Sail Away, Sail Away, Sail Away...

ok, most of you prolly won't get the meaning in the title. lol it's from one of Enya's most well-known songs: Orinoco Flow. hehe click on the title to see the video. ;) anyways, back to the point....as the title implies, this post is all about my cruise! *dah dah dah!!!* i know, i know (*ahem*Faith*ahem*), i'm only 4 months late. sorry! jeez! lol

*ahem* SOOOO......it left Sunday (May 13) and got back the following Sunday (May 20). that Sunday we basically stood in line all day waiting to get on the ship. lol some computer was down and so we ended up sitting in the hallway leading to the ship for prolly 45 minutes to an hour. it sucked. LOL but it was worth it when we finally stepped onto the ship. WOOT!!!!!!! was i ever excited!!!!!!! :D mwahahahahahahahaha. omg, you couldn't even tell you were inside a ship. it was SOOOO beautiful. the lobby, where we boarded, had a grand piano, bar, these cool glass elevators....it was so pretty! i shared a room with my grandmother, and she paid extra money to get one with a balcony for me. ;) it was TOTALLY FREAKIN ' AWESOME!!!!!!!! to be honest, the balcony was one of my fave spots on the ship. hehe. we were on the 10th deck, so we had a pretty nice view. ;) let's see....the ship had two pools, three hot tubs, a water slide, and PLENTY of places to eat. LOL they have 24 hour pizza, so my uncle and i went to eat pizza at midnight every night just because we could. hahaha. also, you're assigned to a specific table in the fancy dining rooms, so you always have the same waiter/waitress. our waiter was hilarious!!! he was tons of fun and we really enjoyed him. ;) my fave food was......*drum roll* the "warm chocolate melting cake" OMG....it was to DIE for!!!!! i drool just thinking about it. lol here's a pic: http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f374/Hobbitgirl7/cake.jpg mmmmmm, yummy. ;) also, on the last night there i tried escargot for the very first time. lol weird, huh? actually, it's an interesting story: so, my grandmother was looking at the menu, and she said "hey, Steph, are you gonna try the escargot? you're on a cruise, you gotta try new things!" and that type of stuff. well, being the smart-butt that i am, i replied sarcastically "i will if YOU do!!!" thinking that she'd never try them cuz she's even less adventurous than me. lol she doesn't even eat most vegetables. :P so....OF COURSE.....she orders them. well then i sort of HAD to try one. lol and actually...they were really good!!!!!!! once you get past the texture of it. :P

hmmmm....what else? oh! i guess i could tell you about the excursions. :P so our ship stopped at Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel. At Jamaica, I went on an excursion that took us to these really cool waterfalls that you get to climb! now it's not like straight up-and-down waterfalls. that would be scary. lol it's more like a river on a slight incline, if ya know what i mean. ;) it was a lot of fun. the next part was the best part: we got to SWIM WITH DOLPHINS!!!!!!!! *squeal* it was sooooo exciting. i even got to kiss one!!!!!!! hehehe it was sooooo much fun. i had never actually touched a dolphin before....they're very rubbery. it was cool. :p Jamaica is an interesting place....it definitely makes you appreciate America. that and it makes the drivers here look very tame. LOL i was very glad to get off that tour bus. seriously!!!! all the tour buses like race each other the whole time! and they pass eachother while going up hill in a no passing zone...it was scary. plus, it was weird getting used to riding on the left side of the road. ;)

Grand Cayman was the next stop. This was actually my favorite of the 3 stops. for my excursion here, guess what i did? *drum roll* i went on a pirate ship! BOO-YEAH! lol it was sooooo cool. they had ppl actually dressed up like pirates, and we sailed around the bay. to make it even better, they actually have REAL pirate accents! lol it was so cool. 1st, we sailed up to our cruise ship. this part was hilarious: we actually "attacked" our own cruise ship! they had all the little kids manning the cannons (which obviously just made a lot of noise. lol). and one of the pirates would yell random things at all the ppl still on board the ship. of course, none of them were expecting it, so the 1st time the cannons went off, you see everyone running out to their balconies all over the ship to see what's going on. and that's when he yelled stuff at them like "wake up!" "stop EATING!" "get off that ship and BUY STUFF!!!" "what are YOU lookin' at?" "SURRENDER!" it was hilarious. then after we finished that, they picked several ppl out of all of us, and i was one of them. so they lined us up and made us swab the deck. seriously. LOL i actually thought it was awesome. hehe. and they would come by and inspect our "swabbing," and then they'd say "not fast enought!" or "put some backbone into it!" etc, then pour a bucket full of water on you. lol of course, the pirate gave me this "rag," if ou can call it that...that was really like half a rag. lol and when we got back up, and i gave him my rag back, he was like "where's the rest of it?!" and i was like "....uhhhh....that's it." lol so he turned to the other pirates and said "this wench stole half of our rag!" then he turned back to me and said "pirate." ROFL. it was hilarious. so, after the swabbing we were officially sworn in as crewmemebers of the Valla Halla, their pirate ship. it was funny. we had to raise our LEFT hands and say stuff like "i will NEVER shave my armpits again," "I will NEVER brush my teeth again," "i will have skittles for breakfast, m&m's for lunch, and butterfingers for dinner." LOL it was great. then the pirate that swore us in walked down the line inspecting us. he stopped at me and said "YOU!" then he whispered "are your parents here?" and i was like "No." he was like "oh." so i whispered back "but my uncle is." lol i don't think Uncle Ronnie ever forgave me. i pointed him out, and one of the pirates forced him down the steps to the main deck where i was, and they tied him up with some rope. then they put him on "trial." and the pirate went thru this long thing about how he was charged with "not spoiling me enough, not buying me expensive presents, making me clean my room and go to bed." stuff like that. lol he then asked us if he was guilty or innocent, and of course we all shouted "GUILTY!" at the same time. not that it was true, of course...but everyone just wanted to see what they'd do. lol so they brought out a bucket of water. the only difference between his bucket and the buckets they had poured on us was that it had ICE in it and was FREEEEZING COLD. lol so they poured the water veeeeeeeeeeery slowly down the back of his neck. when about 1/2 the bucket gone, they stopped and asked if he was sorry, and he was like "no way." LOL so they poured the rest of it on his head. they did it again to another lady as well. of course, he got me back...cuz while we were all standing around talking, one of the pirates snuck up behind me and poure a paper cup filled with the freezing water down my back. hahaha. then came the part i had been waiting for for a couple months (lol): i got to walk of the plank! *squeal* it had always been one of my life-long dreams to walk the plank of a pirate ship. so when i found out that we would be doing that, i couldn't WAIT! so when the time came, i walked up to the plank and slowly walked off of it, like they always do in the movies--with my arms held out, and me taking very slow cautious steps like i'm walking to my death. LOL i savored that moment, and wil relish the memory for the rest of my life. lol :-p then we swam in the bay for the rest of the time. the water there is perfectly blue. you can see down FOREVER. it's sooo beautiful. oh! they also served rum punch. lol but why the rum? :-p cuz it's good! lol that was the best punch i've ever tasted. hehe also, one of the pirates dove from the part of the mast (yes he stood up there like they always do in movies. lol) into the ocean. it looked scary. right before he jumped off, he looked down and yelled "this never gets easy!" lol anyways, the 2nd expedition i went on at the Grand Cayman was a tour of the island. we visited the Tortuga Rum Factory store (yes, Tortuga. awesome, huh?) and then went to the sea turtle farm. i got to hold a baby turtle! which was still bigger than any turtle i've ever seen before. hahaha.

the 3rd and final stop was Cozumel, Mexico. we didn't have any excursions here, but just went shopping. the street that lines the beach where we docked was nothing but stores. lol it was pretty cool. i got some cool stuff, like a couple bracelets, a coffee mug for mom, and hat for dad, a bunch of free jewelry they gave away to ppl coming off cruise ships....lol. we also took a horse and carriage for a tour around the town. it was fun.

now, more about the ship itself......let's see, food: awesome, pools:very cool, oh yeah....every night they put on a different show in the auditorium. and they were usually pretty cool, despite the female dancers' *ahem* scant clothing. :-p they also had this Hawaiin lady that put on a magic show one night. that was awesome. at the beginning, for like the intro or whateva, she played the song from the movie "The Fifth Element," the part where Diva Plavalaguna is singing that freakin' awesome song. :-p that won me over immediately, cuz i loooooove that song. lol they also had a talent show the last night, where like 6 or 7 ppl that had won the karoake contests got to each sing a song, with costumes, lighting, dancers, the whole package. that was pretty cool. hmmmmm....oh! like the 2nd day or something like that they had this "Hairy chest competition" on the pool deck. that was.......interesting......LOL they had 2 lines of women volunteers (i was NOT one of them. lol), then they had several men that volunteered to enter the contest. each man would walk down the steps to the deck and "show off" his chest. lol then he would in between the women and they would feel his chest, then they would decide who the 3 finalists were. it was funny.....and yet disturbing.....at the same time. LOL the 3 finalists had to do a belly flop in the pool, and whoever was the best got the...as Mark the cruise director always called it.....the "plastic gold ship on a stick." LOL that was the "trophy." hehe anyways, the guy that won was this old man who called himself "Tarzan." hahahahaha. that was the weirdest thing i went to. lol

ok, now for the best part, which i saved for last on purpose. lol that would be.....Sam. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sam was one of the male dancers. he gave 2 dance classes, both of which i attended. he was ver cool. from New Zealand, so he had a really cool accent. ;) but anyways, i found out after the 1st dance class that he was a STUNT MAN IN ALL 3 LORD OF THE RINGS MOVIES!!!! yes, that's right. i met some one from LOTR. BOO-YEAH!!! sure, he wasn't like one of the main characters or anything, but it was still awesome! another dream of mine (not life-long, obviously, since the movies didn't come out til 2001 or something like that): to meet someone from the LOTR movies. so 2 of my dreams were fulfilled by this cruise. ;) he was my favorite dancer to say the least. and during the 2nd dance class, we had to have partners, and i was the ONLY one without a partner. so guess who got to be my partner? that's right...i got to dance with Sam. i was SO excited. lol and my grandmother and my uncle got pics to prove it. LOL anyways, i'm done ranting now. you can tell i still get excited about it. :-p lol anyways, i think i'm FINALLY done with my "summary" of the cruise. i hope i didn't bore y'all TOO much. lol i'll write about Italy soon. ;) and i'll post pics of the cruise when i'm at home and have the pics. ;) namarie,

Steph

much ado about...a lot of things.

so....i know i haven't posted in awhile. sorry everybody!!! i always i'm gonna do better and post more often, then i get busy or i just forget....O:-) so, where to start? well, only this week and next week and then i'm OUT OF SCHOOL!!!!! i'm graduating from Hill on May 10, with my Associate's in music. yipee!!!! it makes me feel all smart and important. :p *gasp* i have to tell everyone my *scaaaaaaaaary story* about: *intense music* ATILLA THE MOTH!!!! *dum dum dum* yes, it's very scary. you might want to skip this part if you are easily frightened, have a weak stomach, are pregnant, nursing, have heart problems, or a general fear of bugs:

soooooo....last night some friends and i went to Starbucks, like we do every week. :p nothing unusual there. we went to our normal table outside on the porch area. well, when it started getting dark, they turned on their outside lights. we're all watching a video on Patrick's laptop when Jesse goes "oh my God...." and we all turn and look, and THERE HE IS!!!!! that freakin' moth was seriously as big as my hand. he could've passed as a bat. i'm serious. he was GINORMOUS!!!!!!! it was so scary, not only cuz he was like Mothzilla or something, but i'm scared to DEATH of bugs anyways. so Melissa, Jesse, and I all get up and run to the farthest corner of the porch to escape, and i grab a chair for protection just in case. Patrick just sat there laughing at us...me with a chair over my head and the other two hiding behind me. :p finally, he flew away never to return.......or so we thought. *more intense music* it was prolly 15 minutes later or so when we were being attacked by Atilla's little minions (the small moths) that we decided it would be more peaceful back at the band hall. so we get up to throw our stuff away, when HE returns.......we all (minus Patrick) start screaming and run and throw our stuff in the trash (at least i think....i didn't stop to see if it made it in or not. lol) and we ran in the car and didn't calm down until we were back inthe nice safe moth-free band hall. so that's my scary story about Atilla the Moth. :p we even drew a picture of him on the chalk board, with laser eyes, a tommy gun, claws, and a "Stephanie sensor." hehehe

let's see, what else....well next month my grandmother and my uncle are taking me on a cruise to Jamaica for my graduation. oh, yeahhhhhh.......i'm sooooo excited!!!! i love the ocean, so i'm really looking forward to it. :D then the next month (June) i'm leaving with a group from Tarleton (where i'm transferring to next semester) to study music in ITALY for like 3 weeks. GAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! i'm REALLY excited about that...my first time "abroad." of course, it's not IRELAND, but it'll do for now. besides, i don't wanna go to Ireland until i learn more Gaelic. oh, yes. i'm learning Gaelic now. have i mentioned that? prolly not since i just started a few weeks ago and my last post is pretty old. O:-D but i found this awesome site that teaches you Irish Gaelic for free, so i'm on like lesson 4. lol but i can say, "dia duit!" ("hello!") and "Ta me gairid" (i am short. hahaha). minus the accents.

hmmmm....let's see, let's see....oh yes. i'm getting a copy of Tolkien's new book, "The Children of Hurin." WOOT!!! however, it was aparently more popular than they expected, so they ran out and i hafta wait a little longer to get it. >:( dumb amazon. i mean, it's TOLKIEN!!! of COURSE it'll be popular!!!! dummy-heads. and when my dad bought it, he also found an Elvish-Sindarin text book! yes, an actual textbook that teaches you Elvish. mwahahahaha!!!! that'll hopefully be here sooner. the guy that wrote it (David Salo) is the same guy that did the Elvish for the movie btw. ;)

well, since i'm down to the last 2 weeks, i'm in "finals" mode. :/ it's not that bad though. i had sightsinging final today, which was pretty easy. then i have keyboard final, which is just finishing my scales for her so that's a piece of cake. then there's dictation final, which i'm not too worried about cuz i usually do pretty good in that. then our music theory final is next week, which is the one i actually hafta study for. :p and my computer final is open book, so it's really easy too. lol

i guess that's it. oh, i do now own a special limited-edition Enya cd clock, which i might have mentioned, but now i also own a LOTR:FOTR soundtrack, *signed by lady Eithne herself*. yesssss. it's niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. ;)

so long for now. i'm hungry. lol

I'm baaaack!!!

well, it's been awhile since i've been here. i've either been busy, or i just forget. lol anyways, nothing really happening. just school. :p i had a piano audition at Tarleton State University in Stephenville yesterday (Monday) that went very well. both teachers that listened to me said i did a very good job and were very impressed. so i got the scholarship. mwahahahahaha! don't know how much yet, but at least $2,000! yesssss. i also got to attend their string orchestra rehearsal. it was a lot of fun! i mean, they just started the orchestra this semester, so there were only like 9 ppl (including myself), but i really enjoyed it. plus, it challenged my sight reading abilities. :p hahaha.

well, that's about it right now. now that the audition's over and i have nothing to do....lol. i guess i can practice my piano accompaniment for the choir, since she expects me to do ALL of it. lol :p that's it for now. ttfn!!!

1st week of school. hooray...;)

Well, i can definitely say that this has been an eventful 1st week of school. the 1st day was Tuesday, since Monday was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. nothing really exciting happened. we were done in music theory class in like 10 minutes, and since our next class, band, wasn't for another hour and like 10 minutes or so, us sophomores (that being 3 of us...lol) made a Starbucks run. and.....THEY WERE CLOSED!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? STARBUCKS.....CLOSED. AS IN THE OPPOSITE OF OPEN. CLOSED. FOR THE WHOLE DAY. CLOSED. that's the first time Starbucks has ever disappointed me. *sniff sniff* anyways, they closed because of the "unpredictable Texas weather" according to the sign.

which brings me to the next point: we finally got our cold weather i've been waiting expectantly for alllllllll winter long. i thought it would never come...but it did! hooray, hooray!!! it actually SNOWED yesterday! SNOWED!!!!!!!!! awesome, huh? at least for us Texans where snow comes like once in a lifetime....lol. and because of the weather, the whole college was completely shut down! SWEET! it was only the 2nd day of school, and they canceled classes due to the snow. it's pretty funny actually, cuz the weather wasn't really that BAD....i mean, yes, there was snow on the ground...but the roads didn't seem that bad, and it was terribly cold either. Texans just overreact when they see snow. not that I'M complaining, mind you. i spent all day reading Eldest in my room. :) ahhhh, i remember the jolly 'ol days of middle school when i was public schooled......we lived in Colorado then, and there could be 3 FEET OF SNOW on the ground, but they still had school. they NEVER canceled. seriously. and here, if there's so much as 1 snowflake, everything shuts down. :D amazing.

well, let's see....i have a pretty easy semester this time. here's all my classes: Intermediate Music Theory, and Advanced Sight Singing and Ear Training; band, jazz band, chorale, and vocal ensemble; private piano and violin lessons; and finally.....computer science. lol the last class is quite the oddball compared with the rest of my schedule. but, oh well.....i hafta take it if i wanna graduate. oh, yeah, did i mention i'm graduating this semester? WOOT!!! i will have an AA--that is, Associates degree in art....which means music for me. ;) it makes me feel so smart and important. lol anyways, this post was a WHOLE lot longer than i anticipated. that tends to happen a lot with me! lol O:-)

bye bye for now!
Stephi

The Hobbit Dispute

OMG! if you haven't heard about this, you need to! click on the title to go to the news article.

So, basically it turns out that New Line Cinema, who made the Lord of the Rings trilogy with Peter Jackson, had been "holding back" a percentage of the profits that were promised to PJ. Obviously, since they were rightfully his, and New Line refused to give it to him, he had to sue them. Apparently the legal battle over the money has yet to be resolved, and during the course of all of this, New Line told PJ that they would 'no long be requiring his services' for the making of the Hobbit as well as a second prequel that he was supposed to make. this REALLY ticked everybody off, including me. naturally, it was assumed that PJ would make the Hobbit eventually, no questions about it. now New Line is trying to kick him off of it?! are they INSANE?!!! i mean, he only made them nearly 3 BILLION DOLLARS!!!! but heck, they don't want to give him a small percent of that? not like it would hurt their budget any! seriously! not to mention the chance they would have had to make boatloads of more money on the other two movies! i'm sorry, but it just wouldn't be the same without PJ! i mean, he IS Lord of the Rings! gaaaahhhhh!!!

*ahem* luckily, New Line's rights for the two movies runs out next year (ha-ha!) and the rights instead fall to Mr. Saul Zaentz who owns Tolkien Enterprises. He has assured everyone that PJ WILL be making the Hobbit, just not with New Line. >:O SERVES THEM RIGHT! they had a chance for another great seller, but they blew it cuz they got greedy. well, thank God for Mr. Zaentz who will hopefully appreciate PJ better than New Line did. i can't wait for the movie, especially now that PJ's making it for sure. good luck, PJ! i know it will be awesome of course, because he's brilliant. so i just wanted to make sure everyone knew how stupid New Line Cinema is, but everything's ok cuz PJ is still making the Hobbit and a second prequel! how freakin' awesome is that?!! boo-yeah!

if you're interested, here's some more links to check out:

This explains about Mr. Zaentz and that PJ IS making the Hobbit:
http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news?id=25398

Here's a cartoon which basically expresses my feelings on the matter when i first found out PJ had been given the boot in a very loquacious and reasonable way: ;)

http://www.theonering.net/scrapbook/view/18082

i'm done ranting for the evening. sorry! O:-)

Stephanie

what a weekend!

so i just realized that this semester is nearly over! yipee!! i'll be SOOOO excited to be rid of Psychology FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D mwahahahaha! the rest of my classes i don't mind, especially music obviously. ;)

this weekend was rather eventful to say the least. i've had better weekends. let's see: on Friday i went to orchestra rehearsal.........and locked my keys in the car. then i hadda wait for my mom to get there to unlock the car. Saturday i babysat my cousins................and burnt my thumb on their oven trying to make pizza O:-) Sunday i was driving to church..................and my car got a flat tire so we sat in Alvarado for 1 1/2 hours waiting for my grandfather to get there and then fix it. we were late to church to say the least. haha. :)

well, last Thursday was the band concert. it actually went very well, considering the rather bad rehearsals previous to it. ;) but we managed to pull it off as usual. i conducted one of the songs too! it was sooooo much funn. i actually liked it a lot. oh! oh! annnnnnnnd the last song for the concert band was "Amazing Grace," and we had a guest bagpiper who played with us! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! it was totally awesome. i got to talk to him a little bit Wednesday during rehearsal, and found out that it's Highland pipes that he plays, and he even took it apart and showed some of us like the reeds and stuff and learned all sorts of cool stuff.

ok, guess that's it. oh! don't forget to buy Josh Groban's new cd! came out last Tuesday! it's realllllly good. of course. ;) and for a few extra dollars you can get the ***SPECIAL EDITION*** cd with bonus dvd of the making of the cd. plus the cd has 2 extra tracks on it that aren't on the regular one. so don't forget! ***SPECIAL EDITION***..........ok, enough about that. so long and thanks for all the fish! (if you haven't seen "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", that just went completely over your head. sorry! your fault for not watching it. it's awesome). :D

Steph

Texas State Fair

Well......yesterday the Hill College Jazz Band, Chorale, and Vocal Ensemble performed at the State Fair. it was pretty fun. Tiffany ended up singing the National Anthem, which was probably good since we kinda sucked at it as a group....lol. she was really good though. A good thing was that Ms. Erickson put most of the piano accompaniment on a floppy disk which played in the electric keyboard, so i just hadda pretend like i was playing except for 1 song.....hehehe. hey! even SHE said they were hard!!! gimme a break! ahem...anyways, after the concert i stayed at the fair with some of my friends and we rode the rides and ate turkey legs and plenty of fried stuff....lol after all, the State Fair is known for frying practically EVERTHING. lol i ate my traditional: fried oreos. mmmmm the best. i look forward to the fair every year just for the fried oreos. lol i wanted to try the fried snickers and the new one: fried coke (believe it or not. the saying "you can fry anything" is apparently true. lol) but i didn't have enough money, and i didn't wanna make myself sick. :P so we rode tons of fun rides. ok, not tons cuz ticket are really expensive, although the food was more expensive than the rides! which doesn't make any sense at ALL to me, but oh well. most of the rides were only 5 tickets, but a turkey leg cost 14!!!! sheesh! that's almost 10$ just for a stupid turkey leg!!! i should've gone for the corn dog...lol. oh, but i finally found someone who is more chicken than me: Gabe!!!! lol i was like wow, cuz he doesn't seem like the kind of guy to be really scared of roller coasters ya know? and yet i rode more than he did! hehe.

anyways, all our music classes were canceled today so i only had English Lit. mwahahahaha!!!!! of course, i could've slept MUCH longer if i hadn't forgotten that we didn't have classes and got up at 6:30 anyways....lol. man, and Enya's new Christmas cd was released at Target yesterday, and I couldn't even get it!!! *sniff sniff*. did i already mention that? lol i don't remember. oh well, if i have forgive me. i'm just a little upset.

well, i'm gonna try and be a little more consistent with my posts, just to let ya know. mainly Katherine, Emily, and Jonathan since y'all are the only ones that really read it anyways.....lol. *sigh* ttyl,

Stephanie