Strange Occurances

It's the end of May, and that means that a lot of weird things are supposed to happen. Last year, all of my year-older friends started going crazy, and I learned a lot of interesting things about my classmate's mom and the paranormal experiences she's had in her life. Now, things seem mostly normal, but there are still those little things, those small details that stand out and make you realize that something out of the ordinary is going on.

There's this kid in my grade who has always seemed really obnoxious and not very bright to me, but in reality, he's very logical and quite brilliant when it comes to science. In fifth grade, he used to come to TAG pullouts with us, and when he stopped coming for some reason, our teacher decided it was because all of the girls were intimidating or something. I still can't stand him, but my friend knows him (and all of the other people in the school I don't know) really well, and thinks that he's a good but insecure person inside. When my teacher's dad died, I realized that this is possibly true. It came as a great shock to me to find out that it was him who organized the condolence poster with signatures from every kid in the school, that it was him who went around making sure that everyone had written something on it. Just a few days ago, he showed up in TAG again and started saying really thought-out things about political issues, and apparently was the authors of one of the papers from his US History class that my teacher liked so much. They say to never judge a book by its cover, but I never guessed that it would apply to this kid.

Today was the last day of school for seniors in the county, and for the first time ever I started thinking about what it would really be like to be a senior. Sure, I'm graduating from middle school, but who cares about something like that when there's a whole new world just a few months away? I know several seniors this year, and it feels like they were just my age a little while ago, which is quite scary to think about, but at the same time I feel like they've been in high school forever. My freshman friends brought their new yearbooks to dance today, and looking at the pictures and quotes was both sad and nice at the same time. When I talked to a senior girl at dance, she seemed kind of shocked about the whole graduating thing, but really relieved, too. It seems so far away to me, and all of a sudden I feel very young again.

I also performed the miracle of jumping eight seats in the flute section today to play first part in Images by Robert Sheldon. To make a long story short, I've been playing the concert band for concerts all year, but for graduation, about fifteen members of our band will be merging with them, and we're practicing the music during our regular period, without the high schoolers. Since I've played that particular song before and know all the solos (which are pretty simple), our teacher let me play the solos, and since I was the only one in the section who actually knew it, it was like I was playing by myself. Just the fact that a few months ago I was at the back of the section, between two freshman, playing second part, and this afternoon I got to play the solos that I listened to for so long. Not to be arrogant, but gosh do I feel advanced (even though I'm really not). The flute player we have now (who's one heck of a good flute player) is graduating, so we'll be playing that piece without her, and a few others, and next year the head of the section will most likely be a sophomore-or me. I don't even see how that works. What happened to moving up the totem pole?

Last but not least, I can't figure out how everything is ending (hee hee, Chameleon Circuit moment) so fast. I feel like we just started the show, and now it's our last weekend. To be fair, we only have two, but the schedule seems so short and the end all too sudden. When we had a fire drill that turned out to be a real electrical fire the other day, my friend and I were talking about what would happen if we got locked in famed art supply closet under the stairs when the alarm went off, which we used to do to each other in sixth grade (when there wasn't a fire, of course), and suddenly realized that we only have a little bit of time left to get locked in that dumb closet. When our math teacher explained to us why we couldn't have the math final exam today, since it hadn't been finished in time, she pulled out her date book and showed us how much time in the classroom we actually have left, and how it's so stressful to actually take the exam. In some perspectives, it feels like the year just started. But in others, it was a lifetime away.

Life Isn't Fair

Today is my dance teacher's mom's 92nd birthday. She is almost a century old, and has great grandchildren. It's amazing to think that someone who seems as old (sorry, wise) as my dance teacher has a mom who is still alive, and a dad who is even older.

My science teacher's dad died last week, a month before she turned 26. My dad's mom died when he was eleven, and my mom's mom died when she was finishing up college.

How come some people can live so long and have such a wonderful life, but for others, it's over so fast?

I'm Still Here

Just to let you know, yes, I do still exist and care about this blog. However, for the past week, I have been at dance rehearsal until almost eleven o'clock each night, and still have giant exams to study for, which is why my writing has been extremely scarce. The dance show this year is Jane and the Giant Peach, in case you wanted to know (Jane because there's no boy to be James and our senior girl needed a good part), and it's been going really well for the first two shows (the third is today in a few hours). Other than that, I've been going to school, being excited about the Whovian barbeque tomorrow, and dreaming of summer. I'll try to write more later, maybe next week, when I have the time.

Being Immature

When I was ten, I somehow got in in my head that I was going to be mature. This idea probably came from being in awe of my older cousin, who was fifteen at the time and a smart, kid-loving, and witty high schooler who everyone in the family raved about. Her being my role model, I decided that I was going to be just like her, and act sweet and quiet, rather than wild and slightly obnoxious at times. This was different than my other identity that I wanted, the girl who climbed trees and ran around barefoot, but it was the new thing I wanted to accomplish. So, when my family went to Rhode Island that summer to see my family, I did just that. I tried to be sensible and friendly, and interacted with my little step cousins. Sure enough, I got my wish, and everyone started saying how nice I was, and how I had grown up. It was then that I realized that once I had gone this far, there was no going back. I was stuck being mature forever, and that was it.

There's something to be said for being a kid forever. People scoff at grown men who think up so-called "immature" ideas with their kids (Phil Dunphy style, if you will), or teenagers who crack annoying jokes, but some people never really were kids. Maybe they grew up trying to be proper, having declared themselves adults by the age of eight, and were stuck in the role of being mature forever, just to be liked better (or not, in some cases). Once you are mature, you can't just do what you would do as an immature person and get away with it. This makes me feel bad for children born into royalty in in 17th century.

Whenever my mom's side of the family (her sister and her family, no one else) came over for Thanksgiving or other dinners, the kids would request a table away, so we could tell "potty jokes", and so that there would be enough room for everyone's plate. I don't think we told that many jokes, but it was fun to laugh hysterically and be annoying. When you're seven, nobody cares that you do these things, because it's part of who you're supposed to be.

So when you you change naturally? When you people expect you, at a certain age, to start acting mature? Is it when you turn thirteen, or go to middle school? Emotionally, I don't think some people ever become mature, but at least they know how to act in serious social situations. But when do they learn that, if the date of when they have to start being mature is unknown?

Just for the record, I went out to pie yesterday after our spring concert with two other families, and since we were at a restaurant, the kids did have a separate table. I was sitting with three boys from one family, two from another, a rather quiet brother and sister, and my younger brother. Rather than trying to take charge (three of them were only a year younger than me, after all), I let them put Tabasco sauce, salt, pepper, and syrup in the water glasses, and laughed along with them. I doubt the waitresses will ever see me again and recognize me, so there's an excuse right there to act immature. When you're hidden away from society for a little break, it's okay to take a rest and break character.

Unmasking Special Ed

Up until I was in fourth grade, I thought I understood kids with mental problems and disabilities. I knew that they had their own way of learning things, that each of them was different, and that they ate lunch in a different part of the lunchroom than the rest of us. I figured that this was all there was to know, and our school seemed to separate them out from the rest of us; the “normal kids” and the “special ed kids”. It wasn’t until later that year that I realized how important they are, just like every other human being. 

Starting the year I was in fourth grade, my elementary school began an inclusion program, something that has been becoming increasingly popular in schools as of the past few years. The object is simple; you bring a student from the special education class into a “normal” classroom and give them a chance to interact with the other students, and to see what it’s like to be in your typical American grade school class. That year, we had a first-year teacher full of enthusiasm and great ideas, and she was more than happy to have our classroom host a student. So we welcomed Chris, and autistic boy with glasses and a love for old-fashioned cars.

At first, the rest of us weren’t exactly sure how to react to having a kid from the special ed program in our class. For the past three years, we had just glanced over them, assuming that they didn’t notice us. We knew that they had feelings and brains, but either we were too scared to stop and talk to them, or just didn’t have the time. It was like they were aliens from another planet, who we couldn’t really connect with.  Now, with one of these “aliens” sitting in the front of the same room as us, we began to realize that we had made a serious mistake all of those years.

Chris taught us so many things. After just a week, we were all waving to him when we saw him in the hallway, along with the other disabled kids that he was with. When we made collages about ourselves, he looked through magazine after magazine to find the perfect pictures of cars to use. “Which is your favorite?” I would ask, and he would point them all out to me, naming each one and why they were his favorite. His voice was hard to understand at times, but, by the end of the year, we knew exactly what he was talking about. And thanks to Chris, our class’s cookbook has one amazing no-bake cookie recipe, in print and on the second page.

About a year later, when I was in fifth grade, I was in a different school with different kids and a different atmosphere. Our elementary school had closed, so we consolidated with the other one in the area and created one big school. I hardly knew any of the kids in my class, and didn’t recognize any of the special education students. One day, when we were in the school library, the librarian had us all sit down so she could talk to us about a book that she had just bought. It was called Out of My Mind, she said, and went to explain the book to us in great detail. I sat there, mesmerized, throughout the entire thing. If I had thought I understood disabled kids before, then I was a genius now. I had to read that book.

Finally, a month later, I got it. Out of My Mind, by Sharon Draper; a small, blue book with a goldfish jumping out of a bowl on the cover. I was instantly drawn into the world of ten-year-old Melody, who suffers from cerebral palsy and has to spend her whole life in a wheelchair. She can’t talk, walk, or have control over her body, but her mind is brimming with brilliant ideas and words. More than anything else, Melody wants to talk, to tell everybody how she feels and what she thinks, but is easily overlooked by the other kids in her school as a “retard. Once she enters fifth grade, her teacher lets her join an inclusion program, like the one in my school, so she can be in other classes and let her smarts pay off. When the opportunity comes up for her to try out for a trivia competition, Melody is as good as they come.  The only problem is that the other kids still have trouble accepting her. Told from the eyes of one remarkable girl, this book proved itself to be one of the most inspiring I’ve ever read, but it also triggered a thought of something else.

My classmate, who I’ve known since first grade, has two sisters. One of them is adopted and hyperactive, and the other is a lot like Melody; in a wheelchair, has trouble talking, nineteen years old and still in high school. I had met her several times, and while she’s great person, I was never really sure if she quite knew what was going on, or understood us. After reading this book, though, I realized that, like Melody, she could be a brilliant person, with so much to say, but locked up inside her own little world. Not too long ago, I read a piece that she wrote for her high school’s newspaper. It was just like something anybody would write; about how much she loves the beach and how she can see it from her house. It was then that I knew that she’s just like us, only her true self is masked my the problems she suffers through.

This is the thing with these kids. They are all people. They are all human beings, with feelings, lives, hopes, and dreams. But since they can’t always have control over what they can do, or say, or decide, they are what we make them out to be. We’re in charge of taking that mask off them and showing their inner selves. So that people can see who they are, not their disabilities.

Now that I’m in eighth grade, I know for a fact that I don’t fully understand kids with disabilities. There’s so much more that I need to unlock and uncover, but until then I know that I can be as friendly as possible. It’s like saying hello to that new girl on the first day of school. A smile can change somebody’s life.

So when I’m in the hallways and I see them, that’s what I do. I wave. And smile.

A Picture In My Mind

 I wrote this for an Oregon Rivers anthology, and it got published! It's modeled after the rivers of southern Oregon.

I stand next to the river and watch it flow.

It’s a ribbon of liquid ice, winding its way down the path, pulling the crystal light from the sky and twisting it out into clear blue silk. It’s an ever-growing source of life, wide and deep in some parts and snaking through forests in others. It winds in and out of the trees, cutting little ripples as it bounces over stones, spilling down the occasional waterfall.

My feet are bare and sink into the spongy moss riverbed. I dip my hand into the water and cup the clear brilliance in my palm before letting it spill through my fingers. The sun created little sparkles, like tiny jewels, reflected from the water. They’re so dazzling, so abstract.

The river is a bed of gems, each sparkling with their own design and color. I can spot the deep tones of cobalt, layered underneath sky blue, emerald, and crystal white. Instead of being separate, though, they are blended together like only the richest of paints, illustrating a beautiful portrait. The mountains peek up in the background; tall, majestic giants overlooking everything, dusted with snow. I know that the snow will soon melt and flow down the great hillside, eventually merging with this grand body of water, giving us the sweet water we have now. It’s icy cold, but clear, letting the sunlight illuminate the bottom.

What seems like fathoms below, nature lies. Microscopic bugs dart near the surface, basking in the sunlight, nibbling on bits of plants. Small turtles and snakes lurk on the riverbed, lying in a shallow pool, well hidden away. Further out, salmon swim fiercely on, only stopping for the most urgent matters. Like stoic soldiers, they brave the current, determined to reach their destination in time. River otters, a rare treat, frolic beneath the waves, coming up to rest on shore after their fun has ended for the day.

I sit out on the bank for a long time. Far ahead, the river stretches out to embrace the land, and behind me it is just a creek through the forest. In my cutoff jeans, streaked with mud from clambering over rocks to get here, I sit on a flat stone and wait, staring off into the distance.

Eventually, the sun dips behind the mountains, letting off spectacular rays of golden orange as it sinks. Birds fly over the water, silhouetted in the light. With the absence of wind, I can see fish jumping, creating little splashes here and there. The trees are harder to make out now, just bundles of pine blanketing the hills. An owl hoots behind me, and I feel a sudden chill as darkness sets in.

“Honey, are you out here?” It’s my mother, her silhouette stepping carefully over the rocks to get to me. “It’s time to come in. It’s getting dark.”

I smile and look out over the river.

“Just a minute.”

~I was going to call it The River Song, but it has no relevance whatsoever, soooo...~

May Madness

I'm just going to let you know now that, apart from February, May is the most complicated month of my year. With impending dance shows and violin concerts and the end of the year, I barely have any time to do very much, including writing blog posts. Next week, I will be dancing every night from after school until who knows how late, and the stupid finals that you have to take to go to high school/get into the high school classes you want to get into are coming up, too. So, if I write a post every three days or four days, that's why. Until we meet again!

Happy Mother's Day!

Have a wonderful Mother's Day, everybody. Go hug your mother, call her up, or just say "I love you". She deserves it.

I didn't appreciated my parents as much as I ought to have when I was younger, because I figured it was just fun to have kids. After being a babysitter, and being exhausted after each job, I have so much more understanding for how hard it must me. Mothers do the running- after- of- children, cooking, cleaning, playing, and shuttling 27/4, and WITHOUT PAY. Not to mention that they gave birth to you in the first place. Wow. Eighteen years of dedication right there, just with a little bundle of joy, who stays around the house for almost two decades. We all take our mothers for granted, and never realize that hard work that they put in every day. And there's really no such thing as a sick day.

When I used to complain that there was never a Kid's Day, my mom would assure me that every day is Kid's Day. I thought that was dumb, but now I see that it's true. Kids are so carefree, so blissfully ignorant, that every day is like a day off for them (us), no matter how much school or practicing or whatever is added in. Half the things my mom told me when I was younger that I thought was complete rubbish is probably something that I'd say to a kid nowadays. So that's the key word for today...again. Perspective!

Waiting

I feel like I'm just waiting.

It's as though my whole life so far is building up to something great, the thing that I've been anticipating for. I always seem to have something to look forward to, but I have no idea what it is. Under my subconscious, hidden beneath layers of thoughts and events, the answer might be lying somewhere, but at the moment it's as tangible as the moon. I guess it makes a good reason to live, though.

The name of this blog literally translates to "to live the life" in Spanish, which is pretty much the same thing as the saying "living life" in English. When I set it up, that's what I wanted to talk about-life. There's no one thing that I could cover, and if I could, it would bore both me and you immediately. Pretty much, I appointed myself to analyze life and everything that I come across, and try to either figure it out or confuse it further, getting lost in the strands of information, like a mess of tangled yarn. But if I'm living life, and writing about it every day or every other day, what about the things that make no sense? What about the future, which nobody can tell?

Not knowing what you're waiting for is such a wonderful thing, though. You have no idea what lie in store for you, but it's certain to be fantastic, since you're traveling along a path unknown to others, with the routes that may come along only applying to and affecting you. Maybe I'll graduate high school with honors. Maybe I'll learn how to speak Finnish. Maybe I'll survive a giant earthquake (or not). I don't see how anyone could be so sick and tired of life that it has no interest anymore. Sure, I feel tired sometimes and just want to sleep for a week, but at least there's still the hidden surprise and suspense of not knowing what happens next. Older people who think that they have no time to do anything with their remaining time are wrong-there's always time for something else. The more you do, the more you discover...maybe you'll eventually find out what you've been waiting for your entire life. Sorry to be so cheesy, but live life to its fullest, and never let yourself believe that you won't be able to have reach great potential you deserve.

Recognizing My Faults

Ever since I was eight, I've been part of a website that really shaped my life. In trush, I joined for the magazine, which empowers girls and helps them feel positive, but I've met the most amazing girls ever on this site, and learned so much from them. They're different than my real life friends, but in good ways. I know I can turn to them and talk about things my schoolmates don't care about, and I've even had some friendships turn to real ones, where I know the girl (I wrote about it a while ago). Now I can say that she's one of my best friends.

That aside, the point of this entire program was to keep things positive, and inspire inner beauty, etc. The problem is that I know that I have faults, but I don't really want to complain about them there. Instead, I'll come right out and put them here. Everybody has faults, I know that. Everyone has somehing that they should fix, and everybody's a bit vain sometimes. What I'm about to write isn't a rant on life, it's my self constructive criticism. There are so many things that I know I do that I should improve on, but either I can't figure the right way out, or I have no time to try and fix it. Some of them are just the way that I am.

-I bow way too close to the fingerboard sometimes. This drives me insane when I see other people do it, but it's natural for my arm to move that way, and I can't think about that and a long run of sixteenth notes that span on two strings in second position at the same time. My wrist won't bend at the right angle when I want it to (not a right angle, the correct angle), and it frustrates me. A lot.

-I procrastinate. I'm sure that everyone suffers from this in one way or another, but I will get this idea in my head sometimes that I have more time than I really do, and I can do something later. When that time comes, I realize that I really don't have enough time, and I don't really want to be doing this anyway. While I'm putting it off, it's just tugging in the back of my brain. It's so much better to finish a long day at dance knowing that you can go home and not worry about work than it is to know you have to write a paper when you get home, but I keep on doing this to myself.

-When I hold out my arms in second position, it looks okay when I'm facing the mirrors, but it looks horrible from the side. I honestly don't know what I'm doing wrong. I've gotten a lot better at using my wrists and looking at my hands, but it still looks wrong, I'm worried that I'm not a solid enough dancer, and that my moves don't connect. I probably worry more than I should.

-I compare myself to people too much. I'm sure that if I were homeschooled and had no one else to compare scores with, I'd be happier with standardized tests and other grades, but all I can do now is think about what my other friends got. It's true that we're all pretty smart, but that just calls for more competition. I wish my mind wouldn't work that way, but I worry too much about what other people will think of me, even though they probably aren't thinking about me at all.

-I hate criticism.

Now some things I have improved on: (I really don't want to add to the previous list that I talk about myself too much, so I'll try not to sound self-centered).

-I've gotten a lot better at talking to adults, and other kids. When I went to an orchestra rehearsal with a bunch of kids a didn't know, I commented on someone's Doctor Who shirt, introduced myself to some other musicians, and tried to not be as shy as I used to be. I'll talk on the phone more now, and ask employees for instructions or directions at the store.

-I've gotten a better sound at the violin, even though I can't keep the darn bow near the bridge. My sound is bigger, and I've gotten a lot better at vibrato, which is nice.

-I honestly don't care about the hardships of middle school health anymore. The first few days of the unit were are little awkward, and I had to tell myself that I needed to be mature. Now, a week later, it's actually a really interesting class, considering my 23-year-old math teacher is teaching it, and even she has trouble being mature sometimes. I'm just happy that I can handle it now, and am not embarrassed by every little thing.

So, what about you? What are some things you need to work on, and other tihngs that you have fixed? I'd love to hear them, and if you want to, let me know (via comment or whatever). Sorry if I bore you with a long analysis of my life.


Also, I just finished My Sister's Keeper yesterday, and I'm thinking of writing a review on it. Maybe.We'll see.

Staring Off Into Space

Sometimes, without even noticing it, I'll suddenly snap out of it, and realize that for the past few minutes, I've been staring at a random spot that nobody else can see, so deep in thought that I don't notice anything around me.

I do this a lot, actually. It's one of those things that you can't think about and do, but it happens when you least expect it, and suddenly you realize that you just missed an entire conversation, or a set of instructions given to you by your teacher. Inside my head, there's a whole other world, like a parallel universe, that I go and live in for a while, just thinking to myself. Life moves so fast, and sometimes we need a break to sit there and go over it slowly, even if it does mean missing an entire three minutes in which you could be learning, listening, or watching. It's not sleep, or dreams, which you can't always control. That's your subconscious, the darkest, deepest pits of your mind, only accessible in the dead of night, when you really close your eyes and succumb to the day. This is just skimming the top of that, giving you a break from life, and letting your mind take it where it wants to. When I was younger and trying to go to sleep, I would close my eyes and think of something, and then think of the next thing that popped into my head, like watching shapes morph in front of my eyes. While this might seem crazy to some of you, my dance teacher did the same thing a few years ago, having us start motions and then keep on going, turning it into whatever we thought of next. Apparently some little kids did this in school for writing and called it a brain-throw-up. I call it thinking.

If you're watching somebody stare off into space, if looks that he or she is asleep, dead to the world. As everyone knows, Gandalf sleeps with his eyes open, and of course it's possible that we're all really wizards and have short naps in the middle of the day, while it looks like we're really awake. If you do see anyone deep in thought, just spacing out, do not, do not, wave your hand in front of her face. That is the worst thing that can ever happen, worse than being woken up at the crack of dawn by an air horn in your ear. I have friends who will do that while I'm reading a book, because apparently I was reading so intently that they thought I was just lost in thought. Again.

I rather like that term, though. Lost in thought. It's more mysterious than lost in space, which either makes me think of the show or that robot from Futurama literally floating around in space. It's more specific than lost in time, which is like a penny that sits on the sidewalk for decades and never gets used. Thoughts are like a black hole, infinite and all unexplored. When you think about it (thinking again), you're the only one, in the entire world, who knows what you think. Just in that round part of your body near that top, in that mushy organ, you can have stories, emotions, conversations, knowledge, and images hidden, waiting to be uncovered, but only by you. Am I the only one who finds that fascinating? Of course, with all of the writing I've been doing on here lately, I've kind of appointed myself to analyze every aspect of life I can think about. Just doing this can lead you on all sorts of roads in your own head, trying to figure things out and meeting dead ends, or tying knots. I've probably created numerous paradoxes by accident, or discovered them, just trying to find the answers. See what I mean about being deep in thought? It's like an abyss, and we can never reach the end. It will only get deeper.

Happy National Nerd Day!

May the fourth be with you! (Ha, ha).

My high school is holding Nerdapalooza (an opportunity for geeks to get together and eat pizza and play video games and wear their giant belt buckles), the Dalek Empire is rising, and Darth Vader says he is Luke's father. (Why couldn't Voldemort be Harry Potter's father? Or evil uncle? Or Dumbledore's long lost son? That would be cool).

Oh, and DFTBA. :)

Double Posting Day, and All of My Doctor Who Encounters Today

Happy double posting day! I feel bad that I haven't really been writing anything recently, like I said I would (well, I told myself that I would), so to make up for it, I will compile a random list of the strange, strange things that happened in my life today, that have something to do with Doctor Who. Just to clarify, my mind automatically relates everything with Doctor Who, and I make references in about every other sentence, so this is even more strange. I'm actually thinking of building a shrine in my room, just for the heck of it, because I have a TARDIS beach towel and no place to put it yet, but that's more of a summer project. Be prepared for updates, though.

So.

-Since it's always hat day on Friday at my school, my classmate decided to wear his old fashioned gas mask to school. Great idea. The moment I walked into Spanish in first period, I almost collapsed with fear, because honestly, who would actually wear one of those to school? Also, he sits next to me in math, and thought it would be really funny if he sneaked up behind me and said "are you my mummy?" Not funny.

-My mom emailed her friends, or her friends emailed her or something, about the book the Stone Angel, and I saw it when she left it up on the computer. Enough said.

-When we had a presentation today about courtroom judges, the presenter started talking about statues, and then pictures of statues.

-When we were marching today, one of the commands, the one to stop, contains the sound of drums. Good luck for me keeping a straight face tomorrow.

Ha ha! Don't blink.

The Week in Review

I started out this week happy that I wasn't going to school on Monday. Of course, Monday was one of the longest days of my life, and seemed more like a weekend than an actual weekday, so when I really started school on Tuesday, I felt like I wanted to crawl into a hole and sleep there for a few months. Some weeks seem like eternity, and others breeze by without a hitch. If I were to graph this one, though, it would be a bell curve: I started out with a wonderful attitude,  went on to sport a melancholy, exhausted feeling, and then ended again, today, actually wanting to go to school again. How's that for a roller coaster?

I learned so much on Monday, though. Orch dorks are the best people in the world, no doubt, and a day with about fifty of them is the next best thing. Who would have thought that there were so many of them in Oregon? It was absolute heaven to look around and see a girl with a bass clef, a treble clef, and a viola clef on the back of her sweatshirt, to meet a bass clarinetist obsessed with the Phantom of the Opera, and to talk to cellists with perfect pitch, who can tell any song by the first three measures. I also realized that, while playing, I wasn't even thinking about the music anymore. It was just natural, ingrained into my brain. The violin was an extension of my arm, much like how a pointe shoes just becomes a normal shoe after a while.

To tell you the truth, I don't even remember what happened exactly on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We had a band competition on Wednesday, I read a few books, the sun came out, random people starting talking about my writing, I went to dance...after a while, my life kind of blends together, into one big day, even though I'm exhausted at the end of each one. During band the other day, I caught a glimpse of the score for Leopold Mozart's Toy Symphony peeking out from underneath the tottering pile of scores on the conductor's stand. When I thought about it, I vaguely remembered it, but couldn't for the life of me think of whether we played it last year or this one. According to my friend, we played it this year, but intermediate band is all one big year to me. Seventh grade seems like another life, but I can't distinguish between the two.

It's weird, though. When I look at it one way, I feel like this year has gone by really fast, and I can't possibly be going to high school in a few months. But when I think of a particular event that happened this year, I can't believe how long ago it was. It's been wonderful, but I wish it would go on forever. When I hear seniors start talking about how hard these last few weeks are, I can only think about myself (of course), and how soon I'll be in their place. It isn't that soon, I know, but I do remember when they were my age, and the biggest kids I knew. When my teacher says that we're going to be "outta here soon", and how we need to get our graduating pictures taken, it's kind of terrifying. High school seems nice...but I don't want to go.


Happiness has struck yet again today, though. The sun rose into the sky and actually stayed there, I finished all of my assignments, aced two tests, and got to march in band again. Tomorrow will be the parade, during the hottest day of the year, no less (80 degrees Fahrenheit!), and that will be another wonderful thing done. And then it's dance again on Sunday...

It's just a little segment, but each week feels like a life.