Put another 'x' on the calendar, Summer's on it's deathbed. There is simply nothing worse than knowing how it ends...

I've been crazy vocal via social network lately, I'm not sure why, maybe cuz I'm not surrounded by my peeps and I feel the need to share every silly thought, every frustration, every happy purchase, .......just a bunch of ridiculousness really. I preface this post with that because if you follow me via (insert any social network name here cuz I probably have it) then you may be very aware of whats been going on. 


However, if you just love to read me droning on about my days of wonderful mediocrity than please do continue to read.


As all incoming graduate students in the majority of the universities around the country, I too had to take placement exams yesterday. History proves that I am a  horrible test taker. I freak out while studying, I retain nothing, and have trouble not hyperventilating. For these 4 exams I pulled all necessary materials needed to study and brought them with me to BR this summer. I even purchased extra books to attempt to learn things i may not have covered the first time around. I carried my books to work, clocked out early to study, brought flashcards to go through while waiting in line for a spot in Zumba, and spent my Friday nights at home, organizing my study materials. Then came my cousin's wedding.... Studying went on the back burner and my wedding preparations took over.


After the wedding things were yet again hectic, i cant remember why, exactly. I know I was sick a lot. I slept a lot. I worked late a lot. I spend many a night in, drinking wine and reading a novel. And then when I felt ok, I enjoyed life, and the company of my cousins and closest friends.....hmmmm
Seems like I forgot all about studying.
Thus far, I had only studied pedagogy. I decided that I could not go into this program already having a masters and fail these tests. However, when it comes to theory, I have to be actively "practicing" for months to even be mediocre. So, I already gave up on doing well in that subject. History, I was not worried about. Diction, I needed to refresh my memory, but i felt pretty confident. I SHOULD know diction, it is a skill I need in life. If I did bad in diction, it wouldn't say much for my abilities. 
So pedagogy, a class I was very comfortable with, very confident in my knowledge and actually enjoy. I did not want to fail this test so it took priority. 


Life happened...moving/packing/moving/displacement/unpacking...this was 2 weeks of my life, then all of a sudden my exams were in 4 days and i needed to run to New Orleans for a doctors appointment.
(I know there are doctors in SA, I like her, her tech, and the nurses, I needed to be there)
I tried studying in the car ride. I looked over my F&A book to re-internalized Sonata form, I read over my outlines from my first semester of historical survey, I read through my handy dandy portable IPA flip book. As for Ped, I decided to not try to learn anything "new" and to just focus on the things i already know & the things i know I have trouble with. I  spend a ton of time trying to understand "formants" and the rest re-learning origin/insertion points and jobs of the abdominal muscles. 


As it got later and later on Friday night, my stomach grew tighter and tighter. Thankfully I got reassurance, words of wisdom, and confidence boosters from a few wonderful people. And i'm sure prayer helped, I asked several people who are tight with the "big guy" to say some prayers for me since I'm sure He gets way tired of hearing me complain and whine about frivolousness....My spiritual relationship with God is like the boy who cried wolf.


So instead of staying up all night to touch on all the topics i didn't go over, I decided to sleep. 
I thought about it, what was I really afraid of? I was afraid of my pride being hurt.
I have studied all necessary topics to earn a MM, I have been tested and proved to be proficient. 
I should not have to "study" for these tests, I should know the information. And if i don't know it or have forgotten things so completely, then i should have to review it.
With these thoughts and nice hot shower, I went to bed, and i was out.


I was so proud of myself. I did not freak out AT ALL. I was as calm as a cucumber all day. Went from test to test. Confident and not giving up. when i came to things i wasn't sure of I moved on and came back later. I knew I failed the ped. After looking at the questions, I knew it was hopeless. So i decided to proved my solid knowledge in the sections I could, answered others vaguely, and left a few blank. 
(my only frustration came from things that I know i learned but forgot to review, wasted points)
I sailed through history, praising Dr. James Boldin for his thoroughness in teaching and excitement for the subject he taught. It always feels good to know exactly want you need to know without hesitation. 


I laughed during the theory exam, that's how bad I was it.


Summary of the day: SUCCESS!!! I didn't vomit, cry, shake, or freak out AT ALL!!!
I was social, spoke to all these new people I don't care to meet, I was friendly and talkative.
I was proud of myself. 
So even though I failed half of my exams, I feel like I walked away from this experience bettered by it.


So, here is the end of my freedom, I have 2 more days, well....not even 2 more days.....
Tomorrow I have to register, I have to practice, Tuesday I have auditions for the TBA opera production, I have to practice, Wednesday classes begin......


......so back to the song I quoted as my title, saying goodbye to my freedom...and other things...
"Put another 'x' on the calendar, Summer's on it's deathbed. There is simply nothing worse than knowing how it ends..."

Now you want to play And then it`s no And when you say you`ll stay That`s when you go You`re undecided now So what are you gonna do?

Looks like my blogging is as bad as my journaling. In fact, I am currently journaling more often. Its almost a lost art. Like pen pals. I used to love having a pen pal. Getting a letter in the mail address especially to you and not asking for money or advertising crap you don't need or want is a great feeling. I also adore stationary and fine paper. I'm gonna bring back the art of pen pal-age. If you're interested in being my pen pal shoot me a fb message or a text and we can exchange addresses.

July was a lovely month, minus a few medical issues. I was working 40 hours a week and able to schedule my own hours however I wanted. I didn't hate my job or my co-workers. I was able to take Zumba. I took turns cooking delicious meals with my cousin. I drank a lot, but classy like, never excessive, mostly wine & wheat beer. My cousin got married; I was a bridesmaid and sang (singing is a blog in itself). I spent tons of time with different family members, mostly my triplets, and was able to see my closest friends multiple times. The highlight of it all was going to Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo to spend a half an hour up close and personal with 3 snowy Bengal tiger cubs.

I've wanted to blog about a few of the aforementioned events, but i was always exhausted or feeling ill. So, I will do a mini breakdown of those events before I write about the topic that urged me to start writing tonight.

My family loves parties. My grandparents had 6 children, 4 boys and 5 girls. Between siblings, friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, aunts, and uncles, the house was always full. This has been carried on to my dozens of cousins. Needless to say, we love a good wedding. Food, drink, music, and dancing.

The St. Charles Streetcar Band was live entertainment for the wedding. It's my uncle's band, their big season is Mardi Gras because they ride along the parade route in a wooden streetcar playing oldies and a little jazz. The family fondly refers to him as Uncle Sax. I've always felt really close to him because he is both a musician and an artist. He raised 6 kids, sending them all to catholic schools, by living on his arts. When I worry about the career path I chose, I think about him. If he could do it with a huge family, I too will get by.

We went to Gulf Shores with little to no planning for the sole purpose of spending $50 to play with baby tigers. Shiva, Tibet, & Mohan. I've always wanted to work with big animals so I was extremely excited to cuddle with these babies. Their color made me even more excited because I grew up loving Suri the white tiger from Audubon Zoo. Of course, the female decided she wasted to practice her hunting skills on me. She repeatedly attacked me, and was quite sneaky about it. Still cute though. The scars were well worth it.
Stephanie's favorite animal is the Lemur which only cost $10 to encounter. There were four 3 month old soft, cuddly, energetic lemurs. They were pouncing around the enclosure using our shoulders as levers and eating treats from out hands.

The sad part about Gulf Shores was that it rained all day. We were right by the beach and couldn't bask in the sun and lay on the sand. At breakfast time, it looked like a hurricane was coming through. The sun came out around 6:45 when we were shopping at the outlet mall miles away from the cost. It was a very enjoyable trip anyway. A very expensive little overnight trip.

My last little goodbye was supposed to be a group of is going to Latin night. Stephanie loves dancing salsa, meringue, and others. Alex and Rebecca like to dance as well. I like to dance, but despite my appearance  I'm not very good at Latin dances. Anyway we got all dressed up and went to this really cool wine place in the warehouse district called W.I.N.O. (wine institute of new Orleans)

It's a nice place to go for wine tasting because you can buy wine by the glass, half glass, or ounce. It's self serve wine dispensers and there is cheese, breads, olives, and various dips available to purchase to eat with your wine. There was a very nice atmosphere, clam and relaxed. It can get a little pricey, but no more than going out got dinner. (and personally, going to dinner gets old) I wish I had discovered this place before, I love it. After wino we decided to go back to Toni's house and play Headbands, but the tiredness took hold of us soon.

“The Legend of the Gil Curse” or “ The Luck o’ the Gil’s”

Well, I’m not really going to tell you a story, I’m tired. However, I am going to give you a bit of a background story. My dear dear cousins of a similar Gil persuasion often refer to “the Gil luck” or “the Gil curse.” I tend to roll my eyes when things are being blamed on such a silly notion because I find that we Gil’s as a whole are pretty fortunate people. We are not rich, and things don’t come easy, but we have a huge loving family that actually gets along, for the most part. Today, however, I have come to believe that there is some truth in the “the Gil curse.”

Sunday, we received a call telling us that a new Carpet was being installed in our apartment to be. Great thing, right? Well. Yes, but, we were told we could not move in until Friday and we were scheduled to move in on Wednesday.  Our moving truck was already reserved to be picked up on Tuesday and dropped off on Friday. So, we called the apartment manager back and told her about our predicament. They were so very sweet and accommodating. She told us we would be priority and they would do our apartment first and we could definitely move our furniture in by Wednesday evening. Problem resolved.

Tuesday, bright and early, Budget regrets to inform us that they do not have the truck we reserved at the location. So, they told us they would hunt down a truck and would call us back when they procured one.  I had arranged a couple of friends to help with the moving of heavy objects during that morning as they were going to be busy that evening.  Not to mention, it’s ridiculously hot in Monroe and the humidity takes your breath away. So we sat around and waited. I was feeling ill since I woke up so I took a nap. Four hours later, at the hottest part of the day, Budget finds us a truck. We ordered a 14 foot, they only had a 22 available. Thankfully we did not have to pay extra, as it was their fault. This put us way behind schedule, and the heat was pure misery. I also was only able to find one of my helpers. I could go on about how much things sucked but it is not interesting. The point is that between these events and me getting dizzy and feeling like I was gonna puke, we were very much behind schedule.

Next problem was being behind schedule. Truck not completely loaded till Wednesday. Linsy & Madonna are in San Antonio, their belongings are still in Monroe. Let’s just go ahead and skip to today.

Our belongings surfaced around 1pm. Our carpet was done, there were only a few minor repairs left and a few wet patches of paint on the walls. So as we are about to begin unloading our belongings, the maintenance man walks in to check on our water. He goes into my room (I have a sink/vanity) and a few minutes later he hurriedly walks out declaring that we have a really big problem. I gingerly walk to my room thinking, maybe my water is not working and deciding that it would not be the end of the world. Unfortunately, I find the exact opposite. Water is spewing from the pipe under the cabinet directly onto my new carpet. He has to leave the building to turn the main water supply off. The water finally stops pouring out, 6 gallons later. Now,  ¾ of my room’s carpet is completely saturated with water.
We are also losing the space of a whole bedroom and closet. Our apartment now looks like a sardine can. All of our stuff is piled into Linsy’s bedroom and the living room. It is awful. The carpet cleaner came and got rid of the water, and cleaned the carpet, but he had to remove the under padding (I don’t know what it’s called). So, now we not only have to wait for maintenance to fix the little odd jobs around the apartment, we also have to wait for them to redo the entire carpet in my room. We were originally being allowed to move in tomorrow after 4pm. We have no clue when we can get in there now. Maybe Saturday......I sure do hope so.

So, I am beginning to believe in this “Gil luck.” I can not, however, fully endorse it. Behind every problem I listed was a silver lining. The most striking one being: If we were not behind schedule, my stuff would have been moved in my room on Wednesday. The problem with the pipe would have been discovered today and all of my belongings would have been ruined. Another silver lining: I have an awesome friend who opened up his home to us until we can move into our own. Lastly, the management and staff at our complex are so very kind and caring. I think everything is going to turn out fine. It’s just going to take longer than anticipated. 

Now I was sitting waiting wishing That you believed in superstitions Then maybe you'd see the signs

I'm sitting in books-a-million to use their wi-fi and soak up the a/c. To my left there is a table full of people that appears to be a book club. After about 10 minutes, I realized that they all seemed to have some sort of mental handicap, mostly down syndrome. I instantly had the urge to go sit at their table. Then I remembered how I am always drawn to people with special needs. For a person like me who doesn't really like people, I find it strange that I want to make connections with people are hard hard to connect with. For 8 years I have toyed with the idea of music therapy. I have changed my mind back and forth to whether or not I wanted to study this. I went as far as taking abnormal psychology as a preparatory measure of avoiding prerequisites. Now, I am moving on to my next academic endeavor and it is still not MT. I've decided that I'm just lazy. There is no reason why I couldn't have applied to Loyola for MMT along with the 8 other programs. I applied for a doctoral program I wasn't ready for as well as a masters program in a city I didn't want to move to, yet I didn't apply to a school I love, in a city I love, to a program I've considered for years. That equals lazy or scared; maybe I'm a bit of both. I want to be their friend. I want to win their trust. I guess I'm drawn to them because I have trust issues with the average person. These people wear their feelings on their sleeve. They tell you exactly what they are thinking, their affection is genuine, and you would never know how bad they have it in life because having life is enough for them. Maybe I'm a bit jealous. Society doesn't expect much from them so when they accomplish anything, its a great thing. Talking to or watching the interactions of  a mentally challenged individual always (I can't help but sound a bit cliche) tugs at my heart. I get teary or feel things in the pit of my stomach.

I've always felt that I was "called" to do something. I considered the religious life for a while but never shared that with anyone until my 4th year in college when a close friend expressed similar interests. I signed up on this vocation website to help me find an order that would suit me. I had phone calls and meetings with a couple of sisters and even filled out an application to do a year of service as a lay person under the sisters of charity in St. Louis Missouri. She was really recruiting me, and I know she would have chosen me if I continued the process. Instead I started my MM. My excuses for not joining a religious community are varied. I'm too vain, I'm too materialistic, I too lush, I don't pray enough, too much of  hopeless romantic, I don't trust enough. But my main reason was music. What would my service be? I can not play any instrument. I don't want to teach. So i continue to push that thought away. But I realized a sister who was an MT would have many service opportunities. So am I pushing my correct path away because I am too lazy to follow through with it and too in love with the idea of being in love. I don't know, I feel like I'm too much of a crappy person to be in the religious life, even though i know a TON of really ugly evil people who claim to live the religious life. I can't be like that, I'm not a hypocrite. Anyway, for now I'm going to study ped and push my strong affections for the mentally challenged to the back burner. Maybe more will be revealed in time.