Continual State of Becoming

I have done more transposing of music since graduating from school then I ever did while I was in school. Seriously, all music needs to come with a magical transposing button... and while it's magical, I'd also like it to be able to know automatically what key I need the song to be in so that people can sing and play it with ease. I dont even want it to have to read my mind to know which key that is, that would still require me to figure it out. I want the magical button to do that work for me. Now some music I come across on the computer does have a transposing tool, which usually works semi-good. But it would be nice there is a song in they key of "A", and I want to kick up a mere half step, would end up in "Bb" instead of "A#" (seriously Bb has only 2 flats... A#, while the same note enharmonically, has 10 sharps!!! TEN!! Well, technically 7 sharps and 3 double sharps. 3 DOUBLE sharps!!! Why would anyone want to read that? And why on ea...

Wow, long time no post. I think i needed a blogging break. I'm still not sure if that break is over though. Right now I'm forcing myself to post, instead of posting because I actually have something to say. Therefore be prepared for ramblings. I haven't really been up to too too much lately. Still working, taking care of the house, dog, and husband, and trying to get ready for school (as well as all the changes that will bring about). I registered for classes earlier this week. So over the summer I'm taking Information Technology and Information Use. Info Tech should be easy (I do have a minor with the same name). I'm not sure what Info Use will be like, but I use information a lot, so.... nope, I have no clue what to expect. Then in the fall I'm taking Information Access, Information Structure, and Management and Administration for the Information Professional (how many times can you say "Information" in one sentence?). I'm expecting t...

I always wonder what a celebrity would look like if they weren't so famous. And then sometimes I wonder what I would look like if I were a celebrity.

Matt and I spent most of last week in Florida. It's always great to go anywhere in which colonial architecture is not the norm (or the "only"). And I get excited when I see palm trees because I've never lived anywhere in which palm trees were a normal part of the scenery. While we were there we also fed alligators, saw Shamu, and drank from the Fountain of Youth. How could that not be an awesome vacation?

Sometimes, right before I fall asleep, I get these weird mini dream images. They only last for about 5 seconds, maybe less. I probably don't remember all of them because I probably fall asleep before I get a chance to remember. But sometimes they cause me to completely snap out of my sleepy haze. Anyway, here are some of the ones I remember. ************************************************************************************ First... This one came to me as I nodded off during a 10th grade biology class (dont judge... during my high school years class was about the only place I got any sleep.) There was an average European cobblestone road. To the side of the road was a sidewalk made out of this yellowish stone. And then right in the middle of the sidewalk, for no apparent reason, was a staircase leading down into total blackness. I was standing with my toes just hanging over the edge of the first staircase. For some reason I decided to go down, but instead of walking down the step...

I just found this essay I wrote for a summer English class in college. The assignment was to write a personal essay. Most people wrote about when their grandmother died, or when their dog died. I chose to write about at typical day at work. I totally thought I had lost this (which I was heartbroken over, especially since I was so good about backing up my papers onto disks... I guess this one slipped through the cracks somehow.) But my mom found it at her house this weekend. YAY! Just to warn you, it's really long, but I'm putting it in here anyway. Enjoy. Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. Four thirty... a.m. "Ugh." After I set my alarm clock and turn out my light, I flop into bed. Why me? Why must I work at a store that requires my presence at five o'clock in the morning? Oh wait, that's right, I choose to work there. I choose to get up this early five days a week. No one forces me, I'm just crazy. My alarm clock goes off the next morning. No, it...

Monday's episode of 24. Well, first of all it was awesome because they actually had 2 episodes on back to back. And I think this week was the turning point in the show. I mean, up to this point, the season had only been okay, there were just a few too many fluff episodes for my taste... but now they are starting to get back into stuff that makes 24 so unique. Though I have to admit the ending was sooooo depressing (Edgar dies *tear*), that I had to watch something funny and light afterwards. (apparently i'm not the only one who cares that Edgar is dead, as Entertainment Weekly has a Fauxbituary for him). But I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of the season. Project Runway finale. YAY FOR CHLOE. She was awesome. Though if I am perfectly honest, my favorite outfit was actually a dress from Santino's collection. It was the first one down the runway, a pink evening gown thing... anyway, probably one of the very few things from the entire show I'd actual...

Okay, I just remembered the dream I had last night... So I was in church setting up the soundboard for rehearsal when someone came up to me and told me that rehearsal had been cancelled because there was going to be a concert instead. And then I found out that it was going a Peter Gabriel concert. Next thing I knew the church was packed and Peter Gabriel and his band were starting to play. The only problem was his sound guy didnt show up. So they asked me to do it instead. I had no clue how to handle all of their equipment but I tried my best. Things didnt sound great, but everyone figured I was better than no one, so they let me continue. Then came an intermission (which I realize rock concerts dont have). And during the intermission someone told Peter Gabriel that I played piano, so he came up to me and was like "hey why dont you play during the intermission." To which I immediately responded "oh I dont have any of my books and I dont have anything memorized b...

I'm really excited about going back to school. I am probably without a doubt one of those people who would be a professional student (if such a profession existed). I mean, I absolutely loved college. Yes, at times things were stressful, and it's not like I enjoyed every moment, but over all, I really miss it. I was so happy when I was a student. Actually the main thing I disliked about school (and this may seem odd especially since i was a music major), were my piano lessons. Pre-college piano lessons were one of the highlights of my week. I absorbed as much as possible and always came away from them feeling awesome, almost like a natural high. Now I'm not the greatest piano player, I had to practice very hard no matter what I was playing (which is still true today). But i also think that's what makes me such an effective teacher... when I was learning piano, it was tough for me, most of the time people want you to just keep repeating passages until by some mir...

My husband and I watched 2 movies this weekend. On Friday night we headed to the old, small theater a couple blocks away and saw Eight Below , and then on Sunday we curled up on the couch and watched Rent while each working on our own projects (him- computer stuff, me- photo album). Here are my thoughts on each movie... (SPOILER WARNING: I may reveal information in this entry that could possibly spoil some of these movies if you havent seen them... in the case of Rent , I'm probably doing you a favor) Eight Below . This was the first time seeing a movie in the theater since... since... hmm... I cant even remember when. I mean it wasnt that long ago, we just dont bother to see movies in the theater anymore. So it takes something special to actually make us go see it in the theater. And what's so special about Eight Below (especially for a couple of non-seven year olds)? Well it's about huskies, and we have a husky. That's what's special. Overall I thought ...

List of favorite shows (even though some of them are old, and only on in syndication). 1- Friends. Probably my all time favorite show. Matt and I have all the DVDs, so I know I've seen every episode at least once. We have incorporated a lot of "Friends" into our normal lives. For instance... my sister's birthday happened to fall on the day of the series finale, so we had a whole Friends themed birthday party for her. Complete with Pheobe style cups and ice, a Lusts of the Flesh sign, and other nerdy fan-type things. Also when I got married, it was excepted that I woke up and said "I'm getting married today" and then trip and practically break a rib a-la Monica. And Matt's birthday this year wasnt complete without watching the episode which showed all of the Friend's birthdays. Anyway, it's a good fun show... and somewhat addicting. 2- 24. yay yay yay! I love this show. As much as I hate the fact that it's only on once a week and has all t...

Happy One Day Past Valentine's Day to everyone. Actually matt and I dont really do anything to celebrate valentines day. He doesnt like the obligation associated with the day, and I really dont care too much about it either. But since it happened to fall on a Tuesday, and we go out to dinner every Tuesday, we went out. Every Tuesdsay we go to this little Chinese place in Leesburg when I finish teaching. Partly because I work the latest on Tuesday, and when I'm done the last thing I want to do is make dinner, partly because Tuesday also happens to include my most stress-producing students so it lets me unwind, and partly because it lets matt and I spend some nice time alone together. And usually by the time we get to the restaurant, it's empty. All the staff pretty much know us by now and do a good job of make us feel very welcome every week. So yesterday we just kept up our weekly "date night" tradition. With one exception. Matt recently started working wi...

So yesterday all of my piano students cancelled. I kinda expected one of them to cancel because Loudoun county Schools were closed because of Saturday's snow. (even though the roads were beyond fine). But actually they were cancelled because they all had the flu. This is something that has drastically affected my income for the past 2 months. I think nearly all of my students have had the flu at some point. However, I've managed not to get it... yet. But this left me with a free evening. So matt and I went down to the Apple store in Tysons because his iPod has been broken. We signed up for the genius bar, and found out we had about an hour and a half wait before someone could help us. Somehow we managed to spend the entire time in the Apple store. Mostly because they had a "Getting Started" class that we sat through for an hour. It was actually pretty awesome to see some of the basic things Macs can do (Windows doesnt even compare). Anyway, the coolest thi...

Yay!! It finally snowed!! Of course it would happen the one weekend we were out of town. We went down to Harrisonburg for a parish retreat on Friday. It started off a little rough; especially when matt found out there were no TVs in the room, and there ended up being a big youth meeting in the room immediately below us that night (tons of kids screaming and running around all night long). But I think we got some good stuff out of it... we had some good converstaions with people we hadnt talked with before, and with people we hadnt been able to talk with in a while. And we got to talk to each other a lot about our future plans. Saturday it started to snow! Yay. We had been waiting for a good snowstorm for a long time. The majority of the day was spent listening to talks. Then we had some free time in the afternoon. I took a little while to try to learn how to crochet. I decided about a week ago that I wanted a new hobby, that would be pretty easy to learn, but that would ac...

This is funny... Recently matt tried some King Cake at his work (for some lunch thing). Anyway, he thought it was really good, so we looked it up online so I could see how you make it. Here's the site we found: http://www.holidays.net/mardigras/cake.htm So we read about the cake: The Mardi Gras season begins on January 6 and continues until Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. During this time of year, one of the most beloved traditions in New Orleans is that of the King Cake. On the Christian calendar, the twelfth day after Christmas is known as "Epiphany", "Twelfth Night", or "Kings Day." It is the day the gift-bearing Magi visited the baby Jesus, and is celebrated with its own unique rituals. The New Orleans tradition, begun in the 1870s, borrows heavily from European customs. As part of the celebration of Mardi Gras, it is traditional to bake an oval cake in honor of the three kings - the King Cake. The shape of a King Cake symbolizes the uni...

If you are looking for a good place for lunch, dinner, drinks definitely check this place out... it's awesome, both for food and atmosphere. Zaaza A friend of mine owns it, and I've eaten there a few times (it just recently opened) and everything is great. They have sandwiches, crepes, pizza, all that good stuff. Anyway, it's worth trying.

Grad school, here I come

I just spent the last hour or so cleaning out my closet (non clothes items), mostly my jewelry (what little I have) and a few shoe boxes of old memories. I love going through all my old memories. Mainly I save things like letters (back when people wrote letters) and other small things like tickets to places I've been, postcards, and a few other very small trinkets. Anyway, i definitely took a trip down memory lane today. It actually felt pretty good. My favorite box contained pretty much all my letters and notes from middle school and high school. I only re-read a few, otherwise I would have been there for hours, but it was enough to make me smile and bring back things I had forgotten. Anyway, it was just nice for once to look back to my high school days with joy instead of anger. I moved to va in 10th grade, and it was definitely not a good move for me. Jumping into the middle of high school didnt make it easy to connect with people. Not to mention the fact that it was th...

Okay, so my student isnt here yet , and I thought of another one of my weird quirks. One small problem I have is that my brain doesnt process numbers well. This means that if I see a number such as 46278, it's a good chance that if I have to copy that number down, or say it outloud, it will end up 46872, and I'll never realize it. Lately this hasnt been much of a problem, simply because I dont deal with numbers a whole lot, but when I was in high school and college it was pretty annoying. A lot of times I'd get a math problem wrong simply because I copied down the numbers out of the book incorrectly. Now the only time this brain malfunction really causes me problems is when I dial new or unfamiliar phone numbers. Phone numbers I know arent a problem because (and this is something I just figured out) I memorize the pattern. But if someone asks me (for instance) what my home phone number is, it takes me a minute to figure it out, not because I forget it, but because I have to...

Okay, so today is January 30th, and I did not need to wear a coat outside at all. In fact, i wore a t-shirt. I'm beginning to seriously wonder, what happened to winter? Where is all my snow?? Who decided to skip a season, and why didnt I get a say in the matter? (I would have much rather skipped summer.) Not that I'm complaining about the beautiful day, I just hope that we get at least one more snowfall before winter is really over. But so far, it's looking doubtful (I know, we still have a long way to go before winter is over, so I'm trying to be hopeful). This weekend kept matt and I busy. He had a band night at church on friday. It was lots of fun. It reminded me of my high school days when I used to go to local shows, though I can definitely tell how much I've aged since then just by how much louder the tinnitus was when it was over. One of the other adults there asked me what I thought my SPL meter would say the volume was... in all honesty, I think i...