HI, I'M SARAH AND I'M A JAZZ MUSICIAN
I may not have fixed everything about how I feel about playing, but something has changed. For a while all of the jazz songs that I played in my head were jilted-lover songs, ("You don't know what love is until you've loved a love you had to lose . . ." and maybe I'm personifying my relationship with the music in an unhealthy way, but it felt like it was over. I listened to Sarah Vaughn before I went to bed, though, and she said it all. I know this is really vague-sounding, but you'll have to wait until my next issue of my zine to really hear about it. I felt lots better in my jazz ear training class and my jazz chamber class. There is a reason for me to play.

My classes are effectively over as of right now. I still have to go to Political Philosophy, but come on. Prof. Cavalier let us go half an hour early because he was "sick" but I later saw him tooling around campus in a convertible. Things are looking up.

There was a definite thing that I wanted to post about, but it doesn't seem very important at the moment. I'm feeling better in an "I'm feeling better" way. And that's certainly a good thing.

TRANSMIT A MOMENT BETWEEN ME AND YOU
I've been back and forth between depressed and not depressed all day. I didn't get to talk to Dave about the whole fucky jazz thing, but I made an appointment to talk with him tomorrow before the jazz ear training class. I still don't know what I would say. I feel like I'd need notecards or something. A powerpoint presentation. Why Sarah Is Considering Dropping Her Jazz Minor. Supporting Point A, Supporting Point B, Supporting Point C. We'll see.

I've actually been really productive this evening, what with reading my Heidegger assignment for tomorrow, and writing out jazz notation for six pages of homework. It's kind of tedious (and kind of weird to think of your homework as writing "Doot Doot Doot buh Doo buh Doo daht") but I sat my ass down and did it nonetheless. Don't give me too much credit for reading the Heidegger, though, because I spent most of my time thinking "ow, this cinamon toothpick is really hot" and significantly less thinking about being and difference. Would it kill you to use some concrete images, Martin?

I'm taking a self-imposed break now. I still need to practice and go over my Solfege assignments for tomorrow, but I'm decidedly waiting until Ram comes over around elevenish. I'm listening to Galaxie 500 and feeling less desperate sad and more wistful My So-Called Life sad. This is definitely a good thing.

WHAT'S GOING ON INSIDE YOUR HEAD
I'm still feeling pretty much the same about this as I was before. After talking with Diana after rehearsal yesterday, I found out that she feels pretty cheated, too. We're both going to talk to Dave about what's going on with his selection for the bands. I want to know if there's any reason why the only people he moved from the 6:30 were the only girls in the 6:30. (I don't suspect some kind of anti-girl plot, but I'm wondering if we were the only two people willing to acquiese and let him decide where to put us.) She said she overheard some stuff about Dave being under pressure to put music majors in the first band, or in the trombone section at least. Yeah yeah yeah, whatever, he still switched me with another music minor who was in the 4:30 band last year. It isn't a Sophomore thing because there are at least three Sophomores in the 6:30. I guess the bottom line is that I don't know what it is, and I want to know what went wrong with all of this. I want Dave to know that it is not okay for him to be so manipulative. It's such a fucked situation.

I'LL BURN MY EYES OUT
So the seating lists for the jazz band have finally been posted, and sure as spit, I'm in the 4:30 band. It doesn't seem like as much of a change as Dave said it would be because almost all of the people who were in the 6:30 band last year (except for me and Diana, mostly) are in the 4:30 band. I'm kind of sad, in a pathetic way. Yes, so the pressure on me won't be as great this year and everything, but in spite of all these weeks of thinking about it, I'm still feeling sad and let down. It's stupid. I was trying to brace myself for this all of this time, and trying to get accustomed to the possibility that I wasn't going to be in the desirable band. So here it is, but I'm still feeling like shit. I'm sure I'll get over it soon, but with last week's jazz chamber incident, I'm still feeling a little shy and, you know, not so good on my instrument.

Maybe this is just some kind of seasonal affliction that I always get during the academic year. When I have new teachers and new situations in which I haven't yet proven myself, I tend to feel really nervous about my ability to perform. That's certainly how I felt about last year's Ancient Philosophy class. Reading the texts made me feel like I was pushing against a huge, heavy door trying to figure out what was behind it that everybody else seemed so keen on. (To be fair to myself, I hadn't ever had an actual philosophy class before, and I'm sure that was some of it.) But after I got back my first exam I started to see it as another discipline that rewarded careful reading and scholarship. (I mean, hey, that's my bread and butter.) And I did learn a tremendous amount about ancient philosophy. My ability to push through dense, abstract material improved, and in retrospect it was the most useful class that I had first semester.

My mom would tell you that I do the same thing every year when I have new teachers and professors. Sometimes I think I'm only a good scholar because I feel the need to impress these people with my ability. In high school I was the musician (and not just the trombone player, either). I was the first from my school to represent us at All-State band. As much as I'd love to tell you that I'm just playing jazz in college because I want to have fun (as I've told lots of other people, including Dave Pellow), that's not really all there is to it. I want to be the person who amazes everybody else by not just being good at one thing. I want to really put myself out there in this band and get noticed.

Damn damn damn.

TODAY IS THE GREATEST
Today was wholly unproductive. I spent far too much time in my room waiting for my trombone teacher to call and say what time we were going to have our lesson. He ended up having to call it off because he had a gig in Butler, and I kind of knew he wasn't going to get back in time. In the meanwhile I downloaded fonts, read Aristotle's Politics, some Nietzsche, and some Tennessee Williams for my classes. I have lots of writing assignments for the play class that I need to get to work on, but I'm having a really hard time finding a topic for a ten-minute play that I would want to stick with for more than a week. That's the thing about the playwriting and fiction classes: you don't write nearly as many brand new pieces per semester (well, maybe you do, but I sure don't). You just write two or three longer pieces and keep on working on them. So I'm not just doing some throw-away exercise, I'm doing something that I'll be working on for the first half of the semester. I was going to write about interns in a politician's office, but while it would be good for me to write, I doubt it would be good for anybody to read. I'm considering going back to my trusty theme of parent/teacher figures. Yeah. It's a crutch.

Recent news on my schoolgirl crush on the Miroslav bassist: I have a picture of him as my wallpaper. Eee. As much as I'm sure that this is kind of lame and embarrassing, it's kind of exciting. Because there's Nate every day, you know? (Shhh, don't tell.)