MUSIC

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. -- Aldous Huxley.

You know how people say that absence makes the heart grow fonder? I know it's true. I mean, it will never be disproved. When you're separated from something you love, or even threatened with the idea of separation, you realize just how important it is to you.

Like, say, music. All my life I've been surrounded by music. I sing in the shower, I've had a piano at my house since I was about six. I've been in choir since fourth grade, and I've ALWAYS had a music class in my schedule. But I leave for college tomorrow. I won't be able to sing in the shower. I won't have a piano handy so that I can just stop and play one quick tune on my way to do laundry. Yes, I'm taking my guitar with me, but I won't have silence and privacy while I struggle to learn a new song or fiddle around with chords and melodies while I write.

I have to audition for choir, and I am not entirely confident that I will make it. Not for lack of talent or trying necessarily, but perhaps because of lack of training. Compared to the musical backgrounds of the other people that I imagine will audition, mine is sort of skimpy. I had a year a piano lessons, 3 years of singing in a choir that got straight 1's at the state choir thing. But the only solo singing I have done is my auditions for musicals. I can belt, I have a broad range. I have spectacular diction. In English. The only problem is, my audition piece is an Italian aria. I think I've got the pronunciation right, but I don't know for sure. I can hit all the notes, and I have expression, but I struggle with my phrasing because I run out of air. I'm made for singing chorally. I can hold my part in a choir, but I don't know if I can hold my own in a solo audition.

Also, I don't really have a great ear. I can sight-sing just fine, but learning melodies by ear? It takes me days! My guess it's the way my brain is wired. I'm all formulas and it makes sense that I can do better relying on my brain than the physical functionality of my senses. But i'm still worried.

Also, I packed my guitar already and I wish I hadn't.

DOUBT

When in doubt, tell the truth. -- Mark Twain

Sometimes I wonder why I do what I do.

My plan for my life is to go to university, study mechanical engineering, have a stepping-stone engineering job that I'm not necessarily thrilled about, and then go work for NASA or something. This is all fine and good because I love math and am awesome at math, and I really like physics and I'm pretty good at it, too.

But today in physics class, we talked about chemistry. Now, I used to like chemistry. In grade school, when we were talking about all the molecular-level stuff. That was cool. But I had a really crappy chemistry teacher in high school, so 1) I know nothing useful about chemistry and 2) I don't like it. Generally when I don't like things, it's because I'm bad at them, but in this case it's simply because I was never taught it. And I'm expected to know these things because I got an A in honors chemistry two years ago because I know how to take tests. It made me reconsider. Do I really want to spend my whole life doing science? If I'm going to be an engineer, I'm going to have to take a ton of science courses in university. The only science class I've ever liked is physics. The only science classes where I've ever learned anything have been physics and biology, and biology won't be useful as a mechanical engineer. Do I want to do this?

But I don't want to talk myself out of engineering before I've truly tried it. The most I should let my doubt do is caution me to keep an open mind. I would do that anyway, though. All doubt does in this case is make me uncertain. It makes me nervous. I don't want to be stuck doing something I hate. I know I could always go back to school and do something else, but I don't want to be in school forever.

I don't want a desk job, either. And I don't want to be a teacher.

What's left?

Writing Again

I'm writing again.

Now that I'm looking out on five months with no english classes--indeed, where the majority of my time will be spent thinking with my objective mind--I've decided it will be good for me if I start writing again. Poetry, journaling, music, stories, whatever I feel like writing. Perhaps blogs, even. Hah.

I started a separate blog for poetry. It's called Silent Music. Because (to me) that's what poetry is. Music without a melody, without sound. Silence. With meaning. I don't know what kind of poetry I'll write, but I'll probably keep that up fairly regularly for awhile.

I'm also writing much more music now. I'm doing FAWM again in February. I did 50/90 last summer/fall, and have been writing even since then. I revised some 50/90 songs (last year's fawm songs weren't worth the effort), too. I'll hopefully be putting some of that on youtube. And, this semester, I'm going to switch classes and take music theory. YAY! Perhaps my band, Never Silent, will happen after all.

That's all. Ben Folds is awesome.

Life is Good

It's 11:20 pm on a Thursday. I have school tomorrow. I haven't showered. I've been up since 5 am because of band. I was at school from 6:45-3:45. And it was a really good day.

In fact, life in general lately has just been great. Last weekend was splendid, and I always have LOST to look forward to. And my friends have been really great, I guess. Maybe it's because of my music. I've been very musically inclined lately, and that's probably a good thing. I'm never selling my mom's old guitar. And I'd like to take legit lessons one day. And/or piano lessons.

Anyway. We're talking about my great life. Today I had band at 7 am (like every Tuesday and Thursday) and we got new music. Selections from Chicago. I was rather intimidated, at first, because the drum part is really intense and has lots of markings. But it wasn't too bad. Mind, we haven't played through the whole thing yet, but I think I did okay. I need to practice, though.

And then we had "vocation day." It was a whole lot better than I expected. I actually got something out of it, which doesn't always happen. And physics was fun, of course. Then, of course, I spent from like 3:30-10:30 with my good friend Maggie. We read my American Studies homework together and then headed off to a wizard rock concert. It was da bomb. Great memories. I might vlog about how great it was, it was that great.

And tomorrow is Friday, which is good.

But now it's 11:27 and I really should sleep. Yeeep.

Auctions and Puppies and Jobs, Oh My!

Oops. I haven't blogged in over a week. What was this about me blogging regularly? Well, I've been sort of not the greatest since I last blogged, so maybe that's an excuse. And if not an excuse, it'll make me feel better about failing my commitment. Any blog I could have written would have been "I just want to sleeeeep" or "LOST is great!" or "Why can't I think of lyrics for this music or vice versa?"

But I have more to blog about now. I had a good weekend, and it's not over yet.

This weekend was my school's auction. Every year, the first Saturday in February, we have an auction to raise money. 'nuff said. And because of this auction, we have a half day on Friday and a holiday on Monday. So, the first contributor to a good weekend was the extra length. Three days and an extra two and a half hours? I'll take it! Plus, this year, one of the puppies we auctioned off sold for $8,000. It was a shipoo and adorable, and the guy who bought it donated it to our principal. Cute, right?

So on Saturday I woke up and took the ACT, and that was okay (I liked the SAT better, but I think I'm just crazy), and then I took a four-hour-long nap. THAT was fun. And then I went to school to work at the auction, only to find that I wasn't there an hour and a half early. I was there over two hours early! But that was okay. I hung out in the break room with friends and got a ride home with a friend. So that was great fun.

Furthermore, yesterday (Sunday) I went out to the place I worked last summer to re-audition for a job. There were 93 people there, there had already been a selective audition, and they were downsizing. But for some reason they thought I was great and had me try on costumes first. I tried on 7 or so, and every single one fit me. Then they said I was hired. Just like that! I felt kind of bad that I got to leave before my friends from last year even started their skits, but I skedaddled so I wouldn't have to watch them and worry about them being hired. I hope they get hired. That will make the summer more fun.

But yeah. I had a fun weekend. I'm going to have a fun summer. I just hope my boss(es) don't regret deciding to hire me before looking at my conflicts. And I hope they suspect that I marked any potential conflicts, to avoid problems, and ask me to come in for training in March with everybody else. Though, I suppose that having my own training couldn't be too horrible. Bonding time with supervisors, I guess. Cheers.