The Year in Review

1. What did you do in 2004 that you'd never done before?
I traveled across national borders by myself, participated Van Rooy competition, joined a fraternity

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
i kept a large sum of them, some more consciously than others. http://www.livejournal.com/users/audpicc/36251.html i think i made it through most of them. especially #2 and #4. the others i try to keep to to this day and i struggle wtih, but thats just part of the battle of life i guess...

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
i think a couple of my cousins did this fall... its so hard to keep track of these things when im so far away from family...

4. Did anyone close to you die?
thank god no

5. What countries did you visit?
England and the Czech Republic (it was an amazing trip!)

6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?
a girlfriend, romance, tangible achievement

7. What date from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
the dates i was inducted and initiated in to SAI. When i admitted to myself that i was a lesbian and then came out to my sisters. adagio for strings at the bushnell with my big. finally finding that pair of shoes wtih my mom in santa cruz.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
making it through spring semester with flying colors, going to prague, participating in van rooy even though i diddnt make it, discovering myself and being ok with it

9. What was your biggest failure?
laziness

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
wrist problems, sinus infections, yeast infections. i'm thankful that those are the worst i can think of!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
my friends who make it clear to me that they love me every day, and make me feel safe and at home

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
lucas

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
ART! in all forms. i love human expression and the human spirit, more speficially in the form of big orchestras making lots of beautiful and suprising sounds as well as harry potter, cuz he's just cool

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? well taking in to consideration that this time last year i had bronchitis and a broken heart, i would say much happier
ii. thinner or fatter? the same, fortunately
iii. richer or poorer? i dont remember

20. How will you be spending Christmas?:
with my family, including ALL of my siblings (which is a rarity)

22. Did you fall in love in 2004?:
unfortunately, no (unless you count berlioz)

23. How many one-night stands?
one? i dont know the definition!

24. What was your favorite TV program?:
THE DAILY SHOW!

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?:
yes, lucas

30. What was your favorite film of this year?:
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?:
My parents came to see me here at school and i had a great time visiting and there was much love! i turned 19

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?:
romance

34. What kept you sane?:
weekends and masturbation

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?:
EDDIE IZZARD! omg

38. Who was the best new person you met?:
SO hard to choose! thers Amy and PJ and Ashley and so many other people i knew but really got to know a lot better

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004:
Live in the today, because tomorrow might be worse (or you might not have time)

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: the lovebirds whispering (they dont know i can hear them...)

Kimmies Inter-Varsity friends have been coming over for the past two nights in order to do their free god loving food giveaway for finals. Inter-Varsity if you dont know is the christian group around here that meets and talks about the bible and is for the most part uber-conservative in the social sense. Kimmy has said in the past that they have openly talked about bringing a public speaker to Spectrum (the queer club on campus) and having the speaker talk to them about how being gay is a choice and is a sin and how gay people are going to hell.

with that in mind, theres this kid PJ in my theory class who is awesome. he helps me with classowork and the-like and he is a really cool guy, very enthusiastic and genuine (albeit naive). He's in inter-varsity. i think i have a budding friendship with him and he is really fun to hang out with, even though he tried to joke with me about puke and it totally diddnt work, i diddnt make a scene thank god (and thanks stacy and kimmy for not interfering or helping me, i think i'm at a point where i can handle simple conversations, and thanks for letting me fend him off of the topic). as soon as i brought up Eddie he seemed like "oh i dont like him, he's wierd" and i diddnt say anything about him being a transvestite or that i want to have lesbo sex with him, i just said that he's a really funny guy who doesnt make jokes that are mean, racist, or sexist. and he laughed when i quoted him! thats goood thing! I think if i told him that i'm a lesbian he wouldnt be my friend. and that scares me because it affirms my fear that when good people are ignorant about one thing they will ruin a potential friendship. and that one ignorance is his homophobia.

My plan is to continue to be his friend and let him get to know me, all sides of me, except my sexuality. hopefully if i can let him see that i'm a good person that is great friendship material that he can have a good time with and learn something from, eventually when i tell him i'm gay it will not be too big of a deal. Hopefully i can show him that gay people are just like everyone else except the tiny little discrepency of what turns them on. If i can do that for him, the next bigot that votes against my civil rights based on my sexuality or makes a rude comment to me or judges me i could probably forgive, because i have changed at least one persons opinon on the matter. And if all goes well, we will both learn something about eachothers world. because, lets face it, i have no idea what its like to be christian or to try to live by a text thats 2,000 years old. Maybe i could learn something from him that would help me be a better person, even if thats as simple as gaining a little respect for people like him.


Oh, and by the way I love you Kimmy for being accepting and befriending these people even if you disagree with some of their views and its totally honorable and i want to be like you!

Hero of the day: Kimmy Brayton!

Current Music: Berlioz - Romeo and Juliet (in my head...flute excerpts...)

Today has been crazy so far...

8am - wake up and half-shower. i still havent unpacked yet and its a mess! i had to dress up today all day and wear my new blazer for the first time. its great!

9:29 - walk in to Gabor's class with about two seconds to go for the second time this week. the class voted in my favor for whether i would have to improv a song or not

10:30 - my only practice hour today. Found out that i'm performing tomorrow at the "best of chamber music" concert. i guess i aced my final! :)

11:30 - piano, the epitome of boredom

12:30 - exchanged some quarters so i could do my laundry and finally unpack

1:30 - theory

2:30 - ran over to lincoln theater for contemporary players rehearsal. and found out that my music had slipped out of my folder so i had to run back and get it, in heels. I had my first and only runthrough (sightreading) this piece i'm performing tonight.

3:25 - get out of rehearsal having to pee really bad but late for my flute lesson. i rushed back to hartt as fast as i could, peed, and had my lesson

3:37 - Lesson! Yay! this was finally a good one.

Sightreading - i got off a couple of times but only had to stop once.
T + G: was kind of shaky and not as fast as it could have been, but i
made a LOT of improvement since last time so im not too upset
Etude: stopped and started a lot, but he was understanding. The next
one looks easy so i think i'm going to do two this week
Excerpts: i had three for him this week and totally nailed them. Not
once did i get so flustered that i diddnt know if i could do it or
not. And he even said to me "youve improved so much since last year,
sometimes i have to encourage you, but once you open up, your sound
is very loud and rich!" i was so happy! next week i get to do
berlioz romeo and juliet. thats exiting
Bach e minor: for spending only two days on it i think i did pretty well.
he disagreed with some of my breaths, but i'm glad that he caught that
my phrazing was off and i could fix it on the spot.

Best lesson so far!!

So the rest of my day looks like this:
5:25 - leave library for chamber rehearsal since we have to perform tomorrow morning as well as sunday night

6:00 - practice that picc part that i will play tonight so i'm not completely lost/have wrong notes. i think it will be fine.

6:45 - Leave for philosophy

7:45 - Leave philosophy early, stop by hartt to pick up flute stuff (make sure i have music!!!) and then go to lincoln for the concert

9:30ish - perform/sightread this piece on the second time ive ever heard it! and then my day is over

Wish me luck!!

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Bach e minor sonata

So i have orange hair. yes, its orange. A lot of people noticed and complimented me. i felt special :)

2 of my classes were cancelled today. whee!

I'm doing a favor for Mr Adsit by playing picc in contemp players in a concert on wed. But the catch is that there hasnt been a part and still isnt a part because the library lost it. So he and i spent half an hour copying, cutting and taping together a picc part from the score. it was delightfully awkward!

In studio class I sat next to Molly. She keeps flirting with me and its awesome. She leaned over to me when Megan was commenting and whispered "i cant help taking things with a sexual connotation!" and right after megan says something about blowing in to the hole. it was perfect. I love having a crush on someone and it not being a total flop! When she took out her flute she accidentally tapped it on the desk and on my folder and we had a laugh at her clumsiness. I had her name written down in my notebook because she was going to play, and she wrote next to it " -is a silly girl who is clumbsy and cant take care of her flute" and i write back to her "but she's cute so it makes up for it"

Hopefully that made her feel good. She played well. as always...

Chamber finals were tonight and it went pretty well. Glad thats overwith

I just got out of one of the strangest lessons ive ever had.

Preperation:
T + G - # 13, the diminished triads. i worked only twice with a metronome and got eighth note up to 120 and i can play it all the way through with no bumps which is a first (unfortunately).
Etude - Andersen #10. i liked this one, it was very melodic and i narrowed the hard stuff down to about five lines, which was good. and i could play it up to tempo, which is a first! i was so exited! (i also learned from sandy today that mr wion at one point could play the whole op. 15 up to tempo, which is insane)
Excerpt - Polovetzian dances and Dvorak 4(8). I love these melodies, and it was easy for me to play through them and enjoy them. I even got an early start on them by listening on friday. but i Diddnt really work too hard on them
Solo - played the burton sonatina in studio, so not much work after that on it

Actual Lesson:
Sight Reading - I had done it before, it seemed familiar. I never am quite sure what i'm playing in those duets because its not like i own them or have a chance to look at them for more than five minutes. I know theyre Kuhlau, but i'm not sure what set or whatever. theyre also really old. I digress... So we start playing this duet and a few bars in i am thinking to myself "oh, i totally remember this, should i stop him and tell him? no lets just nail it because i can" and so i keep playing but for some reason i get nervous. like maybe he knows that ive done that one before and since i screwed up on it so much last time he wanted me to play it again. so running through my head was "dont screw up, dont screw up" and thats never good. I totally crapped on it. Like completely. There was a key change and i looked at it and even thought to myself "ok, i know i diddnt see this last time, but now ive got a one up on it, so lets totally nail it" but as i'm thinking that i am missing A#'s and D#'s all over the place. UGH! So i start freaking out and getting really hard on myself and mr wion is getting frustrated and its just really not going well at all.

T + G - I played it all the way through without a missed note! yay! but i diddnt do it at 120, i did it at 104. dOH! it was the same tempo i had it at last time. and thats never good. I told him and he says "well then next time you play it for me it will be at 120" but i'm thinking to myself "but i can play it for you NOW at 120!" that was dissappointng

Etude - i start out at the correct tempo, yay! but my hands are tense and i keep fumbling from the e to the g# over and over and he stops me and thats never good. so i play the rest of it kind of in a whirl and did pretty well. i totally nailed the hardest line in the thing and that made me happy, but overall it was tentative.

Excerpts - so it turns out i was supposed to do the berlioz overture instead of Dvorak's 4th, but since i still prepared two excerpts for him i think he was pleased. So my hands at this point are pretty tense and shaky and i really cant get in to what im playing. it turns out i learned some parts wrong and diddnt do enough detail work for Mr Wion's standards. It was awful. reminiscent of my freshman year when he would get really mad at me when i seemingly diddnt care about what i was playing in the excerpts. I knew he was going to give me the guilt speech, and that i would loose it. but he was actully quite tactful and said "you know, mistakes are mistakes, but being sloppy just isnt going to cut it. in real auditions they arent going to let you do them again" So that just made me feel a bit shit about myself and not completely shit about myself. but i was still on the verge of tears.

Solo - So i was upset at this point and i dont know if he could tell or not, but i was acting pretty uncomfortable. I just kept telling myself "focus on burton, think about what he's saying, you can fight the tears off..." and i think it worked. We ended up spending 15 minutes on the first movement, and only two sections of it. that has NEVEr happened before! he actually worked on my sound with me for the first time! he was trying to get me to match my octaves in vibrato and articulation and it was actually fun! he had me look in the mirror and everything and i really learned a lot about why i pinch in the upper register and never feel like its full enough. I think this is the john wion that i auditioned for, the john wion that sandy gets, and probably what he wants to work on with me most, but feels like he cant because i am not focused enough on the other things.
I was so worried about bringing the burton in to him again because i know he likes to keep things rolling and doesnt like to spend too much time on each piece, especially after they have been performed. but he seemed fine working on this with me and fine tuning it with me. all i really had to do was ask. He even said to bring it in for next lesson and maybe even do it for studio again more improved. that was a completely unexpected response!

Sometimes with Mr Wion i feel like he expects me to do all of these things that he asks me to, and he never really teaches me the tools i need to get there, and in the end those expectations are never what i thought they were.

What i need to do for next week:
Work with the metronome every day on every item.
Listen to the excerpts early, like tomorrow (thursday) and even multiple times
map out the etude from square one
Really focus on each note of the excerpts and be as accurate as possible - spend a lot more time
Work on tone on the burton and learn how to open up the high register

Current Mood: sore

So i just had the hardest therapy session i think ive ever had. And i'm using a Mac in the library and the keyboard is crappy.

So basically in this therapy session i discovered that i close myself off from the lesbian community because i'm scared of rejection, and im scared that i might be gay. So basically i'm pretty much a lesbian who holds on to her shred of bisexuality so much that she is in denial about the fact that she perfers women.

the only men i'm attracted to are practically women. The only way i enjoy sex with a man is if it involves severe emasculation, and i would be happier if i was just with a woman. yet i am so scared of being different and rejected that i have told myself that i am going to find a man that works for me (and the chances of that are very slim).

I cant get over the fact that being all out gay might affect who i am, and personally it will probably be a positive change, but society tells me otherwise. I'm so scared of being rejected by people close to me, or potentially ending friendships that may have worked, that ive pretended that it was never there. Worst of all, i'm scared that i might not like myself anymore.

So thats it. Bottom line = i'm a lesbian in denial.

I cant even say it to myself without tears welling up. Its a problem. a MAJOR problem

And now ive forgotten about a rehearsal that i had. WOW

So wendesday comes around and i had a really bad day. I think it contributed to my performance at the Van Rooy prelims that night. My mind was somewhere else the minutes leading up to my audition time and when i started playing i got flustered. I brought my performance around by the end tho, and the Liebermann was So much fun! When i walked in there i wasnt expecting to know the judges. But alas, it was my favorite conductor, a piano teacher that i know (not too well, but familiarly, and my quintet coach. That threw me off a bit i think. For the most part, having Adsit judicating was a good thing, because what he thinks about my playing really matters to me in the long run. And since i know i already have his confidence in me as a piccoloist, i think it went over well.
Notes to self about Van Rooy:
make not just one set of copies, but 3 sets, BEFORE the audition date.
Remember where the audition is being held, and dont get confused at the last minute and run up the stairs to find that you only have a minute of mental preperation.

I think ill do a lot better next year, especially since there will be no election to depress me before hand, and i'll have a year to practice! Hopefully next year i'll make it through the first round...

This election better end soon or else i will have no fingernails and i will have huge bald patches on my head.

In other news, Eric and i are back on square one and have decided not to talk to eachother again. I thought i was clear last year, so this time i made him promise.

I have van rooy tomorrow, yet i'm awake at 2 in the morning because i'm worried about Bush's reelection. I dont even know what i'm going to bring in to my lesson tomorrow. Nothing good.... Alrighty then

Oh, and here's a pic of my Harry Potter halloween costume. Right Right...



Keep your hopes up for the election, whoever you voted for or wanted to vote for. The election will be over soon and whoever wins, America will stand by him for the next four years. <--thats all the idealism youre gonna get out of me right now

Wish me luck for tomorrow (its the big day!)
Goodnight and Goodluck!

So i dont know whats going on but Dani hasnt been nice to me in like, a week (or two i lost count). She leaves without me for rehearsal and classes we usually walk together to, and she doesnt say hi to me or start conversations with me EVER anymore. Tonight i was folding laundry and eating ice and i left the empty trays on the counter and she snapped at me about how "other people need ice too!". If there is something that i'm doing that is bothering her i would love it if she could just tell me and let me try to change it instead of let it fester so much that she stops talking to me and snaps at me. If i knew the specific things that i did or said that pissed her off, i would apologize and try not to do it again! but instead i'm sitting here clueless to what they are because she wont tell me. I really dont want to loose my friendship or respect with dani over a couple ice trays or whatever is the problem. Right now i feel like the friendship is already lost... and i feel like crying. oh wait, i am crying, ok then.


Today was probably the most stressful monday ive had here. I woke up early yet still diddnt shower. i feel dirty and scrubby, but ok. I diddnt have any clean clothes so i had to pull the dress clothes out of the back of the closet and i was uncomfortably walking around in heels all day when i would much rather wear my tennis shoes. So instead of lunch i got some quarters for laundry, my absentee ballot, and a smoothie. Before theory i fill out my ballot and then go to class. After class i go to mail it off on an overnight shipping label ($13.50 mind you), and they tell me that the overnight mail is picked up at 2pm. it was 230. So i was standing there practically crying because i couldnt vote (and it means a WHOLE lot to me). Luckily there was this guy in line behind me in the same perdicament and he said he was driving to the post office on bishop's corner soon and could drop my package off with his own. That act of kindness totally made my day worth continuing. I dont know if it was the skirt i was wearing or the tears welled up in my face or the convenience of it all to you, but whoever you are, THANK YOU.

In studio today Molly played. I love her, and i have a crush on her too. She started out great and then halfway through she started shaking and loosing focus. At the discussion she explained how her key kept on slipping like the metal was crunching. Then when the next person played she showed me that there was a huge crack in the metal on her C key. it had literally broken. I felt so bad for her. Van Rooy prelims are on Wednesday (crazy crazy) and its the worst timing possible to have your instrument fail on you.
I found out later tonight that Daren's (the oboist in my quintet) oboe cracked today, and he's doing Van Rooy too. Its so strange. I'm so thankful that my instruments are doing fine, and as evil as i know this is i cant help but think of the acts of fate that are in motion right now. i know its completely random, but why is it that two of the top competitors have instrument problems two days before the big competition?

My laundry is finally done and i can wear pants again. that makes me happy(er).

Current Mood: crappy
Current Music: Waiting for Van Rooy to be OVER