Adventuring

What is an adventure? Merriam-Webster online says this:

Main Entry: ¹ad·ven·ture

Pronunciation: \əd-ˈven-chər\

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English aventure, chance, risk, from Anglo-French, from Vulgar Latin*adventura, from Latin adventus, past participle of advenire to arrive, from ad- + venire to come — more at come

Date: 14th century

1 a : an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks b : the encountering of risks 2 : an exciting or remarkable experience 3 : an enterprise involving financial risk

I don't really like any of these definitons because they suggest that an adventure must be, in some sense, extreme. I do not believe that all adventures must be extreme or exciting or remarkable or involve risk. I believe that adventuring should be an every day (or every other day) event!

I go on adventures every day. Often, they are small - I will adventure into a new area of the interwebs and get "lost", I will adventure by taking a different route to get somewhere I often visit (like the UCA), I adventure in my practice a lot by sight reading. Point being, anything can be an adventure if you make it one. I have been known to ask my friends what kind of adventure they had today, or will have to day, or suggest that we go adventuring somewhere sometime. The first time this happens they are often confused as to what I mean because they don't understand that an everyday event can be made into an adventure.

Today I will adventure into a fantasy world with children (playing DND, I'm the DM, see this post) and I am quite excited. They will be ambushed by a bone devil and several small demons, it will be quite an adventure.

I am looking quite forward to the summer when I can take walk adventures with my friends late at night and it will still be nice to be outside.

If you feel like it, tell me about your favorite small adventure!

Back from the dead!?

OK, so I've been absolutely terrible at updating this and such, sorry to the few people who actually read it (I have no idea how many there are anyway). So the whole comparison project is done and I'm apparently not interesting enough to write about my life in general (Most of my waking time is spent at school and practicing) but I have a goal for this summer that I thought it would be super fun to write about and maybe get some feedback on.... I plan to visit EVERY non-chain (meaning not starbucks) coffee shop in Fort Collins. Here's the list I have compiled with the help of google maps

Coffee/Tea shops in Fort Collins

• Everyday Joe's Coffee House
• Starry Night Espresso Cafe
• Bean Cycle
• Catalyst Coffee LLC
• Mugs Coffee Lounge
• Alley Cat Cafe
• Cups Coffee
• Genoa Coffee & Wine
• Dazbog Coffee Store
• Deja Vu Coffeehouse
• Wild Boar Coffee
• Lyric Cinema Cafe
• Bean Trees Drive Thru Coffee Cafe
• Cuppy's Coffee and Smoothies
• Colorado Coffee Exchange
• Human Bean
• The Haunted Game Cafe
• La Dolce Vita Gelato Caffe
• f/stop cafe
• beatnik coffee
• Wired Bean Coffee House
• Coffee Craze
• Specht Point Cafe
• The Western Coffee Bar
• Cafe Richesse
• Monza Cafe
• Espresso Di Cincotta
• Cafe Vino
• Cafe Ardour
• Happy Lucky's Tea House
• Half Moon Bay Coffee
• Moxie Java
  

That 32, many more than I thought! I have had several thoughts about the best way to go about doing this, one idea was to ask for the same drink at every place - but I don't want to limit myself to drinking only one type of drink for the whole summer. So then I was thinking about e-mailing each store (that I could find an e-mail address for) and asking what their "signature drink" is, but that would be a lot of work and I'm not even guaranteed an answer. In talking with my parents and Andrew I have decided that I will ask the bartender to make me their favorite drink. As Andrew pointed out, it's a lot more random. I will also get a wider variety of drinks and will probably try a lot of things I wouldn't try otherwise. I plan on reviewing every place - hopefully with a picture or two - for the summer, maybe with other random interjections. So let's do some math here, 32 shops and I have about 14 weeks if I start when I get out of school (minus my week trip to Appleton) that would be 2.29 coffee shops per week. If I start now then I have around 20 weeks (not counting the week in Appleton) which is 1.6 shops a week. I like that number better. If you have a favorite drink at a certain place I will consider ordering that instead. If you can think of a place I did not include I'd love to hear it! If you are going to visit me this summer (or live here) and want to join me on all or some of these adventures let me know!! I'd love the company! I am excited for all this coffee business! and some tea too :)

Just One of Those Days

Do you ever have one of those days where you plan on being super productive but without all the stress because its all little stuff, some of it is fun and it's not like you have much else to do...but then you end up wasting most of the day? I'm having a day like that. But....strangely enough I don't really mind, I don't really have much that's stressing me out right now so I can afford to spend a day not doing a lot, but still doing enough.
I made blueberry cheese blintzes this midmorning and they are super delicious, I plan on eating them for the rest of the week's breakfast! :) I also practiced and cleaned (complete with vacuum!) and now my room feels great!
I wish I had more of real importance to talk about but I just don't...the month of February is pretty lame really. I mean...let's think about it, what happens in February:
Valentine's Day: I used to think this was an awesome holiday but now I just see no point, I tell my friends I love them pretty much every day...at least every week, why only have one day to do it? and I don't like hallmark holidays, they are lame.
Tiki's Birthday: OK, this was good and fun but not super exciting...and that was nice.
Olympics: here's the thing...I'll watch some Olympics but I get really sick of the announcers really quickly and I really don't care about sports, at all.
I auditioned for the Disney All-Star Summer College Band...I guess that was exciting but it was via DVD and it was kind of a pain in the butt to figure out the technology so, meh.
It's snowing again....next month is March which brings Spring Break...but I'm not going anywhere so...yeah...
Anyone know anything exciting that happen(s/ed)in February?

I guess I did find this somewhat entertaining internet game...well two..

This one is about feeding a cat sushi....yay fat kitties :)

This one is blocks...but in difficult stacks...

Dungeons and Dragons!

Ok, I'll admit it. I'm a nerd. I know this may come as a surprise to many of you but it is totally true. I am currently DMing two DND games and I am half participating in a third dnd-type game (I say half because I just started playing it and I have only been to one session so far, if you wanna check out the story the game's creator and "DM" has created a blog of it Eternity)

Everyone has different reasons to play DND but I think we all enjoy that it is a pretend game for grown ups. I love the escapist aspects because sometimes it is nice to pretend to be somewhere else and someone else, it releases you from thinking about things - almost like meditation. I also really like the creative aspect that I am allowed to let manifest in monsters and world descriptions. I had only been playing for about 2 years before I started DMing (OH, BTW for those of you not savvy to the lingo DM stands for Dungeon Master - this person is the one that decides what monsters the heroes will fight, they create the world, they play all of the characters that the players run into and basically create the whole story and run the game). I'm still not sure I'm entirely qualified to DM because I still have a lot of questions but playing with people and DMing more and more has helped create a confidence in it that I didn't have at the beginning.

One of the groups I DM for is comprised of four 11ish year olds - it's like babysitting but better :) I have a really good time with them most weeks. We play for about 2 hours every(ish) Saturday. They are currently on a journey to find the Never Melting Snowflake which is currently in the hands of an evil sorcerer who is trying to let cold take over the entire continent. I keep trying to kill them and it keeps not working :P

The other group I'm DMing just had it's first game last week and I was inspired by some random thought in my head to base the entire game off of Alice in Wonderland. Talk about trippy to the extreme. I've been having a good time modifying the story of Alice to fit in things to fight and weapons and multiple people traveling together. I am, of course, reading Alice in Wonderland again (this is time number 2...and 3) so that I can loosely follow the story line. I am spending much more time than is necessary so that I can do this but it is so much fun that I really don't mind.

The other game that I'm playing was created by my friend Jake and is somewhat similar to DND but at the same time very different. I really like some of the things he has done differently than DND because it is much simpler to figure out and makes more real-life sense to me (how's that for an oxymoron). I hope that I will be able to play more and get a real understanding of the game rather than just a short preview.

In other news, I have written a paper detailing the differences between Lawrence and CSU that I would love a few editors to read...if you WANT to (seriously no pressure) then shoot me an e-mail and I will send it to you...I figured since that's what I started this blog about maybe some of you would have some sort of weird interest. I dunno... :-/

The random thought for the day is: I Love Emoticons. Since becoming a text-er I have come to appreciate them much more than I used to, even when I was big into IM :-P

<3

School starts again

Welcome back to school last Tuesday for CSU students!

My schedule this semester is crazy wonderful and easy. Let me lay it out for you:

Monday - (10am) Jazz Pedagogy, (11am) Trombone Studio, (1pm) Understanding Dance, (3:30pm) Trombone Lesson, (4:45pm-6pm) Concert Band

Tuesday - (11am) Independent Study, (3pm-4:30pm) Symphonic Band

Wednesday - Monday without the trombone lesson

Thursday - (3pm-4:30pm) Symphonic Band, (7:30pm-9:30pm) African Drum and Dance

Friday - (1pm) Understanding Dance, every other week (4pm-5pm) Symphonic Band Sectionals

Jazz Pedagogy is taught by someone whom I idolize a little bit and have for years: Peter Sommer. He is a saxophonist, amazing at that, and he is a great teacher. Since I am not really a music education student anymore this class is not necessary, but I am interested and my three best friends here are in the class so that makes it even that much more enjoyable.

Trombone studio is a once a week meeting of trombone players, usually all low brass. While it is sometimes organized differently than I would have done, it is good studio bonding.

Understanding Dance is a class that I originally decided to take because it will give me credits not in music when I return to Lawrence. After two class periods I am really looking forward to the course material and teacher.

Concert Band is for fun. I am playing tuba and I am SO excited!!!!

My independent study is on band literature/history/stuff. It has yet to be fully decided and that's alright with me. There are two other people involved in this, one is my new friend Joe (who will become one of my new best friends though he doesn't know it yet) and my amazing band director, Dr. Nick.

Symphonic Bans is also fun, not completely for fun but it is great. Unfortunately, this semester my bass trombone friend, Mark, could not be in an ensemble and my new friend has yet to actually show up....but Dr. Nick is the director and he always picks great music and gives us good comments.

African Drum and Dance will be simply amazing. It's taught by a girl who I know and I am just generally super excited.

So yeah, it should be an fairly easy and fun semester!

Home Improvement

As I was replacing the light in the office that I'm helping my parents re-vamp I was reflecting that I have gotten all of my home improvement knowledge from helping my parents with these types of projects. The past few days I have clocked just over 10 hours removing "popcorn" from the ceiling. removing floor boards, removing tack strips (after not stepping on too many), removing nd replacing the light (so I could get to the ceiling), removing cupboards, sanding so the paint lines won't stand out, painting the walls, spackling the walls and a little light plumbing to help with the removal with the "popcorn". It's amazing. I'd never thought about how much I'm learning until I took a step back and looked at all that I had done. Wow. I mean, where else does one learn these....skills? Books when you need to fix your own house? watching a youtube? or do you just give up because you believe it is difficult (or too messy) and hire someone? Just thoughts.

If you get the chance, help people with home improvement projects, you'll thank yourself later.

Also, as I was painting the wall this great green color I realized that when I own a place, every room will be some shade of purple. It won't be intentional probably but it'll happen. :)

Look at me blog! I'm so proud of me! :P

Happy New Year!

Alright, so I'm technically 8 days late. whatever. get over it.

I've never really come to terms with new years being a big thing anyway. Right now my life is still run on a school calendar so my new years happen in September usually and I find the one in January to be quite awkward actually. I mean, yeah, I stay up till midnight and say rabbit rabbit rabbit (just like the first of EVERY month, when I remember) and happy new year. I attempt to come up with some resolutions and think about the past year but it feels weird. Especially this year because I'm between two different schools and I think I've done too much thinking and had too many different experiences to have remained the same person. In fact, I'm positive I'm not the same person as I was last year, or even as I was in August (when I started at CSU).

As long as I'm being all reflective, and a little hippocritical, let's look at my year in review:

• Word of the year: Epiphany. why is this my word? because I've had a lot of them and I just learned how it was spelled and I think it's wonderful.
• Name of the year: Ingrid. This is what I named my bass trombone and it is also:
• Favorite Music/Artist of the year: Ingrid Michaelson. I love her, this has already been mentioned.
• Best book I read last year: I haven't really read much, regrettibly, but I think I'd have to say The World is Flat By Thomas Friedman. I actually read this for one of my classes and as I have said a few times in the past few months "This damn book is ruining my life" as I realized just how right Mr. Friedman is/was.
• Band Piece of the year: Armenian Dances. Just is, played it twice and LOVE IT!
• Favorite thing I baked: My birthday cake: Chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, chocolate ganache.
• Drink of the year: Tea. if I had to pick one flavor, it would be vanilla strawberry rose, which I just learned has been discontinued and I wanted to cry.
• Website of the year: Google. Duh.
• Webcomic of the year: Questionable Content. If you're gonna read it you should really start from the beginning
• Biggest FAIL of the year: this blog, also mentioned before
• Punctuation of the year: ...yeah...
• Addiction of the year: Texting. OMG, texting.
• Phrase of the year: points for trying. I think...there might be another one....not sure.

So...resolutions...I make them but I'm still not sure how I feel about them...I think in part because I resolve to do things all year round, it's not a special thing for me. Just because the calendar year changes doesn't mean I need to pick RIGHT NOW to start new and over and make huge amazing changes in my life. I do that whenever I feel like I need to. This year kind of happened to fall near new years....points for me?

Anyway...welcome to my new year, glad you're a part of it :)

~Renee