It's been awhile since I've written in here, and some stuff has happened that is probably worth writing about.

Well, I'm a college graduate as of May 9, 2009. I'm still student teaching until June 5th, but after that is over, I'll be officially done with college and off to look for a job. I didn't recieve the assistantship for graduate school at Duquesne, so I'll most likely not be returning. It's kind of a weird feeling, being done with college. People said college would go by really fast. While I was here, it didn't seem that way, it felt like I'd be here forever. Now that it's over, I have to say that they were right...it went by fast.
I don't have any idea of where I'll be working next year yet, nor have I started interviewing. It's kind of scary to not know where I'll be next year, or what I'll be doing.

My student teaching at Norwin has been going really well so far. Mr. Szymanski, my cooperating teacher is amazing. He's very similar to me in my beliefs on music education and is much more encouraging and positive that my other cooperating teacher at NA. The kids there are so great too, especially the middle school kids. They're funny.

I'm not really sure what I'll be doing this summer other than trying to find more kids to teach private lessons to. Hopefully I'll be doing a lot of interviews during the summer too...got to get a job!

nonsensicalexis
if paul walker was not in that movie, i wouldn't want to see it.
nonsensicalexis
it actually looks like it might be just as bad as the first one
shunoco
haha
shunoco
if not worse than the firt
nonsensicalexis
now if they wanted to improve it, they would just make it 2 and a half hours of paul walker driving a car shirtless.
shunoco
naked
nonsensicalexis
sure, why not.
shunoco
hehe
nonsensicalexis
i think that would be the best movie ever.
nonsensicalexis
nude paul walker. that's it.
nonsensicalexis
that's the whole plot.
nonsensicalexis
it's incredibly interesting.
shunoco
let's make it
nonsensicalexis
i mean, there's the mystery part of it...cause as your watching naked paul walker, you're probably thinking "I wonder what would happen if I punched him"
shunoco
haha
shunoco
that'll be the last scene
shunoco
no wait
nonsensicalexis
it's a great movie idea!
shunoco
it'll start off he's nake and fighting with his girlfriend and she punches him in the stomach
shunoco
and breaks her hand
shunoco
so he has to drive her to the hospital, while naked
shunoco
and they live 3 hours from the hospital
shunoco
or 2
shunoco
3 might be kind of long
nonsensicalexis
hell, make it 4. he's naked.
shunoco
haha
shunoco
true
shunoco
but she has to pass out because the pain in her hand is so severe
shunoco
so she won't talk at all
shunoco
her only line will be "I think i broke my hand"
nonsensicalexis
oh my god yes.
nonsensicalexis
shannon you do realize what this means?
shunoco
no?
nonsensicalexis
we need to kidnap paul walker.
shunoco
ok!
shunoco
so we can make our movie... of course
nonsensicalexis
and then we'll be millionaires.
shunoco
speaking of kidnapping famous people
shunoco
did i ever tell you david is friends with a girl that's friends with jason mraz?
nonsensicalexis
...NO
shunoco
and he failed to tell me this until spring break
nonsensicalexis
WHAT?
nonsensicalexis
did David just meet you
nonsensicalexis
does he even know you?
shunoco
we heard i'm yours on the radio and he goes "who sings this?" and i tell him "jason mraz" and he responds "oh. my one friend is friends with him. her myspace has pictures of them hanging out and stuff"
shunoco
i asked him why he didn't tell me sooner b/c that's my ringtone he said he didn't know who sang it
shunoco
and he didn't really care
nonsensicalexis
leave him. leave him now.
shunoco
haha i can't
shunoco
he's a gateway
nonsensicalexis
oh this is true.
nonsensicalexis
oh my gosh we could kidnap jason mraz for the movie too.
shunoco
YES!!!!!!!
nonsensicalexis
he could sing the whole time.
nonsensicalexis
he'd be the entire soundtrack.
shunoco
fabulous

Quick update since I have to leave for my Acoustics class in like ten minutes. I have been accepted into grad school, and it looks like I'm definitely going to be coming back for another two years for my masters in performance.

Also, Fallout 3 Pittsburgh, come out sooner.

God it's sexy.

Lost Fangirl Rant:
THIS SEASON OF LOST HAS BEEN AWESOME SO FAR. I LOVE DANIEL FARADAY, WHY IS CHARLOTTE DYING, AND ALSO AWWWW DESMOND AND PENNY NAMED THEIR KID CHARLIE, HOW FUCKING CUTE.


OH DANIEL. YOU ADORABLY NERDY SCIENTIST YOU.


Anyways, real life stuff, GO:

I have officially set up my audition date for grad school at Duquesne. February 13th. I am really stressing out about this, mostly because my viola teacher is out of the country. Luckily I don't have to play nearly as much as I thought...(the Duquesne website LIES), and also it doesn't have to be memorized. I don't have an accompanist yet, so that's another issue I need to get figured out soon.
I'm also not that confident about my piece either, but the only thing that's going to help with that is practicing ridiculous amounts in the next few weeks.

I could have scheduled my audition for a later date, but I really just wanted to get it over with, rather than having another month of being stressed out over it. I really really hope that I get in and get an assistantship. The more I've thought about it, the more I really want to get in. If I think back on the experience I had with viola for my four years here, it's not entirely positive. I had two years with Randy Kelly as my private teacher, and while he may be the first chair of the Pittsburgh Symphony, he is also kind of an ass. I didn't improve that much when I had him as a teacher. I had Marylene for my junior year, and I did improve a lot that year. This year I didn't have many lessons first semester because student teaching took up most of my time. This semester, I don't have room in my schedule for lessons, so I'll be paying for them on my own. The only problem is that Marylene isn't going to be back until March or so. (This is most of the reason I'm really nervous...I haven't had a lesson since December) Anyways, I don't feel like I'm as proficient as I should be on my instrument. According to the music education department junior primary instrument proficiencies, I am "proficient" on my instrument; but I definitely don't think so. I am not meeting my own expectations on my instrument, and if I am not satisfied and confident with my playing, how can I possibly be confident in teaching others? This is probably the biggest reason that I'm actually willing to come back for another two years at Duquesne. The perk is that I'll *hopefully* be getting a full ride, since I'm a violist. Another nice little perk is that I'll get a nice little pay boost once I get a teaching job...that master's degree does nice things to paychecks.

But in order for any of this to happen, I have to do really really well in my audition.
I'll be a whole lot less stressed whenever this is all over.

So today was the first day of my last semester at Duquesne. I had most of my classes today, since for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to stick the majority of my classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I had some Acoustics, Computers for Musicians II, Biblical and Historical Perspectives, Philosophical Questions, and Orchestra, all in a row. Yeah... Luckily, Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays are a lot easier. The only other classes I have are Orchestration & Senior Seminar on Mondays and a sociology class on Wednesdays. Fridays I have just orchestra, which won't be too bad.

All my classes so far seem pretty good. No papers in the bible class, just a bunch of reading, and then a couple of papers in the philosophy class.

I'll be auditioning soon for grad school...still have to set up my audition date, but it's getting closer. AH.

OH.

MAGFEST.

Right. So MAGfest is pretty much the most fun four days ever. I hung out a lot in the Jamspace, which was this room you could go into and play music on stage whenever you felt like it. I was in the game room a lot too, basically a big room where there were lots of TVs and a bunch of different consoles were set up and you could go around and watch peoples games or play if a tv opened up. I also walked around the vendors...got me a companion cube. :) Hung out with a bunch of people from ocremix.org which was a lot of fun....getting to meet all these people I've seen online was kind of awesome. I also played with a group and we did a little performance on the open mic night at Jamspace, and next year we're gonna do a whole concert. I'm excited for the next one already. Yay Magfest!

Well I'm screwed.

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I hate this weekend, and others like this weekend. This is one of those weekends where I'm scheduled to work building aide during the hours that nobody is in the music school, so it's just me sitting there by myself, all weekend for about 15 hours or so, and I get most of my work done within the first hour or two that I'm there. Then I sit there and try to keep myself occupied by going online and stuff. But then I have to go back to my apartment, where I live alone, and sit there and keep myself occupied. This weekend was particularly bad because everybody else at Duquesne has gone home for the weekend, so I couldn't go bother other people. So there were several occasions today when I just kind of stared off into space and was just thinking about lots of different things...mainly things that made me really depressed, and it's now 12:30 at night and I've been up today since 7 AM, thinking about depressing things on and off. I should try to think of happy things, but I do, and then somehow they turn into really depressing things too. (Oh and did I mention my throat is absolutely killing me?)

And tomorrow will be the same way, until I get back to school on Monday, and teach right up until the day before Thanksgiving, and then go to work as building aide at the music school on Wednesday night (and I guarantee nobody will be there).

ugh.

LOST
"A leader can't lead until he knows where he's going" Locke from LOST

"Living is easy with eyes closed" Charlie's tattoo from LOST

OBLIVION
"Wonderful! Time for a celebration! Cheese for everyone! Wait...scratch that. Cheese for no one. That can be just as much of a celebration if you don't like cheese. True?" Sheogorath from Oblivion

PORTAL
"Didn't we have some fun though? Remember when the platform was sliding into the fire pit and I said 'Goodbye' and you were like (deep male voice) 'NO WAY!' (Normal voice) and then I was all 'We pretended we were going to murder you'? That was great!" GLaDOS

RED VS BLUE
Simmons: Sergeant Grif is our C.O. sir.
Sarge: Your Sergeant has the same name as Grif?
That's a disturbing coincidence.
Simmons: No no, listen to me. Grif is our Commanding Officer.
He was promoted to sergeant when you refused to relocate with us.
Sarge: Then who's in charge???
Simmons: Sergeant Grif!
Sarge: Ok, see I can hear you saying words, but it's like they don't match up in a way that makes sense.
Did you have a stroke?
Simmons: Grif IS a Sergeant. He's the same rank as you now.
Sarge: That's what I'm talking about. Where is he?
Simmons: He's right there!
Sarge: So...he's invisible.
Grif: Dude, I don't think he's physically capable of understanding what you're telling him.

Simmons: Shotgun.
Grif: I outrank you, get in the back.
Simmons: Fuck.

Washington: I told them Caboose did it. Apparently they already have a shortcut on their keyboard for reporting his team kills.
Caboose: Control-F-U

So in order to make work less boring, I've been saying "HAVE A TERRIFIC DAY!!!!" very enthusiastically at the end of phone calls right before I hang up.

It's fun.