This is going to be one of those LOOONG weeks, I know it... I'm not excited. I'm already burned out from this timeline; I think I worked WAY too hard on it but it looks good so I'm pleased. I'm just tired. I have to learn a song for MVOP so I can have it ready for the musician's rehearsal at 5. Long week... stuff after 7 every night except for today... Tueday is cornerstone Wednesday is MVOP Thrusday is MENC meeting and Friday is Candide. If Candide wasn't this weekend I'd go to the Fall Retreat with Lighthouse but I promised Garrett I'd go to this like the first day of school. OK time to learn this song. It should be kind of easy it is "I'm going up a Yonder" and Aria sang that in high school.

Well, I'm getting there on my timeline; I'm up to 1600. But I just lent my piano book to Christie, and she said that when she had to do it she was up until 3 in the morning. That doesn't make me excited. Thank God I don't have class until 10 so if I am up that late I can still get a semi-decent night's sleep. But yep, back to work on that stupid timeline. I'm getting a headache from doing it.

What a long day, and it isn't over yet!!!

I've been working slowly on my project since late morning or early afternoon (I can't remember), and I still have tons to do. I'm determined to get at least some more done tonight. But It's looking all right so far.

At about 3:30 today, Garrett and I went to walmart. I needed supplies for my project. While I was there, I wanted some popcorn. So Garrett directed me there, and it turned out to be a supercenter. I'd never been in one of those, it's like a supermarket! Anyway, I get the popcorn, and then I decide to see if there was fanta there. I saw 2 liter bottles, and then... an amazing thing happened... I SAW FANTA!!!! THEY HAVE FANTA AT WALMART!!! FANTA HAS FINALLY COME TO DECATUR!!!! YEA YEA YEA YEA YEA!!!! I was so pumped! Awesome. That was the highlight of my day I kid you not.

I worked on my project some more, and then I went to the collage concert. What an amazing concert. everyone who performed was awesome. The only thing I didn't like is when UChoir performed and my usual bitterness came back. But that was it, it was less bitter and everytime I see them I get less and less bitter. Everyone rocked. Good job to anyone who is reading this and was in the Collage Concert.

OK that's it for tonight. I have to get some more done on my project before I go to bed. Garrett went to Shelbyville with a friend for the night so I am by myself but hey now I can listen to music loud and stuff. Take care all!

wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow. AWESOME INTERVARSITY TONITE!!!!!!!!! Really cool; I bet it has changed my life!!!! We talked about sexual struggles and so many people opened up and it was so cool!!! Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow cool cool cool cool!!!

OK I need to go to Walmart and Garrett isn't here and I'm like how can I get to Walmart?

TGIF, that is a good thing and a bad thing. Good thing; not as many classes (although I have a class piano test but normally I don't have that class). No intro to music ed, no piano, no lab, nothing! And lighthouse is on friday too! Yay! Fun stuff.

Now for the bad reason why TGIF. This only applies to this weekend and other certain weekends. I have a project due on Monday. Yes. I will be spending my WHOLE weekend making a timeline for Intro to Music ed. Now it CAN'T be simple if you want an A. You will have to put time and effort into it, and get the broad scope of an idea as to what is important in the history of music education. I hope I have that focus. We need about 50 important events that have happened in the history of music education from antiquity to 2002, and that's only half of it! The other half, luckily, it up to us and doesn't need 50. I'm going to put down about 20 (hopefully). I got the thing started but hopefully I will be able to finish it by Sunday afternoon so I can at least have some time to myself this weekend not being preocupied with my project!

And I wish I didn't have a test today in class piano because that means there is only an hour between the end of that and choir and I HATE HOUR LONG BREAKS. There isn't enough time to do much of anything but there is too much time to just wait for your next class. It's annoying. Poopy. I need to go to walmart today.

Yesterday, I got 5 hits in a row from Blogger.com. How is that possible? I'm not one of those top 10 blogs or something, and they occured at times I didn't make an entry. It's not from a post in the discussion board because it isn't there. I think that is cool but weird at the same time. I just want to know how people got to look at my blog and how the word is getting out about it or something.

Shit. Why does the musical at Preble have to be the same weekend as the MVOP concert? Especially when I am a director? The musical is the 14, 15, and 16th, and the concert is on the 16th. So hopefully, maybe I can skip class and go on Friday or something. I mean I don't normally do that, but Aria has her first big role with lots of lines in a musical or play (while not having Mrs. Miller add lines). She is Anybodys in West Side Story, and she wanted that role so bad so I hope I can go!!!!!!!! I just have to find a way. I'll have to pray that I can find a way.

Ok Me and Garrett are going to watch Amadeus and see if it is PG like the package said or if it is R like it is supposed to be... That was so weird when I saw PG on it because it doesn't say anywhere but that small box that it is PG. But to be PG it would have to be edited. Hopefully the swearing isn't. OK well anyway I hope I have a good night. :)

I did it! I didn't change the template, I just saved the changes I made and then replaced them! Yay! No more error 503! :):)

yep, I did. I think I might change the template... it says that as a suggestion under the help files. That's kind of too bad since I like this template, but they got some new ones recently that look cool, so maybe it's time for a change.

Well, it said they did maintenance yesterday, so let's see if I get a stupid error 503 message.

Tomorrow is Wednesday... I am not looking forward to it... I HATE Wednesdays!!!

So I am telling Jake and Cory what my project is for Intro to Music Ed, and I find out I AM DOING THE EXACT SAME THING CORY IS DOING!!!! I'm like "Oh, my God!" That is so weird! I go into more detail about it, saying I'm going to draw notes with the facts on it. Yep, she's doing that. The top staff is going to be music ed, the bottom is my own. Yep, she's doing that. Holy crap! Exactly the same. That is so weird. Luckily we are not in the same section, but Dr. Shields is going to be getting two projects that are exactly the same.

OK so I go to my website because I was adding some stuff to the Luxner page which is the best page out of the entire thing, and I click to see the stats on the counter, and up pops this add saying I am the 10 millionth visitor to my site. Uh, no. I don't think so.

Garrett was fake arguing with Cory over the fact that cory has a boyfriend, and Cory took it seriously but I think she is over it now.

OK that's it for now I have to study for a Elementary Methods quiz tomorrow.

I have to get this timeline project thing done for Intro to music ed... I don't know what to do. I also have to get started on this research paper for Survey, practice for my voice lessons (I should do that at least once in a week...) and also need to do a self evaluation for Conducting and practice for that as well.

The Packer game is on TV!!! Awesome. Just saw Marques Anderson take an interception about 70 yards for a TD. Awesome.

My parents have come and gone... the day went by really fast! I made a wax hand that was cool and then we went to Monical's pizza because Aria was crying because she wanted to go to Steak and Shake and mom wanted to eat at Los Mat so I suggested go someplace we never have been before and Aria was still whining about that because she didn't want pizza. Aria is so whiny sometimes.

Anyway today was a nice pleasant day... now tonight I have to study unfortunately. I need to get a rough draft for my history of music ed timeline which I totally forgot about... I was going to ask mom for suggestions because she is very artistic visually and usually has some good ideas. But as usual I forgot. I also have to do this thing for my research project, and also get SOME practicing done this week for my voice lessons. Maybe tonight and tomorrow.

OK this really bugs me. After clicking and closing my info on my buddy list, it pops up like 5 minutes later again. Why does it do that? Grrr.

I'm starting to get into that bad habit of buying things off of ebay again. Why? I don't know. I know I shouldn't but you get something in your head that you want and off you go bidding. I also bid on a couple of things for Garrett because he doesn't have a checking account. But I bid on myself most of the time.

Tomorrow my family comes for the weekend, so I'm going to bed now rather than stay up until 2 like I usually do because they said they would be here at nine and I want to be up and dressed before they get here.

Conversation after recital:

We walk out of Kirkland.:
Me: Wow, it got hot. It's all warm and sticky.
Shanan: You're mom is warm and sticky.
Me: You're gross.
Shanan: You mixed up my words I was talking about how you're mom cooks.
Me: No you didn't.
Shanan: You're a pervert.
Me: You're dad's warm and sticky.

I am so mad. They blocked Yahoo games! And it is all because of those stupid people that use Morpheus not shutting it off or ignoring the numerous pleas for them to shut it off. So they block morpheus, and our internet is fast again, but I can't play literati against Aunt Barb anymore. That really sucks.

MUSIC I AM LISTENING TO: Subdivisions by Rush.

I was SOOO hyper in classes today. It was funny and not at the same time. I mean I went nuts in conducting. Well, speaking about conducting I am never singing the song "Chester" ever again. I made this funny remark along the lines of "Lets get those tyrants shaking". But anyway, it comes to be my turn to conduct, and so it starts. All of a sudden I realise that everyone is getting faster, and I look at Chris like "What is going on?" and it got so fast I had to stop and everyone was laughing, and it turns out I was conducting that fast! I didn't even realise it. That really sucks. So I start over again and it still was faster than I wanted it to be. Got I need to work on two beat patterns... I think that and the fact that it was loud screwed me up because I do soft legato just fine.

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What the heck is this?

The Clare College concert was awesome. But the bad thing is that that concert made me want to be in UChoir all the more. I mean, I see people chatting with the people from England and that makes me SOOO jealous I want to cry. I mean, here they are all awesome and I am stuck in a choir where half of them don't want to be in a choir. I want to be in UChoir so I can do stuff like that. Take tours. Meet people from around the world. It makes me so mad because we will never do any of that in Concert Choir. All we do is sit in K11 and sing the same 2 songs every rehearsal. Two songs. Whoop-de-do. I want to sing more than that, and sing something a little better. Can't we start something new? It makes me want to cry again. I know like 95% of the people in UChoir and about 10% of the people in Concert Choir. It's just not the same as even Millikin Men. In Millikin Men last year there was a spark there; a feeling, an aura. There's emptyness in Concert Choir. I don't feel a thing. That's what I love about choirs is that aura. I had it every year in the Boy Choir and last year in Millikin Men. This choir just doesn't inspire me one bit. This is the first choir (unless you count the month and a half I didn't go to boy choir because they fired Mr. Wickert) that I don't want or really enjoy going to rehearsals for. And I have been in a choir since I was 7. It's really weird. I hope to GOD that I make it next year.

On a lighter note...

Shanan looked funny while she was singing tonight. She was standing behind the podium thing where the priest preaches and it looked like she was preaching when she sang. It was so hilarious. I wanted to tell her that tonight but she had already left. So I will tell her tomorrow.

And another light note :)

ARIA MADE THE MUSICAL!!! She is "Anybody" in West Side Story. Anybody is the girl in the gang, and she is perfect for that role. She fits it naturally. She wanted that role bad. I am so proud of her and am so happy she is in it!!!

They have lemon Fanta! I just saw it on ebay; the cans are apple and lemon and definately American. So why aren't they selling that everywhere? So now there are 7 flavors? I'm kind of confused now. I got my poster I love it but it is smaller than I thought it would be.

I'm composing a jazz song. It's smooth jazz and it is called "Summer in the Park". It sounds really cool so far... it's almost 2 minutes long already, and it has drums, a piano, bass, vibes, and muted trumpet in it. I'm trying to compose a song that is actually playable, unlike my SETI song. I'm excited about this song - so far I think it is my best composition I have done, if not the best in a long time. Garrett and I are composing a song as well. It's called "If it Ain't Baroque, Don't Fix It." It's got sort of a baroque flair which wasn't our original intention, but we have a circle of 5ths in it. So far we only have the piano part so it's a little repetitious, but soon we will add a violin and stuff.

Well that's about it for now... It's 1:50 so I am going to take a break on my song and see if my package is here. Today I leave for my aunts and tomorrow is the Basic Skills Test. I am pretty scared about it; I looked at it last night and it was a little harder than I thought so I will have to study tonight. Pray for me :)

GALD DANG IT! It didn't publish the first time. Stupid internet. The internet here has been acting crappy the last few days.

Last night there was a candlelight vigil in memory of 9/11. It wasn't as emotional as last year in my opinion, but there were some good speeches. Something weird that happened the New York lottery numbers were 9-1-1. That is really weird. God plans weird stuff sometimes. If he didn't, life would be pretty boring.

I AM SO MAD. My packages aren't here yet. You'd think that if you won the item on Sunday, that they would send it out monday. Obviously not.

Well, it's officially September 11. Wow. It has been year already! That is so weird! I remember it like yesterday. I was in theory and people behind me were like "the world trade center was hit by a plane" and I'm like "Oh, my God! How could that happen?" And had no idea it was a terrorist attack, or that both towers were hit, or that they collapsed. I didn't see them fall until long after it happened. I was in Sara's room, watching it and I got really scared; I immediately called my mom. She saw it happen before her very eyes. I cried. There was a candlelight ceremony and everything. And I waited 5 hours to give blood at the red cross and it was worth it, unlike a rude comment made in the Decaturian, who said it was futile of her to wait 6 hours and give the blood when many of the people died anyway.

The ironic thing is after I saw the film I immediately thought Osama Bin Laden did it and he did. Another thing is that my Poli Sci class like a week before the attacks (it was the first class) I asked why those middle eastern countries and Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein hate us. It is so weird. And also so sad.

OH MY GOODNESS!!! Bible study was so inspiring for me!!! We talked about having quiet times, and I haven't really had a quiet time before. I learned that quiet times bring you closer to God and that it helps your relationship with God get better. And that during that time it's just you and God. Just the two of you. And the feeling you get after is so cool. This has inspired me so much!!! I am going to do quiet times now!!!! I am excited; I'm starting before I go to bed tonight or something. I'm going to read Ephesians. Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow wow.

Garrett got his poster and movie that I got for him on ebay today. He likes them alot, but he doesn't know where he's going to put his poster yet. It's pretty big, but he also says he has a lot of pictures he has to bring from home that he wants to put on his wall.

It's starting to get dark, and I don't mean totally the sun setting... the wind is blowing and I think we are going to get some more rain tonight. It was pretty hot and humid today and now there are rains coming and then behind it cooler temperatures! Cool.

Well, time to switch my laundry, then it's bible study.

I am full, after waiting over an hour for the pizza. I think there is something wrong with the information that Domino's has. I'll have to tell them. But yeah I am stuffed.

I had an OK day; I think I bombed the Physics test today, but other than that alright. My voice lesson went fairly well, but I think my new voice teacher thinks my vibrato is fake. It isn't. It feels weird without it. But I think other than that it went well; I think he will help me. He's helping me to be a little more fluid.


I WON THE SHIRT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY! I am so happy. I got them both. Cool cool cool. Awesome. OK now I have to work on my conducting.

MUSIC I AM LISTENING TO: Andrea Bocielli.

Well in approximently 17 minutes and 23 seconds that shirt will be mine! As long as no one overbids it again, which I hope they won't. I don't want to spend $15 on a shirt like that. I mean $15 is the ABSOLUTE LIMIT. I guess $9.50 was a little ideal... But I was hoping.

I don't want to study. I have to finish reading this thing for methods, and then I have to study for my physics test. And I forgot I need to go to the library and watch myself conduct and then do a self evaluation on it. At least I got the reading done for survey.

Wow. We are getting the first rains since I got here. I have been here about 2 weeks, and this is the first time it has rained. And it is a small random storm - although some of the lightning has been very close. My window in Mills was a lot better at looking out to watch the rain... we are facing the train tracks in the back out here so you can't see anything. There is no light. It was funny because Garrett and I heard this random shuffling sound and it sounding like something falling and we didn't realize it was thunder. It was so unexpected, because it hasn't rained here in God knows how long.

I won the Fanta poster but someone bid over the shirt!!! I was so mad. They went up to $8.00. Had they not I would have only spent $9.50 (w/shiping) on the shirt and now I have to spend at least $13.50, if not more. That was not my plan. Oh well if I don't get the shirt at least I got the poster.

I went to Kroger today. It was so hot; it was like 95 outside. But I saved $5.07 and I only spent $5.78. I saved almost as much as I spended! i was so psyched. But the temperature; I am so happy I am not in Mills this year because if I was it would be just as hot in there but it would also smell. Millifest is today as well; I don't think I"m going to go to it. I'm going to try and get some homework done tonight.

Not listening to music; I'm watching Mrs. Doubtfire and Garrett is asleep.

I went to a music ed meeting tonight, and afterwards Jake was wondering why there is a shortage on teachers. I asked why and he said "Because of all the crap you have to do to become one!" And he is right. We have to take two very important tests; the Illinois Basic Skills Test and then a music test next year. We have to have 100 hours of observation or teaching or something before we are allowed to student teach. We have to be approved to be in the program based on your test scores, grades, and an interview. And you have to do all of this other stuff... it's going to be hard but I'm not extremely worried yet... just mildly worried. If I study hard and work hard I'm sure it will be easier than it all sounds.

MUSIC I AM LISTENING TO: Long Distance Runaround by Yes.

I want this paper done. I'm working on a paper for Elementary Methods and it is taking forever. It's a two column thing comparing what we drew from a reading to us. It's very long... not the paper but the time needed. It just drags on, and the teacher the guy is interviewing says the same thing about 10 different times so it's very repetative and boring. Yes it's interesting but only to a certain extent and right now at 12:30Am It's really boring.

MUSIC I AM LISTENING TO: Yours Is No Disgrace by Yes.

Oh yeah I did get my webcam and my mom's package yesterday and I'm not listening to music because I'm most likely going to restart my computer anyway... I have a paper to write tonight as well. So yeah busy day busy night. I moved my voice lesson so that's good... I'm not having it on Wednesday anymore so that's great. Monday morning at 9:30 is all right I'll just have to get up earlier to warm up because my voice sucks in the morning, and I kind of sucked in today's lesson because I wasn't warmed up at all. So hopefully it will all go better from here on.

SO yeah I thought I had totally ruined my computer last night... the loading screen wouldn't advance. I had a horrible night's sleep and right when I got up I looked for a bootdisk or a starting disk online and found one, and it didn't work, and I was all upset. Anyway, I'm about to call home and ask them to mail the recovery CD when it advanced!!!! FINALLY!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH GOD. There were some problems, like no sound, but that was because my installation of DirectX was bad, so I reinstalled it and now I have sound!!! So I'm going to reinstall my webcam, and then everything will be ALL RIGHT!!!

Also, I don't feel as bad about being in Concert Choir anymore. I think today I heard why God put me there. It turns out that Millikin Men this year is really small, so Dr. Holmes and Prof. Hesse sort of combined the choirs but are retaining Millikin Men. All the men in Concert Choir are going to be in Millikin Men, and there is going to be some all women stuff too, and then there will be stuff for mixed voices. So I think it's going to be awesome, and so being in both means I will be singing more music and hopefully doing more. I believe God put me in the choir to be a leader to all the younger guys, so I am almost excited. I still wish I was in UChoir but I don't feel nearly as bad. So what started out as a stressful rough day is turning out to be a pretty good day.

Today is (hopefully) the big day I get my packages. If they don't come I'm going to sue the US postal service for slowness. I mean, they raise their stamp prices 4 times since 1995 and still they are slow. No wonder they are losing money. Any of you remember when postcards were 19 cents and when mailing a letter was a quarter? Now it's 37 cents. That is more than a third of a dollar. You can't buy 3 stamps for a dollar anymore. It's outrageous.

Well gotta get ready for class.
No music right now... too close to class to do that.

Someone is burning incence somewhere in the building and it is going through the vents. That is a big no no in the dorm. I wonder if it is in fact incence or if it is something else, but it is coming through the vents, that's for sure. It's weird. I wonder who is doing it. Garrett is back now and he brought more stuff with him, i.e. movies, posters, and some other things. We are going to get the TV from Levi tomorrow. I hope I get my packages tomorrow. I can't wait to use my webcam! That is going to be sweet! Also i can't wait to get my first care package from mom of the year. Cool. OK that's all good night (I think?)

No music right now.

Well, I'm going to go to dinner. There are 3 of us now. Yep, three music students who go to this school who are from Green Bay. I'm going to eat with Molly and this new girl who went to west. So that will be fun. Garrett isn't back yet. I talked to my mom on the phone a couple of times. I organized my planner and did my homework. I put all the schedules for my classes and stuff on the wall. Otherwise it has been a boring day.

MUSIC I AM LISTENING TO: All my Jean-Luc Ponty files!!!!

I got this new program called Incredimail. It is sweet! I can use it in place of Groupwise. I like it alot!

MUSIC I AM LISTENING TO: Orinoco Flow by Enya.

I was reading Mike Leach's journal and he has what music he is listening to on his entries so I'm going to do that.

MUSIC I AM LISTENING TO: Subdivisions by Rush.

Where did the archive go? It's gone. I don't know where it went. Hopefully it isn't deleted!

I found a Fanta poster on EBAY!!!!!!!!!! I'm going to get it!!!! It said buy now for $15.99 but that's too expensive so I hope to get it for less and I won't spend more than 11.50. I want that poster. It's old but it is cool! It's perfect for above my computer in my room. And if all goes well I'm going to have a shirt too!!! But that is it. I don't want anymore than that. Unless.... something else cool comes up!!!

Today is one of those days that I wish I had my webcam. I'll probalby get it on Tuesday, since there is no mail tomorrow because it is Labor Day. I'll probably get mom's package Tuesday as well. Hopefully both on the same day. That will be a good day. Wednesday wouldn't be good since that is my busiest day of the week (first class at 10, then another class, then either lunch or 1/2 hour of my lab, then another class, then anohter class, then lab (if he says one hour is OK then great!), then class, then it's 5:00. Then at 7:00 I have MVOP. if it comes that day I will have no time to fool around on it until after 9:00. That's why I want it on tuesday, so I can get the excitement and fooling around out of my system.

They STILL don't sell Fanta at Kroger. You'd think after advertisments on TV and it being out for a while you'd think central Illinois would catch up to the rest of the world. WRONG!! At least they don't have Minute Maid orange anymore... maybe that is a sign?

Oh I forgot. I am going to the store today to pick up some stuff. I need some of those things that you put on the back of your poster so it won't fall down (then again this room is pretty dry because of the air conditioner so I don't know), and some food. Maybe another 12 pack of Fanta (if they have it yet, which is highly unlikely). Some macaroni for the kitchen, but I don't know if you need your own pots and pans or if they provide them and you just have to clean them after you are done. And next time I go home I'm going to get a whirly pop so I can make homemade popcorn! Yummy.

I love Fanta.

I had a dream last night and it was like an animated movie disney would make. I've had dreams like that before. I don't know if I should tell what it's about because if anyone I know reads this they will laugh their heads off. But it was a feel good dream, the complete opposite of a nightmare. So yes I slept well.

My College Is:

Millikin University Students at Millikin University are very studious. Students at Millikin University masturbate a lot. There are lots of frats and sororities. Booze is the drug of choice. The average GPA is 3.75

Enroll

I don't know about the masturbation thing (then again I don't want to know) but other than that it's about right.

Oh wow it is September already I didn't even realize that.

Why is it that when you mean to go to bed you don't until about 3 hours later? Life is weird. But for real I'm going to bed now so good night. Tomorrow I won't be on the computer as much; maybe I'll go to the store or something...?