Last Week of Fall Semester 2010

Creative title, yeah? I thought it was. Anyway, here we are in the last week of the semester! Oh, it feels good, mainly because all of my English stuff is done with already! It was my most time-consuming class. I had to rewrite my research paper and include the suggestions my teacher made and just improve it overall. I thought I had made it worse in the rewrite, but I actually got a higher grade! Well, that's according to my online grades center; I haven't actually gotten my paper back. That's tomorrow.
The concert went very well! I knew where I messed up and such, but everyone said it sounded fine. I realized that the band members' mistakes are generally most noticeable to the band members themselves. The audience (unless they're scrutinizing) will either not hear the one mistake or not remember it by the end of the song. The day after the concert was the dance competition for the whole school. That went well also! I competed in both Samba and Cha-cha. It's a series of elimination rounds for each skill level and dance and there are so many competitors at first that you're really more lucky than anything else to make it past the first round. Anyway, my partner, Jaclyn Olsen, and I got 3rd place in Samba! It was crazy! Then for the Cha-cha, I danced with my old cha-cha partner from last semester, Lindsey Lewis, and we didn't even make it past the first round. We didn't really mind, though. We got 4th last semester and weren't even expecting to make it past the first round. This time around we really didn't, and were a-okay with that.
Saturday night, some roommates, friends, and I went up by Targhee Pass (for those of you who know where that is) and chopped down a Christmas tree. The permit was about 5 bucks, which was pretty sweet. After about 20 minutes of trudging through thigh-high snow, we found our tree and chopped it down. Then, my roommate and I carried it back. That was fun. we carried it on our shoulders and I was in back. Luckily, there was a pocket for my face so I could avoid getting pine needles shoved up my nose. I just couldn't see where I was going, so going back to the car was an adventure. The rest of the night was full of good times with a few friends: ginger-bread house making, decorating the tree (we don't have much on it...), and watching one of my favorite Christmas movies, Scrooge with Albert Finney.
Long story short, as a result of that night, I have a girlfriend. Yep, it's true, Steven Brown can get a girlfriend, ha ha ha. Further details can be obtained through inquiry.
Last night, I was in the performance of Handel's Messiah with the University's choirs, band, and orchestra. It was amazing. Everyone came together nicely to pull off a spectacular performance. Those who were there would surely agree. The band only had the music for about a week, give or take a few days, and we only practiced all together (choirs, orchestra, band) yesterday from about 1-5:45pm. Good times there.
Lastly, I'm one of the stars of a commercial now. My roommate started up a tie business called "Tiephoon Station" and has some really good ties...just sayin'. You can find it on Facebook and in the blogs. The commercial is on my Facebook page, you might say I'm a natural. Ha ha, anyway...
Well that's about it for me right now. I only have a few finals this week. One of them is for my dance class. I'll be dancing Samba and Cha-cha for Ron Mendez from Dancing with the Stars. I have a total of five dance partners to do this with, too. So that's five times I'll be dancing two dances in front of Ron Mendez (I think that's his name). Wish me luck!

Ta-da

I'm trying to be better about keeping this blog up, but it's getting harder as the semester draws to a close.
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I know I did! And, with Thanksgiving come and gone, I'm listening to Christmas music. That really only has significance to a few people, who don't even read this blog...to my knowledge...
Eighteen days left! That's how much longer I have in this semester before this blog shuts down for a little while. Well, maybe I'll open up some off-track chapters just because. Last week was pretty awesome: lots of time with family and friends who I haven't seen in a while. I haven't seen some since before my mission, it seems. It was good at any rate. The unfortunate thing is that I didn't really get any homework done. I tried, but all I did was a little bit of reading, one quiz, and I practiced my trumpet almost every day. Ha, so I'm in a little bit of hot water now, but not too much, thankfully.
This week is gearing up for my "Weekend of Performance". I have the University Band concert this Friday (7:30-9:00pm) that I'm playing in and then I'll be competing for my Beginning International Latin Ballroom Dance class in both Cha-cha and Samba on Saturday. I feel pretty confident for both days, fortunately. We're holding class on the stage now to gear up for the concert, and we sound awesome in there. It's as if everyone suddenly overcame the parts they have been struggling with all semester. I know it's not a sudden thing; it's actually hours of practicing. Hours spent frustrated in the practice room, wanting to pound the walls at times, but finally breaking through that last invisible barrier. As for both the music and the dancing, it's a matter of keeping one's head in the face of mistakes. At any rate, for anyone who can, good times await at both events and they should come. The rest of this week is the same ol' thang of homework and classes, classes and homework. Yep yep, good times right there...
Oh! An update on my research paper. If you read the past blog entries (I think just the last one), there was that whole thing about Guillotine Thursday and whatnot. We got our papers back graded yesterday and I had little hope for a good grade. Before my teacher gave them back, he talked about all the mistakes we made as a class and made things sound pretty dismal for all of us, though there are a few who came off better than the rest. I got a 90/100! I had expected a downward trend in my papers because I felt pretty static in my writing technique and his grading got gradually harder. He made a comment in the margins that goes like this: "Wow! You got some serious writing talent Steven. Learn to chasten your prose." It may have gone to my head just a little, but that was soon remedied. Looking over the rest of the paper deflated my slightly enlarged head back to normal size. I think I'm amateurish in quite a few ways still. Plus, I don't think I could ever brag about my own writing anyway. I'm just impressed that a few others find my writing to be, as they generally say, awesome.
Before I forget-and probably as an ending note to this entry-Sunday, December 12th at 7:30pm, the University Band, University Choir, and University Orchestra are playing the Messiah. So if you can't make the concert this Friday but, for some reason, really want to attend a concert of mine, you have another chance. That one will be in the Hart Building while the concert this Friday will be in the Snow Building. Further details can be extracted from me through phone, email, facebook, this blog, etc. Oh, and one more thing, the concert this Friday is $6.00 for the general public and $3.00 for students. Anyway, until next week!