Turning the Tables

When you accidentally wake up at four-thirty in the morning, an hour too early, this could be a sign that your day might not be the best.

If you accidentally wake up at four-thirty in the morning, AND it's raining, your day probably won't be so great.

If you accidentally wake up at four-thirty in the morning, and it's raining, AND you are all happy because it's finally Friday, but then you realize it's only Thursday, your day has taken an almost certain downhill plunge.

And, if you accidentally wake up at four-thirty in the morning, and it's raining, and you are all happy because it's finally Friday, but then you realize it's only Thursday, AND you have tests or quizzes of some sort in three out of four classes that day....you just know that it's going to be a bad day.

I was ready for one of, you know, those days. Like the one pictured in this cartoon:

I did not, however, have a terrible day. My powers of telling the future of this day were wrong. The first very good thing was walking into second block English class I saw, not my usual, extremely annoying, gets-on-my-nerves-so-much-every-class teacher, but a very funny substitute. Score one for a good day.

All my quizzes and tests were not hard either....and I was assigned minimal homework. Two more bonuses. The day was really looking up, and so here I am now typing this post and the rest of my day doesn't seem that awful either.

I'm just going to do my minimal bit of homework, chill and head to spring jazz rehearsal. I'm excited for this because (assuming my brother brings it home) I get to play trombone :) 

I haven't gotten to play some decent 'bone in quite some time and I miss it, so this will be good.

The moral of this post? Don't make assumptions. They can be very wrong.

Intensity

Yesterday marked day five of intense marching band. My mom was helping paint the new band shed for the uniforms and equipment and was surprised by how intense it really is at practice! So today, I thought I'd share some quotes from last night (just last night!) to give you a sense of what actually happens at these five hour practices.

"STOP! Reset! That was the laziest horns up I have EVER seen! Well, maybe not that bad, but pretty darn close."

"The whole ballad? *cracks up* Wait. You're serious?"

"And I'm supposed to backward jazz run HOW?"

"I love that some of you are here at like noon for a sectional but you have to actually be awake for regular practice."

"LEFT! (right) LEFT! (right) READY! HALT! (place, together)"

"How in the world am I supposed to get from one end of the field to the other in sixteen counts? Oops. Wrong set."

"Get your chicken out of my rice paddy!"

"We're doing the whole opener? This is gonna be hilarious!"

Matt (drill staff): *sniffs air deeply* "Hmmm. Smells life fall."

Lisa (drill staff): *attacks Matt*

"So from set seven to eight I always get hit in the head by this one trombone player and it hurts!"

"Who was it?"

"I dunno. Some little kid with a trombone."

"Toes to the sky! March aggressively! TO THE SKY! THAT'S NOT AGGRESSIVE ENOUGH!!!!

Just a normal day in the life....

*pant pant*

Did I mention yesterday that the heat was supposed to break today? No? Well, it doesn't matter because guess what. THE HEAT DIDN'T BREAK. As my most recent Facebook status states... "Being in school while it's 90º out FOR TWO DAYS STRAIGHT is not my kind of fun. And it doesn't help that the second floor of the school is practically the same temperature that it is outside. Yuck." Even fans weren't helping. The best part of the day was lunch, because the cafeteria is in the basement which was nice and cool :) But right before lunch was not so pleasant. Gym class. Running the mile. Just plain awful. :P

On a lighter note, my brother has his first ever band concert tonight on the trombone! It's the 5th and 6th graders and I think it should be fairly fun.

For the love of Friday's

BEST DAY OF THE WEEK. Just saying. In the grand scheme of things today was pretty fun. Before homeroom, me and Bella and Elránia were walking around and the 7th graders who are going to Peak's with us were practicing so we stood outside and were just being ridiculous by marching/dancing to their music. Was fun :) After I got home (i.e. just now) I took some data...on how much everything I carry into school on Monday/out of school on Friday weighs. Here are the results:

Laptop- 7lbs

Backpack- 8lbs

Pro Trumpet- 13lbs

Marching Trumpet- 12lbs

Cornet- 9lbs

Trombone- 7lbs

Clarinet- 4lbs

Total- 60lbs

Crazy, right?

A Rap Song For A Post

Doing this a little differently today...a rap song about my day for my post! This should be interesting...

So the day started out

With a little of jazz,

But Mrs Barry said the mallet part

Lacked pizazz.

So I switched to trombone,

And she liked that better,

But then I was late to French class;

Don't do that ever! 

Then we had science testing,

All throughout the morning.

And won't lie,

It was very, very, boring!

With period four,

Comes my best class: band.

Where we play lots of music,

A trumpet in my hand.

Lunch was fun,

Eating salsa and chips,

But then it's back to science testing,

Question about an eclipse.

Finally we had free reading,

And I finished my book,

And then I ran off to chorus,

Where we do not learn to cook.

So that was my day at school.

It CANNOT be!

The picture above pretty much captures the feeling at the end of vacation. Hence, the title of this post. Because 'NOOOOOO IT CANNOT BE!!!' Is pretty much how I'm feeling about going back to school. (even though we *do* have tomorrow off as well) Sigh...I was just getting used to sleeping in and not getting up at 5:30 every morning-- lol. However, I'm on the home stretch now! In fact, 3 people in my family are. My mom, bwk, will be graduating from massage therapy school at the end of May, my brother, XanFan, is graduating 5th grade (moving out of elementary school, into junior high/middle school) on June 15 and I of course will be graduating 8th grade on June 14 and moving on to high school next year. Which ultimately means a lot of things (probably for all of us) 1. We don't have much new material to cover 2. We have lots of review 3. WE'LL PROBABLY BE HAVING GIANT TESTS AT THE BEGINNING ON JUNE. I don't mind the first two, but I could do without the third :) Anyhoo, that's where I'll be in these next two months or so: Studying, doing fun 8th grade stuff (like 8th grade dance, class trip to the lake, outdoor classes, section leaders for Memorial Day Parade, etc) and of course, feverishly preparing for the final concert- on June 9. It's going to be a great concert; I can just feel it. I'll be playing trumpet, cornet, trombone, mallets, singing in the chorus, and conducting a piece, so I've got LOTS to prepare for! Of course, I love it all so it's more pleasure and less work really :)

March Concert

I totally forgot to mention this, but our March concert is this Wednesday and I got to design the program cover! It's above, but as you can see I've done a couple of editing things to it. I blacked out the name of my school and my name at the bottom but everything in red is just to help me explain. Let me tell you how I did this wonderful picture.

When my band director first asked me, my first question was: What's the theme? She answered "I don't know, most of the pieces are pretty imaginative" So I went from there. When I first thought of 'imagine' I thought sky. So that's what I did. Each of the larger clouds focuses on one of the pieces that the particular band is doing. I labeled them above. 

Snow, Fundraiser, Honors Band, Etc.

Yeah yeah. My life is really busy so this is a kinda random post, but oh well. It should give you some good insights on my life.

Snow: It just won't stop! Well, i guess it does, for a few hours. But then it comes back drifting softly down. Ahhhhh..............

Fundraiser: Operation Help Haiti is underway! Anna13 and I have posters up all around the school and I put in a couple of announcements as well. We are doing a bake sale at the intermission of the drama production on Friday. I'm excited because I like fundraisers to be FUNdraisers.

Honors Band: Was hilarious. As usual. =]

Trombone Case: I finally got my new one!!!! It's all black, and wicked lightweight, and the best part is that is not plaid and broken like my old one.

Semester: Ends Friday!!! Thankfully, with all the work I did over the weekend, I am ALL caught up from when I was sick. I know I have at least honors, if not high honors.

A New Sidebar Gadget: Yep, this is the 'Praying For...' text gadget. I tried to make it be scrolling pictures, but it wasn't working :'(  Anyway, you can see that I have put some up already, because I've been reading about some concerns in some bloggers lives, and if you want to submit a prayer request you can on this post, or on my next post which will be the official one for that :)

It's Concert Day!!!!!!

Well, the big day has finally arrived! I remember looking back on last year's holiday concert and thinking 'next year is going to be really sad.' Because tonight is my FINAL, yes FINAL, holiday concert with my current band director. :'( So sad. High school concerts for the next 4 years but they won't compare. Anyhoo....We are doing very well despite our director being out for a week so that's really good of course. Plus I've figured out what is a highly complex plan to keep my trumpet and trombone completely safe when I don't need them. Like for chorus. Hmmmmm. maybe I should wrap this up and have some breakfast. It's almost time for school, LOL.