homecomings
Mood:  spacey
Topic: latest news
sorry it's been a while. i've been pretty busy lately with ap course applications and such. i had work today (even though it's martin luther king day, geez doesn't charlie ever close?) and that was alright. same same. hmmm lemme think a sec about all that has happened recently. oh yeah. finals are coming up wednesday and thursday. i sure hope i do well on them. i think i have the spanish 2 final on wednesday along with biology. then thursday it's math and english. i don't really like finals because of all the writing it involves and i also hate coming upon the questions that you know the answer to, but just can't quite remember at the moment

i just got the da vinci code and i finished reading it today. wow! what a totally cool book! it really puts in perspective what sort of religious arguments go on out there in the world. i'm not sure if we're ever going to know the truth about jesus and mary magdelene. all of it is so controversial. but i'm sure someday, the truth will be revealed about everything. the world will know the answers.

teresa came home last week on thursday. what a great homecoming. i came down from english just to see her and kristin came down from biology. and we stayed awhile down in the bandroom and practiced and stuff. and then it was about 2:00 pm and time for teresa to come in at any moment! it was great. i stepped in the bandroom for just a second and suddenly there was this explosion of yelling out in the hall and kristin and teresa and clare (teresa's sister) were all out in the hall and everyone was hugging each other. i don't think you ever really find out how much you're missed until you come home.

that's probably the latest news for me. the new semester starts this friday and i'll have art, u.s. in modern world affairs, geometry, music theory, and a study hall. i'll have to finish the rest of my ap course applications and some of them i am handing in tomorrow.

ziggy

lost in target
Mood:  sharp
Topic: latest news
christmas came and went so suddenly it was like standing really close to a moving train. i suppose you're all wondering what i got. well here's the latest scoop. i got some candy in my stocking, an awesome lamp for my desk which i needed, this really nice sweater that has been all through venice and europe with my dad, a silver ankh for this silver chain that i already had, a lord of the rings calendar (in color lol), a cd organizer book thing so i don't have to throw cds everywhere on band trips, and....a cell phone.

yep all of a sudden i am thrown headfirst into the wild world of haivng to pay a large amount of money just to talk on a tiny piece of plastic. but that tiny piece of plastic that i have (a virgin mobile kyocera k9) also has all this other totally cool stuff. i have account and a number now and i use phone cards with minutes instead of having to become a slave to a calling plan or something. it's great and i also have some games on there to play.

the next day after christmas, we went to philadelphia to visit my grandmother and attend the usual family christmas party. this year, we took four different kinds of coffee for after dinner which everyone enjoyed learning about and drinking. i got a cool gigantic blue pencil from cousin marcia from the harvard museum of natural history.

we stayed at a motel and then came home. the next day after that, we decided to go out and buy a brand new tv that would replace our other 19 inch one (tiny!). we used a gift card that was given to us and got a 27 inch tv and it seems so big to us! it's cool. man that target store is so freakin huge and it seems like someone who is not used to such an environment might become lost or something. i also bought halo for our computer but since our computer is sort of old and slow, the game doesn't work! geez. i hope i can get things working soon.

last night we went over to some friends of our's and they gave me a book of edgar allen poe with his short stories and everything. wow it's really great. i've always really admired his work. and i'm not sure if i wrote this but i also bought this thing online for the first time ever with a walden's gift card. i bought hamlet and i have to get back to reading it as soon as i have time.

because even though it's vacation, we still have some schoolwork to do. i have a bunch because i need to start my ap course application papers. and i accidently read all of "of mice and men" the other day even though i was only supposed to read the beginning. oops! oh well. lol.

and coming up is kassie's party. wow the year's gone so fast. and kassie's party is going to be so cool. i can't wait to see some of my friends. and it's an all-nighter so that'll be a first for me. it'll be 8 pm to 8 am and i'm going to try to stay awake as long as possible which may be difficult lol. i'll have to keep myself occupied. i'll make sure to take pictures and post them my photo albums somewhere!

ziggy

10 days
Mood:  spacey
Topic: latest news
of vacation that is. school let out today and it was a big relief for everyone i think. our school concert was today and that went alright. nothing much happened the rest of the day, just skipping classes and stuff. everyone was watching christmas movies anyway.

i worked all week this week except for today which clare gave me off. instead, tomorrow i go in and work for 2 hours so that isn't bad. hey, tomorrow is christmas eve. my how the time flies! it seems like only yesterday i was typing a message on the old forum on the old website where norbert and kawika and i just met. a lot has happened in a year.

hmmm let's see. the movie recruiting seems to be going well. ronnie is in, and so is swopey and maybe dave and maybe jonathan. hopefully jeremy can play a part because we need him. dave seems unsure about it so i dunno if he's in or not. the more people the better.

kassie's party is next week and i'm going to that and staying all night. it's going to a blast. i can't wait! and cathy's having that party on the 8th. that will be fun if i can go. well that's the latest news. oh and teresa will be coming home soon!

ziggy

letters to africa
Mood:  bright
Topic: latest news
i finally got that letter sent to teresa yesterday. it only cost me like 80 cents to do it so that wasn't bad. it's about time i get around to sending it so i'm glad i finally did. i'll send her a few more over christmas break right before she comes home maybe. i can't forget, though, that she's spending a week in amsterdam before she finally arrives home.

i'm thinking of making a movie. sort of like a lord of the rings type movie but there's a big problem that i may not be able to get a few people together on one day. we'll be filming out in the woods and there's this bird watching stand too. see the plot of the movie is that the protagonist is journeying through the woods and on the way he'll meet several antagonists that he must fight to get to the lookout tower (the lookout tower being the birdwatching stand). and when he finally gets to the birdwatching stand, he has to fight this other really bad guy so then he could get to the ring. or something else valuable, i dunno. and it should be filmed in the evening. i'm thinking maybe i'll need 4 or 5 people. and a blank tape of course.

we went and got our christmas tree today at heckman's tree farm. see what you do is you ride out in this wagon to the field and cut it yourself and bring it in on the wagon and then they take it and tie it up and shake all the loose needles off for you. and then you pay for it and there's free hot chocolate and cookies. that was pleasant. and tomorrow there's nothing to be done but homework and this week we get out early on thursday which is nice.

ziggy

the ruritan job
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: latest news
last thursday (i guess yesterday) the jazz and rock ensemble from the school (which i am a member of)went and played at the kauffman ruritan club. it went well and it was our first performance of the year. the choralaires were there to sing too. it was pretty rainy out, though, and we had to load and unload the truck in the rain. other than that, we all had a fun time.

i just got back from ted's house where we celebrated his 17th birthday and we had a blast. we played video games, jammed, and ate food. we also watched some of ted's movies that he made with some other people. austin and ryan were there along with justin, danielle, lauren, sam, and nate. good times:)

sunday we have a concert. it's the annual highschool christmas concert. the middle school had their's on like the 7th or something. i hope our's goes well. the highschool concert band is playing and also all the choir groups and the 9th grade band. too bad the concert is going to be like 2 freakin hours long. i remember last year how long it was and i think that this year i'm gonna bring something to read.

ziggy

?Que hiciste el fin de semana?
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: latest news
hmmm ?que hiciste tu pidiste? fui al District Auditions. El District Auditions son de Dallastown, PA. Fueron mal porque fui trenta de cuarenta y ocho. Se?or Forney me hablo que hice bien pero soy no muy contento. fue mi primer hora tambien, tan esto es bueno para mi primer hora. tambien, hice muy diveritido porque conoci muchas personas nuevas y los hable.

okay time to stop practicing spanish and talk in english. i just said (or tried my best to say) that i went to District auditions and it didn't go too well because i was 30th chair out of 48 (they only took the top 19) but i had a lot of fun because i met a lot of new people and talked to them. it was really cool because suddenly, i was surrounded by a lot of other people who actually took band seriously. i hung out with austin and ryan (the other two trumpets trying out) all day and we met some cool people.

the day began when i had to wake up at 4:00 am to get ready and be at school by 5:15. i arrived early at like 5:05 and then it was like a two hour bus ride to the dallastown school.

it was really cold and we had to stand outside for a minute or two and half froze and then it was time to go inside. and this school was freakin huge. no i really mean FREAKIN HUGE. the lobby looked like one of those airport terminal things and there were all these hallways. and there like several main entrances and the auditiorium was twice the size of the one we have and had this cool light box and a balcony with all the lights and a big screen that pulled down one which movies were playing all day (dvds to be exact). and the cafeteria was enormous as well with huge skylights.

anyways, we all took our instruments (there was 15 of us auditioning that day) and went into this one corridor and set our stuff down and had to search for the restrooms and then hung out for maybe an hour. at 8:00 the auditions officially started. someone came down the corridor we were camped out in and told us to go our audition rooms. the rooms for the trumpets was rooms 303, 305, and 307. the first room you played your scales in, the second room you played part 1 of your solo. the third room you played your 2nd part of your solo. there were around 48 trumpets trying out.

austin and ryan and i arrived outside the rooms and hung around in the hallway for what seemed like forever (it was probably another hour or so) and then more trumpets began arriving. and more and more and more. i had never seen so many trumpets at one time. and most of the players had this bach stradivarius silver plated works of art that sounded like the voice of god or something. i had my yamaha with me (slightly tarnished and quite a few years old). so we all chatted and i talked to a few people. one guy i talked to was pretty nice and he seemed as nervous as i was. you could feel the tension building.

then they called all 48 of us into the first room to give us our instructions and then we all went back out into the hall. everyone sort of stood in a group and ryan and austin and i moved to the back of the "line" and then we figured it would be better to go and get it over with so we cut in near the front. and this was when you get so nervous that you start getting really jumpy about everything.

then it was time. the trumpets in front of us went. then ryan went into the first room and i waited. then ryan came out and waited to go into the second room and i waited a little longer to go into the first room. and then the guy came out and told me to go in. so i went in and all it was was dead silence with these two judges with there backs facing you in the back. and i had to play my e scale, a flat, and chromatic. and i played the e scale great and then the a flat was terrible and the chromatic wasn't too great. and i think that really ruined the audition.

so then i came out and stood behind ryan who was waiting to go into the second room. he went in and came out and then i went in. i played the part fairly well. and then i came out and went down a ways to the third and final room. the part i had to play then was very difficult but i did really well on it and then i left and it was all over. scores would be given out at 1:00 pm.

so it was only around maybe 10:00 am by then so we had a butt load of time to just do whatever. we decided to return to the hallway with all of our stuff and we stood a while there and then i realized that i had a hacky sack with me. so then we were hacking for a while or so and we'd randomly ask people who walked by (it was a slightly busy corridor) to play with us. hardly anyone really wanted too except for one fellow who came and asked us if he could play. we let him because there was no one else to hack with and we found out his name was cody or something and he was from northeastern or central dauphin or somewhere. and he was really good with the hacky sack so we played for like an hour and then the corridor became to busy.

so we moved to this other corridor for a long while to play but the problem was it was right near these flutes who were practicing . they sounded really good (and i mean really good) except it was just really loud and a bit obnoxious. so we then austin, cody, ryan, ryan and i walked back to the main lobby to hack because we figured that would be a big enough place to hack. and on the way we stumbled upon the most horrid sight any brass player would throw up on when they saw it.

we were suddenly surrounded by oboes.

not just a few but like 50 or so and it seemed like a million to me. everywhere you looked, there was an oboe. now in case you don't know, a lot of band people would agree that the oboe is their least favorite instrument because of the oboe's sound. it's really high pitched and buzzy if not played well and that is what most of us are used to hearing. we finally made it through the oboes and out into the main terminal of the airport i mean the lobby and ryan turns and points to this group of kids trying to hack with a piece of paper.

there were 3 of them: a girl, and two guys. we went up to them and decided to help them out and let them use our hacky sack (which was mine) and so we all stood in a big circle and hacked forever: ryan, cody, austin, the girl, the two guys, and me. we learned the girl was korean and was from cedar cliff or somewhere like that and she played the french horn and one of the guys was also from there and he played percussion. the other guy i think was from northeastern but that never really matters where you are from when you decide to play hacky sack. he played the tuba, by the way.

we had a blast and we got the hack to hit the ceiling which was like 20 feet up and we tried to get a full (short for "full house" which means everyone hits the hack before it touches the ground) and we almost succeeded and we had a ton of fun. then it was around 11:45 and all of us were starving. so we went into the enormous cafeteria and had lunch. i paid about $4.26 for lunch which was really expensive then what i am used to paying. and we all took the table nearest to the registers and just talked and talked. and ate food.

and we all agreed that the food was pretty bad. austin found a big piece of hair in his piece of pizza which was really really gross but funny. and then the tuba guy disappeared for a while and then came back and was pissed off because he had to pay $1.75 for this tiny little candy bar and we had a good laugh at that. good times.

it was getting close to one so we all parted and went back to our audition rooms. there, they all called us into the first room and gave us back our audition sheets and i had a score of 66.2 and ryan had like a 40 point something and austin had like a 43 point something. and then they announced the top four and all and then we could leave and just do whatever.

the auditorium was full of a whole lot of people and they were showing movies in there all day. ryan and austin and i sat down and watched the end of shrek 2, all of elf, and the beginning of star wars episode 2: attack of the clones. near the end of elf, i was feeling sort of drowsy so i scooted down in the seat and was just starting to drift off when a head pops over mine and says "hey how did you do" and scares the bejesus out of me. it was the korean girl and that group joined us again. and we chatted and talked about stuff while the movies went on.

then it was time to leave at 4:00 pm. it had been a really long day and they began to call schools out to the lobby so ryan and austin and i decided to head on out and get our stuff. we said goodbye to the people we had met that day and we weren't sure if we'd ever all get together again. but it was nice while it lasted. the bus ride home was tiresome and we stopped at a burger king to get a bite to eat and then it was around 6:30 pm when we arrived home. and there was still sunday to do homework!

ziggy

thanksgiving vacation and a few hundred sample packets later...
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: latest news
hello again. thanksgiving vacation is coming to a close :( but school is starting again which means i won't be as bored all day! :) there's always a positive and negative side to things; you just have to make the choice of which one you would choose. i've been really busy lately. busy thinking, sleeping, talking, doing homework and eating leftovers from thanksgiving dinner (mmmm!). i've also been exploring a few new doodads for my webpage that i can add.

i think what i'm going to do is work on this website for our local area art's council for my community service project. sounds cool huh? hours and hours of bliss sitting in a comfy chair and being creative. how much better could it be? lol. and i am also planning to do a movie of next year's field band season. and maybe i'll do one for my senior project too. that would totally cool.

this coming weekend is district tryouts. it's the top dogs of about 5 different counties. i hope i can make it in at least. if i somehow make top 4, that means i can try out for district orchestra. they take the top 4 from one district and the top 4 from this other district and take those 8 and choose the top 4 from that group. yeah a bit complicated i guess. it's just like semifinals and then finals. i've got the solo down pretty good so i feel confident. i don't want to be overly confident of course!

well i only had about 10 minutes to write this so i guess i'll cut it short here and leave another longer message tomorrow.

ziggy

state championships
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: latest news
yesterday was the state championships for pennsylvania. boy what a hard day it was. i left home about 9:00 am and went to arby's to get something to eat for lunch later on and for some strange reason arby's was closed that day. so i went to mcdonalds and i could get from there was an egg mcmuffin and bacon. so then it was time to go get batteries so i went on over to the travel shop across the road thinking that they would have batteries but they didn't. wouldn't you think that a travel store would have batteries? so then i went over to this other place and got batteries there for like six bucks. geez.

so then i arrived at school and waited for a while and we hacky sacked for a while and then rehearsed for about an hour. then it we had an hour to eat our lunch (my egg mcmuffin and bacon for me) and then it was time to go. it was about a little less than three hours with a rest stop on the way to our destination which was the j. birney crum stadium. mr. forney said that we hit that same rest stop on every trip so many times that they're going to have to name it after us. lol.

we went to the changing rooms and then we got to practice and warm up by this lake and that's when it started to sprinkle some rain. it had clouded over and it suddenly got a bit cooler but no one really thought of it. just a little rain wouldn't hurt anything. so then it was time for us to go on after a little while of practice.

by that time it was a little later in the evening and it had grown a bit darker and the rain was now pretty steady and it got very cold. it was time, though, for us to go on to do our show and i couldn't help but think how uncomfortable it is to be cold, damp, and have to use the bathroom at the same time but really we had no choice. it started raining a little harder as we marched onto the field and by the time we got behind our backdrops it was raining ever so slightly harder and the sky was darker.

the field was astr turf so i was mainly worried about slipping (because it was wet) and falling down and all but i made sure to run slower out onto the field. as we were going into the first we moves it began raining even harder. it felt like it was about thirty degrees or something and the rain hurt when it hit my face. and the part where we have to play down on one knee was pretty cool. also, the cymbals in the pit had a lot of condensation on them and every time that someone hit them, a huge spray of water would fly off. it was very dramatic

we reached this part of the show called "the morning of the dragon" and the sky opened up and just poured like there was no tomorrow down on us. i could sort of see earl (one of our drum majors) up on the podium conduction. and then as we were going forward at one point, the wind blue the rain right into our faces. i thought my hat was going to blow off at that point and thank goodness it didn't. the rain didn't let up for a second and it came time for us to die on the field and it was still pouring rain. so it was pretty weird for a moment because i died as the rain was like pounding into my face and looked around and i could see everyone else dying and it was like it was the actual vietnam war for a second.

and then afterwards we all had to run off the field as usual and it was still pouring but it had lessened slightly. on the way back to the bus we would see people and hear them say how much they enjoyed the show and how cool it was and that's a good feeling you know? and then everyone was soaked all the way through and my pants were wet from like the knees down and my jacket was soaked all the way through. however, my black shirt was dry and everything else so i just threw on a sweatshirt because that's all i had. and it got pretty warm in the back of the bus because the heat was on full blast.

and then it came time to go out for awards and it started sleeting and we could see some hail and stuff too. and austin, kristin, ted, swopey, jonathan, kassie, and jeremy decided to stay on the bus instead of going out into the rain and stuff. we were the only ones to stay behind. later on, we heard that the awards were about to be presented so we all went out (because it stopped raining) to the stadium and watched from the sidelines.

they gave some special awards first when it was our group's turn to be announced. and this one group won like three of the special awards (we won the "best music" award, by the way) and we all thought that perhaps they would beat us. and then they announced the scores. there were four bands in our group (group 2 open) so it was an agonizing wait. and it turns out that the group that won those three special awards only finished third. and after they announced the fourth and third places (not us) we were psyced because that meant we would win either first or second. and then the announcer announced the second place band and it wasn't us! so edna (swopey's mom) grabbed me and hugged me so tightly that i thought that maybe my head would pop off. then it was announced that we had won first place and we were state champions!

it feels good to be the best in the state i think. it's quite a title and i hope we can defend it. i took a lot of pictures and that's one of them to the left. that's one of our drum majors (beckie) with our huge trophie. and afterwards, on the way home, we raided taco bell and burger king and ate a lot of food. and then (several hours later) as we were arriving home, we were pulling off the exit ramp and i noticed a police car pull out in front of the first bus (we took two buses) with these flashing lights on and one pulled out behind us (i was in the last bus) and it had its flashers on too.

and then we were all like "what's going on??" and then mrs. harvey said that since we were state champs, we had a police escort take us through town and we were allowed to like hang out of the windows and yell and cheer and stuff. that was very cool. it felt so neat to have a police escort. boy being state champs sure have a lot of benefits i guess.

ziggy

ps: oh yeah forgot to mention. we beat musselmen at the last competition at allegany by nearly two points. lol ;)

weeks fly by
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: latest news
last night was our second competition and as usual, we came home an hour late. lol. we were supposed to get home around midnight but it was more like 1:00 am instead. we placed second in our group but we also took home the best auxiliary percussion award. we scored two points higher than the next band for that one. but we finished second and the first place band beat us by about three points which is a huge loss for us. and it's the same band that beat us last week at the other competition. we also had a point and a half penalty for going over the allotted time for being on the field. we're gonna have to work on that.

the hurricane moved through friday night and a few tornadoes moved through this area. one of them came within one hundred yards of kristi's house. it was only about ten feet wide but it took the roof of a barn and uprooted some trees. boy good thing a tornado didn't come near our place.

today i went and got a new hacky sack because my old one developed a large hole in it and died. it's flat as a pancake now. and i also got a black shirt for our uniforms for band. a football that was scheduled last friday is now tomorrow (because of the hurricane) and we're playing for that game. we're doing the pregame show. oh and next weekend's competition is on saturday. the same band that beat us the past two weeks for first place is in that one so we're gonna try to throw them down. again and again and again...

ziggy

no work tomorrow
Mood:  bright
Topic: latest news
first i will begin with yesterday since that's when i had the get-together at my house. there wasn't a lot of yard work to do, just mow half of the lawn. i was just about finished and then the lawn mower died so we have to figure out how to fix it in some way. oh well. then i had to buy snacks for the get-together and that consisted of a lot of soda and chips and, yes of course, famous amos chocolate chip cookies (only the best).

i had practice at six and that went pretty well. our closing to the show will be just like the beginning accept that we're running off the field instead of onto it. we've got the entire thing down and i think that all we really need to work on is our marching style, playing the right notes, keeping in time, and hitting the formations. okay so maybe that is a lot of improvement to make. and our first performance is only a week away! gosh. i think on sunday i will go up and help with the prop-making at two 'o clock and i want to help out with that. a lot of cammo netting and stuff.

and after practice, kristin, laura, justin, and i walked home to my house and we picked cameron up on the way. and then upon arrival at my house, we hung out in the living room and then we moved to the backyard (it was dark by then) and we started a fire in the fire pit. and it got hot enough that we stuck this glass bottle in the fire and it melted and then we took it out and it was all warped and flat. lol that was pretty far out.

we let the fire die down a bit and then we all went for a walk around. that was pretty fun. it was probably the last get-together of the summer but there will hopefully be more sometime soon. i dunno with school and all because of all the work.

today i had to clean the back yard out a little more and oh i forgot to mention that we moved the computer over onto a different table and fixed the tangle mess of wires and everything. and we have this old swivel chair that we use for the computer chair now. i went shopping today for shoes and a bookbag (because school is suddenly upon us!) and i went to old navy and i found this great canvas bookbag sack type thing and i really hope it lasts. it looks like it will. i go through a bookbag every three weeks because someone always messes with it and breaks a strap or something. geez it's like a reflex. "i think i'll try to pull on this string here...weee!!..ooops oh crap...." it happens all the time. oh well. and i got a new pair of vans to wear and there were some shirts on sale at the store so i bought three of them. i spent a little over a hundred dollars today. wow that's like the most i've spent in a while. i was supposed to work tomorrow (and make more moolah lol) but charlie called and said he doesn't need me because the schedule is messed up. there would be too many people there so he gave me the day off! ah yes that means i can sleep in...

ziggy