Glenn Beck's "The Christmas Sweater" (Read "fairytale roadtrip" post below first)

If you have not read the previous post, about my Thanksgiving Break, then do so before you read this post. It will make more sense about why I am talking about it in context than if you read this post first.

I started listening to Glenn Beck about 2 years ago. He is a conservative, an LDS member, a recovering alcoholic (because once you are an alcoholic you are always an alcoholic, and he refers to it often) and, I have come to believe, deeply inspired. My sister Kim and my mom instroduced me to him, because they liked talk radio. I had never listened to it. Anyway, I was not sure at first...talk radio, how boring, I thought. However, the more I listened to him, the more I came to respect this man. I am a very suspicious person. I don't just hang onto people's words and believe them. However, what he was saying made sense to me. The things he said about the constitution, the economy, our rights, political aspects, made sense to me. Much like the gospel of our church makes sense to me. I actually believed him and wanted to believe him. I started doing some of my own research. I found that the things Glenn was saying was not unreasonable. When this election came up, he was one of the only people telling us to stand up for what we believe in, to band together as a country, and to not tear each other down, no matter what party you belonged to or what issues we stand for. He cares so deeply about the constitution. He was not for Barak Obama, or John McCain for that matter. It was something I agreed with him on, and not just because he said so. I have done my own research and compared it to what I believe. But when Barak Obama got elected, Glenn gave him his full support, giving him the benefit of the doubt. There are so many McCain supporters that literally HATE Obama. But Glenn pointed out that Obama hasen't really done anything as president yet. Yes, he was a lousy leftist senator in most conservatives' viewsite, which is true. But he did win fair and square, and we should "give him our full support, as much has we are able, without sacrificing our values." We disagree with the policies, not necessarily with the man...not yet anyway. Reading everything he has done in the past, it is hard for me to do this, but I feel it is right. I have been blessed with knowing what is generally right and wrong. I am not bragging...it is a fact that I have used in practice my whole life. I just know.

Anyway, I walked into the bookstore very excited. I was finally going to get a chance to shake the hand of this inspired influential man. I anxioiusly stood in line. I quickly moved up to the front. And when I got there, I shook his hand. I told him that I started listening to his show 2 years ago, and how it has been an eye-opener and inspiration to me. I also prayed that the Lord would bless him and his family. He told me thankyou. And although it was over in less than twenty seconds, he listened intently to me and thanked me fervently. Something else also happened when I shook his hand. While I respected this man, as soon as I shook his hand I immediately felt a deep love for him. And I knew in my gut, and in my heart, that he is truly being inspired by the spirit in his latest project of the Christmas Sweater. He made a speech a few minutes later, which I have attached below. It is several minutes long, but there in the room I felt the spirit as he talked. Now wether all he is saying in regards toward the end of his speech is true, I don't know. We all interpret in different ways and have different opinions. But as far as the Christmas Sweater project goes, he is trully being inspired by the Lord.

I encourage anyone reading my blog to read his book. Additionally, his radio show airs weekdays from 8-11am eastern time. You don't have to agree, but he is on the right track in any case. It was so exciting to meet him today.


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the fairytale roadtrip

Ok, so i'm back in muncie...shudder...and I am not happy about it...quite sad actually. The last week seems like a dream now that i am sitting back in my roommate's old sofa in the livingroom of our apartment. Which is too hot I might add becuase we forgot to turn down the heater while we were all gone. But that's beside the point.

Just to warn you, this post will be long. I haven't written in a while and there is much to be told. I am proud to say that I can thank/blame all that has happened on Stephanie Meyer. I'll tell you why. My wonderful weekend became possible because Summit Entertainment moved the Twilight movie from December 6th to November 21st. I had always planned on seeing this with my BFF since we are both Twihards, and we actually live driving distance from each other. She is married with a year and a half old boy (who is soooo cute!!) and they live in Peoria, IL. Well, after I made plans to visit her, I received an opportunity to go to Northern Illinois University to spend the day on campus, have a lesson with the professor of harp there, Faye Seeman, and go to the NIU philharmonic orchestra concert. I couldn't pass that up, and they wanted me to come up on the 24th, Monday. So now I could spend the weekend with Steph, then drive up to Dekalb IL on Monday. Sweet!! Well I was also invited to spend Thanksgiving in Lafayette with some family friends of mine...who I actually knew from Dallas. Jeff Bell was my swim coach in highschool and club and his wife Nikki coached for the club team also. Their 11-year-old daughter I knew since she was a baby. They decided to move to Indiana after I came to school here. So that has worked out really well. So now I had my perfect vacation lined up...all i needed to do was get myself exused from one class and work, which I did. (You would)

So I left Friday afternoon and made the 5 hour drive to Peoria in 4 hours...woot!! We went and saw the Twilight movie...which i must confess was a slight let-down...some of the acting was not as good as it could have been and there were some pretty bad one-liners...other than that I think summit did a pretty good job for having no special effects. I'm serious, they didn't even dub in some real animal snarling, they just did normal human hissing at each other. But agian, other than that it was pretty good. There were a lot of Jacob fans in the audience (which was mostly 14-year-old girls screaming and swooning every time a new male character entered), and they cheered...excuse me, screamed...every time they saw Jacob. So given the audience we were with, I'm sure we laughed in a lot more places than we were supposed to. I want to go back though and watch it again, seriously this time though.

So that was good. On Saturday we went and got Krispy Kreme, and I mailed some applications for schools in the mail: UW in Seattle and UT in Austin. It is going to end up being a choice between these two and NIU. After that we went back to the house and pretty much either played with Dallin or watched football, or did both at the same time. It was fun...I got to put myself in Stephanie's shoes just what it is like having a little kid around all the time...and it makes me really excited to have kids of my own some day. He even let me hold him, something he apparently never lets anyone but mom and dad do. We watched BYU get killed by Utah, which was kinda not fun (5 turnovers in the second half i think...someone can correct me. i'm still new to the sport). But other than that is was awsome. On Sunday I went to church with them and helped keep Dallin occupied...which was a challenge but kinda fun too...although I felt more like an aunt becuase I could just play with him but when he started getting fussy I let mom or dad take over...hehe i can't wait to be a real aunt :) I also saw my friend Amy Boling (now Amy Rose) at the Peoria ward. I didn't even know she was living there! We saw each other from across the room in relief society, and started laughing. It was awsome. I miss the Boling family.

Well on Monday we said our goodbyes and I headed up 2 hours north to Dekalb, IL where Northern Illinois University is. At first my spirits started to droop...the closer I got, the more out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-farm-and-corn-fields it looked. Where was this town? Is it just some university out litterally in the middle of nowhere?? Well, I finally got there, and the change was instantaneous...it was like from the fiction books and sci-fi movies where you pass through a barrier or forcefield and all of a sudden you are somewhere else...yeah it was like that. Anyway, the town (what little I drove through) looked pretty nice, homey. Not too old, but not big-city either. I managed to find the music building with little difficulty, although I had to park in the neighborhood since I forgot to print off the directions to get a parking pass. It was around 12:30. The first thing I was supposed to do while I was here was to go sit in on the NIU philharmonic rehearsal. Let me just tell you, the music building was pretty confusing the first time walking into it. I probably lookoed like a dork, walking in circles. I managed to find the doors to the hall but they were locked, so I had to go find the offices so they could let me in.


Ok, as a musician, I have a pretty high standard of what a good orchesra should sound like. And I don't play in a great orchestra, I've come to realize. I always thought Ball State was ok, but after hearing the NIU philharmonic I have come to the conclusion that Ball State is nothing in comparison. The students there actually want to play music, and actually like it. There were several ppl who were smiling as they were playing. Wow, you never get that at BSSO, except goofy me when we actually play something that is good. They were rehearsing Scheherezade...so good! With a great harp part as well!


After the rehearsal, I met up with a nice lady from the music office who took me on the 10 cent tour of the music facilities. I say this now. It is not as nice as Ball State, not by a long shot. The Hall is not as accoustically good either (it'd be tough though to find a better hall at a school than Sursa Hall). However, as we were walking, and talking, I found I could easily imagine myself there...which was crazy! I kept telling myself, you don't want to go here. It's in the midwest, in the middle of nowhere, where it is cold (the ponds were all frozen over already) and has mediocre music facilities (compared to ball state anyway). Even when I met up with Ms. Seeman and she let me into her office to practice before our lesson, I was trying to shove the sense of ease I felt there (except in her office where the heat blew too hard so it was 80 degrees...and that's not an exageration folks). However, everything changed when I started my lesson with Ms. Seeman. She was so friendly, I didn't feel intimidated by her at all, only a professional kinship. She knows Mrs. Richter very well and also studied with Lucile Lawrence. Her teaching style is a little different from Mrs. Richters however. She is all about knowing the music really well, and teaching how to play it well. She is, I think, a little more technical in her teaching than Mrs. Richter, but musicality is not something I have had problems with. Consistency and accuracy in notes is my main problem. We worked on the opera excerpt Liebestode (sp?) by Wagner and Scintillation by Salzedo. In both she showed me tricks that helped me play passages in both perfect every time, and made me really think about the music and get deep into the middle of it. Afterwards, she told me that if I was the only grad student harpist applying then I would be guaranteed a full tuition waiver, and possibly an assistantship as well. Wow!! I'd get my own harp room and office too. She also told me about a "create your own program" option as well, where instead of just getting my MM in music performance, I could get an MM in orchestra, with emphasis in chamber studies, for example. Which coincidentally is what I want to do. That way, I could take classes that focus around my degree, and possibly not have to take random required classes that I would never use again.


After the lesson we went to dinner with another one of her students (who is playing in the philharmonic for the concert) and her family at a sandwhich shoppe called the Potbelly. Now, if you have been there, you know what I am talking about. If you haven't been there, its AWSOME!! When I first came to Ball state, it was the first time I had Jimmy John's. And I promptly quit Subway. Potbelly is better than Jimmy Johns. Their bread is amazing. Did I say that already? Anyway, so good. After dinner, we went to hear Sara (her student) play in the concert. They played a piece by Brahms, Scheherezade, and a horn concerto by Mozart. And the horn player even did it without music (wind and brass players usually always play with music). He was really good. Before the concert, I got to the meet the Meastro. I was suprised in rehearsal to find out it was a woman...there are so few good women conductors so I was instantly hesitant....until I met her. She is so nice, and actually pays attention to the harps!! She knows the music she is conducting and everyone I talked to loves her and respects her so much as a conductor. Wow.

I spent the night with the Coordinator for Graduate Studies in the music school and his wife. They had grown daughters and apparently offer thier house to many ppl. They were so nice, and thier house was beautiful. The director once again informed me that, if I would apply and commit to come, he would do everything to make sure it could happen...even if it involved giving me an assistantship. Wow. I was constantly in the position where ppl were telling me how much they wanted me there, how the harp studio needed to be built up (this is Ms. Seemans first year there) and how much music they had on the shelves waiting for a harpist to play (chamber and orchesta). There is so much outside work to do too. And Ms. Seeman said she would teach me how to arrange my own music for various small ensembles. Wow. Ok, so that was my NIU experience, which was pretty cool. And Mrs. Seeman laughed at me all night becuase I actually had brought my fish Oscar on the road with me (at some point in the night I had to get him out of my car before he froze, so we took him up to her sauna of an office). She thought it was hilarious...so did I for that matter.

The next morning I thanked the family I stayed with and decided to take a closer look at the campus before leaving. The side that the music building was on was very pretty. There was a pond in the back that was still frozen, and the sun hitting it was beautiful. There was also this random husky dog statue with a camera around its neck. Don't know the story behind that one (although the school mascot is a husky). There was even this one building that reminded me of hogwarts...very castle-looking building. Here is also a pic of the biggest, fattest squirrel I have ever seen....he was like, a trucker squirrel. And he was following me..........




After my tour I made the long 4 hour drive through the south side of the Chicago area to Lafayette, IN to spend Thanksgiving there with the Bells (swimming family friends, you remember?). Jeff's parents were spending the holiday there too. I was stunned at how much Mansi had grown (she is 3), both intellectually and physically. And she doesn't stop. She never did, the whole time I was there. She is like the energizer bunny, except probably went longer than the energizer bunny ever could at one time. I was a little exhausting, but it was also incredibly fun to be there. I love spending time with them, even if I don't contribute too much to the conversations...I tend to be a more restful, quiter person than some. Wednesday night we went to a Greek Diner. It was surprisingly good! I'll have to make a note to go there again if I am there. Their Gyros, greek salad, and lemon soup were really good...as well as thier pita bread. YUM!!

Thanksgiving was Mexican themed. We had homemade enchiladas, queso, torilla soup, mexican style corn, and tamales (though these were not made by the Bells). So good!! Especially the tortilla soup. And I made mine extra spicy...cause I am obsessed with spicy food right now. They had some habenero mustard there that was really good. I'll have to get some. I made fruit salad too. I also tried this new thing called sugar creme pie. Apparently, you can only get it in Indiana. It was really good too....really sweet, but good!! We also watched the Detroit/Tennessee game. I am starting to really like football now....who'd have thought? I blame it on the Petersons...and the fact that Ball state is 12-0 in their region. But we are still ranked like 15th becuase of the bogus system. They should let Ball State play against one of the big 1o to see how they do. At least we get a bowl game. That night we played mexican train with some new dominos that Nikki's parents found...they have numbers on them instead of dots. Weird huh? Funny thing, I actually thought they were harder to play with than the dotted dominoes, even if they were colored like a box of crayons.

Well this morning (Black Friday)I got up early and decided to extend my roadtrip to Fort Wayne. Glenn Beck, conservative talk-radio and cable show host and book author, came out with a new book called the Christmas Sweater. Most of his other books have been politically or econimically based, but this one is so different. It tells a fictional story of true events that have happened in his life that is both painful and sacred to him. I won't go too much into it because you should go out and get the book if you don't have it. But it is basically about redemtion and foregiveness and second chances. Don't worry, it's not an "inspirationally-themed" read. It is actually a story, and it is so good I stayed up until 4 in the morning reading it. Well his book-signing tour took him to Fort Wayne this morning. And I was determined to go. You may now proceed to the above post.

if time never flew before it sure will now.

On monday I will only have 5 more weeks in Muncie.
5!!!!!!!

we can't all be morning ppl.

OK, I DIDN'T KNOW THAT COULD GET STRESSED OUT THIS CLOSE TO THE END OF EVERYTHING...THE END OF SEMESTER, SCHOOL, INDIANA....I HAD NO IDEA! CAN YOU EVEN COMPREHEND WHAT I AM FEELING RIGHT NOW? I FEEL LIKE MY WHOLE WORLD IS ABOUT TO BOTTOM OUT I'M NOT SURE WHAT TO DO AND MY FINAL PROJECT IS LITERALLY GOING TO DRAIN ME IT I'M NOT CAREFUL. MY PROFESSOR THINKS HE IS SO FUNNY WHEN HE GIVES US A PIECE TO ARRANGE AND I CANT EVEN TELL WHAT IT IS SUPPOSED TO SOUND LIKE AND I ONLY HAVE 3 WEEKS TO DO IT!!!! PLUS I GOT A 90 ON MY LAST PROJECT WHICH IS STUPID BECUASE I THOUGHT IT WAS REALLY GOOD AND I DON'T CARE IF HE THINKS I SHOULD HAVE USED MY BRASS SECTION MORE I WANTED IT TO SOUND THE WAY THAT I WROTE IT: FOR PURE COLOR CONTRAST. I DON'T THINK I SHOULD GET POINTS COUNTED OFF BECUASE OF THAT ITS NOT FAIR AND I'M ABOUT TO AUDITION FOR GRAD SCHOOLS AND I'M SO CONFUSED BECAUSE NOW I AM SECOND GUESSING WHAT I WANT TO DO WITH MY LIFE AND I'M GETTING THOUGHTS IN THE BACK OF MY MIND THAT MAYBE I SHOULD GO ON A MISSION FIRST BUT I'M NOT SURE WHAT THE RIGHT THING TO DO IS BECUASE I ALSO WANT TO FINISH SCHOOL AND GET MARRIED AND HAVE A FAMILY AND I DON'T WANT TO BE 27 AND OLD BY THE TIME THAT HAPPENS SO I'M JUST SO CONFUSED!!!!!!

Thanks for listening to my rant

:O.

Headline: School teacher browbeats student over being a McCain supporter

This is going to make you sick!!! I am not even kidding. I have a link here to a video that will blow your mind. It is horrible!! This elementary school teacher is browbashing a student in her class who said that she supported John McCain. Her dad is in the army, and the teacher confronted this little girl about it. Then in an interview, she says that she would never do what she just did!!

The saddest part about this?? It was a Finnish documentary of Americans and the then-coming election. This was not shown in the U.S. Why do we not show our own abuse in our own country??!! What is our country coming to? Why do we not stand up for what we believe in?? If you care, please share this video and message with as many ppl as you can. We need to stand up for our schools, and we need to keep each other informed and to not let people like this get away with such horrifying discrimination and verbal abuse....especially to our children!! I am no longer going to keep my mouth shut. I'm going to stand up for what I believe in. How about you? We need to pray that our new President will be blessed with the insight to run our country with as much wisdom as he is able/willing to recieve.

Watch the video here.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Last night was the best concert ever. I played in it. It was a combined Symphony Band (the one I was in) and Wind Ensemble. Even better, it was a Halloween Concert!! Thats right. The concert was completely decked out in ghosts, pumpkins, spiderwebs, wallhangings, and lanturns everywhere. We played on the first half of it...Mars (the Bringer of War) from the Holst Planet series, Danse Macabre by Saint-Seans, Night on Bald Mountain (ever watched the original Fantasia? It's the one with the gargoyle on the mountain), and a really cool piece called Voodoo.

DKAL (Mr. Kalatarian, the band conductor) came in for the first piece dressed as Charlie Cardinal. For those who don't know he is our sports mascot....and he was completely in character. It was so funny. On night on bald mountain he was dressed up as the cowardly lion....and was completely in character as well. Awsome stuff. And no one knew what his costume was beforehand so it was all we could do to keep from laughing on stage. (He had told everyone the night before that he needed a pair of white marching band shoes and if someone had an old pair to bring for him...all just to throw us off of course.

The Voodoo piece was especially awsome. For this piece, we turned out all the lights and played it in the dark (well, I didn't actually get to "play" but I participated). It starts out all creepy with wind and vocal sounds, with the occasional flashlight blinking intot he audience, then builds into a music section, then goes into a haunting section where we are all saying "voooooodooooo" really creepy-like, then it goes into some tribal-sounding percussive section. Some people are passing thier hand over the flashlights pointed at the ceiling so it looks like fire torches. Then everyone screams and starts chanting and clapping with really cool drums in the background, like a tribal dance. Now while all this "tribal" stuff is going, there are students spaced in the audience with flashlights, shining if briefly on their faces and then moving the flashlights all crazy around the audience. It was fun to watch the audience's reactions. Some were pretty scared. Well then it goes all black again while the band winds up to the climax very dramatic-like, and we all stomp our feet on the stage and yell "Voodoo!!" while holding the flashlights to our faces. I can't even really describe it it was so cool. If I ever get a video of it, I will post it. I should have gotten one at the dress rehearsal...oh well.

The second half was pretty cool too. The first piece....I don't even know what the first piece was, but it was a bunch of shorter movements that got really old after about the 6th one (there were like 10 of them). But the next piece was "Godzilla eats Las Vegas" and it was pretty cool. The ensemble did all the effects during the "story," such as clapping, sighing in relief, marching (with thier feet), screaming, screaming "Godzilla" and etc. There was a screen which they projected the story with what looks a homemade animated movie (ever seen Charlie the Unicorn...those kind of graphics) depicting the story. It was hilarious. Their last piece was different, called "Cave of the Winds." Everyone took off thier stands and chairs, and then it gets dark while they get into place on the stage. A narrator comes on, talking about how these cave dwellers live in a tiny cave node that never gets sunlight. "This node is located about 3 miles under the earth's crust, under the Field in Muncie." That part was funny. But he talks breifly how the musicians use thier syncronized heartbeat to play thier music by feel, becuase there is no need tot see, yadda yadda. So the lights come back on and everyone is in black wearing sunglasses. There are various plants set up on stage, and each group is organized someway around them. The bassoons are in teh middle, the clarinets and oboes walk in a circle around another plant, the flutes are peeking from behing another, the tubas are doing thier own weird things by another. Some are playing to the plants. There is a balcony at the back of the stage where the pipes for the organ sit, and there were ppl up there too. So they just played while doing thier own little wierd dances or movements. It was pretty cool I guess. The tubas were especially fun to watch....at one point they walked across stage, off down the steps, in front the stage, and then back on to thier spot....well they didn't walk, it was shuffling really fast so that thier bodies never seemed to move...it was funny. Guess you really had to be there though.

There were some pretty good costumes...I saw the Jokere (very realistic and completely in character...and he sounded exactly like him), a music stand, homer simpson, Bill Nye, a bunch of grapes, the whole clarinet section dressed up as different characters to Alice in Wonderland, a ninja turtle, a creepy rag doll, a banana, and the wind ensemble percussion section all dressed up as nuns (which was especially funny since all but one are guys). Ashley and I didn't want to do the cliche "Angels play harps," so we dressed up as sinister beings, very evil witih cloaks. Ashley had wings, so she was an evil angel, or dark angel. I didn't have wings, but I had a cool dress on that had huge embroidered wide sleeves and an embroidered hood...so I guess I was this evil scorceress or priestess. We did out hair and put lots of eyemakeup on. It was awsome. Afterwards, I wanted to go out becuase I had a pair of little butterfly wings and small plasic antennae that I really wanted to wear. I put on my jeans and a longsleeved black v-neck with them. I called up my friend and we went to steak n' shake to get icecream. I felt magical....plus I still had my big hair and eyemakeup. In fact, I still have my big hair this morning...that's going to be a pain in the butt to wash out, since it is practically stiff with so much product.

So i think i'm going to go eat breakfast now. This was probably a really boring post. I have noticed that whenever I start spouting off about music ppl tend to tune me out...but thats ok I forgive you. Happens all the time.