technical problems

So lately my blog is giving me difficulty with pictures and things. I wanted to put up this picture that Marla found of us and Grandpa, but blogger won't take it.
Also, I've been trying to blog this you tube video of a new Weird Al song. I hope to get the technical stuff sorted out soon, but I ask all the Marsh grandkids, for the sake of our little inside joke, to go to youtube.com and search for "White and Nerdy" and watch the weird Al video that comes up.

A real update is to come later.

Summer Intern Already Forgotten

A Facebook Miracle

I've been meaning to post about Grandpa and his funeral ever since I got home Monday night, but I've been very tired and busy from the second I got home, and I'm having some trouble putting pictures on the blog from my computer.
BUT, there is one story that I do need to go ahead and blog about, and the pictures will get worked out later. In light of all the bad publicity that myspace.com generates spilling over onto facebook.com in the last few weeks, I need to tell about how the free information is useful to honest people.
Sunday night was the end of a somewhat eventful day. We'd gone to church, had the visitation at the funeral home, and Abilene had received several inches of rain. The five of us cousins (Marla, Josh, Camry, Kylie, and myself) decided to go walk around the new sidewalk that circles ACU. We had fun being dumb and goofing off all the way until we got home (it's nearly a 2 mile circle.)
Upon getting home, I realized that somewhere along the way my wallet had fallen out of my back pocket. This made me highly uneasy. What was worse, was that I re-walked the entire route over again and had no luck. My sister went up to the welcome desk on campus and nobody had turned it in. Josh even drove back to the places we'd been earlier in the evening to see if it'd fallen out earlier. No luck.
My dad called and deactivated the credit card that was in there. I wondered how I would be able to drive home with no driver's liscense, especially since my birth certificate and social security card were all in League City.
At about 10:45, we decided there was nothing left to do that night. Tuesday, in the daylight, I could go comb the sidewalk more carefully, and maybe it would turn up.
Camry and I went over to my friend Jacob's apartment at about 11 to use the internet. Neither of us had seen our e-mail in a few days.
After checking my e-mail, I logged onto facebook to see if there were any new messages. Sure enough, an ACU student had picked up my wallet. By looking inside, he saw a student ID and knew that I went to North Texas. On facebook.com, he looked me up and sent me a message with the news and his cell phone number.
About midnight, I met him in the Fina parking lot and he gave me my wallet, with every thing still inside.

Abilene Bound

So, Mom called at about 11:30. She heard from Dr. White that Grandpa is having seizures; they believe this is it. Mom is either going to Abilene tonight or first thing in the morning.
I'm going to go over there tomorrow after my last class. I'll leave Denton right at eleven, and hopefully dodge Fort Worth traffic to get there in less than three hours. Then I'll leave Saturday night to come back.
If there's a funeral next week, I have to try and only miss one day of school, music education classes are very stingy about absences, and do not make exceptions for death in the family.

Nearing the end

According to the most recent e-mail from the Draper cousin's "network," Aung Ingrid's IV is coming out today or tomorrow. They'll keep her hydrated, but the medicine and the life-sustaining drugs are stopping.

STS-121 Shuttle Discovery Launch

Congratulations NASA! This video is the launch from July, but the one from today isn't up for public bloggers yet. Today is the 3rd launch since the Columbia was lost in February 2003. I get excited each time this happens. It's days like today (and ONLY days like today) that make me miss my job at NASA.

Cello is hard, but I'm playing

As the title says, I have started playing cello again. It doesn't over-do the things I'm not supposed to be doing. The left hand may appear to "grip" or "sqeeze" the neck of the cello, but the cellist is actually hanging the fingers over the neck, so I'm fine.
I'm still not going to play in orchestra or chamber music this semester. This is mainly because while I can play right now, I can't play anything like I should or used to. My entire left hand from the wrist to the finger tips is still very stiff and moves slowly. This has less to do with the actual injury than with just 10 weeks of not moving the wrist or thumb AT ALL.
Aside from that, playing cello is very much NOT like riding a bike. I sort of hoped that once my wrist felt better, I'd just pick up the cello and it'd be like I'd never left. Not the case, as I should have known. Anyone who ever quit band in high school and tried five years later to get the trumpet out of the closet and give it a few licks understands this.
Aurther Rubenstein said, "If occassionally, I miss one day of practice, nobody notices. If I take two days off, I begin to notice. But if I don't practice for three days, then my audience begins to notice." That trend holds true for most players. The detriment to playing of missing a few days is exponential, and missing over two months is not different.
This is my third day of playing again, and it is coming back steadily, but the cello still feels foreign for the first few minutes every time I pick it up. Once it feels familiar again, my mind and body do not coordinate like they used to. When just sitting there with the cello, I mentally prepare for a scale or passage that would have been easy in May, and when I go to execute, it really confuses me that all the things I know to do do not just fall into place.
Other things are amusing too. I wrote out a grocery list yesterday, altering every item between my left and right hand. While I'm proud of the legibility that my right hand has gained this summer, I am still clearly left-handed.
Also, in just simple typing, my old habit was to always hit the space bar with my left thumb. Of course, because of not having a left thumb for awhile, I naturally trained my right thumb to do this. When I first typed e-mails after getting the brace off, I was putting two spaces between every word. It's not as bad now, in fact, I think my right thumb has won out on the space bar.
Anyways, I'm still adjusting to having more spare time with not being in orchestra and all. I volunteered to the city of Denton to review parking ticket appeals. Apparently, all the appeals have to be decided by an objective volunteer, who is not employed or associated with the city or police department. This causes appeals to go through very slowly because it's all volunteer, and they have no quotas. Next week some time, I think I'm going to be interviewed to make sure I'm not just doing this because I have some ax to grind against either the city of Denton or irresponsible parkers.
Jordan is coming home this weekend, and I am very excited to see her and hear all of her college stories in person.

Flybar 800 Flip Variations

If the Broken-wrist Fairy had told me back in June that it was my fate to suffer fractured wrist, but allowed me to choose the way I injured it, I would have had something more like this in mind. . .

A Laurdomat Holiday

Happy Labor Day everybody! I decided to take advantage of the first part of my day off by washing all of my dirty clothes. My roommates usually just drive home to do their laundry, and have invited me to go with them before. Also, we have a few friends who have washers and dryers in their apartments who have offered me a better rate (much better) than the laundromats. But I have to say, I don't like the idea of spending an entire day in somebody else's apartment doing one load at a time. Going the the laundromat, while it costs $9 for today's visit, lets me take four machines and dryers at one time and get the whole thing done in less than two hours' time. While here, I have unlimited coffee, wireless internet, and oppurtunity to practice my Spanish eavesdropping skills.
I must say though, I prefer this place on an early Saturday morning when it's not crowded. The number of people has increased since I got here, and it's getting hot and stuffy from all the machines going at once and all the bodies moving around.
Tomorrow I find out what the next step is with my wrist. I am of course praying that they say the bone healed and I can start physical therapy with caution. If they put on another cast or tell me to have surgery, then this whole things just drags on longer and longer. I am sick of being injured and not being able to play cello. I have had enough of having to answer the same questions to everyone who meets me and has to ask what I did, how I did it, how much longer will it take, and is it any inconvenience. Any inconvenience? No, I never really used that left thumb anyways. I'm tired of every new professor thinking I'm mentally undeveloped when they see my handwriting on the first written assignment in class, and I see that I have the handwriting of a 7 year-old.
Ahh, my first dryer's timer just went off. Time to get clean clothes!

News Briefs

At the apartment, we now have Satellite TV and a dart board. Both are very fun. I've got the hang of the DVR machine. Justin's younger brother came and spent the night with us last night and it was alot of fun.
My classes are good so far. My favorite, I'd have to toss it up between conducting and string methods, but then again I also like Music For Children and Form Analysis. I can easily say the least favorite class is Woodwind Methods; I don't care for the teacher. I had to take the semester out of orhestra and chamber music because we still don't know when and if my wrist will heal enough to play.
Speaking of the wrist injury, I had a CT Scan on Tuesday, and I have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday to go over the results. I'm praying very hard about this appointment. Whatever they tell me will definitely be big news.
Aunt Ingrid is still very sick, but they are aiming to bring her back to Texas on September 21st.
My Grandpa is sick again. They're having trouble keeping his fever down. My parents got into town this afternoon and will be here through lunch tomorrow on their way to Abilene to look aftere Grandpa and check on his house.
Jordan continues to settle in well at Harding. Her latest thing is considering the different social clubs and choose one to pledge. She'll be home to visit her family next weekend, and I'll be excited to see her.
UNT played UT and though we lost 55-7 it was a roaring success for our team. Last year they beat us 65-0, and it was UNT's first time to score in Austin since 1992. Way to go boys!