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ARGGGH, Matey!
Yesterday was international “Talk Like A Pirate Day”, the greatest holiday ever. For a few of us at school, it was also a dress like a pirate day. Me, MaoMi, and Leshie all dressed like pirates. Leshie wore a long coat, mismatched striped socks, and a striped shirt; MaoMi wore her usual “slutty pirate” look, with a fake leather strapless corset-like top covering her puffy-sleeved shirt; and I wore a tasseled red chord around my waist, my shiny puffy pirate sleeves, and a red vest, along with matching piratey earrings and a necklace.

However, as you all know, clothes do not a pirate make! I had to talk like a pirate as well, no easy task. So I tried my best, with a few “Shiver me timbers”, “Avast ye”, as well as plenty of “Argh!” It was so much fun that I didn’t even want to leave school, because it’s really no fun talking like a pirate if only your parents are around to hear, right?
Arggh!

So as of this evening, I will be completely living off pizza until Saturday.

It’s homecoming week, I’m a senior, and y’all know what that means… It’s chaotic to the extreme. Tonight was the powderpuff game, and we senior girls completely killed the juniors, even without cheating! It was a lot of fun to finally hang out with my friends for once.
However, tomorrow will be pretty friendless. It’s homecoming Friday, and because I’m in jazz band (I play vibes) I’ll have to play during lunch. I won’t worry about starving; they’ll feed us pizza.
That’s not all, folks! I’m also in marching band, so afterwards, I have to sprint to the bathroom, change into my band shirt, and rush to the pep assembly, where we’ll play stupid fight songs to an unenthusiastic audience. AND after that, the marching band will have to play for the parade and the football game, which means that I’ll be at school for more than 14 hours. I’m not worried, however, because I’ll be fed in the evening…with pizza.
I don’t want you to think I’m complaining or anything. In fact, this is the first Homecoming I’ll actually enjoy, since it’s the last I’ll have.
I’m actually really excited, because I will be able to go to the dance. I had bought a $13 dress from Goodwill that really fits well, but then the school said I had a $77 fine for not returning a science book last year. I knew I had returned it, but it was only yesterday that they found it. I cannot even begin to tell you how relieved I was. I mean, I didn’t have a date, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to go…

You know what really grinds my gears, as the esteemed Peter Griffin would say? When people don’t know how to behave in theaters!

The origin of this rant stems from all my various encounters with musical theatre, and if you know anything at all about me, you would know that’s a lot of experience. Yesterday night, I attended the show of “Oliver” with my father. During that time he did one of the biggest pet peeves in my book; he didn’t clap. Song after song, scene after scene, and he never clapped for the performers. And he wasn’t the only one, either. I feel that it is the biggest lack of manners you can have in live theater. I mean, imagine if you were one of those performers, and you had worked for weeks memorizing lines and learning song and dance. If you went through all this effort to perform for an audience, you’d expect them to clap, wouldn’t you? When I see someone who refuses to clap, I take it personally, because I have performed in six musicals, and I know how much work goes into each performance.

So, because of this, I am going to list what NOT to do in theaters, and you had better read it, if you know what’s good for you…

stare Do not talk during the overture. Contrary to popular belief, the overture IS part of the musical, and so you need to shut your trap when the musicians are playing. At “Oliver”, this one woman was talking really loudly during the overture, and finally my dad and I just snapped. We turned around and asked her to please stop talking during the show, and you know what she said? She said, “Yeah, I will, once it starts!” in this really annoyed tone. I wanted to slap that jerk out of the theater. Overtures are usually the hardest songs for the musicians to play, and yet they are often ignored, and that blatant disrespect really grinds my gears.

stare Turn off those damn cell phones. I mean it. This is one rule I’m guilty of disobeying, because one time during a movie, my phone went off. It’s like some law of physics: If somebody leaves their phone on, it will go off during the sad, quiet scene when the protagonist dies, every time. People forget or simply think, “Oh, nobody will call me at this time of night.” It’s not true. A single cell phone ring can ruin a play’s atmosphere for the whole audience and embarrass the person with the phone. Plus, it’s not really that hard to press a button, is it?

stare Do not leave during the bows. People leave the theaters during the final bows all the time, and it’s really disrespectful. When they leave, they’re sending the message to the cast, “You’re performance wasn’t all that good, so I’m going to leave and do something better with my time than waste it clapping for you.” Don’t forget, this is a live show; the actors can see you. When you’re at a performance that ends at ten o’clock at night and you leave early, I just wonder, “What the heck are you missing?” All the bars and clubs are closed, so there’s really nothing better to do. Anyway, you spent at least twenty dollars buying a ticket for a live show, so don’t you want to savor the experience, and get every minute’s worth?

stare Do not stampede. This is similar to the last point. People stampede out of the theater as if the whole place was infected with the plague. For God’s sake, people, just take your time! They think that by rushing, they will avoid the traffic, but it isn’t true. Post-theater traffic is unavoidable, so just get over it. Also, this behavior is simply dangerous. People of all ages go to the theater, and many old people can’t run that fast. If you don’t want to deal with the downsides of live theater, you should just rent a movie and stay home instead.

So for the good of everyone, just sit there, listen to the orchestra, and make sure you clap when they’re done.
Or else…

Yeah, it's been a while since I posted in this journal, eh? I've gotten a membership on Xanga, since most of my friends have quit Gaia... crying But I'm going to try my best to keep up this journal for THE GOOD OF MANKIND!!! *raises mighty pen-sword triumphantly*

So, let's see... I took my pet rabbits to the vet a few days ago. It turns out that my bunny, Pauken, is not actually overweight, which is good. She's just a big bunny, that's all. But Ceilidh has an infection in her mouth from some overgrown teeth that were hurting her, and she lost a half pund (which isn't much when she weighed 3 1/2 pounds to begin with...) I have to give her medicine now every day, which she hates. So don't be suprised if in the coming days I start typing less. It'll be because my fingers will have been bitten of by an angry rabbit.

My dad got me a new iPod (a black one). See, I worked really hard to earn the money buy the last one, and it broke after only a month. So Dad thought it wasn't fair, so he bought me a new one, this time with a warranty. So that's what I'm listening to right now.

Speaking of music, I'm playing in a musical now. It's called "Seussical", a musical based on Dr. Seuss books. I'm playing mallet percussion, so I get to hit xylophones, tympani, bells, vibraphones, and various little cool fun noisemakers, such as the slide whistle and vibraslap! (picture below)

It's lots of fun to play all these instruments and make annoying noises right behind the piano player! whee
My only regret is that I can't see the show. crying Being in a deep pit, it's terrible to not be able to see the show. For example, in one scene, the crowd keeps on laughing every night at one spot in the show, but none of us musicians have any idea what they're laughing at. It's maddening, I tell you! But it's still lots of fun.
Playing musicals is my favorite thing to do! Did you know this is my 5th musical? Someday I want to join a real show for a while and go on tour! Wouldn't that be great?

So lately I've been getting really into my percussion studies. Which is good, consindering that that is what I'm going to be getting into for the rest of my life.

I'm auditioning for a big youth symphony tomorrow, and I have a hell of a lot of percussion etudes to finish preparing. I've got two mallet etudes, and a snare drum one, as well as tambourine, triangle, timpani, bass drum, and crash cymbals! There is so much to prepare, and as I said to my sister, "If I make it, it will be a real feather in my cap, but if I don't, I'll have to live the rest of my miserable life in disgrace."

But I've decided for good that I'm going to be a percussionist, even if it kills me. I've signed up for both marching band (for strength) and jazz band (for style), along with regular percussion class in school.
I dumped my boyfriend in order to concentrate on percussion. I've been freeing up my time in order to practice more; in fact, the only times I have to relax is a half-hour after school, and a half-hour to eat dinner and watch "One Piece".

So focused am I on this goal that I found myself becoming obsessed with "One Piece" because I can identify with the characters. Zolo, Usopp, Luffy, and Sanji all follow their goals, no matter what the consequences may be. I watched that show a while ago hoping and wishing for that kind of determination and strength for myself and my percussion playing.

I don't think my parents understand why I enjoy anime, but I think this is the reason. It is inspiring to me. It gives me something to calm me down, but also to help me realize my reasons for living, because it is helping me realize that percussion playing is everything to me, and without it, I would be nothing.

Actually, I'm not sure if it's actually tartan day, but it IS tartan day weekend! So everybody is out in downtown St Charles wearing their tartans (scottish plaids that identify your clan, or family group) and it was sooooo much fun!

See, I do Scottish highland dancing, so our group performed twice today, different dances for both. So I completely screwed the first performance, because I touched the sword during the sword dance and messed up the Glascow dance majorly. See, I was a replacement partner for Maddie, and she had to teach me the entire dance about twenty minutes before. The stage was slippery, and my right shoe was coming apart. crying

But the second performance was much better. I got into my much more comfortable aboyn costume and completely PWNed the Blue Bonnets dance, my solo dance. I rocked, in fact on all of those dances!!!! It made me feel so much better since I made a fool of myself before....

So I ran home with my mom, washed up, and invited my friend to go to the Ceilidh with me. A ceilidh (pronounced Kay-lee) is a fun party that accompanies scottish festivals where people in kilts drink and dance late into the night. So we went to the ceilidh and danced into the night with a bunch of other people, some drunk, some not. The drunk people were really funny, but they couldn't dance well when we tried a line scottish country dance.
I lent my friend a kilt so she could blend in, and I wore one of mine as well, and we had much fun! We matched, too! We both wore a kilt representing the Stuart clan (my clan), but I wore royal Stuart and she wore dress Stuart, and we both wore a matching scarf!

I reccomend everybody go to a ceilidh. It's like a school dance, except cooler times infinity...
Wear a kilt!
Join the fun!
mrgreen

Well, it's Friday, and you know what that means, don't you!
You don't?
Eh... Okay, I'll tell you... It's UPDATE DAY!!!
I'll update this thing every Friday, I've decided, because, aw hell, I know I'll be to lazy to update this daily and whatnot. Plus, Friday is the day I do my random act of kindness (RAOK) for my cult duties, so I thought I'd update to let everybody who reads this (actually, nobody... crying ) know how it's going.

So today my RAOK was to give mini-snickers bars to people just around my school. It really made me mad that so many of them said, "No thanks, I'm on a diet." I wanted to shout at them, "It's just a freaking bite of candy! It won't make you blow up like balloons!" Sheesh. You do a nice thing for somebody, and the least they can do for you is to accept it.

I’ve also been getting a lot more into my Celtic music lately. I can just sit back in my chair and close my eyes and completely fall into the bliss of my heritage. It’s an amazing feeling, lemme tell ya.

On a similar note, I have started to learn Gaelic. Scott's Gaelic, to be precise. I've got a computer program that has some really creepy-looking people who tell you words in Gaelic. It's nice to learn basic words and pronunciation, but what I really need is a grammar book. They don't sell them at Borders, so my mom had to order one for me off the internet. I'm really excited to learn it, though. I already know the words for numbers 1-20, chopsticks, other utensils, and please, as well as a few other words.

Yeah, the blood donating thing didn't work out. As they were squeezing my finger to test the blood, I almost passed out. The nurse suggested that I'd better learn to chill out before I try it again.
For a few days afterwards, I felt like a total piece of crap, like I was guilty and a terrible person and all that....

But for more RECENT news:
I just got back from visiting my first choice college. I may be only a junior in High School, but I LOVE THIS PLACE!!! It's called St Olaf College, in Northfield Minnisota. It may be damned cold, but the people there are warm and friendly.
They also have a great music program, which is what I'm after. I want to be a professional percussionist.
So now I'm practicing my butt off in the basement, preparing for the fateful day, a year from now, when I send in my application and pray that they let me in...
crying
I cry just thinking about it. I want it that bad...

Yes, "joinee". That's my official title.
See, since I last posted about "Join-Me" aka "the Karma Army", I actually officially joined! I sent my photograph in, bought the books, and embraced my membership with a passion.
I got a lot of "Join Me" propaganda in the form of colorful leaflets, which has been loads of fun! And I mean it when I say that this is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. Like Leader Danny has "commanded", I am doing a random act of kindness to a total stranger every friday. For example:
blaugh I gave a bag of (unopened) candy to the fire department and the library.
blaugh I helped a musician take in his drums.
gonk I'm giving blood this friday.

The last one is scaring me. So if anybody is reading this, which I doubt, give me tips on what I should and should not do when giving blood. I'd much appreciate it...