Ah, willow trees.

Subtle growth. Restraint. Secret to happiness. Craig and Ra. Engaged.

Willow Trees?

Ah, Yes, Willow Trees!!!

thesinger

Concordia Choir is coming to town!!!!

Well, the nearby town of Wichita, KS, that is. Oh, and a good friend called me up with lots of juicy tidbits about the program. (He had attended a concert on this same tour somewhere in the “east.”) Oh, I am getting SO pumped!!!! And oh, so, JUMPY!!!! wow, I might not be able to get as much school done tomorrow as would be good just because I’m so, entirely, well, so entirely taken up with this idea. And, oh, SO EXCITED!

In other news, Messiah drags on. Neal continues to abuse the sopranos and they continue to give him only a small portion of their abilities. I am completely confident that there is a correlation between those two facts.

Chorus is moving along at a nice easy pace. Shane is doing well, even if directing isn’t his first love. Note accuracy will come much faster for the tenors this year because they are far more confident than last year. My goal for the tenors is to lead them to sing with precision and agility. They are progressing well.

As of yet, I enjoy the process of writing much more than “speechifying”. I am a lover of precision in my studies and feel that my meager abilities as a speech-maker don’t lend themselves well to precision. For myself, speechifying feels as though a farmer were attempting brain surgery on some poor victim, ending with a bloody mess of “brain” on the floor; a painful metaphor, I know, but very illustrative. Not enough precision, not enough precision. . .

Um. um. what should I say next? Oh, that was close. I’m actually not standing in front of people wondering what to say. . . It’s as though, um, I have stress with um, placing my thoughts, um, in a logical, well, how would you say it? Order? And then, um, really wondering just, like, how it’s going to, um, come out. . . Yes, I’m, um, in speech class right now. And um, I really think I should quit using um, “um”, quite so um, much. I, like, um, really struggle with filler words, like, um, well, like, um.

thesinger

Random Picture for the day.

This is a cute little first and a half cousin of mine, Elijah.

thesinger

ICanHasCheesburger does it again.

HAHAHAHA LOL ROFL etc., etc.

I love it.

thesinger

GET TO WORK JOHN!!!!!!!

yeah, I’ll say. Pain.

Another coffee party!!!

The location was different, but the people were same. Matt, Jacob, Ryan, Kevin, and myself were the lucky participants. The location was Kevin’s house. It seemed to be the logical place to have the party, since Kevin recently bought a espresso machine.

I had a cup of straight espresso, a cup of real cappuccino (it was, of course, made with a shot of espresso and a shot of steamed milk) and another cup of regular drip brew. I am highly caffeinated right now, if anybody is wondering.

Matt and Jacob left the party, so Kev, Ryan, and myself are sitting downstairs, either surfing randomly, or posting, or working on a mysterious website that has not been revealed to the public yet. Yes, we are all on separate laptops. Yes, it is a good male bonding experience.

Oh, and getting slightly high on caffeine together is also a very good male bonding experience. Oh, we made some wild/exciting plans for Tuesday lunch at school where we plan to be very cliquish. “But who cares?!” Says Ryan from behind his laptop. I would tend to agree. 🙂

On discussing internet connection speeds, Ryan said, “It doesn’t matter how fast your internet is, it is still not fast enough.”

I think I shall do something else now. Peace out!!!

thesinger

Random rhyming ditty.

What a cad
was the dad
when he saw
the sad lad
and forbad him
a tad
of a plaid scratch pad.
The sad lad became very mad, bad, and a tad rad and decided to become a glad nomad.

This is a random ditty that I wrote on a recent boring school day. It had no significance when I wrote it and none should be attached to it in any way. 🙂

thesinger

THIS IS A PIG

And this is a Cow. Yeah, today I attended our biannual Midwinter Teacher’s Gathering. The game we played for recess was called “This is a Pig.” Very intellectually stimulating as well as challenging. 🙂 (weeelll, maybe)

What else should I say. Maybe I should say that I came away from the day with a feeling of ALERT ALERT ALERT!!!!!! INFORMATION OVERLOAD!!!!!!!!!!! I think you understand the kind of shock I was in.

The parents are gone for the weekend. They left for Perkins, OK this afternoon and will be gone through tomorrow evening. Dad was assigned to preach there, so he is. Funny how that works.

I got home from some semi-aggressive volleyball. It wasn’t all peaceful, or all nice, neat, and orderly, but it was ok. I think I show a very different side of myself and my emotions when I play volleyball than when I am just “hanging out” with the homies. I think the hyper/screamingish side of me is brought forth in all it’s “glory” and sometimes I overdo it. Pain. I am, however, a big fan of lots of enthusiasm during games and feel that properly channeled, the enthusiasm is very “catching”. For instance, tonight, I was playing on an average team. We were playing against a fairly strong team. They called “game point,” but very few (if any) people on our team heard it. The play was contested, and they did a redo on the game point. The score at that point was 5-11. (We were playing games to 11 since we had a lot of people and only one net.) My team was then able to not allow them to score on their game point. We also kept them from making any more points. So, we managed to make a point here, and a point there. (All the while, of course, I was expressing myself and my somewhat ecstatic emotions very freely.) So, the time comes when we tie with them at 10s. We made another point. I was serving at this time, and called out that we had game point. Then, we scored again!!!! And the game was ours!!!!! I very nearly lost it at this point due to my excited jumping, my aggressive hand slapping, and my violent shouting. It was VICTORY over a team that was clearly our superior.

We played the winners of the next game. Peat and Repeat went up the hill. Peat fell down and who was left. Repeat. Correct. So, at the point when they had way more points, and we had not so many points, we made another violent comeback and won that game too. Trust me, there was plenty of emotion going around. I was PUMPED. With the same five man team, we pulled out of another bad point-slump to win the second game. Yes, I got VERY EXCITED! More so than average. (understatement of the day)

I must run. I think I have aptly conveyed to you the amount of excitement I feel when I play a good game of volleyball. 🙂

thesinger

ps. Most of the information here about my emotions are forms of mild understatement.

Quote of the day.

Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.
Robert Orben