Spent the last two evenings at the Choctaw Christmas Concert to support the big little brother. All went very well - Jackie has some nice soloists this year and all the musicians sounded great. All those songs are such old friends - and who knows what the concert will be like next year with a new choral director. However, I suspect that the Madrigals will introduce him/her to Fruitcake, like it or not, so that’s all right. What’s Christmas without Fruitcake??

I was thinking about it last night, and realized that I haven’t been to one of Graham’s concerts since I graduated - they all happened before I got home for Christmas/for the summer. So it’s been since he was a sixth grader - I was proud to see he’s learned how to open his mouth since then. Well, actually, I was just proud.

It’s always odd to go back to Choctaw - a lot of memories tied up in that old auditorium. I had my first middle school concert there (which is a story or two in itself). All the high school concerts, all the solos, all the Fruitcakes. Playing for Miss CHS - and doing the spot. Watching my friends in all the school plays - and let’s think of the good ones like Is there a Comic in the House? Sitting through senior honors night three years in a row because Mads had to sing for it. Not to mention all the stupid assemblies over the years. But let’s stick with the good memories. There are plenty. Also realized that I first saw Choctaw’s Christmas concert ten years ago when my fifth grade class was one of the school groups who went to see it during the day as a field trip. (I was on the other side of that in 10th or 11th grade; we didn’t do it every year. ) I remember that the guard girls who play toy soldiers while the band plays Babes in Toyland struck a particular chord with me that year - that was my first year as a Nutcracker soldier.

School spirit is an odd creature. In a lot of ways, I don’t give a flip about Choctaw and I still can’t think about the words to the alma mater without at least rolling my eyes (”…and for her, our alma mater, we will fiiiiight aaaand diiiiiiiee…” Totally not kidding.). But the place has aspects of which I am very proud to have been a part of. One of those is IB, of course. Its music program is another.

Categories: home
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Those of you who follow Enterprise know that there have been several episodes that have had a lot to do with Vulcan and Vulcans lately. And I know all of you can guess how I feel about that.

*puts on a good Vulcan expression to resist bouncing gleefully*

Anyway, I was most amused to see what StarTrek.com has put together for the occaision: The Vulcan Files

And I was more amused to find this tidbit in the transcript of a chat with Leonard Nimoy from last March:

Q: Mr. Nimoy, was it hard to learn to lift one eyebrow in that manner?

LN: It came very naturally. It wasn’t something I set out or planned to do. It was something that I did as a natural reaction to something DeForest Kelley said to me one day.

So no, he didn’t practice in front of a mirror either.

Categories: Star Trek
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And I am so glad to be home!!

I know everyone wants to hear everything, so I’m working on that . It’s a work in progress - in fact, there’s only enough of it there now to be barely worth posting this note! So if pages suddenly appear and disappear as I work out the kinks, don’t be startled.

Edit 12/8/04:
As some of you have noticed, I’ve started putting pictures in. They’re being finnicky, and I’m not sure whether it’s my lazy simplistic coding or Furman being stupid (I’m using the webspace I’m allotted there, which means when they go down, the pages go down. Plus this program has its quirks, and most of them are dumb.). So if the photos won’t load….uhhh…hit reload a few times or try again later. My apologies!!

Edit 8/4/06:
As probably no one has noticed, the above link doesn’t work anymore, due to the fact that I, uh, graduated and no longer have access to the university’s web space. You might also remember that I never finished the page in the first place. However, you can find my pictures online at Kodak’s EasyShare Gallery (seemed easier to upload them there and order prints than waiting for the kiosk at WalMart to spit out hundreds of prints). You should be able to see them without having a log-in or anything. There’s five sets:
Tour of Ireland, Scotland, & England (our first two and a half weeks)
Stratford (the next two weeks)
London (five weeks)
Free Travel (the last two weeks)
And a supplement: a few pics I got from friends.
Someday, they might get to Flickr, but don’t hold your breath — you know me better than that! (That would also take months’ of upload space on Flickr unless I start paying, which isn’t likely in the near future) But if you ask, I’ll happily show you my (two volume) scrapbook.

Categories: home, mmm, London!, travel
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