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Name: Emily
Interests: I love what I'm studying: music and teaching. I also like a lot of outdoors sports: hiking, biking, skiing, rock climbing (indoor though!), and even occasionally sea kayaking. I'm big into pageantry arts (drum corps and indoor drumline). I also love movies and books, and hanging out with good friends. :-)
Expertise: I'm a percussion performance/music ed major at LSU; I also have a degree in journalism and political science from Northwestern University in Chicago. I'm a second degree black belt and instructor in the American Taekwondo Association, and I teach at the Denham Springs Black Belt Academy. I was a member of the 2004 WGI Independant World-class champions, Music City Mystique. I work as the asst. tour manager for the Glassmen Drum and Bugle Corps. Is that enough yet? ;-)
Message: message me
Member Since:
10/18/2003
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| Long time, no write. Not much to report... finished the semester, got a 4.0! Home now for break, practicing a lot and enjoying getting to sleep 8 hours a night and catch up with friends.
My brother had this on his online diary, so I thought I'd do it too!
1 MINUTE AGO: watching "Blind Date"
1 HOUR AGO: practicing
1 DAY AGO: practicing or reading
1 YEAR AGO: I barely remember a week ago, let alone a year ago!
I LOVE: Life! (hey, the brother gets it right every once in a while! 
I HATE: hypocrisy
I FEAR: a lot of things, but I'm learning to master the fear.
I FEEL: happy!
I HIDE: my excessive neuroticism!
I DRIVE: Andy, my '96 Buick Regal with 166,000+ miles
I MISS: my boyfriend, but I get to see him again in a week!
I LEARN: new things every day about music
I NEED: a new Dr. Beat
I THINK: probably more than is good for me, but I like it anyway 
FIRSTS...
First screen name: catsdrummer (still being used)
First piercing: my ears, when I was in middle school
First credit card: the SAI Visa... I think...
First enemy: my ex-boyfriend in the second grade (yes, I was precocious)
First musician you remember hearing in your house: my dad
LAST:
Last big car ride: drive from Baton Rouge to Knoxville last Saturday
Last movie seen: in the theater, Harry Potter; at home, Love Actually
Last food consumed: a pear
Last phone call: my boyfriend
Last CD played: whole cd? lord only knows. track only - Scheherezade
Last drink drank: Diet Pepsi
Last time scolded: last night, when my stepmom ripped into me
SHORT ANSWER..
I AM: unique, that's for sure.
I WANT: to be happy (don't we all?)
I HAVE: the best boyfriend in the world
I WISH: for almost nothing
I WONDER: what the future holds, but not knowing is why it's fun, right?
I ALWAYS: take on too many things.
I DANCED: at my boyfriend's band's show over Thanksgiving break.. surprised the heck out of him!
I SING: harmony with the radio
I CRY: very rarely
I AM NOT ALWAYS: as hardcore as I seem!
I WRITE: a column for www.dci.org. I have tons of ideas for other books and stories, but no time to write them!
I WIN: every day that I have Jordan in my life
I LOSE: only when I believe I've lost. I try to make that never. There are no losses, just chances to learn and move forward.
I CONFUSE: everyone. Okay, well, a lot of people. Especially Dr. Dietz. (And no, I don't feel at all bad about that.)
I SHOULD: take better care of my self. Oh well.
..FAVORITES..
NUMBER: 354 (GO G-PIT!)
COLOR(S): Blue - it matches my eyes.
DAYS: Friday. I don't think I need to explain why! Monday, because this year I get to practice a lot on Mondays.
MONTH: July - plenty of holidays, including my birthday! December, because of the holiday season.
SONG(S): Ummmmm... varies almost daily... lately I've really been digging "Sugar We're Going Down" by Fall Out Boy.
SEASON: SPRING! Nothing beats spring in East Tennessee... I LOVE being here in April and May.
DRINK: Abita Amber!
IN THE LAST 2 DAYS, HAVE YOU...
CRIED? no, but I got all sniffly over a special on the Elephant Sanctuary. Yeah, I'm a sucker for animals.
HELPED SOMEONE? Yeah, my parents.
GOTTEN SICK? No...
GONE TO THE MOVIES? No - nothing out that I want to see right now.
SAID 'i love you'? Yes, to my parents.
WRITTEN A REAL LETTER: Not on paper. I've sent a few emails, though.
TALKED TO AN EX?: Yup! Austin and I had an awesome time hanging out yesterday for lunch... although it's hard to consider him an "ex."
MISSED AN EX?: Nope. Nothing tops what I have now, so why would I miss what I had before?
WRITTEN IN A DIARY?: what do you call this, an online chicken? (That's Brian's line, but it's perfect!)
HAD A SERIOUS TALK?: well, anyone who has an ex probably by definition has had a serious talk, so, yes. (stupid question!)
Now, off to bed... | | |
| Things I got done today:
- Caught up on correspondance
- Worked out (30 mins on the elliptical machine)
- showered
- arranged for the PS to get an educational discount at Steve Weiss and sent them our order
- Piano class
- hung up fliers at the Union and surrounding buildings for the PS
- made several phone calls
- took five pairs of pants to get hemmed
- donated platelets (which took FOREVER and made me feel not so good)
- finished the fiction book I was reading
- did the Math chapter in my Praxis review book (yay for middle school math)
- finished updating and printed off the packet for Destrehan tomorrow
One big thing I didn't get done:
- PRACTICE!!!
I slept poorly again last night; I don't know what's up with that. I get up every morning not sleepy, but rather feeling like I've been hit by a Mack truck. It's not fun. And then donating platelets made me feel sick to my stomach and a bit dizzy, and didn't help the fatigue any. Last time I gave wasn't nearly this bad... don't know what the deal is. My hip (well, technically my left-side SI joint) is driving me nuts, to the point that I'm almost ready to go in to a doctor about it, and I think that's why I'm not sleeping well. I'm just frustrated, I guess. I have no tests and no rehearsals this week, so despite having to study for the Praxis, it ought to be an easy week... but this stupid little BS stuff keeps arising that drains an hour here, twenty minutes there, out of my day and all of a sudden I don't know where the time went. Yesterday it was the PS flier, today it was the PS toolbox (and also the flier). Tomorrow hopefully there won't be any PS stuff to get done!
And of course I'm also pissed at myself cause it is my fault, too, for not being efficient enough. Thank goodness I finished this book, so it'll stop distracting me, but I haven't been good at staying focused when I'm at home - Gil Thorp, the tv, the book, the web, whatever, they're all so enticing and I struggle to stay on task. That's an ongoing battle I fight with myself daily and it seems like whenever I have extra time, I allow those time-wasting activities to expand to fill it so while I always get lots done, I'm always struggling to get done everything I want to (which is a reasonable amount), or I'm always rushing to finish something off at the last minute. I could make whatever excuses I want about working flat out, 16 hours a day 7 days a week, or about never having a break or a vacation or whatever, but truthfully if I were more disciplined about checking and responding to email, hopping on the web, etc., I would have more time in my day. I guess that's the downside of things like digital cable and wireless Internet: they require so little effort to access, you don't realize how much you utilize them. But that's something I have to figure out how to deal with. And I've known this for a long, long time (even gave up Gil Thorp for a while a couple years ago because of it), but I haven't found - I haven't made myself find - a constructive solution to it.
On the flip side, I had a most excellent Pork Egg Foo Yung for dinner, and there's enough left over for dinner tomorrow!
I have this long reflection to write on the psychological states of me vs. my NU buddies based on their blogs, but that's going to have to wait for another day. I'm going to bed.
7 days till Minnesota and Thanksgiving and GETTING TO SEE JORDAN!!!! (not that I'm excited or anything...) | | |
| Today was kinda strange: okay beginning, bad middle, good end. Classes were fine, but I was really tired all day (still am). All that lovely practice time this afternoon evaporated because I had to make up a flier for this week's Percussion Society meeting (7 pm Thursday, Hatcher 160P!) and then go buy tape and get the flier copied before our 5 pm e-board meeting... so by the time I got all that done, I had enough time to get my piano homework done and play a little French horn before I had to go to the meeting. By the time I got home, I had to do a couple things for the SAI meeting and I was starving so I skipped taekwondo... so I got some extra emails sent so I can go work out in the morning instead of catching up on correspondence. Yay for shuffling priorities. The SAI meeting was two hours long, but pretty fun, and I always enjoy hanging out in an estrogen-rich environment! I went upstairs to practice, but Jordan called - but his phone shut off twice because his battery was so low. At this point I was so tired, I was goofy, so it was a fun conversation, but by the time we hung up, I wasn't in the mood to practice any more. So I came home. Now I'm going to do some Praxis review, but we'll see how long that lasts... I've been beat all day long, so I have a feeling the bed will call my name sooner rather than later.
So yeah, it was one of those days that nothing really went as planned, even though I got plenty done.
Had an interesting conversation with Dietz today in my lesson. I brought up to him my fears about whether or not he is planning on trying to go somewhere else to teach, and he definitely reassured me that he's not actively looking right now any more so than he ever is. I know he always has his eye on the market, but he was sounding a lot more serious about it last week, which is what had me so freaked! But I do trust him to tell me honestly if I need to think about my future here, and he said I had nothing to worry about, so that was good enough for me! I have felt a lot better all day since getting it off my chest and hearing what he had to say.
Finally got DCI to pay me (or agree to pay me); I had to send kind of a stern note along with the column this week, but I felt like anything less was not going to get results. The DCI webmaster expressed profuse apologies over the delay. Speaking of DCI, I think this week's column is one of my best since I've started writing again, and you should all go read it!
http://www.dci.org/news/news.cfm?news_id=0e1a11b7-8bba-4939-a935-3cc66e2d487f
I really should go be productive. Tomorrow will hopefully go more according to schedule, and I can get done what I need to get done! Sheesh, I only have one class, so I would hope there's enough time to get the rest done (the rest being working out, flyering, practicing a bunch, and studying for the Praxis, which I can do while I give platelets! Ahh!)
Okay. Really, I'm going now, I swear... | | |
| Today I got up early (8:45 being early) and managed to make it to church (9:30 service) not too very late... sermon was good, about starting over and second chances and things like that, although I was a bit too sleepy to pay really close attention. Mostly it was nice just to make it there again - sitting in that sanctuary always gives me a feeling of peace, like a deep breath of cool, clean air in the middle of my overly hectic life. I pushed away the thought of "why don't I do this more often?" since I know EXACTLY why that is! Hopefully now that I'm not teaching on the weekends for a bit, I can make it a point to go every weekend. I definitely plan to go to the all-church Thanksgiving dinner next Sunday; I need to find a way to meet more people and be a bit more socially involved there, even if I can't devote too much time to it. I want people to know that I do belong there!
After church I made a quick stop at Michael's for a photo frame (on sale for half price, booyah!), then came home and lay in bed for an hour. Decadent, I know, but I didn't sleep too well, so I decided to allow it. Then lunch, worked on my theory homework, went to the SAI carwash and got SOAKED (it started raining), came home to dry off, finished my theory homework, then went to Hatcher to practice. It wasn't my best practice session ever because I got really distracted by this whole to-transfer-or-not-to-transfer internal debate I'm having. (I talked about that yesterday, so see below if you need to catch up!) I decided to talk to Dietz tomorrow, just to try to feel out his plans a little more, and maybe after that talk to Carol Larson about it. I also went ahead and sent Dr. Burritt at UT-Austin an email tonight to try to schedule another lesson with him. If I feel it's worth it at that point, I may discuss the issue with him, since that's where I'd be trying to transfer if I did decide to leave.
Right now I'm just trying to get the rest of my homework done... also have to write my DCI column... and am very much in that Sunday night funk where I'm sleepy and my head feels packed in wool. The process of putting words together in an academic fashion seems so difficult right now! I better get back to it though... still have to do an article report for MuEd before I can write the column, and then I need to do some Praxis stuff if I have time. Jordan's supposed to call too. I think I'll make it a point to sleep at least 7-8 hours every night this week as part of my preparations for the Praxis - shouldn't be too hard since all I have is regular classes, no ensembles. Back to the life of aiberal arts major! | | |
| Yesterday was fantastic. I had a brass tech playing test (euphonium) in the morning, but the rest of my classes for the day had been cancelled so I declared a "general holiday" - a la Gaylon. I hung out with Amanda Davis and Nicole Izzo for a bit (their playing tests were right after mine), came home, had a couple waffles for breakfast and did the crossword puzzle, took a nap for about an hour, hit the gym for more than an hour (YAY WORKING OUT AT THE GYM!!!!!!), came home and took a shower, and headed out for the afternoon: Quizno's for lunch, then down to Gonzales for the Tanger Outlet Mall shopping experience. Quizno's took for-EVER, and they were out of Diet Pepsi, which was irritating. The sandwich (turkey bacon guacamole) sat really heavily, too, although the salt and vinegar chips really hit the spot.
Gonzales was sort of disappointing. I had forgotten that it was Veterans Day, so the place was packed with women with strollers and their moms in tow. The Gap Outlet had been really picked over, although I got a bunch of stuff at a couple kitchen stores - stuff that is probably currently unnecessary, but will eventually hopefully be useful. I did better at the Old Navy outlet, got some stuff that is a bit more trendy and a little out of character for me, but that I really liked. I need more "fun" clothes anyway! I got a white button-down shirt that has gold and silver threads in it, a purple hooded knit sweater, and a pair of golden-brown velvet-like pants (they make my butt look fantastic!). I also got a nicer blue button-down shirt at Bass which will look great with a pair of grey dress slacks. So I was looking out for my professional wardrobe too! Yeah, right...
Then it was on to the movie theater. I was running a bit late as it is, and then I went to the wrong theater! (There are two based around the same major road in Baton Rouge.) I useually try to get to a theater around 10 minutes after showtime, to skip the excessive commercials and previews, but this time I got to the theater at 5... for a 4:20 movie. I missed at least the first 20 minutes. Oops! But I wanted to go to the matinee (cause it's cheaper) and I was in a mindset to go to a movie, so I went anyway. It was "Good Night, and Good Luck," the new George Clooney movie about Edward R. Murrow's journalistic work on McCarthy, which by all reports was very well researched and well done. I enjoyed it very much and will be sure to buy it when it comes out on DVD. I thought the most telling moment was towards the end, when the owner of CBS tells Morrow and Friendly (Morrow's producer) that Morrow's show See It Now was going to be reduced in number of episodes and moved to an unfavorable time slot due to loss of sponsorship - that a journalistically and democratically important product would be cut due to monetary concerns. It's the constant difficulty a democracy faces: any sort of information gathering and analysis is expensive and produces little that is economically gainful, so how do we make news available to the public in a free marketplace while maintaining the news' (and newsgatherers') freedom from undue outside pressures, be they economic or governmental in nature? It's one of the biggest reasons I got out of journalism.
After the movie, I went grocery shopping, then hit Chili's for take-out. I talked to Jordan while I was waiting for my food, then went home and watched tv while I ate. I read, played online, and watched tv for the rest of the night, and had a couple beers. I was asleep before 1 am and slept till 11:45 today. Yup, 11:45! 11 hours of sleep, with just one brief bathroom break at 7:45. I guess I needed it.
Today I just did homework and housework - 3 loads of laundry, cleaned the aquarium, straightened up the apartment (it needed it!), changed the sheets, unloaded the dishwasher, read a chapter of MuEd, and started on my theory homework. After dinner I showered and went to Barnes and Noble to look for theory books and do some work on the Praxis. They had I think one music theory book, which was part of a series for guitar players - in other words, useless to me. I guess I'll have to make an informed guess-work choice from Amazon for that. (I'm looking for a music theory book to use with my high school students in private lessons.) I also looked through the "Fiction and Literature" section. So many books, so little time! I could read a new book every week for the rest of my life, I think. I'm looking forward to winter break, when I can read as much as I want to. Same for next summer.
Studying in the B&N Starbucks worked well - I kept having the thought, "Why don't I do this more often?" It was the same thought I used to have when I'd go to the NU library. I always wondered why I didn't spend more time there. Incidentally, I had the same thought when I was at the Rec on Friday - the exception being, I know why I don't spend more time there! I just don't have the time. I think I'm learning, though, that I am relatively unproductive at home because all my comfortable distractions - the computer/Internet, the tv, my books, the bed - are here. I hate to make my home (my apartment, whatever) the place where I just come to relax and sleep, and thus spend a total of six or seven mostly unconcious hours here daily. But if it's what I have to do... at least Barnes and Noble is a relatively innocuous place to go to study. So maybe I will try to spend more study time there. It also has the positive effect of helping me feel like I'm getting out of the apartment, and I do stultify if I spend all day here every day.
Jordan is, in a word, awesome. Which is to say, he's amazing for me... with me... and I feel lucky to have him in my life. I can't wait to see him! One week and three days to go. We haven't talked as much lately; we've both been practicing a lot lately, and practicing late at night, and I've been very tired and kind of stressed. He tends not to say as much during the week. Weekends we tend to talk more, but our schedules haven't been matching up to allow that lately. I think we're also both sort of in a holding pattern, waiting to be in the same place at the same time, and it's hard to have much to say when you do the same thing every day... especially when you both do the same same things every day! It's funny, we had a sort of nothing conversation the other night and I wondered how I felt about that... or maybe, wondered about why that didn't bother me. I wasn't happy about it, I was just sort of indifferent to it, I guess. I started thinking about maybe the relationship is habit, but I genuinely want to talk to him every night. I don't think about him as constantly as I used to (or maybe don't notice myself thinking about him constantly!) but that's okay too. I guess we've settled into comfortable routine. Eventually it happens! It's not as electric as it was over the summer, when we could talk for an hour about nothing, but I think that also has to do with circumstance. And really, if the worst nights are not bad at all but kind of ho-hum, and the best nights still make me ache for his present and my stomach flutter and me giggle, and all those other silly girly reactions, then hey, that's pretty good! And I think there's something to be said for the idea that a couple living apart needs to kind of recharge the batteries, rekindle the fire, etc., by being together. It's been 10 weeks since we saw each other, and a lot has happened in the interim. I really miss his presence - I know we have a lot of advantages over long-distance couples ten years ago, let alone fifty years ago, but I wish I could have him here all the time. Just to be able to hold his hand, kiss him whenever I want, cuddle up to him at night, to not HAVE to talk because we're right next to each other and can be together without talking... all those things you take for granted when you're together. I was wondering the other day what it would be like for me if we were to break up. I realized that my day-to-day life would not really change at all... I wouldn't talk to him at night, but that would be about it. I realized that I can't even put myself in that situation, because I don't really believe that it would happen. He seems pretty set on us being together for a long while - we've talked about as far forward as next May or June, which will be the one-year mark, without him seeming concerned or being freaked out about it. Also, we're not far off from the six-month mark now, and while maybe that should feel weird, it doesn't, because it just seems right for us to be together. At the same time, though, I know eventually we're going to face some hard questions about managing to live in the same place at the same time, and I don't necessarily expect us to marry or be together in four or five years... but I also don't expect us NOT to be together. I guess that means I'm open to the future, no matter what form it takes, which is a good thing, but also new for me. Mostly I just can't wait to see my boyfriend!
Tonight I'm going to do some more Praxis work, then tomorrow the goal is to get up for the 9:30 church service, hit Michael's to find a picture frame, and then go out for a long bike ride (an hour or two). Then shower, practice for several hours, finish my theory homework (that one's more a requirement than a goal!), do my DCI column (also a requirement), and do some more Praxis practice. Monday I have class till 12:30, then come home for lunch and practicing, go to taekwondo and SAI, then probably piano practice and some more Praxis work. At some point I have to get ready for Wednesday and starting pit stuff with Destrehan indoor line, and catch up with emails and People-to-People and Percussion Society stuff. Thankfully I have NO TESTS OR QUIZZES this week. Of course, the effluvium hits the air circulation device after Thanksgiving, but that's a couple of weeks away, and I'm looking forward to the break. I've seen the signs over the last week of my body starting to shut down due to fatigue, so this weekend "off" (meaning not at high school band stuff all day Saturday and therefore having more time for everything else) was really timely.
The big thing on my mind this last week is the recurring theme of my career at LSU - specifically, how much longer I'll be here. Early in the semester I was almost hell-bent on transferring; I felt like there were a lot of cons about LSU, including how academic music courses are taught, the politics between the primary lessons teachers and the band department, and quality of my private lessons, and also some cons about living in Baton Rouge - population density, lack of infrastructure, provincial attitudes, rising cost of living due to the natural disasters, and the general stressfulness of life here right now. I had an amazing lesson with Dr. Burritt at UT-Austin that really highlighted these issues for me. But I had convinced myself that it was better to stay, for a variety of reasons, not the least of them economics. However, several things this week brought this back up for me. First was my lesson, in which Dr. Dietz told me at the beginning that PASIC was horrible and at the end told me "don't make this [music] your whole life." He also mentioned Thursday that with his wife gone (she's in Japan at a percussion competition) that he's having to medicate himself in order to sleep, and asked later on on Thursday whether the UTK job was ever going to get listed. Now, I know he's always got his eye on the job market, and I can't really blame him for it; I wouldn't willingly stay in southern Louisiana if I had as good or better opportunities elsewhere. But the way he asked it sounded more serious this time. The other thing is that Lisa (his wife) is applying to doctoral schools this year, and I cannot imagine him not going with her if she left. I can't imagine them trying to live apart for months at a time. I have always assumed that if he left, I would transfer to wherever he went or else try to transfer to UT-Austin; but I've discovered a lot of good things here during my pro/con process, and I'm not entirely sure I'd want to leave, even if he did. Chad Heiny, our grad student, pointed out a lot of these things to me when I talked to him about everything. LSU has a great orchestra, great wind ensemble, and great music ed faculty. I have a great teaching situation; Destrehan supports me in terms of equipment and program, they pay me well, the kids are great, the director gives me great latitude and opportunities for personal and programmatic growth, and I'm starting to develop a personal studio of private students where I can try out my ideas on integrating music history and theory. I have a great apartment, and good friends. And I'm on tuition waiver, which makes it cheap. If I picked up and moved, I might eventually have better educational opportunities, but I'd also have to find a new teaching gig and develop a reputation in a new place; find a new place to live and get accustomed to a new locale; and deal with the red tape involved in transferring, including possibly having my graduation date delayed. With Dr. Dietz I get to play a lot of great percussion ensemble rep, but I don't get all that much out of my lessons each week, so I don't know that I'd loose that much if someone else was here teaching. My goal right now is to take lessons with Dr. Burritt at UT-Austin (and occasionally with other folks) as often as possible, as well as attend camps and seminars, so I would probably just keep doing that. I dunno. The biggest problem is that I really don't have anyone knowledgable either at LSU or in the field to talk to - I don't know Tom or Mike Burritt all that well, I can't bother Leigh Stevens with it, and there are no other percussionists on faculty at LSU. Plus if I were to talk to a prof in the percussion field, or to someone at LSU, about this, it would probably get back to Dr. Dietz, and I'm not ready to deal with that. Although I am thinking about sitting down with him soon and asking him how serious these noises he's making about leaving actually are... cause he's scaring me, and as his student (and someone he relies on and treats much like a grad) and as someone who came to LSU primarily to study with him, I do deserve to know what his plans are.
I really need to stop rambling and go do something productive! Yay, Praxis practice. Hey, that even rhymes. | | |
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