Whoops, I almost forgot to put in a title

Well I hope everyone had a good week. To anyone around here, I hope nobody got too confused with the strange weather we have had the past week (snow, rain, sun, warm, and sub-freezing(often all on the same day!)). It's been a pretty good week. I got some anxieties taken care of as events passed through the week, but at the same time, I added more pain. This time though, it's physical pain from running yesterday (more on that later). Without anything else to do, I suppose I'll drop into the week.

Monday:
We had our rehearsal at Shorecrest and it went well. Apparently, 15 all state and all northwest kids were playing with us for 2 songs in our concert. Alex Brock was one of them, but I didn't talk to him. Our horn section got this small freshman girl from Shorecrest who was nice, but really quiet. She was a very good horn player though, which I guess you'd have to be to make all state as a fresman. After that, I came home and watched 24. ***SPOILER***I was very sad when Bill, my favorite character in all the series thus far was killed (and for just this stupid lady president of all people)***END SPOILER***

Tuesday:
I had a pretty average day. We only had 3 of us trumpets in Jazz band. One girl, we hadn't heard from all week and we had no idea what happened to her (we still don't know if she's coming back) and the other girl was in the band and the choir performing that night, so she took the day off. With more time to fill the private lesson slots, our trumpet teacher came in and listened to us guys play the songs we had and he offered feedback because he is very knowledgeable on that stuff. I had another good lesson. It feels nice to be able to hit more normal range notes much better. That night, we had the concert. I messed up slightly on one of my solos, but otherwise it went fine.

Wednesday:
We had a bad rehearsal in Jazz Band, but we decided that it was stuff that could be fixed easily. Also, we got to meet our professor for next quarter as he came to listen in. Doug isn't going to be doing it next quarter because he is taking a sabbatical to study the physics of sound. He will be at the North Texas University when we are there for the Jazz competition in April though, so that will be cool. Unfortunately he won't be conducting, but perhaps our new leader will be a good conductor. He is a trumpet player, so it will be nice to know someone knows of our pain.

Thursday:
Not much happened this day either. I caught my counselor on the way out of his class on my way into the classroom and I asked him about the waitlist for his law class next quarter. He said not to worry as he always has room for the top five. I was very relieved to hear that because I am number five and I had thus far not seen teachers taking beyond three people into their class from the waitlist except for accounting when we moved to a room that seated 100 people. After school, I came home and beefed up my essay to the extreme so that no holes could be found in my arguments and I even got some more points that I made to add to my paper's length. I also learned that Jack Thompson has been disbarred and I heartily loled as I realized I would soon be able to practice law, but he wouldn't.

Friday:
We had a guest high school band in jazz band. Their whole concert band had come from this small town in Oregon that nobody in the band would have heard of if not for the fact that our drummer was born there. They were really nice people. So nice, in fact, that if they had stayed any longer, an orgy might have broken out. Also their band leader looked like Napoleon Dynamite, but he was really cool and a good piano and trombone player. After that, we had another field trip for Asian lit. This time, it involved a zen garden. It was actually a really nice place and it was fun. After that, I stayed home while my parents went to a play. I took advantage of my free time to do every exercise on the Wii Fit for some reason.

Saturday:
My grandma was in town for the St. Patrick's Day Dash, so we hung out around the house most of the day until that night when mom and dad had dinner with dad's new boss, so Kathryn and I went to see Taken with Grandma. It was a really good movie. Finally a hero that shoots first and asks questions later.

Sunday:
Dash day! This was the 25th annual St. Patrick's Day Dash and my personal 19th one. Unfortunately, due to construction, the route was changed. It starts at that Teatro Zin Zani that's a block directly north from the Fountain at the Seattle Center. We usually run down, under aurora, then make a couple of right turns, then a left back onto aurora where we run along the northbound viaduct lanes to the Safeco/Qwest fields exit and finish at the far end of Safeco field after that long straightaway. This year, we did the normal route until we turned RIGHT on aurora and went north up to the bridge, then all the way back in to the EMP. I implemented a new strategy this year. I booked it out early, then let Kathryn pass me and have her think the whole way I was ahead while secretly I was right behind her. It worked, surprisingly enough. At the last corner, the finish is less than 100 yards away. At the corner, before you can see that however, there is a guy yelling "just 300 more yards." I took his word for it, but then Kathryn took off, so I had to sprint to catch up to her as I realized that the end was closer than I was told. Even though I sprinted, I was just a hair behind her. I may still have won though depending on whether or not I crossed the starting line first. We will know sometime in April when the timing chips are finished. I hope I won because I have bad knees that are still hurting from the race and I don't know how many more years I can compete with Kathryn for. If I get this win, then the pressure is off to finally get a win in my family.

As per usual, we headed out afterwards to my cousin's birthday party where we always have Corned Beef and Cabbage, which is his favorite meal. My dad and Kathryn don't like it for some reason, but I do, so it works out for me. There were a lot of crows when we were there, so my cousin showed me his 12-gauge and I got to take some shots. It was pretty cool. I think one of my shots might have clipped a crow, but it looked like he kept flying away, so I'm not sure. After we got back, I had 2 hours to do all the homework I neglected to do (only writing a 4-page essay) in 2 hours. I wound up spending one of those hours talking to Rachel though, so I did my essay in one hour and it was a pile of crappy mc crap, but the peers reviewing it seemed to generally like it, so now I get to fix it up for really turning it in.

Today:
Nothing much happened today. It was the last normal day of the quarter. Now I'm making this post as I get ready to do some homework, then enjoy some SS2 leading into the dead day between today and finals tomorrow.

So I'm going to California on Thursday and I get back Sunday. After that, I'm up for hanging out. I will more than likely not post between now and when I get back. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Until I have hopefully acquired a girfriend, peace out.

**EDIT**: Well the dash got done with the times very fast this year. I actually lost to Kathryn by one second, which was what I thought our time difference would be. Ah well, I will hopefully do better next year as we both got absolutely terrible times and if I win next year, then I will be happy. I'll also train for next year.