Samantha

HEAR YE!  HEAR YE!

I've finally moved this journal over to a name I feel better about.<br>
I've moved my friends list to this new identity: http://www.livejournal.com/users/eneogei

I will leave this journal intact for the sake of old entries, but would
appreciate it if perhaps you would (if I'm on your list) exchange
ahtei_eneogei for eneogei on your lists, or ye gods, you might think I
died, or something!
EDIT: Updating this for those of you who may have missed this when I originally posted it :)

Justin A. ROOT Born in Syracuse, NY in 1950, he graduated from Peabody Conservatory of Music in 1977. In 1979 he married Lauren Ulatoski in Bellevue, WA. He taught piano, was an accompanist and directed the choir at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Seattle. He and his wife produced the Eastside's All Youth Concerts for ten years and he conducted opera at the Chelan Bach Feste. For ten years, he was involved as a ski instructor and supervisor to the children's program at Alpental. He owned and managed Virtuoso Classical Music for eleven years, shipping to and researching for customers world-wide. He loved working with young people and enjoyed teaching music and games at Three Cedars School in Bellevue. He died at home of cancer on March 23, 2005. A man of strong convictions, integrity and compassion, he leaves behind his wife, Lauren and their son, Aldous. He is survived by his two brothers, John A. Root and Jeffery R. Root. Gifts in his memory may be sent to Three Cedars School, 556 - 124th Avenue NE, Bellevue, WA 98005 or Evergreen Hospice, 12822 - 124th Lane NE, Kirkland, WA 98034.
Published in print on 4/10/2005.

Huzzah for craigslist.

On my way up to Bellingham this morning, I got to pick up my very own juicer that had only been used three times previously that its owners paid nearly two hundred dollars for and decided juicing wasn't their sort of hobby. $20 and a trip to Edmonds later, I have my own pretty almost new stainless steel juicer. It's horribly exciting, I know, but it did indeed make my day!

Anyway...Tamas' parents caught wind of a rock and gem show up in Bellingham, one of those supposedly large once a year rockhounding club sales, and being jewelers, they were interested and went. Me being the rock-obsessive I am sometimes, I went, too. Tam and I took my car, as we had to make the aforementioned side trip and I had to be back to the eastside by 5pm. So...the rock show wasn't all that great. The room was full. Very full. Very full of old folks eating hot dogs and little kids trying to steal all the neat rocks. Granted, I drooled a lot, but the only things I really drooled over were way out of my price range, though I did nearly purchase one of the many opalized ammonites I saw. I didn't buy a single rock. This is very uncharacteristic of me. So then we went to eat lunch, and were so bloody hungry that we ate too fast, and that was bad. I still have a bit of a residual stomachache...but...the day wasn't so bad. I got to watch Emma and Eli for the first time since I got back, which was good enough...Eli's command of language is really getting better, and conversation is ALMOST happening.

My two classes are going to kick my ass. Two chapters into chemistry and my brain is tying itself in knots over stupid conversions. Lots to do tomorrow...eh..

Justin's memorial is tomorrow...the Three Cedars kids are all working on putting together 1,000 paper cranes...I'm going to head over early to hang out with Aldous and see if he's doing okay...

"Monday, April 4, 2005
The Thumb-sized Heart of TK the Cat

A pleasant fellow expires."

"...We laughed about his Brooklyn funeral. The garbage trucks come on Tuesday. A little later I shook my head and said, “I keep thinking that you and I will have a baby and it will die.” It turned out she was thinking the same thing. We talked about that, and agreed that the death of the cat did not mean our potential future baby would die as well. The bleakness of that night would not permeate our lives, even if it felt like it would right then. I knew I would be crestfallen when I went back home and he did not trot up and mewl. He was a gentle, affectionate little fellow and his thumb-sized heart was always beating when I walked in the door..."

Have a read...
http://ftrain.com/EndTK.html

ACH...

Will I, or will I not, survive bioanthropology?

*dies*

( A change in season and living place. A cat. )

( The Roaring Fork River Valley and a little adventure )

( Snow, the Mountains, and the oldest living people in Aspen )

( Snow, mountain sheep, and a HUGE FREAKING BEAR SIX FEET IN FRONT OF ME as well as a giant snowman )

( Mistress of the Bovine sort and her protective human Bull )

( Glenwood Springs and Caving )

This was an awesome trip. My mom's still mad at me, but I feel wonderful about it...
All our photographs (seven rolls of film) are...not digital, but I'll scan a few pictures and post them eventually :)

I'm going to be in Colorado until next Saturday, and may or may not have access to a computer.

So until then, see you all later.

Ahhhhhhhhhahahahah! Spring Quarter's done.

I just finished my Myth/Folktale/Legend final (online)...five essays. Ye gods.
My astronomy final was last week, and I landed a solid A in the course, by some weird fluke, apparently, as I got nothing higher than a B+ on all the tests, which were all we were graded on, but I'm not going to complain about that one.

So I got to watch three kids last night, as there was a dessert/charades party happening...this was basically composed of our watching movies downstairs, eating chocolate, and listening to Eli's monitor after he went to bed. They kept me to play the last round of charades, at about 11, and Emma passed out on a bench in some sort of exhaustion/chocolate haze. The party was composed mostly of Waldorf parents and teachers from Three Cedars, which was interesting. They're a good group to talk with. I didn't make it home until almost midnight.

Got to read through the manuscript of the first few chapters of a fantasy book a friend of Bates is writing. Apparently she plays the bagpipes and lives on Lopez Island, but I've yet to actually meet her. It was good stuff, mostly, but I'm having an itch to do some major editing on it...

I was hoping I'd be able to keep a pet when I move up to Bellingham, preferably of the small-furry or reptilian sort, but you can only keep fish in the dorms. Tamas and I visited a pet shop and met a bird that we really want (a bare-eyed cockatoo) but alas, Barry's a huge bird, and she requires a big cage, and that'd be really hard to hide. We're thinking about a dwarf blue lobster...they had those, too. They're pretty neat looking, and have a strange transparent, glowy look about them. If all else fails, I guess we can just get a population of warring Siamese fighting fish, heh. We were also looking at Chinese water dragons, which are actually quite dragon-like, but when we realized we were looking at a baby we realized that er...one of these would be hard to hide, as well...they grow to be 2-3 feet long.

Anyhow...I'm off to go fetch my bearded lover and watch movies and drink tea with him.

( Film meme... )

*stretches*

Bubble tea is not so bad as I had originally thought it to be. We found this shop that sells these iced fruit drinks with bubbles, like bubble tea. I got watermelon, and they...used real watermelon...
It was rather shocking, and quite tasty.

Small Annie put me in a death grip last night, and smaller Eli bumbled around rather speedily as if he had taken in too much caffeine. He's begun to pronounce more of my name, now, it's gone from "Mantha" to , as of last night, "Amantha". I'm hoping he learns to pronounce "S" by the time I head out in July..
Emma was reasonably sane, if a bit incommodious, yet strangely over-confident (she and Annie are an odd combination, but it works).

I got my housing application sent in, and it looks like Tam and I might be able to room together, which could be good. We're going for the substance-free housing, in hopes of avoiding the "beer palace" we've both heard of :) I went over undergrad requirements yesterday afternoon; it looks like I have more work to do than I'd previously imagined. It looks like most of my credits will transfer over, but not all of them line up as nicely as I hoped they would. I'm considering doing a minor now, maybe in dance or anthropology. I'd like to continue studying astronomy, but I'd probably have to take more math, and that...I really don't want to do. They have some interesting sounding dance classes, however, and some of them double as humanities credit.

Tamas and I got our tickets to Denver, and Greyhound passes from Denver to Glenwood Springs. Flying to Aspen is ridiculously expensive, and so we figure taking the four hour bus trip over would be a better idea. No, we're not going skiing. Tam's family's from the general region; his mom grew up in Aspen. We're going to check out the bird shelters and the wildlife preserve, and hopefully check out some old silver mines and/or the "Fairy Caves" (home to glowing white scorpions). My mom's still not too happy about the whole situation, but alas, we've already got the tickets and I took a lot of time off work to do this. Tamas' dad was fuming mad when he found out we're not driving to Colorado, but there's no way...my clutch is heaving its death sighs and my front brakes are going out, and the combination of that and it still being snowy over there doesn't look all that great. It looks like we have at least two options as for people to stay with, and I'm going to try to sit in on some classes at the Waldorf school in Carbondale, where Tam went quite some time ago.

I'm still sitting here in a towel with wet and matted hair. I had my tattoo touched up by Majenta a couple of weeks ago, and it seems to be done healing itself, which is nice. She fixed some light spots and darkened the edges, but I wasn't going to ask her to even out the symmetry for free. I'll get to that...eventually. Don't have the money for that right now, and it's looking a lot better as it is.
I still can't believe I got such a big tat the first time around, but it's really growing on me.

Have ye all a lovely day; the sun is out!

My apologies, as all my posts of late have been about school, but I got a really excellent letter in the mail yesterday:

Dear Samantha,

Congratulations!

You have successfully completed you entrance audition to Western's Music Program and you are accepted for study as a music major. We are looking forward to having you with us.

Thank you for auditioning for Western Washington University's Department of Music. Professors Schewede, Donnellan, & Friesen enjoyed meeting you and hearing you perform.

We are also pleased to inform you that your audition was of exceptional quality, and, as a result, you will be considered for a music scholarship. If you are among the students offered a scholarship by the Music Scholarship Committee, you will be notified after their deliberations.

Should you have any questions concerniong your studies in music, please feel free to contact me.

Dennis Bonner



...exceptional? Ye gods! Yaaaaay! Scholarship!...

*bounces*

I got my acceptance to WWU today...
...which means...

I'm a music major at WWU fall quarter!

*bounces*

Huzzah!
My audition seemed to go very well.
The drive up to Western took forever, and I ended up spending two hours in a practice room rehearsing before the thing, but...wow...
I had no idea it'd go so well.
I'd expected to be listened to by one person, but alas, there were two professors of violin and the professor of cello in there. They were all making comments about my case (I'll post some pictures eventually), and said my playing was full of fire and passion. I think this is good. On top of that, most of the auditions were in-and-out affairs of about ten minutes, but I was in there for thirty, discussing what the BA program's like, and was taken up to meet the music advisor, who told me about how everything works.

They say I'm doing extraordinarily well if I'll be coming in with about 50 credits, as I can just focus on music, without worrying about non-music undergrad requirements. I'd play in the university symphony and chamber groups, and I know two other cello majors who are there or will be transferring there next year, and we've all played Apocalyptica in rehearsal together. I'd have my B.Mus in 3 years, and WWU is GORGEOUS. So many trees!

Feeling quite good about this; hoping we can actually afford for me to go to school next year.

Might spend Spring Break in Colorado with Tamas; he wants to visit people in Basalt and Aspen, and it looks like we can get plane tickets into Denver round-trip for less than $200 each, and there are at least eight people we could stay with. Even my mom didn't get mad about this one...which is excellent...we might actually get to take a trip together!

Still waiting on my acceptance letter from WWU, but I'm pretty sure it'll be fine (got my acceptance letter to Evergreen and a small academic scholarship last week), and it looks like I got into WWU's music major program today ;)

(nabbed [and credited] from www.matthewgood.org/mblog/index.php)

Chemistry 101 with Surendranath
Anthropology 201 with Leeds
Life Fitness II


Huzzaaaah.

Audition at WWU on Friday. Wish me luck! (please?)

Yo Cheryl!
Happy birthday!

( I finally got my paintings photographed and edited. These are formatted for portfolio sample pages, but you can still see them quite well. Let me know what you think :) )

And I got an urge to model it for you all. So did Tamas. Hehehehe.

( Collage-u )


1: Finally beginning to rebuild the callouses on my hands from doing so much work with my cello in the last few weeks
2: Being able to see the results of my begrudgingly working out almost daily
3: Finally learning to outthink my anxiety/stress physical pain to some extent
4: Accidentally meowing at my rats instead of clicking at them, reminding me of my dear cat that got eaten
5: Starting to develop a taste for leafy greens
6: [info]crimsonpickle, he makes me think and laugh quite hard. We need to go play chess at Victor's.
7: Having come to the full realization that there is no need to take antibiotics. I should have heeded my own advice and not taken my bladder infection medication; it gave me another yeast infection (as implicitly stated on the packaging, which I ignored for sake of the pain)
8: Brown Cow yogurt
9: Finding my worried-looking little clay rabbit in an old box
10: Accidentally making a pot of beans sprout after soaking them too long, planting them in a bowl, and watching beautiful little bean plants grow
11: Tamas, for everything he's helped me get through and for loving me unconditionally
12: The Root, Goswell, and Rockenbeck families. Especially little Annie and teacher Lauren
13: Recognizing my infallibility concerning things Computer this morning, wherein my computer is absolutely convinced that the Zip drive I just installed is a properly-functioning floppy drive. Huzzah.
14: The fact that the Kirkland library will be closed to patrons for more than a week for restructuring and shifting, so NO PATRONS! WHOOOHOO! We just get to shuffle about and move every book in the library.
15: Nervous anticipation of a major audition. I've not had that in a couple of years!
16: Evelina from Sweden.
17: Fred in Denmark who is working as a draftee in the Danish Army and spending money to send me emails.
18: New shoes in the mail next week!
19: "The Piano". Unbelievable film. I am now fiendishly inspired as a musician and in love with Harvey Keitel, which may be unhealthy, but WHOA.
20: Getting to look at Saturn and see its rings and moons through the big telescope on the roof at BCC
21: People who give me bear hugs
22: More nervous anticipation concerning my planning to explore northeastern and northwestern Washington over Spring Break. I'm a geek when it comes to neat geology.