Dear Ketty

Today I was at an indecision. I wasn't sure what I was gonna do for roommates for the Spring Trip. That, in short, was my problem. I was worried that if I talked to anyone about it, I would come off as such a big-headed beep, but when I explained how the altos wanted me in their room and so did Julia and Seul and so did Gina and how was I supposed to choose? You were perfectly understanding and not judgmental. You listened and then carefully went over all my options until we came to a conclusion. You made sure every aspect was discussed, and you were sooo nice the whole time. So thank you, Ketty, for being such a wonderful friend.

Love,

Nicole

Memo

So I am about to start a series of posts called the Letters. The title will be "Dear...." and then I will talk about someone who I think is pretty fabulous. Just FYI.

How Embarrassing

Ok so every year before Adjudication Mr Dubbs has us come in for an evening rehearsal and we have a really good band person come in for a clinic with us. In the clinics we play what we have while they take notes. After we're done, he'll jump on the stand and give us his suggestions and help us to get better. Evening rehearsals are a pain in general, so I was not looking forward to it. I showed up in my red dog checkered pajama pants, a t-shirt, and my purple aero hoodie with my purple penguin socks and my moccasins, officially making me the poster child for what not to wear. I had just taken a shower but I put on make-up in the car. Luckily. Why luckily, Nicole? Wellllll I'll tell you!

I was sitting there in between Seul and Mirae, passing notes with the former, when our first clinician came in. He looked nice enough. It was whatever. We played a bit and I was about to write Seul back when suddenly the most attractive man over 40 walked into my life. I was like, agok. My mouth dropped open. I couldn't help but stare. His graceful aging was matched only by George Clooney. I was like, holy cow. Holy cow.

However, I was able to get back to my writing Seul and our subjects of prom dresses and such were enough to deter my thoughts of the mystery man. But then, at 8:20ish, he was given the stand. I don't know what came over me. All the sudden my mouth refused to do anything but smile, and my eyes were riveted not to the note Seul was passing me, but to the podium. I think it was his charisma. He was so excited about the music. It most certainly was NOT infatuation as some people *cough Carlos Thomas Joey and Johnny cough* think. That leads me to my next point.

I suppose I looked rather silly, sitting there grinning my head off, but I never expected anyone to notice. People smile all the time. It's perfectly normal, according to me.

According to Carlos, it was not normal. "When Mr. Dubbs was up there you were frowning. But when Mr B. got up there, you were smiling so widely and happily the whole time."

"No I wasn't, Carlos."

"The WHOLE time."

Joey came up to me after rehearsal and was like, "Geez Nicole what's up with you never stopping smiling while Mr. B was conducting? Are you in love with him?"

When we applauded Mr B, which apparently I did too enthusiastically, Mr Dubbs grinned and winked knowingly at me.

And today when Carlos was talking about it in Madrigals, Johnny decided his two cents were worth a dime and I must hear them.

"Carlos, I smile all the time. All the time. I can't help it."

"Yeah but it wasn't that kind of smile. It was that kind of smile."

"This is-"

"Yeah, Nicole. It was pretty crazy."

"Johnny you didn't even see me!" I wanted to say that he was too pre-occupied with Claire, but I bit my tongue.

"Yes I did. And it's true."

So apparently everyone noticed my umm....appreciation of his talents, so Thomas felt it only prudent to tell me the truth. "He's gay."

"WHAT?!?!?!"

"He owned a house on a gay beach. He has a boyfriend. We all (Tim, Thomas, Marissa. They all took/take private lessons from him) know it." Thomas grinned apologetically, as if he was trying to let me down nicely. "But he is 30 years older than you...."

I stamped my foot, said how ridiculous that assumption that I was interested was, and walked away, rather in a huff.

So to set everything straight, I am NOT in love/infatuated with Mr B. I think he is adorably enthusiastic and talented is all. And that he ages nicely. I hope my husband ages that nicely. And yes, I am very sad for all the 40 year old single ladies out there that he is gay. The end.

Fears

So today I was in Mads and we had sectionals and it was just Heather, Holly, Ashley, and Liz because the other girls weren't there. So it was a really good sectional :) But something happened....

I was singing and Liz kept looking at me and saying patiently, "watch the tone girls."

Ok disclaimer: I have the worst tone ever. I'm serious. I just do not have good tone. DK calls me out allll the time about it. He says that the reason for this is because I have a more "pop-y" voice. He says it's not a bad thing, but for certain songs I need to work on it.

So I guess my tone was super bad today because Liz kept saying that. I know she wasn't trying to be mean to me or anything. That's the last thing Liz would do. But it kinda hurt my feelings all the same. I really was trying, but it just didn't work. So then someone suggests that I pretend to be singing opera and I thought, "Oh you really don't want me to do that."

You see, I have an alter-ego. Her name is Ecoli Emishi. Ecoli Emishi came to be when I first began the Nancy Drew Mystery story hour with my Mom. I decided that, as interesting as Nancy, Bess, and George are, constant reading about them can get boring. Enter Ecoli Emishi! Famous opera star and between-chapters entertainment. These days Ecoli hardly ever makes an appearance because she is simply too famous for that, but sometimes she drops by and it is such a treat!

So when I finally got up the courage to take their advice and sing opera, my ears were met with laughter. I was very embarrassed and wished that I hadn't done it, and Heather must've seen that because she quickly said, "Nicole it was good! Just totally unexpected."

And Liz said, "Yeah just tone it down a bit because we're supposed to be mezzo-piano not mezzo-forte." So I toned it down, but the entire rest of the sectional I was worried.

I worried that the other girls thought I sounded stupid, or that they were all saying to themselves, "Nicole never should've made it into Madrigals. She can't even get good tone without having to go all opera." But as I stood there and looked around, I realized that I was not the only one worrying about something.

Holly was singing quietly, quieter than usual. We have similar voices, perhaps she worried her tone was bad, too? Or maybe she was afraid of doing the wrong notes. But everyone makes mistakes, and its not like the mean one in our section was there who would sooner stab herself than give a compliment and rejoices in handing out criticism. So Holly did not need to worry. Plus, we were just learning the music, so it wasn't anything bad if she didn't know it. But still Holly worried.

Liz was really determined for us to learn everything. Perhaps she worried that the sopranos would be better than us? This is a silly notion. The end. But still Liz worried.

Heather was worried that we thought she was being really bossy and mean because she kept having to call our attention back to the music because let's face it, we all like each other and we wanted to socialize. Heather was taking charge because we wanted her to. Heather is very talented and helpful when learning music, and she is nice and willing to allow short moments for chatter and will always go over complicated parts with us. We love having Heather help us. But still Heather worried.

I dunno what Ashley was worried about. Maybe nothing, but I doubt it.

I think we all worry about something at any given time. Maybe its something as simple as will the last yogurt still be there? Will I be late? What did I get on that test? Sometimes its complicated, like with pregnancies and illnesses and college. Whatever the worry is, I'm sure everyone has one.

We worry that everyone is talking about our embarrassing fall, our pimple, our bad grade. But think about it. If everyone is worrying about themselves, no one is worrying about anyone else. So really, you're off the hook. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong, but perhaps we shouldn't worry so much.

Ready? Heck yes.

Ok so I have been thinking a lot about college lately, as you can prolly tell from the multiple posts dedicated to the subject, and at first I was really worried. My first one or two years in a new school is never good for me. It takes me awhile to get into the groove of things, and this is the reason for my hatred of 6th grade and 9th and 10th grade. I just didn't like them.

For the longest time I didn't get why this was such an issue for me, and I feared that my first couple years of college would be marred with the same bad transitioning that was fast becoming my trademark. Then it dawned on me like, three days ago. Pay close attention.

The reason those years sucked was because I wasn't ready for them.

In 5th grade, I had a ton of great friends. I did not want to move on to middle school, and I was absolutely not ready for 6th grade. In 8th grade, I loved my life. I had fabulous friends, a guaranteed leading role in every play, I was absolutely first chair flute, and school was easy. I was absolutely not ready for high school and all the huge changes that came with it. I wasn't ready to lose friends to other schools and other cliques. I wasn't ready to not be the best in band and choir and drama. I wasn't ready to be shoved into classes filled with seniors and sophomores and juniors. I wasn't ready to make almost all new friends. Simply put, I wasn't ready.

The big difference between me then and me now is that I am finally ready. I don't know of another time in my life that I have been more ready for a change. I am so done with high school. I'm having fun, and I love my friends and I will miss them, but I know they feel the same way that I do. It's time for us to move. To discover ourselves. To step outside of our tight circle that we have belonged to all our lives. We are ready. I wanna graduate already!

My attitude is also fueled by my desire to not be anything like a certain person, so I would have to give props to someone who I shall call Pollin Carker. This boy is the very essence of not being ready. He graduated last year, but it is kinda hard to tell because he is always back for something. It's like, dude, you're in college. Stop hanging around high school. I feel like out-of-state schools were made for people like him. If only he would take advantage of them....

Anyway. I am so excited for college, and even though it is 10 months away, time flies when you're having fun, so here comes the time of my life :)

My New Future Take Two

Okayy so my life has taken another twist. It seems that as soon as I have it all planned out someone pulls the carpet out from under me. Alright so last time I talked about my future, I was absolutely certain that I would be attending BYU-Idaho Fall-Winter semester. Well. Apparently not. Apparently I didn't register fast enough, so Winter-Spring semester here I come....in 10 months.

Winter semester starts Tuesday January 5th (although my letter says January 4th) and goes to Saturday, April 10th. I'm guessing that Spring starts almost immediately afterwards, and goes to sometime in July.

At first, I was really upset by this. I felt like it was insult to injury. I mean, I was already not going to the school of my choice, and now I couldn't even get the track of my choice?? I was very mad. I made brownies with Gina and dumped the batter on the letter to teach it a lesson. This anger went on all of Saturday. I slept all day, and then lounged around. Julia invited me to go to a Pep Rally with her, but I didn't feel like it. I also didn't feel like attending Julie's party. I just didn't want to socialize. I wanted to be alone in my messy room. But then I realized that I didn't want the messy room part. So I cleaned it for like two hours. It looks very nice now :) And then I took a shower and socialized a bit with Gwen and Sara. And then I realized that things always look better when they are clean :)

All of this depression was very distressing to my Dad, who scurried around trying to make me feel better. What I really wanted was my phone back and to let my upsettedness out on the pedal, but I didn't even ask. I hate hearing "no." Instead Dad urged me to clean my room, do my homework, and not sleep all the time. He offered multiple times to make me scrambled eggs, his specialty. I kept saying no and just as I was making them for myself awhile later (I didn't want to bother him) he came bounding up the stairs and helpfully completed the task for me, all the while telling me things like, "this could be the best thing to ever happen to you." "would you like cheese with this?" and "with all the money you earn in those ten months you could buy a car at the end of college!"

It was very nice of him, and I think he feels immensely bad for me and my situation, but he's determined for it to get better. So, thanks Dad!

My mom is very excited for me to be staying another 10 months instead of the 5 we had thought. She was also excited when I told her about the list I am gonna make of things that I WILL complete before I head off to college and gave me some ideas. I am gonna make the actual list tonight, and I am very excited about it.

Filibusters

I think filibusters are the most hilarious, genius things on earth. When I first heard the term in 10th grade government class, I was like, ohmigosh this is so funny. If you don't like what's going down at the Senate (and you are a Senator), all you have to do is talk so long and on such boring subjects that you wear everyone down till they get to the "ok! fine! you win, take whatever you want," mode.

I bet that most senators groan when they hear the term "filibuster", but if I were a senator, I would love filibuster days. I would come into work fully equipped with a pillow, a blanket, an inflatable mattress, Merci, a tissue box, orange juice, several Nancy Drew mysteries, a laptop, and an iPod. I'm not sure if all that stuff is allowed, but trust me, I would be one happy camper on filibuster days. I mean, really. They are being paid to just sit there. Unless they are the one doing the filibusting.

If I was doing the filibusting I would pack orange juice, Merci, cough drops, lots of water, encouraging notes from my family and friends to keep me going, and my supplies....hehehe. I would get so much sleep beforehand it would be crazy. I would also go on vocal rest, in order to spare my poor throat as much pain as possible.

If I was filibusting I think I would first read my blog aloud. Then several Nancy Drew mysteries and then I would prolly sing a bit. I don't think I would run out of Nancy Drew mysteries before they caved, but in case I did I would have the entire Clique series ready. The reason I picked this obnoxious series is precisely for that reason. They are obnoxious. Come on, they're about a bunch of rich 7th graders and all the drama they go through. All the men in the Senate would rather eat a live snail than hear Massie drone on and on about how Alicia is trying to up her beta status and take over her position as alpha. Not to mention all the boy drama and shopping trips that occur. Mhmmmhmm. I would have such a great time filibusting. I think I would also crack open Covergirl and Seventeen. At one point I would most def read some Spanish tabloids. I would also read each senator his horoscope. I might even toss in an old Western tale.

Yepper doodle the more I think about it the more I want to become a senator for the sole purpose of one day filibusting my heart out.