...

I think it's time to not be a student employee anymore. It's a bit unfortunate, since I still have this semester. Maybe it's just time to be treated better at work.

Christmas!

Today was the first big snow of the season! It was so pretty. It was a little difficult to get out of our parking lot this morning, but I made it. I spent a good part of the morning taking all the Christmas music that I have, putting into iTunes, and putting it on my iPod. It was fun, and a little surprising to see how much I have. I have a feeling that this Christmas will be nice.

I got to spend some nice time with my friend at the mall today, which was nice. I didn't buy anything except business cards, but that's ok. :) Afterward I went by myself to a Christmas shop. It was kind of fun and unusual. My mom and I are not the most decorating-inclined women you've ever met. I wandered around for a while, thinking about everything, and was realizing that I don't really know what Christmas is to me. I saw lots of collections of snowmen, Santas, candy canes, ornaments, dishes, woodland creatures, Christmas trees, trains, angels, elves, wreaths, garlands, and any other thing you can think of associated with Christmas.

It definitely got me thinking about what Christmas means to me. I'm not sure yet. Maybe I've worked in retail too long, but I know that I'm not a fan of the highly commercialized-ness of it. I liked the Santa figures that are more Father Christmas than Santa. Do you know what I mean? I like Christmas cheer, and I like red and green together, especially in nature. In my neighborhood, there are trees with red berries on them, and they're so pretty!! So maybe something nature-related?

There are reasons...

...why the BYU student population can sometimes drive me crazy.


Go here.

Nooooooooooooooo!

FM100 and KOSY 106.5 are already playing Christmas music! What is up with that?! Christmas music should not be played until Thanksgiving Day at the earliest. I'll confess: I'm a little disgusted.

A List

Things I'd like to do after I graduate:

Have a full-time, 40-hour a week job.
Read Shakespeare
Read whatever I want
Learn to cook
Learn to garden
Learn to knit or crochet or both

Not have to do homework!!!

Dear The Franchise,

Thank you.

Love,

Me

Happy October!

So after catching up on the blogs of my friends, I decided it had been far too long since I updated mine.

Life is good right now. I just had some fun concerts. I'm interested in hearing the recordings from the two nights. I even got to dress up. For those of you who know what school I used to attend and what school I now attend (which shall not be named in this post), I was a "really hard-core fan" of Former school (including the football t-shirt for this year, socks, hair ribbons and brightly colored hairspray to match) since I know things like that at Current school really make people upset. I got quite the reaction from my fellow orchestra members.

I like Fall a lot better this year than I have in years past. I'm really enjoying the leaves crunching under my feet. I'm enjoying watching the sun light things up as it rises and sets. I think the trees are beautiful. I'm glad the weather has continued to be warm-ish. Life's good right now.

Tomorrow I'll be speaking in church. I'm planning on speaking on President Packer's talk. I really like that no-one is better than anyone else in the Church. It's been a while since I've spoken in Church, and we've only made it two full times to our new ward, so it should be an adventure. I know next to nothing about the people I'm speaking to. Luckily, we'll be speaking with another couple, which lessens the time I have to stand at the pulpit. I shouldn't be surprised that this is my fate. We managed to weasel our way out of speaking before leaving our singles' ward, since a new bishopric was called a week or two before we left. Ah, well. Sometimes life is more fair than we'd like it to be.

I'm still sick of music and politics and stuff. Thankfully I have orchestra, which has been keeping me sane. Somewhere I'll have to find the motivation to continue on and do my senior recital. I'll have to pass my classes. All that good stuff....which reminds me! I need to complete my application for graduation, which is due Thursday!! Woo-hoo!!! Anyway. When people ask me what I'm planning to do after graduation, my response is something along the lines of, "Something NOT related to music!" I like music. Don't worry about that. I just find it somewhat sickening that people are willing to obsess over it and let it completely take over their lives. They can't comprehend me, either, so I guess it evens out okay. I'm actually looking forward to returning to the world of imperfect musicians, where not everything has to have exactly the right pitch and the right dynamic and has to have just the right amount of crescendo, or it's RUINED! FOREVER! and that sort of thing.

The Elders quorum presidency came by last week and mentioned that the ward choir director position is currently open. Since I'm somewhat terrified of child-related anything, choir director sounds just fine. I've done it before, I can do it again. I just need a good pianist. However, since it's pretty close to Christmas, I may have made the mistake in telling them that I'd be interested in the position. Hmmm.

Oh, and will someone please let The Franchise know that just because we saw one very cute 1-year old child posing as Yoda and his very cute 4-year-old sister posing as Leia (complete with her real hair as the buns on the side of her head), we do not need to have children right this very moment? Thanks. I appreciate it.

And good luck to Ambrosia and Bawb on their Great Move this weekend.

Music

I think I'm getting sick of music.

To those of you who've known me for a long time, this may come as a big shock. Especially since I started playing piano at age 5. I started flute in seventh grade, and haven't stopped since. In high school, I *loved* band and orchestra. Most of the time. But I also loved choir, Spanish and ballroom dance.

That may be some of my problem. I've finally figured out that music majors and true "musicians" are really supposed to love music. They're supposed to know who the famous people are related to their instrument, whether living or dead. They're supposed to know and love the famous repertoire of their instrument and have a life long goal to play everything perfectly and memorized with an orchestra in Carnegie Hall.

I don't! I think I've frustrated my teacher since I arrived at School because I don't really know the flute repertoire (though I'm getting better), and I only recognize the names of those who are old or dead. Whenever famous flute players come to town, it feels like I'm the only one in the studio that doesn't buzz with excitement and anticipation. I don't *need* to be there. I 'm now only doing flute choir because I need the credit to graduate. I only went to the flute convention this year to play politics (and, apparently, to spend a lot of money). I'm sick of hearing the same things from the conductors rehearsal after rehearsal after rehearsal, and I'm tired of knowing that I'll never be "the best."

I'm just glad that my apathy is showing signs of allowing me (at least...) to finish the school year (I hope!) without going completely crazy. It's not like it's no fun -- it still is -- I just don't derive as much fun as I have. Maybe as the ensembles get better I'll have more fun. Maybe it's just beginning of the semester blues. I'm also fairly certain that my lack of sleep over the last couple of months isn't helping, either. Right now, I'd love to sleep for about a week straight.

Oddly, I'm kind of looking forward to a job that I work for 40 hours a week with a lunch hour and the ability to just go home at night. Then maybe I can read books and learn how to do fun things that are in no way related to music.

Thoughts

I'm getting married in a day and a half. For the most part, it just feels like the next step and like it just needs to happen. I have the occasional moment of !FREAK OUT!, but those moments are becoming fewer and further between. It's just time.

I really cannot endorse getting married during school. Even though this was just the 'right time' for us, doing so during a semester of school is pretty tough. Thankfully, my mom and I are of the minimalist sort, and she's been a huge help. I've just been able to toss things at her that need to be taken care of that I can't do because I have to be in class/rehearsal. She and "Anne" (who's helping with the reception and general wedding things) have been so much more detail-oriented than I could ever have been.

I'm learning that weddings, like life, have give-and-take. I put my foot down about things that really matter to me. With other things that I don't really care about, I let those who do care do something that makes them happy and that helps them to feel like they can contribute.

I'm really looking forward to getting to spend some time with my extended family and The Franchise's family, and I'm looking forward to being married. Despite my inability to stay completely afloat with school and practicing and all, life is pretty dang good.

Sorcerer's Apprentice

I love Sorcerer's Apprentice. It's killer hard to play, but it's awesome. :)

It's too bad the girl I sit next to really doesn't like me.

The Franchise

is awesome.

Really awesome. And very thoughtful. And very funny. And very sneaky. And very manly. And we're getting married soon, which is also awesome.

Thanks, love.

Sorry, Sister.

Tonight The Franchise and I went to a party. It was a huge party, and it was fun. There was food. A lot of people were there.

I am a social person, so I can move through a room fairly easily without knowing many people and have not too many problems meeting people and creating friends. When I've attended social events with significant others in the past, one of my measuring sticks was seeing if they could handle themselves in a social situation without hanging on my arm. Unsurprisingly, and thankfully, The Franchise can do this. With much confidence. The Franchise has a lot of confidence, which attracts women (it worked for me...).

So there I am, talking to neighbors I haven't seen in a while, eating food, and moving about the room. The Franchise does the same. Not long after that, we stand together in a corner and (no, we were not making out!) (really.) were discussing some things. I left again to sort of wander, when I noticed a couple of girls approach him with their Feelers.

The Feelers are something that is born to most women I know, though they may be in varying strengths. The Feelers are what girls utilize to attempt to attract men. They communicate with their body language, how they laugh, how much they laugh, their eyes, topics of conversation, and level of enthusiasm. And if they choose to, other girls can ALWAYS tell when other girls are using the Feelers. (Girls may choose to ignore them and go for the guy anyway, but that's typically a conscious decision.)

These girls were totally trying to turn the charm on -- especially one girl. 1- I've never wanted to be the jealous, clingy girlfriend/fiancee/wife, and I make effort at not doing so. 2- I found the whole thing so amusing, and I didn't want to just laugh in her face. 3- The Franchise does a fabulous job of communicating how much he loves and cares for me, so I wasn't really concerned about her so-called wiles. I walked away, figuring The Franchise could handle himself.

He can. :) They chatted it up for a while. Turns out she's from near his Hometown, probably met him when they were teenagers, and was friends with a girl he dated. The Franchise is also a very smart and perceptive man, and totally sensed what this girl was up to. He managed to slip in that he'd moved from Houston to be with me. Though I couldn't hear what was going on, I thought I'd go get some more food and see if this girl was a long-lost pal from the past. I somehow managed to show up just as he was completing the How We Met story. After chatting just the three of us for a moment, and her confirming that I am, indeed, Cinderella, it was amazing how quickly she was gone.

In her defense, if you see an attractive man who doesn't appear to be with someone, and he's not wearing a ring, how the heck are you supposed to know that he's taken and will be married in about six weeks? You don't! I've been on the receiving end of that (though not this exact situation) and it's not fun.

And this is why men should start wearing engagement rings. Especially in Utah, and especially especially in the Provo area.

Yay!

Today I took my car to the dealership, since it's still under warranty, and I had a couple of things that needed to be fixed before I could register it. The man at the dealership was SO nice and friendly and HONEST. He also did not treat me like I've been treated with car stuff: "Since you're a girl, you have no idea what you're talking about. I'm going to rip you off." He did exactly what was asked, fixed it, and sent me on my way. Then I went to get the oil changed at Jiffy Lube. Same thing. SO nice, SO considerate, no "You're stupid 'cause you're a girl" vibes. Very respectful. I think the car industry's gone into a customer service upheaval, and it's about time.

Wedding Vents Since I Can't Sleep

Not that I don't appreciate it all, but why didn't you tell me that everything has strings attached?

If the dress has strings attached, guess what. I'm calling the lady, and she's going to stop the alterations and we're taking it back. We can not do the reception at the current planned location and we can move it somewhere else.

If you're worried about "making it up" or whatever, then pay her!

I can't even pick what I want without you two knocking it down! Since when did it become YOUR wedding, anyway?

Please don't think I'm not grateful. I am. Really. And I love you. Just....WHY does it have to be this complicated?

ARGH!

Ta-da!

September 15th. It's a Saturday. It's also the day that I'll be marrying The Franchise. In some ways, it seems close. In some ways, it still seems like it'll never get here.

I've decided that I'm going kind of minimalist on wedding stuff. I'm not buying a wedding gown. Instead, I'm buying a really nice outfit with the money that I would have spent on a gown, only I'll be able to wear it more than just once! :)

I'm discovering that it is not easy to plan a minimalist wedding. The wedding industry is so massive and so crazy that it's difficult to know where to turn if you don't want all of the frills. Maybe I should start a support group. :)

It's nice to have a goal. It's nice to have a direction. It's nice to move on with life.

Being Cornered

*** Warning: More Venting. Please do take the general vibe into consideration. (And there are exceptions. You know who you are. )***

If I could have a wish, it would be that I not be asked about wedding stuffs anymore. I'd be content to start with not having anyone ask anything related to "So, Cinderella, how are wedding plans?" for a whole 24 hours. Then maybe the next goal would be 48 hours, and so on. Maybe people would forget about it completely.

Yes, I do understand that people are excited for me and want to share in the happiness and joy. That's great. I feel loved. I really do. By the time that I rotate through everyone that I see on a more or less frequent basis, and everyone wants to check up, it feels like I'm being asked all the time by everyone. Am I overreacting? Probably. It's so annoying, though. Then I feel bad for being annoyed, when all people are wanting is to be nice and helpful. Can you tell I'm green? :)

And oddly enough, it's SO much less threatening when it's online than in person. In person, the person is standing there, waiting for an answer. I have social norms to uphold. Online, I can take my sweet time. I don't have to answer right away. There's so much less pressure, and I have a moment or two extra to word things exactly the way I want to.

I don't hate you. Please don't hate me.

Right now, there's not a date. When there is, I'll let you know.

Caffeine and Venting

Okay, friends. I made the mistake tonight of drinking caffeine later than I should have and watching 24. So, here I am.

Before I start, this is a vent post. This means that the things I am venting about are not meant to offend those who may still read this every once in a while. If the things I'm about to discuss describe you perfectly, I probably don't actually hate you. So please don't hate me. They just need to be removed from the system, you know?

***************************************************************************************

Wedding stuff is not something I enjoy. As I just mentioned, I'm getting married. Contrary to the way things commonly seem to be, I do NOT look forward to planning "my wedding." I don't care about chair covers. Or sashes. Or flimsy chairs that "look elegant." Does it all look elegant? Yes. Can they make a room look fabulous? Absolutely. But have you even thought about what it takes the servers to put them up and take them down? It takes a LONG TIME. And will that much extra money make your marriage that much better? What about my student loans? What about my car payment? What if I'd like to have a couch to sit on or a table to eat dinner on?

I don't care about color coordination. I'm not going to be offended if anyone wears a particular color to my event. I find black to be an elegant color. (My cousin thinks it's bad luck for people to wear black to a wedding.) To my bridesmaids: You will not exist. Since you don't exist, I won't be buying you dresses, corsages, makeovers, haircuts or nail jobs. Or presents. Often, the colors that people pick don't look that great anyway, clash with the room, and will be out of style in six months. YES. Six months. Unless you pick like, red & black. Or navy blue and black.

As far as the wedding day goes, do not expect it to be perfect. It's not possible for it to be 100% perfect. If you think it will be, you are wrong. If everything goes perfectly for the ceremony and the dress and the flowers, something will happen with the cake. If it doesn't, something will happen with the dinner (like the servers might bring out the wrong dressing. Or spill cranberry juice on your wedding gown). They won't mean to do it. It'll just happen. Or 10 guests will all say that they're allergic to shellfish when you order a dinner entree for the party that has a seafood sauce. They'll say that whether they actually ARE, or whether they're too picky to just remove the offending chunks of the sauce. Then it'll slow down the serving staff, but you'll be tempted to be mad at them anyway, even though they're trying their best. It's not like they're sitting back in the back, thinking it'd be funny if they just ignored you.

I just don't care. It's too much energy. It's too much work. And I'll just end up offending people that I care about that do care about stuff like that. But when I see it all the time, it just gets really old really quickly. No, I do not care about being a "Princess for the Day." No, it's not "My Day." No, I have not been planning my wedding day since age 12. And no, I will not be hiring someone to sing "Sunrise, Sunset" during any part of my "event."

{End Rant....for now}

Oh, By The Way...

I imagine most of you know by now that I am engaged. We don't have a date yet. Yes, I'm okay with that.

New Roommates

Sadly, Violin Roommate moved out about two and a half weeks ago. I think that she'll go down in Cinderella History has my favorite roommate (while single) ever. It was nice to have a music major roommate who was gone at least as often (if not more so) than I was, at similar things. With both of us doing it, we didn't get so much of the "why aren't you around very much?" and "why do you always have to practice?" We're quite similar in some ways, and different in others that complimented each other. *sigh* She is definitely missed.

The new roommate in her spot is Landlord's Granddaughter (LG for short). LG, as far as I can tell, is not LDS, and her boyfriend is here much more often than not. (Yes. Take it that way.) So now, I have five roommates instead of just four, and there is a coffee pot with coffee in our house. I came home last night to the smell of coffee. In small doses, coffee can smell pretty good. Since a lot of my mom's side of the family isn't LDS and does drink coffee, the smell often reminds me of them. I don't mind walking into a Starbucks and getting a whiff while I wait for my occasional vanilla steamed milk. For some reason, though, I was bothered by smelling it when I came home from work last night. Oh well. At least I won't be living here that much longer.

Shy Roommate thinks that our landlord may be wanting to sell our house sometime soon. He's given LG a credit card solely, it seems, to buy things the house needs and to fix it up. I hear that she's planning on painting the outside of the house soon. She's purchased a vacuum cleaner and a lawn mower so far (not including the free hot tub that Orange found on craigslist). I feel bad for my roommates. This has been a pretty good house to live in, with unbelievably low rent and a great location. Oh, well. Will I miss it? I dunno. :)

Junior Recital

Hi, all!

I was just wanting to let those who are interested know that I have my junior recital coming up and would love for you to come. It will be on April 15th (a Sunday). If you are interested in details, feel free to contact me. If you have an alternate method of contacting me besides my blog, that's the preference. If not, we'll work something out. :)

To whom it may concern:

I do not condone infidelity.

I've tried to be considerate and sensitive, but I also have my own life to live.

It's an online forum. Do we need to have yet another discussion on why it's so hard to communicate not in person?

There is a loyalty framework that I have never belonged to. I probably never will.

I think it's time to focus on real people that live in my relative vicinity that I can be friends with.

Good bye, Blue Beta.

HooRAY for Wireless!

I must confess my happiness (bordering on giddiness) at the recently acquired wireless at the music building. It makes me wonderfully happy. :D :D

I also figured out how to make it work on my laptop, when it wouldn't before. I am awesome, and I rock. :)

Happy Birthday to Me.

Today is my birthday, and I'm 23 years old. It hasn't quite hit me yet. It's been an interesting birthday so far, as it comes at a time of deep reflection. So many things seem to be hanging in the balance right now, and I'm not really sure what to do with that. I've been realizing a lot lately - how critically important some things are in my life, and how drastically unimportant other things are. Sometimes it's still hard to make heads or tails of any of it.

I'm thankful that there are a few constants in my life -- places that I can always turn, no matter what. That's definitely been a source of comfort of late.

Life's interesting. It's definitely to be enjoyed, but sometimes to be gotten through as well. I guess it's a matter of balance.

1:30 am

I'm going to try to go to sleep. I'm getting up in 5 hours.

12:49 am

This is me. Still awake, even though I have class in less than seven hours.

I have decided!

I have almost officially decided that if I do a grad program, it will not be in music. Music is a great thing. I love playing the flute. I love my ensembles, but I'm sick of everything else. :) What a great hobby to have, now that I've racked up a good amount in student loans and spent 4.5 years just in college, with 1.5 to go, devoted to this marvelous hobby.

*sigh*

It's about joy in the journey, right?

New Semester!

Wow. I've really not been good at posting lately, have I?

Life finally feels back to normal in terms of school. My director's back (yay!), and I moved up two chairs. It's really, really nice. (Pops Concert on Feb. 5th if anyone's interested. E-mail me or leave a comment for details. It's going to be great.) I'm taking Counterpoint & Analysis and Music History. I have the most amazing Music History professor ever, but unfortunately, he's retiring this year. Counterpoint's not terribly exciting yet, as we're being reminded about basic Common Practice part-writing rules. "Do you remember how to prepare and resolve sevenths?" "Do you remember how strong chord progressions operate, and how that differs between major and minor keys?" "Do you remember how to build and resolve chords from a figured bass?" and that sort of thing. I'll admit, it is nice to have a refresher. It'll be interesting when we're asked to write two- and three-part exercises. They seem easier than four-part writing, but they're actually harder, since you don't have the whole chord there. It seems (at least as far as I can gather from the two real class periods I've been to) that it's more about a basic tonality. This should be... interesting.

In History, we're studying the 20th century. As Dr. M put it, "It's the century that people love to hate." Schoenberg, Berg and Webern (to name a few) were brilliant, and all that, but bleh. Not my favorite thing to listen to. I probably won't be buying a Schoenberg album any time soon. Then he reminded us what was starting in America -- Jazz! I *love* Jazz. It's been really interesting to see how music has affected history, and how history has affected music. Unfortunately, I value a lot of today's pop music even less.

Flute choir and orchestra are also a lot of fun. If anyone's looking for something fun and atypical to do on Valentine's Day, I happen to be having an orchestra concert that night. We've improved significantly since last semester. We're playing a lot of cool stuff, and I have some fun solos. We have a flute choir concert in February, I think, but the exciting concert with that will be our very own concert at the Assembly Hall on Temple Square in March. I'm looking forward to that.

Life's pretty good right now. I'm going swing dancing tonight, I got to sleep in (sleep, glorious sleep...) and have just been sitting here for the last hour and a half, just sitting, reading, writing, and not going anywhere. On Monday, I'll get to play MarioKart 64, which I'm really excited about. I got to spend some time with The Franchise and his family just after Christmas, and I'm looking forward to his return.

Maybe I should like, go eat something.