Cold Nights

It has been bitter cold here lately; most days I love winter and walk outside and feel the bitter wind in my face and start grinning, because I love it so much, but other days I start to complain about it.

Well, a few nights ago, I got home from work and was trying to warm up and couldn't figure out why I couldn't get warm, so I checked the thermostat and turned it up and when nothing happened I made a brilliant statement to my father, "It's cold...I don't think our heater is working." Brilliant, right? I was right, the heater was broken. Whoa, am I good. =D

At first I was pretty grumbly about it...I wanted to be warm! But then I started thinking about what an adventure it would be and about how it would make a really good story. So I bundled up and found an extra blanket and a sleeping bag for my bed and got out my dad's camera to record the event. It was a cold night, but I loved it. Because I got to tell all of my friends about it the next day at school. And anything is worth a good story, right? It did,remind me, though, of all of the blessings of the usual warm heater.

Scheherazade

I have fallen in love with symphonies. Before last night, I had never been to a symphony. I've listened to them on cd or the radio and enjoyed them then, but never had I been to a live performance. We are required to go to one major musical performance and write a two page review of it for our Music Literature class, so Emily and I were wondering how that was going to work, because neither one of us have the money to pay for one. Yesterday afternoon, one of the staff from school, Monte Ball, called Dad up and asked if he wanted two tickets to the symphony, because he wasn't able to use them. Amazing! Dad was busy, so Emily and I snatched them up with many words of gratitude to Monte. I love music and any opportunity to dress up and mingle with people who have more money than I do.

The first part of the evening was not a traditional symphony, instead they had a guest performer, Gao Hong, playing a pipa, with the symphony as accompaniment. I'm not used to the music of a pipa, so it took me a minute or two to learn to appreciate its music. But as soon as I got used to it's sound, I really enjoyed the music.

But my favorite part of the evening was later on when the Rochester Symphony Orchestra played Scheherazade. That was when I fell in love. It is amazing how, when you know the story line, you can tell who is "speaking" and what emotions they are protraying and what is happening in the story. I could imagine the sea crashing against the ship and then I could hear Scheherazade starting to tell her story, then the Sultan being gruff with her. Next I could hear that the hero had entered the story, then the love song between the prince and the princess (my very favorite part). I loved it how I could tell what parts of the music were the story and which parts were when it had stepped back to the storyteller and listener. By the time the symphony ended, I had taken eight pages of notes.

I left the symphony with three desires: the money to go see the Russian performance later this month...then the Mozart...and so on; the time to read the story of Scheherazade; and the ability to compose in such a brilliant, emotion protraying, beautiful way.

Singing in Alexandria

My singing group, Adoration, traveled to Alexandria last weekend. It was a really fun trip. We left Saturday afternoon and drove for four hours. It was a fun drive filled with everything from theological discussions to practical jokes.


After getting to the Church building in Alexandria, we were fed our choice of several different kids of very yummy soup, complete with 3x5 cards with all of the ingredients listed for the sake of one of our girls, Liz, who is deathly allergic to many different foods.

After we ate, we got together with some of the youth that was there and played games. One of the games we played was called Ninja Tag. The pictures you see below are of us trying to tag each other while our feet remain stationary on the ground.

We all went to our respective host homes and our group let Emily take pictures of us some more, because we love her so much...*wink*...okay, to be honest, we begged her to take pictures of us.

The next morning, we sang at Alexandria Church of Christ. It went pretty well, I thought, with only a few minor hitches. It was really exciting for me, because my cousin, Mandy, showed up for the second service. I didn't know that she was going to be there and she didn't know that I was going to be there. So, when I came out to sing, it was a really happy surprise. I will say, though, that I'm slightly offended, because she recognized two of my classmates before she recognized me...hehe.

I love singing in Adoration. We have such fun times and I get to spend a lot of my time doing one of the things that I love best: singing. Next month, on the 10th, we're going to Mason City, IA, and then we get the rest of the month off for Spring Break. Then in March, we'll kick it back up again, traveling nearly every weekend.