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School Happened

I don’t mean to offend this blog at all.  When school started again after winter break, I abandoned all of my blogs (Tumblr), not just this one.  Just, school happened.  We had one quick week of review, then finals week, and now that we’ve all recovered from that more work is being thrown at us faster than the speed of light.  With my excuses out of the way, let me give you guys a quick update:

I’m officially driving now!  I got my permit a couple weeks ago on January 10th, and I’ve been out three times since.  The first time, my dad took me out to the local community college parking lot and I just sort of rolled down hills and stopped at certain spots, and he drove back up them.  The second outing was sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing my mom did for me at the middle school across the street from my neighborhood, and I did a bit more actual driving (e.g. gas pedal) here, and I even drove home!  Lastly, the most recent outing, my dad took me back to the community college parking lot and we practiced some basic parking before we adjusted the mirrors and drove around the neighborhood for a bit.  In case it isn’t obvious, I really like driving.  It’s fun, and surprisingly relaxing.

In other news, I failed my math exam (I always fail the district tests), I asked a guy to the Sadie’s dance at my school, auditions for All-State orchestra are in less than a week, and I have reseating auditions for the local youth symphony tomorrow.  Currently I’m 2nd chair, and I would really like to keep that chair.  I like the people I’m sitting near, and I like talking to our conductor (although I think that he’s getting annoyed with me; I should tone myself down a bit.)

I’m super excited for this second semester.  I plan on improving my studying skills because I absolutely stink at studying.  I also want to use my planner more effectively and hopefully achieve an A in math for the first time since 6th grade.  I really do understand all of the concepts that are being taught, and I do alright on the chapter tests and homework quizzes, there’s always just something about the district tests (since my school district standardizes the math final exams) that trip me up really badly.  To add on top of all of that, I got a B on the constructed response portion, which I didn’t study at all for because I forgot we were taking it the day before exams, but I failed the multiple choice portion which I studied for for a week.  Overall I’m just confused: am I smart or am I just not getting something?

Here ends the tales of CJ’s school-and-anything-else-I-have-time-for life.  Tune in later (I think?) for the updated chronicles.

Exploring the Blogging Community

I’ve been here a while.  I think it’s time for me to start branching out and exploring the blogging community, and that meant exploring tags.  This was a part of today’s (day 4) “Zero to Hero” challenge by dailypost.  Check it out if you haven’t already seen it!

The tags I explored were:

• zerotohero
• music
• cello
• writing
• photography

In each of these topics, I followed a few blogs that looked interesting.  To be honest, I didn’t read through many posts before I decided to follow them.  I like things to be a surprise, so when they show up on my reader it’s like unwrapping a present.  Sometimes this method fails me and I end up following some very strange blogs, or blogs that I end up not being interested in, but that’s okay because I can just unfollow and try again.  Some my favorites were under the photography and music topics, so I think I’ll go explore those some more before stopping my follow spree for today.

-CJ

Bout of Books 9.0 – Doin It!

I’m interested! Perhaps I’ll get through a few books this week, since I usually don’t finish any in a week.

The Grown-Up YA

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 6th and runs through Sunday, January 12th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 9.0 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

Usually whenever Bout of Books comes up I have trouble participating due to work, clubs, meetings, priorities… but this time I am FREE from all of these obligations! I still have on more week of recovery before going back to work so…

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Movie Weekend!

This weekend, I went to see two movies with my mom:  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and The Book Thief.

I really love weekends like these, because I get most of my work done early in the morning, and then we go out in the afternoon to see movies.  I saw The Hobbit on Friday and The Book Thief today.  I really loved both movies, and I can’t really say which one I liked better.  I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan, so The Hobbit movies are just automatically great, despite straying from the book a lot.  As for The Book Thief, I read the book in 8th grade and again in the fall before the movie came out, and I am absolutely in love with it.  It is up there on my all time favorite book list with Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, Charlotte’s Web, Where the Red Fern Grows, and I’m going to stop there because I have a LOT of favorite books; so many that I can’t list them all here. (Hm, is that a post idea I smell? I’ll get working on that.)  The Book Thief movie did not stray very far from the book, in fact.  The directors left quite a bit out, but I’m sure that if they did manage to squeeze all of the bits and pieces of the story in there, then the movie would probably be longer than one of the Lord of the Rings movies.  However, they could have included a few things that they left out, and some important scenes didn’t pack enough punch for my taste, but it was still a good movie nonetheless.

Look at me, I’m becoming somewhat of a movie critic.  I’ll be seeing more movies soon, since I always go out and see lots of movies during Oscar season.  Perhaps I’ll talk about some of those as well.

-CJ

Weekly Photo Challenge: Beginning

Just went out in my backyard and took this. Edited in Aperture.

Rose Parade 2014!

All of the most salvageable pictures I took. They aren’t that great because I had to crop out people’s heads and it was all with my iPhone, but I did my best to fix them up.

A Formal Introduction

I believe I have been writing on this blog for almost a week now, and I have yet to tell you who I am or what I’m even doing here, so that’s what this post is about.

My name is CJ, and I am a sophomore in high school.  I play the cello (as you can see from my URL), and I hope to make a career out of it.  I enjoy just about anything excluding crazy rollercoasters, horror movies, haunted houses, and illegal stuff.  Reading, writing, hiking, and playing my cello are at the top of my favorites list, though.  I am currently learning how to play the piano, how to speak Spanish, and how to get over some horrible stage fright.

I’ve been trying to keep a regular journal since I was in kindergarten.  I’ve written in one on and off throughout the years, but now I’m starting to think that a blog would be better for me.  It’s public, which may help me with my stage fright (I’m not sure how, but I hope it does), and I love technology.  It’s like an online journal.  It’s a place where I can talk about my feelings and what’s happening in my life without being judged, and I wouldn’t feel so bad if I went a couple of weeks without posting anything.  Not only that, I can vent about all of my frustrations to strangers, so the odds of what I say getting back to anyone are slim.  Also, a blog is fun!  I actually started to get back into blogging after I caught up with BBC’s Sherlock, so I think this sudden interesting in blogging again stemmed from John Watson’s blog.

As far as topics go, I’m not quite sure yet.  It could range from all of my theories on how Sherlock survived the fall to linking some of my recordings on Soundcloud for you guys to listen to, to talking about my feelings and whatever drama high school decides to bring me (I hope that one will not be frequent).

I think if this blog is successful for a year, I will probably jump for joy, brag about it for months, and then keep writing for another year, and perhaps another.  Keeping up with a regular posting schedule would be a huge accomplishment for me, since I tend to be flaky about those things unless it’s for a grade or for advancing my music career.

Wish me the best of luck!

-CJ

The Rose Parade!

This morning, as many of you know, the Rose Parade made it’s way down Colorado Boulevard this New Year’s day, and I had the fortune of seeing it. Luckily, I didn’t have to camp out on a sidewalk all night (we bought tickets in the grandstands), but it was still cramped shoulder to shoulder on the bleachers.

Despite being in one of the back rows, I had a spectacular view of all of the floats, marching bands, and other groups of people who paraded through Pasadena. It truly was a once in a lifetime experience, and through this I have developed a new appreciation for marching bands. Imagine having to walk five miles and play an instrument for most of that time!

I plan on posting the pictures sometime tomorrow or Friday, as soon as I weed out the duds and edit the ones that were salvageable.  The floats were truly amazing, and I think all of them deserved an award.  Funny thing about the awards, a lot of them all generally mean the same thing: they arranged the colors and the flowers nicely and it looks pretty.  Some of the other awards were more diverse.  There was a humorous float award, an innovative float award (which, ironically, broke down in the middle of the parade), president’s choice award, and others.

I think what I’m taking away from all of this is that I’m glad I play a stringed instrument.  We don’t march.

Just kidding, I’m a little deeper than that.

My parents don’t really like crowds, and that’s always been difficult for me because I love being in the thick of things.  I love the city, malls, shopping, anything to get out of the house really.  I love noise.  I think this is why I probably got more good memories out of this whole experience, this trip to LA, than my parents.  They spent a lot of time complaining about the crowds and the noise, and missing out on having a good time, creating memories, and simply going with the flow.  I do love my parents, but sometimes they’re downers.

That about wraps up this first day of 2014.  Seeing the parade was a great start to what promises to be a great year.

Oh, and I’m adding to my New Year’s Resolution list.

4.  Learn how to play the piano.  This is essential if I want to be a professional musician, right?  Well, that’s at least what I’ve always heard.  I’ve been teaching myself here and there, and I got a full keyboard for Christmas, so now seems to be the best time to start learning.

New Year’s Eve

Happy New Year, my followers! 2014 is almost upon us, so I decided to make some resolutions. I don’t typically make these, and if I do I never go through with them; but maybe this year will be different.

1. Keep this blog up and running. I think writing a blog will be good for me, a sort if permanent routine thing. I don’t really have that now besides school. Not only that, but I’ll get more comfortable with publishing my writing and such.
2. Keep straight As in school. This is one I have every year. Haven’t quite succeeded these past few years, but this school year has been one of my easier years, so maybe I have a hope!
3. Be kinder to myself. This past year I’ve been really hard on myself, from how I look to my schoolwork to just everyday things, and I’m not happy about it. I’m a perfectionist, so this one will probably be the hardest for me, but it’s a goal I plan to follow through on nonetheless.

So that’s about it, really. I imagine this list will grow and change throughout the year as I grow and change, but this is all I have so far.
Comment your New Year’s Resolutions!