well aren't you curious...

GUESS MY PERSONALITY FROM MY USERPICS!
MY THREAD HERE

I WON FIVE THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS DUDE.


Verizon Wireless had a sweepstakes for college students for a weekly drawing for a Blackberry Storm 2 and a $100 Verizon Wireless gift card, and then at the end of several weeks, a grand prize drawing for $5,000.

I entered it over and over and over again with that five grand in mind, but then realized odds are, it ain't gonna happen. I mostly just did it 'cause I was bored anyway. Lo and behold, after week 3 of the drawings I found I'd won a Storm 2 and the $100 gift card. "I'll sell it," says I (I still haven't. =/) "Free money," thinks I, and I was satisfied with that.

Well this morning I got a call to tell me that


I WON THE GRAND FUCKING PRIZE.

Yeah. Katie's $5,000 richer. My luck is turning. Just thought I'd share.

I've been on break for about the last two weeks now. Every time I go on break, my sleep schedule reverses itself and I become very nocturnal. It's interesting, because in a house full of my family, I end up spending long periods of time by myself. I don't necessarily feel bad about it, because it's not as though I've got things to be doing that I miss by sleeping during the day. For an entire month, I get to do things entirely at my leisure, which doesn't always turn out how I'd like it. When I have literally nothing but free time, it's easy to put things off. But more often than not, those things either don't get done or get rushed and crammed in at the last minute. I definitely need to work on that.
As much as I've been resistant to the idea in the past, I'm thinking I could really benefit if I sat down and made myself a schedule to follow - a planner or something like that. The few times I've actually taken up things that organize and keep track of what I'm doing, it's been a definite improvement. Perhaps I could start now, while I don't necessarily need one, and that way I can already be in the habit once I get back to school.

A few things I've read and listened to in the past couple of hours have started me entertaining the idea of an audio diary. Hearing other people's was very interesting, and I think that it would have a dynamic quality that a written journal probably couldn't. It would be a bit less organized, but would also be a more immediate way of recording my feelings, and get things across that my writing wouldn't. So I'm thinking that all's I need is something to record on and a place to store the entries. They'd be fun to look back on, too.

Also. I would like to live on my own as soon as is practically possible. Maybe sooner. I'm not sick of my family or anything like that, I love them to pieces. I'm just yearning for an independence that I still haven't achieved at this point. I'm also getting pretty stir-crazy and want to go somewhere outside of the Midwest (which I have never done). I might like to leave the country for a bit, or maybe just move to a city and figure things out. I'm not really sure where I'll be once I'm actually in a position to make these decisions, but I do know for sure that I'd like to travel in one way or another. I just need to get out.

 I just wanted to see the post date.

I've been on winter break for a bit. It's nice to have gotten done with the semester. It wasn't necessarily a bad one, but it was definitely the weirdest I've had so far. I'm going more in my own direction than I was previously, which comes from getting older and farther in the program. It's been really nice in that I get to pursue my own specific interests and explore things that other people don't care for. It's a change from the way things have worked up to this point, though. It has been "Here's this set of goals we've set out for you. We know from experience that they work and that they'll help you gain command of that which you enjoy and are here to study." Now, it's more "Okay, now what do you want to do? This? Okay. Go for it." It's really great, but it's also a bit scary in an exciting kind of way.

There have been two big adjustments I've had to make. The first is the amount of material I've had to work on at any given time. As an underclassman, I was given lots of smaller pieces to work on, and the main focus was on developing technique. Now, I'm choosing my own pieces, and they're considerably longer and more challenging. I've had to develop different practice habits - before, if I was tired of doing one thing or wasn't getting anywhere, I could just set it aside and work on one of the many other things I had going. But now, for the most part, I've got maybe three or four big pieces going, so I have to have a different kind of focus while I practice. The other issue is memorization. I can say with confidence at this point that I'm good at committing things to memory, and can do it faster than most people. But the things I've been working on are much less traditional, both in their notation and performance, so I have to memorize different kinds of things (speech, movement, etc.). I can't tell if they're more difficult to memorize, or if they require a different way of going about it, but I've certainly not been putting forth the effort I need to be to find out. I'm on my way with all of them, but I'm pretty sure that I could have already had all three in my head by now, and I just plain don't. The change freaked me out a little bit, and the way I tend to deal with that is to procrastinate.

So. I'm not quite where I'd like to be in terms of progress, but I'm very happy with what it is that I'm working on. This break is good - I got a chance to step back and look at where I'm at, and I think that the fresh start when I go back to school will be good for me.

Another big thing I've been thinking about is how what I'm doing now relates to Real Life and where I'm going/what I'm doing after graduation. I've entertained the idea of going to grad school, but at this point I'm leaning pretty heavily toward not doing that, at least immediately. The main reason I have any interest at all in grad school is that it would put me in an intellectually and artistically stimulating community, and I would have opportunities to collaborate with talented people outside of my own focus. That would be very nice, but I feel like I could find the same thing (minus about $80,000) somewhere else if I looked a bit harder and put forth some more effort. So while I'm not ruling it out completely, I don't think I'll be going to grad school any time soon.

I'm thinking that I would a) like to travel and get around for a while, and b) start building connections with other artists outside of school and such, and hopefully continue performing and working on new material. That probably wouldn't be the easiest thing in the world, but it would be more than worth the effort. If I do well with that, I'll just do my best to keep doing it. If I can't, and I find myself needing more, I would consider applying to schools and going for a master's.

That's a lot of what I've been thinking about lately. I'm sure I've contradicted myself a few times, and I'm sure I'll have different thoughts about a lot of this at some point, but that's where I'm at right now.

Lady Gaga is much cooler than I've been giving her credit for. I've decided that I like her.