So, I found out today that I have a rehearsal for something tonight, wednesday, thursday, friday, and saturday. I can't go to the thursday one because it overlaps a different one, and I can't go to the saturday because of midstate/allstate auditions/recital. Man, I need to take a break....eventually. I can't wait till I start getting paid...

Thursday: wake up and eat...alot. Playing with the puppy. Eat some more.

Friday: went shopping (duh). I bought something for Mrs. Polk (the pianist I used for the concerto contest) and Ruth...because she had that operation thing on her foot) and just kinda walked around. Found Starbucks :)

Saturday: Went to the aquarium and walking around the strip for a few hours with Brittney. Went back to the cabin and...ate. Played checkers with a 4-y/o genius. He beat me like...twice. But I beat him the 3rd time. Man, he's the smartest thing ever!

Today: Drove home, took a nap.

The End.

Yay! I just got my acceptance letter to UofM! I'm excited, now all I have to do is get my scholorship audition taken care of.

Here are some pix from my visit over fall break...

This is Matt, Abby, Jessica, and me eating before a concert or something.

This me eating outside the music building. Man, I eat a lot.

This is a picture of the campus my mom took while we were on the tour.

Yay!

So Brittney and I made cookies last night and they were really good. I feel asleep before they got done cooling so there arn't that many left. I had one, and it was really good. :)

I'm so BORED. Noone is on AIM right now, so yeah...Brittney is starting to sing "Like a Virgin" to talk about her personal life. Why do we act crazy? I was playing a toy natural-horn horn in my room last night (it sounded really really funny) and I was sitting on my bed funny (?) and she walked in and like...pee'd on herself she was laughing so hard. It was quite funny. I can't wait till our movie day in G-berg...haha. Last year Cirque De Sole was on and we decided to "act it out" and we were hanging from the rafters and stuff and my parents came in and were like "what are y'alld doing?!" yeah...it was fun.

So my cousin (Brittney) is comming over later tonight, fun. No school tomorrow! But yeah, we're leaving to G'berg around 5 to the cabin and have Thanksgiving. I'm excited about that. But yeah, I won't be able to practice till we get back, which will inhale vigorously when I do play again. I might just take my mouthpiece and the blue book with me.

Just a note for my horn babies, Nov. 30th instead of having horn choir and a masterclass, Ruth and I will be giving you all mock auditions. If you don't know that that is, we will be behind a screen and ask you to come up in pre-determinded numbers so we won't know who you are. You will play your scales, do sight-reading, and then your audition piece. Be warned! We will judge you, but just to tell you what you should work on, because the auditions are comming up!

So I have to change my audition day for Memphis to Febuary the 3rd because I suck at the ACT. I've been trying to go to the honor bands there for 3 years! And again, I can't go. I can't go to Tech's either though, I have my UT audition that Saturday. And to be more schedual problems, mid-state auditions are the same day as Saul's recital. Boo. So I'm going to try and get an early spot, and still have enough time to jet over to Cookeville before 1. Ah...maybe I'll have a job before then?

So I told Mrs. Mullen about me being about to "hear colors" and she said that I have some rare thing. It's not like, a disability or something like that, but she couldn't remember the name of it. We both listened to the NPR thing about some pianist in Nashville who has it also. She said it's like, whenever she plays something it's like a stained-glass window in her head, which is kinda how it is to me. Mrs. M also told me that when she was younger, instead of hearing colors, she heard numbers. Like, D's were 2's and F's were 4's or something like that. I'm glad to know I'm not the only freak. She said it's really really good that I can do that though because it will eventually (after more training on musicality) help me with interpretation. Heather was playing her flute solo while we were talking (and she did an amazing job) about it and her piece was babyblue-ish and Mrs. Mullen was like "Wow, I wish I could do that."

Yay! So I won the concerto contest and I'm really exicted! (For those of you who don't know what that is, it's were people of different instruments pick out a concert [a solo selection for one instrument and orchestra] and play it for a panel of judges where they will pick one, two in this case, to play the piece in concert, with the orchestra playing with you. So basically I have to stand up infront of the stage and not enhale vigorously.) Hopefully, this will give U of Memphis more reason to write me a fat check.

Congrats to Elizabeth (aka my cello playing sister, aka my prom date) on winning also!

I have to call and see about my job tomorrow...

Who: Mrs. Polk and me

What: Concerto Contest

When: 2:45

Where: Wright Music Hall

With: Richard Strauss Horn Concerto No. 1 in E flat, Opus 11

Yay! Symposium was fun yesturday. Ruth's mom yelled at me for like 30 minutes because I was "15" minutes late getting to her house so we could go pick up Reese from Riverdale. Anywho, we got there and I saw a bunch of Governor's School people. I felt bad though, I didn't remember many of their names...but yeah, we had the master class and stuff. He randomly called on me, so I got to play part of the mid-state music for everyone, I think it was good. I found Saul at the last minute and was like "I'd love you forever if you took me to find Chinese food!" So he did, hehe. It was lots of food. We got back and got to listen to the studio ensembles, it was good. The trumpets played two movements of Carmina Burana, which was fun. Went back upstairs to do more horn stuff, and the concert. I hung out with Sara Todd like, the whole day and I LOVE HER! She's really easy to play with because we blend well. She turned around to me and was like "I wish we were going to the same college, it's nice having someone who blends and plays in tune with me." I was like "aww!!!" But yeah, I went and did my audition and it was good! My high Bb came out w/o a problem, all the rhythms were right, and I can sight read now! Mr. LaBar gave me a piece to read in 12/8 and I did it right! He said I did very well. Yay! 1 audition down, 3 more to go...

Horn ensemble and the master class was good. I don't think everyone was as in at as much as I wanted them to be...except for Jordan, which is always good. Well...

Horn ensemble and master class tomorrow! I'm excited!!

We didn't do anything at all during first period, and it was rather boring. We learned about intervales during music theory, and I feel that the class is moving much slower than everyone (except Lindsey Todd) wants it to, which inhales vigorously. In third period I didn't take notes, I just kinda read MacBeth because I'm really wanting to hurry up and read that book in English, even though we won't for a while, but she had us buy the books anyway. I kinda sucked in band today, I just wasn't in the mood. I copied parts during 5th again, and left with the early day ppl to drop them off at Central. I just haven't felt like doing anything today.

I'm waiting for someone to call me and let me know how things are...

Pretty sure that my English class yesturday was too funny. Does it bother anyone else when people don't want to do Angel Tree? It does me. I don't know...I just think it's kinda selfish that they don't want to give $2 or $3 to buy toys for a little kid but they don't mind spending it on a piece of candy. It really bothered me when we were doing to can food drive for the hurricane victimes and they didn't donate anything (and yes, it's the same people who don't want to do Angel Tree). I mean, yeah, maybe they don't have the money, but still- we have till like December, they can save a pocket change until then and buy a doll or something at the Good Will. I mean, I know that I'm going to go out and buy a few toys. I thought it'd be fun to take my lil cousin Jacob with me to help pick stuff out, because he falls in the age range of the little boy we're going to ask for, so he'd know what they might like, and at the same time teach him something about sharing. Gosh...I'm such a Sunday School teacher!

I have my job interview schedualed for Thursday at 4:00. I'm so excited!

I had a rather eventful day. So I woke up and went to church like normal when I'm told that he (Mr. Kinney) needs the parts that I've been working on for a week that night. So I came home and pooped out a different part every 30 minutes. (I wrote each part off the score because I go much faster when I handwrite rather than use the computer.) So I got all the woodwind parts done and I still have to do the brass/percussion. But I can do that tomorrow at school. I went to the Cannon County Arts Center around 1:30 to see Annie and it was really really cute. I went back to church when I got back to give Mr. K the parts I pooped out and did some rehearsing for the Christmas production. Came home, watched The Object of my Affection and here I am now. It was a confusing movie...kinda. Lol.

Tomorrow? I have no idea...

Omg, today was AMAZING! So we did the little thing at Michel Nelson (sp?) and I got there and I went to the wrong one! They were like "the thing is tomorrow" and I was all "no, I was told to be here today.." "maybe you're supposed to be in the other building." So I went across the street, and sure enough, I was wrong. So we get there, warm up and stuff and are told to go outside and get ready. We were like "what? we were told that we were going to play in the gym." nope, they had us wait outside from him (the custodian [Mr. V.]) to pull in in a limo, so we could play the fight song. I was like WHAT?! And then, we were going to parade him around the school...and I did not have one parade type shoes, it was fun! So we get there and they give a long speech about being a US citizen and all this stuff, it was really cute. (Mr. V and his wife moved from Russia in 1995, they were so cute!) They gave him a flag (more like 3) and we playing the National Anthem. Afterward, they did a presentation from when he graduated from the Naturalization classes and, which then we play American the Beautiful...which is Mrs. V.'s favorite song. We played some pep-band stuff while all the lil kids went back to class. So we're packing our stuff up and the principle goes "hey, y'all want to go to IHOP with Mr. V and everyone else?" She paid for it all! The entire 5th period band class...and Andrew, Andrew's mom, Mr. and Mrs. V., their daughter and her husband, two of Mr./Mrs. V's friends, and herself. It was so good. I got to learn about Russia and stuff, it was interesting. It's talking to people who immigrate from a place like Russia, which is completely different from the US to understand how different we live our lives, and appreciate it better. Just thought I share that with you, because I don't want to take things for granted anymore.

Our field trip went well! The horn choir at tech was really good. I got to see Saul  and he said that he's thinking about going to UM for his masters. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the people riding in my car are going to really get into practicing just because of seeing how much people can fall inlove with playing. Heh, Lauren and Erin told me that they want to stop taking lessons with Mike at start taking with me! That'd be cool...put money in my pocket. Lol. But time to go.

I had a good lesson last night. Good lessons make me happy. Omg, I really want to keep studying with Radu...only not at MTSU. If I knew that he would like stay there forever then I might just go to MTSU, cuz, ya know, he's amazing.

I made onion rings last night (homemade) and they were SO GOOD!!

Ok, so for you horn people who haven't braught Ruth or me your permission slips for our field trip tomorrow (Mady, Kaelen, Virginia, Lauren, and Jordan) if we don't get them TOMORROW you WILL NOT be going. But, we're going to meet at the Subway beside the school at 4 and eat there, then leave for Tech, so you can always bring the permission slips there. Ruth wants us to get there early so our babies can talk to Mr. LaBar about horn stuff.

Yay! I might have a job soon!

So yeah, pretty sure that I didn't learn anything during the brass festival the other day. We played some good music though, that was exciting. I went and ate lunch with Alex, Michelle, Ruth, Jordan, and Adam at Jade Dragon, it was yummy. I took a conducting class...only because I felt bad for falling asleep when Dr. Thomas taught it at Governor's School.

The LOTR concert was awesome. Dr. Loucky played in it, which was cool. There were soo many people there and it took like 30 min or so just to get through the traffic. It was good though. The only thing that I didn't like was how the themes in the music just kinda repeated themselves. There were some pretty English horn solos.

So I found a contest that I'm going to enter. It's a composition contest where I'll write a piece for a brass octet (3 trumpets, horn, 2 trombones, euphonium, and tuba). They said it has to be 3 movements long, 5 min max for each movement. So all together, it will be around 10-15 minutes long. I have till Febuary, so I have time. The first prize is like $1,000, 2nd is $500, and 3rd is $500. I might not win, but it will still be fun to do. And hey, who said I have to use it in that contest!