Gonna be a 4-year member!

This year marked the third year I have gone to prom. I am only a junior, which means that I will be a four-year prom member. I can't think of anyone else in my class that has done this, so I think that's pretty cool.

First off, people will say, "It will make your senior year less special if you go as an underclassmen!" I don't think so. Going to all these other ones I think will make me appreciate my year more. At my senior prom, I will know just about everybody, as opposed to only knowing half. So that will be nice. Also, it will still be special because there is just something about YOUR prom that makes is special. You know?

Second, next year I will get to ask someone to prom. Not the other way around. Being the underclassmen means that I have been the one asked. It's just kind of rude/weird if you ask a senior to their prom. I am really hoping that I come up with a good way of asking someone to prom. I always like hearing about those cutesy ways people ask, and I want to be one of those people.

Third, our class has a lot of money, so we can make our prom extra special. I am extremely excited because, due to excellent fund raising, our class has raised a huge amount of money, so that means we can have more stuff that will make our prom amazing. And not only that, but the tickets will be cheaper!

And finally, as a senior, my dad's long-time friend promised that if I learn how to drive a stick shift, I can take his BMW. So if any of you out there know how to drive a stick and want to teach me, that would be great.

I must say, I am extremely excited for my final prom next year. It will surely be one to remember. And because it will be MY prom, it will be great. It can only get better from here!

Will you enjoy prom?

The Plans for Summer 2010

School gets out sometime mid-June. I want to say June 11th maybe? But either way, sometime that is way to far in the future. Here's my dilemma. Job, or no job?

First off, last summer I offered to get a job, but then I was denied by my parents. Most people would say that my parents are crazy for not wanting me to have a job, but then again, I can see their reasoning. I am a pretty busy person, and when it comes down to it, unless I find an extremely flexible place of work, no one would want to hire me anyway.

Over the summer, I have the International Thespian Conference, and that will take up a week at the end of June. I have show choir choreography camp, and that will take up 4 days at the end of July. I will have Chapter Board meetings, and those take up random days throughout the summer, and then I will most likely have a minuscule vacation somewhere in there. Though that doesn't seem like a lot in the grand scheme of a summer, but it is enough to throw my schedule for a loop and in turn cause scheduling problems for my place of work.

On the other hand, I need money. So this is what I am thinking. My dad always has someone come in and do his filing (usually a college student), and because I will be a senior in high school, I should be pretty qualified. As far as the scheduling problems, well, he's my dad, so he has my schedule already! And as far as the "not letting me have a job," it is his place of work and I'd be working for him. What I think is pretty funny is the fact that my mom is my dad's secretary, and then if I filed for my dad, it would be almost the entire family working for my dad at one time. Seems like something you would only see in the movies.

My discretion, would my dad pay me less because I'm his son? Would he treat me like a true worker? I can foresee something to the effect of him not wanting to pay me as much money simply because I'm his son. I don't know why that would happen, but it is something I envision.

So those are my plans for work in the summer of 2010. I'm not quite sure what will come of it, but we shall see, and I'm sure there will be a blog post sometime about it in the near future.

What will you do during the summer?

Three Ways to Vacuum Your House

In our concert choir, every year we have mixed gendered (SATB songs, and then solo gendered songs (either TTBB or SSAA, usually). This year, the girls did one of the coolest songs I have ever heard. It's called "Three Ways to Vacuum Your House." For some reason, I seriously just can not get over how cool it is.

I'm a tenor one, and I must say, if I could have my pick of the male parts in choir, that would be the one. But if I were a girl, I would pick alto two. I have no idea why, but for some reason their voices just make my heart melt. In "the vacuum song," the altos a have a pretty low part, and I think that is the reason I am attracted to it.

Supposedly, the basis behind the song was that this composer went around the country listening to the sounds of people vacuuming. At one point in the song, there is a part to represent the sound of a paper clip going through the vacuum. If it's the part I'm thinking of, there are no notes to the section, just speaking random gibberish. It sounds soooo cool.

Something that I have determined is that the girls just have cooler music selections than the guys (for choral music). Girls, for one, have Bulgarian music. Personally, I think this is some of the best choral music out there. It is so unique and, when done well, can send shivers up your spine throughout the entire song. Probably one of my favorite Bulgarian songs is "Kafal Sviri." In this song, again, the altos have a really cool low part.

Here is a recording of the Waubonsie Valley Women's Choir singing Kafal Sviri:



So, for me, when listening to a song, I rank it's "cool-ness" on the alto part. When Kafal Sviri ends, the altos have this descending interval that I personally think makes the song.

In conclusion, I don't really have a closing question, so I will leave you with this. If you don't already listen for the altos, I urge you to pay attention for them, their part, though not always identifiable, makes the song.

8 People, 1 house

So I recently found out (by recent I mean a few months ago) that my sister that lives in Colorado will be moving back to Iowa next month. I am extremely excited that she's moving back! But then I found out that she will be living with us. Not a problem you may be thinking, just one person. No, what I mean by my sister moving back is, she will be moving back, along with her husband and two kids. So, 4 people + 4 people already living here, that makes 8 people all under one roof. That's a lot of people.

I'm still somewhat excited that they will be living with us, but there are going to be a lot of changes that take place. First off, I am giving up my room for them to live in. We have recently set up a new "bedroom" that is in our piano room that will be my room for the summer. It is furnished with a couch, a bed, a piano, a desk type thing that is filled with my dad's papers, and a lamp. Pretty classy, huh? And to top that all off, the doors are made by hanging black sheets from curtain hangers in the door frame.

Another major adjustment that will need to be made is my sleeping schedule. The boys (my nephews) wake up somewhere in the neighborhood of 6:30 and 7 in the morning. Yikes... and they go to bed somewhere in the neighborhood of 9 p.m. This is probably going to drive me insane, but I am willing to get past it. I am going to need to learn to be quiet once they have gone to bed, and I am going to have to learn to sleep through all the loud noises that will take place once they have woken up. I firmly believe that I will be able to do the second one, but the whole "being quiet" thing will be tough. I'm afraid that I will come home some night and accidentally knock something over and then will hear one of the boys start crying. I would feel terrible because if that happens, most likely the other boy would start crying, and then my sister or my brother will have to go and help them get back to bed and the whole thing would be my fault.

Those are some of the adjustments that will need to be made, and I hope will be able to manage the change. I think it will make for a very interesting summer, and hopefully it'll be enjoyable.

Will you make the change?

New Plan for the Future

So in the past, my life's ambitions have all led to music. Everything I do says, "Go into music after high school." But what scares the crap out of me is, what if I don't make it? And if I don't make it, then what else would I do? I wouldn't want to have to pay to go back to college. I wouldn't want to pay to go on and study something else, so what do I do?

A couple of weeks ago, my sister's old roommate from college gave me a "Major Minor Finder" test. This test was, I believe, from the 1980's. She is becoming a school counselor and for a class she is taking, she has to issue survey/tests and then write about them. She knew I was struggling in what I wanted to do after high school, so she called me and asked if I wanted to help her out. Of course, I said yes.

She came over to our house and instructed me on what to do. There were about 9 questions in total and somehow, those nine questions truly helped me clarify some things. So what you do is, you answer the nine questions, and then you go through the list of majors and see how many matches are made. The most matches you could get were nine, and the least were 1. What caught my eye was that anything related to music only had about 4 matches. This made me think, maybe music isn't what my conscience thinks I should do after high school. Maybe deep down, it knows that there is too big of a risk for failure, and that is something I just don't want to mess with.

The next thing that caught my eye was Physical Therapy. I have always wanted to go into the medical field, but not to be a surgeon or anything like that. I had never really thought about physical therapy, and when I had 7 matches, it sparked my interest. So here I am, doing everything in my life that should lead to music, but what I think I may want to do now is physical therapy. Why, you might ask? Personally, there is more job security. People are always getting hurt and are going to need someone to help them recuperate. But in music, unless you are the top of the line, you're out of luck. Sure, there is always music education, but in today's economy, that doesn't seem to be the right place to be.

So now I am thinking I want to be a physical therapist. This is certainly not set in stone, but it's a nice change of pace. It is kind of nice having some idea of what I may want to do. I beats the heck out of having no clue.

Will you decide?

Note: If you need help deciding, I recommend this website.

Tests, tests, and more tests

In a normal week, I can expect to have about 2 tests and maybe 2 quizzes as well. Not bad, eh? It's those less-than-normal weeks that I dread. Those ones where it seems as if the teachers planned to have all their tests on the same day. Yeah, those are horrible. However, the frequency of tests is not what I am here to discuss. It's the fact that every time I take a test, I always feel the opposite of how I did.

For example, last week, we took a practice AP U.S. History Examination. It was 80 questions in 55 minutes. Let me first state that we found out we would be having this test the day before. So you can imagine I was already a bit rattled. The test comes and being pressed for time, I do my best to quickly go through the questions. As I finish with only a minute or two to spare, I think to myself, that wasn't so bad. Boy was I wrong. For as confident as I felt about the test, I was expecting maybe 50/80. That would have been great! But no, my test is returned to me, I notice a lot of check marks that represent questions missed, and my score reads 28/80. Yep, that's an F- if I've ever seen one.

Another example from the opposite end of the spectrum, I took a math test a couple weeks ago and I felt horrible about it. I check online later that night and low and behold, I got a 37/40. For me, I thought that was pretty great. But as I said, I felt horrible about it and I ended up doing pretty well.

This is frustrating to me, because honestly, this happens on EVERY test. I either feel great or horrible, and it always comes out to be the opposite. You can imagine why this would be frustrating, because if you feel great about it, you can predict the outcome.

Here lies the problem. I just took my actual AP U.S. History Examination and I feel pretty good about it. But what I hope is that this is a different type of good. I wrote the Document Based Question essay as sophisticated as I could and I thought it was pretty good. I did the same for the other essays and when it came to the multiple choice section, there were quite a few repeats from the practice exam, so I felt pretty alright about it.

I truly hope this is a different kind of good feeling, because I could really use a three or better on the AP test. Unfortunately, I must wait until mid-July to get my score...

The Show is Finally Over

Though Sweeney Todd was a great experience, I am very thankful it is done. I have been greatly lacking on sleep, and I have fallen behind on homework. Now is my time to finally relax, go to bed early, and have a life again. Though I will say this, I will certainly miss the cast. This year, I think I have gotten extremely close to the seniors and it is going to be really hard to say goodbye.

Here's what I have determined. Every single year, I go through the same exact pattern. I dread going to musical practice, until the very last day, I complain about the director and his antics, I complain about all the school work that piles up, and I contemplate quitting. But then, every year, I stick with it until the end, and I end up having this big relief when I'm done. I just seriously hate the pressure that comes along with it. It drives me insane!

So why do I put myself through it every year? Where does this motivation come from? For one, I don't think I could stand having an open schedule. It leaves too much time for me to be bored, and knowing me, the free time would result in me not getting my homework done with no excuse. So I do the musicals...

Also, the friendships I build up in this are tremendous. With every show I meet someone new, and the friendships I currently have grow stronger. This year, I met some pretty cool freshman and we have become pretty good friends. I know that if it weren't for this show, we would have most likely never met. As for my senior friends, there were some times during the show where I felt as if I was a 'muse' and not really a friend, but those feelings quickly disappeared when we started to actually hang out again and not just talk during rehearsal.

One last reason is the overall good feeling I get when the show is done and I'm standing out greeting people. You have no idea how good it feels when someone tells you you were amazing. It makes it feel as if it is all worth it. On the local radio station, Z102.9 (the recording can be found here), there was a really cool review of our show and the announcer guy talked about me! Stuff like that is what makes me never want to stop performing.

So, in conclusion, if I didn't do these shows, I'm not sure what I would do with my life. It is clear to me that what I put myself through for the shows is greatly outweighed by the positives that come out of it. So...

Will you put yourself through it?