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.

Death (Delete delete delete)

I've been meaning to post these guys for awhile now, but haven't had the occasion to put them up.  This used to be a post about how my March Break was a failure, but I hate whining, so I deleted it.

Anyway, this was an art project done back in November.  The assignment was to take something natural, something God-made, and slowly morph it into something man-made.  A lot of people were doing fast animals turning into vehicles, but I wanted mine to be reflective of the situation that I was in.  I don't know why, but I decided to choose fire.  My brainstorming went something like this...Fire... how did man corrupt fire?  Man used fire to create things, great things, terrible, but great.  Man uses fire to create weapons that kill and disease... fireball... nuclear weapon... death... skull...  Fire Turning into Nuclear Hazard sign.

I'm not such a huge fan of the first one, and the photo that I took for it is blurry, but I really like the fourth one.

Life in general

The generic greeting from one person to another is "How are you?" The generic answer is "Fine."

I have a problem with both.

See, around my school it can be a bit of a sketchy question to ask, as not only did we deal with the death of Geoffrey this year, one of the most-gone-to churches just lost a member of their youth group to (surprise, surprise) cancer.  He was the same age as Geoff, strangely enough.

The second problem that I have is how the hell I'm supposed to answer the question.  Generally when it's asked, I'm not in the depths of despair, so I could say "fine" with a clear conscious.  But am I really fine?  The answer is no.  So, I could say, "Well, actually, my life feels like crap because I think that I have depression resulting from my friend's premature death from cancer."  However, when a person says something other than the generic answer, it gets people unnerved.  So, then comes a lot of uncomfortable questions.  *Sigh*

~~

I am suddenly REALLY hungry.

Masquerade...

Masquerade,

Paper faces on parade,

Masquerade!

Hide your face so the world will never find you.

Ahh, a masquerade ball.  I always wanted to go to one of those, and last night my dream was fulfilled.  Sort of.

It was the theme for our Valentine's day banquet, and let me say that it was really well done, in a school dance sort of way.  There was red carpet (only a few meters of it), a clown for entertainment during dinner (my elementary school's old vice principal on a unicycle), karaoke (only country songs and High School Musical), and food (which not many people ate.)  However, these things made it all the more enjoyable, as we were able to laugh hilariously when people attempted to sing country karaoke, ate the chocolates that were thrown to us from the unicycle, and  gazed with suspicion on the large screen showing an unusual visualizer during the dancing part (buildings getting knocked down and such.  Odd.).

I wore my mask practically the entire night, even after others took theirs off.  

Worries

So, my big Orchestra concert is coming up soon, and to tell you the truth, I'm getting a wee bit nervous.  Ok, scratch that, I'm close to panicking.

My Orchestra is a bit weird: not enough players in one section, almost too many in another, kids who can barely play the music, and players like my friend Dylan, who has been accepted to audition at the top music school in North America.  We always pull off every concert, but for some reason, this time, it's getting scary.  We've got a really young violin section this year, who just isn't pulling their weight on some of the pieces.  We've never been this far behind scheduleon rehearsing pieces before, and some of the pieces are sounding butchered.  One soloist (my friend Lindsay) was in tears last time.  I'm worried.

No House: musings on life and Harry Potter

My home-page when I turn on the internet is a site called The Leaky Cauldron.  Leaky is "The Most Trusted Name in Potter."  It is the site to go to for all the news, theories, discussions and interviews with the makers of the films and books, as well as a super fun place.  PotterCast, the weekly pod-cast is absolutely hilarious.  I've been part of the Leaky community for a long time, but something changed this week.  Now when you join Leaky, you have to choose one of the four Hogwarts houses to be a part of.  There is 

Gryffindor: where dwell the brave of heart.  Their daring nerve and chivalry set Gryffindors apart.

Hufflepuff: where they are just and loyal.  Those patient Hufflepuffs are true and unafraid of toil.

Ravenclaw: where those of wit and learning will always find their kind.

Slytherin: where those cunning folks use any means to achieve their ends.

And here's the thing, I still haven't chosen my house yet.  It's not a big deal or anything, but I feel somewhat isolated.  I feel like I'm not ready to chose a house yet.  I've taken every possible test on the internet, and I keep coming up with different answers, so I can't pinpoint my house that way; the only test I would trust would be one written by Jo Rowling herself.  I can't just close my eyes and pick one, because your house defines you as a person.  And I can't even pick a house and changed it later, as one can only pick a house once.  

I'm not entirely sure why this means so much to me, and to people outside the HP fandom it probably sounds quite stupid.  Maybe it's because I feel like I don't know who I am yet.  Maybe I don't want to chose how other people see me.  Or maybe, I believe, like Dumbledore, that we Sort too early.

I get a Spare, Hallelujah, I get a Spare

Ok, so yesterday's news is pretty darn awesome too.  But here's the thing, I just got next semester's schedule, and, no kidding, I have never seen a better schedule EVER!  First of all, this is the first time I've ever taken a spare, so I love looking at the piece of paper and seeing big blank spots everywhere.  Second of all, I've  got four great courses... Bible with my fav teacher, English (yes!), Media, and the only hard one, Bio.  Here's the best part, though.  Our courses move around daily, so here's what I have...

Monday: Lunch + Spare= Extra long lunch period

Tuesday: Spare Last Period= I can go home early

Wednesday: Spare First Period= I don't have to be at school until 10:30!

Thursday: Extended lunch period again

Friday: Home early!

BEST THING EVER!

(Comment: four months later: It actually wasn't as great as I thought.  But why ruin the euphoria?  Oops... too late.)

Indescribable Part 2

My friend Meagan was the first to play and have her lesson.  While the clinician was talking to her, I noticed my violin teacher nudge my friend's mom and look out the window.  I assumed that she was looked at my bird, so I turned to take a peek.  Just then, he sprang off his perch on the top of the building across the courtyard  and swooped down across the open space.  I stared at his as he rushed toward our building and had a moment panic when I was sure that he was going to crash.  However, just as it seemed that he was plunging to his death, he extended his wings out to their fullest and soared up on a breeze, right across our windows.

It was possibly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.  He was magnificent.  He had such a huge wingspan, full of red and golden feathers that reflected the sun.  Of course, everyone let out a collective gasp, and Meagan shouted "Sarah, it's your bird!"  

But the best part is that he didn't go away.  He landed on the broad ledge right outside the window, strutted around, peeked in the window, and ruffled his golden feathers.  Everyone stopped to look at him, oohing and ahhing.  I had this feeling of warm pride well up inside. "Ha!  I told you so!  I told you he was incredible!"  And then came the best part of all.  My music bag was leaning up against the glass, so I lost sight of him for a few moments.  Suddenly, a cocked head stuck out from behind the bag, and looked around with eyes the colour of butterscotch as if to say "Hey, this room is usually empty right about now!"  Then, with real intelligence in his face, he turned and looked me straight in the eyes.  He just stood there looking at me.  And then, he flew away.

Indescribable Part 1

This will be told in two parts to make it easier for the reader.

I had the coolest experience today.  I went downtown Toronto for a group clinic with a very amazing violinist.  My violin teacher organized it.  I played with three of my friends, and several other friends and professional musicians were spectators.

I walked into the room in U of T where we'd be playing, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the room is on a corner of the building and has floor to ceiling windows.  I set my violin case on the ledge by the window and started unpacking.  Suddenly, a huge flash of red went streaking by.  Some kind of large predator bird had dove right by the window and swooped over to the other side of the courtyard.  His wingspan was huge, and he was  beautifully  coloured with large red tail-feathers. There he sat, imperiously surveying everything going on below.  I was flabbergasted.  I pointed him out to some people, but as they hadn't seen what I had, they weren't really interesting.

Later, I noticed him sitting on another ledge closer to the building.  From here I was able to see that he was some kind of large hawk, with a creamy golden head and white fluffy stomach.  I pointed him out to my mom, and she was surprised at how big he was.  Not many other people noticed, but I was still telling people about "my bird."

To be continued

Mon Français terrible!

I absolutely adore the french language, but the fact is that I'm absolutely terrible at writing it. Terrible!  So here's me... I hand in the rough copy of my short story to the teacher thinking "Well, it shouldn't be too bad since I'm mostly writing in the present tense."  Haha. Hahahaha. All 5 pages are covered in little red markings.  And some of them are so ridiculous that I can't help but laugh at myself.

Instead of writing the word "To confide," I wrote the word that means "To crystallize" or "To soak in fat".

Some of the markings that I got were two "Not a verb," two "Not a tense," one "Not French" and the best: "Not a word in any language."

I also got the meaning of the word "est" wrong no less than fifteen times (I counted)! It means "it".  I keep on getting it mixed up with the word "et" which means "and".  Mostly she just circled it, but the last time I used 'et' instead of 'est', I got a huge circled mark on the paper saying IT!

And then, what did I do?  I actually changed the French mistake into the English word... I came back later and in the middle of all the French on my page was "it".

But, oh, it continues.  When I came back to correct this post, I realize that I'd even written down the definitions for the words wrong on here!  I had written "est means and" & "et means 'it'" when it's the other way round!

Oh yeah, and I somehow created a new verb tense in which the only rule is to stick the past participle of etre into any situation possible.  She wasn't quite sure what to make of that one.

Je suis troublee...