Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Rant against chairs

I hate the chairs at my school. I believe they are the cause of many problems in the world. I hate them for many reasons. First, the chairs are designed to make you slouch. The features of having the seat tilted back and the back tilted forward accomplish this easily. THis slouched posture causes you to unwillingly bow to your teacher. The next time you are in class look around and you will notice that I am right. No one is sitting up straight because the chairs prevent this. It has been proven that those who sit up straight are able to think more clearly. These chairs prevent this. That's why high school and college kids are notorious for doing stupid stuff. The chairs hamper their ability to think. These chairs also cause back problems. Because the chairs prevent good posture all of your weight goes onto you lower back. THe weight of a person sitting with good posture goes through the spine and into the Ischium. These chairs teach you to sit with bad posture. Notice, if you will, even when people have the opportunity to sit up straight they don't. This is because the chairs have gotten them into the habit of bad posture. Look at little kids before they are exposed to these chairs. You will notice that most of the time when they sit they don't slouch. THey sit up comfortably erect. These chairs cause you to lean forward in your chair. to look at the board and the teacher you must crane your head back. this is the same thing that you do when you look up. Doing this all day causes tension in the neck. THese chairs are literally a pain in the neck and should be banned.

Friday, November 9, 2007

Culture Shock

I was doing a project in anatomy today. I go to a Christian school. The teacher was having us look up bible verses that had to do with the shedding of blood. I was making use of my bible concordance and generally making progress. However, I started to get tired and I looked up a verse in the wrong book.
What I stumbled upon was the culture shock of the century. It had to do with promises. Usually, when one makes a promise, one shakes hands with the other party. When you take an oath you might raise your right hand. You also might sign a notarized agreement.
The next time you make a promise try doing what one of the servants of Abraham did. It might create an interesting situation I will now quote the verse.
Genesis 24:9
"So the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and swore an oath to him concerning this matter."
I believe that this was a normal occurrence in those days. When you swore an oath to someone you put your hand under their thigh. I don't believe that Abraham made his servants do creepy stuff or anything like that. However, you wonder where exactly this servant put his hand and if Abraham was wearing undergarments.
These days, if you swore an oath to someone like Abraham's servant did, you would get into a lot of trouble.
This proves that there are some funny things that happen in the bible. It is not a completely dull and boring book. I think the old testament is way more interesting than the new testament. Many people dismiss the old testament as irrelevant. I believe these people are really missing out.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Loci Method

I recently discovered a really cool way to memorize stuff. I learned about it in the most recent National Geographic. It is called the Loci Method and it has been used for centuries by succesfull memorizers.
According to Cicero it was developed in ancient Greece by a man named Simonides. The legend states that Simonides was at a dinner party and had to step outside for some reason. While he was outside the building collapsed and killed everyone inside of it. The bodies were unreconizable. Simonides was able to identify the bodies by going around through the building and remembering where everyone was when he left.
The method is very simple. First, you think of a place that you are very familiar with. Next, you mentally walk through it and think of distinct locations. I used my house. I started at my bedroom door and came up with loci along the route. My locations are as follows:
  1. Bedroom door
  2. Attic door
  3. my sister Ruth's room
  4. my sister Laura's room
  5. The light at the top of the steps
  6. the point where the banister begins on the steps
  7. the front door.

Make sure that you can easily remember the route. The next step is to associate what you have to remember with the locations. I have been very succesfull with memorizing my spanish vocab words using this method. To recall the information you just mentally stroll through your route and recall what you have stored at the different loci. Give it a try, it works better than you might think.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Don't let people write on you!

I encounter a lot of funny and random things in my life. This is just a minor example. I believe that it classifies as both funny and weird.
So, I was sitting in my Spanish I class on Friday. The teacher was gone and we had the usual busy work packet. I got to work and was making good progress. Suddenly, I heard muffled grunting and the sound of a chair being moved awkwardly back and forth across the floor behind me. I know that some people have problems with Spanish, but this was a bit much. I turned around and asked the dude what his problem was. He said he needed a pen. I gave him my pen in the hope that the caveman like noises would stop. I thought that if the guy was upset enough to grunt and scoot his chair around on the floor then he could certainly borrow my pen. At the time, I thought that the guy might have some kind of mental problem. I felt sorry for him. I hoped that my pen would help to calm his neurotic anxiety. I had just turned around and resumed my work when the grunting and scooting resumed. I turned around to see the grunting chair scooter awkwardly trying to mark something on his arm. He was having a really hard time. I asked him what his problem was, and then he showed it to me. It was one of the most embarrassing things that I have ever seen. Someone had drawn a very obvious penis on the back of the guy's arm. He could not reach it to mark it out. Who ever did it must have been very cunning. I applaud their ability to draw a penis on someone where they can't reach it. I also congratulate them on drawing it in an easily visible spot. I offered to help. I started to scratch out the penis. I was about halfway done when he yelped slightly and swatted me away. His face looked like I had been branding him with a hot iron. He said that he couldn't stand it anymore. I didn't know a Pilot G2 was that torturous. Apparently, it was to him. As far as I know, he spent the rest of the day with two large and visible balls on the back of his arm. I end my story with one of my rules to live by. Don't let people draw things on you, especially penises.

orchestral trombone playing versus playing in band

I had a concert with my youth symphony last Saturday. I am in the trombone section. At the concert we noticed something very interesting. More about that later.
Now, playing trombone in an orchestra is slightly different from playing in a band. First, You have to be able to play dynamic extremes. This means being able to play very loud as well as very soft. Coming from a small band, this was a bit of a challenge for me at first. I had the soft playing down but the loud took some getting used to. My first year, I could not believe how loud that I had to play. If I played with the same volume I do in orchestra back in band I would be murdered. Second, you have to play much higher and much lower than you do in band. On the low extreme, I have had parts that go down to a pedal A. I have seen a high e flat as well. Both of these extremes were in one piece. The low extreme was in the 2nd trombone part for Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique. The high extreme was in the 1st trombone part of the same piece. Third knowledge of clefs is also very important. I have had music in bass, tenor, alto, and treble clef. Knowledge of tenor and bass clef is required. You will find that you will not be able to get away from alto and maybe treble clef. In Dvorák's eighth symphony, he writes both tenor trombone parts in alto clef. Flor Peters will occasionally go to treble clef in some of his chamber music. However, I think that might just be Flor. Lastly, time is a major issue in an orchestra. This is the interesting thing that I hinted about at the beginning. Sunday afternoon, the orchestra played a very difficult piece. It almost fell apart several times but the conductor got us through it. In the rehearsal before the concert the conductor told us that we were dragging. To our ears it sounded like we weren't. We soon discovered that the more we listened and tried to stay with the orchestra the worse the problem got. It finally came down to not trusting our ears and watching the conductor. We had to stay way on the front side of the beat in order to stay in time. We were not very successful at doing this. When we felt the orchestra begin to fall apart we listened more and stopped watching. This only exacerbated the problem. The moral of the story is, if you sit on the back of the stage you will have time problems. my next entries will go into each of the aspects of orchestral playing that I talked about.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Greetings

I am an 18 year old senior in high school. I spend a lot of time in band and orchestra. I also try to find ways to move smoothly through life. This blog will be about my various interests. topics will include: funny stories, music, general interests, trombone, and life in general.
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