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So yeah, not much has been going on. And yet, at the same time, a lot of stuff has happened.

Last Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights was the Madrigal Dinner/Chorus concert. I was a minstrel in it, playing the recorder. Everytime a course of food was served, minstrels and merchants went out in the audience. I pranced around and played the recorder, looking really cool. Everyone kept coming up to me and asking me how long I had been playing the recorder, and I'd be all like, "Oh, only about a week and a half." It was pretty cool.

Monday was the band Christmas Concert. I performed with the jazz band and the symphonic band. Jazz band was pretty good, although I mistakenly only took one chorus (eight bars) of a two chorus (16 bars) solo. It worked out well, though. My solo wasn't off to a good start, so I kept people from being bored. In symphonic band I played both my bari and my soprano. Our oboist is a new player, and she's really shy. There's an exposed (read: no one else playing) oboe solo in one of the songs we played, and she would just sit there with her horn out of her mouth, not playing. So, Mr. Eckman (the band director) asked me to bring my soprano to school and read the oboe solo. It worked out really well. I didn't tell anyone that didn't see me practicing the solo that I was playing it, so when I played in class, everyone was turning around and looking at me. It was pretty cool.

At the concert, though, I had two mouthpieces for my bari that I had to change between (my jazz mouthpiece and my concert mouthpiece), plus a soprano to double on. After the jazz band played, the symphonic band was up, so I had to run backstage, grab my concert mouthpiece, shove my soprano neck and mouthpiece together, grab the reed and ligature for the soprano, and get to my seat in a hurry. I actually had to put my concert mouthpiece and my soprano together while the curtain was open and while the band started playing, so I didn't have time to warm it up or get it in tune. You see, the soprano sax is a very hard instrument to keep in tune, so I was quite worried. I put the mouthpiece on about where I thought was right, and prayed to God that it would be in tune. One shouldn't play exposed solos and be out of tune, you know. Thankfully, it was close enough that I could just lip it and get it in tune. My heart was pounding all the way through the solo, though, as I had only looked at it about 3 times. I was so nervous that I could feel my veins throbbing in my neck. I got through the solo well, though, and accomplished my goal. My own parents couldn't tell that I was playing, because I sounded so much like an oboe. I had sat there the first day I got the solo and just tried different setups to get an oboe sound. I ended up going with my Claude Lakey 6* jazz piece, a Vandoren 3.5 classic reed (shaved), my custom string ligature, my straight neck (my curved one is screwing up, otherwise I would've used that), and a mute in my bell. A friend of mine came up to me after the show and told me how beautiful the soprano sounded. I was pretty psyched about that one.

It was a pretty good week overall. What's even better is the fact that I only have 5 days until the end of the most stressful 5 months of my life. I can't wait until second semester.

Are any of you musically-inclined people doing anything next Thursday night? If not, want to jam? Let me know, because I'm free then and I want to jam sometime. I have some stuff I've written that's pretty cool that I want to try out.

cyotfs
Cory

Does anyone really care about me?

Why is it that I feel so often that no one cares about me?

I'll be sitting there, doing whatever, and all these feelings of inferiority and uselessness will just rush upon me.

Does it come from the fact that I'm never satisfied with anything I do in the area of life I love most?

Does it come from the fact that others all around me get opportunities to do things they love, while I'm stuck without a chance to do it?

Does it come from the fact that it seems all my friends are hooking up, while I'm left just liking from a distance?

I don't know. I think it comes from a combination of the three above. I hate the fact that I'm so inept at music. I hear all of these chord progressions and improvisational ideas swirling around in my head, but the instant I go to do anything with them, they disappear. My improvisations are lackluster at best. All I do is go up and down the scale, playing with the same intervals, messing with the same riffs. I wish I could be really creative. I've been able to improvise for about 8 to 10 months now, and my improvisations still sound childish, despite the fact that I practice improvising whenever I get the chance. However, I can't seem to be able to play all of the really cool stuff that's floating around in my head, and I really wish it wouldn't require years and years of practice to be able to accomplish.

It also seems that I always get passed up for opportunities to do things I love. My brother gets all these opportunities to go shoot video or edit big projects, or what have you. Don't get me wrong, he's a wonderful cameraman and editor. The thing is, though, I love to do those things, too, and no one seems to even notice. I'll do a big project and spend forever making it perfect, and all I'll get is a "Yeah, that looks good," and no one will ever look at it again. Casey's got all these big opportunities at church, and all these people complement him on the work he does. He does work for the main media department on Sundays, running camera or directing, and everyone influential sees him doing that. He gets all these complements on how hard he works and all that. No one ever seems to care that I work like crazy to make all the youth services go well. I set up, I do sound and PowerPoint to make sure they're ready, and I tear down. All my friends run around and talk and have a good time, and I'm stuck doing media. In fact, I'm the only one that does teardown. Out of a 4-man media team, I'm the only one that ever tears down to make the stage look nice, get ready for the next service, and keep things from getting stolen. I've gone in on Sunday mornings and have had to clear off the stage, because it looks like a technological war zone. Cables run everywhere. Mic stands are still standing, with microphones still in them. It gets on my nerves how everyone overlooks all the menial stuff that has to be done and say that other people are working hard, but don't say a word about it to me.

Third is the usual problem. In about a month, I will have been single for two years. I keep praying that God will show me the girl He wants me to like, but that girl never seems to care about me. Whoever it is, I'm nothing more than a good friend to her. It drives me up the wall. I mean, I know God's sovereign and that He knows what He's doing, but I wish He would let me have a girlfriend. I see all these happy couples, and it makes me wish I were part of one, that if I had a girlfried that really liked me as much as I liked her, that I would be happy. I know it's delusional, but that's what it feels like. I wish I had someone who I could share my life with. I mean, I have Rahul, and don't get me wrong, it's awesome to have a friend as good as him, but he's about the only one I have. It'd just be nice to have a significant other.

I'm gonna stop rambling and get in bed. I have school tomorrow.

Pray for me, please. I hope this depressional spell doesn't last long. I'm never any fun in a depression.

cyotfs
Cory