Good Company, and Double Chocolate Chip Cookies.

So I am friends with a girl named Pauline.

I have talked about her before. She's a Sophomore, I'm a Senior. We share three classes together. She was born a pregnancy plus a few weeks after I was. Currently, we are both sixteen.

Anyways, I had her over earlier, and it was just... I haven't had proper conversation and relaxation and baking and movie watching since before I moved here, back when my ex-best friend didn't have an "ex" in her title. I haven't just properly hung out with anyone or relaxed with anyone outside of my family within my home in so long that I just need to write this down and commit it to memory.

In general, I have few truly intelligent friends. I have smart friends, but not many straight up intellectual friends who were gifted in elementary school and not just pushed hard by their parents. Pauline is one of those few people that I know, and she is one of maybe two of those that I know who is just a completely wonderful person to be around all the time. Even when she is complaining, she's the type of person that I want to cheer up instead of avoiding.

So we talked about school when we were younger, I kind of blurted out a ton of useless crap about moving all the time. We talked about glee, and books, and music, and the muppets, and 3D movies, and cheerleaders, and the vlogbrothers, and our experiences on youtube. We talked about music theory, and teaching music, and music teachers, and dancing, and ballet, and winter guard... So much.

We baked double chocolate chip cookies, the first thing I've made sweets wise that has not been chocolate chip cookies, brownies, or a cake. We finished making it, then decided that there clearly wasn't enough batter, and made more, this time doing everything sort of our of order because we were adding it to already made dough. And then we baked it, and on the fourth and last tray for the oven, we realized there were a ton of chocolate chips that had ended up on the bottom, and proceeded to add all of them to the last tray, making these sort of monster cookies.

We ate almost a full tray of cookies before we had pulled the next tray out of the oven.

Then we hung out in my room for a bit. No one ever sees my room. And Pauline told me that she liked how my bookshelves were the focal point of the room, and I had never even noticed before. And we talked and talked and talked and went downstairs to eat pizza and talked and talked and talked...

Then my dad was done playing LA Noire, and we watched winnie the pooh (the new one) with my dad. Then he left and we watched glee season 1 bonus features, and just talked some more. There was a lot of talking. I never talk so much without feeling exhausted. I talk to Crosby and I feel exhausted because he makes his jokes all of the time. I talk to Courtney, and I get exhausted because we both have just too much to tell each other, and we simply can't have the conversations we need to have over a phone. I get exhausted talking to Kat because we mostly just end up complaining about school or people. But I didn't get exhausted talking tonight, and I wish that pauline could have stayed longer because I just want to keep talking.

We also calculated that it would take 3 years and either a sex change operation on our end, or a sudden loss of homosexuality in Chris Colfer that would make us old enough and the right gender to date him. Six years for Heather Morris or Darren Criss (though Criss has a girlfriend, and Morris is straight I think...). This is all using the equation that says the youngest you can date is half your age plus seven.

She also told me about how she was in Panama one time, and she saw a llama finger puppet, and immediately bought it. She brought it with her when she went to see the glee concert last summer, along with a letter. She waited outside with her friends after the show (who also had letters for cast members) hoping to get to see them and then they had to leave early for a show the next day, so they didn't get to see them, and that box with the finger puppet is still in her room.

She told me how while waiting out there, she noticed that everyone else was clearly there because they wanted something from these people. They wanted signatures and pictures and things like that, whereas all Pauline and her friends wanted was to give something back to the people who they felt gave them so much.

I'm writing this all down because I need to commit it to memory, because I haven't been so happy and relaxed in so long.

I haven't had anyone to talk to who didn't seem to be expecting something from me in so long.

And after all this it seems like I am completely gushing right now, and I totally am, no lies about it. And you know what, if Pauline liked girls and I didn't need friends more now than relationships, and if I wasn't already good friends with Pauline and I'd just had this time with her (and I say this fully being aware that I plan to link her to this post) I would be crushing on her like no tomorrow. But I'm not, and I just need to put it out there that in this moment, I have a friend and I am happy.
~Jess the Nerdfighting BandGeek

PS: Winter break is never long enough.

I got a kindle for Christmas

And I feel terrible because the more time I spend with the thing, the less I like it.

Don't get me wrong, there are benefits. When I go to college, I'm not going to be able to cart two bookshelves with me, but a kindle is no issue. The books are a bit (though not much) cheaper. Classic books that are under public domain are free, which means no reading on my laptop or paying money for books I don't really want (you can be sure that my winter break lit assignment is being downloaded and read for free on my kindle).

But there is something so very wrong about not having a physical book in my hands. I'm used to adjusting myself a few times while I read, and paging through to find my place. I like to share my books with people, and love being able to say "yeah, I have to bookshelves, and not enough space for them".

On my bookshelf right now, are maybe twenty or twenty five books signed by various authors... (I just counted, 23 books with 24 signatures -one was let it snow, which I have signed by john green and maureen johnson). And I found myself hesitating to buy and preorder the name of the star and the fault in our stars respectively, because what if I get to meet MJ again? And John signed thousands of pages of TFioS, and that wouldn't be on an ebook. I have a lot of memories too, of going to get books signed. When I went to get my MJ books signed, I met other nerdfighters, won a book, and ended up becoming a huge fan of one of the other authors that was there (sarah mlynowski if you were wondering. I read gimme a call before the signing just so I would have read something by all the authors there, and I felt it was brilliant).

And two weeks ago, in my complete frustration with Shakespeare, I ripped out a few pages of act one. I've never felt so much relief from a simple act. And I'm not about to go breaking a hundred dollar object to get a similar satisfaction.

I bought perfect by Ellen Hopkins on ebook, but I now realize that her books are formatted to make specific pictures and things of the like, which will be impossible to see until I fix my text size so that the pages match up.

I just feel like there's something so special about physical books that cannot be replicated by an electronic. And I know that I'm likely to end up buying the physical copies of the books I really fall in love with while reading on my kindle.

I'm still completely grateful for it, and trust me, I will be reading up a storm these next few days, and my back will be thankful when school starts and I'm not trucking around three books in my bag for the small chance that I might have a spare second to read.

Perhaps I will find it more enjoyable when the pottermore store opens and I can read harry potter while listening to the audiobook off of my one device. Because trust me, I am VERY excited for that.

I hope you all had a merry christmas. I sure did! And I guess I'll be seeing you around.
~Jess the Nerdfighting BandGeek

PS: Somnambulance, I don't know whether to be pleased or happy that I've made you cry. I honestly thought that post was rather bad myself, but I'm glad that it touched you that much! And I'm just curious, how did you find the blog? New people don't really show up here, particularly since I don't follow many blogs myself.

A Poem-ish Thing

This isn't really poetry, it's just what ended up spewing out of me earlier. The random spewing of someone who hasn't done any writing for fun in too long, unedited, so there's probably quite a lot that could be better, especially since it took a little for me to figure out a rhythm. Enjoy?


He liked glee, and so did she.
By musical television did they meet.
And little by little they fell in love.

He took her to see Winnie the Pooh.
Left notes in the most unexpected places.
Ever the gentleman he was.

She read him books on long car rides.
Sent songs over email that she knew he would like.
Perfect as far as he could ever be concerned.

They began to give up themselves to each other.
Spending more time together than apart.
Forgetting a world existed outside of them.

She learned she was pregnant.
Notated by a simple pink line.
The world was crashing down.

Their ambitions and dreams were gone.
How had it happened?
When had they forgotten them.

They fell in to a complacent life.
Nothing ever perfect.
But everything was good enough to not notice.

He realized they were in a rut.
Twenty-six, and all the joy was gone from her eyes.
Yet he knew they could escape it.

Clyde was left at her sister's house.
A road trip, just like when they were young.
Still, not quite the same.

They could never be the same.
Things they had loved were no longer there.
And little by little they fell out of love.

She watched movies during the day.
Remembered everything that needed to be done.
Ever independent, yet still a housewife.

He read hundreds of memos a day.
Listened to music on the radio.
Bored out of his mind, all the same.

Clyde asked "What is love?"
They didn't remember.
How could they answer?

She realized there was nothing left to their marriage.
Three kids out of the house, and he looked exhausted.
She knew she could fix it.

They went to see a movie.
Dressed to the nines.
But what was there to talk about?

He started seeing someone else.
Behind her back.
And he felt horrible, but saw no alternative.

She found out.
No way not to.
So they split further apart.

They fought every second.
Screaming that all the neighbors could hear.
Not that they cared anymore.

She was looking through old boxes the night before the divorce finalized.
Looking for an old cookbook.
And she found a particular box.

He had left notes on every item.
Burned CD's, annotated books, boxed sets of tv shows.
All the notes were memories.

"Annie's Anniversary Present.
Didn't even know she knew I'd been wanting a Doctor Who box set."
It was the result of her drilling every person he knew to annoyance.

"Clyde's First Book.
Read it together on the trip to my parents'."
And then read it hundreds times thereafter.

She couldn't take it.
Had to call him.
But he didn't pick up.

She left a simple voicemail.
Hoped it was enough.
Because it was the rest of her heart.

"I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks."
Last road trip before she found out.
And he'd laughed for what seemed like hours.

She couldn't remember when they'd ever been that happy their after.
Probably hadn't been.
But maybe this was their last chance.

He texted her back later that night.
Not a note, because he no longer had a key.
"Yet what he'd really seen was his broken family whole."

He wanted to be whole again, and so did she.
By cellular phone did they reconcile.
And little by little, they fell in love again.


~Jess the Nerdfighting BandGeek

You Have No Idea

I've been really busy. Monumentally busy.

I've had a dog die, a brief mental breakdown, finals, the begining of winter guard... I'm honestly entirely exhausted. I feel like all I need right now is to just sleep for a good two days while lying about, alternating between reading and staring at the ceiling.

This all, added with the fact that I know my privacy has been breached here has honestly kept me away. But I've missed this and you so much, and I just need this so badly, you can have no idea.

I've pulled off the near impossible this semester. Assuming my English stays the same (some grades have not been put in, including my final, but I should come out on top of this) I will have straight A's.

Well rather, straight A minuses, coupled with two A pluses in band honors and AP music theory. But they are straight A's. And I'm just going crazy thinking about it. I took five AP classes. FIVE. And here I am, after honestly pushing myself past the limit of where I ever should have been, and having had stressed and worked so hard for this... And here I am. Straight A's. I haven't had straight A's since the seventh grade, the grade I only spent a semester in before being moved up to eighth grade. It's as if I'd finally caught myself and climbed back up to the cliff I'd been pushed off of those many years ago.

I've been accepted to Butler University, and have since scheduled an audition. The band director from my old school left me a note on facebook telling me that she was so proud of me. Coming from her is just... well... amazing. Like I'm almost at tears thinking about it because what she did for me and my schoolmates just meant so much, and it's hard to imagine much higher praise. She means enough to me that when I was asked in a different audition about the music teacher that I admired the most, I immediately started spewing about her, and what our program had been like before she came.

I'm not in anyway trying to discount my current band director. She's absolutely wonderful as well, but she's just had a different role in my life than my first high school band director did. If not for my old band director having come in to my school, I probably would have quit band. I love band and music so much, and I've wanted to be a teacher since forever, and a music teacher since slightly less than forever... but I'm positive that if my old band director had never come, I would not have worked my butt off to become nearly as good a musician, or worked as hard to get into college, because I've had one goal since high school started, even discounting my screw ups, and that has been to become a music teacher, and that has been because of her.

And this semester. This semester with all it's ups and downs has been both amazing and horrible at the same time. Easy and frustrating at the same time as well. So much has happened and changed, and I feel like this semester I've managed to put myself together and grow up, and put everything into perspective.

I'm babbling on, and I probably will sound so stupid for saying this, but, I'm proud of myself. I don't think I've ever really given myself that credit before. I can do this. I'm ready. I've always put myself down, but I just find it really hard not to feel good about myself lately.

And so, I am going to rightfully take this winter break to read the books I've put off, and call the friends I haven't talked to in ages, and just relax.

I think I deserve it.
~Jess the Nerdfighting BandGeek

Some open letters

Elle Ma Dit by Mika, and anything by Coeur de Pirate

You're welcome.

Now, onto business. I have some messages I need to get out.

Dear Marisa,
I miss talking to you, and I'm sorry I've been too busy to check blogger to see what you've posted. Your insight and ramblings always amuse me.

Dear thegirllikeme,
Please resume posting the plot summaries of OTWAD since you have officially quit writing. I have that unfulfilled feeling in my stomach every time I remember that OTWAD once existed as my favorite in progress fanfic.

Dear Madam (insert my french teacher's name here),
Merci pour etre supercool! J'adore votre classe car j'apprends beacoup, mais je suis amusee a le meme temps. Toujours quand nous apprenons novelles choses de les pays francais, je veux aller MAINTENENT =)

Dear mom,
Thank you for making dinner.

Dear who ever is in charge of the world,
Thanks for sending me a good reassurance after I began to crumble earlier. I don't know who you are, or if you are a who, or if you even exist, but thanks anyways.

Dear self,
Just ask him.

Dear Wednesday,
Please stop imitating Thursday so well.

Dear AP Econ,
Please don't crush me when I take my test tomorrow. I have the nervous energy of someone who is completely unsure about if she will do really well or really bad, but knows that there won't be any inbetween.

Dear AP Lit teacher,
Thanks to you, I think I will likely remember Hamlet horribly, even though I'm actually finding that I enjoy it.

Dear Shakespeare,
Hamlet is THIRTY? Is that what all thirty year olds were like? Hamlet seems like a moody teenager in the middle of his emo phase. Also, I don't like the misogyny in your plays, but all things considered, at least it's a realistic representation of how women were treated back in the day.

Dear NaNoWriMo,
I think I need to rename you NaNoWriSatSunMo (Nation Novel Writing on Saturday and Sunday month). I appologise, but school and other things limit my time. My goal is to get between 20k and 30k by the end of the month. But I promise to work my butt off during thanksgiving.

Dear Blog Post Reader,
This is a secret embedded note to say thank you for actually reading everything. Please describe what you would do if given access to a giant toy store for a day without any rules. It'll be our little joke ;)

Dear Starbucks,
I love your hot chocolate, but sadly, it does not remain hot by the time that I have gotten over my spirit crushing problems of the day. If you could fix that, that would be lovely.

Dear Niki,
We set a date to hang out, and I forgot it... But I would like to hang out before christmas. We could go christmas shopping together? In the city? Does Chicago have a tree during Christmas time like NYC has? I think a giant decorated tree would be something to behold.

Dear Jeans,
Please magically grow in the middle of the night in a manner that allows me to feel skinny again.

Dear PE,
I thought it would suck to be back with you, but I'm really loving health club days on tuesdays and thursdays. I could run for an hour... The heart rate monitor really helps too, because I realize now that the reason I used to quit so much when I would start up running for a bit was that I was working too hard. Baby steps. Baby steps. Also, I love archery <3

Dear Pauline,
I have some great ideas for your Christmas present. GREAT. IDEAS.

Dear Everyone Who Contributed to this Thread,
You guys had me laughing so much. And I think that I am somewhere in the middle of how I would want to be asked out (based on the descriptions that came up in the middle of the thread, that I am, right now, too lazy to search for), all of the ones that seem like proposals, or that involve other people totally scare me, but the ones that are still private and while being sweet and fun seem very nice =)

Dear HPFF,
Thank you so much for letting Polychromatic get reposted.

Dear school program started today,
I promise I will be the bestest driver possible from now until May... Now how about rigging that system to make sure I am one of the people to win a car? ;)

Sincerely,
Jess the Nerdfighting BandGeek

A Post That Isn't About Changing the World

I feel so rusty at the rambley-not-at-all angry-or-teenagerish-other-than-a-sense-of-naiveity blog posts. Just in general lately, it seems that everyone fell into the post BEDA rut of September (regardless of whether or not they were doing it) and are just trying to get back into the swing of things since it's October now.

So, school is going well. I just brought my English grade back up from a B+ to an A-, thus returning my GPA to a ridiculously high 4.7. I haven't done this well in school since the 7th grade where I was skipped up, and then proceeded to never completely regain my footing, but baby, the footing is BACK! Just in time for me to go to college and lose that footing all over again in a year. Ah well, win some, lose some.

Did IMEA auditions on Wednesday... yeah, if I get in, it will be a MIRACLE. I used to practice maybe the night before an audition and get into things (even if they were, admittedly, all last chair or one next to last chair), but this time I practiced for weeks when I could get the chance, and I just faltered. Nerves never get in the way when you barely practice and don't take everything to be such a big deal, but when you work for weeks... well it all just crashes around you. I told my band director about my screw ups, and she just said "well we'll see". I'm pretty sure she was just being nice. Everyone else was just amazing and I just... *sigh*

So now that IMEA is over, I have one month to prepare for my VanderCook auditions (which I must finish the application for THIS WEEKEND, no compromising*), and my lesson instructor wants me to use my IMEA music again, which I just think is the stupidest thing I could do, because every good tuba player in the state has seen and played that music, and it's an in state school... Just no. If I have to go behind his back to prepare for my auditions, I'll do it, because that just feels like the stupidest thing to do, playing that music again. And then I can just ask for my band director's help a couple times so that I'm not completely alone in this.

And on top of all of this is jazz band, and soon it's winter guard, and then idk if my math teacher is still trying to coerce me onto the math team, and there's still college applications for U of I and OSU and Butler, and my theory teacher thinks that I shouldn't let myself be intimidated by U Mich and just ugh. I feel so bad for Kat. She isn't entirely sure what she wants to do, and is basically just applying to a mish-mash of about 10-15 schools.

One point of sanity - marching band ends soon.

And then one absolutely wonderful thing. My brand spanking new tuba should be arriving Monday. I was going to be getting a used one, but the one that arrived was horribly shipped by the company, and had a huge unnamed dent on the bell, so that got sent back, and they sent my tuba already and. AHHH I JUST CAN'T WAIT.

But the real question is, what do I name my tuba? Suggestions below would be absolutely wonderful (and please avoid Harry Potter names, or names that are in any tv show I usually mention, the tuba needs to be its own person).

How have you been?
~Jess the Nerdfighting BandGeek

*Not that I haven't said for the past two weekends that I would do it THAT WEEKEND. But, really, my french teacher has finished my recommendation, so I really should get on this.

I have a secret

Several, actually.

Sometimes, I wish I could go to class and do work without being graded. Just to see if I would actually care. My gut tells me I would still do everything I'm taking this year, except English. If I had found myself able to conduct this experiment last year, I would have stopped caring about physics and euro. I actually might have done more work in English. Strange world.

Sometimes, I imagine a world where I'm not going to become a music teacher, and while it floats on the cusp of my imagination, I can't grab on long enough to get a clear vision. What else would I be? When all I have told myself I could possibly be has been "teacher" since I was in elementary school, I'm not quite sure what else I would do. I think I might enjoy a job where I could keep learning languages. But I'm not sure it exists. I wonder how difficult it might be to double major with French.

As time goes on, I find myself hating English class more and more. I am not a grammarian, nor am I anyone who wants to write essays for a living or analyze texts to the point where if is necessary for someone to pull us back and say "it's just a pocket watch" (Kat Bronston). That is the sort of thing that would drive me insane. I really like reading. That should be enough.

French, I just love French. That class always feels the most different from other classes. It is the one class, where I can step back and say "this grade doesn't represent me, it represents my potential". There is no rote memorization in this class. By this point we are just trying to internalize every possible thing that we can.

I can't do a direct translation of the above, but I can do a mimic.

J'adore French. C'est le class ou je peux just faire parler francais bien. Nous ne just faissons pas, nous sommes.

Really, the parts of French that annoy me the most are the parts that are begining to mimic English. Analyze this. No. I don't want to.

Calculus is a humuliating ordeal of "who can understand this crazy person the most". I don't think I've properly enjoyed math since my Freshman and half of Sophomore year teacher. He knew how to teach. It feels like far too often, math teachers know how to do, not teach.

Band... I love band. But really, I can't keep this up. I miss playing in ensembles, but then I get bored playing the same things over and over again. Nothing feels as interesting or as vibrant as it did in those early days of learning. I wish I could grasp that old excitement that came with hitting a note, rather than the newer frustration that comes with playing anything nowadays. When you're little, you think that you play fantastically, and once you're older, you realize that you suck and just keep sucking.

My room is an oven.

I don't even know.
~Jess the Nerdfighting BandGeek