happy halloween

Happy Halloween! Man, I remember when I used to get so stoked about this holiday, but now it almost seems like another day of the year. I can recall how it used to be so much colder outside at this time of the year. It's about 70-something out right now, which is a bit too warm.

Walking to history class a little while ago I saw some of the babies from the Chatt State daycare in a big stroller (it was a bit like a stroller mini-van type thing, there was like 6 babies in it), and they were all dressed up. It was really cute!! I just smiled real big at them and they all looked like "What's that lady grinnig about". Babies are so cute! Hopefully we will at least have a few trick-or-treaters at the house tonight. I always laugh at my dad because he gives the kids 2 big handfuls of candy if they are really dressed up well, and then some kids he only gives a few pieces (mainly the ones that are a little too old to be doing it). I tihnk the last time I went I was in the 8th grade. Even then it was to a party.

Time to go eat lunch, then I get to go head to head with Lucifer...uh, I mean my guitar lessons...

a robot hand?

This picture always makes me laugh. It's from that mini-movie Elliott Smith did called Strange Parallel. In the movie he's having this dream that he has to get his hand replaced with a robot hand, and it's really funny. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if my right hand was replaced with a robot hand. Would I be able to play better? Would I be awesome? Sometimes I really do wishh that my hand wasn't messed up. Oh well.

Today has been okay. By hapenstance I am going to a concert tonight at UTC. It's a brass band concert, and all the music majors got free tickets. It should be pretty intersting. I'll just have to read when I get home for Western Lit tomorrow.

Old 97's video from Atlanta

I am tickled to death that this video finally managed to get on the internet. It's from the 2nd time I saw the Old 97's (my faovrite band), the show was at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta, GA. That show was really great. Hopefully soon the one for "Victoria / Timebomb" will make it up. You can see my head in that one, if only for just a second or two. I managed to take some of the best concert pictures I have ever taken at that show. Here are two examples:

boo-freakin'-yah!

i passed my music theory test with a 90.
thank goodness.
i feel so much better.

i don't know what it is...

every time i leave guitar lessons i feel like a little less of a person.
i do not know why or what happens, but it does.
i told marcy that if there's one person i could come close to actually hating it would be that guy.
frankly, i think he tries to make me feel bad.

i have to hold my head up and be strong about this.

maybe listening to ben folds will help. his songs seem to make things better. i used to be able to get that from the Old 97's, but not so much anymore. i hope it's a phase.

my little sister can boogie!!!

this weekend was the USSBA Southern States Championship, and Soddy-Daisy won first place in their division, and being as USSBA doesn't have "Grand" Champions, they pretty much won it. They also got best individual drum majors, percussion, visual and music. The only thing they didn't get was color gaurd (next time). I am like a proud mama for these guys. Mostly because of my little sister. She's so driven. She's doing what I wish I could do.

Anyway, here are some pictures, and the video from the show is on my myspace. I wish there was a way to put youtube stuff on here.

Becca is the one right beside the mic stand. Then there's Eric's awesome horn solo.

The kite is out!!!

dumb dog!?!

last night around 3am i awoke to the sounds of my beloved mutt barking at the top of her lungs. she had ran downstairs from my room (she decided to sleep in my bed last night) and was perched on top of the couch looking out the window and barking like crazy. i don't know when she started, but i finally went down stairs and told her to shut up, but dad came out of his room too and pretty much tossed her up the stairs. she quickly ran into my room and got on the bed. this morning when i awoke she was standing over me looking and when i opened my eyes she licked my nose. that dumb dog is CRAZY!!

i took my piano test today 2 days early, and did alright. i only messed up on a couple things. it's okay though, because i do not think that it will really hurt my grade a lot.

tomorrow i am going to mail my admission application for UTC in the winter. i am very excited.

okay, i need to go study for my aural skills mid-term. ugh!!!

last night i drempt of you

well, not really, but i had a really intersting dream. very strage, but i am not going to talk about it.

last night at the football game it was senior night, and the seniors had a new thing where they asked their favorite teacher to go out on the feild with them. it made me mad that we didn't get to do that when i was a senior. though, i probably wouldn't have been able to choose a teacher! But yes, the cool part was that I saw pretty much ever English teacher I ever had, and it was so great. I saw Mr. Crosslin but he didn't say too much to me. I saw Ms. Sparks and Mrs. Cox, and it was so awesome, I miss them both every day. It felt like the old days when we used to laugh alot. This may sound melo-dramatic, but I miss laughing like that some times. It was nice to get hugs from both of them too. You don't get hugs all that often in college. I also saw Mr. Sneed and his family, and he was as nice as ever. Mr. Sneed cracks me up because he was like "I thought you forgot about us! You never call or write or visit!" Hah. Those crazy English teachers!

things to do

What developmental tasks can adults do to insure the ongoing development of their healthy self-esteem?
18 to 32 Years of Age
1.Pull up roots from family of origin (family born and reared in)
2. Develop an individual sense of autonomy
3. Establish self as independent from family of origin
4. Shift attention from family of origin to new commitments, e.g., school, work, hobbies
5. Learn personal management skills as a consumer (financial) and as the head of a household (home management)
6. Relate to parents as adult to adult
7. Develop an occupational identity and learn to adjust in the "adult" world
8. Test power and establish healthy patterns of conflict resolution
9. Establish intimate relationships with significant others
10. Learn to place demands of family of origin into proper perspective while developing an adaptive response to the "adult" world
11. Establish social networks in the various environments, e.g., school, dormitory, work, apartment complex , community, etc.
12. Get involved in community life, politics
13. Enhance the ability to communicate in interpersonal relationships
14. Explore courting, coupling, or a trial mate relationship, selecting a mate
15. Maintain intimate friendships with trust, love, and caring in these relationships
16. Maintain healthy, stable, and appropriate sexual interaction in relationships
17. Commit to a marital partner through a public affirmation of marriage
18. As a married couple, define, negotiate, compromise, and establish goals, expectations, roles, relationships, finances, ways to solve problems and family-life model
19. As a married couple or a couple in a committed relationship, provide mutual support, help, and energy to enrich the relationship
20. As a married couple establish a family system by having child(ren)
21. Expand the family system and establish redefined definitions and expectations concerning intimacy, sharing, sexual compatibility; make an honest reassessment of the romantic ideal
22. As a married couple establish a healthy, complementary pattern to solve problems, handle power and control issues and ways to resolve conflict in the family system
23. Shift attention to the role of parenting and accommodate to the child(ren)'s dependent needs as well as to the emotional (bonding) needs
24. Focus attention on the child(ren)'s intellect, personality, sexuality, and goal-oriented behavior
25. Assist child(ren) to enter the new environment of peer group, preschool, school, etc.
26.As a married couple make periodic reassessment of the relationship; either take the steps to shore it up or decide to separate or divorce
27. If needed, adjust to divorce and single parenthood. Redefine relationships with new sex mates. Adjust to re-entry to a school and/or work environment

i did it

I spoke with my father last night. He was really confused and nervous about it, or at least that's how it seemed to me. He scratched his head alot. I was at least glad to see a bit of concern in his eyes, even though he did laugh at me about it.

I do feel better now that Dad knows, and I've made several phone calls to offices today to see if they will accept our insurance.

Dad said I need to be more pro-active about my life, and he is definately right. I wish I could find a group of friends to hang out with. It's not really about being accepted by society as a whole, as much as it is me wishing I had at least 2 or 3 friends to do things with. It's like I can't figure out how to intigrate myself into these social situations. What's the word? Passive-agressive, maybe? I don't know. Dad and I talked about that word a long time ago, and I am still unsure of what it means exactly. Everybody says that these things take time, and I need to believe them.

I think I am going to go back to Curves, even if my Dad has to drop me off after school or something. When mom and I used to go, before "she hurt her knee", it really was a boost for me, and I felt good about being active.

Managed to get a couple really good sources for my critical paper today, and I have to pretty much rewrite/restructure my entire "research" paper. It's this paper we had to write for Western Lit where you pretty much just write about your research and how that research went, which incedently seems like the biggest waste of time ever.

Oh! In choir today we had to reschdule our concert for November 30th, so if anybody wants to come, it's Nov. 30th at 7:00pm. I am really super excited to get out there and sing. We are doing a piece called "Mass of the Children" by John Rutter, and then 4 or so traditional English carrols. Whoo-hoo! I'm ready to be a diva!

i should try to do this:

Tips to Help You Get Started

• Identify sources of stress: Try keeping a journal and note stressful as well as positive events.
• Restructure priorities: Emphasize positive, effective behavior.
• Make time for recreational and pleasurable activities.
• Communicate: Explain and assert your needs to someone you trust; write in a journal to express your feelings.
• Try to focus on positive outcomes and finding methods for reducing and managing stress.

upon inspection of my iPod

i have determined that my collection of music is not nearly as diverse as i thought it to be. pretty much 80% of the "rock/pop" stuff i have is all in the vein of either "indie" or that cursed "alt-country" moniker. then i have about 400 classical pieces too, so that's pretty cool. not a lot of 19 year old girls rock out to Chopin or Beethoven. hmm, or maybe that's just 19 year old girls here in TN. meh.

currently playing is "Too Far To Care" by the Old 97's, and boy howdy have i forgotten how much booty this album kicks! seriously, it's amazingly good. the weird thing is i can not recall when i first heard this particular record. "Fight Songs" was the first record i got by them...hmm.

we can make it better!

I just saw the little clip on the Wilco website of the song "Is That the Thanks I Get". Good stuff. I even pre-ordered the DVD. Something to visually look forward to, I suppose.

So, my mom is not talking to me, and I can not figure out why. It's so weird. Dad just says to let it go, so I will.

I got the number for a therapist yesterday, and I am going to call today. I still haven't talked to Dad about it yet. I feel like if I do the shit is going to hit the fan even worse than it has already. I don't know, we'll see what happens.

This weekend I am going to hang out with Alan, and I am really excited. He's so funny, and I am super glad to call him my friend.

Time for history class.

how pretty

I found this picture in an email from Doug last year. It's somewhere in Italy. I wish I could be there right now. Look how pretty it is!

This morning I noticed a flock of birds in the sky making formations on the way to school. They were really neat to watch, because they changed shape seemlessly, like a machine or something. It reminded me of how when my Dad and I will be driving somewhere he'll notice a hawk or a herring or something, and point it out. I think the coolest thing he showed me was the night we were coming home from somewhere and there was a whole family of rabbits out in the yard and the started to scurry away from the headlights on the truck, and as we got out dad did that whistle where you pull your lower lip under the upper, the one i can not under any circumstances do, and he whistled very loudly, and like clockwork the bunnies stopped. It was really remarkable.

I feel like I should be doing schoolwork, but I can't seem to make myself do it. I only practiced for 30 minutes today too. Meh. I am to the point that I just want to coast through the rest of the lessons. I know I can't though. When I get home I am going to work on Aural Skills stuff for a couple hours, get a shower and read for the rest of the night. Hopefully that book I ordered will arrive today. It's something Kate told me to read called "Blue Like Jazz".

this picture...

This picture is representative to me about how I feel when I attend a rock show. How the simultanious release of music and frustration with a band and hundreds of people can be the most wonderful think in the world. At least to me. I read this passage in a book that tries to explain to the lamen how to "listen to" music, and it said that if you lose yourself in the music you lose the ability to be an active listener. I completely disagree with that statement, because if you are not moved my the music you lose just as much if not more than when you are intently listening and identifying with a song. Really, a Wilco show was the first time I really lost myself like that in a concert, it was so strange and comforting. It makes me wonder if that's what church is supposed to feel like.
Okay, I gotta go to class. I will write more on this later.

good morning

i'm sitting in the libarary frantically trying to remember what in the heck that wed address was that alan stored those songs we did back in june. i know it was on the lewis family fun site thingy, but i can't remember where... it's not in any of the clickable links on the site.

you might be wondering why exactly i am looking for the link. it's for the music club CD that we are making, i need a song to put on it, and the stuff that i tried to record over the last few days wasn't working (i even did a funky version of the song i wrote for my friend Marcy)... i just need to get more focused with it.

oh, okay, i found it... for those interested the link is:
http://lewisfamilyfun.com/asdf/sara
i don't even care that he spelled my name wrong.

now, to figure out which song to use... i think "dead passengers" just cos it's a little jazzier than "far, far away", though that song is dear to me. maybe i will explain that song and why i love it some day.

well

I had this whole intricate post thought out, but the phone's been dead for like 15 hours, and i didn't really get around to writing everything down.

my friend alan is cracking me up:

Alan [4:39 P.M.]: want to write a paper for me?
Chassarri [4:39 P.M.]: what's it about?
Alan [4:40 P.M.]: a 5-7 page paper on afro cuban dance
Chassarri [4:40 P.M.]: sure
Chassarri [4:40 P.M.]: hah
Alan [4:43 P.M.]: do it and i'll buy you a scone :P
Chassarri [4:43 P.M.]: hmmm
Chassarri [4:43 P.M.]: i'm thinking
Alan [4:44 P.M.]: less thinking and more writing :P
Chassarri [4:44 P.M.]: :P

for lack of words i will post some pictures. i've been looking through my photobucket and found a number of those pictures where one person will hold out the camera and take a picture of them and whoever. here are some cases in point:

rain rain won't you stay?

I just got home from going to the mall with my Nana. She was trying to find a pair of shoes, but came home unsuccessful. We ended up going to the Olive Garden to eat, and it was very yummy. Though, I think it will be my lunch and dinner, because there was a lot of food, and I ended up eating more than I planned. It was so good though.
While I was gone, I wanted to see what Ari would do if I left her out of her room. When I left she was sitting in the chair, napping, and when I came home she was doing the same thing. I am so proud of her for not messing anything up, or doing her business in the house! She’s really growing up now. Though, I really do miss when she was a puppy and I could carry her with one hand. I think the think I love best about my dog is the fact that she will listen to me and not say a cross word. She doesn’t complain, and she’s always willing to let me rub her ears. Most folks don’t appreciate a good ear rub.
I am anxiously awaiting my sister to come home from school, and for the mail to run.
Things right now are so peaceful, the only noise is the rain on the roof and my fingers clicking away at the keyboard.

bawk bawk

Wow, I am a chicken. I didn’t tell my parents about wanting to go see a therapist. I think it’ll be best if I wait to talk to them each alone. Every time I thought about telling them something happened to interrupt my thoughts or somebody said something else. I can’t help but wonder if the whole situation might be defused if I have a vehicle of my own and didn’t need to depend upon them for transportation everywhere. I’ll try talking to dad about it tomorrow.

I took my dog out for the last time tonight a few minutes ago, and while I turned my back for her to do her business in relative privacy, my eyes drifted up to the sky and I saw a number of stars. We live so far out in the country that the stars are all around. The sad thing is I never take the time to look at them. While trying to tell the difference between the stars and the planes, something Robert said to me on Friday came into my brain… he said that a musician is born with the music in them, and that he could see the music was in me, he could tell from my tests that it was (I aced every one of them, and really only studied for the final), when I told him I had gotten “A’s” on every one of my Music Theory tests, he simply said “see it’s there!”. I guess the point is that we often do not notice the things in front of our eyes.

Lately I have been questioning my spirituality. I keep feeling like I am missing something. I have learned, growing up in the city that I have, that if you are not a Christian, then you are obviously going to go to hell. If you are not saved, then there is not a hope for redemption. That’s not how I was raised. My mother is a Catholic, and I am pretty sure my father is a Methodist, or at least he used to attend a Methodist church for the majority of his life. Neither of them forced a religious view upon my sister or myself, and we really only went to church on Easter or Christmas. Occasionally, I would accompany my Grandma to the folk masses at St. Jude’s, but I was never able to understand what the priest was saying. Most of the time when we would go, the priest would be a Pilipino man, whose name I can’t recall, even though he was the one who baptized me when I was a newborn. I remember having several conversations with an atheist friend, and I was always puzzled by how she could not believe that God existed. I have come to accept that He does indeed exist, but I am unsure of how I feel about Him. I am wondering if I had some more religion in my life if it would make me feel better.

This picture makes me happy. I took it on the way home from my very last guitar lesson with the best teacher I have ever had. When I took it, this picture repersented hope that the new instructor was going to help me. As a lot of people know, it's not worked out that way. Oh well. I only have a couple more months to make it though.

I want to take a moment to give my friend Doug a big shout out, and to tell him -- "Keep your head up!!" You are magnificent and lovely, and wonderful, and I am going to check up on you more often!! xoxoxox

Everybody have a good rest of the weekend.

yay

my sister came home!

refelctions on 10/14/06

This week has been one of the hardest weeks I have had to face in a long while. It really was like that saying of how everything that can go wrong will go wrong. I must be honest though and say that a lot of it was brought on by me. Despite everything that has gone wrong this week, I can honestly say at this moment I do feel very optimistic about my future. Maybe it’s like starting over in a sense… to try to get my brain to work better.

Today has been very low key. I worked for 4 hours as a stand-in for William. It was really fun because I got to do a dive show for the first time ever.

I work at the Tennessee Aquarium as an educator. The dive shows the educators get to do are over in the salt water building, Ocean Journey, and we stand on the outside of the tank and talk to the divers on the inside of the tank. Basically, we go through a script and talk to the guests. We had some technical difficulties for the first show, and I felt so bad about having all the guests there and then having to say that the show wouldn’t be on for the first half. There were quite a few cute questions from the kids among them, (to the diver) “Have you ever run into the glass?”, and (to me) “Can the fish talk too?” It was really cute! The diver that did the talking was named Matt, and he kept getting bit by an angel fish, though, I think he played up the “ouches!”

A first today was that I went to the downtown library, and rode the shuttle for the first time since I graduated. It was weird to sit on the shuttle and feel the flow of the electricity under my feet. Chattanooga has about 10 Electric shuttles that run downtown in 2 directions, it’s really neat! As I rode on the crowed shuttle I remembered the last time I rode. All the feelings of hope and freedom knowing that in a matter of an hour I would be free from the chains that high school kept me roped in. It was really nice.

I am trying to formulate exactly what I need to say to my parents tomorrow. I hope my dad comes home at an early hour. Hopefully, my parents will understand. I feel like everything is riding on this. Figuring out what is going on inside my head is going to help me get better. Robert said that medicine could help, but that it’s more helpful to just get things out there. We shall see I guess.

An unrelated note: today was the first time I saw Wilco last year. It was amazing, and can be summed up in this picture:

hey

a new blog for a new beginning. my friend kate has inspired me to make a positive blog. my livejournal was filled with a lot of negative thoughts, and i figured it's time for a change.

so, from here on out everything i write is gonna be positive.