For all those wondering...

ALL'S WELL ON THE [pacific north]WESTERN FRONT.

to clarify:
Just finished a concert that went excellently, video/audio to come for those who want it.
School is looking MUCH farther up this term (paying attention in lecture helps your get better grades? Who knew!)
I'm looking for a house to rent for the next two or three years with some friends, starting this June.
On that note, I have decided to stay in Corvallis this summer and work. I'll be back in August for 3 or 4 weeks.
Writing that just made me think of Japan (I'll be touring with the OSU Wind Ensemble in June).
For those who missed it, I joined Kappa Kappa Psi, the Honorary band service coed fraternity this past term. It's exciting, though I'm slowly working through the politics of it as well as the music department in general.

to sum it all up:
all's well on the western front.

//Who can crack my ribs and repair this broken heart?

Will someone please call a surgeon

Who can crack my ribs and repair this broken heart

That you're deserting for better company?

I can't accept that it's over...

I will block the door like a goalie tending the net

In the third quarter of a tied-game rivalry...

//

I feel must interject here you're getting carried away feeling sorry for yourself

With these revisions and gaps in history

So let me help you remember.

I've made charts and graphs that should finally make it clear.

I've prepared a lecture on why I have to leave

These are some of the lyrics to The Postal Service's Nothing Better. My roommate and I have been pretty obsessed with this song over the past few weeks, mostly because it's very catchy and gets stuck in your head easily, but also because it plays very well in the background while we study. However, I have slowly come to the realization that these lyrics portray my situation a little better than I would want them to.

Due to some ... interesting text messages, I have lost a friend that I did not really want to lose, but need to get over now that it's over [I feel must interject here you're getting carried away feeling sorry for yourself].

On a different note, here's a little something that I'm writing right now:

Ideals, running through my mind, like ideas and unwritten papers and lyrics to songs I heard in 7th grade,

HEY! Get-get-get-get-get over it!

Let it go, this too shall pass....

I've gotta get a message to you, hold on, hold...

We make a good team, you and me, we do. You can scratch my back, and I'll scratch my back, too!

When we're drivin in the car, it makes my baby seem so far; I need you to be here with me and way over in a bucket seat...

Don't you feed me lines about some idealistic future; your heart won't heal right if you keep tearing out the sutures...

You're my sunshine; and I want you to know; that my feelings are true...

And then worst of all, you never call baby, when you say you will.

Hold you in my arms, I just wanted to hold you in my arms, I just wanted to hold...

A [few] Week(s) In Review...

This entry is aptly titled as I have not written on here in quite some time, and have heard a lot of complaints on that note, so here goes:

Over the past couple of weeks I have done a lot of things, including:

1. Taken THREE midterms and passed all of them.

2. Set up a new TV in our room with my roommate, which has turned our room into the new hangout room for the floor, which so far has been ok. However, we may need to lay down the law in a bit as we both have some studying to do this week.

3. Played a good amount of Settlers of Catan in the last couple of days, including teaching two new people! This may have been the first time in a while that I have taught two new people and they both caught on well and liked it.

4. Saw my dearest mother, as she came and visited last weekend. Oddly enough, NEXT weekend is the real Mother's Weekend, but that's ok, I still greatly enjoyed seeing another familiar face besides Les's! Besides, she brought a lot of support and advice and clementines to munch on :)

5. Become stronger friends with a few people that I did not expect to.

6. Enjoyed the lovely weather around Corvallis, as well as a newly fixed bike to enjoy it on.

7. Playing Maslanka's 4th Symphony in Wind Ensemble, with a very challenging part for me on the toms. [check it out here]

That's about it.

Camping/Climbing, a DIFFERENT way...

This past weekend I went camping and climbing down at Smith Rock (for all you people who live out here and know where that is). For all the other folks out there, it's about a three hour car ride through a winding mountain road from Corvallis. Now, I am a very experienced camper, and I have been on many different styles of camping trips, from eating steaks out of a car and having bathrooms with flush toilets and showers to eating granola at 10,000 feet where you have pack out EVERYTHING, including your TP. So, I thought I was ready for this. And that's where I was wrong.The changes started before we even left. One of the guys was packing the back of his truck and brought a grill. Not like a little, small grill, no, a huge, full-sized charcoal grill. He also brought three mountain bikes and a couple other things that will be mentioned later.

Once we got there on Friday night, I noticed something else: While starting the grill, I'm used to using a charcoal chimney with newspaper to start the coals going, but this guy used the ultimate cheating weapon: lighter fluid. This was weird because I grew up being told that lighter fluid is cheating by both my parents and the entire Boy Scout community. But here this guy was using it to start both the fire AND the coals. But enough of that, on to the climbing.

Climbing involved a lot of sitting (or sleeping in my case) waiting for a route to be open and then set up. To climb, someone good (in this case Matt) has to "lead climb" to set up a rope to the top, letting all of us inexperienced climbers do it the easy way. we started out on a pretty "easy" wall, at least in terms of ratings. However, the beginning move was too hard for me and I didn't have the finger strength to do it. The second route that we set up was actually harder, and I belayed a couple people for the beginning, but once again, the beginning was too hard and no one but the two experienced climbers made it up. Finally, the easy wall that we wanted to start on opened up. This route I finally did climb, and I didn't even cheat! This left me feeling at least a little better about myself.

So, general conclusions from the trip: napping in the sun gives you sunburn, the cab of a pickup is NOT comfortable for 4 large guys, Climbing is hard and requires ridiculous finger strength, and charcoal chimney's are the way to go for effective charcoal-starting.

Spring Break, Part ONE

Day Two of Spring Break bodes well:

I am sitting next to LesUrs on a couch in the townhouse, enjoying the rower gab and amusing TV commercials. We got back from the baseball game (we won, go Beavs!) with a star gymnast sighting as well as the "O" Guy. We are planning a big feast tonight, including Corn Dogs (yesterday was national Corn Dog Day) and some Slushies later. This spring break will be all about relaxation and sleep (a full 9 hours last night and 10 the night before), plus some video games a couple movies last night made for a very relaxed GregUr!

Never fear, ye olde concerned parents! I have SOME productive plans for the week: I am planning on practicing a lot, as the music building stays open, and will go rock climbing a lot as well with my house-mate/host MD. Then, on Thursday, we go up to camp on a private lake with the whole Sackett Gang!

[...] Mode

I am in partial procrastination mode.

It is finals week, and of course, my room is the cleanest it's been all week.

So far, today, I have cleaned out my closet, reorganized my bookshelf, taken apart my bulletin board, and finished folding my laundry.

In between these things I've been studying for my Communications Final tonight at 6.

So, all in all, I think a productive day, don't you think?

On an another note, I am very excited to see almost all of my family over the next month. I get to see my dearest mother the third weekend of April, my oldest sister and aunt the first week of April and, of course, I always see the older one. Now all that's missing are the father and dearest younger sister...

Late Night Bike Ride

Exhaling, exerting, expiring, enigmatic and eloquent.

Revolutions of the tires, rolling, riling the blood, riding, resplendent in the dark, cloudy night.

Going, going, gone, guiding, gaps in the pavement.

Bile rising, blowing hard, beginning to fade, back in the saddle, bovine scent.

Tortured legs, tilting away, tantalizingly close, too far to matter.

Stars evade, slight change in direction, seeing nothing, sensing only oneself.

Ominous darkness, ostentatiously waiting, ogling at this pathetic show of strength, oppressive.

Vicious wind, vigorous leg pumping, vainly struggling, valiantly struggling, volatility of gusts.

Quick on the Conversed feet, quotient of exertion matched, quelling all fears and doubts, quaking with exhaustion, quite worth it.

All-inclusive, awe-inspiring, absolutely helpful, awfully painful.

//This is something I wrote after coming back from a late night bike ride (1:30 am). It was windy, and a little wet, and a little chilly.