A Boy's Dream.

I found myself sitting at the computer doing nothing again, and since it's too late to practice my bari, I thought I should finally write something for once.

On Wednesday, I went to Senior Boat Cruise and I think my poor virgin eyes were scarred forever. There was much dirty dancing going around, even some of the people that I were innocent began doing it. Luckily, I managed to stay clean and kept my hands to myself, except when Will made me dance with him. I originally took Daniel to Boat Cruise and Will took Schwanka, but halfway through, Will and I somehow switched dates. For the record, Will is a very dominant partner. The main reason I went to Boat Cruise was because I heard that the food was good, and it was. It was white people food, but it still tasted good. They had pasta, rice pilaf, bread, and chicken with a white people sauce, er, white sauce. There was even dessert. Yay, cookies! I think the best part of Boat Cruise was when Mr. Andersen danced with everyone. At the JSA conventions, we're all going to do the "Mr. Andersen" at the dances.


For the past couple of days, I feel like I've been eating and sleeping a lot. It makes me feel like...a Snorlax. But at least today was a great way to work off all of that "fat," by attending the annual Rotary Clean-Up at school. I got there at about 7:30 and I was the first student there...I think. Then, I proceeded to pick up trash for about four hours and 90% of the time, I was all alone. I'm kind of used to working by myself though, having completed a single-person film project over the summer. The only thing that's kind of weird about it is...myself. I have the most random conversations with myself when I'm alone. Of course, all the banter occurs only in my head, or else others would look at me with strong aversion. It's funny how un grupo de hispanohablantes just sat down and watched me clean up the side of the school (Talk about breaking the Mexican stereotype!). I think I picked up 3245 pieces of garbage today. Well, probably not, but it sure felt like it! I know I killed two spiders with a rake though; that was an accomplishment that I'm proud of.

Interesting things that I found while cleaning up: padlocks, film strips, a half-buried spork, disintegrating plastic, a water bottle with paint in it, and a silver spoon. There might have been other things, but I can't remember at the moment...

I have a feeling that I got really tan today. I hope I'm not darker than Trixy now...that would be terrible. I also think it's sadly ironic that people who helped out at the Clean-Up ended up littering at the end. I've also developed this habit of searching for trash on the ground now, except in my own room of course.

Note to self: I need to find my Yu-Gi-Oh cards. I want another shiny card to put in my ID pouch this week. I figure that I'll rotate between shiny cards every week, you know, to give all of my cool cards a chance in the spotlight. I also need to make my deck better. Haha, it'd be embarrassing to lose to Dyana's brother and his straight-from-China cards.


I'm also very interested in doing another self film project. The thing I like about working by myself is that there's no one to argue with about direction and there's no one else to blame for mistakes. Though, that's not to say I don't enjoy working with others (Having company makes things fun!). Anyway, I just need to get a good idea. It might be tough though since the weather might not be ideal for long. Let's face it, cold weather (even though I love it) doesn't exactly make for good filming weather...or does it? Hmm...I wonder...

P.S. Hopefully this post slightly makes up for my recent inactivity, though I think this post is a tad too lengthy.

P.P.S. The title is that of a really cool song by Jay Bocook.

Need food...

Oh my goodness, I'm so hungry...maybe I should eat more than half of a bowl of Cocoa Puffs for breakfast. I know I probably shouldn't be writing a blog in Computers, but I already finished my Photoshop project and I still can't win at Solitaire! I don't really like using Photoshop that much. I don't know, it feels like I'm cheating or something, especially since I chose to edit pictures that I, myself, took. My pictures are like my babies! I feel bad if I change them too much.

I'm so proud of the saxophones for all the hard work that they did last night. It was the most productive sectional I've ever had in all my years of being in Marching Band. I decided to give cookies to people who passed the playing test, something my section leader, Chris Gurray, did for me when I was a freshmen. But, it hadn't been done since then! I remember that he said his section leader baked the saxophone section brownies before. So, I decided to bring back this saxophone tradition. Also, I remember that at the end of the sectional, Chris decided to give the entire section a cookie, even if they didn't pass. So, I copied what he did and gave everyone a bunch of cookies for working so hard.

This Phoenix Wright orchestral medley that just came up on my Zune's shuffle reminds me that I still need to finish Apollo Justice. In fact, I haven't really played any DS games lately. I've mostly been using my DS to play NES games like Mega Man. I wanted to play the new Mario & Luigi game, but it apparently doesn't work on the R4 yet...I'm also very excited for when the English versions of Pokémon Heart Gold and Soul Silver come out! I think the Johto region of Pokémon is my favorite out of the four regions. It kind of seems the most Asian. I have so many good memories of playing Gold Version as a child. I remember that the graphics just blew my mind. And the color when you put it in a GameBoy Color was amazing! The entire game was such an improvement over the previous ones. I loved the bug-catching contests and riding the boat between Johto and Kanto on their respective days of the week. I wonder if I can wait until next year to play this remake of my favorite Pokémon game...

I love it when things go like clockwork.

Yesterday, I went to my very first official concert, and I must say that it was very epic. It was the San Francisco Philharmonic Baroque Orchestra and they performed three pieces: Haydn's 101th Symphony (otherwise known as the Clock Symphony), Haydn's Violincello Concerto in C Major, and Beethoven's 7th Symphony. Every single movement of every single piece was beautifully played and sounded so...professional. The best way for me to describe it was that it was like listening to 102.1, but being able to see the inside of the radio.

I also picked up on some concert etiquette:

-The conductor always shakes the hand of the principal violinist before and after every piece.
-The conductor leaves the stage and immediately comes right back out during the applause.
-It is almost a sin to clap or talk during the silence of two movements, but it's okay (maybe even encouraged) to cough and sneeze.

It's also occurred to me that a conductor of a professional band isn't really there to keep time. His job is to remind the players of their dynamics, articulations, and expression. They do so by hopping and danicing to the music. Tempo is less of a priority than it is in school band, except during rubato sections and fermatas and stuff like that. Well, that's the way I see it anyway. I don't know, maybe I'm looking too much into all of this conducting business. Even Mr. R has noticed how much I enjoy conducting. He says he'll let me do more in the future. Yay!

I really liked the 2nd movement from the Clock Symphony because it's where the piece gets its nickname. It comes from the "ticking" parts that keep time throughout the song. When I hear the song I imagine a small town and the villagers going about their daily business, and the steady ticking of the town's clock driving them through their routines. The townspeople buy food from the street stands while the children run around and play with the animals. The sun sets, the villagers go to bed, but the clock just ticks and tocks away.

In a lot of ways, clocks and orchestras are very similar. They're both made of countless small, yet equally important, components. If one part is missing, the performance of the entire thing suffers. It takes every single part of a clock and an orchestra to make it perform correctly. Everything works together to meet a common goal: from something as complex as making music or something as simple as progressing the stream of time.

Nine, nueve, 九.

That last one is a Chinese 9, just in case your computer (or you) can't read it.

Hooray! Today is September 9th, 2009, otherwise known as 09/09/09! I was told by several people that today is a day with magical properties. So I waited all day, in hopes of something magically delicious to occur, but alas, it seems as if this day is destined to end as mundanely as all the rest.

That's not to say that today didn't have its interesting share of priceless moments. While at Fiat with some friends, this crazy white kid assaulted us. He accused Will of being Tony's dad and called Lauren a skunk. While we were outside, he bit everyone's knee (Luckily for him, he didn't bite mine, otherwise he probably would have gotten some unspeakable bacterial infection). Tony called him mini-Dylan because they look kind of similar. The boy then started to stab balloons with a ballpoint pen. Ironically, Dylan rode past mini-Dylan at this moment and almost fell off of his bike due to the balloons bursting in midair. The little boy tried to attack Tony with the pen, but Tony took evasive action by jerking. Then, we all rushed to the Trader Joe's stronghold. Even the boy's mother could do little to quell the savage beast lurking within those giant blue eyes.

I think the most magical thing that happened for me today was the fact that I finally got a working reed for my oboe. I had no choice but to ask my dad to BUY a reed for me. I failed at making my own reeds...twice. I managed to crack one straight down the middle. So that makes a grand total of three completely cracked oboe reeds in the span of a week. Go me. I'm not used to store-bought reeds anymore; they're too free-blowing. It feels like I'm playing on two leaves stuck together. Ah well, it'll only be for a little while.

P.S. Is two hours enough time for something magical to happen? I feel kind of bad for wasting such a cool day like today. Sigh, I guess I'll have to say good-bye to 09/09/09 forever.

Life is a train, all aboard! Being a conductor is so much fun.

I meant to write a blog yesterday, but I kind of fell asleep for five hours. Well, I woke up once in the middle when my cat knocked over my oboe case. Anyway, I'm going to try to write something of some interest for once, since I'm not in my Computers class this time.

I feel like, as a senior, there would be more things to do and/or going on in my life, but I've discovered that this is not the case. This past week, I have found myself doing all of my homework at HOME! This was unheard of for myself last year and even during sophomore year. What I'm trying to say is that so far, senior year has been the easiest year of high school for me.

I know I should probably wait longer than a week to judge, since things will get harder once clubs and Theory class start up, but I just feel like there's nothing really to do anymore. I think my new favorite thing to do is practice my instruments. I could have sworn that there was this one time I was practicing oboe during lunch and I told myself, "I wish I could practice forever." Yeah, it's pretty sad, especially since I managed to break two of my reeds yesterday in Symphonic Band (probably from playing on them so much). They weren't just chipped either, both of them were cracked straight down the middle.

So since I couldn't play properly, I volunteered to conduct "We Shall Lift Lamps of Courage," since Tianna didn't really want to and was kind of sick. I had to do it from memory and from what I remember from listening to the recording so many times. Even though I messed up a lot, it was still a lot of fun. It's awesome to be able to listen to the entire band play a cool song like this; it's something you miss out on by playing inside the band. In fact, conducting is the only thing I really liked to do during my time in Drum Major try-outs (except for maybe giving drill downs).

But yeah...conducting Symphonic Band is amazingly fun and surprisingly tiring, too. I wonder if conductors secretly build up massive amounts of muscle in their arms by conducting songs? But keeping the music going is what drives me through the pain. Also, I should have known better than to use the word "easy" around Mr. R. I'll have to keep that in mind when I conduct the next song I chose to do, even though it really IS easy (It's mostly half notes and is very slow). Regardless, I'm very excited to conduct it and maybe we'll even get to perform it at a concert! It's one of my favorite pieces of music of all time.

The Great Gate of Kiev

I don't like to stand out!

Oh man...it's dark in here right now. The bright yellow, Mystery Dope background I put on my computer in Computer class is really hurting my eyes, too (For some reason, I'm seeing dark blue spots everywhere). It's the same yellow as our neon District 5160 Interact Shirts! Personally, I don't like wearing bright colors (I don't like to stand out!), so I volunteered to give up my shirt, since we only had a limited number of them.

Wow, what a coincidence. Mr. G just taught us how to change our desktops, so I was kind of forced to change the eye-burning background. I'll probably write most of my blogs in Computers now, since I have so much free time. Everything we've done so far has been very basic. The only problem with trying to write something in this class is how noisy it is. I can't really concentrate very well, but I'll still try my best to form coherent sentences and ideas! One of these days, I'll actually remember to bring a pair of earphones.

Yesterday, we had uniform inspection for Marching Band. Thankfully, the saxophone section wasn't the last section done for once! We barely beat out the trombones. Last year, Nez purposely skipped our section because, well, he doesn't like us.

P.S. I need to find a way to get some music in this class. Listening to my fellow peers makes me feel like I'm getting dumber by staying in this class...

P.P.S. Is it ironic that an oboe player doesn't like to stand out?

I forgot my password.

Woohoo! I managed to change my password for my account! I can't believe I forgot my password. This wasn't a problem at home because I had my computer set to remember my password for this site, but I decided to try to write a blog at school in Computers. Then I found out that I didn't even know my own password. So I changed it and now I can write stuff while I'm at school! It beats playing Solitaire and Minesweeper all day.

There's a lot of hok gwyh in this class; it makes me wish that I brought earphones. All they talk about are rappers, shoes, dance moves, and some of them even sing off-key. One girl even yells at her computer! Sigh, I can feel my I.Q. decreasing when I'm in this class, which is very ironic because I'm in a computer class. Ah well, it's an easy class and I really like computers in general. I always like finding new things to do with computers. It's one of the things at school that I'm actually interested in. Last week, I read the Computer textbook for fun!

I have to keep this short. I have to run to Calculus now!

P.S. I fail at Solitaire. I haven't won a single game in the three days that I've played it in class.
P.P.S. I was able to beat the beginner level of Minesweeper in 15 seconds. Crazy.