it's march and it's still cold.

We had a snowstorm a few days ago, and there's still massive snowbanks on the ground. On the bright side, this weekend it's going to be above-freezing for the first time in about a decade. Which is very exciting.
I just really want to wear bright colors and summer dresses and sandals.
Anyway.
Moving on.

I wanted to talk about English class for a bit here.
I've never known that I was a math/science person until I hit high school. (I'm a sophomore right now)
Since I was a kid, parents have always been amazing about being willing to drive me to the library or the local bookstore to check out books and maybe buy a few. So I've always enjoyed reading.
My particular favorites were Artemis Fowl, Harry Potter, Eragon and everything by Roald Dahl if anyone cares.

But this year in English, the course load has become daunting, and also the teacher intimidates the beejesus out of me.
He sort of just opens his mouth and I have no idea what he's saying.
He's talking in English of course, but his ideas and analysis about the text doesn't make sense to me. I've been struggling, but I can't wrap my head around anything. Ever.
It hurts because I feel incompetent and dull and just all-around unintelligent.

However, on the other hand, I'm doing very well in my other classes. Chemistry comes pretty naturally to me, and math makes sense if I work at it.

The one thing I worry about is that this will take away the joy of reading for me, and make it become something I struggle to find deeper meaning in without first enjoying the story.
I like reading for fun.
It's easy to identify with characters and struggle with them and triumph with them and be happy with them when something finally goes their way and cry from sadness when the book ends only to pick it up and do it all over again a few weeks later.
Now the books we read in class is a stressful experience because it's become a frantic dash for meaning and analysis.
To make a bad analogy, it's like taking a sandwich and blending it to oblivion in an attempt to figure it out more, squeezing out every last bit of useful information instead of enjoying the book/sandwich as as a whole.
I personally apologize for that sandwich smoothie image. I haven't had dinner yet.

Right now, I'm just trying to make it out of this course alive and with my self-esteem and appreciation for literature to last.
If anyone has any tips whatsoever, I will welcome and appreciate and love any advice you can offer. 

(I know I haven't posted for a while and when I finally come back from hibernation I launch into a rant about English. And for that I'm very sorry, but I feel like this blog is really the only place I can talk about it. So thank you for continuing to support me, it really does mean a lot.)

bassoon camp and my favorite pieces.

This summer, I have been focusing almost completely on music.
Mainly with the bassoon. (Which I fondly named Maximilian, Max for short)

I started off going to a Bassoon Workshop for two weeks.
I don't think I've every experienced anything like it.
There were other workshops for other instruments going on at the same time as well, so there was also a Trombone Workshop, Flute Workshop etc. 
The program is advertised as "classical music immersion" and they mean it.

On the weekdays, there are classes, from 9am-12pm and then 2pm-4pm. Any time in between that, we were essentially allowed to do anything that we wanted.
Most of us spent that time practicing in the cute little practice huts that were scattered around campus.

The people there were amazing.
At school, it's hard to find people who enjoy classical music and play an instrument with the goal of making it part of their life.
At camp, almost everyone wanted to either major or minor in music.
It was really, really, really nice.

I was definitely one of the worst people there, but that's alright because I don't have that much experience.
Although the teachers were still strict regardless, I learned enough at that camp to make up for a damaged ego.
I also improved a lot, mainly because I became a practicing machine. (2.5 hours a day!) 

Those of you who don't play an instrument probably don't understand why on earth I would willingly go to a camp that's essentially music boot camp.
But the thing is, music makes me happy.
It just does.
I often find myself listening to a piece, and I'll start to smile. Just because.

And I saw a faculty tuba recital there.
The finale was a tuba quartet.
Amazing? I think yes.

And finally, here are a few of my favorite pieces.
Libraries also often have full scores, so if you can read music, I would recommend looking along as you listen, so you can see just how the magic happens.

• Prokofiev - Symphony No. 5 Second Movement (Allegro Marcato), Especially love the brass part at 5:39-6:56. Amazing.
• Gershwin - An American in Paris, This is piece is about, well, an American in Paris. You can almost see him meandering around France. There are car horns (The trumpets going DA-DA-DA in the beginning) and during the slow section in the middle, I visualize him sitting in a swanky cafe watching the sunset.
• Beethoven - Symphony No. 5 Fourth Movement (Allegro), As far as I'm concerned, this movement is like a giant dance party.
• Bartok - Concerto for Orchestra Second Movement (Giuoco Delle Coppie), I love this movement. It's lots of fun, and it's meant to be sassy and playful. It also starts off with a bassoon duet, and then later, a bassoon trio, which makes me a bit biased. 
• Saint-Saens - Danse Bacchanale from Samson et Dalila, This is one of those pieces that makes you want to get up and dance. The Youtube recording skips the gorgeous oboe solo in the beginning, but it the full thing can easily be found on Spotify.
• And if you're up to some bassoon concerto awesomeness, the Mozart and Weber bassoon concertos are stunning.

If you have pieces that you like, write a comment or email me, and I will definitely take a look. 

cats and classical music.

A few days ago, I was walking to our town library.
Whenever I take a walk, I think about everything and absolutely nothing at all. My thinking process is basically me making small talk with myself.
And I realized that I changed a lot over the last few years.

I think the biggest change is that I've started to really appreciate classical music. I used to to think that it was really boring and reserved for old people, but then I joined an intense wind ensemble. Never in my life have I been around people who appreciated music quite like they did.
I was swept along with this huge classical-music current and started to listen to it.

I showed a recording that I really liked to one of my old friends. I can't quite remember which one it was, but I thought it was fascinating. He laughed and said that I was being brainwashed.
And I don't know if that was directed as an insult, but that really hit home.

I'm not ashamed of listening to classical music.
I just don't know if it's something I should openly share or not. I know that most people in my school don't even think about it as a type of "good" music and I'm really not up the challenge of trying to argue against years upon years of teenage culture.

...I'm not really sure where I'm going with this.
Maybe I'm trying to say that I'm trying to figure out what things I should share with others and what I shouldn't.
But then again, I really don't want to put a censor on my words.
I think that if someone wants to listen to me, they should have to deal with the fact that I do nerdy things.

This post has just turned into a trainwreck of conflicting thoughts, so I'm going to end it before my writing morphs into something about goats or whatever.

It's way too late but I accidentally had coffee an hour ago.
I'm basically fueled on caffeine with nothing to do.
I could either write a blog post or watch videos of cats, which I will probably do once I publish this.
Of course, I could study, but it's Friday and I never do work on Friday. I'm more of a cram-on-Sunday-night type of person.

And while I'm on this tangent, I'd like to let you know that I learned to juggle.
I found three juggling balls under my bed and I basically learned to juggle them when I should have been writing a History essay.

I really need to work on my time management.

a post about friends.

I have two really good childhood friends. Their names are Carl and Benny.
And we're really, really, really close.
At least, we WERE close.
We were always together throughout middle school and for a part of high school.
We would talk about Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and we all had common interests.
But lately, we just haven't seen each other. None of us has made an effort to make contact either.

Carl is a huge drama geek. He's the one that I mainly want to talk about.
He's an amazing person. He really is.
But it's getting difficult to have a conversation with him. We used to be able to talk hours and hours on end about absolutely everything and nothing at all. We made each other laugh, and we made each other mad too, but we always managed to tough it out together, no matter what happened.

Now when I see him, I have trouble making small talk, simply because I haven't seen him in so long.
And I never have trouble with small talk. I might not be good at a lot of things, but little, unimportant discussions is something I'm actually good at doing.

And now it's so awkward.
I mean, we both knew almost everything about each other.
I know that he idolizes Dwight from The Office and can quote anything from the show, especially when it involved Jim's pranks.
There was one time when I correctly named every shirt he owned, just because we were around each other so much.
If he was in front of me, I could tell if it was Carl or not because I knew the way that he walked.

Now when I see him, wearing a shirt I've never seen before, which is normally a reference to something I've never heard of, it's really weird.
I can't even converse properly with him, which used to be a given.
It's unsettling.

I need to work on communicating with him more. Maybe that would fix this.
Or maybe not.
We're both really awkward people.

i'm back! (sort of)

Hi everyone, it's been a while!
Do you remember me? If you don't even know who I am, or are seeing this on your dashboard and wondering who I was and where I went, let me fill you in.

I'm Fiona.
I'm a bit of an introverted, awkward nerd.
I like using big words because it makes me sound smarter than I actually am. But don't worry, it's just the thesaurus talking.

And now where was I?

Inside a time warp I call,

The world of high school.

                                               (What you read just now was an excellent haiku. )

But all jokes aside, I've been extremely busy. 

College is a looming, dark cloud that is fast approaching and I realized that I needed to start doing more things out of school in order to get accepted into a good one.

And juggling everything is, in short, brutal.
Somehow, I've managed to get straight A's, but everything is getting increasingly more demanding.
Meaning, my schedule is getting tighter and tighter.
Meaning, the amount of time I can spend looking at cute videos of kittens and reading Socially Awkward Penguin is drastically decreasing.
I've been decreasing the procrastination, so that's helped.

So yeah.
That is my very long and elaborate excuse to why I haven't been posting.

Also, I don't have as much time as I'd like for bloghopping. Of course, I might be able to find some time in the weekends, but I do want to follow some new blogs.
It would help a lot if you could give the link(s) to your blog or a blog you think I should read. If you have a good blog, I'm sure that I would eventually find it, but a direct link would save some time. I won't follow each and every link I receive, but I WILL take a look and probably comment. 
I know this a bit selfish of me to ask for this, but please pardon it just this once! (:

Also, as a warning, I might disappear again for a while, but it's not because I've been eaten by a mythical creature, but my extreme workload has basically caught up to me.

i'm feeling negative today.

I'm in a bad mood and I need to rant.
So I'm basically going to prattle off everything that's annoying me right now. I need to let out this negative energy or else I'm going to take it out on someone.
And whenever I get irrationally mad at a person, I feel bad for weeks. So I'm going to make an effort to reduce the damage I cause.
Here I go.

I hate it when girls think it's cool to casually use their middle finger.
Am I the only one who notices? I feel like in every picture I see, a girl is flipping off the camera. And not only is it rude and disrespectful, it's ridiculous.
Honestly, why would you do such a thing? What are you accomplishing using your middle finger and shoving it in front of a camera lens?
Oh that's right.
YOU ARE ACCOMPLISHING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
You think doing this makes yourself seem like a rebel that shows a flagrant contempt of authority. You think you're a free spirit. You think that nobody can label you because you're so cool.
Well, you are wrong.
It makes you look like just another dumb teenager that doesn't have an ounce of respect.
And you should be ashamed of yourself.

I hate snobby people.
Just because you're good at one particular sport, or your daddy is richer than everyone else, does not make you the ruler of the freaking earth.
So stop talking behind my back because I'm not wearing the same $200 dollar jeans as you. And stop giving me dirty looks because I actually make an effort to get good grades so I can succeed in twenty years.
You are a human being. Just like everyone else.
So ditch that "I am better than you" mentality and make an effort to talk to the other human beings. Because if you gave them a chance, you might actually like them.

That's really all that I wanted to say.
Wow. I just reread all of that and I feel like a horrible person.

& about my previous post about the haircut, I've read all your comments. And thank you so much for all of your feedback. I haven't had much time lately, but I definitely will eventually respond to all of them.
And comment on all the blog posts I've missed.
I've fallen so behind it's making me depressed.

And I'd also like to thank everyone for the awards.
You have no idea how much it means to me.
I'll also do an awards post when I get the time.

So.... yeah.
I feel a bit better now. (:
Thanks for putting up with me.

short hair.

I cut my hair.
I did it.
And I ended up going a lot shorter than the pictures I posted in here. 
But I'm glad I decided to.
I really am.

And without further ado, here's my gloriously delicious face with short hair. (Hah.)

Edit: I removed my picture because I suddenly got a wash of paranoia that somebody would come and stalk me.

My head feels so much lighter. You'd think that a few inches of dead protein wouldn't weigh a lot, but believe me. You don't realize just how much it is until it's gone.
Also, washing and styling my hair has gotten a lot easier.
I use a lot less shampoo and conditioner, and I don't even have to straighten my hair to get it to behave anymore. At most, I comb through some molding wax to get my bangs to stay in their place.
It's amazing.

The only downside to this, is that I'm sometimes mistaken as a boy.
It gets irritating, but I think that it would be obnoxious if I complained, since it was my own decision to cut my hair off.
Besides, it's only to be expected, since short hair is almost always a "boy thing".

But all in all, I love love love it.
And to anyone who is on the edge of the decision of whether to take the dive and cut their hair off, I would do it.
But then again, this isn't something to just do on a whim, because it would take years to grow back.

However, I didn't regret this at all.
And I think I'm going to keep it at this length for a very long time.