Let the Break Begin!

Fall semester is finally over! I'll tell you, I wasn't sure I was going to make it for a while. Aaron tells me that it's a part of my obsessive need to get As in college, a superfluous need that I was sure Astronomy would have squashed that right out of me my first semester of college (Hello failing my first test in college), but apparently I'm still holding onto that dream. When will I learn? 

Once the semester ended, we were immediately off to San Diego to meet the football team to compete in the Poinsettia Bowl! Waking up at 4 AM the first day after finals was a dream come true, really. It's not like we were exhausted or anything. We piled 240 people onto 5 charter busses and made our way to San Diego. 12–13 hours later, we finally made it to our beautiful resort, Paradise Point. It was so beautiful!

We did a lot in San Diego from Monday to Thursday: a parade at the Gaslamp Quarter, performances at USS Midway Aircraft Carrier and tailgates before the game, sea lion watching at La Jolla beach, and lots and lots of eating. We also made a stop at SeaWorld, and I managed to put aside my distaste for the treatment of the sea animals long enough to enjoy our trip! Hello killer Shamu. 

The football game was very typical of BYU: horrendous first 3 quarters and a fabulous 4th quarter. After all of the nasty fans who swore at us and made disgusting gestures at the band, it was very satisfying to thoroughly destroy them in the game. My favorite sign of the game:

My career in band is officially over. I've had 11 years of band filled with private lessons, middle school band, high school band, and college band. With one last BYU fight song, it was all over. Marching Band has been one of the best things I've ever done. I've met almost all of my best friends there and I even met my husband in band! Call it bizarre, but I can truly say that I've had the time of my life performing throughout my life. It's been a good run.

After a quick visit with my grandparents in Seal Beach and a 12 hour drive with Jared and Brianna to ABQ, my relaxing Christmas break can finally begin!

Frozen Victory

Seeing as this is my senior year, I'm having a lot of lasts. Last time to register for winter semester, last home football game, and so on. The last football game was one of the strangest games I've ever been to. We spent an hour before rehearsal that day scraping off the snow and ice off of our seats, slipped and slided across the practice field where we pretended to see the yard lines, and spent the rest of the game trying to avoid frostbite.

Despite the miserable feeling of not being able to feel your fingertips, it was a very silly game.

In the 3rd quarter, the camera flashed to the top section of the bleachers to show someone making a snow fort out all of the snow in the seats.

They showed some of the football players dancing on the field when they played the song "Gangnam Style."

In the 4th quarter, when we were up about 30 points or so, a line of our players jumped on their stomachs and slid into the end zone after a play had ended.

I think the cold did something to our brains! Made us all a little bit loopy. With people almost passing out from the cold and losing feeling in their appendages, I was busy enough all game long and didn't have any time to be sentimental about the impending end of marching band. It really wasn't until the very end of the game when were playing our traditional 5th quarter concert outside the stadium that I really started to think about it. It was around 11:30 p.m.; it was freezing cold and completely dark except for the spots where the streetlights shone through. It was snowing lightly in a pretty sort of way. There was something dreamlike about that moment, and I thought, This is another one of those ends. It's not that endings have to be sad, filled with tears or anguish, or even dread. Soon, I'm going to leave BYU. The moment lingered and passed.

I Want To Be Scarlett O'Hara

It's been a busy couple of weeks. Yikesabee. Here are some of the things I have been up to!

I gave blood at the American Red Cross and I had an unfortunate incident where my vein rolled out of the way of the needle. I'm not kidding. It rolled. I know you're jealous; I've got ninja veins. The other arm worked perfectly and after two weeks, my giant bruise is finally gone! 

I switched with one of the tenor saxophones in the Men's Pep Band so that he could travel with his wife with the Woman's Basketball team and I could travel with Aaron with the Men's Basketball team. We left early Monday morning and traveled to Dayton, Ohio.

I got to meet a few of the players. I had a nice awkward conversation in the elevator with this player, Chris Collinsworth. "Where are you from?" "Albuquerque. Actually BYU. I'm actually in the band." "Oh. Well, thanks for supporting us." "Thank you for letting us...come...support you." 

Watched an incredible game against Iona! NCAA history making game where we had a comeback of 25 points! There's a picture of us from when they showed us on ESPN. Yes, that is me on the top row, second from the right, screaming as loud as I could. Best game ever. 

If I could put how I felt into one visual image, this would be it!

We made our way down to Louisville, Kentucky for the first round NCAA game. We visited Churchill Downs, the famous arena for the Kentucky Derby!

Every girl has wanted to date a cowboy at some point in their life. For me, I first fell in love with Curly from Oklahoma. Lucky me, Aaron happens to be a part-time cowboy! Just ask him to sing you one of his cowboy songs. You'll love it.

My dreams of becoming a southern belle became clearer.

I got to hang out with great friends and my great roommate, Jill.

Then, there was the sad Marquette game. To be fair, they're a Number 3 seed. We knew they'd be tough.

We came back late Thursday night and it's back to business as usual! Tests, midterms, homework assignments, and projects galore. To make myself feel better, I made myself this delicious Nutella Banana Bread that has pretty much made all of my dreams come true. Try it. Hasn't my picture convinced you?

Golden Nuggets

I won't bring down this blog by reiterating the bitter disappointment that was experienced during the BYU game tonight.

There was one part of the game that really affected my outlook on our loss.

As the student rep of the band, I was in charge of delivering granola bars and water to the Utah band. I'm not one of those BYU fans who thinks that all Utah fans are horrid and inhuman; why should an affiliation with a university change your worth in the world? As we delivered the granola bars and carried up several coolers of water and cups, several band members from their band personally thanked us but what surprised me is the number of Utah fans that took the time to express their admiration for our service and gratitude for helping their band. It was a small moment where a small group of us temporarily forgot the game ahead of us and treated each other as friends.

I was exhausted from the hours of preparation for the game. My arms were limp from hauling water coolers and my legs a little sore from sprinting around the stadium several dozen times. But it didn't really matter in that brief moment because people noticed our hard work and took the time to thank us. And they were wearing red shirts. How ironic is that?

A game lost but a better appreciation for the depth of humanity gained. A decent tradeoff in the long run.

Blazing Trails

BYU 2010-2011

Expectations:

1. I worried my future unknown room mate would be psychotic, hate me, steal my food, play obnoxious rap music in the apartment while I'm studying, or become so possessive that she would want to kill all of my friends and family so she can keep me to herself. Okay, maybe not the last one, but insert any overused college room mate stereo-type fed to us by the media, and I worried about it.

2. Failure. I knew college classes would harder and so different from high school classes, I wasn't sure I'd be able to handle the stress and achieve success.

3. My experiences at church would be roughly the same as I had growing up.

4. I love music! Loved it all my life. I thought that that naturally would lead to being a Music major heading towards Music Education.

5. College wouldn't be as great as everyone told me it would be.

6. I might not make it through my freshman year.

Reality:

1. I had the incredible luck to have this amazing person Suzette Rovelsky for a room mate. She is one of the kindest and most unselfish beings I know. She made the apartment a happy home for us as she ran around singing and dancing to Disney songs, befriending everyone in the area within the first 20 minutes, and by being optimistic and laughing through every trial she faced. Staying up late doing homework together at the kitchen table, growing sillier and more ridiculous as the hours went by are some of my happiest memories from this year. Suzette always cares more about the people around her rather than herself. I wish I could be more like her.

2. College is hard. There were nights where I would stay up for hours on end studying and finishing assignments, wondering how on earth was I going to get everything done. There would be days where I would sit in my room practicing clarinet and seriously considering throwing it against the wall. Those who know me well know that I get stressed about pretty much everything. Yes, I was stressed a lot of the time about how everything would turn out. Sure, a few classes smacked me around and almost broke me, but I didn't crack and I didn't give up. Every disappointment I experienced had its purpose and I'm learning that everything doesn't always turn out according to your plan.

3. Living at BYU, you are surrounded by church members who, for a majority, share your same standards and beliefs. We said prayers in some of my classes and sang hymns in others. All of my classes connected the topic in one way or another to living the gospel, I couldn't believe it! You feel so connected to Christ and his teachings as you begin to realize that every part of your life can connect to your religion, even Astronomy and Marching Band. College is the hardest thing I've done so far in my life but is has also been the most fulfilling because I'm learning to rely more solely on a higher power to get me through my day.

4. Not going into music was incredibly disappointing at the time. It seemed impossible to move past it until that glorious day when I remembered English. It has always been my favorite subject; writing just came easy for me growing up. I'm one of those weird people who actually enjoy citing sources in MLA format. Writing papers is my fun assignment of the day that I look forward to while doing all the other tedious assignments for other classes. The day I started looking at English classes online for next fall was the day everything fell into place. I will always love music and continue to play, but English is where I belong. This is what I'm supposed to do.

5. This past year alone, I went to every home football game including the bowl game and played in the pep band for the legendary Cougar Basketball team, traveling around the nation with my boys during the post-season tournaments. I played incredible music with the Symphonic Band, lived 5 minutes away from my brother, sister-in-law, sister, and best friend from childhood, lived with two amazing people, aced my English papers, spent many sleepless nights with my room mates finishing homework and having a ball, stood in the same elevator as Jimmer Fredette (TWICE!), saw hilarious comedy sketches with Divine Comedy, memorized 35 constellations, reconnected with old friends while meeting new ones, and made more memories than I can ever write down. I'd have to say college was even better than I had ever expected.

6. Here I am on the other side, still standing. Who would've thought?