Austin was wild, man. Casey called around 11 PM Saturday night and said that it was GHS mini-reunion that weekend for some reason, and that his apartment was looking like Auberge de Deen. ( Lots of people crashing over there ). Went to " The Gingerbread Man" on 6th street with Casey, Sarah Russell, and Kathleen Clancy. We drank lots of foreign beer, then piled in a car to go to Mike Cuellar's house in South Austin. For the record, it's weird to think of people I knew from 9th grade now own houses. Anyway, the house was very cute and was home to 4 large dogs and his girlfriend. We drank more beer and exchanged triumphs since leaving Garland. Thankfully, it wasn't like the last times we all hung out like Casey's 21st birthday where there was extreme drunkenness, nudity, and stories I really didn't need to know about my peers. We made a beeramid, though, and everyone crashed except for me because I had an asthma attack and totally embarrassed myself by having to drive off in Casey's car at 4 in the morning to get away from the dog hair.

Woke up extremely hung over at my sister's, and after returning the car, I went to Amy's Ice Cream with Emily and headed back to Dallas. I slept til 11 am today, and found out I did indeed get the job at Kohl's. I start tomorrow. So if anyone needs some like, discounted shoes or a vacuum, let me know. I also came upon another money-making venture; someone whose name starts with an M and ends with a T and has an AT in the middle asked me to write a term paper for 50 bucks. Yes, I know this is in theory, wrong. But dude is taking 12 hours of class this summer and working 40+ hours a week. And I mean, I'm bored, I'm a nerd and I like to write. He's taking some philosophy class about controversial issues so the topics are like capital punishment/drugs/abortion, etc. I've written papers about all of the above so this should be easy and fun.

So speaking of writing, I promised I'd write some memoirs. So without further ado, here is memoir number 1.

Dorkestra.

I went to an elementary school for over-achievers where I never really felt I belonged. All my classmates made straight A's, even on the hardest hippie math they spoon-fed us. A lot of times I faked it, and somehow fit in with my super kid-genius friends. When 4th grade rolled around, we were supposed to pick some extra-curricular activity that we would go on to excell in. Some kids showed propensity in art; some in this weird cult-like club called " Odyssey of the Mind" where the real brains would build robots and intricate toothpick bridges. I kind of dabbled in a lot of things, but never showed extraordinary promise in anything. My mom kind of pushed me towards being in "strings", because she herself played viola and was good at it. So, I signed up and got my kid-sized viola.

No normal person really knows what a viola is. It looks like a violin, and sounds like a violin, to people who aren't taught any differently. The only way it's different is that it is slightly bigger, which makes it sound more hollow...and you have a low C string instead of a high E. When strings kids picked their instruments, the kids who got assigned to violas only were because there were no more violins available. I think I must have been the only one who actually requested one.

The thought of teaching a bunch of 8-year-olds to play instruments boggles the mind. What a nightmare. We first had to learn how to hold the things properly, and then how to "pluck". I was so frustrated that we weren't even allowed to touch our bows until 2 months into our lessons. We learned "hoe down", a song where we just played our open strings to piano accompaniment to help train our ears in tuning. I don't have perfect pitch, but I can sing you an E, A, D, G, and C off the top of my head from listening to this tuning excercise every day.

So like anyone just starting to play an instrument, we were bad. Real bad. A string instrument is hard to get right because it's not like a piano or anything where you strike a note and it's the right pitch. You had to feel on the finger board where exactly the note was, and couldn't be a milimeter off. We learned to read music, and had our first concert where we played such well-known favorites as "Dr. Fiddlesticks" and " Rock Around the Clock" ( at snails' pace, of course). Our parents smiled and clapped, but you could tell, they wanted to stick cotton in their ears.

Something happened in middle school though. For whatever reason, my director, Mrs. Tucker, adopted me as her class pet. She played viola too as her instrument of origin ( directors have to know how to play everything ), more later......computerus interruptus