Pre-Christmas

I realize it's been quite a while since I last posted about something, but my December has been filled with homework, holiday stuff, and the like, plus I'm sick right now. Luckily we got out of school on Friday!
Important things that happened this month:

1. Holiday band concert! This was on a Thursday, so I missed dance class, but it was a fun concert! It was my first one ever, since I came into the band program late, and I had a good time with it. Varsity Jazz was also playing that night. I went in to see them and was inspired. 8) I also had fun being on stage. Verdict: fun.
2. New ornaments for the Christmas tree! We were allowed to open these early (not on Christmas day) so that we could hang them on the tree and enjoy them before we take the tree down after Christmas. We got a glass fish and a mini-tree made of Legos! I love them both.

Kinda like this...

There were some important things that happened last month, too:

1. November 18th: I got a new trumpet. Nothing fancy, but it's much better than my old one of unknown origin! Next up: save money and buy a Cannonball!
2. *SPOILER ALERT!* November 20th: I placed second out of fourteen girls in my region's championships for dance!

Overall verdict: fun! Next up: Well... get over this annoying cold and have a good Christmas! I'm hoping to get Breyer's model of American Pharaoh... the great Triple Crown champion... yeah...

Well, do excuse me; I have Christmas things to do! Merry Christmas to all of you. :D

A Breyer Christmas!
http://www.breyerhorses.com

Spirit Instruments

If you've identified your spirit animal already, it should be easy for you to determine your spirit instrument. These two things are much akin to each other, meaning, if you were a musical instrument, you'd be your spirit instrument. I'm not entirely sure how you're supposed to- supposed to- determine your spirit animal; I just looked to my favorite animal, the horse, and decided on that. So that is basically how I determine spirit instruments, too.

At this point, you may be wondering: "Is trumpet your spirit instrument, since you rant and rave about it so much?"

Or: "Is this important to band in any way?"

Or: "What does this have to do with anything?"

Here are my answers. Yes, I am pretty sure that trumpet is my spirit instrument. No, it's not really important in band. And it doesn't really have anything to do with anything. It's just one of those things that's fun to know about yourself, like knowing what your spirit animal is. Who wouldn't want to know stuff like that?

Anyway, it should be easy to determine. If you play multiple instruments, like me, it may or may not be harder. But just look inside yourself and see what instrument you LOVE to play. Here are some signs that you've found yours.

You've found your spirit instrument if:

1. You want to own multiple of that one instrument; or, you already have multiple of it. 

2. You look forward to practicing your music every day. (That's actually a good thing!)

3. You want sheet music for your instrument of ALL your favorite songs, including pop songs and movie themes. 

4. Your section in band or orchestra is, for the most part, your best friends.

5. You take your marching band section so seriously that people think you're being weird. 

6. You totally geek out and learn the names of every part of your instrument, and can recite them on demand.

7. You have pictures of the instruments you want scattered on your desk, in your room, on your schoolwork, and on your computer. 

8. All you talk about outside of band is your music, your instrument, or what you're going to practice the minute you get home. 

9. You decorate everything- including Christmas trees and your fridge- with your instrument.

10. You and your friends spend your lunch time at school looking at your collections of band memes, and your favorites are the ones that feature your instrument.
11. You naturally gravitate towards the band room when you come in to school every day. 
12. You go out of your way to please the band director with your music, but you didn't do yesterday's math homework. Oops. (I do the math homework)
13. Your instrument becomes the subject of all your art projects.
14. *Many other reasons*
Yup. Do I do all of these things? No. But if you do at least the majority of these things (>50%) then you have reasons enough to consider your spirit instrument found. Bravo!
So, at the end of this list, trumpet is indeed my spirit instrument. What's yours?

Yay, trumpet!
Creds to http://www.cannonballmusic.com

December 7th

Yesterday was Pearl Harbor Day. Remember that. 

The harbor.
commons.wikimedia.org

Only a year exactly (from yesterday) to our parade in Hawaii!

ONE YEAR LEFT

It's one year, down to the day, until we leave for Hawaii! (It'll be December 4th, 2016) What a year it'll be, too, filled with fundraising and the marching season and pep band (and school). 

I just thought I'd announce that.

www.holidaysurfhotel.com

Yep.

Dance Regionals- Part 1

Last Friday, (a week ago today) I spent my day at a convention center instead of at school. This was because of an event that translates from its natural language of Irish as regionals for Irish dance. The actual word for this is oireachtas (o-ROCK-tus), the literal meaning of which is legislature, or gathering. This is quite right, as the country is divided into several main regions, and each region is very big. It's fun, though!
It was a large day for me. I had to get up at 4:00 a.m. just to do my hair and makeup. This is a long process, yet one that yields quite some results. See below:

Me trying to do precision eye makeup at 4 a.m. while my mom does my hair.

My mom helped me do my hair while I worked on makeup. By the way, all of those curls are NOT- I repeat, NOT- my real hair! It's a curly wig that, like most irish dancers, I pin onto my real hair. The only part of my real hair that you can see is that darker poof at the top and in the front. It takes many bobby pins to pin this onto my head, and oftentimes they disappear into the wig itself. We lost a few pins that morning, but it was all good in the end. Many thanks to my mom for doing this for me. Without that help, I probably would have lost all the pins in my possession and then bad things would have happened. But, after the process of all of this hair-and-makeup, I packed everything up in our car, grabbed some pumpkin-chocolate muffins (small ones) for breakfast, and off we went. I also finished my makeup in the car.
When we got there it was about 7:00 a.m. Not many people were there yet because the larger competitions didn't start until later in the day, but I was perfectly fine with this because once all the dancers at a single Oireachtas get to the venue, they take up much space. This can be owed to the fact that we must lug around our dress bags. They look like this because our dresses have wide skirts.

Anatomy of a dress bag.

So we found a spot to put our stuff in the ballroom that I would be dancing in, and I started to get ready. I still had about an hour and a half, plus one competition before me, so I kind of just warmed up in a corner and put my shoes on and just diddled around a bit. When the competition before me commenced (too formal, sorry!), I put my dress on and kept warming up. I know that this must seem like a lot of warming up to some of you, but it's actually really important for us dancers to stay warm before you dance and in between dances, if that applies to you. 
At somewhere around 9:00 a.m., we got called over side stage to wait for the final few minutes before we danced. We line up in numerical order and then the backstage helpers categorized us by dance. See, there are many- M-A-N-Y- different set dances, as mine was called, and we dance three at a time. So we have to know what dance each person is doing so that the musicians will play the right music at the right speed and so that you'll be able to dance the dance you've been practicing for months. It always works out in the end. I was in the second round of five (there were only 14 people in my competition, compared to 150 in others), so I kept warm while the first round went, and then I was up on the stage. It went by SSSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOO fast. I don't remember much of it, except that I could hardly get any sound out of the stage. Overall my round was good though! I was happy enough with it. 
The rest of the day was pretty much waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more. But, as my dance teacher said in her pre-regionals email, "Wait many hours for awards and enjoy the experience." I think that this is very good advice. The anticipation of finding out how you placed is quite enough to sustain you through the long wait time. It was great. Now, before I could know what place I got, I had to recall. The recalls are a way of narrowing down the field of competitors to the top dancers. These dancers are then placed. So I waited for the recall list. 
But considering the time right now I think I will stop. To be continued...

The story stops here for a while...

10 Ways to Geek Out About Band...Over the Holidays!

To start off: like Danielle says, you should start preparing for the next holiday the moment the current one ends. That way, you'll have more time to get into the holiday spirit and celebrate the holiday before it's actually the holiday! If that didn't quite make sense, I'm saying that you'll have more time to get into the holiday spirit if you start preparing RIGHT AFTER the last holiday. Fun!
Anyway, I've compiled a list of things you can do to geek out over the winter holidays- especially Christmas- and make band a part of your celebrating!!! Yay band. (Have I said that enough yet?)
But let's continue to the list.
1. If you like cooking: make Christmas cookies and stuff- in the shape of your instrument. For me, this is fitting because horns- mainly French horns and bugles- have some significance to Christmas! On December 20th, you might find me in my kitchen shaping cookie dough into trumpet shapes. If not, then there's probably a fruitcake baking in the oven. Make fruitcake, too, but always brush your teeth after you eat it. Otherwise you might accidentally blow bits of dried fruit into your instrument's mouthpiece. 8(
2. If you're the crafty type (I am not so crafty as I was when I was younger): make an advent calendar, if you're in to those, and call it, "Christmas in the Band Department." Make a band room scene on a piece of paper and put instruments and stuff around it. These can be the pictures you put under the flaps, or just decorative. I've made multiple advent calendars before, but never one like this. Although, my Arabian Nights one complete with the marketplace was pretty cool:

My digital art.

I know they don't celebrate Christmas in Morocco, but I had the idea to do this advent calendar because one of my favorite horse breeds is the Arabian. But back to the list.
If you'd rather not take the time and effort to create an advent calendar, write a holiday story with the name "Christmas in the Band Department." Or, if you don't want to do THAT, just continue with your normal life and experience Christmas in your band department. 
3. Christmas lights are good things! I bought a box the other day for my own 3-foot Christmas tree that I decorate all by myself every year. Observe:

My photo. See Seabiscuit under there?

When I got home I was so excited to use them on my tree this year that I started singing to the tune of "Jingle Bells". The song that I sang all afternoon while I put up the tree went like this: 
"OH, Christmas lights, Christmas lights, Christmas lights galore! 
Buy them now so you won't be wishing you had more! 
OH, Christmas lights, Christmas lights, Christmas lights galore! 
Buy them now so you won't be wishing you had more!
Verse 2:
I went to the store one day,
To buy some nails and keys, (I went to Home Depot with my dad)
When I saw the Christmas lights,
Wrapped up on the trees..."
Yes. It was loud, obnoxious, and ridiculous. But funny at the same time.
The lesson to be learned from this is that Christmas lights are a good thing, and you can hardly have too many of them. So, when you're decorating your Christmas tree, pile on the lights!
4. Ask for new instruments for Christmas (or Hanukah). 
But only if you really need or want them. And have the money for them. 
5. Decorate your family's Christmas tree (or your own, if you can get one) with ornaments of your instrument. I am going to do this, but first I must make the ornaments. It's a good thing that I like making Christmas ornaments!
6. Invite your band buddies over during the holidays and have a holiday band party, complete with holiday movies, instrument cookies (as described above), and time to play holiday music together. 
7. Prepare for your holiday band concert like there's no tomorrow. Then you'll really be ready!
8. On Christmas morning, play your holiday songs from band and wake up your whole family. But they'll be grateful for the music. You can also turn on all the Christmas lights if you want, to add extra ambiance! ;)
9. Spend Christmas day learning any Christmas songs that you don't already know, and playing them loudly. When you aren't opening presents, that is.
10. Form a quartet or other small ensemble with your band friends. Learn some fun holiday songs and, instead of caroling, go around the neighborhood playing your songs for people. This would also be a good way to raise money for band trips! 
Yep. That's pretty much how I am going to spend my winter holidays. Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukah to you all! (Even if it's a little early, but who cares.)

Snow

Have I ever mentioned before that I love snow! I do, and I mean a lot. But only in the winter months of November, December, and January! After that, I'm good with it melting.

Wait... did I say only in the winter months??! Well, duh, it snows in the winter! Do excuse me. Here's what it looks like out my bedroom window right now. 

SNOW. Creds to me.

Anyway, I LOVE snow. I also like summer, though, because of marching band and swimming pools. So I presume that my favorite months are summer and winter. The two extremes. 

The problem with the extremes, though, is that they have downsides, too. Here are some:

Summer:

Good:

1. You can swim outside.

2. Marching band!

3. No school, no homework. Just band.

4. Unlimited time to practice music.

5. Birthdays! (Actually, my entire direct family's birthdays are in May, June, July, and August!)

6. The Triple Crown- Kentucky Derby in May, Preakness and Belmont in June.

Bad:

1. Really hot. 

2. Not winter, which means not Christmas and no snow. 

Winter:

Good:

1. SNOW!

2. Christmas

3. Christmas music in band!

4. Not as hot as summer.

Bad:

1. No marching band.

2. Cold. Last year, the lowest temperature I saw on my thermometer was -20º F.

3. My friends obsess about skiing. 

4. School until Christmas break. 

Oh well. Disregarding these things, both extreme seasons are very nice. I love them both. 

Yay, winter and Christmas!
grandlakechamber.com

I guess I naturally gravitate towards a tropical environment for summer...
travel.utimes.ru

There are some good things about spring and summer, too, though. For example, in the fall, you can start looking forward to the holidays in December. And in the spring, you can start looking forward to the end of school and the start of the marching season! Yay. 

Oh! By the way, Breyer has just released their model of American Pharaoh! I asked for him for Christmas. And the good thing about it is, he's not on backorder! He's shipping freely! This makes me happy. He's available for sale here, at Breyer, or on Amazon if you're a fan. And here's a video for all of you fans that want to watch this champion RUN! Creds to this channel for the video.

Happy winter, everyone. :)

New Trumpets and NaNoWriMo

Yesterday was a red day (our school has a/b days, or a block schedule, classified by red and white days), which means band. I like red days just for band. For me, red days also mean French 3, P.E. (yuck- band should count as P.E. as far as I'm concerned), and A.P. Geography.
Yesterday's band class was extra special, though. It was try-out-new-instruments day! On these days, a salesperson from our local premier instrument dealers bring instruments to our band classes for us to try out. I, having never experienced one of these days before, was through the roof with anticipation. You see, I currently play an old trumpet of unknown origin. At the end of last school year, round about late May, my band teacher taught me how to play trumpet after school one day. He pulled my current trumpet out of a closet and said, "Here! Play this!" And so I did. Although, it took me about an hour to get any sound.
But now that I've played trumpet for a solid 5 months and 2 weeks (that's an estimate), I want to look at other, newer horns to eventually either rent or buy. I'm not too serious about it though, just sparking my curiosity, because I need to save money for Hawaii, and no good trumpet comes cheap. So I was excited about having an opportunity to play high-end instruments without having to travel into the city! There were 4 trumpets, and I think I played 3 of them. But the one that REALLY stood out and that I really liked was the Cannonball 725. Observe:

Creds to http://www.cannonballmusic.com

Yes, it's black. Or, that's my favorite finish of this model. It comes in gold, silver, black, and glossy black. (Actually, if you look closely, you can see that's it a very, very dark carbon gray. But however you choose to classify it, it's truly a beautiful thing.)
I love this trumpet so much because it's easy to play, not to mention the fact that it looks cool. It's a pro trumpet though, which is out of my league both in what I should be playing and price. I looked at the price tag when I got my hands on this one to try it out. I think what I said at first was, "WHOA, I could go on the Hawaii trip for that much!!" I wasn't really surprised, but a bit disappointed. It plays really well. If you're also a band person, then you should check out the rest of the Cannonball Instruments. They make saxophones, clarinets, and flutes in addition to trumpets.
Ah, well. Maybe I'll buy it someday.
But, moving on to a happier note, happy NaNoWriMo! That's short for National Novel Writing Month, which is every November. I did it last year as part of a creative writing class and I had so much fun doing it that I'm doing it again this year, even without the class time to write like I had last year. If you've ever wanted to write books and stories, you should try it! Even though my first semi-finished novel from last year was a complete fail, I learned a lot about the writing process, character development, narrative writing, and other good stuff. I assure you that by the end of the month you'll feel much more confident with writing.
Well, since that's all for now... more coming soon on the weekend...

Halloween

Do you like Halloween? If so, congratulations, you're the opposite of me. I don't much care for Halloween myself. The whole trick-or-treating thing becomes overrated at times, but I do like dressing up and seeing my friends' costumes. I especially liked my friend Sam's costume, a big red blob that turned out to be Blinky from Pac-Man. This year, I dressed up as me in my true form- a band nerd- and I managed to get glitter all over my house in the process. Needless to say, I did a lot of vacuuming after I finished my costume, which was a red shirt with "I love band" stenciled on it. Next year, I really hope that I have band on the day we can wear our costumes to school. This is because I have never experienced Halloween in the band department. I'm curious to see what it's like. I'm also looking forward to Christmas and our Christmas concert. Good times. 
I don't have much against Halloween. For some people it's fun and it's a time to go walk around and get free candy. I just sit at home and watch Star Wars. (I actually did this last night with my friend Ceci. She came over to my house and we watched Episodes IV and V, and she brought me old copies of Arabian Horse World magazine instead of candy. Yay!)
Here's my glittery shirt, anyway, as I drew it on my computer. I would actually take a picture of it, but it's currently in a plastic bag on my craft table because my mom didn't want it shedding glitter all over the house. This is perfectly reasonable, as I haven't sealed the glitter yet.

Great, quick Halloween semi-costume. I love it.

I guess this post will be a semi-tutorial on how to make a shirt like this.
*Instructions start here* Obtain a shirt in your size in the color you want. If you can find one in your closet, great. If not, go buy one. Then either make or buy stencils. I obviously couldn't find any that said "I love band" or anything, so I just got stencil blanks instead and cut out the letters and a trumpet from it. So, either cut out your stencils or take them out of the packaging, and then plan out where you want everything to go on the shirt. After you have a fairly good plan for that, stencil it on! I used a glue made specifically for gluing down rhinestones and glitter. Then seal the glitter, if you can find out how. I haven't figured this out yet, but if you search for it on the great Internet, you should be able to find something. *End of instructions*
Then you're done. Dazzle your friends with all the glitter. 
So, yeah. Halloween is fun in terms of dressing up and seeing other people's costumes and whatnot. I've just never been a super-big fan of trick-or-treating, as all you get out of walking around in the cold is a bucket of candy. If you think this is a worthwhile benefit, then, that's fine. I've only been trick-or-treating once and it wasn't the best thing ever. If somebody invites me I might go. But leave me to my own ways, and I'll go home and watch movies. Yeah. So Halloween is fun enough, I just don't want to walk around in the cold after dark just to get candy. If I'm really missing something here, somebody tell me. But that's what I'm getting out of Halloween at the moment. Sorry. 
Digital art by me.

Hawaiian... and other randomness

Hawaiian is really a language that confuses me. It has a lot of vowels. I vividly remember the day that I brought home the information about our band trip to Hawaii and I couldn't pronounce any of the place names! I especially had trouble with Waikiki; I kept trying to say it "wha-key-key," with evenly pronounced "ki" syllables, instead of the correct "why-key-KEY," which accentuates the last "ki" and takes into account the fact that there's an i in the syllable "wai". 

Me when I first tried to pronounce Waikiki

That night when I was explaining our sample itinerary to my parents, I am sure that my mom had to tell me 20+ times what the right way to say it was. Sometimes, when I get in a hurry to say Waikiki, she still has to tell me. 
However, all of this correction is good. It would really be a shame if I turned up in Honolulu next December after many hours of air travel and started saying, "Wha-key-key!" in the airport and on the beach and stuff where a bunch of islanders who know Hawaiian could hear me. So, fortunately, I have been saved from looking like a stupid tourist from the mainland. This is very good. Besides, I feel that it's my OWN responsibility to be respectful to the native islanders of Hawaii who STILL are Americans, and learning to say things the right way is important here. So, yeah. Pronunciation is good! I almost want to learn all of the Hawaiian language so that I can read signs and stuff in Hawaii and pronounce it right! 
But I digress. 

Oh, by the way, I have some very exciting (and unexpected) news! Today on the way to the high school for band, my clarinet-playing friend Danielle announced, much to my surprise, that she will be learning to play the trumpet (my soul instrument! [more on those later]) over our school's Thanksgiving break! I found this both exciting, satisfying, and odd, because Danielle has often said that... 

www.deviantart.com

This is never a phrase that I've liked, but it just goes to show that even the best of us must eat our words at times. It's all right. I'm looking forward to seeing how good of a brass player she'll be (probably a good one, as she's played both sax and clarinet before, despite the fact that both of those are woodwinds). I am sure it will work out wonderfully. 

Also by the way, I really hope that our school board doesn't renovate our high school like they're planning to. They want to move the football field AWAY from the high school. Like, 2 blocks away! Then we would all have to walk from the high school to the field (and past the elementary school), which causes problems. Especially at homecoming, this could never work. This year, we left pep band to get ready for our halftime field show at the beginning of 2nd quarter, and, even with the high school and the band room being only about 200 feet from the football field, we still only just had enough time to get into our uniforms, warm up, and hoof it back to the field for halftime. Now, if the football field was 2 blocks or so away from the band room... yuck. Bad things would happen. There would not be enough time to walk over there to the high school and back, so I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY hope that the school board will slow down with their plan and listen to what the students and community wants. Otherwise they might all get fired off the board or something... but whatever they decide should work in the end.

Yeah. I guess this post was kind of random, but my week is full of both ups and downs. 
OH! By-the-way #3: Halloween is Saturday! Yay, even though I'm not too amazed with Halloween.

Ridiculous Costumes

Before I go on from here, I will warn you: I speak not in jest!

Whoops. Slipping back into Shakespeare mode. Sorry. I've been forced to read enough Shakespeare that when I have to say something forcefully I say it like Shakespeare would have done in his infamously stupid plays. (With all due respect to my English teachers past and present, I really dislike English classes and Shakespeare.)

Yes, you know that I do marching band. (If you don't know that, where have you been?) It is fun except for the small hitch called our uniforms. No, they aren't the bane of our existence, (I am actually quite proud to wear mine) but there do make us really hot and sweaty, and every time you take off your shako (marching hat- I hope that's how it's spelled), your previously-silky hair is matted and- quite literally- wet. This is due to the fact that the insides of the hats are made entirely of plastic and vinyl. To the average teenager watching a parade, these [uptown] band outfits look stupid (average person), cumbersome (smarter person), or just to much work to bother with (someone who thinks they're smart). I like them. But, I will say that the style is a bit outdated.

It's marching style. You wouldn't understand.

< Marching coat (shown with the left gauntlet, although in parades, of course, you wear both gauntlets). Not bad, except that the shoulders have about 2 inches of padding in them and the gauntlets add an extra layer of already-thick fabric. Plus, who wears gauntlets anymore?








Below is the shako (MY shako). Not a lot of high school bands use shakos, as it's supposedly a hat for higher-ranking military people or something. I guess that means... we're a high-ranking band? I'm not sure, although I know that our jazz program has been nationally recognized. Anyway, that's what's ridiculous about marching uniforms. Bulky, thick, and really cool but stuffy hats.

Yes, these are cool hats.

BUT... what about dance costumes??? I've never really told you guys much about dance, and that is due to the fact that next year I will be quitting dance to save money for the band trip! And, without all my dance practices and competitions, I will NEVER miss another band event! Unfortunately, I have to miss the very last Pep Band of this year so that I can go to a dance competition tomorrow. I am very sad to miss band but also a bit excited for the competition as I probably won't do another one for years. Anyway, it's unfortunate that I must miss band, but the year's not over yet, so I must persevere with dance for the moment (and to my band friends that are angry at me for having to miss Pep Band, I WOULD MUCH RATHER BE AT BAND THAN AT DANCE BUT I MUST GO TO THIS COMPETITION SO THERE). Moving on... my dance dress is almost as ridiculous as my band uniform, and, like my uniform, it's heavy and made of velvet and satin. That aside, though, (also like my uniform!) it looks nice on stage.

Not your typical dance costume...

Yes, it doesn't look the best in the drawing, but that's as good as I can do on the computer. It looks better in person, and the dots on the left sleeve and skirt are actually rhinestones, so they add sparkle and don't look like weird polka dots rather than... looking like weird polka dots. Yeah. In short, it's also cumbersome and I can't really draw it.

So, what has the most ridiculous costumes? Marching band... or dance? Reminder: I'm not joking!

(Pretty-good-but-not-great-digital artist: me)

The Printer Ruined My Music

Time for an impromptu blog post!!!
Sometime around last week or somewhere in there, I came home from school as usual. This means a lot of different things. Firstly, I spend too much time eating when I get home and not enough time doing homework or reading for AP Geography or working on math or studying for Biology! Also, the Hawaii trip has been distracting me from my schoolwork, so don't expect me to talk about it much for awhile after this post.
I also spend too much time writing. I do this at lunch at school, too, not to mention on the weekends and on long car rides. Right now I'm starting to draft ideas for NaNoWriMo; that is, National Novel Writing Month. It doesn't start until November 1st, but I already know that I'm going to write about band. How typical. Can you tell what my favorite class is?
Here's an excerpt:

At lunch that day, I told Sammy more about the band trip when she came in. I had just gotten to the part about the newly-added color guard when I realized something. 

“Sammy! I just thought of this just now… what if some of the cheerleaders go out for color guard??!!”

She and I stared at each other for a minute in shocked silence. 

“Well, they’d be annoying you guys out of your minds, I suppose.  And of course that would ruin most everything…”

“Nooooo,” I moaned. “I don’t want to have to drag cheerleaders all over the island of Oahu, especially on what’s SUPPOSED to be a band trip.” 

“Yeah, they’d probably all just be like, ‘Let’s go hang out with those hot surfers and ditch the band!’ and be just really stupid.” 

“Exactly.  And that bothers me even here at the home football games, let alone in airports, on long flights, and on the beach.” 

“Yup. Well, that’s kind of just how they are, man…” And Sammy embarked on a long, detailed rant about why cheerleaders could be worthless people if you didn’t know them well.

Yes, this was based upon an actual conversation that I had with a friend of mine on...Monday? I can't remember exactly as this- sickness- has caused me to forget many small things like when I had certain conversations and when assignments were due...
But anyway, I tend to waste a lot of time when I come home from school, and this causes problems. At the start of the school year in August, I was staying up until 8 or 9 p.m. on weekdays, and now I'm getting the delayed effects with this cold I caught. But now I have a better handle on things and am getting to bed at the more reasonable hour of 8 or 8:30 p.m.
BUT, now we must proceed to the incident that occurred last week when I got home as normal. I was eating my ever-long snack when my mom came up from our unfinished basement. This is where my dad has all of his electronics set up (his hobby is making short films and videos) and where we keep the printer. It's a nice printer, although it doesn't do color or photos or anything fancy like that. But when she comes up she hands me a piece of printer paper and says, "Look at that! The printer ruined the music!" And I realize that it's supposed to be music printed on staff lines, but either the computer or the printer messed something up; because the notes- the music notes!- turned out as BOXES! Little rectangular boxes! See???

Box-notes! Photo by me.

Obviously, if your music notes are boxes instead of ovals, you won't be able to tell what you're supposed to be playing! So now I know that I can't print music off of my home computer. I'll have to go buy sheet music. Oh well. It was worth a laugh, at least.

A Break from Band

Well, as it turns out, I am stuck in bed with a cold and sore throat, much like my friend Danielle was 2 weeks ago! Though the similarities between our sicknesses are uncanny, it's just my luck.
Today I'm going to take a break from talking about band. I don't feel like talking about it because every time I think about playing my trumpet, my throat starts to hurt more. So today I will talk about model horses instead, something that actually manages to occupy my time while I'm sick.
Yes, I collect model horses, most specifically Breyers, which have been around since 1950. My mom collected them as a kid in the 70's. Here are the most recent additions to my collection:

From left to right: Padré, OT Sara Moniet RSI, Sahara Desertwind++, and Trooper. (photo by me)

I usually get these larger horses for Christmas and my birthday. By "larger", I mean that they are part of Breyer's largest line, the Traditional series. These horses are scaled 1:9, which means if you scaled them up 9 times by a certain number, they'd be life-size.
I also collect horses from the much-smaller Stablemates line, which are scaled 1:32, so you would have to scale these up 32 times. Also, I apologize for the lack of names. Stablemates, unlike Traditionals, do not come with names. I haven't done this yet, but perhaps I will soon. Anyway, here the photo of them:

Stablemates (photo by me)

I appreciate that Breyer makes different sizes of these horses, because not everyone has space in their house for billions of different Traditional-size hunks of plastic. Also, the Stablemates are so much more affordable that I can go out to the toy store whenever I come across a bit of extra pocket money and buy one- or a few.
Most of the horses that my mom and I have gotten over the years are Traditionals, partly because they're more detailed and partly because that's mainly what's available.
Right now, though, other than saving up money for the Hawaii band trip, I'm making my Christmas gift list, which includes three items. Yes, only three. Well, four, if you count that I want a clip-on tuner for band, but that's unimportant. Actually, five because I also want money from relatives to put into my Hawaii fund! But the only three things that I want to unwrap on Christmas Day are.... Model horses! Specifically, the models of American Pharaoh, this year's Triple Crown Winner.

American Pharaoh
www.nytimes.com

Shortly after the Belmont Stakes in early June, Breyer announced that they would be making a model of this great horse. After all, the last horse to win the Triple Crown before Pharaoh was Affirmed way back in 1978! And, after California Chrome, Smarty Jones, Barbaro, and many other hopeful contenders lost one of the 3 Triple Crown races in the early 2000's, it was about time we saw another winner.
But, if you were reading carefully above, you would have seen that I said models. Plural. So...how many models of ONE HORSE is Breyer actually making?
THREE! Three different ones. The first and most important one, of course, is the Traditional size model, which comes with it's own custom stand and a gift box with pictures of Pharaoh on it. The second is a Stablemates model. And the third is a Christmas ornament, so that you can grace your Christmas tree with an equine champion. I'm mostly interested in the Traditional model and the ornament (because I like decorating for the holidays), but perhaps next year I'll buy the Stablemate, too.
Are you a fan of American Pharaoh's or a collector of model horses? See Breyer's models of American Pharaoh here.
You want to know more about American Pharaoh, you say? Search him up on YouTube. They have lots of videos of his Triple Crown races.
What's the Triple Crown? It's a series of three different races in three different states in just five weeks. Not many thoroughbred racehorses can win it, but select champions have, including: American Pharaoh (of course), Secretariat, Seattle Slew, Affirmed, Count Fleet, Citation, Omaha, Assault, Whirlaway, Gallant Fox, and Sir Barton. If I'm not mistaken, those are the only horses who have ever won the Triple Crown since 1919, when Sir Barton established himself as the first winner. More on this at Wikipedia, just search "triple crown".

The Bandwagon

You've (most likely) heard the phrase, "jump on the bandwagon" (or whatever it actually is; I happen to not remember exactly). But, in band, we give this a new meaning.

Now, in the summer, when us marching band kids are the only ones in the school district that happen to need buses, the school buses are the default transport for us. We ride them to parades. I'm not exactly sure when I realized that we could start calling these "bandwagons"; but if you think about it this is very logical! Buses can be classified as wagons. It's a stretch, but it works. And the bus-wagon-thingies are carrying...a band! So they're bandwagons! I told all of my friends this, but I'm not sure how they feel about it. I personally think it's pure brilliance. 

But the bandwagons have problems. Keep in mind that we must haul around our uniforms- quite cumbersome- and instruments whenever we go to parades and things, and these can get in the way. Plus, nearly all of us insist on having our phones and a pair of sunglasses on the bandwagon. So things get quite crowded. First off, we are unevenly distributed on our 2 school buses/wagons. The high woodwinds (flutes/clarinets) and drum line go on one bus, and the brass and saxophones go on the other. Since both the drum line and high woodwind sections are quite small, their bus isn't even full. And then the brass bus is close to full, although I usually manage to get a seat to myself. Also is the problem of storing and keeping track of everything- uniforms, instruments, and phones. Instruments are easy because we put them in the undercarriage compartments. Then the only hard part is finding where they've slid around to when you get to the parade. Uniforms and hats are harder. 

A semi-good solution to uniform storage on the bus. Drawn by me.

Right now, we roll down the bus windows and hang our uniform garment bags on that, then put our hat boxes either on the seats or on the floor, but this causes problems as to keeping track of your own uniform pieces. One of 2 things can happen and cause uniform mix-ups:

a. Your hat box slides all over the bus floor and ends up in the very back, or...

b. After you take your uniform out of the bag, you forget to zip it up, it falls on the floor, and you have to hunt for your hangars when you get back from the parade because they slid all over the bus.

These things are not fun. Also when you hang your garment bag from the window, it covers the whole thing so you can't see out. Especially on longer drives, this bothers me. 

There's hardly a problem with phones on the bus. I just hope that no one calls me while we're driving because my phone's ringer has only 2 volumes: loud and louder. Everyone would hear, and then ask about, my outdated flip phone. But that's not the main point. The main point is that our school buses are not quite up to par with the "requirements" (aka luxuries) of a bunch of teenagers obsessed with band. So last night, I designed... The Bandwagon!!! It's a private motor coach designed specifically for marching bands; and it has all the creature comforts a band could want/use! (I made a list over the summer.) I'd been wanting to do it all summer, but I ran out of time- I wonder why- and now I have it done! Yay. Here are my blueprints for it: (I apologize for the lack of readability, but you get the main idea.)

Pic and drawings by me.

As you can (hopefully) see, the front half is more for just-a-short-drive kinds of trips, and the back half is akin to a tour bus. And it has spots for uniforms, hat boxes and instruments so that nothing gets mixed up! Anyway, this is my exaggerated luxury marching band tour coach. I'm good with the school buses for now. And I'll still call them bandwagons. But someday I hope to see something like this. That may or may not actually happen. But I'm hopeful. 

The end. For today.  

THE BEST NEWS EVER (well, so far...)

I have waited a really long time to tell you about this tidbit of news (yes, it's a tidbit, though a large one) and I'm not sure why. I suppose that's just how it worked itself into my blogging schedule.
     Now, as I'm sure you all know, I recently finished my marching season with the homecoming halftime show. This year's marching season was fun, but I'm already looking forward to next season- and not just because I like marching band! I'm excited because...
WE'RE GOING TO HAWAII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Digital Artist: me)

I guess that's a few too many exclamation points, but this is exciting. And we aren't just going to Hawaii for a band vacation. We're going for the PEARL HARBOR MEMORIAL PARADE!!! We were selected to be the official ambassadors for our state, as our invitation letter said. Would you like me to read it to you? Actually, since you can't really read over the Internet, I'll just write it out.
Note for context: Mr. Taylor and Hughes are our band directors.

Dear Mr. Taylor, Mr. Hughes, and the Band: 
2016 will mark the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, etc. etc. 
We want to take this opportunity to congratulate you and the band for being selected as the official ambassador from your state in the 75th Anniversary Pearl Harbor Memorial Parade. *Goes on about how the band was selected* As a high school band from your state, this takes on more significance. There were nine battleships moored in the harbor on December 7th, 1941; each of these will be represented by an outstanding high school band from the state that bears it's name. *YUS!* 
*thanks sponsors for their support* On behalf of the Pearl Harbor Parade Committee we congratulate you and look forward to having you be a part of the 75th Anniversary Pearl Harbor Memorial Parade. 
Mahalo and we look forward to working with you in 2016!
(signed by one of the parade committee members)

WE'RE AN OUTSTANDING BAND!!! YAY! YAY BAND!!!
I am proud of my band.

Us after finding out about the trip! (Pic by me.)
Note: We wear white gloves with our uniforms, that's why the hand is white.

By the way, I feel that our directors need some credit for this great honorable selection that we have garnered for them. So, many thanks to Mr. Taylor for catching all of the articulation mistakes in the horn line and Mr. Hughes for making sure the drum line stays on tempo. And overall, congrats to both of them for cultivating us into the OUTSTANDING high school band that we are! At the very last parade of the season, the thing that I will always remember is that Mr. Hughes called us in (meaning told us to gather around and listen) and said, "I have a letter to read to you guys, and I think now is a good time..." or something like that, and then he read it, and for some reason I totally forgot that Hawaii existed for a minute, 'cause when he said "Pearl Harbor," I thought that it was in Chicago or something. And, horrifyingly, my first thought was, "That's nice, but I probably won't go." I don't know what got into me. But then he said, and I quote, "So basically, the marching band's going to Honolulu."
We were SILENT, and it was around then that I finally processed the fact that Hawaii did actually exist. And then someone (it might have been me) started clapping and said, "YAY BAND!" And after that there was NO silence whatsoever. It was GREAT.

Hawaii! (Waikiki, that is.) We'll probably stay somewhere around here.
www.planetware.com

A week later, we had a relapse of all the excitement, because we found out that this trip is NOT just for the parade! We're staying in Waikiki Beach for a WEEK, and that WEEK includes but isn't limited to: a while (I haven't calculated how much time exactly) to spend on Waikiki Beach, a visit to the National Memorial Cemetery, a circle island tour where we'll se Diamond Head, Pali Lookout, Dole Plantation, North Shore Beaches, the Banzi Pipeline, Waimea Bay, and Sunset Beach; a visit to Pearl Harbor; time to explore the International Marketplace, another morning/afternoon on Waikiki Beach to snorkel, surf, or boogie board; then the parade, of course; a post-parade picnic (I like that!); a morning to hike Diamond Head Crater; a day or so at the Polynesian Cultural Center; and the day after that we go home (that schedule's not final, but I've got my fingers crossed that the travel agent can get us booked for all of it!). I've already made my packing list (I know, I'm obsessed with this trip) so that I won't have to worry about doing it next year, when things will be extra busy with Hawaii marching practices, practices for the homecoming field show, and probably several band meetings thrown in there.

Now the only hard part is fundraising. In the weeks that have passed since we found out about the trip, about 53 band students (including me!) have signed up for the trip. We have about 8 months for all of us to raise around 2 grand each just to pay travel expenses. Actually, I want to help my family raise three times that so that my parents can come as chaperones. They helped me get into the band, grow my musical talent, payed my band fees, and helped me with many other things that I'm thankful for; they even offered to pay for part of MY trip (I feel bad for my friends, whose parents refuse to pay for any part of their trips). So now I must organize fundraisers. And do homework so that I don't fail any classes.

Yay band. We're going to Hawaii!!!!!!!!!! :D
P.S. Want to know more about this parade? Go here: http://www.pearlharborparade.org

Yay band. This was the warm-up arc that morning. Thanks to my mom for taking this pic.

The End of the Marching Season

The marching season is over.
NO!
Yes, it's over.
NO!!
It. is. OVER!!!
NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, it is. Excuse me for being dramatic, but I'm quite sad about this small detail.

nhwn.wordpress.com

This is really pretty much kind of how I feel. But I know that I have stuff to do, including but not limited to homework for A.P. Geography, squeaking out notes on my trumpet, banishing my fear of math, cleaning my room, and various other things. And since a high school freshman's homework scene can be pretty scary... well, let's just say that I have a lot to do. 

Anyway, homecoming was last Friday (September 25th) and it was super amazing. It was really, truly my first homecoming ever because I never went to the homecoming games at my old school. But the whole of last Friday was great. We wore our school colors (red and black!) and no one really payed attention to anything in school. The day crawled by but at long last my mom was driving me to pep band at 6:00. We warmed up in the band room and the game started at 7:00 and the 1st quarter flew by so fast that I hardly knew what was happening as the marching band filed out of the bleachers at second quarter to get into uniform and go through the field show once. It was dark and we really couldn't see anything but I could feel my band around me and... I don't know, I could kind of sense the life-of-band force that binds us all together. It was great. When we tuned in our sections I heard chords that were so powerful and uniform that they probably could have been heard all the way over on the football field. Once we had talked through the field show, our drum major called us in (meaning, gather around and listen up) and gave us a pep talk kind of thing- his very last- and led us out to the field. Now, this being a halftime show, we had to wait for the football team to come off and all of that, so we had some time to burn. I hope that some day, football will be played at halftime and the football players will have to wait for us to come off. 

My dad took pics and a video of it; here's one of the photos:

Yay band! P.S. None of these trumpet players are me, as I was on the other side of the field.

I thought we looked great under the field lights and seriously finished off the season with a bang! And after we were done and coming off the field our band director was like, "Good job, band! Now, get out of here!" So we did. Back at home after the game was done, I put away my marching shoes for the season, so at least I don't have to worry about practicing extra music. And though there won't be anymore marching until May, we have an EXTREMELY exciting opportunity as a band next year to think about in the meantime; more on this soon!

YAY BAND!!!

So you think your feet hurt???

My feet hurt. Somewhat. Mostly just from mild repeated shock. 
See, in addition to my life of band, I do irish dance (I just finished practicing b/c I must practice 9 hrs. a month at home). It's that stuff they do in Riverdance or Lord of the Dance or any of those Michael Flatley dance shows. Not only is it good exercise, I have lots of opportunities to injure myself. ; ) Not really, I've only done that once and it was around last year.
Dance has a lot to do with feet, actually, just like in marching band! Some of the only differences are that in dance we're always on our toes and that we start our dance steps with the right foot instead of the left. I'm proud to say that, thanks to all that fancy footwork in irish dance, I'm one of the top five marchers in the marching band. Mr. Hughes, one of our band directors, said so. I can actually do a backwards slide (that's how you march backwards in halftime shows) without dropping onto my heels! In dance, we're always on our toes, leaping through the air, making precision-sensitive rhythms with our feet, drilling moves that cause problems over and over and over again...
Now, on the subject of feet...
These are my marching shoes:

These are my dance shoes:

Which ones do you think would cause more foot pain?

WELL, I'll tell you. Your feet have not been in pain until you've broken in a pair of irish dance hard shoes! Those are the ones on the right that are akin to tap shoes. Something about the stiffness of the leather and the way they're shaped causes more and larger blisters than I've ever gotten from regular shoes in my life. These shoes need more breaking in than marching shoes for sure. Or maybe my feet are just pain-proof at this point, after 6 years of dance and 5+ pairs of these feet-killing shoes. 

And, take a look at these fiberglass taps:

If you hit an ankle with one of those, you're toast (just for about 3 minutes, but the idea is that it hurts a lot). I suppose you could fracture an ankle bone if you hit them hard enough, though. 

Anyway, a LOT of people complained about their marching shoes over the summer and how they had so many blisters and how their feet ached so much and all that, and I was just like, "Your feet haven't hurt YET! Try on these shoes and THEN your feet will hurt!" And I would shove a picture of my dance shoes under their noses. No one really said anything in response to that, but... yeah. Although I was mildly annoyed by my bandmates' complaining, I WILL make one exception, and that's for my flute-playing friend Emily (find her blog here). Her marching shoes literally rubbed a hole in her big toe because they just didn't fit the shape of her foot. By the end of the marching season she had to wear all-black Converse sneakers instead of her marching shoes, so I don't blame her for that, because who can control the shape of their feet?

In the end though, irish dance hard shoes are almost guaranteed to make your feet hurt more than marching shoes do.

The end. (Photos by me.)