It’s April again

There really isn’t anywhere else I’d care to talk about this. I only have a little on my mind, though, running around and around in a constant circle of worry and sadness with the ever-present and obnoxious hope. I guess here is the logical choice because the only people that tend to read this are a handful that know me, and they all know me well enough not to bring this up or tell me I shouldn’t post things about it.

No one is talking about it. Dakota is in critical condition– yeah, thanks, I know he is, I saw him for myself– and no one is talking about it. I expected some kind of prayer group, or you know, people being concerned? But apparently that’s not the case. Well, I am freaking concerned. This is the boy I went to middle and high school with, the outgoing but shy, sweet boy who loves to dance and laugh and act and write poetry. He is the boy whose best friends are some of my best friends, who’s been up to my house for bonfires. Who’s been in musicals with me since forever. Who’s going to Fredonia for theatre next year, with a writing minor. He has a half-finished tattoo that needs to be colored in, dammit.

I guess it’s natural that today’s been a long day to think about it. I get sick thinking that someone else with so much to live for might not get the chance. He’s strong, though, and his body will fight and heal and recover. I just want him to get better. I never want to hear the worst news. This was never supposed to happen. Hey God, if you give a shit, don’t take another boy away from his mother, his family, his friends. He has so much to offer the world. He might want to be forever young, but not like this.

Stay strong, Dakota.

Rest in peace, Dan. (Sept. 4, 1989 – Apr. 25, 2009.)

I am totally posting this everywhere… my school rocks

http://www.uscollegeranking.org/music/top-music-schools-ranking-in-2010.html

Troubles of my thoughts

Aptly, “Affanni del pensier” (Handel) is a perfect description of my opinion of juries. I am excited and terrified, and sick with it. And I’d give anything for a moment of peace, at least.

I rehearse today at 4 with my professor in the Black Box of Doom (804). Again. And hopefully this time I will be able to add some artistry to the aria I received just over two weeks ago. To some, this might seem like no time at all in which to master the music. I, on the other hand, am not a super great memorizer (or writer, right now, apparently). I also have a shit ton of other stuff going on. That’s not an excuse, it’s just the truth. My planner is riddled with scribbles: “E-mail these people. Composition assignment draft; theory (theme and variations worksheet). Aural skills: practice. Rehearse- 4oo” and so on and so on.

I forgot to eat again today. This is the second time it’s happened. So, to make up for it, I bought myself an amazing sandwich at Java’s. But I’m still shaky, still feeling the aftereffects of being stupid and not nourishing myself. I didn’t want another stupid bagel again, though! And that’s pretty much the only good thing I can identify in that pathetic little food-providing institution they call the Pit.

Anyway. So I’m a little twitchy and full and nervy right now. I’ve got an hour and six minutes to solidify Affanni before Ciesinski hears it again. I might sing it through to myself here, then read it: again and again and again. Then sing through it softly one more time. I might speak the words in the order they go in. I don’t know.

I just want to do well. I’m working for it; I’m trying. I’m trying.

April again

It’s so wild. Wild that almost a year has gone by since I wrote this post about my cousin Daniel’s death. I didn’t know him, but my mother and his were best friends when they were my age. My other cousins on my mother’s side knew him much more than I did.

A week after his death was my junior prom. I remember riding with my mother in the car to the hair place, heartsick to know what grief was doing to members of his (and my) family. I know I felt stupid because I was upset: after all, I’d barely known of him, let alone knew him personally. I was just aware of the situation. A nineteen year old junior in college fell down a flight of stairs and broke his neck. I could only imagine the sheer injustice of it, the pain his mother must have been experiencing. And his siblings. His father. Oh God.

But I felt like an idiot because it didn’t seem like my grief to bear. For someone who’d so rarely come into contact with death, I was confused and wondered if maybe grief should be rightfully expressed by those whose lives Daniel had changed, and not by me. I guess I thought that maybe the family or friends would be angry to see a stranger, barely related, mourning someone so dear to them. I don’t know. Like I said, I was confused. The confusion did nothing to lessen the echo of pain I felt for them.

When I tried to express this convoluted jumble of emotion and thought, my mother reasoned it out for me. She told me that it wasn’t an insult to grieve over a stranger. She also pointed out, “Sometimes someone’s death can change a lot of lives.”

I guess I’m a living tribute to that statement. Here I’d never known Daniel, probably spoken to him once, maybe twice, but I’ve blogged about him, wondered about him, and drawn courage from his story more times that I can count.

According to his family, his friends, and complete strangers, he was a gent who lived out his life to the fullest. He was going to graduate a year early, a history major at Brockport. He was kind, funny, and genuinely liked people (more than can be said for most of humanity). He smoked Newports and wore a red bandana all the time.

He lived his life without fear and with a laugh. The final quote on his facebook wall is the one I have posted in the left sidebar (by Anberlin): “Life for today, we’ll dream tomorrow; we’ve got big plans in sight.”

He changed my life. It’s because of his life, and the way he lived it, that I make an effort, every day, to live for the moment, to plan, dream, and take every breath like it’s both gift and blessing. It doesn’t matter that I never knew him; if in some unknown, nebulous afterlife I encounter him, he’ll be one of the first I thank.

Tри (three)

What?! Three blogs in one day — what is happening?

Yeah, I don’t know, to tell you the truth. I guess I’m just in a place where my thoughts are streaming forth in word form and hey, I can type ’em out and they’re relatively cohesive. That, and I can’t seem to peel my face from this laptop lately whenever I pick it up. That’s why, if I need to check/send emails, I wait until all of my shit is done. That way I don’t waste a half an hour on pointless (yet, somehow, captivating) timesucks like facebook, tumblr, and deviantart. I don’t know what my problem is with these but they are most useful when I’m bored. Here, that is, um, never?

But yeah. So thanks to my mostly finished work I have allowed myself to flop around from site to site and here I am again. Third time today. Maybe it’s a charm?

I suppose I shouldn’t jinx myself.

Anyway. I didn’t accomplish all that I wanted to today, although I did discover that my amazing roommate and I share a childhood– we both read the same series of books. I’ve actually never met anyone else who’d read them all as obsessively as I did, so the fact that the only one I know lives with me by chance is extremely strange, yet awesome. I was doing some work at my desk and she was leaving; I have one of the books here for mindless relaxing reading, and it was chilling on top of a pile of papers. She picked it up and said, “These books were huge in my childhood.”

Clearly, the only honest reply I could make was, “They WERE my childhood.” (In reality, Harry Potter played a huge factor, as well as a number of other books, but I digress.)

So that was something cool that happened today. Also I am doing a linguistics group project. I was originally really concerned because I don’t have many friends in the class– it’s a giant lecture class that I’m just barely on time for twice a week, so there isn’t much time to talk. But it turns out that the girls I’m working with are really invested, focused, and interested in some cool stuff. Our project is going to be a comprehensive analysis of acoustic phonetics in different songs. We’re each going to analyze a verse (probably/possibly the refrain) of a song from our cultures. We’ve got some reggae from Jamaica, salsa from Puerto Rico, chiptune/videogame music from America, and I’m yanking in some Russian– Tchaikovsky’s Oтчего?. I am really super pumped about my contribution because I’ll not only represent for my favorite Россия, but I’m hauling some classical (and sicknasty sweet piano accompaniment) over to jam with the bumpin’ beats that we already have.

Like I said, super pumped. But anyway.

It’s already 11:11, so I’m making a wish and going to bed. Cпокойной ночи!

Well, whatever

So I’m having another unproductive day. At least it feels that way, but at least I finished my theory quiz this morning, did well in aural skillz, and have a time worked out to rehearse before studio. I will have Affanni memorized and beastly with the accompaniment or shit will go down later when I have time to berate myself. But that will be completely unnecessary since right now I am pepping myself up and am preparing for the clarinet test on Thursday (illegally in my room, of course). I will do well, I will do well.

Mantra, mantra. Whatever.

I don’t want to go to River Campus tonight, either, but I’ll get over it. I’m a big girl, after all. I’ll just reward myself with lots of Starbucks afterward (and hopefully it won’t take too long). After spewing out this post I will proceed to:

– rapidly finish up the ed psych online discussion and reading assignment, because, um, I forgot about them and they’re due in forty minutes (oops, didn’t write that down)
– fill out my music ed observation forms
– maybe make the Niagara Falls trip poster
– draft an email
– complete my mission statement draft
– do the Hall work for aural so I don’t have to worry about it later

AAHHHH.

A little taste

So I’ve been looking at writerstore.com’s articles lately. I encountered one about writer’s block and lack of motivation and it said stuff about just writing and writing and writing and not minding if it’s crap; I suppose that’s helpful. I mean, having the words in front of you is better than not seeing them, not knowing what’s going on. Even if it’s just a literal stream-of-conciousness based flow of words, it’s something.

I should probably be doing something a little more useful right now. I got back from theory (and my quiz, and the fastest part-writing I’ve ever done) in order to eat a bagel and drink some milk, and zone out with TV for, oh, an hour and a half. Frankly, I’m calling myself out on this right now. So pathetic. Just a time-waster. I should be practicing, or working on my music ed hours, or even printing off my resume for SA nominations. But I didn’t, and I haven’t, and that time’s gone again. Oh well? I suppose.

I still have a full hour before I have to leave for aural skillz, though. So, hey, I’ll make some coffee and finish some paperwork and maybe even crank out that theory packet for Thursday. Then I’ll head to aural, then lug my clarinet and piano books to the practice rooms for two hours before ed psych. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to rehearse Affanni before studio tonight… merda, if I don’t make sure that shit’s solidly memorized, I am screeeewed.

So yeah. Here’s my writing and writing and writing and not minding if it’s crap for the day. Time to actually go do something.

Success story after all

Riza doesn’t die, Riza doesn’t die!

I just finished reading the entire series online, so I know for sure.

Maybe there’s hope for me, after all.