How to...make random snowflake-y things

Hey, hello guys and today I shall be helping you to make snowflakes. This is something that I do regularly during stressful periods and whilst watching tv shows.
These are NOT like the ones you made when you were five...these are infinatley cooler :D

Step One: Choose coloured paper of your choice, square or recantgular, it is your choice

Step Two: Fold coloured paper as many times as you want, they can be diagonally or in a criss cross pattern, or even if you know origami, the sqaure base fold. The more random the fold, the more epic the end product.

Step Three: Take your scissors and cut random shapes into your folded shape. Bare in mind which folds are you binding ones and which corner is the main corner holding it all together, if you cut these off then the whole thing will fall to pieces. Shapes that go well together are spikes and curves, semi circles are a bit predictable, but depending on what look you are going for it doesn't matter.

Step Four: carefully, and I mean CAREFULLY, pull out the snowflake shape, if you do it too vigorously you are likely to rip a part of it.

I know it sounds silly making these, however they really do recapture the fun of being a child again and to show you they can look epic, here are some I made earlier :)

If you ever find yourself with nothing to do, these can be just one thing to fill the void.

Hope everyone's week is going well, also for the Doctor Who fans, here's a picture of Arthur Darvill aka Rory Williams from last Sunday's performance of Dr Faustus and yes, I was that close to him for 3 hours :D

Dftba
Sim x

How to Procrastinate but Still Get Some Work Done

Procrastination.
It's something done by many young students on a daily basis. After long days at school we deserve a break right? No need to come home and start into homework right away. No need to rush into the chores. Kick back and relax before getting back into the work!

Unfortunately though it never seems to work out well. Sure you're pretty happy taking that break but in the back of your mind is the nagging feeling of stuff to do. You can't fully enjoy yourself with that knowledge lurking about. And when you're trying to push through the end of your essay at 1am you'll regret the procrastination.

What we need is to procrastinate in an organized controlled manner so you get the immediate benefits, yet don't have to deal with the consequences later.

Rather than just procrastinating as long as possible and cramming all your work in at the last minute break it up and spread it out. Set yourself small tasks and reward yourself each time you complete one.

Say for example you have a bunch of chores to do around the house yet Goliath by Scott Westerfeld is just crying out to be read. Do one chore, say dumping the garbages, then read a chapter. Then dust a couple rooms, read a chapter. And so on. The work doesn't feel so bad when you only do a bit at a time.

Another matter is the internet. This is probably the biggest factor in procrastination, it's so easy when you're typing up an essay to just click over to facebook or tumblr. Assert some self control, don't click every few seconds. Write a paragraph then take a couple minutes, and only a couple, to check out what's new, write another paragraph, etc.

Don't forget the usefulness of commercials on tv. Rather than sitting down for an entire show before doing your work try and get something done each commercial. Do you ever really watch them anyways?

Keep aware of time and try to balance it out. If you're short on time try to get slightly bigger chunks of work done before each break, keeping the breaks shorter. If you know going on tumblr will suck you in for an hour set an alarm for five minutes, or whatever time you think best.

If fun is completely cut out there's not much to motivate you to get your work done. Procrastination is not the enemy as long as you develop a good relationship with it.

DFTBA,

-Kim

How to.. Make Spaghetti!

Hey! It's time for a round of cooking with Caitlin!

Alright, well I'm going to tell you all how to cook Spaghetti. I think it's bolognese.. But who knows, it tastes good either way.

Ingredients:

• Garlic Salt
• Oil
• Water
• Mince (Can be anything.. Beef or turkey, in my opinion, is better)
• Pasta (Can be any)
• Jar of Bolognese sauce (Again, can be any brand, any type.)

Method:

A stove top is used for this. 

1. Okay, so first get out a fry pan and a pot. Both of them need lids that fit. Place the pot and pan onto the stove top. Bring the pot up to the highest heat and the pan up to something around a 7, high, but not the highest. Boil a kettle full of water.
2. Brown the mince in the frying pan. 
3. Once the water has finished boiling, pour it into the pot. The pot needs to be filled 3 quarters full with hot water, if the boiled water isn't enough, just use hot water from the tap. Add a dash of oil with the water in the pot and put a lid on the pot, let the water boil.
4. Once your mince has browned, pour in the whole jar of Bolognese sauce. Then, fill the jar with a bit less than a quarter of water, put the lid back on, shake the jar and pour the water in with the meat and sauce. With this step you can add anything in with it, like onions, carrots, peas.. etc.
5. Stir the meat. When it starts to bubble, turn the heat down to a low number (like a 3 or four) and place the lid onto the fry pan. The sauce has now been cooked, all you need to do is wait for the pasta to be cooked. Make sure to stir the sauce every now and then to ensure that the sauce doesn't stick to the bottom of the frying pan. 
6. Once the water in the pot has boiled and is bubbling, pour the pasta into it. Add some garlic salt and place the lid on the pot. Now, all the pasta has to do it cook. Stir it when you're stirring the sauce.
7. Check on the pasta occasionally and make sure it doesn't bubble over! You will know when the pasta is cooked by tasting it. It really depends on the how the person likes their pasta, but it should be soft. Though not too soft. With spaghetti, I think there's a trick where you throw a piece of it at a wall. If it sticks, then it's cooked. If not, well then it isn't cooked. (Well, something along the lines of that.)
8. Pour the pasta into a colander. The thing that looks like mixing bowl but has holes it in.
9. Quickly run the pasta over with water to get rid of any extra starch.
10. Serve and enjoy!

Some serving suggestions: Some grated cheese on top does nicely with a roll of garlic bread to accompany the meal is always nice too.. Garlic bread is easy to make.. Butter, garlic and bread. With an oven. 

Hope you guys enjoy the recipe and it isn't hard to understand. This is what I made for dinner tonight and it turned out quite nicely!

DFTBA, Caitlin x

11 tips on how to make a crazy-awesome mix CD (as a gift/just for fun/when you really need something to do)

(1) When creating a mix the main thing you want to focus on is that you're not making it for yourself. You can't make a mixtape with Guster and Monster Movie if the person you're making it for likes Blink-182 and All Time Low... they just won't like it. Just like you wouldn't have Brokencyde on a mix for your grandomther.....

(2) It can be as long or as short as you want it to be. Most of my mixes end up being about an hour long (15-18 songs) but I've made some that are 15 minutes and I've made some that are an hour and a half (which is pretty much the most it can be depending on the type of blank CD you use)

(3) If you have a microphone on your computer USE IT! From my experiences my friends like when I talk for a few seconds after every couple of songs.

(4) It wouldn't hurt to put something weird in there every so often too. Something they wouldn't expect like a spoken word poem or a spoken short story or an audio clip from a good movie.

(5) Try not to put two songs by the same band/artist. I don't know why this makes a difference but it always does for me. Like whenever I have two songs by the same artist on one tape the quality of it goes down dramatically. (There are exceptions to the rule. I.E. lyricless music. If you're making a mix and you want to add a jazz or classical piece that doesn't have lyrics the person listening to it most-likely won't notice)

(6) Make sure the songs go well together. When you finish listening to a song and another song that sounds somewhat similar to the last song but not overly similar you get excited without even really noticing.

(7) If you have a theme stick to it.. Also be sure to make your theme something that isn't TOO broad. I mean if the theme you want is "love" that could translate easily into 'love sucks' orrr 'being in love is great' automatically making it more specific.

(8) If you have music editing software (like garage band) use it to help blend the songs together (like the way DJ's play one song into another)

(9) Don't be afraid to delete a couple songs that might be unnecessary. Theses things can get bulky and if you feel like it's getting too long you might have some decision making to do.

(10) Decorate it. Everyone likes a pretty picture :)

(11) Have fun, that's the whole point of music after all. And if you don't have fun making the mix the person you made it for probably won't have fun listening to it.

DFTBA,

Chuck

Some somewhat interesting items

Indeed.

So, I think I'd mentioned last time that I was going on orchestra retreat last weekend. Well, I went, and it was super fun, so I'm going to write about it.

It was a two-day retreat, and we left from campus at about 7:30 on Saturday morning. Because freshmen (such as myself) can't own cars, I rode with one of the cellists in my section. We drove to a local youth center, where the city of Santa Barbara was hosting a big volunteer event called Day of Caring. As part of the retreat, we were assigned to clean up a local beach for the Day of Caring.

We had breakfast, and got some free T-shirts, and then we drove to the beach. I ended up in a group with the aforementioned cellist, Daniel; a percussionist (my friend Kellie), and the strings professor, Dr. Ficsor. The winds professor and current conductor, Dr. Mori, joined us a little later, and we just walked along the beach picking up trash. It was surprisingly peaceful. It was nice to be able to just talk to the people in my group; it was pretty lucky that both the professors were with us. They're really cool people.

We had lunch on the beach, and then we rode over to a local church where we spent the rest of the day either rehearsing or doing getting-to-know-each-other activities. The orchestra is a really fun community and I'm glad to be a part of it. Our big piece right now is a work by Debussy called "Fetes." Dr. Mori is making us play it right. It can get frustrating, but it's good for us.

We also rehearsed some arrangements of hymns, which we played for the church services the next morning. People cried, which Dr. Mori tells us is a good thing.

So, what else has happened? Oh, something really random happened to me on Thursday. I was leaving my cello lesson when my teacher suddenly asked me if I wanted to go sailing with him. I said yes-- so he took me sailing along with this other random person he had apparently met on the beach the other day. It was really exciting, especially when they lost control of the boat and two guys had to tow us back to the dock with a motorboat.

As we were driving back to campus, he said to me, "I'm crazy! I have to play a concert tonight."

"What are you playing?" I asked.

"Thirteen movements from the unaccompanied Bach suites," he replied. "From memory."

True. Story.

DFTBA,
Emily

Defying known Physics and other headlines...

Today marked the date of a conference, not any conference, but a conference in which many leading scientists where called in to scrutinize findings collected from CERN. These findings could potentially redefine modern day physics as we know it.

So I'm no Physicist, and I know if I say anything wrong my best friend who is a physicist will tell me off :P, but from what I've heard this is a BIG deal.
The Research: Something along the lines of the OPERA team have managed to send a beam of particles four hundred miles at a speed which is roughly six-billionths of a second faster than light. Now this may seem to be a stupidly small amount but they have repeated the experiment thousands of times and have found the same result each time. Now the speed of light is supposedly the fastest thing in the universe and if this is true this totally messes up with scientists ideas of time and causality. Now this is where brains can go crazy, things such as warp speed and time travel could even be the future of this.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, the scientists behind this have opened up this information with a tagline, to take the findings with a note of caution. Clearly this unexpected result has taken them by surprise too and they've all been trying to find any systematic errors or other mistakes in their research. This is one of the reasons the findings have been made public, they haven't been able to find any thing wrong so they've opened it up to the scrutiny of all the other scientists out there. If however, they find that there is nothing wrong, this could mean big changes for the way in which physics today is seen in the future.

Now I know some of you may not be big scientists so I'll skim over the BBC news headlines this evening and see what else I can find...
- 'UARS satellite return expected later', well it was meant to arrive today but seems like it could be coming in as late as tomorrow morning around 3 am GMT.
- 'First Irish case of death by spontaneous combustion', well they're still looking into it so...
....aannnnd there's not much else, a lot of things to do with the U.N and the struggles in the Middle East. Also some stuff to do with Nurofen Plus (Ibuprofen) being contaminated with anti psychotic medicene.

In family related headlines, my nephew has been named. Baby Boy is now being called Adam :D

Hope that everyone is okay, especially those we haven't heard from in a while,
for the rest of the week, dftba

Sim x

Events, Very Recent Events

So I had an event happen to me about 4 hours ago... I was in a car crash. Everyone is OK, just a little shaken up by it.

My mum and I were just driving down this one street, traffic was kinda slow, so we weren't going to fast thankfully, and the lane beside us was at a complete standstill. There was a guy going the other way wanting to make a left hand turn, his visibility wasn't great with all the stopped cars but he thought it was clear for him to turn. It wasn't, he turned right in front of us.

It's all a bit confused, one minute we're just driving, the next there's a car in front of us. Mum slammed on the brakes, cars came together, airbags went off, my glasses fell off or I knocked them off or something, I don't really know. There was a burning smell and some kind of smoke from the airbags, just lots of white and blurriness. I was barely even thinking, just responding to what was going on. The car was stopped, my mum was talking and moving, getting out, probably telling me to do the same. I got my glasses back on, got out and got off the road.

Then followed a very shaky couple hours of dealing with police and insurance and all that. Our car's front end was totally crushed in, the guy's front passenger side dented and the bumper out of shape. He didn't have any passengers with him so no one had been on that side of the car. No one with any injuries thankfully, all just in a bit of shock.

There was a lot of people who stopped to make sure we were okay, see if anyone needed anything, I really appreciate all the compassion shown.

Sitting in my room though things feel almost normal, like it was just some bad dream or something... it's been a strange and crazy day.

Hope you all are well.

DFTBA,

-Kim

o.O Events.. That have taken place.

Oh hey there stranger.

Okay, so this week's them is events that have happened recently or are happening around us now. And over the past few months, quite a few things have been happening..

To start it all off there was my school production of High School Musical. I'd mentioned it a couple of times in a few posts, but it finished a couple of weeks ago. I'm kind of missing it, this joke went around that those involved in it host Post High School Musical Depression, and I can tell you, I have PHSMD. It was a good, long, strenuous, annoying, time-consuming, but in the end marvelous time of my life that I will remember for the years to come and be one of the highlights of this year. In the end, I'm glad I did it. Even with a crazed director and an ever-changing Sharpay. The first girl didn't want to do it and the second girl moved schools at the end of term 2, so that role was a bit cursed. But in the end, it was brilliant.

Secondly there was the 40 Hour Famine. Now, I don't know if you do this anywhere else in the world but here in Australia there's this nation-wide event called the 40 Hour Famine. Run by World Vision, the aim of it is to give up something for 40 hours. Wether it be food, makeup, furniture, a limb or something like sight and or hearing. I gave up furniture and the internet. It was a bit hard, seeing as the internet is a key part of my life and I constantly sat on furniture whilst doing it. But I was out for the majority of the weekend, on the Friday I went to my Youth Group where it was themed around the 40 Hour Famine and there was no furniture so that made it a bit easier, yet on the Saturday I was at the shopping centre with a couple of my friends watching the Glee movie, so that was a bit hard. And the amount of weird looks I got as I sat on the floor in the cinema or at Hungry Jacks? Hilarious! In the end I raised $318.85. To me, that's a lot. I plan on applying to be the Youth Ambassador for SA next year :D So that shall be fun!

I guess that those are the two main events that have come and gone for me in the past few months, the biggest thing I can think of coming up is NaNoWriMo. Which I still don't have a plot for. Any ideas?

DFTBA, Caitlin x

Oh! And I pre-ordered TFiOS last week :D I CAN'T WAIT FOR IT TO ARRIVE!

Homesickness

Hey guys,

I'm writing today because I'm going on an orchestra retreat all day tomorrow and I won't have a chance to write.

I just got back from dinner at the home of the school's music secretary. One of the other cellists in the orchestra, a junior, invited my friend and I to a little informal Asian food dinner party sort of thing. It was wonderful. We crowded around the table in her little apartment and rolled sushi (something I've never done before). There were some other people there, recent graduates of my college. They reminisced about their time at Westmont and asked my friends and I about our classes.

It was really nice. I didn't realize how much I missed the simple act of making food. Don't get me wrong, the cafeteria food at the school is really good, but it's not a home-cooked meal. There's just something about making it yourself, you know?

Which got me thinking. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I haven't really been feeling homesick-- or so I thought. Well, as it turns out, I am homesick. But not in the sense that I miss my home; what I miss is home in general. In the abstract sense. Home.

The dorm is where I live. And I love it-- honestly, I do. But it's not a home. I don't know if I'm even making sense but maybe you guys understand. My home is far away but home is a five-minute drive from campus-- all you need is an invitation and an upperclassman with a car. Home is a tattered welcome mat, an open door, a homemade meal, a family. Home is everywhere-- but it no longer belongs to me.

I'm not lonely. I don't miss Colorado-- or, at least, not very much. I love this school, and I love my life right now. But I'm homesick.

And on that note, my good friends, I leave you.

DFTBA,
Emily

Fridays

Hey everyone,
So I've been stressed, like really totally stressed out because of all of these university choices.
This is going to be a short post so I can go continue writing my personal statement.
Its a lot of me just talking about why I'm passionate about psychology and why the university should choose me for the course. and honestly I've been so stumped.

That's kind of all that's been happening, that's all that I've had time for.

Oh and I've got tickets to go see YouMeAtSix :D They're like one of my favourite bands and it was a birthday present from my best friend, even though my birthday isn't for another month. But yeah, I'm just counting down till that :)

I hope that everyone else is having a more chilled out/relaxed week,
Dftba,
Sim x

My Yesterday

Do you ever have one of those days that restores your faith in humanity? A day where you can't stop smiling because you're surrounded with genuinely nice people? I had a day like that :)

Most days are pretty standard: get up, bus to school, go to class, maybe see a couple friends, go home, do homework, go to bed. Nothing too exciting, not too much social interaction, but it's a school day, right? Weekends are when you socialize.

Well it was Wednesday, middle of the week. It started like a normal day, waking up after not quite enough sleep, getting ready for the day, and catching the bus. Normally the bus is my least favourite part of the day but as I was heading for a seat I saw a friend of mine with an open seat beside her. Needless to say the commute to school was a lot nicer than normal. Plus it was a chilly day and when we arrived at the university, half an hour before our classes, we went and got hot chocolate together. I hadn't spent much time with her since before summer so it was really lovely to catch up.

Waiting in line for our drinks we were chatting about what classes we had first. The girl in front of us in line overheard and it turns out she was in the same class as me so I talked to her a little bit, she was really nice.

Then walking through the crowded halls to class I spot a couple friends smiling and waving. Doesn't seem like a big deal but on a campus of 35 000 students you don't often pass people you recognize, let alone are friends with.

I walked into Physics with a warm drink in my hand and a smile on my face. It was only 10am and my day was already looking pretty darn good. Now sitting through an hour long science lecture may not be everyone's cup of tea but I love physics and I have a brilliant Prof, he makes it easy to stay focused and interested in what's going on.

Afterwards I met with two of my best friends for lunch and a new girl one of them has met. I personally haven't really met many new people yet so it was fun to meet someone new. She was a little quiet, and probably thinks we're a bit crazy, but she seemed like a sweet girl.

Speaking of meeting new people... After lunch there was some shuffling of who I was with and eventually it ended up being me and two friends hanging out "doing homework" (we all know how much homework gets accomplished when you're with friends). A guy was walking past and knew one of my friends so he stopped to say hi. A couple hours later and I have a new friend! Who it turns out is in one of my classes so no more being alone all the time!

So the day goes on and I'm getting off the train. I see a guy I kinda know, we've gone through school together and had some friends in common but never really talked much. I'm not sure if he'd even recognize me but we end up beside each other in the crowd and he smiles and says "It's Kimberley right?" Then followed probably the longest conversation we've ever actually had. Often when people don't really know each other they just awkwardly pretend they don't see each other even though they both know they do. Talking to him though was really easy and I'd never realized what a nice guy he is.

I should probably stop here, this is getting kind of long, hopefully not too boring. The point I wanted to make is not just that I had a fantastic day but that I have fantastic people in my life. I'm so appreciative of all my friends and even people I barely know who still have the ability to make someones day.

And that goes for you guys as well. I know lately we've been pretty slack with the posting but I hope we can get back into it. No matter what you post, when I read it, it makes me smile.

DFTBA,

-Kim

College, Week 2: Complete

Not that I don't still have homework... but yeah.

The interesting news about college is almost all music-related, so I guess I'll start there. First of all, I finally met my new private cello teacher this week. He's LEGIT. (People say "legit" here. Sorry if it annoys you.) He was principal cellist of the St. Louis Symphony for over 30 years, and played with the Boston Symphony for 8 years. He studied with Leonard Rose, who was Yo-Yo Ma's teacher. Needless to say, he's really really good, and therefore really really intimidating. But he's nice, so that's encouraging.

He also wrote a book, and brought a copy to my first lesson on Thursday. After the lesson, he signed it and gave it to me. What made me happy was the P.S. he added: "You are talented."

:)

Second thing: last night, one of my new friends (a pianist) and I were jamming in the big downstairs lounge in the dorm. A clarinetist from our floor joined in a little while later. It seems lame to just say it, but it was AWESOME. People were gathering around to listen to us. It was literally THE most fun thing I have done here so far. I've been asked to record some of it next time we jam, so maybe I'll post it for you guys to see. It'll be great.

And yeah, that's pretty much the cool music-y stuff going on. I've probably said this already, but I LOVE THIS COLLEGE so much. It's pretty much the best place on earth. If any of you are considering going to school in California, come to Westmont! Okay? Okay.

That's basically all I have to say. You guys already know what classes I'm taking-- except, just kidding-- I added chamber music and a string pedagogy class (a class on how to teach string instruments). I love chamber music, and I'm the only one signed up for pedagogy, so that will probably be fun too. Have I mentioned I love it here? Annyywayy.

Oh, I forgot that I said I was going to post pictures. That'll still happen... sometime. Eventually. The campus is beautiful. I just don't have a working camera.

Okay, I'll end this post now.

DFTBA,
Emily

Year 13

Okay so before I start my rant about my first week back, I would like to take the opportunity to say that on Wednesday of this week I became an Aunt to a healthy, yet unnamed baby boy. Being the first newborn in our immediate family since I was born, it has been a very exciting thing for us all :D

Okay so onto school, Year 13, my last year before Uni and so far it's been everything I expected. Same teachers grilling us over stupid things like uniform, same old classrooms, same old tired faces of the other students.
But saying that it's not all bad. My English Literature lessons have been absolutely brilliant so far; the teacher teaching Othello is hilarious, but because he has a passion for this play he's teaching us really well. My psychology lessons are the similar sort of scenarios to last year but its nice to be back into something more comfortable and familiar. Biology and Chemistry are all a bit O.o to me; always has and always probably will, but its nice after six weeks to come back and have some focus.

Though the worst part of this all is my timetable; out of ALL my friends it is agreed I have the most disgusting timetable! Always my luck; I have a total of four free periods compared to one of my friends who has 15 at the moment. I have two full days and 3 days of four periods. It's tiring and it will soon take it's toll on me, but it does (and will) keep me focused for the rest of the year.

Hope everyone's enjoying school in some form or another,
dftba
Sim x

University

First year. Back at the bottom of the school hierarchy. Surprisingly it's a big step forward.

Two days in and I'm appreciating a level of independence and control I've never had before, the ability to decide what's important to my education, and the freedom to change what isn't working for me. Being in general arts for now, with no declared major, I can take pretty much whichever courses catch my fancy. Thanks to this I love every class I'm in, there's no suffering through some subject I could care less about. My schedule is even timed out the way I want, no classes starting at 8am. It's great.

As for independence, it's not just that I can make my own choices, I'm literally on my own and independent most of the time. Sure lots of my friends are at the same school but with the sheer number of other people there I hardly see anyone I know. It's up to me to figure out what's going on and to try to meet new people in my classes.

I know that once courses really start up, the homework piles on and I have to trudge through snow to get from class to class, the charm will wear off. For now though, I'm loving life and loving school.

DFTBA,

-Kim

School..

Hey there lovelies, it's a Caitlin.

So I'm 3 quarters through my year 10 schooling.. Period, age.. So you can easily say I'm not going back to school, I did, 8 months ago. (Wow, has it really been that long?)

So, as we all should know, year 10 comes before year 11. Year 11 is before year 12. Year 11 is important. Year 10 is when you get the pressure to DECIDE WHAT SUBJECTS YOU WANT TO DO IN YEAR 11, SUBJECTS THAT MAY DETERMINE OUR FUTURE. Yes, so this is my rant.

I'm only in year 10. I have no idea what I want to do when I leave school, well I have some ideas but none of them are definite. This week we have (had) subject selection interviews, where you talk to a subject leader or whatever about what you want to do next year and the year after that and the year after that. I chose my subjects last night. History, Drama, English, Psychology, Maths, Tourism, Ancient Studies and Photography. It shall be interesting.. But even still, I don't know if any of those will relate to what I want to do in my future! And this is going nowhere so I'll cut it short.

That is basically my schooling life at the moment. Including High School Musical (OPENING NIGHT TOMORROW) and Quadratics.

Ciao, have fun going back to school :P

DFTBA, Caitlin x

Back To School Week.

On thursday I'll be returning to school to start my Senior year. Usually the week before school starts is kind of miserable, but I'm kind of looking forward to my last first day with this weird feeling of crushing optimism. I have the easiest schedule any high school senior could possibly ask for (I get out everday at about 11:40) and I mean after one of the busiest, most exciting, and most fantastic summers of my life how could I look at it any other way?

I recently bought a nook (which I can honestly say has been one of the best investments of my life.) so I plan on spending these last few days of summer reading. Then school starts, and I can't say that I've ever been more ready for summer to end. But for the most part, I'm really just excited for graduation... LOL

And since there's a Bright Eyes song to go with almost any situation this is totally how I feel about my highschool years coming to a close:

College, week 1: complete

So, I survived my first week at college. It's pretty freaking great here. I want to tell you about everything! But I don't have time. So I will tell you about a few things. I'll start with my classes.

Principles of Music I
This is a basic music theory class. It's probably going to be review for me for several weeks, if not the whole first semester. The professor has been out of town this week, though, so a couple of upperclassmen have been reviewing the basics with us. They took this opportunity Monday morning, my very first class at college, to have a light saber fight in front of the class. One of them was wearing a dinosaur outfit. I'm not even kidding.

Intro to Christian Doctrine 
The professor for this class is named Telford Work. He insists we call him by his first name. His rationale: "We call Jesus by his first name, and as this is a Christian Doctrine class, I think we should go by first names. If you don't like that, and you want to call me 'Dr. Work', I will call you by your last name. And if you want to call me 'Professor', that's okay; I can call you 'student.'" He's both brilliant and hilarious. Although everyone says he gives a lot of homework, I'm looking forward to this class quite a bit.

Fitness for Life
Mandatory PE class. Basically, we sit and listen to Professor Town talk about why it's a good idea to exercise. I've never had any kind of PE class before, so I'm a little bit nervous about the part when we have to start doing push-ups and stuff, next week.

Studies in Literature
Professor Larsen-Hoeckley. This is another class I'm really excited about. Pretty much, we get to read books and talk about them. And eventually write about them.

Orchestra
It's a little confusing to explain who the proper director for the orchestra is, because the regular guy is technically on sabbatical. Dr. Mori is directing the whole orchestra for the first concert, and Dr. Ficsor is directing the strings for our own separate piece. I enjoy this "class" a lot because, first of all, I love making music; and second, because it's the only class where I completely understand what's expected of me, and I know my responsibilities. The music is difficult, but the setting is comfortingly familiar. I love it.

I have two more things that haven't started yet, private cello lessons and chamber music (string quartet). I'm a little nervous because there is a new cello teacher coming to the college this year and although I met the previous teacher, I haven't met this new guy. Everyone says he's really cool, though, so that's encouraging.

This weekend has been pretty fun. I've been hanging out with my new friends in lovely Santa Barbara (it's SO beautiful here). There's a beach. A BEACH! I come from the middle of the United States of America and we don't have ocean there. But here there is a lot of ocean! It's very exciting to me.

There's another thing I don't think I've mentioned. There are some people at a performing arts high school in Las Vegas who are working on a staging of Mike Lombardo's album "The Alchemist" and they want to use a song I wrote and put on YouTube. That's pretty cool, right?

I'm going to try and take pictures this week (or have my roommates do it with their nice cameras) and put them in my next post. I might be busy over the coming weekends but I am committed to writing on this blog every week! It's going to happen!

Anyway, I'm loving California, loving college, loving the people, loving life right now.

DFTBA,
Emily

Friday :D

Thank God it's Friday, over here it couldn't come sooner!!
Apologies for being so slack the past few weeks but being the height of the summer holidays means that I haven't been home till after midnight, meaning by then it's no longer Friday and I just knock out asleep :( I vow right here to change that. Also wanted to bring up the fact that in the original post on the ning which was asking who'd like to set up a blog, there was a mention of punishments for those who didn't blog or where late. What happened to that idea? Should we bring it back?

I return back to school for my last year next week, and I'm all over the place. I still have three acts of Othello to read and annotate aswell as an Ecology booklet to do. With only the weekend left, I'm starting to stress :/ I've been out enjoying myself too much, but that will soon stop when school returns. I visited a University today; the University of Southampton, which is one of my top choices for uni. It's a brilliant uni and the course I want to do is perfect there.
Other things that have been going on include my mum's birthday and the arrival of a new car... So not that much there.

Also I have recently obtained tickets to go see Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams from Doctor Who) in Doctor Faustus at the Globe theatre later this month, I'm so excited for that :D

There's not that much else to add now, expect the fact that I need to choose out of two Scottish Universities to put on my list (university choices are very much at the forefront of my mind recently :/).

I hope that next week we shall be able to return to a full blog because honestly, I've missed them tremendously.

I hope the first full week of September is kind to you all

and as always dftba

Sim x

It's THURSDAY!

Here's a quick synopsis of my life right now: 

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah that about sums it up. Sorry I haven't posted the last couple weeks I've just bee so busy. Also I haven't read any of the posts for the past couple weeks but from the sound of e-mails we are being very slack. We should fix that. But not right now, this is gonna be a sad and short post because I just got home from my first official day of work, and it's 10pm and I have to get up at 5:30am to go back to work :S

I'm working at the Disney store and it's super fun and I love it. I had a few days of training but now we're moving to a new location in the mall so there's a lot of work to be done. The atmosphere is great though and all the people are super friendly, and let's be honest, who doesn't love Disney?

I hope back to school is going well for everyone who's started, and that it will go well for everyone yet to start. I don't start until wednesday so I have a bit of time still to try and get my massive to do list cleared up. 

Okay yeah it's time for bed. Sorry this was so short but I just wanted to put at least a quick little update. 

DFTBA,

-Kim