Why?

Why isn't anything I do ever good enough?

Okay, so my mom was mad at me because I didn't want to submit a second piece to some audition I was doing. The only reason I didn't want to submit this piece is because it's been at least six months, but definitely more, since I've actually played it. Submitting two music pieces was optional (though "recommended"), and I had already submitted one really awesome piece that I have down cold. I didn't want to ruin the good impression I gave the judges by submitting a second, not nearly as put together piece. But things came to a head with my family and my parents told me that they were making me submit this piece. Fine, whatever. I get that, it's cool. The deadline is the 31st. So I practice this piece last week for an audition I had on Saturday or Sunday (I forget which day). And then I practice it for three hours between Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday I had my NYU thing and I was staying at my aunt's house, so I wasn't home. I just got home Thursday night around 7. What's the first thing I do when I get home? Grab my bass clarinet and go record this thing. As soon as I'm done recording it I send it off to my mom. I got this thing done and to her inbox by 8:30, plenty of time to figure out how to add it to the application I already sent. Then my mom has some trouble uploading it or something, and suddenly she's cursing ME for waiting until the last minute to do this. I mean yes, I know. Today, the day I recorded, was the 31st. Could I have recorded on Tuesday? Probably. But I was practicing it on Tuesday, I didn't want to send in a crappy sounding piece. So suddenly I'm a horrible, awful person and this is all my fault and maybe "I just won't send it in, it's not like she prepared for it anyway". I understand when my parents get mad at me for not practicing at all. Blah, blah, blah I'm Jamie and I'm going to be a professional musician when I grow up.. Yeah, so I need to practice. But criticizing me on my practicing, and telling me I didn't try hard enough.. I just.. No. That can't happen. Why would I ever want to practice? Why would I want to practice if I finally get around to it and all I'm going to do is get yelled at for not practicing enough? Which isn't even true, I practiced for hours. And like I said, between Monday and Tuesday I practiced this song for three hours. Plus some scales and other songs I'm working on.. But even if I didn't practice for hours, even if I only practiced for a half hour, isn't that still better than nothing? It's not expected of most people to go from zero to sixty in three seconds, we're not cars. It'd make things a lot easier on me if my baby steps weren't criticized.

What if you were trying to lose weight? You're trying to lose weight, and after a month you lose five pounds. "Only five pounds? Ha!" scoff your friends. Would you really want to keep dieting after that? Would you really want to keep trying? No. What's the point of trying if what little effort you make is just going to be criticized?

Practicing is a little bit different. It's not physically possible for me to sit down and practice for three hours right now. It's not even possible for me to practice for three hours in small chunks through out the day. You can only run so much, you can only do so many push-ups, you can only practice so much. Right now I can make an hour comfortably, even an hour and a half. If I really push myself I can do two hours, but then I'm pretty much shot for the next day or two. At least the next day.

So that's just me. It really makes me sad. It makes me sad that I try and all I do is get shit for even trying. At least when I get shit for not trying I don't waste any of my effort. If I'm just going to get in trouble anyway, what's the point?

ANGSTY TEENAGE ANGST WAH CRY BOOHOO. Nah man, it's fine. It's cool. But I wish people would understand. It sucks when you put effort into something and no one appreciates it.

The lesson to learn is this: If you can tell that someone's trying, even if you don't think they're trying as hard as they could or should or they're not making enough progress for you or WHATEVER, you should still encourage them. Or at the very least don't discourage them. Then you're just going to push them back to square one =P

A Short Letter to Someone With Whom I Only Crossed Paths

Dear Actress-Girl on the Subway,
You seemed really stressed out when I sat next to you. If I had more time I would have said something, but unfortunately my stop was the next one up. I don't know what play you were studying, but you seemed as if you knew it well. I wish you luck in your audition. Do try not to psych yourself out, I'm sure you'll do just fine! =]
From,
That Awesome Chick Who Sat Next to You

We are the coolest.

Dumb Topic of the Day: Family

Mom: Jeeeeeeesssssssssss. Can you come down here really quick??

Me: Um. hold on, I gotta finish something really quick!

(One minute later..)

Mom: Jess. Come down here really quick!

Me: HOLD ON!

(Not even thirty seconds later)


Mom: Hey, can you come down here?

Me: *vicious snarl*

I wonder to myself why she's soo anxious for me to come down. It's usually something pretty dumb, I'd bet monopoly money that it's pretty dumb.. yes, it's pretty dumb.


I started to hear some gaudy Italian music. They both turn around with  bright and gleaming trolll faces to show me this:

Yes, I had to take a picture.. my heart melted a little bit when I saw how happy they were and couldn't resist.

The lighted torches, Mediterranean plants, and bubbling hot tub almost made the painful Italian music suitable for the moment.

Had to make sure Tony was accounted for in this event too!

Yes, they created a little vacation spot for them to enjoy. Drinks in hand, they were sitting on the deck watching the sunlight. My dog, Stella, also seemed to be in heaven. My mom wanted to show me the sweet little set-up they had going on. Apparently they had a nice little romantic dinner on the deck as well.

Of course, I couldn't help but to roll my eyes a bit, but I'm glad they showed me. Today's dumb topic is family. I guess what especially drove me to write about this is because I had a crazy dream last night  about my grandfather dying, and I woke up feeling really disheveled. I felt bad that I didn't get to go over my uncle's house yesterday for a Memorial Day party. I went out with my friend Diana (Andrew's sister) to see The Avengers, and then we went out for lunch. It was great; I had a lot of fun, but I needed to relax for a bit cause I was still pooped from the French project thing- I didn't get home till like 12:45 in the AM. So when I got home from the movies, naturally I just plopped in my room and mindlessly surfed the internet for like three hours. I didn't even realize how much time I wasted. I should have went over and played with the kids and family. I kinda wanted to too. Just.. it didn't happen. I'm planning to visit them all individually this week now. It's a need.

The importance of family has significantly increased in my life this year. I used to be the typical grouchy teenager.. I tried my best to avoid family events as much as possible. Every time my dad would throw his stupid seemingly-weekly parties, I would play sick or go off to do homework. I'd give one-word responses to relatives' generic "let's pretend that I care about your life" questions.. ( those awkward, "so how's school" kind of questions), and blatantly treat my younger toddler cousins as though they were pet rocks. Did I feel bad about it? Not enough, in my honest opinion. 

It hit me, almost as though from a blind side, ever so subtly, but progressively, that people have aged, myself included. That sounds a bit corny, I know. Let's just put it this way, no longer do family members exist to me so that I can get a lot of money on my birthday.. and I'm no longer a little kid who co-exists so closely to them just to enlighten them with my naivete.. entertain them because I know that the capital of Nebraska is Lincoln. With time, I have learned that my idols, the ones that love me most, aren't perfect, but they are there for me no matter what, have their best interest in me for the sake of love, and that's why I love them. 

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Douching Up NYU

Also, here's me looking like a pretentious, hipster douche in my outfit today at NYU. Gooooo, me! 

WTF Memorial Day in New York

Yeah wow, today has been a weird day.. And it's hardly started yet.

First off there was this whole big fiasco with the train (from Trenton to New York). The station TV thing said the train would be at track 1, but the conductor was like "LOL, nope. Wrong train." when I got there. So I walked over to track 2, got on the train, and asked someone if that was the train going to New York. Her response was "Yeah, you know that train that says it's supposed to be at track 1? It's actually not." .... Yeah okay, that's not weird.

Then I missed my stop on the A train and had to turn around and go uptown again.. Oops.

THEN the L train was being really weird. Allllll the doors were closed except one in the very back. Then all the doors opened and closed again. And then a voice came on and said "Mind the doors" and they opened and closed a second time. Then the train let out this really strange, loud noise (whistle?) for about 30 seconds before it started moving.

Eventually I found my way to the Cooper Union building (the place I was trying to get to, duh) and I grab a seat. Actually, before that the doors to the building were locked so the security guard had to let me in.. That was really awkward.. But then I sat down and grabbed my seat and this lady comes and puts her hand on my shoulder and says "Hey!". I'm like "Hii?" and she goes "Oh...! I'm sorry! You look just like my friend..." and wanders away, sits in the row in front of me, and starts talking about what happened while I sit here trying not to laugh.. Also, she just walked behind me as I typed this part. Coolllll.

So yeah, today has been a really weird day. Thus far. LOL, dumb life.....

LOL, BLACK GUY

Jamie: LOL, so todayyyy is Sunday. I have to go to my cousin's graduation today. For the longest time I thought his name was Jake.. Everyone calls him Jake, I've always known him as Jake, it's even Jake on his Facebook. But apparently his real name is John. And I've went 17 years without knowing that. So that's awkward.. I haven't actually told my parents that I just figured this out. Huh, I should do that. Anyway, Jess and I went shopping on Friday and I got a super awesome outfit. Expect a new profile picture soon =P Anyway, it's a pretty nifty dress. I feel okay saying that because it looks like it came out of the 60's. It's navy and grey striped, pretty legit. So yeah, that's cool. But I have a crap ton of hickies on my neck so I have noooo idea how I'm going to pull this off tomorrow.. They're nowhere near healed.. Although they're not nearly as bad as they were before. But it's still going to be really awkward when my mom has to help me put my necklace on. Actually, I think my parents have seen them already.. while I was in the car with my dad he asked whether or not I was single because apparently it's "hard to keep track". It was super awkward... You know what else is super awkward? Driving all the way to New York for your lesson and then having your teacher not be at his house. That's pretty damn awkward. Andddddddd today I hung out with my friends at Jazz at the Farm, somehow managed to avoid The Cat (and Jess wasn't there for this =[ </3 Dumb bitch went for a run instead...), and then went to a bonfire with a bunch of lame-o people =P Haha, the bonfire was actually pretty fun. I have this really awkward thing where if I'm talking to someone I've never met before and they don't respond to something I've said with-in three seconds I just keep talking.. It's kind of a nervous habit.. So no one really talked for the first twenty minutes or so. And I kind of spazzed out. Then Jess and I drove around town like the BAMFs we are. And... Then I got coffee! Yay! Wow, this sounds boring....

At least my life is more interesting than going to the grocery store with my mom.

Jess: zzz...

Jamie: Lawlz, Jess is super tired.... Pussy.

Jess: Time for me to bawl my eyes out again., the usual.

Jamie: KBYE.

Jess: LOL, BLACK GUY!

Jamie: That's what happens when you drive in the ghetto.

Jess:*cough**cough* Bensolome Boulevard ..

Jamie: Cuckoo

Jess: Hummville Road

Jamie: Hahaha, I'm teaching you bitch!

LOL, Sooo

My life is really dumb. And this is a blog about it. Also, my friend's life is dumb. Sooo this blog is about her life too. Kthx.