Everyday for the past week I've been at Palomar College from 9 AM to 3 PM for the Civic Youth Orchestra summer workshop. 6 hours of orchestra a day, 5 if you take out the lunch break, but still, that's a hell of a long time to be sitting there playing an instrument. I used to think that the 50 minute orchestra period at school was long enough -_-. We paid $165 to put me through a week of this, and guess what classical piece we spend the most time on in the workshop? Something something Glinka's Russlan and Lumilla. People from the MC orchestra know what I'm talking about... its the piece that we played this year at one of our concerts. So basically, I was in an orchestra that was playing stuff that I already know. That does take some of the fun out of it, but it was amusing to see everyone around me struggle with it while I was playing through with ease. In the end when we were performing it for parents we didnt even play it at the speed its supposed to go cause no one (except me) could handle playing it at it's intended speed... yet. But then you have to keep in mind that people can only learn so much in a week. I was pretty damn amazed at how far we got, actually. We also did some other stuff, but we a great majority of it on Glinka. I was a bit dissapointed, but not much. What was cool was that I thought I'd be going into the orchestra knowing no one, but as soon as I step through the doors to the music room Agnes from WV is standing next to me. Then later Neima strolls in. The 3 of us stuck together during the breaks the whole week. I also met a few people who I'm not going to name cause I don't exactly have "nice" things to say about them, but then again, they're not entirely negative either. There was this one girl who played viola who is extremely smart, but she just wouldn't shut up and stop showing off how many damn words in other damn languages she damn knew. Then there was another kid who played viola who pretty much whenever we weren't playing, he was wiping down his instrument with a cloth. On the first day, Mr. Gilsen, our director, did tell us that we should keep out instruments tidy by wiping the rosin off after each session, but this kid wiped his whole instrument down practically every moment that he wasn't playing it. I thought that was odd. Then there was a kid who thought he was funny, when he really wasn't, and he drop off dumbass comments, then laugh at his own "witty-ness" when the rest of the orchestra just sat there wondering what the hell would cause a person to be so unaware of how not witty they are. This same kid later started talking to be about bombs and blowing things up. Once during a rehersal he said something, and Mr. Gilsen gave him a glare and said, "Okay, now you're starting to annoy me. I have an extremely long fuse, but its starting to burn down, and you do NOT want to see what happens when the fuse runs out." I remember thinking, "THANK YOU for putting this kid in his place." This same kid had the worst playing technique of anyone in our group and when Mr. Gilsen tried to correct it he would reply, "This is how I've always beeen playing. I'm not chaning it." C'mon, you don't sign up to be in the advance symphony group if you don't even know how to hold a damn violin. Then there was this other guy who Agnes knew that I thought was pretty cool, although I shouldn't really judge because I only talked to him like 3 times and for very brief moments, but he smelled a bit musty. That's all about him. Dude, we were the advanced group, and there was a Chinese cello player that was 8 year old. I'm not kidding, she's entering 4th grade, but she kicks ass on cello. She was right up to par with the principle cellist, but her age and lack of experience prevented her from being principle, so Mr. Gilsen made her second chair, instead :P. During breaks she's climb around the school campus like it was a jungle gym. Yeah, and I signed up for my audition into CYO for 12:45 on September 11, whooooo.

I forgot what I did today... wait, no I didn't. I Went to MC and stood in like for almost 2 hours to get my sports physical for water polo. I had Chris and Katie to keep my company the whole time :P. And you know what, they didn't even check my prostate. I mean, whenever anyone hears "physical" the first thought they have is of a doctor sticking their hand down your pants, cradling your balls in their palm, and telling you to "cough." But they didn't do it this time. Huh.

Water polo starts on monday, and then each day after waterpolo training I have orchestra camp thing in the bandroom.