I should REALLY be doing my chemistry review.

..But I'll do it tomorrow in class. I'll sit by Charlie, because he doesn't distract me and he's really good at chemistry. My final is on Friday, ughhhh.

I am trying out for drum major on Friday! Today after school, I got together with two of my friends who are also trying out, and we went to Natalie's house and worked for a solid two hours. There's this list of commands that we have to give... some of them are commands like "left hace!" and some of them are whistle commands. We have to give the commands to the band... and we also have to conduct one of the pep songs. We worked on other stuff, too, that wasn't even on the list, so we'll be super-prepared.

Up until this year, I didn't even want to be drum major. I liked playing my sax at games and parades. I still do, but this year I feel like.. okay, this sounds dumb, but I feel like I HAVE to be drum major, or at least try out. I feel like there was never really a choice. Probably because this year, I have become much more of a leader. A month or so ago I led a whole hour and a half clarinet sectional all by myself, and I don't even play clarinet! Not that it would have made it that much easier if I did, but I had a completely different part from all of them, and I was able to look at and listen to the three clarinet parts, and figure out how they fit together, and help everyone with them. It was this tricky part that only the clarinets (and maybe the flutes, I can't remember) had, with these super-fast triplets. But I'm not proud of myself as much because I was able to understand how the parts fit together and figure out the rhythms. It was more because I was deciding what parts we would practice, and deciding what tempo would be best for everyone, and they were looking to ME to make these decisions. It's not so much the musical aspect, but it's what the music had enabled me to do.

Like something that happened on the band trip. We were staying in a nice hotel (it was 21 stories.. two working elevators... 60 0r 70 band kids... you could either wait 5-10 minutes for an elevator or run up and down 19 flights of stairs. Anyway..) with a grand piano in the lobby. Half an hour before we had to be on the bus to go to the amusement park, I went down to the lobby with Bailey and Kevin because I wanted to play the grand piano. I started playing, and after a while I noticed that these two guys from another band were talking to Bailey and Kevin. (I think Collin also showed up...) When I finished my song more people had showed up, and people started clapping. They asked me to play something else, so I did, and when I finished one of the people from the other band was like, "You are amazing," and asked me if I had made all that up. (It was my solo from jazz band... it's just Bb blues, so I played the solo and then just kinda improvised for a few more minutes.) And I said I had, and this girl was like, "Didn't you see her yesterday?" I was confused for a minute, but then I realized they were talking about the jazz band performance the day before. I got up from the piano.. and Kevin and one of the guys I didn't know were sitting talking to each other on opposite ends of this couch. There was a little space in the middle, and I just plopped by butt down between them on the couch and started chatting away with them. Now, you have to understand that this is NOT something I would normally do. I don't even know Kevin that well, and I'm usually shy around people I don't know. That other guy wasn't too bad looking either. :P But after like a minute, Bailey made me get up and play again and then we had to leave. Now, I'm NOT trying to brag about my piano playing abilities. My point is that because I'm confident playing in front of people, I was more confident talking to them too.

I love how music is influencing my life :)

I wish I could write more, but I'm still sick and I don't want to be exhausted tomorrow.

So... goodnight :)