girl in the branch is in. I'm looking forward to it either way. So life is exceptionally good right now and I hope to keep it that way.

FHE rant

I've got 20 minutes with nothing to do, and I'm waiting for a friend to get out of class so we can study, so I'm going to rant about FHE.

I guess this is because I have a different approach to FHE than what our current FHE coordinator has. Of the past five weeks, only one was gospel related. They didn't even bother to include a five minute spiritual thought. So we've done dodge ball(where I dislocated my shoulder), the next week was some physical activity I didn't attend, the next one was prophet night. I actually initiated this one a year and a half ago. Once a month we'll do a prophet night. We're going through the Old Testament right now. Last week was the dating game. Usually they act out Book of Mormon characters, but they didn't even bother doing that, just straight dating game, then sent the couple out with a gift certificate to a restaurant. This week, they're learning massage therapy from one in our branch. Perhaps it's just because I'm not very fond of touching other people, but that just seems wrong to me on so many levels. I'm not going to go. No, no, no.

Now, obviously, college FHE is different from a regular FHE. But there are certain parts that are included in that. Like a lesson. Is that such a hard concept? For some I guess it is. Granted, I never did focus on having any type of activity while I was on the committee, but I figured most people got together afterwards and had their own activities and could socialize during refreshments. FHE shouldn't be another Friday night activity. At least I don't think so.

Okay, my last rant on the subject. I'm sitting at the piano, ready to play whatever number she decides on a she runs her first FHE. In her exact words, "Whenever we did Family Home Evening as a family, we always sang 'Families can be Together Forever' every time, so that's what we're going to do." My mind reared it's ugly head wanting to scream in protest, but I am no longer on the committee because of time constraints. I can remember one meeting where we've sung something different since the end of what I considered FHE. There was one time she didn't even do a song. Course I think that's because I the week before I was sitting at the piano, and while she was bearing her testimony and about to cry, I was playing the piano without hitting keys and accidentally hit one, to which that just drove her testimony and the Spirit out the door. I think that time she was just getting me back for that. Oh well. Well, my friend is here and it's time to start studying.

To write or not

At times I have been tempted to write up my entire mission. I'm still at odds with whether I would want to or not. For those who haven't noticed, I tend not to say anything good about missions because of my experiences in the mission field. I keep making references on my blog or comments on others, yet I've never put down what happened in it's entire uglyness. I told two people about everything that happened, and several others parts of my mission. I haven't written it down because it's an experience I'll never forget, no matter how much I want to. I don't know if writing it down would help or not. There's also the matter of those who would read it. While my mission was my mission and it certainly doesn't reflect the norm, but I wouldn't want somebody who hasn't gone on a mission to be influenced by my experiences. It may convince some to be better prepared to meet the onslaught of mission life, or it could flat out scare them. I just don't know...

Missionary Rant

I don't have too long, but we'll see if I can make this up in time.

Can I tell you how much I abhore the commitment pattern. This has been brought to my attention with the large influx of return missionaries coming into the branch. One in particular just became my home teacher. So on Sunday, he comes up and is talking to me. Mentions that he's my home teacher, then it comes, "WILL YOU..." followed by the rest of whatever he had to say about having them come over. I absolutely hate that phrase, and missionaries use that phrase more than America follows fads, I swear.

I remember sitting in district meeting with DL's and ZL's, APE's and whoever else, we need to do this and that and so on, and then at the end, "WILL YOU..." They say it with the upmost importance, as if that will be the most important decision I'll ever make in my life. I'm mean, we've been taught the commitment pattern, we know what it is, and at least to me, I feel belittled and talked down to, whenever I hear that phrase. I just always have. I don't know if others feel that same way. They get it so engrained in their heads that this is the way it is done, and the most effective. It's almost like teaching the teacher. It doesn't work.

Maybe if they didn't emphasize the "will you" so much. But they always accent those two words, like they feel angels will come down and manifest that their use of "will you" will cause miricles to happen. Hello, you're asking if you can set up an appointment for home teaching. Not a problem. It's no big deal. Saying Will you, would, could, poop, pee, stupid, the, how, why, etc. isn't going to change what I'm going to say. It's not going to be some magnificent life changing decision if I say yes to having you come home teach me. I almost wanted to say no out of spite. For some reason, "will you" questions put me on a huge defensive front because I hate that phrase so much.

Now, used properly, I will say it can be effective. My institute teacher has used it once or twice in class. He saw areas that he considered to be problems and he felt could be improved upon. He felt it was serious enough that he felt prompted to discuss about it, once the Spirit is present and the question inspired he asked, "WILL YOU..." It was much more effective, and I will admit, my prideful attitude almost took hold of me in that certain situation, but I was able to quell that and recognize the importance of what was being asked.

I swear, return missionaries need to be sent to detraining before they come home. Some sense needs to be beaten into their heads. Alright enough ranting for today. I'm probably the only person who this would even bother. Oh well.

TMBG

I'm in a good mood right now. Regardless of the fact that I've been doing enough the past couple of days, that I actually feel stressed, and I'm getting sick, thank you Mid, for sharing that. But I'm really happy right now. I've got a lot done, I'm on a spiritual high, my sleeping seems somewhat normal, I got to talk to This Girl(I really need to find a better name). I've decided that I'm not going to read her blog anymore, because I would much rather hear it from her, and she feels the same way. So I wanted to listen to some happy music. I really don't have all that much music, let alone happy music. So I pull out TMBG's Lincoln, while I do dishes.

I love this CD. I just wanted to point out my favorite parts. Cowtown, love the percussion ostenato at the end, it's awesome. My favorite song of the CD, Pencil Rain. Have you ever visualized that song literally in your head. It's one of the funnest songs to picture and create a story to in your head. Shoehorn, I don't remember if that's the name, I love the sax ensemble parts of this piece, it's so fun. The World's Address, the chromatism is awesome. I love it.

I'm happy, sick, exhausted, and loving life. I'll stop before members of my family start gagging at my happiness.

More on music... go fig

Today in my music education class we were discussing grading of a high school band/orchestra program. Sorry, no vocals, they do a separate class. Actually discussing is the wrong rule. More like the teacher imposing his tyrannical rule over us. Well, we also had a paper to turn in which I managed to disagree with him on a number of issues. So now I have to organize my thoughts a little better so I can defend what I say. Hence this post. Afterwards he read a few from the class and let us make comments about them(of course no comments on his thoughts). They all basically had some mixture of participation, attendance, and playing tests. This reinforces to me, the weakness that these programs have in teaching music.

First off, let me post the national standards of what students need to know about music...

1. Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
2. Performing on instruments, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.
3. Improvising melodies, variations, and accompaniments.
4. Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.
5. Reading and notating music.
6. Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
7. Evaluating music and music performances.
8. Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
9. Understanding music in relation to history and culture.

While I tend to agree it needs to be reformed to make it a little more clear and concise as Bennett Reimer has put it, since this is what is currently in use, I'll base my argument off that.

Take any typical orchestra, band, and chorus class. Relate which standards are mainly used by teachers in their full capacity. Standards 1 and 2. That's it. Yes there are parts of others that are used, but never to the extent that they should be learned. Some are lightly touched upon, or not at all. So the question remains, is it possible to teach all nine standards in a music class of these types. I would say it is possible, and would take an amazing teacher to be able to do that.

So how is it so restrictive, you ask? We are so focused as music educators on the performance. It is the easiest trap to fall into. This is the date of our performance, and we must know the music by that point like the back of our hands. The teacher then continues to teach everything those students need to know for the performance. What does this consist of? Usually the music is passed out, rehearsed and critiqued by the teacher. The teacher makes the necessary adjustments to get the students to sound the way she wants, do the performance, then start the process all over again. That's great, you've taught them how to play notes and listen to you telling them how to interpret it. Let's find out what has been left out. #3 Improvising... Well, no place in there did I see any improvising. Does this need to be left just to the jazz band, or soloist? Can it be taught in these classes though? How difficult would it be? #4 Composing and arranging... Students never get a chance to do this. Maybe the top music students will do this once in a while, but all students need to be able to do this. #5 Reading and notation... There is a reason I have put this in here. Do students learn to read music? Yes, they do. But to what extent? How many tuba players can read treble clef? How many flute players can read bass clef? How many vocalists memorize the music or follow the pitches around them and never actually learn to read a note? It's disappointing to me the number of music majors that enter college without a clue how to read music at a scale that I believe everyone should know, not just music majors. #6 Listening... This one may be used, depending on the teacher. Has your teacher ever told you to sit down with the music and find out for yourself what the composer has intended? Very few occasions in my case. Or can they just play what you tell them to? #7 Evaluating... This one too, may be used, again depending on the teacher. Our teacher did a little bit of this, but it was geared towards analyzing ourselves, never was it to go out and listen to different types of music and evaluate it. #8 Relation between arts, and outside of arts. I've only had the opportunity to really do this once, and that was at Governor's School for the Arts. A very selective setting, in which we can be exposed to this, yet again, it is rarely associated in the band orchestra setting. #9 Music in relation to history and culture. You may get a little of this, but certainly not in the music classroom. Maybe a humanities class.

So teachers end up falling into that trap of performances when so much more gets left out. Do we know why? It's easier. We've listened to music all our lives, we can critique music like it's nothing, especially a bunch of middle and high schoolers trying to learn how to play instruments. We know everything about the music, and instead of teaching about the music, we tell them how to play it. They get really good at imitating you and figuring out how to play what you want, and mindlessly blow through the song that they've repeated for the last 3 months. Another thing, can we tell them where that song came from, why the composer wrote it, what time period is it from, the style? We may actually have to research that stuff. Oh, no. All we know how to do is make music. What would happen in a band class if you told them to put up their instruments because we're going to study music? It frees us from the performance. The seven standards that are restricted by instruments can be taught. I wonder what a music educator would do if he had no performance to focus on... would they actually teach then... hmmm.

Man, I could go on for days about this. There's a lot of different views I wish I could explore, but there's so many of them and my day is already too full for me to sit here thinking about music when I should be practicing for my performance in March :P I guess I can fall into that trap as well.

Spiritual Journal

The past several days, my mind has been on this topic a lot. We talked about it first during institute. Wilford Woodruff kept quite a bit in his journals. 7000 pages worth. We talked of the differences between journals, spiritual and daily(small and large plates), ect. I thought a lot on the topic on Saturday, and then in church today, it was discussed during Sunday School while on the topic of receiving revelation and writing it down. This was while This Girl was writing down in her spiritual journal.

So I've decided to start keeping one based on the fact that the random sheets of papers scattered over my home and office aren't doing the greatest job of keeping my spiritual thoughts more organized, among other things. My only problem is what do I want to keep in this journal? What parts of my spiritual undertakings do I want to include in this? Do I want to include everything from my studies, notes from all my classes, revelation and inspiration that I receive while studying and while I'm praying? Questions that I need answers to?

I am hesitant to add everything in this journal. This was an issue addressed in class. We tend to take all of our notes down, and then we never read through those notes to every class again, so really, it probably didn't help you much more than if you just sat there and listened attentively. I know I could easily fall into this.

So I want to keep it to things that I know I will want to look back on. A great example of one I look back on is my thoughts that I wrote up on here last month. I've looked at that several times since I wrote it. Yet how can I differenciate between those that I will want to include in my spiritual journal from those that would be just note-taking and not as pertenant to what I want to keep?

So I want to keep revelation and inspiration from study, class, and prayer. The ones that I will look on and cherish. This is what I want. Yet I still wouldn't know at what moment I would want to write whatever the Lord has for me to learn. I would have to keep it with me almost 24/7, which isn't a big deal, my backpack does the same thing usually. I'm still a little confused as to when I will know when I should write something down or not. I guess trial and error will be the way to go, unless anyone else has some thoughts on the matter.

I guess my first step though is to buy a new journal...

This one's for you, mom, enjoy

I don't even know where to begin with this post as there's a lot I want to mention. First off, this week has been awesome. Very busy and exhausting, but really good.

I guess first off is a continuation of my dating philosophy, and what I did to change it. I decided that I would definitely ask This Girl out. So Sunday roles around and I'm talking to her during break the fast meal we have every fast Sunday. One of the guys in our branch shows her a dance that's going on this weekend in addition to several other church activities going on. So I'm talking to her about everything that's going on, and decided that that was an oppurtune time to ask her to the contra dance that's going on. So I asked, "So do you want to go to the contra dance?" To which she replied, "I don't know what I'm planning on going to, there's just so much going on." She didn't realize that I had just asked her to go to the dance with me. I was rather amused. I didn't find an oppurtunity to ask her the rest of the day on Sunday.

A couple of days later I phoned her to actually asked her out, which I made much more obvious than my earlier feeble attempt. Speaking of phone, the phone cards out of money, Bandjam. Sorry about that, I wish that other card lasted one more month.

So I finally went on the first date I'd been on in almost two years. It was a lot of fun. We first went to eat out at Fazoli's. Even though this brings shame to our family's eating habits, I'll go ahead and mention it because I find it funny(as the rest of my family would find it pretty funny too). She ended up eating all her food before me.

Afterwards we made it to the dance a little later than we wanted. Since I've never been contra dancing before, they had some instruction beforehand. We made it barely to catch the end instructions of some terms and figure out a few things for the dance.

It was so much fun. If you haven't done contra dancing before, you really need to. I danced the first two dances with This Girl, and then afterwards we switched up and danced with other people. The atmosphere was absolutely great. Just some nice good wholesome fun. This Girl has actually danced before, and so knew what she was doing more-so than me. The third dance I just watched because I couldn't find a girl who wanted to dance that wasn't taking a break. Let me tell you, she looked so cute dancing out there.

Afterwards, we stopped by the music building to show her where I 'live'. Unfortunately the place was locked, and my keycard wasn't working, so we head back to my place instead. We find out that it's the same apartment complex that her brother lives. Small world. She couldn't remember her brothers exact apartment, so we couldn't visit him. So she got to meet my brother. We sat, drank hot chocolate, and talked till a little after one I think. I take her back to the church where her vehicle is. She had a little ways to drive to get home. By the way Big-n-little Sis, you met her sometime last week.

So we're talking on the way to drop her off, and she says she has a confession to make. Okay. Apparently she was able to find rather easily my blog just by googling my e-mail name. I didn't realize it'd be that easy. I think she was a little worried about how I'd react to that. Actually, I thought it was very cool that she mentioned it. Way to be honest. One of the things I value most in people is honesty. Even if it is perhaps more cutting than what you want to say. My brother I live with has no problem expressing his opinions when they are more offensive than the normal, at least with me that is. My brother and I have very different tastes in women, so much, that the girl I dated two years ago, he just called her ugly. With This Girl, his only opinion was that she was white. So I take that as approval from him. I must say though, that I am refreshed by this brutal honesty from him, as opposed to those who skirt around the issue or lie so that it won't hurt as much. Alright, enough of that random tangent.

So this leads to another shifting, if need be, of what to include, or not to include on my blog. Now that This Girl reads it, which she very well could be right now, am I going to switch a few things around? By the way, she also gave me permission to read her blog and she talked about the same subject. I think my reasons have a slightly different approach to it then hers. First off, she'll be the first person that deals with the same people I do who reads my blog. So several weeks ago, when I put a less-than-approving comment about one of the members of the branch who's down where she's at, I'm curious what she thinks about it... The second issue would deal with basically, what if I would rather discuss the subject with her, rather than post it on my blog? If I post it on my blog, and she reads it, then she'll already know about it, whereas I may prefer to discuss it through with her first, and have a more enjoyable time with her, than to have her already know. So that is what I see as a delema. I don't think that that made sense, but I know what I mean, and I'm not up to providing an example. Oh well.

Next subject. This week was really good. I was productive. I only played about an hour of games this week. I was able to talk two of my closest friends and catch-up with them. Straighten things out with the girl next door. It was a very good week. So much for detail at this point. Oh, and as productive as this week was, I also put many more hours into every aspect of my life. Social, physical, spiritual, educational. Everything this week as a whole improved. This of course left me very tired. When I finally crashed at 2 A.M. last night, I slept for 11 hours straight. I didn't realize I was that tired. Anyway, I'm happy and doing great.

My month

Inspired by Duchess and Star, but mostly because I'm not up to doing anything at the moment, here's my month -

JUNE:
Thinks far with vision - Personally, I think church has been a major influence of this.
Easily influenced by kindness - My brother says I'm one of the few people who say thank you and sound like I mean it.
Polite and soft-spoken - In public.
Having lots of ideas - Do I or don't I? You be the judge.
Sensitive - As a rock.
Active mind - More as of late.
Hesitating, tends to delay - See dating philosophy(more to come on that subject).
Choosy and always wants the best - I don't care enough.
Temperamental.
Funny and humorous - I can't be the judge of that.
Loves to joke - I would agree, but who's laughing?
Good debating skills - Right. We were forced to do a debate in eighth grade. I was supposed to give the rebuttal. It was filmed, and the teacher said a minimum of three minutes. I said what I needed to say in 15 seconds and sat there for 2 minutes 45 seconds in complete silence with a camera on me and the teacher watching and saying nothing in front of the entire class. Great building of self-esteem for an eighth grader.
Talkative - Not really, until you know me, that is.
Daydreamer - You don't even know...
Friendly - Most agree.
Knows how to make friends - Not particularly.
Abiding - I guess.
Able to show character - Do I?
Easily hurt - Only my stupid shoulder, curse it.
Prone to getting colds - Twice a year, spring and fall, which I ignore and continue life as planned.
Loves to dress up - In free T-shirts(blood-doning, 5-K run, hand-me-downs, etc).
Easily bored - I'm one of those people who's easily amused, so no.
Fussy - No.
Seldom shows emotions - I agree.
Takes time to recover when hurt - My pride won't let me take time.
Brand conscious - ???
Executive - uh...
Stubborn - It's in the genes.

Phone Call

So today, my brother and I finally got around to fixing up our apartment to work better for us and have a little more room. We get all of that done, and decide to actually cook a decent meal. We've had this chicken in our freezer for quite some time, and some potato pearls from my mom's food storage. Since we aren't the greatest cooks of all time, I finally decided to call my mom. This is a little of how the conversation went...

"Hey mom"

"Is this (insert older brother's name)?"

"No, this is (Trueblat)."

"You didn't dislocate your shoulder again, did you?"

"No mom, we're just cooking some chicken and was wondering how to cook it."

Then in a very excited voice, "Who are you cooking it with?!?"

"(Insert younger brother's name)"

"Oh..."

I bet she was thinking that I had brought This Girl over for dinner. Since I rarely cook anything outside of noodles or sandwiches, it was not the norm for us to cook chicken. I don't know if you find it as funny as I did, but there it is for you.

My dating philosophy(or lack thereof)

So tonight after institute I end up talking to This Girl(who will now forever be called This Girl for the purposes of this blog) for quite a few hours. From 9 till 10:30, then we hung out and did things mostly as a group, yet continued to talk just to each other most of the time till 1 A.M. As this is a school night, I wouldn't have normally done this, especially since I have a two page report and another hour of practicing to do. But as it is All-State and the KMEA(Kentucky Music Educator's Association) convention, all my classes but one are cancelled and I can do catch-up.

So now I come to the decision of whether I should ask This Girl out or not. I was talking with my brother last weekend where he teased me about not going on any dates. I mentioned about the one girl who I had some interest in, decided it wouldn't work out, and never bothered with the situation. He felt that wasn't good enough and that I should at least give a girl a chance by at least going on one date with them.

So I've been thinking on the subject recently(read tonight). If I follow the trend of the last girl I was interested in, I would ponder about the situation, find some way it wouldn't work out and decide not to ask her out. This would be true of probably any girl that I had some type of interest no matter what, when I think about it. I think the answer to this problem lies elsewhere than in my pondering too much. It's not because I'm afraid to ask them out, or the feeling that I'd be rejected. I think the answer lies with the last girl I dated two years ago.

So in this relationship that lasted two months, she was working while I was going to school. She had a vehicle and money, while I had my bike only, and little cash. When we would go out, she'd usually end up paying or being the one driving, or in any situation, it seemed the typical roles of guy and girl dating were reversed, and this bothers me. It makes me feel inaddaquate. I feel that I wouldn't be able to give her what I feel a girl deserves in a relationship. I think that was part of it. Another part outside of the material aspect of things, I was really busy and kept my priorities focused on my schooling and musicianship. I felt that on all other levels that should be in a relationship, I could not provide what I feel a girl would need or want.

I think I still hold myself to that view. I feel I could never provide for those things that I feel are important in a relationship, therefore I don't date, and hide it under excuses about why I wouldn't date so-and-so.

Yes, I'm probably one of those people who look at a dating situation as a potential marriage, not so much because of the marrying aspect, but because I would rather not have to date somebody to find out if she's the one. I'd rather look at the person, say I'm going to marry you, and be done with it. It's much less time-consuming. All or none, baby, that seems to be the way I look at life. None of this halfway stuff.

So these are aspects I need to work on to shift around a little. I really should ask This Girl out. Will I? I don't know yet. I should.

I just have to laugh at something I find funny. That was retorical. Most people would go home and write about how cool and nice and funny so and so is. I come home and write my screwed views of my dating life. So for those of you who are sappy and what-not, the following statement will be as sappy as I'll get:

For the first time in a long while, I smiled so much that my cheeks were actually tired talking to This Girl.

I won't even go into what we talked about, so don't ask.

Too much

I've got quite a few things that I want to think about yet I can't keep them all straight. There's also a couple I want to blog on too. So I'm just gonna list what I plan on thinking on and possibly writing a blog on...

Racial segregation and discrimination in school settings.
(Inspired by MJ)Music theory and its relation to the gospel. I've never actually considered doing that before, makes a lot of sense though.
Band, choral, and orchestra programs and their restrictive environment to allow music to be taught.
Hate to love.
Irrevelant classes and goals on what I plan to study outside of class to compensate for the material I should know better before I begin a carreer teaching.

Now onto some randomness.

My branch has gone date crazy. In addition to the date box, for the Friday night activity, they are going to auction off dates. Needless to say, I'm not going. Maybe I should actually ask a girl out on a real date and take them to the LPO concert on Friday. Most likely I won't though.

I can play an hour of low etude excerpts at fff on tuba and feel only slightly winded, yet I can't play flute for 10 minutes without getting extremely light headed.

According to the opinion of most people, I look older without my glasses.

I need to review some of the vocabulary from freshman thoery. I know the stuff, I just forget the names.

It's easier to bike with no hands than with one hand, and under no circumstances should you try to change the front gears with you right hand.