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| We are rejoicing because all of our major papers are done and will be turned in an hour! It is a very good feeling!
Today my roommate Angela arrives back from Germany! I'm in my room right now waiting for her and hoping she arrives before I have to go to class!
Tonight is the orchestra concert. My grandma as well as my Mom and two youngest brothers are coming to it! It will be good to see them.
Last Friday was the Jazz Band concert, and this Friday is the Concert Band concert as well. On Tuesday, Caleb and I both perform in the student recital.
Caleb gets to play a really fun, fast, showy piece called the Cat and the Mouse. I'm playing the Prelude to Bach's Sonata No. 3 for violin, which is also an extremely fast movement, all sixteenth notes. For those who have seen August Rush, it is the classical piece that one of the cello themes is based off of.
Then, Saturday is my violin advanced standing jury. I'm practicing a lot so that I will hopefully pass it and continue on in the program!
On the Tuesday after that, Caleb has his piano advanced standing jury and must complete his piano proficiency requirements. A busy time of year, as well as an important semester!
It's back to colder weather now, and even threats of snow this weekend, but last weekend was absolutely gorgeous. The sun was brilliant, and it got up to 75 degrees on Saturday!
We had to work on writing papers for a lot of the weekend, but it was really a good weekend. We got to take study breaks outside in the sunshine, and make good progress as well. Mid-afternoon, my Grandma unexpectedly got to drop by because she had been stuck in traffic on her way back home to Corvallis from Portland. It was fun to visit and take a walk with her in the nice weather.
Saturday evening, we invited Pastor Tim from our church and his family to eat with us in the dining hall since we have so many extra meals to use up. His wife was at a women's conferenece it turned out, so it was convenient for him and three of their boys (ages 7-14) to come for dinner since they didn't have any anyone to cook for them that night! Afterwards, we got to be outside in the nice weather and play Corban's frisbee golf course with them.
Sunday afternoon after church was a Primetimers/college-age potluck, meaning that the older generation made the food and we helped them eat it! It was a fun time.
Got to get back to studying, but thought I'd let ya'll now what's been going on down here lately.
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|  | Currently Watching
August Rush
By Freddie Highmore, Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Terrence Howard, Robin Williams
see related |
Well, another weekend spent in the computer lab writing papers. Caleb (thankfully, to everyone's relief) finished and turned in his looooong paper on the hymns of Watts and Wesley on Monday. Now he's working on a paper on Preaching in Worship and I am writing about the controversy over styles of music in the church, as well as another paper on religious liberty. We are both quite tired of writing and editing, but such is life.
Last night was Chris's senior recital on saxophone. It was a very good recital. He played some classical music, including a saxophone/violin duet with Bethanie F., and also performed some jazz pieces with saxophone quartet! Caleb was the stage manager who got to reset the stage and arrange Chris' music on the stand after each piece. Because Caleb wasn't publicly thanked, so many people came up to him afterwards and said what a great job he'd done! It was really funny.... he said he got more compliments than when he actually performs! And even Dr. Reno Hoff, the school president, talked to him and told him he wanted to start clapping for him every time he came out. What fame! :) After hanging out at the reception talking for a while with friends, we finished watching the movie August Rush. It is a great movie, especially fun to watch for musicians. The music is especially moving, an amazing mix of classical cello and a rock-style.
This evening I went to a bridal shower for one of our friends who is marrying one of our other friends in a month. I don't think we will able to make the wedding, however, since it is after school gets out. Oh, and my roommate called me today from Germany and I got to talk to her for the first time in months! She's coming back in about 12 days.
After that, Caleb and I went over to our friend Sarah's on-campus apartment and watched Enchanted along with our friends Don and Michael. We had a good time with them and the other music friends who showed up later on. It's a good feeling to have a close group of friends like these whom we see everyday in music classes and have shared so many experiences with. We have lots of fun together and laugh a lot.
Earlier in week, Drew was able to come for a visit in the middle of a navy band tour. It was really fun for us to get to show him around and let him experience classes and friends. Mr. Bartsch was thrilled to get to meet the 3rd brother! We're both really glad that Drew was able to come and enjoyed having him around.
I should probably get to bed now....
~Elisa
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| So what is new??? We're back from 6 days on music tour. We drove 1,100 miles and performed 2-3 times per day. It was a blast! Very exhausting, but worth it. We went to Burns, Ontario, Boise, Hood River, White Salmon, Fruitland, Portland, Richland, and others throughout WA, OR, and ID. This weekend and next is the school play, Everyman. Caleb is working almost full-time now because he is the lighting tech for the play. It is a busy time of the year for this commitment, but he is in enjoying the opportunity and will be able to put some of the money towards tuition. We are also getting ready for the student composition recital, which is Monday. Caleb has been placed in charge of organizing all the rehearsals and recruiting around 15 musicians for this recital. It is quite a feat to find times when everyone can practice. It will be a relief for it to be over, but hopefully encouraging to hear our pieces finally performed. It has been a good experience as both of us have been forced to produce some conducting skills to direct our individual pieces in rehearsal. We both wrote orchestral arrangements of Tis So Sweet. In addition, Caleb wrote an amazing arrangement of Nothing But the Blood (in minor!) for brass and percussion, and an original cello/viola duet with accompanying strings called "Fun and Games". I wrote an arrangement of In Christ Alone and How Deep the Father's Love for Us for string quartet. Well, we've got to go now and leave for church praise band practice. Caleb planned the set and will be leading tonight and on Sunday. This will be his second time leading at Bethany Baptist. Bye! | | |
| Well, life isn't all parks and picnics. It has been a difficult week of things at school, heavy homework, draining days. Today, Saturday, we were at the computer lab the entire time it was open 10-6. We have a take-home midterm for theology of worship that takes a lot of thinking and citing and writing. And we are trying to get composition projects done before tour, as well as orchestrations for Music Charting. So much to get done before tour. We leave Wednesday and get back Monday. We have our 2nd test in American Thought on Monday to study for, and a long rehearsal all afternoon tomorrow for tour, which we will go to after all morning at church. We are both getting so stressed and tired and worn down and irritable with each other and tour hasn't even started yet! I haven't had time to do laundry in a week and a half and there's bags to pack and a recital we're both playing in on Tuesday and a rehearsal for that on Monday and Caleb's got to prepare for work on Monday and my worship band is playing in chapel Wednesday right before we leave and we have to rehearse for that on Monday, and we have a sightsinging mid term on Tuesday and right after that I'm giving a 15minute presentation in a class with a new professor now because the other one is taking a leave of absence, and we have lots of reading and an assignment due in American thought right after our test right before we leave, and we have to do our homework for the two days we'll be missing because of tour and let them know we'll be gone and figure out out to make up the 20 point quiz we will be missing and then there are paper outlines to complete for three papers and .................. Aaaaahhhh!
So if you could please pray for sanity! And while you're at it, pray that Bethany has fun while she's visiting and a great birthday!
~Elisa
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| Caleb's Date Cont. and Cont. again!!!!!!!!At Chili's!!! She had searched and searched and found the closest Chili's to Salem so that she could take me there and then as we drove down I-5 she saw a sign for one 10 minutes closer so we went there! It was SO good! Mom had told us about how good and cheap they're chips-and-salsa were so Elisa had decided that we should go there! Mom was right, it was extremely good. So, after we had a very nice time sitting and talking, and sitting and eating, and talking and sitting, Elisa said it was time for us to go. We left, got back on I-5 and promptly got lost on the way to our next stop! Whats really funny is that the exact same thing happened to us on my date... in the same way!!! Both of us had everything planned out and then we would switch something and then try to follow our original directions to the next stop... which wouldn't work because we would be coming from a different direction! Then, we realized what we had done and repented (meaning we took a 180) and soon got to our destination. This next stop was ice-skating!!!!! We had both looked up ice-skating and dismissed it because it was too far away, but when Chili's turned out to be pretty close to an ice-skating Elisa decided that this would be a good time for it. We had both packed regular clothes, so we changed out of our church clothes and then went skating. We got to skate for 45 minutes, but we both agreed it hurt a lot more than we remembered. Elisa said yesterday that one of her ankles still hurts! We left there at four o'clock and drove back to Salem. Well, before we left that parking lot she gave me another little present. This one was one of the blow-up heart valentines!!!!!!!!!! I still think that that is the absolutely BEST valentine in THE WORLD!!!!!!!! Thoughtful, loving, suprising, wierd, and cute! Anyway, we drove back to Salem just in time to get to a park and watch the sunset sitting on a bench in a rose garden! Now, the roses weren't blooming, but it was still pretty and we intend to go back when they are. Before we left there she got two guns she had gotten from the Dollar Store and we had a war in the parking lot! She knows how to have fun!!! Then, we went to Subway and got a meatball and went and had a picnic. Now, for this picnic she had a lot of cool stuff LIKE little candles, wineglasses to pour our Dr. Pepper in, and pretty napkins for a nice tablecloth. The table was the big icechest I had brought along. I didn't know what was IN the icechest though!!!!! She had strawberries (all cut up), and a whole CAKE she had made the night before!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was great!!! I got more little suprises and stuff all the way through and it was one of the most romantic dinners ever!!!And she said we had to feed each other!!!! Which we decided against for the meatball sandwich part because we would have WAY to messy! It was difficult, especially after we snapped the handles on our plastic forks!!!!! After that we packed up, went home and did homework till bedtime... which for us is usually 10-11! We just get so tired because we NEVER EVER have time to catch up on sleep, we just have time to GET BEHIND! Anyway, I apoligize for the amount of time it has taken me to accomplish this, and I hope it doesn't reflect on how much fun and how meaningful the date was... Anyway, I'm done. | | |
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