Happy Birthday Geoffrey

Love

This is why I go to More Than Music.  This is why the world goes round.

The people here at camp believe in me more than I do myself.  They have confidence in me that I don't even have.  There are so many days when I look at myself and I look at my violin, and I know that I'm not good enough.

The people here haven't even heard me play yet this year, but they're already telling me how great it's going to be.

This is why I keep coming back, year after year.  Love.  At the beginning and the end of the week, we all join hands and sing.

"If we all sing one song,

One song of love, one song of peace,

One song to make all our troubles cease,

One hymn, one theme, one hope, one dream,

Imagine what tomorrow would bring,

If we all sing one song."

Life is More Than Music

Megan: 1963~2008

Today was a wonderful time of reunion and rejoicing.  Music Camp started today- I've been going there for 9 or 10 years, and we thought that it wasn't going to be able to open again this year.  But it did, and I am happy.

When one has been doing something like this for so long, there is a bond that is formed that cannot be explained.  The people that were my teachers have become my friends.  The friends that I made I carry on into other areas of my life.  Reunion is rejoicing, and reunion is a lot of running around giving hugs.

But life is bittersweet.

My very first violin teacher at camp was an incredible woman named Megan.  When I first met her, her daughter was just born- she's ten now.  Every year in between was  talking about what the year had meant to both of us.  She was an incredible woman.  I thought the world of her.  Through our conversations, I learned that life was hard for her.  But she kept pushing through.

Last summer, she gave up on life and committed suicide.

Today, I look in her mother's eyes and I see so much pain.  I look at Michelle, who's only ten years old.  I wonder what she thinks- does she think that her mother didn't love her?  Because she did.  Megan loved so many people.  

And I think of a poem called Music I Heard.  The first verse:

Music I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread.

Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.

I  guess this is life.  We love, we lose.  Because we love, life is beautiful, but it is also bittersweet.  Because we love, we feel loss.  But we always remember.  Life is More than Music, and it's for that reason that More Than Music is the name of the camp.

...And in my heart they will remember always, -
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.

A Glowing Violet Aura of Epic Proportions

I have purple hair!!  (?!)  !!!  (!!)

Yes.  It's true.

I expected a couple of red streaks with some purple hair extensions, but no, I was given a healthy head of hair that is the interesting combination of platinum blonde, foxy red, and yes, purple.

I feel like someone has hit me over the head with a rather large mallet. I was not expecting this.  I did not like it at first.  I look like some kind of punk rock star.

But, seeing as I have no choice, I think I am going to go on from this and enjoy it.  I'm actually rather enjoying it.  I am looking forward to seeing some people's faces with a delicious sense of malice.  Ha!

And yet, people always commented that I looked so mature for my age- I looked like I was finishing up university.  No more.  People may now label me as a "punk" who enjoys spray painting and terrifying elderly ladies.  Ahh well.

I'm going to enjoy every minute of it, and the bonus is, after this, I shall never be worried about what others think of me again.

Besides, it'll be shaved off in a couple of months anyways :)

Happy Birthday... Abuse, Abuse!

June 24th

I love the way that things never turn out the way that I think they will.

The fact that last year I had my birthday on the annual school-wide camp-out made me think that I was in some way, shape, or form prepared for this year's birthday.  Not so!

My day started with a pledge to get up at four to see the sun-rise and ended with sleeping till the horn for breakfast at eight.  There,  everyone sang Happy Birthday *gasp, choke*  IN TUNE. For someone that does not know my school and its reputation for musical demolition, this might not seem like anything special.  It is.   I then got my first present of the day- a bag of skittles.

That morning I discovered that I had what I like to call Swelling II: The Sequel.  You see, the previous night, I had had a terrible reaction to some sort of bug-bite on my arm- my arm had swollen up almost to a third of its normal size.  Some benadril calmed it down, but failed to destroy the bite that I woke up to on my birthday- a lump the size of a golfball on my hand. 

After accumulating a bruise the size and shape of a doughnut on my thigh, and a lump on my leg from overzealously attempting to play Spoons, I decided that I was done physical activity for the day.  Sadly, my wish was not fulfilled, as my lovely friends decided that it was time for the birthday girl to be thrown in the lake.

I then received my second present: my friend Michelle caught me two frogs, which I named Matilda and Enrique.  Top off the day with perogies for dinner and ice-cream sundaes for dessert, and being a host of the grade eleven camp-fire and the day was perfect.

Orchestra and Geoffrey again

Sometimes I wonder if people have gotten tired of hearing about Geoffrey from me. Everything that I see reminds me of him, every hurt that I've ever had in my life is miniscule next to his death.

This is one of the reasons that I didn't tell anyone at Orchestra about his death. A few people eventually learned, but I certainly didn't make a public service announcement. Orchestra gave me a fresh breath from the cloud of sorrow that my school was buried in. I was able to at least pretend to be normal, pretend to be happy. In all honesty, I'm a pretty darn good actress, so nobody guessed that I was really suffering inside.

All this changed last Tuesday when I was on the front page of the paper, playing at the dedication of his memorial gazebo.

At my orchestra audition this year (everyone has to audition every year to determine placements) we were discussing ways that I can improve to be the best concertmaster that I can next year.  The panel's (conductor, head of strings, head of winds) main suggestion was to take myself less seriously, as I tend to get a little, what's the word, (perturbed, snappy, wound up?) when I get stressed.  This made total sense to me, and I agreed with them completely.  However, I made a terrible mistake.

I should have known not to mention anything to do with Geoffrey.

All I said was something along the lines of "I totally understand, and I can see why I was extra- tense this year as I wasn't... wasn't in the b-b-best state... em...em...em..." The last word, emotionally, was lost in a flood of tears that came and devastated like a monsoon- I wasn't able to coherently speak for at least two minutes.  Not too encouraging for a person who has said that she'll try to be less uptight.

However, they understood.  My conductor already knew the story, and the head of strings had brought along the newspaper article.  So, maybe it wasn't such bad thing after all.

I love teaching

It's been ages since I've written. This is because of many things: trying to catch up in my schoolwork, my various extra-curricular stuff, but mostly EXAMEXAMEXAMEXAM! Ah the joys of not being ready for a grade ten violin exam.

Anyway, this is a piece of fresh air to lighten my often-gloomy thoughts. Right now I feel a strange burst of maternal joy because of a boy named Wade. Wade is a shy, freckled little kid who seems like he could be in grade five. He is, in fact, in grade seven, and this is his first year of taking violin. And he is blossoming.

I feel such a thrill to see the love in which he picks up the instrument. His mother says that he practices all time- she'll hear him play for fifteen minutes, go and do something else, then go back to the violin. She says that this happens three or four times a night. It makes me proud to see that the things that he reluctantly learned in music class come to life for him when he picks up the violin. He said that he's never taken any music before, that he couldn't remember anything, but all of a sudden, he's remembering, and he's applying what he's remembered to the instrument. He's sight-reading things almost perfectly!

He makes me proud to be a teacher, but also a player.

Why things always happen while I'm painting my toenails

No, they don't really. But this makes a great title for a post about random stuff.

1. Aiden

He's possibly the cutest little boy you could ever meet. He's five, has big blue eyes and a shock of gorgeous red hair. He's so serious about violin, but he sometimes wiggles around on the ground like a little worm and giggles.

Today, he looked like he was pretty tired, but I kept gently encouraging him to keep playing. I was kneeling on the floor to be on his level, and just as he finished the last note, this look that I've never seen before came onto his face. "Great job, Aiden, you did it!" His eyes grew round and watery, and he looked this combination between shock and utter horror. Suddenly, I hear his father's voice say, "Oh no, Buddy!" I look down, and watch a large puddle of yellow liquid pool around poor Aiden's feet!

What followed was a lot of scrubbing and comforting poor Aiden, who was crying from embarrassment.

2.Play Practice

Jonas, you are possibly the randomest (is that a word, or just teen slang?)/funniest person in the school. :) Explanation: School Play

Jonas: Are you refusing me?

Kasia: I have a phone, you know! And guess what, it rings only once a week, on Sundays, which is when my mother calls! And...

Random Jonas interruption: (grabs phone) Ring ring, it's your mother calling!

Well, I suppose one had to be there, but it was pretty darn funny :)

3. Nightwish

My friend Jeff introduced me to an incredible band called Nightwish. They are absolutely phenominal! They're a Finnish band that doesn't stick to one genre of music but branches out and does everything from an 18 minute long musical to Celtic fiddle metal. They are beautiful, exquisite, and just plain musical!

Here we have The Last of the Islanders: Celtic Fiddle Metal

4. I was lying. Yes, things do happen when I paint my toenails. This time it was the phone and the doorbell ringing at the same time.

Hair Havoc

First of all, I was going to talk about music as well as hair in this post, so my original Title was Hair Havoc and a Little Singing. I don't have time for the music part, but I'd like to say that I accidentally almost titled this post Hair Havoc and a Little Sinning *chuckle chuckle chuckle*

Second of all, for this post to make sense, I would suggest you click on the link below and read the post titled Hair in my other blog first.

Third, I'd like to make a comment about my latest haircut.

So, I got a haircut last Thursday, and I must say, to be completely honest, I love it. However, it certainly didn't start out that way. I walked in to the hairdressing place, I said hi to my hairdresser, and she said, "Ok, today we're dying your hair." (Time for panic attack.) She then pulled out a bowl full of PLATINUM BLONDE (!) coloured chemicals and started putting my hair up in what felt like an alien headdress. Thankfully the potential platinum disaster turned out to be only a bunch of streaky little highlights, which apparently looks great when you chop half the hair off a person's head with what looks like butcher scissors (hurrah for short hair!). Rub in a ton of hair-gel, and VOILA, one sexy spiky haircut for a girl who's never dyed her hair.

However, the point of this is not to brag, although that might be a bit of an interior motive. My haircut just got me thinking about what we as a society value. I have gotten multiple compliments on my hair every day this week, sometimes more than once by the same person, sometimes more than once by the same person more than once a day. And yet Grace, Grace raises $7500 dollars for cancer by doing something that most girls would dread, but does she get as many compliments from our peers? No. So, what's more important, then? Shaving your head in memory of your friend, or getting highlights? Evidently it's the highlights. And I think that there's something dead wrong with that.