Hornblower!

Last night Annie came over and we watched the first part of the Hornblower episode, "The Mutiny." I love Hornblower! I love the actor that portrays him, I love the character, and I love the studies on human nature. I really like this particular episode even though it is about injustic, and athority that is wrong and insane becuase you see so much about the moral fabric of each character. Buckland is a wet noddle who is more concerned with keeping his own hide safe than righting wrong; Hornblower is restricted by his overwhelming sense of duity and his desire to see justic done; a lot of what Hornblower struggles with is how can he possibly fulfill his duity to the upmost. Bush steps into a bad situation, and has to chose between Buckland's aproach and standing up for the right, and Kenedy has to make some hard choices about sacrifice and seeing justic served. (sniff. I love Kenedy!) It is so true that when the rubber hits the road is when you see what someone is really made of. There are lessons to be learned everwhere!
Today is the symphony; Annie drove me over. I feel so lucky to have such a good friend! I hope to get to know Elise better today. She seems like such a neat person! That is all my profound thoughts for today. More later!

Gotta Love it!

"Its always darkest before it goes pitch black." So says Dispare Incorporated. The excort is still not up and running, and it is not going to be re-painted tonight. Bummer! I wish I could understand why this is God's will for me right now. I keep thinking about Job though... Today I had three tests--bang, bang, bang. After I was done with class I was kind of going, "Anyone else want to pick my brain?" I almost felt like I had had a mind probe (remember, from Star Wars) going though. I think I did alright on them all. (At least I sincerely hope so!) More later.

What a life!

I failed my drivers test on Thursday. I was asked to parallell park. The problems: a) I had never parallell parked, and I had never been taught how becuase some person who should have known told us that I didn't have to know till I was 19. b) I was trying this difficult manuver for the first time in a 15 passenger van. As you have probably guessed, after a relativly futile time spent see-sawing, I failed. That was a bad day. Today I drove a friends mini van into school. The sad thing is that the mini is the smallest car that I have ever driven in my life! The Escort will be a shock then!
My classes are going well; I am so happy being a music major! After last year, I am almost afraid that I am going to wake up and find out that it is all a dream--the being happy and in college thing. The first year of college must be one of those things that you have to endure for the rest to get better. I love being happy and in school!
I had a really good weekend; hopefull the week will follow suit. If all goes well, at the end of this week the escort will be painted and drivable, I will have my licence, I will have had a good week, and I will not have flunked the two tests and papers that are due this week. Thank goodness for Sophmore years!

Wow...

It has been amazing to me how my life has been working out lately. I aught to be totally stressed out right now; I am comuting to Marshall, carrying a 15 hour load, practicing, living out of a locker and haunting the student lounge, I am strangely happy. I was thinking this weekend that it must be becuase I am in the palm of God's hand. Because I am where I am meant to be, I am given the grace to live. Ha, ha, ha! I just saw a sign that says "Tiger Oath: I will not re-shelve any library materials after use." I saw so many signs about that in LU's library last year, it is funny to see it here! Anyway, back to my profoud thought. I feel almost as if I was wrapped up in the middle of something; like I do not need do any more than be. I only hope this wonderful peace lives on for the rest of the semester! I have never had quite this experiance. I have been thinking sort of a lot about what it means to be a commuter at ETBU. One thing it means is that I read the sign in the student lounge about the coffee maker a lot. If it is left plugged in and dirty, away it goes. I don't drink coffee, so there is no chance of me having it go! Being a commuter at ETBU means that I am almost a permanent fixture in the lounge. Just love that! That is one of the drabbest rooms in the whole building. Maybe I should get a pictuer or something to hang on the wall! Being a commuter means that I have a bunch of food stuffed in a locker, and I spend a lot of time pulling as much as I can out of my backpack and putting it in my other locker. More later!

Grrrr

I went to practice in the assembly building today. I walked over from my house with a bunch of music books and my laptop in my backpack. The key got stuck in the door. I called my Dad. He was upset, but came. Security saw me trying to pull the key out. He got the key out. Daddy arived. Daddy left. I practiced. The piano stinks. I felt like I had a weight on my throat. I tried to sing. So much for that. I walked home getting my backpack wheels dirty. I don't want to do that again. Oh well, we all have scenarios like that. I will live!

Crazy days!

Wow. I am on my 8th day of school. I am still alive, mostly caught up, and happy to be here! The drive over here was really nice this morning becuase it was overcast. Driving to Marshall is in the sun both ways; that can be a realy chalange! On Tuesday the sun was just rising when I was driving over. The windshild was sort of dirty, so the sun was reflecting off like the whole screen. Ack! Sometimes it was like I was driving into a wall of light. That would have been cool if I was not so worried about staying on the road... The really scary time was when the whole windshield was lit up, and I knew there was an interesection ahead. I only hoped that I could see by the time I got there! As I am still alive, I am sure you deduced that I am still alive.
I had a nice surprise today. We were supposed to have a test in E. Harmony (basically theory) today, but it was posponded till Monday! There was a class full of some very happy people. : )
I am reading Beowulf right now; wonderful story! I have always liked it. I love the descriptions in the text, and I am finding it interesting that there are a whole lot of Christian insertians. I guess that is what happens when a Monk writes down an Anglo-Saxon poem! I think it is interesting that every time God is mentioned, almost imidiantly his name comes up again. I wonder if there is a reason for that pattern, or if I am just reading it in. Facinating!

Funny, the things that get you

I saw my first ETBU grounds worker today. I started to get a little choked up. I almost went out there and gave him a pat on the back, but he might not have understood that. I have so much sympathy for people working in this weather! I know all too well what it feels like to be sweating away out under the unforgiving Texas sun. I am glad that I no longer belong to that noble brotherhood. Life is much better as a pianist. Not to mention easier on your hands!

Dragons!

I have a pet light switch. No, I did not finally sucumb to insanity, I mearly though of an intertaining way to say that I conisder the dragons on my lightswitch to be pets. The irritating Noah's ark switch plate that used to adorn my wall is now gone. I say the switch plate was irritating, becuase it was so raised that finding the switch became a challange. I hate that kind of cover. The person who designed it should have one installed in every room of thier home. See if they like it then! Anyway, I digress. I now have a beautiful pair of vivildy green dragons on my wall, and am discovering anew that I really like dragons. One of the best things about dragons is that you can use a lot of supper cool words to talk about them. One of my favorite obscure words refering to dragons is "squamus." (this will not show in your spell check or dictionary) Squamus means scaley. It is so much more fun to say that you found a squamus dragon, than a scaley dragon. Another really cool thing about dragons is that they breath fire. Think of what an asset that would be! Lets say I want a good excuses for not doing my homework? "Oh, my dragon ate it." Somehow, I don't think they would buy that! One of my favorite things about dragons is thier color. No one disputes the fact that healthy dragons are bright colors. The really cool thing is that they are way nicer colors than your average reptile. Greens, purples, blues, reds, yellows, and pearl are all aceptable dragon colors. If I could have a choice, I would like my very own purple dragon. I wonder what the nighboors would say? One of the down sides to having a full sized dragon would be the fewmites though.
I have my first piano lesson today. I guess it went alright. I have never had a guy teacher, so that is really different. In a way, I consider Dr. Sulton to be a bit of a dragon. I find him somewhat intimidating. However, I think we will get along well. When you come to think of it, a lot of people are a little like dragons. Some hoard things, some keep large collections (my hand goes up), some are rather fierce, and some have firey tempers and forked tounges. I guess in a way we really do have dragons among us! It all depends on how you define them.

I wonder...

Have you ever wondered what was going through a composers head as he worked? Okay, I know that most of you non-music people couldn't care less or that particular random thought never came (I love random thoughts!) into your head, but I have been wondering that today. I love the movie Amadeus becuase it shows Mozart conducting this beautiful peice of music. The music grows, and then all of a sudden it stops, you see Mozart sitting at a table and looking up at his wife who has just entered the room calling his name. The one I really wonder how he ticked is Beethoven. Hell for me would be losing my hearing. I do not think that I could go deaf and stay sane. To be a musician and locked in a silent world...I can not understand how that is even bearable. I need sound! I wonder how these songs come to composers. How do you know how to translate something into music? Music really is a language, yet how do you turn the spoken word into sound? Facinating! I wonder what it feels like to have a symphony bursting to get out of you. How much can you hear at first? How can you dream up complex sonatas? God is truely good to let echos of heavens harmonies drift down to earth. I wonder if composers ever feel like they are only grasping what they wanted to say, barely doing what they heard justic?

I made it!

The first week of school is drawing to a close, and I can soon go home and collapse. Being a music major is at the same time insan and one of the most fun things that I can think of to do in the whole wide world. I have done a lot of new things this week, and so far God has given me the grace/peace/ability to handle whatever comes my way.
It has been interesting for me to look at college from the perspective of an almost sofemore. Watching the freshmen is rather interesting! Watching the loud kids can be quite intertaining. I can't ever remember being a loud kid. I don't understand the need to make noise at every half good excuse! I would rather be happy quietly. Freshmen are also interesting to observe in class. Most freshmen fall into one of two catagories when it comes to note taking. Either they take copius amounts of notes, or they don't even have note taking materials. I know now what kinds of notes I need, so my amount varies.
Freshmen are also fun becuase they are so nieve about everything! They think that they can function well on three hours of sleep and a lot of caffine. There are some stout advocits for this theory, but I am not one of them. Sleep is good. Sleep and caffine are even better! Freshmen also think that the day starts at 10pm around here.
There are some interesting differences about ETBU that I really like, and there are some that I don't like so much. I love the lockers in the music building. I would be going in to see a chiropractor on the hour if I didn't have a locker! My backpack can get soo heavy, and the sad thing is that it is all with ligit stuff! Whats more, I am enjoying the pernounced fine arts emphasis. LU needed more of that. I miss the devos before classes though! I wonder if there is any way to start a campus movement for that?