New Adventure, New Blog

Hey anyone who still reads this.  If you do, I will send you an e-card or something because that's freaking awesome.  I was looking at my stats and I've reached over 1,700 people on this blog in 10 different countries.  How crazy is that?  It's cool to think that my silly teenage musings (is that a word?) have reached so many people across the world.  Granted, 1,700 isn't an incredible amount, I have more view than that on an embarrassing Barbie video I posted on YouTube 5 years ago, but still it's great.

Anyway, I have started another blog.  Not because I'm in college and now want to share my findings (like how to barely pass all your classes and still maintain your financial aid!), but because I'm embarking on a new adventure.  An adventure that will take up the next 18 months of my life.  I don't know if it's a secret on here, but I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or more commonly known as the Mormon church.  I have decided to serve a mission for my church.  This means that I will spend 18 months in an assigned area teaching others about Jesus Christ and this gospel.  I do this because this church has brought me so much peace and happiness in my life, especially in times of trouble, and I want others to experience it.

Since I last wrote this post (2 1/2 weeks after my last post actually), my dad decided to leave my mom.  He came into my room unexpectedly one day and told me he was leaving.  He then packed his bags and left.  They got divorced 3 months later, he got engaged 2 months later, he got married at the end of April, and now they are expecting their first child together.  And this child has been diagnosed with Down Syndrome.  It has been extremely hard for me.  I felt like giving up on life.  I didn't want to go to school or work or church.  I wanted to lay in my bed forever and forget about my life and the family I used to think was perfect.  Ever getting married was out of the question.  Quite frankly, I didn't feel like living anymore.  However, because of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I have learned to get through this trial.  I have learned that yes, crap happens and it sucks (that was so eloquent).  I have learned that even if you are a good person, bad things still happen.  I learned how to keep on going even when I wanted to drop and never get up again. I learned to trust in the Lord and have faith that things will turn out okay.  I learned how to love my dad even when I hated him for what he did to our family.  I learned how to be a stronger and better person.

I want others to be able to have the support that I've had and to realize that there is hope and happiness out there and that it's for everyone.  God will always love you.  He loved me when I was mad at Him.  He loved my dad even when he tore our family apart.  And He loves everyone regardless of who they are and what they've done.  He loves those who stray from the path, those who are hurt, those who hurt others, those who are gay, those who deny His existence.  He loves you even when you don't feel like you deserve it.  And I want everyone to know it.

So, without further ado, I have been called to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to labor in the Washington, D.C. North Mission.  I leave January 29th of this month and will not return home until July of 2015.  During that time, I will devote all my time and energy to spreading the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the good people of Washington, D.C.  I will only be allowed to call my family on Christmas and Mothers' Day.  Other than that, I can only email them or write them letters every week.  I can't watch TV, date, play video games, go to school, or sleep in for 18 months.  Yes, it's going to be hard.  Yes, I'm not exactly thrilled about sacrificing everything.  But I am thrilled to be able to serve the Lord and His people and I will gladly sacrifice all those things for 18 months so that others may have this gospel and be with their families forever.

I have created a blog for my mission.  I'll post on it a few times before I leave, and then my mom will post my weekly emails I send home to her so my family, friends, and anyone else including YOU can read about what I'm up to on my mission if you wish.  Even if you're not Mormon, you can still read it and hear about the service I'll be doing for others and how I'm trying to do what I think is best.  I just want to help people.  The address for my blog is http://celestialmission.blogspot.com/ so feel free to check it out.  I already have a post up with some pictures and a video!  Ooooh!  I love you all, even if I don't know you.  Thank you for reading my blog.  Be back in 2015!

xoxoxo

Let Me Explain...

Hello everyone! I was told by a special someone that I need to post on my blog.  I realize I haven't posted in eight months.  To anyone that still checks back here on a daily basis hoping that I posted some new exciting post about my life, today is your lucky day! I'm just going to do a bit of explaining about my blog and why I probably won't be writing much for a while.

I started this blog back at the end of seventh grade.  At first I was unsure about it yet excited.  It quickly became one of my fun weekly activities to write here.  I loved looking at my sitemeter to see how many people would read my blog and I absolutely loved getting feedback.  I had awful junior high years.  Around the time that I started this blog was when the economy went bad.  My dad was self-employed but was forced to quit because of some untimely changes.  He had to start looking for a job yet no one was hiring.  The entire summer of 2008 my family had absolutely no money.  We sold everything that we could live without and barely had enough food.  We lived off of frozen pizza and taco soup from our food storage that entire summer.  My parent's stress rubbed off onto me and I quickly became very depressed and anxious.  I had problems making friends at school and would come home every day upset and sleep it off.  So writing on here and reading everyone's posts became my only exciting thing, I posted at least once a week and I made sure I had the coolest layout and music.  You'll notice that 2008 was when I had the most posts even though I didn't even start the blog until half way through the year.  I felt like I could write anything and the people reading felt like my friends that I could tell anything to and joke with since I didn't do much of that at school.

Ninth grade was a much better year and I felt infinitely happier than the previous year.  Honestly whenever I think of eighth grade I just think of darkness.  I'm not trying to be cheesy or weird, that's just the truth.  Seventh grade I think of awkwardness, eighth is dark, ninth is fun, tenth is drama, and eleventh was just bad.

So the reasons I don't really write anymore are because 1) I feel like my life is so boring and you guys wouldn't care 2) I'm not as funny as I used to be.  When I re-read my junior high posts I start cracking up.  I was so funny and now I've mellowed out. 3) No one writes on their blogs anymore.  It just kind of died out so most of the people who read my blog probably won't even see this post.  I enjoy having an audience.  My journal is just for me, but the blog is to entertain people and to give them a glimpse into my life. 4) I'm more content with life than I used to be.  I don't need this as an escape.  Right now, I'm happy and have accepted who I am and who I hope to become.

I don't know how much or if I'll post again this year.  I could post again next week or next year for all I know.  I plan to blog again once I get into college.  I want to get into BYU Provo and major in Animation and minor in piano performance.  I really enjoyed reading my cousin Stephanie's blog and seeing all of the artwork that she did for her classes so I thought it would be cool if I posted the short animation demos and artwork that I'll do if I do get into college.  Also, I won't be home so my parents and sisters could read my blog to check up on me if they'd rather not contact me or something.  College will probably be much more exciting than my life right now and I'm beyond excited.  I really don't want to go to another year of high school I just want to go to college so bad.

I'm just going to give you a synopsis of the previous school year and my life right now so you can feel like you know more about me and so you can understand why I'm not sure if I'll get into college.

Sooooooo junior year.  Eeek.  The first six weeks were great.  Then I got a job.  Worst decision of my life. I got a job at Wendy's. The first two weeks they had me working 30 hours a week.  The first day of work, I came home really tired and went to bed.  The entire night I kept on having restless dreams where I'm making shakes, getting fries, collecting money, or taking orders.  You know those awful dreams where it's super restless and when you wake up you feel like you never went to sleep?  Yeah that's what happened.  For two weeks straight.  And hence began the missing school.  After the first day of school, I arrived at school an hour late.  For the rest of the school year, it was a miracle if I could get to school on time.  It was awful and I got into a really bad habit of waking up late and thinking that it was ok.  I had seminary first period the entire year.  First term was the only term that I got mostly full credit.  I have over 100 seminary lessons to make up.  God help me.  Literally.  I hated myself for not being able to get to school on time and missing class.  I could tell my dad was really disappointed with me all the time.  I felt like such a loser and failure.  I began to wonder how I can possibly get into BYU, they wouldn't want a lazy bum like me.  After Christmas, I got this brilliant idea to go to the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.  It's $17,000 a year, has a great animation program, and everyone who applies gets in.  Perfect, right?  I was fully convinced I was going there for three months.  In January, I had to have a meeting with my AP Calculus teacher and my dad because I was barely going to class (it was first period...) and I was way behind and failing.  I couldn't quite catch up and failed that term.  BYU would love that.  In March, I performed in my school's musical, "Guys and Dolls."  I can't say it was that much fun.  Well the rehearsals were fun, but the performances not so much.  My school's amazing choir teacher retired the previous year, so we had this guy fresh out of college who had never directed a musical on his own and our new choir teacher trying to pull it together.  It was good, but it could've been much better.  Also, I was in 4 scenes.  I was in the beginning scene on and off like four times.  Then I came on two scenes later for a minute pretending to be drunk with a cute sailor.  Did I mention I was a hooker?  And then I got to sit in the dressing room for almost an hour until I was on again.  And then I got to be in the Havana scene at the end of Act I where I'm at a bar in Cuba and a fight breaks out and I do some dancing and hair pulling.  That lasted about five minutes.  That was my big scene.  Then I didn't come out again until the very last scene where I lock arms with some guy and sing Guys and Dolls.  I really don't mind being part of the chorus, I don't need a main part to feel important.  But only four scenes? It was ridiculous.  I'm glad I was in it, but this year I hope that they do a musical with more scenes for chorus members. In March, I also took the ACT.  I spent hours studying and that was probably one of the only things that I took seriously that year.  I got a 29.  Boo-ya.  I also went on the science trip the last week of March the week before spring break.  I got to go to Seaworld, San Diego Wild Animal Park, Disneyland, California Adventures, Universal Studios, Santa Barbara, and Six Flags.  I won't go into what happened there, but let's just say it wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be which was a real downer since I spent so much money.  I did enjoy myself most of the days though.  I especially loved Universal Studios.  Apparently other people that went didn't like it as much but I was fascinated.  Probably because I want to be in the movie business with animation and special effects and I got to see lots of behind the scenes stuff.  The end of the school year came.  I took and failed my AP Calculus test.  I nearly failed 4th term AP Calculus, and I had done tons of makeup for third term yet fell less than 2% short of passing.  I sent a pleading email and he did eventually allow me to pass. 

So at the end of a crappy school year I thought about how I will never have enough money to get into the Academy of Art University so BYU is my only hope.  I took the ACT again and got a 31 (out of 36 if you don't know).  So that combined with my 3.27 GPA, is that enough to get me in?  I'm making up all of my seminary, I'm doing 200 hours of service by crocheting blankets for a nursing home, and I'm taking 3 AP classes and an internship next year.  I also know Chinese and have my Young Women Personal Progress Award.  So do you think they'll accept me?  That's the big question.  I'm scared to death that I won't make it.  I'm doing everything possible to increase my chances.  I can't blame them if I don't get in though, it's my fault for being lazy and getting bad grades.  I'll let you guys know if I get in.  If not, I probably won't post on here for a long time because I don't even want to go to college if I don't get in.  Animation is the only thing I want to do and I'm not gonna waste money getting a degree in something I don't want to do. 

Anyway, I hope that holds you all until next time.  Thanks for reading my blog, it means a lot to me.  Loves to all. :)

Vote for me!!!

Hey so I've decided I'm going to college in San Francisco and I need all the help I can get. I entered this scholarship by writing a 300 word essay about the most important lesson I've learned in life. Please help me win a $5,000 college scholarship. Vote for my essay!

Here's my essay by the way:

Throughout my life, I have been taught over and over that education is important. I have always accepted it without question, but as I have grown I have personally experienced it. My parents got married at a young age, and consequently my parents did not continue on with a college education. As the years progressed and my family required more money to support ourselves, our financial situation suffered. My parents were unable to find a good paying job without a degree. However, a few years back, my mother made the decision to go back to school. I got to see first hand how beneficial it is to get an education: after graduating with her Master's in Accounting, she was able to find a good job and she seemed to have a new purpose in life and felt more accomplished. My father's job won't allow him to be promoted any further until he receives his degree, and so he has decided to go back to school too. This has shown me that education can really pay off and open doors that you didn't even realize were closed. Because of my parent's choices, it has motivated me to receive a higher education so that I can make the most out of my life. Going to college and getting a degree is the key to a successful and happy life. Education doesn't only allow you to make more money, but it makes you feel like you have a bigger part in this world and that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to.

Summer is where the girls go barefoot and their hearts are just as free as their toes.

This summer has been so much fun, and I'm sad that it's over. I can't remember the last time I've had a really good summer, it was definitely before I started this blog. Last summer, I spent the whole time either working, doing lame stuff with Sammy at night, or going to church camps. I did fun stuff, but I didn't end the summer feeling accomplished. The summer before was just filled with work and I didn't really hang out with people much. The summer before eight grade, I spent most of my time listening to Eragon or Harry Potter on my ipod and crocheting and eating wheat thins and maybe hanging with Sariah every now and then. This past summer, I feel accomplished. I'm not sure if I'm ready for it to end or not. I would like to go to school because I miss seeing people even if I don't talk to some of them, I just like feeling social, but at the same time I want more time for swimming and tanning and hanging out with people. One thing I am excited about with summer ending is that I no longer have to babysit Hannah and Emma. I love them, but they can be brats when they want to.

One thing that made this summer great was the fact that I didn't work at Lagoon. Two years was good enough for me and I was very grateful that my mom told me to quit otherwise I would've worked there again this summer. However, Ashley was a rides office supervisor at Lagoon this year and I got the pleasure of driving her to work early in the morning or picking her up from work past midnight a lot. I have a grudge against that place. This was probably my last summer not working (I haven't had a work free summer since seventh grade, sad...), I went and applied to be a bagger at Fresh Market today and they said that they'd call me for an interview on Monday so yipee. I need to be saving up money, and with Ashley going to college it showed me how important money is when you're decided to attend college and I will be off to college in two years so I better get crack-a-lackin.

Anyway, I made a list of things I've done this summer because I'm weird like that, and it's fun to remember things that I've done, so here it is, enjoy.

• I have kissed boys :) yes I'm not afraid of people knowing that I, Celeste Black, am a teenager who counts kissing as one of her favorite activities. It's quite fun.
• I have gone fishing. I went with Dolly and it was fun even though we didn't catch anything because I can say that I've gone fishing!
• Youth Conference. Way back in the middle of June, I went to Youth Conference. We went to the Manti Pageant and did a ropes course and it was very grand.
• Played truth or dare with Sammy and a few boys. I won't go into detail, but I found it delightful :)
• Rock climbed and did ropes courses (both at youth conference and AFY)
• Went on a hike with some friends. It wasn't much of a hike, but it included walking uphill in the mountains for a while.
• Played at some parks. Me, Sammy, and different boys have played at the park at night. We didn't do anything saucy, it was just all in good fun.
• Swim. I went with my sisters, Heather Lieber, my family, and Mikey Evans this summer. I like swimming, and I have a way cute swim suit.
• Be in a parade. For lacrosse, we got to be in the Centerville parade which was way fun but tiring. During the parade, this man threw a piece of candy at me and yelled "catch!" so I instinctively threw out my lacrosse stick and caught it and he said "that's a true lacrosse player right there!" Whenever we saw candy on the ground, we scooped it up with our sticks and threw it. It was so much fun.
  
• I went shopping! Of course, I'm a teenage girl and we do love to shop (when they actually have decent clothes..)
• Read. Last week, I read three books in three days, and I have read quite a few books during the summer. It's great entertainment.
• Barbeque. I never knew how to spell that, thank goodness for auto spell! Anyway, a friend of mine had a Barbeque which I went to and it was very fun.
• I've listened to lots of music, music is amazing and makes me happy.
• I took a dance class. It was interesting because I haven't taken a dance class in like 5 years but I kept up well. Hopefully I'll be taking classes this fall.
• I have gone to get smoothies at both Smoochies and McDonald's with various people. I LOVE smoothies!
• I had two sleepovers with Amanda, not including AFY. Amanda is my most favorite cousin ever!!
• Go see Harry Potter 7 pt. 2. I saw it with Ashley and her not boyfriend Caleb. I really liked it, of course there were some parts that could've been improved but overall I thought it was a great ending!
• Go to emergency room. I was babysitting my little cousin, Noah, and he's allergic to milk and my dearest father gave him cereal with milk in it so we had to rush him there.
  
• Go on a date. Actually I went on 2...and a half? I went mini golfing with this guy from Cedar City and his friend and Sammy for a double date and got ice cream with a football player named Logan. I also have gone to the movies and gone swimming one-on-one with a couple guys and I didn't consider them dates but my mom did so there's your half.
• Hang with cousins. My cousins from Texas came down and I spent time with them and I've also spent a lot of time with my local cousins which is fun because family is good.
• Get sunburned. The first time I went swimming this summer, my legs got super burnt. I couldn't wear pants and I couldn't shave or take a hot shower for a week and it sucked bad. But they're tan now so it's all gooood.
• Go to Lagoon. I went once with my sisters, but I was in a bad mood that day so it wasn't that much fun, but the second time I went with Sammy and boy I met at AFY and that was delightful. Lagoon sucks though, screw them.
  
• See Transformers 3. I saw this with a boy just as friends but my mom seemed to think it's a date. We're just friends... The movie was good though, Shia LeBeouf is hot :)
• Babysit Porthos. Porthos is my cousin's shih-tsu/maltese dog. We used to hate each other, but now we have a close bond. He's just seriously misunderstood and needs to have some anti-anxiety spray put in his water dish (my aunt Tina did that to her devil dog and now he's an angel)
• Go to the mall. I went to Gateway, Layton, and Trolley Square. It was fun.
• Watch fireworks. Generally, people light fireworks on the fourth of July.
  
• Play guitar and piano. I've already given my schpeel on piano, and guitar is like a side instrument that I play in my spare time or when I'm supposed to be cleaning my room, like today.
• Watch Phineas and Ferb. I never saw an episode before this summer, but now I am in love. It is such a funny show and my family had a nice movie night together when the Phineas and Ferb movie came on. Where's Perry?
• Go to Girls Camp. I wasn't very thrilled to go, and I wasn't very thrilled when I got back, but it was a good experience I guess.
• Go mini golfing. That was my double date. And then I went again a week later with AFY friends.
• Go to AFY. That was the best week of my summer, it was so much fun!! It stands for Adventures for Youth. It's at BYU-Idaho and you are put into groups with 12 boys and 12 girls and a boy and girl couselor and it's a church thing so you learn about church stuff and you do a ropes course, go to the temple, go river rafting, play fun games, and have dances. And meet cute boys :) Aaaah so much fun!! We also made a music video and I was the main person. I'll post the music video and the video from my week at the bottom if it will let me and you'll be so jealous that I got to go :)
• Be on a bus for 5 hours. I went to AFY with my cousin and the bus was 5 hours there and back. Fun...
  
• Hang with Amanda 10 days in a row. We went to AFY together which was Monday through Friday, and then we hung out on Saturday with AFY friends, I returned her hair gel to her on Sunday, and we hung out Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday with AFY friends. Best 10 days of the summer.
• Pass out. So on a Saturday night after AFY, Amanda and I hung out with two boys, Adam and Justin, from AFY, and we had this brilliant idea to play the passing out game. I heard it kills brain cells, and maybe it does because I confused my hair product with a Harry Potter potion the next day. Anyway, you lay on the floor and pant for a minute and then you stand up and hold your breath while someone squeezes you from behind and the next thing you know you're waking up on the floor wondering what just happened. I got me passing out on video, I'm not sure if I should post it because some people might get upset at me for passing out.. but it's soooo weird! And stupid.
• Go to a drive-in movie. On a Monday night, Amanda and I went to a drive-in movie with Adam and Justin and their friends and we watched Captain America. We didn't really pay attention to the movie because we were busy talking, but it was wayy fun.
• Drive a jeep. Yeah this girl let me drive hers, it was sick. I want a jeep. (and yes, I did just say SICK)
• Do a back hand spring. So this girl from AFY, Stephanie Craven, who is also the owner of the jeep, had a sleepover with Amanda and me and she does gymnastics. So I took advantage of the opportunity and relearned how to do a front-hand-spring, back hand spring, and round off back hand spring in about an hour. It was so fun, I haven't done a round off bhs since 7th grade so it felt great.
• Go to Cedar City. Sadly, Ashley went off to college at Southern Utah University last Thursday. I was so excited for her to go and everything but then when it came time to hug her goodbye, I burst into tears. We've been buds for almost 17 years and now she's living 4 hours away and it made me sad. Oh well, she met a cute boy from her EFY group a couple years ago there and I hope they become good friends... ;)

Aaaand that's it. That was my summer. Some of you may think it's lame, but to me it was very fun. The only thing missing was a family vacation, but oh well sometimes life happens and you can't do everything you wanted to but I've still spent a lot of time with my family and I don't need a vacation with them to make me love them more.

School starts on Monday. The juniors and seniors don't have to be there until 9:30, but since I'm in link crew, I have to be there at 6:40 am. We have to help the incoming sophomores and be their mentors and play games with them before school starts on Monday. It sucks getting up early, but I think it will be fun and I get a cool shirt. I'm ready for school, the only thing is that I haven't actually gone to find where my classes are. I just have the room number so I'm gonna have fun trying to find my classes on the first day but oh well, the school's not as big as it seemed last year so I should be fine hopefully.

Well that's it, summer's over, and the sky is crying right now because summer is over. I had fun while it lasted and I'm sort of ready for school to start. Bring it on.


This is the music video that we made at AFY. They had us do this to promote positive media. That's me as the main, upset girl. My bangs are weird because that was the day we went to the temple where we did most of this and I didn't have a flat iron so I just gelled it back and that's also why I'm in a dress. At the campus, if you pick flowers it's a $35 fine so that explains the flower part, and we went on a blind walk where we were blind folded earlier in the week so that's kind of what the scene is representing. Also, my cousin Amanda is one of the rebel girls with me, the one with the black and white dress and brown wavy hair. Enjoy :)


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This is the video for the entire week that they made, the only place where you can actually see me is 2:18, there's a picture of me on the raft next to my cousin. There are a couple of shots of a purple raft going through the rapids, but there were two so I can't tell which one was mine. As you can tell, AFY is a blast! :)



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Practice

I just practiced the piano for three hours. It sucked and took me about four hours because I was getting really upset and hyper 2 hours into it and was laying on the floor ranting to my piano and doing weird things and making strange, obnoxious noises. I think the piano broke me. And tomorrow I get to do it all over again. My teacher told me to start out with practicing 3 hours every day and work my way up to 6 hours. What did I get myself into?

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PIANO

Hello everyone. Last night, I was browsing youtube with my little cousin Mckenna when I came across a clip from one of my favorite movies, 不能说的秘密 (Bu Neng Shuo De Mimi, The Secret). I started freaking out and told Mckenna (who is 9 years old) that she has to watch it with me, so we stayed up until midnight watching it. The movie was made in China and is spoken in Chinese so we got to watch it with subtitles. It's about this guy who goes to a music school to study piano and meets a mysterious girl and they fall in love but she has this secret and it's so crazy and aaahhhhhh. I watched it in my Chinese class last year, and about three minutes until the end of the movie, the bell rang for class to end. All of us were freaking out because the ending is so intense so no one got up and we watched it to the end. Mckenna really enjoyed it even though I had to explain a lot of it to her. I think everyone who reads this blog who loves piano, music, a good love story, crazy intense endings, Chinese people, or a good movie should watch it on youtube. You will LOVE it.

My piano teacher gave me sheet music for Mozart's Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with 12 variations. She told me to choose three to learn, so I've been listening to them on youtube to decide which ones to learn. It's so cool how each song is composed very differently from the others, yet they all have the same simple tune we all know in it. It's amazing.

So the reason for me telling you about these random youtube piano players is because I've been thinking about the piano lately. Actually a lot. I started playing the piano when I was either 7 or 8. I've been playing for half my life. So you'd think that I'd be pretty freaking good. But I'm not. I'm average, mediocre. I can play all the notes in songs that I play, but I mess up at least once per song and it doesn't sound musical. It's not pretty. It sounds like all of the right notes are being played, but it doesn't sound nice or smooth, it sounds choppy and unimpressive. I hate watching kids my age play amazing pieces flawlessly at piano concerts and sound amazing because it makes me feel like I'm a terrible piano player. Part of the reason that I'm not as good as I like is because I've had piano teacher problems since I moved to Farmington. Before I moved here, I had a couple piano teachers, but the last one I had was amazing. In the two years I had her, I improved so much, it's crazy. When I moved here, I got a piano teacher that I went to early in the morning every Thursday with my little sister. I hated going, she would turn on Mozart and make me sing along and she just wasn't really my cup of tea. I begged my mom to find another teacher, so she let me quit. For many months, I didn't have a piano teacher but I practiced every day and still tried to teach myself because I love to play. I finally got another teacher. She was good, except she would make me play stupid piano computer games that are way below my level (which my current piano teacher now makes my 8 year old sister play) and would run my lessons super late which is super annoying. She would spend most of the time trying to explain things that I didn't understand and she didn't let me do what I love most which is learning new, fun songs. She just talked half the lesson about theory. As important as theory is, that doesn't help me much because I have a very small attention span when it comes to theory. I soon quit her too. A few months later, I got a new piano teacher who my cousins actually take from. I loved her, she was so great and would let me learn new, fun pieces and I actually enjoyed going to my lessons. I did improve with her. However, sadly, she had to get surgery so she decided to cut back on students. So I no longer had her as a teacher. It was pretty upsetting. Finally, months later, I got another new teacher, Katherine Chipman. And she is amazing! She is majoring in piano at the University of Utah. I can't say I look forward to my lessons, but she really knows her stuff and is a good teacher and can actually help me succeed. So, I decided to take advantage. I was talking to her at my last lesson, asking her how good I'd have to be to major in piano (I don't plan on majoring, but I might want to minor in it), and she said I'd have to start practing the piano at least four hours every day. That's a lot. On a good day, I practice for an hour. I have a hard time practicing though because I hate practicing when my whole family is home because I feel like I'm disrupting them with my playing, so four hours would surely annoy them to death. I contemplated it a bit, but after watching 不能说的秘密 (the piano playing is incredible) and listening to Twinkle Twinkle, I've decided that I want to play like that. I don't want to be mediocre, I want to be amazing and have people love to listen to me and be amazed by my talent. I am average at sports and average at art, but I don't want to be average at music. I want this to be my thing. I want to be like my Great Grandma Veldron who used to accompany symphonies and who thought the piano was so important. I want to be able to play and master any piece I want. So, today I texted my piano teacher and said "I want to be amazing at the piano and I'm willing to work hard. Can you make me amazing?" So she texted me back and told me that she will teach me to handle any piece but I'll need to practice more classical music and technique exercises, be more consisten with practice and lessons (heh..), learn to perfect pieces, and piano would have to be the focus of my life and that she could get me ready to audition for an amazing teacher. YES. That's what I want. I'm gonna practice the piano 4 hours a day and not care if my family get annoyed because I want this really bad and I'm doing this for me because I love the piano and I love to be the best and I haven't been the best at anything in years which is saddening. I want to be better, I need to be better. Playing the piano is my favorite thing to do and I'm willing to do all of the yucky theory and technique and scales and classical music. I'm gonna see if I can get into my church and play the grand piano in the chapel because I hate my piano. The pedal sucks, it's off key, and it's a bit annoying to play on now that I'm getting better and I need a good piano.

So anyway, that's my long post about the piano and how it's going to be an even bigger part in my life for now on. I really hope I can get much better, I mean practing 4 hours a day and about 24-28 hours a week instead of maybe 4 hours a week should get me really far. I'm gonna be spending one whole day of my week just practicing. Wow. It will all be worth it in the end. I love the piano. :)

My Dad's Birthday!

My dad's birthday was yesterday (he's 42 :o), and it's a bit of a tradition in the world to give people presents for their birthday. Well I am kinda broke since I no longer have a job, so I decided to draw a picture of him playing his guitar. It probably took me about 3 hours so not as long as other pictures usually do but it turned out pretty good. Anyway I just thought I'd share. I did a picture of my parents for my mom's birthday which I have posted on facebook. I'll post it on here if I can figure out how to put another picture on with my phone. K bye everyone!

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