Picture Survey!

Now really, I'm more of a leader than a follower... but when it comes to following cool-chickies like my mom, Diana, Mary (and Scotty of course, but he's more of a cool-male than chickie :D Loved all the same!), I'll share my limelight to follow them into the new trend of picture-surveys. ;)

1. My age next year: 14

This guy wanted to announce it.


Or, for a cuter look into 14,



I'll admit. I'm a Little Bear groupie girl; he is my hero. Y'know why? 'Cause he's a hewo, he's a guyy... he's a hewooo, he's a guyyy... he's hewo-guy!! (If you haven't seen Sesame Street, sorry that you don't get that. I would give you a link to the song, but YouTube doesn't have it! :( )

2. Place I'd like to travel: Claude Monet's House/Garden in Giverny France

Gorgeous house,



Spectacular Garden (and artist, but I think we all knew that. ;) )

3. Favorite place: All sorts...

I love it at the ocean with the sunset,



The snow and the trees,



My friends,



and the moon.



I'm sure I'll find the perfect place eventually. :)

4. Favorite Object(s): That's easy

Keyboard,



Pencil,



Nail file,



Piano



Give me my basic everyday items, and I'm as happy as this kitty. ;)

5. Favorite food: Chicken Pot Pie; homemade style!



Ahh, this is the homey delicacy that I have had as my birthday dinner for about five years, now. :)

6. Favorite Animal: Like my mama... horses!



7. Favorite Color: Purple!


Ooh... now this is a gorgeous picture. Probably photoshopped, but beeeauutiful all the same. :)

8. My nickname: Abs

Wooweee. I knew what I should expect when openly googling "Abs," but I am swept away by the manliness... *fans self*


And even though there are many, many more pictures after this, I'll leave it to one. For some reason, I rather not having a face to my muscle man... if he has perfect muscles, I tend to expect perfect heads, as well. Unfortunately, either their hair is weird, their eyes are closed, the nose is too big, the mouth is too small, or other ittybityt details are off... but the headless man in black and white? That one serves my fantasy just fine, thankyouverymuch!

(That doesn't mean I want to find a real man walking around with no head... fantasies can stay fantasies and reality can stay reality. I like heads too much to give them up for something that would grow old way too quickly. :D)

9. Town I was born in: Bemidji MN

Do I hear Jingle Bells?


10. Bad habit I have: Correcting people.


...okay, hopefully I'm not that bad. ;)


Consider yourself tagged!

Featuring: To Zanarkand, Starring: The Picture Shirt

Well, it was promised, and here it is! Me playing To Zanarkand on our beautiful Baby Grand piano (which resides smack-dab in the middle of our living room, thank-you-very-much). And, as you may also be able to see, I am wearing The Picture Shirt!



It's a very big file, so if it takes a little bit to load, I'm sorry. Though, it probably won't... hopefully won't.

Anyway. Please enjoy!!

Not for the weak of mind...

Well, because I love testing myself often, I decided I wanted to know what my WPM (Word Per Minute) was, because all-in-all, that's what I judge my typing skills by. The site that I went to to test myself had this quote, which I found absolutely hilarious...

"A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place."

A lot of my friends didn't really get what it meant from that, and it seemed I was the only one who really found it amusing. I just thought I'd share, and perhaps a few of you here would also like it. Oh, and if anyone was wondering, my WPM is roughly 150 (I took several different tests, each of which came up between 135 and 170).

(P.S. The video of me playing To Zanarkand will come either tomorrow, or the next day... as long as we can get this ding-dang camcorder to work on our side)

Oohh, the whole song!

Thaat's right! After about a month's worth of work and a year's worth of patience, I got it all down! The song To Zanarkand is composed by Nobuo Uematsu, and is now being played on a regular basis, by moi! I don't have it perfect, but it's only a matter of days, now. Be expecting a video of me playing it, too!

A little bio about me and my music...
When I was little (AKA younger than I am now), I would think of any song I wanted to hear (which, for example, would be "Mary Had a Little Lamb," "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," or other simple songs), and I could play out the entire thing by ear. I never read notes, and I HATED playing those little songs they have in the beginners book... why would I want to play a song that goes A, B, C, B, C, B, A, B, C, B, G at a slow pace, with one hand? Sure, it teaches me how to read the notes at a slow but steady pace, but... ugh, again, who wants to play songs like that? Though I admit, sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

One of the sacrifices I made was sucking up my pride and going to a teacher. I decided it would be fine to see what she could offer, and if she could help improve my playing skills. It turned out to be a double-taught class, so me and Kyra were in there together, learning together. That much was pretty cool, and because Kyra was there, I got some backup when I was explaining how horrible the experience was. I went there to learn how to play music, not how to play the 'Wiggle game'. Do you know what the 'Wiggle game' consists of? Playing music? No. Learning notes? No. Wiggling your fingers as you count to five, so you know which ones to use as you played so you didn't have to move your eyes from the sheet music.

Now, if that works for some people then good for them and they should continue working at it, but it didn't for me. So all in all, I knew I wasn't going to waste my time playing a game that involved anything that had to do with wiggling, when I could be teaching myself how to play an actual piano.

So I did.

A few months ago from now (and a few months after the teacher incident) I decided I wanted to learn Mad World. We had the sheet music, so my mom played it and I watched her fingers. A few days later, I had memorized the entire thing, and could play it (those who went to Live and Learn saw me playing it at the talent show with Kyra and my dad at vocals). I really liked that, but from there, there really weren't that many other songs I wanted to play. Soon enough, my mom came up with a song that SHE wanted to learn, so she printed out the sheet music and started playing. This song was called To Zanarkand, a song from the popular game Final Fantasy X (so I had heard the song before, but never in my living room). I was entranced by the music as I listened, and by watching her fingers, it didn't seem that hard... I decided to give it a shot.

I figured out the beginning and the right-hand-part of the song completely by ear, and was shown the left hand by my mom. From there, my mom played each part over and over for me to see and hear, then I would practice and she would critique me (or, show me what I'm doing wrong, an easier way to put my fingers to help while I play, et cetera). Eventually, I had it all down, until the very end with the left hand.

My mom began showing me some of it, but I was running out of patience, and got snappish with her. I was straining to continue playing it correctly, and then I'm told that I've been playing it wrong? Everything began falling apart, and I needed to take a break from the piano and that song.

A few days later, I showed up at the piano once again, determined to keep calm and keep at it until I had it down. I decided I didn't want to snap at my mom any more, so I tried to figure it out by ear... uhh, no. That doesn't work, not with the left hand. The melody is too hard for me to pick out, especially when I have no one playing it by my side to listen to. After groaning and grumbling, I decided to look at the sheet music... I recognized a C, I saw an F sharp, I knew what was a D. From there, I figured out the entire ending of the song! Some of it sounded weird, and I would tell my mom, but eventually I would figure it out (in most cases, I had my hand playing B, D, G, instead of C, E, A, or something like that).

Anyway. After lots of practicing (and lots of grumbling from Alec, who I kept waking up at 2PM every time I wanted to play), I have finally gotten it down! This is very exciting for me, because I've always loved the song, and now I can play it at my own leisure.

Once again, be expecting a video of me playing soon.

Melodic Addiction

Thaat's right, another poem by yours truly. Lately I've been hearing a lot of music, and I've felt really attached to it. I need to listen to it over and over and over... which, has inspired me to write this new poem. It's a bit shorter than the ones from the past, but I think it gets the point across with the few paragraphs that make it.

also, it's not about death... yay!

Melodic Addiction

The melody courses through my veins
Like the blood that keeps me alive
Music is like my addiction,
I go insane if I am deprived

With every note I hear,
I want another one to follow
It's the only thing keeping me going,
Without it, I wallow

The chorus tells of my feelings,
And I become the song
I lose myself in the lyrics,
As I dreamily sing along

My tears fall down in sync,
And I laugh along with the flute
I dance to the rhythm that leads me on,
And my heart beats till its mute

I close my eyes tightly
And imagine the elaborate tune
I'm always disappointed,
When it ends, far too soon...

And with that, I'm going to go watch Phantom of the Opera! More great music!

To Dream, or to Live

To start this post off, I'd like to point out that I'm sorry for being neglectant! I've been in Oregon, and was having trouble finding the time to type about something. I hope I'll be able to make another post when I get home, which will be this Tuesday.

Anyway, this post is... *drum roll*

Another Poem! Yayy! This one was inspired by the ocean, when we visited the coast with all of our friends. It also reflects my feelings on this place, in Oregon, and by the ocean.


To Dream, or to Live

The wind is my rhythm,
The waves are my song
The sand is my home land,
A place that knows no wrong

As I sink my hand beneath
The surface of the grain,
I lift my palm up slowly,
Grounded rocks who show no pain

The wind picks up just as I feared
And blow at my captured sand
They floated away just as they came,
Even I could not restrain it with my hand

The sand glides slowly above the ground,
Carried by the air
Colored so my eye can see,
The beauty that lay there

The ocean waves break to my left,
A bird calls to my right
It is my love, this area of peace
So vast, and full of light

A stirring voice calls out to me
I ignored it without much thought
I shall not leave my paradise,
And if need be, it will be fought

And fought it was, as I clung to the ground
Hoping the voice would fade
But it was not it, that disappeared
For my love shall now be paid

I lift my head from a satin pillow
And stare at the wall before me
A dream, not real, something I just made,
Not the life I live I see

Secretly, I must confess,
I want the life of that:
Of winds and sands and ocean bands,
Not the plain one of a rat

To have that one that I so crave,
I must take the chance
I must move forward toward the dream,
In life, I must advance