Hi.

This dusty ol' thing hasn't seen the light of day in a while... and laying here in my bed, scanning through our several conversations, I thought I would just say "hi."

No more posts. The end.

This is going to be my last post for a while. Not that there are a ton of people that visit this blog (cause there aren't). But I'm so focused on music right now. I just don't do this kind of thing anymore. When I have free time I'm @ home practicing, listening to music, or trying to learn more about it. (That is of course if I'm not chilling with friends or riding my bike). I know that it sounds like something I should have been doing all along.

And I was. I've been practicing clarinet since I was twelve. But...recently I got this burst of inspiration and a strong need to put all of myself into art. And right now I'm exploring every single angle of music I can. I'm going to more concerts than I can keep track of. I'm constantly discovering new things in music. Right now is such an exciting time. Unfortunately, I just don't feel the need to share it in this blog any longer. This blog has taken some hard bouts of neglect from its authors in the past. Currently neither author is posting on it very much. I've lost interest in doing this. So I'm not shutting down this blog just yet. But I don't plan on posting any further for a long time. Sorry Gwenn! I love you and I'll still check out your blog. But I think it's hasta la vista el blog for a while if not forever.

Been a while...

So things have been busy and sometimes I forget why I even started a blog. I was so into it...I don't know what happened. Lately I've had one thing after another. This weekend is the first break I've had from anything. Everyday, even weekends, I've been preparing for recitals, concerts, auditions, competitions, boards, rehearsals, on and so forth. I also had weekend classes and tons of other commitments. It happens. I loved it and hated it.

I guess the only way I could cope with all the tremendous demands I had to meet was to isolate myself, practice as much as I could, devour reeds like four year old with a Chocolate bunny three days before Easter (I used to dig in my grandmother's pantry before big holidays), and exercise A LOT.

Oh Vlady

I LOVE Vladimir Ashkenazy's shirt. In fact, I want it. I want to know where he got that kickass shirt. I love Sibelius and that shirt is just SO COOL. Have I mention yet how much I like this shirt?

This kid is so lucky because:

When I was his age (5 yrs old) I didn't even know what a clarinet was. And to be honest, I didn't even know what one looked like till I was 11. Anyway, I think it's great that youngsters are being exposed to music.

home...

Spring Break was great! It was everything I wanted it to be and more. I spent a majority of my time either taking long walks for miles and miles outdoors, playing x-box with my brother, catching up on cable programming from the past year and a half, hanging with my OKC/ Norman friends, long talks with family members.

It was great. One of my favorite moments was on a long walk through the Faircloud trails with my dad. Faircloud is the edition my parents live in and my dad showed me a secret path I'd never seen before. I must have road past it a million times on my bike or roller blades during the 12 years I lived there and I ALWAYS missed it. And it's not really too hidden. It was about 7am and we were talking about different things...and I just remember how good it felt. My dad has lost a lot of weight. I'm SO proud of him. SO has my mom. But she's ALWAYS looked fantastic in my opinion. And my opinion is right when it comes to my beautiful mother. Anyway, it was the best time I've ever had with my family. I'm really glad I went home instead of to the Golan Heights in Israel, surprisingly enough.

But the best part about leaving it all behind and coming back to school is my comfy warm bed...the one thing I missed in OK was good sleep.

UN Nightmare

Home...

I just can't wait to be on the flight home already.

Polar Bears, Pop, and Current Events

Don't drink Coca Cola like this ad tells you! Drink Pepsi instead.....

Actually, I don't drink carbonated beverages unless it is in a mixed drink. All the same, I am currently boycotting Coca Cola until they stop "pouring bad business ethics on Israeli recycling laws".

Check it out at treehugger: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/03/cocacola_pours.php

Apparently Coca Cola doesn't want to continue shelling out the 5 cents per bottle to recycle and would rather trample Israeli law than throw away a measily $5 to recycle 100 plastic bottles. That's $50 to recycle 1000 bottles etc. The process helps keep Israel clean and beautiful. When I was in Israel I never saw waste or trash on the ground anywhere. For the most part it was very clean. If you think about it Israel is a tiny little country comparible in size to about 17 Rhode Islands and has about 7 times the population. They recycle at least 80 percent of recyclable waste. Not half bad. But Coca Cola, one of the largest distributers of carbonated beverages is getting selfish and brown when it comes to the little Jewish state's laws. Personally, I can drink something else if Cola intends to be so ungreen and so mean.

Another note: Coca Cola's Favorite Spokesman, the Polar Bear, is Now on the Endangered Species List
A summary of what's happening: The sea ice is melting away. Polar bear NEED the sea ice. They can swim long distances for long periods of time, but they need to take breaks. With less and less ice, polar bears swim for longer distances for longer amounts of time. Lately, a lot of polar bears haven't been making it and consequently have been drowning. They've also been losing weight. Less fat means less insulation, meaning that some female polar bears may not have enough insulation to carry baby bears to term. Sad isn't it? Scientists predict all the sea ice well vanish by 2040. But the polar bears will be long gone by then. And what does the Bush administration think? They think you shouldn't know about it. According to the New York Times, memos being circulated at the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service place a gag order on employees in order to keep them from discussing polar bears. The government is forbidding biologists from discussing “climate change, polar bears or sea ice if they are not designated to do so.”

Check out the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/washington/08polar.html?_r=1&ref=washington&oref=slogin



Save the Polar Bear? You sure can! Some of these websites contain prewritten emails to important government figures and all you have to do is type in some info and click a button on your mouse and you already did something incredibly helpful for the polar bear. He'll thank you in 2040:

http://www.polarbearsos.org/?gclid=CL2N6La_6ooCFQgTWAodMEgMqA
http://www.worldwildlife.org/polarbears/
http://www.earthplace.org/about_earthplace/support.html
http://action.environmentaldefense.org/campaign/polar_bears_list?qp_source=searchpolarbears
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/europe/what_we_do/arctic/polar_bear/index.cfm
http://www.projectthinice.org/
http://www.savebiogems.org/polar/

Happy IWD!

Today is International Women's Day. Be excited ladies! You get your own special holiday just for being a woman! I say celebrate. Celebrate the sexy, smart, amazing, woman that you are. And men, celebrate women too. You wouldn't be here if it weren't for one.

To learn a little more about IWD check out the official website : http://www.internationalwomensday.com
The website contains a great timeline about the history of IWD and how women's lives have changed over the past century.

I also recommend learning more about women from different parts of the world that are currently struggling for their freedoms.

http://electroniciraq.net/news/2941.shtml
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=21236
http://allafrica.com/stories/200703050855.html

Simplest things

The simplest things in life are the things that are the most amazing.

Yesterday a guy gave me pistachios because he was happy he finally got his laptop to connect with the wireless. That made my day yesterday. I thought how interesting it was that just a simple joy made him want to share it somehow with others.

I ran into a couple people that I know and haven't seen in a while today. It's so pleasant to see old friends...

Speaking of seeing old friends... Can't wait. ;)

VAGINA

Three highschool girls were suspended for saying the word "vagina" while reading a feminist play, the Vagina Monolgues.







Article: http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=bizarre&id=5099458

First of all, if they didn't say VAGINA I want to know what they did say. PENIS? or BEAVER? or PUSSY? What exactly were they supposed to say? And why would an anti-feminism highschool board allow the performance of a feminist play that so obviously concentrates on female sexuality? This I don't understand. This is an obvious attempt at censorship and a pretty obvious rejection of feminism. It's a pitty such ignoramuses run high schools.

First of all, VAGINA is a perfectly suitable word for the community to hear. Half of all children have them, all children come out of them, and the community includes vagina-havers among its members. So....why censor it? Oh yes. Not everyone has one. Jealous are we?

Vagina Monologues: http://www.randomhouse.com/features/ensler/vm/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vagina_Monologues

V-day: http://www.vday.org/peace_vmailsplash.html

Please watch this!!!!!
video of eve ensler performing her play herself: http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=e_ensler

THEEND

UGHHHH! I am SO sick of school. I can't wait for it to be over. I really did very well this quarter up until this week. I can't wait to go home. It's all that's on my mind besides men. And that's always on my mind being that I'm 21 years old and constantly...um...something. So anyway, I was doing great. And then this week I just fell apart. I have 4 papers due, three concerts, a lesson, like 4 more rehearsals, a final, and probably something else. I'm just gonna explode. I don't really know if I can survive the next 7 days.

I think I can I think I can I think I can

I've been slacking in a few classes... actually, a few areas of my life, as of late. My room is a mess, and has been for weeks. My car needs to be clean and the oil needs to be changed. Econ needs a lot of work, and so does Soil. I haven't worked out in so long. And Spring Break plans need to be finalized, I need to make my portfolio, I need to write the firms in San Diego, and I need to find out my living situations next year. A lot of these things I can't do much about until further notice, but all the same... there's a lot of fine tuning that I need to do. It's time for some motivation!!!

Boo Grey's

So last night my friend Yafit came over to watch Grey's Anatomy with me, but alas we were surprised by the unfortunate rerun. I couldn't take it, so we left and went to Meijer. Yafit wanted some hairdye and I wanted to get some food for the fridge. It gets hungry. What can I say?

Anyway, the deli was closed. Boo. But...they did have some persimmons. So I got as many as I possibly could. I LOVE persimmons. I was introduced to them last year by my teachers best-friend, Laura. She's a clarinetist out in FL. Anyway, I believe she came into Ixi's house carrying a carton of persimmons and I implied, "What's wrong with your tomatos?"

Anyway, persimmons are a fruit. They are a delicacy. They are almost gone.

And meanwhile, it is gorgious outside. I love waking up before my alarm clock because my apartment is flooded with the warm orangey glow of sunlight. My bedroom window faces West. But there's a window in the living room directly opposite that faces East. It's a lot easier to get up early in the mornings if it's not dark as night outside.

P.S. I am going to a Purim costume party this weekend. What should I dress up as?

Goodies

So my current phone is going...going...dying...almost....dead. The battery works alright. But the phone itself is not really functioning. The ear phone really sucks so a lot of times in order to hear someone I have to put them on speaker phone. It constantly dies suddenly or drops my calls (which is more than likely a Cingular problem). It gets pretty shitty reception and it used to rock. And it's supposed to take pictures but then they always come out blurry or messed up after I save them. Anyway, the phone is old. It's seen good times and bad times. And now it's going to be retired. For a beautiful new w300i!!!!!

Cloud Facts

Definition: a cloud is a visible mass of condensed droplets or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of a planetary body.

Study of clouds: nephology

A droplet of moisture in a cloud is about .01mm in diameter. It takes billions of droplets to make a cloud. There are three ways to make a cloud: 1) air is cooled below its saturation point. This happens when the air comes in contact with a cold surface, like a cold front. 2) when two air masses below saturation point mix. Examples are breath on a cold day, aircraft contrails and Arctic sea smoke. 3) The air stays the same temperature but absorbs more water vapor into it until it reaches saturation point.

So why does it rain? Well, the best I can do to explain it as simply as possible is that something happens inside the cloud and the present droplets start to make even more droplets or ice crystals and fall from the cloud and melt, and you can only assume that if they don't melt then we get snow etc.

The color of cloud tells you whats going on inside of it. It doesn't really take a brainiac to figure it out though. If a cloud looks dark and ominious you can safely assume that more than likely a certain size droplet is forming rapidly...and melting on it's way down....etc.

Bottom line: I really wish it weren't cloudy outside. But obviously I can't do anything about it. Boo.

The Weekend Review

This weekend had a great kickoff with active civil disobedience, a birthday dinner, close friends, some hookah and vodka, and unfortunately...Salad Fingers.

My friends, Gary and Nate, were mean enough to go to www.fat-pie.com/salad once everyone had some hookah. It's technically a deranged cartoon of a sick character called "Salad Fingers" that has a thing for rusty spoons. Whoever made these sick videos had to be on crack or needs to be locked up. I totally believe in freedom of speech...but that doesn't necessarily mean I need to know about this stuff. It's just creepy and wrong. But aside from that smoking hookah, knocking back vodka with crazy Israeli friends and debating liberal vs. radical feminism was a great kickoff to the weekend.

Crazy/Fun Friends

Saturday the highlight was the CSO concert with Jimmy followed by The Departed followed by a debate of Godfather vs. Departed. Excellent.

Sunday: biking, running, and strength training followed by a call home, practice, FOOD, and probably a DHW gathering at mi casa, followed by a prompt Good Night. And then...another week of....CCM.....

the truth

Film Review: An Inconvenient Truth
I had been wanting to see this film for a while but I had to get on a waitlist with Netflix so I opted to wait till it was more available. Since the summer, I've been reading up a lot on Global Warming or what I call "Anthropogenic Climate Change". I prefer that name better than "Global Warming" because it inferrs that the damage being done to this planet is being inflected by the human race, primarily the part of the human race living north of the equator...

And Al Gore emphasizes the same point. The film is great. I think it's a great tool for informing people of what global warming is, why it's a climate crisis, and what needs to be done to halt it, and what we can do individually to help in the fight to save the planet.

GREAT WEBSITES:

http://www.climatecrisis.net/

http://www.onetonco2.com/index.php

http://www.environmentaldefense.org/home.cfm

check out CFLs: this is one huge way to save lots of $$$$ and lbs of CO2
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/page.cfm?tagid=483&campaign=mts

http://zerofootprint.net/

http://www.seventhgeneration.com/index.php

http://www.truthout.org/index.htm

Israel yafeh meod!

My favorite chaverim: Debbie and Idan!
View of Yaffo from Tel-Aviv beach:
Vender selling sesame treats or b'ivrit "sum sum matok":
Underneath a Chabad outside the Kotel and down the street from Chadaya:
Camel ride in the Negev: