Looooooooooong awaited update.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I feel like I start every blog post thinking that. I guess because it has been. It’s been a busy semester but I couldn’t be happier to be in graduate school! My professors are wonderful as well as the other students. I’ve managed to get home about once a month for various reasons so I don’t totally feel stuck in East Texas. And even if I didn’t get that opportunity, it’s beautiful here with the pine trees and all the living creatures that live in or with them.

I can’t believe this semester is almost over. I have a final on Monday evening and I’m done with my first semester of graduate school. 3 more to go for my Masters! Next spring is going to be really crazy busy as well with the Jazz Ensemble performing at TMEA and the Wind Ensemble at CBDNA. Organizing these trips have been a HUGE part of the adventure this semester as well. Who’d have thought that these “simple” trips could be such a complicating endeavor? Gotta love the trickle-down effect of everything that’s been so topsy-turvy in education recently. Combine that with a change in procedures (mostly a change because there are obviously different procedures from RRISD) and it creates for a unique adventure in trip planning. 🙂 Luckily, everyone I’ve worked with so far have been magnificently supportive and understanding of all the hitches along the way. We will get on the road this spring, by golly!!

What else is coming up? I’m conducting the Symphonic Band in February. I’m not sure of the concert date off the top of my head and the paper that date is written on is in the other room. I’ll be conducting the Vaughan Williams English Folk Song Suite. I’m also going to continue working with the Jazz Lab Band and at some point later in the Spring, I’ll have a singing debut with one of the jazz ensembles. Fun, huh? Maybe I’ll take a page from my friend Mandy Lauderdale when I sing. No, not the red hair. That’s totally her thing and I couldn’t think to borrow that.

I can’t wait to spend a few weeks in Austin with my friends and family! Hopefully, anything I do I can remember to keep it on the cheap since I’m still a college student living on a college student budget (in other words, there’s little money to budget…there is a very positive spin I can put on this) when I’m hanging out with my friends. Christmas Brunch will again be at the Four Seasons with my family, one of my favorite outings of the year!

Clipford & I are very lucky to have the lives we have. I couldn’t ask for much more. Okay, back to the books. There’s a paper due and a final tomorrow!

Love you, mean it!
~C

Our walk

I try to take Clipford on a walk 6 of the 7 days a week. There is a nice neighborhood next to my complex that’s safe and quiet (from cars zipping through) to walk through. We go pretty early so we get to see the neighborhood just starting to wake up, actually.

This morning, the weather was beautiful. We went a little later and normally, it would have already been sweltering when we stepped out the front door but because of Tropical Storm Lee hitting land in Louisiana yesterday, it really cooled things off and we were able to go after the sun had started to come up. The wind sounded so beautiful as it buzzed through the tops of the trees and because it’s Labor Day, there were few people out. It was just Clipford, me and the elements of nature.

When we walk earlier, there are lots of dogs that like to bark as we walk by their homes so I think that probably scares away a lot of the squirrels and birds that live in the trees from coming down to play. The first few weeks we lived here, we’d always see birds and squirrels playing in the yards and streets as we walked by. Not lately…until now. I guess lately, we’ve been walking much earlier so even they’re still asleep. Today, the dogs weren’t out but the other animals were. It was so much fun to be surrounded at one point by dozens of little birds hopping through the pines and squirrels collecting for winter to come.

The only thing that made this beautiful morning at all sad was the smell of smoke in the air, reminding me of the devastation others through Texas are experiencing.

Life changes

I’ve been a little busy these past few months. Since I don’t blog as regularly as I’d like, there are some things in life that must be discussed delicately and the internet isn’t the place for those discussion, really. Quite a few of those types of things have happened in the past year. It’s been a definite roller coaster ride.

I think things have finally settled down a little, though. Man, I sure hope they have, anyways. You see, I’ve just started as a full time graduate student with an assistantship at Sam Houston State University. I’m working towards a Masters in Music in Wind Band Conducting. Yes, I quit my job, found a tenant for the house and moved to Huntsville, TX. To say that things were topsy turvy to get here might be an understatement. Maybe not.

I’m not quite living in a mountain of boxes but I still have quite a few to unpack and sort through. I’ve gotten all my keys at the University (thee are 8 of them) and I’ve got an idea of things I need to take up there to function well on a day to day basis. The other grad students I’m working with are really great. We each have our strengths and I think I can learn a lot from them as well as from the professors. I’m really excited and a bit scared still about the upcoming adventure.

So that’s it – a single girl and her dog living in a quaint apartment in Huntsville, TX, trying to thrive through graduate school. Wish me luck!

Love you, mean it!
~C

And we have liftoff…

“The final liftoff of Atlantis on the shoulders of the space shuttle, America will continue the dream!”

“The space shuttle spreads its wings one final time for the start of a sentimental journey into history.”

It’s the beginning of the end – the last space shuttle has launched successfully. Above are the quotes of the commentators on the NASA channel this morning. God speed Atlantis! Come home safely.

Love you, mean it!
~C

Is this what Oprah’s trying to say?

I’ve been watching a lot of Oprah (now that it’s over) lately and today, I watched the episode that she had Roseanne Barr on. In the segment that Roseanne talks about how it wasn’t incest, Oprah says,

If you say, I mean, I think that there’s nothing worse than being, well certainly levels of abuse, but to be abused, but to say that you were abused, when in fact you really weren’t abused, and that person has to live with that, that is also a horror; that is as horrible as the abuser.

She stumbled through that (as you can see – I paused and played quite a few times to get it all right) statement but I completely agree with what I think she’s trying to say – if you accuse someone of something bad and try to take it back later, both still have to live with the initial statement and the consequences of it being made.

I tried to find a video of the segment but YouTube didn’t seem to have anything except the promo for this episode. Let me know your thoughts.

Love you, mean it.
~C