sooo.....
i havent said anything in here in a good amount of time, i suppose. i had something typed up a few days before Xmas, but then just as i was about to post it, i read it over and realized it was crap and didnt really make much sense at all. so i decided not to post it after all.
so lets see, i'll try to remember back to the past few days which currently blend together in my mind as one big mass of nothingness, interdispersed with that holiday that comes every year.. you know the one i mean. lets see... last Tuesday i awoke to the phone ringing at about 9am... it was my mom calling from work. she said that Laura (the music teacher at her school) needed someone to fill in for an absent student in the bell choir. the kids were doing a concert in the auditorium during the day for all the other kids to see (all the different grades sang Xmas songs and all.. ya know, the usual Xmas concert). so anyway, as it turned out, there were actually 3 kids absent. Laura was filling in for 1 kid, she got another teacher who could read music to fill in for another kid, but she needed one more person or else the bell choir couldnt perform. so my mom decided to call me and ask if i could come in. mind you, the bell choir was supposed to be at 10.. it was 9 when she called me. let me also add that although i've been involved in a variety of musical ensembles throughout my college career, i have never been involved in a bell choir. so i said eh what the hell, sounds like fun.. i'll do it.
so i tried to get ready ASAP and made my way over to the school. it was my impression that they were going to be starting right around 10... so i ran up to the front of the auditorium when i got there to see what was up, but as it turned out, a few other grades still had yet to sing, so i sat in the auditorium til they were done. then i had to sightread through the pieces. it was kinda fun. i always thought bell choir looked kinda cool. though the 2 bells i played were 2 of the bigger ones, and i was surprised how heavy they were. for anyone who doesnt know what the deal is with a bell choir... its just a bunch of bells of different sizes. everyone gets 2 bells to ring (or more if youre good.. hehe). then a song, usually piano music is arranged for the ensemble. suppose for your part, youre supposed to play a G and an A... well then you go through the music and circle those notes and then just play those whenever they appear. anyways.. yeah, the ones i had were pretty big and therefore heavy. my wrists were hurting by the end. it was still kinda cool though.
after that i went back over to my mom's school just for the hell of it. it was their last day so it was a half day. one of the teachers there named Christine (i think she's the school psychologist) has a baby named Cara (14 months old) who's really cute.. my mom always talks about her cause Christine brings her to work sometimes. so she ended up bringing her on Tuesday.. my mom told me beforehand. so i stuck around and sat in my mom's office and pretended i was the principal for a bit :p got to see the baby, who was really cute. that was fun.
hmm what else. Wednesday night we went to midnight mass, which pretty much sucked ass. i wont get started on how i didnt even want to go in the first place, but i didnt wanna make a scene and say that i wouldnt go, so i just accepted the fact that i'd have to give away a few hours of my life to subject myself to a small amount of torture. i have many qualms about the church that my family goes to, but i'll try not to say too much. anyway, there are a few (well.. 2, that i know of) different musical groups that sometimes perform. one is these 2 guys who are brothers.. both play the guitar and sing really well... my parents say that people actually clap for them when they play cause theyre so good. and THEN, theres the other group. this guy Brian Steager and his wife Claire. allow me to explain.
Brian and Claire are probably somewhere in their 60s (maybe late 50s i dont know.. even though they have a son who's younger than me). anyway... they both play the guitar. Brian.. well.. i dont know if its fair to say that he sings. i suppose he does, but it doesnt deserve to be called singing, cause he just plain sucks. apparently he doesnt seem to realize this fact. apparently he doesnt seem to realize that he is hardly ever on pitch. he's simply awful. Claire pretty much thinks that she is god's gift to the world. even though she's apparently the only one who thinks so. she has time to work a full time job and tend to a vegetable garden at home and blah blah blah blah. i dont know.. i've never talked to her, but my parents have many stories about both of them.
and THEN theres the lady that plays the organ. OH MY GOD. again, i dont know if its fair to say that she plays the organ. more like makes it sound like its dying. she's maybe late 70s or early 80s. sometimes i wonder how she's able to read music. she frequently doesnt play the right chords, or confuses which foot pedal to hit. and when the foot pedal clashes with the chord that youre playing with your hands.. well... it doesnt sound too good. and then she always turns on the weirdest sounds.. like she always uses this one with lots of tremolo that makes it sound like something from Tales from the Crypt. its simply awful - sounds like a horror movie. my parents and i just stand there and exchange pained looks most of the time. its pretty damn bad.
then there's my whole issue with people singing. if people are gonna sing in church, in my opinion, they should get into it. awhile ago, when i was in elementary school, my dad had a job as a principal in a primarily black school in a bad area.. he ended up doing a lot for the school in the time he was there. anyway, once some of the ladies invited him to come to their church. he decided to go and brought my mom, my sister, and i as well. and let me tell ya... they sure know how to sing! you can really feel the energy and whatnot. i'm not particularly into that type of music, but if youre gonna sing, for god's sake, at least get into it and dont act like youre some kinda of miscreant for opening your damn mouth. the people at the church my family goes to drive me insane. ok, i'll stop.
anyway.. Christmas was nice. my sister and i didnt wake up and go downstairs til like 10:30ish or something. hehe. ah well.. its all good. i didnt really get anything big/major.. just the usual clothes, hair/makeup stuff in the stockings, $ from my grandmom... ya know. then we went to my aunt/uncle/cousins house for the rest of the day, which is always a good time. i love my little cousins. actually theyre not so little anymore, i guess. Katie & Nicole (twins) are in 7th grade and i think Lauren is in 5th. theyre cute :) its cool being the oldest of all the cousins (i have 2 more, Christopher and Matthew.. but they and my aunt and uncle have been living in the UK for the past few years cause of business stuff). instead of coming home here for Xmas, what'd they do? fly out to Cali instead... wtf? but thats another story. but yeah Christmas was fun. i got my dad the Beatles 'Let It Be - Naked' cd. yay for the Beatles.
since that, i havent really done anything all that interesting... just pretty much lounged around the house. i went to the gym today and yesterday (oh damn, its actually Sunday now since its past midnight.. but just pretend its still Saturday). my dad and i were going to drive down to Florida for a few days but i dont think its going to happen now. my mom is a bit out of comission cause she has a stress fracture in her foot and has to wear this boot-kind-of thing for 6 weeks. my sister has been an emotional mess... she thinks she's depressed or has some kind of anxiety disorder. basically the whole college/what do i want to do with my life thing. i would try to help out, but i'm not necessarily one to give advice, given that i dont exactly know what i'm gonna be doing when i finish school. i know what i'd LIKE to know, but its not the most realistic thing at the time being... unless some executive from a record label happens to find me somehow.
oh yeah i forgot... before Christmas, we went out to dinner with family friends of ours from Connecticut. to make a long story short, they'd always wanted to have children but never could for certain reasons. they were sponsoring these 3 or 4 children from China who were in some orphanage of sorts. they would write to the kids and send them packages and whatnot.. they even went to visit them a few times. finally they found out that they were allowed to adopt this one little girl. one of her legs was slightly shorter than the other.. it wasnt noticable when she was so little (only about 2) but if it wasnt fixed before she got older, it would be bad. and being that she was from China, which is generally not a great place, she would never be able to get it fixed. so they adopted her and she has been living with them since maybe umm May or June? her name is Jenna and she is very cute (here are some pictures... 1 2 3. so they came down and we went out to dinner with them. both of them are relatively high-up in the business world and know lots of people. i played my songs for Don and he was very impressed. i gave him a cd and he is going to see if he can help me out in some way. he said he'd write to iTunes and ask if they could put my songs up. the wife, Peg, knows lots of people in the independent film industry, apparently. so all i can do is cross my fingers and see what happens.
hell, thats enough for now.
edit: oh yeah, we watched Pirates of the Carribean tonight. Johnny Depp is hot. and for the first time ever, i actually thought Orlando Bloom looked kinda good. he never did much for me in LOTR but he looked ok in that move. ok, thats it.
so lets see, i'll try to remember back to the past few days which currently blend together in my mind as one big mass of nothingness, interdispersed with that holiday that comes every year.. you know the one i mean. lets see... last Tuesday i awoke to the phone ringing at about 9am... it was my mom calling from work. she said that Laura (the music teacher at her school) needed someone to fill in for an absent student in the bell choir. the kids were doing a concert in the auditorium during the day for all the other kids to see (all the different grades sang Xmas songs and all.. ya know, the usual Xmas concert). so anyway, as it turned out, there were actually 3 kids absent. Laura was filling in for 1 kid, she got another teacher who could read music to fill in for another kid, but she needed one more person or else the bell choir couldnt perform. so my mom decided to call me and ask if i could come in. mind you, the bell choir was supposed to be at 10.. it was 9 when she called me. let me also add that although i've been involved in a variety of musical ensembles throughout my college career, i have never been involved in a bell choir. so i said eh what the hell, sounds like fun.. i'll do it.
so i tried to get ready ASAP and made my way over to the school. it was my impression that they were going to be starting right around 10... so i ran up to the front of the auditorium when i got there to see what was up, but as it turned out, a few other grades still had yet to sing, so i sat in the auditorium til they were done. then i had to sightread through the pieces. it was kinda fun. i always thought bell choir looked kinda cool. though the 2 bells i played were 2 of the bigger ones, and i was surprised how heavy they were. for anyone who doesnt know what the deal is with a bell choir... its just a bunch of bells of different sizes. everyone gets 2 bells to ring (or more if youre good.. hehe). then a song, usually piano music is arranged for the ensemble. suppose for your part, youre supposed to play a G and an A... well then you go through the music and circle those notes and then just play those whenever they appear. anyways.. yeah, the ones i had were pretty big and therefore heavy. my wrists were hurting by the end. it was still kinda cool though.
after that i went back over to my mom's school just for the hell of it. it was their last day so it was a half day. one of the teachers there named Christine (i think she's the school psychologist) has a baby named Cara (14 months old) who's really cute.. my mom always talks about her cause Christine brings her to work sometimes. so she ended up bringing her on Tuesday.. my mom told me beforehand. so i stuck around and sat in my mom's office and pretended i was the principal for a bit :p got to see the baby, who was really cute. that was fun.
hmm what else. Wednesday night we went to midnight mass, which pretty much sucked ass. i wont get started on how i didnt even want to go in the first place, but i didnt wanna make a scene and say that i wouldnt go, so i just accepted the fact that i'd have to give away a few hours of my life to subject myself to a small amount of torture. i have many qualms about the church that my family goes to, but i'll try not to say too much. anyway, there are a few (well.. 2, that i know of) different musical groups that sometimes perform. one is these 2 guys who are brothers.. both play the guitar and sing really well... my parents say that people actually clap for them when they play cause theyre so good. and THEN, theres the other group. this guy Brian Steager and his wife Claire. allow me to explain.
Brian and Claire are probably somewhere in their 60s (maybe late 50s i dont know.. even though they have a son who's younger than me). anyway... they both play the guitar. Brian.. well.. i dont know if its fair to say that he sings. i suppose he does, but it doesnt deserve to be called singing, cause he just plain sucks. apparently he doesnt seem to realize this fact. apparently he doesnt seem to realize that he is hardly ever on pitch. he's simply awful. Claire pretty much thinks that she is god's gift to the world. even though she's apparently the only one who thinks so. she has time to work a full time job and tend to a vegetable garden at home and blah blah blah blah. i dont know.. i've never talked to her, but my parents have many stories about both of them.
and THEN theres the lady that plays the organ. OH MY GOD. again, i dont know if its fair to say that she plays the organ. more like makes it sound like its dying. she's maybe late 70s or early 80s. sometimes i wonder how she's able to read music. she frequently doesnt play the right chords, or confuses which foot pedal to hit. and when the foot pedal clashes with the chord that youre playing with your hands.. well... it doesnt sound too good. and then she always turns on the weirdest sounds.. like she always uses this one with lots of tremolo that makes it sound like something from Tales from the Crypt. its simply awful - sounds like a horror movie. my parents and i just stand there and exchange pained looks most of the time. its pretty damn bad.
then there's my whole issue with people singing. if people are gonna sing in church, in my opinion, they should get into it. awhile ago, when i was in elementary school, my dad had a job as a principal in a primarily black school in a bad area.. he ended up doing a lot for the school in the time he was there. anyway, once some of the ladies invited him to come to their church. he decided to go and brought my mom, my sister, and i as well. and let me tell ya... they sure know how to sing! you can really feel the energy and whatnot. i'm not particularly into that type of music, but if youre gonna sing, for god's sake, at least get into it and dont act like youre some kinda of miscreant for opening your damn mouth. the people at the church my family goes to drive me insane. ok, i'll stop.
anyway.. Christmas was nice. my sister and i didnt wake up and go downstairs til like 10:30ish or something. hehe. ah well.. its all good. i didnt really get anything big/major.. just the usual clothes, hair/makeup stuff in the stockings, $ from my grandmom... ya know. then we went to my aunt/uncle/cousins house for the rest of the day, which is always a good time. i love my little cousins. actually theyre not so little anymore, i guess. Katie & Nicole (twins) are in 7th grade and i think Lauren is in 5th. theyre cute :) its cool being the oldest of all the cousins (i have 2 more, Christopher and Matthew.. but they and my aunt and uncle have been living in the UK for the past few years cause of business stuff). instead of coming home here for Xmas, what'd they do? fly out to Cali instead... wtf? but thats another story. but yeah Christmas was fun. i got my dad the Beatles 'Let It Be - Naked' cd. yay for the Beatles.
since that, i havent really done anything all that interesting... just pretty much lounged around the house. i went to the gym today and yesterday (oh damn, its actually Sunday now since its past midnight.. but just pretend its still Saturday). my dad and i were going to drive down to Florida for a few days but i dont think its going to happen now. my mom is a bit out of comission cause she has a stress fracture in her foot and has to wear this boot-kind-of thing for 6 weeks. my sister has been an emotional mess... she thinks she's depressed or has some kind of anxiety disorder. basically the whole college/what do i want to do with my life thing. i would try to help out, but i'm not necessarily one to give advice, given that i dont exactly know what i'm gonna be doing when i finish school. i know what i'd LIKE to know, but its not the most realistic thing at the time being... unless some executive from a record label happens to find me somehow.
oh yeah i forgot... before Christmas, we went out to dinner with family friends of ours from Connecticut. to make a long story short, they'd always wanted to have children but never could for certain reasons. they were sponsoring these 3 or 4 children from China who were in some orphanage of sorts. they would write to the kids and send them packages and whatnot.. they even went to visit them a few times. finally they found out that they were allowed to adopt this one little girl. one of her legs was slightly shorter than the other.. it wasnt noticable when she was so little (only about 2) but if it wasnt fixed before she got older, it would be bad. and being that she was from China, which is generally not a great place, she would never be able to get it fixed. so they adopted her and she has been living with them since maybe umm May or June? her name is Jenna and she is very cute (here are some pictures... 1 2 3. so they came down and we went out to dinner with them. both of them are relatively high-up in the business world and know lots of people. i played my songs for Don and he was very impressed. i gave him a cd and he is going to see if he can help me out in some way. he said he'd write to iTunes and ask if they could put my songs up. the wife, Peg, knows lots of people in the independent film industry, apparently. so all i can do is cross my fingers and see what happens.
hell, thats enough for now.
edit: oh yeah, we watched Pirates of the Carribean tonight. Johnny Depp is hot. and for the first time ever, i actually thought Orlando Bloom looked kinda good. he never did much for me in LOTR but he looked ok in that move. ok, thats it.