This Means War

Every morning I wake up, suit up in armor, hop on my horse, and gallop to the HFAC to fight an epic battle to the death.

20 minutes scaling the walls of technical passages

10 minutes bombarding cane with my tongue

20 minutes of blasting Ferling etudes through my brain

25 contesting the concertino

and another 10 vaulting walls of partials and overtones.

I am driven back by the enemy time and time again, although each day I inch closer to the enemy line. 9/12 keys of scales mastered. Quarter note at 128 all-time high for tonguing. I'm on Ferling # 11 and 12, and polishing the Ibert with help from Rousseau. I destroyed the indestructible tower of overtones and now I soar gracefully over them each time I try. One victory down, more on its way.

Classically I make my rounds, then move into a new front: jazz.

I assault my chords, my sight-reading, my improvisation, and my dictation. Though the battle is uphill, I glory in moments my professor knocks at the practice room door and tells me to keep "playing strong." I fight for my life, my sanity, and my musical success. I glory in my triumphs and am set back only slightly by my failures. As the trench in my bottom lip would attest, I'm playing my chops off on a regular basis, and the war has never gone so well.

I make use of only the finest weaponry:

and only the best of comrades: Jory, Jeremy, Ben, Zach, Eric, Emily, Rachel, John, David.... the list goes on.

The enemy still lurks.

And perfection is still out of reach.

But the war has only begun.

Music Major, here I come.

"I am not trying to brag or anything... but I just broke my own personal record for number of days without dying."

-- Bridget Wilson, as well as BYU music majors everywhere

This is Brett.

He's my adopted brother from building three.

He's a DJ, a resident genius, insanely competitive (Once we had a "pointing" contest for two hours straight.), and absolutely hilarious and fun to be around.

What else can I say?

We're fam.

(this kid is awesome)

:)

You are Now Entering the Rant Zone.

First Year Writing.
*dramatic pause*

There could NEVER be enough said. I hate it from the depths of my very soul. With a fiery, burning passion that threatens to consume my sanity and overthrow all self-restraint. Honestly, the course was invented by Satan to infect the otherwise pure BYU education system. I should have dropped it when I had the chance. I knew right off the bat it wasn't going to be pleasant, but I stayed anyway. it's too late to fail now, but I'm giving it my best shot.

I just hate whole idea of "glorifying community."
My teacher belongs to an unofficial guild of writers and thinkers who are overly obsessed with life-changing experiences and the power of words. She has us go out to an assigned "site" in Provo, and literally experience it. As in, show up and wait for some grand spiritual manifestation of intellectual and cultural brilliance. Then we write a paper about it. Lather, rinse, repeat three more times, and boom. Our lives are forever changed. Supposedly.

I really think that people these days make way too big a deal out of

Oh, but I get it. She's just trying to get us to expand our opportunities and enhance our relationships with our community. I get it; she's just trying to help us become better thinkers, and better writers about the topics we think about. I get it; she's just trying to give us an appreciation of words and awareness.

There are plenty of people who live their lives happily and fulfillingly without ever branching out and "experiencing" a larger community. Those kinds of things happen spontaneously, without outside intervention. As Naomi Shihab Nye puts it,

"You can't order a poem like you order a taco."

Well, the same goes for life-changing experiences, (and good attitudes. I apologize for my cynicism)

Enough of that. On to happy things!

You are now leaving the Rant Zone.