NC was cold and awesome. And now my favorite New Year's party is right around the corner! I look forward to this one all year, no joke. See ya'll in the next decade (woah I just wrote ya'll).

Wellp, the time has come. I'm going to meet the parents for the first time tomorrow morning...and then travel with them to North Carolina and be a guest in their home for two days! My gosh, I am excited (more to see my man than anything else, though!). Don't worry, Titusville...I'll be back for the Jarvis New Year's celebration!

My phone still isn't working. The new battery didn't help. It'll be another couple days before I can get the phone replaced.

Shopping with the mom tomorrow.

I miss him. But it's not too long now!

I went to Epcot with my family today. I was sick but I still managed to have a good time. I always forget how good of a ride Soarin' is. It's freedom...

The highlight of the day was when we were walking through the Canada land and we passed a Canadian family. The dad took one look around and exclaimed, "So this is how they think of us Canadians?? Holy crap!!"

Oh, and FYI, my phone is still broken, so if call me, use my home number. Message me on facebook if you need that number.

It's raining on Christmas in Florida.

GILLLYY....



"...ssarray."

Christmas party tonight!

My phone just died and I'm quite put-out about it, but I'm trying to not let it ruin my Christmas spirit.

So I had my iTunes running today as I was wandering around the Internet, and suddenly my speakers start playing this bad midi version of Brahms' 4th Symphony. I was confused, as I was pretty sure that I had never added something like that to my iTunes. I looked at what it was. It was this, a song by Yes called "Cans and Brahms." Apparently, for a reason I cannot fathom, they included a digitized version of clips from the symphony on their album. Mystery solved.

A 4.0 first semester at ASU. Good egg! But I will still strive to make my second semester more worthwhile. I slacked off this time around. I will do better.

Michelle Kwan never won Olympic gold.

Life is not meant to be taken so seriously.

As you grow older, you find a different kind of peace.

While walking down the school hallway I saw a guy forcefully trying to kiss a girl in the corner. I was about to help when I heard the girl say “Expecto Patronum.” The guy actually walked away. IMMD

Lazy night tonight. You gotta have me time every once in a while. It's been nice.

Man, I'm happy.

On Two and a Half Men:

M: "That show is getting even funnier as the kid is getting older."
A: "They're going to have to change the title to "3 Men.'"

I made it to Florida safe and sound. Let partying commence!

It is extremely rude and irresponsible to ask a complete stranger to watch your bags while you go to the bathroom or go get a sub at Subway, no matter how trustworthy and innocent that person may appear. Take them with you, it's really not that difficult. I had two different people do this to me at the airport.

I forgot to bring a DVD to watch on the way to New Orleans (where my layover was), so I played minesweeper for three hours. No joke.

Heading back to my home state today. I'll be there for a month!

3...2...1...BLAST OFF!!!

I'll miss AZ...certain aspects more than others.

Here is my surprise. Are you ready?

Before:


After:


Locks of Love

Well, I'm finally done.
I have a surprise for you all later today. Stay tuned!

Bonus: this is my favorite piece of music. We played it in high school orchestra around this time of the year. I was a sophomore, a fresh 15 years old and never been kissed. Maybe I only like it because of the memories.

DONE! 7 and a half pages, 3,216 words. yay.

Wellp, looks like I'll be ending with just over 7 pages. I'm okay with that. Just a little more editing and my Berg paper saga will be over. Thank heaven.

4 pages and I'm on a roll. This will get done in no time.

So I have to change so much that I basically scrapped my original paper and am starting from scratch.

Writing a 10-page paper about Berg in one day=derp.

I do think it will be worth it in the end. I will have the right length and the right content and it will have my teacher's approval. And I'll have "learned" more. Right?

Two and a half pages completed already...

My theory teacher gave me some helpful comments about my paper. Now I have a lot of work to do before Monday...

End of semester=not fun

Update: well, I way overestimated on that last post. I finished my paper...and it's not even four full pages. What the heck? This has never happened to me before...usually I'm the master of wordy papers, able to write more than the required amount. Never before have I fallen so short of the mark. I must be missing something here...how am I going to turn 4 pages into 10??

Maybe this is all a bad dream. I'll wake up in the morning warm in my bed and learn that my paper has already been written and turned in. If only...

Update: Frustrated. I've been working on stupidberg all day and I have about two and a half pages. I emailed my teacher my ideas and she told me that I shouldn't include most of them in the paper. AND we're using 10-point font. If we were using 12-point font I would have four pages. I don't have enough to write about and I don't know what to do. At the rate I'm going I'll finish my paper at about 7 pages. Grrrrr...

"Is a tumbleweed an animal?"
-mom

I'm going to keep you guys updated on the status of my Berg paper. It'll be really fun, I know. It has to be 10-20 pages and it's due on Monday (I've got a busy weekend though so I'd really like to have it done by Saturday). I've done all the analysis work already, so the writing should go quickly (probably more than a page per hour). Right now I've got a little over one page. My goal for the day is 5 pages. And it begins...

Auf geheimem Waldespfade
Schleich' ich gern im Abendschein
An das öde Schilfgestade
Mädchen, und gedenke dein!
Wenn sich dann der Busch verdüstert,
Rauscht das Rohr geheimnisvoll,
Und es klaget, und es flüstert,
Daß ich weinen, weinen soll.
Und ich mein', ich höre wehen
Leise deiner Stimme Klang
Und im Weiher untergehen
Deinen lieblichen Gesang.

Hidden trails through forest's secrets
I shall walk in evening's hue
to the pond's deserted reed-beds,
Maiden, and shall think of you!
When the bushes start to darken,
magic sounds from reeds I hear
whispering and moaning: harken,
shed a tear, oh, shed a tear!
Seems I hear the breezes mating
softly with your voice so free
and in gentle waves abating
your enchanting melody.

--Nikolaus Lenau

Berg. YA DUMB.

I JUST SAW A TUMBLEWEED!!! A LARGE ONE! IT WAS CROSSING THE ROAD AND I ALMOST HIT IT (ALTHOUGH IT WOULDN'T HAVE MATTERED IF I DID..) WOOOOOOO!!!

Yucky day in Tempe. Cold and rainy and overcast. The type of day that makes you appreciate all the other days.

E: "Have you ever seen someone with a turn signal the same speed as yours?"
A: "No."
E: "When I meet that person, it'll be my soul mate."

I am SO making cookies when school ends.

Heard on NRP today:
"Nothing goes together like opera and Harleys!"

It's a Joaquin Rodrigo-type night. You gotta love this guy. I'm listening to his piano concerto right now. So awesome. The first movement reminds me of Star Wars for some reason, I could picture it being played while the gang walks through Lando's white city in the sky. The second movement is really playful, but formal at the same time...like a Christmas dinner party with the kids running around in the background, or a ball, where everyone is dressed up but having a great time twirling across the dance floor. The third movement is the saddest piece of music I know. I could represent a funeral. At the end of the movement the orchestra drops out and there are 9 heart-wrenching piano hits on the same chord, like a clock chiming. It's amazing, amazing the depth of emotion that Rodrigo reaches in this movement. The last movement is a stark contrast--it's resolute, determined to always reach higher and higher against all odds.

All in all a magnificent piece of music. Worthy, in my opinion, of as much fame as the Concierto de Aranjuez.

Some thoughts (no comments):

I think I may have written this before. With the collective intelligence of humanity, it's amazing what we have accomplished: we have the Internet, which links everybody in the world at the touch of a button. We have traveled to space. We've learned how to defy gravity and fly through the air. In a way, it seems as if there is no limit to what the human mind can accomplish.
And so I have to ask: why do we still solve problems with WAR? Does this not seem like an extremely archaic way to go about resolving disputes? Personally, I am horrified that in this day and age we (and I'm using "we" as a general term for all of the people in the world) still think it's okay to kill people, good people, people with families and perfectly legitimate members of society. How is it that we have advanced so far with technology and still go to war the same way (with a few modifications, now that we can kill in larger numbers) that we did thousands of years ago? In my opinion, we should all be appalled--APPALLED--at the idea of such animalistic way of living. As a human race, we are better than that.

I swear that Ryan Gallagher is trying to kill me. In his piece, the band is trying to play as loudly as humanly possible, so we are playing while standing up and moving towards the edge of the stage. I am on the end of the row, so if I pass out while playing (very possible, as probably 80% of my notes are high B or above), I will fall offstage, break my flute, and die.

I'm playing alongside this guy tonight. (Look at his feet...that's the most impressive). His hair is a lot shorter now. Maybe he gave it to locks of love.

Edit: The concert was AWESOME!!! It was a high. The craziest coolest piece I have ever played, and the probably the closest I have ever come to playing in a "band." Wow.

Dear Life,
I'm tired. Please stop giving me work and let me sleep.

Love,
Ashley

Stressed, stressed, stressed. I'm ducking out on a tournament this weekend to practice and work on my theory term paper. Sigh. Such is life.