27 Days

I love music.

  It feels so great to be contributing to an operation with so many other talented people. "Annie" is going to be a great musical for UCC's Musical Theater Festival this summer. Not only are some of my friends among these talented people, I get to meet new artists each year I participate.
  This year, I'm saddling up to play flute, clarinet, alto saxophone, and soprano saxophone. It's been a real pleasure taking on the task of Reed 1, despite the fact that there are no double reed parts (cue the astonished gasps). The rehearsals get longer as opening night draws near, but that doesn't mean the hilarity decreases. Antics ensue each night and we all have our fair share of laughs. This evening our orchestra conductor, Jason Heald, was mid-sentence when he said, "...hold on" and proceeded to climb out of the orchestra pit into the house. Now, I don't mean walked up the stairs to backstage, I mean literally went up a wall that seemed to have no visible footholds. It probably helped that he has at least 8 inches on most of us in the orchestra pit. We were all left with slightly bemused, yet amused looks on our faces. It's the little things, you know? :)

Annie plays at UCC for the next two weekends (July 28th-31st and Aug 4th-7th), Thursday-Sunday. Sunday's show is a matinee. Times are 7:30pm for Thursday-Saturday, and Sunday at 2pm.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been making a list of places I would like to travel while abroad. I'm hoping to get to a decent amount of them. Some are touristy, while others are a little off the beaten path.

Barcelona, Spain
London, England
Rome, Italy
Santorini, Greece
Bath, England
Inverness, Scotland
Prague, Czech Republic
Moscow, Russia
Monaco
Nice, France
Margraten, Netherlands
Paris, France
Venice, Italy
The Black Forest, Germany
Istanbul, Turkey
Cairo, Egypt
more to come.....

I can't believe it's less than a month until I leave for France. Insane! I'm really hoping to be able to get addresses from the people who want me to write them, so I can send them postcards. It's always nice getting something in the mail besides junk and bills (which, I guess can be classified as junk too).

About my blog, I'm really flattered that people actually take the time to read it. I've had people come up to me and say they enjoy my blog who didn't even cross my mind as someone who would read it, let alone know about it. So for you reading this. Yes you. Thank you so much, and I will try to make it as interesting as possible with what I write and what I share as far as photos, websites, videos and more.

You know what song is awesome? Take A Back Road by Rodney Atkins. If you're not into country, my apologies. It's just a feel-good song. Another one of my favorites is from the end credits of the movie Tangled. It's called Something That I Want by Grace Potter. This is definitely a song you can get up and dance to.... if you're a girl. If you're a guy by all means, bust a move - although you might face judgment if you're in the company of other guys. Just a warning.

Well, I think this post has gone on long enough. In the words of Tigger, TTFN, ta-ta for now!

Victoria!

As I get ready for work today (and then proceed to call and see if we're actually working instead of just waiting for the berries to not be wet) I figured I might as well lay on the bitching.....

Aside from work (which is a whole other inconvenience) I'm asked to babysit Nikki, a dog I sitted for 10 days at the beginning of July. Now, you may ask, "Why are you complaining about that! You get paid!" - it is not just the job I'm complaining about. If work decides to call me in, I'll be working from 9-5 then I'll need to head straight to rehearsal for the southern Oregon Music Festival's production of "Annie", for which I am in the orchestra pit. After that rehearsal (that gets over at 11pm at the earliest) I head straight to the dog and spend the night with her. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. For a week at Nikki's, then another week actually living at my own house. Oh how I long for the comfortable nights in my own bed. It's a rarity these days. From dogsitting overnight at a different house, to handing my room over for house guests (as is the case right now), I have almost started to forget what my room looks like!

Now onto work.
Because it's blueberry packing, we rely on people to pick the blueberries. Simple enough. But when it rains, the people who do such job aren't able to pick them. That means all the packers just standing around all day until they (hopefully) get called in. That was my situation all day yesterday. I never ended up getting recruited. Also, they seem to have an incomplete phone tree, since I drove 20 miles in to the blueberry barn and then was promptly told "We're not working today, didn't anyone call you?". Of course they called me! I just wanted to come in and act like an idiot, put all my things away and get ready for a long days' work of mindlessly sorting blueberries on a moving conveyer belt. Of course they called me and told me we weren't working! (-_-)........

Anywho, onto more happy things. I made and uploaded a geocache onto the website. :)

Now for the reason for the title of this post. I have an awesome ladyfriend who, not too long ago, landed in Denmark and will be residing there for the next year. She's pretty stressed out with everything, so I send her warm fuzzies through the air, and I hope that you would take about a second and a half out of your day to do the same. It's amazing what positive influence well-wishes have on other people :).

Just about anything is more fun than getting up early and waiting to see if you work or not. Even searching for compression socks.

**UPDATE**
I called Norris Farms, and after having been hung up on once, I'm told they don't need me until 11am today and that they'll be going really late tonight and probably a lot of other nights (think midnight or later). And to think, I could have gotten more sleep today. Drat.

Star Wars and Studying Abroad

As I'm sitting here watching Star Wars IV: A New Hope (and blogging, obviously), I'm starting to think more about the logistics of studying abroad. I'm thinking about when and what I need to start packing, getting compression socks, money, my going-away party, and a few more things. It's going to get more exciting as my departure date draws closer, and equally more unnerving that I'll be gone for an entire school year (if not longer - crossed fingers for that internship!) with no connections in some foreign land where I'm not yet fluent in the language. All my friends will be having a great time here while I'll be off in a distant land. It's the whole "out of sight, out of mind" thing, unfortunately.
BUT. If people do want to keep in contact with me, I'd absolutely love to send them postcards and such. It's fun and sort of old fashioned but it seems more heartfelt and besides, don't you just love getting stuff that isn't bills or junk in the mail?!?! I'll probably have a notebook set out at my party so if people are so inclined, they can write down their addresses.

On the topic of Star Wars: It's the shiz. Now I know people constantly say that IV, V, and VI are the best, but I really can't choose between them all. The newest 3 have better special effects and tell the back story but at the same time the older ones are the originals, and you can hardly ever beat originals.

Aside from all that good stuff, I just got done painting the downstairs bathroom light blue. It looks so much better than that gawdawful wallpaper that was in there before. If I had taken any photos, I would put them up but then I might just be doing you a disservice because that wall was so incredibly hideous.

I can't wait for my Denmark reunion with my buddy Victoria. She's coming down and staying with me a couple days. Woo!

One last thing: Don't forget to follow me before I go abroad. It's on my blog, directly below my photos on the sidebar. If you have a Google account, it should be easier, but either way it'll be worth it!

Thoughts?

So, I'm sitting in Astronomy 121, bored out of my mind because the professor literally reads the notes from Blackboard online in a monotonous tone bad enough to make even the most mild mannered person run screaming from the lecture hall in frustration. I've been (sort of) making plans(ish) regarding France and getting things like new matching luggage (can I get a "heck yeah!"?). One thing that has come to mind is a going away party (hyphen or no?). My mom thinks it would be cool to have one, since I won't see anyone for at least nine months, more if I land an internship next summer. I also think it'd be great to have a get-together like we did for Get, and I could get addresses from people who would like postcards and such.

Although it's a great idea, I'm afraid no one would want to come or be able to come. Wouldn't it be the pits to set up a bitchin' party and a grand total of 0 people show up? Yeah. I'd feel super cool. So I want those who are reading to give their opinion. Should my family throw a going away party? Would you show up if you could? Would you even want to go?

Did I ever mention I miss Europe? France and Denmark in particular. I miss Tivoli and being uber independent and just running around Copenhagen, finding my way with the EXTREMELY limited Danish I know (and with the help of my bestie Victoria). I can't wait to travel.

One of my bestest friends, Victoria and me. Oh, Denmark.