JereMY's Blog

It has truly been a while!

2011-07-18T12:35:00.003-05:00

Well, greetings from San Francisco! I arrived here LATE Saturday night to do my travel training. Yesterday, I had a very productive day. I lazily hung out at the hostel while doing some work on my computer. Afterwards, I took a looooong hike around town. I walked straight up to the top of Nob Hill where I saw Grace Cathedral. After that, I walked straight downhill to the Fisherman's Wharf. I had a lamb sandwich with mint mayo served on rosemary focaccia at Castagnola's down at the Wharf. Afterwards, I visited Ghirardelli Square where I enjoyed a truly divine hot fudge sundae. I then walked to the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge through the Presidio. I ended the day with some grocery shopping and a long walk home carrying milk and eggs. Having to walk everywhere definitely effects how much one buys!

In total, I walked at least 8.3 (but probably closer to 10) miles on very hilly roads. And, to think, I was sad I couldn't go to the gym yesterday...

PS- the weather is amazing! It's been about 65 degrees!

PPS- I can't seem to find Starfleet Academy...

Website Updates

2010-04-10T14:10:00.004-05:00

Greetings!

I've been doing an overhaul on the old website, trying to get some of my music out there and available for those who want it. It's been alot of work, but I think it will pay off. I now have 3 pieces for sale (see "Works" page). Check it out!

NYC anecdote number 1

2010-03-21T19:36:00.003-05:00

Just returned from NYC! It was an exciting trip, of course. Evan and I had the opportunity to play on the "Big Piano" at FAO Schwartz... which you may remember from the movie "Big"... of which I only have the slightest memory. Anyways, after watching all the crazy people run around on it making no sense, we got rave reviews and applause after our rendition of "Heart and Soul." I have photos below, as well as the video from the movie.

Playing it safe...

2010-03-03T23:02:00.002-06:00

Playing it safe, the double entendre of my life.

Tonight, as I was shuffling some papers on my desk, I came across an article that my roommate printed and left for me to read back in May. Of course, I thought, "I'll read this when I have time" a number of times since then... So, I decided that I would read it tonight. The article follows:

Perhaps you play it safe with the kind of things you create, sticking to one topic, outlet or style. Maybe you avoid uncomfortable issues in your work, situations that get just a little too real, or a character that's a little too like you. Or you have this fantastic idea that you're waiting to do because, "You're just not good enough yet." Maybe you limit yourself to local venues, or don't charge enough for your work. Or perhaps, you couldn't bring yourself to call that agent, that potential backer, that gallery, and pitch your work.

Wherever you play it safe in your creativity is also where you play it safe in life. Can't make your characters get confrontational? Well then, ask yourself, how well do you handle confrontation? Follow all the rules in your painting? Where else do you blindly toe the line? Can't send that demo tape into the radio station? Where else do you lack confidence?

There's nothing intrinsically wrong in playing it safe. We all do it in order to survive–or so we've been taught–but as we move through life, we outgrow our safety nets, just as we've outgrown our playpens and car seats. Some of us consistently choose the known over the unknown, the small but sure return over the risky investment. Others play it safe by avoiding the chance of rejection, exposure, or disappointment. Sometimes we play it safe in one area of our lives so we can waltz on the precipice's edge in another. But playing it safe is really taking the biggest risk of all: the risk that we will never learn or grow in that particular area. And those are the areas where life's most precious and important lessons await.

So what would happen if you stopped playing it safe, just for a little while? How would your creativity blossom and grow? In our art, at least, we can explore with safety. We can stretch ourselves beyond what we thought we could do. These are just paint smears on canvas, or electrons on a screen, or a series of moves set to music. We can paint over it or delete the file or change the steps if we get too scared.

I challenge you to use your art, your creativity, whatever your outlet, to deepen your knowledge of yourself. This next month, start noticing where you play it safe in your art. Notice where you back off, instead of pushing forward, where you tiptoe timidly instead of striding forth boldly. Notice what you approach with caution, rather than with curiosity and adventure.

Then throw that caution to the winds, and take that risk! See how much richer your art becomes.

And – your life.

About The Author, Lynn Cutts
Chocolate-loving Life Coach Lynn Cutts’ mission is to change the world for the better, one person at a time. At http://www.ManageYourMuse.com, she shares free tips, articles, games and newsletters to help you realize your dreams. Lynn offers one-on-one coaching, group coaching and self-guided programs to help you create your own boundless life. Lynn is certified by the Coaches Training Institute, and is a member of the International Coaches Federation.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you didn't play it safe? I was thinking about this tonight. I have often chosen to repeat old repertoire for the piano, or to choose easier pieces because they are a quicker learn... but I wonder, if in the next competition I choose to enter, how I would fare if I played exactly what I wanted to play? I recently played in an audition where the judges asked me to choose 3 of my 6 pieces, and I faithfully chose the more difficult ones. Why? I wanted to give them more fodder. How did it go? Well, that remains to be seen. But, I think the final thought I have on this story is that no one gets anywhere in this business by playing it safe... so, I won't be, anymore.

Recovery, day 1

2010-02-11T15:03:00.004-06:00

Well, I've spent hours talking to cops, doctors, insurance agents... it never ends. My typing is becoming much easier! I think it had more to do with the dizziness and disorientation from the impact than I thought, but I also haven't had a pain pill since early this morning, so maybe my mind is working a little better. The damage to my car was pretty mild, considering. If the other driver doesn't have insurance, my damage is less than my deductible, minus medical bills, of course. The vehicle damage isn't even really that noticeable with all the nasty salt grime on it, so, as long as the car drives okay, I probably won't get it repaired until I hear back from the other insurance company. Anyways, we'll see how it goes. I could correct the previous post now, but... it's too entertaining to do that!

My first car accident

2010-02-10T22:32:00.003-06:00

Pardon the typos, on heavy drugs right now...

Well, count your blessings righT? This afternoon, I was with Evan on the way to he Lawrfnce airport to fly out for a Kansas Honors Program, when a lady rear-ended me ata stop sign. Thankffuly , the damage to my car was prety minimal, but Evan and I both experienced som pretty bad whiplash from teh impact. It was strong enough that it knocked my power sunroof open. 5 Hours in the ER, and a ctscan determined that I was mor or less ok. The doc said thata I will probably be a little disoriented for a few dyas, and that the pain will probably get worse for a day or two, but that, with yhe help of some meedicine, I shoule make a full recovery. I'm vclearly very disoriented at th emoment, difinitely cant play piano right now, and my eys are having a little trouble focusing... so, iwth the lack of the ability to type, i'm also having a hrd time reading what I've typed. I may leavfe the typos in here evn after I get better, jsut for the fond memories...

Thanks fory our prayers.

Kansas Youth Chorale

2010-01-29T15:56:00.003-06:00

So, it's really been months since I've posted anything, and today won't be much different. I've recently come in on the ground floor of a new choral organization that, I think, will be very good for the state of Kansas. I'm working as webmaster, so I'd love to share it with you:

Private citizens and firearms

2009-03-11T02:09:00.003-05:00

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

I'm on a topic tonight. I don't like politics, and I don't like posting political opinions, so, instead, I'm going to be provocative, not political. Something happened Sunday which scared me to death. Some of you may have read about it. In Maryville, IL (on the outskirts of St. Louis), a man entered a church mid-sermon, pulled a .45 Glock, put 3 bullets into the pastor, before the 4th jammed, then pulled a knife, and in the scenario, harmed several church members who were working to restrain him. Reports say that he had enough ammunition to kill about 30 people. My first thought was, how could this have happened? I know convenience stores at 2 a.m. are not safe places to be, but church on Sunday morning? What would alot of people say when hearing this terrible news? Well, guns are evil, and should be outlawed. Then something really painfully obvious hit me. Illinois is the only state in the country in which carrying a handgun is prohibited entirely. So, let's reason this out logically... a gunman, who was obviously carrying illegally, could walk into a place, where, by most people's estimations, the surrounding people are law-abiding citizens... who, upon obeying the law in Illinois, would not be armed. This man knew that there would be no fight. Had his gun not jammed, he may have offed 30 people in a church service. I'm not going to approach the morality issue of whether or not self-defense killing is acceptable... let's just stick with the law and logic.

What is the true purpose of the right to bear arms?

If I were to pose this question to your average person, I would suspect they would say for law enforcement officers and for hunting. That, however, shows that the average person has not read nor understood the text of the 2nd amendment. The amendment states for the "SECURITY" of a free state... and it ever refers to... dare I say? A "MILITIA". Yes, that's right folks, read it and weep. Our founders were wanting to make sure that what happened to them with tyranny did not happen to us. Before anyone thinks I'm suggesting anything, I'm not... I'm just expounding upon the text. What I really am wanting to get back to is the church incident. We live in scary times. I just wonder, would that gunman have been that brave in Texas? I also am wondering, if a church member had pulled out a gun and shot back, what would the response of the media and public been to the incident? What's funny is, that as we get more and more strict with our gun laws, we seem not to have noticed that there are actually laws in the most liberal of places, as in, alot of Europe that require shopkeepers to carry arms. Shocking? Yes!

Am I drawing any conclusions? No, not really. I'm just putting some of my thoughts out there. I certainly have an inclination one way on this issue, but I can easily see all viewpoints. I guess the provacative question I would leave with you is this:

"IF guns kill people, do pencils misspell words?"

Barcelona

2009-02-04T17:08:00.006-06:00

Well, I'm sick again today, so, as part of my hugely productive day, I decided to give another Europe 08 update.... I have 3 more cities to go, so, I feel like I should get it all blogged before I start forgetting it all. This entry will effectively cover May 28-29, 2008.

So, somehow after a very long weekend with Kenny's graduation stuff, we managed to get up REALLY EARLY for a 7:49 train to Barcelona. Now, we actually almost missed it because the sign was wrong leading to the platform, but all was well. I suspect we both slept most of the way there. With an early start, though, we managed to get to our hotel on the metro that is enormously famous for pickpocketing, with several large bags. Kenny even received some help from a stranger getting his down the stairs. Anyways, we made it to our hostel, Hostal Central Barcelona, and checked in before getting a bite to eat and starting our visit. Strangely enough, our first visit was to the Museu de la xocolata (Museum of Chocolate). There they had a history of how chocolate entered the European culture through the port of Barcelona. They also had some interesting chocolate sculptures (see below).

Don Quijote and the Windmills

Ratatouille

After that visit, we went over to the Palau de la música catalana (Palace of Catalan Music). This was a very educational visit for me, especially. For those of you who don't know, the prevailing architecture in Barcelona is modernismo. Alot of buildings were done in a very ecclectic style, sometimes reflecting a sort of Baroque ornateness, but with a modern twist. Take, for instance, the colored glass pilars in the palace. Unfortunately, photos were not permitted inside, so, if you want more, you will have to look it up on Google.

The Palau de la música

Later, we took an elevator down to the ancient ruins of Barcelona, though named "Barcino". They were a very developed ancient city, but again, no photos...

After our visit to Barcino, we made a quick detour into the cathedral, where they happened to have geese in the cloisters... kinda strange. But, something else struck me in the cloisters. Take a look at that second photograph. It is a "tapestry", if you will, made of flower petals and leaves. This is a very old tradition for Holy Week in Spanish countries. They will cover the streets with these things for the procession. This certainly wasn't Holy Week, but, it was my first time to see one in person.

Inside the cathedral- some visiting American choir was singing

The tapestry

May 29-
So, we started the second day by taking the long trip up Montjuïc, which overlooks the city. From there, you can really appreciate how Gaudí's rising masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia (church) dominates the skyline.

On the way down from Montjuïc, we stopped in at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. This museum has one of the most unique exhibits I have ever seen. Through a very tedious process, I'm sure, artists were able to remove frescoes (painted plaster) from churches throughout Catalunya, and reapply them to the walls of the museum. In essence, by going to this museum, you visit many Catalunyan churches, all in one place. The exhibits are fantastic, and quite well preserved.

The exterior of the museum

A sample of their preserved work

The most interesting Madonna and Child I have ever seen

So, after a long, stressful day of traveling, what does everyone want? Juice! The Mercado actually has some of the best juice I have ever tasted... the best part is, get there when they're about to close, and the merchants virtually give it away.

So, after getting juiced up, we made a night-time visit to Sagrada Familia. For those of you who don't know anything about it, it is a modernist church designed by the devout Catholic architect Antoni Gaudí. He started construction on the church in 1882, and, to this date, it still lacks about 80 years of work. Some speculate that it will be done by 2026, but they aren't familiar with the Spanish phrase "Mañana." Something that could certainly explain the delays is the fact that the original plans were lost in a fire, so, design has been a little vague since that time. That being said, it is definitely worth a visit, if you're in Barcelona. May I recommend that women not go visit it at night, as the area wasn't exactly safe-looking...

Me at Sagrada Familia

Zaragoza

2009-01-21T23:30:00.003-06:00

For the record, this entry covers May 24-27, 2008.

So, Saturday (May 24) I had "booked" a bus ticket to Zaragoza, which, after all of the traveling, was my ultimate destination on this here trip. Kenny and I had thrown the idea around of him coming to Bilbo to meet me there and hang out before going back to Zaragoza, but that didn't work out. The brilliant idea was that we go back to Zaragoza on Sunday. This is important, because when I had my itinerary all put together, apparently I bought a bus ticket for Sunday rather than Saturday, and made quite a fool of myself at the bus station when I couldn't find my bus and the attendant finally decided to say her only phrase in English "This ticket is tomorrow!" I think my confusion and frustration at this must have been enough, because she did the typical Spanish thing and switched it for me without making any further eye contact or saying any more words. So, I made it to Zaragoza where I met my friend Kenny, who had been working on his master's there through the MIT program and the Zaragoza Logistics Center. Upon arrival, he showed me around the park near his flat.

On Sunday, we did the "touristy" things around town, including the Cathedral "Santa Maria del pilar"and the Aljafería (the Moorish castle) and the marketplace, and ate at the Spanish Applebees (Vips). It seemed to be a big day for "first communions", as there were loads of little children being photographed all over town. The next day was Kenny's graduation, and our last day in Zaragoza.

The Cathedral

Me in the Aljafería

Aljafería

Kenny's graduating class

Funny thing about this last photo. Since I was up in the balcony taking pictures with my SLR, right next to the actual photographer, most of Kenny's friends thought I was one of the photographers... must have been the hair.

301 and counting!

2009-01-21T23:28:00.002-06:00

Well, I just now found out that the previous post about the Basque country was my 300th post! Not bad for like, almost 4 years of doing this... and to think, I started this blog because Rick talked me into it, and now he's not even blogging. Sigh.

País Vasco

2009-01-03T12:27:00.005-06:00

This post covers 5/23 and 24 of 2008.

One of my goals in traveling to Spain this year was to visit the distinct regions which I had not seen before. Most of my previous trip had been spent in Castilla-Leon and Andalucía. So, I made it easy by flying right into the País Vasco, into the city of Bilbo (as in, Baggins). Bilbo is the capital of the País Vasco (or Basque country). It has experienced lots of hardship in the past, alot with their move for independence from Spain. They were famous for alot of terrorism, etc, previously. The País Vasco is one of the most unique regions in the world, for a simple reason, their language. Those of you who have taken Spanish or French know that these are both Romantic - or Latin Languages. English and German, etc., are Germanic languages. There are also Celtic (Gaelic, Irish, Welsh), Eastern (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese), etc., groups of languages. The Basque language is unique in that it bears no relationship with any other known language. Theoretically, it is because it is up in the mountains between Spain and France, and was an untouched culture for so many years. Now, they also speak Spanish, which is the only reason I was able to get around. I did, however, take the opportunity to buy a book in Basque, which is basically only to look at, because I have no intention of learning the language. But, in searching the book, except for proper nouns, I can't pick out any words, and I understand 4 languages.

So, on to what I actually did. Well, the big tourist attraction is the Guggenheim museum. You will note if you click that link, that there are several throughout the world. Let me say, I'm someone that appreciates art... but modern art has to be really well done to interest me. The big attraction of this museum, though, is the architecture.

You will note from my very bad self-portrait, there are lots of curvy lines in this building. In fact, the only flat surfaces in the entire building are the floors. As I continue posting about this trip, probably over the next 6 months... you will note that my trip would have been the trip of a lifetime for an architect. You can read about the building on wikipedia, if you want, but I think I summed up what I cared to see about as well. One thing to note, this is the only place in the world that has actually "bagged" my camera. Photography inside is strictly forbidden, so they tie this plastic bag around your camera which has a "seal" on it, so when you leave, they can check if your camera has been out of the bag. So, I don't have any interior pics.

As far as the rest of the town goes, it's very scenic and clean. I find most of Spain to be very dirty, and Bilbo was an exception. The weather was also very nice during most of my visit. As far as locals go, no one was particularly rude, but no one was really open and friendly, either. Usually when I'm traveling alone, I get sucked into conversation with someone at some point, but this didn't happen here. Culturally, Bilbo seems to be very unique. I did witness the end of a wedding in the cathedral on my second day, where the bride and groom were serenaded by instruments with a lone dancer. The bride didn't seem exactly thrilled to stand there and watch this for 10 minutes, but it was interesting to me as a tourist.

I'm getting better at levitation to do my self-portraits

Bilbo also has one of the newest metro systems I've been on. All of the stops look like big roly-polys to me though...

This is the dancer...either he's jumping, or just got kicked by Keanu Reeves.

It's a new year, Charlie Brown

2009-01-03T12:08:00.002-06:00

I'm definitely starting to realize that new years seem to come and go faster the longer you live. 2008 flew by, if anything, a little faster than 2007. So, how does one summarize 2008? Well, here's a list...
I settled into life in Lawrence
Went skiing for the first time in January
KU won the national championship in basketball
Visited the UK, Spain, and Portugal, including new cities of Cardiff, Bilbao, Barcelona, Porto, and Santiago de Compostela
Bought my first house
Turned 25 and can finally rent a car for cheap...
Finished the coursework for my master's degree
Saw the US economy plummet again
Paid $1.19 for a gallon of gas... first time since I was like 16
Started a new job at FBC Topeka

A time like this, people usually look into their aspirations for the new year... well, I have quite a few of those as well.
I really want to devote several hours a day to practicing and improving in piano
Get into the DMA program
And, what practically everyone says after the holidays, get to the gym... mostly so I will feel better. After eating all carb's all of Christmas break, I'm just sooo tired all the time. On that note, I'm thinking about trying a "detox" diet, which reputedly helps you have more energy, etc. For now, I'm just hoping the antioxidants in all the coffee I'm drinking will tie me over...

The 2008 Baptist Hymnal

2008-12-22T23:13:00.003-06:00

Ever since I started college, I've been quite the connoisseur of hymnals... even moreso after my hymnology class with Dr. Richardson. I certainly have my preferred hymnals for various reasons... For example, I'm a big fan of Worship and Rejoice because it is very logically laid out, mostly by the church year, with some various other sections to fill in the gaps. It also contains many hymns that I know and love, but which are not present in some, say, the 1991 Baptist. My church in Topeka uses The Worshiping Church, which is a pretty good hymnal, but also with its flaws. The 2008 Baptist hymnal was just released about a month ago, but I finally got my hands on one today. This is the first hymnal to come out of the Baptists since 1991, so, I really didn't know what to expect, other than what I had already read about it online. Here are my first impressions...

First, the cover is pretty plain. Personally, I would have liked a larger type-face... nothing spectacular, but it looks like they were going for an older style, which seriously contradicts the contents. Next, they corrected a very humorous mistake made in the 1991... the last hymn in the '91 is number 666. Whoever thought that was a good place to end either had a good laugh or wasn't thinking. The '08 has 674 songs. I am being very careful with my terminology, using hymn speaking of the '91 and songs of the '08- you'll see why later. Something I have trouble understanding is how other hymnals, like the two I mentioned above, somehow manage to squeeze well over 800 hymns into their books, whereas the Baptist Hymnal can only seem to accommodate under 700 in a book of about the same price and thickness. Where this brings about a serious flaw, in my opinion, is that the '08 incorporates a number of "contemporary praise and worship" songs in it, most of which did not appear in the '91... this means that a large repertory of hymns were cut to make this happen, when, they could simply have added more pages to accommodate them.

So how about those "songs"? I'm having a tough time with this one. I like contemporary music, and I think there is definitely a time and place for all worship styles. I even like alot of the ones that are included in this hymnal. But, I'm not sure it was wise to include them in this hymnal. Primarily, most churches who worship in the "modern" style do not use hymnals at all. And due to the ever-changing tastes in praise and worship (henceforth p/w) music, any church who does use alot of this music would never be satisfied with this hymnal. This also makes me think that this hymnal will be very outdated very quickly, as many of the p/w pieces in it have already fallen out of common useage. I can think of two rationale's for including them in this edition. 1. SBC thinks that it's endorsement of these pieces will bring them into the repertoire of churches who oppose p/w styles 2. SBC thinks that the majority of churches will go out and buy the new edition every time they update, so the outdated choruses are of little concern (definitely wrong on this point!). I also think it was a grave mistake to cut out, probably around 200-250 classic hymns to make room for them. I would have been a bigger proponent of a p/w supplement to the hymnal, just an extra book with lyrics for churches who want to use this music, but do not have means to project lyrics. Another problem with the way these are published is that the music is very skeletal. For the non-improvisor, there are not enough notes to make them sound good. And, for the improvisor, and the general "praise band" person, there are NO CHORD SYMBOLS, something that many guitarists require to play this music, so I find the way they are printed impractical. Perhaps they should have simply included them in a section as lead sheets... Which brings me to my last point on this, that they are intermixed into the hymnal, which in many ways causes issues... they very seldom are strophic (multiple verses to the same music), so most of them are spread out over 2 or more pages to accomodate the longer "song" with fewer words. Speaking of which, I do find it incredibly funny that the editors tried to set meter to many of them for the metrical index...

Now, onto things which are shorter...

The organization... The '08 is ordered more or less like the '91 with very similar titles, for example "His faithfulness, grace, love and mercy" (which, to me, sounds like 4 different sections jammed into one). The '08 removes the separate divisions of "Advent", "Birth", "Coming of the wise men" (aka Epiphany), in favor of one big block called "Birth, Christmas". While this may not bother many people, I like seeing the divisions, even if some of the hymns in the '91 were not categorized correctly. The other problem with the divisions is that there is no buffer zone or title page between them... so, when I was looking through the Christmas section, I got over into the "Ministry" section and wondered what was going on before I realized the topic change...

The page layout... The '08's biggest lack is the birth/death dates of the writers. I like to know this information when I look at a hymn. It was in the '91... my guess is it was left off to avoid the awkwardness of all of the contemporary songs. Also, the '91 has in small print at the bottom of some "This tune in a lower key, No. ##". The '08 abbreviates this LK##, which isn't very intuitive. I consider myself to be very observant, and, on first glance at the hymnal, that didn't catch my attention. Obviously, to a music director using this hymnal on a regular basis, this would become second nature, but, it doesn't make sense to me. The '08 doesn't give the interspersed responsive readings their own number, which could isn't necessarily bad, but in many churches where the hymns and readings are displayed on a number board, could confuse the congregation as to whether they are about to sing or read. Although, from my review of the '08, I doubt many churches who worship in that style will be buying this.

Pet peaves...

They put "Be Still, My Soul" back in... I'm glad to see that.

"Take My Life and Let it Be" still does not contain all the stanzas, but "Just as I am" still has all the extra ones (which, incidentally seems to be the only hymn that most churches sing every stanza of these days)

'91 had most of the "high church" hymns at the front... '08 throws alot of p/w in very early, and has hymns like "A Mighty Fortress" in the 100+ range

"Oh Morning Star, How Fair and Bright" still hasn't made the cut

"He is Born the Divine Christ Child" (Il est né) made this edition, glad to see it... although, not my favorite translation... the rhyme scheme is not maintained in the stanzas

"The First Nowell" is now "The First Noel" - we got rid of the egotistical British spelling

"Good Christian Men Rejoice"... this, like many others has not been gender-neutralized. My opinion varies based on the hymn on this... if it doesn't change the meaning, I don't mind saying "Good Christian Friends Rejoice", but I see no problem singing "Good Christian Men"... this is just an observation

"O Holy Night"added... a plus

"I Sing the Mighty Power of God" was put in with the ELLACOMBE tune, a good idea.... but what genius put it in Bb? No one can sing that... Should have left it with Ab, or even better, G.

"All Creatures of Our God and King" is back in D, but not for long, it has a transposition to the old Baptist '91 Eb...

The font size in the index is too small. Most of my congregation in Topeka could not look up a hymn in it if they had to. It's like, size 7-8... This should always be at least 10, if not 12... it would take one more page- and there is a blank page facing it!

Alternate harmonizations... there are 53 last stanza or choral settings of hymns in this edition. I should preface this saying, I will probably use some of these, so I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, BUT... just about every hymn that's been "set" differently is in the single book I bought for the organ called "200 last verses". When a congregation must sing unison on an alternate last stanza anyways, they don't need the music. The problem is, it puts alot of extra music in the hymnal which a good organist would have anyways, when they've already cut so much out. And, if the church doesn't have someone who owns some copies of free harmonizations, they probably don't have an accompanist who can play them anyways, so it seems like wasted space to me in so many ways. As I said, I will probably use some of these, but it's mostly because I bought the book, and some of them will probably be pretty good.

Responsive readings... Even though there are readings dispersed throughout, there are some with their own numbers at the end. I like that these start over with 1. I'm a little puzzled by their layout. The speakers are ordered as such: Worship Leader, Worshipers, and some have "Young Worshiper #1" and "Young Worshiper #2" and "Senior Worshiper"and "Men" and "Women"... I'm going to duplicate part of one below for your amusement...

WL: Proclaim with me the Lord's greatness; let us exalt his name together.

Worshipers: Yours, LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the splendor and the majesty, for everything in the heavens and on earth belongs to You.

Women: Yours, LORD, is the kingdom, and You are exalted as head over all. Riches and honor come from You, and You are the ruler of everything.

Men: In Your hand are power and might, and it is in Your hand to make great and to give strength to all.

Senior worshiper: Lord, my God, You have done many things--Your wonderful works and Your plans for us'none can compare with You...

Now, my questions for you, my readers... Can you see any obvious textual reason why women should have to read the portion chosen for them? Or a "Senior"(old) "Worshiper"? Better yet, why do we use the term "Worship Leader (WL)" and "Worshipers" when we could use "Leader" and "All". Now, not that this wouldn't be a creative idea to use occasionally with a congregation, but, in my opinion, it severely limits you in a worship scenario... since there is DEFINITELY no textual reason to have women reading that portion, what if I, as the director, wanted the entire congregation to read that portion? Not only would it cause mass chaos, people seeing "women" and not knowing when to read, but I would more than likely have to reprint it with the appropriate words in bold to make it clear. My point is, the editors were trying to make this creative in the writing, which takes away the creativity of the music director. I could understand having women read certain portions of readings if they say, pertained to women. But, at that point, I wouldn't specify it in my hymnal... nor would I always assume the worship leader is the one doing the responsive reading. It just seems like they went through alot of extra effort to make it more complicated than it has to be. People have been doing responsive readings where they simply read the bold print for ages... They know how to do it.

And wow, my review is much longer than I originally expected it to be, so, I'll summarize quickly. In my opinion, they made a couple of positive moves in this edition, but a number of really questionable decisions. When and if I'm in the situation where I would have to decide whether or not to update to the '08, I'm afraid I would have to decline. If I was doing a blended service even, I would be using mostly music that is not in this hymnal, and if I wanted to use this hymnal for the blended music, the hymnal itself doesn't provide the necessary tools. I would encourage the folks at Lifeway to give much more consideration to the practical use of their hymnal before the next edition. There are so many different hymnals out there now, I would have a hard time making the choice to stick with this one, when for the same cost I could get as many as 300 extra hymns in my hymnals.

London

2008-09-01T10:43:00.008-05:00

22 May 2008

Upon arrival at Paddington station this afternoon, I decided the first order of business was to get my luggage to my hotel, the Best Western Corona on Belgrave road. Since no one really understands the bus system in London, I decided to take the underground to Pimlico and walk about half a mile. After dropping my stuff in the shoebox that was my room, I headed out again. As I walked toward the underground station, I passed a lost British woman who asked me for directions, which, surprisingly, I knew where to go... Then as I grabbed my copy of "Metro" (newspaper) and ran down the left side of the escalator, freaking out all the first-time-in-London tourists along the way, and hopped into the underground carriage just barely missing the closing doors, I realized, London is a different sort of place for me. I'm comfortable there- I've practically become a local.

One of the things that I had made 2 previous attempts to see in London was the antique musical instrument collection at th Victoria and Albert Museum. The problem with seeing this exhibit is that the museum often closes it several days of the week. The most popular attractions at the museum happen to be textiles, etc, which I have absolutely no reason to want to see. So, after spending nearly 45 minutes to get there, I managed to have just enough time to walk around and take some pictures before the museum attendant decided to close it, so I guess you might say, I still need to go back. I dropped by the new Whole Foods for a good dinner while I was there in Kensington. I must say, I'm impressed... 5 floors of artisan groceries. Afterwards, I headed down to Leicester Square to get tickets from the Half-price tkts booth for a show. I decided to go to "The Woman in Black." On the way, I stopped by Lincoln's Inn Fields, which is a popular setting for the most recent Harry Potter movie- Grimmauld Place. The play was really good- it was basically your classic theatre thriller, although I didn't find it nearly as frightening as people have said it was.

Thursday 22 May 2008

This morning I had allotted about 2 hours to see a limited-time exhibit at the Imperial War Museum called "For Your Eyes Only." Does the name ring a bell? This exhibit commemorates the life and work of Ian Flemming , the creator of James Bond. To save money on my Oyster (Underground ticket), I decided to walk there, ironically, past the British Secret Service building, MI6. The exhibit was absolutely worth every bit of the overpriced ticket. Not only was it entertaining, but I added so much trivia to my already bustling list of trivial facts I have to share. For instance, James Bond was the author of a book on birds of the Caribbean, where Ian Flemming wrote the novels from his island home called "Goldeneye." Flemming was a spy during the war, and lived life as a playboy. See the similarities? Since I hadn't been to this museum in years, I decided to go through the entire museum as well, so this ended up taking until 1 in the afternoon. I got a shepherd's pie in the museum café before walking the south bank of London to Soutwark Cathedral.

After a quick visit inside, I walked to see the new piece of artwork on the south bank. A man by the name of Paul St. George decided to complete his great-grandfather's project from Victorian times. The idea was to drill a hole between Tower Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge to keep an eye on America. So, my first day in London, a gigantic drill bit appeared on the south bank, to be followed by a telescope on my second day. You can look through this telescope and see an electronic projection of people in front of the Brooklyn Bridge. I didn't think it was worth £10, so I just took pictures of it. For more info, click here. I took a stroll across Tower Bridge, then rode the Underground to see what this new Overground is. Basically, it's just a train... that doesn't run nearly as fast as the Underground, therefore this little venture ate up my afternoon. I made it to Westminster Abbey for the Corpus Christi evensong, which, due to the holiday, was also a Eucharist. I highly recommend this if you are ever in London. Not only do you get into Westminster Abbey for free, but you hear great music and sit in the quire, a place normal visitors never see. The program:

Byrd Mass for four voices
Byrd Cibavit eos
Byrd Ave verum corpus

My very last adventure before leaving London was to go to a movie at the Odeon- which is like the British version of the Chinese theatre. This night was the premier of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It was an interesting experience, not just for the movie, but to experience cinema culture in another country. Assigned seats, a huge theatre, multiple rows of curtains- it was very much a classic movie-going experience.

Indy at the Odeon

Lincoln's Inn Fields- i.e. Grimmauld Place

Keeping an eye on the British

Tower Bridge

Southwark Cathedral

Caerdydd

2008-08-31T16:01:00.006-05:00

Tuesday 20 May 2008

Two very important things I learned in Cardiff, Wales:
1. It is not Cardiff, it is Caerdydd
2. It is not Wales, it is Cymru

You see, many years ago, when the English were trying to control the whole of their Island, they annexed Cymru, and because the people there were not considered English, the English called them "Welsh", which means "strangers." They lived in "Wales," or "land of strangers." Cardiff is just a really bad mutilation of the word Caerdydd, which the English just couldn't pronounce, nor can I, really. Wales has only fairly recently received a revival of individuality. In 1999, the British Parliament allowed Wales to have a national assembly. The Welsh language experienced a very big decrease in speakers over the years, but since 1925, the Plaid Cymru has tried very hard to bring back the language. Now, young children are taught Welsh before English in schools.

All of that to say, I spent this day in Wales. Since I was absolutely wiped out when I arrived the night before, I went to bed around 7 or 8 p.m. As a result, I woke up at the crack of dawn on Tuesday. I began my day with a leisurely stroll to Llandaff Cathedral- essentially THE cathedral of the Church of Wales. I was told it was about a 25-minute walk from my hostel, although it turned out to be nearly an hour. I highly recommend hopping on a city bus to get there, because it is a good ways out from town, and though the walk is charming for a while, once you get out of the city you hit British Walmarts and things which aren't especially scenic. The cathedral was very nice, with a very interesting cemetery which you can stroll around. Due to some major damage during the Second World War, the cathedral features a new element, which is still quite controversial. It is the concrete arch with the aluminum Jesus. In an old church, I've never seen anything quite like it. Click on the pictures below to see a larger view...

Since I had gotten my morning exercise, I decided to take the bus back to the centre of town. The hour walk was in vain, because the bus only took about 10 minutes. Since the bus dropped me near the train station, I decided to see another site I had been dying to see, Caerphilly Castle. This was about a 25-minute train ride from Caerdydd, but well worth it. It is the second largest castle in the UK (after Windsor), but is almost completely in ruins, giving it a very interesting appeal. It even features a broken tower which leans more than the tower of Pisa.

After looking at the castle, I headed back to Caerdydd and saw the castle there, which wasn't nearly as interesting. It was owned privately by the richest man in the Victorian world, so, it wasn't a defensive castle, but more of a castle with lots of decorative quirks that eccentric rich people do... We were not allowed to take photos inside, but here is an external view:

In a store/small museum across the street from the castle resides the world's largest Welsh lovespoon. This is a very Welsh tradition, in which young men carve a spoon for their girlfriends. There is all sorts of symbolism in it, such as musical symbols for love songs, number of children you wish to have. The ornateness and size indicate your level of commitment. This is the one I carved on the train, too bad I'm single.

After all of the excitement at the castle, I decided just to explore the city. So, I headed towards the bay, stopping by the market on my way. The next morning, I went to the National Museum of Wales, which was well worth visiting. I'd say I read just about every major plaque there and was out in about 2 hours. After that, I headed back to London via Paddington. Below are some pictures from around Caerdydd.

The bay and the bay visitor's center, called "The Tube" wonder why?

The Norwegian church and the Victorian market

Wow there's alot going on!

2008-08-30T12:55:00.004-05:00

I think my title captures the situation perfectly. There has been so much going on, I really don't know where to begin my blogging again. I have many details about this school year in Kansas to add, however, I really need to take some more photos first, to add to the entry. So, an appropriate place to go back to would be my first day in Europe this summer, since I want to get that put up before I forget about it. I'm going to try to get through the entire trip in the next couple of days, although, we'll see how that works out.

Sunday 18 May 2008

This was the oh-so-amazing departure day for my longest European vacation ever. For those of you who don't know, I managed to get a free sky-miles ticket from Delta for the journey. Anyone who's ever used a free ticket should know exactly how complicated that makes things. For example, to fly to Spain, my itinerary was Kansas City to Minneapolis, Minneapolis to London, London to Paris, Paris to my selected destination in Spain. Thankfully, my dad qualified for a medallion level membership this year, so we called up the medallion line, where the employee spoke English and was sympathetic enough to give me a 4 day layover in London. With that precious little time in the UK, I had alot I wanted to see. So, I had reservations in Cardiff, Wales for my first night there, not to mention a train ticket. My flight was to leave Kansas City at noon, with my connecting flight to London departing around 4 p.m. This was to get me to Heathrow airport by 8:30 in the morning. I've never had as much surprise as this, when my flight from KC was delayed due to a flat tire. The best part is, it's not that it took that long to change the tire. They simply don't keep spare tires for jets at the airport, so they had to fly one in from Minneaopolis. Does this make sense to anyone else? My car has a spare tire in the trunk, as does almost everyone's... and it only has 4 wheels. I would think that an airplane that has like, 12 - 14 wheels would have at least 1 spare on board. Not so. As a result, I was going to miss my connecting flight to London, so I ran to the reticketing counter ahead of all of the other angry people from my flight. The extremely helpful woman at the desk said that the next flight they had to London was the following day, so I would have to spend the night in Minneapolis. I made a list of suggestions for one of the other 30 - odd airlines that fly out of Kansas City, that she could surely find me a seat on. She thanked me for my opinion, gave me a $10 voucher for my trouble and made me leave. I decided to call up Delta's 800 number. Apparently, there was another flight to London which was not full (after getting on the plane, it had LOTS of empty seats on it). The KCI employee simply didn't want to trouble herself with retagging my luggage. So, after all that, I did get to London, just 5 hours late.... enough to miss my train to Cardiff. Not a huge problem, but I did have to buy another train ticket for about £60. The original was a supersaver that only cost like £15, so that definitely dipped into my travel budget.

To lighten my load, since I was only going to Cardiff for 2 nights, I decided to drop off my huge suitcase at the Left Luggage Area at Paddington Station. Randomly, en route, I decided to take a side trip, since my expensive ticket was open-ended. I alighted at Swindon, which is kindof a small industrial town halfway between London and Cardiff. From there, I took Stagecoach 49 (Trowbridge) to Avebury: Red Lion. If you haven't heard of Avebury before, don't sweat it, most people haven't. It is Stonehenge's little sister. It is basically the largest extant stone circle in the world, but doesn't have the nice horizontal stones at the top, only vertical stones set in the dirt, which has been excavated for quite some distance around the site (by the ancients, not currents...). Since it isn't nearly as popular as Stonehenge, visitors can walk through the stones, climb on them, etc. There are even sheep around if you get hungry. All in all, it's basically the original British park. After an enjoyable stroll through the circles, I got a jacket potato at the local pub (The Red Lion), before catching the stagecoach back to Swindon, then the train to Cardiff.

If you click on this picture, you can see the spare tire sitting in front of the landing gear next to the van...

Stones at Avebury attract the local youth

...and wildlife

They vary in size, but are basically all several British tonnes

The passing of a student...

2008-08-16T20:49:00.004-05:00

I don't know if many of you have ever had one of those experiences where something just shocks you beyond words, but I have today. I just received an e-mail that one of the students I had taught for a few years at music camp passed away this morning after a very short battle with cancer. I really am just sitting here in shock. I know that few if any of you know this person, but if you could keep his family, as well as me and the other teachers at Samford who taught him in your prayers, I would appreciate it. You can read more than you want to know here:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/geoffreyglaub

I won't be paying rent anymore... at least not any time soon

2008-07-06T15:27:00.017-05:00

That's right, I won't be paying rent for a while! Well, for financial reasons, I came to the decision that the apartment was really wasting money. I mean, you pay rent, you pay bills, you pay renter's insurance, and what do you get back when you move out? Your security deposit, that is, if they decide not to dock you for the holes from picture hooks... All things considered, it seemed like it might be a good investment to look into something that I would have equity in, and, with the real estate market being in major recession right now, the time seemed ripe to buy a place. I also had been having thoughts about the piano in my place. I could hear everything my neighbors on two sides said, and it was reasonable to assume they could hear my playing the piano. This always made it awkward for me when I wanted to practice something new if they were home, and I definitely didn't want to risk playing too late at night.

So, I've been looking at places since early February, and by the first of April, found a place that suited my needs and price. Let's take a look (these pictures are before I bought it):

Here it is from the street. It's half of a duplex, the left side from this angle.

This place had a slightly larger kitchen than my apartment. It's still not as big as I'd like, but at least it has more storage space in the cabinets...

It has a downstairs master bedroom, which I thought would make a nice study to keep my piano in... It was a nice peachy color which needed covering up badly.

The living room was decently spacious. Note, the plasma TV did not come with the house...

It's not the most attractive thing from the outside, but it's ok. The side porch is nice, with a door into the breakfast room. First order of business when I get back is to enlarge that deck some, probably with paving stones or bricks or something...

I really like this pantry. Everything has it's own spot, it's easy to organize, etc. Unfortunately the shelves aren't adjustable on the doors, but that's only a minor inconvenience.

The master bath/hall bath was two different colors, which drove me crazy, so definitely had to repaint that.

So, when did I find time for all this? Well, here's what happened. We took care of the paperwork before I left for Europe, and I took possession the day I came home. I got some help from David, TJ, and Brenna to move my furniture over, then David, Brenna, and I got to work on painting to fix up the place, just in time for me to leave for the first music camp in Alabama. So, all of that is documented below:

SOLD!

Immediately, my car enjoyed the nice, spacious place to sleep

I happened to walk into Sears on a big sale day in which they were getting rid of a "cosmetically" damaged High Efficiency washer and dryer set... basically, they were dinted in the back where you'd never notice it, so I jumped on the deal. Funny enough, the delivery guy had no idea how to stack them, so David and I figured it out.

It's not just because the TV wasn't working, David had to see this new washer in action

Here's my moving help taking a lunch break

Then we set to work painting to get the room ready for the piano... wonderful mix of colors there...

Here's the empty kitchen, ready for painting...

Sortof on an impulse, I decided to try this really dark blue in the kitchen. I'm happy with the end result... you'll see...

I found these wooden blinds at Home Depot. I think they really looked great as opposed to the white ones. Now I can move the white ones to the bedroom

And here's some of the finished product (with some before pictures for reference):

Would you recognize this master bedroom from the picture on the left? Didn't think so.

This room was just white, but I needed some color to sleep by. It is now "Costa Rica blue." Only thing that worries me now is if this is too bright.

I think the living room turned out well. These are my new old sofa's that I got for the place, along with some garage-sale coffee tables.

This is the kitchen as it currently looks. I changed out the light fixture in the breakfast room too, if you want to compare it with the above pictures. I'm very happy with the results in this room.

This is that bathroom that was multi-colored. It now appears in "Costa Rica Blue" as well.

Needless to say, it was a VERY busy 6 days doing all this in Kansas. After all that work, David and I are very curious what takes contractors so long. It was also alot of fun to do some actual house work into a place of my own... always living in apartments never gave me the freedom or the desire to actually improve the place I lived in. That's all for now.

Where have I been lately?

2008-07-05T18:03:00.004-05:00

Well, that question is not as easy to answer as it may seem. In the past 30 days, I've been in 9 states and 4 countries, but more on that later. I'm going to be posting about my Europe trip very soon here, so, if you haven't checked back in a while, since I don't really post regularly, you'll want to be checking back often over the next couple of weeks. I'm going to start with the freshest stuff first, then go back in time to post about Europe. First and foremost is the last 2 weeks or so.

So after an extremely busy week in Kansas, I drove back to Alabama just in time for music camp at Samford. I always enjoy working it, but frankly, I had to wait so long to find out if I was going to be working that I had to turn down other offers to do it, so this may be my last year unless I know way in advance next time. That being said, I still had a great time. I'm looking forward to the second camp starting this coming Monday. The day after that was over, I headed straight down to Panama City, FL, to meet up with my family. My sister was down with Madison (my niece) from Canada, so that was alot of fun. Here are some pics:

Here's the niece- almost 2!

Here's the whole family, minus my brother-in-law, who had to stay in Canada and work.

So, after that beach trip, I had to come home for a couple of days. Then Rick came down to Dothan, and we went to the beach for a couple of days. That was alot of fun. For one, the hotel lost our reservation, and didn't have any more small rooms available, so, we ended up getting a full condo for the price of one hotel room! We mostly hung out on the beach or at the pool. We had some good meals at Hoffbräu and Angelina's. Here we are on the beach:

After the beach trip, we came back to Dothan for church on Sunday, then spent some time on the lake on Monday and Tuesday. All in all, it was a good, short, much-needed vacation.

A year ago...

2008-05-25T13:33:00.002-05:00

Well, that´s right, a year ago yesterday I graduated from college. It´s really hard to believe. When you graduate from high school, everyone goes on and on about the changes you´re about to experience... but really and truly, the real world doesn´t hit you until you graduate from college. There´s that being more independent thing, paying more bills, and for me, the biggest change was a new state, far, far away. So, I was thinking about what all has changed since then. Well, for one, I´m half-way to a master´s degree, teaching college students and classes, and by far working the hardest I ever have. I actually got to a point about 2 weeks ago thinking I´d never make it to the end of the semester. However, somehow I did, and life goes on. Right now I´m here in Spain, visiting one of the guys I graduated with, who is finishing his master´s in 2 days (yes, I´m very jealous of that!). I´ve gotten to know lots of great people in Kansas, but I´m still noticeably attached to Alabama, even having taken the big step of the new house and all up in Kansas. My KS friends don´t understand why I´m so attached to Alabama still, but I suspect they never will. College brought about some of the most important experiences in my life- music instead of medicine, lots of travel and lots of friends. So, I´d have to say, one year later, I´m still very glad of my experience at Samford.

Vacation, work, work-like-crazy, stop sleeping, vacation!

2008-04-26T22:33:00.004-05:00

Yes folks! It's that time of year that I get swamped, and I start blogging "par hazard" (at random) because I need some distraction from it! Well, alot has happened since my last post, so I'll try to fill it in.

Last weekend, I took a little trip to Birmingham. It was a great visit! I often haven't had time to visit everyone when I've passed through town (since it is, conveniently, on the way to Kansas from Dothan) since it's always during a break. So, this time, I made sure to go a random weekend in the middle of the semester so I didn't have that problem. It was good because I got to see alot of folks I hadn't spent any time with in a while. Also, if you weren't already aware, a friend and mentor of mine had surgery to remove cancer about 2 weeks ago, so one of the main points was to drop by and visit him. (By the way, he is doing quite well, thanks for your prayers!) All in all, things worked out in such a way that it was one of my best visits yet.

In other news... I have recently come to a decision that I want to stay here for my doctorate. As such, with interest rates being extraordinarily low (thanks to the fed...) and real estate in general being very cheap in Lawrence, I decided that my rent money would be better spent on a house- something that I will have equity in when I move. That being said, after much searching and deliberation (basically since February), I put down a deposit on a house a couple of weeks ago. It is a 3BR, 2 Bath duplex/townhome in Lawrence. It also has a 2-car garage, which will be nice so I won't have to clean snow off my car every day... just shovel the driveway... It's pretty exciting owning my first home - which, I won't technically own until June - and I'm already making big plans for it to personalize it a bit. I will try to update my progress on here, but for now, here are photos as it looks right now:

At the Car Wash

2008-04-07T15:09:00.003-05:00

Moving to a different climate certainly has its unexpected changes for some various things... Take my car for instance... I had to accept that I would not be able to wash my car between October and April. The salt and sand in the road certainly takes its toll. I gave my car a bath yesterday for the first time, and I'm sure it would thank me if it could. I had almost forgotten how nice my car looks... except for that terrible place in my rear bumper... I finally know how bad it is, so I'm looking forward to getting that repaired as soon as possible.

In other news, I'm sad to report that I did not win the concerto competition with the Beethoven choral fantasy. One of the doctoral students took home that prize, which I suppose is only fair. Therefore, I'm back to square one on repertoire for the semester. I'm thinking about dropping out of the other competition because I simply won't have enough time for it. I'd rather do it next year when I can do well as opposed to pulling it together at the last minute. Anyways, that's all for now.

Thought-provoking

2008-04-02T14:39:00.002-05:00

Well, there's some excitement on campus today...there's a pro-life group doing a sort of rally with some very gruesome posters, and there are the usual protesters holding up pro-choice signs. It's interesting to listen to people rant back and forth about the issue. Some of the pro-choice folks bring up the point: if you knew this child was going to become a homosexual, would you still protect its rights? Well, that is very thought-provoking. We as Christians often lose some of our objectivity in the issues we defend. Well, the answer should be yes. We never know if children will grow up to be atheists or Christians, terrorists or peacemakers. Either way, that child is innocent and has a right to live. My rebuttal to them would be, if that child was a homosexual, would you be more likely to let it live? It's all very ironic how people will fight for the life of an insect, protect a dying species of tree, but have no concerns for the death of a child. It's such a twisted view of the world. Some people will drive miles to take aluminum cans to a recycling center, spend thousands of extra dollars to have items that cause less impact on the environment, but turn a blind eye to something like abortion. I think all of these are noble things that we should stand up for. Christian or not, I do not understand how people could support such a thing as abortion.

February and March

2008-03-19T23:19:00.002-05:00

I have now proved that I don't always blog more when I get busier. The last month or so has been so incredibly busy that I never even thought about posting. A very quick run-down of important things that have happened since my last post:

February:
16 Eric Whitacre came and conducted a concert at KU- quite amazing
17 Men's glee did a concert in Lawrence to practice for KMEA (Kansas Music Educators' Association conference)
29 Men's glee sang at KMEA in Wichita

March:
3-7 Phi Mu Alpha Rush
7-9 Trevor came up for a visit
11 Finished memorizing the Beethoven Choral Fantasy
12 Recorded the Beethoven Choral Fantasy, left for Alabama
13 Drove to Birmingham for Rick's birthday
14 Drove home...
17-19 Went to spring break at Panama City Beach

At this point in my semester, it's customary to be realizing that I haven't really worked as hard as I could have, so I need to be buckling down and getting to work. This semester, that is hardly the case. I have been working so hard I really needed a break. I had a bit of a crisis the first couple of days of spring break, so that also took alot out of me, so at this point it's REALLY hard to sit down and practice piano. I do, however, still have alot to learn this semester. The Choral Fantasy recording I sent off to the KC Philharmonia will be judged, and finalists will be asked to come to KC to audition on March 31. After that point, I will either REALLY be practicing that piece, or I will be leaving it behind for a while. Now I have to finish learning the final movement of the Grieg concerto, 3 movements of a Beethoven Sonata, and an American piece yet to be decided for a competition in about 5 weeks. I'm not even sure that it will be possible. However, that has never stopped me before...

The latest from Kansas

2008-02-15T22:09:00.003-06:00

Flu: I think I've finally recovered from the flu... it only took about 2 solid weeks. For the record, that was one of the worst illnesses I've experienced. I went through about 15 cans of soup and a several cups of oatmeal.

Music: Things were a little difficult with the flu, but all things considered, things are going quite well. I started a new piece (the Beethoven Choral Fantasy) for a competition exactly 2 weeks ago, minus my sick days, or course. The total page count is 45, and I've already memorized about 25 pages, give or take a little. My goal was to have it memorized by Monday, but I don't think that's going to happen, so my ultimate goal is the following Monday, which means I just have to memorize a little more than 2 pages a day. This coming Saturday I'm teaching a piano master class in Paola, Kansas. There I will also be performing a couple of pieces (although I'm not sure what just yet). I'm thinking about doing the Henry Cowell set I did on my recital last year as well as the Scriabin Étude. That should be manageable in one weeks' time. After I finish with the Choral Fantasy, I will then proceed to finish the final movement of the Grieg concerto and the last two movements of Beethoven Opus 26 for a couple of other competitions.

General frustration: Last Friday was definitely a big down-point of my year. My Acura, which I've had now for just over two years had only one scratch on it (that I know of). That happened when a rock hit the fender on the highway. With over two years of parking in student parking lots at Samford and KU, no one had even let their car door hit my car. Last Friday, I came out to the parking lot in the middle of one of the busiest days of my semester, with less than 15 minutes to spare before I had to be somewhere, to find that someone had hit my car, and not even left a note. Needless to day, I was very angry. Not only had someone damaged my car, but I also had to be very late for a concert because of having to wait for the police to do all the paperwork. Even though I was parked under a security camera, they still did not catch whoever did it. I'm still checking every car I pass to see if their bumper matches mine, but so far to no avail. I have a photo below, but I'm not sure it does the damage it's full justice.

Today 60, tomorrow 17

2008-02-04T10:42:00.000-06:00

Yes folks, those are the predicted temperatures in Lawrence right now... Today is the warmest day since October, and tomorrow will be the typical cold, miserable winter day- but with the benefit of snow. I think I tolerate the cold up here better than I did in Birmingham for 2 reasons... 1. It's not as humid, so the cold doesn't feel like it's biting like it did in Birmingham, and 2. If it's that cold, it should be snowing... which it usually is up here.

On another subject, I've been sick since Friday now. I left school early on Friday because I was just feeling lousy... I felt a little better Saturday, even ate normal food and stuff, but then yesterday I got hit really badly. I was so weak all day that I just felt like I couldn't walk, I was slightly sick to my stomach all day, so I didn't feel like I could eat anything, but I was so hungry all day... and my temperature got up to 102, something that hasn't happened since grade school. As if all of that wasn't disturbing enough, I had run out of soup on Friday and couldn't tolerate eating anything else yesterday. So, I had to make a late trip to the grocery store because I was just too hungry. Anyways, I was productive on Friday and Saturday, got alot of cleaning and practicing done, so at least those two days weren't a total waste, but yesterday and today might be...

Wow, has it really only been 2 weeks?

2008-01-31T23:06:00.000-06:00

I think the title says it all. It's pretty amazing that it's only the end of the second week of classes, and, with MLK day, really the end of the first FULL week of classes. So, I took my various syllabi and started putting dates into my calendar, then I realized that I am impossibly busy this semester. Here are my stats for this semester:

I'm doing 3 competitions (so far)
I'm performing in 9 concerts (11 if I win 2 of the competitions)
I'm possibly doing as many as 4 performances solo piano
I have 3 weekends on my calendar with nothing scheduled- 2 of them are the next two, and one of them in April I'm probably going to Alabama
I'm working on several new pieces, the Beethoven Choral Fantasy, the last movement of the Grieg A minor concerto, a 20th-century American piece, yet to be determined, and 2 movements of a Beethoven sonata
I'm taking 15 credits of classes, 3 of which are musicology courses that involve alot of reading, 2 choirs, piano and organ

So, basically, I will have no free time this entire semester... I had been hoping to visit my sister in Canada, but that just doesn't seem likely since I don't have a free weekend. The question then is, what will I do with my next 2 weekends, since they are my last free time til spring break? This weekend it seems like everyone is out of town, so I will probably try my hardest to get some major practicing done. If I felt underworked in the fall, I don't see any chance of feeling that way this spring.

Last vacation before school - Ski trip

2008-01-24T20:34:00.001-06:00

Well, it was an exciting break. Perhaps the most exciting part actually happened after school started, but, it still felt like break. Rick flew in last Thursday, primarily for the YouthCue conference, but he came a week early for a good visit. Anyways, the day he arrived, we had to do a number of errands, beginning with a few Target's and Old Navy's. A nice part for him was that it snowed that day when we got back to Lawrence. So, in the evening, since neither of us had really sledded before, we got this $4 saucer sled at Target and took it out for a spin in the park. Here's Rick going down the hill...

The next morning (Thursday), we headed to Colorado. The drive was pretty long, but we broke it up pretty well. We arrived in the late evening at the Beaver Lodge after a scary last few miles where it was snowing and -2 degrees. That was definitely the first time either of us had experienced negative temperatures. Friday morning, we looked around town and the lodge, then took an afternoon ski lesson. Rick picked it up pretty quickly, and I did fine as long as I didn't try to slow down or stop- which I tried alot... Saturday was much better. We were off on our own on the slopes, and I got down stopping pretty well, so we tried some more difficult slopes. This was the day of the accident. We had been riding this one lift over and over again, so it had become pretty common place to not pay attention. Well, we didn't notice when we got to the top of the chairlift, and right as we were supposed to be standing up, Rick still had his ski poles dangling... one of them caught the embankment and snapped in half. What was really funny is that the operator stopped the lift, and after checking that we were okay, continued to talk to us for about 5 minutes before Rick reminded him that there were still alot of people on the lift waiting to get off.

Here's me in front of the lodge

Here we are skiing, well, standing and posing for a picture while wearing skis...

Here's Rick after the unfortunate incident

On Sunday, we had planned to take a break from skiing and go snowmobiling. That was alot of fun. I still think I prefer the Sea-doo's more, but it was still well worth it. We got on a half-day tour, which was smaller and went alot faster. The most interesting part was when we were playing in a small field in which the snow wasn't really packed in... so, 4 out of 4 snowmobiles got stuck. We had to spend about 20-30 minutes digging them all out.

Here's me on the snowmobile

Rick stuck in the snow... in some places it was almost hip deep, Rick's standing on the tracks from the snowmobile, that's why he's not sinking

Here we are at the top of the continental divide

After snowmobiling, we needed a cheap afternoon activity, so we found this random ice-rink in a brochure. It wasn't the best quality ice since it was outdoors, but it had a great view all the way around it.

So, we concluded the weekend on Monday after skiing most of the day, then hitting the road back to Lawrence. We stopped most of the way there in Junction City, then made the rest of the drive back on Tuesday morning in time for my 11:00 class. It was definitely one of the best weeks I've had in a while.

Ravioli di Zucca

2008-01-12T00:22:00.000-06:00

Well, it's been kindof a slow week. I got really sick soon after getting back from Atlanta, and I'm still not really better. However, on one of the worst days of my illness, we decided to try out this recipe I found online for pumpkin ravioli. Yes, I know the thought sounds disgusting. I tried it the first time in Mantova, Italy, about 4 years ago. I've been looking around for some ever since, to be honest. You can't find it anywhere. Anyways, I found this recipe on this blog and gave it a try, to some pretty good success. It was alot of fun, actually, making it from scratch, although with the number of times I sneezed while making it, I probably washed my hands over 60 times, so, just got my skin all dried out just in time for the drive to Kansas- which, I'm en route now. 200 miles down, 800 to go. Anyways, I have pictures:

The strips of ravioli before I got them all cut up

Lots of pumpkin ravioli

The finished product

Atlanta Trip

2008-01-08T23:35:00.000-06:00

First of all, happy new year! Yeah, I know it's late, but that's all right. This begins my 4th year of blogging, not that it's been that reliable for the whole time, but, ya know.

So, we had a little window of time when Kenny was going to be in Atlanta during a break from school in Spain, so last Wednesday I headed off to Atlanta. We did alot of fun stuff. Wednesday, I basically got there in time to eat dinner and drive Kenny around to look for a drug store... Thursday, Rick joined us and we went to the Georgia Aquarium, which was really cool. On Friday, we went to the World of Coke. Saturday, Rick and I spent alot of time collecting ski gear for our trip later this month, then we caught up with Kenny in his little hog-heaven, the farmer's market. That evening, Kenny did alot of cooking, and Rick and I burned alot of stuff (to get the grill going of course...). Sunday morning, I visited Rick's church, then we bid Kenny a farewell before I left for home. I know there are those that think I say it too much, but I don't think I can say it enough, that it was really great visiting with old college friends. It's nice to know we can all still hang out just like old times, but I really miss the old "undergrad" life.

The rest of this week I'm just going to be studying for my graduate exams, practicing, then starting the long drive back to Kansas. I've included some photos, you can also read Rick's impression of things here.

Here's Kenny, me, and Rick at the aquarium

Me and some jellyfish

A particularly interesting marking...

Me and Ricky with the Coca-cola polar bear

CNN Center... yeah, so security didn't like this pose, so don't try it.

In memoriam

2007-12-31T11:07:00.000-06:00

I really hate posting bad news, but I'm afraid today is one day that necessitates it. Sometime last night, my cat, Blackberry, passed on.

We found her over 18 years ago, back in 1989. She was a stray in our backyard on Briarcliff Road. She was an almost new-born kitten, and was in our yard with her entire litter (about 5 kittens) and the mom. We tried to rescue them all, but they all ran away from us, except Blackberry. She hid underneath a blackberry bush (hence, the name), and we brought her inside. Since that time, she's been one of the best pets possible. Never bit anyone in her entire life, and she would always meow back and forth at you if you talked to her. Just yesterday I was carrying her around listening to the loudest purr I've ever heard on a cat. She had a stroke last Easter, and since that time had not had the use of one of her legs. That kept her immobile for weeks, but she still managed to come up the stairs to visit me whenever I was home. They say that sometimes people can control when they die when they are at the point of death, sometimes just waiting until all of the family is back together or until they take care of some unfinished business. I know it's strange, but I believe that Blackberry was waiting until I was here, because she's been sick for so long. She was the last thing really tying me to my childhood, because I really don't remember anything before we found her, so it's really sad to have her gone. I'm putting in a couple of pictures below:

This is the oldest picture of her I've got- I think this is the day we found her, but she looks a little big for that.

She always loved boxes...

...and was always a photogenic cat.

Last, but not least, here we are at Christmas last year.

The Journey Home

2007-12-18T12:16:00.000-06:00

Divine intervention, that's all I can say.

I originally planned to leave Lawrence last Tuesday morning after my jury at 9 a.m. Well, I kept tabs on the weather, and saw that it was supposed to be really icy and rainy on Tuesday, and decided to switch jury times with a friend and leave Monday night instead. Well, Monday morning Dr. Winerock caught wind of my plans, and saw that the ice storms were supposed to hit around 6 p.m., so we moved my jury up even further. I played an organ jury at 10:30 a.m., packed, then played a piano jury at 3 p.m., then finished packing and hit the road around 4:15, temperature around 19 degrees. Unfortunately, I got into Kansas City around 5 p.m., i. e. Rush hour. The ice storms did hit around 6 p.m., and by 9 p.m., according to the news, over 600,000 people were without power and 16 people had already died as a direct or indirect result of the ice storm. by 9 p.m., I was just about to arrive in St. Louis, where the ice was finally melting off of my car. Something that I was not prepared for were semi trucks in the ice. I never really thought about them collecting ice, then seeing it fly off the back of a truck towards your car. That was probably the scariest part of the drive. After St. Louis, everything was thawed (around 38 degrees). I had originally intended to go all the way to Nashville on that first night, but Hermione (my new GPS travel companion), started to estimate my arrival time in Nashville around 3:30 a.m., mostly because of my having to drive 45 mph for a good portion of the trip. Well, when I got to Paducah, KY (around mile 550 or so), I decided to get a room at the Best Western and continue in the morning. That entire first night, I stopped for a grand total of 27 minutes (2 min. rest area, 12 min. dinner, 4 min. Barnes and Noble, 9 min. gas station). On Tuesday morning, I woke up early to the news report of the ice storms in KC, and was very glad that I got out of there just in time. I took the pace much easier on Tuesday, since I couldn't meet up with Rick until after 2 in Birmingham. I stopped for about 30 minutes in Nashville, and that was it.

I visited with Rick for a while before I fell asleep on Tuesday, and we hung out all day Wednesday, doing the usual- Tortuga's and Seinfeld. I also got in some practice. Thursday, I went to breakfast with Dr. Sanders and went over to the old apartment to hang out with Jason and Mike. I took a much-needed trip to Surin, although they no longer have my favorite dish, Wing of Angel. I drove the rest of the way home on Friday. So, my trip stats:

1000 miles (exactly)
16 hours total moving time
16:37 total trip time (minus Birmingham and sleeping in Paducah)
2 full tanks of gas and one top-off
5 days living out of my car

Honestly, the driving wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. For the amount of money saved on a plane ticket, along with the convenience of having my car, I think I'm most likely to drive any time I go to Alabama for more than a week.

Let it snow!

2007-12-08T23:22:00.000-06:00

Well, picking up where I left off...

Things have been crazy ever since I got back to Kansas. I managed to get most of my students through their last tests by the last day of class. I really had a great group for my first college class. They almost all worked really hard, and really accomplished more than any of the other classes did this semester. As far as my stuff goes, well, it's the usual story. I finished memorizing my jury pieces about a week ago, comparatively speaking, a week earlier than I did last year. I'm really not a procrastinator at heart, I think I just have so much that I want to do, sometimes things just get too hectic for me to get everything done before deadlines. I finished my term paper about 40 minutes before it was due at midnight last Wednesday, and the presentation of it went quite well. So, really all that remains is one more day of preparation and packing, then Monday I'm playing my organ jury at 10:30, piano jury at 4:30, and I'm out of here! It's exciting to think that I'm 1/3 of the way to my master's degree. I still find myself disappointed in myself for not practicing my hardest this semester, but I fully expect to change that in the spring.

I kept telling my piano class that the one thing I really wanted before I went back to Alabama for the holidays was snow. Well, I finally got it on Thursday morning (along with a nasty sickness). I definitely learned my lesson... no matter how sick you are, you have to enjoy the snow. That's precisely what I did. I walked around the park, built a snowman, practiced, and drank alot of hot tea and ate alot of chicken noodle soup. All in all, it was a really fun day. Then, it was back to the practicing. On Friday, I went into KC with Phi Mu Alpha and Sigma Alpha Iota to go caroling, then went to hear Yefim Bronfman play a concert of the hardest piano pieces ever, Ravel's "Gaspard de la nuit" and Balakirev's "Islamey". It was really most excellent.

Well, I'm off to pack for my LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG drive home. I'll blog again soon. For now, enjoy the pictures.

My car meets snow for the first time.

Me in the park

My first Italian snowman

This is the music building from the top of the parking garage. It really looks much better in the snow... as does everything.

Birthdays, Thanksgiving, Weddings, Christmas

2007-11-30T18:13:00.000-06:00

I have yet to figure out why I only blog now when I'm way too busy. Perhaps it's a sanity tool. Anyways, alot has happened over the past couple of weeks, so here's a recap.

November 14, left Kansas early to go to Alabama for my brother's wedding and thanksgiving.
November 16, my birthday. We spent most of the day working on wedding arrangements, and I spent alot of time practicing. Brandon's wedding was the first that I have played organ for. Keep in mind, I only played it for the recessional and postlude. However, that put an entirely new set of obstacles in my way to set registrations and practice on a relatively unfamiliar organ. We had the rehearsal dinner that night. Not really much to speak of in the way of birthdays for me. I guess the older I get the less people really care about celebrating not dying for another year... (quote from Seinfeld of course)
November 17, Brandon ties the knot.
November 18, Headed to Birmingham! While there I did a number of things, visited Jason with his broken shoulder, had lunch with Dr. Sanders, did alot of practicing in the practice rooms at Samford, and of course hung out with Rick.
November 21, temperature 75 degrees and sunny. Temperature in Kansas 18 and snowing. I was a little bummed that I missed the first snow of the year, however, I was really enjoying the warm weather.
November 22, Thanksgiving. Pretty uneventful, really. Most of the family was around, but no extended family came this year.
November 23, Brandon and Jennifer return from their honeymoon. I worked on my paper all day.
November 24, Christmas. Yeah, that's weird. With the Canadians (sister and brother-in-law) only able to make it every other year, we celebrated Christmas early.
November 25, Flying back to Kansas... or did I? Actually, my flight was canceled, and the first available flight back ended up being on Tuesday afternoon. Alot of good that did my students the week before their finals...

New color scheme?

2007-10-25T01:06:00.001-05:00

I SHOULD be asleep right now... but I've been tampering with my blog template. How does everyone feel about the changes? Post comments...

Fall Break

2007-10-18T21:07:00.000-05:00

I consider myself very fortunate in a number of ways. A couple of the top things on my list are the experiences I've been able to have and the people I've been able to spend time with. Singlehandedly, the most difficult part about moving away for graduate school was leaving the people. Last week, I got to go back to Birmingham and live like I did before I moved away. Of course, it was not entirely like things were before. It's funny, really. Some people who never really spoke to my when I was a student at Samford felt the need to really "catch up" with me. Others, who I had spent a good deal of time with, barely said "hello". I guess I may as well get used to it.

The trip began last Wednesday... I left Kansas City at 5 p.m. and landed promptly (if not a little early) in Birmingham around 8:15. Rick picked me up at the airport, and we went to Sonics for a snack. We basically hung out in the dorm that night. The next day, I ate breakfast with Rick in the caf, then I spent most of my time visiting with old professors and friends around Buchanan Hall. In the evening, Rick and I went over to the old apartment and had Chicago-style pizza with Jason and Mike. On Friday, I spent the morning visiting with old friends, had a bite to eat with Mike, then went to music history class. After that, I went to lunch with Dr. Sanders and Rick, then to choir practice at Samford. Friday night I went to see a movie with Rick after dinner. Saturday was the catch-all day for things I needed to do in Birmingham. We started the day with a Waffle House breakfast (they don't have them in KS), got European Vacation from the library and watched that, then topped off the day with dinner at Applebee's and watching the rest of the race (which, Jeff coasted in on almost no fuel to win). Sunday I practiced in Brock Hall (a recital hall I really, really miss), had a quick lunch from Logan's, and caught my plane back to Kansas City.

Brock Hall

Rick in Reid

Rick's dorm

Walking around campus sporting some new shirts

I am not Horowitz

2007-10-17T17:48:00.000-05:00

Well, I had a good experience this week... Horowitz's concert grand Steinway was in Kansas City, and I took the opportunity to go play it. Naturally, I had to play the piece that he was most famous for performing, but I had no time to prepare it, so I'm sure he rolled over in his grave with my performance of it. Honestly, it's a great piece, so I will probably continue learning it, but for now, I wanted to share it with my readers... Below you'll find the video of me playing the opening, then below that, Horowitz playing it all on the same piano on his last tour to Russia. Enjoy!

Why did the skunk cross the road?

2007-10-02T00:50:00.000-05:00

I really have no idea. It was just a small part of my entertainment this week. I was headed to practice around 11 p.m. the other night, and lo and behold, a skunk crosses the street right on the cross walk. It was like Pepé le Pew in Kansas... I had also never seen a skunk before, so I thought it was kinda funny that he was fleeing the scene of the music building.

Anyways... well, will it ever stop?!? I don't think so. This has been a dramatic month, not only in my work and school but also with people. When you make a gi-normous move, you learn really fast who your friends are. You see, for the first couple of weeks, you get alot of phone calls, facebook wall posts, etc. Then, for most, life goes on, and it just doesn't cross their minds. It puts a strain on relationships, which, apparently, most don't survive. Wednesday will make 8 weeks that I've been in Kansas. Really, that's not that long. My school terms in Europe lasted 12 weeks last year, and I didn't even have the benefit of an American cell phone. All things considered, though, I'm REALLY looking forward to my visit to Alabama next week.

So, what happens between now and then? Well, my poor, unfortunate class piano students have 2 quizzes, one ridiculously easy one, one ridiculously difficult one. I have another paper due in my music bibliography course...2 if you count the one that's due the day we come back from fall break. I have a concerto competition in Hays on Saturday, which is a 4 hour drive from here. That is the single most stressful thing I've got going on, actually... no one can go to accompany me and the other pianist who is competing. Therefore, we are accompanying one another. I simply do not have time to work on her accompaniment, yet I must. I'm not sure where that's going to fit in. I guess I'll have to do without something this week... just not sure what. I'm also actively learning to play and memorizing simultaneously the third movement of my concerto in order to have it performance ready by October 20th- a VERY lofty goal. They say you should make time for a hobby, but I really don't see how musicians have a hobby- outside of music that is. I'm really just hoping for the best. I work the best when I'm under pressure... and I'm definitely under pressure.

When it's cold outside...

2007-09-16T23:22:00.000-05:00

Wow, does winter come early up here or what! I have never experienced a September day where the temperature just barely inched above the 40's. I'm really quite beside myself with shock. I went to Walmart and bought all the necessities for the coming winter... they have a whole section devoted to it. I picked up a space heater (for my bedroom), a humidifier (so I can feel like I'm back at home), an economy size bath tissue (which, has nothing to do with this), some de-icing windshield wash (I went for the expensive $1.47 kind!), and the super-duper ice scraper (as opposed to the super-de-duper ice scraper... the main difference being that mine only telescopes to about 4 feet). I felt a little foolish since, even though it's clearly getting colder, it's hardly freezing just yet. I'm giving it about 2 more weeks for that. It is totally different up here, though. I don't ever remember turning the thermostat to "heat" before October. As a matter of fact, I think there have been times where it hasn't been switched over until November.

Well, this blog entry is just another time-waster. I took an impromptu nap this afternoon, and was just too groggy to go practice... so, there goes yet another perfectly good day of practice that I missed. I'm really feeling quite bad about it, but there's nothing I can do until morning since the music building is locked early. There are times that I can be dedicated and practice for hours on end... then there's times like this weekend, where I've wasted perfectly good practice time because I got distracted by something else. Somehow, at the moment, I'm not feeling this concerto competition in... 2 1/2 weeks.

Europe, 27-31 May, 2007, Part the First

2007-09-14T23:49:00.000-05:00

I'm in the middle of FINALLY blogging my Europe trip from this past summer. In order to keep it where I can find it, I'm dating these entries with their original dates. Therefore, you'll find them in my archives. To read the first part, click here!

http://westskye.blogspot.com/2007/09/europe-26-31-may-2007-part-first.html

For future reference - if you are looking for these entries, the little thing below that says Labels: Europe 2007 will link you to all posts from this trip, once they are available. Be aware they will show up in reverse order. Cheers.

A challenge!

2007-09-07T23:55:00.000-05:00

It's always exciting to try something you've never tried before. I think I'm about to attempt one such thing... Dr. Winerock mentioned a concerto competition to me today that is being held on Oct. 6. Unfortunately, I've never learned an entire concerto, only first movements. Be that as it may, tonight I began to work on the second movement of the Grieg concerto, since I played the first movement of it most recently. My challenge: to memorize as much of this piece as I can in the next 10 days. If I learn a significant enough portion of it to assume that I can finish the entire concerto before Oct. 6, then that will become my challenge. Tonight, with less than an hour in the practice room, I memorized 2 pages. That leaves me with just over 33 pages to do in just under 28 days. Only time will tell if this is even possible, but until my next lesson in 10 days, I am going to work on this as much as possible and see what happens.

Life in Kansas

2007-08-28T12:53:00.000-05:00

Well, I guess it's high time to bring more info to the table about KU. It's amazing how different and similar Kansas can be at the exact same time. To me, it's really interesting how similar the music building is to Samford's- though, obviously, much larger. It has the same green 1950's flooring throughout, a wood-paneled recital hall, and even a bust of a guy's head on a column, just like Samford's. I have some photos below.

Last Saturday, I took a trip in to Kansas City (from here on, KC) with a grad school friend. We determined that, just like any large city, there are some really nice areas, and some really bad areas. That day, we saw mostly the bad areas since Yahoo maps put us on a couple of roads that weren't right. Apparently, there are several roads in KC named the exact same thing, but in totally opposite corners of town. We also went to Union station, which has been restored to it's former grandeur and now houses the science museum and a movie theatre. From there, we took the sky bridge to the Crown center. That is basically a shopping mall, owned by Hallmark, which is based in KC. It was a very nice mall, but it can only be entertaining for so long.

I have to say, it's been interesting trying to get everything settled here in the apartment. I've had the maintenance guy over here about 4 times since I moved in... he's basically doing one project at a time over the course of several days. I'm starting to think I've heard just a bit too much about his ex-wife... On that note, I'm getting my own stuff in order finally, so it should all be pretty well squared away by the weekend... or at least I hope so.

One of the classy shopping areas in KC

This is me on the sky bridge connecting to the Crown center

Practice rooms at KU... there are 92 rooms on the floor- probably not all practice rooms, but mostly.

Swarthout Recital Hall

Pictures!

2007-08-27T08:06:00.000-05:00

I realized I had been to alot of places where movies were filmed... so here's an album dedicated to that:

Movie Spots

Life in Kansas

2007-08-22T17:03:00.000-05:00

Well, I've had officially one full week of class now at KU. It's been quite a trip, actually. Last Monday and Tuesday, we had diagnostic tests to see where we placed in Theory and Music History. I did pretty well on the history ones, only didn't pass 3 out of 6, but it was only by a couple of points, so I'm not really that worried. I do like music history alot, so I will probably just take the classes, even though I could study and pass the tests. Music theory, however, is another matter. I'm not sure I got the right results yet, so I'll post about that later. Suffice it to say, what I got in my letter wasn't what I expected.

So, now that I know what a typical week looks like, here goes. I teach Piano 284 3 days a week. That is 3rd semester class piano. My students are a friendly group, and so far seem to be doing well. I'm giving them a quiz on Friday to see how much they really know, so... we'll see. After that, I take music bibliography, which is the basic graduate music writing course. My schedule conflicted perfectly with the choirs I wanted to sing in, so, for right now, I'm going to do the men's glee choir that meets in the evening. They've toured around the country in the past, so I think it could be alot of fun. I may end up accompanying another choir, but I'm still waiting to hear back what my chamber ensemble will be. I have an hour piano lesson a week... and I'm starting quite a load of repertoire, including Scriabin's D# minor étude, Beethoven Op. 26, Bach Prelude and Fugue in G Major, and the rest of the Grieg concerto. I'm supposedly teaching a number of private students, but they won't all be assigned until Friday.

The apartment is coming together... I've dedicated a little time each day to unpacking and hanging things on the walls and such. I'll put up some pictures when I'm done, since most of you will never see it in person.

I'm adjusting to the different life pretty decently. I am just now getting to the point where I can cook, but the kitchen at this place is a mess. They say you get what you pay for in an apartment, and I believe it. I got this huge apartment for less than I would have paid for a 1-bedroom at a nicer place. It's just... really old. I have alot of bug problems, and most recently, mouse problems. I hung this poster in the kitchen not long after I caught my first house guest.

I have to say, as far as my perspective on things being different in Kansas, church has to be near the top of the list. Lawrence has alot of really small churches, but very few over 100 in attendance. I decided on Sunday to drive to Kansas City to visit a Baptist church there. I think I might go back, but the drive is a little discouraging. I have a few more days to decide before Sunday, but I suspect that for the time being I may alternate with a church here in Lawrence every other week... or perhaps Topeka, which is closer.

Keep checking back, more to come soon!

The grass is always greener at Samford... year round.

2007-08-14T16:57:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer for all of you first-time readers... I say alot of sarcastic things...all the time. So, if I mention you, take it as a positive thing!

Well, first of all, since I obviously haven't had a whole lot of time to post this summer, I should inform the masses that my pictures from Europe are available if you click on the photos link to the left. Second thing I should say, since I'm living all alone here in Lawrence, my blogging should pick up, for real this time, so look out for a huge stream of updates here in the next few weeks... that is, as soon as my internet at the apartment is working.

So, tomorrow morning at 9:45, I will have been gone from Birmingham an entire week... that makes tomorrow at midnight having been in Kansas for an entire week. After this, it will be the longest time I've spent in another US state. I have quite a few impressions about Kansas that I would like to share...

It's just as hot as Alabama right now, but somehow will stay 30 degrees colder than Alabama all winter.
The people here are all really nice... I've never found a helpful Walmart employee anywhere else.
Where is Whole Foods???!?!?!?
The town is livable, but I find myself missing a mall and movie theater, even though I only went to those places like twice a year anyway.
Grad school is just scary.
Samford has really nice landscaping... the brochures say KU has a breathtaking campus... I couldn't agree more. It's quite a shock coming from Samford.
The music building here is huge, therefore, I'm officially lost all the time...I can't figure out why every music building in the nation is designed so illogically.
And finally, why is every choir director so obsessed with Harry Potter and English people!?!? I mean, I like both, but I'm not sure I would ever reference Harry's 3 tasks in front of a group of incoming grad students... (I don't mean this negatively, by the way, just funny)

So, an actual update on my activties...
Last Wednesday 8/8/07 - drove 800 miles from Alabama to Lawrence, KS
Thursday 8/9/07 - Graduate teacher orientation 8-1, then started moving into my apartment
Fri-Mon - tried to get it all done, but still not even close
Tues - Diagnostic tests in Music Theory, Form and Analysis, Counterpoint, 20th Century Analysis, and Piano Lit. I hope I passed at least one.

I've said enough, but I will have more tomorrow I'm sure.

Graduate School

2007-06-17T22:37:00.001-05:00

I've been holding off on this post for a long time... partially because I really didn't know what was gonna happen yet. I have been in limbo over graduate school since March when I received my first acceptance letter. The problem with graduate school is that people really are in no rush to let you know anything about finances. After months of waiting, I finally have all the offers in and have come to a decision. The decision is hardly what I expected, but I'm sure that God's hand is in this. Saturday, I received an offer from the University of Kansas. The offer includes a 50% reduction in tuition, a graduate teaching assistantship for 8 hours a week, and an annual stipend which is enough to cover the rest of tuition and then some. I am pretty excited about the offer, though still nervous about leaving Birmingham (see the post below about graduation, I spilled enough there). So, that being said, I now have to figure out what a Jayhawk is. So, the answer to everyone's question is... August 9 is when I have to be up there. Please pray that everything until that point goes smoothly so that it will be a good transition for me.

Europe, Part the First

2007-05-31T21:11:00.000-05:00

This is a "back-post"... Meaning, I meant to blog this all a long time ago, and I will inevitably forget alot of details, but I wanted to go ahead and get at least the skeletal outline of it up anyways.

26 May

I graduated from Samford. B.M. in Piano Performance, B.A. in Spanish and French. I received my national certification from the Music Teachers' National Association the same day. After lunch, I got into the car with Rick and headed to Atlanta... well, it ended up being evening, but same difference. We stayed at his house, then headed for the airport on Sunday. Rick headed off with choir on Air Canada, I took British Airways. The flight was quite pleasant. I constantly remember how much nicer British Airways is than Delta.

28 May - Monday

I manage to get sick at the worst times... this would be one of them. I was with my parents at this point in the trip... but due to my illness I really don't remember much. I know we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum, but, because the music instrument exhibit was closed, there really wasn't too much of interest to see there. We had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe... nothing spectacular there, except I've never seen such an expensive hamburger... definitely not a 1 pounder (haha, I know). We called it a day rather early.

30 May - Tuesday

This day, we hit the Museum of London at the Barbican Centre. Unfortunately, very little of it was opened due to some major refurbishments. I think this is the reason that tourists return over and over to the same places... it's the only way you can really see everything. When the sun popped out, we went to climb the top of St. Paul's Cathedral. Unfortunately, it got cloudy by the time we got to the top. Nevertheless, I have a photo of me and the parents, and a picture straight down through the centre of the dome.

We stayed at St. Paul's for the Evensong Service.

Introit: Come, Holy Ghost – Gibbons

Canticles: The Fourth Service – Batten

Anthem: Come, Holy Ghost – Attwood

Hymns: 430

After the Evensong, we booked it to Lord of the Rings: The Musical. It's just about as bad as it sounds. It would be one thing if it was a decent musical badly setting the story, or a good setting of the story with bad music (though the former is far preferable)... but both were quite terrible.

31 May - Wednesday

Wednesday, we got up early and headed to Waterloo station to catch the Eurostar to Paris. They had a deal on first class tickets, so we went in style to Paris. Honestly, it wasn't really any better than coach on this particular train (hence, the good price). The only real difference was the free meal, which wasn't really that satisfying. We arrived in Paris, and got in the queue (line) for a taxi, where we were bombarded by gypsies with signs written in English about how abused they were and how you should give them all of your money. They would all scream "Speak English?" in your face, and, if you said yes, 4 more of them came up to you. Fortunately, I can make a good face as though I don't understand. My dad had just gotten a Hilton club card that gave him a free night at any Hilton hotel... so, we stayed 1 night in the Paris Hilton (no pun intended). After dropping off our things at the hotel, I dragged my parents on the métro to go to île de la Cité. Once there, we went to the Conciergerie (Prison). It's quite famous, especially as the holding place for most of France's "worst" criminals, including Marie Antoinette. Unfortunately, they only give tours in French... so, my parents were quite bored, and much moreso when I got completely tired of translating. Afterwards, we took a quick peak inside Notre-Dame before returning to the hotel. For the record, I don't think Hilton quite means the same thing in Europe as it does in the states. Yes, the room was very nice, but not really much more than the cheap hotels I've stayed in. The photo is me in the Conciergerie.

Graduation

2007-05-26T22:06:00.000-05:00

It's official. I am now a college graduate. Twice. On May 26 I received a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Performance (with an emphasis in pedagogy) and a Bachelor of Arts degree in French and Spanish. On the same day, I also received my notification that I am now a nationally certified teacher of music. So, I can now put after my name B.M., B.A., NCTM. That's alot of initials. As good as it feels to be a college graduate, the reality of my situation sets in. It is always a confusing thing in life, wondering where you will go, who will be there, and who will be there when you come back. I have been blessed by my collection of many wonderful and supportive people. I am excited about the prospect of seeing where each and every one of them ends up in life. I hope that the physical distance between all of us will never be an obstacle, that we would all strive to keep these relationships and bonds we have formed in college intact through the rest of our lives. I realize this may seem a little over the top, and probably far too hopeful. The truth is, when I move away, I will really miss Samford and the people I care about. It is really difficult to imagine my day-to-day life without my friends. Yes, I realize I will make new friends, but that brings me back to the old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." I think you could infer from that statement (imagine... using the word "infer" in the same line as "ain't"...) that "if it ain't broke, don't replace it either." This is a statement to everyone that reads this... None of you could ever be replaced. Sure, I hope to have many friends wherever I find myself in the next few years, but I have no intention of abandoning any of you. I, personally, am pretty bad about keeping in touch, but I usually answer e-mails, so be sure to keep in touch that way. Maybe I'll pick up the blogging pace again... maybe many of you will do the same, so that even if we don't talk as much, maybe we can still participate in one-another's lives. All that to say, I will miss everyone, and I'm not afraid to say it.

For your interest, you may find some photos below. I tried to include as many people as possible in my photo choices, but naturally, I couldn't include everyone. The full album is available by clicking the photos link on my navigation bar to your left.

So, here I am, signing off my senior year of college, the last blog of the school year (but many more to follow for the summer!)

May the Lord bless you and keep you, and make His face to shine upon you and give you peace.

J. West, B. M., B.A., NCTM

Graduation photos:

Parents and God-parents

Friends and girlfriends (Amanda, me, Sadie, Rick)

With the most beautiful girl at Samford

Ricky... need I say more?

Here I am getting my B.A.

Jason, Julie, Sheri and me

Amanda and parents

Me, Kenny, and Jason

Complicated...

2007-05-01T23:06:00.000-05:00

As has become normal lately, I haven't posted in a while. I guess it's mainly because I really don't know what to say anymore. Life can be so confusing, and even more so when I have no idea what's happening with me next year. For an update, I've been extraordinarily busy trying to finish up all of the things required to graduate, and it hasn't been easy. My French paper ended up being about 8 days late, to the tune of 2 points off a day. I really didn't know any way to get it in on time with all of my other responsibilities. In addition to that, I had to present my senior thesis in Spanish on Friday as well, so I basically got no sleep for the past two weeks. Things aren't looking up for grad school right now either. Yes, I've got a couple of acceptances, but so far, my schools haven't made up their minds whether or not I will get an assistantship or scholarship. That means, it's officially May 1... conceivably I am to start graduate school on August 13... That makes it barely 3 months to decide which offer to take, assuming I get one. I find that I have good days and bad days when it comes to how I feel about going away. In general, I think I want to stay in Birmingham... but I'm not sure that's worth putting my career behind another year. In so many ways, this decision is so much worse than it was my senior year in high school... and the difference is, this time I know what I want to do. If you think about it, pray for me during this time of uncertainty. Perhaps I will get the financial aid information soon, but I still must make some tough decisions when I get it... and fast.

Resolution

2007-04-28T10:05:00.000-05:00

The title of this post has some really ironic meaning for me. Let's see... I've been a bit incognito for a while here, which is no major surprise considering what all's been going on. That being said, I'm going to keep everyone in suspense until I have time to organize all my thoughts on the subject. Right now, I want to talk about resolution.

I've spent the last several weeks doing nothing but work on my computer (which makes it surprising I haven't been on blogger). I've had some major research papers and projects that were due, not to mention my portfolio for national certification. Back in November, I got this new wide-screen monitor for my birthday. I have a wide-screen laptop, so it would make sense that it would work okay. Honestly, it didn't. The display would work at a normal monitor resolution, then stretch it to fit this wide monitor. It really bugged me for the first couple of weeks. I even had two different computer science majors take a look at it to see if they could help me fix it, to no avail.

Finally, when I'm sitting at my computer for almost 3 weeks in a row, I can't take it anymore. For one, the slightly out-of-focus text gave me a headache after about half an hour of work. Secondly, I've never been able to really tolerate how photos look as my background, because they were always stretched... so everyone basically looked 25 lbs heavier on my screen. So, in the midst of my French paper last week, I finally thought of a solution. It was simple really. Sony has an agreement with ATI (the company that made my graphics card) that Sony was the only company that could release updated drivers. Since Sony is much more in the market for you to buy a new computer, they rarely update drivers that are working. The problem is, this laptop is slightly before the age of all computers going wide screen. So, what could I do? Well, the answer was obvious. All I had to do was deactivate the Sony lock-out from updating the driver. I did, and voilà! My screen looks normal again! This is a really big deal to me, because I've been looking at this for months, AND my computer science friends had a hard time with it. Alright, that's all... but you need to see what I've been looking at for the past 6 months, so I have an example below...

This is what I've seen for 6 months!

And this is what people actually look like!

Is it over yet?

2007-04-01T10:40:00.000-05:00

Wow, what a week!

First, I must say that the changing of Daylight Saving's Time has been the biggest disaster ever. Congress thinks we'll save energy because we switched 2 weeks earlier. Well, here's what it caused personally for me. For the past two weeks, all of my electronics have been automatically reverting back an hour because Daylight savings has always been at a certain time of year. After manually resetting them over and over again, and being late a number of times to very important things, I thought I had it all fixed up. However, when I woke up this morning and realized it was 11 a.m., I ended up missing church on Palm Sunday. Of course, upon further checking, I realized that my phone (which is my alarm clock) and computer both updated automatically to DST, now putting me officially on Eastern Time. So, now that it's officially and unofficially DST, I can finally trust the clocks again.

So, this week has been the most hectic of my college life. I spent the first half madly practicing hoping that by some chance it would make my recital go better (yes, perfectionist at work). Finally, the day came on Thursday. It started out with my getting stopped at every traffic light between the apartment and campus, making my usual 14 minute drive into a 25 minute drive, so, of course, I was late. I practiced, then had a lesson at 11. Ate lunch in about 45 minutes, had French class for 2 hours, and finally got out of school at 3. I went and got some take-out to be well-fed early in the evening. After that, I came back to the apartment, watched some Seinfeld and tried to nap without any success. I practiced, then left for school. I had absolutely no warm-up time, but I guess at that point it really doesn't matter. The recital went pretty well I thought. I know I could play every single piece better than that if I didn't have 75 people watching me, but hey. I couldn't believe it, when I was standing back stage before the last piece, I had to double check that it really was my last piece. The reception was nice, I had lots of family, old friends and students there. We had the official "party" at the apartment on Friday after the A Capella concert. That was alot of fun... I've really missed my friends this semester. It's amazing how much time it takes to get the practice in, travel practically every weekend, and put on a performance, not to mention classes in two other languages. I do want to thank everyone for their support and patience during such a busy time, and I hope I'll get to see you all more often now that this is over. (Of course, I still have a senior thesis paper to write in Spanish before next Monday)

Pictures? Of course there are. Blogger's uploading tool isn't working right now, but I have a full album on facebook, just click here.

Don't know where I'm goin'...

2007-03-18T23:03:00.000-05:00

... but I remember almost everywhere I've been. I found this website just yesterday, and wasted a good hour of practice time trying to add markers to every place I've been. I have screenshots below, or you can go to the website and have a fully functional zooming map by clicking here.

I notice certain patterns in my travel... everything is very close to a central point... and it seems as though I've missed out on alot of countries in Europe, but practically covered all of northern Italy. Oh well, hope everyone finds this amusing.

Concerto-Aria, Ricky's Birthday

2007-03-18T22:49:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm sad it's over... Really.

Tuesday, March 13 was the day that it finally all happened... the famous concerto-aria concert. Honestly, it was a major challenge for me preparing everything for this concert, in the beginning, the competition was a bit of a nightmare because I had so much preparation for my grad school auditions and juries. Then, when it came right down to the concert, I had to fly to a grad school 3 days before the actual event for my last audition. All in all, I feel very good about the performance. I don't think it was the best I've ever played that concerto (the Grieg), but all things considered, the stress, preparation time, etc, I feel good about it. The whole event is almost surreal, because I know I did it, there are photos to prove it, but it really just seems like a dream. I told everyone afterwards that I was starting to get nervous before I went out to play, then I just thought, "you know what? I've waited 4 years for this, this is no time to be nervous!" So, I forgot about that and just played, let God do the rest. Afterwards, as it was Ricky's birthday, and since it was such an extraordinary event anyways with the concert, we had a small party back at the apartment to celebrate. I have been so blessed this year, with so many great people in my life, I'm beginning to wonder how I will ever move away this August (assuming I get accepted to graduate school). But, I guess that's another thought for another day.

Here I am backed up by the SU orchestra

Parents and God-parents at the reception

All but one performer with Dr. Price, our conductor

Kevin, Clint and Jason

I love this picture, despite the strange shadow of my hair on the wall

Me and the birthday boy

Adorable!

Almost everyone there, Amanda, Me, Jason, Rick, Clint, Kenny, and Sadie down front

Wanna see the rest of the pics? Click photos on the left and look at the Spring 2007 album!

Kansas

2007-03-18T22:42:00.000-05:00

Well, it's high time I got this show on the road. So, Kansas...
Well, it's been just over a week since I flew to Kansas City, Missouri, rented a car, drove to Lawrence Kansas, auditioned, ate supper, went to sleep, and left again at 5 a.m. for Birmingham. Shortest trip I've ever taken (well, flying anyways). So, how did it go? Well, I felt like this audition went rather well. It's a shame really that all of them didn't go this well. After my audition, I had a mini-lesson with a professor there, who was very good but... well... very thorough. All in all, I feel like I made a good impression, so I'm pretty sure I'll get in here, though the prospect of living in Kansas kinda scares me. I don't mind being far away from home if it's at a place where there's enough activity to keep me distracted, but I'm just not sure if that will be the case there. On a good note, the professor I met with is single-handedly one of the best in the nation, and has produced some of the top national competition winners, so it certainly wouldn't be bad place to continue my education. And, on the bright side, even though there are no direct flights, in general the flights to KS are much cheaper than some of my other grad school options.

Southern Methodist University and Rice

2007-01-25T18:26:00.000-06:00

So begins the graduate school auditioning. I’m not really sure how to begin this, but I suppose a rough outline of each audition would be best. My first audition was at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. It’s a good school with very renowned faculty. My flight arrived around 5:30 p.m. on Friday night, and, much to my surprise, no luggage. I wouldn’t have checked my bag, but I had to have 4 days’ worth of clothes, not to mention, dress clothes. The guy at the counter told me that there were 4 more flights to that airport that evening and that my bag was probably on one of those. I went over to SMU to practice, and around 8:30 p.m., I got a phone call from the guy saying that my bag would not be in until 11:30 a.m. on Saturday. Of course, my audition was at 10:40 on Saturday. Since I knew that would not do, my friend Kevin called some of the piano faculty to let them know I had no luggage. Meanwhile, I called the 800 number on my lost luggage receipt. The woman on the phone was pretty rude, but in the end, she said that they would give me $100 to spend to get some clothes for the morning. I talked with Kevin, who had just gotten this new dress shirt that one of the piano faculty had given him because it was too small, who had gotten it from another faculty member because it was too big… and of course I ended up wearing this in my audition (the faculty definitely recognized it). Meanwhile, I got the bare necessities at Wal-mart for around $110.

So, Saturday morning I went over to SMU, got a decent warm-up, then headed into the room for my first grad school audition. The professors were very friendly, and it lightened the mood a little getting to talk about my airport troubles. Next thing I know, I’m playing the Beethoven first movement. I had a pretty glaring note error on the first page, but I made it all the way to the recap before they stopped me. They then heard all of the Cowell and all of the Chopin Étude. Both of those also had glaring note errors in the first page, but I did keep going on both. They asked for the second movement of Beethoven, which went decently well. Then, the scariest part of the entire audition happened… One of them said, “Let’s test his ear!” So, one of them walked over to the other piano, told me to turn the other way, played a note, then told me to play it. I hit the right note, just an octave up. She played another note, I did the same thing. She played a third note, which I was determined to get in the right octave, but then I hit a note a step off, but corrected it instantly. She was about to quit when the guy said “try two notes…” I thought I was about to faint. She then played two notes, a D and an F# (at the same time). I got it in the first try, I was very pleased with that, even in the right octave! They then made me sight-read, which went okay, but nothing spectacular. I heard nothing more about the audition until later that night when I ran into one of them at a recital. He said that he enjoyed hearing me play and to e-mail him when I got a chance, which I will be getting around to after this next audition is over.

Sorry about the novel here, but I have to write about Rice, if not for my readers, for my own benefit!

So, then Rice. I had a good visit, stayed with Bryan there, who showed me around. The music facilities at Rice are a little better than SMU’s, with probably 15+ Steinway grands in their practice rooms. My audition was the first one of their audition season, at 11:30 on Monday morning. I saw the teacher I requested outside before my audition, who spoke to me briefly. I went in for my audition. They heard the same portion of the Beethoven, and I made the same glaring mistake on the first page (I’ll have to look at that). Then the Cowell, which went very well, I thought at least. Then they heard the first 3 pages of the Chopin Ballade, which I felt went pretty well. They said that they really enjoyed the Cowell on my way out the door, and were very complimentary of how I played with my left hand in that one. That’s basically it for the auditions. Rice also had some diagnostic testing in Music Theory and Music History. The one question I’m sure I missed will haunt me forever though… I will never forget what a Klangfarbenmelodie is. After the tests, I ran into the head of the piano department who asked how it went, and I said that it went ok. He said, “You’re brain is probably mush after all that testing.” And I said yes… then he said “Go get a beer.” I didn’t though.

Check out my pictures:

Dallas

I'd like to see the tree these ornaments go on...

Check this out! The one on the left is a 7/8 piano... in other words, the keys are a good deal smaller. One of the prof's at SMU specializes in teaching on the instrument. It's so small people can play Rachmaninoff basically...

Houston

The Music Building at Rice

The Recital Hall at Rice

The practice rooms have quite a few policies!

The practice rooms also have a decent view...

250 Posts and still going somehow...

2007-01-24T19:02:00.000-06:00

Well, I actually do have quite alot of detailed things to post about my first graduate school auditions, but I think I will do that either later tonight when it's too late to practice or early in the morning when I'm not yet coherent enough to practice. It has been a momentous 250 posts I must say. Little did I know Rick's bad influence on my would go this far... but thanks to his making me join blogger, I have officially outdone him in number of posts. While I'm commenting on posts, I also noticed that I recently passed a monumental number in flights as well. While on my last flight, there was some turbulence, and I couldn't open my eyes for fear of getting sick, so I started counting up in my head the number of planes I have been on. I was about 95% sure that it was my 100th flight. Now that I've written it all out, I was wrong, it's actually 110 flights, assuming I haven't forgotten any. Since I took the time to put them all down, I figure I might as well post it here so my readers can know too. So, here ya go. In case you're not familiar, the 3-digit codes are airport codes. If you're curious where I've been, look them up on the internet. Look for my post later about grad school auditions... it's exciting!

	From	To	Airline	Year
1	DHN	ATL	Eastern	1989
2	ATL	LGA	Eastern
3	JFK	TLV	Tower Air
4	TLV	JFK	Tower Air
5	LGA	ATL	Eastern
6	ATL	DHN	Eastern
7	DHN	MEM	Northwest	1996
8	MEM	BOS	Northwest
9	BOS	LGW	Northwest
10	LGW	BOS	Northwest
11	BOS	MEM	Northwest
12	MEM	DHN	Northwest
13	DHN	ATL	Delta	1997
14	ATL	JFK	Delta
15	JFK	TLV	ELAL
16	TLV	JFK	ELAL
17	JFK	ATL	Delta
18	ATL	DHN	Delta
19	ATL	LGW	British Airways	1998
20	LGW	ATL	British Airways
21	DHN	ATL	Delta	1999
22	ATL	BRU	Delta
23	BRU	GLA	Sabena
24	GLA	BRU	Sabena
25	BRU	ATL	Delta
26	ATL	DHN	Delta
27	DHN	ATL	Delta
28	ATL	CHA	Delta
29	CHA	ATL	Delta
30	ATL	DHN	Delta
31	DHN	ATL	Delta	2000
32	ATL	LGW	Delta
33	LGW	ATL	Delta
34	ATL	DHN	Delta
35	DHN	MEM	Northwest
36	MEM	CHA	Northwest
37	CHA	MEM	Northwest
38	MEM	DHN	Northwest
39	MSY	SPS	Grupo Taca
40	SPS	LCE	Grupo Taca
41	LCE	Puerto Lempira	Aerolineas Sosa
42	Puerto Lempira	LCE	Aerolineas Sosa
43	LCE	SPS	Grupo Taca
44	SPS	MSY	Grupo Taca
45	DHN	ATL	Delta	2001
46	ATL	SLC	Delta
47	SLC	BZN	Delta
48	BZN	SLC	Delta
49	SLC	ATL	Delta
50	ATL	DHN	Delta
51	MSY	MIA	American
52	MIA	SPS	American
53	LCE	Puerto Lempira	Aerolineas Sosa
54	Puerto Lempira	LCE	Aerolineas Sosa
55	SPS	MIA	American
56	MIA	MSY	American
57	DHN	ATL	Delta
58	ATL	DCA	Delta
59	DCA	ATL	Delta
60	ATL	DHN	Delta
61	DHN	ATL	Delta	2002
62	ATL	ZUR	Delta
63	ZUR	ATL	Delta
64	ATL	DHN	Delta
65	DHN	ATL	Delta	2003
66	ATL	LAX	Delta
67	LAX	ATL	Delta
68	ATL	DHN	Delta
69	BHM	PHX	Southwest
70	STL	BHM	Southwest
71	BHM	ATL	Delta	2004
72	ATL	MIL	Delta
73	FCO	ATL	Delta
74	ATL	BHM	Delta
75	MSY	SPS	American
76	SPS	MSY	American
77	BHM	ATL	Delta	2005
78	ATL	SJO	Delta
79	SJO	ATL	Delta
80	ATL	BHM	Delta
81	DHN	ATL	Delta
82	ATL	CDG	Delta
83	ORY	PSA	EasyJet
84	PSA	ORY	EasyJet
85	CDG	ATL	Delta
86	ATL	DHN	Delta
87	BHM	ATL	Delta	2006
88	ATL	MIL	Delta
89	FCO	ATL	Delta
90	ATL	BHM	Delta
91	BHM	ORD	United
92	ORD	BHM	United
93	BHM	ORD	United
94	ORD	BHM	United
95	BHM	ATL	Delta
96	ATL	LGW	Delta
97	STD	DUB	RyanAir
98	DUB	STD	RyanAir
99	LGW	MAD	EasyJet
100	MAD	LGW	EasyJet
101	LGW	ATL	Delta
102	ATL	BHM	Delta
103	DHN	ATL	Delta	2007
104	ATL	JFK	Delta
105	JFK	ATL	Delta
106	ATL	DHN	Delta
107	BHM	IAH	Continental
108	IAH	DAL	Continental
109	DAL	IAH	Continental
110	IAH	BHM	Continental

NY

2007-01-15T22:34:00.001-06:00

Well, I figure it's about time to give the NYC story. I'm actually doing a major practice session tonight, so, I'm using my valuable break time to update this thing...

So, January 3, I left for New York City early in the morning with my parents. We drove to Ye Newe Dothan Airport to start our journey at something crazy like 5:30 in the morning. We got to New York mid-afternoon. By early evening, we finally got out of the hotel room, and used the time to visit the Empire State Building, which is now the highest point in town. It was a pretty neat view from up there, but we made it just after sunset, so we missed the best part. That night, we went to dinner at "The Rainbow Room", which is this restaurant on the 67th floor of the Rockefeller Center with a great view. This was sortof my mom's special birthday outing, as you can see from the pictures that we had to dress up in coat and tie to eat there. That evening, we walked around the outside of the Rockefeller Center, then went back to the hotel.

January 4th, we took the ferry to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. From there, we had a great view of the city, and spent a few minutes in the immigration museum at Ellis Island. That afternoon, we went to ground zero of the World Trade Center. In the museum, there are alot of pieces of the airplanes and steel beams in pieces, as well as "Missing Person" signs from many of the families of victims. It was a pretty emotional experience. I mean, for me, I never saw the WTC, so it seems kinda distant. But let me take this opportunity to say, it extremely angers me whenever certain people make all these stupid accusations that "George Bush" planned the whole thing or that the government had engineers rig explosives and such... I think that is a complete insult and inconsiderate to all the people who lost loved ones in the tragedy. (end of soap box) So, that night we went to the Metropolitan Opera to see Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute-Mozart). It was really good... I'm not much of an opera person myself, but they did some impressive stuff with the staging (it was done completely modern, all glass and stainless steel, I'm a big fan), enough to keep me from even getting drowsy. Musically, I thought the interpretation was really good. I was very happy with many of the parts of it I was familiar with.

January 5, it rained. We spent most of the day wandering around. We tried to get into Carnegie hall in the morning, but it was closed for the holidays. After lunch at Tavern on the Green, we went to the American Museum of Natural History. Wasn't quite like the movie, but I'm a big fan of dinosaurs, so, we mostly wandered around and took some pictures with dinosaur skeletons. That evening we saw Wicked, which is the latest hit on Broadway. It was very good; I enjoyed it much more than I expected.

January 6, we spent the morning at the Metropolitan museum of art. They have some pretty important things there, including the oldest Cristofori piano in existence (which, is the oldest piano in existence). In the afternoon, we went to the top of the Rockefeller Center, then Phantom of the Opera in the evening.

January 7, we came home... although my luggage didn't arrive until 4 flights later on January 8th...

All in all, it was a good trip, but I'm glad to be back.

See some more of my pictures here:
NYC Photos

It's a new year, Charlie Brown!

2007-01-11T09:32:00.000-06:00

Ok, so the title's not as funny as it was when I thought it up... Nonetheless, it is officially 2007, actually, several days into it by now. I intended to post on New Year's, but you would not believe how much has happened in the past 10 days. Well, make that like 14 since I've posted. For starters, Amanda and I have officially been dating for over a month now, and it's been great; I couldn't imagine finding someone better. Grad school responses have been coming in, some good, some bad. I have auditions at 2 of my top 3 choices, Colorado and Northwestern (which I'm very excited about being called back). I also have auditions scheduled at SMU, Rice, UT Austin and Kansas. As a result, I bought about 4 plane tickets on January 2, the day before my family left for New York. We were in NY for about 3 total days, but taking travel into consideration, that makes 5. More to come on that trip in a post *hopefully* tomorrow. Since I've been back, I've kept pretty busy with practicing since I'm doing a mini-recital this afternoon for some Prep students and a music appreciation class. I've also got less than 8 days before I leave for my first audition, so I have no real option but to work the hardest I've ever worked to get my pieces ready. So, what's in store for the new year? Well, here's the short list:

Mini-recital- about 8 hours from now (5 p.m.)
Practicing like there's no tomorrow
Graduate Auditions
Concerto-Aria Concert- March 13
Senior Recital- March 29
Preparatory Faculty Recital- April 15
Senior Thesis in Spanish
Finishing Convo credits
Graduation!
Short trip to London/Paris/who knows?
2 Music camps
Moving off to who knows where in August or September

All in all, it's going to be a big, busy year!

Christmas Vacaton

2006-12-28T00:39:00.000-06:00

Hello all,

Slight new year's resolution of mine, I'm going to try to post a bit more often again. I'm going to gradually step up the frequency because I've been so irregular lately, and I don't want anyone to get drastically left behind if I post 20 times before they read it next, so, keep checking back!

A follow-up to my last post is in order... Exams went... well, badly. Being sick on exam week is simply no fun, and not good for grades. My GPA is still holding strong, but currently not strong enough to graduate Magna Cum Laude, which makes me really angry. For those that don't know Samford's grading system, A's are 4.0, A-'s are 3.7, B+'s are 3.3, and so on. Magna Cum Laude requires a 3.750 minimum, no rounding up. This means that if you make too many A-'s, you can't graduate Magna Cum Laude even if you've had all A's. As per this semester, I will probably graduate with a 3.745..... just .005 away from it, which is what I'm really irritated about... so close!

I really didn't intend to write that much on that subject, but it's done so no backspacing. As for the rest of things, Jason's room has now become the place to be at the apartment, with his recent purchase of a Wii. I must admit, it is kinda fun, even though people look retarded swinging around these little remotes as though they're actually playing tennis. Here's a picture (sorry it's so bad... this is candid during a not-so-exciting game Jason has...) of James, Rick, Jason, Gaelle and Pierre all crowded into Jason's space.

I went home for Christmas and did a little recital at my church the first day I was home. It went decently well, although I'm glad I didn't play that way at Samford. There were about 60-70 people there, so it was a good audience. It was the first time I'd ever played through the entire Beethoven in public, and the first time I'd played the Chopin in public. For firsts, they went well, but I never realized how exhausting it is to play both of those in a row! That's about 40 straight minutes without a break. I wrapped it up with some Christmas music which was probably as much of a hit as the classical.

My immediate family went to the beach for Christmas break, mostly so my sister that lives in Canada could enjoy some warmer weather and sand. We had a lot of fun, though it was hard having no contact with the outside world for a few days. Here are some pictures:

This is Madison, my sister's baby, newest addition to the family.

And here we all are, sitting in Ye Olde Christmas card fashion.

The Jury, part 2

2006-12-10T13:19:00.000-06:00

What a week!

I'm going on 3 days being the sickest I've been in a long time, well, at least today fits that category. I usually get mildly ill alot throughout the year, but rarely do I ever just feel like doing nothing except laying in bed. Today, my sinus pressure is such that I can't even look at a book for very long, which is kindof a problem with finals being this week. Hopefully the next time I get to take my tylenol sinus I'll clear out enough to concentrate on something.

Well, this past week was certainly eventful... I had my repertoire jury on Tuesday. That was pretty wild considering the jury time slots are 15 minutes and I had about 26 minutes of music. I got stopped 3/4's through my Beethoven, and almost got stopped on the Chopin, but when I heard them discussing whether or not to stop me, I thought they said stop, and stopped.... then found out they didn't want to stop me there, so I had a rough time finishing. Dr. Sanders still says I'll get some form of an A for the semester, which kindof makes sense... I haven't officially counted, but off the top of my head, I believe I've memorized over 100 pages of music this year, so that has to count for something, right? Wednesday through Friday were pretty boring... I did have Concerto-Aria preliminaries on Thursday, which allowed me to move on to the finals on Saturday. So, the big news of the hour is that I won on Saturday, so now I'll get to play in the Concerto-Aria concert on March 13th! So, if you're in Birmingham, you should come. This week would not be so crazy if I could pace myself and study today, but here goes this week...

Tuesday I have a final piano lesson, preparatory faculty meeting, and Spanish Literature final (which is the big one).

Wednesday I have to do my final presentation of my "Ponencia" in Spanish, which is equivalent to a thesis.

Thursday I have my Biblical Perspectives (i.e. biggest waste of time class) final.

Friday I'm supposed to be playing piano for this party in Mountain Brook, though I'm not really sure I still am because I haven't been contacted lately, and right now, I'm so busy I could care less about the money.

Saturday I finally get to go home and meet my niece for the first time!

Sunday I'm giving a recital at Mount Gilead Baptist at 3:30 p.m. to practice for my Graduate School auditions... So, if you're in Dothan, that should be a good event to come to. I'm also going to throw some Christmas music onto my program for fun.

Time to take more medicine...

The Jury, part 1

2006-12-04T19:14:00.000-06:00

Well, here's for the update...

The rest of Thanksgiving was pretty good, but I spent most of it practicing. When I got back to school, I just had to handle getting my CD's together for graduate school, as well as the applications that were due on Dec. 1. Well, facebook has it right, Amanda and I are officially going out as of Nov. 28. So, if you feel like you deserve to know more, call me don't stalk my blog :-).

Otherwise, that week was termed "the week of hell", although, that was before this week started. We had Hanging of the Green on Tuesday night, which went pretty well, then rehearsals the rest of the week for Friday's performance. It was most definitely the most interesting performance we've ever done... 2 choirs in opposite balconies with an orchestra 50 yards in front of us on stage... Surprisingly, it came across okay. Afterwards, my parents went into the recital hall with me to see it, so there are pictures.

Me, Kenny, and Rick

This weekend, we also had preparatory department recitals... there were 8 this weekend! The department is really growing! However, for once I got all of my students on one recital, so here they are!
In other news, this is JURY week, so, prepare for the stress... I really have nothing more to say than that. Today I had my technique jury, and the good news is, I passed! No more technique juries! Of course, then there's repertoire jury tomorrow... for which I go to practice.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-23T23:18:00.000-06:00

What a day! After staying up and practicing until 1:30, I decided to get up and help my mom starting at 5:30 this morning (yikes). I had a little down time in which I ran through my recital program, but no real major practice to speak of. Thanksgiving lunch was excellent, though the crowd was very small this year. With my sister and her husband and daughter off in Canada, one or two sick, one too far away to come, it made the group the smallest it's ever been. I had a good time visiting with everyone, which is good. I don't think everyone was finally gone until 6. Sometime around 7 we called my sister on the webcam to see her and my niece and chat for a little while. I fell asleep shortly after that talk, and just now woke up... probably because I was up at 5:30, but I'm not sure how to fix this sleep cycle now... because if I stay up for a while, it's all going to be thrown off. For some reason, however, now that I'm half-asleep at 11:15 at night, it's finally hitting me how much has changed these last few Thanksgiving's. Change is generally a good thing, but a little difficult to comprehend sometimes as well.

To top off this entry, I should say that I'm very thankful for my life and everything and everyone in it. It gets difficult sometimes doing everything I have to do to keep my head above water. My circle of friends has also changed drastically since college started, but those of you I'm friends with now, I am so thankful for. I think it just took a little while for the post-high school madness to settle down and for me to establish the relationships that will last, and I'm very happy to know that my friends these days will probably last throughout my life, which is exciting. Now, I'd better go to sleep, so a Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Here we are again...

2006-11-23T00:22:00.000-06:00

It's scary to think that by this time in 2 weeks, I will have played my last jury at Samford. I must admit, it being the last jury is not the sad part, but it is the probability of leaving my life in Birmingham next year. I'm not quite sure what I've got in store for me, but I've been filling out all sorts of graduate school things right and left here the last few weeks. Yes, there is the possibility that I'll stay in Birmingham another year, but it's not a strong one... at least til I hear back from some of these schools.

For my life recently, I had a very good birthday this year. The Friday after my birthday, several of my friends threw me a "surprise" party. Rick "distracted" me for a couple of hours, unknowingly distracting me too long because of getting stuck in traffic, so by the time I arrived to my party, they had all eaten but me... something ironic about that... After that, we went over to where Mike works (Shades Mountain Baptist) to throw him a mini-surprise party. Ended up in a good game of pool and ping-pong. And somehow Jason and Parker ended up juggling, no apparent reason. Nonetheless, it turned out to be a good night. See the photos below (the blog continues afterwards...).

So, the short week was helpful, but hardly... I'm expecting to spend the better part of Thanksgiving holidays practicing and catching up on my work that I've slacked in recently. Here's a rough outline of the weeks of torture that await me:

Monday: Full day of classes, full day of teaching, then record an audition CD for graduate school.
Tuesday: Full day of classes, perform Chopin in piano seminar, afternoon of teaching, Hanging of the Green choir concert at 8 p.m.
Wednesday: Full day of classes and teaching again
Thursday: Full day of classes, perform Grieg in the music recital hour, 2 hour dress rehearsal for Friday's concert
Friday: Full day of classes, Festival of Christmas Music in the evening
Saturday: PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE
Sunday: My students' recitals
Monday: Piano Technique Juries
Tuesday: Full day of classes, piano repertoire juries
Wednesday: Full day of classes, including my final exam in Spanish Literature
Thursday: Concerto-aria competition preliminaries
Friday: Last day of classes, yay!
Saturday: Concerto-aria competition finals (hopefully)
Sunday: Oh my goodness, is this a break? Just kidding, still have a final exam in BP and an oral report in Spanish, but about time!

I have a couple of gigs during exam week, but they should be fairly light compared to the Samford stuff. I also have to finish my grad school applications before the end of the semester, and, if possible, polish off my pieces for my auditions. I'm playing a recital (tentatively) in Dothan on December 17 including half my audition and some Christmas pieces, then another recital in Birmingham on January 11 including the other half of my audition... then, the auditions go every weekend from January 13 until March 10.