Kappa Kappa Psi!!

So as some of you may or may not know, my old flute teacher and her husband, who was our Assistant Director of Bands/Marching Band director left this summer to get their Doctorate. After an intense process of interviews, they got an AMAZING new director (whose wife happens to have her Doctorate from Texas Tech in Flute Performance :D). Mr. York showed his great skills at Marching Band Camp a week before school started with ease. It didn't take long for me to notice his Kappa Kappa Psi clothing. I had heard of Kappa Kappa Psi before, since many of my friends at other colleges are involved with it. It is a Co-ed Fraternity, the National Honorary Band Fraternity. It is solely for kids who play band instruments in a college-sponsored ensemble. I had wanted to be a member of KKPsi for a long while, but ISU didn't have a chapter. One day when Mr. York was wearing his KKPsi hat, I asked him if it would be possible to start a chapter here at ISU. He said yes without pause, which was exciting for me, I never would have even thought to ask any of our other professor about it. Luckily for us, he had recently helped his previous school, GVSU, establish a KKPsi chapter too.

After some Facebook conversation with him about how we would get it started, I started advertising the idea to my peers. I made an announcement at every band rehearsal, asking people who were interested to talk to me. We have a small school, so we were hoping for an interest level of 15-20 people and we got it! We then had to set up a meeting time. Sometime along the way my friend, Cassie McBean, became a super help, becoming my 'right hand woman'. We established a meeting time, that would be the same as GVSU's meeting time so we could have a video conference with them. I posted signs, posted facebook events and continued making daily announcements, not to mention bugging people to ensure their attendence. We had the PERFECT attendence, and by the end of the meeting, and having all their questions answered, everyone was still interested!

I cannot believe that after a month and a half this is really happening! We are sending in the application in just a few weeks! Our colonly will start out with somewhere between 10 and 15 people, not huge, but all my hard work is paying off! I never thought this would happen! I am so happy that Mr. York was willing to help and we had such an interest. We will be a colony for a good year before we become and actual chapter, but it will happen if I have a say in it! I am going to be the President of the Kappa Kappa Psi Colony at ISU! It is awesome to be such a huge part of the Music Department's History, especially because I love this department, and this college, so much!

Basically the coolest story ever

So as many of you know I've been working at Papa Johns as a delivery driver. A few weeks ago, I got into a fender bender on the job, and so I cannot be a driver anymore. My manager decided to switch me to in store and slowly train me to be a manager. On the 4th, I was supposed to work as an in store and help out the manager, but the manager decided to get another job and got 'sick' on the 4th. (Yeah, convenient, right?) So anyway, I had only been trained to close once, but I was on my own that night, my first time being a manager with only one previous night of training. I had been working hard to get ready for that night, because we all had a feeling that this guy was going to bail on us. It wasn't easy, but I ended up doing a great job of managing, everyone was telling me how proud and impressed they were. My general manager came in at the of the night and showed me how to do the closing procedures again, and checked to see how I had done. I did so well, I'm now going to be managing shifts on my own n a regular basis!

Isn't it cool how what I thought was the worst day of my life (the wreck and loss of delivery job) turned into an amazing promotion? I have so much more faith about how struggles can be rewarding now!

I Need Food!

As you all know, I am moving into my own apartment in a few weeks, I will, thank GOODNESS, have a kitchen so I can cook my own food and quit eating this sick cafeteria food, but I need some recipe ideas! I know that all my sisters are amazing cooks, so I would love if you guys would give me some of your recipe - Especially your homemade cinnamon and orange rolls Eliza, oh and that salad you made for Thanksgiving Sara!

The Curses of my Major

Ok, so there are a lot of things in my life that have changed since I switched to flute performance which I think you might find funny.

I had the option of parting my hair on the other side to get rid of my callic. However, I have to continue parting on the left side because I tilt my head right when I play and if I part on the right the excess hair goes into my eyes and mouth while I play

When trying on shirts, the first think I do is put my arms in playing style to see if I can play in it, since i practice daily, if it's not playable, it's not worth it.

I now cannot sleep in past 9. I usually wake up at 6 or 7, hopefully 6 so I can be in a practice room by 7. Once I went to bed at 9 and woke up at 4 but stayed in bed til 5... I got to the practice room by 6. Yeah... it's bad.

The other day I was havin a conversation with my roommate. I would be performing 3 times in 2 days, so she was asking me about one performance, and I was answering for another. I was confused by her questions, she was confused by my answers.

Mom and I are going to New York for spring break. We will see 3 musicals and see all the sights and everything. The highlight of my trip: Visiting the Manhattan School Of Music and hopefully getting a lesson with one of their flute professors for less than 100 dollars. Yeah, I'm excited about school.

This summer, I will be playing at my cousins wedding, and I was SUPER excited when she asked me. When I'm in New York, I will also go shopping for music. Mom has to keep herself from swearing when we pass a music store, because I always go in for hours. In New York, they have streets full of music stores. She doesn't even try to resist.

Flute players are VERY in tune with their mouths. I haven't worn my retainer since I got my braces off because my ortho said I didn't need to. I have recently felt my teeth shifting (a very minute bit, but boy can I feel it) and it was messing up my embochure. So I went to the orthodontist and recommended a retainer. They found it humorous that I actually went in on my own accord and ASKED for a retainer. I got it today, and I was sooo excited. The ortho who checked me out (different than my first) said that I had teeth shifting and I said "I know, that's why I came in." It was funny. I also promised to be their pickiest customer.

I can keep a practice journal better than a regular life journal. I write in it at least once a day. It's a pretty big deal. I write at least a page per practice session. I love practicing too. There have been times I've forced myself to stop so I could make class (and yes, I have skipped class to practice a few times.. sorry mom)

Splatter Paint!!

Ok so as I mentioned in my last one, I have been planning on splatter painting the black coffee table for a while. I was waiting for my roommate, Sarah, to have time, but she has been very busy with her boyfriend and such, so I got together a random group of friends to work on it together! We took the coffee table tout to the courtyard by my room and went crazy! WE had 5 colors; 3 neons: pink, yellow, and orange, and 2 metallics: blue and purple. We also did some mixing. It didn't take long to get the table done and we had SO much fun doing it!! It was definitely worth the mess!

The Before Picture

Preparing the Paint

Our Mess

Splatter Painting!

My Action Pose

Cami's Action Pose

Amanda's Action Pose

Brenda's Action Pose

Finished Product Group Picture

Coffee Table Capers

Ok, so there's really no 'caper' involved, I just thought it was a cute title. Last week I found the most amazingly sweet coffee table at the DI (we had been looking for one) for only 15 bucks!! However, a sweet ghetto coffee table just wasn't enough. We wanted to paint it and then splatter paint it! So I went out and got the sand paper, base coat, some brushes, and a finishing coat from Lowes. Today was the base coat day so I sanded down the table myself and then Sarah helped me paint it black. I'm planning on buying some colors for splatter painting today and we plan on doing that part of it outside next weekend, and then adding our finishing coat! Here are today's picks! It seriously looks great!

Before

During

Finished Product!

IHOP's Free Pancake Day!

As a college student there is one golden rule that I've learned you NEVER mess with: Never give up free food! Therefore it was a necessity that my roommate, our friend/RA, and I attend Free Pancake Day at IHOP this Tuesday. Everyone gets a free shortstack of pancakes and then they ask for donations to the Children's Miracle Network. Sarah and I of course brought our cameras. We didn't have time to do it until night. Jessie had Symphony til 9:30, so Sarah and I got there early so we would make sure we all got our pancakes. Sarah and I goofed off until Jessie got there, lugging in her cello because it was too cold to leave it in the car. She had been in such a hurry and so excited to get her pancakes, she hadn't noticed the big mud hole until she stepped in it. It was evidently 'sick', and so she had to clean out her shoe while waiting for her pancakes and, since her sock was also sick, went around wearing only 1 sock the rest of the day haha!

Free Pancakes

The Free Pancakes in all their Glory

Jessie Endulging in her Pancak

Jessie's Sick Shoe

Sarah takin pics

The end of the pancakes

Jessie's shoe

Megan Nicole Hamblen!

This post is to welcome Baby Megan Nicole into the world. Lori and David were finally in the hospital at about 1 PST when there was an open bed. Emily stayed at her Grandma's playing with cousin Kendal. Megan finally came after 10 minutes of pushing at 9:05 PST. She was 8 lb 7 oz with a head full of dark hair.


The Family with Megan, Emily was too tired to go to the hospital.

My first 'college' experience

I think I can dub this moment as my first college experience. I have recently moved in with new roommates for 2 reasons. 1) I was having serious contention issues with one of my old ones that she was not willing to resolve and I didn't want to have the tension from. 2) Me and my REALLY good friend (who was also having problems with a roommate) wanted to move in with each other. So it just happened that 2 other girls in our ward had an opening in their room! 'Convenient', right? Haha, anyway I LOVE my new roommates. We're always sitting in the living room watching Gilmore Girls together instead of being in our rooms with our doors clothes like my old roommates. Even better, when we're watching TV, we aren't really watching because we're too busy talking. Last night we had the TV on, but one of my roommates brought out her old journal so we all got distracted with tales of high school and past loves. We started at 9, and I was thinking that I should go to bed in like an hour. Right about when I was getting ready to take a shower, another of my roommates took a shower. Ok so I'd wait til she got out and take one. She got out, I was still talking with my roommates (at that point reading a 3rd person story of my roommate Sarah's day). So then it got later, another roommate took a shower, I still didn't. Finally it was 12:30 at night, and we were STILL talking when we hear a ukulele outside our door. Sarah went to look out the peep hole and see what the HECK was going on. She starts laughing and tell us that this creepy guy is looking in our peep hole seductively and playing a ukulele! Scary! I looked, as did my other two roommates, Brittany and Megan. Then, he knocks on the door, and we all run into our individual bedrooms and slam the door haha! He got the picture pretty fast, but it was soo funny! We stayed up til like 1:15 when I FINALLY took a shower, didn't blowdry my hair (and it actually looks hot today too) and crashed in my bed! I was sleepy today, but it was SO worth it!