Free Concert

I got to go to a free concert put on by the Utah Symphony Orchestra today, well they came to my school, but it was still a free concert. I think they are going around to schools with this program about learning Shakespeare through music, it was pretty cool I guess. The only issue I had was that they would explain what a part of the song was portraying compared with Romeo & Juliet, then they would play a short sample from it and do this until they had played a good portion of the song. Then after all the samples they would play the song. I wish they would have just explained what to listen for and then just played the song. It was officially considered a "sign up assembly", meaning that if teachers wanted to go then they had to sign up and save seats for their class. I asked my class yesterday if they wanted to go and was surprised when they said yes. Of course they were thinking about getting out of a day of class and could have cared less what is was. So even though most of the students didn't really enjoy it, I did, once they got to playing the song. I really like listening to symphony's, I admire the talent that each of the musicians have and honestly I am a little jealous. I loved being in the band in high school, but I was not very good. I had to work extremely hard to play just about any song. I never thought it was fair that others just had it come natural to them. So when I see symphony's I think of how that would be such a cool job, you know if I was actually any good at playing an instrument.

The Holy War

I usually don't get into the rivalry game too much between Utah and BYU, I don't want to set myself up to have people say I told you so or anything like that. This year at school some of the teachers in the Social Studies hall wanted to decorate their door for which ever school they cheered for. At first I was going to not get involved and put up USC stuff, then I realized the USC/Clemson game isn't until next week. Their is only one other BYU fan in my hall and I didn't want to leave him hanging. So I decided to decorate, although nobody else really knew I was a BYU fan. I guess they all assumed that I didn't really care because I'm not from Utah. My door and the teacher next to me I think are the best, just keep it classic in my opinion. Others started out looking nice, but they kept adding more and more stuff to it so now it looks kind of junkie. Actually they started trash talking through their door, which really is rather silly. I'm actually proud of myself-- I did something some what crafty and it looks nice. I'm impressed the the Ute symbol next door, but he had a TA do it, all he did was go get the paper. Honestly I'm not sure if BYU will win, I think some of these close games might catch up with them, but it has been fun.

General Conference

The Becca's at General Conference, it was a little weird since I went with a bunch of people I didn't really know, but it was still really cool. And we got soaked walking in the rain before the session started, until some nice Senior Missionary let us use his umbrella for awhile.

I finally got to see Music and the Spoken word, that was so cool. It was worth getting up an extra hour early.

Luckily the rain had stopped after the morning session, so at least we didn't have to walk in the rain before and after. I think everyone was praying the rain had stopped, because it was beautiful after the session.

A Moment of Reflection

The past few weeks I have been reflecting on my political views. I have always thought that if I lived back in 50s and 60s, that I would be one of those protesting for civil rights. In reality, their is no way to know what I would have done. I have always had pride in my views of equally that every one deserves. After talking about the founding fathers in my class, I have come to believe even more that "all men are created equal." Even though Thomas Jefferson didn't talk about race in the Declaration, but as I was watching the election coverage tonight I thought of how far this country has come. Even though I don't necessarily agree with all of the stances Barack Obama has, but I respect him for he truly has a challenge in front of him. I find that I agree with something John McCain said in his concession speech "America does not hide." One thing with American history, I don't think that America has ever tried to hide the problems it has. It has no problem with displaying its problems on the front page for everyone to see. So I would like to say good luck Barack Obama. Congratulations, and I hope you know what you are getting yourself into.