Wow, that was close. Too close.

Remember, Ashley, don't look them in the eye.

I got my wind seminar comments back. For the most part, people were very positive and only used constructive criticism to express the negative. But sometimes people wrote funny things:

"Next time you should play contrabass flute!"

"I'm sitting next to your brother."
"This is why you win everything."

"Great exciting music (despite it being flute)"

"Brave soul, I like."

"I have nothing to say, but your good."

"You don't look much like your brother."
"Pitch did some weird things in the cadenza, but if you told me it was purposefull, I'd believe you."

"People named Stahl are really cool." and "You dance around a lot" and "P.S. you are my sister"

"Have my babies"

"I'm never a fan of playing without music. You're not going to impress anyone, and you never know if your memory slips for whatever reason."

"Not the trombone piece. Cool."

"Thank you for memorizing. it allows you to be more expressive visually. Nice outfit. You make it look easy. Oooo nice tonguing. You are owning this. Nike. Just do it. You are completely nike-ing this. There's suspense, there's excitement. Oh, you just looked at me. You know this is happening. So do I. How many flutists does it take to change a lightbulb. None, it doesn't need to be changed because you did it right the first time. Rock on!"

"I see you taking that principal chair in Vienna from that guy."

"Next time, PICK SOMETHING BETTER."

"Try to find a different pianist."

And now, the only wind seminar jerk:
"Let's go over how to properly enter the stage
1. Walk out on to the stage. (The place where you will play)
2. Tak a bow. NOT a chin nod halfway on to the stage. You should be able to see your own feet if you do it correctly (count to 2 as you do it. If you do it fast it looks weird.
Practice this before your next performance."

I have some things to say to you:
1) I know stage presence is important, but did you even listen to what I played?
2) I don't appreciate being talked down to.
3) Maybe if people would clap long enough for me to acknowledge them, I would.
4) I know how to bow. I don't need lessons.
5) Take has an e in it.

Also, what should I do for Lent?

One more thing: Eating an apple can make any situation casual. Really. I have realized this throughout my life, and sitting here right now, eating my apple and chatting with the roomate, reminded me of it. If you're walking along with someone, eating an apple and chatting, I guarantee that you will feel casual and at ease. If you walk into a room where you don't know anyone, and you're eating an apple, you'll still feel okay about everything. Nothing can be bad if you are eating an apple. It's pretty amazing.

Bottled drinks kind of have the same effect, but to a much lesser degree.

Facebook is merging high school and college. I can't believe they are actually doing this. I have one thing to say about it: BOOOOO. What's next, a facebook for babies? (No offense to you high schoolers out there, I just feel that facebook should be a college thing. And I certainly think that the high school and college should stay seperate.)

In other news, yesterday was the first day that I have gotten stressed out since I have been at college. Contrary to popular belief, missing 4 days of school does make you fall behind. And it takes a lot of work to catch up.

Today is going to be fun, too: this is my only substantial break until after the 8:00 concert tonight.

Which reminds me:
SYMPHONIC BAND CONCERT TONIGHT
Monday, Feb. 27
8:00 PM
OMH
It should be good, we have performed this program like 1786537 times.

Wow. I just discovered another composer. Mendelssohn's music is beautiful. Both Felix and Fanny.

This reminds me of the time I discovered Rimsky-Korsakov last year. How could I have ignored these guys?

I'm feeling sad.

So the symphonic band trip is over. It was fun, for the most part: I have been cured of my front row syndrome, and I got to hang out with some people I usually don't get a chance to hang out with. As for the performances, the first one was horrible (I'm sure the whole band would wholeheartedly agree), the next couple were good, and our performance at the CBDNA conference was awesome. It was so good that Dunnigan started crying. It was actually kind of disconcerting, in a way.

Two of the nights, we stayed with host families overnight, because the college of music is poor and we have no money to pay for hotels. My families were nice for the most part. I got no sleep on the trip, though. On Tuesday, I woke up at 6:00. One Wednesday, I woke up at 4:30. On Thursday, I woke up at 5:00. And on Friday (thank goodness), I woke up at 8:00.

And by the way, it's extremely difficult to sleep when you have nothing to lean against. If you are planning to sleep on a bus anytime soon, either get a whole 2 seats for yourself, or get the window seat so you can lean against the window.

The last day, I spent close to 14 hours on a bus. Can you imagine? I kind of felt dead afterward. Because I definitely know what dead feels like.

In general, it was a lot like a high school band trip, except that there was a lot more cursing and a lot less supervision.

All in all, I'm glad I got to go. It was cool being a freshman not knowing a lot of people, just sittting back and observing.

The best thing about the symphonic band trip was getting a loud knock on the door at 4:30 in the morning with the father of the host family saying, "Come on girls...time to get up."

The good news:
My race and ethnicity test and Brevard audition went well.

The bad news:
I think I may have lost my orchestra folder, with two pieces of music in it.

The indifferent news:
I will likely not update for five days, because I'll be traveling with my band to Nashville.

IF ANYONE SEES MY ORCHESTRA FOLDER, PLEASE RETURN (it)!!!!

Edit: I found my folder. It had fallen into the locker under mine. Luckily, nobody uses that locker and it didn't have a lock on it. Silly. Now I can tour in peace.

Today in church, I discovered that a pair of kids directly in front of you can be very distracting.
There was a mother. I couldn't really tell how old she was--much older than me, I think--and two kids, a boy and a girl, I would guess ages 6 and 7.
The kids kept staring at me throughout the service, especially the boy, who I think was younger. I decided to pretend they weren't there, but it was very difficult.
During the peace, where we all shake hands with each other and give peace blessings, I shook hands with the mother. The little boy came up behind her and shook my hand. He didn't say anything, and he crawled behind his mother again right afterward. The mother said to me, "He told me he's in love with you."
That was the most distracting thing of all, I think.

ATTN:
Chamber winds concert today. I wouldn't want you to have to sit through three hours of long, boring chamber groups, so I will advise you that my quintet is the very first group! It's at 4:00 in Lindsey Recital Hall, so come take a 10 minute break out of your day and see the Picardy Five in action.

Sometimes, your plans just don't work out like you thought they would. But it's okay, because it was your choice that they didn't. If it wasn't your choice, it would definitely not be okay.

I took a weeklong break from practicing not too long ago. It was my choice, and therefore it was okay. But if something that was outside of my control forced me to take a weeklong break at that same time, it would have not been okay. It would have not been okay at all.

Besides, long conversations are good for the soul.

I love learning about people. It really amazing to me how different I am from some people. It's like we come from different planets and live in different worlds, but here we are talking to each other, somehow. We can learn so much from talking to people who are different from us. We can learn so much.

Last night, I stayed up till 3:00 reading this book that I had to read for a class today.
Today, I went to class, and it was cancelled.

Good joke, Life. You really got me that time.

The tag on the Hershey Kisses say "Kiss me quick." 10 points go to whoever can find what is gramatically wrong with that sentence.

"I can't stop eating candy!!!"

This is quite possibly the most un-nutritious day of my life.
I'm suprised that chocolate isn't bubbling from my pores by now.
I'm also suprised that there aren't more melodramatic livejournal posts today.

In other news, my flute people saw me in hyper mode, and they were amazed.

Okay well, yeah. It's Valentine's Day. So it is.

Last Valentine's Day, I was bitter. Bitter for being single. But ya know what? The single life is pretty awesome. I'm not bitter anymore. What if I want to be single? Ever think of that?
Plus my friends give me chocolate. I'm happy.

Mmmm...tastes like Valentine's Day.

The world is so awesome. I was just walking through campus today, looking at everyone who passed me. All the faces, they are so different, and so beautiful. The way people walk without smiling, it's so funny! What is there to mope about? What is there to worry about?

Life is so much better when you can be happy about what you have, rather than be unhappy about what you don't have. And it's even more sweet to know that you have worked and waited patiently for what you have!

And what a joy to know what real wealth is:
"Anything essential is invisible to the eyes."

Ahh, life is a sweet thing, it is.

Whenever I read anything I wrote in the distant past, like old blogger posts or old poems from the poem blog, it makes me sad.

So instead of going to the TSO concert that was probably amazing, I practiced and watched An Interview with a Vampire (which, by the way, the cabin 11 girls were obsessed with). It's a give and take...

I don't understand how I used up all of today already. In 12 hours, all I have done is eat, practice, apply to a summer camp, watch a movie, and do laundry. I didn't even waste any time today. How the heck did that take up a whole day?

Wellp, I played my first Philharmonia concert, and it was really fun! There were a few iffy intonation spots, but the crowd loved the soloist! I'm going to dream about Prokofiev all night...

So this one time, I was walking around the union when a traveling monk stopped me and offered to give me a book about Krishna.

AND THEN the ants took over the world, the bananas peeled themselves, cheese just didn't taste like it used to, cigarette smoke filled the air in the city of Titusville, clocks refused to chime, whiskers on cats grew twice their normal length, a meteor the size of an SUV hit the grand canyon, the grandparents realized that the good ol days weren't as good as the good present days, the chainsaw was dulled, saltwater transformed into fresh water, the moon blocked out the sun, the trash can fell over, the students decided to revolt, the color blue lost its radiance, spiders started spinning wool, the omitted fifths ganged up against the included thirds, the parallel universe turned 180 degrees backwards, the car smashed the coffee mug, the letter B fought for some decent genes, sticky tack developed a cold, asparin sapped the strength of those who took it, pencils clicked, a paper airplane landed, raspberry married blueberry, a kiss turned the world around, cheeseburgers screamed for mercy, and I stopped writing nonsense.

Blogger is being stuuuupid...

UNIVERSITY PHILHARMONIA CONCERT
Friday, Feb. 9
8:00 PM
Opperman Music Hall

The program includes Prokofiev's piano concerto no. 3, with soloist Justin Bird (winner of the young artist competition AND my piano teacher AND a guy with a really cool accent), and Howard Hanson's (Hansen?) symphony no 2.
All the cool kids are going!


Yeeeah. Ummmm.....HEY, what's over there?!?
::runs away::

Ashley -- [adjective]: Extremely extreme! 'How" will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

I've noticed that I play devil's advocate a lot. It must get pretty annoying to be around me after a while.

---------------------------------------------

Someone in the freshman studio class acts so ridiculously (can that be an adverb? I don't know). Because of this, I let loose my criticism a little more on this person than on everyone else. Sometimes I feel like I'm a little hard, like I've gone too far; the thing is, the rest of the studio encourages me. I know it's wrong to treat this person differently, and I hope that everyone else knows too, but that doesn't stop us. Nobody stands up for this person. Nobody is on his/her side. And that's sad.

I feel like I'm the only person who feels bad about the situation.

It's been the same way my whole life, specifically at Interlochen and during marching band season my junior year. Everyone would get together and gang up against a certain person, and I felt like I was the only one who realized that it was wrong.

It's not okay to be mean to people! It's not okay to gossip and talk about them behind their back! I don't care what the circumstances are: it's still not okay!

I wish people would realize this...it would make my life a lot easier.

I like bananas because they have no bones.

Me:"So, who won the game?"
Sarah: "The Steelers, I think."
Me: "The Steelers were playing?"

Mom: "You don't even like this salad dressing. Why did you get this kind?"
Dad: "You were yelling at me, and I panicked."

So the other day, I'm walking through campus to get to a class, and I pass this guy and girl walking together. The girl is yelling at the guy, saying "Your such an elitist pig!" (except she didn't say pig..she said something else). Suddenly, I hear someone say, "Hi Ashley Stahl!" I turn around, and the guy was my crazy rocker sight-singing TA from last semester. How silly.

My parents are here...looks like I'll be extending my practice fast into the weekend. Maybe I should have considered this before I decided to not practice all week. Oh well. It's all for the best.

In retrospect, yesterday was a very strange day, from beginning to end.

"Don't worry...you won't corrupt me."

I'm taking this week off practicing. I haven't practiced since last Thursday. There are two very good reasons for doing this:

1) I deserve a break
2) I need a break

I've been sick and I need time to just rest; I need to catch up on my school work, etc. I'm not worried that my tone will die or anything, because I still play everyday in my ensembles. But I have to admit, it's pretty easy to just not practice. I don't wonder now how everyone has time to do so much socially.

Weirdest and scariest dream ever. Seriously.
It was vauguely about a group that will do anything to get me to do what they want me to do, that doesn't care what happens to me, as long as their cause is bettered. I won't go into details, but it was horrifying.

Nope.

I need to write my paper
Oh write it yes I should
If I started now, there'd be a chance
That it might actually be good

I've done everything else I can
To avoid this horrid deed
I've played and paid and checked and prayed
But my paper still no one can read

I need to get some sleep tonight
I need to eat some dinner
I need to study for the test, that's right
I need to excercise and get thinner

I need to go to my lesson soon
I need to check the mail
I need very badly to to clean my room
I need to go to jail (do not collect $200)

I need to do anything
Anything but this paper
I need to practice how to sing
I need to learn how to taper

Okay, I'll do it. But I don't wanna.