Music Major - Trials and No Triumph after all
Music Major - Trials and No Triumph after all
(Open with a joke)
What do you do with the WORST drummer in the Marching Band? Take the drums of course. You're on the right track, but not good enough (“click, click, ,, messed up the beat, click”). So take away one of his sticks. Ahh, much better. But what's he going to do now? Well, put him in front of the whole band, turn him around to face them, and tell him to wave his arms around like an idiot (basically, to just be himself). Don't forget the tuxedo.
The tuxedo used to be a respectable outfit for his new position. In this case, it would be more of a necessity. Given that his back is to the audience now, and the ridiculous and disgusting dress fad of young men these days..... And given the sarcastic humor of most teenagers, you wouldn't want him up there trying to conduct, and have Every song the band plays be “Pants on the Ground, pants on the ground, lookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground”.
Note:
Far be it from me to start out a phrase with, “This one time.....at band camp....” So I'll have to tell this tidbit from my past with a much more original intro. This one time....at music college....it was my turn to (Oh, did I forget to let you finish laughing? Or was that groaning? A good comic always leaves the pause for the laughing - it's an important element to stand-up - good timing. Of course, I've never really needed this information, since I've never needed to wait for laughter that's never there. So much for “good comic”.)...my turn to get up in front of all my peers and the MEANEST professor on the entire South Campus (half the university) and take my t-t-turn c-c-conducting. (Funny, there were a lot of students suffering from intermittent stuttering in that scary class.)
He'd already chewed up several Sophomores for putting their left hands in their pockets, and spat out the remains of some others with clenched fists at their left side, and those with the magnetic thighs (I just made up that phrase this minute. Sounds much more interesting than I meant it to be though. I just meant those whose left hands were firmly glued down by their sides at the upper leg. Hmmm, I wonder how many other innocuous situations we could mislabel with that term “magnetic thighs”. I'll pause while you think.... If you come up with any funny ones, may I suggest the comment button at the end of this entry?) So I was determined to not to do any of those. I'll show HIM that I'm not the idiot he thought I was Freshman year!
I know a lot of you think that conducting looks easy. But either the entire six of us good friends were all imbeciles (Birds of a feather, you suggest?), or it takes some real practice in coordination. We were all stumbling around the halls of the music building with pointy white sticks, mumbling “Floor Door Wall Ceiling, Floor Door Wall Ceiling, Floor Door Wall Ceiling” like a new Mantra for meditation. Next week was worse - “Floor Door Ceiling, Floor Door Ceiling, Floor Door Ceiling”. Ooops! Obviously I got that wrong. Thanks for pointing that out. Of course I meant, “Floor Wall Ceiling, Floor Wall Ceiling”. (I pause now for any musicians to catch the mistake/joke. And for the rest of you to stop shaking your heads in disgust. -insert pause here- )
Practicing Conducting
“Floor Door Wall Ceiling, Floor Door Wall Ceiling, Floor Door Wall Ceiling”
Ah, we were a formidable sight, the six of us (Linda/flute, Jeff/voice, Connie/oboe, Kathy/bassoon, Brenda/classical guitar, and me/clarinet.) walking six abreast, armed to the teeth with pointy white sticks, (tiny lances really, and quite dangerous -
You could put an eye out! “It's all fun until someone loses an eye”, right?) sometimes out of step - actually usually out of step, since all those classical instrumentalists (read Snobby) in the group wouldn't stoop to the marching band. Trust me, it didn't help my stick-coordination to be so distracted by their messy marching. I'd already logged in 14 years of dancing school, and five years of marching band by this time, the last of those years simultaneously. (In case you don't know, dancing always starts on the right foot, and marching with the left foot. Perhaps now you can see why I can't tell my left from my right half the time.) I'd been “marching” to classes for four years of high school already. Even my friends in orchestra or guitar club or choruses seemed to naturally fall into walking in step. This was so natural for us musicians (marching band and others) that we'd have to do the old “ball change” even when we passed by a radio.
Good thing we weren't like those Southern college bands, with that fancy high-stepping, right?
We'd look weird. Yeah, like the other picture isn't weird - walking around high school with books up to your chin, all walking in step. Hmm, wonder if this is the reason we only got dates amongst fellow band members. Indeed, it was so ingrained in us that we could barely stand walking with outsiders who wouldn't keep in step, and found ourselves with very few friends outside the marching band. (Yeah, THAT's why we had no other friends - Rrrright! Hey, I'm going with that as a reason.)
So back to the Formidable Six, walking in a “company front” (only half of us knowing what that was, along with none of you) all waving our batons, and sometimes literally chanting that Mantra aloud as a group. Hey, you feel so much more confident in a group situation when you're a teenager. Having several people doing exactly what you are doing is empowering, even if you look like weirdos to everyone else. It's not until you mature a few decades that you become confident enough to look like a total idiot all by yourself. Yay, for “maturity”! DO remember to stop these wacky manifestations of personal empowerment by age 70, though, or risk your kids finding you er.... “alternative living situations for the demented”.
Things would go from bad to worse, coordination-wise sometimes. It was hard enough to keep those 3 classical snobs in step, remember the Mantra verbally, not poke out any eyes or do unspeakable things to someone's nose, all without tripping and falling on your face, and risking impalement. But too often, our comfy "company front" would get interrupted by the narrowing of a doorway, or the nerve of other students to think they had a right to the oncoming traffic lane of a hallway. All of a sudden we've have a big Math problem on our hands. Six people, 2 feet each, 1 stick each - to avoid six eyes and 3 noses each (your own and the person on each side. Dude, if you're poking out an eye 2 people over, it's too fortissimo !). And Murphy's Law for music majors would dictate that this always happened in 3 /4 time (otherwise known to us by the “Floor Wall Ceiling” Mantra). Like it wasn't hard enough to figure out how to walk with two feet divided into a rhythm of 3 beats (Oy!), we would suddenly have to split up into smaller units, based on how narrow the upcoming obstacle demanded. Surrre, the lucky twits in the middle of the group were all confident that they ruled, and wouldn't have to squeeze in or step back into a new grouping. No help from them (some friends!). It was us on the flanks who lived in fear of losing an arm jamming into a doorway. And of course no one stated any RULES for this. There wasn't a Designated Divider - someone who knew it was their job that day to make the adjustments. The right flank's 1 or 2 assumed the lefties had it this time. And how many had to split? 3X3, 4x2, sometimes 1x4x1 even ! And remember, 2 feet, 3 /4 time, avoiding 6 or more eyes, some noses.
Whew! That's a lot of math! Calculating the distance between us and the obstacle ahead, and the rate of speed.....Wait a minute, let me get a scrap paper...and an HMIS (Explained later.). Perhaps I should have switched to Mechanical Engineering. I'd been to several of those lectures, and it didn't seem as hard, and their math made more sense.
Yes indeed, we could be a formidable half-dozen, but usually much more of a comical one. (Linda/flute, Jeff/voice, Connie/oboe, Kathy/bassoon, Brenda/classical guitar, and me/clarinet.) At times we could be seen walking around together, in step of course, but practicing different things - at the same time - I mean, one person still stuck on “Floor Door Wall, Floor Wall Door, uh...doorwall? (See what I mean? Hasn't even mastered that yet!) But Jeff might be looking like a crackhead, learning how to scat >> and I meant the musical one, not the smelly brown pile.......
Yet another person might be practicing instrumental fingering on their Handy-Miniscule-Instrument-Substitute. (Known to the rest of the world as pencil or pen. Now that you're on the inside, you'll know what to reach for if someone asks you for an HMIS, right. Too bad I just made that up now. The name is much too long and hard to spell for the average music major. Yeah, they're not much better at English skills than they are at Math. We'd probably better forget that HMIS, or the dweebs might adopt it, and walk around with HMISHes. Sounds a little Jewish in pronunciation, don't you think? But I just meant to rename the “pocket protector” - that misguided fashion accessory that every self-respecting high school girl forcibly forbids that clod from ever wearing again if he thinks he's going to walk her to class ! Been there. Put my foot down on this one. And after the crunching sound and that squirt of ink on my shoe dried, we were good. Ohh.... you thought I meant figuratively? Trust me, that didn't work with this guy. And I liked him a lot, so he was worth “training”.)
One week, you might even have encountered the entire gang trying to mumble
“Chalet French Burton's Elizabeth At Drunk Got Charlie”
(Don't ask. I just have to say, it made much more sense forwards. And as mnemonics go, it's a darn good thing we weren't Pre-Med.) (Question: Since a “mnemonic” is a device to aid memory, why did they give it such a hard term to remember?
Back now to Conducting 101 Class
Where was I? Oh yeah, tiptoeing up to the front, with only half the enthusiasm of someone on their way to the gallows, and determined to figure out a better place to put that left hand when it wasn't needed. I mean, I certainly didn't want to get named as the girl with the magnetic thighs, right? Right?
I also had another important thing to worry about - the tempo. The piece we were using that day had a slow tempo of 60. And the professor gleefully pointed out everyone who went too fast, and even physically imitated one poor shlob's reactionary attempt which was far too slow. The class was firmly restricted to following exactly what was conducted, and not help any by changing the tempo, or even getting louder where they knew it was supposed to be. If that left hand didn't unglue itself and indicate a crescendo (louder), tough cookies. Well, me being the Smart Cookie that I was, had realized that a tempo of 60 was one beat per second, and I had been glancing at my watch for quite some time, trying to get the tick tocks into that brick block that was my head. And I was silently chanting “1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi, 4 Mississippi” at the same time as the now almost auto-pilot Mantra is going “Floor Door Wall Ceiling”, and tossing in “hand goes up, hand comes down, two hands now, cut off in a circle”. I TOLD you being a music major is harder than you think! Of course, it helps if you're a scattered Schizo-brain already trained to run multiple lines of self-talk at yourself all at once. I realized that, like with many hard things or annoyances, that I was grinding my teeth again. (My mother said that when I was at the sewing machine, she could hear me in the next room!) But I also noticed I was grinding them IN RHYTHM! “Grind Mississippi, 2 Mississippi” or rather 1 and then the teeth were marking out the Mississippi rhythm's eighth notes. Aha ! I will be TRIUMPHANT !
So I just took my place at the podium, trembling stick in hand, surreptitiously sliding my teeth, and stealing a peek at my watch, and determined to do something innocent and different with that left hand when it wasn't being used for a long time. Thinking I was a genius, and why didn't someone else think of this hand option, I firmly planted that extra appendage down at the small of my back ! Voila ! I got points for being the ONLY one in the class with the correct tempo and he mentioned this! (Triumph? Ah, but “Pride goeth before the fall.” Right? The actual Bible verse is "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 16:8 KJV) Then the professor gleefully took it upon himself to physically come up to the podium and demonstrate to everyone what I had started doing. In my extreme concentration, and weariness, I had lost track of the unused hand. In his caricature of me, he turned around so the entire class (the “orchestra”) could see exactly what my “audience” would have seen - that my hand was now firmly planted in the middle of my backside ! And that sadist just went on and on in this imitation, briefly taking his hand off to use in a crescendo, and then again planting it smack dab back in the center of... well, you know. Oh, they all hooted over this picture !
Again, the laughing stock of half the music department (and at the hands of the same professor no less). It's just so fun to be used as an “object lesson”, isn't it?
(Reminder, in case you lost track of it, that other humiliation is here:
“My First Days at Band Camp - A Laugh at My Expense” - http://qwinkly.livejournal.com/6726.html )
I'll be going now, off to the bathroom mirror to chant a new restorative Mantra “I'm OK, you're OK, I'm OK, you're OK.” Takes a few more, really, to get to all those extra personalities, but I thought I'd go for brevity for once.
♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥
Note:
As for looking weird walking in step, I can go you one better. My sweet high school boyfriend, Chris (sans pocket protector, of course), used to like to amuse us, and startle victims by sneaking up to their backs as they were walking to class. He'd fall into step, matching the length of their strides perfectly. No small feat for someone with no small feet ! He could sneak up so close you'd barely get a Two of Clubs between them. And they'd never suspect he was there, and they had no idea why everyone they passed in the crowded hallway started giggling and pointing at them ! You want to practice this “skill” on your friends first, though, since often if you were discovered, the angry victim might pitch a fit, and Two Clubs took on a more sinister meaning.
Also, if you thought of trying this, let me mention that it works far better if you are taller than your “victim” - so you can breathe, and not have your nose smashed against their back - “Smashed” being a very appropriate description during the learning process, until you master the art of mind-reading - for when they stop in their tracks. You can also add this to the list of things you could do a lot better if boobs didn't get in the way. Although, they Do function much better as a “bumper” than one's smashed nose. (You DO have a running list like that, don't you? Or do you have the “alternate list” - “Things I'd Be Happy to Be Bad At, If I Could Only Have Boobs”? ) ( I think that list is more common. Half the women, right? And some of the men, too, probably for a different reason. Not all the men, though. Some of them already have them. And didn't turn out to be quite what they expected either. Ew. )
.
(Open with a joke)
What do you do with the WORST drummer in the Marching Band? Take the drums of course. You're on the right track, but not good enough (“click, click, ,, messed up the beat, click”). So take away one of his sticks. Ahh, much better. But what's he going to do now? Well, put him in front of the whole band, turn him around to face them, and tell him to wave his arms around like an idiot (basically, to just be himself). Don't forget the tuxedo.
The tuxedo used to be a respectable outfit for his new position. In this case, it would be more of a necessity. Given that his back is to the audience now, and the ridiculous and disgusting dress fad of young men these days..... And given the sarcastic humor of most teenagers, you wouldn't want him up there trying to conduct, and have Every song the band plays be “Pants on the Ground, pants on the ground, lookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground”.
Note:
Far be it from me to start out a phrase with, “This one time.....at band camp....” So I'll have to tell this tidbit from my past with a much more original intro. This one time....at music college....it was my turn to (Oh, did I forget to let you finish laughing? Or was that groaning? A good comic always leaves the pause for the laughing - it's an important element to stand-up - good timing. Of course, I've never really needed this information, since I've never needed to wait for laughter that's never there. So much for “good comic”.)...my turn to get up in front of all my peers and the MEANEST professor on the entire South Campus (half the university) and take my t-t-turn c-c-conducting. (Funny, there were a lot of students suffering from intermittent stuttering in that scary class.)
He'd already chewed up several Sophomores for putting their left hands in their pockets, and spat out the remains of some others with clenched fists at their left side, and those with the magnetic thighs (I just made up that phrase this minute. Sounds much more interesting than I meant it to be though. I just meant those whose left hands were firmly glued down by their sides at the upper leg. Hmmm, I wonder how many other innocuous situations we could mislabel with that term “magnetic thighs”. I'll pause while you think.... If you come up with any funny ones, may I suggest the comment button at the end of this entry?) So I was determined to not to do any of those. I'll show HIM that I'm not the idiot he thought I was Freshman year!
- Note: By the way, this scary meanie was the same teacher in my earlier entry “My First Days at Band Camp - A Laugh at My Expense” - http://qwinkly.livejournal.com/6726.html One of my funniest stories, and my most humiliating moment - in life, in public.
I know a lot of you think that conducting looks easy. But either the entire six of us good friends were all imbeciles (Birds of a feather, you suggest?), or it takes some real practice in coordination. We were all stumbling around the halls of the music building with pointy white sticks, mumbling “Floor Door Wall Ceiling, Floor Door Wall Ceiling, Floor Door Wall Ceiling” like a new Mantra for meditation. Next week was worse - “Floor Door Ceiling, Floor Door Ceiling, Floor Door Ceiling”. Ooops! Obviously I got that wrong. Thanks for pointing that out. Of course I meant, “Floor Wall Ceiling, Floor Wall Ceiling”. (I pause now for any musicians to catch the mistake/joke. And for the rest of you to stop shaking your heads in disgust. -insert pause here- )
Practicing Conducting
“Floor Door Wall Ceiling, Floor Door Wall Ceiling, Floor Door Wall Ceiling”
Ah, we were a formidable sight, the six of us (Linda/flute, Jeff/voice, Connie/oboe, Kathy/bassoon, Brenda/classical guitar, and me/clarinet.) walking six abreast, armed to the teeth with pointy white sticks, (tiny lances really, and quite dangerous -
You could put an eye out! “It's all fun until someone loses an eye”, right?) sometimes out of step - actually usually out of step, since all those classical instrumentalists (read Snobby) in the group wouldn't stoop to the marching band. Trust me, it didn't help my stick-coordination to be so distracted by their messy marching. I'd already logged in 14 years of dancing school, and five years of marching band by this time, the last of those years simultaneously. (In case you don't know, dancing always starts on the right foot, and marching with the left foot. Perhaps now you can see why I can't tell my left from my right half the time.) I'd been “marching” to classes for four years of high school already. Even my friends in orchestra or guitar club or choruses seemed to naturally fall into walking in step. This was so natural for us musicians (marching band and others) that we'd have to do the old “ball change” even when we passed by a radio.
Good thing we weren't like those Southern college bands, with that fancy high-stepping, right?
We'd look weird. Yeah, like the other picture isn't weird - walking around high school with books up to your chin, all walking in step. Hmm, wonder if this is the reason we only got dates amongst fellow band members. Indeed, it was so ingrained in us that we could barely stand walking with outsiders who wouldn't keep in step, and found ourselves with very few friends outside the marching band. (Yeah, THAT's why we had no other friends - Rrrright! Hey, I'm going with that as a reason.)
So back to the Formidable Six, walking in a “company front” (only half of us knowing what that was, along with none of you) all waving our batons, and sometimes literally chanting that Mantra aloud as a group. Hey, you feel so much more confident in a group situation when you're a teenager. Having several people doing exactly what you are doing is empowering, even if you look like weirdos to everyone else. It's not until you mature a few decades that you become confident enough to look like a total idiot all by yourself. Yay, for “maturity”! DO remember to stop these wacky manifestations of personal empowerment by age 70, though, or risk your kids finding you er.... “alternative living situations for the demented”.
Things would go from bad to worse, coordination-wise sometimes. It was hard enough to keep those 3 classical snobs in step, remember the Mantra verbally, not poke out any eyes or do unspeakable things to someone's nose, all without tripping and falling on your face, and risking impalement. But too often, our comfy "company front" would get interrupted by the narrowing of a doorway, or the nerve of other students to think they had a right to the oncoming traffic lane of a hallway. All of a sudden we've have a big Math problem on our hands. Six people, 2 feet each, 1 stick each - to avoid six eyes and 3 noses each (your own and the person on each side. Dude, if you're poking out an eye 2 people over, it's too fortissimo !). And Murphy's Law for music majors would dictate that this always happened in 3 /4 time (otherwise known to us by the “Floor Wall Ceiling” Mantra). Like it wasn't hard enough to figure out how to walk with two feet divided into a rhythm of 3 beats (Oy!), we would suddenly have to split up into smaller units, based on how narrow the upcoming obstacle demanded. Surrre, the lucky twits in the middle of the group were all confident that they ruled, and wouldn't have to squeeze in or step back into a new grouping. No help from them (some friends!). It was us on the flanks who lived in fear of losing an arm jamming into a doorway. And of course no one stated any RULES for this. There wasn't a Designated Divider - someone who knew it was their job that day to make the adjustments. The right flank's 1 or 2 assumed the lefties had it this time. And how many had to split? 3X3, 4x2, sometimes 1x4x1 even ! And remember, 2 feet, 3 /4 time, avoiding 6 or more eyes, some noses.
Whew! That's a lot of math! Calculating the distance between us and the obstacle ahead, and the rate of speed.....Wait a minute, let me get a scrap paper...and an HMIS (Explained later.). Perhaps I should have switched to Mechanical Engineering. I'd been to several of those lectures, and it didn't seem as hard, and their math made more sense.
Yes indeed, we could be a formidable half-dozen, but usually much more of a comical one. (Linda/flute, Jeff/voice, Connie/oboe, Kathy/bassoon, Brenda/classical guitar, and me/clarinet.) At times we could be seen walking around together, in step of course, but practicing different things - at the same time - I mean, one person still stuck on “Floor Door Wall, Floor Wall Door, uh...doorwall? (See what I mean? Hasn't even mastered that yet!) But Jeff might be looking like a crackhead, learning how to scat >> and I meant the musical one, not the smelly brown pile.......
- “Scat” -noun Jazz = Singing in which the singer substitutes improvised nonsense syllables for the words of a song.
Yet another person might be practicing instrumental fingering on their Handy-Miniscule-Instrument-Substitute. (Known to the rest of the world as pencil or pen. Now that you're on the inside, you'll know what to reach for if someone asks you for an HMIS, right. Too bad I just made that up now. The name is much too long and hard to spell for the average music major. Yeah, they're not much better at English skills than they are at Math. We'd probably better forget that HMIS, or the dweebs might adopt it, and walk around with HMISHes. Sounds a little Jewish in pronunciation, don't you think? But I just meant to rename the “pocket protector” - that misguided fashion accessory that every self-respecting high school girl forcibly forbids that clod from ever wearing again if he thinks he's going to walk her to class ! Been there. Put my foot down on this one. And after the crunching sound and that squirt of ink on my shoe dried, we were good. Ohh.... you thought I meant figuratively? Trust me, that didn't work with this guy. And I liked him a lot, so he was worth “training”.)
One week, you might even have encountered the entire gang trying to mumble
“Chalet French Burton's Elizabeth At Drunk Got Charlie”
(Don't ask. I just have to say, it made much more sense forwards. And as mnemonics go, it's a darn good thing we weren't Pre-Med.) (Question: Since a “mnemonic” is a device to aid memory, why did they give it such a hard term to remember?
- Mnemonic: Named for Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory in Greek mythology. (Uh, Who? Anyone remember her? Girlfriennnd, you gotta change yo name ! May I suggest “Caxixi-iqua”?)
Back now to Conducting 101 Class
Where was I? Oh yeah, tiptoeing up to the front, with only half the enthusiasm of someone on their way to the gallows, and determined to figure out a better place to put that left hand when it wasn't needed. I mean, I certainly didn't want to get named as the girl with the magnetic thighs, right? Right?
I also had another important thing to worry about - the tempo. The piece we were using that day had a slow tempo of 60. And the professor gleefully pointed out everyone who went too fast, and even physically imitated one poor shlob's reactionary attempt which was far too slow. The class was firmly restricted to following exactly what was conducted, and not help any by changing the tempo, or even getting louder where they knew it was supposed to be. If that left hand didn't unglue itself and indicate a crescendo (louder), tough cookies. Well, me being the Smart Cookie that I was, had realized that a tempo of 60 was one beat per second, and I had been glancing at my watch for quite some time, trying to get the tick tocks into that brick block that was my head. And I was silently chanting “1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi, 4 Mississippi” at the same time as the now almost auto-pilot Mantra is going “Floor Door Wall Ceiling”, and tossing in “hand goes up, hand comes down, two hands now, cut off in a circle”. I TOLD you being a music major is harder than you think! Of course, it helps if you're a scattered Schizo-brain already trained to run multiple lines of self-talk at yourself all at once. I realized that, like with many hard things or annoyances, that I was grinding my teeth again. (My mother said that when I was at the sewing machine, she could hear me in the next room!) But I also noticed I was grinding them IN RHYTHM! “Grind Mississippi, 2 Mississippi” or rather 1 and then the teeth were marking out the Mississippi rhythm's eighth notes. Aha ! I will be TRIUMPHANT !
So I just took my place at the podium, trembling stick in hand, surreptitiously sliding my teeth, and stealing a peek at my watch, and determined to do something innocent and different with that left hand when it wasn't being used for a long time. Thinking I was a genius, and why didn't someone else think of this hand option, I firmly planted that extra appendage down at the small of my back ! Voila ! I got points for being the ONLY one in the class with the correct tempo and he mentioned this! (Triumph? Ah, but “Pride goeth before the fall.” Right? The actual Bible verse is "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 16:8 KJV) Then the professor gleefully took it upon himself to physically come up to the podium and demonstrate to everyone what I had started doing. In my extreme concentration, and weariness, I had lost track of the unused hand. In his caricature of me, he turned around so the entire class (the “orchestra”) could see exactly what my “audience” would have seen - that my hand was now firmly planted in the middle of my backside ! And that sadist just went on and on in this imitation, briefly taking his hand off to use in a crescendo, and then again planting it smack dab back in the center of... well, you know. Oh, they all hooted over this picture !
Again, the laughing stock of half the music department (and at the hands of the same professor no less). It's just so fun to be used as an “object lesson”, isn't it?
(Reminder, in case you lost track of it, that other humiliation is here:
“My First Days at Band Camp - A Laugh at My Expense” - http://qwinkly.livejournal.com/6726.html )
I'll be going now, off to the bathroom mirror to chant a new restorative Mantra “I'm OK, you're OK, I'm OK, you're OK.” Takes a few more, really, to get to all those extra personalities, but I thought I'd go for brevity for once.
♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥ ♫ ♥
Note:
As for looking weird walking in step, I can go you one better. My sweet high school boyfriend, Chris (sans pocket protector, of course), used to like to amuse us, and startle victims by sneaking up to their backs as they were walking to class. He'd fall into step, matching the length of their strides perfectly. No small feat for someone with no small feet ! He could sneak up so close you'd barely get a Two of Clubs between them. And they'd never suspect he was there, and they had no idea why everyone they passed in the crowded hallway started giggling and pointing at them ! You want to practice this “skill” on your friends first, though, since often if you were discovered, the angry victim might pitch a fit, and Two Clubs took on a more sinister meaning.
Also, if you thought of trying this, let me mention that it works far better if you are taller than your “victim” - so you can breathe, and not have your nose smashed against their back - “Smashed” being a very appropriate description during the learning process, until you master the art of mind-reading - for when they stop in their tracks. You can also add this to the list of things you could do a lot better if boobs didn't get in the way. Although, they Do function much better as a “bumper” than one's smashed nose. (You DO have a running list like that, don't you? Or do you have the “alternate list” - “Things I'd Be Happy to Be Bad At, If I Could Only Have Boobs”? ) ( I think that list is more common. Half the women, right? And some of the men, too, probably for a different reason. Not all the men, though. Some of them already have them. And didn't turn out to be quite what they expected either. Ew. )
.