My 21st Birthday!

It was quite an AWESOME day. First off, we went 4 wheeling this morning. I went with Meghan Sarah and Gerrit. SO much fun. I've never been quading before but I'm amazed at how similar it is to snow mobiling. So of course toward the end of our adventure I was making some pretty sweet jumps. We were ALL soooo dusty and dirty when we left though. I had dirt in my teeth, in my eyes, all over my clothes, it was awesome.

I stopped by Jennifer's house to get my present. She got me transformers! That movie is pretty much the best ever. I'm so excited to watch it! And Jennifer, lets go rollerblading this week! I really want to!

THEN, me Katie Gerrit and Meghan all decide we want to go to Matt's halloween party. Ok, so, my costume is the best ever, I don't care what anyone says. I am grapes.



Katie went as a lion, Meghan as a cowgirl, and Gerrit as a rockstar. Unfortunately I lent out my camera this weekend so I'm going to have to post up pictures later.

Katie and Gerrit got me some super sweet halloween chocolate cupcakes and beer (ROOTbeer) because I'm 21 and all. ;) and Matt had everyone at the party sing me happy birthday. :)

After the party we had everyone try on the grapes. It was too funny! Pictures most certainly to follow. then we sat on our porch swing and debated whether a certain star was a star or a planet or a space station. and we made a wish on a plane. And then Katie decided she wanted to jump on our trampoline. Then we climbed in our treehouse, and ya.

Today was awesome. I am so blessed to have the friends I do. Being 21 is definitely better than being 20. By far. Psshht!

I love my life! :)

My friends are amazing. My ward is amazing. My life, (you know apart from school and work) is amazing.

Ms. Katie, I don't think I've ever met anyone quite as amazing as you. I was telling my mom about the KREW. We were laughing so hard. I love people that can make me laugh. That's why i surround myself with those people. I'm glad you're one of them.

Things we have done in the last month: dressed up as a grapes and a lion for Halloween, drive out to power road, get lost finding the dance, but kept going! LOL. Raced in our costumes. Whoa that was intense. Kudos to Meghan for beating us! Had a pumpkin seed fight in which I got your CHEEK, NOT your eye. But you got me in the eye, dang it. Made my eye water. Had a date on my roof while Gerrit played nice background music on the guitar. It was so romantic. Talked about the guys while they weren't present. haha. Made business cards for the KREW. Thanks for making life fun. :)

It's times like these you just gotta enjoy the present because you never know how long they're going to last. Everyone wants them to last forever. But you can't count on life to give that to you. So you just gotta enjoy it. :)

I am 21 today. Katie and Meghan both told me happy birthday like RIGHT at midnight. They're both so awesome. I am so blessed to have friends like them.

Life is so great. :)

my piano lesson today

If there was no homework involved in school, I would get straight A's. I love going to school. I love learning. I hate taking the stress and worry of schoolwork into the comfort of my home.

I always go into my piano lesson unprepared and not warmed up enough. As a result she always tells me to change how I'm interpreting a song. At one point she says to do it rubato, then I don't practice it enough so the next time i play it she doesn't like how it sounds so she changes it and tells me to stick to the tempo, but I don't practice that enough and tells me to be more connected and lagato but i don't practice that enough so she comes up with a new way to interpret the many parts to this piece that it makes it impossible for me to perfect it!

Sometimes I wonder if I can get through a day. Like today. I've been up since 1am. I had 2 1/2 hours of sleep. So this morning I was saying to myself, 'here it goes' and I go into the day not knowing if I'm going to survive but having faith enough in my skills of pulling stuff out of my butt last minute to go into the day knowing that I will finish it. At one point the day will be over. Somehow, I always get through those days. Today I wrote and performed a 10 minute speech (and got a B), wrote a 3 page paper, found 3 more sources for my paper, all on top of going to 3 classes and an hour piano lesson.

Somehow I faked my way through the lesson this morning not letting her know that i haven't practiced a wink since last week. What am I doing? I spent $640 dollars for this semester of lessons. Those are expensive!

The entire time she was telling me to fix this and fix that. I know I have to fix it. She's told me this before. I just haven't practiced. I was playing these songs for her that i supposedly practiced, the entire time my fingers making mistakes I used to not make, me itching for the song to be over already so I can hide my shame, itching for the lesson to be over so I don't have to endure her disappointment any more. And on top of all that, as I was playing Mozart's Fantasia, an incredibly depressive piece, something bit me on my neck, giving me the sharpest pinch of an itch to add to all my discomfort.

It's really really really REALLY REALLY hard to fit in 2 hours of practicing everyday. Especially when I hate it so much.

It's funny that even though I have come to hate these pieces that I'm playing, and come to hate practicing. I still absolutely love playing the piano. Maybe I was just born with this. I don't know a time when I ever didn't love it.

You know what stinks? When my teacher asks me to feel a piece of music I have never felt anything for. Who is touched by Bach? Not me. It's boring. Ineffective. Simple. Too... sweet. It's like drinking something you expected to be water but finding out it's coolaid. Unpleasant.

I really wish I did homework and studying more effectively. My worries would be lightened SO much. Especially when I tend to worry about everything in my life. I'm a worrier. That's what I do. Maybe that's why I can't handle the stress of homework. I worry about everything so much I can't handle any more stress.

One time, last semester, I had one of these days. And I was literally forced to be actively doing homework or be in class for 20 hours. Not only did I have homework to turn into my classes but I also had a paper that was due by midnight. By the end of that 20 hours, my head was pounding, I was dizzy, I was grumpy, I was confounded, literally, i was like... bewildered almost.

Stress affects me physically. I honestly cannnot handle it. I don't know how those people do it that are busy all the time and give no time to themselves. If I don't have time with myself throughout the day, I go crazy.

Across the Universe

I am a Beatles fan. I have been ever since my sophomore year in high school when my history teacher Mr. Sloekers took it upon himself to educate his students about the greatest and most influential band ever. The Beatles really were amazing. They were the first band to do everything with their music. They defined what rock is.

So I go to see this movie Across the Universe, right? It has Beatles music in it and it's about the 60's, what else can you ask for? The 60's was the beginning of all rock. So many amazing artists came from that era. Beatles, Bob Dylan, Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, The Doors, The Velvet Underground, The Mamas and the Papas, all the Motown artists... the list goes on. I wish I could have experienced it.

The movie was AMAZING. It told a story of a couple in New York City in the 1960's and their experience through the 60's revolution, Vietnam War, and the Psychedelic era. And it told it through Beatles songs. And yes, they were all Beatles songs. I love it because they even had a Janis Joplin character in the movie and she even performed Beatles songs, only, Janis Joplin style. It was so great.

Someone once tried to explain the 60's sound to me once. They played Enrique Inglesias' Hero for me. A modern song. A modern romantic song, about love. It's good, and I like that song. It has all the latest modern technology packed into it. And Mr. Inglesias is singing I will be your hero very nicely. Sounds nice. Then they played Otis Redding's Try a Little Tenderness. You just can't put into the words the power of the raw human voice. It's a rather simple song, musically. But Otis Redding seems to be able to accomplish with his voice ten times over what all the producers are trying to create these days artificially.... feeling.

That's what music is all about. Creating something that can affect people. It can be for good or bad, make you want to act, or it can just make you want to move. Music has the ability to reach to our deepest part of feeling... it can change you. That's why I love it so much. And that's what I want to create music for. To influence. For good. For all the good in the world. For what's left of the good in the world. Not to just shake that laffy taffy.

So anyways, even if you don't know much about the Beatles, go see the movie. It was the beginning of so much in music today.

(There is nudity in the movie, unfortunately. Sorry about that.)

Here's the trailer:

Driving By

So I was coming home from church the other day, it was evening, I think I was coming home from FHE, as I was turning past Jack in the Box, I saw a woman dragging a shopping cart toward a little nook between a tree and a couple walls. She was obviously homeless, all of her possessions were in that cart, she was disheveled, unwashed... The thought occured to me to stop and give her money. I didn't have any on me. Plus it would be awkward if someone just stopped as they were driving by to give money to a woman who was some 20 or so feet away from the road. A couple days later I drove by again and the same woman was there in her little cove. I remembered my thought about giving her money, but kept going. The next time I drove by the tree she had taken shelter by had been cut down. Apparently someone didn't like her hanging out there. And the shopping cart was empty. And she was no where to be seen. Maybe I should have done something when the opportunity was there. Next time I won't hesitate to act.