Life's been good lately.  I've been hanging out with my pit buddies a lot--we've gone to dinner together several times, and we all went to the Children of Eden cast party last Friday.  I had my first drink ever--kind of exciting, but pretty uneventful.  I enjoyed myself because I really liked the people there, but I still don't feel the urge to go out and get drunk for fun.

I also went to the Lyric Opera in Chicago on Friday with my new friend Madeline.  I met her at the planning meetings for Good as NU, a flea market sponsored by Hillel (the Jewish student center on campus) to raise money for charity.  We saw Der Rosenkavalier.  It was my first opera experience, and it was amazing!  I'm definitely going to start frequenting the opera (as much as I can afford to, at least).  It's kinda weird that I'd never been to an opera performance before since Helen (my flute teacher at home)  plays in the Dallas Opera Orchestra.

Paradise Lost was AMAZING!  Wow.

My friend Katie and I are going to hang out on Friday night (we're gonna go see a show, then hit up Joel's b-day party) and have a slumber party since my roommate moved out and there's an extra bed.  I'm really excited! ^_^

Today I rode down Chicago Avenue and went thrifting.  I found a really cute red sweater, a pair of jeans, and some running pants.  Yay shopping.

Yesterday the temperature got up to 50 degrees!  And it was sunny!!  Of course that called for an immediate abandonment of all work (as soon as I escaped from the dungeons of classes and band...not that I dislike them, but it was too pretty to be inside).  So I went running/walking/moseying around on the rocks on the lake trail south of campus.  I had been really frustrated and stressed out and angry after dealing with a bunch of fairly small, but irksome, problems, but after my escapist journey, I felt at peace with life.  I was so relaxed that I spent the rest of the evening after dinner watching Love Actually (our cool CAs bought food for us and borrowed the movie so we could all watch it) and going on a long walk with Paul--all of which was much better than homework or practicing.

Speaking of which, however, it's time for me to stop slacking off and get some work done before flute solo class.  Later!

As usual, I've been ignoring the fact that I have an online journal...and there's no way I can possibly catch up on everything that's changed in the last 6 months, it'll just have to come up whenever it does.

I just played in the pit for the musical Children of Eden.  It was amazing!!!  I had so much fun--the music was awesome (it's by Steven Schwartz, who wrote the music for Wicked, Pippin, and some other stuff I can't remember), and I met some really awesome people that I hope to see more in the future.

I also played in the Eric Whitacre concert on Sunday.  He came to our symphonic band rehearsal on Thursday and conducted Sleep and gave us some suggestions on Equus.  We got to ask him questions about his life and works, and it turns out that he's not only an incredible composer, but also a fascinating person.  Here's what I learned:

• Equus is the Latin word for "horse."  Because it has 5 letters, the piece is based on that number.  Eric (as Dr. Nelson calls him) envisions different movie-like scenes of horses throughout the piece.  He wants one of his friends to write a poem about the power and majesty of the horse for the choral part.
• He wrote film scores for a couple of movies, but he wouldn't even tell us their names because he thought they were terrible.  He hates film scoring because he can't stand to have the music torn apart and repatched as the directors cut and rearrange the scenes of the movie.
• He took 7 years to finish undergrad school (I forgot where he went), then he went to Juiliard for grad school.  He had no formal music training before college.  He loves electronica, and his life's dream used to be becoming a rock star.  He likes the bands Bjork, Radiohead, and The Postal Service.
• In considering what to do with his life, he thought of the words of Rilke (?), who wrote something along these lines:  I must "ask myself the question, 'Must I write?', and if the answer is a simple and resounding 'yes,' then" that must be how one lives one's life.  Eric added, "My sould would die after adjusting insurance for a couple weeks."
• He's going to write a piece for middle school band called "Running with Scissors."  All the band members will have safety scissors, and the director will have a pair of huge scissors, and they'll make swishing noises during the piece.
• His opera electronica "Paradise Lost" is premiering next weekend!!!

John Adams also came recently.  We're premiering a new arrangement of his piece "Lollapalooza."  We didn't get to talk to him as much, though, so I don't really remember anything particularly interesting.

I'm kind of obsessed with riding my bike right now.  Today Matt showed me how to adjust the spokes on my wheel and how to adjust the brake (although I don't know that I could do the latter by myself yet).  This afternoon, since it was sunny, I rode down to Rogers street (a while south of Howard).  I went down on the lakeshore trail, then explored in the city for a bit, then came back on Ridge.  I want to explore around Ridge some more...for some reason it fascinated me.  I love seeing new places!

Hmm...I have woodwind quintet practice at 7:45 tomorrow morning.  I should probably get to sleep.  Later!

Yay for slackerdom!  Hmm...here's a partial update on what happened this summer:

1. I worked at Cafe Chocolat (one of the most amazingly delicious locations on the planet) until they closed (I was heartbroken!). 

2. My main job this summer was at Redenta's Garden, an organic gardening place.  I loved it!!!  The people I worked with were lotsa fun.  I loved being outside (although it was incredibly hot on some days), and I got to see cool things like a family of 5 screech owls, a beehive that moved into one of our big trees, some huge praying mantids (one of them attacked a butterfly while I was watching), and tame-ish (one of them bit me, but it didn't break the skin) squirrels that sometimes will eat out of your hand.  We had a salsa party one night...fresh, home-made salsa made out of home-grown peppers...wow, it was amazing!  I definitely lucked out in the summer job market.

3. I went to Floot Fire, a week-long workshop in Plano, and had fun hanging out with my flute friends.

4. Umm...I got addicted to dollar-store earrings.

5. My family visited the Rawlings in Bronte and had a blast hanging out with them!  Becca, Phil, Sam, Matt and I hung out on their grandma's ranch in Water Valley (the boys caught a couple of huge fish, and Becca and I drove all over the place on the Mule), and all of us went to a movie in San Angelo.  We saw Must Love Dogs, and the boys all said they wanted to kill themselves by the time we walked out.  Heh heh.

6. We also visited our cousins/aunt/uncle in Missouri at their lake house.  It was my first tubing experience, and almost my first waterskiing escapade...I never made it out of the water!  Matt caught a big catfish, and I helped him clean it...yummy!

7. I'm going on a backpacking trip with Northwestern people!  Yay! ^_^

We had a picnic in art today.  It was quite enjoyable, and the food was delectable!  Everyone brought something, and we had quite a feast!

I also got to hang out with my dear friend Elizabeth!  I'm so glad I got to see her again before she departs for the summer.  I love you, Elizabeth! ^_^

Hmm...time to do my government homework (which was due THREE weeks ago!!!).  AP testing really interferes with the last assignments of the year, doesn't it?  I've actually only been to class twice since it was due, and the second time was when I asked for another copy of the assignment since I'd lost the first one.  But isn't that pathetic?

Wow--it's been forever since I've written in here!  I'm going to attempt to condense the past ... 2 months or so ... into a "short" update:

1. Accepted into Northwestern!!!  Yaaaaaayyy!!!!!!!  I'm going to double-major in music performance and something in the arts and sciences.  I met a girl at orchestra named Meredith who will also attend Northwestern, so I now know 1 person on campus.  I know I'll meet cool people, though!

2. Art trip to Houston-got to :
*hang out with Joyce, which was awesome!,
*go to the Houston Museum of Art,
*forge iron (I made a wall-hook type object on which I can hang pictures or something, but was misquoted in the school newspaper as saying that I "made a doorknob."  heh heh.  Dear writer of the article (if you happen to read this), no hard feelings!  My creation is somewhat ambiguous, and I drowned you with a ton of details during the interview.  Overall, I liked your article!),
*take a figure-drawing class,
*eat amazing seafood (right next to the ocean), and
*run around on the boardwalk at Kemah (on the gulf; great restaurants and shops along with a small amusement park and a fountain that you can run through--that brings back memories of everyone trying to blow dry tennis shoes and clothes last year after we got completely soaked.  We killed the blow-dryer and ended up squishing around for the next day.)
*And I remembered not to climb any palm trees!!  (Last time, I took off my shoes so that I'd have a better grip, then I started to climb it.  But as soon as my weight was off the ground, millions of splinters dug into my hands and feet, and we spent the next 2 hours in the hotel room with a needle, some tweezers, and rubbing alchohol.  Owch.)

3. Band trip:  So much fun!!  I really enjoyed getting to hang out with such wonderful people, and Theresa is the most incredible cook ever, and I'm glad that we had more free time on the beach than last Corpus trip, and almost everything was just hunky-dory.  I almost got to skip the last part of the bus trip--I tried to get permission to go to UT with Mikey Z and DZ so that I could see the UT orchestra concert the next day, but that didn't work out.  It was really funny, cuz when I asked my parents, I told them all about it ("and I could stay overnight with Mari, and come home with DZ's parents, etc"), and, of all things, the first thing my dad worried about was how late they would have to stay up waiting for me to arrive home after the concert.

4. AP tests:  6 of them!  What a crazy last three weeks.  I enjoyed skipping half the week of school.  And the cookies were great.  Economics sucked.  I actually sort of survived the French test.  I'm not sure how I did, but, overall, the test was easier than I expected.  I think it had something to do with my recent addiction to the French version of Harry Potter.

5. Art is so much fun!!  I actually finished my portfolio, and now I'm just making stuff for the heck of it, and really enjoying it.  It's now my only class that's not a total waste of time, so I appreciate having control over what I do during the period.  I'm going to miss art.  It was nice to have so many materials at my fingertips!  I shouldn't let the lack of that stop me in the future, though.

6. Currently searching for a job.  I'm going to work at a tutoring place, but they don't need me for that many hours, so I'm looking for something else as well.

7. School is almost out!!!!!  Yessssss!!!!!!!!

8. My brother and his friend are going to the midnight showing of Star Wars tonight.  They will arrive dressed as Sam and Frodo, and plan to run around calling everyone nerds for being so obsessed with Star Wars.

9. My family + my bro's friend's family + DZ and I went to FWSO last week and saw:
*Ravel's "La valse,"
*Barber's "Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 14,"
*Falla's "Suite from the Three-Cornered Hat,"
*Ravel's "Bolero,"
*and an encore by the violinist, a piece which I know and love but can't remember its name.
It was amazing!!!!

10. Our last GDYO concert was on Sunday.  It was terrific!  I'm really going to miss GDYO--what an experience!  It completely changed my view of orchestral music, and I learned so much, and Mr. Giangiulio was awesome, and I loved getting to play with such an amazing group, and all the music was incredible, and the people were so much fun, and carpooling with Zach and Daniel was one of my favorite events of each week!

11. Our last band concert was Monday.  I can't say that I felt as emotional about that as I did about GDYO.  I mean, we performed the same concert piece 5 times this year!!!  I think it was an awesome piece, and it would have been ok to perform it 5 times within a couple weeks (like professional orchestras do), but when the same music is spread out over 4 months along with 2 or 3 other pieces, I tend to get really bored during class.  Ugh.  I'm glad that's over.  However, I enjoyed the night of the concert, because some really terrific people whom I haven't seen in quite a while showed up!  I love you guys!!

12. Matt made wind ensemble!!!!!!!!!  I'm so excited!  So, Cynthia, you now have a potential candidate for the adopt-a-fish program!  I trust you guys to watch over him!  I think I should introduce him to Andrew and Nick so that he has trumpet friends as well.  I wish I could be there for his freshman year!

So, that's the news for now.  I'll try to be a bit more consistent in keeping up with this.  Cheerio!