2 1/2 weeks till school is out, and all I can say is "thank goodness." The year's been great of course, but I'm about to get burned out for the following reasons....
*First of all biology has become extremely demanding. Don't get me wrong. I love biology. The problem is I have to collect 20 leaves and take notes on them (I'll be lucky to get 5), do an extremely long plant anatomy study (the guy who writes my science book loves to torture kids with these things) plus I have a semester test coming up. I know I know, the hands on stuff is super important. However, by the time I get through the reading out of the text book, I'm about all scienced out. I never did care for plants that much anyways....Oh well. Better just enjoy biology while I can I suppose.
*History is about to drive me insane. After reading all that stuff about Middle Eastern politics I'm starting to wish the Middle East had never existed....Okay exaggeration of course but it sure does get confusing. My dad's supposed to sit down with me and help me understand it better, which'll make me feel dumber than ever cause my dad's one of those history buff guys. Oh well. I'm also reading a book on Ronald Reagan which is quite interesting, but unfortunately I have to do a report on it. Why must they ruin all good books by making you write reports on them? Why I ask you why?....
*Then of course, last but certainly not least, is geometry. Not only do I have several more regular tests to reckon with, I have a unit test plus a final exam that covers the entire book. So basically if I do really bad on the unit test plus the final exam my whole grade is going to go plop. Let's just say I have a lot of studying to do in order to keep my geometry grade in the range of an A.....
That's it for now. I promise the next post will not be as negative. =] At least hopefully not.....Later
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Crazy crazy crazy
This week has been pretty exhausting to say the least.....
*Tuesday night I got to babysit again (the same two girls as last time actually) and we watched movies the whole time up until they went to bed. (But you don't see me complaining.....) We watched Night at the Museum first which was actually quite comical, and then we watched the animated movie Flushed Away which had to be one of the most wierdest movies I've ever seen. Okay okay I know it's a kids movie, but it had a very odd plot and was just kind of freaky if you know what I mean....So while the kids were watching I laughed at all the right times and commented at all the right places, but at the same time managed to carry on a text conversation without them ever suspecting a thing. hehe. Then after I finally managed to get them in bed around 8:30 or so, I had a nice peaceful hour and a half to read all to myself. No brothers, no parents, etc. etc. (No offense intended of course). The only thing was they have these two dogs that are always constantly running around and making little noises, so that did get old after a while...but hey it was still a blast. And no freaky allergic reactions/panic attacks this time....
*My dad got his first treatment today at the university hospital, and the doctors seemed really positive about it all. He has to go in every two weeks for about a year, but if it all works out I don't care how many times he has to go in. =] Your prayers are greatly appreciated.'
That's it for now
*Tuesday night I got to babysit again (the same two girls as last time actually) and we watched movies the whole time up until they went to bed. (But you don't see me complaining.....) We watched Night at the Museum first which was actually quite comical, and then we watched the animated movie Flushed Away which had to be one of the most wierdest movies I've ever seen. Okay okay I know it's a kids movie, but it had a very odd plot and was just kind of freaky if you know what I mean....So while the kids were watching I laughed at all the right times and commented at all the right places, but at the same time managed to carry on a text conversation without them ever suspecting a thing. hehe. Then after I finally managed to get them in bed around 8:30 or so, I had a nice peaceful hour and a half to read all to myself. No brothers, no parents, etc. etc. (No offense intended of course). The only thing was they have these two dogs that are always constantly running around and making little noises, so that did get old after a while...but hey it was still a blast. And no freaky allergic reactions/panic attacks this time....
*My dad got his first treatment today at the university hospital, and the doctors seemed really positive about it all. He has to go in every two weeks for about a year, but if it all works out I don't care how many times he has to go in. =] Your prayers are greatly appreciated.'
That's it for now
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Ranting
Time for a blog where I get to rant a little bit. ;)
*Technology is great. I mean heck if someone every took away my cell phone I'd probably die.Okay a bit of an exaggeration but I wouldn't appreciate it too much....The only problem is technology can be extremely annoying. For example my computer. Don't get me wrong this thing is great. However, every time I do one little thing about a zillion popups show up (which sometimes take forever to get out of), lots of time my browser window gets shut down for no apparent reason, and once I had typed out this huge very nice "thing" when all of a sudden my computer froze and erased the whole thing. So yes often times it is hard to get anything done on my computer. Oh well. At least I have one....
*The one problem with living in this area? It is dang hot. It is only April and already it's burning up. My room, unfortunately, it always hotter than the rest of the house, so since I exercise a lot in there I'm constantly dripping with sweat. (In the winter my room is always the coldest in the house. How unfair is that....) A trip to Maine for the summer sure wouldn't hurt.
*Now that we are in the home stretch of school, I'm getting very sick of it. Don't get me wrong. As I've said many times before I do enjoy school. However, geometry is starting to slowly drive me insane, my history notes are so tedious my hand is exhausted by the time they're finished, and I have a big science semester test coming up which means I have to look over all the chapters of the entire semester. *sigh*
Okay I'm done now. =]
*Technology is great. I mean heck if someone every took away my cell phone I'd probably die.Okay a bit of an exaggeration but I wouldn't appreciate it too much....The only problem is technology can be extremely annoying. For example my computer. Don't get me wrong this thing is great. However, every time I do one little thing about a zillion popups show up (which sometimes take forever to get out of), lots of time my browser window gets shut down for no apparent reason, and once I had typed out this huge very nice "thing" when all of a sudden my computer froze and erased the whole thing. So yes often times it is hard to get anything done on my computer. Oh well. At least I have one....
*The one problem with living in this area? It is dang hot. It is only April and already it's burning up. My room, unfortunately, it always hotter than the rest of the house, so since I exercise a lot in there I'm constantly dripping with sweat. (In the winter my room is always the coldest in the house. How unfair is that....) A trip to Maine for the summer sure wouldn't hurt.
*Now that we are in the home stretch of school, I'm getting very sick of it. Don't get me wrong. As I've said many times before I do enjoy school. However, geometry is starting to slowly drive me insane, my history notes are so tedious my hand is exhausted by the time they're finished, and I have a big science semester test coming up which means I have to look over all the chapters of the entire semester. *sigh*
Okay I'm done now. =]
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Update
Just a quick update on my dad. Unfortunately we found out yesterday (he had an MRI Tuesday) that his tumor has actually grown some. The doctors did say the chemo was working, just not fast enough. Soo he is going to a university hospital next week to get much stronger treatment to hopefully prevent any further cancer cells from growing. We're pretty hopeful about all of this, because this hospital has cured a lot of people with brain cancer. Thank you soo much for your prayers, and I'll definitely let you know how it all goes.
Besides this, nothing much else has been going on except it's sooo dang hot down here. The unfortunate fact is that it's only April. Imagine what it will be like in July.....
Besides this, nothing much else has been going on except it's sooo dang hot down here. The unfortunate fact is that it's only April. Imagine what it will be like in July.....
Monday, April 14, 2008
The Recital
My piano/voice recital was yesterday afternoon. I made it the whole morning through church without feeling one twinge of nerves, which is extremely odd for me. Normally I would be hyperventilating at this point. After church, I went home and ate lunch. To my shock the feelings of calm continued. I should have known it was too good to be true...
As soon as we arrived at the building I started feeling sick. My legs started quivering, and when I saw that none of my three pieces were till the second half I really got panicky. Now I had to sit through a whole first half and an intermission before I could play. Not good considering I had that much more time to sit there and come up with ways I could mess up.
Finally, after what seemed like years, it was finally time for the second act. I was the second person to play in it, and as the first person started I started feeling really queasy. When the person finished and walked backstage, I almost starting hyperventilating. I made it out on the stage without tripping over my heels or looking stupid, and started playing. The first piano song (a jazzy hymn thing) went pretty well. At the end I missed a few cords cause my hands were shaking really bad, but the rest of it went good and now I'm not sure if I ever want to hear that hymn again....
After a few more people played, me and this other girl got to play our duet. It went fantastic. We both stayed in time, and we were able to speed it up without missing any notes. But after all the times we had to practice it, it just had to sound good.
After (once again) a few more people played, it was finally time for my last song which was a voice piece. I was actually quite nervous about this because 1: I hadn't really been able to warm up as much as I would have liked, and 2: My throat had suddenly gone really dry and there was no water in sight. I went out there anyway and it actually went great as well. I didn't forget any of the words (which was a bit of a miracle) and my voice didn't crack on any of the notes. Thank goodness....
As soon as we arrived at the building I started feeling sick. My legs started quivering, and when I saw that none of my three pieces were till the second half I really got panicky. Now I had to sit through a whole first half and an intermission before I could play. Not good considering I had that much more time to sit there and come up with ways I could mess up.
Finally, after what seemed like years, it was finally time for the second act. I was the second person to play in it, and as the first person started I started feeling really queasy. When the person finished and walked backstage, I almost starting hyperventilating. I made it out on the stage without tripping over my heels or looking stupid, and started playing. The first piano song (a jazzy hymn thing) went pretty well. At the end I missed a few cords cause my hands were shaking really bad, but the rest of it went good and now I'm not sure if I ever want to hear that hymn again....
After a few more people played, me and this other girl got to play our duet. It went fantastic. We both stayed in time, and we were able to speed it up without missing any notes. But after all the times we had to practice it, it just had to sound good.
After (once again) a few more people played, it was finally time for my last song which was a voice piece. I was actually quite nervous about this because 1: I hadn't really been able to warm up as much as I would have liked, and 2: My throat had suddenly gone really dry and there was no water in sight. I went out there anyway and it actually went great as well. I didn't forget any of the words (which was a bit of a miracle) and my voice didn't crack on any of the notes. Thank goodness....
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Busy
These past few days have been crazy.....
*After today I am not sure I ever want to see a single note of music again....okay I'm exaggerating a bit, but today I did get a little musiced (not sure if that's a word) out. I had a piano lesson at 1:30, then at 4:00 I had to practice that duet with the girl I'm playing it with for Sunday. I really didn't see the need for an extra practice (we both agreed it sounded fine), but my piano teacher insisted on it (you know how musicians are) so there was really not a thing we could do. Oh well. I guess every practice helps. Then at 5:30 I had a voice lesson which was kind of nerve wracking seeing as how that recital is looming in the distance. I haven't sang in front of a big audience in a while, so I'm a bit nervous to say the least. Let's just say I'll feel a lot better once this recital is out of the way.
*Tuesday I was playing one of those Nancy Drew computer games (those things are very entertaining) when I did something really stupid. So I exited the game so my mistake would be erased, and then started the program again and tried to get back to my game that I had saved right before my mistake. To make a long story short, I ended up erasing my whole entire game. To say I was angry is an understatement. I think the whole house heard me yelling about it. I mean to work so hard and then lose all of that.....geez. But anyways I soon caught up to where I was and everything's fine again. =]
*On Monday it will be 5 weeks till school's out if we can wrap everything up fairly quickly. Not that I don't like school, I just really really need a break so I'm really looking forward to next month. The reason we're trying to get done so fast? My parents are going on a trip the 3rd week of May, so they don't want to have to worry about school while they're gone. (If they had that attitude the whole year round things could be pretty awesome....) I'm really looking forward to that trip because our grandparents will (hopefully) be coming, which means things could get kind of crazy around here....
*After today I am not sure I ever want to see a single note of music again....okay I'm exaggerating a bit, but today I did get a little musiced (not sure if that's a word) out. I had a piano lesson at 1:30, then at 4:00 I had to practice that duet with the girl I'm playing it with for Sunday. I really didn't see the need for an extra practice (we both agreed it sounded fine), but my piano teacher insisted on it (you know how musicians are) so there was really not a thing we could do. Oh well. I guess every practice helps. Then at 5:30 I had a voice lesson which was kind of nerve wracking seeing as how that recital is looming in the distance. I haven't sang in front of a big audience in a while, so I'm a bit nervous to say the least. Let's just say I'll feel a lot better once this recital is out of the way.
*Tuesday I was playing one of those Nancy Drew computer games (those things are very entertaining) when I did something really stupid. So I exited the game so my mistake would be erased, and then started the program again and tried to get back to my game that I had saved right before my mistake. To make a long story short, I ended up erasing my whole entire game. To say I was angry is an understatement. I think the whole house heard me yelling about it. I mean to work so hard and then lose all of that.....geez. But anyways I soon caught up to where I was and everything's fine again. =]
*On Monday it will be 5 weeks till school's out if we can wrap everything up fairly quickly. Not that I don't like school, I just really really need a break so I'm really looking forward to next month. The reason we're trying to get done so fast? My parents are going on a trip the 3rd week of May, so they don't want to have to worry about school while they're gone. (If they had that attitude the whole year round things could be pretty awesome....) I'm really looking forward to that trip because our grandparents will (hopefully) be coming, which means things could get kind of crazy around here....
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Another Piano Festival Come and Gone
The piano festival took place yesterday. For this one I was determined not to be nervous, and I tried not to "overthink" the pieces I was playing (that's what happened last time). However, the problem was I wasn't sure if I was supposed to play one or two pieces, and if I did I didn't know how many I was supposed to do from memory. Just in case, I worked hard on memorizing both of them, but as our car inched closer and closer to the building the notes to the songs started leaving my head one by one. By the time we got there I was extremely panicky and starting to wish I was on another planet.
Fortunately (or not so fortunately) soon after we arrived it was my turn to play. Even though the judge seemed much nicer (and a bit more relaxed) than the one last time, I was still extremely nervous and I started feeling kind of faint. To relax myself I thought, "What's the worst thing that can happen?" Well I can do so horribly that I'll get booed off the stage and my piano teacher will be humiliated for the rest of her natural life....Yeah that reasoning didn't help to calm me too much.
As soon as I got up there I expected the guy to grab my book from me right away. Instead he leafed through it for a second and started making comments on some of the other songs in the book. Now at this point I was so nervous that I really wasn't in the mood for this, but of course I had to smile and make comments back because you don't want to get on the bad side of a judge after all. Then after he was done he told me to start, and to my shock handed me back my music. So I didn't have to play from memory after all. I was so relieved and happy that I almost hugged the judge right then and there, but luckily I refrained from that. So I played my piece (it went much better than I thought), heard a few comments, and then exited the stage as fast as my legs could carry me. Then just as I was leaving, my piano teacher piped up, "Hannah, don't you have one more song to play for him?" I almost hyperventilated then and there. Sure I didn't have to have it memorized, but that song was wayy harder than the one I had just played and I really didn't want to go through all this stress again. Luckily another teacher there explained to my teacher that we only had to play one song each. Thank heavens for that.
Now that the festival is over you'd think that all my stress would be over right? Wrong. Next Sunday there's a recital where I have to play a duet with another girl (we actually got to go over it yesterday afternoon for the first time together), I have to sing something, plus I might have to play both (or just one) of my solo piano pieces. At least that's what I think. With my piano teacher who knows.....
Fortunately (or not so fortunately) soon after we arrived it was my turn to play. Even though the judge seemed much nicer (and a bit more relaxed) than the one last time, I was still extremely nervous and I started feeling kind of faint. To relax myself I thought, "What's the worst thing that can happen?" Well I can do so horribly that I'll get booed off the stage and my piano teacher will be humiliated for the rest of her natural life....Yeah that reasoning didn't help to calm me too much.
As soon as I got up there I expected the guy to grab my book from me right away. Instead he leafed through it for a second and started making comments on some of the other songs in the book. Now at this point I was so nervous that I really wasn't in the mood for this, but of course I had to smile and make comments back because you don't want to get on the bad side of a judge after all. Then after he was done he told me to start, and to my shock handed me back my music. So I didn't have to play from memory after all. I was so relieved and happy that I almost hugged the judge right then and there, but luckily I refrained from that. So I played my piece (it went much better than I thought), heard a few comments, and then exited the stage as fast as my legs could carry me. Then just as I was leaving, my piano teacher piped up, "Hannah, don't you have one more song to play for him?" I almost hyperventilated then and there. Sure I didn't have to have it memorized, but that song was wayy harder than the one I had just played and I really didn't want to go through all this stress again. Luckily another teacher there explained to my teacher that we only had to play one song each. Thank heavens for that.
Now that the festival is over you'd think that all my stress would be over right? Wrong. Next Sunday there's a recital where I have to play a duet with another girl (we actually got to go over it yesterday afternoon for the first time together), I have to sing something, plus I might have to play both (or just one) of my solo piano pieces. At least that's what I think. With my piano teacher who knows.....
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Random
A few random things that have been going on....
*I had some pretty big plans (hehe) for April Fools this year, but as always they're either too impractical or I'm just plain too lazy to do them. Also I happened to forget that it was April Fools Day for some reason, so when my dad came down and told me that he had found a cock roach in our linen closet I bought it hook, line, and sinker. Even though he comes up with ridiculous stuff like that every year, he can normally get at least one person to fall for it (I'll give him some credit for that).
*Music wise, I'm going to be pretty darn busy over the next week and a half. Saturday there's a piano festival (if you read my posts last month you'll remember how my last piano festival went) where I have to play for a judgewho takes notes on your playing and all that crazy stuff. The problem is my piano teacher is sure I have to play two pieces, while the paper specifically says I can only play one piece. Either that paper was a misprint or my teacher (great teacher though she is) is just a tad bit clueless on this one. Oh well. Then a week from Sunday I'm playing a duet in a recital with a girl I haven't even met (we're supposed to be meeting to practice Saturday, but you know how those things work out...) and I'm also singing a song from memory in Italian. (Did I mention that I have to memorize the songs for the festival too?) So yes I'm going to be quite freaked out over the next few days. Surprisedly I am not freaked out at the moment, however. Probably all that I have just mentioned has not sunk in yet and I will suddenly wake up in the middle of the night screaming with horrific terror as the truth of approaching disaster sinks in.....okay so that was a little melodramatic, but you get the picture.
Well I guess that's all I have to rant about for the moment. =] Later everyone.
*I had some pretty big plans (hehe) for April Fools this year, but as always they're either too impractical or I'm just plain too lazy to do them. Also I happened to forget that it was April Fools Day for some reason, so when my dad came down and told me that he had found a cock roach in our linen closet I bought it hook, line, and sinker. Even though he comes up with ridiculous stuff like that every year, he can normally get at least one person to fall for it (I'll give him some credit for that).
*Music wise, I'm going to be pretty darn busy over the next week and a half. Saturday there's a piano festival (if you read my posts last month you'll remember how my last piano festival went) where I have to play for a judgewho takes notes on your playing and all that crazy stuff. The problem is my piano teacher is sure I have to play two pieces, while the paper specifically says I can only play one piece. Either that paper was a misprint or my teacher (great teacher though she is) is just a tad bit clueless on this one. Oh well. Then a week from Sunday I'm playing a duet in a recital with a girl I haven't even met (we're supposed to be meeting to practice Saturday, but you know how those things work out...) and I'm also singing a song from memory in Italian. (Did I mention that I have to memorize the songs for the festival too?) So yes I'm going to be quite freaked out over the next few days. Surprisedly I am not freaked out at the moment, however. Probably all that I have just mentioned has not sunk in yet and I will suddenly wake up in the middle of the night screaming with horrific terror as the truth of approaching disaster sinks in.....okay so that was a little melodramatic, but you get the picture.
Well I guess that's all I have to rant about for the moment. =] Later everyone.
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