Stuff

Wow, I seem to be writing less and less. I think in a way, my blog has served its purpose and I don't feel the need to write everything down. Maybe it's because I have someone to share everything with, who knows. The only reason I'm writing now is because I am in need of a break and have two hours till class. Really, I should be studying for my test in European History, but I studied yesterday. Also today, I had my pre-recital hearing in front of a few professors, a exposition to write in the style of Bach, my test later on. I was able to get all of this ready and include three hours of observations for a class, put my mock website as a teacher up on the web. I don't know if I'll link it or not, as it does include my real name. Possibly when I make revisions to it. I've still got 26 hours of observations to do in the next three weeks, all the paperwork for my senior recital done, which is also three weeks, taxes to take care of, etc. After three weeks, I will be free, and my schedule will be so incredibly light compared to what has become the norm, even though there will be several weeks left in school.

On another random note, Kentucky sucks whenever it comes to overtime games. Our girls lost this week in double overtime as well as our guys. I'm not sure if you remember a question I posted on the Board a year and a half ago, of our football team losing after 5 or 7 overtime periods. It was tied as the longest game in football history. It'd be nice to actually have won some of those.

Procrastination 2

Wow, over a week and I haven't written anything on my blog, or really looked at anyone else's except for the past couple of days. Although, I did pay attention more to BB. You know, I've written one post on procrastination, and now I get to write a second on, and it's unlikely to be the last. First off, it's nice having fast internet connection again. That's probably a bad thing as well.

So last week was spring break, and my chance to catch up on everything. The problem I have is that if my life isn't structured in some form or another, nothing really gets done. So I've got several big projects due right after spring break. Project number 1... I start at 9:30 the day before. Total length - 4 pages. The problem with this four pages is that I couldn't really get focused on what I needed to do. So it took me until 4 in the morning to finish it. Granted I had my brother read over my introduction and say what he thought. Well, he didn't like any of my wording, and would spend 10 minutes on each word, trying to find something better. After two hours of him going through just half a page, I told him I needed to get back to real work. While it was very unproductive, I must admit it was a lot of fun hacking it up and making fun of it, replacing it with words that were even worse or the same level of ugliness, then continueing on. So anyway, I was talking to some classmates and mine seems to be the smallest paper at a measly four pages. The next I heard was six, and one girl got hers up to 20 pages. This is for the same dictator that I so despise, probably why I didn't care about it too much.

Tonight, I get to read more of a book that I started over spring break, then write a report on it. I've done less than half the reading, so it will be interesting. And what do I do, I sit here and blog. I also waited until today to work up my last page of music for my senior recital. My last lesson is tommorrow before my pre-recital hearing. Let's not forget the assignments that I'm not doing for tomorrow. I've also got to arrange my tuba-euph quartets on Wednesday, and create another composition for my theory class. I move from procrastination to procrastination, for the remainder of my days. Here's to college life.

We finally got snow

It's almost mid-March, and we finally got some snow, not too much, but it was enough to make a snow-man. Although This Girl and I decided it was a little too late to make a snow-man. If we had been a little more awake than what we were at 3 A.M. in the morning, we very well would have made one. It was tempting enough as it is. Is wasn't too cold, it was very bright outside for 3 in the morning.

I also took This Girl to her first concert last night. Well, she's been to others before, but that's high-school orchestra, etc. So I took her to an LPO concert, where they played a violin concerto(Mozart), a horn concertino by an individual I never heard of and couldn't tell you the name, and the reason I came, Mahler's "Titan" Symphony. Only my favorite symphony of all time. It was pretty good, except I thought the fourth movement was a little weak compared to the rest of them, which was sad because it had my favorite parts there. And then during the climax of the 1rst movement, I started coughing, and was concentrating so hard on not coughing, that I couldn't enjoy it.

This Girl and I had a discussion about that afterwards. I didn't realize how much I expect out of an audience during a performance. Not only do I abhor cell phones, watches, people coming in during the middle of a piece, but I hate it when people cough, and believe it is their duty to hold it in as much as possible. This Girl felt my views were a little extreme, which granted, after my coughing bout, yeah... It really annoyed me that I couldn't keep from coughing, because normally I can keep myself from coughing even when I need to. She finds my practice just absolutely bizarre. I don't even think other music majors would feel the way I do. Actually, I remember one LPO concert where they handed out free cough drops, but that's still not as bad as my view. I just think people can usually control their body better than what they do. Oh well.

I just wish there had been more people there. With a UK basketball game going on the same night, it wasn't near as full as it usually is, and this is Mahler. Oh well. It was a fun night, I was able to take This Girl to a concert, talk to her for quite a while afterwards, and see the most snow we've had all year. Not a bad start for Spring Break. (This means I probably won't be checking anything on the internet for a week, bad 56K modem, bad.)

Old ladies playing games

I completely forgot to write about this, and it still deserves a place on my blog even though it was last week. I went an Orff Workshop this weekend. For those who wouldn't know what that means, it's basically a method of teaching children general music. We focused mainly on different types of games to promote movement while singing. So basically, for four hours we played a bunch of games that involved singing.

The funniest part of this was the game that was similar to duck-duck-goose. You can't imagine the sight I saw when two ladies, whose combined age is over 100, chase each other around this circle with grim determination on their faces that they're going to win.

It was a fun four hours, but I must admit to myself that I wouldn't consider this the best possible means to teach kids. I can't really go into too much at this point about the Orff method because I don't know how much is involved with its entirity. This summer, after I take the Level 1 Orff workshop, then I can begin to find strong and weak points about this method, and how I plan to use it. Fun, yes, but I don't see it to be too intellectually stimulating for kids. I would think that there would be more of a balance, even for elementary school. We'll find out just how involved it is afterwards I guess. This was just one element of Orff anyway.

Stupidity

Man, could I be any more stupid. I'm trying to get my student teaching together, which unfortunately for me, is under the same teacher who likes his tyrannical rule of the classroom. Basically this guy owns me for this semester and next. So in trying to complete everything I need to, plus all the extra, which would have included some overlapping. In fact, he origonally stated that it would count, and now the contradictory bastard is going back on his freakin' word. Everytime I talk to this guy, I continue to lose more and more respect for him. Of course, being the person who avoids any confrontation at all, I just let it all slide. It's a different story when I get back to my office, and start wailing on the really hard work table with my fist that never healed fully from when I pounded the floor when I dislocated my shoulder. So now I've got one knuckle that's three times the size it should be. I've got my lesson today, and I'm really too pissed off at the moment to warm-up, so I must blog. This is what I get for being stupid.

Now onto a subject that my sister said I should blog about because she thought it was funny. Speaking of my sister, she did mention she met a couple of board members recently. Anyway, on to the blogging. I'd completely forgotten that women actually think about all the different aspects of dating, while I(and most other guys) tend to think it's dating or it isn't. So it was a complete surprise for me when This Girl asks, "What are we?" Ahhh... yes... the dtr, as you call it out there. I was just totally clueless by what she even meant. I just know that we're dating, I'm enjoying it, and I'm getting to know her even better. I never really developed any thoughts beyond that as far as describing what we are, while she had thought about that aspect. Wow, I almost feel like any classic situation where the guys really don't think about it, while all the girls get together and discuss in great detail every little thing that happens. The whole thing was just so typical. At least now, I've got a better understanding of what's going on in girl terms. Although I'm probably touching the tip of the iceberg on this one.

Topics for today include...

Contra dancing - Contrary to my belief, it has nothing to do with the Nintendo game. That was a cool game. I could beat the game over and over again and continue to gain lives as it got harder. That aside, the best way to explain contra dancing according to This Girl is a mix between a ho-down and an English Country Dance. It's danced in lines and a caller calls out the moves. It's a lot more popular here than it would be out west. This Girl actually found a place when she did a summer at BYU, but it was too far away for her to attend.

Thinking before speaking - I rarely discuss things over with people. If a group of people are discussing a particular subject, I'm always the most quiet of the group. Why, you ask. I always have to make sure my answer is exactly 100% correct in any discussion before I will make my opinion known. I have to look at it from every angle possible before I want to make my thoughts known. When they finally finish discussing that and are on a different topic, I'm finishing up my thoughts on my perfect answer. Today was a great example. My American education class discusses many controversial issues, and in the processing of discussing, I said my perfect response before the topic had switched to which no one could base any negative input on it. This is typically how I run my life. This is why math come so easy for me, and English is so much harder for me. Math has a clean cut answer, while English has many more aspects and interpretations involved for me to think through, so I usually never get it in time. My dad tends to be the same way, actually a lot worse, while my mom in quicker to state her view. So at least I'm somewhere inbetween. My blog on the other hand tends to be my views completed or not.

This Girl - We were talking about puzzles while we were doing one last week and she mentioned the last time she worked on a puzzle. Come to find out when she mentioned that, I realized that I was there to working on it right beside her. That was over Christmas. We then started talking about the times we've run into each at church and other activities. We've both been in the same branch for over two years and we finally just started talking to each other. It's kindof sad in a way that we've never really talked to people at church, or gotten to know as many people as we should. You never know what would come of your life if you actually talk to people at church.

Ahhh... the weather

The weather here is always absurd. Saturday, I drove down to a contra dance with the windows down while wearing a short sleeve shirt. Sunday was about the same. Monday was biking several miles through downpours. Today, I woke to a couple of inches of snow.

In other news, I'm completely exhausted and have gone beyond my limits, and have much further to go. I just crashed through an hour and a half class without so much as waking up. Hopefully Saturday I can relax. I've already got every day filled from 6:30 A.M. to 9:00 P.M. or later. Yuck.

So a few minutes later after writing about how I hopefully have Saturday to relax. Nope, I just found out all the requirements that teachers are making me do outside of class because they don't offer it normally. So instead of the 17 credit hours I'm currently taking, it unofficially is probably more around 23. So Saturday I get to do an Orff workshop all day. I've got an extra 10 hours of observations, on top of the 25 hours I haven't started yet. Several teaching gigs in Elementary schools that I've lined up personally for my own experience. Wow, I'm going to be lucky to make this semester.