Much Music. Very Practice.

   Geez, these past couple of days have been killing me. BYSO concert/rehearsal fiasco over the weekend, then the orchestra concert Tuesday, marching band rehearsal tonight, which was then immediately followed by a two hour private violin lesson.
   On the bright side, however, I did finally pick a sonata to prepare for my college auditions. I'm going to be playing Beethoven's 5th Sonata (Spring). In a few weeks, I plan to pick out a piece from the collection of Bach Sonatas and Partitas. Then I just need some etudes and get my minor scales down, and I'll be all set!
   Marching band rehearsal tonight was really fun, it was great to see everyone again, and Mr. Bill showed us the footage for the spoiler of next year's show titled, Home Sweet Home.

   Something about that really got to me. Next year is going to be my senior year, and it seems that after all this crazy journey, starting with Haunted Carnival 4 years ago, to New York, For The Birds, and Tonight. And after all of this insanity, I'm back where I started. My home. The band is my home, it's where I belong. No matter what happens, I always feel good when I'm in the band room, or on the field. I know that I'm going to absolutely bawl the first day of band camp this year. After all I've done in this band, I just don't feel ready to leave. Even watching the video, all the old friends, all the memories, everything. I'll be honest, I teared up a little. I don't want this to end, I've never really felt at home anywhere in the way I do in the band. Even the people I don't like, I would still do anything for. I'm not sure what I'm going to do.
   Getting back to everything here, however, I've got some big, big things in the works. I've picked up the iPad again and started drawing, so hopefully I can get some nice stuff up here pretty soon. What I really would like to talk about, however, is the idea of a Nerds Under Fire podcast. Now the issue we've run into before, is scheduling. My initial thought is that I will host the show solo along with a different guest each week. At this point in time, my schedule never matches up with anyone's regular schedule, so what I intend to do is bring in a new guest each week. Our most common rotation will most likely include the regulars you hear about-Nik, Alex, Charlie, Nate-but I also have a few friends dotted around the country I've met in various fields of nerd-dom who I would love to have guest on this show if they're interested.
   This is all still in the preliminaries, of course, nothing is set in stone, but I've got plans and they will be coming together within the next couple of months.
   Stay tuned, and I'll see you all Friday.

Tacos,
Gladdstone

Freaking Fridays

   Hey, all. I know I missed Friday, again. I don't know how this keeps happening-I guess I just get busy and it slips my mind. Promise I'll do better this week.
   So anyway, it has been a fairly normal past couple of days, as usual. Wednesday was the US History AP and...yeah, I already talked about that, so let's not revisit it.
   Thursday, I got out of school for a competition with my school's wind ensemble. We had prepared three pieces, and we took gold, which is just one rank below top, so we're all pretty excited about that. Things are starting to come together in marching band, and I've gathered some very fascinating information about this upcoming year that I won't share just yet. But let me just say, Mr. Bill has some really cool ideas, and I hope the other directors agree with him, because we could really have a shot at first place this year.
   While we're on the subject of marching band, I am still working on the euphonium, despite the fact that I probably won't be playing it next year, I will definitely be playing it in college, which seeing as I have to be good enough to compete with some really fabulous players.
   Agh. I just got in from mowing the lawn and my allergies are killing me. My eyes itch so bad I want to rip them out of my damn head. Also, I'm going to take a moment to say I find the show Two Broke Girls annoying.
   Moving on, I went on a little adventure Saturday, and let me say, it is quite the tale. Let's start from the beginning, shall we? I am in a youth orchestra. It's actually quite an impressive group-it's made up of the top players in the area. Well, we had a dress rehearsal for our concert Sunday on Saturday. I live about 30 minutes away, and it was at 12, but I had to go get my car looked at on my way so I left at 11. I ended up getting out of there fast, so I grabbed Subway and drove over. I got to the high school, only to find absolutely no one there. Then, to make matters worse, I got lost in the school. Yup. Finally I found a door that led outside. Now here's the thing about this school-they've got gates at every entrance and these ones just so happened to be locks. Now irritated, I tried to get back in only to find all the doors were locked. So-you guessed it-I had to jump the fence. With a violin. Yeah. Then I had to walk all the way back around the building to my car. So now I was a little pissed, but figured it must be at the West Middle School, which happens sometimes. So I set the GPS in my iPhone to take me there, seeing as I don't head that way much. No sooner did I get there, than I realized it had sent me to the East Middle School.  Pretty angry now, I told it to take me back to the high school because I thought maybe I could figure it out myself from there. Well, an hour later, my phone could not get me back there because of constructions and detours. Now more lost, I told it to take me home. Thirty minutes later I was calling my mom and she was telling me how to get home. So essentially, I was driving aimlessly for 2 hours. Did I mention my car has no AC? Oh I didn't? Well it doesn't, and I wasn't sure I was going to make it.
   In summation, the website was wrong and the dress rehearsal was before the concert Sunday. Wonderful.
   The concert was very good, at least. We played Rumanian Rhaphsody No. 1, which let me just say, is an insanely hard piece. We also played an excellent Mozart flute concerto among a bunch of other fantastic pieces. It was our last concert of the year, too, so no more driving 30 minutes every week for 3 hours of practice! Yay!
   That's about it. I've got robotics tomorrow-Nik and I are going to be working on the website. See you Wednesday!

Tacos,
Gladdstone