Spring has Flung

The azaleas are blooming!
The pollen is falling!
The inchworms are clinging!
The poplars are growing!
The dogwoods are flowering.
You know what that means........ 
IT'S SPRING!!!!!!
Hooray!

I went out this morning to take a bunch of pictures of it being spring. Then I found some fairies. Then I wrote about azaleas. I have those pictures prepared for today's post. I hope you enjoy the spring-ness of today's spring. To go along with the spring mood, I am possibly (again) adopting kittens after an interview. Their names are Luna and Lucas. Because the pictures did not load on the website, I only have small pictures for you today.

There they are. Lucas is on top. Luna is on the bottom. These are actually really nice cat names, so although we might be changing Lucas to Luca, or even just Luc, Luna will probably stay Luna.

I really do hope we get them today. If not, I hope I can buy a consolation book on the way to volunteering at Furkids this afternoon.

(Btw, as you've noticed, this post is very COLORFUL. I'm enjoying that. Opinions? Leave your color preferences for future posts in the comments!)

Okay, get ready for the spring pictures!

I actually have a ton more, but I figured I wouldn't bore you. 


Here's me against some azalea bushes.

That's me ENJOYING SPRING

I also have had a strawberry smoothie today. It was very good. Yum.

 Happy Spring everybody! Hope you don't have any inchworms on your clothes/bikes/helmets!
~Julia


P.S. Here's me as a fairy:

Yay!

Bless You

Today's flowers are making Atlanta history this week.
Not sure if you've noticed, but things might have been seeming a bit.... yellow, recently? Cars, bikes, sidewalks, streets, benches, plants, clothes, YOU? Coated in sticky yellow dust.
*sneeze sneeze*
This is called pollen. Plants use pollen to pollenate their seeds. Um.. duh. Well, what happens, is the sticky yellow dust flies around on bugs and wind and fertilizes the seeds of other flowers. Evergreens, obviously, do not find this necessary.
It's been especially yellow recently. That is probably because, since it is so warm so early, and since it was never even that cold, plants that usually bloom over a very spread out period of time are overlapping all together.
The previous record in Atlanta for pollen was made in 1999. 6 thousand particles per square meter. Sounds like a lot, huh?
Then yesterday.
8 thousand.
Then today.
9 thousand.
Tomorrow? Who knows?
I just hope you are not allergic, because you are in for a rough time....
*sneeze sneeze*

We are Superior

Today was Festival for Inman Orchestra!
This was not a fair or a party or anything like that.
Orchestras from all these different schools in Georgia go to another school to play three prepared pieces for Judges. They then play a sight reading thing. They are graded as follows.


POOR - 4
GOOD - 3
EXCELLENT - 2
SUPERIOR - 1


1, of course is the best. "Superior". Grady got 2 excellents and we were determined to best them!
And we did. Inman Orchestra scored a total of
FOUR STRAIGHT SUPERIORS
This year at Festival.
Congrats Ms. Shields! I'd say you owe us a juice party...

Now, here's a short unveiling of the inner workings of our Festival preparations....
1. PRACTICING
Of course turning in practice records is expected weekly of orchestra students, but this time it is the work that goes into it that counts. If you don't practice, you don't go.
2. TESTING
Ms. Shields tested everyone in groups of 1-3 on passages from the music. She scored you and eliminated the incapable. This resulted in several long periods of sitting around. Most students chose to practice in this time. You go up with your music. She tells you where to play. You play. Not everyone made it, particularly among sixth graders, but a lot of people did.
3. REHEARSALS
Once you pass testing (IF you pass testing) you must attend a ton of rehearsals till 5:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the last three of them mandatory. Ms. Shields would go on long rants to people who left early or didn't come to go to grow club or whatever. Of course, I had to leave at 4:40 to go to AJCO, but Ms. Shields let it slide. We rehearsed in the Band Room and the cafeteria for more space.
4. MS. SHIELDS GOING BALLISTIC
We're too loud... we're uncommitted... we do not attend rehearsals...
Ms. Shields was often provoked by our teenager-y lack of support.
5. THE BOOT
Not sure how many kids were kicked off for missing mandatory rehearsals. Maybe none. Maybe Ms. Shields is that forgiving.
6. THE INSTRUMENTS
Competition over school instruments is fierce in these desperate times! Certain STUPID VIOLIST was irresponsible at every rehearsal, and even on the final date. I can't really blame certain other violist this time, as he doesn't actually have a viola. But someone else better get in shape with his reliability...
7. THE TUNING
Being someone who can tune, I was supposed to... tune. Other kids. But it's so tiring. Because some kids won't have shoulder rests and they have to play it. Some kids' pegs won't turn at all. But I do my best for the good of the community. :)


There's a little... background. Now that we have that covered, what actually happened?

Well, the buses, despite having previously arrived a day early, were an hour and a half late. That meant we had very little time to warm up, but luckily we managed to preform. The buses were hot and crowded, with a Ms. Shields on each bus.
(And yes, having two Ms. Shields talking the same from different directions (and then looking the same when you whirl around) is VERY confusing)
Having the windows open helped, though. It was very nice terrain out the window. We passed the airport and several plains. We also passed the location of my first Allstate audition.
We got at this HUGE intimidating high school. I've seen airports smaller than that high school. And I'm not just talking about the Ithaca airport, which is pretty much smaller than any school you could find in Georgia. It was HUMUNGOUS and very intimidating. When I saw it, I remembered why we were actually there, and I started getting just a little physically nervous. We were led by some of the high school orchestra students there to a warm - up room, where I helped tune.
Then we were led with all our stuff to the auditorium, where I got a slightly deja vu-ish feeling because it somewhat resembled the auditorium at Grady (where Morningside had its talent show). We had three judges sitting at podiums in the back. Then a bunch of guests were in a back wing. Ms. Shields 2 sat near the front.
So we played. Improvada, Canyon Sunset, and Conquistador. The judges wrote notes and talked commentary into little microphones. We'll get the recordings later. We couldn't actually hear them at the time, of course. They were given time to finish up between each piece. One of our judges was Richard Prior, the conductor of EYSO (joint with AJCO). The other two were women.
Then we left and we were SO HUNGRY but we had to go to sight reading.
Sight reading was in a room near our warm-up room. We came in. The guy gave us an introduction thing. Then he passed out folders. We opened them and took out this Hawaiian Lullaby. We had 6 minutes to look it over. Ms. Shields could instruct us for the last three. Then we played. I think the violas did very well. At least my stand. Basically the front two rows were good, though the seconds sounded thin and out of tune. But then the guy was like "Applaud your conductor because she just got you a 1!"
We were like AAAAAAAAAH!!!!
Basically they were judging us on our resilience and our ability to follow the conductor.
So yay.
Then we went and stood around in a hallway and then we FINALLY got to eat. Outside. In the heat. But in the shade!
Alex and I were like "MUST HAVE JUICE...."
Grape, orange, apple, cranberry, mango, lemonade, pineapple, grapefruit...
ANYTHING.
So I borrowed a dollar and waited for like TEN MINUTES in line to get to this concession stand and all they had was sprite. So I was like "No way am I leaving after waiting all this time" and I bought a chocolate bar. Alex and I shared it.
Yum.
Because the buses had been late, we did not have time to see any other groups. We lined up. Ms Shields was like "Y'all got straight ones!" and we were like
AAAAAAAH!
Then we went on the bus and drove home in the HEAT.

Band goes to Festival next wednesday! Good luck emma!
That's all for now!
~Julia

P.S. I got a blister walking home in my dress shoes.
P.P.S. I met a violist on the way home! He had a british accent.

The Loop of Life

Y'all know about reincarnation. Someone dies. There soul is reborn into a new body.
The end.
But wouldn't it be cool if that actually happened? Not just you die and you fill into the next available slot, but something on a whole bigger scale! Like, what if the world just keeps repeating and repeating! Like, some complicated space time continuum thing happens and by moving far enough in a certain corner of the universe and time files into a loop or whatever. So technically you would live over and over again. Infinitely.
And each time, you fill into one individual. Different each time. Not your memories, not your personality, not even what I would call your soul, but more of your awareness. Stored in some entity of time until the next cycle.
You could have just met the guy you "played" in your last cycle.
That guy you saw on the motorcycle on the way home from school.
The toddler you saw at the playground down the block.
Your creepy vulture librarian.
President Obama!
That girl you asked for help on you math homework in 2nd period (I'm sure you must know her name by now) could be your next one. It's comforting to know that you will always have a chance to exist. Even if there's a time gap the span of infinity between each existence.
SPOOKY!
But think about it. I mean, this could be totally depressing or extremely awesome to you, or even both at the same time. Depending on your perspective. I mean, you'd live through all those kids dying of starvation in Africa. But don't linger on that! Think of all the movie stars and [surviving] mountain climbers and gymnasts you'll get to be!

(And no - this last pic is not some famous person you should know. She's just a random sky diver.)

And I'm sure there are a ton of other awesome people you could list.
Then there are some things that are just a little weird and a bit awkward, if interesting.
Your mom.
Your crush.
Your spanish teacher.
You could go on and on and on. The scariest thing is - what if it's just you? What if everyone else and all their actions in the entire world - even those you never see - are just recordings of who've you already been? That doesn't really make sense when you think about it, so I try not to.
But chances are you haven't been a bunch of people yet. On the other hand, how can we even tell? This might be one of the really early cycles, but if it's infinite, does that even happen? Or does each repetition collapse and overlap as it crosses the same passage over and over again? That makes it a lot more likely that everyone is just you.
Like Brahman! The spirit in everything.
...
Okay, that's just a random speculation that isn't really logical, so let's stop talking about that.
But at the same time - let's move on to the unconscious mind. So in that random fantasy I dreamt up above, the unconscious mind would make sense - because your soul would be in like twenty thousand billion places at once!
But what about this - your brains send off electromagnetic thought waves when you think. They bounce off some gama rays or whatever in space, come back, and slip into your brain. Of course, by this time, the signals would be very weak, so they would slip easier into your brain when you sleep - less thought activity to compete with.
That's how we dream! A bunch of random gama-ray-thoughts!


...


Whatever.


So, it's pi day! I considered doing a separate post for this (as I wrote the draft for the rest of the post yesterday), but it would be very short and I also wanted to post this post today.
So hooray!
Today Ms. Beard had this huge pi competition and stuff. With like, 10 pies. I was jealous. But at least I have the true pi inside my soul!
Here's some pi....
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286 208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481 117450284102701938521105559644622948954930381964428810975665933446128475648233 786783165271201909145648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273724587006 606315588174881520920962829254091715364367892590360011330530548820466521384146 951941511609433057270365759591953092186117381932611793105118548074462379962749 56735188575272489122793818301194912983367336244065664308
(And, yes, I copied and pasted that. I know about 50 digits, and I feel I owe you as my viewers more than that.)
So, pi related stuff...
Well, guess what? Google did NOT do anything pi themed for its browser! Tsk tsk! Instead it did this whole oragami thing for some dead guy's birthday. Boo!
Also, I have heard about a pi clock - 12:00 being 2pi, 6:00 being pi, etc... I'm not exactly sure how the rest of those fractions would file in, so whatever.
Hmm... Well, pi day is NOT Clarissa's Dad's birthday! Silly Clarissa! Hopefully from now on this event will allow you to actually REMEMBER your dad's birthday....
...
I do not have really much to say about this. But it's extremely awesome and a ton of formulas use it... yeah! Anyways, a bunch of people will probably do other, more awesome pi posts. You are not abandoned!


What other news do I have...

  NEWS

-Alex and I are going to Festival tomorrow - wish us luck and hope that we are not abandoned at the school!

-Emma and I want to arrange us as a band! Alex and Clarissa - y'all onboard with that? Leave your musical resumees in the comments so we know what we have to work with!

- AJCO is playing the Bach Double next concert! I am on the second violin solo! Come to the Schwartz Center at Emory on Wednesday May Ninth to see me!

- We're looking into kittens at the shelter this Saturday! We might be adopting these two adorable little ladies....

Aren't they adorable? Awwww....

Name suggestions welcome! It looks like we may be going with Sasha and possibly Jasmyn or something else herbal (Lavender, Jade, Willow, Fern, etc...)

- Nice earrings, Emma!

Well, I need to go practice, so I guess I'll post this. I hope you got at least something out of this long... unrelated... and slightly disorganized jumbo-post!

:)

~Julia

Happy Belated Leap Day

Happy March, everyone! It is now March 3rd!
Now, I didn't get around to doing anything about leap day on leap day, so I'll do a little thingy now. Leap year. Leap year is when we have the presidential election, and both the summer and winter olympics, and when we have a 29th day of February.
The whole concept of February rather confuses me. Only 28 days, on average. (Actually, the average is 28 days and 1/4 because that's how long february actually is!) It seems to me more logical to have the short month at the end of the year, where you actually store the excess time. Otherwise, this whole ripple of a quarter day tears through the calendar and then has no where to go come february!
But, leap year works.  Otherwise, you'd have a whole extra six hour-long day on December 31st, and then you'd have to set your clocks back for January and it would be as if those six hours didn't exist.
BUT THEY WOULD.
Because your clocks would no longer line up with the sun as we picture it! Midnight would look like dawn! So either we have dawn look like midnight or midnight look like dawn, and you'd have to choose the latter - otherwise you'd be missing six hours of January. You'd have to ignore those six hours that you would be used to having in December and then the clocks would be thrown off even more.
There might be some compromise found in what I've just said, but the point is that our current system would appear to be the best option.
 On a normal year, where do you place the extra six hours? Where does it go? Well, we IGNORE IT. So although our dates are generally in context with our orbit around the sun and how that affects the environment.  But only every four years do we actually match our time with our placement around the sun. Basically, our system for leap year decides to compromise the years as a term of measurement rather than time. It's too confusing to keep slicing off hours all over the place, so we treat it like a relay race. Just as long as we get to be in this place on this time in this pattern, everything's fine.
We treat the year like a mile lap. As long as you get to the finish by the fourth 1/4 mile lap, you win.
So, although you think of your birthday as being "Oh, exactly 13 year ago today I was born" that's not true. Because although we ignore those hours, they are still there. But you can still say "So? In 13 of those units of time we identify as years, I WAS born."
And that is not true. Because you have to take leap years into account. You would be off by several hours, even days, depending on how old you are, unless you even out the excess time.  So only every four years past your date of birth would that be correct.
(By the way - I'm not actually objecting to this way of identifying with your birthday. Stick with it. Any other way is just too confusing.)
Anyways, you might want to measure your birthdays by the distance. "Oh, I was exactly here in relation to the sun 13 years ago, getting born." But that's not true either. Because only 1/4 years are you actually in the right spot. Only 1/4 years does that spot actually match up with the time of your birthday. This is the same issue that comes up when you measure years with time. It doesn't matter if it's a leap year in which you were born. Just as long as that year is in the same context to a leap year as you year of birth. So your birthday is only accurate on your 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th... etc. birthdays. Only the multiples of four.

Feel free to forget all of that. Because it will just make you get really upset on your birthday.

Anyways, if you have an actual birthday on February 29th, it's stupid to celebrate on the 28th. Celebrate on the 1st. Because it's the 60th day of the year. You'll be in that spot around the sun. (Yes, I know I just explained how that's not technically true, but it's close enough) A lot of people are like "har har, he was born on the 29th so he's only had 3 birthdays" which is stupid. That person has a birthday every year. It's just hard to pinpoint it unless it's leap year when the time evens out. Just like EVERY OTHER SINGLE PERSON in context to their fourth birthdays.  The closest you can really say without getting all mathematical is March 1st.
Whether you qualify that as a March or a February birthday is up to you.
You could say, march, because 75% of your birthdays will be.
But when you were actually born was in February, and that's what birthdays are all about anyways.
Most people would probably say February.

So ya. Leap year. Enjoy!


I actually started this post to tell y'all about the red goat graffiti going on in New York. Now it's mostly me ranting about leap year and talking in circles. I can't really call this post "Red Goats" anymore. So I'm probably going to tell you about the red goats tomorrow or something. It's not that exciting.

So I guess that's all for now! Happy birthday party day, Clarissa!
~Julia