The Damage

Well the cellular month is over tomorrow. What’s the damage? 2,500 minutes and 15,000 texts used. Wow. I never thought I’d use that much. Can’t believe it. Well it’s basically back to college now. 😀 A little over one day left.

Going “Home”

Haha! It’s sad that I consider Florida home. In all reality I do consider it home. I may not have lived there long but in the end over the next four years I’ll be living there more.

I love learning. My piano playing improved SO much. I was amazed that I learned six pieces in one semester. It used to take me about two semesters to learn one piece. I also made it into the college orchestra. I can’t believe it! That for me was miraculous. I think that they let me in out of sympathy but I’ve grown SO much as a violinist. Music I never thought I could play I could. It may not sound amazing but it’s still great! 😀

I love my friends. I can’t believe that I made SO many amazing friends. Not all my friends are amazing but they’re all great! I am just blessed, plainly blessed that God could give me friends like this.

I just can’t wait to get back. I’ll be leaving on the 22nd very early in the morning.

Long Break

Well it’s been a long break. Almost five weeks. It’s been actually about four. I can’t believe how longs it’s been. I miss all my friends from college. I never thought I would miss my friends this much. It hurts just a little. I can’t wait to get back and see them all. I will be enjoying this semester so much more. That’s my goal. Enjoy this semester, hanging out with friends, and relaxing a little more and not being as stressed as I was this last semester. I can’t wait to get back.

First Semester of Grades

Well I got my grades. I’ve decided to publish them here to my blog. How daring.

New Testament Survey     A-

English                           B

Basic Math (Don’t judge)  A

Music Theory                  A

Private Piano                   B-

Speech                          B

Orchestra                       A-

I made the Dean’s List, which is only a B average or higher. At midterms they posted the Dean’s List and there was less than one thousand names on the list. Not sure on the exact number but still when a college has 4,o00 students more should be getting grades that are at least a B average….well that’s all for now.

College Life

College was an amazing experience. I can’t believe how much I learned. It was a great experience. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

I had three roommates. I was only supposed to have two but the residence manager asked one to move to a different room to become a prayer leader. We quickly got a new roommate.

The music program was intense! Of course I had never been in a college music program but it was a great experience. I also ended up changing my major from Church Music Performance to Music Education. A big change but one that I figured would happen. I could handle the performance major if I really wanted to but I’ve seen how intense it is. It’s not that’s that much harder than the education major it’s the whole idea of being able to perform. I’m just not one to be on stage all the time like that. Also education is a more practical major.

The food was ok. At first it was bad but you just have to get used to it first. 🙂 It also got better as the semester went on. This just wasn’t my perception wasn’t just mine it was everyone’s even my junior roommate’s.

I made so many great friends there. I can’t believe it. Met people from all over the place, with all kinds of personalities, and from all walks of life. It was great. I can’t believe how much I miss them all and can’t wait to see them again. I think next semester will be even better than this last semester. 🙂

I’m HOME!!!

I’m here! College was amazing! I loved it! I can’t believe how fast the semester went. It just flew by. I had an amazing semester. I learned SO MUCH in piano, I made many friends and one BEST friend, and grew as a person in so many ways. There’s way too much to write in a blog post…or in serveral blog post. I will be posting one about a friend. Anyways, just wanted you to know I’m home.

The Travel

I’m going almost 3,000 miles away. That’s crazy far. I can’t believe it. Further more I’m going 3,000 miles away to study music. Although I’m sure people travel further. I can’t believe that it’s here. Some of you probably remember when I started counting down it was around 130 I think. I can’t believe how far I’ve come musically mostly. I’ve memorized two piece and decided to try out for the orchestra. I can’t believe that I’m going to try for the orchestra. It’s always been a dream of mine to play in an orchestra. I was told by an evangelist that he thought I’d be good enough to be in it. He had played in it once so he should know…although I wonder if he was just being nice. I think it was partly God telling me to at least try. I’m super timid about lots of things and trying new things is something I’m VERY timid about doing. I really am excited that. I hope that I make it in….although if I don’t I won’t be devastated. I’m also ready academically. A year ago I don’t think I would have had the maturity to sit down and do serious studying or real practice that the college would demand of me. I’m really glad that I waited. It would have also been a really big hassle being “under age”, as in not an adult. I’ve also met so many people on facebook. I know how creepy that sounds but you don’t realize how much of an encouragement they have been. Many of them encouraging me to continue on. I’ve found that the encouragement has helped with keeping my spirits high. There have been times these last few months that I’ve felt so overwhelmed by the stress of college preparation. Here’s an example: A couple of months ago the memorization of the pieces was starting to get to me. I was seriously doubting if I was cut out for the program there. A friend who’s going there this fall randomly sent me a flair that said: Smile Jesus Loves You. There was a gian smiley face on the flair. It made me smile and God just lifted my problems. I’m so thankful for friends God sends my way.

I can’t wait to get there. I’ll be leaving in a few hours.

45 DAYS?!

WHAT?! How can it only be 45 days until I’m supposed to be there?! Wow. My college life is coming up so quickly and I don’t know if I’m ready. I say that every time I post about college though….I will be in Pensacola 2 days before. Get to do a little sight seeing. I’m excited for my freshman year. Really just branching away from the whole homeschooled life. Don’t get me wrong, I loved being homeschool….starting/finishing school when you wanted, doing school in your pajamas, eating whenever I wanted to…it was fun….college will be the polar opposite. 45 days….

Good Christian Music

People always question why I love conservative Christian music. Why? Here’s two god reasons why.

http://www.greghowlett.com/daybreakdownload.aspx

http://greghowlett.com/portraitsdownload.aspx

Daybreak Quartet: I’ve known about them since forever. My parents knew two of them as children. The group has an amazing sound and quartet music is some of my favorite music. Well mostly small groups. Greg harmonies coming from these guys.

Greg Howlett: An AMAZING pianist! I found him by recommendation of a friend. I thought just some normal pianist with a style that’s somewhat original but no it was the complete opposite! I can’t wait to see what else he comes up with.

The reason I’m posting this is because they are both giving away their new cds free. All one has to do is recommend the cd to 3 friends.

College Survival?

I wonder, I sometimes question: How will I survive? What will it be like? How will I adjust?

Coming from homeschooled life, I can’t even imagine what a difference college will be from living at home. What will the course difficulty/load be like? Will I be able to make friend?

The first two seem easy but the last one you may question. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a very shy person. Extremely shy. I don’t make friends, friends make me a friend. I’ve slowly been getting over it but I’m still extremely nervous around new people. (Don’t get me wrong, if I think I won’t meet you again I don’t think I’ll worry about it too much and I’m not nervous) Hopefully I’ll be able to cope. Thankfully I’ll have 4 friends there when I get there, 2 will be freshmen like me and 2 will be sophmores. Thankfully one of the freshman is kind of like me…slightly shy. I’ll admit that he’s more outgoing than I am but not a super lot more. 🙂 I’m hoping that because it’s a Christian college I’ll be able to make friends quicker…but there’s no guarantees. But I guess only time will tell. With college only 122 days away, it’s scaring me more and more. Hopefully I’ll be calm. Thankfully when I go one of the sophmores and one of the freshmen are flying with me and my parents. The other sophmore is the freshman’s sister. She has to go early for volleyball training and she’s taking her Mustang and driving with her dad, so her brother can’t fit in the back really, he’s 6’1″. It’s really cool that I’m not going there alone. It would be horrible if I had to go alone. I would probably end up missing my connecting flight. Of course without trying I will never know. Hopefully I’ll make it. 🙂