Oh, Hey There

The other day, I was all daaaamn I've done a ton of writing lately.

Which I have.

In my head.

Isn't that great? I compose entire entries, and then they never get an audience. Except the one in my head. And that audience really enjoys what I have to say.

One of them that I never got to share with you was about hedgehogs.

They're cute.

And I want one.

Too bad it would have a crazy person for a mother.

Anyway, that's not even the point of this post. At all. The point is concerts.

Concerts, in case you weren't aware, have rules. Not the kinds of rules that are embossed on a cheap piece of plastic and nailed next to the door, but the unspoken rules that everybody should have the common sense and lack of idiocy to follow.

First rule: Leave your fucking candy at home.

Honestly.

When your crinkly wrapper begins to overshadow the violin solo, we have a problem.

So unless what you are unwrapping is vital to your immediate health, put it away, I'm begging you. Before I get violent.

Second rule: When asked to sing along to a piece, sing the melody like everybody else in the entire auditorium.


Yes, we know there is a harmony to this song. Do you know it? Great. Do you sound good on it? What's that? You don't? Then shut the hell up.

There was this one lady tonight, seated a bit further down the row than my family, who had one of the classic old lady voices. Like the muscles that used to hold her chords in place so she could sing nice, clear pitches have gotten so old and flabby that her vibrato has practically taken on a life of its own. She's singing away, the floor is on the verge of shaking with the reverberations of her vocalizing, and decides that it is absolutely necessary to broadcast her knowledge of obscure harmonies.

Now, I'm not saying harmonizing is a bad thing. But if you learned it back when you still had teeth and haven't sung it since, you probably should not attempt it any more. Because, news flash, it sounds like shit.

Also, she decided that the rest of us silly audience members had clearly never been in a choir before, because instead of singing along with the conductor who was at least 100 feet away and therefore not on the same tempo as the sound that was actually reaching our ears, we were listening instead to the choir, and singing along with them.

Silly us.

So she sang with the conductor. Putting her a fraction of a beat ahead, a couple notes off key, and dangerously far away from any sort of sound that people would ever voluntarily listen to.

Third rule (and, may I say, the most important rule): I. Don't. Want. To. Hear. You. Breathe.

Ever.


EVER.


Like, Christ. If I wanted to hear some sort of confirmation that you were still alive over there, I would just wait until the song was over and see if you clapped. But unless you just finished running a marathon, I don't want to hear your breath ever. Blanket rule.

Especially if you're like the woman to my right who couldn't even breathe in a normal pattern like every other person on the planet.

You know, most of us take an in breath, let it out. An in breath, let it out.

Not that you can hear us.

But no, no no. That was not good enough for this woman.

Instead, she voted to take two quick breaths, one right after another. Hold without noise for about five seconds. Then two more quick breaths. And hold.

All while sounding like an elephant with asthma.

Well, lady, if there was a chance I was going to enjoy this piano solo, you just blew it. Thanks.

I could barely contain my rage.

Other unmentioned rules include: keep your illness at home or at least don't cough like you're a wild animal, note that stage whispering does not actually count as whispering, especially during a quick, sensitive song, and please for the love of god do not clap in the middle of a song. It's not over until the conductor's hands are down or the soloist breaks out of the moment. Everybody knows that. Everybody.

But anyway, on a calmer, less violent note, the concert was fantastic! I now kind of wish that I could play the violin, or that I was a man so that I could sing tenor.

You know, either works.

Today, I Had Scheduling Problems

Just like yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that...

I also learned something new about my mom:

Don't mess with her kid's schedule. She will eat you for breakfast.

These problems were really for no good reason. It wasn't an issue of "this won't work," "we don't have a class for you," "the teacher doesn't want you to do this," none of that nonsense.

The reasoning for this one?

"...Cuz."

Like, seriously. I don't think those jackasses have a single reason for turning down my application for an independent study. It was totally worked out, and they didn't have to do anything but sit on their butts and sign a piece of paper. That simple.

Maybe it's because they don't do anything, and secretly they feel a little useless (which they very well should, because, well, they are.) So instead of employing themselves in useful fields, they take things that would be just fine and fuck with 'em.

I was completely prepared to do this independent study. My teacher was totally okay with it. My counselor said it would work.

So why exactly do they come back with a response of "sorry, that won't work. It fits in your schedule, you just need to drop Chambers. That's your only option."

I'm sorry, what?

I think something is being missed here.

Chambers is my schedule.

It's a class. You think it's just choir? Yeah, tell that to my choir teacher. Go tell her that you think it's only practical for me to drop her class, because let's face it, it's "just choir."

Hell, if we're looking at it that way, it's calculus that doesn't fit into my schedule. Because Chambers outweighs math a thousand to one. And if you think that I'm going to be willing to give on something like that because you think that it's a lesser class, then you have another thing coming.

These classes are equal. Choir is equal to English is equal to math is equal to history. They are all the same to me. If I had my English class in the block that I needed to take math, or my French class, or my history class, they would let me independent study. They would have to. Because it wouldn't fit in my schedule.

But somehow, to the administration, the fact that my class is different makes it so that they don't really care about how much I want to take it, the fact of the matter is that it is in the way of something that's "more important."

Well, I have news for you. I have been screwed over on my French class and inconvenienced on  my math class, but there is not one single way that I am giving up this class. Choir is my world.

Just see if you can make me change.

Internet, You're Letting Me Down

You know, for all of the hundreds of thousands of useless posts about topics that have about as much credibility as a four year old's opinion on the trends in the stock market, one would think that it would be easier to find at least one page that contains the information that you want.

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. It appears that the idiots and miscreants who enjoy spamming the internet with their useless brainwaves don't actually care to take the time to think up a decent page.

I mean, sure, if you're doing research or something scholarly and resourceful, it's plenty easy to find the information that you want. As it's said, the internet is a vast pool of knowledge that you need only to tap into with your fingertips to find anything that you could ever need to know.

But try to find movie quotes, and that's it, game over for you.

All I wanted was to find one good page of all of the funny things that John Krazinski's character says in Something Borrowed, but the only quotes I found were obviously from people whose sense of humor only extends as far as their funny bone, but their capacity for cheesy romanticism is endless.

"Let's get another drink."

"You don't want to."

"I want to."

That qualified for every single page I looked at? That's not even a quote! That's a typical conversation! That's the kind of thing that you say when trying to convince somebody of something, anything, true or not. That, my friends, is lame.

All I'm saying is, Ethan got the shaft on all of these quote pages, as his character is obviously more quotable than Dex, seeing as how Dex is only there for his criminally good looks.

Screw movies reviews. Next time, I'm making my own page of quotes. 

That way I don't have to rely on pages that relay quotes like this one:

"Why didn't you tell me how you felt?"

There Are No Words To Describe This Emotion

May I start this off with a word or warning to all you would-be warriors who may or may not have been planning on actually reading this whole post, it is going to be very angry. Please cover the ears of small children and brace yourselves.

So. School's starting on Friday. I'll be a senior. That's cool.

Seniors are supposed to have the easy schedules, yeah?

Yeah...

Didn't work out quite that way for me.

Now, there is a possibility that it may have if my counselor wasn't an idiot, or our administration didn't suck, or the I.B. coordinator wasn't a stuffed shirt.

To ease that blow a little bit, I will say this. I'm sure they're all perfectly nice, friendly people with lots of friends because they're friendly and people like being their friends.

They just suck at their jobs.

Every single year before this one, seniors get their schedules first. Not just a few days anybody else, but weeks. Every year except this one, the only people to get their schedules before summer break are seniors. And every year, the counselors are there and willing to talk with seniors, so they get all of their scheduling issues resolved before summer starts.

Well, fuck that. That sounds like a terrible plan, right?

No. It sounds like a fucking awesome plan! Too bad you didn't do it at all. AHHHHHH.

So I started my summer break with a schedule somewhat like this:

1st block - AP Euro (chosen over AP Psych, which were assigned to the same block by the genius behind the master schedule, so we all had to pick either one or the other. Awesome.)

2nd block - Food science (so I can actually fulfill the practical arts credit that I need to graduate. Congratulations, you guys did something right for a change!)

3rd block - Choir (after much stubborn unwillingness to change, may I add.)

4th block - Empty. (Not a time release, not an aiding block, just empty. Possibility of taking French 4 at Silver Creek, because they will not allow me into the only French 4 class at Niwot, because it's "just for the I.B. kids", and "if I let you in, then it's not fair to the I.B. kids because a student is allowed in one of their classes who doesn't have to follow the same curriculum as the rest of them." Yeah, what the fuck ever. Shut up. You're stupid.)

5th block- Time release. I'm okay with that.

6th block - AP Lit (hey, something else you guys did right! Give yourselves a huge pat on the back. You earned it.)

7th block - Musical theatre (keep in mind that this class is necessary for at least the first two and half months of school in order for me to keep my lead in the show. Remember that. It's important.)

8th block - Another time release. Cool.

Doesn't look too terrible, right? Other than that one small problem of an empty block, I have all of my classes. Except for math. And a real, legitimate French class... Meh.

These seem to be problems that are impossible to solve.

Don't try and tell me that I haven't tried. That I haven't put forth a good effort. That I haven't followed up enough or talked to the right people.

Because I have.

I have emailed my counselor more times than I would like to count about fixing these problems, and every time he manages to take at least three days to respond, and then manage to not answer a single one of my questions.

So, French. At another school. So far, none of the people I've thought were taking it are actually taking it.

They still don't know what block it is.

Meanwhile, I keep hearing of more people being allowed into I.B. French.

So why wasn't I?

I speak more French than a majority of people in the classes at Niwot, of that I can guarantee you. I love the language. I speak it whenever I can, to whoever will listen. I would put myself into that class 110%. So why am I not allowed into it?

Oh, yeah, because if I was allowed in, other people would feel left out.

Wait a second, though. The people who might feel left out? You already let them in the class, apparently. So now who's the one feeling left out?

Me. That's fucking who.

And, I don't have a math class in my schedule.

I'm planning on independent studying calculus. I'm prepared to independent study it. I'm ready to.

Now I just have to wait on them. Are they going to finally decide to meet with me a day before school starts and tell me to find another option because they don't think it's going to work for them? Are they going to expect me to figure something out, or blame me for the problem being worked on so close to the beginning of the year when it's their fault in the first place that it has been put off for this long?

I'm so mad right now, I can barely even start to convey to you the depth of my emotions.

This is just a very on-the-surface briefing of the cataclysm of rage and angry words swirling around in my head right now.

I can't even handle it.

Judging

We all do it.

Some people just deserve it more than others.

Best example: People who suck.