9 Days

9 Days left to graduation!

Today: I finished work. I'm done editing chapels, radio programs and so on. WOOHOO!

I had my last Charlee'/Garrett date. Man I'm going to miss those! I had to fight back crying the whole way home from Hixson :-( ... but more on Garrett for another day.

Today I also finished my Bryan college classes. Of all the classes at Bryan, there is one class/group on campus that is a large part of my learning experience. Known as Mel's Angels

Mel's Angels at a tea house in Chattanooga. Beginning of Fall semester Junior year.

Back Row L-R: Dr. Luther, Natalie, Glenna, Johanna

Front L-R: Me, Tori, Elise

The girls in this group have been through a lot together academically. We are the sole survivors of 4 semesters of theory for our graduating class. The fact that we were all girls helped us in getting extra special treatment from Dr. Mel Wilhoit. Hence the name ;-)

Dr. Luther, the theory goddess, is our fearless leader. For 2 years we had her for theory every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. She is such a lady of grace. What I LOVE about her is she is such a strong woman. She is so smart and is revered by all her peers. She could easily be stuck-up, proud and arrogant. No one would blame her for being this way! Instead, she is the kind and understanding. She shines her wisdom to all with such humility. I have had the honor of being trained by her as a pianist. This is so crazy to me because she is one of the top pianist in America... and she was MY teacher! Whoa! I hope to grow up to be just like her... even if I know that will never happen, it's still a goal to strive after.

Johanna... oh Johanna, where do I even begin. First of all, thank you for being my most faithful follower! Yes, when I check my stats, I see that a follower from Jordan keeps checking my blog (despite the fact that I have been awful at posting lately!) and it makes me so happy to know you're still 'with me'. Ok... here we go.

Johanna is my study buddy. I probably would have failed all four semesters of Music History without her. We prepared for all but one listening test together. Goodness, we had a BLAST doing it (sometimes). Johanna and I just click when we're together. We are both so sarcastic and whitty (something most people don't realize about Johanna, she is such a sas! It's the quiet sweet one's you have to look out for.) We even got the same exact score on our ETS. Yes, we're pretty much the same person.

Now that Johanna is graduated and off in Jordan, I have one huge regret. I did not spend near enough time with her. I think it is good that I developed a lot of close non-music friends, but I wish I had worked more on my friendship with Johanna. Why did we never go get coffee together? Or make a sonic run? I don't know. All I know is I miss her and I love her dearly. She and I share so much in common. It almost made it hard to study because we distract each other and get off on random conversations like no one's business. Studying with her at 2 in the morning was easy because I loved spending time with her. Yes, we were both tired and bitter at Dr. Wilhoit for giving us too many songs to study... but we still found ways to have fun. (I'm trying not to cry here girl!!) I'm so thankful for the times we had together and I hope when she gets back to the US we can have some more good times again.

The Angels out at Pocket with Dr. Wilhoit for 'sight singing' class. Spring Semester Sophomore Year.

Natalie was the other pianist out of our group so Johanna, Nats and I had that bond together. Granted, Nats is way out of our league as a pianist. She is SO amazing! I love listening to her play. Nats has the characteristic like Dr. Luther in the fact that she could be very stuck up. She is so talented and smart that it would be easy for her to put herself above everyone else. Yet, she is the sweetest girl you'll ever meet. Nats is also hysterical... and unintentional about it sometimes. She makes anyone smile no matter how the day is going.

Tori and Elise are my fellow Music Ministry girls. Tori was my roommate (along with Hailey) sophomore year. It was good to have a music major in the room. We had almost all our classes together that year, so we'd work together on our homework. It was so helpful! She can be kind of clueless sometimes, but don't let that fool you. This girl is SMART! She is in the top 25% of students in the school, and that's with all the Wilhoit classes we Music Ministry majors had to take. You go girl! Elise and I gave our recital together so we have that connection. It was a stressful time for both of us, BUT WE SURVIVED!!!

Glenna is one of a kind. Not only is she a Music Ed major (which is a ridiculously hard major!) but she's also honors. So in all the classes we had together she would be doing extra work from the rest of the class in order to get honors credit. I couldn't imagine taking the class load she takes (normally at least 20 hours... whoa!), plus the honors work, plus practice time... it's crazy. She is a tender heart and I really appreciate that about her. I think she is going to be a great teacher one day!

Schoolwork left:

2 online lessons

2 finals

9 pages of my 10 page paper

If you're wondering why this barely changed from yesterday... we had a power outage last night. Not much was accomplished. Trying to finish one final now, and then my 10 page paper.