I'll Be What You Want Me To Be

So I haven't written in this blog for quite a while. Since February, about. And in a little change of pace, I'm going to save the "this is what I've been doing in my life" rambly post for a little later (hopefully not too much later, I do have a dismal memory and I might keep forgetting memories of Winter Semester at BYU...), and I'm going to make a post a little reminiscent of what my friend Beth Root is doing over at her wonderful blog. Hopefully I can write something half as good and inspiring as she does. Well, here goes...

Today (Sunday, the 18th), I played the organ in Sacrament meeting for the fifth time. That's right, I got home from college...and got called as the ward organist. My first Sunday back, my Bishop called out to me in the chapel after Sacrament meeting and had a little talk with me. I noticed that Sister Fitzhugh, a wonderful lady in our ward who has years of experience with the organ (and I believe piano as well), and used to be the stake music coordinator, was with him. I didn't have much time to process that before he asked me if I knew how to play the organ...and after I answered that I didn't, he told me that Sister Hart, the then-current organist, was moving, and that he'd like me to take lessons with Sister Fitzhugh...and then call me as the ward organist. I was kind of surprised (OK, understatement, I was pretty dang surprised...). I expected to be called as a Primary teacher, or a member of the Activities Committee, or some similar calling that's usually given to college students home for the summer. Don't get me wrong, it was a bit exciting (I mean, there's only a few music-y callings in every ward, and here was the Bishop offering me one of them), but I kept thinking at first, "Me? Playing the organ? In front of the whole ward?" and stuff like that.

It got kind of worse when I had my first lesson with Sister Fitzhugh...it went pretty well, but I was definitely not playing up to Sacrament meeting level my first time. I didn't quite feel discouraged, but I wondered how I could ever be good enough to play for the whole ward every week. I also kind of wondered if I'd be able to handle this calling. But every time I had doubts creep up like that...first, I took time to breathe, and then I remembered my previous calling. At BYU, I got called as the Priesthood chorister and music coordinator. You may think, "Oh, Brandon loves music. Being a chorister is an awesome choice for him!" Well, that's not very accurate...you see, when Bishop Whitchurch extended that calling to me, I was kind of worried. I've never been that great at leading music...I always couldn't keep the rhythm too well, and in previous instances I had to conduct like Seminary Conference and the occasional Priesthood meeting in my home ward, it usually ended in disaster/me looking like a malfunctioning robot. :) I told the Bishop that I accepted my calling, but just like my initial thoughts with the organ, I thought I wouldn't be good enough, and even had thoughts that I'd rather be the ward pianist or something. I didn't really feel comfortable with it at all. Well, obviously I still went along with it...and the next Sunday, I was set apart after Elder's Quorum in my calling (after a not-TOO-terrible first time leading the music in Priesthood). And that's where my doubts all went away. (Some of them returned briefly every so often, but they never stayed long, and that's not the point. :) ) Having Priesthood leaders laying their hands on my head, and being set apart by God to perform a calling in His Church...it was just an amazing feeling, and I just knew afterwards that however uncomfortable I might be with my new calling, it would be alright, and I would be able to handle it and do my best.

Well, I actually didn't get set apart as the organist until last week, so I can't say the same exact experience happened with this calling. But I remembered the experiences I had as a reluctant chorister (I grew to love the calling...and I got to pick the hymns, which if any of you know me is something I love to do, moo hu ha ha ha :D), and that, along with remembering just who I was called by (our Heavenly Father) has helped me feel better about playing the organ every week. I definitely haven't been perfect (there's wrong notes all the time, and then last week I overslept, barely got to church by nine, and nearly missed playing the opening hymn...oh, did I mention the stake president and a billion people were there because it was someone's farewell? :) ), but I've been able to get through every single hymn (even the National Anthem, which I was worried about), I've (hopefully) been able to bring the Spirit, and I feel confident that I've given my best every week. I still have room to improve (and I still have yet to use those dastardly foot pedals), but I know I can do it with my Heavenly Father's help. :)

And before I go/end this post, I'd like to switch gears briefly and bear my testimony of the Priesthood. I had the opportunity to be ordained as an Elder last week, and it was a wonderful experience. My dad was able to ordain me, and in my opinion, if you didn't feel the Spirit in that room as he did so, you're crazy. :) I have a testimony of the power of the Priesthood, that it guides our church, and that it has been ordained upon the earth by our Father in Heaven. It is the greatest privilege for me to able to hold it, and I will always strive to stay worthy of it. Always. :)

I've Been A Long Time Gone...Part 2: New Soul

A cheesy song reference? (Sorry, I couldn't come up with anything adequate that was related to BYU, mountains, Utah, or school. :D) A "part 2" that's basically a hapless attempt at organization? A bunch of rambling words that make you wonder when crazy Brandon will stop typing nonsense? All this and more should tell you one thing...it's time for another blog post! :)

• When we last left our heroes (AKA when I finished the last blog post about myself, you can decide whether or not I can be classified as a hero...if I am one, though, I want to be "SUP...................er Grover!" :D) ANYways...I had just gone on our epic semi-family road trip to Spokane and back. (By the way, the trip back was nice and fairly quiet. I can't remember if my dad got stopped by the police on the way back or the way there...lol, that's a long story I won't go into here... :D) It was early August--and well, if you remember my previous posts, I had online classes to finish. The less said about that whole thing, the better. Same with the days running up to BYU...let's just skip to August 31st, shall we?
• So now we find me at BYU. (Don't ask how. The story is incredibly awkward.) (And is that even proper grammar? If it isn't, feel free to shame me. :D)  This is going to be a very brief recap...dang it, this is what happens when I procrastinate, I have to find an engaging and efficient way to talk about a whole dang semester of college (and it's my first semester, too)...you know what, I'll just give the Reader's Digest version, and then anything else you blog readers would like to know, post a comment. :D
• I've made lots of cool friends. (BYU + you = a social life. It's like impossible not to find something fun to do at least every so often here, and if you try even a little bit, you'll find LOTS of fun stuff to do. With people. Sometimes people you don't know. :) ) My classes last semester were nice--EXCEPT FOR PHYSICAL SCIENCE. As for grades...another thing I'm not at liberty to discuss. Except for that I got an A in Jazz Voices and Men's Chorus, and a B+ in voice lessons and Book of Mormon (the second half, I took the first in Institute). That's all I'll say. (As for classes, I also took Old Testament, History Since 1877, Intro to International Relations--a class & professor I highly recommend, Dr. Hudson is a brilliant woman and a terrific teacher.) Men's Chorus, which I am also in this semester, is an absolute BLAST. Sister Hall is truly amazing...she's SO MUCH fun, and she really knows how to make all 186 of us crazy college guys sound good. And she's Welsh! Epic win. :) It would have been worth it to come to BYU just for being able to sing in a choir directed by her alone. And Jazz Voices is a great experience. There's a few less people in it than Men's Chorus...as in, 170 less :D ...but it's still terrific, and I love singing in a jazz choir. In other words...BYU's music and choral programs rock. Forever. :D
• Speaking of music...and jazz...and BYU...and the music program (OK, I'll stop this mishegas :D)...I've changed my major. As most of you know, I was originally planning to do Jazz Studies--but I sent off an email to the director of the Jazz Studies program, Dr. Ammons, about a month ago, and he broke me the news I had kind of been expecting/told about already, that the vocal emphasis for Jazz Studies here at BYU doesn't currently exist. The old vocal jazz professor, Kelly Eisenhour, left two years ago, and since BYU instituted a hiring freeze, they haven't been able to replace her. Add to that the fact that they're restructuring the entire major...and yeah, it's not really an option for me right now, unfortunately. Good news? I switched to Media Music, which I can basically turn into Jazz Studies, with a few differences...the Media Music major is primarily designed for those wanting to go into contemporary music, mostly songwriting, producing, etc. But it's also very flexible in terms of what classes you can fulfill the requirements with...and there's a lot of jazz classes available. (At least, more than I thought there would be.) So while I'm bummed about no Jazz Studies for now, Media Music is a great second option. I'm currently waiting to hear about whether I made it in or not (I auditioned for the second time just two weeks or so ago), and I hope I do. (I also continued my tradition of forgetting/flubbing words in college auditions--last year, I had to start "It Don't Mean A Thing" over because I couldn't remember the starting verse for the life of me, and this year, I sang the wrong words in "I Get A Kick Out of You" twice, and plumb forgot them for a few seconds at one point--but it still went very well. :) )

And as for this semester...I'll leave that little puppy for Part III. For now...I need to actually be responsible or something. :D Cheese out! :)

I've Been A Long Time Gone...Part I: My Last Summer

I actually met my goal of updating my blog today! This makes me very happy. But now...where the heck do I begin? :) It's only been...um...6 months since I updated. So not that much to talk about, right? OK, not fooling anyone there. Let's skip all the pleasantries (hey, guess the song references in the title and win a cookie! :D) and just get to the actual blog post...which I will most likely split into multiple pieces, so you won't be overloaded...and so you can read them at different times. Like this one now, the next one tomorrow, and so on. Or this one today, the next one in January 2017, and the third one sometime next century. Whatever floats your boat. :)

• I was originally going to make a whole mammoth post about my vacation (last summer...wow, it's been a while since I've blogged...), but now I'll just combine it into a bullet, devoid of pictures (which you can find rather easily on Facebook, if you want to see them). Let's see...we (meaning me, my dad, grandma, and Nate and Livi) went on an ultra-fun road trip through California and Oregon, to Spokane to visit my great-grandma and other family. We stopped in Sacramento the first night (that hotel was nice, and dinner was even better...oh, the joys of seafood :) ), which I found out later is where my roommate is from. (Small world...) Then we drove like crazy to the northern border of Oregon...it was a LONG car ride, folks...stopped by my aunt's house in Vancouver (Washington, if only it was Canada... :D), then drove about an hour (including a significant amount of time across the HUGE Astoria Bridge, partly covered by clouds, at NIGHT...the high part was scary, but then it sloped down and before we knew it, we were basically on the ocean, which was cool) to Long Beach (Washington, again...that state really needs to get creative with its names... :) ), where we...get this...got to stay in a lodge! It was kind of old (more like a hotel room), and Internet/cell phone access was basically nonexistent, but it's the freaking BEACH...it was wonderful. :) (Thanks to my Aunt Katie and Uncle Dan for letting us stay there.) We could just walk out onto the patio, and go down the path, and there was the ocean. Yep. I love the ocean. :)
• New bullet! But same subject. (I didn't want to make a bullet that would take the whole page...I'm not THAT disorganized... :D) Anything else about the lovely 2 days we spent in Long Beach? We buried my dad and grandma. And the weather was beautiful. So after that...we drove to Seattle and spent two AWESOME hours there (Pike Place Market...amazing. I wanted to stay longer--and we found a cheese shop across the street! Their "signature" cheese was kind of sharp, but good...and Ivar's is the most delicious seafood stand I have ever eaten from. EVER.), before we had to fight the horrendous traffic to get back on the highway sometime that decade...then we drove some more (about 6 hours this time...which was, no joke, the shortest drive we ever had on that trip...) to Spokane. It was nice being back--we went there about 5 years ago or so (dang, I had this figured out! I'm pretty sure it was 2005...), but this time we got to visit a lot of places close to our hearts (my grandma's old house, my dad's high school, etc.), and even better, we got to spend a lot of time with my Grandma Nana (that's what we call my great-grandma, she's 91), Grandpa Dick (great-uncle? or grand-uncle? help me out here...he's my grandma's brother), and "Auntie Sandra" (she's my great-aunt...or grand-aunt, dang it, she's my grandma's sister...and in our family, most of us kids call all our aunts "Auntie," even me still :D). Yay for family! My Grandma Nana is really sweet, and I hope I get the chance to see her again sometime soon.
• STILL the same subject. Maybe I will just make this a vacation post, who knows...we spent a few days in Spokane...we got to go to a family fun center, and we played minigolf (let it be known, minigolfing with 4 children under 10 and 3 under 7 is a pill and a half :D), bumper boats, and other sundry activities of fun and togetherness. :) We also visited with the Lynds and Turners, two excellent families who we are good friends with. (Cali Lynd, now Cali Walters, just got married...we came a week too early to be at her wedding, darn it...) And after about...3? 4? days in Spokane, we drove back...this time, we stopped at Tillamook in Oregon. Holy cow, that place was my dream...cheese and cows together. I almost died of excessive joy and happiness. :D We got lots of cheese samples, I got pictures with cows both inanimate and living (I even got to pet one! That's almost fulfilling my cow-hugging dream...), and we had ice cream at the end to top it all off. (Plus I got a shirt!) Of course, there was a catch...the road was so twisty out of Tillamook that my cheese samples, cheese curds, slices of cheese we had bought (oh, you bet we stocked up on Tillamook cheese :D) and ice cream ended up on the side of the highway (in fact, like 10 feet from someone's driveway, poor them... :D). I hate my motion sickness. Hate it, hate it, hate it. And so did the dairy products in my stomach that never even got a chance. :)

OK, I have indeed decided to cut this post short and start a new one posthaste. (Love that word! :) ) I'll keep you all POSTED...haha, that was a typically lame pun, as always...and for now, cheese out! :D

I WILL Update! (Tomorrow?)

I think people stopped reading this thing because they realized it wasn't going anywhere...and every time I look at it, I think, "I need to update my blog...I will..." and then weeks later, I go, "oh great, I didn't update it...I will update it soon!" and...yeah, you get the point. (The same goes for my DWTS/American Idol blog too. I still have a draft of a post from last week that's unfinished on there...) So guess what? Since I have a glorious 5-hour break from classes (as usual) tomorrow (it's Tuesday, but we have our Monday classes instead, because of NO SCHOOL TODAY! It was so nice...), I am making a goal to post like there's no tomorrow. It will probably be bloated, rambling, and full of bullets and crazy events that have happened--after all, I have a vacation and 4 1/2 months of my freshman year of college to tell you all about--but it will be a post, something I have not properly done in nearly half a year. So get ready for blogging from Brandon! Again! And not about one of two excellent reality shows that he really needs to stay caught up! Stay tuned. And cheese out. :)

I Have A New Blog!

This will probably be my shortest post ever...and I'm not lying this time :)...I have a new blog! It will not replace this one by any means, it's a supplement, you could say, to my blogging activities. It will be exclusively consisting of recaps/news/info/etc. about "Dancing With The Stars" and "American Idol" ("Idol" starts in January, "DWTS" is on right now). If you love either of these shows, or even if you've HEARD of either of these shows, boogie on over to http://dwts-idol-blog.blogspot.com and read like the wind, Bullseye! I hope you enjoy it, and be sure to spread the word, I should like it to be all well-known and such. :D And I will get a regular about-my-life post up soon. Cheese out! :)

I Wrote In My Blog, And I Liked It!

(I did, however, plan it, and it was my intention. Sorry, Katy Perry... :D)

Well, I have been a rather unsatisfactory blogger. It's been almost two months since I last posted...and I still have a long (and continually growing) list of stuff to regale you folks about. (Thankfully I actually put that list at the end of my post last time, so I can actually remember it.) Never mind that I have to add my crazy eight-day vacation to that list...which means catching up will take even longer. Oh well. OK...since we've got so little to write, and so much time...OK, scratch that, reverse it (love that quote...even if the movie is a bit awkward... :) )...let's vamoose into Blog-land!

• When we last left our...hero? (OK, it's just me... :D), I had just gone to two AMAZING concerts...which, since I am a poor pre-college student struggling to pay the bills...no, really...I will not likely be able to attend in such frequency in the near-future. (Stupid money!) But there was another concert to come...a concert so exciting, so breathtaking, it changed the world as we know it...well, not really, but let's just go with that. :) My last choir concert was on May 12th (aagh, how can I still remember this???), and it was a wonderful way to help end the year. All the choirs were excellent, Rhonda and Leighton were delightful in their duties as co-presidents, Chamber and A Cappella-ness went well ("Hoya! Hoya, Hoya!" :D), and I got an award!!! It was just a fun night, and I couldn't have had a better last concert (well...maybe we could have sung a jazz song or two in Chamber...). Go Mrs. Jones! And everyone in the Choral Union! You rock! :D
• What be next? Baccalaureate! It was on the Sunday before graduation (more on that...ahem, event...in a second), and it was a beautiful experience. The speakers were terrific...I'll be darned if I can remember all the student ones by name, but they were awesome--and Mrs. Andelora, holy crap, she was inspiring, funny, and random all at the same time! Whoever picked her to be the faculty speaker deserves a cookie. :) And we Chamber seniors sang "Lean On Me," and we had oodles of fun. And the other musical numbers were quite terrific...Katie, Tyler, Cedar, Pasiaka, great jobs! Especially Katie, since you're likely the only one I just mentioned who reads my blog... :D ...and your arrangement was amazing! I actually like that song now! :) So Baccalaureate was great...and I took lots of pictures with my fellow senior peoples. I would put some of them on here...but seeing as 99 percent of you who read this are on Facebook (sorry, Kailei! You should really get one soon, you know...), I'll just leave you to look at them on there, if you haven't already. :)
• And then came the last day of high school, that Wednesday...so swift, and so crazy! It felt so weird...but it was wonderful. I mean, we got to end it with Mr. Baser...how more awesome could it get? :) It essentially consisted of three classes (last 2 days at Mesa High are half days) where we quite honestly did nothing but gad about and be merry...A Cappella was just yearbook signing and socializing-ness, English (with Mr. Olson!!!) was taking our "final" (I think...it was hilariously easy, by the way...like we would get an actual final after taking stupid AP tests... :D) and talking about randomness, and Government was a party. Not a bad way to end one's high school career, no? :) Afterwards, I went to Senor Root's to find out my final grade...a B, since I was lazy with my periodico assignments and whatnot, but got a good grade on the final...and chat with him, Shannon, and TJ, and I visited Miss LeBaron and Miss Bertolet too. So now I am done with high school! Or am I???? (For once, that second part is actually true...see next bullet for the somewhat obnoxious explanation that you totally saw coming. :o)
• Graduation stuff was the next day...but not exactly. You remember the whole I-needed-a-PE-credit-and-we-were-furiously-lobbying-the-school-and/or-district-so-I-could-walk thing? Well, about that...that process kind of disintegrated. It was a combination of many things...I wasn't able to hurriedly find a way to earn the credit, the district ultimately said it was the school's decision, and Mr. Souder (a little oddly, but expectedly) refused to give me a waiver thing so I could walk in graduation. So here I am still finishing my classes...in the late beginning of August. And that meant that I was standing on the field...without a cap and gown. (Although I did get to wear them for Baccalaureate. Yay!) Once again, it rained...though thankfully this year, the aforementioned principal Mr. Souder was cool enough to carry on (:D) with the ceremonies anyway. The good news...we got to sing "The Irish Blessing" as Chamber, and I saw the student speakers and the start of Mr. Souder's (truncated) remarks. The bad news...once again, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was cancelled, and when Mrs. Jones let us go early, I decided to leave so I wouldn't catch pneumonia or a cold or something. :) So I didn't get to see the names of my friends called...but that's OK, it was an interesting experience, and a big lesson to me that I should stay on top of things. A lesson that I seem to be continually...and painfully...learning--possibly more on that later.
• Let me peruse my list again...wow, I'm getting there! Let me breeze through a few things I don't need to type endlessly about...my online classes (Bowling and Nutrition...they are SEPARATE classes, that would be weird if they were combined, though... :D) are annoying, I have procrastinated a bit and thus have to get my rear in gear at the moment...but they are doable. (Well, sort of...I'm kind of pushing it with Nutrition.) Moving on...getting ready for BYU is kind of not doing so well right now...it's a little thing called money...but hopefully, everything will work out. Yay for prayer! :) What else can I quickly-ish mention? "Dancing With The Stars"...AKA one of my favorite reality shows EVER...ended quite wonderfully. Shawn Johnson (the awesome 17-year-old gold medal-winning gymnast, who is kind of a celebrity crush of mine at the moment... :D) won!!! She was a terrific dancer, and having the celebrity I WANTED to win (sorry, but Gilles was nice, but not as good, and Melissa was slightly less amazing than Shawn...I still love you, Melissa! :D) for a change was quite an improvement. And if you have not watched Shawn's freestyle yet...do it now!!! It was one of the best dances I have ever seen...EVER!!! As for "American Idol"--the show I just started watching this season and which I now love, despite its many shortcomings--the finale was both good and bad. The bad involved Allison Iraheta, also known as one of the most AMAZING 17-year-olds ever...she's younger than me and she has a voice that makes the stars dance, and then rock out in joy!...getting FOURTH freaking place behind the two contestants who must not be named (cough cough Danny and Adam cough cough...), one of whom (the first one) committed the musical sin that I like to call "Nightmare On" (known in some circles as "Dream On," that Aerosmith song I actually like)...but no matter. Kris won!!! I was a little to late to the "Kris is cool" party, mostly because I was a huge fan of Allison and Megan (sorry, but Megan is quite the bees' knees in my opinion...), not to mention bummed that Alexis Grace got ELEVENTH place (hey, that rhymes!)...I never even voted for her, she left too early!...but I realized Kris can actually sing, and most of the time, the songs he picked were very good. Here's to Allison...and Kris...and Megan...and Alexis...having great careers! Oh my goodness, I can't wait for Allison's CD in the fall!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Well, now that I've confused all of you who don't watch either of those shows...let me finish up my list (minus vacation) really quick...I'm almost done! I shall try to be (ha!) concise...solo at Ward Talent Show? Went well. I sang "Like A Star," by the very lovely and talented British songstress Corinne Bailey Rae (check her out now, she's excellent), and my sister's friend played piano for me. I felt good about it. Unfortunately, the video situation is still a bit boogery...the video my little brother took has the sound cutting out a bit because he was trying to straighten the camera, and the one my Young Men's leader took inexplicably is two keys higher. (I sound like I'm on helium...ironically, that was what we did at the Ward Talent Show last year for Priests' Quorum... :D) I'll get a video of some sort up soon, though. (On Facebook...again, sorry, Kailei!) And my sister sang a KICKING version of "Ordinary Day" (which was accompanied by yours truly)...sadly, the video for that does not exist. Don't worry, she'll sing other awesome stuff, and you can see her beautiful voice in action!!! Random subject change...I also went on splits with the missionaries. Twice. Quite an interesting experience...we didn't get to do too much teaching, but we visited a few people. Oh, and got stopped by the police. :D (Aaron Favreau was driving, and his dad's car's license plate was not properly illuminated...it went fine, though...the officer was LDS and noticed the missionaries, and told us where he served and just gave Aaron a very friendly warning. :) )
• And the last bullet in this mammothly long blog post belongs to...my insanely fun trip to Michigan for my second (and last) Future Problem Solving International Conference. This year, we stayed in much nicer dorms...the room wasn't creepy, and we had BATHROOMS (albeit shared with the next dorm over, but that's OK, we knew them)!!! (Unfortunately, we also had the most annoying bunk beds ever...the steps up sucked, and they were very high.) Also this time around, I was much more social and outgoing...well, mostly...I met a terrific pianist from Georgia, Min-ji! She accompanied me at the Variety Show when I sang "Gravity"...there was a LOT of people...but I sang my best and it went very well. (Again, the video situation is a little iffy. I'll get it up soon, but the sound on my dad's camera was somewhat awkward...the cinematography, though? Excellent. :D) Go Min-ji! This year, I also actually went to the choir rehearsals, and so I got to sing in the choir...with people from New Zealand, Australia, England, and Kentucky! (At least, I think there was someone from Kentucky. Not sure... :D) I have videos for those, too, that I will put up someday...we sang "Celebration" (yep, it's the one you're thinking of...it was a blast!), and two other songs. And I also met someone from Ohio, her name is Jessica. (I just can't stay away from the ladies...OK, I'm SO kidding... :D) We went to Noodles and Co. again...I love that restaurant, too bad it's not in AZ...or most of the West...and had lots of fun. And walking. And...Michigan-ness? Oh, by the way, we went to a random museum (the Public Museum was its name) that had NO discernable theme or rhyme/reason at all, but was very informative in the Michigan department, and the inexplicable but cool things of interest department also. Pictures are on my Facebook. Perhaps I will post a few here at my leisure in the future. :) As for the winning any awards at all thing...Arizona (our team, the awesome 5th grader who did Individual Problem Solving, and the other two Arizona teams there) went bust, but we all had lots of fun, so it totally worked out for the best. :) Random fun quote: "Truthfully, it is broke."-Random Australian girl overheard as we were walking back from Closing Ceremonies. :D

I think that's about it for now. I caught up...sort of!!! I hope none of you died of exhaustion while reading this or something...that would be quite grotesque and sad...and I will post about my vacation in a timely manner. (Then again, my definition of a "timely manner" kind of sucks. :D) For now, all I have to say is...Cheese out! :)

It's Been A Long, Long Time Coming...

Recognize the song reference? (By the way, none of you even bothered to guess the last post's one. It's "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face," from "My Fair Lady." Way for all of you to miss out on a cookie and/or hug. :D) Anyways, that's not my purpose in blogging here tonight...it's to actually update this thing after 2 1/2 months of languishing in the land of non-blogging-ness.

Why have I taken so long to update, when I always bother other people about updating their blogs? I'm a hypocrite, I guess. Life must have gotten in the way, and the past week or so where I've really, really been wanting to update my blog, I haven't gotten around to it. Well, now I finally am, and while I will likely have to split this recounting-of-two-and-a-half-months-of-my-slightly-psychotic-and-quite-random-life (and accompanying rambling, of course) into multiple posts and it will almost certainly be out of order, even with bullet points, I'll try to do this in a calm and orderly fashion. Spontaneous shriek! OK, well now that I blew the calm thing, let's do this somewhat orderly...maybe?

• We shall go back in time...to April. There are probably a host of little but great things I could have blogged about, but since I waited too long to do so, I will probably have to stick to the big things that I, you know, actually remember. What happened in April...well, All-State, of course. It happened the 23rd through the 25th (I'm so out of it or something right now I had to look up the bloomin' date), and it was a certifiable blast. The music (which I somehow memorized--there could be no other explanation but Heavenly Father's help) was beyond amazing--especially "Take Me To The Water," which is most likely the most fun song I have ever sung in Choir. (Even more fun...OK, not more fun than our jazz songs, but it definitely gives them a run for their money. It is a little jazzy, after all.) And the director...has there EVER been a bad All-State director? He was Mr. Rogers (yes, that's his name), the person who directed All-State Jazz (not the one I was in) last year, and he was terrific--fun, really into the music, and just a joy to have be in charge of us and our wild and exciting music-making-ness. That weekend was an experience I will never forget, and the concert was an emotional and musical 'high' for sure. Oh, and I actually loved the U of A campus...if I had seen it before I applied for colleges, I think it would have actually been my second choice instead of NAU. I just liked it better, and their School of Music offers Jazz Studies to boot. And to think I thought Tucson would be a bland, dumpy town... :)
• Prom! Methinks that comes next, and I'm sure I just obliterated most of the things that happened in early April, but oh well, that's what I get for being procrastinatory, I guess. It was the first Saturday in May...and for my first and only Prom, it was wonderful! I went with Katie Turner...I asked her the Monday before. Sorry for my shamelessness, but it's a long story as to why I asked her so late (mostly because I put it off...sorry, Katie! I need to work on that...), but anyways, I used an alarm clock...we put it on a plate with the numbers from two little number-puzzle things (you know, the ones with 1 to 15, where you have to put them in order) spread around on it for decoration, and it had a note that said (if I can remember right): "I know the clock is ticking until Saturday, but it's TIME for me ask you something...Will you go to Prom with me?" It said on the back of the note to look at the clock instructions, and hidden in them was my name. Despite the fact I basically gave her a week to prepare (aagh, I'm a horrible person! :( ), she said yes, and we had a terrific time at dinner--Marc Johnson's grandparents' house was the place and the food was very yummy--and the dance. (We didn't go to the day activity, since she had to go to school...it was on Senior Ditch Day, of course...and since it was swimming at the lake and I hate swimming and/or lakes, I passed on it since she wasn't going anyway.) Random conversation, hapless attempts at dancing, and viewing the interesting exhibits (the dance was at the Tempe Historical Society museum) occurred, to great glee by all. :) My group was great, I had a great time, and Katie was an amazing date! Definitely quite a fun night.
• OK, rewind, I just remembered two things! Well, actually half rewind, half move forward. Anyways...I went to two amazing concerts both before and after Prom, one on April...30th? I think that's right, and one on May 4th. (I'm being specific with the dates here so you can kind of get a sense of where these events occurred, and so this isn't a jumble of madness. Not that it already isn't... :D) The first one was by an EXCELLENT jazz songstress, the talented Tierney Sutton (and her killer band, of course). It was a mind-boggling concert. Because it was in a small studio theater (thus, all the tickets cost the same and the Tempe Center for the Arts website lets you actually pick your physical seats, like most airlines, methinks) and I bought my ticket fairly early, I was lucky enough to get a FRONT-ROW SEAT. That + the intimateness of the studio theater (by the way, the Tempe Center for the Arts is a beautiful facility thing. It's new, shiny, and I loved it) + Tierney Sutton being a witty and warm live performer + her AMAZING voice and AMAZING band = pure musical transcendence. It was quite simply, wow. My other concert was for Vienna Teng, a singer/songwriter who plays piano and sings. That sounds kind of simple, and it doesn't really describe her accurately...but anyways, I thought it might not be as great as Tierney Sutton's was, but I was most certainly proven wrong...I basically was smiling and (mentally) dancing in joy and/or awe the whole time. If you haven't heard of her, check her out NOW, and once you presumably fall in love with her music, you HAVE to see her live. It's even better than she is on record. Her personality in concert is very friendly, and she was very witty (sorry for using that word again...but she was... :) ) and her band...I should very much like to hug them very many times. They all played like elevendy billion instruments each, and they worked so well together it was astounding. And on top of that, the opening act, a singer-cellist (yes, you read that right) called Ben Sollee, rocked the house--he plays his cello like a guitar, almost, and has a soulful, awesome voice. He even joined Vienna and the band on a few songs...including the encore-ness, where they played a Simon & Garfunkel song called "Keep The Customer Satisfied"...it was a toe-tapper, and if they ever record it, I will dance in joy. What was amazing is Ben Sollee, the awesome cello singer guy, had never played it with them before--and he blended in with them perfectly. They sang harmony and everything, and it was a perfect way to end a pretty much perfect concert. Crap, I'm rambling too much about this! (It's good music-ness, what do you expect? :D) Well, before I end this bullet, there is a story involved...after the concert, Vienna and the band were signing things and taking pictures, and naturally I got in line. Well, I had borrowed my mom's friend's camera because mine is currently MIA (why can't my siblings take care of other people's things? WHY?!?!?), and the battery was low, I knew--so low, in fact (this part I didn't know), that once I got to Vienna and her peeps, it ran out of battery and stopped working. So there I was, sitting next to a talented somewhat-major recording artist, while she was trying to get my camera to work. It was hilarious, embarrassing, awesome, and weird all at the same time. Finally, a really nice guy standing nearby stepped in, and he offered to take the picture with his cell-phone camera (he had a Blackberry or something, so it was a GOOD cell-phone camera...unlike mine...) and send it to me. Thank goodness...though I had to email him and everything afterwards, because my stupid cell didn't have a signal there and I never got the picture message with, you know, the picture in it. It was a random experience...and if you want to see the picture, look on my Facebook, since I don't think it's on this computer and it's getting really late. :)

Well, I need to stop for now, because it's after 1 in the morning, I'm sure your attention span (however long or short it is) is running thin, and I've rambled enough for now. Let me try to list the things I still need to blog about, so I can remember: last choir concert, Baccalaureate, last day of high school, Graduation (which I didn't get to walk in), BYU-ness, online classes starting, Dancing With The Stars & American Idol highs and lows, FPS IC in Michigan, my solo at the Ward Talent Show, splits with missionaries, and other things I think of. Whew! I have a ways to go, do I not? Well, I hope you enjoyed this chipping away at me rambling about my life. (And by the way, the song quote...yay, I kept you in suspense...was from "A Change Is Gonna Come," a soul classic that you might have heard around. If you actually guessed it, tell me and I'll give you something! Why? Because I can. :D) Well, anyways, all I have left to say is...cheese out! :)

The Smiles, The Frowns, The Ups, The Downs...

Hello, reader...of this blog, of this blog imported onto Facebook (though I don't anyone ever reads it there), of my ramblings, etc. I have not posted for about a month--and I have been meaning to, so here we are today. Once again, I think I'm going to use the bullets again--they really helped last time, I rambled SLIGHTLY less. Or at least I covered pretty much everything. Something like that...so here goes...and anyone who can name that (slightly altered) musical reference, gets a cookie! Or a hug! Or some...thing... :D

• On March 5 was my sister's choir concert! As usual, she did terrific...I am still so proud of her for doing amazingly in Treble Clefs! (In one year, she already made a higher choir than I did...yep, she's awesome!) What made her concert even better was that Emily (my friend from Shadow Mountain...the girl whose number I got at All-State auditions last year, lol...) and her brother were able to come watch the concert. And we got to hang out at Iceberg's...oh goodness, living in the past there...NIELSEN'S....afterwards! Some pictures:

I like the ones in front of the auditorium much better. (They were on an actual, functioning camera, rather than my dorky cell phone one.) And here's the ones that prove I'm incapable of keeping my eyes open in pictures where I'm smiling:

I have no idea why I looked like a cheerful stoner there. They didn't spike my custard with liquor, did they? OK, just kidding...but honestly, those pictures are kind of ridiculous...except for Emily, she looks amazing, happy, and her eyes are open! :)

• Well, let's see if I can remember everything...hey, by the way, that's the first time I've put pictures on a blog post! Yay for blog milestones...anyways, I'm going to go out of order. I can't remember what came next, whether it was the chicken or the egg. Anyways, this weekend was Conference--I loved it! The talks were wonderful (I will do my traditional 'awesome quotes' post soon...), the music was terrific and very inviting of the Spirit, and I saw Gabe Lopes in the Institute Choir on the Sat. Afternoon session! (While watching it on Sunday after the last session, on the Internet because I missed the first half...more on that in a second.) I wish Conference came more often...but Church every week is just as wonderful! :)
• OK, the reason I missed the first half (exactly, I got back home almost right when the second half started), was because I was singing the National Anthem at Relay for Life at Red Mountain...alone! Holy craziness, it was a weird but delightful experience, and it went really well. My cousin Natalie asked me about two weeks ago to sing the Anthem...she's on the committee for the Relay (my uncle is the Relay Chair), and apparently the person who was going to sing it dropped out. So she asked me! I forgot to send an email out seeing if anyone else could do it until less than a week before Saturday, and everyone was busy, so I ended up singing it alone...in front of a HUGE crowd of people (I'm horrible at estimating numbers, but it could have been a...thousand? I don't know, it was just a LOT of people). I started off kind of low...lol, it sounded weird...and nervous, but I got into it and it ended great! Yay for new experiences! And afterwards, I shook hands with the Mayor and a State Senator, Chuck Gray (he's my uncle's friend, we've been to his house to randomly eat pie..on Pie Night, of course...twice). (Neither of them saw me sing, they came late. And I was hopelessly awkward. But it was still cool. What's funny is a few Relays ago, I was helping and I got to shake hands with the LAST Mayor. Weird... :D)
• What else? Oh, I made All-State! Yes...I got 14th chair, which must have been an error or something, I've never got that high before. (Oh, lol, that sentence sounded awkward...the last part, anyway...hee hee, I need to think before I type. Wait, that wouldn't be any fun... :D) Anyways, I am excited to be in All-State for a third and final year...the music is INSANELY hard as usual (holy fast, very classical German song and song with weird arrows, to name a few), but also as usual, is incredibly amazing. I can't wait...well, I can, because I still need to get my music learned and memorized. So I can wait. :) And Emily made it too, again! She's terrific! Go Emily! :D
• I've really gotten into American Idol. This is my first season watching it (I held off on the first seven, partly because "Dancing With The Stars" is my true reality-show love), and even though half the time I sit wondering why the heck I'm watching, there are great moments on there. Allison is amazing! She's my favorite contestant right now (the only one I vote for, in fact...by the way, it's weird to be able to vote unlimited-ly..."DWTS" has a limit, and it's kind of less time-consuming that way), and she boggles my mind--her voice is so powerful and she has so much talent--and on top of that, as I've probably said like elevendy billion times already (at least on Facebook), she's YOUNGER than me! Wow...I hope she wins. And I hope Megan Joy (who I really liked, even if not a lot of others didn't...her voice was kind of inconsistent, but I really liked her tone when she sung well) gets a CD out soon! I might get tickets for the Idol Tour this year just to see her and Allison...
• Jazz, Baby, Jazz was SO wonderful this year...I hope BYU has something like that (I'm sure they probably do) when I get into the jazz program in the future, because I love jazz and love performing it! We were very loopy and hyper backstage...there was dancing, random whispered comments of "they're so amazing," "I like cheese," etc. about whoever was singing at that moment, and other polite but crazy shenanigans. My solo went well...I felt better about it than last year, mostly because I was slightly more confident this time around. (Last year, looking back, I felt like my solo was too non-assertive and awkward. Still good, but not what I wanted it to be completely.) Everyone did so terrific! Thank you, everyone, for giving their best and doing amazingly! It was a wonderful experience.
• Speaking of wonderful experiences related to Choir...we (A Cappella) got the chance on the 13th to sing with the mind-bogglingly amazing Shrine of the Ages Choir from NAU. It was an unforgettable night...we did very well on our set (I was surprised, it was the best we had ever sung those songs), and Shrine...there are no words. Well, there are a few, but in short, it was just, wow. We sang in the Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix...can you say "amazing acoustics"? Mr. A (choir teacher from last year who went up to NAU for his Masters) got to conduct "Water Night"...ohh, Whitacre.... :) And we got to sing "Homeland" with them...that was the best part. I had a weird, transcendental (?), out-of-body-like experience towards the end of the song...it was the part where we were supposed to sing VERY powerfully, and my voice suddenly started soaring, kind of on its own. It was the strongest I had ever sung (I was more than belting, it was going crazy), and I wasn't even pushing AT ALL. My voice just started flying freely--it was completely and utterly amazing! It literally took my breath away...even though there was about 600 less people (no joke), I liked it even better than the combined MPS Choirs-ness at the District Festival singing "Homeland" in October.
• I've recently had the chance to do two fun school projects--in English and Government. For AP English, as some of you may be familiar with, we had our "Hell Project" where we got to put 10 people in Dante's version of Hell from "The Inferno." My partner and I thought of some doozies...the Jonas Brothers, Joe Arpaio, etc., as well as some fun punishments. Obviously, I know that Heavenly Father is the judge, and I would never in reality want to put ANYONE--even those I may severely dislike and disagree with--in Hell, or Spirit Prison, or anything. But for the purposes of this project only, it was fun. As for AP Gov, we had to do presentations on a Cabinet department--and my partner was Zach Carpenter. We did our PowerPoint the night before...and somehow got it done while completely goofing off almost the whole time. It was a blast, and we made our presentation a good balance of all the info we needed, and I don't know how this worked out, but pretty much twice as much random comments, unflattering photos of Hillary Clinton (we had Dept. of State--I like her, but it's SO fun to make fun of her playfully), etc. I loved it, and apparently the class did, too...we were all pretty much laughing the whole time. Yay for PowerPoints with humor! :)
• OK, I will try to wrap this obscenely long post up soon...what else has been good and wonderful lately? Life? Music? Well, I'll probably think of something I missed in a second, but let's shift to "the downs" part of my life lately...you know how I've blogged somewhat about my online PE classes? And how I needed to get on those? Well, we have this annoying family-wide flaw where if we don't set a date or time to do something, and if I don't remind my parents enough, we don't do it. That's what happened in this case...I registered (successfully) for Bowling and Health and Nutrition through Distance Learning back in January, and I reminded my parents every so often that we needed to go to the District office to pick up my materials and start the class...and we never did. Well, a few weeks ago, I went on the website to make sure I could still start...and it turned out, that day was the deadline for picking up materials. I was, of course, looking at that after the office closed, so I was worried. Fast forward to today...my mom called the Distance Learning office, and we received horrible news--since I was past the deadline, as per their policy, I can't start my classes until the summer. The lady even said there was nothing we could do...which means as of now, I can't graduate, unless we're somehow able to work something out. I am REALLY freaked out and stressed about this, but I know that everything will work out and that I just need to have faith and put my trust in the Lord. It's all up to Him and His will and power now. Be sure to keep me in your prayers, if you can. (I feel self-centered asking that, sorry...)
• To end on a happier note...I love life. I've realized that lately...no matter how crazy/stressful/AAGH-y it is, there's always something about our time on this Earth to love. We should try to enjoy every minute of it, even if that minute may be painful or annoying. That makes everything much more fun, and truly joyful! :)
  

Well, that got more deep than I expected. Or maybe not. Anyways, I won't mince words and I'll just end this beast of a post. If you've actually read the whole thing, congratulations for getting through it all! :) Cheese out! :D

Oh Yeah, That Whole Blogging Thing... :D

Well, I have totally not posted anything on this wonderful blog for a while. Like two months. Ouch. And while I usually try (operative word: TRY) to make my blog posts short, this one by default may be a little long. Maybe I'll try a list of things I have done? Since if I just start talking about all of them, it might get a bit long. Er. Than the monster it is likely to be... :D

Actually, this will be a semi-timeline? Who knows what will happen.

• In January (the 8th-10th, to be specific), I had All-State Jazz! To say it was an AMAZING experience would be quite the understatement. The clinician--Kerry Marsh (who I already had kind of heard of because his arrangements are terrific) was so fun and exciting, and the songs we sang were awesome beyond belief (they were much more fun to sing after I passed the memory checks, lol...). And the people were quite delightful! If any of you who were in it read this blog, go you guys! I will not forget that weekend. And yay Jenny for doing a great job in All-State Show! And crap, I still need to somehow get the CD...I want it badly! :)
• Um...I'm probably skipping something important/fun, but at the end of January I went up to awesomely amazing Utah to audition for the School of Music at BYU. Leading up to the trip was kind of stressful...I had to work out a HUGE error that almost kept me from auditioning. But it all worked out, because as one of our Regionals songs said (more on that below), "the Lord God is awesome!" I had a great experience auditioning...my aural skills test score was surprisingly good, and even though I forgot the words at the start of one of my songs in the singing audition, it worked out great and I sang my heart out! And BYU is stinking beautiful, I can't wait to go there! That said...I did not get accepted to the School of Music. The Lord must be giving me time to grow...but that's OK, because in case you were not aware, I GOT ACCEPTED TO BYU!!!!! (The main school, not the music school.) I am so excited and I can't wait! But holy cow, I will be going to college... Oh, and by the way, I would like to thank my cousin Mollie (and her husband Ben) again for a great time staying with them when I went up to Provo. We got to play XBox and everything! Yep, they're great! :D
• Oh, before that, like Friday (the 31st), literally hours before I got on the plane to Provo, I auditioned for Regionals. That went pretty well...seeing as I got 1st chair Bass! I was really shocked and surprised, but totally excited! Regionals was a terrific experience--the clinician, Dr. Durocher from the Land of the Artichokes (Scottsdale Community College, lol) was beyond amazing. She was fun, inspiring, talented, delightful...it was my favorite Regionals (well, tied with 9th grade...except then I was really shy, and this time I talked to people a lot and everything) and I loved every minute of it. (And I got to go shop for the director's gift with the other 1st chairs, which was uber fun. And really weird because I never have done that before. They were all really nice and delightful people--go Joy, Kyle, and Lizzie!)
• We (meaning Chamber) didn't get to go to Jazz/Mad...the district was dorky (they thought it would be unsafe to go in the snow...which there was not that much of) and even when other, more sensible people in the district tried to get buses for us at the last minute, they were all booked for the All-Star Game (which I actually watched part of on Saturday, the fun shooting and dunking competitions--ironic). Oh well...I had a great weekend anyway (I was actually free to do stuff...which is a rarity lately), and we MIGHT get to go on another trip to make up for it. Coolness! :D
• Well, I hope I didn't forget anything...though I'm sure I did. Oh wait, other random things: I gave a talk, which went surprisingly well. I feel much better about my public-speaking skills (at least my church-y ones), and I actually bore my testimony for the first time in a while today in church. Yay for Brandon actually not sounding like an awkward monkey when he speaks in public! :D
• I sang a solo at the Choir Spaghetti Dinner fundraiser on Thursday! The sound was funky (and not in the cool, jazzy way), but it went well and I loved it! (The song I sang, "Gravity" by Sara Bareilles, is amazing and so fun to sing.) And great job to everyone who sang/played/etc...like for example, the amazing person who accompanied me, Rachel Ellsworth! She is a piano prodigy, basically. So yeah, everyone did great, and it went well, and it was a nice night. Yummy spaghetti! :)
• I went to a journalism workshop at ASU (for the third, and last year...tear? well, not that sad, but still...). I didn't win anything this year (the past two years, I got 2nd, then 1st place--which meant I got an iPod Shuffle...which my mom's friend has now because i got a huge real iPod...and a camera!), but it was OK, I had a great time (Catherine Anaya was there again! And the lady from Telemundo, Patricia Batres! I semi-met her last year. They're like Arizona journalism celebrities, lol... :D), and someone won from Mesa High, who I had never met before but is really nice and down-to-earth. Go Rosemarie!
• Again, I hope I didn't forget anything. Coming up for me...All-State auditions (stressful but exciting!), auditions for the School of Music at NAU (why am I doing this???? I'm planning to go to BYU, but oh well, it will be a good experience, I guess), and other sundry frivolities that have escaped my mind. (Yep, I totally just sounded like an uptight, free-spirited British person. That would be such a fun person to be, I just thought! Lol...)

Well, I hope you didn't fall asleep/die/storm off in a huff at how long this was. Thanks for my reading my blog/Facebook importing thingy that makes it a note/whatever this is. Have fun and cheese out! :D

Look, An After-Christmas Blog! (But No 20% Off...)

I haven't blogged lately, have I? OK, now that I've made things awkwardly random with a rhetorical question, let's see what's happened lately...

Yesterday was, as you know, Christmas. It's a holiday I really love and I always try to remember the true reason we're celebrating--which is of course the birth of Christ. I had a nice Christmas yesterday--for certain circumstances that you may know of and I will not discuss here, it was different and kind of depressing in a way, but it was a great day, and I had fun and spent time with family. It involved playing a bunch of games--I played "Sorry!" for the first time in a while, and I loved it (I also loved pronouncing "sorry" like a Canadian and bugging my mom with it: "Soh-ree"); a random preschooler game called "The Ladybug Game" that I think my little sister got for something (maybe Christmas) was also played by us (weird grammar...) and it turned out to be surprisingly delightful. (I finally got enough aphids!) And, as usual, I beat my family at Boggle... :)

So what else have I been up to? School ended for the semester, and I am excited to be on break. I will be having less of a classload next semester, since when the semester starts I will be dropping Calculus. (I got a D/F for it this last semester...my report card still hasn't come yet...and I don't want to deal with it anymore, I don't need the credit and it hurts my GPA.) This will actually be good because then I won't have an A Hour...my first time since I started high school! Yay for more sleep! Besides that, I will need to get my PE credit taken care of pretty quickly. I will be doing a lot of bowling...and learning about health and nutrition. Delightful! :)

I am also done...for now, anyway...applying to colleges. I sent in my applications to BYU and NAU, and right now I'm just waiting. I still do need to get my FAFSA in, though, once the new year starts, and I'm going to apply for random outside scholarships so I won't have to worry too much about paying for school. I still have my mission to save for...So anyways, I'm glad most of my applying-ness is over. It was very stressful, to say the least.

There's been other things that have happened in the past month...Vespers (awesome!), a bunch of caroling gigs for Chamber (very fun!), and my birthday (I very much enjoyed it...and thank goodness it wasn't like last year, where everything in the world seemed to be scheduled on that day...). Let's not even talk about the fact that the first two (NOT the last one, I'm not terminally ill or something) were my last ones...senior year, aargh!!! :) Well, I should stop blogging your ears/eyes off now. Have a great time after Christmas and through New Year's! Cheese out! :)

Quick, Like A Bunny! (Or A Jackrabbit...)

OK, this will be quite a shorter post than usual since I don't want to jeopardize my going to bed much earlier than I usually do (go homework being done! though I need to work on my Government packet sometime...), but I just wanted to write and blog, because, you know, it's kind of fun. Since my last post, a few things have happened...there was an election or something (who would have thought?), the Veterans' Day Concert was last night (the 12th), and life, with all its random occurrences and events, has gone on. To elaborate a bit on my thoughts on the election, obviously as an Obama supporter I am happy with the results, at least on the presidential race front. I am immensely glad that 102, 8, and that random proposition whose number I cannot recall or did not exist in Florida (regarding marriage) passed, and I hope that the people now protesting against it will stop being so hateful toward the Church--the viciousness with which they're attacking us, a viciousness I believe is very unfounded and based on false information, makes me want to cry and kind of scares me. Anyways, I'm glad that those propositions passed and that marriage stays marriage, and I hope that the other side will learn to be civil. In terms of other races, I was very upset that Russell Pearce (who is, in my very frank opinion, an anti-immigration-crazed windbag) and Joe Arpaio (pretty much the same thing as Pearce) won yet AGAIN, but I guess that Arizona voters will have to deal with the consequences they enacted. On a happier note, a lot of the other local races/propositions/etc. in my view went well for the most part, such as the School Board, State Representative race, and other various and sundry things. 

Anyhow, enough of politics for the moment. November has turned out to be a very busy yet rewarding month so far. As I mentioned earlier, last night, the Choir, Band, Orchestra, and members of Drama performed the annual Veterans' Day Concert. I think it really came together well--especially the Band and Orchestra, which I think did an AMAZING job. They sounded terrific, and I think they could have given any professional philharmonic orchestra a run for their money last night. I ended up liking this experience much better than I did last year for some reason, maybe because it might have been a bit shorter and I felt more prepared. Great job to all who participated!

In random bits of information that are suddenly coming to me at this moment, I played Rock Band on Wii for the first time on Saturday, at my cousin's house after helping my other cousin and her husband move. I ended up singing (I know, such a stretch, right?) most of the time, and I did pretty well at adapting to the Rock Band style of singing--which is basically making sure you hit all the notes. Being the weird, chameleon-like (by chameleon-like, I mean I adapt to whatever music I'm supposed to be singing very well, though in certain situations I often sound quite horrible) singer I am, I sang most of the songs in their original octave--my falsetto (or lack of it) really got a workout, I guess. Oddly enough, I found that some of the songs were kind of some form of good practice for Regionals sightreading. (Yes, I am a music nerd, and proud of it!) I also tried drums once, which didn't end too terribly. A few days ago I played again, and had the guitar once or twice--it was set on Easy and Bass (which meant I had to play much less notes than on Guitar mode), so I actually did well, though I'm sure if I went any harder I would fail miserably. Rock Band is a fun game...whoever thought of putting singing with a video game is the coolest! :)

Oh, and one more thing, a big announcement if you haven't heard of it already (if you go to Mesa High or are related to me, you would sort of know this by now)--I made All-State Jazz Choir. After my audition and the results came in, I found out I was 1st Chair in the Clinic Choir (the 2nd, lower, but still quite awesome and amazing jazz choir), just like I was last year. Michelle Cardon and Matt Speakman (go Matt, he made 1st Chair Tenor in his first year trying out!) made the higher choir. Well, a few days ago--make that Monday, I think--Mrs. Jones told me after class that I got bumped up to 5th Chair in the HIGHER choir!!! Yay for a party with Michelle and Matt!!! I am EXTREMELY excited and I will make sure to learn my music well (unlike last year, where I got called back for a second part check...ouch to myself) and have lots of fun! I will keep everyone posted on dates for the concert and stuff. Yay for jazz!

Well anyways, so much for this being a short post. I think I'm constitutionally (by constitutionally, I mean not constitutionally, since from what I have learned in Government there's nothing about that in the Constitution...wow, random tangent) prevented from writing less than elevendy billion words. Or however many I usually write. Anyways, I hope everyone is doing great and cheese out! :)

Some Politics To Fill The Void of Blog-ness...

Hola, amigos. (Like the shameless Spanish there? I didn't think so.) Anyways, I am going to take a break from rambling on about my life for this post, mainly because with recent events I think I need to wait on that a little bit, and I have been meaning to do the following for a while: give you all (well, anyone who reads this blog or sees this on Facebook) my recommendations for the upcoming election. These are just suggestions (albeit ones I strongly believe in), kind of like The Arizona Republic or any other major paper does. Since I can't vote for two years, I want to get my voice out there at any rate. If you would like to know more about why I feel the way I do on certain candidates, propositions, etc., just leave a comment and I will be happy to talk about it. (By the way, you'll notice there's a lot more Republicans on here than there usually are for a Democrat...I'm weird that way.) These are all for my district/area, by the way. Here we go!

President: Barack Obama (Democrat)

District 6 Representative: Jeff Flake (Republican)

State Senator, District 18: Judah Nativio (Democrat)

State Representatives, District 18: Cecil Ash (Republican) and Tammie Pursley (Democrat)

Corporation Commission: Barry Wong, Bob Stump, and Marian McClure (Republicans)

County Board of Supervisors: Don Stapley (Republican)

County Assessor: Keith Russell (Republican)

County Attorney: Tim Nelson (Democrat)

County Recorder: Helen Purcell (Republican)

County School Superintendent: Don Covey (Republican)

Sheriff: Dan Saban (Democrat)

Special Healthcare District: Rob Carey

School Board: Steven Peterson, Ben Whiting, and Kate Ali'varius

City Prop 400, Questions 1 and 2: Yes

Prop 100: No

Prop 101: No

Prop 102: Yes!

Prop 105: No

Prop 200: No

Prop 201: Yes

Prop 202: Yes (though I don't like it that much...)

Prop 300: Yes

I hope this helped...or something. Look closely at all the candidates/issues and make your choices wisely for this election. And make sure to go VOTE! on Nov. 4. Cheese out! :)

My Crazy Weekend/Week, Part II

And now we continue with Part Two of "Brandon's Crazy Weekend":

Like how that sounded like a boring documentary? Anyways, where we last left our heroes...JK, it's just me...as I was saying, Saturday was slightly busy but not as crazy as Thursday/Friday-ness. I had to mow the lawn Saturday morning and our family went to clean the church. Besides that, I didn't have much else to do Saturday until...HOMECOMING!!!!

Homecoming was a terrific experience for me. My date was Rachel Ellsworth and she was really fun and awesome. We had a lot to talk about (maybe not a lot by non-random people's standards, but we ended up having conversation the whole time) and my group was great. We went to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen...yay for pizza that is good! Me and Rachel, Bryce and Rhonda, and Andy and Jessica goofed off for a little bit on the dance floor (and we stayed there for 2 or so slower dances) and ended up leaving the dance slightly early--like 10:30 or so--to go to Nielsen's and then to Andy's house to watch his brother's RANDOM and hilarious homemade movie-thing. (It didn't make any sense. But we were all so tired and slightly hyper, not to mention with random senses of humor, that we laughed the whole time. And most of us laughed quiet at first so it sounded like Rachel was the only one laughing, which made all of us laugh more.) So anyways, Homecoming was a blast! I've decided school dances are quite fun to go to, at least when you're going with fun people.

I have to go watch Jeopardy! now, so I will maybe write more later. Or not. Or I will eat you. One of those things. Anyways, cheese out! :)

My Crazy Weekend/Week, Part I

OK, here's the full (ish) post I promised you. By you, I mean whoever is reading this blog, which to tell the truth is not many. Anyhoo, shall I talk about myself? Wait, that sounds narcissistic...OK, I need to stop typing my thoughts right out, otherwise I sound more and more like the crazy psychotic person that I am.

I hope those who have gotten the chance to hear it like my random playlist. To expound upon it for a second, in addition to what I already said about it in my last post, it is truly a very strange and intriguing smorgasbord-thing. You may notice that I even have a sizable amount of music from other languages/countries on there...as far I can tell, I put several Spanish songs, a few ones in Portugese (I wanted more that I have on iTunes, but the playlist.com thing couldn't find them), and one or two in French. My reason for being a fan of Spanish music (at least certain songs/sub-genres of it) is pretty simple: I've grown up listening to music in Spanish. My mom was born in Ecuador, and that's her music. By this point, of course, I've ended up liking Latin music that she either hates or doesn't really know at all, but I still like a good chunk of her music, and the reason I like so much of Spanish music now is because it's part of who I am. As for the Portugese music, a lot of it is jazz or jazz-related, as most foreign-language jazz songs are Latin jazz ones in Portugese. By jazz-related, there is some music that I have from artists from places like Brazil, where it's not jazz music but rather really good music that has some roots in jazz or something. The French music is just random. The one French song I have on my playlist here is by someone who is now the First Lady of France (her name is Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, but she goes by Carla Bruni on her CDs, I think. She used to be a model, randomly). Cool, huh? (Maybe not that cool to you, but I think it is.) I don't even know how I found the French music I have, I think because of "Ratatouille," oddly enough (I really liked the random song in there). So that's kind of inexplicable, but that's how I am--very inexplicable.

Wow, I spent a long time talking about my music, much longer than I thought, and definitely much longer than a second. I should probably get to the part where my blog entry title actually applies, shouldn't I? Well, I was already expecting this weekend to be somewhat busy to begin with, what with Homecoming and what not. But there were a few extra events that threw more craziness into the mix...first, I fell asleep on my bed until about 11:40 last night without doing homework, due to some family arguments that we had. Then, when I woke up, my mom called and informed me that she was at the hospital, because her chest was hurting. Needless to say, that freaked me out a bit...and though she said she was OK and they were just doing tests, I was even more distracted from my homework and ended up staying up until about 3:30, at which time my mom came home and me and her friend who had taken her to the hospital helped her in, as she was on heavy pain medication. On top of that, I found out a few minutes before I went to bed that my dad didn't even know she went to the hospital, and was also trying to do what I could to work out rides for school the next morning. I decided to skip A Hour (for probably the first purposeful, self-caused time in my 3 years of high school life) to get some sleep (and not have to go to evil Calculus).

This morning was kind of stressful still, but not as scary as the night before...though my dad kind of drove me crazy a bit, as he decided to still go to work because he had an interview today, and neglected to call one of our carpool drivers to ask her if she could pick the other two people in my carpool up. Me and my sister did still get to school, however, getting a ride from someone, though my other sister and brother had to stay home because they wouldn't get ready.

On a happier (and hopefully shorter) note, my day at school was fun-ish. I won't talk about it really at all, but after school came the Homecoming Parade! I had a blast on the Choir float, and to tell the truth, though our float was slightly less elaborate, I think I had a bit more fun this time around. We sang random songs from musicals ("Under The Sea" and "Seize The Day," to name a few), cheered a lot ("Go Choir!...Choir! Choir! Choir!"), danced around, goofed off, and threw candy to smiling children. I loved it, though now I have about a negative seventy billion energy level, because the sun sucks energy. I ended up going home after the parade instead of staying for the carnival this year, mainly because I didn't really have any booth to help with this time around, and me performing my song from the Variety Show kind of fell through. (They didn't have a piano, as far as I could tell, and I kind of need one for my song. Along with about 90% of the other people who told Mrs. Jones they would perform at the Carnival. So I wonder how that turned out.) As of now, I'm going against my better judgment and hatred of football and actually planning to go to the Homecoming game with friends. Hopefully I'll have fun there...I probably will if I concentrate more on hanging out with people that are fun rather than the intensely boring and drawn-out football-game aspect of it. (I cannot stand watching football games, they bore me to tears. Oddly enough, I enjoy playing "Madden," mainly because I make it fun with my randomness and I'm in control of how stinking long the game is.) And of course, tomorrow is the Homecoming Dance, my first (and last high-school) one! I'm going with Rachel Ellsworth and a group with 5 other couples. I'm excited and I'm looking forward to it! Of course, before that, our family's going to clean the church in the morning, and I said I would mow the lawn (bleh), which adds another two items to my insane weekend. Oh, joy, Brandon typed sarcastically.

This was probably my longest post ever. I hope I didn't bore anyone. I think I just needed to pour my thoughts out right now, and unfortunately for any readers with a short attention span, they were really long and rambly thoughts. Anyways, hopefully next time I won't drag on so much. I hope you enjoy my awesome playlist, and cheese out! :)

Music (This Time Not Of The Mind...)

Since it's so scandalously late, I'll save a full post for later (one about, you know, life), but as you can see/hear, I've put a playlist up on my blog. I originally was going to do one earlier, but I didn't really like the playlist.com thing. I changed my mind, obviously, and here it is. It's about 100 songs (only about 1/28 of my huge iTunes library) and is REALLY random but also REALLY good. I have no idea what you're hearing right now/will hear if you go to my blog. It could be jazz, rock, French, a dancing lobster...OK, maybe not that last one, but you get the point. Anyways, enjoy, and feel free to comment on it...whether you're saying how weird it is or if you like it (or deeply hate it). Cheese out! :)

For Some Reason, I Feel Very Blog Right Now...

Hello friends...it's nice to be here with you in...my blog? (I couldn't say Primary, of course, because this is kind of--not Primary at all.) Anyway, hola. (Like the lame Spanglish.) Once I stop thinking of creative ways to greet you all to this blog entry, maybe I'll actually write something.

This has been a fun week. It's kind of not over yet--there is that little awesome thing called Saturday still to come--but I'll just talk about it anyway. Sunday, our ward got the chance to go to the Randolph Center, a home/facility for those with mental disabilities. It was a great experience--I was very scared about how I would be to handle taking care of and interacting with someone one-on-one for an hour, and at first, I felt inadequate and unsure, but I ended up doing well, being touched, and feeling the Spirit. I got to sing Primary songs the whole time, too!!! (And play piano, but only for the instruction meeting thing we had beforehand, and the sacrament meeting our ward had afterwards.) It was a unique and very amazing way to spend a Sunday morning.

OK, I said I was going to talk about this week, but random time switch--the Variety Show went very well. I felt like I sang and played my best, and just...I don't know, let my song out there. Thanks to all of you who have complimented me, you guys are great. And most of all...a huge GREAT JOB!!! to everyone who performed in the Variety Show!!!! You guys ALL were amazing, there was not an even close to remotely OK act the whole show, they were all completely terrific! All your top-notch talents really shined. (Hey, if you any of you took video of your singing/playing/stuff, you should post in online, like on Facebook or YouTube. Or send it to me. Or something...by the way, if you missed the Variety Show, I have my song up on Facebook, and I might put on YouTube someday. I don't know, though...)

Before this gets too long(er--yes, I know this parentheses makes the sentence grammatically incorrect), what else is new/happened? I don't know, I was going to say other things but I forgot them. Or they don't fit in with how I wrote this today. Why am I thinking out loud...or, more accurately, on screen/typing-ness? I don't know. Anyways, I will hopefully post random stuff soon. Or not. Anyways, cheese out! :)

More About Conference...and Things

First off, I need to make a correction...in case you haven't heard, the Variety Show is actually at 7, not 7:30, but still is tomorrow. And I am still breathing. Oh wait, I didn't need to correct any statement related to that. Anyways, moving on...

Well, I told you I would post some quotes I really liked from Conference. And now I will break my promise!!! Just kidding, of course I won't...here they are:

• "Let us remember that love and service are like twins that seek each other's companionship."-Eduardo Gavarret, Seventy
• "Harmony in an orchestra only comes when its members make a concerted effort. So it is that harmony comes in a marriage when both make a concerted effort."-Russell M. Nelson
• "The Lord isn't asking us to load up a handcart. He's asking us to fortify our faith."-M. Russell Ballard
• "Nothing is as constant as change."-Thomas S. Monson
• "Hope is one leg of a three-legged stool, together with faith and charity."-Dieter F. Uchtdorf

And those are just a few of the pieces of amazing counsel that we were able to receive this weekend! Conference was really great.

OK, what else do I have to talk about? In the field of random news, I am sad that Misty May-Treanor had to withdraw from "Dancing With The Stars." (If you don't know what the heck I'm talking about, basically, she is one half of the awesome women's beach volleyball team from the USA that won the gold, and she was amazing at dancing, but she got hurt badly and had to leave.) Also, I have fallen in love with the music of Nnenna Freelon these past few days...she is an awesome jazz/gospel/amazing music singer whose music I have had and loved for awhile, but recently become obsessed with. If you like good music, you'll probably like her a lot...she's amazing. And I'm not done with the plugs...make sure to see the Variety Show tomorrow! OK, now I'm done with the advertising. I hope everyone's doing great! Be sure to eat lots of cheese! Cheese out!

Thoughts On Conference...And About Life, About Love (You Little Wet Puppy)

(Please keep in mind that the second half of the title must be spoken in a cheesy French accent, a la Steve Martin in "The Pink Panther." Which is where that quote came from. Anyhoo, moving on...)

OK, so I loved Conference a lot. It was very inspiring and just...Conference-y. There were so many good talks and important messages. And a lot of random fun things that happened. To start off, I'll name a few:

• Elder Causse (from the Seventy) giving a good talk, and at the same time, sounding like an awesome cross between the guy in the Dyson vacuum commercials and Steve Martin in "The Pink Panther."
• Two General Authorities in a row during the Sunday Afternoon session having equally awesome South American accents. (And their talks were also very good. There never is a bad talk at Conference.)
• Having the strange and exciting experience of seeing both Jason Alston and Brad Pew pop up on the screen during Priesthood Session. They were singing in the Provo MTC choir, and it was crazy, because when they said where the choir was from, I was thinking, I wonder if I'll know anyone in there?, and about a minute into the first song, there was Jason. (They didn't show him again, but they showed Brad twice.) It was weird to see them on TV and with missionary tags on and everything, but also great because they get the chance to serve the Lord. Coolness!
• The new temples they announced excited me! Especially the Kansas City and Rome ones...now the Costello's will have a temple really close, and it's amazing that there will soon be one in Italy. Go Italy, it's your birthday! (Well, not really--it's a figure of speech--oh, deal with it!)

In terms of spiritual-ness, I really got a lot of President Uchtdorf's talk about hope. It just gave me a lot of comfort. Elder Nelson's talk was comforting to me as well. And Elder Perry talking about Henry David Thoreau (whom I really admire) and basing his talk on that to talk about the spiritual things we need, that was amazing! Since this post is getting too long, I'll wait until my next post to put down some really good quotes that stood out to me from my notes.

In other news...the Variety Show is this Tuesday, at either 7 or 7:30. I'm not sure about the time right now, though I thought I was. No matter what the time is, come! It will be a night full of great performances, music, and...cheese? Well, you could bring some cheese. There we go, that problem is solved. And as for other things...I don't know. I can't really think of anything else to say right now, at least not anything that would fit in the end of this crazily long post. So anyways, I will end this now, and all I have left to say is, cheese out!

Blogging Is Less Scandalous Than Snogging...

As the many (code for: NOT many...insert smiley face here) visitors/readers/hippies/cows? to my blog may notice, I have changed the format a bit. Let's see if I like it at all. Or if anyone likes it at all.

Anyways, you may have noticed that my last blog entry was spastic and/or devoid of much information. Since I am writing this one at 12:30 on Friday night, it will likely be much more spastic, but probably less devoid of information. Which would make it have...more information? I think so. Anyways, as an update, I did make the Variety Show! I will be singing and playing piano (at the same time, just in case those who do not get things that fast--like me, the most out of it of them all--didn't catch that...who knows, you may have hung around me too much). The song is one I wrote. So go to the Variety Show on Oct. 7 at 7:30! It will be fun! (Sorry if that sounded too much like an ad. It wasn't, I promise! Though I am Brandon Randall, and I approve this message.)

Wow, I'm actually trying to separate this into paragraph-like things this time. Maybe that's because this is obscenely long. Um...what else is happening? I watched the debate tonight and thought it was awesome. I hope you did too. Though you might not have. Let's continue this blog entry. Let's continue it with short, choppy sentences. Yes. That is a good idea. This is what happens when Brandon blogs in the wee small hours of the morning. Yay, I broke the short sentences curse!

OK, now that you're all convinced of my utter insanity, I should stop now. Maybe next time I'll have more to say...I mean, type...Anyways, cheese out! :)

Randomness...(Do I Ever Post Anything Else?)

It's been 20 days...or so?...since my last post. I really need to be more consistent. Or something like that. Anyways, since September 1st, I have died. OK, not really. But really, life has been pretty normal, I think from off the top of my head. (Not the bottom or the slightly-to-the-right northwest corner...which doesn't really exist, does it?) I've sung things. I've breathed. (I tell you, that does not sound like a word, but I don't know any other past tense for "breathe." If you have a better real one, let me know.) I've danced...OK, not really, but apparently we're having dancing lessons for Mutual on Wednesday. I tried out for the Variety Show on Friday--I find out tomorrow (Monday) how that went. (It probably might have been better to do an entry tomorrow instead where I would know if I made it or not, but it's too late now...great, now have that Carole King song stuck in my head...but then again, I like that song...) I wrote a song for it. I need to write something else besides these weird, choppy sentences. And start a sentence with something else than "I"...hey, I did that without even trying! (Well, maybe I tried a little bit...) Well anyways, my life is...alive. Questions? Leave a comment. (Too bad I can't truthfully say, "Comments? Leave a question," because that wouldn't make sense, not that the previous sentence made any sense either.) Hopefully I'll keep up with this blog some more, but for now, cheese out!