I'm home for Spring Break, so I went visiting teachers at Wilson today, and singing with the choir. The choir sounded really good (thankfully), and teachers were nice (although Flores and Coleman weren't there). But creepily, Ms. Culpepper said that she reads my blog (having linked to it from Adam's blog). I don't know whether to filter future content because of that or not. Of course, that would suggest there will be future content. I hope to have some in-depth entries at some point, but for some reason I never seem to get around to them. Anyways, Culpepper, if you're out there, I hope you enjoy your last few months before retirement.

As of two weeks ago, The Format broke up. I just learned today. That sucks.

This winter, there are two awesome people coming to Rochester to speak. One is the comedian Demetri Martin, who is very funny, and you should check him out. The other one is so awesome that it can only be expressed with a Youtube video.

P.S. Checking the pop-up thing before clicking on the link is cheating.

I have officially become nocturnal. I slept from 7 am to 5:30 pm today. Now I have to adjust to a normal sleep schedule before Monday comes around. Great.

This looked fun.

Itunes survey:
1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write that song name down no matter how silly it makes you look.

The Beatles are overrepresented, and most of these songs I never listen to, but whatever.

1. If someone says "Is this okay?" You say:
This Side – Nickel Creek

2. How would you describe yourself?
Helter Skelter – The Beatles
Yeah, kind of, right now.

3. What do you like in a guy and/or girl?
Susie Q – Creedence Clearwater Revival

4. How do you feel today?
The Holberg Suite: Gavotte – Colin Corbett
Self-centered, I guess?

5. What's your life purpose?
The Ballad of John and Yoko – The Beatles

6. What do your friends think of you?
The Hardest Part of Love is Letting Go – Children of Eden

7. What do your parents think of you?
Eskimo – Damien Rice

8. What do you often think about?
Shut Down – The Beach Boys

9. What do you think about the person you like?
Monster Hospital – Metric

10. What is your life's story?
Ask Me Anything – The Strokes
Go ahead.

11. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Another One Goes By – The Walkmen

12. What will you dance to at your wedding?
Dear Prudence – The Beatles
Yes! Awesome!

13. What will they play at your funeral?
Positive Tension – Bloc Party
That’d be weird.

14. What is your biggest fear?
She Loves You – The Beatles
More like my biggest wish.

15. What is your biggest secret?
Bruised – Jack’s Mannequin
Yeah… I’m abused…. No.

16. What do you think of your friends?
Californication – Red Hot Chili Peppers

17. What do you think about your past?
Lonesome Pine – Carbon Leaf

18. What is your future going to be like?
What Does It Mean Now – World Party

19. What do you see in the person you like?
Put a Penny In the Slot – Fionn Regan
Whoa there…

20. What will the song be for you and your spouse?
The Avalanche – Sufjan Stevens

21. What will you name this bulletin?
I Heard It Through The Grapevine – Marvin Gaye
How unbelievably appropriate.

By the way, NYC was pretty awesome. I'll tell more about it later.

I learned today (right after I checked into my flight) that the Decemberists cancelled their tour due to a serious illness. This birthday is going excellently.

I turn 20 tomorrow. What should I do on my last day as a teenager? Or what should I do tomorrow, on my first day over two decades?

Final decision: 2

(Although 1 hasn't been ruled out)

So, I just got a bunch of paychecks from my summer job in the mail, and they totalled almost $1,000, and combined with some pretty decent paychecks from my campus job, I'm feeling rather affluent right now. So, I'm thinking about spending a large amount of money on myself around my birthday. Here are some possible options:

1. Xbox 360, Guitar Hero III, and Rock Band (when they come out) - Total cost: about $600
2. Trip to NYC to see The Decemberists with my friend Ruth, and possibly visit other people in the area - Total cost: $200-250
3. Trip to England to see A live at the Desensitized Festival (!!!!!!!!) - Total cost: $800-$1000
4. Trip elsewhere - Total Cost: unknown

2 and 3 are mutually exclusive, but 1 and 2 are not (1 and 3 would just cost too much).

Let me know which of these you think is the most awesome. Or, if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to get some more ideas.

I just found out that the movie "The Seeker" came out yesterday, based on The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper, one of my favorite series of books as a kid. According to critics, it's mostly a big disappointment. How disappointing. However, Into the Wild looks good, so I do need to see it.

I just discovered that University of Rochester has a small grove of eight or nine Douglas Fir trees on campus. This obviously makes me very happy, and although it really isn't that nice of a place, I plan on spending plenty of time there. My own little Pacific Northwest paradise in the middle of the barren wastelands of Upstate New York. (I would put an I'm-joking smiley face emoticon here, but I'm morally opposed to them).

Also, although I had already seen a few woodchucks around (they're all over the place... I saw on by the runway as my plane was landing, actually), I got pretty close to one today. And although I had already known it, it became even more clear: woodchucks are obese. Usually you think of wild animals as being relatively thin, fit, and sleek. But not woodchucks. They look like little blobs of fat galumphing across the field. I find it rather amusing.

On Wednesday, as I was walking to class, I saw a crowd of people gathered in the middle of the path, many with cell phone cameras at the ready. As I reached them, I realized what they had all gathered around: a red-tailed hawk (I assume) had caught a squirrel and was eating it, just a few feet off the path. At first I assumed it was from a zoo or something, thinking that animals like that don't just appear on college campus, especially when it was acting so calm and tame. But apparently I was wrong, as there was no zookeeper nearby, or any markings on the bird. The squirrel's head was already mostly eaten, and the bird continued to feast as I left and made my way to class. All in all, it was very awesome.

Check out my new journal style, yo.

I know it's been a while since I updated, and I'm sorry. And I probably should have posted this earlier, but I didn't really know how to say it, but now that I'm leaving for college, I figure I should probably post something. I was planning on putting a lot of effort into writing this well, but now I just want to get it out.

On July 7th, my uncle was flying his new personal airplane, doing practice take-offs and landings to get used to the new plane, when he disappeared. He might have flown to the coast, he might have crashed during the practice, or any of a endless list of possibilities. Because his plane was so new, it didn't yet have a locator in it, we we have no way of knowing where he is. The Civil Air Patrol did a very large air search for him, but found nothing. A memorial service is now scheduled for mid-October, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to attend it. Because the situation is so messed up, you can't really mourn: he was never found, dead or alive, and especially at the beginning, there was still a chance that he was alive somewhere. Now, the chances of that are very slim, but it's still uncertain. So, yeah, that's been on my mind for a while. And now I'm leaving for college.

So, here comes the promised comprehensive entry on college. I know it's very late, but at least it's here. It'll probably be pretty long, so ( here's the obligatory cut. ) Sorry about all the parenthesis.

I realize that I said I would post a long, comprehensive entry summing up my school year when I got home. Well, I've been home for a month and haven't gotten around to it yet (even when I have nothing else to do), but I promise to get it done this weekend.

Another plus-minus entry (purely chronological this time):

+ Being done with finals, and consequently, my first year of college
+ Getting good grades (so far)
- Working at 7 am
- Everyone leaving and me being stuck here.
- Not being in Portland
+ $5 college student symphony tickets
- Post-tonal music
+ Piano concertos
- Drifting in and out of consciousness during piano concertos
++++ Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. Ravel): This piece was seriosuly amazing. You all need to listen to it.
+ Not being able to stop smiling for 10 minutes after the concert
+ Spuer Smash Bros. Melée
- Did I mention everyone leaving?

I think I'll try out Molly's minimalist plus-minus style, in reverse-chronological order, for a new, long-overdue entry: (that was a lot of commas)

+Did really well on my Econ final
+Amazing weather
+Did better than most, it seems, on my math final
+Trees are finally leafing out and blooming... took them long enough
+CAS final paper was decent (we'll see how it gets graded)
+Relient K concert was Awesome! Yay!
+Met some cool people from Syracuse there
+The Format concert was awesome too (they were the opening band, so they didn't play as much, but still, it's The Format...)
+Last physics test went very well

-Analysis of Rock final on Friday that I have a ton of studying to do for
-I'm stuck here through graduation, coming home the 21st.
-I miss Portland and everyone there
-My computer died. :( The hard drive appears to be the problem. I hope it's not dead, and that I can get my data back.
-Love life as pathetic as ever
-I seem to be lacking a core group of friends, as I guess I have all semester, but now it's kind of too late to do anything about it. Hopefully next year, living somewhere different, it'll be better.

As said, I can't wait to get back home and see you all.

Ahh, I can finally relax. This week has been extremely hectic, and I'm definitely glad for the weekend to come. Anyways, here's a bit of a summary of my week.

( My week )

Also, on Thursday, my dad came to visit me here, which was really awesome. He had some business in Pennsylvania, so he made the side trip up here to visit me. I showed him around campus, then we went out to eat at a Thai place (I hadn't had Thai in a long time, and it was very good). We then checked out the Sibley Music Library, which is Eastman's library, and the largest private collection of music in the world (I think... maybe just the country). It was actually pretty fascinating, and I hadn't been there in a long time.

So yeah, that's the fun stuff that I've been doing.

Christ is risen!

So, three people fell for my April Fool's joke (one got it before her April Fool's day began, so that probably shouldn't count). In reality, there was a physics test, but I did decently well on it, and will probably still major in physics. I was considering following it up with an absurd story of me getting in huge trouble with security over drugs or something, but couldn't come up with a plausible enough beginning. Now, was my post in bad taste? The fact that no one told me they were amused by it makes me think so.