Snarf
I was going to rant today about how lately I feel like I don't belong in any particular category right now in life. But sadly, that is not going to be the case right now, and goodness knows how long it will take before I have time to do that.
I downloaded Firefox yesterday, and I'm extremely pleased. I hate Netscape very much. I know Firefox is the same people, but it sucks much less than Netscape. And don't get me started on my distaste for internet explorer. So Firefox for now, hooray!
I have had a very blah day from the get-go. Choraliers had minimal attendance again today, which really eats at me. It really gives me little motivation to drag my lazy butt down to Rodman in the mornings, but I do it, so why can't other people? Granted, I cannot frown upon lateness, because I am chronically late every time, but agh.
Then we decided to bypass quintet in the key of Doom (it was not really in the key of anything, but doom seems to fit best). Which was okay, we kind of sat around and yapped for a while. Steph told me about the words she exchanged with the orchestra director (including yelling and swear words!), of which I am proud of her! So we are now going to have to compile a list of stuff we have against said director and take it to the department head. It won't do anything for this year, but it will hopefully do something for next year.
The concert itself was terrible. It ranks a close second to the spring concert in 2003 for band, because that was actually worse.
I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate this semester.
Meanwhile, this week is going to be hell. I've got a 6-8 page paper for my history class due on Monday, but I haven't started it yet, not even because I have procrastinated, but because I don't have the topic yet...not till Tuesday. I've also got to have 5-8 pages of my sem started as well - also due Monday. Ideally, I will work on the sem stuff all week, and then do the Blake paper on Sunday. But we'll see....
It's snowing. I hate snow. It's so time to be spring.
Well, now off to do nothing. Then maybe some dinner. I love being invisible.
- posted by L. @ 5:12 PM

 
I love this guy!
Funniest. Video. Ever.

http://www.funpic.hu/swf/numanuma.html

Who is that guy????
Actually, he's from New Jersey or something. I ran a yahoo search on the video and came up with the special edition website, but I think the quality on this one is way better.
But, if you want the special edition:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/206373

:)
- posted by L. @ 3:59 PM

 
Ugh....
Please excuse my previous posting. Just a little bit of frustration. Not really frustration, but confusion. Shit, I don't even know what I'm saying. The aforementioned person who may possibly live on Astor street is my birthfather. But I'm not sure. Nevertheless, shocking.
God damn, I love the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack, and I love the person who put it on myTunes even more. :)
I have a headache again today - lots of pain. I am contemplating leaving my room to stock up on beverages and the like and then coming back here and hiding under the covers for the rest of the night to watch MASH, Season Two. I've made my way through disc one (sloooooooooooooooooowly), and I've got the whole rest of the weekend to make my way through disc two and three, and then on to either watching cheesy shows on late night, or season two of Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends. Bleh to this headache.
I have eliminated another possible theory to the constant headaches though - it's not my contacts. I thought maybe it was my contacts & astigmatism...but I've been wearing my glasses all day for the past two days. So much for that theory. Bleh!!! So...um, I think it might be side effects of ortho-tri-cyclen lo. Goooooooooooooo figure - one of the lowest side effect pills on the market. Bleh!
Oh, remember back about a month or so when I asked if you people thought I had too many flip-flops? And that Gina said that I didn't, because she has 10-11 pairs? And then Matt said that girls & shoes ought to be explained? Incidentally, I have another six or so pairs of flip-flops at home, bringing my count up to 11. Gina, do I have more or less than you?? Yeah for flip-flops??
Anyway, now I think I will stay under the covers for the rest of the night. :)
- posted by L. @ 6:52 PM

 
3.3 miles and 13 minutes away from North Farwell Avenue...
Astor Street, Milwaukee, WI.
Are you fucking joking???
Are you telling me that for however fucking long, it was fucking Astor Street??? Fifteen fucking minutes away from my house, on the east side of Milwaukee, on fucking ASTOR STREET???? Beverly to Oakland to Locust to Humboldt to fucking Astor?? And that's it.
Married, huh? Wonder if they have any kids. Wonder how long they've been married. I'm guessing fewer than 21 years. Actually, I KNOW it's been fewer than 21 years.
I'm soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo fucking confused. Talk about being thrown for a loop.
Fucking Astor street.
I hate being adopted.
- posted by L. @ 2:38 AM

 
Ideal destinations for post-graduation....
So, findyourspot.com is a cute website that gives people an idea of their 24 most ideal places to live. I shall now list (and agree/disagree) my 24 ideal spots...here goes!
1. Sheboygan, WI (no thanks. next!)
2. Hartford, Connecticut (if I go to the east coast, I'll think about it).
3. Champaign-Urbana, IL (but they have a good music school, umm...maybe grad school)
4. Little Rock, AR (let's think - no).
5. Milwaukee, WI (I KNEW I was a Milwaukee girl! Score!) - described as The American City...which I'm not quite sure about, but then again, there are FESTIVALS there ALL SUMMER! :)
6. Providence, RI (again...east coast, maybe).
7. Madison, WI (um, grad school? maybe?)
8. La Crosse, WI (I've never even been there, but I'll probably go with a big negative)
9. Chicago, IL (The Windy City! Who knew???)
10. Portland, Oregon (hey! Gina! oh wait, you're in Eugene, and you'll be going to Chicago. Conundrum! Next!)
11. New Haven, Connecticut (um...not sure)
12. Honolulu, Hawaii (sign me up - it's warm there!)
13. Kenosha, WI (a suburb of Chicago!)
14. Eau Claire, WI (nope)
15. Corvallis, Oregon (where?)
16. Sacramento, CA (is it warm there?)
17. Frederick, Maryland (um. has the nation's oldest agricultural fairs...i think i shall pass)
18. Eugene, Oregon (Gina, you can't leave)
19. Oshkosh-Appleton-Neenah/Menasha, WI (no, i'm LEAVING this area, thank you)
20. Charleston, WV (hey! maybe...yo, elizabeth?)
21. Fayetteville, AR (um, well aside from the oboe grad school assistantship, NO)
22. Baltimore, MD (um?)
23. Baton Rouge, LA (probably not. i dislike the south)
24. New Orleans, LA (well, except new orleans! boom. i'm there)

So...we shall see. I guess Ohio isn't on my list anywhere. Oh well. I don't think I would want to move there anyway, except maybe to wherever Ohio State is for grad school.
And seriously, is Ripon the ONLY Wisconsin city besides Green Bay not on my list??? Not that I like Green Bay either, it's like, a big spread out farm. Best described by me as a big small town, urban areas interspersed with FARMS. Gah. Help. :)
- posted by L. @ 5:38 PM

 
Crisis!
I'm out of Coke. This is a huge crisis...as there is nowhere to get Coke on this campus! RARGH! Stupid Pepsi!
I'm also almost out of Capri Sun, and soda crackers, and I'm completely out of spaghettios and any form of sugar. I think I might have to go grocery shopping soon - but I also have to go pick up my check and then deposit it. The $13.84 in my checking account is not going to cut it.
I also left my history textbook in Rodman, so I was unable to do homework tonight. Darn.
- posted by L. @ 12:28 AM

 
Not bad, eh?
So, the aforementioned red shoes are not made for running...as I discovered when I woke up this morning. Running down to Rodman in my red shoes was not a good idea yesterday am. Oh well. Live and learn...;)
Flaming pile of cowshit paper grade: B-
Score! Not as great as I would have liked, but I didn't even TRY at that paper. With all the time I spent pretending to write said paper. Besides, the day before flaming pile of cowshit paper was due was not one of my better days. Bleh!
I found an arrangement of Billy Joel's Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) at sheetmusicplus.com for TTBB (but a cappella). So hopefully the choraliers boys can do that for the variety show. Otherwise I might have to re-arrange the SSA version for TBB or TTB or something because that is actually accompanied.
I could listen to Lullabye over and over and never get sick of it - unless the choraliers boys manage to mess it up. So here's hoping they don't. :) Otherwise I will cry.
Thanks to the wonders of MyTunes redux and the lovely Emily, I now have soooooooooooo much fun music in my iTunes. Unfortunately, they are all stuck in iTunes. I can think of a million other things that I need instead of an iPod, but I so want one (i need new printer ink, i need to renew my antivirus, i need a new pair of jeans, a new hooded sweatshirt, probably could stand to buy a few new, uh, undergarments?, probably some new cane to make new reeds, ughhh, the list goes on and on...). Then again, an iPod might actually inspire me to go running again, because damn the cd player that skips even when the anti-skip is on (and that's when i'm walking to rodman - so that says either a-that my cd player sucks, b-that i walk too fast, or c-that it really doesn't have anti-skip and i'm just hallucinating). Uff...oh well.
I'm now on day 2 without a headache...let's hope this is a trend!
- posted by L. @ 5:13 PM

 
A happy day....
...is a day where my entire outfit is coordinated around the best shoes ever - my red shoes!
Life does not get much better than red shoes. So what if the red in my sweater didn't exactly match the red in my shoes?? Life ought to revolve around red shoes. I am, of course, exaggerating, but still. Red shoes are fun...because a-they stand out, b-it takes talent to pull off red shoes, and c-they are red. :)
As for the rest of my day, it was fairly inconsequential. No more random phone calls from Royal Shoe Shine.
Clarinet test tomorrow - may not actually fail. May actually get a C. Then I get to look forward to three weeks of flute, and three weeks of oboe, and then bassoon (which should not be so bad as clarinet based on the fact that bassoon only has one set of fingerings, which is the whole reason that clarinet sucks monkeys in the first place - TWO sets of fingers. 123456 is not just D anymore! It is D in the clarion range, and G in the chalemeau range. Whoever invented ranges with different sets of fingerings should be shot. And a register key that is an octave and fifth? What is that??? Anyway...)
Okay, so there is a boy in my history class that looks freakishly like my ex. It's starting to get annoying (not by his fault of course - it's not his fault he looks like my ex!). And of course I keep getting put into a group with him! I can barely even look at him because I'm so going to just burst out laughing at some point. And it's not even like my ex is really all that common looking. He doesn't have a familiar face! So it's gotta be some sort of fluke of nature that there are two boys who look that freakishly similar. He even TALKS like my ex. And he has that aura too...*shudder*. I'm going to burst out laughing at some point during this class....gahhhhhhhhhh.
I have less than TWO WEEKS to write a 5-8 PAGE START on my SENIOR SEM PAPER! What is this??? Who makes a person actually START working on sem?? And I am supposed to have the beginning of my program notes written by THURSDAY! Why do they make me do things AHEAD of time?????
Actually...
MY RECITAL IS TWO MONTHS FROM TODAY!!!! OH MONKEYS!!!
I should probably start this whole practicing stuff, and maybe soon. In the meantime, I have less than two months to write a senior sem. I should probably start thinking about it....damn the double major!
It actually occured to me recently that I picked the wrong school to major in history...
Why's that?
The history department here has four professors...
I hate American history - and Blake & McGowan are primarily American history professors.
I hate political history - Matzke is a political history professor.
And I REALLY hate medieval and renaissance history - so much for Mockridge classes.
That leaves - well Bessant - but he's on sabbatical this year, and I only got a chance to take one class with him - probably my favorite history class at Ripon. Go figure.
So I would probably have been a much better history major should I have had the chance to study more African history, European history (not political and economic!), Asian history, and/or Latin American history. I think that's about everything except Australian history...definitely the wrong school to be a history major. :)
- posted by L. @ 12:03 AM

 
WTF????
Okay, I know I just posted, but going to my weird phone calls again...today I got a really random missed call. I am forever getting weird numbers coming up since the phone change, but also I never know who has my cell phone number and who doesn't. So I did an anywho reverse lookup on the number - and it came up...
*drum roll*
ROYAL SHOE SHINE???
WTF?????
So someone at ROYAL SHOE SHINE (on Mayfair road)is calling me?? Unnnnnnnnnnnreal. I have never even HEARD of the Royal Shoe Shine - much less been there, and much less know anyone who would have used the Royal Shoe Shine phone...maybe they're a friend of Chaqeta.
So in the words of the 'end of the world,' WTF, mate???
- posted by L. @ 2:08 AM

 
Playing hooky...
Yep, that's what I did alllllllllllllllllllllll day. I totally played hooky. And I have absolutely no feelings of remorse or guilt or anything. Bah! Everyone needs a day off, and while yes, I totally realize that I had Friday off in addition to the weekend, I still needed a day off. It's just been one of those kinds of days. It's probably not a good sign for the rest of the week...including one clarinet playing test on Wednesday! (of which I will certainly fail).
Moving right along...the boy and I finally got around to the whole Valentine's Day thing (including the whole buying aspect ... whoops). I got him Family Guy season 3 (which was actually my OWN idea - not his, though he had sort-of hinted at it, but by the time he had hinted, i had already decided). Being a Family Guy virgin, I watched a few episodes with him last night. Hilarious stuff, yo! :) Huh, I guess that's what all the fuss is about!!! As for me, he got me M*A*S*H, season two! Totally excited about that! I now have something to tide me over now that I've finished season one of Alf....which was HILARIOUS, not stupid, incidentally. :) And he also got me Garfield: Travel Adventures, which was not as cool as the other two volumes, but hey, it's Garfield. And then Volume Three of Garfield & Friends comes out on April 19 (happy post-recital Lauren.....). I should probably prioritize that whole sem bullshit and practicing bullshit, but eh, whatever.
After dinner last night at Victoria's, we made a quick pit stop at Target, where I joyously discovered my gift certificate from my grandparents - wheeeeeee! How I managed to refrain from using it for almost two whole months, I'm not sure...but I bought Forrest Gump (yea! a total classic...gotta love that movie, except when you have to write papers on it - bleh!) and The Pianist. I have never seen the latter, but I started watching it today. I'm already depressed and I'm only an hour into the movie. Then again, it is cultural, and about a musician at that! I think I will refrain from watching the rest until this weekend or so, when I will probably have to start the movie over again. Blah...
I may or may not be completely free for the whole weekend, which would be pretty sweet. I will have time to practice, do sem research, do some cleaning/organizing - or sit around and watch movies all day. For two days straight.
Incidentally...I got a crazy prank call on Friday AM...I almost wish I had been here to take the call instead of them leaving a message, because pretty sure they would have gotten totally laid into, and it would have been oh-so-much fun....
Speaking of weird phone calls/wrong numbers...
Right after I switched my phone number to a 414 area code number, I was getting a number of wrong numbers. I dunno who had this number before me, but they kinda didn't let like, any of their friends know that their number changed. From the phone calls I got, I'm guessing it was probably deliberate! Anyway, so one morning, around 8:15, my cell rang, and I thought it was my boyfriend calling before work. Not being able to see clearly (no glasses/contacts, and it WAS early), I answered without looking at the caller ID. The following conversation ensued (names that are not mine have been guessed at...)
Me: Hello?
Shenequa: Hullo, is Chaqeta there?
Me: Um, no, you've got the wrong number.
Shenequa: What?
Me: Wrong. Number.
Shenequa: Oh. Well tell Chaqeta that La'Rhonda had her baby, and blah blah blah...
Me: Um. Yeah. I'll make sure to tell her.
Shenequa: Alright. Bye now.
Me: Bye.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. I wonder if Chaqeta ever found out the La'Rhonda had her baby....damn, people can be pretty stupid sometimes. :)
Oh, and don't get me started on the Ripon network and internet access. Last year, I had a very faulty port in rm 211 (port B) that would just randomly shut down about every other time I restarted my computer. Finally, after two weeks of no internet, I had Buddy come over to my room, and after playing around on my computer for a while, he came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with my computer, or my network cable, but that my port was faulty. The solution?? Disable and enable the port until it finally connected - which could take upwards of around 5-6 times. Gah. So I come back today to find the same thing - except it was the network this time, but I was very confused. Stupid network...and I was doubly confused because I deliberately picked Port A in this room because port B had been so faulty last year. When will the network troubles in Ripon ever stop??? I think they have been worse this year than in the last three years combined....
I've had a headache for the past three days now...it's getting to be pretty annoying. I've had to resort to taking two 500mg tylenol, and I hate tylenol. I don't know why, I just do. It never works effectively, so instead of having no headache, I've just had less of a headache. I've been getting these pretty badly for the past month or so, and I have no idea why. I've got a couple of theories, but I'm really not sure:
a-my new pill prescription (but it doesn't really make sense that this one would affect me so much, being that it has a much lower chance of side effects that the other two i had been on - but then again, knowing my luck....)
b- i'm getting addicted to caffeine again...(and not enough coke = headache)
c- that whole migraine shit has finally caught up to me (oh fuck, i've done such a successful job of avoiding them for the last 21 years)
d- stress! (the typical culprit)
e- no clue
But yeah, they're bad...Saturday I could barely get out of bed, so I just slept for most of the day. And even when I woke up, my head was still just frigging pounding - like someone was juggling bowling balls. Argh. I hope I don't have one of these on Wednesday - lemme tell ya, it'll be FUN FUN FUN to take a clarinet playing test! I can't even remember the fingerings when my head DOESN'T hurt....
Bah to headaches! Hello Aleve, Ibuprofen and Aspirin...you will be my new best friend!! :)
- posted by L. @ 12:25 AM

 
Boring!
Since I have had nothing even remotely interesting to say in the last few days (except that migraines are fun! wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! happy saturday, lauren!)...and that I should probably have edited my last post to say "Happy 19th birthday Katie and Happy 22nd birthday Kat" (confusing! two people named Katherine born on Feb 18)...
So I'm leaving the interesting stuff up to you (my lack of comments has made me sad)...leave me a fun story! Or a story! Fun or not...I'm not sure, whatever! The lack of comments has made me sad. I'm not posting again until you guys come through (or something interesting happens to me, but I live in rural Wisconsin, so don't hold your breath). :)
p.s. my comment record is 8 .... so let's try to beat it. ;)
- posted by L. @ 11:50 PM

 
It's one of those birthday tribute days...
I'm actually going to to stray from the usual birthday song, provided I can remember the words to the birthday song I'm going to "sing" today.
Happy birthday
Happy birthday
Whoop-dee-doo
Whoop-dee-doo
Open up your presents
Open up your presents
Just for you
Just for you!
(this birthday song courtesy of Binky the clown)
Happy 19th birthday to Katie!!!
- posted by L. @ 9:53 PM

 
Oh joy, the Viking is back...
I'm not going to elaborate on the title. But, *retch*.
So, something tripped my memory of the most awesome old computer game ever today (as a matter of fact, this has been somewhat of a recurring memory since the introduction of ebay).....that being Gorf.
Mwa!
Gorf!
Possibly the coolest computer game I never beat.
Not by my own fault...
I will never forget the day I advanced to a very high level, and BAM! right in the middle, the fucking joystick broke. I'm guessing I was somewhere around the age of eight, and the introduction of the VIC20 on the market was in 1981 (woooooooo, before my time!)...so I'm guessing that the joystick was somewhere around 10 years old, but still. A very crushing blow to a 3rd grader. Anyway, I've been moping over the loss of the joystick, and consequently, the VIC20 and Gorf ever since (um, eleven years now? that's kinda sad).
Oh! And all of the hours spent in the basement with my neighbor Chris (until his stupid family decided to move to friggin' Minnesota) trying to beat Mole Hunter (um, something like that? you hit the little things on the head with a hammer...or my memory is failing).
And Omega Race! Yeah! The broken joystick did not really hinder Omega Race, it just made it more boring, and eventually I gave up...
Going back to Gorf, I did a yahoo search, and it brought up an actual video game. Like, one of those really old video games that was probably not manufactured after 1985...but was probably somewhere in the Arcade at CP (along with skeeball, the best game ever!)...damnit! So I never even though to look for Gorf in the Arcade that was right next to where I worked ALL SUMMER. Hello, morons anonymous?
Anyway...yea for that trip down memory lane. I've got my eye on a vic20, complete with Gorf on ebay for a ridiculously low price. It might even cure my movie and TV show addiction...
But then again, I could be starting an even worse addiction. I just can't win. :)
However, there is much rejoicing, because tomorrow is Thursday, and Thursday is "Music Geek Lunch Day!" Hooray! Last week Thursday, we all got out of the commons more or less just in time to get to our 2:10 classes. And Thursday seemed to go downhill from there - what with the paper-writing and the not-paper-writing, albeit it was a good time, and good fun. :) But still! Can't wait to see those people again!!!!! *giggles*
I'm still lamenting all the concerts I couldn't go to. You people should go in my place. Milwaukee, Madison, Chicago, Twin cities, come on...please?? :)
- posted by L. @ 12:16 AM

 
If I had a car...
I would be out of Ripon faster than you can say Kirin or bread.
Holy monkeys.
This is like, prime music time for me right now!!!
Wednesday night, Jump is in Chicago (Chicago? wtf. why not Milwaukee??? HELLO??? Jump?? GO TO MILWAUKEE AGAIN! I have been following your road shows and you haven't been to Milwaukee since 1999!!!! HELLO???? 1999????? That was a LONG ASS TIME AGO!! I know at least two people - myself included - who would be happy to see you in Milwaukee again since the last time you were there, I was like, 16, wait, no 15, hadn't even turned 16 yet! Anyway, GO BACK TO MILWAUKEE!!!!)...so I would go to Chicago tonight (eh, class-schmass)....and then tomorrow I would go to Madison to see Sam Shaber (yea!!), and then I would go to Milwaukee for the weekend just because I could (or maybe elsewhere, I dunno where I'd go though)...and then Keane! Keane is in Milwaukee on friggin' Sunday. SUNDAY! Why must it be SUNDAY?? Why can't it be SATURDAY??? If it was Saturday, I would SO be there....but as it stands, I have no car. So that means no concerts, or road trips. Not that I have anywhere to road trip to, really, though...:(
p.s. if you are in any of the Sam Shaber locations, you should totally go, and you should record the concert (because you can! she said so!), and get me a copy. I would be forever indebted to you! Just in case you forgot -
tonight (wednesday) - UW-Platteville
tomorrow - Madison
friday - St. Paul.
p.p.s. yes, i realize i would probably owe you something, but i have no idea what? how about chocolate? and of course it would depend on who i am forever indebted to...c'mon people, be creative! (within REASON, thank you)
- posted by L. @ 3:11 PM

 
Dirty songs! Yea!!
Okay, so I'm sure everyone is going to possibly think I am even more insane that you already do (quiet in the peanut gallery)...but as I mentioned yesterday, I found a delightful book of songs in the resource center called Roll Me Over yesterday. Immediately, my curiosity was piqued.
I cannot possibly summarize the book better than the author's forward, from which I will paraphrase:
"This is primarily a collection of dirty songs...The songs are not great literature, and if they can be defended, it must be on other grounds. Most of the songs here are funny. It is hard to find a ribald song that is not humorous. Some of these songs are straight wish-fulfillment. Some are incredibly nasty and disgust even the relatively shock-proof editors. But there is also a goodly number of sprightly, good-humored, tuneful, and (we believe) funny songs, some of them fit for the most maidenly ear. This is a singer's collection."
And so folks, I leave you with at least a few verses from some of the more entertaining songs. :)
I tried to find a humorous and not to long song from the Elizabethan age, but I was unsuccessful. Possibly one of my favorite songs in the book is the ORIGINAL version of one of the Robert Burns poems that I am familiar with - Green Grow the Rashes. As far as I was concerned, the poem went like this:
Green grow the rashes, oh/green grow the rashes, oh/The sweetest hour that ever I spent/Was spent among the lasses oh/Lasses oh!
However, according to the lovely book in front of me...that is not quite how the original poem went:
Green grow the rashes, oh/green grow the rashes, oh/The sweetest bed I ever had was/was the bellies of the lasses, oh/Lasses, oh!
Green grow the rashes, oh/green grow the rashes oh/The maidens they have luscious lips/The widows they have gashes oh/Gashes oh!
There's a pious lass in town/Godly Lizzie Lundy oh/She mounts the peak throughout the week/But fingers it on Sunday oh/Sunday oh!
Lizzie is of large dimension/There is not a doubt of it/The soccer team went in last night/And non has yet come out of it...
Um...yeah, it continues, but I'm going to spare typing it out, because there is oh-so-much-more to write about.
Moving right along...
This next one is described as a "gentle explanation of sex manag[ing] to avoid any reference to the birds and the bees." Nevertheless funny.
When the good Lord made Father Adam, they say he laughed and sang/Sewed him up the belly with a little piece of wang/But when he'd got it finished, I guess he measured wrong/For the piec ehe'd sewed him up with was very much too long.
"It's but eight inches long," said he, "I guess I'll let it hang,"/And he left on Adam's belly that little piece of wang/But when he made Mother Eve, I bet it made him start/For the piece he sewed her up with was very much too short.
"It leaves an awful crack," said he, "but I don't give a dang/She can fight it out with Adam for that little piece of wang"/And ever since that ancient day when human life began.There's been a constant wage of strife between a woman and a man/For the woman swears to have that piece that on his belly hang/To fill that awful crack that's left when the Lord ran out of wang.
So let us not be selfish, boys, wit that the women lack/But keep them busy on the wang to fill that crack.For the good Lord never intended that it should idle hang/When he placed on Adam's belly that little piece of wang.
(So that's where everybody wang chung tonight comes from?)
Next!
The delightful tune "Clementine" provides us with another delightful song...
Sing a love song, sing a paean/Sing of pleasures, yours and mine/But in all your happy verses/Don't forget old sixty-nine.
It's immoral, it's indecent/It's repulsive - but sublime!/Though they tell me it's perversion/Still I like to sixty-nine.
Hint it subtly, don't appall her/She might feel it's less than fine/Making love, but quite inversely/She might not take to sixty-nine.
Sneak up on her, do not startle/Let your kisses flow like wine/But descend, ah, gently, gently/As you sink to sixty-nine.
(There are four more verses here, but I'm done.)
Ummm...so the next one talks about the sex lives of camels!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
This song is call Mush, Mush, Mush Touraliady...but I'm just going to include verses 2 and 3, because they are somewhat intriguing...
The sexual life of the camel/Is greater than anyone thinks/In moments of amorous passion/He often makes love to the Sphinx.
Now the Sphinx's posterior organs/Are blocked by the sands of the Nile/Which accounts for the hump on the camel/And the Sphinx's inscrutable smile.
(Right, that explains EVERYTHING).
And now! This explains the Nazi party...
Hitler has only got one ball.
Goering's are awfully small.
Himmler's are similar
And Goebbels has no balls at all.

Umm...yeah. I'm done for the day. Some day, I'll tell you all about Christopher Columbus. But not today.
- posted by L. @ 7:09 PM

 
Uff, Monday! And Valentine's Day, at that!
Today was pre-destined to be a bad day. Why's that, you may ask? Well, because it's Monday...which is just automatically a bad day. And it's Valentine's Day. I was late for just about everything, realized I hadn't done my sem homework, my sem research, written up my resume for Prof. Katz, or just about anything else I had to have done by today. Yikes. And while we're on the topic of things I haven't done - I also haven't done my reading for tomorrow for either of my classes. And I have no intentions of doing them, either. At least not tonight. Tonight I plan on sleeping.
So, today (of all days), Chris from CP called, and offered me a team lead job. I am SO tempted to take it. I haven't said yes yet, but I have re-arranged my dates of availability. The only downside is that my team lead job was offered at Surf Shop, and shit goddamn, I'd look even dumber than the Snoopy boy scout look *barf*. But it would give me time to chill at home or wherever else before heading off for three months or so. I'm still contemplating the Harand Camp stuff, as well as the Green Lake Festival internship (even though that would mean living in Ripon...*barf*). I need to figure out how to get into mercury on the new emacs in Rodman so I can work on my resume. The sucky part is that both of my awesome references have moved to the South. Granted I have an email address for Alexander, and I'm guessing Dietrich would have contact info for Bessant. So I'm not terribly worried, but boo. Of course, I should probably get Alexander's info ANYWAY, in case I need a reference, 'cause I think I fucked up any chance of getting a good reference from Graham. Not that I care...
I also am contemplating getting back into the music store business again (after what, five, six years?). One of my distant cousins works in a music store and teaches private violin lessons at the same music store, which sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. I like teaching privately, I think that'd be fun. And if I could ever polish up my organ skills (note to self: practice tomorrow)...
Oh! Sherri liked my arrangement of A Winter's Willow, and gave me a few tips on how to improve it. So I'm pretty excited about that. Maybe I could work at a music publishing house...hmmm.
I really want to do a radio show this semester again! Man, our freshman year radio show ROCKED. We were so fucking random. And I was the token flake/ditz. "There's three Beths here too" "Three Beths??" "No, there are three listeners, me, Erin, and Beth." "Oh, I thought you meant three Beths, and I couldn't figure out which three Beths would be listening..."
Of course my listeners would probably get sick of hearing the Garden State soundtrack on repeat...
I wanna go hear Sam Shaber!! I just got an email again today, reminding me that Sam is going to be in Wisconsin again, and I can't *sniffle* go, unless I find someone to go with....Thursday night? Madison? Anyone?? :)
I also wanna go see Keane!!! Sunday night?? Milwaukee?? Anyone?? Yay Eagles Ballroom??
God damn, I miss Milwaukee. Yes, it IS Algonquin for "do you smell that?" but still....I miss the city life that is Milwaukee. I have only gotten a fix of Appleton, and Ripon's oh-so-exciting nightlife. Which is not so exciting. Except it was on bid night, because of the company. And Thursday night, of course. But again, because of the company...
I hate listening to Liszt. It depresses me, because I will never, ever be that good at piano. Though Liszt piano music could be bad for the piano player's health...at least according to Professor Dietrich.
Wow, I have been really random today.
I think I'm going to go to grad school for psychology. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe music therapy. Ooh, combine both of my interests. I was thinking music history, but that would be boring. I have no idea if music therapy would be even remotely interesting either...
So, after all of my randomness, I leave you with today's excitement: finding a book of dirty songs in the resource center! Oh! The fun! I may possibly post some of the cleaner songs (or maybe the not-so-clean-but-still-amusing-as-all-hell songs) in the future - including one about sixty-nine to the tune of "Clementine" There's even an exceptionally dirty category called "Songs That Ought Not Be Sung"!!!! God, our lives here are pathetic. And there's a song about all of the Nazi officers (Hitler, Gohring, etc) and their balls. God help us all.
Definitely amusing to myself & Kali, which signifies that we both need help.
- posted by L. @ 11:58 PM

 
New title - again
I think I'm going to change my title like, weekly or something. This one fits me even better than last times!!!! (so, where's it from???)
And I don't think I'm actually going to change anything from oboesontour, mostly because I'm too lazy and will probably forget what I changed it to. Whoops.
Oh, do I hate Valentine's Day!!!
But in honor, I'm going to leave you with the humor that Elizabeth sent me on aim this morning - thanks buddy! :)

Hearts and roses and kisses galore... What the hell is all that shit for?...People get mushy and start acting queer...It is definatley the most annoying day of the year...This day needs to get the hell over with and pass...Before i shove a dozen roses up Cupid's ass...I'll spend the day so drunk I can't speak...And wear all black for the rest of the week...Guys act all sweet, but it soon will fade...For all they are doing is trying to get laid...The arrow Cupid shot at me must not have hit...Because I think love is a crock of shit...So heres my story...what else can I say?...Love bites my ass...Fuck Valentines Day!!!!
- posted by L. @ 12:55 PM

 
Wanted: Oboists!
Wheeeeeeeeeeee! Lots of principal oboe positions happen to be opening around the United States and their major orchestras! Too bad Colburn isn't one of those that happens to be going away....not that I don't like Colburn, but I don't like Colburn, and he looks like a bullfrog. Especially when he plays oboe! There's a reason that I have a sand frog named COLBY on my printer.
Looks like I picked the wrong time to not study at a conservatory :)
Oh well. Yay for a new generation of oboists (wow, I'm a dweeb!)!!!
p.s. thanks to Calah for sending me the story in the NY Times! :)
- posted by L. @ 4:06 PM

 
Why I am a SUCKY history major :)
So...I finally finished my paper - about 25 minutes ago! Score! It was due at noon, and I was done by 11:35...which gave me enough time to spell-check, save, send to my email, change out of my PJs, go print it off in Todd Wehr, and then turn it in - WITH FIVE MINUTES TO SPARE!! YEA!!!!
Anyway...
So I totally tried to have the damn thing done by early-ish Thursday night...no such luck! By 9:00, I had gotten VERY frustrated with my paper (and numerous other things), and I got invited to go out to the bars (because there's nothing like writing papers on Puritans when you're drunk...but I didn't get drunk, or even have a drink, but I guess it's the thought that I was ditching out on my homework to go to the bars!). I gave Christine instructions to call me at midnight if my ass wasn't home, but I didn't hear my cell at the bar anyway. Whoooooooooooops. So I didn't get home till 1:30 or so. And didn't start working until 3:00. Whooooooooooops again. And then I decided to take an hour long power nap at 4, and then again at 5, and then again at 6....and finally at 7, I cracked down and started working. Sort-of. Yes, I was aware that time was running out. At about 8:45 I took ANOTHER break, for an HOUR, and then realized at 10:00 that, SHIT! I had about 3-4 pages left to write, and an hour to write them.
So, I speed-wrote.
I took a bubbler break for like, 2 minutes at one point, and came back, re-read the paragraph, and asked myself where in blue hell my actual point was. So then I just wrote some more gibberish...
Needless to say my paper ended up being six pages long.
Six pages of complete, and utter COWSHIT!
Score one for me.
We'll see how the grade goes.
If I get a B, I will be thrilled. If I get higher than a B, it will just go to prove that in this particular professor's class, flaming piles of cowshit is worth more than actual hard work. :)
- posted by L. @ 12:03 PM

 
Dear Plant Department,
Today, I woke up around 6:25 for whatever reason. My alarm wasn't due to go off for another hour and a half. The first thing I noticed was that my hair was still extremely damp. Having showered about five hours earlier, I found this a bit odd. Yes, I do sleep with my window open and the fan on low, but I still found it strange that my hair was that damp still five hours later. Then I noticed that my feet were absolutely numb, and that my blankets felt like ice. So I jumped out of bed (yikes!) and decided that the temperature of my room must be somewhere below freezing. I closed the window and turned off the fan, deciding it must be colder than usual. But out of curiosity, I ran my hand along the heater.
Nothing.
Yay! My heater's broken!!!!
Yes, I am being extremely sarcastic.
I think my feet got frostbite.
So instead of sleeping in a tshirt and boxers, I had to put on a long sleeved shirt, pj pants, AND socks.
And I was STILL freezing.
It took me considerably longer to get out of bed this morning...but now that I'm up...
Plant better friggin' fix my heat today!!!!!!!!!!!!! Otherwise I'm going to sleep in my coat tonight. And too bad I don't have snowpants. :)

- posted by L. @ 9:12 AM

 
Sigh...
I have to be the world's greatest procrastinater!!!!! I think that deserves some sort of award!! It's now 1:45ish, and I have about a page written. And I've been working since 4:00ish! Yeah....well...we saw what I accomplished between 3:00 and 5:06...:)
On a different note...
Bremer in response to my declaring that I was giving up not drinking for Lent:
At the foot of the hill, there's a neat little still, where smoke goes up to the sky. From the smoke and the smell, you can plainly tell there's witchin' brewin' nearby. It fills the air with odor rare, that bewitch both me and you. When home you stroll you can take a bowl, or a bucket of the mountain dew.
Thank you for those words of wisdom, dear Bremer. :)
So! Because I have yet to write much, I am going to bed...and I leave you with some wise words of my own (well, not really. but they make sense. sort-of):
If I start writing now
When I'm not really rested
It could upset my thinking
Which is not good at all...

With that, I head to bed. For about six hours, and then it's up bright and early to try and get some homework done, so I don't have to cram tomorrow night! Mwa! We shall see.
p.s. if anyone happens to be awake at 8am CST, please call me and make sure my lazy ass isn't in bed. :) my extension is 435. hehehehe. or call the cell, it's almost louder anyway. and no, i can't set my cell phone alarm, 'cause it doesn't go off, unless i'm on the phone. go figure. stupid alarm clocks. ;)

- posted by L. @ 1:42 AM

 
Why I never have my homework done before the last second...
So I have a paper due on Friday at noon. I set out with the aspirations of starting it last night while I was at work, but alas, after sitting in front of a computer screen with my book and the paper topic for an hour (or so), I said 'fuck it' and went about doing other pointless things (looking for a record in the resource center, looking in the card catalogue for that record only to not find it, and then looking again anyway!), practicing organ & piano (but i needed the outlet), etc, etc.
Today I set out with other aspirations of accomplishing some of the paper after I got back from Rodman this afternoon. I got back at 3:00. It's now 5:06, and I have nothing written yet, save my name, the course number, the professor's name, and the date. Yay.
Instead of writing my paper, however, I did manage to accomplish the following things in the last 2 hours (and 6 minutes):
**checked email compulsively, about every 20 minutes or so. for what? absolutely nothing of note.
**checked away messages at least twice.
**decided that i absolutely HAD to burn the baroque brass cd to my hard drive at that precise moment...
**watched two episodes of alf, one of which i had already seen half of.
**played the helicopter game.
**played fat boy raids the cookie factory.
**checked email again.
**played the hit the penguin game on sebastian's profile.
**checked the friends entries on my livejournal.
**checked my yahoo mail.
**read a story about the robertson foundation at princeton.
**listened to grillen.
**called julie to tell her i may or may not be going to band tonight, and tried to leave her my locker combination, but i could hardly remember it.
**read over the assignment and whined about it.
**debated about whether i should go to band or church.
**still debating...
**talked to jen and christine in the hallway
**looked for some more music on itunes.
**checked email again.
**WROTE THIS DAMN BLOG! *bangs head on desk*
I think I should go start now, in case I actually do go to band. Blah. :)
Maybe I'll watch some more Alf....

- posted by L. @ 5:04 PM

 
It's only Tuesday...
Oh good god. This week has royally sucked. I know, I say that like, every week. :) All kidding aside though, I honestly can't remember the last time I was so upset, and that's saying a lot. I have been really out of it, and really upset lately, and I'm sorry if I've come across as bitchy or mean or anything (some people deserve it, granted!). I'm pretty good at hiding it though, as always. Unfortunately, when I'm really stressed out and upset at something, I tend to flip out about the stupidest little things, and I guess that's what's happening now. It's just tiny little things that totally set me off. I hate college drama. I hate it so much. I can't wait to get out of here - and there's less than 100 days! Finally!!!
Gotta set a dinner date with the Joe to go out for Chinese at some point - I think both of us are on the verge of a nervous breakdown. :) Ahh, the end of college stress!
Anyway, the good thing about being a music major (more specifically a keyboard player) is that you can take out any anger on the instrument. Tonight, for example, I was pretty pissed off, so I went and took my anger and frustration and general pissed-off-ness out on Schumann. Sorry, Schumann. Gotta love loud and frantic sounding pieces like Grillen.
I think I would have gone insane a lot sooner if I didn't have that outlet.
Okay, I promise I'll write something better soon! I promise! I'm in the process of writing my obscure quiz, so look forward to it!

- posted by L. @ 11:29 PM

 
Romeo and Juliet
Oh! Everyone should go watch Romeo & Juliet - the Tales from the Leet version anyway!! Bwahahahaha! Hilarious stuff.
(how to get there: go to www.google.com or www.yahoo.com and type in 'Romeo and Juliet l33t...and it should be the 2nd or 3rd that comes up...greeeeeeeeeeeeat stuff.)
I've decided that within the week, I'm going to write an obscure quiz about myself, and see how well you all do. I wrote one like that during sophomore year, and the scores were between 3-5 out of 10...so...maybe I'll try not to make it so hard. Or maybe I'll take it from prior stuff written to see how well you're all doing...:)
Either way, look forward to it!

- posted by L. @ 2:19 AM

 
And now, an ode to Valentine's Day...
Ode to Valentine's Day
Dear Valentine's Day...
How I hate you.

Ta-da!
There's my ode to Valentine's Day.
I hate Valentine's Day. I hate Valentine's Day because it is SUCH a bi-polar holiday (to quote Ally). And when you think about it, it really is. I mean, all the attached-types revel in the opportunity to get each other flowers and chocolates and go out for romantic dinners, blah blah blah. It's enough to make a person barf.
Which is exactly what the non-attached types are doing. Barfing. Or celebrating their single-ness. Ah! Freshman year, that was kick ass. Emily & I walked down to Piggly-Wiggly, bought chips, dip, cookies, soda, popcorn, and had a 'Singles Appreciation Day' party! It was so much fun!
But even not being single, I despise the holiday. I always have. From the end of December until friggin' February 14, every single friggin' store on the face of the planet is overrun by pink, red, white, and lots of hearts. And cupids. Barfffffffffffffffff. Even the gas stations are not immune to this! A Kwik trip run with Stephanie and Elizabeth after band the other day to get hot dogs, cappucinos, and other necessary 'late night' foods yielded a section dedicated to the candy hearts and chocolate.
Barffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff.
So next week Monday, I will be in class all day. And then I will most likely be back in my room, watching TV. Valentine's Day? Horseshit.
Gotta love bipolar holidays!
So, who's with me in hating Valentine's Day?????

- posted by L. @ 9:59 PM

 
And now for a minor case of DEATH!
So, if I just randomly stop writing things on here, it's 'cause I died. Not from anything cool either, but from trying to walk around this campus at night, because it's very hilly here, and it's melting during the day, and all the water is running all over the sidewalks, but then at night, it freezes. I almost died walking back from East Hall! Agh! Stupid ice!
Hopefully I'll write more later. :)

- posted by L. @ 8:34 PM

 
Potentially awesome band...
Okay...so I suffered myself to watch SNL last night...
*bangs head on wall*
...hosted by Paris Hilton
*bangs head some more*
BUT...
It also featured musical group Keane, which was the highlight of the entire hour and a half.
Wow.
Yeah.
A British-rock trio with a base instrument of...
...piano!
Score.
Score one for being British.
Score one for using piano instead of guitar.
Score one for having a kickass single (or many).
Score one for having a looking-to-be kickass album.
Can't wait!
It might rival the Garden State soundtrack in playing time in my CD player. Along with eighty numbered streets. Which I would have had an artist-guessing contest, but I'm going to go on in the next sentence or paragraph about said artist.
In my email the other day, I got an email titled "Sam Shabuary!" Yeah! Sam is touring the midwest again...but unfortunately, nowhere I can realistically access on short notice (Joe?).

Wednesday, February 16th, 2005 8:00 PM Platteville, WI
Taper's Tour!
UW Platteville
Pioneer Student Center,
1 University Plaza
Platteville, WI 53818

(buuuuuuuuuuut it's a wednesday night).

Thursday, February 17th, 2005 9:30 PM Madison, WI
Taper's Tour!
Cafe Montmartre
127 E. Mifflin St.Madison, WI 53707

(hey, i'm free on thursday nights. joe? skip choral union?? you know you want to....)

Friday, February 18th, 2005 8:00 PM Saint Paul, MN
Taper's Tour!
Ginkgo Coffeehouse
721 N. SnellingSaint Paul, MN 55104

(ahh...perfect. except it's in minnesota. which might be hard to get to. damnit!)

And the best part is, she's playing a whole bunch of new songs and stuff, and we'd be allowed to record the concert because we're not sure when the next CD will be released. Damnit! I wanna go!
If you're in any of the aforementioned places, you should seriously go listen to Sam Shaber. She's awesome.

So there's my good deed for the day. Go hear Sam Shaber. And listen to Keane. And of course, the Garden State soundtrack, for which Emily so correctly identified the title quote from (but Matt was a very close second). Yea for that soundtrack!! And yea for good music!
But boo for Sunday nights and doing homework. :)

- posted by L. @ 7:47 PM

 
New blog title!
My life is so incredibly boring that the highlight of my day (at least the mentionable highlight of my day) was changing the title of my blog. Five points to the person who was able to identify the title first. No cheating!
I had another headache last night, which totally sucked. Is it some sort of crime to miss the 100 days party? I think I drank enough on bid weekend to make up for it. Besides, Steph wants me to go out with her some time in the near future, and her latest idea was that we would pretend to be lesbians, or something. Whatever Steph! :)
Watched the "End of the World" flash last night with Travis, Tom & Krysta. That is one of those things that never loses its hilarity. That, and "This Land."

- posted by L. @ 4:18 PM

 
Music geek, thy name is Lauren...
Yes, I am a total music geek! I went down to Rodman tonight (not for orchestra, silly!) at 8pm, and stayed there until midnight!!! And I had intended to practice as well as spending some time with Sibelius....but I spent more or less then entire time (minus 10 minutes or so) transcribing stuff on Sibelius! Travis taught me how to notate slurs in the music (instead of ties), so I accomplished a little bit more on the Mozart Quartet. I haven't decided yet if it's going to be worth my time to spend time transcribing the Mozart, or to just buy the damn parts, but it's kind of fun.
So I worked on the Mozart for about half hour, but then I got bored and shifted my attention to A Winter's Willow. I spent the next 2.5 hours re-writing the oboe part, and then re-writing the piano part, and I must say I'm very proud of my results. I have a few more corrections to make with chord progressions and stuff, but overall, I'm pretty happy with my work. Of course, with 2.5 hours investing in the stupid piece, I better be...:)
(Yay! Garfield & Friends is on!)
I should try the interactive blog thing soon. I can't think of a poll right now though, aside from 'should Mr. B.M. Wilburmeister start his own blog?' but he has already said he thinks I'd be the only person who would read it.
Hmmm...so I'm working on ideas for the interactive blog....

- posted by L. @ 1:33 AM

 
I haven't decided if I like Thursdays or not yet...
Today was quite the day. I told everyone the story about the white cards vs blue cards, and then Liz even said that she came to a possible conclusion that all of the blue cards that were filed away were the ones for the recordings we can't find! And that they were set aside so that we could find them in case they re-surfaced. God help us if she filed all of those away! *bangs head on desk*
So I went to lunch with Travis, Krysta, and Ben today, after we unlocked the madrigal room so that I could show Ben the big wings and the monk habits (but the monk habits are missing! agh!). We're planning a break-in-the-madrigal-room day fairly soon, to don the wings and capes, and Krysta is going to continue on the Hyllberg tradition of the big blue dress, and the jester hats...score one for the madrigal room...of course they do keep it locked for a reason...
Anyway, we had prospective students in the music department today...hehehehe. Luckily I didn't run around with a cape, or bust out the bongo drums to give my rendition of 'Free Falling' (if you haven't seen it, well...). Professor Dietrich forbade me to talk to prospectives a looooooooooooong time ago, anyway.
So we lingered around at lunch today for well over an hour (it wasn't the food). We had sooooooooo many great stories (mean stories, but great, nevertheless). I don't think I stopped laughing for like, an hour straight. Ben is possibly one of the funniest people I know, and then put him with Travis and Jason...ohhhhhhhh man. I was just dying laughing, I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard. I think the commons got a LOT quieter once we left. That and it was 1:30 anyway...
Today I was having many troubles eating cookies. Jason brought back a whole pile of hot cookies, but when they're that hot, they're also hard to pick up without them breaking. I managed to drop about a 1/3 of mine into Ben's cup. Luckily it was empty...and then I somehow missed my mouth when I was trying to eat it later. Yes, I am just that much of a klutz!
I have a potential job offer for this summer. It's only a 7-week thing, but it'd be a great experience. Hopefully it doesn't start at like, the beginning of July, 'cause that would suck a lot, since I wouldn't have anything to do in the meantime. I'd be a piano accompanist for a musical theatre camp at Carthage College in Kenosha (so a LOT closer than Ohio!)...which would be close enough to go visit Milwaukee periodically, and maybe venture up to the northwoods or something, depending on the weekend schedule. I think it'd be a lot of fun. And it would give me some time to kick back and do nothing before camp starts, and then look for a job. Or something. Woohoo! I have to go see Professor Katz about that tomorrow, so hopefully she'll remember that she agreed to meet with me tomorrow at 2. From everything I have heard, she's not exactly the best at being in her office when she said she is...
That and it'd be getting paid to do something I like...music! Woohoo!
Speaking of music, I totally just remembered that I'm going to re-arrange Vaughan Williams' A Winter's Willow for more advanced oboe and piano. I did an arrangement of that for oboe and piano in like, 8th grade, when I first started oboe, and it's really pretty. But the oboe part is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO boring (well, it is Class C!), and the piano part is much more fun. So if I can figure out a way to switch the oboe and piano parts, I think I'm on to something there...
Yes! Music geeky things to do! (I'm surprised not more people commented on my proclaimed music geekiness!)
I really like having Thursday nights free. Hehehehehe. I think I'm going to go to the resource center tonight anyway, and spite Steph in the process. :)
Oh, and go listen to the Garden State soundtrack...after you see the movie, of course.

- posted by L. @ 5:24 PM

 
New psycho addictions!
Okay, so last week I was totally addicted to TV shows (namely, MASH), and absolutely had to have season 2 (and 3, and 4, and 5, and 6, and 7....and 8 comes out in June...). While I'm still addicted, I've had to lay MASH to rest for right now because I am completely obsessed with Garden State!!!!
Yes.
That's right.
I am completely obsessed.
I bought Garden State shortly after it came out but never got around to watching the whole thing until Saturday. And then it was kind of a good movie, but nothing to get excited about.
Wrong!
(Famous Last Words!)
Anyway, now I'm completely obsessed. I've watched it three times in four days, and I borrowed the soundtrack from Emily last night to, um, borrow...
I've listened to it like, eight million times already, and I even tried to find AA batteries that were functional so that I could bring my CD player down to band and have something to occupy myself on the Ho Chi Minh trail...
(no such luck)...so I had to go an entire THREE hours without listening to it. :) I know, insane.
It's not only a great movie, but it's a great soundtrack!!! Apparently Zach Braff (the lead actor and writer and director of the movie) hand-picked the soundtrack and had the actors listen to it to make sure they liked it. Or something.
(I got that knowledge from my friend Tiff, who is far more obsessed with Garden State than I am!)
So yay for my obsession of the week. Or however long. We'll see how long this one lasts. But in the meantime, everyone should go out and watch Garden State and then listen to the soundtrack.
Like I said, it may take a few movie viewings to really start to like it, but mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn! :)
Anyway, sorry if my writing about Kurt depressed anyone. I mean, not in a bad way. It was depressing. Unfortunately, that's life sometimes.
Let's see...
Nothing else really spectacular today. I didn't do so hot on my saxophone test, and she was really critical of our playing, so I don't think I did well on that. Eh. I don't really care all that terribly much, but at the same time, I know I knew my shit...oh well.
I learned how to use Sibelius last night!! I had to transpose an E-flat horn part into F, and it's a lot easier to put the E-flat part into a computer program and then hit the "transpose" button! :) Even though we transposed it wrong, and I almost send Elizabeth home with the part in the wrong key, but luckily we fixed it.
Today, I wrote out the cello part to the Mozart oboe quartet so that Tom has something legible to read...finished that and then started on the score, because there's a function on Sibelius that allows you to get parts out of a score, and that way I can listen to the score to make sure that it all sounds right and stuff. Yea for that! I am a total MUSIC GEEK! Woohoo!
Today, one of our dumber students was working in the resource center, putting away the CD cards. The CD cards are blue, and the CD reserve cards are white. We have three huge boxes of the white reserve cards. Huge, long, very obviously WHITE cards. So our student worker was sitting in the resource center filing the BLUE cards into the WHITE CARD boxes. Luckily, I walked in after she had filed away between six or seven blue cards, and I was like 'um, what are you doing?' and she was like 'my job!' (insert snotty attitude). I was like, 'um, why are you putting the blue cards in with the white cards???' So the she's like 'they don't go there?' I had to seriously resist the urge to do a dance and sing "one of these things is not like the other...." but I was very nice about it, and explained where to put the blue cards. Yeah, we have some brilliant ones down there...or not.
Probably should go pretend to do my reading on the Salem witch trials. Boo. :)

- posted by L. @ 11:10 PM

 
And now for something completely...
Um...depressing? Personal? I'm not sure exactly how to classify it. I'm sure some of you are like 'oh no, not some more pointless whining about your life...'
Just to get it out there, it's not pointless whining about my life. It's not really whining. It's more of a kind of reflection on an event, albeit extremely depressing, that really seriously affected me.
Here goes...
Flashback to the end of January, 2001.
It was last semester of senior year of high school, and my English class of choice was creative writing. It was a pretty open-ended class, and to start off the semester, our teacher had us reading the collections of a lot of the students before us. We were reading collections dating back to the mid to late 1990s, so a lot of the people who had written all the stories were people that none of us really knew. I didn't really know anyone who had graduated earlier than 1996, so I tried to stay to booklets later than that. Of course we were all looking for stories of people we knew as well.
So Tuesday, of that first week, January 30, 2001, I was reading a collection from either 1995 or 1996, just kind of skimming through, when a name caught my idea. Kurt Mehlenbeck. Aha! Someone I knew. So I read his story. I have no idea what he wrote about. Couldn't tell you for the life of me...not because it was uninteresting. I'm fairly sure I did actually read the whole thing.
Two days later...
I was on the way home from West Allis from an oboe lesson, and my dad had driven me that day because he had to run some errands out in 'Stallis, so he took me and just picked me up afterwards. Somewhere on the way home, he told me that my grandpa had read in the papers that Kurt Mehlenbeck was dead.
Kurt was only five years older than me. We'd known each other for years, because our parents had always been friends, and I took piano lessons from his mom for a year and a half. He had actually had to 'baby-sit' a lot of us younger kids a few times along with Teresa while all of our parents had dinner parties. I say baby-sitting loosely, because it wasn't really babysitting so much as making sure we didn't all like, fall off swingsets and bikes and such. Either way...he was only five years older than me. He was 22, and he had died.
The obituary was very vague, as most are, so I didn't know why he had died. Car accidents, fluke accidents kind of crossed my mind, but I had that horrible, nagging feeling that it wasn't an accident or a disease.
The next day, I asked one of my friends who had also taken piano lessons from Kathy if she knew anything, but she also had only knew that he died. People had heard about it, but nobody knew why.
That afternoon, we were all over at church for the youth group's ski trip. We asked if our pastor had heard anything, but he had only heard that he had died too. It was like nobody knew why, and so we were all really confused.
I spent the whole weekend skiing and having a great time...but Kurt's death still really bothered me. I didn't say anything about it, because I had no reason to be so bothered. Yes, we had known each other for years, but I hadn't seen him in years.
I got home that Sunday in the early afternoon, and I was sitting in the living room talking to my parents. All the sudden, my mom said that they had to go soon. I asked where, and she replied that they were going to Kurt's funeral, which was that afternoon. I hesitated for a minute, and then asked "How did he die?"
It was a suicide.
That had been my initial reaction, but I told myself that it couldn't be possible. I mean, seriously? Nobody I actually knew had ever committed suicide, so it didn't seem possible.
I made up my mind to go to the funeral.
I changed my mind about a million times too, while I was getting ready. I felt somewhat obligated, I didn't want to, but I did.
A lot of my parents friends were all there, people I saw on a regular basis. Even some people I hadn't seen in years. But it was so depressing. There were all sorts of pictures up of Kurt in his younger days, looking just like I remembered him. There were also pictures of him as I didn't remember him, in the many years since I had seen him last. His brother was there, his girlfriend, and his parents. I offered my sympathies to both of them, but I started crying when I talked to his mom. I don't think it helped anything, but her words just made me even more sad.
I doubt I will ever forget what she told me. "Lauren, never, ever, shut your parents out of your life."
The funeral was tough. I cried my way through the first half of it, but eventually I got to that point where my eyes just burned from crying, and my head hurt so much that I had to stop. I couldn't remember a time before when I had been so sad since my fifth grade teacher's funeral when I was in sixth grade. And even that was completely different. That was a loss due to cancer, not suicide. This was even sadder.
I made it through the funeral. The ending hymn was one that had the Welsh tune Ar Hyd y Nos (All Through the Night). I cried my way through that too.
In the weeks that followed the funeral, I couldn't understand why the death of someone that, in retrospect, I barely even knew had affected me so much. Why it had hit me so hard. I was VERY upset about Kurt's death. I couldn't explain it to anyone. I cried about it a lot. I couldn't hear All Through the Night without bursting into tears. I didn't even try to explain it to anyone, or talk about it with anyone, because I didn't understand it.
In the meantime, within a month, my creative writing teacher (ironically), took us on a tour of all the memorials at the high school. There were benches, and trees, and plaques, and other memorials of alumni that had died, whether it was during their high school career or after. Our assignment from there was to write about a memorial of some sort. He left it very open-ended.
I wrote about Kurt.
I wrote about finding his story, about hearing how he died two days later. I wrote about how I didn't want to go to the funeral. I wrote about how sad it was. And I wrote about how I cried.
And somewhere along the lines of writing about it, I came to a somewhat shaky conclusion as to why Kurt's death hit me, someone who barely knew him, so hard.
I wasn't just crying for Kurt.
I was crying for Kurt, and anyone else who came across such hard times in their lives that they felt that the only way out of their hard times or their depression was to kill themselves.
This conclusion didn't make me any happier automatically. But it helped. Writing about it helped.
I even read my story to the class, at the urging of one of my classmates. I had to swallow back tears for pretty much the whole time, but I made it through.
And about a year later, I found out that one of my other childhood friends, one of the other kids that hung out at the dinner parties, had been pretty affected by Kurt's suicide too. He wrote his college application essay to Madison about Kurt. It made me feel better, in a way, because Ian had known Kurt about as well as I had.
I have never, ever told anyone about this. Yes, I just said I wrote about it in my creative writing class, and read it to everyone, but it was different. I never wrote about my personal struggles with his death. I didn't write about how I couldn't listen to All Through the Night without crying, or how I would think about it just randomly and choke up. It was something that I never told a soul.
I haven't forgotten how I felt then. I choked up a couple times, and I definitely shed a few tears just writing this. It's hard to think that Kurt was just 22 when he died, and I'll be 22 in less than six months. And it's hard to think that today, he would be 26.
There's a lesson to be learned here somewhere.
I'm not sure what it is, but I'll give it a shot.
Never take life for granted.
Things always turn out okay in the end...if it's not okay, it's not the end.

- posted by L. @ 1:05 AM

 
Mozart balls!
Ummm...that sounds kind of wrong in writing, doesn't it???
Anyway, after lunch I went to check my mail, and yea! I had mail. It was a very lumpy envelope, so my curiosity was piqued...
Inside were two chocolate balls, or something, and a note:
(excerpts)
Lauren,
I spent some time in Austria over winter break and I was in Salzburg for four days. I toured Mozart's birth home...Anyway, there are lots of stores selling Mozart chocolates. I affectionately christened these delights 'Mozart Balls"...Anyway, I have a lot of them. And I thought, who would enjoy a good Mozart ball? And I thought, Lauren's a music amjor. Mozart wrote music. Lauren likes Mozart. Lauren likes Mozart balls (this may be faulty logic because obviously Mozart was more than his balls, but I dropped out of my logic class). Anyway, here's Mozart balls! Maybe they will be an inspiration for your April oboe concert!
Enjoy!
Calah

Unnnnnnnnnreal. I LOVE that logic. :) It make me laugh, and the Mozart balls are very cute, and it was very sweet. I must write her a note back (but I have nothing exciting to pass along in return, since my travels extended only to the metro Milwaukee area and Appleton...score).
Speaking of my recital, I have less hostility towards it than I did earlier, based on the fact that a- It's tentatively moved to the day before it would have been, April 23rd instead of the 24th, still at 3:15 (and this is good, 'cause Saturday concert = going out drinking and partying afterwards!! hehehehe), and b- my oboe teacher actually cancelled plans to go to Germany in April because my recital date had been on April 10, so she doesn't get to go to Germany for, well, basically no reason. So that SUCKS. So yeah.
Okay...here goes: April 23, Demmer Hall, 3:15 PM. Be there! (hopefully no more changes!)
So today, I managed to get out of bed approximately 20 minutes before class started, so I didn't get that whole "you look cute" today thing going on that I did yesterday, because I actually woke up an hour and a half before work, and had time not only to shower and leave, but to shower, get dressed, partially dry my hair, and *gasp* put on more than just mascara. Whoa. For the quintessential late-sleeper, throw on a pair of jeans kind of girl...
I'm starting to think there might be benefits to doing that more often. Now, if only I had someone to actually get my lazy ass out of bed in the mornings. :)

- posted by L. @ 5:19 PM