Right. Off for the (long) weekend on an orchestra tour with Notts Strings. Taking phone with, incase any contact is needed. To whomsoever it concerns, BUY GGD TICKETS.

xxx

to the centre of the storm.

Music post, because Stu needs happier things. Or at least, different things.

Jimmy Eat World - If You Don't, Don't

Jimmy Eat World - My Sundown

Jack's Mannequin - Dark Blue

Jack's Mannequin - Rescued

Relient K - This Week the Trend

All are favourites of mine. Particularly Rescued, which is a recently-heard one, and I'm in love with it. It sounds so comforting and content.

you are the bluest light.

Hrrm. I've not had an entirely-free lunchbreak at all this week, which is deeply depressing. And for someone who dropped all clubs but one in order to get them, how even-more deeply depressing. I don't know. Recording just my own composition was fine, but doing four others has been stressful. I wouldn't say no, as they need a violinist and it's unkind to refuse, but - meh. I needed to take up a less popular instrument. And one girl didn't manage to record hers today as she'd planned, so we stood around wasting time for about half an hour, then agreed to all meet up on Tuesday for it instead. Goodbye, Tuesday lunchbreak.

Ahem. Just got back from a Higher Education thingy at school, and now I need to do Hippolytus. Switching speakers for headphones has actually done wonders for my motivation, as they make me feel… more connected to my desk. In more ways than the obvious.

Miss Ellie says: i shall do your mother 

*cackles*

The light doesn’t blind you at all.

Lovely, lovely day. And now I have the new Goo Goo Dolls music coming loud through my headphones, and it's such a good feeling. If Gutterflower was the breaking-up album, Let Love In is the - just what it says. The… there's love here, and we're going to give into it album.

The drama thing was truly excellent, and particularly appreciated as we didn't know if we'd get in until about five minutes before it started. First half was good, though with some fairly heavy themes, it being the A2 students, and the second was… on crack. Entirely. It involved screaming people and manic dancing and a lot of boys wearing pink wings and balls-on-springs antennae. It was fantastic, and so much fun.

Other high points of today… er. Break was amusing, as it involved Louise telling me once again about the state of her bladder in an attempt to dislodge me from the grammar school. Oh, and getting ticket for Newcell (fwee) gig next Friday. Recording Fergus's composition at lunchtime was also interesting, as he has far more musicality than I gave him credit for. He'd even tried to put in bowing marks, bless him, which were entirely pointless. But nice of him to try.

Nîkko says: we can.. move into James's ass

Nîkko says: fucking hell

Hetty says: >.> Nîkko says: *house

Hetty says: …

Hetty says: there is no way you did that by acciden

Hetty says: t

Nîkko says: that is *YOUR* fault

Hetty says: XD

Nîkko says: I seriously did

Nîkko says: omg

Hetty says: bwahahahaha

Nîkko says: *head desk*

Ahem.

best news ever.

Hetty says: EV

Hetty says: OMG

Hetty says: EV

Hetty says: ASFHASKJFH

Hetty says: CHECK IF YOU'RE FREE IN HALFTERM

Ev (IT Coursework - Mail merge ARGH) says: …?

Hetty says: WE NEED TO ORGANISE THIS *NOW*

Hetty says: ASFKJHASKJFGASF

Ev (IT Coursework - Mail merge ARGH) says: I THINK I AM WHY

Hetty says: AKGHASKFJGSKDGH

Hetty says: ASHFGKAJSFGKJSAGHF!

Ev (IT Coursework - Mail merge ARGH) says: STOP ASDHJGDSH-ING

Hetty says: GOO GOO DOLLS

Ev (IT Coursework - Mail merge ARGH) says: and tell me

Hetty says: ASKFALKJSF

Ev (IT Coursework - Mail merge ARGH) says: AAAAAH

Hetty says: IN BIRMINGHAM Hetty says: AJKSFHLAKSJFGLKAJSGFLHAG

Ev (IT Coursework - Mail merge ARGH) says: ASFDSDDLKFJDS

Hetty says: AKWFHSALKSJHFASJKFHGSDF!

Ev (IT Coursework - Mail merge ARGH) says: AD;FLKDFGKJSFH';LSDFJKF

I feel this sums up the most important part of my evening.

sweet you roll.

(Realistic) to do tonight:

• copy up all Aeneid translation
• find out both essay titles
• email Sharl
• music essay?
• find out Hippolytus lines for test

Today was the first in many long lunchtimes of A level composition performances, I think. Currently I'm in four. How I wish people didn't know I played the violin. How I wish people knew what was possible on the violin, and that this didn't include pizzicato semiquavers. On the bright side, prawn crackers.

It's just that, you know. Brought down like an old hotel.

don’t it feel like sunshine after all

To do: rewriting of two very, very shoddy English seminars, one of which I winged impressively last week with only very vague pointers like *scribble* and “Kate made into the monster?”, and one of which I will be winging similarly tomorrow. But Aristophanes preparation is done, despite not being able to find book and speculating whether it might still be in Saas Fee.

Cheered up now. I’d say it was definitely withdrawal symptoms. And also the feeling of not having done enough work, which is always a little guiltifying.

Main important thoughts of today… squidgey? Whee, Susannah had my music.  Ohgod, fifth time playing through Divertimento. Fwee, Hustle. Fwee, chocolate. Fwee, Nikko.

so much more than this.

Hm. Coming to the end of a four-lesson free at school, and… can't work. Too apathetic. Thus I sit here, eating flapjack and reading about the Anabasis on wiki.

Feeling down today, but not sure why. Perhaps just tiredness. Perhaps that I'm in Lizza's AS recital this afternoon and I don't know if I'll be able to remember the part that I've lost the music for. Perhaps just missing.

This spacebar is even more demented than the one I have at home. Tempted to take it apart, but I might get shouted at. Still, it's like a see-saw.

Edit: *reads Paul's meme properly for the first time* *cackles*

The greatest thing since bread came sliced.

Yesterday was… a fantastic today. Thank you so much to those involved.

Admittedly, when I say 'day', I mean evening. Or from about 5 o'clock, when Paul got here. We Went down to Ivanhoe together to make plans for playing positions and suchlike, and when we got back we were halfway through some spaghetti things when Ed, Nikko and Nikko's parents arrived. That was fun timing. Eventually, amidst the oh-god-my daughter's-boyfriend's-parents-are-sitting-in-the-conservatory confusion, my mother cooked yet more spaghetti and everyone was fed. There was also sellotaping, photocopying, changing into Black Things, and driving down to Ivanhoe.

Concert was very, very nervewracking. It began to be nervewracking at the time that Jenny began inventing an exciting new piano accompaniment to Schindler's List, and didn't end until we finished the Einaudi and heard those little 'mmm's that people do just before clapping, when you've played something that's really got to them. And then it was good. Really good. The mistakes didn't matter in the end. What mattered was the man who told me he had got shivers down his neck from the Einaudi, and the woman who told me the choice of pieces was excellent, and that Ashby School had a lot to be proud of. Cough.

Oh, and Chris managed to get eight St George's flags to stick in his hair. This was just one of the highlights of a very highlighty evening.

Then… we got home. Managed to distract the parents with tea and coffee, which was unexpectedly successful, and ran off to play music in my room. At some point I gave Nikko permission to record me and Ed doing Imitation of Life and Two Days together, which was definitely a good thing. My singing voice sounds very, very different to anything I'd imagined, listening back now. I should probably learn those songs better, as I kept not knowing when to come in. But… fantastic. Ed on guitar, Hetty on vocals, and Nikko on… a small vase with money in. Just fantastic. We need to do it again, soon. And I'm learning Between the Bars, just in case.

And today, orchestra then homework. Homework. NB.

You are on your way.

Amen

See the day lilies at the edge
of our field, how we walk through them
every spring and talk of the things
we will do when our lives allow
and the children are blooming.

And the field itself,
no matter how we abuse it,
it loves us and feeds us
and asks us to return.

Every year we bend our backs
over the crop, over the weeds,
over the tenderly buzzing insects.
It hurts so much and is never enough.

See how often we cry
over nothing, over each other,
our children, our small wants
and needs; how hungry we stay
and how long is eternity.

See how your limbs and mine
find each other, again
and again, that same door
always opening, how sweetly
we sing the older we get.

Soon we will
have lived with each other
longer than we have lived
with ourselves and more easily.

There is a lesson in this
and love. Consider it.

—Michael Carey