over the hills and far away

2004-05-20T10:03:00.000-05:00

well the semester from hell is over and although I realize that we will be starting another one before anyone reads this, I have come under great pressure to update (thank you, gardner and mom :P). the title of my blog is more fitting then ever, if we assume that the place that is over the hills and far away is my FUTURE. my FUTURE sits over the hills of the upcoming 4th year and most of all over the hills of a great many decisions that must be made soon because my FUTURE is actually not far away. not far away at all. i'm now a "fourth year" at uva, and suddenly all the vague musings of my life beyond wahoo-wa are solidifying from hypothetical half-assumptions into concrete decisions. whereas i used to say, "oh i think i might go to law school" there are now many many important details that i have to decide, not least of all as in do i want to go at all, and if so when, where and why? i've never offered law school as a way to make myself sound important or driven, but I have offered it as the next step in my education that I would most likely take for some vaguely entertained reasons. words, arguing, 3 years, good degree. where else can i get all those interests combined? but now as i actually look at law school web pages, damn. was soll ich machen? i guess moving to germany or stalking robert plant aren't viable options? damn.
i find myself missing uva this summer more than i have before. i wonder if it is because I had no time for closure at the end of the semester. I had the last possible day and time for a final and i had a meeting that night from 6 to essentially 11. the next day was the beach, and I didn't realize how rushed i felt until we came back from the beach and i got to wander around grounds for a bit. so much of my time at uva is insanely busy and fulfilling, i really need to take that time at the end of each semester to marvel at my school and all that i can do and do do there without actually doing it. now that i have just one year left, and people and places are growing more and more precious. i really don't know. i still can remember how it felt to be a senior in high school and i cannot comprehend how that same cycle is continuing but only in college. i can remember when i heard that my cousin was in college, i was like in 3rd grade or something, and i was like, wow, that sounds old. now i'm that old, and i have so much going on, as do we all. it makes me wonder (not a reference to stairway to heaven) what this will all lead up to. i suppose "stage manager" for zoso is not an option, either.
so this blog update is really not exicting at all. but not everything has to be busy, exciting, and spasm-like. i'm still trying to process all i did this spring, all i have done the last 3 years, and what i'm going to do in approximately 12 months. because that scenario of my FUTURE starts today, as frightening as that is to admit, with little tiny decisions, like visiting certain west coast law school home pages :P

2004-04-18T09:56:00.000-05:00

As I trudge off to the library on a glorious day, I realize that studying is precisely the last thing that i want to do. To honor this rift between the fun-loving me and the working me, I offer the following lyrics. So fun, so naughty, and exactly the attitude to have when your afternoon could not possibly be any farther from this suggestive interlude. Thes are some insanely clever lyrics:

Greasy, slicked-down body
Groovy leather trim
I like the way you hold the road
Mama, it ain't no sin
Talkin' 'bout love, talkin' 'bout love, talkin' 'bout

Ooh, trouble-free transmission helps your oil's flow
Mama, let me pump your gas, mama, let me through your door
Talkin' 'bout love, ah, talkin' 'bout love, ooh
I'm talkin' 'bout

Dig that heavy metal underneath your hood
Baby, I can work all night, believe I got the perfect tools
Talkin' 'bout lo-ove, talkin' 'bout lo-ove, talkin' 'bout

A model built for comfort, really built with style
Special list edition, mama, let me feast my eyes
Talkin' 'bout love, talkin' 'bout love, talkin' 'bout

Factory air-conditioned, heat begins to rise
Guaranteed to run for hours, mama, let me pull your tires
Talkin' 'bout love, talkin' 'bout love, talkin' 'bout

Groovin' on the freeway, gauge is on the red
Gun down on my gasoline, believe I'm gonna crack your head
Talkin' 'bout love, talkin' 'bout love, I'm talkin' 'bout
I can't stop talkin' about, I can't stop talkin' about
Oooh, yeah, yes, a-drive on

Oooh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, I'm comin' through
Come to me for service every hundred miles
Baby, let me check your points, fix your overdrive
Talkin' 'bout love, I'm talkin' 'bout love, I'm talkin' 'bout

Ooh, yes, fully automatic, comes in any size
Makes me wonder what I did before we synchronized
Talkin' 'bout lo-ove, talkin' 'bout love, I'm talkin' 'bout

Ooh-ooh, feather-light suspension -- Konis couldn't hold
I'm so glad I took a look inside your showroom doors
Talkin' 'bout love, talkin' 'bout low-oh-hove, talkin' 'bout
I can't, I can't, oh, I can't stop talkin' about love
I can't stop talkin' about love

Ooh, let me come down, come down
Comin' down, comin' down, come down, yes
I can't stop talkin' about
I can't stop talkin' about lo-ove, baby
I can't stop talkin' about love, a-my baby
I can't stop talkin' about love, my baby-ah
My baby, my baby, yeah
Push, push, push, push, yes, push, push
Ooooh

-"Trampled Underfoot", Led Zeppelin

2004-04-03T14:55:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time since I did my blog!
hello friends :)
i've had the strangest feeling all day after my wind ensemble concert last night. Every concert I've ever played in for my 11 years with the trombone has given me a true high. I love music, I love playing, I love being in a group playing, and I love to show a side of me, my more creative, emotive side, that often takes a back seat to the rigors of the Daily Routine. My glow from last night, however, has yet to leave me. I can't get certain parts of songs out of my head, and I just keep replaying (bad pun) in my mind over and over again how fun it was to play and how fast the time went. It's like a really cool morning after (random: i'm in charlottesville, and the sun just came out for the first time since Tuesday) or something. I think it's because my various trombone activities at UVA have not been a mere continuation of my the love I had for music in high school. And I truly just realized this. I certainly have not gotten any better technically (perhaps even I'm not as good), but I still have my tone, and I just love playing. This love for playing was not something that Robinson band nurtured my last year there, in fact, it killed it. When I picked up the trombone 2 falls ago for wind ensemble, I hadn't touched it in 14 months. Something about that total break, that total loss of good technical skill, made it truly fun to pick up the horn and to just *play* because I wanted to play and wanted to Capture the joy that is the essence of playing. Add no chair competition, outstanding muisc, and a really fun winter in the basketball band, and you have Rachel four semesters later loving her trombone like she never did in high school. It's like reviving the past, but completely moving beyond it, possibly to the field of Scott Stadium next fall. My high school playing and my college playing come from two totally different lives, one in high school and one in college, and the one in college needs that musical release. I love playing, and I'm still pretty good :) I was the loudest trombone in the basketball band ;)
Another "love" of mine that has resurfaced lately has been ROWING. I never thought when I graduated from Robinson or when I quit (retired from) rowing at UVA that I would willfully sit down on an erg (the rowing machine) again with the intention of imposing physical pain upon my person. Much like the trombone however, this time the ergging is on my terms. There is no score to record, no seat to fight for, no race to get psyched about, it's just me on many an afternoon, some good, some bad, and some repressed for various reasons, that I go to that machine for its complete and total physical and mental release. The erg works every part of your body, so even if I feel that the rest of my life is in complete disarray at least for 40 minutes the mind and body can work as one. The best part is the complete indulgence in nostalgia. Those beautiful and warm spring afternoons, when the sun makes everything so brilliantly green, and the sky is blue with puffy clouds, and I've sat on my ass all day in class, I must go to the river, where I can be me, a complete and functioning unit. With a more firm butt. While my days on the Occoquan have long since ended, and my brother's just began today, about twice a week I walk down the hill by the boathouse in my flip flops, gap bag hanging out of my spandex shorts, letting the boat bump down on my shoulder, talking to yassi, flip the boat "up and over", climb into seat six and row, just row, before theses, research, law school and days of self-introspection were a part of me. If anyone wants to go for a row, I need someone to fill yassi's seat up behind me in five, and Mem Gym does have two ergs.

2004-03-22T21:10:00.000-05:00

Muchas personas han me decido que yo debo escribir en mi blog. Asi el dia ha llegado pero quiero que tu tengas que trabajar un poco para aprender mis pensamientos "deep" y humor que todos quieren compartir. Yo soy tan popular!
Un blog en espanol no es una manera para mi demostrar tan inteligene que yo soy oder wie ich konnte diesen Aufsatz auf Deutsch schreiben. Nein, ich schreibe in Spanisch para que yo pudiera reconocerme porque yo me estoy matando por la escuela. Yo tengo una semana muy ocupada y a veces yo dudo que yo puedo hacer todo que el mundo requiere. Y tambien yo estoy enferma. Ich habe mich noch einmal erkaltet und ist sehr schlecht, wenn ich sehr beschaftig bin. Kann ich wohl schrieben? Buena pregunta. este ensayo para mi clase de espanol es muy dificil. Yo tengo analizar un libro escrito en espanol sobre la filosofia de America. Yo escribo ahora sin mucho mas pensar en lo que el libro de hecho dice. Si yo no lo entiendo ahora, ich will nicht.

2004-03-07T23:20:00.000-05:00

2004 Sketchy Guy of The Year Award
Yes, everyone it is only march, but don't worry, I found him. The young strapping fellow at the zoso concert who pushed me, put his face in mine and rubbed my butt with his hand. He was so enthralling, he visited me three times during the show! Let me tell you, he's a real winner. Look for a guy, obviously on some drugs, that never blinks and likes to leer at you. what a turn on.

2004-03-07T23:18:00.000-05:00

Hello friends,
while everyone is away on trips, I am living on my couch, enjoying doing nothing more than hitting a select few buttons on the remote control. notice how I didn't say enjoying watching tv. that's because 95% of whatever is on tv is complete Scheize. I never watch TV during school, and I find that once I have time to do so, it's a most repugnant activity. I guess I could care about sports or the news, and when I do care, watching a good team blow the game or watching how sick our world is disturbs me. What i do not ever care about is any sort of sitcom because they are all disturbing. Is there anything truly funny or genuine on tv? I just now was channel surfing and found some awful movie "Jason X". It looked most riveting, but the suspense overwhelmed me when Jason broke Svenn's neck and attacked the space army blondes, and I had to turn it off. I don't know how the Academy Awards overlooked the acting in this film. Or I could have watched some music video and seen more cleavage than in a Victoria's Secret Catalogue. The other choice option was some sitcom that was talking about the dad and mom screwing behind the couch.
So apparently in order for anything to be funny it has to be about some bodily function or some sexual deed or misdeed. No longer can we use humor to foster an appreciation for the unique qualities that define people. Star Trek was a master of letting the audience find humor in its unique characters. For example, since Data takes everything at face value, it was funny to see him cheer at the end of a decisive battle scene. Worf was always so efficient and showed no emotion, so the crew always poked fun at him. Since the characters had depth, we saw them as vibrant dynamic interacting personalities both on the screen with each other and between the screen and the audience. In today's media, however, every character is reduced to bodily functions. We all fart, shit, burp, urinate and screw, so now everything can be funny just by letting the body run its course. No plot or intelligenc required on either the producers' part or the audience's part. What do people LEARN from the elevation of sex and potty humor as our societal standard for humor? They learn that maybe it's ok to grope some girl's butt at a zoso concert. Since she has an ASS and i have a HAND and I want to screw her, and any other woman, it is therefore REAL and COOL to RUB HER ASS AS THOUGH I WERE WAXING A WINDOW.
Violence is also out of control in our shows and movies today. I don't know which is worse, the realistic violence or the fake violence. Either way, people are dehumanized to the fact that guns and physical battery cause suffering, suffering that in real life often extends beyond the immediate victirm to include families, society and other friends. Realistic violence "shows it like it is", advertising in fact that guns can kill. This realistic portrayal of violence, however, still shelters the audience because the character is often some sort of hero figure or bonafide bad ass, and he's either on a justified mission or a rebel streak. And when the credits go up at the end, it's all a film. In real life the only credits after death are in the eulogy. In the more fantastic violence like in cartoons and in outlandish movies like "Jason X" the audience is even more distanced from suffering because the violence is not real. The ideas of death and violence are shrouded in the fantastic plots and situations. This is just so out of hand, how violent things are. No wonder people are so dysfunctional. Even the crime shows like CSI, how many guys will try and get off with the girlfriends tonight by putting their heads in plastic bags while screwing? The ideas that saturate our media are so dysfunctional. The kind of ideas that allow a guy to think that molesting a girl at a concert, leering at her all night and getting in her line of sight of robert plant are allowable, just because he wants to. There is no understanding of personal space or integrity when so many countless people die each day on the television screen, in the movie theaters, and in countless basements and living rooms on video games.
Sex is also out of control, but i'm tiring myself out, and really none of what i said needs saying. I haven't even mentioned the reductionist intelligence behind "reality tv shows". our media's shallowness is so obvious. i can't stand TV, unless it's for the news, CSI, maybe ER if it's not a bad episode, or the foreign language channels. Yet I also like the occcassional bad violence-for-nothing movie, even as I recgonize how dysfunctional it is, and how wrong its values are. I don't know what to do about it, except not watch. But what about the people that do watch? I feel so sorry for kids today, the extenuating and dangerous situations that they encounter in the relatively sheltered forum of media (movies, tv, print, music, entertainment, advertising) hit them when they are so ill-prepared to deal with them or understand their significance, and most likely leave them even more perplexed and vulnerable to the forces that present them. so wrong. what have we become? stupid sex-depraved losers? i think not. but the TV guide is not giving us a favorable Farmer's Almanac forecast.
We need the days of John Donne, when language was used to persuade, distort, convince, parody, get laid. The richness of language is largely brutalized today because it's so neglected. Cheap humor and sallow plots inspire a less-than Renaissance interest in how we can project ourselves to others and the world, for the same motives of sex and revenge.

2004-03-03T15:13:00.000-05:00

Top 10 signs You know My Room is too Small:

10. Rachel lives in a perpetutal state of social seclusion because she cannot open her door all the way without throwing it against her shelves.
9. Purchasing a Cd Player actually saves her money because she has no need to buy one that comes with a remote controller.
8. She has the Air Conditioner on as high as it can go during the middle of winter, because she sleeps 5 feet from the heating vent and her room has the capacity to heat itself like a black body.
7. She is forced to make the existential choice between having an unobscured window to provide light or a place to hang her Zeppelin flag thing because she has no more room on her walls.
6. She can stand pretty much anywhere in the room and turn 360 degrees and get to the desk, the door and the bed without taking more than one step.
5. She fails to fit her person, her shakespeare anthology and her gym bag through the door without knocking over and breaking her fake plant's pot.
4. Getting her foot caught in the blanket of her unmade bed and running into the desk chair is how she starts her morning.
3. Realizing that no matter how she grabs at it, the desk chair never provides the stabilization she needs when she is in the process of tripping and grabs it.
2. While entering her closet and stepping forward, she steps into one of her shower shoes that is lying on the floor, somehow gets her foot caught in it because while she moves her foot the shoe remains stuck against the carpet, trips forward, narrowly misses the wall because she grabs at the clothes bar. this was a new one, even for me.
1. Delaying packing til the last minute, because there is nowhere to lay aside the stuff if she were to pack in a more timely fashion.

i love my room! it will be the death of me, and anyone else who exceeds the 1 person maximum capacity.

2004-02-28T12:17:00.000-05:00

it's saturday morning, and I rolled out of bed around 11:00. what is the first thing i do? put in a Cd. I came home last night, after a bad day. What was the first thing I did? put in a CD and cranked it up. I have several very musically inclined friends (jon and big g), more so and more pretentious than I would ever dare to hope to be, and this entry is NOT going to be about how I'm so "in" and "cool" because I listen to and love several awesome groups. because if it hadn't been for them (jon and big g), I would barely know they existed. did you ever realize how groups transcend their CDs and become your friends? they really do. after my wretched day I cranked led zeppelin because robert makes me feel better. This morning i listened to the doors because they are so good, and i had mundane house cleaning to do, and they are anything but mundane.
this is where my english-major way too introspective mind set takes over. Since these groups are my friends, and we are on a first name basis ("sing it robert!" "jim morrison, ugh what a VOICE"), I am concerned for their well-being and happiness, as I would be for any other real-life friend. and I find these musical gods to be extremely extemely fascinating, the dichotomy between their stage pesronal and their real self. like what did jimmy page do on a daily basis? what was robert plant like when he wasn't wailing away? if you were jim morrison what would you even do as a mere mortal? the tragic thing is that I know a large part of the answer to these questions consists of self-destructive behavior and misery. and this is really sad to me, because I feel some sort of maternal duty to protect them. I don't like the fact that jim morrison was miserable and afraid and drugged up most of his life. the music by the doors that I so love is a reflection of the anxiety he felt in his life. it's almost as if he's a martyr, screwing himself up to share his music with everyone. every word he sings that makes me feel good stems from his own internal turmoil. I hate seeing the pictures of him all bloated with alcohol at the end of his life, even as the doors made "touch me", one of their sweetest and best songs. it's just sad. the same thing kind of goes with zeppelin. I don't like that *my* robert and jimmy and the gang were so into the drugs. like jimmy page, it destroyed him, and he hated heroin but he couldn't stop. and bonzo was a very violent alcoholic. and robert plant had such tragic events in his life-the death of his son, the near death of himself and his wife. yet these 4 men were the THING back in the day largely because of their THINGS and their voices and their sheer presence. how many women have been done by led zeppelin? yet there were people behind these musical icons that suffered from their wild life style and had their own personal tribulations. they need protecting. :)
i don't know how to reconcile the disparity between the stage icon and the real-life person, and this mental exercise never gets old for me. i think is one of the main reasons that i so love their music, the difference in the life they sing from and my daily life is HUGE. how boring does my life look compared to theirs? midterms? papers? going to the gym? what would they have thought of me? would they have laughed at my love for their music? would they have thought it cool? what would they think of an english/spanish/german/ergging/trombone playing tall girl as a fan? how did they raise their children and treat the people that they loved, people who weren't part of their wild musical realm? what serves to heigten my fascination is the comparison to today's musical society, where most "musicians" make horrendous "music" with NO feeling, NO thought, NO intensity, YET every single detail about their lives, the lives that supposedly lead to their musical creations, saturates the media. we know how britney is now the "bad girl" because her heart was broken by justin :( we know that she married for 36 hours because she's a bad girl :( oh and she kissed madonna too :( ooh! nick lachey now has a musical career because he married jessica simpson, now his career will take off. if you watch the superbowl half time you can see janet jackson's nipple, oops! ooh J.Lo, she may have left the bronx, but you can read any article and discover how her bronx roots ground her in a career of mediocrity.
give me the intrigue around pretty much any rock and roll group from the 60s-70s, where tabloids and tv did not rip open their lives to expose what makes them tick. you know why they didn't? i don't think they dared to and they would not have understood. you can fit britney, justin, jessica into any mold, any article, any role because they are so flacid and stand for nothing. just try and make robert plant look like a "bad boy" because his dad didn't want him to sing. no, he's robert plant. you can't say much more than that, and even if you tried to, he would not have cared.
i love my friends, and what is even more sad is that half of the guys that i love are dead, usually after some tragic self-destructive incident. i guess you can argue that they died being happy and doing what they loved, but sometimes i doubt that. i think they were sincerely unhappy at least some of the time, like anyone is, but their music is such a public venue to vent or excise their demons. so i see listening to my favorite groups as the eternal remebrance not only of their music, but of the fact that they were people too, maybe not with concerns as mundane as midterms and cleaning up a very small room, but with the very personal struggles that illuminates their music. the dichotomy never gets old.
so listen to your favorite group today!

2004-02-27T19:04:00.000-05:00

well this day has certainly spiraled out of control into like the longest day ever (for a friday)! i should get extra points for not only going to all classes, being insightful/awake, and using my one free hour in the day to read, but also for the fact that, at 4:30 i left class, spent an hour doing important e-mails, and then went to a german graduate student literature conference. why you may ask? to hear authentic german. what did i hear? an extremely brilliant man germanize every word in his english lecture. what is the point of going to a GERMAN conference if any fool can walk in and "get it" in English? grr...so what this conference accomplished was nothing more than highlighting the futility of my attempts to learn german. i have this vague idea that someday i'll use all these languages that i like to amass, but in what capacity? i have yet to answer that Frage. this whole day actually, seems to have been an exercise in futility. so i can get an A- on one paper, and B- on one in another class today. I can do allllllllllllllll the book work for german (don't worry, it's tedious) and then have a killer german test this morning which used stuff that was not in the book, at all. NICHT IN DEM BUCH. so, i really wonder why. why am i stretching myself to get all my work and extracurriculars done when i get less than the desired result and find that i don't care? to step back one, why stretch myself at all if i get less than the desired result? i don't get it. and then to waltz into a german conference and recieve the opposite of the desired intimidation: instead of, wow, i don't know every word of the german this man speaks, it was, wow I could never say in German what this german man is saying to me in English. futile, futile futile.
to extend this futility, let's look at what this is all leading up to? graduate school? i have no clue. i really have no clue, and right now i could honestly care less.
i'm going to instead vent about paper writing. all you people out there that look down on humanities majors, especially English, as "oh all you do is read books", I would like to say that writing your own argument in a way that makes sense is the hardest thing to do. if you take the time to do it well. and i can tell you that you may take the time, lots of time, and still have it make NO sense. papers are so subjective. what makes a good thesis? what is the difference between summarizing plot and quoting something to prove an argument? and what is up with the "secret society" of people who can organize their thoughts perfectly? it's as though once you find some magic way to organize your paper, you can say anthing you want, no matter how detached from the text it is. i HATE DESPISE and LOATHE paper writing. when you put your own thoughts out there, and someone can basically say, "das ist Scheize", it really is not fun. especially when it seems to vary with the wind, how well or how easily you write. thankfully, I have many more good papers than bad, but each one takes about 30-40 hours of work. i kill myself to write well and in 3 different languages and i STILL don't know what it's supposed to lead to.
so, 11 hours after my day started, let the fun begin. thankfully i have something fun to do tonight with someone fun! wretched awful fridays! i was able to maintain composure until about 2 hours ago! i have to shed this grunge look and put on a 10 dollar prom outfit and nothing sounds better right now! :)

2004-02-26T23:30:00.000-05:00

ok, even i can no longer look at my birthday blog entry. so here it is, an UPDATE! so what in the hell have i been doing since my birthday? good question. i don't know where the time has gone. do you? i get the sense this semester that I am borderline over-extended. between early classes and wicked wicked class schedules (i basically go from 9 to 5 non stop give or take an hour on tuesday, thursday and friday), attempting to go the gym, doing 200-400 pages of reading a week, devoting about 6 hours a week to the awesome basketball band...i am leading a full and continuously challenging life. it's a blessing, and it's not really new, although this semester has been one of the toughest in a while. what is new is my suddenly EVER EXPANDING SOCIAL LIFE. there is always something i can do or someone who wants to do something. it's unreal. like this weekend, i have a frat party, an engagement party, and kim's 21st. and tonight i went to a way rad keller williams show with the big g. and now that i'm 21, i can go out to bars and stuff, too. this is where college gets demanding-organizing your time and your life so it's doable. i knew that when i started uva, however. the new revelation is as follows:
do everything you want to do so that you don't feel overextended. if you don't feel overextended, even if you are in fact, then there is no limit to what you can do. so is this some sort of denial? or is it a sign that you are a somewhat balanced, mature, socially involved college student?
to top off our full lives, we have to entertain questions about our future. i won't start that now.
this semester has shown me thus far that i must be a pretty cool person. if i were a square (to use the big g's word) no one would want to help make my life busy. i surprise myself actually. i can't believe that i do such fun things with such amazing people, and you all know who you are!

ok now on to the most important of all:

ZOSO WILL BE HERE IN ONE WEEK.
yes that's right friends, I will once again be out of control in one week. I do not anticpiate, however, needing to put on a nonexistant skirt and ho boots, fun as that was. seriously people, this zeppelin thing is too funny. me, of all people, completely obsessed with the most wild band ever. the other day the big g showed me he had a cd with him and as a reflex i squealed and grabbed for it. i didn't know music could be so good or so fun until i heard them. ugh, the thought of "robert plant" being about 5 feet away singing "insert any zeppelin song" makes me so "insert scandalous adjective here" i can't handle it. i've always wanted a band that i can say is my favorite band, instead of james horner, as much as he rocks. and thanks to the big g and jon, i've found it. now if only i could make "trying to rock out" my hobby...i'd be in business. if anyone wants to come and partake in the zeppelin infusion, talk to me!

thank you to everyone for making me so busy! :)

2004-02-09T21:06:00.000-05:00

to further continue my belated birthday celebration, I
must remark that now, 6 days after turning 21, I still
don't feel all that different. I don't feel physically
different or that emotionally different, but last Wednesday
did give me the opporutnity to realize that my friends love
me as much as i love them.
After holing myself up in the library for over 5 hours, i
had earned a night of nothing but time for me :) As I get
more nostalgic with each day, let alone each year, I was
amazed that I spent 5 hours of my birthday with someone
that I had not even talked to until about 2 years ago,
despite the fact we went to the same high school. know who
that is? i'll give you a hint, he's a total stud. of
course! the big g! :) the big g whisked me away from the
library and cooked me an elaborate vegetarian dinner.
seeing gardner in the kitchen is quite possibly one of the
most amusing things i've seen in a while. He puts all that
manly hands-on know how to work with more womanly things
like cutting, stirring, and, best of all, putting his hands
on his hips and lamenting the current plight of onions at
harris teeter. i only say womanly because traditionally
there is a sign over his apartment's kitchen that is a
woman's bathroom sign. this night, however, the woman was
NOT in the kitchen, she was elegantly sipping a killian's
beer (spelling :P) and rocking out to The Who DVD. pretty
rad. and kim came over! :) the highlihgt of the night was
a 3 hour led zeppelin dvd marathon, before we went to
miller's and hung out there, with my first legal drink and
nothing with me to study!
enter my beautiful ladies, represented by kristen and
lisa! :) not only did they give me amazing and girly
presents, but they braved the cold and walked me over to
maartens, where i got horribly horribly drunk and spent the
night. no, just kidding :) we completey devoured an
entire plate of nachos as we sipped our elegant and girly
drinks. how did I ever get so lucky to have these ladies
as my friends? people like miss barbiere and miss HOvey do
NOT grow on trees. I never had any expectation that two of
my collegiate lifelong friends would be these stellar
hotties. that was way way fun, and we are so doing it
again. and my house ladies and other friends gave me a
champagne and cake toast on midnight of the 3rd :)
wonderful shamrock ladies!
more about me! kim took me out to dinner and took me and
the big g out for drinks on saturday! fun fun! i love
those two people so much, as my grandmother would say, "it
hurts". and my ladies too :) this was a respectable
event, as I had to bake cookies the rest of the evnening,
but check back in 2 weeks, and my maarten sleep over may be
a reality ;) the night concluded with gardner squirming in
the back seat, pouting because the next song on kim's cd
was a U2 song, and not just any old U2 song, but "one".
it's like U2 at its best, or if you are the big g, at its
worst. and kim wrote me the nicest card, we've been
friends since we were 14. WOW, i am so blessed and must be
somewhat cool if I am friends with miss kim for 7 years and
counting, and really with any of you all that are reading
this. and yassi, down in florida, sent me a card :) and at
some point, jon is going to give more robert plant stuff
than is healthy, but that's another blog. and everyone
sent me IMs! such an outpouring of reassurance and
compassion is the best gift possible.
i'm so very happy that I spent my actual bday by taking
time to reflect on who i am. not my gpa, not this summer's
job woes, not an undecided future, not my butt, not how
much i ergged, not how much i read, but that I have friends
that cook for me, hang out with me, make me laugh, and
scandalize me on a daily basis. This is the ultimate gift I
could ever give myself, because now even as I type this, I
feel guilty hearing all my books chew me out for not
reading them. not much time for this kind of reflection,
is there? :) but i sure do make time on february 4th!

2004-02-08T12:23:00.000-05:00

I find that blog updates, kind of like birthday celebrations, can be much better (for lack of a more sophistocated word, and i'm not even sure that I spelled sophistocated correctly) when they are belated. I have been meaning for a while now to write something about that hallowed age of 21. Now that I have been 21 for a grand total of 5 days, I still don't really know why 21 is such a big deal. What is it about 21 that is so miraculous? The legal system in the U.S. makes 21 seem like some kind of frequent flyer mileage reward program. Basically if you live ("fly") with them for 21 years, you can gamble, drink, and do everything that you've been doing already or dreaming of doing without any fear of the legal consequences. It makes me wonder (\m/) that when one recieves this magic pass, there is no demand to produce any sort of proof that one can handle all this responsibility. No demand that we earn the right to drink and gamble like we earned the right to drive. There is no driver's test, no Driver's Ed, yet drinking and gambling must involve some responsibilty, because we must wait until we are 21. And everyone has at least one story that proves that alcohol can produce far scarier and more tragic results than a poor parallel parking job. I can offer my 21st birthday as proof that it is possible to regress in competence even as you are legally allowed to ascend the ladder of scandal that is bars and casinos.
On my birthday I did the following things:
1. Wore my shirt inside out, even as I prepared the wine glasses for my 21 toast at midnight.
2. Fell on my ass on some ice because I had to wear cute shoes on my bday.
3. Somehow got chocolate cake all over my nice shirt.
4. Managed to get a 4-piece long piece of toilet paper (unused, thank you very much) stuck in my jeans, where it flapped about freely as I walked all over the library for, oh, 2 hours.

On my birthday I was also able to legally consume alcohol. So basically I can't walk, go to the bathroom, or eat, but I can intake as much booze as my 5' 11" frame can handle? I don't get it. What is it about 21? I can walk into a store at 11:59 on February 3rd and be denied alcohol, and by the time I've left the store I'm suddenly legal?
What is most ridiculous is the fact that most people are consuming massive quantities of alcohol regardless of the 21 Frequent Flyer Program. Gambling is even sillier. I mean, really, if someone wants to blow all their cash on a slot machine, what is the big deal? Turning 21 is not going to instill a more sound financial awareness, and if it does, the massive quanitities of alcohol they consume to mark the event will certainly wipe that out.
If you consider the other hallowed age of 18, the priorities of these 2 ages are out of whack. So when you are 18 you can vote, fight and most definitely drive. Since when did killing somone or deciding the country's political future become less corrupting than a beer or a craps table?
I'm not advocating that everyone spend their 21st birthday and hopefully the many nights after that "drinking hot cooca and going to bed early" (shout out to jimmy page). That would be lame, and as my grandmother reminded me recently when she died, don't spend your life being lame. What is lame is that the government, or whoever rolled a magic die and got the number 21, offers alcohol (and gambling) as activities that require 21 years of preparation before they can be handled. Yet there is no official program to help young people acquire this preparation other than, "wow after 12 beers, I can't move. maybe next time i'll try 11". it's really really lame.
yet you will find me in about 2 weeks, inevitably somewhat wasted with my 2 fabulous friends kim and big g, and other assorted characters on the corner :) I just think that I could just as easily have gotten that wasted about 3 years ago, and that someone could have at least made the effort to validate the wait for 21 by warning how the alcohol that they have been protecting me from can now legally ruin my life.
as i've said before, "it's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll", and 21 is the best example. and we *will* most definitely rock and roll! \m/

2004-02-01T19:13:00.000-05:00

I wonder what she thinks when she sees me? For the first time in 8 years, my grandmother, at this very instant, is looking down on me from Heaven and she knows who I am. What makes me sad is not her actual death, because her decaying, emaciated body has been released after fighting dementia for eight years. What saddens me is that she does not know what I've done, who I've become, or where I am going since I was about 12 years old. I'm now just 3 days away from being 21, and she's seeing me for the first time.
My grandmother was an amazing woman, and as she sits in Heaven looking at her only granddaughter, is she proud? amazed? shocked? intrigued? does she see herself in me, because that is what I want. I've grown quite a bit grandma, I'm almost 6 feet tall. I kept the blonde hair with a bit of chemical assistance. The glasses are gone, and now I know what mascara is. And yes, that is really me doing undignified buns, thighs and abs exercises. and yes that was me in a too short skirt and ho boots running around to get into a zoso concert last night, and I'm so proud I did. I think a lot grandma, and I know a lot of words, English words, Spanish words, German words. I love to read and write, and I can read and write more than just those crossword puzzles I "helped" you with. I love being nice to people, being the strong citizen that you always told me to be. I even try to speak with good grammar. And the animals, grandma, I always remember the animals, "bless their little hearts", as you always said. All that time I spent cleaning your birdbath...I can't see a blue bird without thinking of you. And i definitely, definitely have a loud laugh, and I talk and walk much too quickly.
Well grandma, what I am supposed to do? Where am I going? I wish that I had those 8 years back, to ask you these questions. I am very grateful, however, that I had the few years I did with you. I think you taught me everything that I need to know.
I hate putting profound stuff on blogs that is this personal. I figure, however, that if it makes me feel better it can't be all bad. Leah M. Jenks died today, February 1, 2004. She was an amazing woman, there is no one like her out there, she was a special and beautiful breed of woman that lives on in my wonderful aunt, mother, and hopefully even me. So today, do something fun because someday you too may be lying prone in a hospital bed, unable to swallow because you've forgotten how. No, that is not morbid, that is the ultimate motivation to resolve your issues, get over yourself and DO something.
and thank you to everyone who listened to me today :) i love you all. death makes you appreciate your friends all the more, makes you realize that there is a higher call in our life, and someday we will all be together :) the ultimate frat party, if you will. \m/ because the one at "zeet" last night sure didn't cut it, did it grandma? :)

2004-01-28T16:25:00.000-05:00

long time, no type :)
well the semester certainly wasted no time in telling me that it is going to be a beast. I feel insanely pulled in lots of different directions, always feeling as if one more page of reading will grant me the desired routine and balance that I so ardently need. However, i have yet to find that magic page, and i've ready plenty thus far. i always dislike the start of the semester for one specific reason: at the conclusion of the previous semester, ideally you were on top of your game, and now in the new semester, the game has just begun. isn't there a song about "it's a long way to the top"? I actually think that it's a lyric from a rockin' AC/DC song, but that's besides the point ("it's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll" \m/)
the point is, one can think of many excuses for why they feel frazzled. in my case it's, oh well you had to catch up on all the religion reading for the class that you just added, or, you didn't have a chance to do a lot of work because you were trying to find another class. well, too bad, miss rachel. too bad. sometimes you have to just accept that things are new and it IS a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.
Thankfully, my long way to the top is an infinitely fun and rewarding ride because i have such AMAZING friends. my ladies and i sequesterd ourselves in the bathroom yesterday behind a closed door, dolling ourselves up and relishing the amazing bond that we had over glittery everything, creams, hair straightening tools and elitist Sex and the City references. shout out to my beautiful beautiful ladies. also a shout out out to the bitchin' big g, with whom i can quite literally rock and roll with all the way to the top. he wrote me the cutest e-mail, it was so sweet, before my semi-formal, everyone should be so lucky to have someone like gardner in their life, to make only the important things seem important. and finally to jon, way over at JMU, in theory he's in school, but then again JMU does get a "lot" of snow :) he called me and e-mailed me, and i have yet to respond at all, but let it be said that i am listening to the dire straits now and reliving many a ride in the four 9s mobile with that wonderful person :) pretty much my other half, that boy is, and when you have another half supporting your half in everything that you do, well you get one great whole. cheese alert! shameless plug: www.tarkus.blogspot.com is jon's blog and you MUST read it. it's just the funniest damn thing out there, makes mine look like a funeral speech (as zoolander would say an eugologoy). and also a shout out to aaron and geoff, for being such stellar guys, and putting all my stuff in my car and saying that i looked nice in my dress :)
and as last night's semi-formal evidenced, there is always someone new and really cool out there to meet, so the long ride to the top does not always have to be about that nirvana page of reading, but maybe a person who also loves ramstein! :)

2004-01-24T00:06:00.000-05:00

tonight, one of my college dreams was realized! (disclaimer: this is by no means the first time this has happened, but this is the first time this semester!) my beautiful housemate abby dragged me from my books to a party across the street, and I had a lot of fun! off came the sweats, the rowing tshirt, the glasses, and last but not least, the stylish brown pullover. on came jeans, heels, green shirt, loud necklace, and I had a 45 min blast with my BEAUTIFUL shamrock ladies! due to an unsightly meeting beginning at 8:30 tomorrow, I could not stay in the revelry. but 45 mins, the 5 girls of shamrock were ROCKING the house as only we can!
so shout out to my awesome ladies!

2004-01-22T17:50:00.000-05:00

Hello Friends!
Maybe it's just that I'm getting older, or maybe it's because I have this college thing down pretty well (most days I would like to think that i do), but sometimes I find myself wondering why I am taking the classes that I am taking, why I'm studying what I'm studying, and what the hell will I do with it all. "It" being an indefinite pronoun that encompasses book wisdom, social experience and self-knowledge, the three things that inundate me every day, every moment, pretty much whenever I do anything, except sleep, and even that relatively simple activity can be complicated by trying to assimilate the massive increase in self-awareness that every day seems to bring into the "me" that I know and that others hopefully know, too.
the thing is, usually i begin to entertain these questions about 6 weeks into the semester, or maybe even 8 or so. At the start of the semester I am intimidated by all the work, the syallabi and their dates in bold, the knowledge of long nights, long weeks all to see if I can "produce" good work and what all this "producing" will lead to in may when the *grades* arrive. This is like the fifth day of class and I am already wondering about the above mentioned questions, which i can sum up as, "Why am I here, and while I am here will i do well, ie, well enough to live up to my standards, which are a lot tougher than any syllabus?" There has been no 6 week dramatic build up to the comfort of routine that allows me to entertain these thoughts. No. I jumped right to it this semster. Maybe the fact that i have been "producing" just fine for the last five semesters has finally registered in my blonde head, and I realize that i don't need to be so overwhelmed at the get go. Eventually I get a routine, and the scholar part of me awakens, and away we go til the end of the semester. I think what plauges me is that I may never get this routine that allows success and stability, yet, here I am already entertaining the thoughts that stability gives rise to. The routine has been disrupted.
yes, this is really how i think.
today, however, I was highly HIGHLY intellectually stimulated. two moments stand out from the blur of classes. The most recent one was in band, of all places, when we played this song called " a night on the bare mountain" or something. All I could think of was the movie "cold mountain" and I was thinking about Jude Law when the song began. and damn, I was snapped out of that pointless little reverie so fast. you know the song, trust me, it's one of those that we all know, but today I got to play it, be a part of that stellar melody designed to pull people out of their pointless little reveries. and the low brass gets this ponderous and solid melody that just sits there, dominating the entire band, with its simple whole notes. It's been a long time (since I rock and rolled :) ) since I have been so drawn into music, but having a preconception of the song and it's melody, I wanted to actually be a part of its aura and I was. it's so bad ass! I remember at this one point staring so intently at the page, trying to think where this whole thing was going. way rad.
the other moment ocurred in my spanish history class, to which I bring candy so that I can jump start my brain halfway through when he's saying all this important stuff really quickly, very much in Spanish, and very profoundly. However, sometimes after he finishes one of his Tirades of Eloquence, he sums it up, in 2 sentences in English. After one such emission of brilliance about Christopher Colombus not being this big shot, he summed it up in English and I had understood everything he said. Other people looked confused. But no, not me. It was my turn to be right there, very much in the game, and eager to learn, just as I was about 3 years ago, when the school part of uva was very new, very scary, and very much obscuring the fun and self-knowledge that i would learn later, about 5 semesters later, now.

2004-01-20T23:38:00.000-05:00

Hello friends!
Don't you all worry, the fact that my mouth is paralyzed cannot diminish my desire to communicate! Scandal! Why, do you ask, is her mouth paralyzed? A spontaneous and frenzied fit of passionate kissing after UVa's win over Clemson? A bit too much inappropriate fun with the robert plant picture? As fun as those all sound, I must confess that an hour plus session of wind ensemble plus the "Winter Playing Ensemble for the Winter Sport Season"''s debut performance tonight has effectively rendered my mouth useless. Plus all this cold weather, makes my mouth look like I'm wearing some really unsightly shade of maroon lipstick. However! the show was a great success, considering the band has met four times before tonight and no one really knew what would happen. Like I didn't know that the trombones would be on a platform in front of the entire band, where all the cameras, newspeople, cheering folk and stupid bystanders got drenched in bonafide trombone spit, whilst all 5 us plus the euphoniums struggled to make sure no one was knocked off our wagon. I also didn't know how much fun it would be! it's empowering to hear yourself playing louder than all the other people around you who are playing loud. Yes, that's it, Rachel, congratulate yourself on being able to blow the hardest...you people can do what you will with that 0:-)
tonight was also a mushy triumph for me as I waltzed into THE CAGE which is a big room of nothing unless it's full of sweaty exhausted athletes, and if you are a rower, that would be at 6:00 AM. I spent many an early morning in THE CAGE hurting like there was no tomorrow, which in effect, there wasn't after practice, so my nihilistic realization was correct and prompted me to quit crew. NEVER in my life did I think I would return to THE CAGE, let alone with a trombone that UVa gave me to play in the Basketball Band, with a window of opportunity for marching band in the future. that was weird. It was also weird to lead people to THE CAGE:
Person: where is THE CAGE?
Me: oh it's that big room right in here (DUH)
person: wow it's big
Me: yeah wow it looks different when it's daytime and you are awake. where are my spandex shorts? oh my god, not an erg! oh good, it's just the air conditioning on. phewww...no ERGS please NO ERGS!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
person: right...um, i'm going to go over here now....

perhaps a bit exaggerated, but it's been one long day. but i am so proud that i was at the Bball band's first performance! go me! go us! go HOOs!
and very few things can make me lose my voice, but i was close today!

ANNOUCEMENT: just so we allll know, none other than the big g requested that I write in my blog!
good night!

2004-01-14T13:37:00.000-05:00

the half-hour workouts i have spent with my beautiful housemates over the last week have taught me a couple of things. first, you really can't walk if you can't feel your lower body. Second, grunting and screaming with every lift of your leg or crunch of your butt can be meaningful communication. Third, women are NOT ridiculous for throwing themselves down on the floor and doing obsessive, undignified exercises to smooth their behinds.
if this were an analytical and academic paper, I would treat each of these points in turn, but academic it's not, so i'm not going to. also, the third point that women are NOT ridiculous, pretty much sums it up.
What is it with the butt? If we trace its historical and cultural significance, we can see that women are forced to live in the Age of A**. Consider the musical creations that the butt has given rise to. That sir mixalot song, baby got back. I quote: "My anaconda don't want none unless you got buns hon!" Can we say eww? No self-respecting woman is going to give a care that some weirdo singing to an upbeat and catchy but rather sketchy song about her buns is a bit over-excited that there is a girl within a 10 foot radius. And who said that this "hon" even wanted "any" of what he is offering in the first place? Another choice lyric involves sir mixalot dissing Jane Fonda for promoting the loss of the glorified butt through the obsessive and undignified floor exercises previously mentioned. well do you know WHY women are so bent on losing that butt? To keep sketchy guys like sir mixalot away!
Other songs like the thong song and the one that says "you can do it put your a** into it" clearly prove that AGAINST women's will, our butts are constantly at the forefront of attention. well, through ergging, responsible eating, workout tapes, and sheer will, it is our goal to keep our butts in the background, where they belong both physically and in a higher spiritual sense. if we have no butt, than sketchy guys can't write sketchy songs about us, or approach in us in an uncouth fashion on the dance floor, or make snitty comments. so men, when women appear to lower themselves quite literally by lying out on the floor crunching away, it is the ultimate protest against the Age of A**, the ultimate empowerment, and it just shows how cool we are.
so no girl can be this saintly, and I for one LOVE all the songs i have mentioned and I don't mind being approached in an uncouth fashion on the dance floor. SO one can also argue, and i'm going to do so right now, that when women obsess over their butts, it is just because we are so good, and so put together, and so smart, that we must make sure that every detail of our being is as good as it can get, and that my friends, is pretty good.
so ladies, through these powers of analyzation, we can all see that no matter what we do or do not do for our butts, we are always right. tsss!

2004-01-12T21:32:00.000-05:00

hello friends!
while the rest of you struggle to adjust to being back at school, I am riding high, feeling as though I never left uva. maybe that's because I barely did. I stayed until the last day of finals and came back last monday, willingly robbing myself of a full week of vacation in the name of a business education. or maybe it's just because I'm that good. in either case, I've made this week most productive. Take tonight, for example: Edited resume. Reduced each entry by one line. Implemented more effective action verbs. Wept when removed "plan to study abroad summer 2004". Organized activities list to show full range of involvement, otherwise known as "why am i doing this chaos" during the semester. Experienced frustration with margin issues. Concluded by not giving a damn.
For being so objective, resumes sure can be personal. With the click of a mouse tonight I deleted four years of work in high school that got me to UVA and made me a valedictorian. According to that one sheet of paper, I must have sprung out of TJ's head, like Athena did from Zeus, because there is nothing on there to suggest a life before WahooWa. After brief deliberation, I wiped my record clean that I ever rowed for UVA, or rowed at all. or was part of a sorority. or volunteered with adopt a grandparent. In the name of space, I reduced the language skills that I'm so proud of to two lines.
Even though i do it, I hate judging other people, so it is really awkward to judge myself. and isn't that what a resume is? a mini-judgement day in which your achievements and....not so great achievements come to light?

RESUME: RACHEL, GET WITH THE PROGRAM, YOU BASICALLY WATCHED MENTALLY CHALLENGED KIDS PEE ALL SUMMER

me: no, no, please, I supervised them and incorporated their specialized goals into the potty breaks, such as "must pull pants up by themselves", which is hard for most of-

RESUME: RACHEL, THE ONLY THING YOU TRULY "DESIGNED" THIS SUMMER WAS A GAME INVOLVING PUSHING A BALL OF PLAYDOH AROUND ON THE TABLE. WHO WON?

me: no, no, don't eat me, i won, I found away to keep 8 easily excited kids from discovering that they could, in fact, burn down the room with the seven ovens in our classroom, why they put us in that-

RESUME: SO IN EFFECT YOU STIFLED THEIR CREATIVITY AND THEIR DISCOVERY OF THE OUTSDIE WORLD. AND THE ONLY CULTURAL EXCHANGE YOU GOT WORKING WITH THE KOREAN KINDERGARTNERS WAS A GERM OF STOMACH FLU, JUST TRY TO MARKET THAT, MWAHAAHAH

me: no, no, I made a point of teaching them Spanish and German words...you know, ESL as a global value, important for them-

RESUME: SPEAKING OF GERMAN, WEREN'T YOU SUPPOSED TO GO TO GERMANY THIS NEXT SUMMER?

ME: DON'T GO THERE, F***ER!

with friends like Mr. Resume, who needs Career Counselors? I must report happily, however, that i've racked up some academic honors to speak against my blonde highlights, and I have activities that show I do in fact, get off my butt occassionally and experience all that "mr. jefferson's university" has to offer. I am glad that I don't have room for an interest section...the career guide SAYS to be unique. oh i can see it now, instead of jogging, reading and cooking, i would have:

anything to do with led zeppelin \m/, because who doesn't like socks for cocks?
ergging in spandex in a hot gym room with no chance of socializing with other gym-goers GO AWAY I'M ERGGIN
putting my car at risk to go drive and look for deer "oh they are so cute"!
reading with the explicit purpose of NOT understanding what I read, 'cuz chances are in english it's not
making really loud farting noises, with my mouth, because I'm so suave
sex and the city! but i can be professional really! (uncrosses and crosses legs)
james horner music-because I can most relate to a somewhat psycho patriot with blue face paint, a schizophrenic
mathematician, two great ventures of man, one in space and one in the atlantic, that ended in disaster, and a kid
dinosaur movie (he really does rock and those are the best movies!)
did I mention that I should have sprung out of TJ's head as a mermaid?

ahh resumes are fun!

2004-01-09T20:56:00.000-05:00

11 years ago this fall, mr. mitchell saw me eyeing the trumpet after the band instrument presentation, and asked the fifth grade me why I wanted to play the trumpet. When he saw that I didn't really have an answer, he pulled a mouthpiece out of his pocket and somehow tactfully suggested to me and my mother that I consider the trombone because I have a large mouth and the trombone has a larger mouthpiece. Well, not much has changed. I still have a big mouth, but now I have 10 years of experience with that trombone. that's half of my life almost.
way back in the day, man i was good. i was first chair, did district band, private lessons, solo and ensemble, I was in symphonic band grades 7-12, of course was in marching band and was a section leader for 3 of my 4 years, had an awesome range and i PRACTICED. i can recall coming home from 6th grade and playing this one song over and over again, trying to hit that high F before the middle school band audition. I remember practicing sight reading like it was my job in eighth grade, so wesley would never beat me again in an audition,and he didn't, for the district band that year, or high school symphonic band the next. then as i started to row and row well, practicing became that item on the list that just did not fit into my extremely tight home at 7:30 do work til 10 schedule. it was just a burden, and combined with anti-brass music my senior year, i put away my tbone when i graduated and was so glad, because it was no longer fun for me.
then i got to uva, and the fall of my second year I decided to try wind ensemble because it required no reading, and the music does not have any spanish or german written on the page. and I still don't practice nearly as fanaticly as i used to, and I relish being last chair. i relish not worrying about my chair placement, not having people behind that might challenge me any minute, I enjoy not being section leader as a sophomore and having everyone hate me as I try to lead them. NO. and tonight, I pulled out my trombone because I have pep band practice in a few days and i don't want to get my mouth stuck in my mouthpiece as it swells after two months of non-use. and as I sat there, I went through my old duet books, and I still remembered which ones were my favorites. so i just played those. no, i don't practice the note fronts, or anything, i just PLAY because I still sound good and i love this music. and i've started figuring out the themes to my favorite movies. I just play. it's profound to say for the first time ever after dinner, I'm going to go PLAY the trombone, not PRACTICE. it's amazing to me what joy I find in my music when I don't have to impress anyone, especially myself. it's taken me 10 years to ease my death grip on perfection and being the best I can be in music, and it's energizing to not care nearly as much as I used to.
profound? self-inflated? who knows. I had fun playing alone tonight, in my little room, with music that used to be largely a bunch of notes to perfect and slide patterns to figure out and high notes to hit. I always enjoyed playing til the very end, but it was always playing to achieve as-good-as-i-can-be results. now it's just pretty music, and it's mine, and I play to enjoy it. I suppose that if i had a "creative" side like my other friends who can compose, play guitar for living, draw, make their own clothes, etc... it's a mix between the trombone and writing. I just realized tonight that trombone does make me creative and artistic, and it took me this whole blog entry, and the last year at uva in wind ensemble, to figure that out.

2004-01-07T22:25:00.000-05:00

hello folks,
we are about due for a nice blog update, but not now :( ah, almost had you going there, didn't i? mad shout outs are in order: first, the big is 21! happy birthday! \m/ second, jon has sent me daily e-mails so i'm not too lonely! third, astrid and laura are the coolest housemates ever, and I was quoteworthy today.

this is astrid paraphrasing me:
Rachel on Kathy Smith Buns & Thighs:
"... and when you cant move anymore, you manhandle yourself over to the other side and do it again!"
"...and when you finish theres just this fire, this awful burning in your butt... its like MORDOR!"

thankfully, i have a week before I actually need my brain and thinking skills. but YOU do that tape, and see how YOU feel, after 15 minutes of buns and thighs. in a final plug for dignity, i haven't used this workout tape in probably 3 years, but somehow we got talking about it tonight as we cooked. and, in case you were wondering, breaking spaghetti in half, putting it in water, and microwaving it for about 10 minutes IS as good as boiling the water the traditional way!
night!

2004-01-02T20:53:00.000-05:00

Hello friends and Happy New Year!
I just got back from California, and since I cannot bring myself to unpack and then re-pack for school, I'm writing in my blog. The temptation that this blog thing offers me does not bode well for time management in the spring semester! :) wow, what a trip! this will NOT be a daily recounting of what we did: and then i looked out the other car window, thinking, wow, this car is becoming a four-wheel prison, and saw a sign that said los angeles was still 250 miles away! no, this is a way for me to reconnect with the very thing that makes returning to reality from a holiday high easier: you all :) i missed you guys! i had many stories to share with the family about my shamrock girls, my wesley ladies, the big g, and jmu friends. in all reality, i've been dyint to write in my blog and rip the "legal age of 21" a new you-know-what because i found out in vegas that it's STUPID. since when is fighting in a war less corrupting than playing a slot machine? yet alas, my ravings will have to wait until later. we got up at 5 this morning, and every day for the last 10 days we went to bed at 2, drove through California, nevada and arizona, went to the rose bowl, toured LA, and put 1600 miles on the above-mentioned rental car. awesome trip, can't believe i go back to school in like 3 days!
happy new year!

2003-12-22T23:34:00.000-05:00

hello everyone :)
well this could be the last blog post until 2004! shock! tomorrow my family and i are going to california (sorry big g, no aching in my heart quite yet) to have the first family christmas out there since 1989. i suppose I said that earlier in my blog, but i still can't believe it, so repetition seems necessary. this time tomorrow (california time, you do the math, i still can't) we should be landing! wow.
do you ever dread vacations because you must face your room and pack before you can (escape) leave? I believe that most of the stress that this experience creates comes from our very attempts to avoid it. example: creating an itemized list of the things you will need as you think through the trip. if you are like me, you even highlight it according to the following scientific classifications: top, bottom, shoe, bag, accessory (what is an accessory really, all i know is that it gets a green highlighter). the kicker is, once you confront your room with this specific list, you must actually find the items that you wrote down, and it's simply not possible to go in the order of the list. it's simply not. so if i have written "banana republic brown sweater" down as the first thing on my list, it strikes me as odd that i must first pack a sweater before i pack my underwear. so why didn't i start my list with underwear? does that mean that i am more concerned with a sweater than with the necessary unmentionables? is this my inner robert plant/50 cent trying to make a christmas appearance? so what i do is i start with my underwear, and then i think, oh bras, and then finally, i feel emotionally ready to begin sweaters. meanwhile, the list has yet to be used. I enjoy a spurt of productivity, glance at my list as i cast it aside to make room for another "organized pile", and then feel compelled to cross off from the list everything that i have packed. why make the list at all? all this back and forth makes me feel flustered, as if i don't know what to pack, when in fact, the list is proof that I DO know what to pack. just not the order. WOMEN! :)
back to the list: even if i go in order of the list, I usually arrive at an item and then PANIC because I realize that this item requires another item I did not even think of. example: rain jacket....hmm, that means it could be cold, oh i need a sweatshirt, oh gosh it might rain, i should get an umbrella, no one ever thinks to pack an umbrella, but I WILL and i won't be wet and miserable, MWAHAHAHAH. then I must find the umbrella and find the sweatshirt to complete the rain jacket web/prewriting/venn diagram ensemble. this usually takes longer than it should, especially since I never really unpacked from coming home. by the time i find the umbrella and sweatshirt, I've lost my train of thought, made more of a mess, yet that list still taunts me...highlighted...itemized...and utterly useless.
ok big g, there's your aching in my heart. anxiety about packing :)
i'm psyched for the trip! vegas :) even though i'm not 21....grrr..........
well that's about all i have. oh yes ANNOUNCEMENT: VICTORIA'S SECRET HAS NO MORE LARGE BOXES, MEDIUM BOXES, OR ANY SIZE OR COLOR THAT YOU WANT. that's right, they have nothing that you the customer want to buy and we the associates want to sell. yet they have boxes and boxes of clearanced stuff in the back for the semi annual sale that starts right after they make soooo much at christmas. yes, they are trying to take over the world, one panty at a time. as aaron would say, great day in the Lord, or something :) i've found the best way to diffuse such tense situations:
Irate client: you mean i paid $75 for a robe and you have no box?
me: yes sir, i'm sorry, we have no large boxes.
Irate client: but I need a box
me: i'm sorry sir, we ran out of boxes and they just haven't sent any in (don't eat me)
irate client: that's ridiculous
me: 'tis the season!

'tis the season is the best line EVER. it needs to be in a 50 cent song or something! it's just the right way of pointing out that they are supposed to be NICE when shopping and that everyone else is shopping hence NO boxes!
everyone have a wonderful christmas and a happy new year! thank you all for being such blessings every day of the year.
filthy i'm not,
Rachel

2003-12-20T14:23:00.000-05:00

ah, after a few days break, I figure it is time to write something. i finally got rid of that horrendous cold, and now my brother and mom are on break, so it does feel more like the holidays! lying on the couch with kleenex and pirates of the caribbean on repeat in an empty house doesn't exactly scream "FESTIVE! MERRY CHRISTMAS!" you know what does though? UNDERWEAR and BRAS! yes, for the third christmas in a row I am wearing my merry black uniform as I guide clueless men and frantic women to the under-the-clothes items of their dreams. so far,no one has been punched. and I have seen some extremely cute father-daughter couples trying to shop for mom! (i work at victoria's secret) i think, however, under the cute familial appearance, the men really use their little girls as shields. Example: asking, "what color would mom like?" diverts the saleswoman from noticing that dad has no clue what color mom would like., or why it's called "arctic blue" in the catalogue when it's really just blue and has a polar bear print. Or, "which pajama set do you like better?" hides the fact that the man doesn't know why a tank top means it's 9 dollars more, or why a tank top is necessary when you can't even see it.
I'm just kidding :) any guy that shops for anyone in that store is stellar because they seek to give women the one thing they need most; a sense of enduring femininity. and it's one of my favorite parts of the job; helping fathers and daughters pick stuff out for mom (take notes, all you men). it's refreshing to see families out together, and seeing the dad-daughter team in action reminds me of when I was younger and I would do cool stuff like that with dad :) even though we still do cool stuff together (like that anti-analytical paper repetition?), there is innocence in that shopping that doesn't happen when you pass a certain age. suddenly, conversations become more serious, instead of what color, the question is what college, or more recently, what graduate school. and the occassions of such quality time are intermediate honors ceremonies, or surprise lunch breaks during finals week, or sipping a mike's hard lemonade (scandal, but seriously those are good 0-: ) ) on the deck during fall break as a paper-writing break. no more piling into the car to go get a part for the car, or going out to the park, fixing something together in the garage, or splashing in the shallow end of my aunt's pool, or snorkeling out to the reef on guam, or observing the sky together at night on guam or having my dad "sharpen" my blue colored pencil with a knife during a typhoon because we have no power and i just HAD to draw an island for my map project, complete with a spacious blue ocean. ahh, those were the days.
the funny thing is that those serious occassions and their appropriately serious conversations are becoming quite routine and they are....fun. that's weird. it's weird that i am used to such talk, which is decidedly grown-up and recalls echoes of my cousins' college years, when i was like, wow, college sounds old. it's rather exciting in it's own sick way. i feel sometimes, however, that i am literally DROWNING in options. some days, i would much rather go on a hike on my dad's back to see "redfern rapids" on adak, alaska, than wonder, gee, i guess i could go to graduate school...or maybe I should not...wow, i could go to law school, but hmm...what am i doing this summer?
yes, drowning in options. having options is a blessing. it just takes a lot of thinking and work to sort through them, work which is overwhelming. endless e-mails, people who never call back, jobs that fall through, etc...i suppose it is time to put that grown up feeling in action and just get all that crap going. waiting never helps. and I know i will. it's just not exciting, and i do wonder with all these things I could do if i will ever find what i should do. this is where faith comes in. there must be something higher than all my blog-ly musings to direct me along what i need to. jon's mom once said "let go and let god" and i find that to be truly helpful when I feel a bit overwhelmed. at least I know that bra sizes don't just come in letters, there are important numbers attached to them, too like 34, 36...sigh :)
hygiene on my mind (mad shout out to 50 cent and all the rip off songs!)
rachel

2003-12-17T19:54:00.000-05:00

Hello Friends!
I have no idea who will actually read this during the break, but I figure when we get back to c'ville, we'll all need some quality excuses for...study breaks (procrastination!) and all our blog entries will fit the bill! This is my second full day back at home, and I find that my head and my *heart* (tear) are still very much in charlottesville. actually, I have a nasty cold after too much studying, and, the more likely culprit, too much FUN and late nights during finals, so i have no idea where my head really is. I'm rather out of it :) but like i was saying, I even worked at good ol' vicki's last night, and I found myself wondering, "what is lisa doing? i miss kristin...gee, last time this week was day 1 of the Study Camp Fun...huh i kind of miss my girls and trying to open that stupid door. am i in da tub yet?" with musings like these, this is the first time ever in my 3 years at uva that i have looked forward to going back to school. FINALLY, i've found some awesome ladies that care about me, think like me, are hot like me (JUST KIDDING, or am i? see, it's that cold medicine), and are just so fun! now I know we all have read about study camp 2003 but wow! add 1 first year guy or 2 into that mix and what a fun week. truly a blessing, to wrap up the fall with such a comfortable atmosphere that you can make loud noises and try to overextend your hip joint. it will be such a fun spring!! :)
man, this whole vacation thing is RAD. i've gotten up way late, and somehow always find my way to the couch, and since no one (me) has bothered to remove the pirates of the caribbean dvd after they (i) watched it last, i end up watching it yet again. SCORE!
I know that i have a few peeps out there that are waiting for my analysis of Zoolander v. Old School, and I promise I will deilver! I have yet to find the way that allows me to best organize all my profound thoughts....more to come on that soon!
I miss everyone! oh but it's so nice to be home! everyone rest up and enjoy the break :)
be careful when you scrub,
Rachel

2003-12-14T23:49:00.000-05:00

hello friends!
this weekend marks the culmination of so many things. first and most obviously das semester! it's over! just when you think that it can't get any longer (and we aren't talking about bananas, miss b, haha) it suddenly comes and goes. this week has been a lot of fun, and as always i am swamped with nostalgia. for christmas, my family and I are going home to california- our first christmas there since 1989!!!!!!! wow! weirdness! we also in our fairfax va home busted out the "guam christmas tree", a fake christmas tree that survived many a typhoon and saw much joy in my family on that tiny island. i haven' t seen that thing since 4th grade. and now here I am in college, pondering things like studying abroad, graduate school, and how to avoid killing myself by falling on all my s-bomb lying around my room :) wow.
on a less profound note, i think i am losing it. by "it" you can substitute any of the following words: social competence, intelligence, sanity, composure, health, mental clarity, eloquent speech, etc... so i made flashcards for about 70 or so poem selections that may or may not (they better be) on my engl 383 final, also know affectionately as "the class from HELL". as a study "break" i wrote a list of what i needed to get done tonight so that I can leave (drive off!) tomorrow. it went something like the following:
pack
put stuff in car
leave out what have on

soooooo a few hours later as I am singing along to the who, surrounded by literature and pens, I come upon this card and PANIC. WHO THE HELL WROTE THIS????? OH NO! HOW DO I NOT EVEN REMEMBER WHO WROTE THIS? so i start looking through allllllll my notes, and then yes friends i realize that it was only my list. ahhh i definitely can laugh at myself, but this blonde moment almost invoked tears. i have memorized about 70 parts of poems. ugh my head!
on a final note, i had a great time today working out with my girls! i never thought about the gym as a social place with mah ladies, but it was fun! i also got to bench press with an actual bar with abby! and wow! i did 65 pounds! not bad for a girl who uses 2 20 pound free weights to bench for "tone". i found that to be highly cool!!!!!!!!!
well everyone have a great break and happy holiday and i'll see you all in 2004! :)
rock on!
rachel

2003-12-13T14:49:00.000-05:00

as I sit here with my zeppelin cd on, gazing out the window at the winter day, my brain feeling as fragmented as one of the modernist works i'm studying, I realize that I have learned a lot this week, and it hasn't necessarily been about german, law and english. I learned that I am "blessed" with the gift of gas. We'll call it GOG for short, because it's THAT COOL! if I position my hands around my mouth in a certain way and give a large blow, I can make what is quite possibly the single most unglamorous sound. and i do it loudly! seriously people, i thought everyone had a GOG, but no 'tis me :) with this power I can single-handedly destroy any chance for anyone in the room to a) study and b) respect me ever again. however, since I am with the best study crew in the world, such sketchy behavior is welcomed! This goes back to the whole theme of the first blog: not taking myself too seriously that i can't let a nice GOG out! another hidden talent: I can put my foot behind my head! yes, me standing at almost 5 foot 11, can bend as short tinier people do, and as no one really should be able to! so there all you petite peeps! ROCK ON! TALL PEOPLE CAN BE FLEXIBLE, TOO!
for all of you wondering how i'm so talented, the answer is that erg machine. miss barbiere and her sweet behind (tssss) can attest to how this machine does wonders for flexbility and cardio! also, it helps that I have been surrounded by the COOLEST people in the world this week! just when you think you can't handle all that finals expect of you, you find support and comfort in 2 other stellar ladies and one lucky first year dude. i can't say how much our sketchiness has helped me this week :) now that i'm over the hill (haha), meaning that i have spent more time at uva than I have left to spend, I am just amazed at the friends i have found. if you had EVER told the first year me, the rowing, sorority me, who felt so displaced as she sought to try everything uva had to offer, that she would have lisa, kristen, bethany and caroline as my ladies, and other stellar wesley people like aaron, and big g, as my friends, I would have been like WTF! :) that my friends was a poorly constructed sentence but i don't care; it's modeled on german grammar.....
i must also write about the big g, aka gardner creech, who hates blogs, yet will check mine every day to make sure that i'm not writing in it every day. gardner is another example of how I have achieved the college ideal of "friends for life". big g and i went to the same high school yet we never talked (robinson is a HUGE school). it was fated that we lived in adjacent dorms our first year. big g is seriously one bad....hmm....very cool guy! and last night we totally just chilled for about 3 hours and it was such fun (burp!). so, to all you first years reading this (don't waste time with blogs like upperclassmen do!) YOU WILL find those friends that you will love for life! you will! look at me, i did and i'm farting, freudian slipping singing zeppelin and stretching my success and blessings everyday.
so to my ladies: you rock my world :) it doesn't get much better than you all.
i guess i ought to put on some clothes that don't scream: "look at me during finals week, i spent 10 minutes picking out the clothes that would make me look like I don't care what i'm wearing". that would be ideal. good luck to everyone in the last push of studying (or not!)
filthy i'm not,
Rachel

2003-12-11T21:21:00.000-05:00

hello everyone!
this is my first official blog post, and a certain friend of mine (you know who you are) has already given me considerable grief about my decision to join the blog community (GARDNER). and this same person is one of many that have told me that I need to please write poetry, please write creatively. This blog (here comes the thesis!) is my first attempt in a long while to write creatively, as in NOT about a book or a poem, but about my thoughts and feelings at a time of transition in my life. gee, that sounds like great fun...well it will be :)
i have to start off by being mushy (right there, an introductory sentence and an adjective i would NEVER use in a paper). if you are reading this, chances are that you are one of the things that I am most grateful for in my life. My house girls, my wesley ladies, jon, big g, really everyone. this semester marks the first one where I really had a SOCIAL life, as in wonderful wonderful people to do really cool things with on a regular basis with no stress about worrying if i would be included. Like painting myself for the tech game, having SATC nights, fawning over men in the wind ensemble. I love my wesley ladies! i certainly feel blessed by the people that i have in my life.
i find it ironic that at this halfway point in my college career, the two things that i can most relate to are led zeppelin (robert plant!) and john donne. seriously, it is not a big jump from arguing that if a flea has bitten a man and a woman then they should have sex since their fluids are already mixed ("the flea" john donne) and telling someone to squeeze his lemon til the juice runs down his legs ("the lemon song", led zeppelin).
John donne appeals to me because one must sit down and actually tear apart his poetry in order to figure out what he's saying. anyone can sit there, read it and be like, oh yeah it's about a flea. but deep down inside (and to anyone who knows donne who hears him say this) that person has NO idea what the speaker is arguing, and has no idea that the speaker has outwitted him. There is no easy way to emerge victorious from an enconter with a donne poem.
in our society, we expect everything to be handed to us predigested on silver platter. we absorb words and infortmation by putting minimal time into engaging with the material. 'tis not so with the big JD. you might think that 20 lines is a no brainer, but he DEMANDS that you go along for a ride, and figure out what he's saying, how and if you are lucky why. people have lost the idea that arguing and persuading with language can be WAY sexy and way effective...i wonder what john donne would think about being dicussed on an online journal?
Now on to Robert plant. those tight pants. apparently he was a really nice guy, yet he uses music and lyrics as a way of releasing everyone's inner naughtiness and energy that can be stifled by everyday duties and routine. Routine is good, but one must remember to let loose occassionally and listen to some dirty lyrics and friggin good rock n' roll. the title of my blog is thus a tribute to one of my favorite zeppelin songs. it starts out very peaceful and respectful with the guitar, and then BAM! the same guitar suddenly explodes into a way sweet rocking out. it's so uninhibited and unapologetic. (i also like other music, from classical to now, although i'm very much a classic rock girl, anything but country/blue grass really).
I suppose that these ramblings mean, a) no one is reading my blog anymore because i've gotten way weird or b) somewhere along the way in college i realized that i don't ever want to lose my intellectual curiousity and ability to rock out and not take myself too seriously. really, i never want to lose the ability to laugh at myself. hence, study camp this week has been RAD! sketchy sketchy! shout out to aaron, lisa and kristen for laughint at pretty much everything!! :)
and i must thank jon for helping me set this up. jon goes to jmu and has been one of my best friends without a doubt for the last 4 years. and after i chewed him out for wanting to start a blog, haha. i dare you jon to count the syllables in this entry :)
so that is more than enough, thankfully i have not much to do until tomorrow when i start studying for the english class from hell. hope all is well with you all :)
study hard!

2003-12-11T20:17:00.000-05:00

hello :)
in response to the ever-growing trend with everyone posting blogs, jon has helped me(basically he did it, and i came up with dumb titles) make one of my own! i guess i will explain later my more deep and profound reasons than just "everyone is doing it" later...so you will have to stay tuned!!!!!!!