Yesterday: My First Game with the Marching Band?

Yesterday was supposed to be the first football game of the school year; but we got rained and lightninged out : ( We still had a great time at the rehearsal, though.

To be truthful, I was sort of dreading the game. Due to my emailing to the wrong email address to speak with the band director about when audition dates and band camp dates were (they changed band directors this year), I was unable to try out. The only open instrument in the percussion section were crash cymbals, which I am terrible with since I lack forearm strength (which you need to play the crash cymbals).

So I attended rehearsal today with a somewhat heavy heart, but once we got into rehearsing outside, playing "The Star-Spangled Banner," "Sing, Sing, Sing," and our fight song, I started to get the hang of the crash cymbals. I even held them the right way. We marched around the parking lot outside, which everyone in marching band refers to as "The Field," since when we march on it, we are simulating what it would be like to march around a football field. When Mr. James isn't directing us, this kid (who I think is a senior) named Banks takes over, and he's in charge of starting off the fight song and the drum line's cadence.
There are some moments that make an impression on you as they're happening (and I know this is random-sounding) and you realize as they're happening that you will remember them for a long time afterwards. This happened as we were marching around the parking lot; we had come to the last song we play before we exit the field, and the entire line began to turn in one spot and form a spiral as we played our fight song. As we spiraled around as a whole group, the percussionists on the outside, a strong wind stirred the leaves on the trees above us and they cascaded upon our heads like golden rain.
Before we marched around the parking lot, another upperclassman named Casey instructed those of us who missed band camp separately about how to march and what-not. Until I learned his name later that day, I simply referred to him as Mr. Instructor. So after learning to march, we met up with the rest of the band, ran through the show, and went inside around 6:30 to eat dinner; those of us who had paid for pizza stood in line for it in the hallway of the arts building. I took my brown lunchbox, got a drink from the table, and stood outside near the bleachers where most everyone was sitting. It was drizzling slightly, pretty, and overcast outside. Then, as I stood there eating my raisins and cinammon toast crunch, the rain picked up and thunder sounded. It started to pour down in buckets, so we all ran inside.
The percussionists all messed around in the back of the band room for a while with all of the instruments. I hung out mostly around the vibraphone. While we were waiting for the rain to let up, lightning flashed outside; it seemed that we might not get to play.
Then, in case there was a possibility of the rain letting up, we loaded our instruments into a Reynolds truck; we also retrieved ponchos to wear. Mine was blue, and it is important to note that it was the first poncho I have worn in my entire life.
Soon after this, we all got onto buses to see if the game was still going to be played over at the Parkland Stadium. The percussionists and Banks got a short bus all to ourselves. Once we reached the stadium, however, we discovered that the game would be postponed until today, and that we wouldn't be able to travel over there on Saturday as a group.
We drove back to the school, and my dad picked me up shortly afterwards. We went to see "Public Enemies" at the $2 Theater, which, besides being a little lengthy, was pretty good. We came home and I slept like a rock. I did have uneasy dreams about Heather and Hope. I dreamt that the latter was around eight years old, and that they were in our upstairs bathroom preparing to go somewhere; I think that my dad and I were going wherever it was that they were going as well. In the dream, it was a surprise to see them in the house, and as Hope was speaking to me about how excited she was to be going wherever it was that we were going, I couldn't help but marvel at how different she was since the last time I had seen her and heard her speak; she sounded very adult-like when she spoke. Heather moved about, packing things silently. This was the entire dream.

Day 2 of High School

So, I have been in high school for two days now officially, if you don't count the two orientation days last week. What do I think? Well, my back hasn't hurt so much since the time I fell down a playground set's ladder and landed on my spine; at any point throughout the day, we have to be carrying a text book. This is because my locker is located on the third floor of the main building, and the only parts of the day in which I have time to use it are before school starts and during the lunch period (I have first lunch).
My schedule is as follows:
1st Period - Seminar English 1 with Ms. Jones
2nd Period - Seminar in the Arts (teachers change periodically, but for now my teacher is Mr. Gal)
3rd Period - French 2 with Ms. Matisko
(lunch)
4th Period - Geometry with Ms. Parise
5th Period - Band with Mr. James
6th Period - Life Management Skills with Mr. Pinnix
7th Period - Dance 1 with Ms. Reece

I like all of my teachers; I haven't really spent much time trying to get to know any kids from different schools yet, though I have become reunited with some people that I used to go to elementary school with back at Whitaker who I haven't seen since second grade. Most of them look the same, except bigger.
Though I like all of my classes so far, I've been having some eighth grade nostalgia. I miss having a history class taught by Mr. Holbrook (the most amazing history teacher ever) and an English class taught by enthusiastic Mrs. Allman. I miss science and Ms. Vasili's mathematical lectures. I miss band, where everyone actually played; for some reason, half of the kids in my band class today didn't even pick up their instruments.
I did see Ms. Vasili over the summer, which was pretty cool. I was inside Borders one day and she waved from outside. I didn't recognize her at first, because it was dark outside, but after she waved a second time, I walked out to hug her and talk to her for a minute.
But anyways, the most surprising thing about high school so far is that I am now fully able to find my way to my classes, which are in three different buildings. It's amazing. The trick to finding out which side of the main building you are in is looking out through the windows in the stairwell; if you see the hospital and the buildings of downtown, then you are close to the history building; if not, then you are closer to the arts building.
I hope that the rest of my freshman year at Reynolds goes swimmingly; I will not be able to blog as much from now on, most likely : (

Movie Store News and Small Dream

O.K., I'll start with the dream; it was very short, and I don't remember much from it. In the dream, I was watching from the side, and was not present in the human form. There was a woman whose car had been driven over a bridge into a lake. She was trapped inside of this car, and her boyfriend, who was named Aaron in the dream, stood on the shore and was frantic. She was shouting at him from the car, mostly shrieking his name, "Aaron, Aaron," repeatedly; in the dream, I felt his anxiety and his inability to take action. The car was slipping under the water when I awoke.
Now, though this dream doesn't seem to foreshadow an awesome day, this is what I had nonetheless. My mom picked me up at 10:00 from my dad's house. His friends, Daniel and Jason, have been working at our house on the roof for the past few days in order to construct a sort of widow's walk outside of my dad's bedroom's and the guest bedroom's windows. After dropping stuff off at my mom's house, my mom and I went out to eat at La Carreta, since she had a few coupons to use.
When we arrived back home, we took a quick bike ride to Moravia (a.k.a. the Moravian church down the street) and back; it was super hot outside. When we came back, she told me about a quarrel she had with one of her colleagues at work the previous night over the meaning of the phrase al dente in reference to the culinary arts. We looked it up and discovered that it meant not too soft and not too firm, and was usually applied to the cooking of pasta. She was correct in her argument, and so we were going to print out the information for her to show to her colleague, but it didn't print out everything for some reason, and so we gave up hope on extending his knowledge of Italian etymology.
Soon after that, she had to leave for work, and so I watched a movie that she had rented last night from the red box called "I Love You, Man," which was pretty awesome. The main character in it happened to be the same guy who portrayed Nick in the A&E version of "The Great Gatsby."
Later on, Wesley announced that when we made the trip to return the movie to the red box, we would stop by the famed hot guy movie store to rent some more movies, as he would be going to a certain Chinese restaurant nearby for dinner anyway; while we were over on that side of town, we also planned to visit my mom at Walgreens.
We stopped at her work first; we brought Madden (my pit bull) along, and so she was able to come out for a minute or two to see him before going back to man the counter. Then we drove down the road a little ways to order the food before walking over and entering the video store to look for movies while we waited for the food.
It was my lucky day today; the past few times that my mom and I have gone to the movie store, we haven't seen the famed hot guy, but he was there tonight. So was some other random semi-hot guy, who was renting something. But he was mediocre in comparison. We were looking for a movie when I remembered a film that Daniel had recommended the previous day, called "The Swing Kids," that was about the underground development of swing music; I greeted the man at the counter and asked him if he had it in stock, which he did not. Then, later, once we had found our three movies, one of them being "Thank You For Smoking," we took them to the counter to rent; Wesley inquired about when "Terminator" and "Star Trek" were going to be at the movie store. While at the counter I discussed the awesomeness that was "Star Trek," which my dad and I went to see at the $2 theater just last night. Then, once the transaction was made, we thanked him and I wished him an awesome day, and he said, "You too!" enthusiastically. That's one of the things I admire about him: his enthusiasm.
Then, we drove home, and we've just finished watching the first Rob Zombie production of "Halloween," which for some reason saddened me slightly; it seems that as I grow older, I lose my liking for the horror movie genre. So, my mom just got home and we're about to watch the other movie we rented before we go to sleep; tomorrow is the orientation, and I need at least an hour in the morning to pretty myself up sufficiently.

Movie Store and Nerdy Book Dream

My grandparents arrived in town on Thursday; so far, we've played tennis, gotten lost near Rural Hall while looking for a music store, walked around in the neighborhood at night, eaten at their favorite restaurant (K&W), and gone to the library. I solved my what-to-read issue by checking out a collection of Carson McCullers's short stories, which are pretty decent from what I've read of them so far.
My dad and I went to Reynolds today to talk out my schedule problems involving AP World, which I want to take, but for which I will need transportation to the career center, when I'm at both houses. We'll be speaking to the open house people to see if we can't make an arrangement.
Now, I had two interesting dreams last night, which hasn't happened in a long time; I've been having a lot of them that I can't remember.
In the first dream, it was around Christmas and snowing; my mom wanted to get "A Christmas Story" to watch. So she sent me over to the famed hot guy movie store. I bicycled there, as I did that one time in real life, and was relieved by the warmth once I made my way inside. All four employees were on duty, which was unusual, particularly since it must have been near the working holidays at the time. There was a large poster on the far wall displaying several Christmas movies, including the one that I wanted to rent, and so I started to head over in that general direction. However, halfway there, I became blind; I couldn't see anything. I heard the employees laugh behind the desk, and the hot guy asked if I need assistance. I told him that I couldn't see, but he said nothing else. I was wondering how I might make it back to the house when there was a transition to the next dream.
In this dream, it was also winter. However, it wasn't snowing, because I was in the deep South; I was having a nerdy book dream about The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and in the dream, I was an adult and was walking over to John Singer's and Antonaupoulos's apartment to have dinner with them or something like that. I dreamt that when I rang the doorbell, there were lights in different rooms in the house that would flash to indicate someone's presence at the door. Antonaupoulos made fettucini alfredo and, after dinner, they were teaching me how to speak in sign language. It was about there that I woke up, but it was memorable particularly because it was vaguely pleasant, which most of my dreams that I remember are not.
Tonight, my dad and I are going to drive out to the moutains to stay the night and will be going tubing down the Dan River tomorrow morning before driving back home.

Happenings and Memory: Girl Scout Party

These past two days have been nicely eventful. I've finished my over-the-summer A Separate Peace reading, as well as the project that came with it; I plan to have my dad check it over, because he is critical and will help me avoid a low grade to start the year off. Today, it was oven temperature outside; my mom picked me up from Alexis's house and drove me to her doctor's appointment. Afterwards, we went home and thought about what we should do to pass the time before dinner (which will be sausage pasta) and before my dad comes to dine with us. We decided to take a bike ride, and figured we might as well take a longer one. My mom and I rode from Gordon Drive (which is off Country Club) all the way to Robinhood Road via Peace Haven Road. It was a rigorous bike ride, and once we were on Robinhood, we stopped by the famed hot guy movie store to pick up a movie. Curious George rented a movie called "Huckabees" to us (I think that's what it was called). Now, just for your enlightenment, these are the people who work at the movie store. There's the Curious George, the hot guy, John (whose name is the only one we know for sure), and this tan man who looks like he belongs in the mafia; we've decided to nickname him Don for the time being.
In any case, the bike ride was ten miles long, and now that I'm back, I am extremely hungry. I can smell the sausage cooking from the kitchen. However, I'm glad that we did ride that far because last night at Alexis's house, I ate this really delicious recipe of her mom's called chocolate eclair cake, and need I explain more? The sleepover itself was really fun; Elizabeth and Shannon were also present, and among other things, we went to the mall, ate dipping dots, dined at Chili's, filled out these little surveys in Alexis's Pepsi or Coke? book, met Alexis's chinchilla, and listened to music. It was an awesome night. I don't really remember my dreams from last night, except that one involved a jail; my mom and I were walking down the corridor of a cell block that was empty and discussing something about it that I cannot remember.
Here's the memory: when I was about five or six, I used to be part of the Girl Scouts. If I recall correctly, I never did go on past Brownies for one reason or another, but I had fun while I was a part of the program. My old friend Allie's mom was the leader of our troupe. She directed the meetings, distributed the badges, etc. At the end of the Girl Scout year, or at the beginning of the summer, Allie's mom decided to hold the End-of-Brownies party in the backyard of her house. Nearly everyone turned out; it was a really fun party. The girls all played on Allie's trampoline, swing set, in the sandbox, and just ran around. Then the sun began to set and fireflies emerged like fairies from havens hidden in the grass. We all clamored over to the room behind the screen door to retrieve Styrofoam plates of ice cream. Rushing back out again, we ran to find places on Allie's hammock, which was in the middle of the yard. About six of us were able to fit on there uncomfortably, but we managed. Then, Allie came out last with her ice cream and came to sit on the hammock. When she sat down, it seemed that the contraption had reached its limit, and it began to tilt dangerously. All the little girls on it screamed and clutched their bowls of ice cream. Allie, grinning wickedly, stood again and listened to our yells as the hammock swung back into place. She sat down again, stood up, sat down; some of the girls were able to scramble off, but others (like me) who really wanted their ice cream had to hold to the hammock with one hand to keep from toppling over and ruining the ice cream that they held in their other hand. Then, Allie sat down one last time and the whole hammock flipped; I was somehow able to cling to the netting before falling to the ground. I dropped my ice cream and watched as a pair of feet landed right in the middle of it. Another old friend of mine, Becca, scrambled up and wiped her feet on the grass, apologizing for the ruined ice cream. I didn't care; we were all laughing because of how hilarious it all was. We went back, asked for and received more ice cream to replace the bowls that had fallen in the grass. Later on, our parents arrived to pick us up and drive us home, as the sun disappeared from view behind the surrounding houses, as the fireflies sparkled like sporadic stars and the crickets sang out from unseen places.

Panda Dream

Last night, after my mom got off work, we watched the movie version of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, which was pretty good, but I'm glad I read the book first. This afternoon, after we take a bike ride, we plan to watch the newer A&E version of The Great Gatsby, as my mom just finished reading the book for the first time herself; I was surprised when I learned that neither my mom nor my dad had ever read the book.
I had trouble getting to sleep last night for some reason; we each got to bed around 1:00, but I stayed up a bit later to work on a melody that I was developing on the piano, which I finished this morning. I think that it will be titled "In Fiction," though I'm not sure if I want to add on anything else to it yet, so it really isn't complete. It's sort of short, so I probably will end up adding on to it. But this isn't the point: I got to bed myself around 2:00, and didn't really get to sleep until 2:40.
I dreamt that I was at my dad's house, and that our whole yard, front and back, was flooded by about five feet of cloudy water, except for the driveway and a small portion of grass that clung to the perimeter of the house. One day, as I was edging my way carefully around the side of the house to the back, I noticed that there were multiple large panda bears swimming around in the deeper water. They were like the polar bears at the exhibit in the zoo, except not as lethargic; they paddled their way forcefully through the water with great speed. After I first noticed them, I would come out to the side of the house to watch their progress through the water, and they never bothered me. Then, one day, my grandparents came to visit in the dream, and I wanted to show them the panda bears. I took them around to the side of the house and pointed out each of the four or five panda bears that were in the turbid water. "Aw, they're cute," my grandma commented, and my grandfather stood, his brow furrowed in worry, and said, "You do know that they're dangerous creatures, right?" To which I responded that they had never bothered me before, and that I never went into the water to bother them.
Suddenly, the panda bears chose to reveal their dangerous potential. The one nearest to me began to swim toward us and claw its way up the little grassy shore to our place against the house and above the water. It pawed at my bare feet, and left deep red scratches in them; then, after a second in which I thought it would retreat, it dragged me down into the water with it. My grandparents ran inside to inform my father of my predicament, and I struggled to escape the clutches of the strong panda bear. I could barely touch the bottom of the flooded area, and as I thrashed about with my numb arm trapped inside the jaw of the panda bear, I inhaled a lot of water and felt it burn my lungs. I tried to swim with my one free arm back to the shore, but was unable to make much progress due to the strength of the jaw that was clamped down on my arm. I saw my father run out of the house, panicking, with his cell phone in one hand and some rope in the other. He tossed the rope out to me and was eventually able to drag me back onto the grassy shore. Shaking, we went back inside the house and I woke up.
I suspect that I had this dream because we used to have bamboo growing in our backyard. My dad had a long and furious battle with it in his attempts to cut it down, as it grows very fast; I kept telling him that the solution would be to simply invest in a pet panda bear. After this dream, I'm not sure whether I will ever make a joke like that again.

Family Visit, Finished Book, and Two Dreams

As I have informed my readers several times, my family came to stay for about two weeks recently; they arrived on Saturday the 18th of July and left on Friday the 31st of July. The group that came consisted of my cousins, Autumn, Tim, and Bethany, my grandma, my uncle Alan, and my uncle's dog Shadow. Due to an unfortunate and unforeseen clash between our dogs and Shadow, the latter was mortally wounded and was put to sleep on the 20th, a Monday. Despite this tragedy, which I don't think anyone will have an easy time forgetting, we had a very nice time together as a family.
For most of the trip, we simply talked together at the house or took my grandmother to Borders to sit and drink coffee, as she loves to frequent her local bookstore Books-A-Million back home. However, we also went to the zoo, walked around Bethabara and Reynolda Gardens, and rode the two bikes almost every day. We visited my grandfather in Durham, and it was the first time that he had seen my cousins, uncle, and grandma for several years; we dined, as is the odd family tradition, at the Golden Corral. My cousins and I were collectively disappointed by the lack of candy corn.
I also had the honor of taking my cousins to the hot guy movie store, where I was pleased to point out the famed hot guy on our first trip there. It was hilarious, because he wasn't there at first, but Curious George (the guy who looks like him) was.
Disappointed, I became absorbed in my search for a movie, when suddenly I heard my mom whisper, "Robyn!" When I looked over, she was trying to discreetly gesture over behind one of the movie racks, where the pretty guy was replacing a movie; he had appeared out of nowhere.
When I pointed him out to my cousins, they were in the opinion that Curious George was more attractive, which was Shannon's opinion as well.
After checking out our movie, I told him to have a fabulous day, to which he responded, "Good word!" Everyone started laughing at this dorky compliment as we exited the establishment; we started to plot about which word we might use on our next trip to the movie store (In case anyone's interested, the word we decided on using was "super," though we did not receive a compliment for this word).
And so, all in all, it was very sad when they left; my mom cried, and so did I. It is likely that no one else did, as my mom and I are apparently the only saps in the family.
I then went over to my dad's house, where the separation between him and Heather is becoming final; half-packed boxes now dominated the majority of our very large (let me repeat this: very large) house. My dad and I have been frequenting many furniture stores, haggling and getting pretty awesome deals as a result of the recession. I will be staying over at my mother's house until Heather has moved all of her things out.
Now for the two dreams: The first one was very short, and only contained an inner monologue that I seemed to be trying to convey to a doctor of some sort who was having difficulties understanding me. What I said, over and over, was, "Part of my heart is missing; not like George, who's missing his entire heart. I'm just missing the part of my heart with my soul in it." This is what kept repeating itself in my head, and for the record, I have no clue who George is.
The next dream actually had images in it. In the dream, my cousins and uncle were back in town, and we were messing around with a Google Earth-like contraption on the computer. However, the difference between Google Earth and this device was that with the one we were using, you could actually visit the places that you typed in. My uncle let us each pick a place to go to. Autumn wanted to go to Alaska for one reason or another, and so typed that in; we watched as the screen zoomed in on the portion of the Earth that contains Alaska, as that white landmass grew larger before our eyes until Autumn turned to us, said she'd come back in a bit, walked through the screen, and disappeared.
Tim, Bethany, and I agreed that we wanted to see New York; Tim and Uncle Alan went to Utica and Frankfurt, which are the cities in Upstate New York where part of our family lives. Bethany and I wanted to see New York City, more specifically: Manhattan; she typed in 'Central Park' and disappeared through the screen. I thought about all of the places I could go, and decided that I wanted to see the 59th Street Bridge, which, in case you all aren't dorks like me, is the title of one of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs, "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)." So I typed this in and watched the screen zoom in on a rather non-descript bridge at the end of what I took to be 59th Street. I walked through the screen and began to walk down the street, away from the bridge, toward the clustered buildings and skyscrapers of Manhattan. The song "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)" was blasting from these speakers that were mounted to the lampposts which stood on either side of the road, each separated by about five yards (This is ironic because in the song, there's a verse that goes, "Hello Lamppost, what'cha knowin'? I've come to watch your flowers growing. Ain't you got no rhymes for me? Do-be-do-doo-dloop feelin' groovy!") As I was walking down the street, gazing around in awe, my mom came walking out of a coffee shop nearby and crossed the street to meet me.
"Everyone else is back home." she told me, "We need to go." Then we walked back to the 59th Street Bridge and departed through a whirly sort of portal that awaited us there that no other pedestrians seemed to be able to see.
Last bit of news: I finished this amazing book, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. I highly suggest it, particularly if you have read and loved To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I mentioned to my dad one day how I found the two books similar, and then he informed me, as though this is common knowledge, that the two authors are both "Neo-gothic Southern authors." And so I nodded solemnly with a scholarly look on my face and said, "Of course; Neo-gothic. Hence the similar writing styles."
Two things that are similar about the writing styles: both make you involuntarily love the characters and feel as though you are living with them. I don't know how it happens, but by the end of both books, I felt as though I was being shut out of a world to which I had moved and grown accustomed. I didn't want either book to end. The other thing is that they have similar main characters: one finds many identical traits in Scout Finch and Mick Kelly, just as they see the misunderstood but larger-than-life qualities of Boo Radley and John Singer, the latter of which is my new fictional husband, by the way. So this means that I am currently wed to Jonathan the stuffed cow, Tom Bombadil from Fellowship of the Ring, and John Singer from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, as well as dating Boo Radley.
O.K., now here's the general summary of the book I've just read: Two deaf-mutes (John Singer and Spiros Antonaupoulos) who have lived together for ten years, are suddenly separated because Antonaupoulos's cousin doesn't want to become responsible for him someday if he goes to jail (Antonaupoulos goes through a shop-lifting phase). So the cousin sends Antonaupoulos to a mental institution several miles from the town where he had lived. John Singer moves from the house where they lived into a boarding house, and gets to see his friend (the only one who truly understands him) once or twice a year. Others begin to flock to Singer for comfort, and tell him of their dreams, since, on top of his deafness, he possesses a certain quality of appearing to be omniscient, all-knowing. They believe that he is the only one who truly understands their own struggles with loneliness and stifled moral beliefs. However, Singer cannot take the same comfort from his friendships with these people, as the only one who truly understands him is very far away.
This book will make you feel the huge spectrum of human emotion, from breathless joy to that hollow feeling of loneliness. If you read it, pay special attention to Chapter Seven, Part Two, which (I think) is the best example in the entire book of both of these emotional extremes. This book gets a gazillion stars. Read it.