Sunday Songs: Summer is Over

I went to a Jon McLaughlin concert last week.  I just love him.  It was a great concert, he's a funny guy, and I think his music was better live than on his albums, which is not necessarily something that always happens.  And he's just really good looking, too, which doesn't hurt at all either. The way he plays the piano and sings really demonstrates his knowledge of music theory and the vocal arts, which is always nice, when you can tell that someone didn't just fall into making music.  He's one of my top three favorite musicians (Gabe Dixon and Ben Folds being the other two) and I would totally go see another concert any time.

This is a song from his most recent album, a song that, as he put t, is a terrific breakup song and pretty much wrings your heart out until it feels better.  And then he goes on to sing one of the sweetest love songs ever.  Nice juxtaposition. 

But anyway, I enjoy this song and although it's bittersweet and the line "your eyes were green, and we were too" gets me nearly every time, it's beautifully written and poignant and, whether you need a goo dbreakup song or not, it's just a good one.

This version includes Sara Bareilles as a duet.

And this, for your bonus entertainment, is his song I'll Follow You, which is the sweet love song I alluded to earlier.  Just listen, see if it doesn't make you tear up with all kinds of warm fuzzies and hope and all that fluffy stuff.  I like this song because it makes me think that someday, someone will feel that way about me and let me feel that way about them.  Looking forward to it.

Don't you just love music?

Enjoy.

The Great Sorority in the Sky

Today, one of the founders of my sorority passed away.  Wava Banes Turner Henry and a group of young women at Texas Tech University decided that a love of music and music education and service needed to be officially recognized in the form of a sorority dedicated to the service of college and university bands.  What started as a small group at Tech, after a few tough years of war and red tape and waiting, became Tau Beta Sigma, a national organization with over 200 chapters and thousands and thousands of members.

My sisters and I mourn Wava's passing today, but we are also incredibly grateful for her influence and that she had the audacity to make a group of women into something more than bystanders.  The fact that TBS was founded 66 years ago means that, in 2007, I got to rush Tau Beta Sigma and meet my best friend.  In 2008, I got to join Tau Beta Sigma and meet my sisters.  In 2010, I got to plan a district convention for over 900 students coming together to learn how to better serve college bands.  In 2010 and 2011, I got to lead a group of sisters as President and learn about myself and about true sisterhood in the process.  In 2011, I got to represent the sorority I love as a Homecoming princess and bring campus-wide recognition to our group.  In 2011, I got to say "see you later" to my sisters, but know that I would never have to really say "goodbye."  In 2011, I got to travel with sisters to National Convention and celebrate music, bands, and our sisterhood with the likes of Janet West Miller and Wava Henry and countless numbers of others dedicated to the same cause.  In 2012, I will get to reconnect with my sisters at Homecoming and remember some of the best times of my life with those who share a bond that doesn't really change.  And through it all, I got to play, work, and best of all, serve the band together with my sisters.  Tau Beta Sigma, and college band, changed my life, without question.

Without the work of Wava and her group, and the further work of the founders of the Iota chapter at Baylor, none of that would have happened.  So today, I want to honor Wava and try to follow in her footsteps and stay a member of Tau Beta Sigma "until I join the Great Sorority in the sky" and always have the "fortitude and courage to see an ideal, to seize upon it, and follow it wherever it may lead [me] in Tau Beta Sigma" and in life.

Tonto-less

I am the Lone Ranger.
But without a horse named Silver, and without a pal named Tonto, and without a fun theme song.
Still, close enough.  I have cowboy boots.

Grad school, though, is a lonely existence. You don't really know people that well, because you haven't known them your entire life or even, at this point, for much more than a year.  There's not this huge history of experience and life to build a huge foundation.  And then, you're not really going to know them for that long, either; school is only 2 years, 18 months in the same place, to be exact.  Yeah, there will be reunions at conferences every once in a while, but then you're distant colleagues.  It's different.

And while I feel like I am friends with everyone in my class and I could easily have a conversation for a while with anyone, and I'm even close enough to a handful to expose some of my thoughts and air my opinions, I don't feel like I am a part of a group or that I have a person.  I have friends, but not a person.

I've been re-watching Grey's Anatomy while I work out, and Cristina and Meredith have their person in each other.  Their person they can rely on, can tell anything to, can vent to without fear of repercussion, can help and laugh with and solve problems with and just hang out with.  In junior high school, I met my people, Meredith and Christine, who became my person(s).  They're still my people, but it's different and difficult when you're 700 miles away, and everyone has busy lives and jobs and things.  In college, I had my person Heather for two years, and when she graduated, I lost my person, and for the next year I was either really lonely or really busy planning a huge convention.  Then, Joel became my person and more, and so even when I came all the way to Tennessee and it was lonely at times, I still felt like I had a person.  Maybe I didn't feel like I needed to have a person here, because I already had him to rely on.  I had a person, so I didn't need to spend time to find a new person.

But now, I don't have him and all my other persons are a zillion miles away, and I don't have a person.  My cat is my person.  As cuddly and cute as she is, she does not count as a person - she is a cat.

I'm not the kind to form deep relationships with many people.  I tend to be friends with a bunch, and really close to a very few, like two, people at a time.  I'm a private person in general, too.  Except for this blog, I suppose.  I don't have a person now, and maybe that's why I felt the need to create a blog.  Maybe that's why I tweet more and facebook more and write more - I've gotta have some outlet for all of those things that I would normally tell my person.

And you know what?  I'm terrified now that I will have a hard time finding a new person.  I am someone who needs a best friend, a best friend who is present and whom I talk to regularly.  And whom I listen to regularly!  But I am scared that I won't have the opportunity to find a person.  Colleagues will be colleagues, family will be family, and friends will always be friends, but they'll move away, or I'll move away, and they'll get married and have lives, or I'll get married and have a life.  It's not the same.

I am terrified that I won't have a person, but I'm also terrified that there is something about me, about my personality, that will make it hard for me to find a new person; something about me that makes me a bad friend, a bad girlfriend, a bad sister, a bad student, a bad colleague.  That's a little tangent, but it's there.

Anyway.  I'm glad I have my family, friends, and cat.  I'm thankful for so many blessings in my life.  But I'm lonely, and I don't like it.

The end.

Ready, Set, Go!

I'm about ready for the following things:

- for my toe to not be broken anymore
- to be able to really work out again, which I can't do because my toe is broken
- for my air conditioner to get fixed.  oh wait, it did.  well, I'm ready for it to be actually fixed and stop leaking everywhere
- for my heart to stop feeling all mashed up
- to stop feeling angry
- to forgive,a nd to be forgiven
- for my head to stop remembering, well, pretty much everything
- for my mom to come into town next weekend!
- to go home for homecoming!
- to see my friends again
- for the leaves to change all the way
- for cooler weather to stay, instead of switching back to 82 degrees
- to wear my new boots
- to lose more weight, and faster
- to know everything I need to know to be a good speech pathologist
- to not have to learn about acoustics anymore
- to not have to worry about homework
- to have an income
- to not live in this apartment anymore
- to be ready for finding love again

I'm just feeling a little impatient at the moment.  I don't intend to wish my life away, but I'm kinda ready to get out of this limbo-like feeling.  Yep.

In other news, I dyed my hair today.  Such a rebel.

All Autumn, All the Time

this is love right here.

Fall is my absolute favorite season.  The very air outside smells delicious, like dusty, crackly leaves.  Every cinnamon-y and pumpkin-y good thing is being baked, and apples are tasting more delicious than ever before.  There's a crispness in the air that makes me want to be outside all the time, and hate that I have to make do by merely keeping my windows open.  Fall is terrific.

But this fall is also making me kinda sad and nostalgic.  Why?  Because all I've been for the past three months is sad and nostalgic.  At least I'm consistent.

I just want to carve pumpkins, attempt and surprisingly succeed at making delicious pumpkin cinnamon rolls, go to a corn maze, sit on a blanket and look at the stars, drink hot chocolate or apple cider, and roast marshmallows on an outdoor fire.

And I don't want to do those things by myself.

In summary, this is making me wish that fall would just hurry up and be over so I don't have to think about it any more.

I'm sorry, that's not how I intended this post to end up.  I just wanted to talk about fall loveliness and how I would be happy if it was October and November all the time.

I promise, one of these days I will stop writing about how pitiful I am.  But it is not this day.

Choir Solution!

So my last post talked about how I was all conflicted about church choir.

Well, today I got an email from our director that basically said the song we are performing is going to be saved until Easter (and I won't be here anymore) and that the next rehearsals will be for the Christmas performance in December, when I will be out of town.

So I guess I'm off the hook!

Win-win and bonus, no guilt!  Yay :)

Choir Confession

This may be the meanest post I ever write.

Okay.  I love singing.  More than anything, I love singing in a choir.

So this summer and fall, I decided to join the church choir.  Why have a talent if I don't put it to use glorifying God?

So I went to rehearsals, dragged a friend along with me even, and joined the choir.

But today... today, I skipped rehearsal.

Why?

I am admitting my faults.  I have a problem.  I am a choir snob of the worst kind.

I have very little patience for, I don't know what to call it, a lack of excellence I guess.  This isn't super harsh, I don't think, as it's true that official choirs tend to be better than tiny church choirs.  It's kinda just how it works, and it makes sense/  I realize that yes, we are supposed to be making a joyful noise and God cares much more about what's in our hearts than what comes out of our mouths.  And the people are kind, enthusiastic, and actually fairly competent.  The director is enthusiastic, fairly knowledgeable, and managed to write a pretty good song.

But at the same time, I find myself being annoyed out of my mind during rehearsals.  I don't really know what bugs me about it, I can't put my finger on it, but for some reason I am not loving this choir.  I'm also singing alto, which really isn't my home base, so that might be part of it.

I think the trouble is that I am unfairly comparing it to previous choirs I've been in.  The President's Concert my senior year of undergrad was some of the best music I've ever been involved in, especially the gooooooorgeous Brahms piece.  Some of my favorite memories from high school are trips and rehearsals and songs and concerts with the choir.  It was really good to be good.  Yup, I miss the old day.s

I'm also singing alto, which really isn't my home base, so that might be part of it.

I was really busy this evening and have to go to sleep like...now because the next two days are going to be rather full, so I decided not to go to rehearsal.  I don't miss going to rehearsal, although I do feel some guilt for letting the director and other choir members down.  Every voice really does count when there are only 10  -12 people.

But I am considering just dealing with the guilt and not going to rehearsals anymore, or at least not all of them.  School is busy, life is busy, and eating dinner at 9:00 three nights out of the week is really wearing on me.

I don't want to be a flake, but I also don't know what to do because I just don't want to go.

I am conflicted.  A conflicted choir snob.

Oh, the guilt.