Thanks to you, I'm a creative weirdo

I've always been a bit of a weirdo.
Okay.
Not just a bit. More like, really really weird.
I would just sit around, making random crap out of godknowswhat, glue/paint/dirt/berries/leaves/legos, and once I had finished I felt extremely accomplished.
I figured one day I'd probably grow out of that.
Nope.
Here I sit, waiting for the earrings I just glazed to dry (which look like various food items), while making a bracelet out of starburst wrappers.

I love to make things. I've been drawing as long as I can remember, and once I discovered the beauty of written words I began writing stories. I gave up making usable objects for a while, but here I am again, making random crap that people may or may not want to wear.

Thing is - I really love it. My hobby of making stuff/drawing stuff/writing stuff: creation. It brings me joy. And today, while sitting in front of my earrings, applying glaze (which smells pretty strong...I might have to blame these thoughts on that glaze...), it occurred to me. I wouldn't have been drawing/writing/making if not for the people that have supported my weirdness. I would have given it up, thinking that it wasn't good enough and that I was wasting my time.

To the friend who said making cupcake earrings was a great idea
to the friend who said she loved my blog posts
to the friend who said the drawing was amazing
to the many many friends who said they wanted to see more
thank you - to my friends that have supported me the most in this crazy year.

By the way: if you're wondering why the uncharacteristically pleasantness is seeping through this post, if you live in nebraska, GO OUTSIDE. ITS FUCKING BEAUTIFUL OUT.
....not needing to wear a jacket just makes me entirely too happy.

Spring Break

It's the week before spring break.
We are tired.
We've been banging our heads against exams and projects and essays, the everyday monotony of worksheets, readings, and practice (for my fellow music majors).
A lot of us are ready to give up.
Some of us already have - with failing grades or just general lack of interest in learning anymore.
Whoever came up with spring break was genius. The students need it. So do the teachers.
In fact, most people in general just need a break during the spring.
Wanna know a "not-so-well-known" fact about spring break?
It's partially here to save your life.
Seriously.
Quite simply, the toll of everyday life tends to really hit people in the springtime. They've been working their asses off, dealing with all the stress that comes along work/college/school/relationships/etc, and when those birds start chirping again something just clicks in their brain.
Like a bullet.
Yup, springtime is actually when the rate of suicides (especially in college students) takes a significant spike.
So seriously,
TAKE A BREAK.
Don't just use spring break to study just as hard, or to take on extra work.
Do yourself a favor, and have some fun.

The sparkling? It's gotta stop.

It's hard nowadays to walk around the mall without seeing a pre-pubescent girl wearing a shirt that exclaims in bold letters: "I LOVE VAMPIRES!" I watch them walk out of "build-a-bear", texting furiously on their new Droid that their mommy got them to go with their new purse, which no twelve year old really needs. I sigh. What happened to vampires that made them desirable for the next generation of bimbos? Twilight happened.
Now, don't get me wrong. When I was in middle school, the Twilight books were THE SHIT. All of the poor, awkward, pre-teens who preferred fantasy books and videogames over sports and spray tans read Twilight. Why? We understood Bella, she was ANYONE (she didn't have too much of a personality to make her much different from anyone else) who didn't quite fit in, and she managed to get the hottest guy in school. What's wrong with that?
Nothing. Really. It was an addictive book series. The plot was easy to follow, the writing was simpler still - but well executed. It was humorous, romantic, and we could connect to it.

But even back when reading Twilight was of the few escapes from the doldrums of middle school, I knew something was just wrong with this book.
Firstly,
Edward is a stalker. There is absolutely no way around this fact. He breaks into Bella's room, several times, and just STARES at her while she sleeps.
Does that sound romantic to you?
What if Joe Blo down the street had a crush on you and decided to do that every night while you slept?
Not so romantic anymore.

Secondly,
There has got to be something wrong with a 100 year old guy dating a 17 year old. Bella's young, stupid, and not exactly experienced. Just because Edward has been stuck in high school for a century does NOT mean he has the mindset of a teen. He most likely has the mindset of a pedophile.

Thirdly,
THEY FUCKING SPARKLE.

Stephanie Meyer managed to take one of the most feared creatures in the history of myths and made it into something akin to the fear of a butterfly.
The myth of the vampire has been around for ages. It has been found in ancient Greece, Rome, India, and many more. These blood-sucking, never aging, undead have terrified and tantalized people for centuries.
We can owe the typical popular vampire to one character: Bram Stoker's Dracula. Dracula was baddass. Seriously. The guy is merciless, seductive, and tries to take over the world - starting with London. Funny thing is - he certainly doesn't look like a 17 year old. He has white hair, pointy ears, and is quite simply - old. He does look younger though when he gets to London, but he's not nearly Twlight-esque.

He's just fucking scary.
Now take Dracula, make him ridiculously handsome, and add existential angst?
Welcome to Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles.
We feel Louis' pain as he tries to hold on to his humanity, and eventually gives up on humanity altogether. We love Lestat, even if he is incredibly selfish.
This is where the popular vampire should have stayed. Sexy, powerful, and inhuman. Killing machines who live forever, are freaking terrifying, and burn to death in the sunlight (most of the time).

Not rainbow-sparkly with babies.
See, the thing is - Vampires are awesome. But what the little twelve year olds think are vampires? Not even close.
This is my problem with Twilight. It took the vampire and destroyed it for popular culture, filling the shelves at stores with posters of emasculated skinny-boys proclaiming to be the vampires we once knew and loved. It also caused a whole new genere of teen-books to be written - the romantic vampires-without-balls.

The solution? Next Halloween, get a vampire costume, and SCARE THE CRAP out of little Twilight fans.

Seizure? No, I'm just nervous.

I adore performing. Really, I do. In fact, that's mostly ALL I do. Performing in an orchestra? Not a problem. Playing with a small ensemble? Not a problem. Being the lead in A Midsummer's Night's Dream? Fun times. I have made speeches in front of hundreds, done skits in front of a sold out show, and played my flute in more concerts than I can count.

But soloing?

Soloing is an issue. I don't know what it is about playing my flute in front of an audience that gets me so nervous, but somehow its a completely different experience.
First, my knees start to shake.
Then my hands sweat.
And finally my lip starts to shake and all hope is lost. (You can't really play an instrument that requires sitting on your lip if its shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.)

Most of the time, I can feel when any of these things start to happen. I might look into the audience, or stop focusing on the music and think about my embouchure (aka - the weird way my lips are shaped) and then all the weird shaky craziness commences.
So somehow, in the middle of my performance, I have to do a couple of things. If you do something else, let me know, because I need all the help I can get.

1. Start slow. I have a habit of rushing the beginning when I'm nervous, and when I realize that halfway through the piece, things start breaking down and I end up missing notes.
2. Take a deep breath. Even if it means taking an awkwardly long pause. Because believe it or not, that awkwardly long pause NEVER seems awkwardly long when I listen to the recording.
3. Focus Focus Focus. Whether on the sheet music or my air flow, I can't let myself get distracted. Being a space cadet, this is damn difficult.
4. Realize that its really not that important whether I get the 16th note run perfect, or if I get that uber high note to sound just right. As long as I play as musically as I can, I've done my job.

So here's to breaking a leg, not having a seizure, and having a good time.

"To have a right to do a thing

is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."
-GK Chesterson

For instance. Just because you CAN wear shorts so short that your ass hangs out of them, doesn't mean you should.



PS: Whoever reads my blog from Russia, the UK, Belarus, Italy, and Morocco - I love you. Just so you know.

Inhale, Exhale, Okay I'm still alive.

Sometimes I just need to sit, take a deep breath, and say "It's all gonna be alright."

Oh, and blast songs from He Is We. If you haven't heard them before, go look them up. They're part folk, part pop, and all adorable. It's just one girl doing all the vocals, and one guitar, and one boy doing all the other instruments. They're fantastic. Currently I'm playing their song "Everything You Do" on repeat. Otherwise I'd have to destroy the "rewind, play" buttons.

But really, through mid-terms and my upcoming concert, its surprising that I'm not spending every second of the day stressing out. I'm pretty damn close to being stressed 24/7, but I've managed to realize something I find rather important.

Stressing out, studying an extra 10 minutes, attacking my flute for an extra 30 minutes, it just doesn't help. Its all frantic, and never very productive. So why do it?
So I'll spend that time listening to He Is We, hanging out with the people I care about, and doing whatever the hell I feel like doing. So take that stress.

Are You Talking To Me?

Cell phones are amazing. They let us contact each other over massive distances, at any place, at any time. You can use them to text people one-word answers that are oh-so-important (like OMG LOL), check your email, and even surf the web. They're extremely helpful when you get stranded at the mall because your ride dropped out on you and you need to find a new one, or when you get kidnapped by Cthulhu.

[911? Yes, I'm about to get tentacled by Cthulhu. Yes, its an emergency.]

As much as I love my cell phone and its many functions, there are two things that really get on my nerves.

The first: Getting stuck in a car ride with someone talking on the phone.
If you've ever been in this situation you know how awkward this is. Since my mother is apparently a cell phone-popularity queen, I'm all too familiar with the aggravation of sitting in a long car ride with her talking on the phone the entire way. It doesn't help that all the people that call her only speak in Chinese.
Car rides, whether you are the driver or the rider, can get extremely boring. Unless both of you strike up a decent conversation or turn on the radio, the ride can go from extremely boring to excruciatingly awkward.
When the other person gets a phone call, and that call takes up the entirety of the car ride, the awkward-ness is heightened times twenty. Not only are you un-purposefully eavesdropping on half of a conversation (which never really makes much sense), you can't really ignore them by listening to the radio because you have to turn the radio low or off in order to be polite. You are now stuck in a situation where you cannot talk about anything, cannot listen to anything that makes sense, and must now just lazily stare out the window and hope that the boredom doesn't put you into a vegetative state.
When that phone call happens to be in a different language, its even worse; because then, for all you know, they could be talking about YOU.

The second: Bluetooth.
Okay, don't get me wrong. Bluetooth is genius. You are able to use both hands, while having lengthy conversations with your cousins in New York. It makes talking on the already uber convenient cell phone even more uber convenient.
The problem with Bluetooth is, whether you're the user or someone who happens to look at someone using the Bluetooth, you're going to seem ridiculous.
Why?
If you are using Bluetooth, its rather difficult for others to see that there is a tiny earpiece on your ear (that might be hidden under your hair/a hat), so then you just look like a crazy person talking to yourself.
If you're around someone using a Bluetooth, its really easy to initially think that the person might be talking to you. I can't count how many times I've actually said "hello", or "what?" to a person using Bluetooth around me. After each account though, I stumbled around a few "sorry"s and got extremely red in the face. It's incredibly awkward.

The moral of the story?
Don't get stuck on your Bluetooth with me in the car or I'll sic Cthulhu on you.

Cupcakes and Brain Cells

I would make an angsty rant today. Really, I would. But today has been a ridiculously good day.

Why?

Just like I talked about before in "How to Kill Student Zombification", it is absolutely gorgeous out today. So even though I only got four hours of sleep, I've been able to function better than usual. I didn't have to wear a winter coat for the first time in months, and that just made me want to dance.

Also, during lunch today I went to Jones Bros. Cupcakes at Aksarben Village with two of my buddies. Brilliant. This place is so fun, the design is fresh and modern, and the food is ridiculously good. The cupcakes? Freaking fantastic. Best cupcakes I've ever had. And they all look amazing. Just take a look at the ones I bought for myself and my boyfriend.
Freaking gorgeous. And delicious. Never thought salt on a cupcake would taste good but DAMN, these guys know what they're doing.
So yes, I just did some advertisement...but they deserve it. I know I'll be going back. A lot. (Hopefully I won't get fat.)

Although I'm not actually there, one thing I'm super excited for this week is the TED conference. They always present a lot of really neat stuff in the science field, so I can't wait to see what comes out of it. So far, I've heard of a group of scientists from MIT who've used genetic modification and fiber optics to cure blindness in mice, and are now working on using that to cure Alzheimer's.
Awesome.

So between cupcakes and brain cells, I'm just about as happy as I can get - when I've got a concert staring me in the face (a week from now! AHHHHH!)
I'm just trying to distract myself.
Minimal luck.