"Civilians fled Idlib, Syria, on Tuesday as government tanks entered the city. Meanwhile, the assault on Homs continued."

This photo was on the cover of the NY Times on February 15th. Although that was a while ago now, I still think about it. What bothers me most about the image is the girl in pink in the front of the photo. She’s got dirty blonde hair, pigtails, earrings, and a Strawberry Shortcake sweatshirt. She could pass for my little sister. If she really were my sister, we would be doing everything in our power to help her. Why aren’t we? Even if she didn’t look like me, it wouldn’t matter, though. They’re just children. They shouldn’t have to feel so much hurt and fear.

Associated Press. 2012. Photograph. Idlib. NYTimes.com. New York Times, 15 Feb. 2012. Web. 11 Mar. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2012/02/15/world/SYRIA-REFER.html>.

In Bath, England. We listened to a Christmas concert there. Can you even imagine being the organist for a church like that?

Okay, so I pretty much failed miserably at blogging every day for the rest of last year. :/ I’m never sure what to write about. That being said, one thing I do think is important to write about is other people. You never know who you’re going to meet who can help you reach your dreams, or who will change your life. I got the chance to meet someone new today, and he shared his life lessons with me.

I don’t know what I want to do with my life at all. I’m going to college soon, and I have no idea what I want to major in or what I want to study. I can’t imagine doing one thing for the rest of my life, so how am I supposed to pick what that one thing is going to be? I am planning on going to a liberal arts school, and part of me really wants to study pipe organ, at least on the side. But all the uncertainty of a future career makes me wary of committing to that as a primary path. And, I have a passion for all types of learning. I am afraid to choose one path because I don’t want it to steal away from everything else I love. If I choose music, then I can;t study chemistry. But if I choose chem, I can’t study music.

I have been taking lessons from the organist at my church for about a year now, and I do really love it. It is sort of like being a conductor: like having an entire orchestra under your fingers (and toes), only the cellos and clarinets actually do what you want them to. :) There is something so relaxing and so calming about being the only person in a sanctuary and listening to the organ. I can’t explain the feeling, you’ll just have to try it for yourself sometime.

This morning we had a guest organist at church because our primary organist is on vacation. I am going to be playing an entire service in two weeks, and I wanted to ask him for any advice he had. I was afraid to introduce myself to him, but I’m glad I did. He had plenty of advice.

He told me if I remember nothing else of what he taught me, I needed to remember the organist’s job. It’s not to get applause, it is:

1) to tie the service together. The organist needs to work as a seamstress, connecting the prayer with the offertory with the sermon through strands of music. and,

2) to glorify God. It is to enhance the worship experience, to bring people closer to God, and to make sure that no matter what, you need to always be able to hear God clapping for you from Heaven.

He told me to not be afraid to lead the service. Everyone misses notes and makes mistakes, but make sure to remember my purpose. Then he asked me what I wanted to do with my life, if my future plans included becoming an organist. I responded: “hopefully.” He didn’t like that answer, he told me not to be bashful, that I knew what I wanted, and it didn’t have to be just one thing. He went to school to be a chemical engineer. He did that, but then studied organ construction, organ performance, and so much else. He went to Syracuse to study science, but later ended up in Canada to learn how to build organs from a guy who worked as an organist in Paris. He told me I didn’t have to do just one thing. Then he gave me one more piece of advice:

“Make a list of all the things you want to do before they lower you six feet into the ground. Then, go to school, get the best teachers in your area, and do everything you can to achieve your dreams. It doesn’t have to be just one thing, and it’s never too late. Do this so you can live your life without regrets.”

Okay, so, it’s my third day of trying to post every day in the month of October, and so far I’ve been successful! But, all three of these days have been weekend-days, so I don’t know how it’ll go this week. I might switch to the once-a-week plan.

Today’s weather is perfect fall weather. It’s not too cold, but chilly enough to warrant the wearing of leggings with my skirt and long sleeves. The air is crisp, and it smells beautiful. I love the smell of air in autumn- it’s better than spring air because spring air brings spring allergies…

I was inspired- partly by the fresh air, and partly by my desire to NOT do homework- to take some photos outside. I raked the few leaves we have on the front lawn, and tried to capture a photo that I liked, to be honest. That’s all. I realized after that my photo described the innocence of the new fall that I was feeling. But, I believe strongly that the best art, if that’s what you will allow me to call my non-professional photography, is captured by mistake. You can’t understand what you’re doing at the time, it just has to happen to you. You might realize later why you captured what you did- whether with words, paintings, photos, whatever- but then again, you might not.

<3

First, I thought maybe we could go into Canada. I’ve only been once, and that was five minutes inside the border we could see into the US from where we were! Almost not worth going through customs and everything. I hear it’s beautiful, especially in the countryside, and would love to visit Montreal and Quebec and everything, too. However, if you want to take a train in Canada, you need to take one into Montreal, then switch to a Canadian train at the Montreal station. That makes for a really long trip, and I don’t know where I’d even want to go, so I switched my train of thought (sorry) back into the US.

Next, I thought I might like to go to Cincinnati- that’s where Kit lived, you know. I soon found out that the only trains into Cincinnati from the East coast get in at 3:00 am. What are you supposed to do then?! Walk the streets until morning? And, if you want to take a sleeping car there, book now. They get booked out for months at a time. Plus, they’re super expensive. So, now my vacation plans are back to nowhere. Maybe I’ll go to Montreal after all.

<sorry for the boring post, I’m new at this. very new.>

my photo of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, UK

I got an e-mail from wordpress telling me about the Daily Post’s PostADay challenge! I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try, so that’s why I’m writing in my blog after more than two months after my last entry. I don’t have any idea if this will last, or even if I will remember to post tomorrow (maybe I should really try for the “Post a Week” challenge…), but this is my first one!

About me?

1. I’m a senior in high school, and my first college apps are due in… a month from tomorrow! I need to somehow find my super-fast super-amazing essay-writing skills (if I could pick one superpower, what would it be…) that I don’t think I possess, and make them magically write an award-winning essay for me. Maybe I should be writing a college essay supplement right now instead of this blog post.
2. I’m really into music. I play piano, clarinet, and pipe organ, and I don’t think I love any one of them more than the other. I just love them for different things! The pipe organ is my newest adventure, and it’s an incredibly impressive instrument. When I was in London last summer, I missed my opportunity to see some really amazing organ concerts, which was disappointing. We were planning on attending one at St. Paul’s Cathedral, but they weren’t doing a performance that particular week.

—okay, that was a boring list. And not very complete, either. I don’t know what to write! I’m new to this blogging thing. But, I’ll link you to something I think is cool. (not that there’s anyone out there reading this blog. I haven’t had any visitors to my blog since July!):

In French right now, we’re watching the film Amelie. However, there weren’t any French subtitles on the DVD, so we’re just watching it in French, and my language skills are nowhere near good enough to understand any of it! But, what I’ve seen is very funny, and very cute, and very French. I’d recommend it, only with some good subtitles. :)

Today was a very long but really great day. Tomorrow we all go home from the conference, and I’ve made so many great friends that I’ll miss!

Today was our day on Capitol Hill. My friend and I had an appointment with  Senator Gillibrand. We made sure to arrive early to the appointment, and with good sense because it took a long time to even figure out how to get in the building! We tried to go in the senators and staff only entrance by mistake, but don’t worry, we were caught immediately. =) The meeting itself was only ten minutes long, but we had time to ask a few questions with the senator. We discussed education, the gay marriage bill, and her campaign for reelection. It was very official and scary- there were two assistants in the room and they had to tape record our meeting.. it was weird and political-y. I felt very honored to be allowed an appointment with one of our senators. I felt that even though the meeting was monitored, it was wonderful that she took the time out of her schedule to meet with two highschoolers!

This morning was really cool! The WJMC students were the studio audience for today’s live taping of C-SPAN “Washington Journal” show and a Q&A with Brian Lamb show. Even though some of the students had been a part of a studio audience before, I never have. So it was really cool for me to be able to see what goes on that doesn’t make it onto television, like the different camera angles the director gets to choose from, and the hand signals the crew uses to communicate with those actually on the show.

I had never had any interest in politics before, and I really didn’t understand it, but I found myself completely engrossed in what they were saying. I think that the teachers and staff here at WJMC did a great job preparing usfor the show- I know my teacher taught us al about what’s going on with the debt ceiling, and other current issues- so that we could ask legitimate questions. And I think we did! I know I was very happy with what was said and asked, knowing that they represented our generation well. They proved to anyone who might watch the show that people our age can be informed and very bright.

Later today, we had some time to tour a Smithsonian museum, and it was very nice to have some time off. However, at the  end of the touring time, we got caught in a crazy rainstorm! There was some thunder, but mostly it just pored buckets. Almost every one of us was soaked, and the few who were dry got some glares, I think. It was definitely a bonding experience to take fifty soaking wet students on an hour-long busride.

Hey! I wanted to blog yesterday, and the day before that, but I ran out of time! There’s so much to write, but again, there’s no time. There is a very busy schedule planned for all of us at WJMC, and it’s really fun, I’m learning a lot, but it’s so tiring! Lots of girls are complaining about sore feet, but luckily I’m okay so far in that department.

Saturday, I continued touring with my family in Washington DC. We went back to the Natural History Museum, and also went to the Spy Museum. Then, in the evening, we went on a walking our of the monuments. It was a lot of walking!

The first photo below is from the FDR Monument. One of the sections in the monument deals with FDR’s war experience. The stones are imprinted with one of his quotes, “I hate war.” The FRD memorial is my favorite. It’s very modern, and captures the emotion of all the difficult times FDR had to lead the nation through as president such as the Great Depression and WW2.

The second photo is of the Washington Metro system. It’s a lot cleaned than the NYC Metro!

Sunday was the first day of the conference. I have already met a ton of amazing people! There are kids here from all over the country. There are a few girls in my color group with southern accents, so we like to compare the “weird” things that are unique to each section of the country. Today, I laughed that their winters are only a few weeks, but they laughed about how it doesn’t get that hot up North!

We listened to a speaker after dinner named Chris Cillizza. He spoke for a short time, but stuck around to answer questions. What I took most out of his presentation was that it is okay to not know what you want to be when you grow up yet. All of us are going to be seniors, and we have to make the big decisions about where to go to college and what to major in, and that’s scary. But Mr. Cillizza told us how he majored in English, took his first job as a secretary, never thinking he would be involved in journalism. But now he works organizing a blog (The Fix) for the Washington Post! He is very successful, even though he didn’t know wend into college not knowing what he wanted to do.

Today we were busy all day! Our main activity was going to the Newseum, which was great. I’d been before, but there was still tons of new stuff to see. When we got back to campus, we had long (very long) discussion in our color groups. We talked a lot about the 9/11 exhibit, which was very emotional for all of us because we were only in second grade, and this was the first time for most of us that what happened really sunk in. It was a tragic day for the country, and everyone has a different perspective on it. I loved hearing what other kids our age had to say about it.

Finally, we listened to two speakers in small groups. My first session was with a man named Mark Hopson. He talked to us about intercultural communication. He is a professor at the university, and talked to us about  not discriminating against people of other cultures. One question he made us think about was, “How does what you think about people influence how you treat people?” I really enjoyed what he had to say to us.

My second speaker was Michael Shear. He worked for the Washington Post for a while, and mostly just talked to us about his experience as a journalist. It was very informal, but he took a lot of time to answer everyone’s questions fully, which was definitely appreciated.

There’s another busy day tomorrow! I have to get to sleep!

The first photo in the gallery: Here is one of the pieces at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. It is an entire table setting of a lavish banquet made of glass! Each glass piece is separate, and there are plates, vases, birds, fruit, and everything you can imagine.

I’m really excited to be here! I can’t wait to find out what I’ll see tomorrow.