Validation and the great Bug

 Today goes down as a Great Day!

-squeezed my way into Wind Orchestra

-lucked my way into Jazz Ensemble

-had a three hour dance party (I’m a dance machine)

-wore my first sweater of the season

With my comfy robe that makes me feel like a rich British man, newly shampooed hair, good memories, and some delicious herbal tea that my dear friend Rachel gave me, I’m feeling a lot cooler than I actually am.  So I thought I’d celebrate the fact that I don’t have to wake up early for my Sing-Awkwardly-In-Front-Of-Your-Peers class by talking about myself on the internet.

Something I learned:

Currently my major is Music Education, with an emphasis in band/percussion education.  However, my favorite classes so far are Religious Studies, Evidences of Intelligent Life in the Universe, and String Techniques.  After fruitless efforts of trying to squeeze aliens, yoga, and violins in my plans of having an at-home percussion studio, I became disheartened.  Yea, insomuch that a great confusement made my day kind of suck. 

However!

In Religious Studies, the professor asked “So where did college even start?”

“Harvard?...”

He went on to contradict us by basically explaining the origins of higher thinking.  It used to be that when someone felt the need for further enlightenment or education, they just sort of wandered around the forest, often naked (Since I ended up not going to ASU this is less likely (hah hah hah.)) and just mull over life.  They weren’t inventing tools or approving one another as superior archers or anything.  They were just thinking about how to be a better person.  This naturally developed into thinking about how to be a better citizen and how to help others become better people, as they saw fit.  Eventually these naked people met other naked people and they built huts, which eventually turned into buildings and so on.  And I think bowties come in at some point.  Thus, universities.  Thus, self-validation!

No, it is not necessarily true that by going to college I will get a higher paying job.   And if that’s the reason I’m here, then I am more prone to have weeks or years of sucky days of confusement.  And no, having a major shouldn’t be the focal point of my college education.  I’m just supposed to wander around in the forest for a while, and it’s totally awesome that I’m wearing a marching band uniform while I’m doing it. 

This is not to say that I do not love my major.  I’m just relishing in this hopefully-lasting peace that confusion is part of the plan.

On a lighter note…wanna hear a story?

So.  I was coming back to the apartment to grab my big bag of drumsticks and books for my first percussion lesson when I happened upon a huge giant Amazon bug.  Like a praying mantis, but more yellow and less cute. 

This is a pretty accurate depiction:

Like the totally competent grown-up that I am, I began shakily forming paper snowballs to throw at Bug in hopes that he would just kind of…skitter away? 

As much as I’d like to blame the wind, I admit it was my awfulness that let all seven-or-so snowballs miss.  The worst part is that the last one must have barely grazed his feelers, so he quick twitched his little Bug head at me.  I made some sort or dignified shriek of fear and scuttled away gracefully to the stairwell.  It was there that I happened upon my new buddy Jason!  He plays guitar and is into computer science.

“Hi Jason!”

“…Oh, hi!”

“You like computers!”

“...Yup! haha.”

“And you play guitar!”

“Sorry…you are?”

“Oh.  Emily. Hahahahahaha. So. Hey!  Could you help me out?”

“Sure!”

And then Jason greeted Bug gently with his skater shoe, merely escorting him from my door to the undoubtedly fluffy grass below.  What a pal!  So this is my blogular shoutout to Jason for his heroic feats in relocating bugs, getting me to my lesson on time, and braving my awkwardness with a smile. 

And it is with this anecdote that I must retire. 

A few quick tips:  Don’t donate blood five minutes before marching band, call your parents more often than you’d like, and never approach a Gallon Challenge (ever).

Not looming, just kind of sitting there.

Since officially moving to college on Tuesday, things have been a big happy blur.  I’ve moved into my apartment, got a spot on the college drum line (third bass!), made some pals, and have enjoyed plenty of games and foolery (bringing about my new nickname, Rhymeatron (am I cool yet?)). 

I’ve been getting my freshman fifteen off to a good start by re-falling in love with these little beauties. 

How can you resist?  The word “wheat” is in the title, they’re always toasted, not fried, they lack high fructose corn syrup, AND have 30 grams of whole grain in each serving.  And the way they carelessly scrawl “What Thins” across the box is just so darn approachable.  I am a fool for these crackers. True, at 10 calories a pop, I should be wary.  But the slightly significant nutritional facts plastered on the box coupled with the slightly significant burning of my abs, I've managed to sort of justify making these my rushed meals.

Apparently our drumline this year is doing a lot better than past drumlines at this school.  Hooray! The higher expectations are really exciting.  I've heard the phrase "the better we play, the more fun we'll have" a lot, which is great.  (I've also heard the phrase "moldy and gross" a lot, which is not so great, but irrelevant.)

Everything so far has been a series of me thinking things will be overwhelmingly awful and me being surprised at the underwhelming ease of it all.  But I mean this in a good way; it’s nice to not have the breakdowns I was anticipating.  Even carrying my bass drum on my jello-hard abs (those Wheat Thins man…) was pretty easy. 

But I’ll probably feel differently after band camp next week…

Okay, I’m going to find a good hiding spot for these Wheat Thins.

          


 My first college party consisted of: construction worker hats, live redneck washboard rock band, wood-chopping contest, caution tape award sashes, skanking, a keg of root beer, and a ceremonial burning of pants. Yay! Way to go Cool Kid On Drum Line Named Dan.

Zipadeeay

Hey! I'm 18! Am I supposed to feel different?

I've been failing repeatedly at posting blogs these past couple days…so this one is kinda lengthy.

Basically:  Three parties and a foot surgery and SO MUCH FUN! The details are quite riveting, I assure you.

This August has pretty much been a hardly-haulting stream of parties.  It's all bittersweet farewell-party things, but I haven't felt any bitter yet, just good times.  Though, I'm afraid the bitter's starting to creep in. (Foreboding!)
On my actual birthday, my family came over for homemade pizzas and had a grand ol' time.
Highlight: a dozen of roses. I'm a total sucker for flowers.

*WARNING: I'm about to get really charming/gross*

Warts.  Lots of them.  Lots of warts having a scary frat party on my foot.  They're called plantar's warts (named after the region of the foot) and they're not your average wart. They're awesomer.  Inverted and deep in your foot, they're an ouchy and what-the-heck-is-that reminder of why you shouldn't walk your dog barefoot anymore.  After some googling and regretted youtube-watching, I decided that indeed, they were warts.  So I went to the doctor.
I am a six-year-old wussy when it comes to medical procedures. Besides blood donating, I can't do anything without an internal (sometimes external) freak out.  After the doctor waged his knife-and-needle war on my foot, I hobbled out of the office with newfound bravado for handling the five shots of epinephrine without using more than two tearful tissues.


Later on, my dear buddies picked me up for a delicious Thai food adventure.  Instead of heading downtown, they started driving the opposite direction toward The Bridge to Nowhere (a barely developed highway overpass bridge that leads nowhere).  Usually, we come here at night, turn on Phoenix's "If I Ever Feel Better" and have ourselves a joyous little dance party.  Since it was still light outside and we were on the bridge rather than Nowhere, I was slightly confused but nonetheless active in the giddy ritual (a little off my game with a numb foot).  Then, sure they were the silhouettes of my dear friends' Jen and Kevin, skipped towards the Nowhere to greet the two people walking towards our dance party.  And then they put a pillow case on my head.  Thus, I don't have any pictures for this particular moment.

My theatre friends take nothing lightly.  They growled instead of spoke, commanded me to put my head between my legs, and insisted I shut up and kept still.  The worst party was when the "Here Come the Men In Black" song came on the radio and I couldn't full-on dance.  Luckily, my friend Kenneth (whose birthday is soon) was equally napped, so we comforted each other with the Morse Code we pretended we knew.

We reached our destination: a public park festooned with birthday banners and "Surprise!"
I love my friends. Thinking about our inevitable drift is what makes the bitter creep in the most. They're the best.

As a final goodbye, I decided to host what I called an Ooh La La party, which basically entailed stripes, berets, and a lot of pastries on my part.  Luckily the crepes, spinach artichoke dip, and baguettes were a big hit.  Thank you, butter.  It was interesting saying goodbye to friends that I knew I wouldn't see until Christmas.
C'est la vie, right?  Hopefully I can bribe college people into being my friends via pastry, too.

There's something about Julie Andrews.

Taken by a very artistic Woodstock man who wasn't completely wearing his pants but whatevs.

I seriously have the most awesome friends. Ever.
After having to turn down a Disneyland invitation, they all secretly pitched in for my ticket like charitable sneaksters. Though it's pretty impossible to swallow the bad feelings of a vacation on someone else's expense, I managed to have a completely awesome magical time between the guilt trips (with the aid of their superbness and my light-up bubble gun).

DISNEYLAND.
I'm obsessed.
I wear my mouse ears on the drive up and take them off before bed only for fear of their destruction. I consider $3.50 a bargain for the amount of magic in the churros. I cringe in suspense each time I watch Fantasmic. I savor each 80-minute line as an opportunity to admire the architecture. I can hum along with almost every song in the park. And I get decent scores in Toy Story Mania and Astro Blaster.
My only complaint: I won't go on Pinocchio...and I need a hand to hold in Snow White.

Now it's back to packing and goodbyes. And my last couple days as a minor! Sadly, I can't think of anything interesting to celebrate my minor state besides get tried for murder or sue an inappropriate somebody. I think I'll just stick to getting psyched about adulthood and not being carded for DayQuil. This is about the extent to which a Mormon kid's excitement can go.

SOAR: student orientation…aggie…reality?

I WENT ON AN AIRPLPANE ALL BY MYSELF. Luckily, both times I was able to glue my nose (figuratively) to a window, and have an empty seat between myself and a generally pleasant stranger. I also was able to indulge in one of my many OCD rituals by drinking ginger ale and gawking inwardly at the amount of tomato-juice drinkers. This practice is a pretty big staple in my life.

I'm going to ignore the fact that airplane-window-cloud pictures get old and post these:

Logan is beautiful. It was odd driving up through the welcome hills and trying to view what was once a getaway as my new home. The way perspectives shift has always been sort of fascinating to me. Growing up in a neighborhood of like floor plans, it was interesting to see which corners felt more homey, which doors seemed bigger, how long the hallways seemed. (Yes, this is how I occupied my eight-year-old mind/why nobody ever wanted to come to my sleepover parties (not that I'm bitter about it or anything (well of course I'm a little bitter (but nothing serious (I'm fine)) about the whole thing) haha…))

As the moving date looms closer, my anxiety encourages me to do more crafts and watch more Pixar movies. So I guess I've been in a sort of try-to-cover-up-the-problems high. There's been a lot of good from it though! Including the tentatively cute beginnings of a lamp shade.

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose"

Ranking high on my this-is-a-problem-that-you-NEED-to-fix list is my superability to lose things.  So it was no surprise when I couldn't find my iPhone this morning.  I went through the usual cushion searching routine, swept all the nooks, and retraced my steps with no avail.  Since I do this so often, I've perfected my technique- a crucial part of which is to not be alarmed.  So I wasn't, until 5 hours later of full-on hardcore searching.  Realizing the possibility of my phone being kidnapped by intelligent mice in need of technology- and my fast-approaching thai food and comic book date- I decided to venture out in the wilderness with no means of communication.  (My mom declined my homing pigeon proposition.)

I felt

really cool.

"Oh look at me, just taking a walk on the wild side, my mom isn't even GPSing me right now, I'm such a mysterious woman..."

After a long day of adventuring and discovering the endangerment of the pay phone species,

I came home to an empty house.  Using the landline that I forgot existed, I tried to locate my mom.

"Oh...are you on the landline?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because...I still don't know where my phone is."

"You haven't seen it yet?"

"Nope."

"Really? Have you looked on the counter?"

All atwitter at the prospect of my phone being discovered, I became a speedy demon to reach the counter.  Only to discover it had been completely demolished.  Seriously.  I was waiting for them to come home with the story, expecting something about it either being ran over in the street or smooshed by an ACME anvil.  Instead I went on Facebook and found  this:

I suppose this was a fair way to respond, seeing as how I recently informed her that I broke my glasses:

Apparently my phone was so wedged into the mechanisms that they had to use tongs and things to get it out.  At the scene where the body was found, I foundered powdered shards of glass, hand-swept into a little horrifying pile by one of the feet. To all this I would like to give a big ooooooooooohhhhhh well.  And a smile, with a tiny bit of an eyeroll/headshake. 

ALSO

I just bought my plane ticket for college orientation.  

                                            eek.

Speaking of wasting of money,

I bought another comic today.  But it was on sale.  So that justifies it.

Due to some hardcore self-pitying today, helping out the high school drum line, and painting my nails all pretty, I haven't made time to read any further than the very first page 

WHICH SEEMED VERY INTENSE.

Speaking of very intense things, 

Nail art.  Oh my goodness.  The Daily Nail has been melting my face. Her creativity, detail, humor, and geekdom make her and her blog quite nifty.  Inspired, Megan used her nail-polish-hoarding tendencies to grace my life and make my nails looks all cool, all while we were gawking at The Daily Nail's unyielding awesome.  Whatever Megan touches, it magically becomes cute and decorated.   That being said, all of the gross smudged nails are my work (such as the bleeding Spiderman on my thumb) Not much of a finished product, but we plan on practicing more!

On a final and mildly victorious note, I recieved my Young Women's Medallion!  It's basically a girl Eagle Scout award, except

10 mile snow hikes: sleeping in comfy air-conditioned cabins::projects involving mounting deer heads and chopping wood:projects involving baking cookies for old people and painting nice quotes on chopped wood.

For reals though, it was a hoot.  I enjoyed the program and learned a lot.  It encouraged general goodwill out of me and got me goal-setting.  Plus, something pretty and sentimental came out of it.

"And now Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure."

Why my mom is great:

Despite the fact that she has had little or no interest in Harry Potter, she's always supported my sister and I wholeheartedly in our geekdom.  She even let us decorate with a window scene in the last movie's honor (pretty extensive, but this is how we get our thrills).

 I often ramble on play-by-plays of my favorite moments and swoon at my favorite quotes or talk through how I interpret the philosophy of it- all while she's tapping away on her laptop in order to bring home bacon (I think that's the phrase). Soon, I came to the disheartening conclusion that she wasn't interested and that I should probably shut up and let her focus.

Just when I thought that The DaVinci Code would be the only literature she'd read during my childhood, she read the whole Twilight saga!...in just four days!  It required a small break from sunlight and bacon-bringing, but I suppose it's all for the cause.  Though this new fascination was slightly nauseating (mostly because the movies played in our house for a while), it also gave me new hope. I decided to try again. 

Unfortunately, the new gusto in my attempts went unnoticed...but not by my brother, Chris. He became obsessed. We would have movie marathons, pausing only for long background discussions and embellishments.  Though he's never read the books (I'm pretty sure the only book he's read is Holes, bless his heart), he's become pretty proficient in trivia in all the details of the plot.

When he moved in with my other brother, Josh, he soon turned Josh onto the movies, too.  My sister-in-law and four nephews caught on as well.  

There are three primary advantages to this:

1. My adorable nephews speaking in actually-pretty-good British accents while fighting with Transformers

2. The youngest one, not able to talk yet, trying his hardest to cast spells by enthusiastically pointing forks and exclaiming his best guesses at English. He sounds a bit like Donny from Wild Thornberry's.

But mostly,

3. My mom finally being convinced to watch the movies and read the books!  Right now as I type, we are watching the Prisoner of Azkaban and my sister is explaining the genesis of Moody, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.  It's a pretty happy day.

My attendance to see Deathly Hallows part 2 was everything and more. 












I'm never too picky when it comes to the Harry Potter movies, or really any books-turned-into-movies.  There are many reasons why, but ultimately it's not very sensible or sensical and goes against my Optimism Code.  I found the whole movie to be beautifully done. I loved the increase of darkness and light in the movie.  

I loved when they put the Cornish Pixies in the Room of Requirement. It was such a tiny little thing that sent me smiling about how much I love the whole series. In that one moment, they contrasted the monumental bloody battle alongside the whimsical struggles with a once-sane Lockhart. It just made me really happy.  And that's what I love about the series. 

Harry recites "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good" and the credits open up.  Interrupted by her own yawns, my mom asks if we can watch the fourth and fifth movies tomorrow night.  She then makes her way to bed muttering something about "really starting to get into it..." "thought there had to be something up with the rat.." I have a feeling we'll get all the way to the sixth.

On a cryptic note, 

I've been feeling a lot of anxiety for my new future, mostly fueled by fear of how my past will affect it.  But due to recent events and plenty of thinking time, I've been approaching peace at an alarming rate.  With all that changes with time, I can't expect to change with it (good or bad) unless I make an effort.  I know that there are times when goodbyes seem hopelessly evident, but there's always the chance that a start from the beginning is in order. And yes, even with the more hopeful goodbyes, there will be an inevitable Cornish Pixie to remind me of the nuisance and victory. And that is quite alright.