Doctors

I had the most frustrating experience with doctors in the past and I just feel the need to let you all know. Well, I go to this doctor pretty far away from campus in Boone. I had really good experiences with them last semester and thought they were great to manage my care. I went home for Christmas and turns out they called me and I forgot to call them back. Calling the doctor wasn't high on my priority list for Christmas break. When I get back to App I get a very angry voice mail from a lady threatening that the doctor will stop my medications if I am a "non-compliant patient." I'm like, what in the world is your problem? Of course, I only thought that, but still. I had to go through this complicated mess to try and get ahold of them. Usually what happens is I call them, the nurses are busy, I leave voicemail. They call me and i'm in class and they leave a voicemail. I call them again and guess what? nurses are busy. Its this neverending process of voicemails. However, I did get an appointment. Thankfully and they seem to be all happy now. I just have to get some blood work done. Lesson of the day, call your doctor when you're on christmas break. Turns out they just really miss you.

Snow Squalls

Hello friends,

It is the first week of school. That means it is the time for long lines of waiting to buy textbooks, searching odd and new buildings to find your classroom, and best of all lots of introductory homework. Just tonight I had to read a long british poem, read an article about the brain and Alzheimer's disease, and read a lengthy discussion on how the brain works out of another book. That does not include music homework like learn a two chord song to be played in piano class, or learn a two chord song with an alternate bass pattern for guitar.

However, i'm not complaining about the homework. I simply want to acknowledge that I have a lot of homework. The exciting part is that most of my homework is indeed very interesting.

I went to the bookstore today and purchased all my books for the semester (well most of them). The total came out to be $220. Afterwards, I went to the dorm and out of curiosity looked to see how much those exact same books were at Amazon, that total $130. I did not hesitate to go ahead and purchase the books from Amazon. I'll be returning my books back to the bookstore and ultimately save myself 30 bucks. That is very important as a poor college student.

Today i'm going to leave you with a bit of wisdom. I had studio class yesterday and one of the things Dr. Porterfield asked us was "what is something that has improved your life today? What has changed your life today in a positive way?" In reflection that was a fascinating question. What has happened to improve my life that particular day? Was it the endless amounts of homework or the quality time I spent with friends? Was it the adventure of walking across campus in the snow or a good meal in the cafeteria? Ultimately, the answer I chose was learning that I had an apartment for next year lined up. I've decided that each day in my blog posts (if I remember) I am going to post what has positively impacted my life today, because thats what we all should do. We focus so much on the bad because thats the way society tells us to think. We need to remember to look at the positives and look at how we can make someone else's day positive. With that said, my life changing-positive event of today was going to talk to Financial aid about funding for Korea. Having that information will push me one step closer to going to Korea and attending the World Congress of Music Therapy! I hope I can go.

Well, I'm off to do some more homework, but please think about the positive change in your life that occurred today (whenever today is for you).

Guitar-Bar Chords

My goal for this break was to get a lot better on guitar. Last semester I took functional guitar 1. It went pretty well considering I knew most the material beforehand. Over the summer, I spent a bit of time learning those basic chords like A major, D major, C major,... I thought those were hard. little did I know that bar chords were soo much harder. If you aren't familiar with playing guitar let me explain. The guitar has 6 strings. The thinnest string is the highest pitch string and the easiest to press down, the lowest string is the lowest and thus the hardest string to press down. Now imagine taking your index finger and laying it across the full fretboard across all 6 strings then using your other fingers in that hand to also press down other strings infront of that index finger to make a chord sound. It is very hard and a true test of finger strength. When I first started, it definitely felt hopeless. I figured my fingers were too hard and that I may never get this. However, with practice I have managed to successfully get a few bar chords down. Now if only I could get the bar chords to sound with 95% accuracy.

I've got 6 days before I will be heading out to Boone. Its just time to relax. Oh, and still no word on practicum results. Its beginning to feel like practicum results will never happen.

Christmas Break

Tis the season for boredom and hanging out with the family. I haven't written in awhile because I have just been enjoying Christmas Break. Last semester ended well. I got pretty good grades. 17 credit hours, all A's except for one A- and one B+. The B+ was in my honors english class and I believe I deserve an A or maybe an A-. But then again, it was one of those courses where the teacher does not tell you your grade until the very end. At midterm we got a "this is where I think you are grade" and then you get your final grade at midterm. Regardless, I think it was a good semester. I am really hoping to work hard next semester and get all A's. Music history is a bit rough so who knows if that will happen.

I've spent this break looking for an acoustic guitar. If any of you have gone through an airport with a guitar you realize how much of a pain can be. Especially when you are travelling by yourself. Everytime I want to go to the bathroom I have to take my guitar with me. When I wait in line for food, I have to take my guitar with me. It is very frustrating and tiring. so I spent 40 bucks and got a guitar to just keep here. It is not crazy nice but I think it will work for what I want it to do. Basically, it will just serve as a practice guitar. Something I can use to keep my fingers strong when I am at home and practice some chord shapes. We had to do some minor repairs on it, replace one of the tuning pegs. Its currently not holding tune well on that string we replaced but it is new. Online, most folks say that new strings need some time to loosen up and then they will hold their tune. However, even if it goes a quarter tone flat as it is, I can still hear a resemblance of the chord and though it may be a tad dissonant thats fine. A tad dissonant is worth not having to mess with carrying a guitar through the airport and worrying about it getting damaged in travel.

I've got 15 days left until I head back to Boone. Then I have one day in Boone and its back to classes. Back to working 8 hours with food services, 17 credit hours, and many more hours working with tutoring services. More to come...

Music History Test

Finals time. This means lots of studying and lots of time spent in a room filling in answers that I probably don't care about. Right now, I'm studying for music history. i remember back when I was in choir my choral teacher used to tell me about "drop the needle" tests where a random part of a piece would be played and the students had to identify what part of the piece. I thought that I would hopefully never have to do it. Turns out, I do. We have about 18 tracks that we pretty much better have fully memorized because he will play like 30 seconds of it and we have to identify the composer and stylistic features from that. It seems easy, except they are all pieces you probably have never heard of before. For example, Il blanco E Dolce Cigno by Arcadelt. I bet you have not heard that one before. Its not fun, but we got to do it. Wish me luck.

Cantata Day

Hello my readers,

Today is the cantata day for my church. If any of you live in Boone or near Boone, NC you should travel up to First Baptist Church of Boone and at 11:00 you will get to hear our cantata performance. It should be pretty good and if you like music you will probably like this. I'm actually headed there right now, so I hope to see you there.

End of Thanksgiving Break

Hello everyone,

I went to bed fairly late last night and I really wish I was still sleeping. The heaters in East have this issue where they make this banging sound pretty much the whole time they are on. It is extremely annoying. Its hard to go to sleep while this banging keeps going on. I can usually get to sleep at night when I am really tired. However, when I would like some more sleep but do not feel really tired its hard to get to sleep.

I was looking on craigslist yesterday and found a guitar for 30 bucks. I really hope that Kacie can get it today. The guitar is in asheville so I cannot get it. If I was in asheville I would have went to get it last night because I would love to have another guitar. Now I just have to hope she can get it. Though, if she gets it i'll be super thankful to her.

This thanksgiving I"ve felt like the most wasteful person ever. The showers in east take forever to heat up when no one else is using them. During the normal school year its not an issue because theres almost always someone else taking a shower. When there is only 7 people in the dorm (like during this break) the water takes so long to heat up. I literally turn on the water and wait for 30 minutes only to find it still luke warm. Super frustrating.

Thanks all for reading,
Aaron