Why, the incomparable Henrik and Charles had birthdays!

Wishing the best to you both (and Henrik where is that picture of me as a young adult? I'm curious to see it)

I apologize for not being on here for a while, I have been pretty busy lately, and by 'busy' read 'lazy'

yeah about ready to drop out of band here. at current count 3 people whom I am still on speaking terms with in that group. note: the director is NOT one of them. Him and I are definitely at each others throats right now. like he wants to be their best friend so he gives me the responsibility of making them look and sound good, but he won't give me the authority to discipline them, and overrides me when I do. If I yell at them he tells me to calm down and that I will 'catch more flies with honey than vinegar' in a loud voice so that the entire band can hear how much he disapproves of my making them work. That way I look like an asshole and he is the kind mentor. Then--when the time comes to perform and they suck he blames me for it and tells me I'm not dedicated enough. The final straw came today when he told me to warm up and rehearse the band because he had to 'make some calls'. he then proceeded to stand right next to me and critique my choice of SCALE saying it was too hard and I was expecting too much. Uh, hello mr H these are flipping seniors, if they can't tune a b major scale they shouldn't be in this class. Then of course all my section leaders have senioritis and look for any way to miss rehearsal and not schedule sectionals. when they are there they make it clear that they are counting the days until the last game and the end of marching season. Oh, thanks. thats a wonderful way to encourage your freshman to learn their show. well and truly lost my temper yesterday with the trumpet section. needless to say I got 'talked to' afterwards. Excuse me, what did you expect me to do? they were miles wrong on the field and screwing around with saxophones while I was trying to talk to them.

anyway, in case you hadn't noticed I'm in a bit of a funk right now. The band went to a marching competition last week and played alright. I guess. we got the comment tape back and it pretty much said 'this band has a lot of potential and they would be good if they would just do the work'. yep, pretty much what I've been telling you for the past two months. pretty much what I told you last year. and the year before that. on the way home a bunch of us played truth or dare during which it came out that not only have I never had a girlfriend, but outside the realm of theatre I've never kissed anyone. Quick, altogether now, ....Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww. I probably wouldn't mind it so much if I didn't currently have a crush on one of my friends and am too shy to tell her. How's that for an embarrassing blog confession eh? and mom, if you're reading this, you can stop now.

On a happier note, I saw Wallace and Gromit today. it was fantabulous. Geology is pretty awesome. we took a field trip to the eagle caps (where you saw me backpackicking) and learned about the geology of the area. It turns out that my proverbial backyard started out as a tropical volcano before being buried, metamorphosed, reappearing as a deep sea fossil bed (I found fossils!) being carried by continental drift to where I am, being eroded by glaciers and finally serving as the volcanic vent for the basalt lava that once covered all of oregon and much of washington and Idaho. pretty cool huh? I apologize to any creationists. Shakespeare is pretty sweet too. Falstaff rocks my socks. (he's a comic character for those of you who aren't bardophiles)

anyway, its 11:30. I'd better go to bed.

I miss you all

-bern