Wednesday, March 25, 2009

I Did It!

Well, since I last wrote, science fair went ok, but Greta and I got Mahika Pradan's dad as a judge and he kind of tore our whole project apart. The other judge we had was nice though, and we were done with all our judges by 3:45, which was amazing. The last couple weeks of school have been crazy busy, but this week has been low homework, which has been really nice. I made some plans to reduce the craziness and my stress and they are working out, which is good. I'm at a pretty good place with Rover, not having panic attacks over it anymore, even though check #1 was a disaster, I think we're going to learn from it and be better. I'm still really enjoying my research paper on the 1918 influenza pandemic, which is a little weird, I know, but I'm ok with that. I'm signed up for four AP classes next year, but I'm actually excited about all of them. Even spanish, which I was on the fence about seems like its going to be fun. I'm doing well in my classes and it feels like summer is just around the corner. Things are pretty good with Peter, and I'm starting to think about prom (more on that to come, I'm sure :P).
So I'm feeling pretty good right now, ans especially amazing because I just got home from the Prism Concert. Since I'm in Jazz Combo, we of course had to play. We did Blue Bossa, and because of time constraints, only Dave and I soloed. I was freaking out at the idea of soloing in front of a big crowd, when I was the second of two soloists in the last act of the night. I was so terrified. Corey helped me work through the song, which gave me a little more confidence. Still, I was shaking before we went up there.
But somehow, I made it through the entire thing and I was fine! I sounded good with the whole group, and my solo was actually pretty good. I wrapped it up in the right places, it had a little bit of rhythmic variety, and I went for some notes that were a little more "out there" than normal, and it sounded good! I was amazed at myself. I didn't lose my breath or get freaked out when a note didn't quite work. We only took two choruses (well Dave actually took three, not exactly on purpose, but I heard it, and it worked out fine), and that almost felt like not enough to "say" what I wanted to. It's amazing- if you had told me at the beginning of the year to solo for 32 bars I would have freaked outl, but now I want more. It was so great, and I'm so proud of myself. People told me I did a nice job, (not Peter, but I'm only a little disappointed :P) and I got over the hump of playing in front of people. I feel like I've actually come a long way, and I have that super-excited about music feeling where I'm just itching to play. I'm so glad there is music in my life, and that I can connect to it and experience it like this. It was an awesome night.