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