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.