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Mood: Happy!

So it's been a while.

Where to start?  How about last night.

So I'm currently up in Amherst visiting Matt for the next few days.  Last night I had dinner with his family for the first time and they're all very nice.  I see where he gets his sense of humor from now.  Matt's mom was talking about how Matt is a picky eater, and Matt shocked me by saying "Oh she knows, she calls me a picky Bitch".  So just as I was about to crawl under the table, his mom was like, "who calls you that? She does? You go sista!" and proceeded to give me a high five. (I know, crazy right?) Phew.  But yes, after a lovely dinner we went to the Amherst Cinema House and saw "Once". Amazing. The lead singer of The Frames is one of the lead characters. It's called a musical, but I don't know if you can really call it that.  The plot was based around the songs, the songs weren't based on the plot. And there wasn't any lame dancing. Just a real singer-songwriter writing songs based on his experiences (mainly his girlfriend cheating on him) joining up with a piano player who is in a messy marriage who adds the perfect touch to his songs with her own experiences. LOVED IT.  And I'm quite happy I got a chance to see it, because there is nothing like the Amherst Cinema House down in CT.  At least near me anyways.

The month of June flew by.  I'm working at Carini's again and it isn't as bad as it used to be.  It's just different.  I've trained 4 new people already. Yeah. And some of them have kids.  Awkward. But yes, I've finally gotten used to where everything is after the remodeling happened. Other than working I've been running a lot. I'm attempting to every other day, and it's always an adventure.  Whether it be the people I come across, things people yell from cars, or giving someone the wrong directions by accident.  Aww yeah.

I saw Feist on June 8th with Jill and Mike at the Calvin Theater in Northampton. We ate at Bueno and then Herrel's, and then headed to the concert. It was a great concert, although the audience wasn't very into it.  Except of course for the lady who sat next to Mike.  Mike did his "dance", and she told him he was a wonderful dancer.  Jill and I thought she was joking, until she imitated his dance.  Then, when the song "Gatekeeper" came on, she asked if he was at the concert with a date.  Like an ass, he said no, and she asked him to get up in the aisle and dance with her.  He in fact agreed, and I have a picture to prove it. Amazing.   We all got up to dance to "1234" and it was glorious. The opening act was called "Grizzly Bear".  They were ok, but most of their songs sounded the same, and they were pretty pessimistic.  They would say things like "This is the first time we're opening for Feist and we may not ever do it again", and "Thanks for the applause, we may never get a chance to do this again", or "Wow, it's new playing in a theater this big, hopefully we'll be able to do it again"...you get the idea.  Mike planned on screaming "You really don't suck that bad" but decided against it. He did however find them at the merch booth and asked why they're called "Grizzly Bear".  Apparently, it's an inside joke.

As far as other concerts go, I also saw Ben Folds at the Spring Concert at UMass in May.  I loved him! I've become newly obsessed with "Rockin the Suburbs" and I'm not ashamed that I wasn't a hard core fan before I went and that I'm turning into one now.  That's what concert going is supposed to be like...you're supposed to discover new music you like! Ok Go also performed, as well as Talib Kweli who made fun of the song "This is Why I'm Hot" like a badass.  Overall, it was a great concert.

I'm probably forgetting a large part of my summer thus far, but if I think of anything else, I'll update again.

All for now...

Mood: Procrastinating.

So I went ahead and decided not to update this for a month and a half or so.  Ok, I didn't decide to, I just didn't have time to.  Technically, I don't have time right now either, but I'm procrastinating. My sister's graduation is at Tufts tomorrow, and I have to go up to UMass next week for three more finals, and I'm playing in the commencement band. I thought the whole playing in commencement band thing would be easy, but I was wrong...it's a lot of playing nonstop, two days in a row. But I'm getting paid to do it, so that's pretty sweet.

This year I've really only had two "nervous" breakdowns, and they have both occurred in my aural skills class.  The first was in my first aural skills lab ever in September, the second, was yesterday. I'm not really sure what happened.  I sat down from Professor Karpinski in my sight singing final, and I freaked out.  It was weird because I looked over the melody and it was fine until I saw a weird interval, and I thought to myself "oh my god, I'm actually going to fail this".  This was the point of no return for me, because when he told me to begin, I attempted, swallowing back tears, and it was awful.  Everything was wrong but I tried to keep going, and it just got worse and worse.  After a little while he had me do the chord progression instead.  This was worse because I knew the syllables and they sounded right in my head, but they wouldn't come out, and he stopped me.  He stopped me and told me he had to make sure this was performance anxiety and that it wasn't anything serious, because if it was serious he couldn't let me go on, because it wouldn't get any better.  At this point I was out right crying.  Fantastically embarrassing.  He reached and gave me a kleenex.  Fantastically awkward.  He then told me I was going to have to retake it after the dictation final next Wednesday to make sure it was performance anxiety and that I could actually do it.  Pressure much?  I then proceeded to apologize, and then ran into the ladies room.  How awful.  I know I shouldn't go on the pessimistic side, but I feel like I have to in order to recognize how important next Wednesday is.  If I don't pass aural skills II I have to wait until next Spring to take it, therefore putting me a year behind.  I'm already a year behind with voice, so it's possible I would be two years behind because I can't take conducting until I take aural skills.  It's a killer cycle, and I'm afraid I'm going to break under the pressure.  However I'm trying not to convince myself of this, because thinking about all of that could ruin what I am capable of next Wednesday.  I'm just saying....it's intense.  I've done it in my labs before, so why can't I do it one on one? It should technically be less intimidating this way...so maybe next time around it will be different.

I also have my microbio and piano final next week, which I'm not very concerned about.  I don't think the end of my freshman year is going to hit me until I get through it, so I shall update this after that happens.

Wish me luck...