Sunday, November 14, 2004
And Lots of Wavy Hair Like Pat Buchanan
Bonus points to anyone who understands why this entry is titled what it is...
I'll start by saying that I feel a lot better about things. Not completely better, but certainly better than Saturday afternoon. I'll elaborate more on this in a bit. For now, let's just launch into my usual chronological description of events.
The football game was lots of fun. Our show went along without a hitch, considering we learned about 60% of it on Tuesday and didn't have a rehearsal Thursday. After halftime we were sitting up in the stands where we always do, and this little girl came up and started talking to the clarinets who sit right in front of me. She was in fifth grade and played clarinet herself; I don't remember her name. But the clarinets let her sit with them for the rest of the game, and she had fun listen to us play and even participating in some of our dance moves. It was really cool. Although, most of our cheers are...uh...PG-13 or higher. So the clarinets and a couple of trumpets (including myself) distracted her during those. If the parents of that little girl ever happen to read this blog, I apologize for the band's corrupting your daughter.
As far as the football game itself went, our Mustangs shut out the Northern Colorado University Bears, 31-0. I happened to do a little research before the game on the Great West football conference and how different teams could win the division title. The two big contenders for this year's trip to the playoffs are Davis and Cal Poly. If one of them won on Saturday and the other lost, the winner would be the sole possessor of the title. If both won, they would share the title. If both lost then they would share the title with two other Great West teams. So, given that Cal Poly won our game (in their first shutout since 2002), guess whether or not Davis won their game. Seriously, go ahead and guess. Well, they lost to North Dakota State, 25-7. So Cal Poly wins the Great West conference, and will go to the playoffs (I think. But then, what the heck do I know about football?) So, affect of me? I'm not sure. Because Davis beat us, the playoff game won't be in SLO. If it's nearby we'll probably take a portion of the band, but if it's far away we probably won't go. So for now, it's still up in the air. I'll let you know when I know more.
After the game I went with Ben and Courtney to a party thrown by one of the older bandos. And yes, it was a full-on lots-of-alcohol and drunk people party. Ben and Courtney don't drink, however, so I felt comfortable in their company. It was pretty fun, and shockingly it wasn't something I was completely opposed to doing. At one point I went with another trumpet freshman, Amy, to go and get eggs so they could make egg nog. This is interesting in that Amy has to be the most hard-to-talk-to person you'd ever meet. I have no idea at all how to relate to her. But if you stick two people in the car for long enough I guess they have to talk about something, and so we did, mainly about KKY (band fraternity) and the reasons why she decided to join and why I decided not to. (There is this whole big process you have to go through to become a member. It takes all of winter quarter, and at the end of it all some people still don't get in. The fraternity itself doesn't seem like something I'd really like to do even if I didn't have to work that hard to get in. And, not knowing too much about what they do, I'm not anxious to commit to it. I have enough on my plate already. But most of the people who were invited to join are attempting to do so, so I wonder if I'm missing something. I don't know...such controversy...) But anyway, I guess I'm kind of able to talk to Amy now, so maybe it won't be so awkward when she sits next to me in MB. Hooray for new friends.
One of my friends got pretty drunk at the party, and Ben, Courtney, and I stayed later than we otherwise would have to make sure she got back home all right. So I didn't end up going to bed until around 2. If you'll recall, I had to stay in another band friend's room last night. At 2 in the morning I was tired from the long day and all I wanted to do was sleep in my nice comfy bed. However, my friend's roommate's bed was going to have to do, right? Not exactly...it turns out my friend's roommate didn't want anyone to sleep in his bed (or on top of it, as I had planned to do), so I ended up on the floor. I never really thought about it before last night, but are floors are hard. Really hard. So long story short, I had a pretty miserable night's sleep. Oh well.
I got up this morning and came back to the room to shower before I went to church. I returned from the mission to go and have brunch at Vista Grande Restaurant with Ben, Courtney, and a couple of other band people. I ate way too much and felt pretty nauseous for a good couple of hours, but that's okay because all I wanted to do was take a nap. I slept for about a half an hour before Kevin and Dana came back from wherever they were. As Dana would be leaving in an hour or two, I decided that it was high time to go to the grocery store to get out of their hair for the last hours they'd be spending with each other. So I groggily went over to Albertson's, bringing a full carload of tower 2 people with me.
Upon return I packed away my groceries and then set off to finish my California government book, which took me less than an hour. By then it was time to go to meet my music theory group to finish learning our piece, this time with the entire group present. Yeah, one of the people didn't show, the same who hasn't been showing for a large number of our rehearsals. Sigh. So we're meeting again on Tuesday, and he promises to be there. Aside from that, the rehearsal went well. I have confidence that we'll be able to play through it by Friday, the earliest that we might have to perform. Woot.
While I was in the music building I figured I'd practice piano. 45 minutes later I left the music building to drop off my stuff in my room, then to go have dinner. I went to VG's, because tonight convenience won out over quality; I wasn't walking all the way down to the UU for something different. I tried their cheeseburger, and it wasn't horrible. Again, woot.
After dinner we had a tower 2 meeting, because Katie-the-RA had a survey she needed us to fill out. I talked to Katie for a little while after that (she's still trying to recruit me to be an RA). At about 9 I called Alena and talked to her for a pretty good while, since it had been awhile since I had more than a couple of minutes' worth of conversation with her. I killed some time after that, and now I'm writing in my blog.
So, now that I've caught up to the present, I have one little announcement I'd like to make before I sign off. I keep this blog to keep in touch with all the people I love back at home, but I also keep it as my own personal journal that I can look back on in the future to see all the little things in my life that I'd otherwise have forgotten. That said, you can imagine that sometimes there are things that happen in my life that I wouldn't necessarily want to post on the world wide web for anyone to read, but that I myself would want to keep a record of. So, this is my legal disclaimer that the entries that appear online here are not necessarily printed in their entirety. I reserve the right to make portions of what I have to say private, and I'm sure you'll understand. I keep a copy of all of this in a Word document in case this website goes down or something, and that's where I'll write down the things I don't want just anyone reading. So that's that.
All right, I need to go to bed now, as it's past midnight and I'm going to be tired tomorrow (at least I have time for naps on Monday). OH! I almost forgot! J posted the audition results for windO/windE, and I moved up two chairs to second chair windO, which is just about exactly where I'd like to be. Hooray! I'll have to play first part, though, and I'm not sure I can play sufficiently high enough. But I hope that by the end of the year playing first part will have forced me to learn to play high, and that that will no longer be a weakness in me. We'll see.
Okay, now I'm going to go to bed. I hope you all have a good week - the last in marching season! I'll talk to you soon.
Cheers,
Josh
mood: pretty darned good, considering
music: Joanna's awesome CD again
location: dorm
PS - I forgot to tell you from a week or two ago that AM (as in radio) stands for "amplitude modulation." I'll save the technical details of this for some other time.
I'll start by saying that I feel a lot better about things. Not completely better, but certainly better than Saturday afternoon. I'll elaborate more on this in a bit. For now, let's just launch into my usual chronological description of events.
The football game was lots of fun. Our show went along without a hitch, considering we learned about 60% of it on Tuesday and didn't have a rehearsal Thursday. After halftime we were sitting up in the stands where we always do, and this little girl came up and started talking to the clarinets who sit right in front of me. She was in fifth grade and played clarinet herself; I don't remember her name. But the clarinets let her sit with them for the rest of the game, and she had fun listen to us play and even participating in some of our dance moves. It was really cool. Although, most of our cheers are...uh...PG-13 or higher. So the clarinets and a couple of trumpets (including myself) distracted her during those. If the parents of that little girl ever happen to read this blog, I apologize for the band's corrupting your daughter.
As far as the football game itself went, our Mustangs shut out the Northern Colorado University Bears, 31-0. I happened to do a little research before the game on the Great West football conference and how different teams could win the division title. The two big contenders for this year's trip to the playoffs are Davis and Cal Poly. If one of them won on Saturday and the other lost, the winner would be the sole possessor of the title. If both won, they would share the title. If both lost then they would share the title with two other Great West teams. So, given that Cal Poly won our game (in their first shutout since 2002), guess whether or not Davis won their game. Seriously, go ahead and guess. Well, they lost to North Dakota State, 25-7. So Cal Poly wins the Great West conference, and will go to the playoffs (I think. But then, what the heck do I know about football?) So, affect of me? I'm not sure. Because Davis beat us, the playoff game won't be in SLO. If it's nearby we'll probably take a portion of the band, but if it's far away we probably won't go. So for now, it's still up in the air. I'll let you know when I know more.
After the game I went with Ben and Courtney to a party thrown by one of the older bandos. And yes, it was a full-on lots-of-alcohol and drunk people party. Ben and Courtney don't drink, however, so I felt comfortable in their company. It was pretty fun, and shockingly it wasn't something I was completely opposed to doing. At one point I went with another trumpet freshman, Amy, to go and get eggs so they could make egg nog. This is interesting in that Amy has to be the most hard-to-talk-to person you'd ever meet. I have no idea at all how to relate to her. But if you stick two people in the car for long enough I guess they have to talk about something, and so we did, mainly about KKY (band fraternity) and the reasons why she decided to join and why I decided not to. (There is this whole big process you have to go through to become a member. It takes all of winter quarter, and at the end of it all some people still don't get in. The fraternity itself doesn't seem like something I'd really like to do even if I didn't have to work that hard to get in. And, not knowing too much about what they do, I'm not anxious to commit to it. I have enough on my plate already. But most of the people who were invited to join are attempting to do so, so I wonder if I'm missing something. I don't know...such controversy...) But anyway, I guess I'm kind of able to talk to Amy now, so maybe it won't be so awkward when she sits next to me in MB. Hooray for new friends.
One of my friends got pretty drunk at the party, and Ben, Courtney, and I stayed later than we otherwise would have to make sure she got back home all right. So I didn't end up going to bed until around 2. If you'll recall, I had to stay in another band friend's room last night. At 2 in the morning I was tired from the long day and all I wanted to do was sleep in my nice comfy bed. However, my friend's roommate's bed was going to have to do, right? Not exactly...it turns out my friend's roommate didn't want anyone to sleep in his bed (or on top of it, as I had planned to do), so I ended up on the floor. I never really thought about it before last night, but are floors are hard. Really hard. So long story short, I had a pretty miserable night's sleep. Oh well.
I got up this morning and came back to the room to shower before I went to church. I returned from the mission to go and have brunch at Vista Grande Restaurant with Ben, Courtney, and a couple of other band people. I ate way too much and felt pretty nauseous for a good couple of hours, but that's okay because all I wanted to do was take a nap. I slept for about a half an hour before Kevin and Dana came back from wherever they were. As Dana would be leaving in an hour or two, I decided that it was high time to go to the grocery store to get out of their hair for the last hours they'd be spending with each other. So I groggily went over to Albertson's, bringing a full carload of tower 2 people with me.
Upon return I packed away my groceries and then set off to finish my California government book, which took me less than an hour. By then it was time to go to meet my music theory group to finish learning our piece, this time with the entire group present. Yeah, one of the people didn't show, the same who hasn't been showing for a large number of our rehearsals. Sigh. So we're meeting again on Tuesday, and he promises to be there. Aside from that, the rehearsal went well. I have confidence that we'll be able to play through it by Friday, the earliest that we might have to perform. Woot.
While I was in the music building I figured I'd practice piano. 45 minutes later I left the music building to drop off my stuff in my room, then to go have dinner. I went to VG's, because tonight convenience won out over quality; I wasn't walking all the way down to the UU for something different. I tried their cheeseburger, and it wasn't horrible. Again, woot.
After dinner we had a tower 2 meeting, because Katie-the-RA had a survey she needed us to fill out. I talked to Katie for a little while after that (she's still trying to recruit me to be an RA). At about 9 I called Alena and talked to her for a pretty good while, since it had been awhile since I had more than a couple of minutes' worth of conversation with her. I killed some time after that, and now I'm writing in my blog.
So, now that I've caught up to the present, I have one little announcement I'd like to make before I sign off. I keep this blog to keep in touch with all the people I love back at home, but I also keep it as my own personal journal that I can look back on in the future to see all the little things in my life that I'd otherwise have forgotten. That said, you can imagine that sometimes there are things that happen in my life that I wouldn't necessarily want to post on the world wide web for anyone to read, but that I myself would want to keep a record of. So, this is my legal disclaimer that the entries that appear online here are not necessarily printed in their entirety. I reserve the right to make portions of what I have to say private, and I'm sure you'll understand. I keep a copy of all of this in a Word document in case this website goes down or something, and that's where I'll write down the things I don't want just anyone reading. So that's that.
All right, I need to go to bed now, as it's past midnight and I'm going to be tired tomorrow (at least I have time for naps on Monday). OH! I almost forgot! J posted the audition results for windO/windE, and I moved up two chairs to second chair windO, which is just about exactly where I'd like to be. Hooray! I'll have to play first part, though, and I'm not sure I can play sufficiently high enough. But I hope that by the end of the year playing first part will have forced me to learn to play high, and that that will no longer be a weakness in me. We'll see.
Okay, now I'm going to go to bed. I hope you all have a good week - the last in marching season! I'll talk to you soon.
Cheers,
Josh
mood: pretty darned good, considering
music: Joanna's awesome CD again
location: dorm
PS - I forgot to tell you from a week or two ago that AM (as in radio) stands for "amplitude modulation." I'll save the technical details of this for some other time.
