FOILing for Nineteen Years

I'm in New York right now. I got here Monday night. It's been fun so far. And tomorrow I see The Wedding Singer. Yeahhhhhh, I'm excited.

If I didn't leave to go back home on the 12th, I would've gotten a chance to meet Justin Timberlake and got a signed copy of his CD. But noooo. There's a contest at the Virgin store in Times Square to win the treadmill OK Go used at the VMAs. I really want to enter.

Anddddd, that's it. I can't think of much else. When I get back home, I'm leaving for LA soon after. And then it's band camp, and then school. So there's only a little bit of summer left. I'm trying to see if I have time to visit Bellarmine, and I think I do. It just depends on if I can wake up before 3, which I imagine is possible.

Ok, that's allll. I'll see if I can get a camera working and take pictures of the trip. It'll be cool.

<3,
~John

I guess I must hate livejournal or something, I never write in here anymore. Oh well, I guess now's a better time than any to make an entry.

So this summer's been pretty cool and chill. I've just been around doing stuff here and there, and seeing some cool concerts. Radiohead in June, Reel Big Fish in July, and Mates of State/Spoon/Death Cab this month. It's been pretty awesome not having to deal with any classes/papers, so I'm thankful for that.

( First LA Trip )

( Second LA Trip )

Then last week I came down to LA again to furnish some more of my apartment. This time I got a desk and a couch/bed. The cable guy also showed up after about 4 blown appointments and now I have cable working on the TV. Now all I'm waiting for is a bed i think. But yeah, the apartment is gonna look awesome once I'm done with it. And I get my car next year since it comes with a parking space.

This last weekend was spent camping over by New Brighton Beach. It was funnnn. I went with my mom, Angus, and Brian. Tents were made, food was cooked, fun was had. And I did a lot of the cooking, and it actually came out pretty good. I enjoyed that.

Tonight I saw Motherfuckin Snakes with Doreen, Sumin and her cousin, and Gabe. It was pretty awesome, and too badd I didn't get to see it opening night when there was a full crowd. It wasn't too empty in the theater tonight, though.

Other than that, there's not a whole lot going on. People have been leaving for school, I'm not. Oh, but I have cool news. If you watch Veronica Mars this season, starting on and after the 3rd episode, a poster of my band, Kazai Rex will be up in the background of the college radio station set. The picture of the poster is up on our myspace, it's promoting a fake show, and it's pretty awesome.

I will end this here, I'll talk about more later sometime.

Alright, so there's a lot to write about.

Long story short, my first year of college is over with. The long story is actually quite long, and filled with many details, blurred rants, and jokes at my expense, so I won't get into it. But it's been fun, and I don't regret anything. Hopefully next year will be cool or even cooler.

Speaking of next year, I still don't know exactly what my living situation is yet. As of right now, I'll be living in a single apartment over on the corner of Ophir and Landfair, which is actually a pretty sweet deal. The only downside is that pretty much everyone else will be on campus, which translates to a 15 minute walk up hill...lame. But let's hope on-campus housing is real cool and gives me a room. From there, we'll see if I can control exactly where my room will be. I'm hoping at least for something in the Rieber area. And yeah, if I don't get a room, that will be the lamest outcome. That means i can't get into any of the dorms w/o someone and hanging out there late at night includes taking the time to get some stupid pass thing. If I do get a room, I should be hearing about it with this month, July, or August. Yeah, that's quite a window of time.

Yeah, and I'm now 19. That's cool. I spent most of my birthday driving back home from UCLA, then had dinner with the family. That night I hung out with a bunch of old friends. It was cool to see everyone again. One of the coolest surprise this year came when David and Shayna got me a couple of dvds for my birthday. I totally didn't expect at all, and it was quite awesome.

Friday night I got to see Radiohead at Berkeley's Greek Theater. Tim and Felix came. It was quite amazing, and I enjoyed every minute of it. And it was definately worth the ebay price of admission.

I have some most plans for this summer. Angus wants to get a band together, start playing some songs/gigs, and I'll be helping. So far that's been moving along fine, Tim and Chris have been playing with us, and the pace will probably pick up soon. Also, I want a job. We'll see, hopefully that turns out, cause I need to find something to do on these weekdays than sit and watch the world cup all day. Then there's the Reel Big Fish concert in July I want to go to. It's in Anaheim, so I'll probably be roadtripping down, which could be cool. Visit San Diego perhaps.

Other than that I'm already getting excited about some things next year. I'm pretty positive my band, Kazai Rex, will make it into Spring Sing, and that will be quite cool. Not only that, but I definately think we have the talent to win the whole thing. I may be too confident, but I feel I have good reason to be. But what song will we play? I'm thinking Strange Situation may be cool. Or one of the new ones. And gigging around LA will be pretty sweet too. Maybe it will get tiring and old, but I doubt it. And then there's band camp, which will be fun and hard and tiring but still fun all at the same time.

Hmmm, anything else I'm missing? Yeah. It's cool though. I could be all nostalgic and whatever, but that's boring and right now's not the time. There's still the rest of college to look forward to and to fix whatever wrongs may have occured this year.

We'll see.

~John

Haha, I've totally not written anything on livejournal since like the very first week of college. And when I say first week of college, I mean me being here all alone during the first few days of band camp before everyone moved in.

But I kinda just remembered I had a live journal when I was trying to download a song from Wet Hot American Summer. So here I am, typing.

Needless to say, a lot has happened.

The most important stuff?

1) I have a radio show on UCLAradio.com and I have one more show left before the quarter/year is ove. Listen to it
It will be on Monday, June 12th, 2- 4pm. Listen to it on www.UCLAradio.com

2) I'm in a band here in LA. Stacey asked me try out in March, I joined in on a few practices, and the rest if history. We recorded a demo too in late April. Listennnn too ittt
http://www.myspace.com/kazairex
And we played our first show/came up with a band name in May. We're called Kazai Rex. Enjoy.

So yeah. Those are the collest things going on right now. I had a few chances to meet Daniel Brummel, but they all came up short. I did get to see Ozma perform on campus for free though last week, which was quite awesome.

Other than that, the rest I'll fill in some other time. Maybe when I'm back home bored or something. We'll see.

<3,
John

I hate goodbyes.

Today ( or I should rather say Sunday, since I guess it's Monday right now) I woke up around 11 because I didn't want to like wake up at 1 or so and miss half the day. But I guess I feel back asleep, but I almost never even realized it. I had perhaps one of the nicest dreams ever. Granted it did end on a pretty wierd note (It involved Ben Lee, a banana, and a large group of people in an elementary school gym), but I was in a state of pure bliss for 2 hours. I woke up 1 and finally realized that everything that had taken place never really did take place. It was a bittersweet moment, but at least I still remember the dream. It's perhaps the only one I've ever remembered. But yeah, it was nice. I've been in a good mood ever since, and it was a nice way to help me forget about the incredibly lackluster day I had yesterday (Saturday).

~John

1. Go here.
2. Pass it on.
( my answers )

So, only two more places left.

So on the next day we pretty much left Brno pretty quickly. I woke up, got breakfast, that whole thing. Then we left for Prague. It was a longer trip then you would think, even though there wasn't a border crossing. But yeah, it took a while. And then in the middle we stopped for some food at McDonalds. But there was now way I was eating there; I haven't eaten there in 2 years, there's no reason break that now. So at least there was a gas station nearby, and I went in there with a few others. Chris asked the Czech guy hat was with us (we hired two czech bassists to tour with us since we needed bassists, and the guy spoke some english) which foo was good. He pointed at these sandwiches that looked fine. We had no clue what they were made of since we couldn't read the labels, but we trusted him anyway. He also had to ask the attendents how long to put the sandwiches in the microwave since we couldn't talk to them. So we heated the sandwiches, and they were pretty good. Mine was like a fried chicken sandwich, or something like that. It was probably better than that McDonalds food. Then as we were waiting to leave again, Aaron and I tried to work the one slot machine that was in the gas station (It was called a mini-herna, so I guess casino in czech is herna). We put in some crowns, and we won (the credit number was raising. But then the buttons started flashing and I didn't know what they said cuz they were in czech, and all of a sudden I didn't have any credits. Haha, I guess they're probably tourist traps.

So finally we made it to Hotel Quality in Prague. Michael was telling his cockroach stories in the lst Hotel Quality we were at, so we were kind of hoping this place wouldn't be like that. We were right, and in fact, the hotel was probably just as nice-if not nicer-than the last hotel we were at. The room was still good sized, the bathroom was huge in comparison to the others on the trip. So it was cool. The hard part was signing in, because it required signing some form, finding your roommate, and giving those signatures to the desk together. It was really really hard when there was 90+ doing at the same time. I got the form pretty fast and signed it, but no way would I try to push through the crowd and get to the desk. But finally Yogi and I got the keys, and then there was the problem of getting up to the 4th floor. The elavators were too full and too many people were blocking the way to the stairs the you didn't want to go through the trouble. Finally we got up though. It was cool, my room was directly across Kathy's, and it was also next to Natasha, Esther, and Maddi's room. So that was nice, we were all in talking distance from one another.

Then we all got back in the buses to go over the the Old Town Square for a walking tour. This time majority of the tour was on foot, so I couldn't fall asleep. We got to see Prague Castle, which was nice. It's where the president should be staying, but I guess this guy's wierd and chooses to stay at another residence. But he was in the castle somewhere, as some flag that was outside explained. We also went into the church that was there, and they contained the Czech Crown Jewels. We didn't get to see them, only what's containing them. It's crazy, you need like 7 keys to open it and all the important people of CR need to agree to open it. Then we also saw Good King Wenceslas' tomb. That was pretty cool. I didn't even know he was an actual person. I thought it was just a Christmas song and that was it.

And then we walked around some more and made it over to the Old Town Square. we had to cross this on street though, with this crazy pedestrian light system. It goes green about every 3 miutes, and it only stays green for 10 seconds. It was funny crossing the street, since I was skeptical of the 10 seconds. So I started counting as we crossed, and crazily enough it was a 10 seconds count. Well, just about, I was kind of counting slow, but it was close enough. Anyways, we were at the square and there was this crazy Astrological clock and told the month, day, and zdiac period. It was cool. And then we were there for the clock to strike, and that consisted of a bunch of model saints walking past these windows up by the clock. It was cool.

So then we had free time to do whatever. Kathy, Yogi, Lelani, and I went around in search of that sheet music store we heard about from the Prague info sheet the couriers gave us. We founda mall on our way, and it had some cool stores. I found a pair of Deisel shoes that looked cool, butthey were about $120. I guess they were imports from here and they were just expensive. But it was odd, I've never seen those shoes here. Hm, and then we got food at this small pizza stand because we got hungry and couldn't really wait for the cruise that night. Kathy order a pizza at first, and once I got a pizza and fanta, she wanted a fanta too. So she order that, but ended up payingfor the piza again somehow, so she had paid for the pizza twice. We all noticed it, and she tried to explain it to the lady, but she couldn't uderstand us at all. She just kept repeating that the combined price of pizza and fanta was some amount of crowns. Kathy eventually just gave in and just accepted that she paid forthe pizza twice. Then we found that sheet music store, but it had already closed. At least there was nothing we could do about it, it closed when the walking tour just finished. So then we tried to make it back to the square center. On the way we stopped by some souvenir stores, and I got some shirts for people. Then we stopped by a music stored and looked around a bit. Then we were looking at the posters at the door, and noticed that they had a bunch of the posters for out concert the next day. Haha, it was sooo cool to see that. We like picked up 10 copies or so. Then we found the rest of the group, told them about the posters, and suddenly everyone had one. haha. It was quite cool to see posters of you around.

So after we were done hanging around old town square it was time for our second cruise of the trip. It was only a short walk from the square since we weren't too far from the river. The cruise was nice, and there was a buffet line. With the help of Aaron I completely cut the line and got some food. There was more pork, and then some other meats and stuff. It was good. I ate with Alison, Sharmeen, Lelani, and Kathy. It got really hot though since we were all in a small room and the heaters that were keeping the food warm weren't making the situation any better. So as soo as we finished we went upstairs for some air. We just sat around and enjoyed the view. We were fooling around with our cameras and tried to get a picture of Yogi but so far they weren't that good. And then Yogi, Gary, Esther, and I played kemps. I admit, Gary and Yogi beat us pretty bad. Even when we finally instated the no audio signal rule, we couldn't win. They would give an stupid obvious signal every 5 seconds, and one of those stupid obvious signals was th one for kemps. The problem I think is that they chagned that important signal every game, so it was impossible to figure out what they were doing. Anyways, we gave up on kemps after a while. Then we went by another boat that seemed like to be filled with Italian tourists. Some of them knew english too I think, and they were talking to us. It seemed like this onr particular guy was hitting on Irena too. It was kinda funny. And then we just hung around the boat for a little while longer and then it was over. We got out, walked back to the buses, and made our way back to the hotel.

( More from Prague... )

I woke around 10 the next day. There were no group plans made, so we had time to ourselves untill 12 or 1. Kathy had talked about going over to the square that morning to go to that sheet music store and get som stuff. I would've liked to go, but I don't know if I would've actually made it. I would've been way tired. Anyways, I woke to find Michael gone. He probably went off with the others. But Natasha, Esther Maddi, Yogi, and others were still at the hotel. Natasha was asleep in Xin and Joyce's room, so Maddi, Esther,Yogi, and I went and had breakfast at the restaurant place beneath the lobby. It was pretty good. Sam stopped by and talked to us for a little bit but didn't order anything. Somehow we started talking about All State and County stuff. Then as we were going back to our room everyone was getting back from the square or whatever they were doing. Natasha was even awake and in her room. Then I saw Kathy and she told me she was gonna wake me up to go leave during the morning (Yeah, Yogi and I had our door wide open again the nigt before), but figured she just let me sleep. Then she told me about how she got locked in her room that morning. She was just in her room and the maid or something locked the door from the outside, and Kathy didn't have a key for her room (and you need the key to open the door from the inside as well). So she called next door to ask them to tell the lady to unlock the door for her. It was pretty funny. Anyways, after some time we all got on the buses to go over to Dvorak Hall for our 4th and most important concert. On the way there I continued my game of Lumines from the previous night. I played for another half hour and had to stop once we arrived. I had to save my game again for later.

Dvorak Hall was beautiful. Like, really, it was goregous. I can't believe how we got booked into a place like it, being the number one concert hall in Prague and all. The best of the best have been known to play there, and now ECYS have played in there. Anyways, the way to the dressing rooms was really confusing. And it was so far away from the stage. You had to go through all these stairs too. Then we all went outside to the front of thehall to take ourtour picture. As we were waiting this lady was walking by handing us posters for our concert that night, not realizing that we were ECYS. Anyways, we all got back inside and we were beginning to have rehearsal, so we set everything up with the help of elevators (since we needed toget up a floor to get to the stage. It took a while but we got it done. Then as soon as Camilla wanted to start, I remember I left my music in my backpack which was in the dressing room. So I ran down all the stairs and made it to the rooms, but they were locked, so I had to run the whole way up again. I found Cathy all out breath and got the keys from her. So I ran back down the whole way a second time and got my stuff and ran up again. I was exhausted. I guess Camilla wanted to start off with Percussion alone, which is kind of odd since she doesn't really do that. So as I was running I guess she was like "percussion percussion!" and Chris would have to tell her to wait since I was getting my music from the dressing rooms. And then Camilla would wait a little bit and then go "percussion percussion!" again, with Chris reminding her I was gone. Haha.

( More from Prague... )

So we finished eating and made our way back to the hall to get ready for the concert. Then before the actual concert, we all got on stage for another picture opurtunity with some professional photographer. Then we all got back stage and eventually the concert started. A lot of people showed up too, it was cool. So we just performed like we normally do. Candide went well, even the par Camilla pounded into our heads. But when I played those opening rolls, I did what Camilla said and then Chris was motioning to me that I was too loud. I knew I was playing right before too. Then Barber was fine. I did ok, I guess, but I think I could've done much better. Then Tchaikovsky went well, the best performance of the tour I think. And then everyone was applauding and Camilla felt it was enough for two encores. They went fine, nothingreally special. We finished off with one of Dvorak's dances. Beforewestarted that, Camilla almost fell off the padium, butshe made it back onto it fine. Then, once we were done everyone gave us a standing ovation. It took a little while, but it happened. It was pretty cool. Not until after we got everything put away and got into the bus did we find out that about 1000 people came to the concert (bigger than the audiences that went to see Chicago/Pennsylvania Youth Smphonies earlier in the past weeks). So yeah, that was quite cool. My grandma also mentioned that American Ambassadors were also in attendence and thought the concert was incredible. And the lady that complained about the noise the night before thought the concert was great too (she got free tickets).

So the night was finally over. We all got back to the hotel and just hung out for a while. Michael was hearing that Paula's mom was leading a group around the city at night and was thinking we should go to pick up anything. We got down to the lobby though, and nothing was really happening. It was too confusing trying to plan it. And since it would require two or so caps, we figured it wasn't worth it, so a lot us just droppe out. But then Erik, (older) Michael, Chris, the Czechs, abd Daphne were all heading out checking out the two. Michael, Aaron, and I tried to come along, and Daphne wanted us too as well. Then Cathy stopped us, but after some persuasion she thought it would be ok. Then Chris told her that they would be going to barsand he didn't want to be responsible. So yeah, Cathy said no and everyone was off. So we all just went upstairs to go to bed, then I find a bunch of people just hanging out in the hallway in front of my room. Kathy, Gordon, Natasha, Esther, Maddi, Jeff, Yogi, and others just talked for a long time. Then after Mr. Bloomberg came by to tell us to be quiet, Kathy went to bed and the rest of us went into Natasha, Esther, and Maddi's room. We just hang out and talked. Somehow Jeff agreed to hav Esther paint his nails if she and Natasha paid him nine euro. Then it escalated into eye liner, and then mascara. It was really funny, and I took pictures of the whole thing. Then Matt walked in and Natasha and Esther talked him into getting his nails painted too. It was funny. Then Gordon came in and went all ninja on us. Then Yogi went to bed, and after a while we tried to to paint his nails as he was sleeping. It didn't work though, he woke up. Then after that, I just went to bed as the rest went off to talk some more. It was pretty late.

And then the next day was Germany.

~John

So there's only an afternoon of Austria left. So it was a Sunday, and the couriers couldn't find anything to plan during the day, so we had it all to ourselves. I began the day trying to us that shitty ass public computer at the hostel lobby. But since the mouse was so shitty, I had only enough patience to get on myspace and make a bulletin. I tried to type up an email, but it got deleted as I was finishing it. Anyways, we were free to go untill 1 or 2 o clock. At frist we all thought it was cool, untill we walked down the street. Since Austria is a Christian country, basically everything but restaurants and some convience stores were closed. It sucked. Justin, Lelani, Alison, Sharmeen, Yogi, and I walked around finding something to do. We eventually found a Starbucks and had some coffee since it was the morning. They do the sizes differently there. Anyways, after that we tried to find our way back to St. Stephen's Square. We found this nice lady who spoke Eng;sih and she told us how to find the subway station and how to us that to get to the square. So we took her advice and she was right. it was cool, too, since the subway was free. Like, there were ticket booths and whatnot, but there was no enforcement on keeping you from entering the station without a ticket. So we just assumed that the subway was free on Sundays. Pretty cool.

Then we made it to the square and just walked around. Lelani and Yogi got some more euros since they didn't have any. Then I gave the robot dude that was still at the square (so was that annoying bird guy) some change. In return, he danced for us. I got it all on video too, pretty sweet. No one took a picture with him though. So then we just walked around some more to see if anything was open. Nothing really was, but there was still a bunch of people around. And then we ran into Michael, Aaron, Alex, Natasha, Esther, Saranya, and others. So we talked a little as a big group, and tried to look for somewhere to eat. Everyone again couldn't decide on one place, so Aaron and I just left to go eat at this Rosenberg Markt place. Mostly everyone followed, there were a few that stayed behind like Michael and Justin and had pizza at that stand from the day before. So we ate at the Rosenberg place, which was sort of like a cafeteria style restaurant. But everything was still like priced and whatnot. I got some spaggheti ad a fanta, it was pretty good too. I ate with Aaron, Lelani, Sharmeen, and Alison. We talked about how I kicked ass at hearts the other night, and how it sucked that Aaron got this super cheesy lasagna. So we were all done eating, and we met up with the others who were outside, and then we just made our way back to the hostel since it was almost time. Before making it to the hostel though, some of us stopped by this small market store across the street. I just got a bottle of fanta for the bus ride and some milky way bars (the most awesomest candy bar ever, and I can only find it in Scotland and Europe).

So then was the long bus ride to Brno over in the Czech Republic. I sat in the back again, but there was a new kid sitting in the back with the regulars (generally me, Lelani, Sharmeen, Alison, Aaron) and none of us knew who he was. Sharmeen was sitting next to him, but she would say hello and introduce herself to him. So we just sat there for the whole trip not knowing who this kid was. ANyways, I fell asleep through a lot of it yet again. But I was awake for the border corssing this time. All that was needed to be down was get the passports stamped and the few Visas looked at, but for some reason it took forever. We did find out that we were sitting next to this kida Frank the whole time (he was one of the visa kids who had to get out and talk to border patrol). And it sucked because the bus driver turned the bus off, so the AC didn't work, and no one could open the windows. So needless to say it go really hot and stuffy in the bus, and for some reason it was affecting me more than anyone. I was constantly standing up cuz it was really uncomfortable sitting down. But it was funny cuz I was constantly going "Why's it so cold in here? Man someone turn the heater on, it's freezing" and other sarcastic comments. It made the situation a little more tolerable. But finally we were done and the bus/AC got turned on.

We even had a short break at a gas station afterward so I finally got to go outside away from that hot, sweaty bus. And then after about an hour, we were in Brno and at our hotel. It was Hotel Continental, and it was actually a really nice place. Free internet access, TV, windows that open, big rooms, it was cool. I used the computer a little bit to leave another bulletin and a livejournal entry, but like another 20 people wanted to use the computer so I figured I get off the computer and share. Also, we had free time till it was dinner, but again it was a Sunday so nothing was open. Kathy, Justin, Yogi, and I still walked around though looking for stuff. We eventually ran into another group of kids and we found a bank. So people got money and stuff, and I didn't bother since I didn't have an ATM card. After that Kathy, Justin, Yogi, and I just walked around again. Brno was pretty empty, even if it was a Sunday. The street we were on was filled with bar/casino places, or herna bars as they called it. Like, everyone other place would be on of those things, and they little small, sketchy type places too. And as we were walking down we ran into Chris, Erik, and Michael and talked a little. We thought we had found a Change place, but the sign didn't say "Change," it said "Chance" and we just read it wrong. So the free time was spent not doing a lot of much. We did find a small place that sold drinks. Yogi got himself a small bottle of jagermeister and another bottle or two of vodka. Oh, and I did get some pictures of some funny signs, though. I guess Czechs denote plurals with the letter y, and a lot of their signs were americanized so us tourists could understand it. So I found thisone sign that said "Stan's Grill: steaky hamburgery salaty" and another sign that said "toalety -->" They were hilarious.

And then it was dinner time. We went to this place up some hill. It was nice, and I sat with Charissa, Sharmeen, Yogi, Alison, and Lelani. But it was all in a very dark lit room so I kept falling asleep. A small band was playing though, and it was cool to watch them. The food was pretty good too. But I got really thirsty, since no one wanted to pay for the overpriced sodas, and the waiter never got us another thing of water. Other than that, the dinner was pertty uneventuful. And thaen after that we just went back to the hotel.

( More from Brno... )

We finally hit the Macoca caves. And after a lot of trekking we finally got to them. We had to go on this wierd tram thing (kind like those things you see going on those wires around places like Great America/Disneyland, I forget what they're called). It was alright at first, and then it went over this stepp cliff and started going down at a steep angle, and it stated rocking. It got pretty scaring, and the other kids screaming wasn't making the situation better. But we ended up being ok and got to the caves. They were amazing. It was so cool walking around there. It felt like being in Batman Begins. Haha, I know, I'm a nerd. I kept telling Chris that too, so when the tour guide was mentiong that there was a bat cave entrance by the place we were at during that time, we started cracking up. Then came the batman/batmobile references. But yeah, the caves were beautiful. Honestly the coolest thing I had seen the entire trip. At one point we got to this massive clearing with the high ass cliffs surounding us and a small body of water at the bottom. It looked kinda like that scene in Star Wars Episode III when Obi Wan and his pet Boga fall off that cliff and fall in the water.It was soo cool.

So yeah, the caves were awesome, and then we had lunch. Chris and I just talked about all state stuff, other other perussionists in area, that sort of thing. The food was good, it was this chicken pasta kind of thing. It was good, but the waitress took my plate when I wasn't done with the food. I even told her I was eating it and she just took it. I guess she didn't speak English. Anyways, after that John the truck driver, Chris, and I went off in the truck straight to the venue we were playing at this day, The Chateau of the Prince Archbishops. We found our ways there with a map, it seemed pretty esay. We got kind of lost at two points, but John asked the right people and we were able to get directions. We didn't need those GPS systems that the bus drivers use to get around (they still managed to get lost, too).

( More from Brno... )

Then after another hour we made it back to the hotel. This night was much quieter than the last. Yogi and I went up to Sharmeen and Alison's room and Lelani and Charissa came to. Then we started playing another round of hearts. Michael and Aaron came in to watch for a bit, and they got to see me completely own for a whole round. I shot the moon so easily, I had pretty much the best set of cards you could imagine too.I kept saying "I'm gonna make you guys cry," which Michael found very funny. But yeah, I was winning again when we had stopped playing that night. Then we started throwing pillows at each other and Lelani brought the light right about the bed. Then I tried to take a look at it (figuring out how the bulb goes back in because it was screwing in). Lelani must've turned on the lamp as she was fiddlning with it before and forgot to tell me, because I got shocked so bad. It surprised the shit out of me too. This burning sensation went up my arm and it got shocked so bad. Haha, so all the fighting and whatnot stopped after that, and I just rested. My hand was still shaking afterwards. Then we went up to my room because Lelani and left something in there. I locked her out, and then she broke my chain lock. So she tried to fix it using tweasers and it kinda worked. It got pretty late by that time, and I was exhausted, so we called it a night.

And then there was Prague.

~John

Alright, so the next day we all get up and got all packed and ready to leave Budapest. Before we would be on our way to Austria, we had a bus tour around Budapest. It got boring pretty fast and I fell asleep through just about all of it. I was awake or when we go of on some square (I would've known what it is if I didn't fall sleep). There we took some pictures of the statues there, and then we walked over to another place in the city. I believe it was a castle sort of thing, but we only at the front of it. There we just got some drinks, I picked up a postcard, took some more pictures, and that was that. Then it was just a bus ride to Vienna. Again I fell asleep.

I completely missed the whole border crossing, and just woke as we were leaving to go check into the youth hostel we were staying at in Vienna. It involved about 90+ of us crossing the street with traffic, and then all standing in the middle of the small side street that this hostel was on. We had to move a bunch for cars, and finally we go checked in. This time Yogi and I had to room with this other Jonathon kid and Taeho. I don't really know why we got roomed with them, since we hardly know each other, and there's like a 4+ age gap. But whatever, it ended up being fine. It wasn't annoying like I thought it would be, which is coool. But what was annoying were the damn windows. The hostel place bars on them, so the windows barely opened at all, so it didn't even help the heat/stuffyness situation. That, and the bathrooms had no towels. Cathy had mentioned to bring a towel before the trip, but I thought that was like a "just in case" thing, not a mandatory requirement. And there were only shared toilets (or WC, water closets, as they like to call them there) were out in the hallway and they reaked pretty bad.And you had to make your own bed too. It wasn't that great of a place, especially since Camilla, Daphne, Cathy, and others got to stay at a nice hotel right next door.

After getting checked in, we had the evening to ourselves (we arrived pretty late in the day, it was a long bus ride). Michael, Aaron, and Alex tried to get to Chris' room to hang out with him, but he had already left, so they just joined Lelani, Yogi, Sharmeen, Alison, Charissa, and I. We walked around the city, which was very nice, but just about everything had already closed. We walked ourselves around and eventually got directions to a resturant. It was a mexican restaurant, and it was pretty good. Very not mexican though. Aaron, Michael, and I all had burritos, but instead of rice and beans there was this white sauce, mushrooms, and corn. It was awkward, but my chicken burrito was still pretty good. The bathrooms were kinda wierd too. There was this fishtank inbetween and you can see through it to the other room. It was wierd washing your hands and looking up to see someone in the girls room.

So after that we all just walked back to the hostel since it was nearly time to be heading back. Nothing was open anyways. There was an internet cafe on the way, and some of us stopped there to us the computers and whatnot. Cathy was out watching the hostel/hotel, so the guys couldn't go fand see if Chris was in his room yet. So eventually we all just go back into the hostel. Later that night Yogi and I left to go to Sharmeen, Alison, Lelani, and Charissa's room. I lent Sam, Jonathon, and Taeho my PSP so they could watch Spiderman 2 on it since no of them had seen it. Then as Yogi and I was playing hearts with Alison, Lelani, and Sharmeen, others came like Gary, Dustin, and others. But most of the night was just spent playing hearts. I, of course, won the game. Then after a while, we all got tired and finalyl decided to go to bed. Pretty much an uneventful day.

The next day was cool. People were being really loud early in the morning, though. They were all yelling and playing in the hallway, it was annoying. That and I didn't have a towel for the shower. so I asked my grandma if she could find a towel for me. We bought this one the hostel had at its shop, but it was thistiny ass thing. So it sucked, but I had nothing better so I just dealt with it. Breakfast was cool. I made some crossiantwiches and they were nice. That, and the hostel has a nice brand of orange soda in its vending machine. I also met some lady that was from D.C. during breakfast. We talked a little, I told her about the whole tour thing. Before I could see why see was here at a hostel, she left. So she's just a mystery.

First item of the day was a a quick bus tour of Vienna. I learned how the street signs are done. For example, the main square is something like "6. Stephensplatz." Stephensplatz would be the street, and 6 would mean that it was in district 6 (of 7). The lower the number, the older the district. Then after that explanation, I feel asleep through the tour. I woke up to everyone leaving to go out and see the Haydn House. It was a pretty cool place and took some pictures. I accidently used flash at first, and some guy immediately came and scolded me. It was wierd, cuz I hadn't seen him inside the building at all and just popper up so fast. Anyways I still took other pictures, making sure the flash was of and the guy wasn't stalking me. Then as we walked out the place, we all found this mean looking mannequin wearing a "Serial Fucker" shirt. It was quite funny, and I got a picture of that too. The mannequin's face just made it perfect too.

And then after that, we all walked to St. Stephen's square (Stephensplatz). People exchanged money for euros and the banks, I got some fanta, others got ice cream. There were street performers out like this robot guy and this bird guy. The bird guy would just make all this really wierd unnatural noises and request money all the time. He got really annoying real fast and he wasn't even money-worthy. The robot dude, though, was quite good. He would dance to music, but that birdy guy kept making so much noise. Anyways, once together we all walked to this other part of the town with these two statues. Cathy had to fall behind to look for Zoe and this other girl who had walked into the church at the square w/o notifying her. So my grandma was left with watching the group and Camilla as we were following the courier. Camilla kept stopping for all sorts of random, usless things though. So Yogi and I had to fall behind to make sure she didn't get lost and to make sure we still knew where to go.

Finally we all made it, and we were free to go roam around St. Stephen's Square. Aaron, Michael, Lelani, Charmeen, Charissa, Yogi, Alison, and I all went around to look for a place to eat. No one could agree on anything, so Aaron and I finally just decided to go to this Australian pub that was there. Michael didn't want to spend a bunch of money so he just got pizza at a street vendor. It looked pretty good. Then everyone else eventaully follwed Aaron and I into the pub and ate. Aaron and I spilt our bill since we essentially got the same thing. Some nice fish and chips to start, a tall glass of Fosters, and kangaroo for me; ostrich for Aaron. It was really good, we made a right choice in restaurant. And then after that we just walked around a little to see some shops. We only had time for one store though, and we didn't find anything interesting. Kinda sucked.

So we all headed back to the meeting spot. Camilla, who had gone off on her own, made it back as well. She had left and joined this other senior citizen tour that was around, and they didn't even notice her. It was quite funny.And then after that, we all got to the busses and head out for our 2nd concert.

It was over at this monastary called Stift Altenburg that was kinda far out there. It was essentially in the middle of nowhere in this tiny ass town. It was beautiful beautiful monastary though. Like literally, wow. You're gonna need to see picture to see what I mean. It was so awesome, and we got to play in there. The only down side were the acoustics. because of how all the walls were set up and whatnot, there was a ridiculous amount of reverb. about 10 seconds of reverb to be exact. This made it pretty difficult to play (since the percussion section was placed in the far back, and since the space was narrower as usual, that means we got pushed farther back than normal). All the loud stuff was fun to play, though, since you didn't even need to try to play loud. The loud brassy stuff in Tchaikovsky was awesome too. Other than that, though, the concert was alright. Nothing special. It was just nice to be there. Oh, and in the period of time between the dress rehearsal and concert, I just went over to the piano and started playing Evaporated. The sound kinda got lost because of the acoustics, but it was still cool. And what was awesome was that Matt the trupet guy came over and jsut started to paly the vocal line on his trumpet, it was awesome. Joyce was listening in and she thought it was such a cool thing how we both just knew the song and started playing. We promised to finish it later, since Chris asked us to stop and be quiet.

Then after the concert, we all ate at this restaurant that was there. The monastary all served as dinner as a way of saying thanks for the concert. Yogi, Lelani, and I had to get everything in the truck first, so we got in late, but we made it. The dinner was pretty good too. I sat with Charissa, Sharmeen, Lelani, Yogi, Natasha, Gary, Aaron, Esther, and myself. It was a nice fried pork dish (Europeans are apparently a big fan of pork, we had a lot of it there). And something funny happened. Sharmeen was drawing something on her hand, and I wanted to know what it was . She wouldn't let me see it though, so I kept saying "Oh, you want to be a jerk? I can be a jerk too" and proceed to annoy her anyway I could. Then as soon as she finally showed my the sheep she drew on her hand, I immediately stop talking mid-sentence. Then Lelani called me a big baby, haha. Oh, and Gary also didn't like the fact he got pork since he doesn't like it, so he basically stuck all his silverware in the prok and mangled it all up. The qaitress came and got the plate and got really mad when she saw the plate. She was so mad, she dropped a bunch of plates soon after that.

So after dinner, we all got bused back to the hostel. Justin wanted to start a poker game, so eventually one was made in Sharmeen, Lelani, Alison, and Charrissa's room for some reason (none of them were playing). It was 2 euro buy in, and Yogi, Justin, Kathy, Emilio, Ben, Dustin, Gary, and I all played. Justin was talking a lot of big talk since I guess he has a ton of experience with the game, but he was the first to go. It was all just bad luck though, but still it was funny. And then I lost all because Emilio got luck on the river card. That sucked. But the real surprise of the night was the plan I made with Yogi. He only had about a euro left, so I had him go all in w/o taking one look at his hand. The others who weren't playing wanted to take a look at the card, but I didn't let them. It was gonna be a surpise for everyone in the room. And it was. Yogi's hand won. Haha, it was awesome, my plan worked. And then throughout the night, Yogi had another bottle of vodka somehow and was passing it around. He said it was this cheap stuff he got back in Hungary. It was called Kolinka, and it was horrible. Honestly, it was so bad, it tasted like nail polish remover. Kathy and I had some shots, but we eventually couldn't handle it, it was just too bad. And then after another few hands, the girls kicked us out of their room, since it was late and it was their room (and none of them were playing the game). We all left, and that was it for me. Yogi and the others went down to play apples to apples with the other kids that were in the lobby. I just wrote a little in my jounal and went to bed. They were loud though. I could clearly hear Yogi talking, and I was 4 floors up.

And then the next day went to Brno in the Czech Republic. That's tomorrow.

<3
~John

Alright, so let's see how much I remember of this trip.

So before I even left I wanted to hang out with Monica one last time so I can give her my Ben Folds collection. She didn't own any of his CDs, so I thought what's better then lending her almost everything he's ever recorded. So we did that and we also watched Training Day at her house. It was quite a cool movie. Then I left her to finally go to bed so she can go to work the next. I then went home to go finish packing and getting stuff ready for the trip. I only slept couple hours or so. From 5-7 I think.

So my grandma and I are one of the first to arrive at the airport, as always. A few were there ahaed of us, though, like Lelani and some other kid. Anyways, so we had to wait a while for people to get gathered, to find everyone in our chaperone group, etc. My grandma's group were the first to arrive, so we got to check out first and we got to just hang out at the gate while the other groups were still finding everyone. So yeah, we got food, listened to some music, i got to try out out my new headphones which are awesomeee, and I just feel asleep till we had to board. I think the plane ride was somewhere between 12-14 hours. All during the daylight too, because we were traveling with the sun. That kinda sucked, but I still found a way to be asleep for majority of the flight. My grandma kept telling a bunch of people stopped by my seat to say hello, but I was always asleep. It was nice though, I was so jet lagged when we finally got to Budapest.

So that flight took us to Franfurt, Germany, and then we had to take another plane to Budapest after a 2 hour lay off. It was hard making it to the gate though. You had to take a tram over there and other stuff, and it was annoying. Cathy and my group almost left without ther others by accident (my fault--I thought Cathy was just leaving to find where the percussion equipment was, when she was actually motioning where we should go. I didn't tell the rest that, so when my group just left to go find the gate ourselves and found Cathy, we realized we just left everyone standing there.) But we finally made it, and Michael and Aaron already got in trouble for going off on their own. Haha.

Then we were trying to get food, and I went to this German Deli place. All I saw on the menu was this something-Italian "gettoasted" sandwich, which I geuss translated into a toasted ham and cheese sandwich. Aaron and I just found that word gettoasted funny I guess. Then after that and some looking around, we finally got on the plane for Budapest. It was an uneventful flight since I was sat next to people I didn't know (it was Roshan, who I would eventually know a little bit better, but for now I didn't say a word to him). But I did get to play Tony Hawk on my PSP some, which was pretty cool.

And then we got the Budapest. Finding all the luggage/percussion equipment was a breeze too. So then all we had to do was load the luggage we got bussed over to the city. We met the tour couriers, Andre and Rosemary. They seemed nice. We then got to a bank so we could exchange our money to forints, and Hungarian currency. It's a wierd system; I think it's about 200 forints to the dollar, but I'm not quite certain. Anyways, it was a long, arduous process having 90+ people do that at one bank. Gary got his card eaten at the ATM machine, haha. Then afterwards was our 1st of 3 cruises. It contained a small tour of Budapest, but I would know what was on it because I slept through it all. I was still tired cuz we had been up for a long time already, even with all that sleep on the plane. Then after the tour/cruise, we got assinged our rooms to the hotel we were staying at, and the we finally got bussed to the hotel. I think it was called Hotel Sunlight, it was on the Buda side of Budapest (the citys is spilt into two by the river there; Buda is the hilly, rural side while Pest is the more downtown city-like side.). It was a nice place; I roomed with Yogi and we had three beds and a TV. the only problem was the door to the balcony was broken, so you had to climb from another rooms' balcony (which Yogi did) to open it. The beds were also really small to, I could lay flat on it and my legs would reach over the bed and I could plant my feet flat on the ground. Oh well, it was still nice. There was a pool at the hotel too, which some of the kids used, but I didn't bother.

Later we all ate dinner at the hotel, and I ate with Lelani, Yogi, Alison, Sharmeen, Charissa, that whole gang. I was falling asleep the whole dinner and they were taking pictures and showing it to Michael, Aaron, and Chris. I admit, they were funny pictures. And after I finished the main course, I fell asleep and wake up to find this wierd pastry, creemy like thing in front of me. I guess that was the desert, and I almost slept right through it. So that was dinner, and then we had the night to ourselves. I chose to spend it sleeping. Yogi and I kept our door unlocked/open since Yogi was going around playing games/hanging out/whatever. I just feel asleep as soon as I got to the room and only woke up to talk to Chris about the plan for the next day's rehearsal/concert.

So the next day came, Yogi and I got up earlier than the rest, had breakfast, and left with Kevin, Jonathon, Lenlani, and Chris to go to the Lizst Academy. Yogi and Lelani rode in the truck with John (our truck driver for the trip, a pretty nice guy). I went in a taxi with Chris, Kevin, and Jon. There was a lot of traffic in teh tunnel between the two halves of the city, and our driver kept swearing a lot because he couldnt get trhough a lot of the time. It was funny because for some reason I thought he sounded really Italian when he was speaking. Just like the tone of his voice, not what he was saying, because yeah, he's speaking hungarian.

So yeah, we make it to the Lizst Academy, and we unloaded/set up everything. It such a beautiful place. I have pictures of it, which I will show later. Anyways, so we waited for everyone to come and then we started rehearsal. Just your average rehearsal, nothing to special. The timpani we rented for the trip were pretty nice. I'd say they're better than the ones ECYS own. And then the rest of the equipment was all our own. Even the xylophone, which we had to tear down/set up each concert, which was annoying, but we got through it.

And after rehearsal we got to go around the place for a while and get lunch. so Yogi, Lelani, Sharmeen, Alison, Charissa, and I all found a place to eat. It was nice. Had some pasta, got a beer, it was nice. We even sat outside, and to our luck none of the chaperones were walking around. Then after that we got back to the academy, and we all go bussed back to the hotel to rest for a while and eventually change in our concert dress. Before that, though, Yogi, Aaron, Yogi and I found a grocery store down the street from the hotel. Yogi bouth some liqour, I just got some Axe soap/deoderant because I knew I would need it for the trip. Then we had to eat dinner in the formal dress which kind sucked. This time I ate with Chris, Yogi, Aaron, and Kathy. Yogi and Chris were laughing at how I was basically passed out on the bed the night before while Yogi and everyone were just hanging out. Everyone also found it really funny how Yogi and I had our door wide open the whole night.

And then we went back to the Academy for our first concert. It was to an audience of 500, and they loved us. I t was pretty cool. We even did an encore. It was actually a pretty good concert, and damn we played that 3rd movement of the Barber fast. Camilla even surprised me as I was doing the intro. But it held together, and turned out great.

So that was all dandy, and we all got back tot eh hotel afterwards. Justin came in, and then Kathy, Lelani, Alison, and others came in and we all played apples to apples.Then yogi took out the limoncello and vodka and some people start having some, that sort of thing. Haha, then Elena came in a little later because we we getting too loud, and she just told us to be quite. She didn't see anything, which was pretty cool. So we just continued playing apples to apples which eventually got won by my and Gordon (I think we were tied at something like 7). The best pair of cards I think was Hiroshima for the word calm (I did that one). Then around 1-2 am people started getting tired and leaving. Yogi already got pretty drunk and I was just writing in my journal. He then asked me what CD he should start listening to. I told him some jazz CD, and then he said was gonna lay down. I though, alright, and then 5 minutes later Yogi tells me he's going out to walk. Again, I tought it would be find. Haha, then about 15 minutes later Kathy comes in with Yogi and we just hang out for another while just talking. Yogi was just laying face down in the hallway listening to his CD. He even left his CD player out there when he went bak in our room. It was pretty funny. Then after about a 1/2 hour or so we all got tired, so Kathy just left and Yogi and I went to sleep.

So Vienna's next.

<3,
~John

Helllo. So I've been back home for about a week now. I got back on the 3rd, and then spent a few days in San Francisco (for the 4th of July), and then I finally got home on the 5th.

Europe was pretty awesome. I think I'll start writing about the trip tomorrow. It'll take a while though, I'm probably gonna get all lazy doing it.

San Francisco was coool. I got some nice American Appearal shirts (all non-sweatshop made) and just hung around Haight. I also picked up some CDs from Ameoba. Among them was Ben Fold's first solo album, Fear of Pop. I think it's cool. A very different album from the rest (part instrumental, part spoken word). It's cool though. William Shatner even made an appearance on it (before he ever thought of making a whole CD). Then Char, my family, and I all had dinner at this restaurant called Moose's and saw the 4th of July fireworks out on some boat. But we were late in getting to the boat, so we had to run down 3-5 blocks just to make it (There was too much traffic to taxi there). The fireworks were very cool though.

Being home is nice. It feels like I've been gone forever though, or at least a lot longer than 2 weeks. And Sierra/Char think my voice got deeper since I got back, but I don't think so.

Other than that, I've just been hanging out with people again. I finally got to drum again for the first time in like amonth yesterday. it was so nice. And I also saw Fantastic Four tonight with Char, Katie, Matt, Jamal, and Angus. The movie was tolerable, but I would never see it again. "It's quaffable, but far from transcendent," as Miles would put it. And I find it hilarious how I was the only person in the theater laughing when The Thing broke the chair in the bar when he was trying to sit down.

I think I'll go to bed now. Night.

<3
~John

Hellllllo from Czech Republic.

I've already been to Budapest, Hungary; Vienna, Austria; and now I'm in Brno. There's still Prague and Germany.

Everything's coooooool. And I'll be back in a week.

<3,
John

(Oh and postcards are being written soon)

So I'm leaving for Europe in about 7 or so hours. Crazzzy. Hopefully everything turns out good and it's a fun time overall. I've brought plenty of stuff to kill time while on the long plane/bus rides.

I kinda wonder how the concerts will turn out. We're supposedly playing in some really world-renowned venues, with a bunch of history attached to them. And the audiences are supposedly all very serious about this kind of music, so it's going to be hard to please them.

I'm going to try to enjoy myself as much as I can. That's all I can do.

<3 I will miss you all. Bye Bye

~John

I'm fucking 18 bitches.

<3,
~John

The concert is not for another two months, but I'm still super excited for the Ben Folds concert. I've been listening to nothing but his stuff for the past while.

But that all may change soon. I just got the new Foo Fighters CD...for $10. Yeah, that's right. A double album for $10. God Bless Best Buy.

And Batman Begins last night was fucking extreme. Such an awesome movie.

I leave in less than a week. More and more I keep feeling like the tour is going to suck and won't be all that fun. But that's how I remember going into the Italy tour two years ago, and that turned out to be pretty cool. So I'm probably wrong again about this tour. Anyways, this reminds me of something:

I would like to spend some of my time in Europe writing letters/postcards/whatever, so give me your address sometime before I leave if you would like me to think of you. I'll ask people for addresses myself eventually, so you could also just wait for me to ask you.

I think I'm going to have to spend most of tomorrow starting/completing my thank you cards. It's really the last day I can do it.

I just found out today that I won't be in the country when Land of Dead comes out :(

Oh well. Anyways, tour rehearsals are going fine. We played 1/2 the music already, so I don't think it won't be too hard to get everything prepared by the weekend. This also reminds me of something else: I have symphony concerts this Saturday/Sunday. If you would like to come to any one of those, let me know, I got free tickets.

Enough of this. I will go now. So long.

~John

The past few days have been nice. Band practice, when up to Monica's, got a bunch of stuff, watched movies, Monica's again. Coolness.

One of the coolest things to occur today: I got tickets for the Ben Folds show at Saratoga in August. Not just any tickets. Front row tickets. And not just any front row tickets, but I got seats 1 and 2. Monica was pleased. It's gonna be such an awesome show.

I also got shorts over the weekend. They're pretty cool too. I'll probably need another pair for Europe trip, but I still got a little over a week. I also picked up a few Ben Folds CDs I haven't gotten yet. Good stuff. Hmm, and I also got some more percussion stuff for my drum set. A tambourine and a "crasher" (a few things of metal that make a crash sound when I hit it). Pretty cool stuff, but now I just need a stand for them. I neglected to think about that when I was at Guitar Center, but I'll be back.

I also attended Live Oak's graduation on Friday with Chris. It was the 2nd graduation I've been to (with my graduation being the 1st). It was pretty cool, but Chris and I made the mistake of not standing in the path of the speakers. So we couldn't hear all too well, and then no one told us what order the class was going, so we didn't realize they were handing diplomas to the top 10% of the class before they went alphebetical order. So we kinda didn't hear Monica's name get called up (And I kinda feel like a jerk for not paying closer attention, but I tried...sorrrrry). But we did see her right after the ceremony ended and we hung out there for a bit. Then over to the house for some pizza and videos. It was nice to finally hang out with Monica after not seeing her in foreverrrr. Grand night.

And then Sunday was Monica's grad party. Tim, Chris, and I were in attendence along with a bunch of Monica's friends. They were all pretty cool. We played Speed and Mafia, walked around, took pictures, tried to pogo, listened to music, trampolined, and other various things. Mates of State was on most of the day, and if it wasn't, one of us was singing it. Another grand day.

Then a little while ago Chris, Tim, and I saw Wet Hot American Summer. Funny ass movie. All need to watch it too. We probably will sometime later.

This coming week will be pretty busy. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I have orchestra rehearsal from 9 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon. So basically like a school day. Then Saturday is a morning rehearsal and an evening concert, and Sunday is another concert. And of even more importance, my birthday is on Friday (the 17th). I don't really want to be stuck in rehearsal for half the day, so I'm gonna see about getting out early. I imagine I'll probably be able to. I don't know if my mom has planned a party for that day or not. I don't think so.

Before I leave for Europe, I need to get Thank You cards done :\ I've been contiuously putting them off, but I don't think I can keep doing it much longer. I'm not sure what I'm doing in the next few days...maybe I'll do those.

Batman Begins comes out soon, and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna go see it at midnight. It will be awesome.

Till then, <3.

~John

I changed my layout and stuff. I like this.

I also got new speakers today. But I have to wait till the day to actually try them out.

More Coldplay tickets are going on presale tomorrow. I'll be trying my damnedest to get tickets.

I've been on a real Death Cab binge for the past few days. I think I may need to stop soon. Listen to some happier songs. I haven't listened to Make Believe in a while. Maybe I'll start doing that again.

I have two concerts on Sunday, June 5th if anyone feels like they want to go. One is a percussion ensemble concer, I'll be playing one song, it'll be ok. The other is a symphony concert, a little more interesting. They are probably my last formal concerts until I go to UCLA. Would you like to go? Tell me.

<3
~John

What did I do today?

I went over to Alex's graduation party. I was also invited to Matt Sobel's, Dan Couch's, and Nikki's. I didn't go to those, even though I was planning on attending at least 2 parties. I also thought I had a percussion rehearsal today, but I got lazy and just stayed at the party (I later found out there was no rehearsal, so that's good).So yeah, I kinda feel bad since Dan and Nikki both came to my party, and I just didn't go to there's.

But Alex's party was cool. Majority of the time was spenting was just hanging out inside the Jedi Council. We talked about soooo much Star Wars stuff, nuts. And then just other stories of everything. Angus, Charlotte, and Kt dropped by for for some time, and Angus and Brendan started to show the videos of Wednesday to everyone at the Jedi council, including some of Joey relatives (Joey's, right?).That's why I'll never be like that again.

We also play Mafia/Siths for a while. We completely made it in a Jedi/Sith game, it was awesome. Chris ended up being Darth Hideous for like every game. Than during the last game Brendan and I kicked ass and were the last two Jedi left standing after killing off the last Sith lord (Johnny's brother, Ryan). We all started calling each other names too. I was Darth Higgy, than it became Darth Asshole. Chris = Darth Dick. Brendan, Darth Douchebag. And so on. It was fun.

And now for my first week with no school. Just wait, I won't have anything to do. Well, except for Monday, which will consist of rehearsals for most of the day.

<3
~John