That feeling

when your fantastic english teacher lends you his copy of a book.

That awkward moment when

you walk into a store and say "This looks like a store [insert previous or current teacher here] would shop at."

(i.e. Ms. Rush)

All you need is love.

Valentine's Day doesn't mean jewelry or kissing, doesn't mean boyfriend or girlfriend, doesn't mean husband or wife.
It means love.
If you're one of those bitter people that can't stand Valentine's Day because you're caught up on being single, stop it. Open your eyes and take a look around. Just because you don't have a date for the night, that doesn't mean that there isn't love all around you. It's just not the type of love everyone is so hung up on nowadays.
There's a reason you're meant to have more friends than significant others at a time. Family's in your life for a reason. You don't need a partner to have love. Sure, the PDA is going to be even worse than normal, and you might not be one of those lucky people carrying around a balloon, a stuffed animal, a box of chocolates, or a flower, but be happy.
And then consider yourself lucky because there are people out there that aren't as smart as you and won't let themselves be happy on Valentine's Day because they don't have a Valentine.

Valentine's Day doesn't mean being in love.
It means appreciating the love that does exist in your life.

Music = life. ♥

So, I was really proud of the narrative I wrote for my english class. A ton of other people also did theirs on music and whatever, but this is personal, and it means a lot to me. :)

“Music is love in search of a word.” These words, spoken by Sidonie Gabrielle, are the absolute basis of my life. Music is truly one of the most important things in existence to me. Whether it is blasting my favorite band while I am home alone, speakers shaking, dancing around like an idiot, or playing a flute solo in the middle of the winter concert for my favorite class: wind symphony; whether it is dancing along to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” with the “old people” from church, or nailing the saxophone soli in jazz band, music is one of the few things in this world that can always, always cheer me up. My love affair with music blossomed with my first Green Day CD, American Idiot.

Even though it was not really until Green Day’s genius album that music started to become an irreplaceable part of my life, music has actually pretty much always been a big part of my life. I have always loved singing, a love that grew in church, with the hymns and children’s choir. My parents are both pretty big fans of music as well, so I grew up on Christian rock and music from their generation. In elementary school, music class was always my favorite time(s) of the week. I would be so proud of myself after getting the string on the end of my recorder that meant I had done well on my playing test, and in fifth grade, I even had a vocal solo during our presentation of “We Are the World.” So, I guess I grew up being exposed to all different kinds of music.

Then, the summer between fifth and sixth grade, I was exposed to an all new experience. I went to Canada for two weeks, without my parents, with a student travel group called People to People Student Ambassadors. It was a tour I will never forget, and I made friends on that trip that I actually recently reconnected with. But there was one person that went on that trip that means more than the rest of them. Her name is Courtney, and she is one of my best friends. I consider her the reason I know of half of the music I live on. She and I were best friends long before our adventures in Canada, and we’re still best friends now. She also grew up as exposed to music as I was, maybe even more so. But, she grew up on Christian music as well, the “pastor’s kid” she is, so neither of us were really well-versed musically. So, while in Canada, when my oh-so-innocent best friend connected with someone who listened to music that made me wary, I was amazed at the world of new music that opened up its pearly gates, just for me.

I still remember the day clearly, the warm summer day (yes, Canada does get warm in the summer). Our People to People group was on a day trip to a huge local mall. In the mall, after we got our smoothies and checked out the accessory shops for hair clips and lip gloss (classic 11-year-old girls), we found a record store. And this was not a variety store with a few shelves of jumbled up CD’s, like Wal-Mart or Target. And this was not a store with music-related stuff and albums, like your classic Hot Topic. No, this was a record store. I walked in the door to go stand by Courtney, getting that weird feeling from walking on a carpet that was as close to being a legitimate hard floor as it could be and still pull off being called a carpet. At that point in my life, I did know a few secular songs; Christian rock was not the only taste making up my musical palette.

One of my favorite “tastes” at that point was “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” by Green Day. I would watch the music video over and over again online, feeling like a rebel because I was listening to a secular song. The feeling I would get while absorbing the emotion behind the song was almost indescribable. I would get goose bumps and get teary-eyes and even get butterflies. It could only be described as love.

So I searched those record store shelves for something of comfort, being bombarded by album covers screaming at me from every angle, names upon names of singers and bands that I didn’t recognize … until I caught a glimpse of something: Green Day’s recently released album, American Idiot. I picked it up and turned it over to check out the song listing on the back, a move that was new to me but felt old hat, incredibly natural. After flipping it back to the front to inspect the yellow sticker in the corner (“new $19.99”), I assessed my options. Courtney and her music-ambassador-esque friend were getting something. I wanted something. I had a ton of spending money with me. It did not take long for my immature mind to decide that I no longer wanted it, I needed it. So, of course, with the amazing willpower my 11-year-old self had, I got it.

I remember going back to our sleeping quarters, which were dorm rooms in a college that night, laying in bed after lights out, my new Green Day CD blasting through my headphones on my Walkman. I could not sleep: I was scared, because the smoke alarm in my room kept sporadically beeping, and I had no idea what could possibly be causing it. In retrospect, it was probably something simple, like a warning of the approaching death of the batteries or something. Nonetheless, I lay there, waiting for the worried butterflies in my stomach to go back to sleep already. I lay there, trying to memorize the words to my quasi-rebellion. I lay there, feeling like the B.A. I was not, because I was listening to music that had one of those “parental advisory: explicit content” stickers in the lower corner … music that swore.

Despite how exposed I’ve been to music since my childhood, I was very musically innocent, until Green Day opened my eyes to a completely new world unknown. A new world that I could turn to whenever I needed. A world that helped me both to grieve and to accept the deaths of two grandparents: one in the winter of ’08 and one in the summer of ’10. A world that has made my angry moments just a little less irrational, and has made my happier moments that much better. In a simpler way of saying it, from one of my favorite songs, “The Way We Talk” by The Maine, “I’ve got a long list of things to say, but I’ll leave it at ‘you amaze me.’” I do not think my love of music will ever end, and I am perfectly okay with continuing on with my completely moral affair.

Passive aggressive, much?

Not like I should really be talking...
So I'm just gonna put this out there now: this whole post is going to prove how much of a hypocrite I am. But it's whatever, I don't really care.

I'm sorry that I'm in a relationship and he loves me and he makes me SO incredibly happy, but you don't like hearing about it, don't subscribe to my posts on social networking sites, okay?
I don't see why you can't just be happy for me. I've never been so happy before. If you're jealous, that's cool, I totally understand. I'd be jealous if it were another girl with such an amazing guy. I'm sorry guys don't see the awesome things I see in you, but that's also not my fault. I'd appreciate it if you could just...be happy for me. Please?

It's more than a band, it's a (more-than-averagely dysfunctional) family. Legit.

As anyone who knows anything about me knows, I'm a band nerd. I put more time and energy into marching band than anyone knows. Except for my fellow bandies, of course.
I'm a sophomore this year (a junior in band), and I play flute in my high school's marching band. Band isn't a seasonal thing. It's year-round.

Fall: marching band.
Winter: pep band.
Spring: concert band.
Summer: conditioning for marching band.

I know, I'm such a nerd. But if you've never been a part of a band or a huge team, then you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about.

As the title of this post states, it's more than a band, it's a family. An extremely dysfunctional family. But there are countless people in that family that I can hug, say hi to, and expect a shoulder to cry on, on a daily basis if necessary. I'm not exactly sure how else to say it. But here's an "anecdote" (?) I wrote at the last basketball game of the season.

"18-19. The current score. But I see so much more than the score, the players, the game. I see my family. The people that mean the most to me. The circle of (intimidating) guys I wish I knew, the exes standing with their used-to-be other halves, and their current other halves. The little boy at the drumset and the flash of silver as an instrument catches the light. The couple in the corner, actually talking, nothing more. The orange, the orange, oh and the orange. The sound of the buzzer and the sound of my family coming together to make my favorite sounds. Oh, wait. The score's tied now. I see the cheerleaders now. The almost couples, the enemies, the best friends. Last game of the season. How many more days til the next season starts?

The shouting of correct pronunciations, and sex slave!

The looks and the laying on the ground, not able to breathe,

but only because we were crying from laughing too hard.

Possible groping and the fake cries of hypothetical "don't touch me!"'s."

----------

The feeling of closeness and hatred that you experience from this band cannot be described as anything but a family. A huge family. And families are the type of thing where age only matters if you're really the oldest. You can pretend and make up fancy names (like freshmores), but it never matters in the end. See, I started marching with the high school as an 8th grader. This happened because they had more spots than they did bodies, and here I was. Now, all of the 8th graders that started early, including me, like to pretend that we have more power because of this.

So not true.

Banner girl. :)

I've been waiting for a while now to have something really good to blog about. And I didn't realize until just now that I've had this topic for a while. It was this post http://thesceneextraordinary.blogspot.com/2010/07/july-7-2010-839ish-pm-sports.html that actually enlightened me.

My little brother, Kelley, has played baseball in our town's Pony league for at least 3 years now, multiple fall and summer seasons. This summer was the first season that I started going to his games. My best friend's little brother, who might as well be my brother, Ryan, was on the same team. I now had two players to cheer for. My dad coached this season. Yet another reason to go. When I got to my first game, I cheered for who I knew. Halfway through the season, there were maybe 4 kids I didn't know. Final game: I cheered for everyone. Not only will I have known these great kids, all amazing players, but I'll also have seen their ups and downs as a team, witnessed their excitement to hang out with each other outside of the ball field, and will always remember the difference the season has made on some of their friendships (literally).

While it got tiring to come home from a game smelling like sunscreen and bug spray, listening to my dad rant about some player who never listens, there were a couple things that made up for it.

Such as:

~ Kelley's face when I gave him his quarters as part of our get-a-hit deal,

~ listening to AJ telling me he's my conscience and that I need to give him $5,

~ Danny (someone from another team that my brother knew previously) shaking a player's hand after hitting him with a pitch,

~ celebrating after Ponyfest and Kelley's All Star game,

~ but mostly, sitting on the sidelines and cheering.

Kelley's games are almost the only thing I've looked forward to this summer, considering the only thing that could get in the way of them was bad weather. I have to admit that I love sitting in our lawn chairs with my mom talking about whatever, and also eavesdropping on other parents' conversations. It's funny how often people stick their feet in their mouths and don't even know it.

And there's one more thing that made up for all the bad stuff (Kelley striking out over and over again, watching kids get hit with a pitch but not getting up for a few minutes, terrible umpires). And that was being the banner girl. About halfway through the season, I decided that I wanted to be the only person handling the team banner. I named myself the banner girl, and everyone on or related to the team knew that they weren't to touch the banner. One night, our game was over and another team needed to settle into the dugout. One of their coaches tried taking down the banner and I was about to get upset. My dad started telling him off, and when the guy wouldn't listen, my dad told him it was good luck. The guy listened. My dad must have been speaking the language of baseball, a language I can understand but can't speak. This was actually the night of our second-to-last game. I was touched. I didn't think it was anything special, and I honestly think we lost at one point or another once I started doing the banner. But it didn't matter. I was the banner girl. That banner is in my room, at the moment. I'm still trying to figure out where to put it.

Needless to say, I'm really glad I became involved in this team.