AP English?

     Why is this question one that bothers my mind whenever I think of school?  Everyday I walk into my english class, I think about how an AP English class would benefit my growth as a student.  My english skills are decent, but I believe that the rigor of an AP English class would help them continue to grow.  The only problem is the workload that comes with a class such as this.  I also want to take AP US History, which is apparently the most difficult class at Neuqua.  The workload for that alone is very massive and adding AP English would constitute a ton of homework for those classes alone.  This would give me no time to figure out AP Calculus homework or Honor Physics homework.
     They tell us in high school to take classes that interest us, so that would justify taking AP US History, and I am really interested in science so that constitutes the Honors Physics and AP Calculus.  I believe that my decision will be to take regular English again because AP US History will include analyzing information and writing essays based on it.  This is probably to smart choice because I will actually have some more time to spend figuring out complex ideas in Calculus and remembering Physics formulas.  I won't have to worry about three AP tests and I won't be too stressed.  Sure enough something else could come and change my decision, but for I think the answer is a no.

Driver's License

     On Saturday I finally got my Driver's License and the freedom of driving that comes with it!  My birthday, having been three months ago, was much less exciting because of the absence of this license.  Now I can finally be 16 with all the freedoms to drive myself!  Fortunately for me, my family has three cars for three drivers so I don't have to worry about sharing it and working with conflicting schedules.  The only conflict that does exist is that I don't have a parking spot at school, therefore anything after school has to either involve a bus home or a ride from my mom.  This tends to be easy to work out despite this week of final exams where the scheduling is jumbled.
     Final exams have been the least of my worries this year.  I am hardly studying at all for any of my finals because of my hard work throughout the semester.  My teachers have already taught all the information on it and I've already studied it all so I don't need to study a lot now.  Especially in AP Human Geography, in which I've prepared extensively for the previous unit tests considering I need to know all the information in the course for the AP exam at the end.  The free response questions are looming on the corner and providing me anxiety about this AP exam.  Even the questions on the topics I know don't make sense and I wouldn't know the answers.  We'll see how my preparation is working out as the exam day nears, but for now I can only hope that I'm able to answer the questions on this test.
     Christmas is coming around the corner and my excitement is starting to grow as the week's end nears.  For the weekend, we are going to my Grandma and Grandpa's house for celebration and gift exchange.  I'm especially excited to be part of the White Elephant this year after many years of simply watching.  We're going to come back on Christmas Eve and spend time together as just an immediate family.  That weekend, we're taking a trip up to my cousin's house in Minnesota for skiing and paint-balling and also for a New Year's celebration.  On the first we're headed back here where my plans are getting exciting.  On Wednesday, I'm going to a birthday party for my friend, Thursday is a trip to see the long awaited Les Miserables movie, and Saturday is a rollerblading night.  The fact that I can drive makes things a lot more enjoyable because I don't have to worry about getting a ride from a parent or coordinating that with them.
     Times are getting enjoyable, and I cannot wait for my finals to be complete.

Gaian Chant

Creation, oh Creation
Mother of beauty,
Create a world in me,
Create good in me,
Create a soul in me,
Give me a friend,
Take away my foes.

Mother of beauty,
Mother of creation,
Watching from above,
Creation, oh Creation.

A Girl Named Amber

The stars shined down on the distant car. A girl looked out the window with tears streaming down her face. Her father was taking her afar.

IMEA

     IMEA was a remarkable experience that I'm very glad to have participated in.  The audition was intense and my preparation seemed to fail during the audition, but the base I created from the extensive practice seemed to be enough to be placed into the amazing band I played with over the weekend.  The pieces we played were "The Patriots", "Sharakan", "Fiesta Del Pacifico", and "Yankee Doodle".  The repertoire was very enjoyable because it was challenging and sounded amazing.  The fast turnaround was unique to my regular band experience because I'm used to spending months with a piece before a concert, not merely a few hours.  It was exciting, but very scary.
     My progress as a musician has been remarkable.  My private teacher remarks at my journey and looks forward to the future when I'm a senior.  I think that playing music is a unique thing because we put in so much work and don't always continue.  My private teacher sees potential in me, but I know I don't want to continue to study music intensely.  The experiences I've had are head starts to a successful future in music, but the experiences I've had were enjoyable.  I didn't try out for CYSO to get better orchestral experience for college and professional music.  I tried out for CYSO to get the experience of playing in an orchestra because I know that opportunities like this are few.  Plus, it's an amazing sounding orchestra that I wanted to make music with!  I've grown as a musician which is an accomplishment that I will always have.  Playing music is great, and it's opened me to a new style of music that I would've never been introduced to without my involvement with band and orchestra.

Writing Contest Excerpt

I saw Ted look at the steed out back with great curiosity for he'd never seen one before. I saw him try to provoke play, but the steed just turned away to continue grazing. Making sure he was safe, I waited for Ted to try one more time to provoke the steed and when his efforts failed I knew I could go to my office to work.

I started typing up my patient report for the brain operation last week, describing what happened and where the patient can go now. It was a groundbreaking operation that should hopefully save lives in the future. People get cancer in their brains and the tumors can cause catastrophe, but removing necessary brain tissue is just as disastrous. We discovered a system of electricity that could send impulses directly to the brain cells and provoke a response from a conscious patient. Our patient was very anxious during the operation considering he was going to be awake for the first half. Just think of the agony ensuing through his mind. "My brain is exposed to the world right now. People are playing with my brain right now. At any moment I will die. I'm going to die. At any moment my thoughts will become jumbled when they cut my brain out and I'll die. I don't want to die."

I started the home preparations section of the report when I heard Cassie scream my name from the kitchen. She told me to come quick so I pushed away from my desk and ran into the kitchen.

"What is he doing?!" she screamed while looking out the window at Ted who was taking his pants off and approaching the steed's rear. I ran outside and down the porch steps.

"I love you Mr. Cow, oh yes I do. We are going to live together and create a happy family. You, Sandra, Peter and me, Mr. Teddy"

Trombone Blues

Alright, so I feel like being involved in marching band is complicated socially. People in the band tend to gravitate towards the people in their sections and the sectional activities are planned to foster section bonding. I never bonded with the people in my section. For some reason, my personality didn't fit in with them and now it's too late. Especially now, I spend every possible moment away from my section because I can't really stand the people anymore. It's not that I don't like them, it's just that I don't fit in and I feel that I'm forced to. I guess it's harder because I'm not very social when it comes to acting out of my comfort range. Now, I foresee similar problems next year if I'm not on the leadership team, and I foresee problems if I am a leader associated with the trombone section. First of all, the people don't really think or act like me. I would be a section leader to get stuff done, and the trombones haven't had a leader like that for the last two years at least. I just see my senior year as a time when I can just do whatever I want and make matching band as amazing as possible. I know this freedom and excitement doesn't exist, but I can hope. I'm definitely looking forward to marching band, and who knows, maybe I'll connect with some people next year in the trombones.

Human Geography

It's strange to think of life any different than what we are living at this moment. The expectations and experiences aren't new. I feel like my perspective on life is very narrow and in my Human Geography class I now know my perspective is narrow. We're not used to children dying regularly, we're not used to not having food, and we're definitely not used to diseases devastating our population. Geographers take populations and generalize about them. Learning about geographic concepts makes people seem like a foreign animal with predictable behaviors. The personal aspect is absent during geographic inquiry. When you begin to think personally about population characteristics, you will realize that the world is different and evil.

Central Africa is where humans originated and migrated from. In Africa, we prospered as a race of creatures and began to expand and advance to use our complex brains. Southwest Asians began cultivation and that spread to Europe where people advanced into full scale communities with imperialistic ambitions. They spread around the world with their advanced weapons and sicknesses that all originated from cultivation in Southwest Asia which originated from people in Central Africa. So why is Africa so far behind? I don't know! Maybe it's their inability to grow food in their environment, but that's not even true. Maybe it's their inability to sustain themselves enough to advance medically. Maybe European colonists ruined all their soil with cash crops. I can't say the answer because I don't know the answer. I do know that children die in Africa regularly and people are ridden with diseases like AIDS and Malaria. Generalizing Central Africa through statistics takes away the true meaning to the individual people. Why do things work out the way they do? Why does a baby born in Africa die while I grow up with amazing opportunities to become well educated? There's something big that's about to be discovered and connected in my head, but the thoughts I have are too many and too complex. There's more to people than a social scientist can discover.

Spitting Image

This song hits a place in my heart and it always feels great whenever it plays. When I'm running it gives me a feeling of euphoria that makes me smile and run faster, despite the pain. The true happiness that comes with finding a song like this is something that's almost like magic.

Perceptions of Disappointment

     It's the contrast between people's perceptions of disappointment that truly shows the diversity of values within people.  Today was a day of disappointment for me, but for many other people these disappointments would never even be considered as such.  Getting a B on two chemistry assessments disappoints me.  Having my accomplishment turned into something just a little less special than it is is a disappointment.  Why would a B cause me to feel a feeling of self discontent while other people would rejoice with that grade.  I believe that this is from achievement.  Achievement, however, comes from effort.  So this leads me to believe that disappointment comes from effort.
     I put effort into things I want to succeed in.  I put effort into school and expect good grades.  I put time into my trombone and I expect to be in prestigious ensembles.  When I get a good grade, I know I put the effort to get there and I know that I prepared adequately.  Sometimes this means not studying, but in the past I put in effort to figure out how I learn, so I know when I don't need to.  It's this effort that gives me a competitive edge in school. It's the effort and the achievement that comes with this effort that gives an expectation. The more effort someone puts into their achievement, the greater that achievement is. And someone who is very accomplished from their efforts develops a self expectation to continue to reach the same standard. Someone who puts in a lot of effort and achieves a lot will experience failure that affects them a lot. In my case, I'm used to understanding science and I put in the effort to understand. This effort usually leads me to high A's on tests and such, so this B was below my standard. Because of my effort and achievement, I see this disappointment differently than someone who doesn't care about understanding science who would be elated to get a C.
I feel like I'm very selfish with my achievements. I always feel a need to push ahead of everyone, and this goal is too ambitious because I'm not an ambitious person. I have simple goals to maintain A's and one B for grades and my goals for trombone are open ended. I hate knowing that there is always someone better than me. When I got my horrific test grade back, I wanted to see what other people got. When I saw that they got better scores, I felt like I failed to be the image that people put upon me as "smart" and this same image I put upon myself. I know that experiencing this feeling will boost me to try harder on my next test or quiz. I feel a need to keep an A in chemistry and I hope that I can still enjoy my achievement regardless of the small dent that appeared in my pride.

Wait, Another Audition?

     It seems that involvement in music is just a cycle of excessive preparation for auditions.  This is especially true at Neuqua.  Over the last few months, I've had auditions for CYSO (one entrance audition and a seating audition, an IMEA pre audition and tomorrow I have the actual IMEA audition.  The cycle will continue to a jazz audition, solo and ensemble, and next year's band placement auditions.  It's a constant stressor for some people, but I feel that it's these deadlines and goals that push me to be a better player.
     Auditions are never a representation of perfect playing, which is why it's hard to accept audition results when they are released.  The gratification of seeing your name on a sheet of paper hanging on the wall is great, but the disappointment can be heavy.  I've been on a success streak lately.  I made the CYSO, I earned an impressive seating in CYSO, and I made it to the IMEA audition.  This has probably clouded my emotional capability to feel failure which I may feel after this audition.  The IMEA scales are always a problem for me because the focus necessary for a flawless performance is hard to obtain, especially in a stressful situation.
     I've been working hard on this difficult music, and I hope it pays off.  I know that I have two more opportunities to make it into the district festival, and maybe even the All State festival!  It's also not the end of the world because I don't have ambitions for a future in music.  All I can do is hope I'm feeling at my best tomorrow.  

Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp

     This passed twelve days, I was attending a widely known camp called Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp.  I went there to play my trombone and I was placed in the highest ensemble for trombone, the Symphony Orchestra.  Unfortunately, I skipped right over the apparently more fun Wind Ensemble which is the most advanced concert band.  Instead, I was placed in the trombone section of an orchestra where the parts involved little challenge and lots of rests.  Also, the wind section of the Symphony Orchestra also had to play with the Concert Orchestra which is a level lower than the Symphony Orchestra.  Members of the orchestra wind section also had to participate in an ensemble, and because of this we only got a morning break every other day unlike everyone else who got one every day.  Luckily, my experiences in the orchestras lead to an increase of experience with orchestral playing and I hope that my next orchestral experience with CYSO is better than the one I had at Blue Lake, but at least I have an idea of what to expect.

 It's raining and pouring, and unfortunately my rain poncho was still in my suitcase.  To make matters worse, I went out and played soccer for half an hour while it was pouring.  

 My proactive mom packed a clothesline in her care package, so we used it to hang our wet clothes in the cabin!  Unfortunately it had to be taken down because it's a "fire hazard".

 This is Tyler who was dancing at Blue Lake.  From him I learned that dancers complain ... a lot.

 This is Marshall, otherwise known as Vanilla Bear.  He makes a lot of faces.

 The song from "Space Odyssey".  It was our encore, and it was quite impressive!

Resting.

Resting.

Still resting.

More resting!

There are many ways for trombonists to relieve boredom while resting for eternity, and this is one of them.  Unfortunately the rehearsal supervisors started taking them away from people so I had to quickly put mine away.  I think it looks impressive considering it was my first one!

Sleeping is a good way of passing the time.

It's the trom-buddha!  

Floppy Unicorn.

It is an orchestra, not a band.  I wish it was a band.

Those two measures were my favorite part in the entire concert!

"Sinfonia Piccola" was my favorite piece we played.  It was composed by a fifteen year old who died a year after its completion and he never heard it performed.  It's sad because it was such a brilliant composition.

There weren't any trombone parts so we were given the cello parts.  Not even Trom-Buddha could play this!

This is Skyler.  We met in team sports where we were always trying to beat the monstrous German kids at soccer.  Sadly, we never won.

It's the concert master!

Here is the brass section for the orchestras.  "Brass, you always play to loud!" ~Mr. Endres

This is Matt, my cabin counselor.  I couldn't have asked for a better counselor while I was at camp.

"Please pass the red drank"

This is Maddy, who was one of my first friends at Blue Lake.

Skelton is saying goodbye to its favorite member, Tyler.

R.I.P. Charlie the mouse.  I'm glad you're underground because you were appalling to look at.

Josh was the one with the electric wheel chair that was always being rode by someone.  This shows the pure intensity of this chair!

Meet Chandler.

Meet Isiah who also shared a common goal of beating the German kids.  Isiah got way more into it than I did, and he was mad when we never won.  I think the Germans would've kicked our butts at any sport, but that's because they're German!

The trombones of Highlights Unit!

Goodbye Highlights!  I will not miss your dirty bathrooms and cabins.

It's Friday, the rooster (or chicken as some people called him)!

     Campers at Blue Lake experience a hectic schedule with constant activity and little rest.  The only recreation time is less than an hour, especially if your cabin is on the other side of camp and you have to carry a heavy trombone in a Stradivarius case around.  The cabins were hot, the showers always had lines, and the sand was everywhere!  The best thing, however, was the people.  I met some wonderful people at Blue Lake, and they are an entirely separate group of people than what I have here in Naperville.  We are all separated by hours of driving, but we all have Blue Lake as a common experience.  This experience was one that I will never be able to recreate even if I go back.  I won't say that I miss Blue Lake, but I will miss being able to see the people all in one place.  I will also say that I do not miss wearing those dirty polo shirts.