Thursday, December 25, 2008

3 Sadness

There's a boy I like.
We shall call him 3.
I'll explain why:
There are exactly three boys who I love. Boys who I care about deeply, and, although they may not share the exact same feelings toward me, I care about them and wish them every happiness, even if it's not necessarily with me. These began as crushes, developed into friendships with undertones of attraction, and further developed into love. Each one has taken a different amount of time to reach these qualifications, and my feelings towards each of them are different, but I love all three of them.
Once I love somebody, I love them forever. I may be able to push it to the back of my mind when I haven't seen them for awhile, but I still think about them whenever I see things that I associate with them (places, people, religions, colleges, authors, characters, songs, musical instruments, colors, etc.).
In short, I don't (romantically) love people in a very healthy manner.
We are going to call the boy in question 3 because he was the third one to enter the picture. Rather simple, actually.

In the past year, I told 3 how I felt about him, as I did with 2 and 1. He didn't feel the same way about me (He turned me down in such a sweet way)(... Did I really just say that? Wow. I'm hopeless.), and after that initial awkwardness passed, we became friends again, if somewhat more distant.
Now that you have the generic, identity-free background to the story, let me begin.

One of the scenarios I picture with boys that I love is similar to one in Casino Royale.

You know the one, where Bond goes into the bathroom and finds Vesper sitting in the shower in her evening gown, crying/in shock? And Bond goes and holds her?

I always pictured something like that. One of us (usually me, at first, because all three of the other boys are taller than me) is in need of some SERIOUS comfort, and the boy just sits next to me and holds me without saying anything, like in the movie.
I don't usually think about it in reversed terms, with the boy being the one that needs consoling, but today I did.
I was talking to 3 on an instant messaging service (the most personal of all methods of communication. yeah right.), catching up because I hadn't talked to him in a while, and all of a sudden he tells me that he can't talk right now because he's crying in his room and can't really handle shit at the moment.
At which point I imagined the above scene with the roles reversed. More than anything, I wanted to be in the room with him, helping him through whatever it was he needed to get through.

And I couldn't.

Physically, he was too far away.

Emotionally, he didn't like me like that, so it wouldn't be very effective.

And I want to express this desire to comfort to him, while acknowledging his lack of desire for it to come from me, and it's really difficult to do that through a stupid IM.

So he had to sit in his room alone, and cry. For whatever reason.

On Christmas. I couldn't even give him that.

Love sucks.

3, if you ever read this, I do love you. I do care about you.
I realize it's kind of odd, given the circumstances, but I do.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Our neighbors seem to be developing a habit of moving away.
The family across the street and one to the right moved to a different neighborhood.
The family to our left (facing the street) moved to CHINA for a year for the dad's business.
And the family to our right (again facing the street) are moving to Montreal.
Are we that unpleasant to live next to?
:) Just kidding. I still see the girl in family 1 in school, and family 2 is in town (and state, country, and continent) for 2 weeks for Christmas before they come home permanently in 6 weeks.
I'm going to miss family 3, though. I used to go over there when I'd accidentally get locked out of my house to borrow the key they held for just such occasions.
The mom is such an excellent cook, too.

Bye, family 3! We'll miss you! Keep in touch!

Monday, December 22, 2008

Internet stuff


Hmm. the video-window is too big. Go look at it on the original website.

A musical promoting gay marriage? Hmm. I don't think we could ever perform this at our school... I mean, if they wrote angry letters about The Marriage of Bette and Boo then this would never go over well.
*snicker snicker*

In other news, I found out about the YouTube Symphony Orchestra today.

Youtube is doing this project where they've commissioned Tan Dun to write a symphony for the first internet collaborative symphony orchestra. What you do is you record your instrument part to a video of Tan Dun conducting the piece, submit it to youtube, and record something in public domain (there are suggestions on each instrument page) and then somehow they pick the members of the orchestra. They're performing in Carnegie Hall in April. I think it's a pretty cool idea.

Here's the London Symphony Orchestra performing the piece.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Things I Saw Today

  • Cody! We went to the mall and hung out today. It was fun.
  • A little old man in a little smart car, smoking a Sherlock Holmes-esque pipe.
  • A woman with a not-so-recently shaved beard. Like, five o'clock shadow from two days ago stubble. It was very noticeable.
  • NOT SANTA. Me and Cody stood there for like a half hour waiting for Santa to get back from his break and take pictures with the little kids, and eventually we just went home, because he STILL wasn't back.
  • A woman driving the wrong way in the parking lot... the lanes are one-way, and she barely squeezed by me and the person in front of me.
  • The Christmas pianist at the mall who's not very old at all, who looks rather unhealthy. Evidently he has some kind of incurable disease, or something, according to Dad, who was told this when he inquired about the position for me a few years ago. He was quite good... I wish I could transition between Christmas carols as seamlessly as he does.
  • Didn't see it, but I felt the ground shake when we were upstairs at Dick's Sporting Goods. For a second I thought there was another earthquake going on (like the one last year that I slept through, rrgh. I hate that I missed it.) but Cody thought it was the guy walking past. I prefer to think it was an earthquake. Much cooler.
  • Six people I knew. Cody was like, "Oh my God, do you know everybody?"
  • A little girl bouncing ten times her height on one of those bouncy, bungee-jumping things they have at the mall.
  • An Edward Cullen life-size cardboard stand-up. There was a Bella Swann one as well, but who cares about her?
In related news, all of my Christmas shopping is done! Now I can officially relax.
Dad and Elizabeth are coming home with Five Guys burgers soon. I can almost taste them already... They went to go see the new James Bond movie. I hope they were more intelligent than I was, and missed the Festival of Lights traffic that I forgot about until it was too late to turn around.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Better News

I just heard from UNCG that I've gotten into the piano and flute studios, and that I'll hear from the voice studio in March.
This makes me feel much better about myself.

This Saturday, I shall brave the formidable wasteland that is the mall on the Saturday before Christmas. Terrifying, but Christmas shopping is a must.

Hmm...
I should probably plan what I'm going to get.

We had hot chocolate today in Calculus. It was wonderful. Nothing makes integrals more pleasant than hot chocolate.

No other significant musings for today. Not that any of these were particularly significant...

Monday, December 15, 2008

Dear Robert

I received a letter today from Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.

"Dear Robert:


The Admissions Committee of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music has considered your screening materials and application for admission to the for the Fall Semester 2009 [sic].After careful review and consultation with faculty, the Committee did not feel it could recommend an on campus audition.

This decision has no bearing on your admission to Indiana University by University Admissions. If it is your decision to attend Indiana University, we encourage you to consider enrollment in our courses in general music studies, ensembles, and secondary lessons as electives.

Sincerely,
Dr. Townsend A. Plant
Director of Music Admissions and Financial Aid
Indiana University Jacobs School of Music"

All I can think is that I spent ALL THAT TIME writing those essays for the Indiana Scholarship Committee, and now I haven't gotten in to the School of Music?

While I know I'm not a bad musician, this is a pretty significant blow to my self-confidence. Being a not bad musician does not necessarily mean that I am a good one.

I've always thought of myself primarily as a pianist. But I can't sightread worth crap, and I can't improvise on the piano without freaking out and stopping every couple of measures to make sure I did it right.

What now? Do I give up?
I don't think I should. I mean, my audition at UNCG went fairly well (I think) and I really do like it there. Certainly this news isn't the end of the world, but it has made me step back and reevaluate. But I can't help but wonder if perhaps I'm not as good as I thought I was... am I just mediocre in the grand scheme of things?

I got into GSE on the flute.
I've gotten into Honors Chorus 3 times, and one time I was the top scorer in my section.
I've never auditioned or competed for anything on piano before. Perhaps I was wrong to think of myself primarily as a pianist?

Also, is this the letter for the piano screening, the voice screening, or both?

And frankly, I'm not hugely surprised. I mean, I wasn't exactly in top form the day we recorded my screening auditions. The fugue I had started just a little more than a month before... I hadn't finished learning the notes until the week before. The Brahms was simply catastrophic... ugh.

I guess I can't wear the scarf the Honors College sent me, now. Such a shame... it's so warm. I'm sure not going to go there if I can't major in music. Secondary lessons and general music courses my ass... I've never wanted to be anything other than a music major. Not since like 7th grade, anyway.

I slaved over those essays, though!
ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!
And why did they want a screening audition so early in the year? November?
Really? That's two months before their first audition date. Do you know how much work you can get done on a piece of music in two months? Why, just the next week I was playing my audition pieces better than I did for the screening recording...



Also, they need to fix the typo in their letter. "admission to the for the Fall Semester"?

Makes me feel a little better about not getting in, honestly. Call it being petty, but the fact that an error like that would slip through such a short letter gives the childish, immature side of me some sort of pleasure. You know, akin to the sour grapes concept? "Why would I want to go there anyway? They can't even proofread their letters."

I know it's silly. But whatever.

I guess I'm going to UNCG, now. Not that that's a bad thing, I very much like UNCG. The professors there are excellent, and I already know some people that go there. Some of the professors even already sort of know who I am, so I have that base there already.

But I'd hoped to go a little further away from home...

Oh well. It's not the end of the world.
I'm just ready to get out of High School already.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Sleep/Homeroom/Madrigals



Eric Whitacre posted this to his blog recently. It was awesome. I followed suit.
The performers are TorQ percussion quartet.
The piece is Sleep, by Eric Whitacre (which is why he posted it to his blog).

This year, our school schedule is structured in such a way that we have homeroom every day for about twenty minutes. We don't do anything. It's a total waste of time, so I don't go.
However, I got a little worried today that they might count these absences against senior exemptions for exams, or report cards, or something. So I went up to the office to find out if I was "in trouble."

Why can't I leave well enough alone? Now the assistant principal knows that I don't go to homeroom, and although she said she'd "look the other way" about the past however long it's been (like... a month maybe? and three weeks before that one day that I went? and quite awhile before that, too... hmm.), she said I need to start going again, so they can get graduation announcements to us.

It's December.

Graduation is in June.

What could they possibly tell us right now?

Anyway... I might go tomorrow, just to tell Coach Lowery where I'll be for the rest of the school year... because I'm still not going to go.

And no, this isn't because I think that band people are "above the law", Mr. new-assistant-principal-whose-name-I've-forgotten. If I'm going to waste my time, I'm going to do it somewhere I'm comfortable (i.e., not the gym floor).

I mean... what are they going to do? Fail me?
I hope Mr. J doesn't get in trouble. I suppose I should have thought about that before I went...

The band website is up now.

We have our second madrigal dinner tonight... last night went well. I'll have pictures up at some point. Maybe. I love being the jester... I get to make fun of people.