Bored in Photography

Nothing like blogging while you're supposed to be working on a project due in two days. Don't worry parents who never read my blog anyway, it will get done. So yes, here I am in photography class bored out of my mind. (Don't get my wrong, it's a way cool class.) Today's been basically a drag. I got a text from coach telling me about conditioning starting tomorrow and strangely enough that was pretty much the highlight of my day.
Jake has a llama on his computer. There, that's my random moment of the day. Anyway, I'm really not sure what the point of this is. Ooh, good song.
Omg, so, super hott man on American Idol last night. ;) He's been in the cast of Wicked for about a year and a half, which, ya know, only adds to his really gorgeous eyes and smile. Anyway, he was a really good singer and he's probably one of my favs of the moment. Unfortunately, Salt Lake auditions won't be airing for like, another week. Tonight is Kentucky and I'm pretty sure there's a few more cities before S.L. so yeah. I'm not famous yet, :).
Other than those aspects of my exciting life, um...yeah. I got nothing. Except I still have an hour of this class left so...I'll just keep rambling on pointlessly.
Jake wants me to talk about how much I hate him...except I don't. Aw, for cute.
I don't want to work today. I mean, hooray for money but, ugh. I really want to go to young womens...did I really just say that? I guess so. Not that young womens is bad, but we just got a new presidency and I'm a little...wary? I'm not sure if that's the right word. Worried? Unsure? Something along those lines. *One more night, one more time!* Another good song. I think I'm working with Sandee tonight, and she always keeps things interesting so it shouldn't be too bad.
Well, if I have any hope of somebody actually reading this, I better stop right now. I could start trash talking people and it wouldn't matter because nobody will actually read to this point...no, I don't talk bad about people...

British Masterworks Concert

There are somethings high school singers can only dream about. Having the opportunity to work with a world renowned musician is one of those dreams. Guess what? I got to live it. For several months my Encore choir has been working on some intensely difficult songs (including the forty-something page Gloria!). Then, this past weekend, we got to have it all come together. My choir, along with the top choirs from other schools in the distric met at American Fork High School after school this past friday to meet our conductor. The famous Craig Jessop. Okay, so I realize you non-music fanatics probably won't recognize his name. He conducted the mormon tabernacle choir. Ring any bells? Anyway, he's awesome.
We worked on our three (I guess technically six, Gloria has three parts) songs from 3:30 pm to 9:30 pm. Stopping only once for a dinner break. I was amazed at how much improvement our choir of about 200 members was able to make in only a short amount of time. The knowledge and love Dr. Jessop had for music was contageous. Even the advice that only required changing one thing about how we sang made an audible difference. It was so incredible to be part of a choir who wanted to be there and wanted to sound better than anything.
Well, I finally got to go home with no voice. Then, after a night of "rest" and absolutely no speaking allowed I was up again at 7:30 the next morning. We met at A.F. Highschool again at about 9:30. We then sang until our break at noon. By this time, we were sounding pretty good. Ok, that's a lie. We sounded REALLY good. But once again, my voice was really suffering. (Didn't help that I had a monster cough. *grr*)
Molly and I decided to go chill at the mall for three hours instead of heading home. During our break Dr. Jessop was working with the orchestra, which consisted of and organ professor and the BYU brass orchestra. Molly and I had fun window-shopping, losing her jacket, finding her jacket, and eating pretzels and really good lemonade. We decided we'd better head to Provo because we really had no idea where the tabernacle was. Luckily, we found it on time and had about 2 hours to rehearse with the band. Everything was really coming together. I had no idea a high school choir could sound so (my dad hates this word) AMAZING! I mean, we sounded like the motab for crying out loud! Then we had a dinner break, which we didn't use for dinner. Instead, Molly and I went to her sister's dorm to change clothes, then we met up with Thomas, Stephen, Nate, and Brad at some random store they'd found.
It was almost concert time. We all piled into my car and drove back to the tabernacle. I have to admit I was a little disappointed at the audience turn-out. There really weren't a whole lot of people there. And I'm telling you, this concert should have cost money it was so good! With a bit of last minute instruction and instrument tunage, our songs began.
This was truly the greatest concert I have ever been a part of. I just got chills all over during the songs (especially when the boys sang ;) ). I deffinitely have a greater appreciation for music and especially for dedication. There wasn't one person who decided that they didn't want to give their all, that mediocracy was good enough for them. Everyone wanted to impress the audience, to make them go, "wait a second, who's this choir and how old are they?" and I really think we did!

...Yeah

Well, Christmas is obviously over so I figured I'd better get something else up on this thing...except I have nothing to write about. *sigh* Well, I'm really confused about some stuff right now, but no one wants to hear about that. I just feel like I'm being pushed way further than my maturity level can handle. Ah well, that's high school...I think. Maybe it's just me. Anyway, some exciting news. I got my first real college acceptance. SUU all the way. It's a cool school, my cousin really likes it, so if BYU doesn't work out I'll probably be partying it up down there. I'm real excited for college. Mostly I just kind of want to get way, not really away from anybody or from anywhere, mostly just myself. I want a fresh start, and college seems like a great place to do that. So let's hope I can survive the last few months!

Commercial Christmas?

Here we are again, that wonderful time of year. Christmas. Many people think that Christmas has become too commercial, that everyone is too caught up in gifts and shopping and decorations. But what defines Christmas as commercial? Everyone I know is all for giving at Christmas time. I don't know anybody (little kids aside) that is obsessed with what they will get and how much of it. There's the families that won't have a Christmas. So when others give freely of themselves and help them have a good Christmas, does that mean that poor family is greedy for wanting a Christmas with presents? Of course not! So those of us who are financially sound are guilty of being greedy because we get excited for Christmas?
Everyone also says that decorations are too elaborate and fake. Almost every sort of decoration we have is symbolic of that first Christmas long ago when our Savior was born. The Christmas tree, string lights, wreaths, etc. The Christmas spirit is in our hearts, true, but not everyone has an open heart. They need actions and sights to help soften their hatred for the world so that they too might feel the joy that comes with Christmas. Those that are obsessed with feeling the "true" Christmas spirit and trying to make it "not commercial" are the ones who are bitter all season and never do feel the Christmas spirit. Take it to someone who's mom puts on Christmas music all year round, all these "commercial" parts of Christmas are just ways people get into the real spirit.
Don't get me wrong. There are many people out there who ARE greedy and are unwilling to give to others because they always feel like THEY need more. They aren't truly happy. They think Christmas is about getting gifts and if Christmas is supposed to be happy then they must need more gifts to be happy. I love giving to others. I love service. I know I don't do it as often as I should, but when I do I feel happier than anything in the world. Am I a good person? I like to think so. Am I excited for presents? Of course I am! I'm human! Just because I like getting things, doesn't mean I'm not allowed to enjoy giving things. There just needs to be a balance.
Anyway, that's my rant. Granted a lot of people I know will probably be mad at me for this and start an argument. *sigh* Oh well, this is my opinion and it comes from my heart. I love Christmas!

Yes, well, apparently everyone's mad at me because I never post anything. Not my fault. I have nothing to talk about and nothing happens in my life. And nobody wants to hear me complain which is all I do. So um...yeah, Twilight was amazing but if I write about that I'll probably get a bunch of comments saying "no it wasn't" and all that jazz. Um, Sadie's was fun, read about it on Shalece's blog. I decided yesterday I want to quit my job but I can't. Leadership training was super fun yesterday and I learned a lot and I think I'll get better at my calling now. I wanna play lacrosse. I'm excited for my party with the smash cats on tuesday, although it means I don't get to see the play again. I have to work every day of break which really pretty much sucks. I'm about to get yelled at for still being on the computer. I didn't do my English homework...again. I don't want to get up for early morning tomorrow. I wish I had time to read my new book. I wish I could write so I could finish my book. I wish I knew why boys are like, not attracted to me. I'm pissed that Utah won but I won't write about that either because then most my friends will laugh in my face...they will anyway. I said I wasn't going to complain but that's pretty much all I'm doing, get over it. Crap, I forgot to do my laundry, guess I'm wearing sweats tomorrow. My lips hurt, I need chapstick. My mom's in a really bad mood because she refuses to take her pain medication 'cause it makes her throw up. I think this is long enough now. Goodbye.

Choir Concert

On October 8th we had our first choir concert of the year. It was, how shall I put this, a huge sucess! The dinner part got super chaotic and was kind of an emotional nightmare. By 3:00 that day, only 62 people had bought tickets to dinner. We ended up having nearly 200 people come and weren't exactly prepared for that. Anyway, it all worked out. After calming everybody down and re-learning to breathe, Mrs. C. got us all together to warm up.

Anyone who was stupid enough to goof around (sophmores) received her infamous death-glare. After the voice-methods class sang, everybody got on and did "Betelehemua" (or however you spell that.) It's in an African dialect and it was freaking awesome! We had some of the faculty on drums and the lead soloist of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir did a solo. So it was pretty awesome. Then we all "calmly" got to our next designated spots which happened without any traumatic problems and my acapella choir sang "Wanting Memories," which was one of my favorites. After some other songs that I was too busy worrying to pay attention to, Encore (me!), sang an acapella version of "Seasons of Love" from the musical RENT. It was probably the best we've ever sang it and it's such an amazing song.
I don't really know the order of the rest of the songs, but we sang "Domine" There were several other special soloists that Mrs. C. got to come perform and it was awesome. They all had their own solo and sang with us during "Domine." I was really impressed with the sophmore choir and bravo choir. Mostly because last year bravo didn't, erm, well, they didn't sound good. A couple of the songs the sophmore's did went too high for them and it hurt the ears a little. :) But other than that they were good.

We had a much too short intermission before the show continued. It started off with the most hilarious duet ever sung by Brad and Tamera. It was a huge hit and the audience was just laughint histerically.

During the second half, Encore performed a medley of ABBA songs complete with solos, dances, and looking like idiots.

It was so much fun! I really got the thrill of performing because in the other choirs we just stand there. The applause was so loud and it just felt awesome!!!

After the show, mostly Encore and a few other choir members headed up to Maggie Moos for ice cream. Those poor staff members, they were so ready to close when about 20 of us showed up. Oh well! It was fun to bond together because I don't know a lot of the members very well and most of them have been in it for a couple years or at least know each other from musical theater and stuff. I never really feel left out, because all of them are way nice, I just feel like I don't fit in. But it was way fun!

All in all, the concert was super amazing and was one of the best we've ever done I think. Thanks to all of those who came! To all those who couldn't or didn't...NEXT TIME! lol Just kidding!

Junior Lacrosse

I just got back from the Smash Cats game. We played Judge-Evergreen and kicked trash! Yeayah! lol It was pretty awesome. It was snowing like crazy but they all did great. Missy was like, tearing up and down the field and her crease rolls are fifty times better than mine. :) I was super stoked that T-Dawg and Miami both scored. Mo and Haley had some awesome teamwork going on and just kept scoring! And of course, props to our main line of defense Nike, Sid, Kira, Mikay, and our awesome goalie Eli!They did so amazing it was like a brick wall! The final score was 12-7 so it was pretty rad. I can't beleive we only have 2 games left and I have to miss the last one. Stupid ACT. Who cares about my future. jk I don't have any recent pics on my computer yet so these are just some from practice!