explanation

The post below this is an article I copied from In all likelihood I was not supposed to do that without permission. I would have just put up a link, but the story may be down in a day or two, and just seemed too funny to not keep around. This is real. It really happened, and it was carried by nearly every creditable source of national news.
I love the part about how the woman got in touch with Letterman by sending him "love thoughts."
Anyways, read the story, it's hilarious.

Marry me, Oprah!

Judge tosses Letterman restraining order

Woman had claimed host caused her 'mental harassment'

Tuesday, December 27, 2005; Posted: 3:29 p.m. EST (20:29 GMT)

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back home

So I made really good time getting home on Tuesday. All along my plan had been to leave at 11 when my test got out, got to the dorm and check out, load up and pull out.
However, on Monday night, and into Tuesday morning, I just couldn't get tired, so by the time I went to bed Monday, my car was completely loaded with everything except my cello and computer.
Tuesday morning I checked out of the dorm before my test, drove over to campus for my test, and as a pleasant surprise, only had to answer one question on the test. Yea Dr. Nordstrum! So, by 9:15, I was on the road headed home.
I didn't have to make any stops on the way to Houston, and I found myself on the south side of the beltway by 1:30. I decided to stop at Sagemont Church and visit my friend (and former teacher) Jason Ryan, who is a music minister there. It was alot of fun to see him. His wife just got a book picked up by a Christian publishing company. I think it's going to be called "Woman With a Tambourine" or something. Anyways, they're very excited, because this was the first book proposal she ever sent to anyone.
Tuesday night I went to the Brook choir concert. That was fun.
Wednesday I went up to Brook and saw old teachers, sat in on a few choir classes, and among other things had Mrs. Mauldin take a look at my violin. If I didn't blog about it already, I have to start taking violin in the spring. I have Marla's old violin, but nobody has played it in years, and so Mrs. Mauldin looked it over and told me what repairs to make to have it in good playing condition for next semester.
Thursday I went downtown to get my bow re-haired at this place in Rice village. Fortunately, my friend John has been bored for several days, so bored in fact, that the idea of driving to downtown Houston to visit a violin shop sounded exciting. We dropped off the bow (which couldn't be done the same day, so I or my dad has to make a trip back tomorrow) then made a stop at the Holocaust museum in the same area, and got home in time to beat rush hour traffic.
Thursday night, I went to Brook's orchestra concert. This was a great experience, I played a funny role. I was part audience, part chaperone, part teacher. Mrs. Mauldin asked me about a week or so ago, if I was planning on coming, and if I wouldn't mind helping her tune kids before the concert. You must imagine, keeping a classroom full of kids in order and getting them ready to play music is a challenge to any music teacher at any time. However, imagine having five orchestra classes, from two different schools, all in one room at the same time. It's pretty daunting. So I went back there before the concert and tuned all the cellos and violas (I can't tune basses yet, they tune to 4ths, not 5ths, and you have to use certain harmonics to tune them, because their pitch is so low. I can tune cellos faster than anybody's business, so it made sense there, but since there are so many more violins than anything else, I usually ended up tuning violas as well. Although it was a bit humorous when I tuned them, because I have to tune them as if they were shrunken cellos, I can't hold them correctly and tune them at the same time.)
And today I started back at Space Center. It was pretty cold. They made us wear flight suits, which is nice because of the weather, but not so good as far as personal comfort or the ability to move around. Oh well. Space Center seemed like a different world today, as opposed to the summers I've been there. Not crowded at all. We only send out one tour every 60 minutes, and still the trams don't quite fill up. There's no long lines, no frantic crowd control, etc. Of course, there are holiday weeks and weekends coming up, so today could have just been a fluke. I mean, even when walking through the actual exhibits it was like "Where are all the guests?"
I'm very excited about going to the Carlin Christmas party tomorrow. It's usually a good way to see alot of people all in one place. The other exciting thing is that Katie Clarke opened on Broadway tonight, and so I'm hoping there will be people there tomorrow who have talked to her and have some good stories or news to report. Aside from that, I haven't seen the Carlins or the Vanslootens, or any of their kids since this summer, so it should be alot of fun.

so much to do, but not really that much at all

Just to give everyone fair warning: At 5 pm (in 45 minutes) I am logging off the computer and packing it to go home. Therefore, if you e-mail me, I won't get it until tomorrow night. Go ahead and call. At this point, I'll have my phone on pretty much non-stop except for about 90 minutes tomorrow morning.
I'm feeling pretty good about this exam. I really feel like I'll do well on the listening sections. I still need to drill the terms several more times, but there is time left in the day.
I've kind of hit a stone wall in packing. I washed a load of colored things, including some sweaters that cannot be dried in heat. I dried them once, and they were all still very wet. So I paid another 75 cents and ran them again. I dried the twice, and they're still wet. It just occurred to me that the dryer might have a broken heating element, and I should have moved them to a different dryer the second time. Ooops. Anyways, I have the clothes draped about the room, but I can't pack any of them for a few hours.
I really want to get all packed tonight, and then wake up extra early for my final and check out of the dorm before the test. I figure by tomorrow late morning/early afternoon, the dorm will be alot busier with people trying to check out and load cars and stuff. I prefer the lighter stress of checking out at 7:30 in the morning while people are still asleep. Plus, I know I have plenty of time if I want to take an hour or two after the test finish packing, load up, and check out. The reason I don't want to do that is I know that if I'm trying to leave as I'm doing all this, I'm going to feel like it's taking forever. Then I'm likely to forget something or get frustrated. If I get all packed tonight and loaed in the morning, then I can walk straight from my test to my car, get in and drive straight home. That sounds like a great plan.

bored

After weeks of pressure and deadlines and business: nothing. Yes, I have three exams next week, and it will be tough to get ready for them. But today was supposed to be the last music history review, and it was cancelled because of icy roads, as was everything at UNT today. The make-up one will be on Saturday. Music theory will also have the last review tomorrow. Same with history. Until then, there's no telling what will be on the test, so I can't study for the tests.
Juries are over, and so I'm finding it hard to practice. My bow needs to be re-haired, but I can't get that done 'til I go home next week, so that makes it less fun to just play for the sake of playing.
I was in the mood to pack earlier today, but it's still too soon for that. I have to wear four more days' worth of clothes before I go home. I'm going to take home alot of books at break; ones that I won't need next semester, but I know I'm gonna need those to study for my finals, so I can't pack those yet. So, while in the packing mood yesterday, I packed my tux shoes and my calendar. That was it.
Couldn't do anything last night, because the roads were really bad and nobody could get anywhere.
I'm really hoping that the thing at Mr. Osadchy's happens tonight. The thing is, it's been sunny all day, so the ice has been receding. By the time I left the music building this afternoon, the sidewalks and streets seemed thawed out, but still wet. It's still below freezing, so I'm hoping that the sun goes ahead and dries all the roads as well. That way, overnight, there won't be any water on the roads to freeze and make ice again. They've been out on campus sanding down the streets and sidewalks all morning, I hope they're doing that on all the roads. So yeah, I think the roads should be safe enough to go to Dallas tonight for the cello party.
If not, I will be very sad. At least if this happens next year, I'll have roommates to hang out with at our apartment. But stuck in my room with nobody, no homework, no TV, no movies, kinda starting to lose my mind a bit.
I've been calling people, and e-mailing people that I haven't talked to in a really long time. That's been fun. I think I'll do some more of that when I finish this post. I talked to my old cello teacher back home, Ms. Chen. I hadn't talked to her since I found out I got in with Mr. Osadchy. We talked about all sorts of cello-related things, and about getting together some Sunday afternoon while I'm home to visit about all things cello.
Then I talked to my good friend Damjan. He's a student of Christopher Parkening's at Pepperidne. He said that Parkening is out on tour right now and won't be there for juries, which makes sense because Parkening just performed in Houston a few weeks ago.
I also talked to Jacob. Not that it'd been all that long since I last caught up with him. He's gonna be in Abilene all through break, so I'll hang out with him up there instead of in Friendswood like normal. ACU is doing the musical "Jane Eyre" in the spring, and Jacob gave a great audition and is in the running for the lead character, cast to be announced this coming Saturday once finals are over. That would be fun if he were in a musical out there, so I could go see it.
So then, this boredom is making me more and more excited about going home. I'd love to be up here right now, it's just that there's nothing going on and I can't see my friends.

Day of nothing

Testing the audioblogger system

Snain

P1010075
Originally uploaded by music nerd.

It's only December 7, and our high today is 33!!! It borderline snowed this morning, I think up here they call that 'sleet'. I don't get that, to me it'd make more sense to call it 'row' or 'snain'. On the sidewalks it was rain, but in the grass and the flower beds it's ice.

"Good enough" he said

In high school, I tried out for the all region and all state choirs and orchestras every year. Junior and senior year I went very far in both. The audition days were always intense. If you made it, intensely fun and exciting, if you didn't, intensely dissappointing. Making region for the first time in high school was an unforgettable feeling of achievment, and getting rejected by all-state for the last time and knowing there were no more chances, was one of the hardest days of my life.
At the auditions, especially ones like district and region where Clear Brook had alot of people, after you audition, you go back to the Clear Brook table(s) and everyone crowds around and asks, "How'd ya do? how'd it go? did you do good? was it hard?" etc. I hated these questions (even though I asked the same ones to everyone else) because by junior and senior year, I'd come out of the audition confident I'd done very well and would come out well, but I didn't want to say that. For one thing, it's bad luck. Secondly, bad manners. So the answer I developed was, "oh, good enough I guess." I said that at every district and region audition junior/senior year (at all the auditions after that, I said I didn't know, because at those you just never do.)
Anyways, today was my jury/audition, and I came out feeling I'd crashed and burned. This was not only a jury to determine my semester grade, but an audition to be the last piece of the puzzle in deciding if I can be a music student here or not.
My outcome is exactly what I would have told everyone at the Clear Brook table, "Good enough." Here's the thing:
(bad): I'm still not a performance major. That decision has been postponed to next semester's jury.
good: I get to take with Mr. Osadchy next semester!!!!!!!!!!! From the very second I first thought about leaving Pepperdine and coming to UNT, it was lessons with Mr. Osadchy that made me feel like I was in the wrong place. I had to wait a semester, and I did improve with Miguel, but now my cello technique will really start to go in the direction I've wanted it to for years since I first met Mr. Osadchy.
Also, they didn't say I can't be a performance major. That's actually good. No, they didn't say I could, but had they said "no" it would have closed the door on that possibility for my undergrad degree, and just make me music ed - applied music. That is technically my major now, but by putting off the decision a semester, I have a semester with Osadchy lessons to reprove to them that I can be a performance level player.
The other good thing is that my biggest problems today were things that were simply caused by nerves and not lack of skill. I have no trouble relaxing in lessons with Mr. Osadchy, so he'll see that my problem is not so much in my bow arm, as it is in my nerves.

Aside from the jury, both other tests went well, I think. Each time I take a test, it's one more class I'm through with for the entire semester. Weird. I only have one class tomorrow, but it might get cancelled because, get this.......they're predicting snow. Snow or ice on the roads would cancel class, so I'm told. Our low tomorrow is about 30, give or take 5 degrees depending on the station/website. Wow! I might die.
So I have to go to bed now.

Well, the jury is over. I don't know how it went. It didn't go bad. Clark said it was "better than fine" and Miguel said it was "pretty good." I felt like our last rehearsal, and my practicing last night were lightyears better than what happened a few minutes ago.
I couldn't get my bow to smooth out, and my shifts were jerky; all the classic signs of nervousness.
Oh well. Mr. Osadchy said they'll make a decision on all the people who auditioned, so I'll get a call later. All I can do now is wait.

holding my breath....

Well, tomorrow is the start of the downhill race that is the end of a semester. I feel I am ready, and I hope that my preparation pays off.
The cello jury is at 11. I feel like I need to get up really early and run before I shower and get dressed, so that I'm warm when I play, but I'm also afraid that if I run I'll get pumped full of endorphins and not be able to really sink into the chair and the cello the way you have to to play Brahms. I'm just hoping if I run early enough, and keep it short, I'll just get warm, and have enough time to adjust to however I want to be for the performance.
Almost as soon as the jury is over, at noon, I have my final in Aural Skills, no need to stress about that. It's one of those things that you learn during the semester or don't learn at all, couldn't cram even if I wanted to.
Then I have my PE final. I feel less studied for this one than I'd like to be, but at the moment the music finals take priority. I've kept up with the PE class so far this semester, and I'll study from the time I finish Aural Skills final until the test, and that will just have to be good enough.
Anyways, some other things have happened that I'd normally mention, but at this point it is more important to go to bed because I have an early start to a big day that kicks off a busy week followed by the much anticipated Christmas break and trip home.

Can't sleep

So I just wrote two days ago about how I'm having a wee problem with oversleeping lately. Ironically, this morning (Thursday) I woke up in time to run, eat breakfast, and then reviewfor a test I had at 9:30. However, after getting up and getting dressed, I made the choice to cut running and breakfast and sleep until it was time to glance over my notes before the test. This I did, and I felt very good about the test afterwards.
Tonight, I cannot sleep. I have tried, and it won't work. I have this image in my mind of the character, Dumbledore, in the Harry Potter books. He has this magic device called a pensieve where he can store extra thoughts that are cluttering his mind, and they remain preserved for him to use at later times.
But, Dumbledore is magic, I am not. Therefore when random thoughts keep me awake, I must work through them and untie the knots in my head before I can sleep.
I witnessed a car wreck tonight. Nobody hurt, I think, but quite a bit of damage to a car. I'd just gotten my hair cut, and I was on my way to my friend Anne's to meet some friends to go to the Christmas Tree lighting at the town square (yes, we have a town square, with an old fashioned court house and everything, lot of fun, but I digress.)
I was going along this one road, loop 288, which is the focal point of rush hour traffice in Denton, and there's no way around it. It was 6:30 or so, and completely dark outside. I was behind this truck, and it was crawling traffic. The stoplights are timed badly along this road. Anyways, I had a good length between me and the truck, because trucks are large, and my car is low to the ground, and if I were to rear-end a truck like that, the first thing to hit it would be my windshield. Anyways, we were moving along, and the truck halted, but I never saw brake lights, it sounded like it ran over a pothole. It didn't sound like a wreck, in fact it took me several seconds to realize that's what had happened.
I saw a girl jump out of the truck, and I knew there'd been a wreck. People were honking at me to pass on the shoulder, but I felt like I needed to stop. So I went just past them and then pulled over and got out. When I saw the scene, it was worse than it sounded. The truck had hit a small car, I couldn't recognize it, older and kinda small, but this smaller car had been pushed into the back of the Nissan Altima in front of it. This middle car, I couldn't tell what it was, because both the front and the back were smashed. The trunk was basically entirely gone, and the front bumper came off.
When I'd first stopped, I'd figured I was only going to offer my cell phone to call the police, and then leave my name and phone number and keep along my way. But I got there, and the teenage girl who was driving the truck was in tears, the lady in the middle car was vomitting off in the grass, her passenger said his neck hurt, and the lady from the Nissan was just really upset. So I decided to stick around until the police arrived. I ended up directing traffic (sorta scary, never done that before) so that the cars involved could get out of the road. Then I started talking to the two people from the middle car to try and find out if they were hurt. All the lady would say is, "Well the cops had better hurry up.....blah blah." And the guy was still rubbing his neck, talking about how they had hit twice, and he got jolted both directions one right after another. He didn't want to go to the hospital or anything. The teenage girl called her parents, and her mom actually got out there before the police officer did.
Anyways, after about 25 minutes, the police officer showed up. He first asked if anyone needed an ambulance, then he took down everyone's name and what they were driving, and what order the cars were in in the collision. Then he asked me a few questions (I was the only person there who was not involved, but just a witness.) Asked me how many hits I heard, just one, and how fast I thought the truck was going when it hit, the most specific I was able to be was "not that fast" 'cuz I myself couldn't have been going over 10, and I'd already stopped when the truck hit. Anyways, the poor girl in the truck was just distraught, and her mother was teary eyed as well. Understandable, car accidents are scary and embarassing. But this girl, probably only 16 or 17, has damaged her family's truck, probably totaled someone else's car, and her insurance rates will go from harsh to ridiculous. The lady in the middle car, sort of a red-neck who I thought was making everybody worse by complaining about this and that, will probably have to pay damages to the Nissan. She was bound to be tailgating extremely close if being pushed just over a foot (skid marks show how far she was moved) pushed her that far into the back of the car in front of her.
But here's what makes me stay awake right now. The cop tells everyone, "Oh. Only three cars tonight. I usually get at least one or two of these a night right here in this same block. But usually it's four or five cars stacked up." Now, did he tell them this to make them feel better? Maybe it made the girl feel a little better, but I didn't really see the point. Is he letting us know, "It's okay. I've seen worse." ? I mean, to be honest it makes me a bit angry. You're telling me, about this time, about this place, this same wreck happens night after night, and the best you can do is say, "Oh. Only three cars tonight."
I mean, this is a dangerous spot. And apparently it's not coincidence that the same wreck is happening night after night. Why doesn't the city take action? If this accident goes to court, this should be brought up. It the traffic lights were timed better, perhaps traffic would flow easier. If there were better street lights, drivers might have better depth perception of how fast cars in front of them are stopping. If they widened the road, the crawling lines wouldn't go back for so many miles.
So. When in crawling traffic, don't feel passive for leaving that extra space between yourself and the car in front of you. Not just because it keeps you from hitting them, because we all know we'd never do that. But if the person behind you hits you, you're gonna be glad you had the space to slide forward.
And if you get jolted in a collision like that, and your neck hurts, or your body is sick, go ahead and take the officer up on the offer to be examined in the emergency room. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to justify to the insurance companies your medical expenses, and the more severe your injuries can become. That guy there tonight with a soar neck, said it didn't hurt bad enough to go to the hospital, and so he doesn't need to go. Well, what if tomorrow he tries to lift something above his head and the strain worsens? He'll wish he'd gotten that brace, or had that x-ray the night before. And his insurance company (or whoever's insurnace company) will have a chance to say that the injury was just from the lifting, and he wasn't hurt in the wreck because he didn't need to go to the doctor.
Another thing I'd never given any thought to, and I don't think many of us do: Have your local police department's non-emergency phone number saved on your cell phone. Even on speed dial so you can call while you're driving. When I stopped tonight, I knew the first thing I needed to do, after checking that nobody was seriously hurt, was call the police. This was not a 9-1-1 emergency, we just needed to report the collision and get an officer. I had to dial 4-1-1, ask for Denton, then wait for the operator, and ask for the police department, and wait to be connected. It was hard to do all that from the noise of traffic, and the lady yapping at me to "get a cop out here fast" and stuff. From now on, I'll have the number handy.
And finally, stop when you see a wreck happen. Not that the cop wouldn't have figured out what happened, but I hate to think what that lady would have told the cop if it'd been up to her to tell him what happened. I mean, she seemed the kind that if there was a tornado, the news crews would head straight to her front porch.
Alright, I'm finally starting to feel tired, I'm gonna get to sleep while I can.