In case anyone is interested the holiday concert for Syracuse is Wed. the 15 of dec. There's two concert times so i'll let you know on that. it'll have the whole music department too so if you want to know when just the orchestra is playing i'll give you the information! it should be fun!

Standing up for a cause

Today at 10:00 am nearly 800 of my classmates left their classes armed with markers, posters, and their voices.


We've been planning this walkout for almost a week and we're glad it really happened. Schools all over the district were encouraged to participate but only our school, the great Syracuse Titans, had the courage to go on.
We were threatened with truencies early in the morning from our principle but it didn't hinder us. WE had to be the voices of our teachers. Our teachers who were threatened if they stepped outside then they would be fired as well.
We did this because 10 or more of our teachers are being fired because of an almost 31 million dollar budget cuts to our education.
everytime we elect a president they promise to protect our education. What about now? with class sizes soon to be over 40 kids we will no longer be individuals but just simple numbers.
two of our programs are being cut, Auto 3 and auto 4 plus most of our budgets for drama, art and orchestra.


for what? a new football field for Davis High. For the huge salary our principle makes. We have amazing facilities that will never be used now because of the cuts. A nice auto facility that cannot be used for Auto 1 will pack up dust.
What really made me feel amazing was the fact that we had so many people. Parents came by honking horns to show their support. News cameras and photographers for the newspaper showed to document our thoughts and make our voices heard.
We had to stand up for our teachers because no one else will.
We will not stand to have some of the greatest teachers left in the dust
no teacher left behind


(pictures used from ksl.com deseretnews.com saltlaketribune.com and fox13news)

lolz my hamster turned white.

Rancho Cucamonga

"So Boogy-boarding Ben, where're ya from?"
"Rancho Cucamonga."
"Rancho Cucamonga!...I have no idea where that is.
Rancho Cucamonga, Rancho Cucamonga. It's kinda fun to say though!"

Hi yall! Just got back from the magical world of Disney.
So I went to Disneyland for my orchestra tour last week with the whole music department. We all had a lot of fun and learned a lot. We went to colleges for clinics with the pro's who helped us out a lot with our music.
But first we started with the bus ride. A long long bus ride.

This was my seat partner. She was the most annoying girl ever. She can irritate even the nicest people i know.


This was the dude in front of me. He's also my stand partner in the orchestra



And these were the dudes behind me. They also became my entourage and attached themselves to me throughout the trip. The red head was super annoying and acted like a five year old. ugh he even claimed i was the girl of his dreams; five minutes later he was asking what my name was again.



The bus ride was kinda scary cause our driver fell asleep once or twice. We hit the rumble strip a lot throughout. Once, when i woke up we were being led by a semi. He was forcing the bus driver to stay awake and slow down. Thank you truck driver for saving us!
We hit McDonalds for some breakfast. poor workers didn't know what hit them. Then we hit Hollywood.

First stop was the Hollywood bowl




Then we hit the boulevard. I tried to find the beatles but i didn't have time to really look for it. plus i didn't really know where their stars were.

The next day we hit the Huntington beach!





And for dinner we went to medieval times



and i got a flower!! lol since i was surrounded by guys i knew that our lovely blue knight threw it right to me! Of coursed i squealed like a crazed fan girl. I was very protective of my flower.

And then the day we were all waiting for. DISNEYLAND!!! *crazy scream*





They had drained the big lake for repairs, I think they might also add some princess and the frog stuff too. So I didn't get to see the boats or tom sayer island or anything like that. Kinda depressing.






















I had a lot of fun and rode a lot more rides. Even pirates and Indiana jones and haunted mansion!
We didn't see any princesses except for tiana who was performing throughout the day. I was lucky to get any pictures at all. The first day of disney i was stuck with the guys but then i was finally able to get free of them and hang out with all my girlfriends!
(ok i admit i did kinda like the attention the guys gave me)

The coolest thing we did was the Talk Live With Crush. It was amazing. The conversation above is from that. You basically sit down and talk to Crush from Finding Nemo. My friend talked with him and it was so funny. I definately will see that again. But compaired to my first time i really improved the amount of rides i did. especially considering that I hate most rides i think i did really well. Ha! take that family! i'm getting better! And then the bus ride home. This one was shorter cause all of us were dead tired.


Our teachers actually got in a big fight at the end of the trip. The band teacher wanted us to get to the park at 7:30 but this was also the day we were leaving so we had to be packed for the ride home straight after disneyland. We were functioning on less than 5 hours of sleep and no one could eat breakfast because they were all packing. My amazing orchestra teacher really didn't like the idea of us not eating and little sleep and she also knew that most of us would skip lunch in the park. She wanted us to be able to eat breakfast. So she argued with the band teacher and we got a little more time. So we were told to load the bus at 8:30. After breakfast which i finished at around 8 i go back to the room to catch a few more Z's. I'm with my other roommates discussing the arguements from our teachers and the confusion going on that morning when we hear the choir teacher yell at some girls telling them that we were leaving as soon as the buses were loaded. This made us angry. Nobody was telling us anything and we were tired and frustrated. so we gave up and just packed our stuff onto the bus.


Finally i'm at home but guess what happens!! I get sick. and not just sore throat from screaming and jet lag. But like aches and headache and puking all night sick. Great fun. This means that aside from all the make-up work i had from the trip i also have all the work from the day of school i missed. Maybe it's all the stress and lack of sleep that killed my immune system. I wouldn't be surprised.
Hopefully i'll survive until spring break next week.

busy busy busy

You know those weeks where you feel like you're a chicken without it's head? I welcome you to my world.
School has been so crazy lately. It's the end of the term so this should come as no surprise but track has also started which means:
i'm getting home a lot later
i'm really tired
there's no time after to get a lot of stuff done
So now i've started to scramble to get things done and i'm starting to feel like i'm in a noose.
But then relief!! my amazing cousin and i finally got out on the slopes. And it was a lot of fun. I can't wait to go again!
I'm getting a lot better at snowboarding now. I can finally not freak out when i go straight.
I've also learned to blow on my gum wrappers. (thanks R!)
I met a lot of cousin's friends and i had a lot of fun despite the fact they were a lot older than me. It just shows that i'm more social than i thought. I thought cousin's guy friend (wink wink) was really nice and super helpful. I really liked him.
So all in all i really really enjoyed myself.
Just not the soreness after! or the bruises that all my friends happened to find.

And some news!!
I've chopped off my hair!
We went on saturday for madison and i asked if i could get mine cut too. I sat down and the kind woman asked if i wanted to donate. Here was my chance!! a change was finally happening! 12 inches chopped off. and it's still pretty long.






And now another week starts. But i won't be in school!!
I'll be in nice and sunny and warm California playing my instrument among the pros!! We're going on tour to Disneyland!
We're leaving tuesday and i'm soooo excited!

Thanks for stopping by!

Oh where has the internet gone?

So everyday when i come one of the first things i do is check my email. Mostly empty most of the time. Sometimes when i write a story i'll put it on a website and get reviews from people that make me bubbly with joy. But most of the time there's nothing.
Once every so often i'll sign in on msn messenger and recieve messages that are weeks old.
But everyday i read. Once email is done i type in the magic letters that bring me to two magic websites with magic books.
Unfortunately they only update once a month.
yippee.
Now i do not surf youtube or google for interesting things. I don't go on game websites to play online. I'm am not explorative to amazon or ebay. I just simply read.
and it works. most of the time.
Why in the whole world wide web can i not find entertainment?

So boredom sets in.
which means i should run. but i never do because i make up an excuse for myself that i never follow through with. like for example, homework.
My creative writing teacher believes this is an honors class and can write amazing things in ten minutes, come up with 26 alliterations and an illustrated picture of them, and read.
Now a multitasker master i may be but this pushes things. a bit.

Which means i should run. but not today. because today i have to: practice cello, catch up in math, email that teacher about that assignment she lost last week, illustrate a book, research building and make observations and then draw one, answer frantic text messages from my depressing friend, and finish the book that my sister wants to read, and maybe go to hot topic to listen to the amazing music of kerli.

too bad track starts monday.

oh crap.

You weren't as bad as i thought you would be!

So i did my solo today but before all that happened some other thing happened that put me in a shoddy mood

1 As i was parking at school some guy decided to show off to a girl and get into the parking place next to mine. he came within less than an inch of hitting my car.
2 We had to do a group project in science and no one in my group did anything.
3 the said project had NO instructions what so ever. just words we had to include and it had to be like Mendel's experiments. (the monk with the peas)
4 My friend got her tonsils out a few days ago so i have no one to sit next to during lunch.
5 My A string on my cello unraveled. It is not my fault just poor craftsmanship of the string.
6 My A dot on my cello fell off so i could not just play the A string notes on my D string (in emergency cases that's what you're supposed to do)
7 i had gym. which normally isn't that big of a deal. however, we did a lot of arm exercises and it made my arms dead for the rest of the day.

So i was freaking out a little and high strung and angry.

but i did it.

It sucked a bit, Syd says i was sharp and i agree. But there was a kid before me that was even more nervous and messed up more.(i told him we all loved him anyway and it wasn't a big deal)

When i got up there and started playing my friends cheered me on and a friend told an old joke to get me to laugh and relax. I just started playing and it really helped. I practiced this song a lot (almost everyday) and i knew it pretty well. All my friends were great and they totally supported me. I'm really happy I'm in the orchestra with such amazing people. I really love them!


...



at least until Courtney came up and said "you weren't as bad as i thought you'd be!"

in which i replied "i don't know whether to be pissed about that or not." (we laughed.)

So now all that's left is the after school performance with a judge. That is not until the 17th though so i can practice a little more. (it's in the orchestra room i think if anyone wants to come. 4:45 on Wednesday at my school)

I thought about playing at my family gatherings over the weekend to help with my nerves. the only problem is last time i did that my cousin messed my cello up. You can imagine my happiness about that.

It wasn't bad but it wasn't all that great either. finally i can breathe, at least till Wednesday!

be happy!

Hey long time since i've updated right? yeah i've been pretty busy. with school and all.
speaking of which guess what we did today!
the mile run! yippee!
i totally forgot that we were gonna do it today so i freaked out when my friend told me. mostly cause i was already worried about my solo in orchestra today too.
When i went to bed the night before i watched Kerli. she's one of my favorite singers and she's really an inspirational person.
basically the video i watched she told us to be happy.
Anger gets you no where and it does nothing for you. it will only drag you down.
depression gets you further from your dreams.
everyday wake up and think of where you want to go. and get excited about it! think about being happy because if you are always happy things will go your way.

So i was happy today. People got nervous and thought i was just being hyper. It was pretty hard considering the mile run and my solo. I told myself that at this moment i'm the best i've ever been at the song and nobody cares if you mess up. most likely they're relieved when you do. We're human and mistakes are natural.

Before the mile run i had to watch another girl run it and mark her laps and time. She really struggled and i was disappointed that the best i could do was to tell her that she could do it. She tried complaining to the coach to get out of doing it which made me kind of angry but then i remembered that i shouldn't judge people so i left her alone and just watched her run in the large circle.

Throughout my own run i tried to think of music and sing in my head since they weren't playing any. I tried to distract myself. finally with only five laps i just said that i've come this far and i can darn near jog till the finish. I had lots of friends cheering me on and every time i passed them they shouted for me. it gave me inspiration and happiness.
my time was 9.09
I felt so happy considering the last time i ran was two months ago.
i was only a minute behind our star athlete in the class.
and i'm not sore at all!

orchestra came along and i started getting nervous. i kept telling myself that everything would be fine and that i'm a pretty good player.
It didn't work.
Luckily we ran out of time before i got to play so i can practice a little more!
Kerli was right. if you're happy then the world is your playground and you can shape it into whatever you want.

i think i'll try it more often!