As Time Leaves us

got to 1:06 for the song

I have been hearing this song the radio and thinking about what it would be like to live forever young. As the school year winds down I have realized that there isn't nearly enough time for homework let alone other things I want to do, like hanging out with my girlfriend or friends. If I had more time, there are tons of things I wish I could be doing. There are different ways to look at this theory. Would it be better to live forever or just to make the most of what little life you have? I think there are pros and cons of each.

If you live forever, you don't have to worry about the amount of time you have. But everyone else still does. The problem would be having to watch your friends grow old and die when never will. I would hate to lose everyone I loved even if I would get an eternity to do whatever I wished. It is the same idea as the story Tuck Everlasting. In that book, the family finds a lake where, if you drink from it, you live forever. It is a cursed miracle and not as good as the alternative.

Since noone can live forever, we just have to try our best to do everything we can before we can't anymore. What that is really depends on the person. I just think that everyone should do what they want so they have no regrets about it when they die. We would all be happier if we got to do that.

I just haven't met you yet

This is a great song I have just heard on the radio. It's called Haven't met you yet and it is a great love song. It was strange to hear that it was by Michael Buble because his music is usually more old style and not pop. I believe that this song sounds like a theme song for sitcom from the 90s.

How can I make them Proud?

Recently, there have been lots of award presentations for Theatre and Choir. These banquets are long and not exciting unless you actually get awards. In the past, I have done well at these events. I have recieved best in section for choir, best new member, soloist, and others. But this year was different. I was in a choir with seniors, so best in section would have been hard to get. Other people were better than me, so best new member was out too. I didn't have a solo, and all that combined made it a pretty boring night. I was sad that I didn't get these awards, but what I missed most was that I did not get the Baritone Belt of Power. This award is given to a junior baritone after a long speech that is very humorous. I felt like I had a good shot at getting it because I was an All-State Baritone, but appearently that doesn't matter. Instead it went to someone who was in chamber choir, a feat I have yet to accomplish. All of this made me sad but what made me even more depressed about it was my dad.



After walking out of those long awards, my dad was not happy that we got nothing. I don't know why but he found lots to criticize about the way I did things to explain why I had failed to accomplish anything. I know that he wasn't mad at me but I did my best so it felt like he was. I got a choir all-state and two speech all-states this year, and yet, because I didn't get recognition for anything, my dad was upset. I have made a plan, or at least started a plan, to take my school by storm and win as many awards as I can next year. I will make my dad proud of me, make no mistake about that.

Prom

Last Saturday was Prom at my school and it was amazing. We have a Senior prom only but since I am dating a senior I got to go. It was a really big thing and It took a lot of work to figure out. But it was all worth it in the end

The problem with figuring things out was that my girlfriend is a part time senior. She is home schooled for half of the time and is at school for the other part. This caused a problem because she didn't get the information about getting tickets or tables until really late. We ended up sitting at a table with couples we didn't know but that was fine because we got to talk to each other more that way.

The next step was finding a dress and a tux. she found her dress about two weeks before prom. I already had a tux so all I had to find was a vest and tie that would match her dress or a bow tie and cumber bun. Her dress was a light pink color it simple yet elegant and she looked great in it. I knew that I shouldn't get anything light purple or it might be too close to her color but not match. I decided to get a dark purple color instead. The problem was that no one in town had just a purple vest availible or a bow tie and cumber bun. We finally found a place: Center Stage Costume Shop. They had a bow tie and cumber bun that were perfect so we snatched them up before they were gone with all the rest of the purple vests.

the night of prom I went over to her house to take pictures. My mom came too and we had a small photo shoot. about ten minutes into the half hour we had planned, we ran out of poses and the will to take pictures so we headed out for the diner. We ate at Elmcrest Country Club. The food was delicious and the chocolate cake was heavenly.

After the meal the dance began. I knew that I wanted this night to be special for her since it was her senior prom so I requested our song: Music of My Heart by N*SYNC and Gloria Estafan. The DJ said he would play it and he did. I will never forget the look on her face when the song came on and she realized what it was. She was so happy and I was happy too. That was probably the best part of the dance. But we had fun and we were some of the last people to leave the dance.

Then came post prom. it was amazing. There was bowling, food, and poker. After blowing all my fake money in poker and watching my girlfriend win two teddy bears out of the claw machine ( one of which she gave to me) it was time for the hypnotist show. It was fun to watch him make our friends do crazy things that they would never do if they were awake. After a great show, we headed home. We didn't want the night to end but like all good things, it did. I will never forget that night and how much fun it was. I can't wait till my senior prom. I'm sure it will be even better than this.

Rhapsody Rampage

I have recently found a site for downloading music that has made it so much easier to get music. On Friday, I found rhapsody, a music downloading website similar to iTunes. I heard about it on a tv comercial while holding my iPod so I decided to look it up. It is better than iTunes in the fact that you can download as many songs that you want for ten dollars a month. On iTunes you pay a certain amount per song which is either $0.99 or $1.29. So if you download more than ten songs on Rhapsody, you have saved money. That was appealing but i don't have money to buy songs on iTunes or Rhapsody, and that was when the next thing about was revealed. When you open a new acount on Rhapsody, you get a free week of downloading as many songs as you want or can. That was amazing! I couldn't believe that all the songs I had wanted off iTunes were availible for free off of rhapsody. So, for the past two days, I have gone on a buying spree, download hundreds of songs and whole albums from my favorite bands. And I still have five days left to take advantage of this great deal. But what happens afterwards is the question. I don't have the money to pay every month but I want to make sure that I don't have to pay to keep my free songs. I have tried my best to load them on to iTunes but all my attemps have failed. My hope is that the app will still exist and I can put it in permanent off line mode so that I can still have my songs and it will never know that I haven't paid. I also wish I could get all the songs I want too. When I tried to get the Beatles songs and the Eagles songs I wanted, I found that you could only get tribut band and kareoke versions of the songs. Those are alright but they aren't the originals so I need to buy them on iTunes still. Besides that small set back however, I am much happier with the way Rhapsody works than iTunes and I am using an iPod to write this. So my apologies to apple but I feel that those of you who can should switch to Rhapsody. It is much more cost effective and the free trial is unmatched. My suggestion is that you don't change until you know you will have time to sit and download song for a week so that the free trial is better used. I realized my mistake to late and now I will lose some of the time that I would have used to get songs to take tests and go to school.

Sleep

This will be my second post about Eric Whitacre and I think he deserves 20 more. Recently in choir we have been sing one of his songs called Sleep. This is a very beautiful piece that almost didn't get to exist and still doesn't exist in its true form.



This is the version of the song right now. The lyrics were written by a great poet who has written other songs for Eric Whitacre.It is beautiful and had I not heard someone tell me this story about the song I never would have known that it wasn't originally written that way.




This is the original song. Whitacre used Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods but there was a big problem. he never got the permission to use it. His case was end by saying that this version can never exist until 2037. So he had another poet write the same word stress and syllables into a new poem so that he could still use his music before that point. So this fits perfectly with my music sampling idea. I think that he should be able to use a classic dead poets works because they should be in the public domain but appearently not everyone agrees. What do you think?

Traditional or Modern?

I have been thinking about how we did this year as a show choir and how we did the year before. This year we were twenty third in the nation and the year before we were eighteenth. Even though that isn't so different, we only won one competition this year and they won two last year and got second at all the other ones. When you look at the shows you can notice that the show from last year was more modern and the show from this year was more traditional. this caused me to think.

We are going through a change in the shows show choirs do. they are mixed between the groups being more modern and those still sticking with what has worked in the past. But who is better? It appears that as the songs become more modern, the judges have started to like them more because they are different. Now, groups in CA who have the ability to use better production, are making sets that are new and inspiring and they are being rewarded for it. Just comparing the closers of the shows, you can see Please Don't Stop the Music would kill Shine like the Sun.

So why doesn't everyone do shows that are newfangled? Because it is difficult to pull off a song where the dance has to be modern and less standard show choir like. you have to act differently, dance in less structured methods, and sing with a different tone and style. Plus, old show choir sets are reliable. They don't always win but they aren't hard to figure out and they are very structured.

As we move forward in time, I could see people switching to more difficult, modern set lists that will, in turn, raise the standards for all show choirs. Sometimes we have to give into progress to realize what it can do for us.





And here for the fun of it is someone stuck on tradition

Varsity for Choir?

In the past week we did our auditions for both choir and show choir. They were much less stressful for me than usual because I was already in the top show choir last year but there were many surprises in this year's cycle. The director at our school has decided not to do things the same as usual. The regular choir is going to be mu ch different. in the past, you were required to be in concert choir if you were in the top show choir. now you don't have to and might not get to because he is changing the number of people in the choirs. There were 160 people auditioning for concert choir and only half of them will make it. that is a huge difference from what it use to be where everyone got in if they were good enough or had time to do it. He is also cutting the Chamber choir, which is the group above concert choir, in half as well. this means it will be closer to the size of our 12 person jazz group. This is causing trouble, though, because the people auditioning are doing two things: they are getting better and there are more of them. that is where my question comes in. For the first time, we my actually have a varsity choir.

We have always had the varsity show choir, Happiness inc., at my school and that is because we always have tons of people audition for the 48 spots in the group. This year was actually worse than before. there were even large amounts of freshman that could have beaten some of the sophomores and juniors. It means that we will have a great pool of kids to choose from but sadly we will have to leave some out of groups even if they are good enough to be in them.

That has never happened in choir however. until this year. we have always had a big enough choir that it didn't matter if we had a lot of people audition. But now we have reduced the number of people in the groups, added a varsity letter to earn, and there were more people than ever who auditioned. So, here we are at a crossroad. This will surely help both concert choir and the lower choir where the rest of the people who don't make it will be placed but it won't make people happy. People who are great and have been in some of these groups already will be removed because the competition is so tough.

So I will compare it to this. People who try their best will not make groups they are deserving of. So their effort doesn't even matter

Who's Line is it Anyway?

Alright, so I was flipping through channels one night and I stumbled upon a show that I had only seen a few other times. When I finished watching it, I realized why I had only seen it a few times as a young kid. It was a pretty dirty and adult show but it was very funny and impressive. It is called Who's Line is it Anyway? It starred three very talented actors: Wayne Brady, Ryan Stiles, and Colin Mochrie and one more comedian with them. The show is an improve comedy performance. That means that none of the show is scripted and nothing they do is planned. They do lots of different games on the show and they all have their strong points but I think my favorite game is Greatest hits. In the game, Colin, the bald one, and Ryan, the tall one, are tv sales people trying to sell a CD to the viewers with strange songs on it about a topic. Then, when they say a style and a title for the song, Wayne, the black one, and the guest artist perform the song. This is possibly my favorite because this takes talent as a singer and an improve artist.

WARNING: THESE VIDEOS AREN'T CLEAN AND IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR SEXUAL JOKES YOU SHOULD NOT WATCH THESE!





this is another game called Irish Drinking Song. They have to sing a song one line at a time. This is very impressive as well all though not as much for the great singing but for the funny jokes.

WARNING: THESE SONGS ARE WORSE THAN THE FIRST SET AND MORE CAUTION SHOULD BE TAKEN!







And here is another thing they do. On the show, they sometimes have special guests. Usually they are women because the show normally stars men. But there are cases when they just want to be funny and bring on someone different, like Richard Simmons.

WARNING: THIS IS VERY VERY DIRTY. YOU SHOULD NOT WATCH THIS IF YOU WOULD BE OFFENDED AND DON'T BLAME ME IF YOU ARE. I WARNED YOU.