| June/July 2004 |
| My cell phone says it's July 30, 2004 I would just like to give a send-off to my friends going over to England today. That includes, but is not limited to: Brett and Sarah. They won't read this until they get back, but have fun guys. It's more like a mojo thing. My cell phone says it's July 29, 2004 I just finished watching the end of the Democratic National Convention. Needless to say, I'm done watching politics on television until the Republican NC. Even though I pretty much know what I believe and who I'll vote for, I think it's healthy to get a dose of both party's endless babbling about what the country needs. I shouldn't say that, though. I watched Bill Clinton on Monday night give one of the best written and delivered speeches ever. My opinion of course. But it was very refreshing considering the dull rhetoric that spewed forth from George Bush and Al Gore's mouths nearly four years ago. And I can safely say that because C-SPAN2 has been replaying past Convention speeches. And considering John Kerry's speech tonight, I'm quite sure that Mr. Bush will give a very impassioned speech in a month or so. I've really been paying attention to everything. Part of me has enjoyed it, and part of me has just been "blah" about it. I want so bad for things to be better than they are and I know they can be. For my grandfather, for my mother, for me, for my friends. But considering how "lowly" I am and the lack of affect I could possibly have on anybody, I get easily discouraged. Sometimes I want to just change the channel and forget we even have a president. Of course, these past four days I've been able to change the channel over to Jon Stewart and "The Daily Show" and then David Letterman for my daily convention dose of political reality. Because it's cool to laugh at politicians, even the ones you want to win. I went to dinner with my mom last night, and once again she mentioned that she didn't want to have anything to do with politics or politicians. She always mentions that when I say something about Bush or Kerry. But I told her that these days, politics and the government are pretty big in our lives. And as long as you have a choice of who you want to run the government, you should make the most educated choice that you can. To me, it's important; and it's important for a lot of obvious reasons. For what I believe is right, for how I think things should be run and so on. When I first voted four years ago, I voted for the lesser of two evils. And that's something both my liberal and conservative friends agreed upon. Not all of them of course, but I have a point. This time, I will vote with confidence, and that I am choosing someone whom I believe to be able to run the country with both strength and wisdom. And I will vote knowing that I'm choosing not based on someone else's opinion, but my own. And yes, this is only one of many political rantings I will make. Do I want John Kerry to win? We'll talk about that later perhaps. Or perhaps not. This isn't a news site. My cell phone says it's July 25, 2004 Well, I'm back from camp. And there were no flutes involved. It was a really great experience and I'm glad that I went. My paranoia was for nothing. Everyone was really nice and everything and made me feel welcome and stuff. I sort of felt out of place on the first day, but I soon got into the swing of things. The days started at 6:30am and ended about 11:30pm, and I usually had time in the afternoon to take a nap. They weren't very good naps though. The kids at the camp ranged from seven years to seventeen and most of them were pretty awesome. All the kids were divided up into groups according to the grades in school they had just finished. I got to be in charge of the littlest boys group ranging from second to fourth grade. They were eight of them and they were all awesome little kids. I enjoyed spending time with them; helping them play handbells and learn their choral parts in the music that was provided. I however skipped out on helping the show director with her "show". I didn't like her, and the show turned out to be a parade of stereotypes among other things. I enjoyed seeing my kids on stage, but it was more of a "Judy Trice Show" than it was for the kids. Anyway! There's lots more to tell, but I'll save it for later. The days were long, I got very little sleep, and the food was questionable, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. My cell phone says it's July 17, 2004 I'm going to AIC Choir Camp tomorrow, and I thought I would leave you with a sermon from Christ Episcopal. It's really good, and if you want you can tell me what you think in my guestbook. Besides, that's what it's for and everything. My cell phone says it's July 12, 2004 I hate it when someone says that they're sorry, and you can tell they really don't give a shit. At least act like you care. But I've learned that what's important to one person may not be as important to another. There was a party here last night and I had fun I suppose. I had dreams about disasters last night. I had one dream that my duplex burned down, along with other houses around it. And I had another dream that a tornado was coming to my house in Cabot and we were all hiding in the basement. We don't have a basement, though. I'm going to Jacksonville but I'm going to be back on Thursday. I have Nick Wammack's wedding rehearsal to go to on Friday, and the wedding on Saturday. It should be fun. My cell phone says it's July 5, 2004 I have done a lot this summer; a lot more than I did last summer. We sort of had a "party" here last night to celebrate the fourth. It was boring, but the food was good. And then I was here by myself for a while. That's sort of sad. I did however have the option of going somewhere, but decided not to. *sigh* Life is complicated. And you know what makes it complicated? People. My cell phone says it's June 23, 2004 Well, it's official: I'm going to AIC Choir Camp in Subiaco, AR. It should be fun. I've never done it before, but since I'm now an Episcopalian it's easier to get in. Hmmm... I've never been "in charge" of children before so this should be really interesting. I'll either go crazy or love it. However, for those of you also going to Subiaco, I won't be there until Sunday because I have to sing at a wedding on Saturday. Fun, fun. And by the way, Clem Infante is a wonderful person. She is the person at my church who encouraged me to go, and somehow got my registration fee paid for me. I'm poor so I wouldn't have been able to pay it. And also, as far as I know, Brett is also going as well. And he wants to ride up there with another person who is going who is not me since I can't go until Sunday. I guess I need to cut my hair and stuff so it won't be a distraction or something. My cell phone says it's June 21, 2004 It's so nice to know that I'm actually going to be moving on with my life in the next year. It's been too long since I started. I really have enjoyed my college experience. I think that today was the first day of summer. I really haven't been doing anything with my life that would be interesting enough to write down here. I guess it's not a big deal though cause nobody else seems to be writing anything either. Ryan Fox came over and we went out to eat. He's really changed a lot. I bought my old roommate, Chase's, Nintendo 64 the other day. It keeps me occupied. I have only four games for it so far, and I really only play two of them. But Brett plays one of the others so it gets some use. It's sort of warm in my room, maybe I should turn on the fan. Ryan said he might come back by after going to the library; maybe I'll force him to listen to some of my compositions. I don't know when I'll be going to Baton Rouge to visit Sarah but I don't think it's going to be anytime soon. Or maybe it will. My cell phone says it's June 11, 2004 Golly-gee the summer is going fast. I keep mentioning this to people so now I'll say it on my site: I love Today's THV this morning. That's really dorky but I do. Anyhoo! It's actually going off right now and they're doing a little tribute to Ray Charles. That's weird that he died. Well, weird because he came to UCA a few years ago and the choir and jazz band did some songs with him. I enjoyed performing with someone who had so much influence on the world of music. But honestly, I was never a fan. Moving on. The crisis that is going on in my life right now doesn't seem to have an ending in sight. I think most people know what I'm talking about and if you don't I will let you know soon. But I'm really confused right now about everything. I hate having to choose. Next topic. Andrew and I have been looking for graduate schools here lately. We found a website that listed all the music schools/departments at universities in America. By just looking at the universities we narrowed all of them down to about fifteen to consider. After that we narrowed those down to five. Those schools are: Lousiana State University, Southwest Missouri State University, Arizona State University in Tempe, Cincinnati Conservatory, and Julliard. Out of those we predict that LSU and SMSU are our best shots. Or we could go to Memphis. Just kidding. The site we found pretty much had every music school/department in the nation on it including UCA, so we believe that we definitely narrowed down the schools. Thank you for your attention. My cell phone says it's June 9, 2004 Well, well, well. It's been a whole year. A whole year of "this is my life". I guess it's been worth it. That's all I have to say for now. My cell phone says it's June 3, 2004 Let's get political, get political. It's hard to make a sentence sound like music. Anyway! I made it back to Conway in one piece, even though there were several twisters in Oklahoma while I was there and one even passed over the house at one point. Nothing brings a family together like crowding into the central room of the house. Awww... And nothing could have brought the whole situation together more brilliant than when my mother ran to wake my aunt and uncle up to tell them the tornado sirens were going off, and my aunt said, "Oh, shit." Or was it just, "Shit." Well, anyway, I had a good time and I swam in their pool and ate delectable meals. I think I will go today and buy some frames for some of my grandmother's pictures that I have. |