Watching the Clouds Go By

The heavens tell of the glory of God.
The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship.
Day after day they continue to speak;
night after night they make him known.
They speak without a sound or a word;
their voice is silent in the skies;
yet their message has gone out to all the earth,
and their words to all the world.

~Psalm 19:1-4

Today was a gorgeous day. One of the warmest we've had in quite a while, and pretty humid for this part of the world. I listened to music the whole day, so maybe this post should be more music themed. I got up late and practiced quite a bit, then I had to enjoy the sunshine for a while. So I lay outside and listened to music and watched the clouds go by. That was the best part of the day. Clouds are so fascinating.

Then I went to a senior piano recital, which was amazing! Now I'm sitting listening to OTR, a vocal group that Keiley, a girl in my hall, has introduced me to. They're very good. On my way over to the music building it was overcast, and there was a lot of lightning and thunder. It's funny, because a few hours before I was gazing at beautiful blue sky. I love thunderstorms though, they're so powerful. It's been raining off and on since then and I feel badly for the people at Global Night Commute. Most of my hall is participating so it's pretty quiet. It makes me feel kind of guilty.

There are so many different causes competing for your attention/time/money at college its difficult to see straight. There's so much need in the world that a person can't possibly address it all, at the same time you can't do nothing. It's difficult to find a balance. I do love that there are a lot of opportunities to serve here, but I haven't taken as much advantage of them as I would like. It's definitely going to be a top priority next year. One thing that is difficult is that a lot of organizations need male volunteers more than females. There are more girls than guys on campus anyways, so it's not necessarily that the guys aren't stepping up to the task.

Anyhow, just some thoughts on a quiet, rainy, Saturday night.

Herrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmineh

Moses supposes his toes are roses/But Moses supposes erroneously/Moses he knowes his toeses aren't roses/As Moses supposes his toeses to be.

~Singin' in the Rain

I can't roll my r's. I have tried and tried but I just can't do it. 'Tis quite frustrating. One of our jazz combo tunes is called "Hermine" but nobody's sure how to pronounce it so our drummer always calls it Herrrrrrmineh, but I can't do it.

Today was pretty crazy. I was up really late last night finishing my math homework when I realized I forgot to turn in my last Music Theory assignment of the year! I even had it finished, I just forgot to turn the dumb thing in to the music office at 5:00 (because I was taking a nap, because I'd been up really late the night before.) So I will get a zero. I hope I don't lose my 'A.' I was really excited about getting an 'A' in a class that's worth more than 1 credit. Hopefully if I get an 'A' on the next exam and final I will be okay.

Today was such a nice day. The weather was gorgeous. Spring is truly here. I didn't do as well on my Ear Training chord progression quiz as I would have liked but I did do well in sight singing and I think my rhythm transcriptions went well. After Ear Training I walked back to the HUB with Amy and Christina and Amy had "Moses Supposes" stuck in her head, so I said we should sing it. So we did! Really loud! People stared and it was a lot of fun.

Pretty much all of today I was mentally preparing for my jazz combo recital. It may sound silly seeing as all of about 10 people came to listen (which is fine with me) but its the symbolism of the thing that's important. I came here at the beginning of the year feeling like I was crazy to try and study jazz. I've been studying classical piano for 10 years so I felt that I might be able to at least keep my head above water but jazz is something strange and new to me and I feel like I should have more training before I take up the time of the very fine jazz musicians in the music department. However, my family was very supportive and after talking with the music department chair briefly I decided to audition for a combo.

I felt like a complete idiot. The audition materials were so difficult and I practiced a ton but I didn't feel ready. I remember waiting for my audition time and then walking into this small room with a bunch of strange men staring at me (a couple of whom I recognized from SJO concerts, talk about intimidating!) I handed them my audition form and then Dan (department chair and head of the SJO) said something like "so you understand what the group is about right?" I would have thought that was self-evident so I was kind of confused. Then he said something about singing and made me thoroughly confused. Finally it was clarified that he thought I was trying out for the vocal jazz group when I was really auditioning on piano. "Oh, we need to move to a room with a piano then!" was his response. So, me and these 3 or 4 guys form this absurd little procession and march past the people waiting to audition and I am already completely mortified. Worst of all, Brent Edstrom, one of the absolutely best pianists in the area, is one of the adjudicators! I was pretty much terrified.

I don't remember much from my audition. I think I pretty much crashed and burned and my solo was horrendous. I thanked them multiple times for listening to me and they were very positive about it. Still, I was quite surprised when I made a jazz combo and what's more, my parents were going to let me take jazz lessons from Brent!

Needless to say I've become quite a bit more comfortable with the music department by now, although I still feel extremely out of place a lot of the time. I wasn't nearly as nervous this time around for the recital but think about it. These people have been so supportive of me, even though I haven't always been the best student I could have been. I wanted so badly to show I'd improved and that their good faith wasn't waisted. I'm not sure if I accomplished that in the performance tonight. Things went fairly well but I feel like I could have done a lot better. Since I've decided to continue to pursue jazz, it's something I really want to succeed at so hopefully if I work really hard this summer I'll be able to make much more progress next year. Dan and Brent seemed pleased with the performance and told me I'd improved, but I don't know, I feel like I could have accomplished more.

My dad and my uncle and aunt came to the recital, which was nice. They're so supportive. I'm so blessed to have such a great family. Okay, this post is getting entirely to sentimental and sappy and so forth. Bottom line, jazz is just about the awesomest thing ever. It just is. I would very much like to be able to play it better, but in order to do that I need to work harder. So that's what I'm going to do. I still have 3 years of college to hone my skills and after that, who knows? Learning doesn't stop there.

What's in a Name?

A rose by any other name would still smell...

~Reduced Shakespeare

Believe it or not, parts of this blog are *gasp!* NOT COMPLETELY RANDOM!!!

The purpose of this post to explain the origins of the title "Swedish Toast." To begin with, I have never had many nicknames. When I was little my family used to call me Doodles. Sometimes I would pretend I was a dog and I would make my family call me "Dummett," do not ask me why... They thought they were going to get turned in for child abuse. A family friend called me snickers sometimes. Take note that if you combine my 2 legitimate nicknames it makes "snickerdoodles" which is the name of a delicious cookie. Now my Dad calls me "Munchkin" (isn't that embarrassing?) but consider, what do you do when you eat a cookie such as a snickerdoodle?

The next part of my story begins in college. Here I have somehow managed to accumulate a plethora of nicknames. The first of these was "The Swede." This nickname was bestowed upon me during certain covert operations against certain rival dorms (that's all I'm going to say, if you want the full story you will have to ask me privately, it's highly classified information). We had to have codenames and at first mine was going to be "Milk Maiden" because apparently I remind Whitney of one. Maybe she's been reading too many Grimm's Fairy Tales or something. Anyhow, she said I looked Swedish and I am kind of because I'm technically 1/4 Swedish. So I was the Swede. Later came many more, including MOP (Master of Piano, flattering but untrue), Sheidino (it's my name with the 'son' from my roommates name 'Allyson' added on), and lastly "Toast." Why Toast? Because one day while I was in the dining hall, otherwise known as saga, I decided I would like some Toast. So I got the bread and put it in the little toaster oven thing... No big deal. Well, while I was waiting for it to be toasted I looked in to see how my bread was fairing. I was totally unprepared for the sight that greeted my eyes. Instead of a piece of bread turning a pleasant golden brown there were BLUE FLAMES shooting EVERYWHERE!!! BLUE!!! I DO NOT EXAGGERATE! I didn't know what to do!? Was I going to burn down saga!? Sadly this was not to be. My toast came out of the toaster oven resembling a large piece of charcoal. I still have what's left of it hanging outside my door in remembrance of the event.

So there you have it. Swedish Toast. There is a reason for it. And, as it turns out, Swedish Toast happens to be a cookie! You may not believe me but it is true. I've put a link to the recipe under "The Real Swedish Toast."

Apparently there is an independent film called "Toast." The picture above is from its website. At least I think it's its website.

Housing Lottery is EVIL!!!

It is. Um yes, well, my computer is doing weird things right now and it's driving me nuts so if this isn't typed properly it's not my fault.

So Smac and Smoore are in my room right now and Smoore is talking about how she has to find out what she'll get as a present before Christmas or whatever and how her cousin broke her American Girl dolls. Now we're talking about American Girl dolls, Smac just got off the phone with her grandpa who was "trashed" because he was at a cocktail party. She's saying he got really mad when her mom gave her a black American Girl doll because apparently her grandparents are slightly racist... Not cool, I know, and quite inappropriate but I thought it was interesting so I'm putting it in here.

*Smoore's advice for the day: Don't marry people you meet on the internet.

Yesterday was Housing Lottery and so at approximately 10:00 I traipsed over to the hub to participate. It was awful! I'm not even going to go into the details but basically they cram you into a huge line and then you watch as the rooms you wanted fill up.

****We interrupt this post to bring you the following message...****
Awwww drat! I didn't save the rest of this post. Well I don't feel like rewriting it NOW. I'll get around to it later...

The Deep Breath Before the Plunge

It's hard to believe, but there's only 3 weeks left until I'm done with my first year of college. I'd say "it's gone by so fast!" or some such drivel but it really hasn't. Second semester has stepped along fairly quickly, but that only makes up for the endless odyssey that was my first semester at college. I don't think I even realized how drained I was from that until spring semester when I finally had one or two things figured out and didn't have quite such a heavy course load...

So things are already busy in a sense, but I'm going to have a lot less time in the near future. Unfortunately I have to go to combo practice right now, and then I have to practice, and then I have to deal with housing lottery, but I do plan on posting some more today so... er... stay posted.

Alright, so I'm sitting here with a nametag on my wrist (I hate nametags and I figure this way I won't forget to take it off) telling me I have 1 housing points and lottery number of 2667. I'm waiting until 10:00 for housing lottery. I'll tell you all about that situation after it's over. Right now I think I'll waste time reminiscing about my first semester. So, generally freshman don't get to choose who they room with, mainly because they don't know anyone. They do get to choose what dorm they would prefer. I remember being totally lost about which dorm I wanted (hmmmm, that really hasn't changed much) and then using the old standby of my siblings. Why am here in the first place? Because my brother and sister went here and it seemed like a good place. So what dorm did my brother and sister both live in? Only the best (and only all-freshman) dorm on campus, BJ! My sister-in-law tried to tell me that I would hate it, that it was loud and the people would all be scary and outgoing hormone-crazed teenagers who were always all over each other and that it would be miserable. I'm glad I didn't listen to her ;) I've really enjoyed living in "the beej" as it is sometimes referred to. Life in the beej can certainly be exciting, but you're only a freshman in college once! Well, it doesn't get that exciting actually. I'm giving the wrong impression here. It's a dry campus so, while some people do drink, that's not the prevalent atmosphere. Instead, most of the people I know have all the fun acting drunk without actually being drunk. Just think, all of the fun with all of the brain cells!

I always go to bed tomorrow.

~My roommate Ally

I Can't Believe I Have a Blog...

Yes, well, hello and welcome to my blog. When I first heard about blogs, I thought "that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Who would actually go around reading all that junk?" (By the way, this blog is G rated) But now I've realized not only that it's bad to start a sentence with the word 'but,' but also that it doesn't really matter if anyone reads this or not! What matters is that I'm writing it and therefore contributing to the multitudes of "self expression" created by rich people with nothing better to do. Besides, who cares if anyone actually reads it? It's not really going to be that interesting for one thing. I can always pretend people are reading it for another. And hey, I'm recording memories which someday, provided this site doesn't crash or become so obselete that no one will be able to access it, I'll be able to read over when I'm old.

So basically all I'm doing is writing about me, because everyone knows that that's what's important. This is sarcasm by the way. Sometimes I forget you can't hear it over a computer. Um, so yes, this is just the introductory post. Soon I will have legitimate posts of exciting times at college to share. I kind of wish I'd had this at the beginning of the year because my first year of college has been amazing! I'll probably reminisce about it often so brace yourselves.

Well then, you can stop reading now. Really, I mean it. Um, have a nice day? I mean that too. :-)

To blog, perchance to blog, ay there's the rub

~Leah