Long nap.

Whoa...I just now woke up. I decided to take a "nap" after I got home at 8 last night. Well, nice nap, nevertheless! I was very stupid last night: I had to leave at 4AM for the audition, so I shoulda gone to bed around 9 or 10 saturday night. Instead I sat at my computer until 3:30 AM talking to my friend and left for Cleveland from there. Man, that drive was the most terrifying 5 hours of my life! Snow started falling early in the trip, and just got heavier all the way through. So the last 100 miles was driving on a thick sheet of SLICK snow (no salt trucks out that early). I was gripping the wheel so hard it hurt my hands at times, because I was ALL OVER the highway. I lost control twice. Once, I just slid till I stopped, but the second time I had to turn, the car would not, so a knock from the guardrail steered me in the right direction. So now I have matching car wounds on either front corner of my eclipse :( Where most people drive 30MPH in those conditions, I, with my suicidal tendencies, drove the speed limit still, sometimes with my wheels spinning with no grip so my speedometer read 120 mph. Once I was actually going 90 when I looked down at my speed. I guess in my warped mind, being on time for a conservatory audition takes precedence over my life, so no one ever better tell me I'm not dedicated enough to music! :)So I got to the audition in one piece, a little on edge from the drive. I noticed plenty of snotty stick up the ass conservatory people, but also a couple nice people (the latter is totally outnumbered though) The audition was pretty good-I just had a couple epiphanies during it though...It was a stupid idea to practice everything and then ALSO audition it by memory. ALWAYS have the music at your audition, you ass! On the bright side of that mistake of mine, after playing the Brahms by memory, they asked me to do it again with more emphasis on the articulation, this time also doing the RIGHT articulations....oops! So I pulled out the music and did it again more properly, thus showing them I am flexible and receptive. Rich King called me senseless for playing the Ravel high solo, which I may take as a compliment :) Eh, so in general, I played pretty well, but definitely not on top of my game. I think I may email the teachers for a little input, maybe to help me on my other (more important) auditions. CIM's good, but I dunno if it's my thing. But, any invitaion is totally welcome! The written tests...they SHOULD have been extremely easy to me, but since I haven't had the classes pertaining to those tests in so long, I don't remember shit. Ghosts of knowledge were there, but not the real thing. I really ned to brush up on my theory...So I kinda embarassed myself on the written parts. Eh.The drive back was equally crappy, this time due to salt and sleep. At one point, I had a nice dream...WHAT? Yep, a dream, while driving. I dreamt I was holding my horn, in my lap, in front of me. When I came to, I found that my "horn" was my steering wheel. I freaked out a little, slapped myself, and carried on. Somewhere in the middle of the trip I ran out of wiper fluid, so visibility was nonexistant. But, by some miracle I made it to oxford, and when I did, I practiced natural horn until I was going to fall over, then came home home. What a day.So I woke up a bit ago to find 2 messages, one from Faryn :) and one from Pamela, Celeste's friend and roommate. She said "it's weird I am Celeste's only friend that doesn't have you blocked". I really wonder what that was for. Was it meant to take a blow a me? Why? I've fucking left her and her friends alone. I almost emailed Celeste about it, but I know the ulterior motive was having a good opportunity to contact her, to show her I still exist, and realized it is a bad idea. She old me I am never to contact her again, so I guess I will stick with it. Grr, why, Pam? Leave me alone. It's been hard enough. See, my imagination works overtime. I picture a scene with Celeste and her friends hanging out, and someone mentioning me, and them all badmouthing me, including Celeste. I mean, how else would Pam think of me, and the fact I am blocked by C's friends, and decide randomly to IM me? Look what the smallest thing involving Celeste does to me. I need to have her surgically removed from my brain. Fuck you Pam.Eh, just think good things, Shane....

The olde days

Man, sometimes I really miss highschool. Things were so much more simple then! But this isn't really a sad feeling, but more of a fond one...I need to give a recital off campus for my degree, so I figured I'd go to YPAS, my old HS, to do it. So I emailed Mr Rob. He took my email very affectionately! He was such a good teacher (he always loved the Ilers, i.e. me, my sis, and my mom) Mr Essig was my other teacher there, who was basically the father figure in my life. Well, Mr Rob said he would be honored to have me perform at YPAS! And then he signed the email "Your friend and fan, Dennis" Aww! I miss Mr Rob :(*barf* Leaving in 7 hrs...

Here we go...

Ok, I just had a really good practice, basically just running through what I will be playing in my audition tomorrow. It turns out I was more ready than I thought. I'm actually a little hyped! Well...except for that I will be getting up at 3 AM tonight to leave for Cleveland. yuk. But it's cool-I'll be wearing my lucky boxers :) These are Beavis and Butthead boxers my best friend, Megan, gave to me my freshman year of highschool. Ever since, I have worn them to every concert and audition and recital I've performed in! (and yes, I wash them) They are in tatters, so I have to wear another pair of boxers under them, but oh well. I'll still be wearing them when I perform with the Chicago Symphony in 10 years. Aw yeah. God I love music. Yesterday, I was having trouble in my lesson playing musically...GP just said "play the music" and I did, and I DID! Man, sometimes the most simple words do the trick for me. I think he is Jesus, as I accidentally (freudian slip) called him at lunch one day with Allison and Bjorn.So, more emails between me and Miss Dudziak (hehe) It turns out I was right, she is only a year older than me. It's probably nothing, whatsoever, but jeez it's fun :) The DnD group ate a lot of Skyline and watched this movie about gambling called Rounders. We even drank a bottle of Boone's Farm each. Ha! But that wasn't enough for drunken DnD. And dude! At Kroger, there is a vending machine for gold rings! It's a bling bling machine!!! I got a gold one with a money sign on it. But the one I want is not mine yet, so I will be feeding that machine with quarters till I get it! Then I'll be pimpin :) Ok, lecture work.

Rocky

I just watched Rocky for the first time and I just have to say that is a great movie. I got chills multiple times throughout the movie, and even tears welled up in my eyes in the final fight. I mean...I cry for movies more than the average person, but still, I never knew this was such a powerful movie. Heh...Even the love story in it is a good one. I give it 2 thumbs up. It makes me think of going to my grad school auditions the underdog, and coming out THE CHAMP! :)

Good genes

Well, it's good to know where I come from. I decided to do a random web search on my biological dad's name. Looky what I got:Man, 62, is accused of molesting childCHARLESTON -A 62-year-old man has been accused of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl at his North Charleston home between June and August, police said.Wayne Kotab is charged with committing a lewd act on a minor. Magistrate Priscilla Baldwin set bail at $75,000.Mr. Kotab works as a teacher's assistant at Alice Birney Middle School in North Charleston, but the allegations are not connected to his job, said North Charleston police Detective Cpl. Jerry Jellico. Mr. Kotab told police he has worked at the school for about three years.So...yeah. He beat my mom while she was pregnant with me, and almost killed me. I was born into this world covered in my own shit, as well as choking on it. So, you could say, quite literally, that I am full of shit :) My sister had a PI track Wayne down and found out this molestation stuff last year, but jeez, I didn't really think I could just do a random web search and find this guy! Man. It is nice to know where my legendary heritage plants its roots...The things I do to entertain myself late at night. I REALLY need to find better ways to amuse myself when I am alone.

Great song...

If I could save time in a bottleThe first thing that I'd like to doIs to save every dayTill eternity passes awayJust to spend them with youIf I could make days last foreverIf words could make wishes come trueI'd save every day like a treasure and thenAgain I would spend them with youBut there never seems to be enough timeTo do the things you want to doOnce you find themI've looked around enough to knowThat you're the one I want to go through time withIf I had a box just for wishesAnd dreams that'd never come trueThe box would be emptyExcept for the memory of howThey were answered by you...Man, this is a good song. Jim Croce has a nice concept of what love is all about. I'll give a couple of my old ideas on love- some quotes to Celeste: Love is 2 people sharing one heart, one soul... -and- Love isn't merely accepting someone for their faults; it is loving someone even more, because to their faults. After some time in the real world, I have learned a little. quote number one is bullshit. 2 is nice, and I may actually keep that one. But whoa, quote #1 is silly. My head has been up in the clouds all my life, pertaining to love. I've lived off of all those idealistic, cliche, romantic ideals, just SURE that that is what love is. At least I am not clueless, considering I said #2 around the same time in my life. That one is pretty smart. But good old Jim, now he has a nice opinion on the subject. He says that when you love someone, you will want to spend every second of eternity with them. Pretty idealistic, I will admit, but hey, if you can find someone whose faults are appealing to you, and whose presence is that wonderful, that can be a great kind of love. (as long as you don't let them become your world...) So, for all of my pain last semester, I have to thank Celeste too, for being able to pull her head out of the clouds when she got too high up...one of us had to I guess. Reality...it sucks, but fairytales only last so long. So love...hmm. Weird concept to me now. Maybe I'll stick with SOME of my idealistic-ness, cause it can be quite nice. Cause Jim...he's gotta be right.

Analysis

As I read everyone elses' journal, I see a great deal of self-analysis as well as self-demoralization. Yeah, I did a ton of that last semester after the breakup too, but you know, it made me miserable. I have decided I just want to be happy, and that it is not some in-depth magic rite to accomplish or anything; it is simply being happy because you want to be. Just making yourself lay off the gripe every now and then works wonders. That's my advice for today...So I dreamt about her last night...It's a shame that for every effort you put into keeping an ex out of your conscious thoughts, she can still creep into your dreams. It was an odd dream too. No details though, because thinking about her in any form is bad. I don't want to forget her entirely, but I don't want to be sad over her either. I truly hope one day she and I can be friends, and there be nothing negative in my thoughts surrounding her. She's too important and special of a person to just be totally ejected from my life forever...anyways...So I found a little silver lining to that cloud of my Cleveland audition this sunday: Jared's place is halfway between here and Cleveland, so I can stop by the day before and see him and Michelle, and cut the drive on audition day short. Yay. I told my PBS-like professor today about my lecture, and he seemed genuinely impressed. After so many lectures on ancient greece and rome and all that, I got to finally tell this guy that I am giving a lecture, and I invited him, but alas, he is busy. Oh well, there will be plenty of others to show off to:) Time to work on that more, by the way. Adios.p.s. Hehe...I got home to find an email to the class from cute lab teacher, so I decided to respond to her...I am bad, but it is so fun!