Evanescence

So.  Last night was officially the best night of my life so far.  Why?  Because I saw my favorite band of all time, Evanescence, in concert for the first time.  I've loved Evanescence since I was twelve, and their music has gotten me through so much in my life.  The fact that I was finally able to see them means the world to me.  The plan to go see them came about at 2:30 in the morning about three weeks ago.

After my last class of the day, my lovely friend Alicia met me at the back of my dorm, and we drove the three-and-a-half hours to St. Louis, where we picked up her friend Leslie.  We arrived at the Pageant, and I held our place in line while they went to go get food.  I also chatted with another girl in line, who called the huge, endless line the "March of the Goths," which is very accurate.  The variety of clothes everyone wore was awesome.  Everything from Metallica shirts to Pantera shirts to Evanescence shirts (duh) to goth corset dresses.  It was awesome.  When we finally got in, we made our way to "the pit of doom" as Kat and I call it.

I immediately found myself positioned behind a very tall chap.  Asking him to move would have been fruitless.  As he stepped in front of a rather short girl, his friends told him that she could no longer see, and he just grinned.  Ass.  The show started at eight, and Killer Me Killer You came on first.  They're pretty good, I admit, but I was just antsy to see Evanescence.  There was a long wait for them to take down their stuff and then for the next opening act to set their stuff up.  They were Weaving the Fate, and I found them to be a bit obnoxious.  Then we waited some more.  All the while, I kept finding Tall Chap inching more and more in front of me.

As we got closer and closer to the start of Evanescence's set (it was 10pm by now), those of us on the right side of the pit spotted a figure on the far side of the stage with dark hair and bare shoulders.  Clearly Amy.  We  had sets of chanting her name about five times.  Then, suddenly, the lights went out and What You Want started.  Cue mass hysteria, including from yours truly.  All of a sudden Amy Lee was just there in all her goddess-like glory.  It was magical.  By the time she got to My Heart Is Broken, Tall Chap was directly in front of me.  She was sitting at the piano, but I could barely see her.  And since that is one of my favorite songs, I was not happy.  THEN, three short blond chicks starting inching their way through the crowd saying, "Sorry, sorry!"  At first I thought they were going to the other end, but no.  They stopped right in front of me.  Words cannot express the pissedness that I felt.  The chick who had been standing next to me, and with whom I'd been speaking throughout the show, was even more pissed then I was, and actually started yelling at them in the middle of the song, but the girls wouldn't budge.  Eventually, Fighting Chick moved to a better location.  Thank God the girls were short.  I accidentally elbowed one of the girls in the head and felt bad for half a second until she said it was fine after I asked if she was okay.  But still.  Thank God they're short.  I felt really bad for the girl behind Leslie and me.  She is short, too, so I did my best to lean over to one side so she could see.  Aren't I nice?

Though the show lasted an hour, it felt like twenty minutes.  It went by so quickly.  It's definitely a night I won't ever forget, despite some bumps in the road here and there.  I finally saw my favorite band!  Amy Lee was right in front of me!  Life is good.  We left Alicia's house at 7am the next morning and made it back to Kirksville around 10:30 with plenty of time for me to get to work.

I can totally handle finals.

Almost there.

I've reached the final leg of my freshman year of college.  Before anyone comes at me with those "How do you feel?" questions, I'll answer you now: fine.  I feel fine.  I don't feel one year older or wiser, I don't feel like some brand new person.  Life is just continuing to go on, you know?  Right now all I'm focusing on is the [expletive]word I need to get done before May 4, which is the last day of Finals.

Let's see . . . I have one more speech, I have some stupid, gigantic test in French that is pointless because it doesn't count for my grade, I need to study for Linguistics and review whatever I've forgotten for the exam, plus some weird French project that none of us really knows how to do because the professor didn't explain it well enough.  Not to mention one more show for the French play (the first one was last night), the University Chorus concert, and some other stuff.  Personally, I'd just like to survive, but perhaps that's asking for too much.

I registered for classes on Monday of this week.  Boy, was that an experience.  Shall I explain it?  Okay.  I slept very badly the night before.  Registering starts at 7am, but for some reason I woke up and didn't look at my phone for the time as I got up.  When I got to my desk, I realized it was only 5:30.  So I attempted to go back to sleep.  I dozed and got back up, and then, when registering was supposed to begin, Truman's site was down.  For everyone.  The last small group of people who still needed to register was gathered together on Truman's Facebook group complaining.  Finally, at 7:45, it opened up.  I flew like a screaming banshee (in theory, of course) to register, only to find out that the Applying Literary Theory class I needed was full.  Crap.  But wait!  Then I went to go check that I had gotten the right one, and somehow I didn't.  So I signed up for the right one and thought I was good, right?  Wrong.  Then I learned that the Linguistics didn't count for my English major (I've a concentration in Linguistics), so I had to drop that and find someone else.  I picked up Intro to Philosophy as a last resort, but not only does the professor have terrible reviews, but it was at 8:30 in the morning.  So I signed up for French Civilization I, but that would put me in three French classes, which is insane and would make my head explode.  Around 1:30 that afternoon, I talked with Kat awhile and learned that her Exploring Religions class was open.  So, believe it or not, I signed up for a religion class.  Shocking, right?

But let me explain the reason for this class.  Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not big on studying religions, particularly Christianity.  It's not that I dislike Christianity, especially when I (try to) identify myself as a Christian, I just don't like what's associated with it.  The fighting, mainly.  The awkward feelings.  But this class, which Lauren took last semester, barely even touches western religions - it focuses mainly on eastern ones, so I'm good.  The professor is difficult, but with Lauren and Kat to help me, I think I'll be okay.

So, I got my classes set up.  I'll be taking French Literature I, Contemporary French, Applying Literary Theory, Survey of Russian Literature I, and Exploring Religions.  In essence: it's a lot of writing and reading. But I'll survive.  At least it's not a lot of math.

The first night of the French play was last night.  I know I haven't moaned and groaned about this one as much as I did last semester, but that's because I don't have nearly as many lines.  Last semester I had about four huge monologues.  It was painful.  This time I didn't even really need to make an effort to memorize my lines - I just realized that I had them down.  I quite like the cast this semester, even though some monumental people are missing.  I wish we could have just kept the cast from last semester and added more people for this one, but that's just too much to ask, I guess.  I don't know if I'll do the play next Fall - Lauren and Alicia want me to, but we'll see.  It tends to suck my life away, as rehearsals are always Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7, and that's generally when anything interesting happens on campus.  I've contemplated auditioning for the co-ed A Capella group, Sweet Nothings.  I dunno yet.

I think that's it.  I'm excited for next week, despite my speech.  WEE!

Trois ans.

I apologize to those of you who don’t read French or who don’t feel like translating (roughly) what I write in English on Google Translate, but there’ll be English at the bottom.  No worries.

Bon ben.  Comme j’ai dit sur Facebook, j’étudie le français depuis trois ans aujourd’hui.  Peut-être.  Je ne sais que j’ai commencé étudier la langue dans le mois d’avril.  Alors, parce que je ne sais pas la date exact, je « fête » ce jour le 1 avril.

(Et je suis désolée en avance si mon français est terrible.)

La raison pour laquelle j’étudie le français est une histoire longue.  Mais je n’ai jamais la raconté en français, alors ça sera difficile.  Souhaitez-moi le merde.  (Heh, heh, heh.)

La première chose qu’on doit savoir, c’est que j’ai quitté mon école quand j’avais dix-sept ans en 2008.  Pourquoi ?  Il y a quelques raisons, mais je ne suis pas stupide.  Je ne quittais pas l’école parce que je déteste le travail et les devoirs (même si c’était vrai).  La raison était principalement parce que ma famille déménageait de l’autre côté de la ville.  La nouvelle école serait terrible pour moi parce que, si j’y étais, je n’obtiendrais mon diplôme pour un an à cause de mes mauvaises notes.  (Mais malgré ces mauvaises notes, vous devez vous souvenir que je ne suis pas trop stupide, d’accord ?)

Donc, je n’avais pas d’école.  Je voulais toujours d’aller à l’université mais à cette époque, je croyais que c’était impossible.  Avant que j’aie quitté mon école, j’ai découvert le film de Disney, Le bossu de Notre-Dame (en anglais, bien sûr). Grâce au film, j’ai rencontré quelques personnes qui sont devenues mes proches amies sur le site-web deviantART.  Nous aimions le personnage Clopin Trouillefou, qui est le roi des gitans.  C’est grâce à Lauren que j’ai commencé de dessiner ce personnage, même si c’était de courte durée.

Mais, bien sûr, Lauren n’aimait pas seulement ce film.  Grâce à elle, j’ai découvert la comédie musicale Notre-Dame de Paris parce que j’intéressais encore dans l’œuvre de Victor Hugo.  Mon chanteur préféré dans la musicale dès le premier instant était Bruno Pelletier, qui a joué Pierre Gringoire et qui a chanté sa belle chanson Le temps des cathédrales.

C’est grâce à Lauren et à cette musicale que j’étudie le français.  Je suis tombé amoureuse de la musique de Bruno, et je voulais comprendre les paroles dans ses chansons.  Mais, parce que je n’étais pas dans l’école, j’ai dû étudier seule.  J’ai utilisé l’Internet pour apprendre le vocabulaire, la grammaire, et aussi j’ai écouté et j’ai regardé des entrevues, des films, et d’autres choses comme ça pour aider mon accent.  Ça s’est passé en avril de 2008.

En octobre de 2008, je suis venue au Québec avec mes deux amies, Sarah et Gloria, pour voir Bruno dans son spectacle.  Je l’ai rencontré en personne après le concert et je lui ai donné un dessin à Lauren et une photo à Kathy pour signer.  Après j’ai envoyé les autographes au Missouri pour elles, nous sommes devenues plus proches qu’avant.  (C’est pas parce que je leur ai donné les autographes, elles m’assurent.)

Beaucoup de choses se sont passés.  J’étudie le français dans l’université grâce à ces choses.  Les jours où je m’ai enseigné me manquent parce que je crois qu’ils étaient plus facile pour moi.  Il est difficile de travailler avec des autres personnes que je ne connais pas et de travailler plus lentement ou plus vite que je travaillerais si j’étais seule.  Mais je suis heureuse.  Dans ma classe d’écriture, j’écrirai un essai sur ces « aventures. »  Le français est une raison pour laquelle je suis ici à l’école.  (Ils m’ont donné une bourse d’études parce que j’ai écrit dans mon essai pour admission que je m’ai enseigné le français.)  C’est vrai toujours après trois ans : j’adore le français.

See, English as I promised.  All you missed was that I like French.  That is all.