Sunday, November 21, 2004
Release and Down
Yes, I stole the title from one of Jenna's entries. But it applies, and I like it an awful lot. Besides, it isn't plagiarism if I cite it. (Santy 1).
Finally! I have access to a computer at a time when I'm not incredibly busy! I actually miss writing in this thing when I'm not able to, surprisingly enough. I guess it's one of those things where you develop a habit after 21 days of repetition. Regardless, I'm finally able to update you all on what's been going on around here. Mind you, this will probably be relatively shallow coverage of what's happened in the past five days, since there's so much to get through. I'm not sure I remember all of it...
Thursday was busy, as predicted. It seems so long ago now, but I'm pretty sure I ditched the gym in favor of sleep because I stayed up late on Wednesday catching up/getting ahead on my homework. Then I went to Calculus, where we spent the hour reviewing for the Friday midterm. After lunch I went to EE lab, where we did a series of experiments on MatLab, which is this program that tracks and samples mathematical functions and other assorted goodies. We had to use computer commands to do it all...you know, setting parameters and stuff, and I had a lot of fun. It bodes well for my computer science minor, yes? Tres exciting. From there I went to MB rehearsal, then dinner, then the volleyball game. At the end of every pep band game we usually play "Hey Baby," which involves most of us going up to random people in the audience and singing the line "Hey baby, I wanna know if you'll be my girl/guy." I happened to notice that Monica from my tower was at the game that night, so I went over and serenaded her. I'm pretty sure she was half flattered and half thought I was a big dork, which was about what I was going for. Anywho, after the game I went to see if my music theory group was there for a rehearsal, but they weren't anywhere to be found. That was fine with me, because it was almost 10 and I still needed to study for my calculus midterm. So that's what I did until I went to bed.
On Friday I rolled out of bed by 7 and it was off to physics, then music theory (where I took a quiz; we're learning about different kinds of chords), then calculus for the midterm. I didn't quite know right away how to do the last problem, but I'm pretty sure I got at least most of it by the end of the hour. I'll probably know by tomorrow. Anyway, I went to my physics lab after lunch, and then to my EE lecture, where I sat for an hour listening to a few seniors' attempts to describe their EE projects to us. (They didn't really understand that we don't know jack about EE yet.)
I rushed home from class to pack for the trip to Sac State in time to get down to the music building by 5:30. Long story short, I got on a bus and sat for six hours. We did have charter buses that were pretty comfy, but unfortunately the VCR pooped out on us after about the first five minutes, so we couldn't watch any movies for the entire trip. Ugh. But I had my trusty mp3 player to keep me entertained. We also played a few rounds of "sentence-picture," one of Courtney's many games. You write a sentence on a piece of paper - any sentence, like "the elephant climbed the telephone pole" - and pass it to the next person. The next person then draws what the sentence says (in this example, an elephant climbing a telephone pole), folds the paper over so only the picture (not the sentence) can be seen, then passes it to the next person. The next person then writes a sentence based on the picture they see. Then you do it over and over until eventually the picture/sentence you have is nothing like what you started with. At the end you get to unfold the paper and see the whole progression of it, and it's usually pretty hilarious.
We arrived at the Sacramento Double Tree at about 1 in the morning. I went straight to bed because I planned to get up at about 9 to meet Stacie for breakfast. However, my roommates (whom I was randomly paired with because I failed to request specific roommates) went out to party. They came back at about 4, and they were completely smashed. Actually, one was fairly sober, but the other was totally out of it. He had no idea where he was, and he could barely stand and kept running into walls. I don't understand why anyone would want to put their body through that. I honestly find it just sad, but then I guess it's not really any of my business what other people do to themselves.
I got up in the morning and talked to Stacie, only to find that she had missed her train to Sacramento. She had to take a bus and ended up being delayed about an hour. It didn't really affect me all that much but I felt bad because Stacie was going through all of this trouble and would only get to see me for a couple of hours before I had to leave for the game. Oh well. In the time before she arrived I walked over to a Burger King a few blocks away for breakfast (by myself because no one else was awake yet). When I returned to my room I could barely breathe because it was so full of foul-smelling hot air that had been expelled by a pair of drunken roommates. Ew. So I left as quick as I could to go meet Stacie who had arrived at the Arden Fair Mall, just across the street from my hotel. We spent a couple of hours browsing the shops (Our favorite? The Discovery Channel Store.) and admiring all the Christmas decorations. There were three herald trumpet players roaming the mall playing carols. How cool is that?! The two hours went by pretty quickly, and Stacie had to return to Davis. We said our goodbyes and parted ways.
I went back to the hotel and got on the Sac State-bound band bus. We had a rehearsal (a full ten-minute one) and then it was off to perform. We marched around the stadium parking lot until we found the Cal Poly barbeque, and we played a bunch of stuff for them. Then game time, where we beat the Hornets 58-13. It was quite a sad little spectacle: Hornet Stadium is twice the size of ours here in SLO, but the Sac Staters only managed to fill about 15% of it. There were more Mustangs in the stands than Hornets...it was neat, though, because we got to play our halftime show facing the visitor's stands because more people were sitting there. After the game we had a mini band-off with the Sac State band, but they gave up after about three songs. Fine with me...it was cold out there!
Upon arrival back at the Double Tree, a bunch of us went across the street to Arden Fair, home to a California Pizza Kitchen. I had the BLT pizza, which was pretty good despite my lack of hunger. I spent a good deal of that dinner on the phone with various members of the Royal Regiment, who were at the Arcadia Tournament of Bands awards ceremony at that time. I was able to hear all of the big awards as they were called; I was really happy to almost feel as though I was there with them. (I would actually have been there with them if this weekend hadn't been our one away game that the band went to.) How did RB do? Exceptionally well. I was so excited for them. RB took the usual parade and high music awards, but they also took field show band. Field show band! Generally, RB loses by a little bit in field show but makes it up in parade to take overall sweepstakes. But last night they won both parade and field show individually, which they haven't done since my sophomore year (which was the year when we swept every caption at every tournament). I'm so thankful all of my c/o 2005 buddies could go out with a bang in their last ever tournament. For complete tournament results, I'm sure you can tune into Jenna's blog.
After dinner Ben and a few people went to see National Treasure; Steve and I went with Courtney to meet her friend Molly who lives in/near Sacramento and who came up to our hotel to visit for a few hours. We hit the Cheesecake Factory for a little overpriced dessert and spent the rest of the evening chatting and playing another of Courtney's games called Crepes. (I shall have to teach you all this Crepes game...it's quite the barrel of monkeys.) Molly left by 1, but the rest of us stayed up a little while longer and watched Home Alone, which happened to be on TV.
I had to get up by 8 this morning to be on the bus by 8:30 for a 9:00 departure. We arrived back at Cal Poly by 2:30; I had to immediately go meet my music group to have our last rehearsal before we perform our piece tomorrow morning. Miraculously, we can play through the whole thing...ish. It's not as good as I'd like it to be, but I can't deny that we've made tremendous progress since our first rehearsal. Hopefully it'll go well tomorrow.
I had dinner with Kevin and Sarah, one of his architecture friends, at Light House. I stopped by the music building on the way home to practice piano for a little while (I can almost play through Mozart's "Sonata III," which I've been working on for some time. I still need to get some private lessons going, though...)
And now I'm here at home, writing another epic entry, which seems to be the trend for Sunday nights. I must be off to bed now, for I have a long drive to make tomorrow night. (Cal Poly was not picked by the NCAA to go to the playoffs, despite our winning the Great West conference. So I'm coming home after windO tomorrow and staying until Sunday. I'm so excited!) I'll see you all in a day or two...
Cheers,
Josh
mood: relaxed
music: I was watching Friends on my desktop, but it was distracting me so I turned it off.
location: dorm
PS -
Hail to the Broncos valiant
Hail to the conquering heroes
Hail, Hail to RB High
The mighty Broncos fight!
Hail to the Broncos valiant
Hail to the conquering heroes
Hail, Hail to RB High
The silver, blue, and white!
Congratulations Royal Regiment!!
Family Guy Quote-of-the-Day
[Peter swears repeatedly.]
Lois: "Peter!"
Peter: "Lois, sometimes it's okay to swear."
[cut to the inside of a courtroom]
Judge: "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
Peter: "I do...you bastard."
Finally! I have access to a computer at a time when I'm not incredibly busy! I actually miss writing in this thing when I'm not able to, surprisingly enough. I guess it's one of those things where you develop a habit after 21 days of repetition. Regardless, I'm finally able to update you all on what's been going on around here. Mind you, this will probably be relatively shallow coverage of what's happened in the past five days, since there's so much to get through. I'm not sure I remember all of it...
Thursday was busy, as predicted. It seems so long ago now, but I'm pretty sure I ditched the gym in favor of sleep because I stayed up late on Wednesday catching up/getting ahead on my homework. Then I went to Calculus, where we spent the hour reviewing for the Friday midterm. After lunch I went to EE lab, where we did a series of experiments on MatLab, which is this program that tracks and samples mathematical functions and other assorted goodies. We had to use computer commands to do it all...you know, setting parameters and stuff, and I had a lot of fun. It bodes well for my computer science minor, yes? Tres exciting. From there I went to MB rehearsal, then dinner, then the volleyball game. At the end of every pep band game we usually play "Hey Baby," which involves most of us going up to random people in the audience and singing the line "Hey baby, I wanna know if you'll be my girl/guy." I happened to notice that Monica from my tower was at the game that night, so I went over and serenaded her. I'm pretty sure she was half flattered and half thought I was a big dork, which was about what I was going for. Anywho, after the game I went to see if my music theory group was there for a rehearsal, but they weren't anywhere to be found. That was fine with me, because it was almost 10 and I still needed to study for my calculus midterm. So that's what I did until I went to bed.
On Friday I rolled out of bed by 7 and it was off to physics, then music theory (where I took a quiz; we're learning about different kinds of chords), then calculus for the midterm. I didn't quite know right away how to do the last problem, but I'm pretty sure I got at least most of it by the end of the hour. I'll probably know by tomorrow. Anyway, I went to my physics lab after lunch, and then to my EE lecture, where I sat for an hour listening to a few seniors' attempts to describe their EE projects to us. (They didn't really understand that we don't know jack about EE yet.)
I rushed home from class to pack for the trip to Sac State in time to get down to the music building by 5:30. Long story short, I got on a bus and sat for six hours. We did have charter buses that were pretty comfy, but unfortunately the VCR pooped out on us after about the first five minutes, so we couldn't watch any movies for the entire trip. Ugh. But I had my trusty mp3 player to keep me entertained. We also played a few rounds of "sentence-picture," one of Courtney's many games. You write a sentence on a piece of paper - any sentence, like "the elephant climbed the telephone pole" - and pass it to the next person. The next person then draws what the sentence says (in this example, an elephant climbing a telephone pole), folds the paper over so only the picture (not the sentence) can be seen, then passes it to the next person. The next person then writes a sentence based on the picture they see. Then you do it over and over until eventually the picture/sentence you have is nothing like what you started with. At the end you get to unfold the paper and see the whole progression of it, and it's usually pretty hilarious.
We arrived at the Sacramento Double Tree at about 1 in the morning. I went straight to bed because I planned to get up at about 9 to meet Stacie for breakfast. However, my roommates (whom I was randomly paired with because I failed to request specific roommates) went out to party. They came back at about 4, and they were completely smashed. Actually, one was fairly sober, but the other was totally out of it. He had no idea where he was, and he could barely stand and kept running into walls. I don't understand why anyone would want to put their body through that. I honestly find it just sad, but then I guess it's not really any of my business what other people do to themselves.
I got up in the morning and talked to Stacie, only to find that she had missed her train to Sacramento. She had to take a bus and ended up being delayed about an hour. It didn't really affect me all that much but I felt bad because Stacie was going through all of this trouble and would only get to see me for a couple of hours before I had to leave for the game. Oh well. In the time before she arrived I walked over to a Burger King a few blocks away for breakfast (by myself because no one else was awake yet). When I returned to my room I could barely breathe because it was so full of foul-smelling hot air that had been expelled by a pair of drunken roommates. Ew. So I left as quick as I could to go meet Stacie who had arrived at the Arden Fair Mall, just across the street from my hotel. We spent a couple of hours browsing the shops (Our favorite? The Discovery Channel Store.) and admiring all the Christmas decorations. There were three herald trumpet players roaming the mall playing carols. How cool is that?! The two hours went by pretty quickly, and Stacie had to return to Davis. We said our goodbyes and parted ways.
I went back to the hotel and got on the Sac State-bound band bus. We had a rehearsal (a full ten-minute one) and then it was off to perform. We marched around the stadium parking lot until we found the Cal Poly barbeque, and we played a bunch of stuff for them. Then game time, where we beat the Hornets 58-13. It was quite a sad little spectacle: Hornet Stadium is twice the size of ours here in SLO, but the Sac Staters only managed to fill about 15% of it. There were more Mustangs in the stands than Hornets...it was neat, though, because we got to play our halftime show facing the visitor's stands because more people were sitting there. After the game we had a mini band-off with the Sac State band, but they gave up after about three songs. Fine with me...it was cold out there!
Upon arrival back at the Double Tree, a bunch of us went across the street to Arden Fair, home to a California Pizza Kitchen. I had the BLT pizza, which was pretty good despite my lack of hunger. I spent a good deal of that dinner on the phone with various members of the Royal Regiment, who were at the Arcadia Tournament of Bands awards ceremony at that time. I was able to hear all of the big awards as they were called; I was really happy to almost feel as though I was there with them. (I would actually have been there with them if this weekend hadn't been our one away game that the band went to.) How did RB do? Exceptionally well. I was so excited for them. RB took the usual parade and high music awards, but they also took field show band. Field show band! Generally, RB loses by a little bit in field show but makes it up in parade to take overall sweepstakes. But last night they won both parade and field show individually, which they haven't done since my sophomore year (which was the year when we swept every caption at every tournament). I'm so thankful all of my c/o 2005 buddies could go out with a bang in their last ever tournament. For complete tournament results, I'm sure you can tune into Jenna's blog.
After dinner Ben and a few people went to see National Treasure; Steve and I went with Courtney to meet her friend Molly who lives in/near Sacramento and who came up to our hotel to visit for a few hours. We hit the Cheesecake Factory for a little overpriced dessert and spent the rest of the evening chatting and playing another of Courtney's games called Crepes. (I shall have to teach you all this Crepes game...it's quite the barrel of monkeys.) Molly left by 1, but the rest of us stayed up a little while longer and watched Home Alone, which happened to be on TV.
I had to get up by 8 this morning to be on the bus by 8:30 for a 9:00 departure. We arrived back at Cal Poly by 2:30; I had to immediately go meet my music group to have our last rehearsal before we perform our piece tomorrow morning. Miraculously, we can play through the whole thing...ish. It's not as good as I'd like it to be, but I can't deny that we've made tremendous progress since our first rehearsal. Hopefully it'll go well tomorrow.
I had dinner with Kevin and Sarah, one of his architecture friends, at Light House. I stopped by the music building on the way home to practice piano for a little while (I can almost play through Mozart's "Sonata III," which I've been working on for some time. I still need to get some private lessons going, though...)
And now I'm here at home, writing another epic entry, which seems to be the trend for Sunday nights. I must be off to bed now, for I have a long drive to make tomorrow night. (Cal Poly was not picked by the NCAA to go to the playoffs, despite our winning the Great West conference. So I'm coming home after windO tomorrow and staying until Sunday. I'm so excited!) I'll see you all in a day or two...
Cheers,
Josh
mood: relaxed
music: I was watching Friends on my desktop, but it was distracting me so I turned it off.
location: dorm
PS -
Hail to the Broncos valiant
Hail to the conquering heroes
Hail, Hail to RB High
The mighty Broncos fight!
Hail to the Broncos valiant
Hail to the conquering heroes
Hail, Hail to RB High
The silver, blue, and white!
Congratulations Royal Regiment!!
Family Guy Quote-of-the-Day
[Peter swears repeatedly.]
Lois: "Peter!"
Peter: "Lois, sometimes it's okay to swear."
[cut to the inside of a courtroom]
Judge: "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
Peter: "I do...you bastard."
