Future

At my Dad's request, I'm writing a new post because he's getting old of reading the previous one. This summer I have had much more of a chance to think about my future because I'm going to have to start taking some action here soon. I've mostly been thinking about my education. Even though my sister says that career I want is useless and going to be obsolete soon, I still want to pursue it because it's what I love. I would really love to work in an art museum, specifically as a curator, but I'd really love just to work there in some capacity. To accomplish this I plan on getting my Masters in Art History although I haven't picked an area of emphasis. I'm thinking either the Gothic Era or Renaissance. Now I just have to decide where I want to get my degree. Any ideas on excellent schools that could help me accomplish this?

Bones and Glass

Yesterday was the first rehearsal with our new music in Symphony. I can say this with full confidence that I'm going to love this next concert much more than the first one! That first rehearsal went much better than almost any other rehearsal for the other concert. I love this music so much more and am excited to play it! We have 3 pieces. A trombone concerto (that I don't remember the exact name of), Philip Glass's piece "Company" (I don't care that all his stuff sounds the same, I love it!), and Beethoven's 8th Symphony. I'm a big fan of Philip Glass and Beethoven so this will be fun! Here are a few clips of what we'll be playing.

This is the 1st movement of the Philip Glass.



And the last movement of the Beethoven. I'm not quite sure if we'll make it up to this tempo....

Frustrations

I've been very frustrated these last few days and I thought maybe if I got them out of my system it would help me feel better. Most of the things I'm frustrated about are things that I can't fix right now, but they'll be over soon enough and I have some ways that will help.

The first one is that my boyfriend is across the country. This isn't something that sends me into a deep depression because I'm a pretty self-sufficient person, but it is hard. But we finally figured out how to use Skype and being able to see him a little is helping a lot. I don't know how far this relationship will go, but it will be nice to see him again.
Another thing is my job. I feel like a put in a lot of effort for pay that's not much above minimum wage. But I am very grateful to have a job at all because it's how I'm paying my way through college. I guess it's just the type of job I have that I shouldn't be expecting much better. And I do get treated pretty well and am able to have this job during school because my boss is very good about working with my schedule. I just have to endure it a little longer and then I can get a job that I actually enjoy doing.
I'm also frustrated with the pain I've been getting in my wrists and hands. It makes life a little harder because I'm not able to do as much as I would like. It's a little harder for me to play my best in symphony because there's more pain than there used to be. Sometimes when I'm trying to sleep, it's harder because the pain or tingling keeps me up. I just don't want to have to give up playing my violing or piano or organ because of it, that's one of my biggest fears. But I ordered these fancy new fingerless gloves that should help a lot. I'm really excited for those to come!
I also really need to get my hair cut, but I'm always busy during the days and can never find the time. Hopefully I'll be able to have a little bit of time this weekend, though. That's not a huge thing.

I think that I need a little vacation or something to help get my mind off these things. And it probably would help if I got more sleep on a consistent basis. I'll just do my best and know that if I can make it through this, I can make it through everything that is easier! I just have to keep telling myself that it isn't going to last forever and that things really aren't as bad as they seem. Maybe I'll start exercising more consistently too. That couldn't hurt! Ok, well maybe it will because I haven't really exercised a whole lot lately.....but you get the point. ;)

Work....

I've decided that I'm looking forward to the day when I can go to work and actually look forward to it. I've been working about 30 hours a week for the past few weeks which is nice because it gives me the money I need to pay for stuff, but this job isn't what I would call ideal. But it works for what I need it to do.

My birthday was pretty great. I had a wonderful time with my family, playing in symphony, and almost passing out. Ok, that last one I didn't have the most fun with, but it was a great day anyways! I got plenty of suprises from David (aka Bob or Playdough) and had a great dinner with my sisters, parents, and Tyler. Today I got a letter from Andy. It has Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck on the front and when you open it it plays the theme for Looney Tunes. He also had all the elders in his apartment sign it. The envelope is addressed to "Abbigail Mitchell" and the return address is from "Da Eldas". It was funny to open and I appreciate his thoughtfulness!

I'm playing in Sinfonietta this semester and that's going really good. I love playing in there and it helps keep me busy. Our concert is only 2 weeks away! (I hope you all can come!) I was made 1st Violin which was a little suprising, but I think I'm handling it very well. It's the first time I've been in this section and I think I like it a lot more. The music is more difficult but I feel much more engaged and I like the challenge! We're playing Borodin's Sinfonia and Schumann's Symphony #3.

That's most of what my life has consisted of these past few weeks. I'm hoping this summer goes by very quickly!

Cinco De Mayo

So a couple people have asked what I wanted for my birthday and since they are 2 of the 3 people that actually read my blog, I thought it would be easier to just put it on here.

~Books. It's summer once again and I need something to keep me busy.
~Large Barrel Curling Iron. I like the size that Joni has. The gold one that's in the bathroom. I'm not sure exactly how big it is.
~Kitchen Junk. Mostly things like measuring spoons/cups, mixing bowls, stuff like that so I don't have to keep borrow my roommates.
~Cute Flats. I've realized I need more casual shoes that I can wear to school. I think I have enough heels.
~Violin Polish/Cleaner. My violin could use both of these.

That's what I got so far. I'm open to anything else you think I might like, this is just a list of suggestions. I'm not too terribly picky.

Summer

I was a little worried for the summer for a few reasons, and still am, but I think it's going to be all right. The first reason is that most everyone that I have become good friends with over these past 2 months have all gone home. I'm sad about that and now I don't have much to do. I have managed to go see one friend yesterday before she left to go home and I went to visit this girl I work with at her house because she got a new puppy! I think I just have to get over my fear of social situations and I'll be fine.

Another reason is that my main man David is in North Carloina at home. He's off track and basically has the same plan as me: live at home so you don't have to pay rent and work a butt load so you have enough money to live for next year. It will be interesting to see how that all turns out.

I'm also one of those people that likes to stay busy so summers are hard because I don't have school junk to keep me busy. I've found a few projects though that I hope I'll be able to accomplish. They're more like goals I've set for myself so that I will be productive. A few of these are to keep practicing the oragn so I don't lose all my new knowledge, work 2 jobs, see if there's a symphony I can join (either on campus or maybe a community one), and build up my photography portfolio. I also want to go hiking a lot like I've done with my mom and sisters for the past few summers. I really enjoy that.

That's my basic plan for the next 4 months. I think everything will work out, I'll just have to focus on things one day at a time or I'll be driven crazy because I'll focus on how slowly the summer is passing. Yeah, I think things will be all right.

Dream

I've been trying to figure out what to blog about because I haven't posted in awhile, and then I read my mama's blog and thought it was a good idea. So I decided to post my dream I had over the weekend.

I recently started dating this guy, David (in real life, not just the dream) and he has a best friend, Kellen. In this dream, I saw David hanging out with this chick in a gym on campus. Not just the regular hanging out, it looked like they were on a date. I was hurt, mad, and confused.

I later found Kellen and he told me he really needed to find David because he was having problems with this girl and he needed David to help work them out. In my mind, I was thinking "David is NOT the one you want help from because I am PISSSSSSED at him right now! I don't want this to happen to some other poor girl!" But I took him to find David anyways.

We got to the gym and I went up to David to confront him about him blowing me off for this random girl. He just shrugged his shoulders and said "It's ok Abby, I'll hang out with you tomorrow. It's not that big of a deal." I can't tell you how mad I felt towards him at that moment! I went up to him and slapped him right across his smug little face as hard as I could. Then the girl he was with turned to me and said "I don't know why you're freaking out so bad, we didn't think you'd mind." That pushed me off the edge. I went up to her, punched her in the face, and then wrestled her to the ground.

As I was beating the crap out of her, I was thinking to myself that I wished I didn't actually do that because I'm going to get in such trouble. Right then my alarm went off and I was very glad it was all a dream.

Just had to share.

Someone showed this video in my business class today. I thought it was pretty funny so I thought I'd share! Sorry the video quality isn't the best. Enjoy!

Concerts!

Tomorrow and Friday night the symphony I'm in will be performing Brahms' Requiem. The orchestra part is not the most exciting (very boring in some places), but I'm really excited! I love concerts and playing and everyone getting all dressed up. I don't know why, I just do. I think it will be a great concert. I wish I could sing and play, though. We got to hear the choir for the first time today and it really does sound good. Normally I would hate to put so much time into one thing so close to finals, but I love it. Anyways, if you have a chance, please come! It will be wonderful!

My Family

Well, it's another one of those nights where it's hard to fall asleep. So I thought I'd write a post since I haven't written one in a couple of weeks. It seems like this semester has been going in overdrive. All the weeks seem to be melding into one big glob and it's hard for me to keep one day seperate from another. But today was a good break. While I was sitting in church, the thought just kept coming into my mind how much I love my family. They really are the greatest. We've all certainly had our troubles because I'm pretty sure we have the worst luck ever, but we have each other to laugh about all of our troubles with. Here's why I love my family:

Dad-My dad is such a hard worker. He taught me that if you start out with a disadvantage, you just have to work that much harder to keep up. It's been very annoying at times, but I believe that I am stronger than most other people because of it. I also know that if I ever need anything done for me, he will be willing to help. When I got in a car accident a few years ago and was having a minor panic attack, he was there to help me straighten everything out and get things taken care of. I really appreciated that.

Mama-I can talk to my mom about almost anything. She's very good at listening to me complain about things and is there to celebrate with me in all my successes. I can't begin to count how many times she has lent me a shoulder to cry on. She helped me out a lot in my drawing and design & color classes by lending me her supplies and helping me with technique and all that fun stuff. It's also been great to share with her all my art knowledge and I look forward to going on our art trip with the school together! She's probably my best friend. Life hasn't been easy, but she's always been there to help me through it.

David-Growing up, David was my absolute favorite. I still remember cruising around in his orange car listening to the Beatles and going to see The X-Files at the movie theater. Now that he's moved and we're both going our seperate ways, it's a bit harder to see him but he still manages to make us laugh when him and Joni get together and mock things. I don't approve of some of the topics, but they can usually get me laughing pretty hard.

Emily-Emily isn't the newest addition to my family, but I still haven't gotten to get a chance to know her as well as I know my biological sisters. Emily is a very sweet person and I respect her for all the hard work she puts into raising her family. I can't imagine it is easy with 2 kids and a job. She always tries to stay so upbeat and look for the good in every situation. I admire that.

Lisa-Being the first girl couldn't have been easy, but Lisa has laid down a good path for the rest of us to follow. Not necessarily going into music or teaching, but she has shown how much importance she puts on following her dream and making sure the gospel is a big part of her life. It's been a long time since we shared a twin bed, but we still manage to stay close by having out ditcher time and keeping up the tradition of stealing each others clothes. It's nice to run into her at the Snow building every once in awhile and be able to talk about the music aspect of my life with her. I can't wait to go support her at her big concert this weekend!

Tyler-Tyler is the most recent addition to our family so I've know him probably the least, but he's been a lot of fun. It's always fun to make Lisa mad when I tell her about the dates I went on with Tyler (and we've gone on a few!) I know that he takes good care of Lisa and that makes me happy. He's also brought something to our family that we don't get a lot of - Cowboy yodeling! I still remember the first time he brought his guitar over to our house for the first time and sang Chime Bells for us. I hope he teaches Lisa how to yodel just like that!

Joni-It's been an interesting time with Joni. For about the first 20 years of our lives, I'm pretty sure we were banned from talking to each other because we would always fight. But now she is one of the people that can usually make me laugh. We have so many inside jokes that people have said it's like we have our own language. Anything from "panclocks" to "why don't you just drink poison?" we can have whole conversations just quoting things to each other. I guess all those years of sharing a bed/room together is finally paying off. When she gets a job and moves away, I'm really going to miss her.

Andy-All growing up people always thought we were twins (although lately Joni and I have been called that) because we would do everything together. Our favorite summertime activity was playing with the hose in the mud and grass out front or spending the day perfecting our fort in the forest of our backyard. Once I hit high school, I felt like his second mother because I'd have to drive him everywhere and make sure he got his homework done and all that fun stuff. And after he graduated, him and Joni and I spent the summer bonding at home together going on pop runs with Oscar and watching ER. He's one of the funniest, quirkiest kids I know. Now he's in New York and I really miss him. But I'm so proud of what he's doing.

I love my family so much and I'm so thankful for phones and the internet and all those other means of communication so that we can hopefully continue to stay close. I've always kind of thought of our family as like the Mafia. I think we're a little bit intimidating and very close. I will always stick up for my family and try to do everything I can for them. They are the best thing that has ever happened to me.