Well, Oregon was fun for the most part. The most part being whenever we weren't on the bus, or in a large group in general. Or waking up before 5:30 in the morning. Or when the people I hung out with weren't being in a not so good mood. So, really, there wasn't much fun.
Quick overview:
Friday:
-Wake up 4:00 a.m.
-Get the bus packed and leave at 5:50 a.m. (we had a 47 person bus with every seat filled. And somehow it was a bit smaller than the one we had last year. The aisle was narrower and seats were so close together I could barely fit my legs in. Fun, fun.)
-Get to Medford, Or at 8:00 a.m. (Medford is Dr. McCollum's hometown. Also Meridith Johnson has her family there)
-Sing for Grace Christian School K-8 at 9:15 a.m. The usual. We sang okay for being as tired as we were. The little kids were cute and wiggly, the junior highers were stonefaced and trying to act cool.
-Went to the High School, Cascade Christian. We had lunch there (pizza and homemade cookies) in their cafeteria. It was a pretty cool place. We sang for them, also getting the expression range from bored to interested. There were some kids in the front row who were acting pretty rude as well, but what can you do?
-Walked around Jacksonville for a bit. Cute little old town.
-3:00 p.m. Met our host families and went home with them. This was the interesting part because usually we only have to spend a few hours with the family, but here we had to spend all afternoon and evening with them (pretending to be hungry and not tired). Fortunately the family I (and Dan, Jake, and Chris) stayed with was really laid back. They had sons our age, so we hung out with them. And we got to do pretty much whatever we wanted. It was actually somewhat fun. And for dinner we had pizza.
-9:30 p.m Went to bed.
Saturday:
-8:30 a.m. Woke up. Although I did the whole "wake up every 45 minutes thing" throughout the course of the night, if you do that for 11 hours, it really doesn't make too much of a difference.
-10:00 a.m. Got on the bus and went into Ashland. We hung out until 4. I walked around with some people. Went into used book stores and used cd stores. Got some cool stuff for pretty cheap.
-4:00 p.m. Went to Angelo's pizza for dinner (pizza again). They have a 3 and 1/2 foot diameter pizza. The choir ate one of those, plus two 2 foot diameter pizzas. It was good pizza I'll admit.
-7:00 p.m. Went over to Meredith's family's house. It's a very nice house. And it fit the whole choir. And they had yummy dessert, and her family is incredibly nice. That was cool.
-9:30 p.m. Got back to our host's house. Hung out with Tyler and Andrew.
-11:00 p.m. Went to bed.
Sunday:
-5:30 a.m. Woke up and got everything packed.
-7:00 a.m. Got to church and warmed up. It was pretty bad. Everyone was dead tired and few people were focused.
-8:20 a.m. Sang for service 1. In front of people we pulled together a serviceable performance, although almost everyone fell asleep during the sermon (they had surprisingly comfortable pews. Go figure).
-11:00 a.m. Sang for service 2. This was better, but it took the last bit of anything we had.
-2:00 p.m. After changing and eating we left for home. It was a long and somewhat loud busride home. We have a very interesting group of people this year.
-5:00 p.m. We get back and unload.
So, that's pretty much it. Lots of travelling and free-time with very little singing. Some would consider this a good combo, but I don't like it. If we're travelling that far, that early, to sing we might as well. Even if we had just done one concert on Sat. it would have been better. Kept a little focus going, etc. Also, at least 10 people got sick with something at some point. Not necessarliy the flu, but some form of ailment (due to the abundance of pizza/dairy, plus the tiredness factor, plus the omnipresence of people, I we feeling pretty lousy most of the time as well). It wasn't too bad overall, but I'm not really looking forward to choir tour. It's going to be long. Oh well, it's still a ways off.
Anyway, I want to get to bed now so I can get sleep so I can do my homework tomorrow before my classes. Among other things. Love you all. Goodnight.
2.22.2004
2.19.2004
Good news, Bad news
Well, the good news is, that after several months of stress and panic, my pre-recital jury is done. And I passed, which means I get to have my senior recital (GET to have. Well, I guess that also means I'll probably GET to graduate, so I can't complain too much).
Also my Music History midterm went well this morning (don't you love it how the two largest possible stressors come together in the same day?)
On the bad news front, I'm going to be gone all weekend with the choir. That's not too bad except, a) we have to be AT the music department at 4:45 am tomorrow morning so we can be in Medford at 7:45 to get ready to sing for a school. b) we're singing twice on Friday (in the morning), and twice on Sunday (in the morning). This leaves all Friday evening and Saturday for who knows what. And you all know how I love spontenaity (so much so, I won't even take the time to look up how it's really spelled).
My vote is we just drive back Friday evening and be here Saturday, but no. Oh well, at least we'll get to see how we'll react together on Choir tour. Another annoying thing though is that with the size of the choir and tag-alongs (Darin's girlfriend who is an admissions counselor) we will have at most 1 empty seat on the bus. Close quarters, early in the morning, and I've been finding myself in a progressively worse mood all week (although now that my pre-recital is done that may change). Fun fun. Oh, and did I mention there is a 24 hour flu going around the choir. 5 people are recovering and 5 people are coming down with it as of 9 hours before we're supposed to leave. At least I'll get to spend lots of quality time with my girlfriend, at least the times we aren't sleeping.
No too much else going on. Aside from major stress, things aren't bad. Josh is very happy lately. Mostly because he has and almost girlfriend. For banquet he took one of Aiko's housemates, Genevive, because she needed someone to go with. It turns out their personalities compliment each other, and so Josh asked her out the other night. They had a good time and have both been beaming for the last four days. In fact, Josh is out with her and her sister and her sister's fiance, as we speak (after skipping choir, which, for the record is something I have not done yet. The only class I've skipped to hang out with Aiko was Geography, a non-essential, and that was after we had been dating at least 3 weeks. So there.) But I'm happy for him. It's a bright spot for him in a dreary semester.
Well, I should probably go get packed and get to bed sometime before 2 am (unlike last night). No if I find myself in that position, I'll just stay up until we leave. I'll also let you know how the mini-tour went.
Love you all, hope everyone is well.
Also my Music History midterm went well this morning (don't you love it how the two largest possible stressors come together in the same day?)
On the bad news front, I'm going to be gone all weekend with the choir. That's not too bad except, a) we have to be AT the music department at 4:45 am tomorrow morning so we can be in Medford at 7:45 to get ready to sing for a school. b) we're singing twice on Friday (in the morning), and twice on Sunday (in the morning). This leaves all Friday evening and Saturday for who knows what. And you all know how I love spontenaity (so much so, I won't even take the time to look up how it's really spelled).
My vote is we just drive back Friday evening and be here Saturday, but no. Oh well, at least we'll get to see how we'll react together on Choir tour. Another annoying thing though is that with the size of the choir and tag-alongs (Darin's girlfriend who is an admissions counselor) we will have at most 1 empty seat on the bus. Close quarters, early in the morning, and I've been finding myself in a progressively worse mood all week (although now that my pre-recital is done that may change). Fun fun. Oh, and did I mention there is a 24 hour flu going around the choir. 5 people are recovering and 5 people are coming down with it as of 9 hours before we're supposed to leave. At least I'll get to spend lots of quality time with my girlfriend, at least the times we aren't sleeping.
No too much else going on. Aside from major stress, things aren't bad. Josh is very happy lately. Mostly because he has and almost girlfriend. For banquet he took one of Aiko's housemates, Genevive, because she needed someone to go with. It turns out their personalities compliment each other, and so Josh asked her out the other night. They had a good time and have both been beaming for the last four days. In fact, Josh is out with her and her sister and her sister's fiance, as we speak (after skipping choir, which, for the record is something I have not done yet. The only class I've skipped to hang out with Aiko was Geography, a non-essential, and that was after we had been dating at least 3 weeks. So there.) But I'm happy for him. It's a bright spot for him in a dreary semester.
Well, I should probably go get packed and get to bed sometime before 2 am (unlike last night). No if I find myself in that position, I'll just stay up until we leave. I'll also let you know how the mini-tour went.
Love you all, hope everyone is well.
2.14.2004
And so forth...
Just another week. Little more stress with my recital only 3 weeks away, and my pre-recital on Thurs (plus loads of mid-terms, etc.). Oh well, I'll deal, although I'm not going to be able to play Lan games with Ryan and Dale tomorrow.
On the plus side, this was my first Valentine's Day with an actual Valentine. Last night she made me dinner (note: artichokes don't really go well with chicken unless done properly. Oh well, it was still better than the cafeteria.), and we watched Oscar. She liked it. Today, I took her out to lunch then we walked around in the McConnel foundation preserve. It was nice.
She got me a nifty card. The picture on the front is a tall giraffe and a small turtle using balloons to float up at the giraffe's head level (very appropriate given our respective heights). The front text is "Our relationship is pretty unusual." Inside it says, "I'm pretty and you're unusual." She bought it because Lisa thought it was hilarious, and it is pretty funny.
Anyway, like I said, lots of homework for this week. And this next weekend is our choir mini-trip to Medford, Or. Yeah. So we'll be gone all Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday. What a weekend. At least we'll get to see how annoyed we're going to get with each other on our end of the year tour. I predicting we're all going to be very annoyed after four days.
Well, I really should go pretend like I'm going to start thinking about considering doing the things I usually do before I get around to doing my homework. Don't you love college. Love y'all.
On the plus side, this was my first Valentine's Day with an actual Valentine. Last night she made me dinner (note: artichokes don't really go well with chicken unless done properly. Oh well, it was still better than the cafeteria.), and we watched Oscar. She liked it. Today, I took her out to lunch then we walked around in the McConnel foundation preserve. It was nice.
She got me a nifty card. The picture on the front is a tall giraffe and a small turtle using balloons to float up at the giraffe's head level (very appropriate given our respective heights). The front text is "Our relationship is pretty unusual." Inside it says, "I'm pretty and you're unusual." She bought it because Lisa thought it was hilarious, and it is pretty funny.
Anyway, like I said, lots of homework for this week. And this next weekend is our choir mini-trip to Medford, Or. Yeah. So we'll be gone all Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday. What a weekend. At least we'll get to see how annoyed we're going to get with each other on our end of the year tour. I predicting we're all going to be very annoyed after four days.
Well, I really should go pretend like I'm going to start thinking about considering doing the things I usually do before I get around to doing my homework. Don't you love college. Love y'all.
2.07.2004
E) All of the above...
This week was not too bad. I've gotten lots done for my recital, with lots left to go. School isn't bad other than that. Dr. Slane really liked my thesis in Theology on Thursday, which is good, especially since I didn't think it was all that profound. Oh well.
This week has also been full of tying up little incidentals. For instance, I got pulled over on Wed. night for having an expired registration. So, I got a fix-it ticket for that. I called DMV and it turns out that when I registered on the internet it never actually processed (their site was acting up at the time, I probably should have figured that would happen). So, anyway, the lady let me register and dropped the late fee for me (yah!). So, the stickers should be here next week (and if you could send them promptly, that would be great).
In other money spending news, for one of my senior recital projects I bought Cakewalk Home Studio 2004 (it's good to have around anyway), and it doesn't like my onboard soundcard, meaning I'm have to go buy a new soundcard today (which I was planning on doing anyway, eventually). So, that's a bit of money there. I also found out that Riverdance is coming to Redding March 16-17, so I'm taking Aiko for her birthday. Suffice it to say, I could have probably bought her several items of jewelry for the same price as the tickets(!!). Oh well, I'll see if I can get others to chip in. Fortunately, I still have enough for car insurance, but not by much. Oh well, if I get in serious trouble I can always pull some money out of my Simpson account. Which reminds me. Could you send me the address info for the MMOA people so I can send them proof of enrollment so they can send me money? That would be good.
Other than all that, not too much going on. Aiko and I discovered that a fun thing to do is hang out at Barnes and Noble. We've gone there the last three dates. Usually we don't buy things, but just grab books and sit and read. At the rate we read, we can each get through a 200 page book in four hours, or two visits. It's kind of nice (esp. since we don't actually have to pay for the books, although we've bought enough stuff there to compensate for it). Also, it's a good place to just sit down. One of the problems we have is that I live on campus, which means no girls in the dorms, and she lives with 6 other girls, so there's really no place for us to just sit and talk away from people. Sometime we use Sandy and Austin's house, but in general there's really nothing. So, we're discovering places we can just sit. So far we have Round Table, Barnes and Nobles, and Starbucks (although with two of those you actually have to buy something). Anyway, just thought you'd enjoy that random information.
Well, now I need to go something like eat, spend money, or do homework. Love you all.
This week has also been full of tying up little incidentals. For instance, I got pulled over on Wed. night for having an expired registration. So, I got a fix-it ticket for that. I called DMV and it turns out that when I registered on the internet it never actually processed (their site was acting up at the time, I probably should have figured that would happen). So, anyway, the lady let me register and dropped the late fee for me (yah!). So, the stickers should be here next week (and if you could send them promptly, that would be great).
In other money spending news, for one of my senior recital projects I bought Cakewalk Home Studio 2004 (it's good to have around anyway), and it doesn't like my onboard soundcard, meaning I'm have to go buy a new soundcard today (which I was planning on doing anyway, eventually). So, that's a bit of money there. I also found out that Riverdance is coming to Redding March 16-17, so I'm taking Aiko for her birthday. Suffice it to say, I could have probably bought her several items of jewelry for the same price as the tickets(!!). Oh well, I'll see if I can get others to chip in. Fortunately, I still have enough for car insurance, but not by much. Oh well, if I get in serious trouble I can always pull some money out of my Simpson account. Which reminds me. Could you send me the address info for the MMOA people so I can send them proof of enrollment so they can send me money? That would be good.
Other than all that, not too much going on. Aiko and I discovered that a fun thing to do is hang out at Barnes and Noble. We've gone there the last three dates. Usually we don't buy things, but just grab books and sit and read. At the rate we read, we can each get through a 200 page book in four hours, or two visits. It's kind of nice (esp. since we don't actually have to pay for the books, although we've bought enough stuff there to compensate for it). Also, it's a good place to just sit down. One of the problems we have is that I live on campus, which means no girls in the dorms, and she lives with 6 other girls, so there's really no place for us to just sit and talk away from people. Sometime we use Sandy and Austin's house, but in general there's really nothing. So, we're discovering places we can just sit. So far we have Round Table, Barnes and Nobles, and Starbucks (although with two of those you actually have to buy something). Anyway, just thought you'd enjoy that random information.
Well, now I need to go something like eat, spend money, or do homework. Love you all.