Danielle Blog

Happy New Year!

I’m still wishing everyone I see “Happy New Year.” So, I send you that message of joy as well.
I truly hope that this year is a good one for all of us.

It has been about a week since I posted, and since I’m still ON BREAK (*hip-hip-horray!*), I feel like I can have a leisurely breakfast and write up some thoughts about the past week.

Last Friday, Texas Seestor was off of work and we got together with some friends and saw the Muppets! It was SUCH a fun and funny movie! It had a huge number of 80′s references and comments sort of making fun of itself; I love that they weren’t taking themselves too seriously.

New Year’s Eve was really fabulous. I had a migraine for most of the day, but it went away enough by the evening that we went to a dessert and drinks party that some friends were hosting. They have this party annually, but it is the first that we’ve gotten to go, because Mom and Dad stayed home with my nieces and babysat so that Texas Seestor, Trainwreck, and I could go to the party.
The desserts were SO YUMMY! And then we started playing Rock Band.
OMG was it ever fun!
I’ve never played it before, but they had a microphone, so we started with Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock And Roll” and I sang the lead. I wasn’t sure ahead of time if it would be in my range, but it was! I rocked it out! There was a bit of a weird time-delay/echo that I’ve noticed with gaming systems that do karaoke, but I pretty much just tried to ignore it and focus on hitting all of the pitches and slides correctly. It was SO COOL!
I did not try to play any instruments; I was having too much fun either singing the lead, or singing along with Texas Seestor whenever she or someone else was singing.

It makes me want to go out for karaoke sometime.

How often do I think that?

In other music news, the new band I’m in had our second practice on Monday after New Year’s Eve. I shake my head at how quickly songs are coming together; it is really remarkable. The lead vocalist’s voice has such texture and richness to it. And man does he shine on John Denver songs!
We are working on a song that has only been recorded once, and we are doing it more like it was originally written, so I ended up recording it with my iPhone in order to learn the new rhythms and phrasing. I’ve listened to it a lot this week in order to learn all of those things, but also to just have the sound wash over me. Listening to it again the next day really surprised me. At the time when we were singing it and I was recording it, I was working so hard to match his phrasing, that I couldn’t really appreciate it. But listening to it after the fact let me revel in the moments when our phrasing, slides, and sounds were matched (especially toward the end of the song).
It is a good one.

We’ve got 6 songs that are ready to go with just two practices. I’m working on learning an additional 10 songs this week to see if we can take some songs that do not typically have a lot of harmony parts in them and add harmonies to them.
The challenge is finding songs for acoustic guitars with 3 part harmonies.
I’ve realized that a lot of songs with harmony that I’ve always loved have keyboards, electric guitars, and drums (and are usually 2-part); sometimes they sound fine scaled back to 2 guitars, but other times, probably not. We’ve got some Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Eagles, John Denver (as mentioned), James Taylor, and the Beach Boys. I’ve got the other 2 guys ready to do an Indigo Girls song (Power of Two)! We’ll see how that one goes this coming week. I’m working on convincing them to consider Dixie Chicks, Rascal Flatts, and Lady Antebellum. I’d love to find a good Corrs song that would work for our voices!

Anyway, it has been a nice part of my break to be working on this. I need something to channel my energy into.

I’ve also cleaned up my apartment, and hung some artwork.

I teamed up with a friend at Trivia Night on Wednesday night and we won! It was mostly due to his knowledge, because he wins a lot, but I knew a few questions that he would’ve missed if I hadn’t been on his team. He let me have the bottle of wine that came with the winnings. It was the wine that I had been drinking that night, so I know it is a good one. He kept the little certificate thing to add to his montage of certificates.
If you are wondering: One of the questions I knew (that he didn’t know) was about the city that had the first subway.
Of course I knew that answer! Boston! You can’t exactly live there for 7 years and not hear about that at some point.
We got an extra point for guessing the year it started. 1897!

cool, huh!?

My other friend is back in town after being gone to Colorado for the holidays. We went out to supper last night. She will get to join us for trivia next week too. She and I are going to attempt to be “good” and continue getting a lot of work done next week for school, so we are limiting our plans to mostly evening events.
Yes, I’m on break next week too. Meetings start on Thursday of next week (Jan 12th) and classes start on Wednesday of the following week (Jan 18th).
But this whole break is sort of a working break. I worked up until Christmas Eve and I worked some the week between Christmas and New Year’s. I’ve mostly ended up doing a “slow down” when I’m at my apartment and not visiting family. Although there was nothing slow about doing that curriculum proposal last week. Whew! That was a hard one. But I got it in, and I heard back from the chair of the committee this week that it looked really good! woooot-wooooot!!!

Okay. And with that reminder of work, and since it is now 9:30 am, I ought to write a recommendation letter for a student who wants to go on a Study Abroad trip or maybe work on my syllabus for Genetics.

Catch you later!