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. :)