Sunday, September 9, 2007

So I'm really bad at keeping up at this. I'm back at school. We (the whole family) drove to Utah. We stopped in Hyde Park (near Logan) for a couple of days to visit with our friends the Bennetts. That was really neat. Kevin just got home from his mission a few months ago and so he told us about his mission - he went to Costa Rica. It was really fun to get to hang out with Teri Ann too. She is down at BYU now too as a freshman. The next Monday we drove down to Provo and got me all moved in. Brittni and I are living together again with two other girls in an apartment complex called Monticello (everyone here insists that it is pronounced "montiSello" but it just sounds wrong to me) I really like it here. The ward is very friendly. Our other two roommates are alright. One is really nice, and the other is just kind of spoiled - the youngest child syndrome. Anyway, I really like living here and I'm not afraid of RM's anymore. I don't really know why, but last year they seemed so old but now the Premees seems SO young (the pre-missionaries).

So I started my classes last Tuesday. I like most of them I think. Here they are:
  • Music 201 - Civilization of music until 1860 or some date like that. I took the second half of this class last winter and although it was pretty hard, I liked it. So I'm taking the first half. That and I think I have to for my major. The professor is really neat. Dr. Howard. He is from Australia so it's really fun to listen to him, unless he is talking about Monet and Manet like last semester. I couldn't tell the difference when he said them.
  • Music 271 - Music in Elementary Schools. I think this might quickly become my favorite class. the only bad things about this class is that it has a lot of homework (I have a paper due for it tomorrow) and we have class on Saturdays, but it's not really going to be class because we get to run/work at/play in BYU's music preschool. I'm pretty excited to see what that's about. We get to learn little songs and dance around to them. YES!
  • Music 193 - Dictation. I think this class is going to be really easy. The teacher is kind of boring and has a really low and slow voice so it might put me to sleep. Also it is right before I plan to have lunch everyday so I'll be really hungry too. But I think I like the class. We never have homework, we just practice in class and stuff. The point of the class is to teach us how to hear something and be able to write it out on the staff. I've kind of been doing this for a while so I know kind of the basics.
  • Music 195 - Music Theory. This is a little harder than the other two theory core classes (193 and 197) just because I've never really studied theory. I've played piano and sung for years, but I always skated through Syllabus in piano and the scales just with short term memory. So I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm learning pretty well.
  • Music 197 - Sight Singing. I like this class. I like the teacher, he's pretty neat. Also this is another part of music that I think I know a little bit about. I've been sight singing in choir for a long time and the stuff we do is pretty simple, but the hard part about it is that we have to do it in solfeg (do-re-mi) and with the hand signals that go with it.that's pretty hard.
  • Women's Chorus. I'm really excited for this one. I went through a long audition process and finally made it into the choir. I sing Alto 2 so I am the lowest part in the choir. That's not exactly really exciting, I'd rather be an Alto 1 so I can at least get above middle c sometimes, but I'm just really happy to be in the choir. I really like the director. She seems very personable and very talented and very skilled at directing. Apparently she studied specifically women's voices so she knows what she's doing.
  • Voice Lessons. I've never taken voice lessons ever so this will be interesting. My teacher is Dr. Allan Ord. He seems nice and is new to BYU this year. I really have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to singing classically and this year I'll be learning how to sing in Italian. That's kind of exciting since I am Italian. We'll see how it goes.
  • Rel C 333 - Living Prophets. My only non-music class. I like it so far, the teacher is kind of intense, but she's alright. We get to learn about the lives and teachings of the 15 current prophets and apostles and study their last general conference addresses. I'm excited because my friend from Freshman Academy last year, Elisa, and I are taking the class together. It's really good to see her after all summer.
I also got a job a couple weeks ago when I got here. I work for BYU Catering. We basically cater a bunch of banquets, barbeques, football games, and pretty much any other activity on campus that uses food (besides the cafeteria stuff, we don't do that - just real food:)) I pretty much do everything from setting up places, plating food (putting it on the plate), waiting on tables, cleaning up afterwards and doing dishes. Yep, that pretty much sums it up. It's kind of funny because I told myself that I would not work in the food industry, and here I am! But I like it. It's really social and I walk A LOT which is good for me. The day of the last football game I walked almost 24,000 steps - that's almost 12 miles in one day.

OH! I almost forgot. Last night I went to see You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. It was really really good. I went with William Farnbach, a kid from home. It was really fun to go with him. He was pretty much my best friend through high school, even though it is a year younger than me in school and two years younger than me for reals (he skipped a grade). ANYWAY, it was a fun night.

Well, this has been a very long entry. I hope someday I read it again, or maybe my posterity...

Monday, August 13, 2007

ugh.

We took family pictures today. I'm not a big fan of having my picture taken in so many awkwardly posed positions. The day ended with me accidentally deleting 6 months of pictures from Elise's camera. wasn't pretty, but I think we're ok now.