Just for fun, I took a love languages test. (I used the "single" assessment.) The highest score possible in any given area was 12.

11 - Quality time
8 - Acts of Service
4 - Physical Touch
4 - Receiving Gifts
3 - Words of Affirmation

I would've thought Words of Affirmation would've scored higher, but after thinking about it I realized I don't really believe what people say to me anyway, so it does make sense. (It does affect me - I get fuzzy for a little bit, but then I shoot it down by thinking "Oh, they can't really mean that about me." It's been happening too often lately and it's one of my goals this semester to knock it off.)

I kinda already knew this about myself but it was good to see what the site had to say about it.

What about you? What's yours?

This afternoon, I listened to WGN (the Chicago radio station I adore) and they're talking sorta about the debate last night, and out of state tuition thingeroos for illegals in Texas.

Basically, Texas is making it so illegal chilluns can pay in-state tuition to go to college, and the out-of-state legal citizens have to pay $22,000 more than the not-legal folks.

Sounds weird to me but not the point of this post.

The point is, thank you to BYU and the Church for making college nicer for my budget. I shan't disappoint you. I hope.  <3

Someday....

I want to be the light in someone's eyes. To bring them laughter and awe. To be the cause of their brightest smiles.

Someday, I think I'll feel worth it.

Today was difficult.

and it's not because of the football game. (I didn't watch a minute of it.)

I got up at 8:30 so I could go to a masterclass (and play!!!!) for a professor at said class. I was scared, but not as scared as I should've could've been. I went and found out I was playing first.

A note about auditions and playing in general: going first = akin to running headfirst into a wall. Like, really. It's a bad idea.

So I get up there with very little warming up (thanks to my running late that morning) and I start playing. Third or fourth measure in and it hits me I'm playing for this really famous bassoon player and I suddenly can't breathe for the entire rest of the piece, resulting in lots of mess-ups and things I wouldn't normally do in a run-through. This piece probably lasted for another 2 minutes or so. It felt bad, and I don't mean the kind of bad where it could pass as good but you're just trying to modest.

So we get done and he mentions two things I've known I've sucked at since I came to college three years ago: flicking, and the whisper key.

Apparently, I flick with the tradition of a European player - instead of tapping the key and moving my thumb back over the whisper key, I just hang onto it. He asked and I told him it was a conscious decision, even though I never told him that I didn't learn how to flick properly until three years ago, and also that if I don't keep my thumb there I don't do it at all. Which is a very bad thing to not-do.

Secondly, I never learned anything proper about the whisper key ALSO until I came here three years ago. Before then, it was always one of those do it if it's convenient it doesn't really matter sort of dealios with my previous teacher (love her to death but I wish she would've fixed this and told me it did). Apparently any time I half-hole a note, the whisper key should go down. I usually don't, resulting in a lot of not whisper-keyed and half-holed third-line G's.

So he literally talked about both of these subjects for a half an hour and then I went and sat down like a good girl.

Three other bassoonists got up there and played and they talked about musical things.

And I felt useless.

I'm not a musician. I'm an enthusiast. I can't practice like I'm supposed to, I can't technique like I'm supposed to, I can't be what I'm supposed to as viewed by my teacher.

I could be so much more.

But I'm not. I can't. It's impossible.

Little while later, an inner dialogue:

But see, this is why you fail. You don't believe in yourself.

Not a whole lot to believe in, is there?

This is what I'm talking about.

What am I supposed to do? I'm nothing. I can't change the world. 

I can't even change my techniques around, I can't even change myself.

I was a little better after lunch, even distracting myself with periodic conversations throughout the day about writing with writer-bassoon-friend. My severe lack of self-esteem came up once and he just rolled his eyes at me.

Well what d'you want me to do, lie to you about how I see myself?

I'm not pretty, I'm not good at technique, Lord knows I'm hardly consistent with anything. I'm not perfect and I don't want to be.

But I really would like to feel better about myself.

dear Sick Roommate,

I'm now at a point where I'm less sorry that you're sick, and more sorry that you're making me the bad guy because you're sick.

also, I'm not convinced we have the same thing, unless my immune system is significantly happier than yours (my symptoms were not ever quite this severe, and they only kicked me around for about 36 hours).

srsly,
me

Ten Years - A Memory

This day ten years ago, it was a Tuesday. I remember, we had just started moving into our new house in Aurora. I went to school, just another day. I was more worried about remembering what bus route I'd take at the end of the day - and my English class. I'd never been very good about keeping up with the homework.

We were working on an in-class essay or a journal or something, and the PA came on (it dinged before the voice came, it scared the crap out of me). It asked for all the teachers to turn the TVs on and go to channel ten, and then it was quiet. I remember that silence, it was so eerie - like we almost expected some kind of practical joke or something. A collective holding of breath as the teacher went through her desk looking for the remote.

The very first image was a tower, and smoke. I didn't know where it was, at first; the only towers I knew about were the ones in Chicago, the Sears Tower and stuff. But there were two, and one was on fire. Reading the newsreel on the bottom, it was New York City. I don't think any of us knew what was happening, I mean at all; we barely knew of anything outside of Chicago aside things like the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben, and even half of us still would've confuse which was in Paris and London.

As stupid as it sounds, my first thought was something along the lines of The devil is out to get me.


Ridiculous, in hindsight. But still kinda true if you think about it.

That eerie silence was still there. All of us 11-year-olds, and the teacher. She was suppressing tears in the back, I think I remember.

I don't remember much else about that day. Just that all the TVs were on in every classroom, and that when I got to history, my fourth hour class probably three literal hours later, they were flashing pictures of Osama all over the screen. I didn't know who he was either, but I just felt scared because everyone else was scared. I felt like we deserved justice because everyone else did.

Eventually I got home, walking through the mud and over discarded boards - we were the only completed house on the street at the time. We had closed on our previous house the day before. If we had waited two days, or even to the next morning, my dad thinks that we would've never been able to close it. Scary.

I walked in the house and my mom was unpacking. We didn't have a TV.

"Did you hear the news?" I asked, a quiet little 11yr-old voice.

My mom sighed a long sigh before she said yes. It was just me and her home at the time, I gave her a hug. It took a long time for us to let go. I think she must've been crying, even though we didn't know anybody directly who was in New York. (Later she told me about when she witnessed the JFK assassination on the TV when she was about 5 - she doesn't remember much about it either, other than she was upset about it interrupting Bozo the Clown she was watching at the time. Surreal what we think when disaster strikes.)

My mom says she remembers how weird it was for it to be so quiet in the sky, no planes or anything. I don't remember the noise, but I remember how clear the sky was. So blue. No clouds, no planes, no nothing.

Not even sound.

I've always wanted to be more of an Elinor than a Marianne.

But you know, less of the no-cues-that-I-fancy-you bits. (Well, maybe. If I can pull them off without scaring people.)

so she gets feelings on what classes to take and when to skip them to practice but she doesn't ever feel like she needs to do dishes


awesome.


I'm such a doormat