Here I am again!
This is a picture from my typical route to campus. I passed by this exact scene earlier and almost had to run back to grab my camera for a couple pictures, but decided to be on time to class instead. This is a few hours later: lighting's different and the view's not quite what I had envisioned, but that's life. Also, there's a nice power line running right through the middle of it, but that's Rexburg.

I would like to spend a brief paragraph on Rexburg. It's a funny place. Not just weather-wise (we're supposed to get snow this week, starting today), either. My friend and roommate, Andrew, and I were talking about the newspaper. I had a friend that moved to Nowheresville, Nebraska. He told me once about how the headlines in the newspaper were about grass growing in the sidewalks, sick squirrels, exciting things of that nature. I remember thinking to myself how I would absolutely hate to live in a small town such as that one. Then I moved to Rexburg. After expressing all this to Andrew, he handed me a page from the Rexburg newspaper. It was an entire page about the "Pet of the Month": an amiable cat named Tucker. It was perfect for what we were just talking about! I love Rexburg in a few ways. It's a small town, definitely, and there's not much to do. However, BYU-Idaho's here and it's where I get to do a lot of things and it's where I have a lot of friends. Plus, aside from the occasional cantankerous elderly person (Rexburg is like Florida: it's an end-zone of sorts) giving us students the stink-eye (and hitting us with their cars or canes from time to time), the general population is friendly. Just because it's a small town, though, doesn't mean it doesn't have it's problems. I still lock my car and apartment and don't trust some of the people I meet on darkly-lit streets. Also, it's not a good idea to go many places alone at night. Generally one's okay, but one should be safe rather than sorry. At any rate, it's a great place to be (except in the winter), despite all the complaining one hears about it.
Life's been a-okay. Last Friday, in University Band, a group of students from a conducting class came in to submit us to their acquired skills. The only song they had was one that we will play December 3rd, called A Fugue on Yankee Doodle by John Phillip Sousa (yeeha). We played it over, and over, and over, and over, and over until each conducting student had gone. It's a piece in 4-4 (meaning there are 4 beats in a measure with the standard quarter note getting the beat) time that starts out with a trumpet fanfare. We then played one other song, called Procession of the Nobles by someone who's name escapes me at the moment...a Russian composer. Anyway, that piece also starts out with a fanfare meant to be started by solely yours truly. Procession is in 3-4 time (3 beats in the measure, quarter note still gets it). I was stuck in the Fugue mode. It was pretty funny to witness; I'm the only one playing in front of roughly 100 people and confusing the goodness out of our poor assistant director.
This last weekend was pretty fun, though I didn't get to say a final goodbye to a friend leaving on her mission soon. Friday night had me on a date to a big BYU-I event called Guitars Unplugged. After a casual dinner of pizza and veggies, we witnessed what was determined (by judges) to be the best of a slew of competing guitar shows from the previous two days. It was a good show, plenty of humor, plenty of good tunes. Afterward was the last hour of Latin Night, the weekly event of students getting together to dance various latin dances. I'm still not very good at anything but cha-cha (and that's questionable), so I don't enjoy Latin night as much as I could if I knew the 3 standard dances (bachata, merenge, salsa), but this time I had a good time.
Saturday held some special treats. After a day of just doing homework and addling my brain somewhat, two big events punctuated and enlivened my life. First one: Stake Conference, Saturday night adult session. It was a great session, talking about the Lord's timing, blessings of faith and obedience, courage, etc. Afterward was the annual Masquerade Ball. I went on a quadruple date with a good friend. Pictures are on my facebook (beware, I look strange with a mask on). It was a 3-hour dance, of which I practically danced the whole time. The main hall was filled with the music of a live band and an occasional appearance of an a capella group and it was all ball-room style dancing. Good fun.
Yesterday was host to one of the best non-date nights of the semester. Stake Conference was amazing: Our stake presidency members are powerhouses and pretty humorous. Home teaching was accomplished and no homework was pressing on me. Last night involved helping to make some improvised cookies with Andrew, having some "Family Home Evening sisters" (FHE groups consist of a guys apartment and a girls apartment in the ward, basically) bringing rolls and banana bread, and partaking of the amazing culinary style of another roommate, Denis. There was also plenty of card games and socializing. It was all-around good fun with good feeling. I love times like that.
At any rate, we're at the start of another week. Midterms are here and the pressure's on. Halloween is this week also and although there are no plans for parties that have been related to me in any sort of detail other than "we're going to have one" (aside from Brian and Traci's), it's going to be fun! Happy Halloween everyone!

Horses, Dancing, Babies

Hopefully this will stay short 'n' sweet.
So life has been fun and exciting lately. Sure, I still have the usual load of homework that bogs me down on a daily basis, but that doesn't stop me from going social every once in a while. I'll be jumping around a bit, so bear with me...
Friday was really fun. Earlier last week, a good friend of mine asked me to go with her on a double with my other friend (her roommate) and her date. The plan was simple: Ride horses in Idaho Falls. It was courtesy of the other guy. His family owns a farm in "I.F." and it was no problem to take the horses out for a ride. I figure it's been roughly 11-12 years since I had last been on one (or even touched one, for that matter), and, for one thing, I have grown quite a bit since then, so this was going to be quite a new experience for me. Indeed it was. We took out 2 horses out of a choice of about 6: Gunner and Cowboy. Two dogs joined us when we first showed up, a cocker spaniel (I think) named Rowdy and a tiny dog (the breed of which is unknown to me) named Bugsey. The whole time we were down with the horses, I was surprised to see Bugsey have no fear whatsoever of these animals that could very well kill him by breathing on him wrong. In fact, I almost killed him by accident. I took a step backwards at one point when he was behind me and I nearly crushed the poor little guy. Anyway, after cleaning up the horses and taking them to a track known as "Sandy Downs", we rode them around for a while. It was good fun, even though Gunner had the tendency to start trotting and attempt to break out in a run; much to the dismay of the rider. Also, the horses had this habit of wiping their noses on all of us, which, again, was to our dismay. But despite those troubling little details, it was a ton of fun!
After getting home from that, I went to Latin Night. Latin Night is a social event held every Friday night where students gather to dance to latin music: Salsa, Samba, Merengue, Bachata, Cha-cha are the main ones. It was there that I learned of a need for more guys in the International Latin Dance class that was the hour before when I had it. So, now I'm doing twice as much Latin Dancing Tuesdays and Thursdays as before. It's good fun, my legs are really tired, and I actually help out a little bit.
Sunday was a real highlight of the week. It was the day that I got to go down to Logan and participate in the blessing of my niece and nephew (twins!) in church! For future reference, to go from Rexburg to Logan is about 2 1/2 hours, not just 2. After church, all the friends and family that could make it gathered for a wonderful lunch. Mmm-mm! It was scrumptious. I love getting to see my nieces and nephews as well as my family in general. It seems like those times are getting fewer and further in-between, sadly. The next time I'll be going down to Salt Lake City is for Thanksgiving! Oh well.
Yep, so that's just about it for now. Exciting, yeah? It is for me, except for that whole homework and hard times stuff. Oh well, those are actually for my benefit, believe it or not.
OH! I almost forgot. For those who are interested: I will be playing in concert with the BYU-Idaho University Band on December 3rd, and then the band will team up with the choir and orchestra to perform Handel's "Messiah" on the 12th of that same month. Plan now! Yep, the end.

General Conference!

Well, another General Conference come and gone. I love General Conference, but it usually goes by way too fast. This last one, the 180th Semi-Annual General Conference, was awesome...but that's how they usually are.
For those of you who are wondering, I'm referring to the General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We believe that the heavens are not closed and that Lord has not done away with calling prophets and apostles to lead and guide His church and children just like He has done since the beginning of the Earth. Every six months (April and October), the prophet and apostles, with other church leaders, address the entire church (some 13-14 million strong) as well as the world. As we learn from the scriptures, from Adam to present day, God gives direction through those He appoints to speak for him, known as prophets. We also may have a direct line of communication, called prayer. Elder Dallin H. Oaks, a modern-day apostle of the Lord, gave a 20-minute talk about direction through leaders and direction straight from God. Here's a link:
http://broadcast2.lds.org/general-conference/2010-october/2010-10-4050-elder-dallin-h-oaks-64k-eng.mp3
Or you can go here: http://lds.org/conference/sessions/display/0,5239,23-1-1298,00.html : Scroll down until you see "Sunday Morning". Listed under that will be Dallin H. Oaks, click on the "MP3" symbol next to his name
I highly recommend listening to as much of the messages given as you can. Think about it, this is what the Lord God has directed these worthy men to say to all of us! They really are modern-day prophets, seers, revelators that have been called of God to direct His children, everyone on Earth. I am glad that God loves us enough to do this. I'm grateful for Jesus Christ and the Atonement which He performed. We really can return to live with Them through the saving ordinances, such as baptism by those holding the authority of God! That authority, known as the priesthood, was restored after centuries of apostasy and darkness for our benefit through Joseph Smith. This church is God's church here on the Earth and all are invited to join themselves unto it and come unto Christ!

Life in General Since Last Post

I'm starting to take interest in my Human Nutrition class. We're learning about the digestive system and just barely covered gastrointestinal diseases and afflictions, ranging from diarrhea and constipation to ulcers and GERD (acid reflux). I never knew of the severity that ulcers could reach: you can die from them! It's true, if they get bad enough, they can eat all the way through the lining of your intestine or stomach or esophagus (wherever it may be), leak contents into your body cavity and infect everything or make you bleed out. Pretty. I think one of the main messages of what we learned in this part is this: Take care of your body, for crying out loud! Yup.
Is it just me, or does anyone else find the act of making new friends kind of funny sometimes? Even talking to certain friends that you haven't talked to in a long time. For me there's a slight anxiety about the whole thing. However, after it's said and done, I feel great that I said and did. I mean, there are times where I don't want to be social with certain people, whether I know them or not, but when I do, I usually, if not always, come away from it glad that I stepped outside my minute comfort zone of the day and socialized. I find it funny in the way that it can keep happening with certain people even though I know it's going to be a good time. Does anyone else feel that way, or am I just shy like that? Why would anyone have reason to not want to talk to a friend? I don't understand it, and yet I do it. I guess that's something about this life.
Anyway, since I'm jumping around like a caffeinated jack rabbit, I might as well fill you all in on what else is new. Not much, is the thing. I'm now an Elder's Quorum Instructor, yipee. It's actually going to be great, I just haven't taught a classroom setting on a regular basis in too long a time. It actually got me a little excited to start my lesson preparation, though I haven't gotten around to preparing my lesson just yet...ha ha ha. School and work are demanding my time right now. That's about all that's been happening as of late, really. Making friends, trying to keep up with older ones, working on this and that. Hooray. Anyway, speaking of all that, duty calls.

Turns Out

I feel that since it's been over a week since my last post, I owe my loyal fans a new one.

It's really funny how things seem to never turn out how you expect them to, in varying degrees, of course. Sometimes it's a good and welcomed thing. Sometimes it's not. For example, for my Writing and Reasoning class, each student had to write a 5-page personal narrative on one normal day of our lives. As some of you know, my writing style can be verbose. I cranked my narrative out the day before it was due, which started out pretty decent, then got tedious as my brain got tired of the task and moved on, leaving me to finish the paper on my own. I kept writing and realized that it was all utter nonsense. So, after fetching my brain and forcing it to rejoin me in my task, I cleaned my writing up a little and finished the paper. After printing it out to turn in, I read it aloud and only cringed at one or two parts. However, after handing the paper in, one would think I had vomited all over the paper, listening to me. Okay, that's definitely an exaggeration (I just like the expression), but I still wondered if my teacher was going to tear it to shreds or not.
The technique my teacher uses is one-on-one conferences with his students. Instead of class the week after a paper is due, we sign up for a time to meet with him so he can talk to us one-on-one in his office. The day of reckoning came and he actually paid me some very nice compliments. He thinks I'm a very good writer with plenty of talent, he wants to help make me even better. He gave me a suggestion on what I could do with this paper to make it better, just one, and sent me on my relieved and happily surprised way.
That's just one example from my life. I mean, one could even think of my experience with University Band as well. There's just a lot more examples in all our lives than I think we really notice; big or small. Is it because we're just used to life being, well, life and we've begun to take it all for granted? That goes with appreciating it all. Even if something turns out worse than we expect it to (like when I had to teach Elder's Quorum this last Sunday, and even then, it turned out more people liked it than I had supposed). There's always a silver lining to dark clouds. I have a roommate who once posed a question asking if the "clouds" are actually silver with dark lining and we just focus on the lining too much. Well, another subject to ponder on and even address at a later time, perhaps.
Yep, turns out that life is pretty darn unpredictable. Sometimes it's we would deem to be fair, but it's usually not. However, with that being said, it's interesting to see just how our lives are shaped by that and how we've grown and learned from all those "unfair" times.

Auditions and Bewilderment

You're now reading the blog of a musically-doomed man.
I play trumpet in the University Band up here and we had auditions today so that the director could place us in what he deems to be our proper chairs. All eight of us trumpeters were given the audition piece on Wednesday. Last night I practiced with a good friend of mine who's also in the band until we felt comfortable with the piece, and that was it. Today we were lined up outside the band room and taken to a "secret location" around the corner that was open so everyone in the building could hear your audition. My nerves were through the roof. For those of you who know me well enough, this is typical.
After a few minutes of tense waiting and pacing, I was up. Everyone before me sounded so good! I consigned myself to just play and go straight to 3rd chair; dead last. A little chit-chat was made with the director which didn't help things at all. As I was playing I was sure the director was bracing himself to catch my shaking body which probably looked like it could crumple to the ground at any moment. I began by missing the first note several times. He suggested a different part of the piece, which I promptly fumbled over. Finally, I told him that I had practiced the part he marked out and I was going to hit the note this time, just he wait and see. I did it, sprinted through it, and trudged back to the band room. I butchered it, big-time.
One other trumpet played after me and then the director came back to give us our new positions. I was blind-sided by "1st" chair and SOLO! I couldn't believe my ears. I was dumbfounded.
So here I am, first chair after not having regularly played my trumpet in 4 years, 2 of those years being on a mission (meaning NO playing). I know where my weekends are going to be: the practice rooms at the music building. Okay, so it's not going to be as bad as I'm making it out to be, but I'm still nervous about being in this position and think that there are 7 other trumpeters who could fill this better than I can. However, I guess I can trust my director knows what he's doing and he put me where I am for a reason. I'll just keep my fingers crossed...

The First Day of the Blogitry

Well here we go, down the rabbit-hole of blogging. This blog is solely for the purpose of keeping interested family, friends, acquaintances, stalkers, and associated parties updated on all the goings-on of yours truly in the fantastical world of Rexburg, Idaho. As such, it will only be updated while I'm here, meaning roughly 8 months of the year minimum. For those of you who don't know, BYU-Idaho, the university I'm attending up here, is on a track system. When a student is accepted, they are assigned a track containing two semesters (Winter-Spring, Spring-Fall, Fall-Winter). The student then attends school for those two semesters and is "off-track" during the other semester and is free to do whatever he/she wishes...basically. I was one of the fortunate ones to receive the Spring-Fall track, thus effectively dodging the bitter winters that Rexburg (sometimes affectionately called "Iceburg") is known for. The reason for the track system is to allow more students into the small-but-ever-growing school. It seems to be working because they haven't changed the system yet. As a side-note, this blog will be updated roughly once a week, or however often I feel like it. With that being said, it's time to get down to business.

As of today, I have officially started all my classes. It's a hodgepodge of classes this semester: Auto Maintenance, Human Nutrition, University Band, Writing and Reasoning, New Testament, and International Latin Dancing. It's looking like another semester of 6 classes and 12 credits. So far any attempts to add more classes that I actually need have left me disappointed. I'm not too beat up about that, however, considering my workloads are foreshadowed to be lots of time-consuming assignments that will take up a large portion of my time. Once I find a job in this seemingly job-barren land, my time will practically be gone. I guess we'll really see how things pan out as time wears on.

It's always good to see familiar faces and meet new ones. Although I have a naturally reserved personality, I enjoy meeting new people and making new friends. It's fun to be able to walk around campus or town and always be saying "hi" to people I recognize along the way to wherever I'm going. It's even better if I have classes with friends from previous semesters. One of the downsides of knowing a lot of people is not having the time to see everyone as often as I would like to. Having classes together makes it easier. Using a planner is a good idea as well. Being as popular as I am (HA), keeping organized and knowing the "whats" and "whens" of my busy school life is a necessary and priceless thing. Those of you who know me well enough know that I can become quite scatter-brained and forgetful which usually gets worse as stress and demands pile up.

In closing, I feel I should warn you readers that this blog will most likely be very boring and such. If you are a faithful reader, you may receive a little nugget of humor or pleasing material, but read at your own risk. I absolve myself from being responsible for your enjoyment; how much you enjoy this blog is entirely based on your tastes and is your decision and I can't control that.
PS: I'm still feeling my way through this, so bear with me.