distant phrases

Mmmmkay. Here's all the icons I've made in the last couple weeks...some of them are lame and some of them I like. I've just used the coloring and cropping functions of iPhoto, because Gimp pissed me off. And although it's 122 icons, it's from only 42 screencaps, because I could never decide on which versions I liked best enough to eliminate others.

( Mostly Cameron, some House - s1 )

...So I haven't really updated for over a week, have I? Might as well.

Last week basically flew; I was just dreading playing Mendelssohn in front of school on Friday. That kinda...didn't go so well. It started and ended fine but my fingers forgot what they were doing at one point and I dropped a few lines, leaving a big gaping hole. I guess said hole didn't seem as big and gaping to some other people as it did to me, but once I finished and reality sank in, I was pretty upset. Dr. B. was no help whatsoever - I think he was sad that I was disappointed with myself, because when he saw me backstage afterwards he almost started crying too. It was all very odd and unreal. The worst part was everyone in the halls saying "Good job, Mary Helen!!" and all I could do was try and smile and thank them; there's no going, "NO, that SUCKED" to strangers.

Anyway, I called Carrie at lunch and she said I could come over after school, which of course mended the day for me. My freshmen also helped - Hannah burst into the orchestra room 5th hour and declared, "MARY HELEN!! YOU'RE MY HERO!!" I had to smile at that. :) When Dr. B. had me come up to the podium to conduct, they all burst out clapping and cheering and calling out things like, "That was so cool!" and "How did she do that?!" A few of the girls even came up to give me hugs. Have I ever mentioned that I love my freshmen?

Friday night I went to Kalamazoo to play with the choir for this honors thing at the Michigan Youth Arts Festival, then went from there to Ann Arbor to spend the weekend with Katie. (No thanks to my parents; they drove all the way out to Kalamazoo after me, having changed their minds about letting me go, only to change their minds again - thankfully and let me after all.)

Saturday Katie and I went out to eat and hung out mainly in bookstores in Ann Arbor. It was fun, and relaxing. :) We did have one very freakish parking incident, though, in a parking garage; I somehow ended up "kissing" the van next to me (Katie's word) and unable to move more than like a centimeter backwards or forwards without scraping it. Some really nice people came and directed me for like the 10, 15 minutes it took to go back and forth enough times to correct it; without them, I honestly don't know what I would've done.... The other factor was that I was almost out of gas. It was freaky. I've learned to be very careful now when parking.

Saturday night we made cookies and watched Crash. Amazing movie. And that's all I'm going to say about it because...any attempt at actually discussing it would be inadequate. Anyway, the weekend was lovely, even though unfortunately (:-p)Sunday was Mothers' Day so I had to go home really early.

Yesterday was the spring GRCHS orchestra concert. Four hours of dress rehearsals during the school day, an hour and a half of dress rehearsal at night, and then a 2+ hour concert gave me a total of 8 hours on that stage in one day. It was madness. The concert included my freshmen, the sophomores, and my orchestra (symphony strings), but I only got like 3 minutes off stage the entire time because I played with and conducted my freshmen and the sophomores only played one piece by themselves. My quartet even played during the offering. It was freaking hectic. At one point my orchestra was supposed to join the other two onstage and nobody was coming so I ran backstage and screamed, "SYMPHONY STRINGS!! WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE ON - THREE MINUTES AGO!!" I felt like such a spastic jerk, but Naomi said it was appropriate in the circumstance, so...buh.

Also? There were TV cameras all over the place; the entire concert's gonna be broadcasted on the Arts channel. Including the part where I conduct. I'm going to be conducting on TV. *dies* I'm proud of my freshmen, though, and Dr. B. gave a really flattering bit of a speech about me before I conducted and presented me with a new baton, which is really cool and was sweet of him. Really, I guess last night I was in my element - it just all happened really really fast and crammed together.

I've uploaded a short clip of my freshmen playing and me conducting, and a short clip of my quartet (Naomi, me, Drew, and Kate playing a 2vln-2vla movement of Vaughn Williams). :) It's pretty bad quality recording, since it was done with a regular digital camera on the movie setting, and thus things don't really look like they're happening together. But don't worry, they are. You'll have to turn your speakers up if you want to hear the quartet bit.

( Video clips and pictures )

Today was nice - because of the orchestra concert, we had study halls in all 3 orchestra classes. Scoooore. In second hour symphony strings we watched The Dead Poets' Society, in fifth hour concert orchestra we watched Pirates of the Caribbean, and in seventh hour full orchestra we watched Alex. Or, well, I watched Alex. (Hehehe. Gracie, shut up. I also got my pre-calc done, thankyouverymuch.)

AND!! I got 104% on my pre-calc test!! My grade is saved from the dismal dark abyss of yucky C pluses and pesky B minuses!! I don't think I've ever been so thrilled with a grade before. So today was a very good day. :)

Yaaaaaay! Talking to Carrie makes me all happy. Without fail.

AND she figured out how to send me pictures from when I spent the night at her house over Christmas. And told me to post them here. ...And I do what she tells me. ;)



Here we have...me. Happy. Do not be surprised. :)




Here we have me again. I kept whacking her with these cool dice pillows.




Here we have Carrie. ...Go on and be concerned.


Just kidding. That's the doing of one of the cool dice pillows.




I don't remember what her cue was for the face to make in this picture...so I'm just like yay, happy. I dunno what she's doing...hehe. She might've said goofy face, in which case I failed.




Here I was definitely supposed to be making a goofy face. I failed once again. ...Hehehehe.




Theeeeere we go. Hehehehehe.




Here, we are sad. 'Tis hard work. She kinda wins.




Then we kept trying to take an actual decent normal picture, and it kept giving us double chins, being as we were lying on the bed and that tends to happen when you lie down. So I hypothesised that it would help to hold the camera up by our foreheads and then look up at it.




Aaaaand Carrie and Melissa! Yaaaaay! ...Looks like Mel missed the goofy face memo, too. Hehehe. Or else that's Carrie's camera pose. :-p

...So now I'm in a really good mood and am dreading this concerto competition less. Knock on wood. ;)

Soooo...maybe I'm overly dramatic now and then. I'm strongly considering dropping out of the competition, at least; Haijin said to wait until the last minute before deciding, and then to call her. So...we'll see about that. But at any rate, the sky is not, in fact, falling.

It does help that I just got to hear the coolest singer ever, got hugs from Anthony AND Melissa, and then acted drunk with Gracie in a parking garage upon hearing peculiar noises.

...*giggles*

It's okay to have crushes on two boys as long as nothing's actually happening with either of them, right? I'm just asking.

Anyway, this afternoon I found self-therapy in dressing up and ( taking sulky pictures... )and then going about taking pictures of ( other things. )

Aaaaand the moment we've all been waiting for...just to warn you, saying it's "long" would be rather an understatement.

( IYSO 2005 tour and mini-tour pictures/commentary )