One month down

Okay, not quite a month, but almost. Wednesday is the first and that marks the one month of this semester. How is it going so far? I have my first midterm for Calculus that I need to take by Tuesday (Wednesday if I want to pay $5) that I intended to take yesterday. I should study for that so I can take it tomorrow. That'd be nice. My Music Education class is still a lot of fun and it's starting to get more intense. We are starting to prepare lessons that we are going to teach to a group of 6 or more. We have to teach four 15-minute lessons at different times on different days. Just to get a small taste of what it's like to be a music teacher. We turned in our initial plans on what we were going to teach, and basically everyone was too ambitious--including me. I wanted to try to teach rythms, time signatures, and subdivision all within that time. Yeah. Right. I don't know what I was thinking. I'm pretty sure the majority of the group has absolutely not musical experience whatsoever--besides whatever they've done in church. I still need to re-write that plan and make some objectives for tomorrow... how fun that'll be.

Then there's the Oboe world. I had a lesson last Thursday that went well. I even had a reed that I made myself that was pretty good! She looked at it and complimented me on it. It's amazing. I might actually know how to make good reeds. The priority right now is to shape the cane that I gouged the other day (which took like 2 hours--freakin' insane) so that I can make more good reeds. Oh how wonderful it is to have a good reed to play on. :) Bad news is that the Thursday lesson was made up from Monday that she couldn't do. So everything she told me to practice that would normally be a week of practice would have to be until tomorrow, Monday. So I had to practice today (which I normally don't) to make sure I knew it. It's not as fast as I'd like it, but it'll be fine. I'll just ignore the fact that the good reed I had is really sharp... I don't have perfect pitch. Doesn't bother me when I don't look at the tuner. :P

Today was the first fast Sunday we've really had as a ward. We had a "break the fast" together. We all were assigned to bring a type of dish so we could all eat together. It was great! It was like a real meal... insanity. I love having food to eat. :) I've yet to get a real calling, though. We'll see how long that lasts. Last year I was a Family Home Evening Group Leader, or as they used to be known as--a mom. That was alright, but I'm hoping for something different. Then I don't have to worry about getting people to come and having something that people will like. I like other people planning that sort of thing. :P I'd really like to get a calling as a teacher, actually. It would take more time Saturday night (probably early Sunday morning), but it'd give me more experience being a teacher. It seems like it'd be kind of fun. I guess we'll see!

So my Dictation pace test--I passed! I didn't pass by much... but I passed. Hopefully I can do better on future pace tests so I can maybe average another B. That'd be nice. I really am getting better at hearing certain things. It'd be nice if the grade reflected that. :)

Yesterday we had our first cleaning checks. We got up at about 8 (on a Saturday morning... what the heck) and cleaned for about 2 hours. We all had different jobs we were assigned to do. It wasn't that much fun while cleaning, but it's nice to have a clean apartment. The area around my bed was getting rather cluttered.

Oh boy, I really need to get to working on my homework. I've got to do Sight Singing (which will probably end up being done in the morning), redo my Music Ed thing, Music Theory, read/study Calculus, and finish my observation sheet from my observation on Friday. Fun! I so should have done some of this yesterday... that's what I get. :)

Have a wonderful day!

Back at School

It's that time of year again -- school starting. Classes start on Tuesday and the week of marching band is now over. It was literally taking up all of my time. 8-12 morning marching rehearsal, then 1:30-5 more marching rehearsal, then 7-10 inside music rehearsal. Rinse and repeat. That was the schedule for Tuesday and Wednesday, anyway. Thursday we had a performance and they served us lunch and dinner (yay for free food!). Friday morning we had off so the freshman could go to part of orientation. (I'm so not a freshman anymore! Wow!) Then Saturday we had a game with a nice morning rehearsal before we had to meet at 2. We smeared the other team (North Iowa University) 41-17, I believe. So, that was fun. The shows seemed to be fine as well.

The only problem: I also play the oboe. In fact, that's the instrument that I have to play one on one with a professor every week for an hour and have an ensemble in. Have I played it at all this week or much over the summer? Not really. I did play it some over the summer, and I wrote a song that I played in church. I figure that writing a song kind of makes up for the lack of practicing. I also performed a couple pieces at our family reunion. So tonight I'm meeting with another fellow oboist, Jessie, to make reeds and hopefully practice some. Oh yeah... I have an audition on Tuesday for which ensemble I'll be in this year. Though, it's not as intimidating as it sounds. She already has in mind who she wants where, it's mostly just a check to make sure we suddenly didn't suck or get some bad habit. So, I'm thinking if I just pick two contrasting songs (like I'm supposed to) and play through them, it'll be okay. She had me play the first line or so of each piece last year. Not much at all. We'll just see how it goes.

Oh, and I need to sign up for practice rooms. I don't have the luxury of having practice rooms in the basement of my dorm rooms. I actually have to go to the HFAC and use a practice room like most other music majors. And they are almost always full. Let's just hope I can sign up for them. But at least if I only practice at the HFAC it means I can leave my oboe there in a locker I'll rent out and not have to carry it around back and forth like I did last year. That would be absolutely wonderful.

I've met my other two roommates and they seem really nice and fun people! One of them brought a bunch of stuff I forgot to buy and didn't expect to have. For instance, she has a blender, a bunch of pots and pans, a silverware holder thing, oven mitts, pillows for the couch, paper towels, and (this is my favorite)... an ice cream maker! Yeah! Who would have thought I'd have an ice cream maker in my apartment my sophomore year in college? It's pretty awesome. I'm thinking we'll be having some parties. :P

I am now officially in the cell phone world, as well. I've got a go phone! It charges me a dollar a day for each day I use it and 10 cents a minute for each minute I call someone who isn't with AT&T. I can also text, but it's 15 cents a text either sent or received. If I really wanted, I could use the internet as well, but for the 30 seconds I used it last Sunday, it cost something like 61 cents. So... I'll try to avoid that. :P

Right now my room is a total wreck. You want to see how it looked yesterday at the peek of messiness?


It does look slightly better now. It's just a matter of lifting my bed up on cinder blocks so I can put stuff underneath it and moving those boxes and suitcases to the convenient basement they have here. That's what's taking up the most room right now.

Oh, guess what? Yesterday was my 19th birthday! Good times. :) A person in the horn section in marching band made me a cake and they all sang to me at the end of the morning rehearsal on Saturday. Aww, it was so sweet! Not only that, but when I got home from the football game my roommates had made me a cake with candles and they all sang to me! They even had some trick candles! Ha! Just like home! :) I definitely felt loved. I also got many many comments on facebook wishing me a happy birthday as well. Pretty awesome.

I'll try to get back into the habit of updating this thing during school. It's nice to have a place to record my thoughts and happenings of my life for all to see. :)