AllState

Of course.  Of course, of course, of course.  For the AllState Orchestra auditions today, I was practically the first person to play.  Seriously.  Auditions started at 9:00 and my time was 9:06.  Out of all the people there, how did I end up with such an early time?

Not that a later time would have helped much though.  I had some time to practice, but there were so many people playing in such an echoy corridor/rotunda thing that I could barely hear my own notes.

Perhaps I would have done better too if I had played the excerpts before the sightreading pieces.  Because really, the sightreading was easy this time.  But I was too nervous for the first lyrical one, and I got the rhythm and notes, but it wasn't very pretty.  The second one had odd slurs in a 9/8 tempo, so I gave up on counting and just played it...Usually I can judge the rhythm well in my head, but afterwards I realized that I should have just subdivided early on.  30 seconds is no time to think over anything.

My excerpts were, and there is no other word to describe them, completely eh.  They were slush.  Started off well, got nervous, pulled it back together, then a big stumble towards the end.  I hope the judges are lenient in the mornings.  Or are they cranky and harsher?

I've never figured out when the best audition times are.  They should all be the same.  But humans can't suppress emotions, so there should theoretically be a difference in, say, auditioning before lunch and auditioning after lunch.  Would they be kinder before because they want to hurry and have pizza or would that lead to the opposite effect? Perhaps after eating pizza their brains would produce endorphin and, feeling happier, attribute it to the music? Psychology really does interest me, but I would spend more time stumping around with hypothetical questions than decoding human thought and intuition.

Well.  At least one thing went better this year than last year.  I learned my lesson well, and went to the restroom ahead of auditioning.  Cheers.

Neville Longbottom

For the past few days my face has been swollen like a chipmunk from my wisdom teeth removal.  Every time I look in the mirror, I feel this great urge to turn to the person next to me and giggle "I look like I'm related to Neville from HP!".  And I do.  Really.  But no one from my family understands the reference, so they all smile indulgently at me and return to whatever they were doing.  No doubt they think I'm going off the walls from my medication or something.  The rest of the time I'm completely normal though, so perhaps they just don't see why this similarity is so amusing to me.  To be truthful,  I don't either.  That doesn't stop me from laughing wildly just at the thought of it though!

Like Pulling Teeth

It turns out that getting wisdom teeth removed really isn't something to stress over.  Barely thirty minutes and poof! my three were out.  It would have been a much more interesting experience if they had simply numbed my mouth without putting me to sleep though.  Not to mention much cheaper.  But then again, I probably would have fainted from shock or something if I realized that there was the slightest chance that I would feel any pain.  I'm just a scaredy cat like.

My trip yesterday was a novel experience though.  After all, it was my first surgery that I can remember.  The funny thing was, I was so anxious that the medication wouldn't work on me-my brother's completely immune-that I almost fell into a natural sleep during the laughing gas phase.  Before they even stuck the IV in! Which, by the way, didn't hurt nearly as much as I thought either.  There was a slight pinch, and it was a long pinch since it stayed in my arm, but the laughing gas simply wrapped me in a haze.  As always. 

Or perhaps it was because I was on my way to sleeping? I only realized, rather belatedly, that I wasn't supposed to be out of it yet when all the nurses and doctors started asking me questions.  Hah.

When I did come back to my senses, it was nothing as jarring as my mother had warned either.  While it wasn't totally strange though, it certainly wasn't normal.  Well, I take my words back.  After thinking on it, it was actually how I usually feel when I wake up.  On a good day.  Unless all my good mornings are simply weird?  That's definitely something to ponder.

Currently, I've been laying around in bed all day.  I felt fine yesterday after the surgery, but perhaps not being able to eat real food since 11 on New Year's night has started affecting me.  I've had pretty much minimal amounts of water and only a teensy bit of swallowable food, like egg soup and a soupy lotus root mixture.  Or maybe I'm slightly dizzy from the medication.  Or even just from staring at my laptop for so long? Then there's also the possibility that it from getting so little sleep recently...

Ahhh, school starting so soon.  What's with the school board? They must understand that we need breaks to recuperate from work.  And the breaks aren't going to achieve that purpose if teachers are insisting on assigning us work over them. Though in all fairness I only have the one history paper that needs to be written.  And that I could have had a good start on if only I had worked harder on it over the last semester.  But at that time I was busy studying for the PSAT and SAT II and whatnot...  Ugh, excuses again.  I still should have focused on it.  School should come first.

Except right now, I'm having a hard time deciding.  Because I also have so so many summer program/internship applications to fill out that I completely confused.  Oh, all those application essays wouldn't be so bad either if only there weren't so many teacher recommendation letters to accompany each of them.  I'll be having the same teachers for the next year and a half! And we aren't even pleading for college recommendation letters yet! I don't need them to hate me now.

Ouch.  My mouth is hurting whenever I close it.  Or open it too widely.  Well actually, it throbs even if I do nothing.  Crazy.

Shattered Oaths

I really did promise myself that it would just be a short term situation.  A one time occurrence.  Everything should have returned to normal after one night, perhaps two, three at the absolute most.  But then how it's my current pickle explained? I'm feeling outrageously tired now, like I could simply fall over at any moment and arrive in dreamland while still in motion.  Earlier, I fell asleep on the forward and return trips to my violin lesson.  And I usually do doze off on those trips, but today was all out sleep where I noticed nothing around me.  This really needs to stop.  After all, it's finals week.

Maybe I didn't give the previous tests my complete attention.  And maybe all the tests turned out all right last week.  But finals.  That is around 20% of my grade in each class right there.  Am I going senile? I've told myself multiple multiple times that manga, anime, all of that nonsense could wait until winter break before I go under.  And dramas.  Especially dramas.

It's just a measly four days away from freedom though, so what am I doing? Why reading manga, crying over Lelouch, and giggling idiotically over the new Hana Kimi of course.  Goodness.  I must have a death wish.  This is really one of the busiest times of the year and here I am, wasting away time as though trying to make up for being (relatively) good this semester.  The Biology Open? Summer program applications? Dance performance? Violin audition? FINALS? Pshhh.  They've got nothing on me.

Right.  My mind's definitely crazy.

I've been sleeping around 3:30 for more than a week now.  Why? A person who loves sleeping as much as me.  Who hates waking up as much as me.  Why can't I make myself sleep earlier? I get this nagging feeling nowadays if I sleep before midnight telling me that I could be losing myself in the Internet instead of wasting time sleeping.  Geez.  What's up and what's down?

And today..I ate so much chocolate too.  After I said that I would be good and try to eat more fruits and veggies from now on...

Crazy.  Totally.

Anyways, on a better note.  I got my PSAT scores back on Friday!!!! Hehe, I exceeded all of my greatest hopes and my mom's highest expectations! A 237!!! Wooooo ;)

(Of course, she automatically set even higher standards for me to met, so technically I never met her expectations, but yeah.)

Anddd, I'm actually going to turn my laptop off now.  Throw it into the hall in order to avoid temptation.  Glance over my econ notes.  And sleep like the dead.

Gobblegobblee

Ahhh, it's finally Turkey Break but I feel as though all of my angst has decided to just make a reappearance. Without warning. Of course.

 I mean, I had completely planned out already that I was going to spend this week being a good student. Working on all the essays that have been piled up (well...), the projects that need start (okay, maybe not good), and of course, some frantic studying to prepare for the SAT's, some sort of biology test I'm taking (whaat), and the periodic interschool academic competitions that I'm supposed to be good at. Life's become almost like a comedic story.

Its unexpected plot twists are so crazy that they match up perfectly with those of popular fiction novels. Ohh. Wow.

I'm so tired.  But aren't I just fighting myself? I'm only stressed out, short on time, dying of work, etc. because I slacked off, found some delightful obsession, tore apart my carefully organized study schedule to ..well..obsess over things.  And I feel like it's all dejavu.  Cause really, didn't this happen last year as well? Even around the same time? Even when I know what to prevent...and failing that, what to expect...my stupidity seems to overcome all my reason, throwing my emotions into a large mixing pot, and enable me to make the same mistakes on the same godforsaken metaphorical road, ending every journey as a mess of nerves and self-loathing.

Not quite true this year.  But then again, I'm hoping that spelling this out so plainly for myself, laying bare and untangling my thoughts, can give me enough motivation to turn around, climb out of the hole, and work hard enough to make up for what's been lost.  My mind though, reminds myself that my heart is uninterested in longterm goals.  As I face my own inability to comply with what I know is right, my desire to stray  grows exponentially.

Actually, I'm not too sure if this post is supposed to be an odd sort of motivational or just a delusional rant by my dying soul.  Really should be the former.  Or, well, I might have more problems to worry about.

To end on a better note, here's what I've been up to recently! It was for a virtual competition, but I hope everyone will enjoy it!!! The instrument is a Chinese zither and, translated, the piece is "High Mountains, Flowing Water".  (It has HD quality options that make me look like less of a withered hag) ;D Oh, and it's kind of long, but if you have one a minute or two, listen to my favorite part at 4 min! I would love any comments, feedback, questions, all of it!!

P.S.- Though this is already such a lengthy post, I really must put this out.  Stay til the end for my smile!! Haha, yeah..nothing important.  

Good night and happy turkey eating ;)

Car J'ai Sommeil

"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying." ~Oscar Wilde

A Self-Conscious Introvert?

“It occurred to me that I have the potential to be pretty damn good at being myself. Which would be good, I think. It would be great. But first, I’m pretty sure I need to admit who that person is.”