Approaching the end of summer
Wow, its hard to believe that the summer is practically over. I have a little over 30 hours to go before I'm off to classes again this fall. I guess taking classes in summer school causes you to lose most of the true 'summer experience' (aka relaxing... not taking classes.... etc.). Eh, but all in all I'll have to say that it was a pretty good summer. I've been working on my list of things to improve upon... making some progress, but I'll talk more about that later.

Its been a while since my last post and I can contribute most of the hiatus to the chaos of the end of a summer session and the transition from summer school to band camp to fall semester motions.

I've spent the last 4 full days here in Blacksburg at band camp, which has been an exciting experience for me seeing as it is my first time with a real leadership position in a marching band (or concert/symphonic band for that matter... I'm not counting the reporter position I held in high school band because you don't really have to be much of a leader to other people for that... just write stuff for newspapers and for the announcers at football games).

This year I'm a rank captain for the MV Horns. I'm the only new person to the horn leadership, as Justin and Andrew return as rank captains for a 2nd season and Robbie moves to section leader. This has been a very awesome experience so far for me... and actually a lot more strenuous/exhausting than I expected but I think maybe that's just cause of the lack of sleep, long days and the responsibility the horn leadership had this year in making decisions on how we were going to deal with the abundance of people 'auditioning'. For the first time in years, the Horn section not only didn't have to accept 'refugees' from another section, but we also had more people than our section traditionally could handle. Originally we thought we were going to have to make cuts... which is really tough because all the people in the horn section including the rookies are fun people and deserve to be a part of the band. We had to make decisions by 5pm on Friday. As of Thursday, we weren't sure what we were going to do but we had several options... cut 2, send one to the trumpets and cut 1, two ranks of 10 people, or send one to the trumpets and one rank of 10 people.... we weren't sure how the ranks of 10 people would work and that's how we left it on Thursday night. I had trouble sleeping on Thursday night because I kept thinking about how we could have this work out the best. The horn section has some of the most amazing people and they're like a big family of sorts so making cut(s) would be like inflicting a wound to the section. Each of us has some form of 'attachment' to each other member of the section, even the new ones; if we were to suddenly lose one, it would be tough I believe.

Okay I seem to be rambling. Anyway, long story short, I think things worked out for the best. We have one horn marching in a trumpet rank (because for once they actually were short one marcher) and then Andrew has a rank of 10. Tonight, I went to the annual Meet the Horns party and hung out with everyone. Again an excellent attendance.... and surprisingly a large number of the rookies didn't drink and some of the old people didn't drink either.... our percentages are definitely on the rise. Anyway, I look forward to this season a lot. I'm excited about the responsibilities I have as a rank captain and I'm excited about using the 'items' I'm working on to act as a leader and role model by example to my friends in the section.

Anyway, this summer I've been working on my lists some and think I've made some progress. When I got back from Cincy I had gotten a little 'too' emotionally involved in a certain relationship that started towards the end of my co-op there. I was struggling with the lack of time I had to talk to him, either on IM or on the phone, once school started this summer and had an even harder time when a girl from OSU who was on co-op at GE at the start of our co-op rotation returned this summer and they started hanging out a lot -- even less time for conversations with me. Now, I don't know how much of this struggle should be attributed to lack of social interaction here in Blacksburg this summer due to the lack of people, but that's beside the point. Anyway, as I thought about it, I realized what a waste of time it was for me to be worrying about him and what he was doing especially since we agreed that whatever relationship we started in Cincy was on hold, or ended or something like that since he was to be staying in cincy until the end of this fall semester. I remembered some things I had read back in high school when I was getting to know a very good friend of mine and learned that his family believed in the neo-courting style of relationship. Though I'm not sure I'm totally against dating, reading this literature** helped mre realize how petty and insignificant these worries I have about my relationship are. There are FAR more important things to focus on than how I'm viewed by one single person of the opposite gender, especially as I don't know that our relationship was headed in exactly the best direction. I think my leaving Cincy came at a good time, in fact, because I didn't know how to stop it...

*** some of the literature I was referring to....
- Christian Courtship
- I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris
..... (I just realized all the other links are on my old computer)

Also, I'm about at the halfway point in my 400 days which is awesome and I don't even really have the temptation anymore.... I'm far past that stage now I believe! :)


Finally, I realized today that band almost seems strange without people like Eileen, Leslie W, Leslie S, Will and Tess around anymore. Don't get me wrong, everyone in the horn section now's still great, but I feel like I was closer to the older members of our section from when I was a freshman and I'm not really finding that anymore. I mean Robbie, Andrew, and Justin are still around, but I dunno I just kinda feel like something's missing. I mean, today, all the horn girls had already gotten rooms of 4 before I had a chance to get in with one of the rooms... now comes the challenge... finding other girls in the band to room with (seeing as most of my close friends are guys... I'm not very close with any other girls in the band outside of the horn section). I mean I don't feel that its a matter of the horns not liking me... not by any means!!! I'm pretty sure that I'm well liked by everyone, but I'm just not really that close with people. Even within the horns little groups form and I don't really seem to fit into any of them.... I'm just kinda a drifter from one to the next which is great cause I'm well liked (I like to flatter myself that way anwyay...), but bad because I'm just kinda the frosting... you can take it or leave it. Wow this last paragraph sounds like I'm depressed or something. But I'm not.... I just was noting things I've noticed and at 2:15 in the morning I guess things just don't work the way I want them.

Anyway, now that I have a good number of my 'items' under control I'm going to focus on getting back in touch with where I stand on things.... religion, faith, life, etc.... I'd very much like to find someone to have a one-on-one sort of accountability thing going but my problem is that I'm not very close to any Christian girls. So I don't have anyone that pops to mind.... Well, at the least I hope to be more devoted to whatever small group study I end up in this fall as I wasn't very devoted (more like not devoted at all) to the summer nav study.

Well, anyway, I suppose I've garbled on enough for one entry... Besides I'm tired and need to get some rest in tonight seeing as I've been working on a smaller amount of sleep than I should've been working off of.

Good night ya'll. and I hope to talk again soon.