Yesterday: French and Music

Here are a few of my favorite things! Haha, yesterday was one of the best days that I've had in a while - I was worrying about it initially because the French and Band exams were both happening that day and I was somewhat worried about my results from the exams. Madame Matisko gave us our writing and speaking prompts ahead of time, which was awesome, because it gave me the oppurtunity to memorize forty seconds of speaking over the weekend. I spent most of this weekend speaking to myself in French about what I plan to do this summer. Among other things, I discuss in the speaking prompt my plans to ride my bike, walk my dogs, go to classical music concerts to have a good view, visit my family in Naples, play Scrabble with my grandmother, and of course (bien sur) to work on the piano and trumpet. For the first time in my existence, I received a 100 on the speaking portion of the exam. I don't know how I performed on the rest of the test yet, but the listening portion, which I was worried about, was fairly easy and I think that I may have gotten a 100 on that also. The band exam was stressful simply because of my name's location in the alphabet - I have so much time to sit and worry and stress myself out before I even get the chance to play - I'm one of those "let's-just-get-it-over-with" people, but it's hard to have this sort of personality when your last name begins with a "W."
In any case, after I played, Mr. James told me that I got an A on my performance, about which I was quite pleased, considering I messed up at least three times. Overjoyed with my success, I joined Heather and another flute player outside for a game of Egyptian Rat Screw (which is a card game). Eventually, Ernest came outside also and slapped his way into the game before declaring that he was going to loiter in Dr. Moss's room for a while and play the piano. Then, when Mr. Small came by and forced us to sit on the cards (because we weren't entirely sure that we were supposed to be in possession of them), I followed Ernest over to Dr. Moss's room, wanting to play the piano myself. Sure enough, he was in there, and he allowed us to play. I started with the Introduction of the "Pathetique" Sonata, played all the way through the "Adagio Cantabile" section, moved on to Mozart's "K. 545," then through what I could remember from the "Tempest" Sonata of Beethoven, and some other pieces. After a while, Dr. Moss gave me some advice - for one thing, I am overly-Romantic (or in other words, the pedal is my crutch). My grandfather has told me this before, so I was not surprised - also, I need to bring out the melody with my right hand more, and my issue with that, I think, is partially that I like the sound of the lower notes a bit better than the higher ones, and so I subconsciously pound with my left and ignore my right almost completely. And last, I need to work on the strength of my pinkies, because they are weak and cannot carry the melody efficiently. It was a very productive hour-or-so that I spent in the room, and Dr. Moss suggested that I practice the third movement of the "Moonlight" Sonata so that I might increase the agility of my hands. I printed that out yesterday and I've started to learn it, though I don't know if I shall ever get it up to the speed at which I've just heard it played on Youtube. It's insanely difficult and amazing. All in all, yesterday was awesome. Last night, I went with my dad to Harris Teeter to purchase bouquets of flowers for my teachers, and I made two cd's, one for Mr. James and the other for Dr. Findeis, since I figured that it would be awkward to buy male teachers flowers. As I had no exam today, I spent the morning traveling around and distributing the gifts, spending about an hour in Ms. Jones' room conversing about various books and such. After that, I spent some time in Dr. Moss's room, practicing the third movement of the "Moonlight" and the second movement of Bach's sonata for piano and violin (number 4, I think). At lunch, I called my mother and asked her to come and rescue me, as I had no other reason to stay for the remainder of the day - she, Wesley, the baby, and I went out to lunch at Pancho Villas, and then she dropped me back off at my dad's house.