school anyone?

well, yeah. it's been quite awhile since i was here, and that's mostly because i forgot it existed. :) oops.

i have lived in texas for a month and a half. i have a fantastic apartment and had a bunch of help from friends to decorate it. it was really only about a week after i moved that all of the boxes were unpacked and everything had a place. spent way too much money at IKEA (check it out - www.ikea.com), but now i have all my furniture. we didn't want to move any big stuff down (besides my papasan chair) so we bought everything here. my parents stayed for about a week and helped with moving and getting my life in order. they are incredible people - i miss them dearly. here are some apartment pics:

couch side of living room! (i'm VERY proud of the pictures on the wall....i took them. they are all of my parent's garden in Lincoln.)

kitchen!

dining room! (i really like this, too. :))

entryway!



bathroom!

i'm pretty proud of the whole thing. :)

i've seen a lot of Austin and had some truly amazing food. i took a trip to California at the beginning of August to see people from the Disneyland All-American College Band from last year. it was an incredible trip and a beautiful reunion between people who hadn't seen each other in a year. i really love LA - maybe live out there someday? probably not for long....but it's a possibility. we went to Disneyland a few times, relaxed on the beach, saw "The Dark Knight" in IMAX (.....what.....), shopped, and went to the beach more. it would have been more relaxing, but i managed to get sunburned, roll my foot again, and get really sick the last day i was there (we're talking 102 temp, sore throat, dizzy, headache....and then i flew home. horrible.) what a weird trip - totally awesome for about 80 percent of the time, and then i just kept hurting myself. that's so like me.

came home (still sick) and studied for diagnostic exams. i took a music history and a music theory test and both were pretty difficult. i knew that the theory one was going to be fine, but i was all kinds of worried about the history. it was HARD - and i couldn't remember anything, of course. luckily - i passed both. yeah, i know. even i was surprised.

school started wednesday. i had my jazz audition Wednesday and my concert ensemble audition on Thursday. i found out then that i had made Wind Symphony (the second group) and was a little bummed, but then moved on to devastated when i found out that Wind Symphony meets MWF 2-4 and the top jazz group meets MWF 3-5. i went to talk to the jazz faculty and they said they were planning to put me in the top group. i thought that i wasn't going to get to do it - but then i received a phone call on Friday from the head of the jazz department. he told me that they had put me in the top group anyway (Jazz Orchestra) and that i was going to come to that rehearsal an hour late every time. i asked him if he was sure, and he said that it wasn't ideal but we were going to try it. how sweet is that? i was much happier after that news. :)

now it's Labor Day Weekend and i'm really not doing a whole lot. it's kind of hard living alone - but i'm surviving. coolest thing of the weekend - watching the Husker game at this beautiful restaurant in north Austin. there is a group called "Capitol of Texas Nebraskans" that i joined and they rent out this big restaurant for game days. they had a record turnout: 774 PEOPLE! it was amazing! i have never seen so much red in one area of a state other than Nebraska in my life! it was magical. and a pretty good game as well. :)

that's the news. more to come, i'm sure - life is about to get crazy. miss you all!