Tidbit

Hello!
Well, I couldn't sleep, so I decided to post. Christmas Eve! It really snuck up on me... Did it sneak up on anyone else? I got all the wrapping done for today, and I am so excited! You know, I still end up not sleeping, and waking up at 3:00 am. This year though, I am not going to see what is out under the tree. Just waiting in my room and journaling. *forces self to relax; fidgets, and gives up* Oh who cares! It's Christmas!
You know what we watched tonight? We watched Miracle on 34th Street. I like that one!
Well, that's pretty much what is running through my head.
Just a tidbit.
PG

Hello! I am here! Busy as ever... :)

Hallo everyone!
Just doing a check-in/update!
Winter hit us... We are officially snowed in! We have about a foot of snow, and about one inch down there is a layer of ice. It is fun to walk to the chicken yard and make really loud crunching noises. I love winter!
Piano-wise, I am on a two week break from lessons, but still practicing hard as ever! I am currently learning Debussy's Suite Pour le Piano, Toccata in C# Minor; Cat and mouse, by Aaron Copland; and Scarlatti's Sonata in C Major, K.159/L.104.
I am also caught up in school, and for those of you who don't know, I skipped 8th Grade, and am in Highschool. It is tough, but I'm making it. I am also writing a book! It is called Timechamber, and it is based on a dream I had. Basically, it is about two children who stumble across a group of people living in a cave system. Now, these people aren't, like, cave people, they are a religious group from many centuries back. It's pretty complicated, so if you want to read it let me know!

Have a great winter, Christmas, and New Year!
PG

Basic Schedule

The next day we had to go to our first day of classes. This was interesting. First I had practice so I went to the nearest practice hut to practice since the hut on my schedule was To Be Announced. As the supervisor came along she knocked on the door and asked me, “Did I sign you up?” Oops. “Uh, no,” I said, “I didn’t know I had to sign up.” “What is your practice hut number?” she asked. I showed her my schedule and she told me which practice building to go to. I thanked her and went where she told me to go. A couple times when I was here this happened and I tried not to feel like a juggler’s ball. I walked to the practice hut that was open, and started practicing. Soon a junior girl knocked on the door and told me she was supposed to be in here. I asked her the time and she told me it was 10:00. I thanked her and tried not to panic. I was supposed to have had my next class five minutes ago! I didn’t know where to go so I was just wandering asking people where the chapel was. Soon I met some people who know where it was I needed to go to. They also had to go there so they walked with me. When we got there, it was 9:55. The girl’s watch had been off. Whew. So I went in with the people and had my next class. This was master class for piano. I think it was a very important class because not only is it required for my major, but it is also a good time to play in front of others without performing in a recital. You also get constructive criticism about your pieces.

My next class was 11:00 organ. The organs we played in this class were electric but we did get a tour of the United States second largest pipe organ which I will tell you about later. I had no idea where this class was supposed to be so I ran all the way back to my cabin to look at my schedule and map. After locating the organ building on the map I ran and found it. There were two organs and a piano in the small front room. There were about twelve chairs and thirteen people. Apparently, there were too many people there so the teacher dismissed two people. We had a really fun class, but that first day we didn’t get to play the organ. Instead we learned foot exercises and looked at a book that had pictures of all the different types of pipes that were in the organ. We played the next day.

After organ I went to lunch. Then we had rest hour. This was when we had to be quiet and we got to rest or we could write letters. It was basically private quiet time. I have to say that was probably my favorite time of day! I wrote a lot of letters to my friends and family. But when I didn’t sleep, I was really tired in my next class.

After rest hour I went to 2:00 piano skills class at Frohlich. Here we did sight reading, scales, and musical dictation. After the first class we went to the scholarshop to get books. I still didn’t have my ID card that let me access my account, so my teacher paid for my book. As we were walking back, she told me that she was bumping me up to the next class. I felt really happy! 3:00. After I got my books, I went to Intro to Acting. In this class we practiced stretches and various improvisational skills, such as the game “Freeze”. In this game we just chose a scene and picked two people to act it out. Then someone said, “freeze!” and when they froze the “freezer” chose a place to take and started another scene etc. We didn’t do much the first day, but we did play games like “Kitty wants a corner” and stuff like that and do exercises. I knew I was going to like it here.

After acting I had another practice session, but again I was in someone else’s room. So I just went back to the cabin and cleaned my area and waited for an hour. After that hour, E got back from teaching archery and waited for every one else to get back before we all went to dinner. After a few days I figured out my practices, and memorized where my classes were. This made life way easier. On Mondays we went to breakfast in our pajamas and later in the day we went to mixers. Mixers were where the Intermediate boys and girls got together and danced and talked etc. Our week of classes started on Tuesday, and ended on Saturday. On the school days and Mondays, we had to wake up at 6:50 am to go to the flagpole that didn’t have a flag and hear any announcements. Sometimes there were no announcements and the cafeteria wasn’t ready yet! This was rare though. This was my basic schedule for the next three weeks.

Day 3

The next day we all got our schedules, and we wrote them down in our notebooks, and went to breakfast. Then we just played around, except for the drills. The drills were really annoying!! We did a tornado drill, and that was really hard, because we all had to link our arms together and walk sideways. The place where we were going was down a flight of steps so that was pretty dangerous. Then we had to run to the wall and put our hands over our neck and bend over and lay on the ground that way. It was hard! But better know what to do than be stuck unknowing. That was what helped me keep bent over for 5 minutes! After that we all played around for a while. Then there was the LSP: lost swimmer procedure! That was really boring but it was also informative. After that we had a relatively uneventful day.

Day 2

During the night I had a dream that I went out to the front room and my baggage was there. When I woke up I realized that it was a dream and that my luggage probably still hadn’t gotten here yet. So I got up and went to the bathroom and when I came back, A walked up to me and told me my luggage was here. I would have jumped for joy but the stuff on E’s shelf wasn’t very stable and everyone else was sleeping. I got dressed but I only had an orange tee shirt and I was supposed to wear light blue polo shirts with the camp logo. This made me slightly uncomfortable. Later that day I got a note that I had Intermediate piano placement signups. I went to Stone Hotel and waited to sign up. There was a very long line and when I finally got to the room, I signed up and got a map with a reminder telling me where the audition was and when. Then I went back to the cabin. At 1:50, I realized I was late and ran to Frohlich and went up to the second floor which is where the audition was supposed to be, but when I looked at the sign I saw it said, “Intermediate piano auditions: room 1155.” Back down to the first floor I went, found the room, and sat to wait. I got a piece of paper with music on it to look at before I played it so I was ready to play when my turn came around. I went in, and played. I could have done WAY better, but I did how I did, and it all turned out fine. The only thing that bugs me is that on the scales, I was supposed to play a D major scale, (which is the second scale I learned) and I messed up on it! That REALLY bugged me! But the people were really nice.

After auditions, I went back to my cabin and played around. At 5:00 we all went to dinner, and at 9:30 we went to bed. Or at least I tried to. When E and A were finishing up with bunk talk, A came over to where my bunk was and saw me crying. She asked me if I needed to take a walk and talk about how I was feeling etc. I said yes, but it was so dark out that we just sat on the porch and talked. I was SO homesick that as soon as I was outside I started to bawl! She cheered me up by reminding me how hard I tried to get here and how much I wanted to be here. Then she told me she had also read The Lord of the Rings about three times like me! We also looked at the fireflies flickering on and off and I told her about a book on tape called Wolf Story. It is about a hen named Rainbow who has all different colors of feathers. The reason I thought about this is that near the end, the wolf catches some fireflies and uses them as a lantern. He goes to catch Rainbow and he starts to dig at the walls of the chicken yard, but he scrapes his nose. So he tries to dig side ways and scrapes his side on the cement wall that the farmers son has put down to protect his chickens due to the previous attack. He does this to his other side and his rear end, and then he is caught and tamed by the son of the farmer. She thought that was really funny and I felt a lot better, so we went inside. This time I was able to sleep.

Much delayed Interlochen Report Pt. 1

Hi Readers,

Here it is, sorry it was late. November will be update month for me. This is still a rough draft, but we don't want to keep you waiting any longer.

Piano Girl

In this report I will tell how I went to Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan. First I recorded some of my pieces and sent them in as my audition tape. I registered online and chose my classes. After a few months I got a letter saying that I had been accepted to Interlochen and had qualified for financial help. Reading this I wondered how I would get the rest of the money to pay tuition. Mom said we could sell eggs and I said I would teach piano. One time we were at the church and the wonderful coordinator suggested that we hold some kind of fundraiser and we asked her if we could use the church for a benefit recital. She said yes and we held the recital in the sanctuary. I played some pieces and the people came and most donated. Luckily I raised enough money to go to Interlochen. I started to pack and shop ASAP and found out even more why I didn’t like the mall. The cool thing that happened was that Dad said that he was going to just go and do some grocery shopping at Fred Meyers, going home and picking us up when he was done. Instead about half way through shopping at JC Penney (you wouldn’t believe how hard it was to find 2 modest swimsuits there!), he called us and asked us where we were. We told him and he said he would meet us there. He carried all of our bags and then when we were done, he drove us home. After a few days Mom helped me pack and wash all things that were going with me. It took us about three days to finish! Once we were ready, I got a haircut and was ready to go!

On June 23^rd I woke up at 6:00 am and got dressed. Then mom helped me get ready to go. When I was ready to go I went in to Boy’s room and said goodbye. Dad started up the car and helped me get my stuff in. We rode to SeaTac and went to the ticket booth to check my baggage and get my boarding pass. Once we had done that we went to the gate and said goodbye to each other. Soon after that I got on the plane and got in my seat. Even though I didn’t realize it at the time, Mom and Dad stayed until my plane took off. During take off, we saw Mount Rainier on a cloudbank. Awhile after that I looked down and saw how flat the land was. It looked like a quilt. After about 4 more hours, we landed in O’Hare. When everyone else was off, a flight attendant took all the unattended minors to a room in the airport.

The room had a desk where you check in; to the left of the door that you come in through there was a bathroom. Past the bathroom there was a room that I think was a rest room for the little kids who were tired. After that there was a place with vending machines, and there was a small office tucked away next to the desk. The main room was filled with chairs occupied by kids. There was also a TV and some blocks for the little kids. After an hour and a half, we all went to the food court and got lunch (or in my case, brunch). The cheapest food was a Mc Donald’s. Yuk. I just got a chicken fingers and fries. The healthiest choice, I thought. Wrong! I had a stomach ache for the next half hour from it! Then we went back to the UM room. In a half hour we went to the next flight.

This flight was very short: 45 minutes! When we landed, an Interlochen staff member met us at the jet bridge and escorted us to the baggage claim to pick up our bags to find that my duffel bag was missing. There was a table where all of the staff people were so I let know what it looked like. There was a truck outside for baggage and a bus for the kids so put my suit case on the truck and got on the bus. After waiting for 45 minutes for everyone to get on that we could fit, we left for the ten minute drive it took to get to Interlochen. When we did, all the Intermediate and Junior girls got off and went to their divisions’ headquarters to sign in. I waited in line to get the sign in sheet, and when it was my turn to get my name tag, they said it wasn’t printed out yet. Then I went to the infirmary to get signed in there. When I was done at the infirmary I went back to HQ and finished by finding out which cabin I was in. I went to go find my cabin and when I did, the counselors in charge of the cabin met me at the door. I will just put first initials for anonymity. They were E and A. When I found out that my luggage wasn’t there, I started to panic. All that I had was the church dress that I was wearing, and the stuff that I had in my backpack. When my cabin mates got back from the campus tour, they loaned me some things so I could make my bed and have pajamas to sleep in.

Updates in letter form.

Dear Piano Girl,
You (and any readers still hanging around here & checking posts) may want to take a look at this article.
Mama

Dear Readers,
Piano Girl and I promise posts here During the month of November. Written by both of us. Inspired by the Nov. event that begins with N's and has a lot of O's, I think.
LB