So what some of you may have noticed recently is that I have been doing very little work. Yes, that’s right—I’m slacking off. It’s mostly because I’m burning out—I have been doing too much this year. IB is kicking my butt, I’ve gotten very little work done on my Extended Essay beyond my first draft—but that’s farther than a lot of people, oddly enough. I’ve also got the IB science thing which is due March 10th, and the historiography due on March 3rd. Not to mention all the tests in May, in addition to the SATs on either side of may (April/June) and the AP exams and Enloe’s exams. May’s going to be nuts.

But anyways, my weekends are busy, and I’ve got to start on organizing my Eagle project if I have any hopes of completing my Eagle requirements before marching band next year. Lots of stuff has been happening recently. Though life is looking up in general, it’s just school that’s weighing me down. Maybe it’s just winter that depresses me, but since the hard of winter is almost over, I seem to be less depressed, if I was truly “depressed” in the first place.

*shrug*

Not that it matters at all. Pit’s going to be, umm… hard. I can’t play jazzy stuff, but I’ve got to learn now… =)

That’s it for now, folks. Talk to you later!

If it seems that I’ve been absent from AIM recently, you’re right. I’ve been in the process of upgrading my Linux system to Gentoo, but I did something moronic and borked the filesystem I was installing it to, so I’m having to do it all over again. And since no pre-compiled packages exist for my architecture (athlon-tbird, short for Athlon Thunderbird™), I have to compile everything from scratch, which takes multiple hours.

Okay, so that’s all I have to say for now. The ice has been interesting, and these missed days will bite us in the butt later on this year. I’ve managed to get absolutely nothing done today…

Peace out everyone—until later…

So with nothing better today, I ended up at my troop’s church, where I helped paint the room our troop uses because the church asked us to do so. And getting out and doing something seems to cured me of the depression that ailed me last night (see my last post).

I could go back and remove that article, but it would detract from the “color” of this site—it’s supposed to represent me, right? Well, what better to have than the contrast of “depressed me” and “normal me”?

So I didn’t get much done today, past the aforementioned painting, but it was a good thing to do. I wonder what’s going to happen with the weather… I’m out for now—ciao!

Update

So, on the rhetorical question side of things: Why does the N&O hate Enloe so much? Why are we the only school that gets picked on for racism? I hate the N&O for it; they make us look so bad…

I finally finished my rant entitled “2002–2003: The only constant is change.” But I needed to say most of that stuff, and if you would please listen, I’d appreciate not getting any flak for whatever I said.

Anyways, today was just like any other day for me, in case anyone was wondering. Not much going on here tonight. Brother’s at a friend’s house, and my parents are at some sort of neighborhood function (I forget what they’re calling this one). So I’m by myself. But that goes without saying—I always seem to be alone. Alone in a crowd…

If anything else crops up, I’ll update. But knowing my life, the chances of that are very slim.

One of the most accurate phrases I have ever heard is “the only constant is change.” Once in a while, I get to thinking about my past and all the changes that it has brought. This “Rant,” as it is best labelled due to the potential length, is about the significant change I have seen in the past year.

The reason I have decided to create this rant is because I think that the past year has changed me more than any other year I can remember. So many things have happened; some I enjoy recalling, but others I don’t. Alas, history doesn’t change, so I will try and recall both the good and the bad from the past year and post it here. The bad memories will probably sound depressing, and sometimes there seems to be more of those. I will try to balance the bad memories with good ones, but I cannot say that there are an equal number—I do believe I’ve had many less-than-desirable things happen this year, and I’ll try to recount them.

This is an outlet for me to vent in, so don’t think that I’m severly depressed. And without further ado, let the stories begin…

May 23, 2002

I finally got my license. I now have gained the ability to move about the city by myself… within reason, that is! Insurance woes set aside, as all teenagers get charged outrageous prices, my life had piqued—I could hardly be happier. I got to drive to my World Civ exam because I had to bring in my memorial project, which was two things: very fragile and very &helip; bad. But the World Civ exam was Wednesday of the following week. Ahh, the memories. I will forever miss C&C.

June 24, 2002

The insurance company said that most teenagers would be involved in an accident of some sort within the first 30 days of being on the road by themselves. I had finally defied that statistic—my 30 day period was up and I was glad to have defied the insurance company—in a good way, that is.

June 26, 2002

After having helped removing the ghetto from the ghetto lab, I had noticed a nagging problem with the speakers in the van. The front-left speaker (right in front of the driver) had a severe volume issue. I tried moving it around to the other side, but the problem persisted - indicating that the problem was within the speaker, not the wiring (which is good, since wiring is hard/impossible to fix). So I drove down to a junkyard in Benson, NC (about an hour’s drive) to get a replacement speaker from there.

This was the farthest from home I’ve gone by myself, and still is to the best of my recollection. I scored big, running across another 1993 Town and Country, with the upgraded sound system. I pulled both speakers out (hey, backups never hurt) and bought them for $10 each i believe, totalling $20—a good deal for speakers (Chrysler wanted ~90 each for new ones). I had finally fixed the last problem to plague the van.

June 28, 2002

Having talked to my parents, we relaized there was one thing left to fix. A broken fog lamp on the front left corner of the van. I was departing for Philmont at about 5:30 AM the next morning, so I needed to go out and get the replacement now, because if I procrastinate, I forget. So around noon I headed out to Benson, NC to pilfer the fog lamp. Success—25 bucks, which is still chepaer than Chrysler. Score! The van was now in perfect condition, as far as I could tell…

Alas, all good things must come to an end. The severe irony in my predicament was that I had just finished fixing the van. $45 dollars total. Unfortunately, at 3:13 PM on June 28, 2002 I had to make two of the hardest phone calls of my entire life. The first to 911. The second to my mother. I was the tragic victim of a hothead in an SUV. Trying to run a red light for which I had stopped. I was moving at about 0 MPH and he was going 40+ MPH. Took off the entire back end of the minivan.

I hadn’t done anything wrong, had I? I never cut people off! What makes you say that I did? The skid marks show that I wasn’t the one making a lane change! Damnit, I’m getting on a plane for Philmont in New Mexico tomorrow morning! This can’t be happening! This must be a dream of the worst sort! Holy shit, the car’s totaled—there’s no way on earth that it couldn’t be! I would have cried if I could but shock had set in…

I was shell shocked the entire evening. I wrote a touching letter at 1 AM, because I couldn’t sleep that night… but I had to leave in the morning. By some grace of God and His mercy I was able to walk away from the accident, which was by far the worst anyone in our family has ever seen… WHY ME?! The only fear we had was me developing back problems, as the upcoming trip was for hiking, which required me to carry a heavy backpack all day.

The events of the afternoon of June 28, 2002 will forever remain emblazoned in my memory. There is nothing that can make me forget, and hardly anything that will cause me to forgive the offender. He caused me unspeakable emotional pain, and these events still bring me to the verge of tears whenever I remind myself of them. If forgiveness is indeed divine, then from this day on I will remain the basest man that has ever lived. I cannot forgive this transgression.

However, this was only the beginning…

June 29, 2002 – July 14, 2002

One word: Philmont. We toured out west for 3 days prior to arriving at Philmont. During these few days I truly dumped upon some of my best friends, with whom I was able to confide all the details and emotions—the entire tailspin that the accident had sent me in to. During these few days, the aforementioned back pain did set in—that is how hard I was hit. The mere acceleration involved injured me. Luckily enough, the back pain wore away before we hit the trail, but when it set in, I was so stiff that I could not sit up without using my hands. That is how I “tested” it, so to speak.

My parents had asked our crew adults to look out for me in case I had any injury issues. I did not, however, have any problems. In fact, there were some days where I hauled MUCH more than my fair share of equipment. Ironic in a sense, eh?

The accident memories and doubts set aside, this was the best trip of my life. I would do it again in a heartbeat, and actually hope to in the summer of 2004. Some of the photographs are breathtaking, in my opinion. This was the last important event of the summer, as I see it.

Amazing how something so magnificent can follow on the heels of something so tragic, yet that is how life plays out…

Marching Band: Fall 2002

Ahh marching band, yet again. I live for this. I look forward to it every year. Some new people joined this year (juniors and seniors, which is somewhat unheard of). However, we suffered from a severe dedication and leadership deficiency. The program was never able to recover from a few idiotic decisions made early on. With any luck the program will bounce back next year, and with more luck, we’ll re-adopt the tradition of having classical shows.

However bad the program is next year, I wouldn’t give it up for my life. I am that dedicated to it. As much as I may hate the work, I enjoy the games and contests—being able to be around friends for hours on end, and performing music—which is something that I have always enjoyed.

Some Sunday in October

I have forgotten the date, as it is immaterial. However, whichever Sunday it was marked one of the biggest turning points in my entire life, to be quite honest. Up until this point, I had never admitted to “liking” anyone, as I had always been aware of the hot water in to which such ties could land oneself. But this night—very late, as I recall—I revealed that to someone for the first time. Although, to be completely honest it was no doing of my own, since this person happened to ask me who I liked, and I never directly answered that question. I made statements that made such feelings apparent, but being “brutally honest” has never been my forte.

I won’t say who it was, in order to save myself from catching more flak now. It is indeed an element of the past and I have gotten over it, having seen the futility in such pursuits. I did indeed get emotionally burned by that admission—rejection hurts sometimes, but I hold nothing against anyone involved—nobody’s opinions should be held against them. Those of you involved know what I’m talking about, but everyone else is clueless and should probably remain that way, for the benefit of everyone involved.

But the positive side to this is the changes that I have undergone. I have tried to become more outgoing, and if not that, at least more animated. I have a severe problem with being subdued, logical, and critical, and I don’t believe that I’ll ever completely shake that tendency. Maybe it has permanently damaged my reputation, but that is something that only time will answer.

I did, through painful reality, realize the hole within myself that I’ve been ignoring for 16 years—brushing it off as something that only “popular kids” do. I have seen it around me, and have realized the folly in my previous thoughts. I try to deny that it affects me but I am lying in the worst way—I am lying to myself.

Alas, life goes on, and I have spent way too much time talking about something that I sometimes wish I could completely erase from my past, forever saving that memory in writing… Yet sometimes the worst memories are the best ones to keep—as to not make the same mistakes again…

Christmas 2002

This marks the first Christmas for which I have actually recieved nothing. I mean, everyone sent money as a “consolation prize,” more or less. But I didn’t ask for anything. As I have tried to become less materialistic than I have previously been, and the things which I truly wanted, nobody could give. I felt bad for not asking for anything, in some ways, but I have seen too many presents linger in my closet for many years, only to be thrown out when I clean it out later. I have a severe case of pragmatism…

January 11, 2003

All-District auditions were on this day. For the first time in 3 years, I actually practiced the required parts far enough in advance. I worked diligently. And with diligence, apparently, comes reward—for the first time in 3 years, I actually succeeded in making All-District. My enthusiasm seemed to have no bound. I was very much looking forward to the clinic. Alas, by some twist of fate, the clinic was snowed out and nobody got to go. I was in the symphonic band, where as most of my friends made the 11/12 wind ensemble, so I was displeased about that, but I still came out 4th of 24. Yes, that’s only about 83-percentile, but I don’t really care. I just made it for once.

My band life finally started to look brighter for once…

February 7, 2003 – February 9, 2003

The All-Carolina band clinic was this weekend. This is the second clinic to which I was accepted. We had an absolute BLAST. Hours of playing, hours of roaming Franklin Street, and WRESTLING MATCHES IN THE HOTEL ROOMS! Okay, so I had nothing to do with the last one, past the fact that it happened in our room. But I had an incredible amount of fun. I fudged during the performance a little bit, so I regret that. But otherwise, it was a blast. I am indeed looking forward to getting the CD. The music was great.

Band RULES!

The night of February 8, 2003

We got back to our hotel room, and I happened to take out my phone to call my parents. But before I did that, I got a text message. It read:

State Farm BEATS Amica - YeeHa!

The letter was sent on January 30, 2003. So after about 7 months (almost to the day), the insurance battle finally came to an end… I had won. A wave of relief spilled over me—so much was hanging on that battle. If I had been found at fault, I would have been two things: unfairly convicted and permanently guilty for bringing such a tragedy upon the family.

But it was not so, and that short line made my evening so much happier. And I felt somewhat vindicated, but there is still nothing which can forgive the man that hit me. There is no way to repair the emotional damages of the past, which are the largest problem caused by an accident. I know that seems materialistic, but I had a true emotional attachment to that car—we took family trips with it, and it was also the car which I learned to drive in, and planned on keeping for a very long time. I had invested elbow grease—even on the day of the accident—into maintaining that vehicle, only to have one klutz come along and ruin it all, only because he was trying to save one minute in getting to a doctors appointment. He didn’t save that one minute, missed his appointment, and touched a life that wasn’t his to touch… For that, I can find no forgiveness within me…

The end

And that, my friends, is all that I can think of at the moment. If I think of anything else, I’ll post it here, but as for 2002–2003, I think this is the best listing of pivotal events. These may provide a small insight into the reasons I am the person that I am, in addition to providing me somewhere to vent (heh).

That’s all for now!

All rightey folks, I decided to put my version of this weekend here. First I’d like to mention something Kevin said on Friday. I can’t remember what it is, but he said something like “can I be on your site?” Of course, the first thing I said was “no.” So of course, I decided to put it here anyway. Just to see what happens.

Okay, so I’ll just try and run through the weekend chronologically. Even though at times, there seems to be very little logic to anything that happened…

Getting to UNC

So Friday we left for UNC. But there were so many of us, though most took the bus, six of us were left to cram in another car—namely, in Kevin’s van. He drove the van into the drop-off circle at Enloe. It wasn’t as scary as I had thought, but it was only a short distance. Kevin’s mom did the driving from Enloe to UNC. The people in the car were (in no particular order): Kevin, Pete, Laura, Robert, Will, and (of course) me.

I actually sort of forced myself on them because I wasn’t riding with them originally, but since nearly everyone I was close friends with was in there, I went with them anyway. I volunteered to cram in the back, because I was “the extra person,” more or less. The drive there was interesting.

We listened to various songs on the way, from Will’s iPod, of course. Most of the talking was actually singing along, so I was rather left out, as I don’t really know the words to “popular” songs. I was offered a cookie but declined, which was rather rude in hindsight, but I’d never really stopped to think about that before. Robert untied my shoe for me, but that’s because I was harassing him with my foot from the back seat.

Friday night

So we got there, of course, and then waited to get registered. It was 4 o’clock by the time we even got in line. Both Jacob Medlin and Becca Gurgainous (spelling?) were working at the registration table, so it was nice to meet other Enloe people again. I was instructed (after getting my audition time) to go warm up and just go up when I was ready. So it was actually around 4:30 before I went to the audition. Not that there was actually a point to auditioning, I was the only alto clarinetist there… I probably should have been in the lower band, but they couldn’t change that.

When I came back from my audition, Laura decided to ask me: “Oh, did you go?” And I, being my witty and sarcastic self, said something to the effect of: “No, I just walked around with my instrument and music for the heck of it. Of course I auditioned!” I can’t remember my exact words but that was the general effect. Since I had time left, I hung around in the band room and practiced Enloe music, as I had nothing better to do. After that, around 5, I packed up and headed to the rotunda with most of the other Enloe people. So finally at about 5:15 we were able to head out and get dinner (as you’ll see, it usually took us about 10 minutes to motivate people to go anywhere).

We ate dinner at Peppers Pizza, which was interesting. Not so much the meal, but two things: We got randomly visited by Laura and Pete, and we had to spend about 10 minutes trying to split the check amongst ourselves. We finally got that sorted out, paid, and went back to rehearsal.

Rehearsal ran until 10. We got to meet the conductor and run though our pieces. It was rough to begin with. We then proceeded to rehearse some of the music, and there was only about one anecdotal occurance that I can recall. Laura missed her entrance in RAYMOND Overture (as capitalized on the music) by one measure (because I played a B at the same time, and noticed the absence of noise from behind me). So the conductor stopped us and then it came up that she was staring at the light and not paying attention. So we got a spiel about that, and then she (reportedly) proceeded to draw a light bulb on her folder. I never actually saw it, so this is only what I’ve been told. It was quite funny, indeed.

So then we went to our hotel, got in our rooms, and got ready for bed. Emphasis on the getting ready half, as we stayed up watching Lethal Weapon 4 until about 1AM at which point we decided that we needed to get to sleep. And that was about how our night ended. Whew.

Saturday morning

We set the alarm for seven o’clock, and it went off at the right time. But it was, to say the least, extremely obnoxious and about 3 of us smacked it to try and shut it up. I think I was actually the one that got it to turn off. Conrad got a shower, while I packed up my sleeping bag, sleeping pad and camping pillow (hey, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it). Did I mention I slept on the floor? (There were, after all, 5 of us in one room).

Anyways, I let everyone else use the restroom before I got in the shower. So then I got my shower and such (this includes shaving, etc…) and got dressed. But when I came out, everyone was gone! I was like “thanks for waiting for me.” I got down to breakfast when the four of them were done, so I had to eat seperately too. That sucked.

Once we all got our instruments and/or coats, we piled on to the bus and left for Hill Hall. The van people left later on, because of a few stragglers who will remain nameless. And now, on to the morning rehearsal…

Saturday morning rehearsal

There wan’t really anything unusual about this rehearsal, except for two things. For one, Will Bromby (henceforth called Bromby to avoid confusion with my friend Will) slept through just about the entire rehearsal. Not in the ensemble, but in the auditorium seats! Apparently he “wasn’t feeling well,” but I’ll leave the causes for you to surmise (as we have no idea what the true causes were).

The other unusual thing regarded me. The first (and I believe only thing) that the conductor said to me was something along the lines of: “Your instrument is obsolete. It’s nice to have an alto clarinet, but nobody scores for it anymore - even though it was used a lot in older compositions.” So that was very interesting. We rehearsed until 11:15 at which point we broke for the master classes and lunch. On to that part of the day!

Master classes and lunch

So after we broke from rehearsal, each section went to a room in Hill Hall (except flutes, I believe they went to another building) for their master class. I cannot comment on other master classes because, well, I wasn’t there! But there were several interesting aspects to ours.

The first person to play was Robert, and we got a lecture from Dr. Oehler about how you need to sound as if you have the music memorized (as if the stand weren’t in front of you). He had Robert play the same passage from his piece several times. The next person was someone I don’t know, who played a Mozart piece, and I cannot recall the title. We got a lesson on positioning the reed on the mouthpiece. Slightly interesting, but it quickly became boring. Finally, the first chair clarinet went, but I don’t think she should have been first chair. Yes I may be partial to Robert, but HER PIANISSIMO SOUNDED LIKE SOMEONE YELLING OUT LOUD. It wasn’t quite that bad, but she was obnoxiously loud at times.

We also found out why Bromby slept through the morning rehearsal: “I wasn’t feeling well.” Right. The causes are still subject to speculation.

We ended up at Miami Subs for lunch, which was rather uneventful. We had from 12:30–1:40ish to eat, so we finished eating and hung around for a while. At this point, Sara wasn’t doing too well, and there were doubts as to whether or not she’d be able to make it through the weekend. But we went back to Hill Hall and prepared for our third round of rehearsal.

Saturday afternoon rehearsal

There’s honestly not much to say here, as I cannot recall much from this particular rehearsal, though I’m sure something funny happend. Wickes was always telling funny stories and playing around with us. So we got through another 3-hour session of straight playing with nothing eventful that I can recall. I finally started getting better at some of my parts, but the outcome of that is still to be told.

At 5 o’clock we were released for the day, but asked to return and attend the UNC Wind Symphony’s concert at 8 PM. So we had 3 hours to kill…

Dinner and a concert

So nobody could agree on what to do for dinner. One group of people went back to Banditos to get their pictures taken, or something like that. I wasn’t with them, so I can’t tell. My group (which was just about the other half of the Enloe people) wound up at Ben & Jerry’s. No, it wasn’t exactly dinner, but it was somewhere to sit inside. I got some ice cream because I hate just taking advantage of a restaraunt’s seating without getting anything.

Then we got bored with that, and walked on over to Jersey Mike’s, partly because they had more seating than Ben and Jerry’s. Several people got subs or soup to eat, but I wasn’t hungry so I opted out. We sat there until about 7 o’clock. Sometime around 6 or so, Anna, Michael, Emily and someone else (I forget who…) showed up. I think Robert tipped them off, but it was nice seeing some other Enloe people for the night.

And around 7 we wandered over to Starbucks and most of us got a drink. I got a hot chocolate to hold me over for the night. We waited around there until about 7:20, at which point we all started meandering back towards Hill Hall.

We walked around campus for a bit before going back inside, and I saw some people walking down Franklin street. There were 4-5 of them, and I wondered if it might have been the second Enloe group. I made a comment about seeing people behind a tree, because I could no longer see them, and I thought they’d disappeared behind a tree we were passing. Alas, somebody took it the wrong way and people started talking about how it would be “awfully cold to be doing that sort of thing.”

Anyway, we got back to Hill Hall and hung around. We talked to several Enloe people who are now at UNC, such as Jacob Medlin, Andrew Roe and Neal Oatsvall. I may have spelled Neal’s name wrong, and I apologize if I did. The Wind Symphony was absolutely incredible. Wickes actually conducted them on the March from Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphisis, which we are attempting to play in Wind Ensemble. Now we have a standard to live up to :-/

And then we went back to the hotel after the concert, which probably is the longest part of the story to tell.

Saturday night hotel fun

Well this was the best part of the trip, in my opinion. We arrived sometime around 9:30 and, of course, had nothing to do. So my roommates and I headed to our room, along with everyone else in the band. We started getting ready for bed, insofar as some of us got showers and changed for the night. The usual, right?

Wrong! Not on band trips! We were watching TV by ourselves for quite a while until someone came rapping at the door. So I went to go see who it was. I looked through the hole in the door and proceeded to open it—Steven Peckous was standing there. So I let him come in, and he was bragging to Conrad about how he’d maxed out all of the exercise equipment down in that room. We had been in there Friday night, but we were just playing around—it wasn’t really anything serious, as far as I knew.

Thinking that nobody else could possibly want to knock on our door, I closed it again. But probably less than two minutes later someone else knocked on the door. I figured it was Steven again, so I went ahead and opened the door—except it wasn’t Steven! It was Laura, coming to wrestle Conrad. So of course I just kind of stood back and did nothing.

There were many wrestling match-ups. I’ll try to list the ones I remember seeing: Laura vs. Conrad, Conrad vs. Steven, Pete vs. Steven, and maybe Pete vs. Conrad. Not to forget the worst one: Laura vs. Jeremy. I think that was the only time Jeremy participated—I can’t remember. But she got hurt and it kind of ended there, if I recall correctly. On my last band trip we had a pillow fight in our room, and it had a negative outcome, but I won’t go in to that…

So I went out and got change so I could get a coke from the drink machine. I got my coke, came back to the room, and then got ready for bed (I was about the only one who hadn’t at this point in time). We were sitting there listening to music and/or watching some TV show about “deadly swarms.”

Alas, I was lying there in my sleeping bag waiting for the show to end and lights to get turned off, since “taps” was at midnight for us. Alas, the door was still ajar and Laura came in looking for cough drops, of all things. Apparently several people weren’t feeling well in other rooms, though Robert was the only one in our room (I think).

And then once our door was shut for the night, as mandated by chaperones and such, we continued having a discussion about the nature of people and stuff like “why would anyone do drugs” and stuff like that. That specific topic is tied to certain people, but they’ll remain nameless for obvious reasons. And that was about the end of our night, only for it all to begin again Sunday morning!

Post-mortem

It’s now been over three years since this took place, and it seems I forgot to talk about the occurrences of the morning rehearsal and concert. I can’t remember what exactly took place, but I will say that the concert was excellent. The recording reveals that, though it has some slight stereo separation and delay issues, which to this date I have not edited out.

And that’s all for this band clinic, which was one of the more joyful memories from high school. Ah, the good old days.

Well, tonight’s the last time I have the ability to post before this weekend. So I’ll say everything I have to say about the All-Carolina clinic this weekend. I’m glad that I’m getting to go, as this partially makes up for All-District’s cancellation. In addition to that, it’s a longer clinic than All-District, so maybe we’ll be better. Furthermore, we get to spend two nights in a hotel with 20 other band geeks from Enloe, and that absolutely rules!

On the other hand, I’m on Alto Clarinet, so hopefully the parts won’t be too boring (or too difficult for that matter). But I’m glad to be in the higher band (with most of the other people from Enloe, I believe…). I’m getting music ready to go at the moment, so I’ll be turning in for the night shortly.

That’s all for now. I’ll probably update after the clinic to let everyone know how it went.

So I went to the Jimmy Buffet concert tonight at the ESA (or RBC Center, whichever you prefer). I like the concert, but that’s a given; if I didn’t like Buffett, I wouldn’t have gone! Anyways, I’m still trying to study for the superpop tomorrow, but I’m not able to do so. Anyone else who was at the concert let me know, because that’s just cool. I’m out, and I’ll probably end up in bed shortly, as I’m failing to study.

Oh, and by the way, the new alto clarinet came today. It’s much nicer than the school’s, although the sound leaves something to be desired. Oh well, I’ll probably take this one to All-Carolina.

Good night, everyone!