where to begin...

This last week has been quite a doozy. I've meant to write so many times, and just haven't been able to get everything into words. Just too much to really be able to think about it and sort it out in my mind.

Started off rather nicely actually. Stacy Hollister took me to the symphony last Saturday for Mozart's Requiem and it was incredible! We had so much fun and I ran into so many people I knew there, including my high school chem. teacher and his wife. It's wonderful to go to the symphony with someone who really loves it too (Stacy works for the symphony during the busy seasons and often gets free tickets which she has lately been sharing with me).

The next day I worked all day, and when I checked my phone around 5 in the afternoon, realized I had a line of texts and voicemails from the FK girls saying to call as soon as possible, that it was an emergency. Turns out that at 3 am on Valentine's Day, Jacoby (one of my coworkers) was killed in a car accident. They'd been drinking and were racing their cars and she was slammed into a tree at a high rate of speed. It as horrible. They also found Meth. in the girl who was driving's purse and all three of the survivers are getting charged with vehicular homicide. Jacoby was the oldest and she was only 19. All of their lives were ruined that morning. Much to say that set the tone for most of my week.

We started the next day with a Krem news reporter-he was very nice about it, but lets be honest, that was one of the last things we needed, a girl with a resume who heard we might be hiring now-baaaaaaad timing girl, and a nasty lady who lived by the accident and came in scooping for gossip by asking us rather blatently, "So, how'd you know the dead girl?" I wanted to just kick her out of the store. How rude can you possibly be?

Everyone at the bagelshop was great though, offered to take my shifts so I could pick up extra at FK, even offered to work for Deena a little bit if she needed an extra hand to get through. I think it helped a lot that all the FK girls were going through it together. We even went to the funeral as a large group and all say together for moral support through the whole memorial. Deena gave us all custom made necklaces in the style that Jacoby had last been admiring and were talking about getting them engraved with her name.

Morgan and I went out for dinner halfway through the week, partially cause we hadn't done that in awhile and partially because I couldn't go sit at home alone yet, and we had a blast. She'd never seen the Davenport so we wandered around and then got drinks in the Peacock Lounge before heading to the Steamplant Grill for an early dinner. We ended up ordering the exact same thing and it was delicious. Another night Jenn came by and we made mac n' cheese and watched the whole season of GLEE. Heather came by the bagelshop the day after too and it was really good to see her after all that. I really love my friends sometimes. They always seem to know what I need. It's always nice to know I have people I can call when I need them.

Last night I went to the symphony again with my roommate Jen, and Laura from the bagelshop. They were doing the Wizard of Oz and dropped a screen about the orchestra and played the movie while they performed the soundtrack with it. It was incredible and we had so much fun. I hadn't realized how much of it's music had been taken from other works though. Four or five times I recognised songs from Beethoven and other more classical composers tucked within the music. We also quoted Wicked regularly and interjected it within the movie which made it even better. Next week is Mother Russia and they will be playing music by Rachmoninov who is one of my favorite piano composers. Well, except for Debussy that is.

All in all, it was an emotional roller coster of a week. Reinforced to me that you have to love what your doing, and love the people around you while you can. So to all my friends, I love you all, and thanks for being you.

Testing 123

Just trying out my new blogger application on my iPod to see how well it works. :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iTouch

Guitar

Just had my first guitar lesson and it was amazing! Learned the start of a bunch of chords and was given Alison Kraus' Don't say a thing to practice this week. I love it! Bill was teasing me though because he could tell I've been formally trained on instruments all these years since I kept asking questions about posture, positioning, and what's considered proper form. Oops, I guess it's better to have been taught too much structure all these years than too little. And he says their keeping an eye out for a case for me too. Only downside is that my fingertips are a little bit sore, but that'll pass as soon as I build up some half-way decent calluses.
Learned some new words in French from translating songs. Compter-to count, Rever-to dream, impregner-to penetrate, libre-free.

Take the Leap

I think I have become addicted to French pop music, which is funny because I still can't understand what they're saying. But that's only a matter of time. I'm loving Couer de Pirate though, and I looked up the translation to some of her songs and they're beautiful. Her CD was definitely a worthwhile investment.

I'm currently working on an information slide show too. I figured I'd make one for Morgan's parents on why they should allow her to come to Europe with me. Don't know that it'll work, but at the least it'll show my determination to them.

I'm also trying to get my blog set up more how I want it to be. I found a list tool, but it's unfortunately not quite how I was hoping it would appear. I also need to work out the photo ideas I have more...it would probably help if I knew what it was I wanted exactly.
Last week Jen and I finished season 5 of How I Met Your Mother, and it was incredible. My favorite line was Lily's

Sometimes you have to listen to what the world is telling you. And then take the leap.

Well, I think the world spoke to me this week. The day after hearing that line and thinking it was something special, I was working at the bagelshop, and a regular customer of ours for years came in. Bill's a really nice guy from NY, loves his everything bagels, and happens to work in a string shop in the valley called Apela's. I've talked to him before about bringing my guitar in to have it's tuning knobs replaced, but never really followed through. So Bill comes in, and we get to talking and I finally decide-hey, I just need to get this done-and ask Bill when he normally works so I can drop by because I can't really make the effort to learn guitar without it in working condition.

(Mind you, I've been trying to think for weeks how I'm going to busk across Europe because my metal instruments are too heavy to bring across. I've been wishing I could play guitar because I could easily pick one up over there and if I could only sing it would be perfect. I have also been thinking about bringing my harmonica cause it's small and I could easily mess around with it as I traveled though I can't really play it.)

Bill's response is that he works Mon, Tues, and Thursdays, and that if I'm interested he gives guitar lessons. This really excited me and I asked, "Really!? I'm completely interested." He then informed me, "Yeah, I give guitar, voice, and harmonica lessons." I just stared at him and said, "I think the world just spoke to me, and if I don't listen to something being yelled at me so blatently I must be stupid."

So, Tuesday is my first guitar/voice/harmonica lesson. And to make it even better, he's not going to teach me formally because I already know all the music theory and structure and techniques. Rather, he's gonna teach me methods of playing, help me memorize fun songs from all different genre's and give me tools for imrpovising to help me busk. And he's going to teach me to play my awesome old vintage harmonicas. I'm so excited I can't even begin to tell you.

I'm antsy in Spokane again. Shocking I'm sure. Tomorrow I'll head to Pullman to hang out with Heather and Alex. I had hoped to make it a bit further than that, I was actually trying to get to Crater Lake, but too much of the park is closed for winter, so I'll save that for the spring. At least I get to hang out with cool people this way.
I dreamed of Europe the other day. I found this to be a good omen seeing as how irregularly I dream as it is. My mom actually managed to make me feel bad about going yesterday though. And slightly more fearful for what I'm doing, though it won't stop me from going! Finished my second unit of French today, just to prove it to myself too. Oh well, tomorrow will be good for me.

I'm in a good place now. Enjoying hanging at Starbucks with Jen and Joleen, working on my playlists, and listening to good music. Something soothing about life right now. I have my goals and have plenty of time to dream.
Jen just informed me she got me the same present for Christmas that I gave her, so she re-wrapped it in the paper I gave her. I can't wait, it's going to make my day. I also just heard the most amazing phrase.

I'm an equal opportunity hater. I hate everyone equally.

I found it extra awesome since it was stated by a friendly, mild-tempered individual with a smile on his face.

Snow Play

Last night was so much fun! Heather, Alex, and I took the Alex's snow skate out and attempted to learn how to use it. Well, rather Heather and I tried learn while Alex who already knows it watched our attempts.

After we got tired of falling, we went up to the Douglas snow fort and had fun making improvements. It was pretty incredible to begin with, so really we were just building up the walls higher. We figured if we build up the back and side walls really high, we can call the front panel an awesome skylight window since it was the view out onto the mountain. We even delegated out jobs. I was the brick maker-I sat up on the hill and found huge snow chunks and rolled them down, Heather was the brick layer-she stacked them appropriately and logically, and Drew was the mortar- he layed and packed the snow between snow bricks to make sure they held. We were highly successful overall and it was really quite fabulous. It already has a bench, a fridge and a garbage can for beer cans, two windows, and a backdoor secret slide entrance(which I learned I can go down, but I really suck at climbing back up).

Of course the evening could only be completed by sharing the biggest cup of noodles I've ever seen-it took three of us to eat the thing. Sheer deliciousness.