High school stories, papers, and a musical
Ugh, I think the metro germs are getting to me.
This was a crazy week. In addition to attending my sisters fashion show (which I think was the first time I'd been inside my high school since I graduated), I had my first real graduate level paper due on Thursday, and then last night matt and I went and saw our friend's in Suessical the musical. So today I'm a little worn out, and I'm definitely come down with some kind of cold. But life must go on.
Going to the fashion show was crazy, aside from the fact that there were hundreds of screaming high schools and a DJ from 99.5 playing insanely loud music (most of which I'd never heard, but everyone else there seemed able to sing along... I think i'm getting old). I dont really have many fond memories from Herndon High School. And most of the ones that were good, ended up being less than good after I left (due to things that happened post-high school). So it was weird being back, especially at the fashion show, since i never went to one while I was actually going to school there. It kinda made me think that maybe I missed out on the fun things high schoolers are supposed to do. And then that made me wonder if I'm missing out on fun things I could be doing now... I mean, I dont think it's as drastic. I have a good, happy life now and I'm doing lots of things to make it even better, but it just made me wonder what else I could/should be doing.
The paper writing experience was ... uh ... interesting. I guess I can't complain too much. I mean I'm pretty much half way done with my degree and this is the first real paper i've had to do (I'm not counting a 3 page book review, or the insanely long take home test from last semester). And this was only a 5-7 page thing on comparing websites. But honestly, I haven't written a paper that wasn't about analyzing a piece of music in about... hmm... probably 5-6 years. So I just had no idea where to begin, how to structure it, or even what to say. But I stayed up until 3 am Wednesday night doing my best, which is all I can ask for. I have another similar paper due in 3 weeks... I'm hoping that one will be easier on me. Oh yeah, and while I'm mentioning papers, turns out my original music research topic is a dead end. So instead I'm looking into compiling an annotated bibliography and discography on a topic (which is an approved alternative) which means that I wont have as many sentences to try and put together. I'm much better at listing. And anyway, with the way information can be disseminated through current technology, I really do wonder what the future of information presentation will look like. There's certainly no reason why linear text formats can't be replaced by more interactive/multimedia approaches, which I think could be far more interesting anyway... but that's kinda off topic for now. Also, in my egovernment class that day (the class which the paper was written for) we were discussing international egovernment and the teacher asked how many people in the class had lived in another country (to discuss how cultural differences impacted things) and out of 30 people, about half of us had lived in another country, and out of that, about half of us had lived in Germany (yay military brats). Interesting demographics... but at least it was one class in which I had ideas to contribute for class discussion.
Seussical the Musical was a fun show. Very colorful, lots of movement, lots of singing. I'm guessing that the creators of the show really knew how to keep a child's attention for extended periods of time. And our friends, Lucy and Susanna were very convincing wickersham monkeys. Anyway, if interested, it's being put on by the Reston Players at the Reston Community Center. Matt and I said after the show (since it was opening night they had a free reception afterwards) and chatted with the girls for a while. We didn't get home until about midnight... all these late nights lately ... it's crazy.
Oh yeah, one other interesting thing happened in the last week. Last Saturday we went to a comedy night at a local resturaunt in Leesburg. Matt has been wanting to go forever, but I wasn't really interested. Finally, though (because another friend of ours said that he would go too), we went. It was okay, the food was pretty good, the comedians were kinda on and off (which is to be expected), but the weirdest thing was that this waiter (not ours) came up to our table and was like "hey guys, are we still friends?" I totally didn't recognize him, but matt and mike did... he used to work at First Break, a pool hall we all used to hang out at back when I was in high school. I couldn't believe he recognized/remembered us (though we did spend A LOT of time at First Break). We probably hadn't seen him in about 6 years. So that was cool. He's a really nice guy, and now that we know he works there, I think we'll probably go more often.
So there you go... my week in a nutshell.
This was a crazy week. In addition to attending my sisters fashion show (which I think was the first time I'd been inside my high school since I graduated), I had my first real graduate level paper due on Thursday, and then last night matt and I went and saw our friend's in Suessical the musical. So today I'm a little worn out, and I'm definitely come down with some kind of cold. But life must go on.
Going to the fashion show was crazy, aside from the fact that there were hundreds of screaming high schools and a DJ from 99.5 playing insanely loud music (most of which I'd never heard, but everyone else there seemed able to sing along... I think i'm getting old). I dont really have many fond memories from Herndon High School. And most of the ones that were good, ended up being less than good after I left (due to things that happened post-high school). So it was weird being back, especially at the fashion show, since i never went to one while I was actually going to school there. It kinda made me think that maybe I missed out on the fun things high schoolers are supposed to do. And then that made me wonder if I'm missing out on fun things I could be doing now... I mean, I dont think it's as drastic. I have a good, happy life now and I'm doing lots of things to make it even better, but it just made me wonder what else I could/should be doing.
The paper writing experience was ... uh ... interesting. I guess I can't complain too much. I mean I'm pretty much half way done with my degree and this is the first real paper i've had to do (I'm not counting a 3 page book review, or the insanely long take home test from last semester). And this was only a 5-7 page thing on comparing websites. But honestly, I haven't written a paper that wasn't about analyzing a piece of music in about... hmm... probably 5-6 years. So I just had no idea where to begin, how to structure it, or even what to say. But I stayed up until 3 am Wednesday night doing my best, which is all I can ask for. I have another similar paper due in 3 weeks... I'm hoping that one will be easier on me. Oh yeah, and while I'm mentioning papers, turns out my original music research topic is a dead end. So instead I'm looking into compiling an annotated bibliography and discography on a topic (which is an approved alternative) which means that I wont have as many sentences to try and put together. I'm much better at listing. And anyway, with the way information can be disseminated through current technology, I really do wonder what the future of information presentation will look like. There's certainly no reason why linear text formats can't be replaced by more interactive/multimedia approaches, which I think could be far more interesting anyway... but that's kinda off topic for now. Also, in my egovernment class that day (the class which the paper was written for) we were discussing international egovernment and the teacher asked how many people in the class had lived in another country (to discuss how cultural differences impacted things) and out of 30 people, about half of us had lived in another country, and out of that, about half of us had lived in Germany (yay military brats). Interesting demographics... but at least it was one class in which I had ideas to contribute for class discussion.
Seussical the Musical was a fun show. Very colorful, lots of movement, lots of singing. I'm guessing that the creators of the show really knew how to keep a child's attention for extended periods of time. And our friends, Lucy and Susanna were very convincing wickersham monkeys. Anyway, if interested, it's being put on by the Reston Players at the Reston Community Center. Matt and I said after the show (since it was opening night they had a free reception afterwards) and chatted with the girls for a while. We didn't get home until about midnight... all these late nights lately ... it's crazy.
Oh yeah, one other interesting thing happened in the last week. Last Saturday we went to a comedy night at a local resturaunt in Leesburg. Matt has been wanting to go forever, but I wasn't really interested. Finally, though (because another friend of ours said that he would go too), we went. It was okay, the food was pretty good, the comedians were kinda on and off (which is to be expected), but the weirdest thing was that this waiter (not ours) came up to our table and was like "hey guys, are we still friends?" I totally didn't recognize him, but matt and mike did... he used to work at First Break, a pool hall we all used to hang out at back when I was in high school. I couldn't believe he recognized/remembered us (though we did spend A LOT of time at First Break). We probably hadn't seen him in about 6 years. So that was cool. He's a really nice guy, and now that we know he works there, I think we'll probably go more often.
So there you go... my week in a nutshell.
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