"Musicians are the architects of heaven." ~McFerrin
Well now, I'm more rested and I feel more up to updating. I had a nice nap and some supper and therefore feel somewhat rejuvenated.
So we left and drove for awhile, I had planned on sleeping and listening to my ipod. But I had a little complication because my ipod would not turn off when I got up Wednesday morning, so I just paused it. So by the time we left the batteries were dead. So instead I ended up reading. We stopped at McDonalds for supper, and we had a little incident with Michelle and my mints, which was rather funny.
Anyway so once we got to the school and signed in and everything it was time for our auditions. So we were separated into groups by our instruments and taken to different parts of the school. My group consisted of me, two other oboes, and three bassoons. We sat around for a long time, then our two judges came and told us what passages we'd be playing. Then we auditioned in a random order. Ben (Oboe I) went first, then me, then the other Oboe II. On a side note there were supposed to be four oboes, but someone decided not to come at the last minute. Anyway, after our audition we were supposed to go back to the auditorium and wait. It was not easy to find the auditorium again. We ended up being on the fourth floor and I didn't really pay attention to where we were going on the way there, because I was nervous for my audition. Back in the auditorium we waited for everyone else to finish their auditions.
After that we were given our final housing lists. Well much to Britta's and my horror, things got switched around and we were all separated and put with other people from other schools. Now to top it all off, I waited and waited...and my host family never came. Luckily Mrs.Forry hadn't left yet, so she told me if all else failed she'd take me to stay at her hotel with her. But we went and told the people in charge that no one had got me (because everyone else left and it was like an hour past the time they were supposed to get us). And they figured out that they hadn't told the host family that I was added to their list. So the lady in charge drove me to their house and dropped me off. Anyway, I ended up being with 3 other girls. Two were from greater johnstown, the other girl was from richland.
Anyway they had three rooms in the basement for us to share. now the logically thing in my opinion would have been for the two from the same school to share a room since they knew each other. Now granted, I ended up kind of knowing the girl from Richland because she in the Johnstown Youth Symphony, but we didn't even realize that till later. However, they each claimed the two single rooms, so Sarah (the girl from Richland) and I shared a room. Which actually ended up being ok, because Sarah and I got along very well. And probably talked far to late into the night.
As for my host family. There was a mother, father, and two daughter, one was 17 and the other 15. however the girls were like never there, I don't know where they went but they were basically never home. Anyway, they were extremely nice people, but very health conscience. Everything in the house was organic pretty much. Organic cereal, bread, milk, cranberry juice, everything. And actually I liked it all pretty much...regular milk is definitely better though. My host mom played the flute when she was younger and actually had a full scholarship to college because of it in Arkansas were she was originally from. She told me this story at breakfast the one morning about how she would have made it to some music thing her senior year in high school, but she went and drank the night before, and then she screwed her audition up the next day because she was hungover. I think her intention in telling me this story was because they had a ton of beer. It's probably the most alcohol I've ever seen. But anyway, I think the point was to discourage us from drinking the beer that was done in the refrigerator in the basement with us...since obviously I was sooo tempted by that, haha. (But note I still liked my host family, despite this and I didn't think they were terrible people). My host dad, knew basically nothing about music and got the biggest kick out of this weird show that we watched called Weeds. Lol, here's a conversation we had:
Mr.Thompson: So, Greta, you're a senior like my daughter, do you know what you want to do?
Me: Yeah, pretty much. I'm going to double major in French and English education.
Mr. Thompson: Ahhh, you want to be a teacher. It can be hard to get a job in that field. i just hired a young man who went to school to be a teacher, but couldn't get a job. If you can't get a job someday, come see me.
Me: haha, thanks.
Anyway so the next day practice started at 8. We got our audition results. I was first chair, second oboe. Even though the other first oboe canceled, I couldn't move up to first because they wanted two second oboes, and besides I really don't think I would have wanted to be first oboe. Anyway, that meant I made it to regionals to, because I couldn't bring myself to screw up my audition. But they had us fill out this paper at our audition about whether we could attend the regionals or not, and I circled no. Mr.Forry came up to me later, and wanted to make sure I knew that I circled no, because she thought maybe I did it by accident. But everyone took it pretty well actually. So now, I'll just have to explain to my private teacher why I'm not going to regionals, which will be hard, but...oh well. At first, I kind of regretted saying no, but the more I got to know the other second oboe, the more glad I was that I said no, because it meant like ten times more to her to go on then it did to me. Anyway then we practiced till 8:30 at night. Lots of practicing.
Then Friday, Altoona had a two hour delay, so we got a delay to, so we didn't start till 10. There was a little incident with the first chair oboe, Ben, as follows:
Me: What do you think you're doing? (To Ben because in the middle of a song, he just stood up and started walking away)
Ben: I'll be back.
Me: You can't just get up and leave in the middle of a song. You have a solo in this song. What are you going to do when we get to your solo and you're not here?
Ben: You can play it.
Me: I am not playing your solo for you. Where are you going anyway?
Ben: I'll be back. (Ben leaves).
He just got up and left, lol. Worse still it struck me as comical, so then I started laughing. But anyway he ended up coming back before we got to his solo, and the conductor never noticed me laughing. So that practice went till 8:30 again.
Then today, practice started at 9. Our concert was at 11. The concert went very well. And it is my opinion that we sounded very, very good, and quite impressive. So then we ate lunch at Sheetz and came home. There are lots of other things that happened too, but I'm not going to write anymore I've wrote enough. And I'm going to go work on my homework. Anyway, I think it was a good experience. And there is always just something amazing about how everything comes together for concerts. And then listening to the music we can create. There are very few feelings like it.
So we left and drove for awhile, I had planned on sleeping and listening to my ipod. But I had a little complication because my ipod would not turn off when I got up Wednesday morning, so I just paused it. So by the time we left the batteries were dead. So instead I ended up reading. We stopped at McDonalds for supper, and we had a little incident with Michelle and my mints, which was rather funny.
Anyway so once we got to the school and signed in and everything it was time for our auditions. So we were separated into groups by our instruments and taken to different parts of the school. My group consisted of me, two other oboes, and three bassoons. We sat around for a long time, then our two judges came and told us what passages we'd be playing. Then we auditioned in a random order. Ben (Oboe I) went first, then me, then the other Oboe II. On a side note there were supposed to be four oboes, but someone decided not to come at the last minute. Anyway, after our audition we were supposed to go back to the auditorium and wait. It was not easy to find the auditorium again. We ended up being on the fourth floor and I didn't really pay attention to where we were going on the way there, because I was nervous for my audition. Back in the auditorium we waited for everyone else to finish their auditions.
After that we were given our final housing lists. Well much to Britta's and my horror, things got switched around and we were all separated and put with other people from other schools. Now to top it all off, I waited and waited...and my host family never came. Luckily Mrs.Forry hadn't left yet, so she told me if all else failed she'd take me to stay at her hotel with her. But we went and told the people in charge that no one had got me (because everyone else left and it was like an hour past the time they were supposed to get us). And they figured out that they hadn't told the host family that I was added to their list. So the lady in charge drove me to their house and dropped me off. Anyway, I ended up being with 3 other girls. Two were from greater johnstown, the other girl was from richland.
Anyway they had three rooms in the basement for us to share. now the logically thing in my opinion would have been for the two from the same school to share a room since they knew each other. Now granted, I ended up kind of knowing the girl from Richland because she in the Johnstown Youth Symphony, but we didn't even realize that till later. However, they each claimed the two single rooms, so Sarah (the girl from Richland) and I shared a room. Which actually ended up being ok, because Sarah and I got along very well. And probably talked far to late into the night.
As for my host family. There was a mother, father, and two daughter, one was 17 and the other 15. however the girls were like never there, I don't know where they went but they were basically never home. Anyway, they were extremely nice people, but very health conscience. Everything in the house was organic pretty much. Organic cereal, bread, milk, cranberry juice, everything. And actually I liked it all pretty much...regular milk is definitely better though. My host mom played the flute when she was younger and actually had a full scholarship to college because of it in Arkansas were she was originally from. She told me this story at breakfast the one morning about how she would have made it to some music thing her senior year in high school, but she went and drank the night before, and then she screwed her audition up the next day because she was hungover. I think her intention in telling me this story was because they had a ton of beer. It's probably the most alcohol I've ever seen. But anyway, I think the point was to discourage us from drinking the beer that was done in the refrigerator in the basement with us...since obviously I was sooo tempted by that, haha. (But note I still liked my host family, despite this and I didn't think they were terrible people). My host dad, knew basically nothing about music and got the biggest kick out of this weird show that we watched called Weeds. Lol, here's a conversation we had:
Mr.Thompson: So, Greta, you're a senior like my daughter, do you know what you want to do?
Me: Yeah, pretty much. I'm going to double major in French and English education.
Mr. Thompson: Ahhh, you want to be a teacher. It can be hard to get a job in that field. i just hired a young man who went to school to be a teacher, but couldn't get a job. If you can't get a job someday, come see me.
Me: haha, thanks.
Anyway so the next day practice started at 8. We got our audition results. I was first chair, second oboe. Even though the other first oboe canceled, I couldn't move up to first because they wanted two second oboes, and besides I really don't think I would have wanted to be first oboe. Anyway, that meant I made it to regionals to, because I couldn't bring myself to screw up my audition. But they had us fill out this paper at our audition about whether we could attend the regionals or not, and I circled no. Mr.Forry came up to me later, and wanted to make sure I knew that I circled no, because she thought maybe I did it by accident. But everyone took it pretty well actually. So now, I'll just have to explain to my private teacher why I'm not going to regionals, which will be hard, but...oh well. At first, I kind of regretted saying no, but the more I got to know the other second oboe, the more glad I was that I said no, because it meant like ten times more to her to go on then it did to me. Anyway then we practiced till 8:30 at night. Lots of practicing.
Then Friday, Altoona had a two hour delay, so we got a delay to, so we didn't start till 10. There was a little incident with the first chair oboe, Ben, as follows:
Me: What do you think you're doing? (To Ben because in the middle of a song, he just stood up and started walking away)
Ben: I'll be back.
Me: You can't just get up and leave in the middle of a song. You have a solo in this song. What are you going to do when we get to your solo and you're not here?
Ben: You can play it.
Me: I am not playing your solo for you. Where are you going anyway?
Ben: I'll be back. (Ben leaves).
He just got up and left, lol. Worse still it struck me as comical, so then I started laughing. But anyway he ended up coming back before we got to his solo, and the conductor never noticed me laughing. So that practice went till 8:30 again.
Then today, practice started at 9. Our concert was at 11. The concert went very well. And it is my opinion that we sounded very, very good, and quite impressive. So then we ate lunch at Sheetz and came home. There are lots of other things that happened too, but I'm not going to write anymore I've wrote enough. And I'm going to go work on my homework. Anyway, I think it was a good experience. And there is always just something amazing about how everything comes together for concerts. And then listening to the music we can create. There are very few feelings like it.