"Ashley, you are the most professional flutist I know."
-Drunk Tim

LUCY! You've got some 'splainin to do.

(I drank tonight).

Pam tried to name famous trumpet players in The Office last night.
It was funny.

Good choices are better than bad choices, but...

This day is bananas!
B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

This day is bananas!!
B-A-N-A-N-A-S!!

November is scaring me, so I sat in my apartment and did grad apps for three hours today. If you're applying to grad school right now, you know what I'm talking about.

A man, a plan, a canal - Panama!

It's cold.
I need a hand to hold.
(No I don't.)

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Gosh, I am closing in on six years of consistent blogging. Six years of comma splices and misspelled words. Hooray.

Seriously, though...that's pretty cool. You know how they say that some people like the sound of their own voice? Well, I'm like that except with writing...I like the look of my own writing. And I suppose that is why I haven't gotten tired of blogging somewhere along the way. I do like doing this, writing something that I know at least one other person will read (but the self-censoring does get tough from time to time). There is power in blogging, there is!!
I wonder how many people DO read this? Hmm...

(answer: it depends on the post)

It's an Aaron Copland type day.

It's not getting any warmer.

I am SO proud of the THS marching band. They blew me away at festival. I was like, that is MY band!! I still remember when THS was receiving "good" ratings at every festival. It really wasn't that long ago. And then Mr. Schwindt came and changed everything. My freshman year, we began the show by singing! Nobody did that back then...we were a true "maverick" band. (HAHAH)

What I saw last night was part of the legacy that people in my class left after four years of hard work. And for me, who was a type of a leader all four years, it is so satisfying to see the band still at the top of the ranks. The people at Titusville (and almost all north county schools) don't get lessons, don't pay tons of money to be in band, their instruments are crappy, and everything is working against them...but somehow THS still becomes the best band in the county every year. I don't get it.

Of course, the drill and the arrangements make a big difference too, so kudos to FUBU guy and whoever arranged the music. It seems like THS has about 100 people more than any other band that I saw, and that kind of versatility can really change things out on the field.

I can't describe it, there's something so special to me to see that the band at my high school is so strong, and it led me to where I am today...about to give my senior recital as a performance major at a serious school of music.


IN OTHER NEWS
I'm back in Tally.
I'm tired.

I waitied in traffic for two hours. TWO HOURS. What should have been a four-hour trip ended up taking 6 and a half. I was at a oomplete standstill for a good half hour, so I pulled out my baroque flute and started practicing in my car, in the middle of I-10. That's why I am cooler than you.

HHN was completely AWESOME! I think the best part is actually watching other people get scared--it's so funny. There was this one guy who kept trying to scare me by getting up in my grill and snorting at me. What? I think I appear to be a pretty easy target.
Didn't get home, however, till 4 AM...

Titusville's marching band festival later tonight! Time to practice.

Time to take a trip back to the T-Vizzle!!!
Halloweeen Horror Nights tonight. EEEEE!! We'll find out if I can put matter over mind (because in this case, it's the mind that is scaring you, since the matter isn't allowed to touch you...so matter over mind).

Anyway, I've got a bodyguard.

SMELL YA LATER

Ways to not cure a cold:
Eat lots of cookies
Practice until 1 AM
Play Ultimate frisbee
Have lots of stress

ASHLEY WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT POSTING AFTER 2 AM.
Ah, I'll keep it. Tribute to the vunerability of every person, no matter how perfect their life seems from the outside.

but seriously...no more posting after 2 am.

This season...
It was so short-lived, so long ago. Everyone forgets that it even happened...

But I don't forget. That relationship had a lasting impression on me, an impression that still haunts me today. This season especially always brings back memories, painful memories. All it takes is a whiff of the right cologne to open a door in my mind...and to walk through that door is almost too much. It was five years ago...

I think that the wounds we get from nasty breakups are like the wound that Frodo received at Wethertop. They never really heal, not fully. As long as we are sane enough to remember things, there is going to be a part of us, however small, that hurts.

Come along in then, little girl!
Or else stay out!
But in the open door she stands,
And bites her lips and twists her hands,
And stares upon me, trouble-eyed:
"Mother," she says, "I can't decide!
I can't decide!"

I passed my jury.

Amy Porter once again has blown my mind. She deserved her standing ovation tonight. I can't even imagine how she does the things that she does with the flute. She is inhuman. INHUMAN.

In Ultimate class:
Teacher: "Hammer in the wind!"
Me: "It's kinda like candle in the wind...but with a hammer."

Edit: Oh yeah...go Rays! What a team.

Why isn't invaluable the opposite of valuable?
And why don't "look" and "loop" have the same vowel sounds?

Answer: because the English language is dumb...with a silent B!!

Ladies and gentlemen (and everyone else too)...
Amy Porter in the house!

PRACTICE TURBO BOOST GO!

I believe that there is such a thing as luck, and I believe that I happen to be blessed with an extreme amount of luck.

My life makes no sense sometimes. NO SENSE. Kinda like this post.

I was feeling pretty terrible today, so I took a nap. I woke up from said nap at about 4:30 in the afternoon, and for the first 15 seconds or so I was convinced that I had just awoken from a full night of sleep, that it was Friday afternoon and I had slept through the entire day, missing all my classes, rehearsals and appointments.

PSA: Naps confuse you. Stay away from them.

With the changing seasons (and another BEAUTIFUL Florida autumn day today) I can't help but feel that I am running out of time. I can't quite identify what exactly I am running out of time to do, but I know it is something. The year is short, and it's only getting shorter, so now or never...whatever it is I have to do...

(go to sleep, Ashley)

Yesterday in a piano lesson, in an attempt to put an image in my mind of the proper way to play a folk tune, my teacher said:
"Pretend you are one of the village people."
I was so confused.

I never thought that studying music would lead me to read a book about body language.

I read a book by Samy Molcho (a mime!) about body language. He isn't the best writer in the world, but he does have some great ideas:

On the brain vs. the heart:
We react emotionally with our heart, and we make decisions with our head. And how often our head says no when our heart desires something. Too often, it seems to me, because we do not trust the persuasive powers of our emotions, and too seldom have the self-assurance that allows our head to deal with them.

On short and tall people:
One often comes across the opinion that small people suffer from an especially strong need for recognition and therefore walk with their noses in the air. This is another instance in which one has to beware of precipitate judgments and take several factors into consideration. Naturally the assumption of “snootiness” applies as much to small people as it does to tall ones, and they seem provocative if they walk around with their noses constantly in the air. But we often get this impression only because a taller person is standing opposite them, so they have to look up. If you sit down with them, you will soon see their normal head posture. On the other hand, it is just as well to understand that when small people must constantly look upward, it is not pleasant because it automatically forms an up-down relationship. This can be avoided by simply increasing the distance between two people: The distance moderates the angle of vision and levels out the difference in size. But there is also a counterreaction in people of short stature: They step up particularly close to the other person. In this way they are trying to demonstrate: You do not impress me with your size—I am intruding into your territory, and yet have no fear of your superiority. This is called the Napoleon complex, and it does not necessarily convey arrogance. It can also reveal self-assurance or defiance. Incidentally, extremely tall people have the opposite problem: Their size embarrasses them. They try to compensate for their height and thus take on a very passive attitude. Their chest caves in , their arms hang loosely at their sides, and their movements are inhibited because they are afraid of the tremendous effect of those long limbs. Six feet are quite enough, they do not want to attract more attention, and so they make themselves narrow and docile.

I find this extremely funny. I am 5'1" and my roomate is 6'5" We represent the extreme of both ends.

My whole life, I have been spelling the word "judgment" wrong. "judgement" And I use that word A LOT.

Why didn't anybody tell me??

You have no idea how much I would like to approach each experience with an open mind.

You don't know what you have done, do you? Hmmm.

The practice rooms are so cold today. SO COLD.
As cold as the dark black depths of my heart.

(P.S. HAHAHAH!!)

you're funny

HAHAHAHAH!
I had a dream that I was invited to a private dinner party with John McCain, Barack Obama, Chelsea Clinton, and McCain's two daughters (does he even have daughters?). It was at John McCain's house which was enterd through a secret passageway above Opperman. I was a little confused why I was invited. McCain and Obama kept giving me speeches throughout the dinner, trying to win my vote.

And Obama hit on the cook.

So I am playing a flute concerto by NZ composer Anthony Ritchie for the concerto competition and the undergrad performance recital. I found out about the piece when Alexa Still played it at the NFA convention over the summer, and I immediately fell in love with the piece. It's my type of music. I had to play it. I had a fever, and the only cure was Anthony Ritchie...

So I ordered the music, which you can only get from the composer. They sent me the piano reduction from New Zealand in less than a week! I had the music and was so incredibly excited about working on it.

There's only one recording of the piece, by Alexa Still on a CD called "Kiwi Flute." I ordered the CD from Amazon the same time that I ordered the music from the composer. This was about a month and a half ago. And as of yesterday, the CD had still not come. Every day I would check my mail and find no package I would get more and more frustrated. The music had come from New Zealand in a week...don't you think you could get me a CD from within the continental US within a month and a half?? So I took matters into my own hands.

I searched "Ritchie Flute concerto Alexa Still" on google and the first thing that popped up was emusic.com and a link to download the music. I immediately decided that I was tired of waiting and ready to just download the dang CD. So I signed up for emusic, downloaded the CD with my free 25 downloads included in the 7-day trial period, and then deleted my account. Then I cancelled my order with Amazon. Stupid Amazon.

I beat the system for once, and it feels so good.

Now I simply cannot stop listening to this concerto. It's SO GOOD!!! I would kill to play this with an orchestra (well, not really, but...you know. hyperbole.) So watch out violinists and pianists, bacause it's not really often that I really, really like a piece and I have such a strong desire to accomplish a goal, so when that happens...just watch out, that's all I'm saying.

Rain...if you have been reading this for any length of time, you know how I feel about rain.

:(

Ah, how I love to come home and fling the windows open! The cool breeze wafts through the apartment, the sound of crickets permeates the room, and that smell, that sweet autumn smell...it's the best! The best!!

Florida, dudes...it's the place to be.

Edit: There are some VERY strange things happening outside my apartment right now. These people obviously don't know I can hear them, but truly I can hear their words as clearly as if they were standing right next to me.
Therefore I am a spy, a really cool spy.

Boys aren't zen.

No matter what I say,
All that I really love
Is the rain that flattens on the bay,
And the eel-grass in the cove;
The jingle-shells that lie and bleach
At the tide-line, and the trace
Of higher tides along the beach:
Nothing in this place.

I think my arms are going to fall off from kayaking. It was worth it to lead a true American expedition.

My imagination runs rampant.

Lolz to the stories I tell Asher. Sometimes I have to wonder if these things are true at all, they're so wild.

I gotta tell you guys one. This story is completely true, no fabrication whatsoever.
One night my freshman year, I saw a ghost. I kid you not, I actually saw the Cawthon ghost, and what's more...the ghost possesed me!
I woke up in the morning after sleeping about 12 hours, I couldn't move...total paralysis...and I couldn't scream. I saw a ghost in front of me, it looked just like in movies, a pale willowy human-looking figure floating around. And it floated into me, again like the movies show, and then it was gone. I fell back to sleep and when I woke up after that, I really couldn't believe what had happened. Was I a ghost now? Apparently not...nothing seemed to have changed. But I spent the entire week asking everyone I knew if they believed in ghosts, because I was convinced that I had seen one. But I didn't tell anyone what had happened, because I was pretty sure nobody would believe me if I told them I had seen a real ghost.

Well, I only found out last year what actually happened. Do you guys know what sleep paralysis is? I stumbled upon the wikipedia article not too long ago:

Sleep paralysis occurs when the brain awakes from a REM state, but the bodily paralysis persists. This leaves the person fully conscious, but unable to move. In addition, the state may be accompanied by terrifying hallucinations (hypnopompic or hypnagogic) and an acute sense of danger [3]. Sleep paralysis is particularly frightening to the individual due to the vividness of such hallucinations[4]. The hallucinatory element to sleep paralysis makes it even more likely that someone will interpret the experience as a dream, since completely fanciful, or dream-like, objects may appear in the room alongside one's normal vision. Some scientists have proposed this condition as an explanation for alien abductions and ghostly encounters.

I should have known. I have had it happen before, many times. Once I thought that I saw a tarantula in my bed, once I saw a man (ahem...fully clothed) lying next to me, and another time, I saw my grandmother's dog run up to me and lick me. And sometimes there are no hallucinations, just the paralysis and the sense of being weighted down by the covers, that they're too heavy to lift.

I never thought I would have hallucinations, or that if I did, I would actually belive they were real. But there you have it. The brain is a powerful tool.

Keep your propaganda about Sarah Palin to yourselves! My brain has been so inundated with trash talk that I can hardly think for myself anymore. I can feel it--I've been brainwashed!!!

And it is a challenge today...

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

You have broken the social contract, but I forgive you. Nothing I have is really mine. So enjoy your new bike wheel, thieves. I just pumped it up yesterday.

You know, of course it is upsetting when bad things like this happen, but, at least to me, it's kind of exciting as well. It's like life is challenging us, to see how good we can actually be. Having your bike stolen--that's what it's all about, isn't it? THIS IS WHAT LIFE IS ALL ABOUT!
I like trying to push the limits. It's a challenge, no doubt, to turn the other cheek. It goes against human nature!

He replied "What is impossible for mortals is possible for God."