Blog-Stalking

Things people I know are doing over break:

Nathan is taking staples out of his stairs and calling me lots.
Sarah K. is drinking hot chocolate every day.
Beth is either dead, or just not posting on her lj lately
Katie is busy and doesn’t have time to update (but she’s glad Jesus was born, and I am too!)
Jon is taking an interest in Christmas carols.
Lem got a guitar. He’s also glad he doesn’t have a girlfriend to complicate his Christmas shopping process - Lem is a very clever fellow.
Rachel graduated! And has pictures!
Phil is getting married! (To Alisha, of course!) And he has a wonderful thought of the day.
Steve is waxing very thoughtful, and is, I think, going to Ireland.
Dustin is not posting because he’s engaged. ‘nuff said.
Fievel is clever and has written a poem. And is posting prolifically concerning various and sundry other topics.
Becka is appreciating the importance of traditions.
Dr. Reynolds is posting brilliant things, because he’s a genius. (A genius who uses comma splices, but a genius nonetheless.)
Janna is still in Slovakia. As far as I know. Well, I don't really know. Because she's not posting.
Joel made it home for break alive and then got the Return of the King Extended Edition for his birthday!
Amir is writing stories of his life and various other things. He has a way with words.

Well, how fun... blog-stalking people to keep up with their lives. And I know I didn't get to everyone, or even close to it... But I enjoyed this. Blogs are great.

Dad and Daughter Silliness

My Dad and I speak this cool African language. It's the clicking language, you know? The one from The Gods Must Be Crazy. We're fluent in it, actually. We put our hands on each other's shoulders and click away and have whole conversations. It's great.

Also, my parents are cool because the take my weirdness into stride. Case in point: I just greeted my father with the words, "Greetings, Favored One. The Lord is with you." He nodded, shrugged, said, "hmm.. thanks," and went on his merry way. Cool.

News Since Christmas

1) Have solved a Rubik’s cube. Am now working on repeating this phenomenon at least once more. (The pamphlet of hints accompanying the cube isn't very helpful, since it seems to have been written by persons of the Chinese-speaking variety.)
2) Picked up my film from the drug store. Some of the pictures are super. Am missing the FavoriteBoy quite a bit.
3) Getting restless. Time for a change of pace. Time for another transfer? Would like to go here.
4) Lasagna is just SO yummy. And so much fun to spell, too.
5) Have "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" stuck in my head.

Merry Christmas!

The Christmas Eve services (all five of them) were good. I had a lot of solo bits this year, and it was fun. I had a pretty solo part in You Raise Me Up, and I played a verse of Silent Night as a solo. Playing at church is so great...a woman at church was telling me that my playing brought her to tears, and how the Holy Spirit moves so powerfully through music. I think it's true... music is amazing. And I love it that God can use even my own very-very-imperfect violin playing.

I love Christmas. Christmas is great.

Behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and His name shall be called Emmanuel, which means "God with us."

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light...
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end.

My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior...
For He that is mighty hath done great things to me and holy is His Name.
And His mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation.

After Christmas dinner tonight, Mom and Dad and I were cleaning the kitchen and putting leftovers away. Dad and I sang "Bless Us All" from the Muppet Christmas Carol (one of the best songs ever), and I discovered that Dad can do a great Kermit voice!

I also had the following conversation with Dad:

Sarah: Hey Dad... I eat pretty healthily, for the most part, kind of, and I go running on a regular basis. So how come there are girls who eat junk and never work out who are so much skinnier than I am?

Dad: Well, it's genetic.

Sarah: Thanks alot; thanks for that.

Dad: You're welcome. God genetically designed you much prettier than all those skinny girls. Why are you bringing it up? Just to gloat about it? Don't gloat because you're prettier than skinnier girls.

In other news, I'm working on solving a Rubik's cube. I'm more than halfway done. I'm going to learn to solve this thing easily, like in under twenty minutes. Then I'll be a really smart person.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

So, Grandmommy and Grandaddy are here, and Emily and Gabe are here visiting, too... yay! And the munchkin, not surprisingly, is here with them. Emily is big and round! It's great. Oh, Emily told me that she and Libby were talking about me... something about how I'm blunt, and oh, I don't really know; I didn't quite get the whole story. It was also something about how I "don't communicate." I don't know if she meant that I don't talk about what's really going on in my life or if she meant that I just never call or email people; both are true to an extent I suppose. Anyway, I think the gist of the conversation, from what I can gather from Emily, is that Emily and Libby are both surprised that I have a boyfriend. Nice.

My grandparents from Texas are visiting for Christmas. I get apprehensive and nervous about people visiting us. I can't quite describe it, but ever since I was little, I sometimes feel sick to my stomach when extra people are in our house. And other times, too. I get it less now than I used to, but it still happens. It's hard to explain, but I think it's when I'm either uncomfortable with myself, or uncomfortable with others. And I feel that way a lot. And Lane was here for most of the summer, and a little selfish bit of me misses having just my own family in our house. I'm an introvert. I talked to Dad about it on the way home from work on Tuesday. My Dad is so great to me. We just talked about being an introvert and what it's like and how it's okay. I think I always feel more pensive about things when I'm home. Maybe it's just that I have more time to sit around thinking.

There are things I miss about my life the way it used to be. I wouldn’t go back, but still. I guess I’ve always had a hard time with change. In a weird sort of way, I miss loneliness. I miss the internal-ness of it all, and the way I used to write all the time. I love to write. I miss the way I used to read a lot, too. I miss a lot of things. but I love my life now, too. For real. It's funny... when I first transferred to Wheaton, I missed Biola. I could still remember so many feelings and impressions and thoughts and sounds and sights so vividly. Then, when I transferred to Gordon, it was the same thing all over again, but missing Wheaton instead. Now, I'm still at Gordon, but in some ways, I miss the way I was and the way my life was at Gordon last year.

But when I say that I miss it in some ways, I mean in some small ways. Because my life is good and I am happy. And in the midst of it all, I am growing into the person of me. I think.

Things are so different when I’m at home or when I’m at school that it just gets confusing. I don’t always know what to do, or if I’m making the right choices in life. Some things seem very far away. Things that are most natural and most familiar to me when I'm at school seem so distant when I'm at home.

Nothing’s going to change; I try to never make big decisions when on vacation. I always decide before coming home that I won't even let myself cut my hair during break. Because my viewpoints about various things shift between home and school. But this is confusing to me, because which one is right? Which one is me? Shouldn’t things be the same no matter where I am?

I must write about one more thing before going to bed:

A surprising thing happened this afternoon. I'm playing my violin at all the Christmas Eve services at my family's church. There were two services this evening, and there are three tomorrow. At one point in the service, the lights all go out and I play the first phrase of O Holy Night all by myself. I was nervous about this and was worried I didn't know how to make it "musical" enough, so when I got home from work, I practiced it a few times, trying different fingerings and shifts and bowing and phrasing ideas and things. Then I played it for my Mom downstairs. My Grandaddy was there too. Now, my Grandaddy can sometimes come across as being a somewhat critical person... or at least, I'd say he's difficult to please. Also, he's not a Christian. Well, after I played the phrase, my Mom talked to me about how it sounded, and then Grandaddy said he wanted to tell me his thoughts on it. I prepared myself for a criticism, even though he's not a musician or anything. But then he proceeded to try to explain that even though he didn't know much about violin or how I made it sound a certain way, that it was beautiful and that it was the most moving thing he had ever heard played on a violin. And... he was sort of crying. I was so amazed. I was so surprised. Wow. If my playing can have a fraction of that effect on people in the Christmas Eve services, then I think that God can use it... for real.

I’m doing some work for my Dad again while I’m home. Right now I’m writing the text for his new PatternSmith website, and also looking at making some significant changes to the layout suggested by the designers he’s hired. These things are fun for me. Last summer I made icons for his software, and it was so great... getting paid to draw pictures. Now I’m enjoying making sample web page layouts in Paint Shop Pro. I keep thinking that I might enjoy studying graphic design. I think I might be good at it? Anyway, in terms of income, I think graphic design has a higher rate of success than playing the violin does. But we’ll see. I want to do what I want to do and what God wants me to do… I just have to find out what that is. Maybe nobody ever really knows. I remember hearing an Aquinas scholar speak in chapel once, and she said, "Nobody ever really knows what they’re doing or where they’re going. We all just try to move from one crisis of uncertainty to the next." Or something like that. Anyway, it’s nice that my “crises of uncertainty” are no longer real crises; I feel pretty calm about my life.

Boyfriend

I'm home for Christmas. It's nice to be done with finals and juries and papers and exams and everything.

It has come to my attention (thanks in part to an email from Becka) that I have neglected to inform my faithful blog readers of an important development in my life. Well, neglected isn't really the right word... but I've chosen not to publicize the information. Anyway, it's been months since things first transpired, so for those of you who don't already know about this, I suppose I should tell you now.

Um, I have a boyfriend. His name is Nathan. He's great. I like him.

And that is all.

First order of business: Thanks to everyone who replied to my last post. Very interesting and fun to read. Janna's was super... I suppose I liked it so much because it's true that we're similar, and generally her sense of humor is just exactly what makes me laugh.

Secondly, juries and finals are DONE! Let me sum up:

Friday: violin jury
Monday: piano jury, Newton to Einstein final exam
Tuesday: Interpretive Analysis final exam, music history final exam

That's right, kids... once again, I've made it through another semester and I'm alive to tell the tale. All that's left now is my music history paper, which will be finished and turned in tomorrow. My violin jury was okay. Not great, but okay. The cadenza wasn't great at all. Maybe it wasn't even okay. But the Mozart in general was okay, and the Schumann, while less okay than the Mozart, was still okay. Oh, and Friday night after juries, I played at President Carlberg's house for the trustees' Christmas party. That was fun. Wes came too, and sang two Christmas-y songs, and Nathan came along and accompanied both of us. Then we all sang carols along with the party-goers. Mrs. Carlberg told stories of her childhood. And they fed us yummy dessert! It was great. So yeah, being the entertainment for yuppy rich people ain't bad at all.

My Newton to Einstein exam was pretty good. And I'm really happy, because they've already posted our final grades and I did WELL! Yes, that's right... the science class that I hated... I did well! Yay.

My piano jury was okay. Scary. I'm glad it's over. I haven't decided yet whether or not I'll continue taking piano lessons next semester. I like Dr. Polyakov a lot, but it's hard finding time to practice two instruments, be in choir, be in orchestra, be in chamber music, do well in classes, and have fun in life (that last item being, of course, the most important... heh).

My two final exams today were okay. Dr. Chung's final was scary and pretty hard... I missed at least half of the chord progressions in the dictation portion. Dr. Pelkey's final was hard, too, and kind of unfair, just because it didn't remotely reflect what we've learned and talked about this quad. I mean, we've basically only talked about Schoenberg, which is also frustrating, because Schoenberg is by no means representative of all that's going on in the twentieth century, and also because I don't even like Schoenberg. Anyway, the final was all these essay questions about neoclassicism and about French Impressionism vs. German Expressionism, and about social and historical and technological contexts, and about music post-1945, and blah blah blah. I felt like I knew most of it, I guess. But not really from class. Then there was the score analysis part, and that part was just annoying. I don't believe people who think you can discern great wisdom and enlightenment by doing a melodic contour analysis of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. I think they're just making it up. And that's what I did on the exam - I just made things up. It'll be extra funny if I get a good grade on that portion. I tried to say just the sorts of things that musicologists say. I did some number class analysis too, and said things that sounded good but that I didn't really believe, such as "Here Schoenberg employs frequent use of tones 2, 4, and 6, thus outlining a triad, although obscured by chromatic alterations, octave displacement, and intermediary tones." Heehee.

In the middle of the music history exam, as we were all analyzing our scores, Dr. Pelkey stepped out of the room for a minute. At that point, I calmly announced, "Schoenberg is poop." I don't really know what came over me; I just said it. Everybody laughed; I think it's what everyone was thinking. Or maybe not... I suppose it's possible that a person or two in that class really like Schoenberg. Anyway, I said it. Heh.

Anyway, now I'm writing my paper. It's about Shostakovich. It's super.

And on Friday, I get to go home. And soon, it will be Christmas. I love Christmas. I just love it. I love Christmas because I love Jesus, you see... I'm serious.

My violin teacher is back from Korea, and I had a lesson tonight. It was great, but do you ever get that feeling like there's just too much, too much information/knowledge/stuff to learn/skill to aquire out there and you'll never be able to grasp more than 1/1000th of it, and meanwhile the big, cruel, mean, heartless world is waiting to bite you in the behind and watch you fail?

Brr... it's wicked cold today. I've been sitting here dreading the fact that in thirteen minutes I'll have to leave and walk through the frigid outdoors to get to my science class. Then I had a remarkable realization: instead of walking all the way to class, I'll just travel by quantum leap!

Boy, it's a good thing I do my science homework. Otherwise this unusual but remarkably useful method of traversing the space between Tavilla and MacDonald might never have occured to me!

Friday I had a two and a half hour violin lesson with Dr. O. It was so, so good. She inspires me. I should practice more.

I'm learning the third movement of the Schumann a minor sonata in just a few days. I started it on Thursday, and I'm performing it tomorrow. Bleh.

Friday and Saturday we had the Christmas Gala. It was super great. It got me into the Christmas spirit, for sure. The theme was "A Dickens Christmas." The guy who narrated as Dickens was terrific, and College Choir (which I'm in), Women's Choir, and Children's Choir all got to sing some beautiful music. One of my favorite pieces was the Canticle of Mary, which Women's Choir sang. Ohh... yes. It was beautiful.

After the Gala Friday night, I watched Home Alone. Great movie.

I had a really weird dream on Friday night. I wasn't really involved in the dream; it was more like I was a spectator. What I saw was this: Apparently people could live and "walk" in space now, within these special space suits. Americans, and people from all over the planet, inhabited various regions of space... not on planets or moons, but really just in empty space. People were moving around and stuff, and then two men were fighting. It was a scary fight, and I was frightened. They both had these huge guns that sent out whooshing balls of flame. These flaming globs were huge and scary. Finally one of the guys torched one of these flaming globs of fire right onto the others' head, and then they were both falling through the atmosphere, down to earth, and people were yelling that they'd never survive re-entry, it had never been done before... and I woke up. Other stuff happened too, but I can't remember it all. Anyway, when I woke up I had an odd feeling that the whole flaming head thing was somehow influenced by having watched Home Alone... you know, the bit where the guy's head gets burnt by the flames when he opens the door.

I was feeling really crabby, firstly because someone said some things that made me sad (things that normally wouldn't upset me, but I was already in a somewhat emotional mood I guess), and secondly because I'm so overwhelmed with things to do (like learning the third movement of the Schumann, preparing for finals, writing a paper, and preparing for juries), but Jaana came in to say hi, and we talked for a bit, and now I feel much better. So yeah, I was going to type a long whiney post, but now I don't need to.

I'm still overwhelmed, though... just not feeling quite so crabby about it.