Chicago!!

Ok, so the plane flight was pretty good. Long again though. This time I just read my new book. It is called Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith. I really liked it...there is some action, intrigue, politics, and romance. Some parts were predictable but I really liked it when I got done and the end was really good....the chemistry of the ppl were good too.. but don't worry it's not a "romance novel". It was good you should read it.
So I was just writing this up and I think I should turn off the autosave becuase I already typed this up once and I was highlighting it to change the text and somehow it all erased and then it autosaved. Soooo...I'm writing this again. whew....

Ok so I arrived at Chicago O'hare. I hate that airport. It is so always so busy, and it is huge and built like a maze. I literally felt like a rat in a maze about 3 years ago when I had a connection in there once and had to change terminals but the train was down and they were doing a lot of construction in the halls. It even had those orange road detour signs up to direct us pedestrians. It took me at least 1/2 hour to walk to my next gate...anyway I landed late because we were taxing in the air for about 20 minutes before we could land. The lady that was picking me up had told me to meet her at the arrivals, but she said it was the upper level...i know becuase I wrote it down the week before when I talked to her. There was no upper level however, and after standing up there finally made it downstairs and we managed to find each other. She was really sweet and nice, and she teaches voice at NIU. I was also going to stay at her house for the next 4 days in one of the rooms that she normally rents out to students. She was so nice and drove me to the grocery store to get some food to eat while i was there. I loved her house...it was a big old wood-panneled house which is awsome becuase I LUV wood panneling and the smell of wood...especially old wood. mmmm. So her house was awsome.

I pretty much spent the entire time locked away in the practice room. I love it when I have nothing else to do but practice and get ready for something like my audition and concert that I had to do there at NIU. I think I averaged about 5-6 hours a day while I was there. Ms Seeman got me a gig playing with the NIU philharmonic orchestra. It was thier concerto concert. I only played two pieces: La Forza del Destino by Verdi and a concerto for Steel Pan and Orchestra by Jan Bach. It was really good, and very well written for harp. You should go find it and listen to it, or even try to find a video. Very good. I'm proud of myself though. I learned the Verdi excerpt in only 5 days. Not bad, and Ms Seeman said I played really well in the concert...which is great because that is what I do best! Anyway, it was really good.
My audition was the next day. I played a little of everything. And I played really well too! I prepared really well too which makes me happy. I also got to talk to the conductor and what her plans for the future are if I should accept and come to NIU. She has a passion for orchestral music just like me, and we like a lot of the same composers. It was a good trip.

It was good that I was out of town that week, because that was the week where my family decided to get sick all at the same time with flu/pneumonia. I tease them about it and thank them, because they couldn't have picked a better time to be sick...while I was not there! But I think the Lord was looking out for me too because when I came home mom was not fully recovered and dad caught a strain of something else while I was there but I never once got sick or even felt under the weather, and if I had gotten sick at any time during that time, my auditions would have very probably been ruined, especially when I still had my UT audition in Austin the next weekend after I came home. So, all good!!