Aulophobia - Fear Of Flutes.

So, when preparing for instrumental exams, I have a theory. There is always that ONE song that you hate. You'll hate it because, whether or not it is technically more difficult than the others, it's hardest for you to play. You'll hate it because, it may not be hard, you just hate the song itself, whether you can play it well or not. You'll hate it because it has caused you the most grief leading up to the exam for these reasons.

I am currently preparing for two exams this year- my grade 5 tenor saxophone and grade 7 flute. I have previously done 3 exams and all of these have proven my theory.

My first proper instrumental exam was my grade 4 flute last year. My hated song: Comic Song. It was the last song I learnt out of the three and, even though it looks very simple, it, for some reason, caused me a lot of grief to play. I look back at it now and want to cringe, because it looks so simple, but it was my worst then. And besides, it was a pretty lame song, anyway.

My next exam was my grade 3 saxophone. My hated song was called Plaza De Toros. Now, I don't know why, I just never liked it. I didn't find it fun and I didn't like the sound of it. My instrumental teacher loved it, however. I'm pretty sure I got a pretty good mark for it, regardless.

The next exam was my grade 5 flute, towards the end of last year. This is what I think about when thinking of my theory. My hated piece was Handel's 8th Sonata in F Major, Movement 2, Allegro. This piece was the death of me. I detested it. Now, actually, it's a pretty nice piece and I don't hate the piece itself. I just hated playing it. I, and the other girl in my flute group, had great difficulty playing this song. It made instrumental lessons dreadful as we would stuff up almost constantly and our teacher would get frustrated and yell, almost constantly. We would go through our scales and other pieces and then she would groan and say, "Now, get out the Handel...." and the other girl and I would internally panic a bit. It was awful. Come to think of it, it took me awhile to like another grade 5 piece of mine called Rumbah. I did like it in the end though, and actually enjoyed playing it. Basically, the preparation for that exam was awful, but the result at the end was good.

Now, I am supposed to be doing my grade 5 saxophone at the end of August and there is an obvious hated song. It is called Saxsequential. I actually kinda like the piece, it's fun and lively, which is a contrast from my two other pieces, which are quite emotional. I cannot play it though. The articulation, the dynamics, the swung rhythms (actually, I find that quite easy), the random accidentals, the entire second half of the song. My other pieces are fine. One is quite good, the other can be good if I play my top notes well. My scales are fine and I'm sure it won't take too long for me to get the hang of the aural tests again. It's just this song. If anything lets me down in this exam, it'll be this song. I've been practicing it this morning and playing it through slowly. It's strange, but with this piece, sometimes I'll play it at home and it'll suck. I'll freak out in my lesson, play it, and it'll be fine, even good. Then, I'll play it at home and it'll be pretty good. I'll turn up to my lesson and it'll be terrible. It makes no sense. Ugh.

For my flute exam, it's harder to choose, as I don't have all my pieces yet. I have a feeling it will be my study, though, called Boiling Point. I don't like it, already. And, again, my instrumental teacher loves it. It feels... weird to me. It's interesting and unusual and it doesn't look very difficult. It's not really difficult, but for some reason, I find it hard. I cannot play it well at all.

Oh well. I'm pretty sure blogging about the pieces I can't play isn't going to help me play them any better.

Guys, my computer's sound isn't working. I was trying to watch the TVTropes video of the week, but I couldn't hear anything. When I press the volume buttons, I could hear the sound it makes to tell you you've turned it up, but no videos are making sound. How am I supposed to check the rhythm in a section of my sax piece and then laugh at the TVTropes video and ship the main guy and girl together (they have total BST, guys. Cannot wait till they do that trope) when my sound isn't working?!?

Also, there is ONE chapter of a manga I'm downloading that won't work. ONE CHAPTER. Sigh. All of the others work fine. Why is this one different? Hm? It's in a different format to the 17 chapters before it. Why would you do that? The chapter after it works fine too. So dumb. Gosh. I guess I'll download all the other chapters and read that one online, even though I hate reading manga online.

Hitler Ate Sugar

I just finished reading Pride and Prejudice, which is my selected "classic text" for my English Extension assignment. I did enjoy this book, more than I thought. It is nothing like anything I usually read. Although many Jane Austen fans obviously can understand the language, I often could not. Some paragraphs or, at once stage, an entire chapter (because some people *cough*Gojo*cough*Albino*cough* where fighting each other violently next to me) were lost on me. Quite a few times I really liked the way things were written. I did, however, have an English woman narrating the book in my head as I read it. And whenever I read it, I'd walk around thinking in a British accent. Thankfully, I think I managed to avoid speaking in a British accent or else everyone would have been all, "What the heck, girl?" And I would have shrugged and said, "Pride and Prejudice, man. Blame Jane Austen," and of course, they couldn't do much about that, cause she's dead.

Last night I watched episode 1 of Durarara!! as planned. Again, very different to anything I'd usually watch. So very different. I have usually watched relatively light (except for AnoHana at the moment. It's not really "light") romance-based (if a show has no real romance, I'm immediately turned off. I need my shipping, OK guys?), kinda-girly, often relatively humourous anime. The protagonist is usually female as well. The only anime so far that has been completely different to everything mentioned above was Death Note. Anyway, back to Durarara!! (Mm, two exclamation marks and everything...) This anime proves to be different, but interesting. It was SLIGHTLY confusing, the protagonist bored me (what else is new?) and I spent the whole time wanting to meet the 'bad guys' who were briefly mentioned, to judge if they were Favourite Character material or not. Here's the plot outline courtesy of Wikipedia:

Mikado Ryūgamine is a young man who longs for the exciting life of the big city. At the invitation of his childhood friend Kida Masaomi, he transfers to a school in Ikebukuro, Tokyo.

Masaomi warns him about people he doesn't want to cross in the city: a violent man dressed like a bartender, an information merchant, and a mysterious gang called "Dollars." And to top it off, Mikado witnesses an urban legend on his first day in the city: the "Black Rider," the supposedly headless rider of a black motorcycle.

The narrative follows all of the characters equally, showing how their lives intersect, creating a greater plotline from what each character knows about a common incident.

Hm, that was easier to understand than the actual episode. Anywho, the headless person is very interesting. I was all, "Ooooh. This guy's awesome!" until I actually looked at the guy (who was wearing a helmet while bashing some creepy dudes up) and realised he had a rather... female-looking chest. Anyway, it's totes a chick. And the Crash Into Hello that occurs later in the episode confirms that. It was pretty obvious. I think. Now I'm worried I've interpreted it wrong. Ah. Anyway, I'm loading episode 2 right now. Upon looking up the TVTropes page, I read something about some romance, so it's all good. It doesn't seem like it's a HUGE part of the plot, but it's better than nothing. Plus, the sound of these ;bad guys' that Protagonist was warned about really interest me. Especially this guy (I haven't actually met him in the series yet, but reading a little bit of his DurararaWiki page made me kinda like him)

I mean, look at those eyes. And that smirk. There's no way he ISN'T evil :)

According to TVTropes: "He can appear to be a genuinely nice guy, until you realise he's just screwing with you for kicks." Heh. I like him already :)

Anyway, I'm about to watch the TVTropes Video Trope of the Week. You guys should totes watch these, they are really quite amusing. Check them out on their youtube page, guys: http://www.youtube.com/user/tvtropesorg

... This week's Trope Video did not disappoint. As amusing as ever. Now, I shall watch the first one they did. 

Guys. I walked into my room to see this picture on my screen, as part of my Kyo Sohma screensaver:

I will forever love this dude. 

OK. The first Trope Video was classic. I love Tropes, I truly do. Yes, TVTropes has ruined my life, but I still love it. I love using Tropes in everyday life. It has actually defined what I like in shows. Now, thanks to the addictive genius that is TVTropes, I know that I love BST, Jerks With A Heart of Gold, Troubled, But Cute, Magnificent Bastard, Tall, Dark and Snarky and so many more... I love reading pages and going, "OH MY GOSH! I'VE SEEN SHOWS WITH THAT!" and then looking up my favourite shows and their examples. I remember when Gojo first introduced me to this site. We were in the computer lab at school, possibly in Biology. She was looking it up, I was working. She was all, "Go on TVTropes," so I did. I was pretty confused by what she'd told me about the site but she was all, "Look up a show you like... Search Daria," and I read the Daria page, laughed quite a bit and never looked back. Once you go TVTropes, you never go back. Anywho... For old times sake, Imma look up the Daria page now. 

Someone wrote "We Didn't Start TVTropes" to the tune of "We Didn't Start The Fire" and put random TVTropes in the verses. 

See? It has ruined my life! One mention and I've written a lot about it... Whoever started this site and the dudes that continue to write it are pure geniuses. 

... WHA? They called Tom from Daria Tall, Dark and Snarky. I would beg to differ. Mainly because that's one of my favourite Tropes and Tom was one of my least favourite characters. The series became a whole lot more depressing when he showed up. Just sayin'. I never liked him. Humph. 

Aw, this page reminded me of a really emotional Daria episode. Fat Like Me. Quinn's Fashion Club "best friend", Sandi, breaks her leg, is bed-ridden and gets "fat" (chubby). Her and Quinn have a totes emotional moment where you realise they might actually like and respect each other in a not-so-shallow way and Sandi returns to school, despite her newly gained weight and the scorn of her peers. It was actually pretty touching. 

Man, I have some adjustments to make to this page. I believe that they should have another Running Gag example, how no one can ever remember the names of Joey, Jeffy and Jamie.

OK. I'm off TVTropes now. Phew. I am safe from the perils of being on till, like, 9pm. 

I thought I would leave you all with a message from the dudes from Finding Nemo. 

I Really Like Swung Rhythms...

So, I had an interesting experience today. An experience that just calls out for a blog post.

We had PE in last period today. Phantomess, White Ribbon and I didn't want to go. We wanted to study for our Maths exam next week. We believed our PE assessment (coaching grade 7s in groups) was on Friday. We went to me and Phantomess' instrumental teacher and asked if we could hang in her room to study instead of going to PE. She said that was fine; she always says it's fine. She also said she was having a meeting with the principal so we'd be in there alone. That was all good with us, of course. She left and we waited for our PE class to go far away before going to our lockers to get books, food (I hadn't had any time to eat my chicken salad at lunch and was STARVING) and so Phantomess could get changed out of her PE uniform (she got changed into her PE uniform before deciding to skip). While waiting, we realised one of the PE classes was actually doing their lesson on some grass near our lockers. Yes, we were trapped in the instrumental room. No maths book. No chicken salad. Phantomess in her uniform. So, we looked in instrumental books, played keyboard etc. After quite awhile, Phantomess was sitting at the drum kit, I was sitting on the floor and I believe White Ribbon was too. Then, Phantomess said, "Um. Instrumental Teacher is coming. With Principal," and White Ribbon and I jumped off the floor and stood near Phantomess at the drum kit. They walked in, with some random guy. Instrumental Teacher gave us some funny looks. Principal was all, "Hello ladies," and we said hello. We were so awkward but stood their mumbling to each other about music and instrumental exams so we could sound like good students (even though we were skipping class) while Principal and Instrumental Teacher were kinda promoting the school's Music Department to this other random guy. They left after a bit and we all proceeded to freak out. We were in there, skipping class, doing NOTHING when the school's principal walked in. Not good!

After school, Phantomess and I went up to see Instrumental Teacher to apologise because we freaked out that she'd get in trouble for letting kids in her room instead of making them go to class. She laughed at us and said we had hilarious facial expressions. She said she would have covered for us and said, "They were rehearsing," if the principal had asked but apparently, he didn't care. Thank goodness, cause Phantomess and I were flippin' out.

That was my interesting story of the day...

So, it's nearly 8:15pm and I'm thinking I should start my work.

Oh, hey Blogger. Didn't see you there?

I have to write a reply to my good ol' friend, Old Man. He and I started a tradition of writing letters to each other last year. Mine are usually random, sometimes depressing and ranty, while his are always extremely deep, vague and often depressing. I don't usually know what he's talking about so I answer the few things he said in plain english, and then ramble about what I'm doing. I've been very slack in replying to his letters this year and it makes me feel kinda bad. I realised how much he relies on this communication, so I'm trying my best to reply to him ASAP.

Tonight I decided on a new anime I'm going to watch, since Ano Hana's ongoing and I'm up to date already. I wonder what day Episode 8 will be out... Anyway, I'm going to try watching Durarara!! Reading the TVTropes page right now. Seems kinda strange, but looks definitely worth a try. Ooooooh! Jun Fukuyama voices someone in it! I like him! AND, there's a Jerkass in the series. Definitely gains extra points with me. Love Triangle? Mmm. Manipulative Bastard?! Yes, please. Tsundere. I'm so in.

Anyway, I think I'll watch the first episode of this tomorrow. Not now. Because I just wasted 10 minutes..

My dad just walked in and asked if I'd tried to ring him... I was all, "No......"
He said someone called him and their was no caller ID. He got a text saying, "I'm tryin to ring u" and he said, "Who are you?" and then the person replied with my name. My justification to him was, "I'd never spell 'I'm trying to ring you' like that, come on." WEIRD.

Fudgeballs and crudballs. TVTROPES IS RUINING MY LIFE. I should NOT be reading the anime/western animation examples for "Alternate Character Interpretation." Bad. OOOH. Total Drama has a section in the western animation examples. "

• Duncan: Is he a guy who's mean on the surface but genuinely cares about his friends and girlfriend(s)? Or is he a cheating, heartbreaking bastard who's a jerkass to the core?"Interesting indeeed... Pretty sure I'd love him either way. 
• "Alejandro: A Jerk Ass Woobie type of guy who just wants to beat his brother at something for once in his life? Or just is he just a douche?" Yet again, who cares? I'd love him either way as well. 

OK. I'm off. Off to get some frozen yoghurt and ask my ex-high-school-maths-teacher dad for help with my maths. Yeah, that's right folks. I'm finally getting off my butt to do something at 8:35pm... *facepalm*

Wait. What?