2008
A year in review
Friends were made and kept
Bittersweet was present
Moments of triumph were had
Laughter rang, smiles were shared

Contents:

-People of the year
-Events
-Music
-Quotes
-Sites
-Pictures
-The end.

5 Justinilla. Wait. That’s not a person. Who cares =D? Even if they did leave halfway through the year, the two other Winter Drumline keyboard players made me smile many times a morning and before and after every competition enough times that I still remember it happily now.

4 ****** aka Forte. My senior prediction is going to come true! Well, maybe not any more with that one story you’re currently working on. I still have hope after this year, I don’t know how though xD. So yay for band, percussion and battery!

3 Kameron Uh. Well this year’s mostly been pretty awesome, from freshmen English, random Romeo and Juliet projects and all, to having you in two whole classes this semester. Chemistry with you is pretty awesome, who else has daydreams about flying bands and burns things in their free time? mmhm

2 Hunter! Oh. Did I spell that wrong? Anyways, going to you that one night after the football game was probably one of the best things I’ve done this year xD. So yeah, thanks for IMing me constantly and providing me with food for thought and such. And being pit leader, I mean, where else can you get that kind of prestige, anyways? I’ll miss you next year D=

and finally… the person of the year is: Matt! (chu) But we all knew that was coming, right ? …well, some of us anyways. Amazing bestest buddy. Mindreader ftw. All that stuff. I take for granted you think most thoughts I think, which I guess is good and bad, so if I haven’t told you you’re amazing in the last hour or so, it’s because I assume you know. Even if I have band and you have too many random projects and too much homework, somehow, magically it works. We don’t question it. Can’t wait for the future =D

Other people of mention:

Will: Crazy, vibe player yay!

Matt: What were the chances you’d end up in my speech class?

Denny: Piano. Go practice.

Joanna: Too much Phantom of the Opera D=

Jamie: Yay for asian pens and stuff!

Pwnters: Matchu (again, join soul ownership ftw), Michael (I can spell your last name!), Wayne (asian.), 1337, Ny, everyone who’s talked to me at some point xD.

Don’t mind the random dates, they’re for me, no one else would get them xD.

Jan 28-March 29: Winter Drumline

Yay! Techno music and random battery parts in the gym every morning at 7AM. Won state and all that good stuff.

May 17: All-State Winner (piano)

I can now tell everyone that I’m an all-state winner xD.

May 30

June 5-21: China Trip

I’ll finish the blog eventually, I promise, I have everything written out on my notepad Dx

July 14 – October 25: Carpe Noctem

Win

December 14

10 Star-Crossed Lovers – Hey, I wrote it, it’s got to be a big part of my year, right? No, you’re not getting a link, it’s has bad recording quality anyways.

9 Requiem (the Fifth) – TSO and their questionable idea of Beethoven xD.

8 Travelin’ Soldier – I only got this recently, but it’s already been stuck in my quite a few times.

7 Day After Tomorrow – I really don’t know why this is here. I like all of the Day After Tomorrow soundtrack in general, just can’t get anything else besides the main theme . Lots of musically swelling and french horn, great. And the movie’s good too.

6 Secret Sounds of Loveliness – It’s pretty, shh.

5 Long Walk Home – It’s also pretty. Enjoy the wolf howls.

4 Just Begun

One small mistake
and your whole world changes
to what could have been

Relive that moment
Until the pain is gone
But remember
The battle has only just begun

Well, it’s singing. And MMD. And I like it (:

3 Twilight Techno – Well, let’s see, it started out awesome then I gave it to Mr. Russell and he made the first winter drumline movement this and, well, now it’s just epic.

2 Portal – Interesting lyrics, overly cheerful voice, and at the end of what I’m told is a pretty good game.

I’m not even angry.
I’m being so sincere right now.
Even though you broke my heart.
And killed me.
And tore me to pieces.
And threw every piece into a fire.
As they burned it hurt because I was so happy for you!
Now these points of data make a beautiful line.
And we’re out of beta.
We’re releasing on time.

…

Go ahead and leave me.
I think I prefer to stay inside.
Maybe you’ll find someone else to help you.

1 Giorni Dispari – This song has become a huge part of me. And I’m not even sure how. It started from Hunter finding me the artist. then me buying a music book. then me picking this as my favorite. then me being lazy and deciding to use it as my recital piece. then me memorizing it. then it being the only piece I could play memorized (xD). then me being able to play it with my eyes closed. then me playing it at school. and at the Honor Society thing. and at the Christmas party. then it started to spread.

How did all this happen?

Well anyways, somehow this became my song for a lot of things, I don’t even know how. But it has been a big part of my 2008 life.

I probably should have started this sooner, I got about 5% of the way through some select chat logs before deciding it would take too long and I’d do it after everything else.

Matchu1993 (9:33:25 PM): matchu and leevi have a bestest buddy contract. notorized and all. can’t really beat that ;P

buttonsnooze (8:56:50 PM): i feel like im on a first date with a atomic bomb

buttonsnooze (8:30:47 PM): LEEVIISABNORMAL
buttonsnooze (8:30:53 PM): ANDSHESAGENIUS
buttonsnooze (8:30:58 PM): WITHWRITERSBLOCK

Matchu1993 (7:36:45 PM): oh hai :O
trewq144 (7:36:58 PM): hai ^_^
Matchu1993 (7:36:58 PM): doing stuff. AWAY, LUZERS. ^_^
trewq144 (7:37:16 PM): How was your day ?
Matchu1993 (7:37:17 PM): doing stuff. AWAY, AWESOME FOLK ^_^

Matchu1993 (9:27:19 PM): I WIN THE <3 LEEVI CONTEST :O

So yeah, continually updating this.

5 Imeem – I overuse this when I’m looking for songs. Proves useful in times like now when I do music posts xD.

4 Pwnt – No link, sorry ;P Interesting little community here, and somehow, despite this being a comparably small site, there’s still enough to do to keep me busy for quite a while. Tons of other random people here to meet.

3 Facebook (did you really need a link?) – At the beginning of the year if you told me that Facebook would be on my top 5 sites… no way D= But it’s interesting and definately a lot cleaner and fun than Myspace. And status convos (and contests ) are interesting, I guess. Hm, out of the 5(6) people of the year, 5 of them have Facebooks and I have 2 of them added. Oops.

2 Newgrounds – Notably the audio portal, I get so many unique songs here, it’s amazing. It’s a widely undiscovered musical gold mine.

1 xkcd – A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language? Sounds like a winner to me =D

Huntsville. I took it with my cell phone, that’s pretty good.

Pretty (:

It’s raiiiiining, and I’m on top of a mountaiiiin.

Me. And my brother. In China. On a bridge.

We’re seizing the conceptual night.

Brazos Bend

2008 was an amazing year, with tons of high points and great people met, glad I had it (:

As for 2009, well, it seems to be a year of change with almost everybody leaving me, and the fate of Connally about to be pushed over the edge. This time next year I could be at Westwood, or Pflugerville, or whatever. Uncertainty reigns, but whatever happens, I’ll make it through (:

new opportunities.
new starts.
new changes.
forget the bad pasts.
memorialize the good.
and move on.
Welcome to 2009

So, I do a lot of thinking. A lot. More than the usual person probably. And I come up with interesting things. These things I sometimes make a note to post it somewhere so I don’t forget it. I never do it. I must have thousands of random thoughts cluttering up the back of my mind. Anyways, I’m actually posting some of the ones bouncing around in my head lately. I’m surprised too.

#1. My room’s so empty compared to others, it’s like… bare, there’s bare wall everywhere, not like others… the pictures on the wall and stuff are all from when I was 5 or less. Looks like I need to do some major room redecoration.

#2 I was tracing a chain of events from one of my friends finding me a composer (trying to impress me with his music finding skillz), me finding some of his songs, me getting a book, me picking a favorite, me choosing to play it for a recital, thus memorizing it. Me being able to play it with my eyes close, me playing it at NHS. Some other guy (who’s kinda friends with the first guy) hearing me, him getting my sheet music, him learning it and him putting it up on his myspace. It’s a weird chain, because that song’s been such a big part of my life somehow if you think of it… and if the first guy hadn’t gone looking for a composer for me that day, the 2nd guy would have a different song on his myspace. Everything’s interrelated.

#3 Me reading music is like reading a book, I can read music almost as fast. And, with reading a while, you get general concepts of what words mean without actually knowing the definition, using context clues. While at piano lessons tonight I realized that I, in fact, had done this with music, I had a general concept of how to play a allargando without really knowing what it meant or what it was. It was… interesting.

It’s interesting how much the songs in my Zune say about me. Most of them have been added one by one, each with a complete story behind it. Recently I randomized the songs on my Zune and took the top 20. These are the basic stories (without all the explanation of feelings and emotions behind them).

Green=Normal | Ornage=Really good song | Blue=Really good song and personal kinda | Purple = Personal kinda

1. The Memory of Trees – Eh, it’s a song by Enya, my mom’s favorite composer and the music’s actually not that bad, I have sheet music for this. No story behind this one.
2. Water Voices (Help you sleep) – Just a bunch of water sounds, I don’t really like it all that much. Calming but again no story (random must hate me xD). Also by Enya
3. The Demon and the Banshee - A Newgrounds song I liked, most Newgrounds songs especially have stories behind them and were all added one by one as I find songs I really like. Lots of piano, nice moving tune, but this one has no particular story either.
4. Humanity – This title spoke volumes to me when I first saw it and still does. The composer, Justin R. Durban, I think has the best songs on my mp3. They’re interesting, when you first listen to them, there’s so few notes and it’s so quiet, it’s like “ho hum” but they kinda grow on you and when you listen to them more you discover new things. Even the ones that have seemingly no notes at all I find myself really liking. His songs have all the details of movie music, and that makes sense because many of them are written for movies. I used the piano part of this song in our Romania PhotoStory at school. Edgen, his website, also has the most amazing layout, I’ve ever seen, apparently he’s very gifted in many ways and you should definitely go visit it (:
5. Primavera – Spring, who doesn’t love it? Nothing particular about this song except it’s by Ludovido Einaudi, who I’ll talk about below.
6. Lux Aeterna – Um, where to start? I guess I can’t really explain everything behind this song, I’ll sum it up in two words. Justin Wenske. He first played it at the summer band party and told me the name when I asked and I actually remembered the spelling all the way home so I could get the piano music. After that, everything else about this song is basically memories. Good ones that I’d like to keep.
7. Nuvole Bianche – Hunter actually found the composer Ludovico Einaudi for me during the summer when I was transitioning into high school, kinda in an attempt to show me he could find music I liked. This particular song he commented on saying he really liked it.
8. Shining Smile – Yiruma, the first composer I really liked and found sheet music for and went on Limewire and found all his songs. His songs were the first songs on my first mp3 player. No particular story for this song.
9. Lazy Days – Enya, one of the songs that I can actually understand the lyrics of
10. Time Forgets – See above on Yiruma, nothing new here.
11. Solitude – Nice song, David Nevue’s a good piano player. Nothing else to say.
12. Do you – This was one of the first 7 or so songs that I had on my first mp3 player. I pretty much listened to it thousands of times then (I really listened to the same 7 songs over and over for a really long time). Alex Ortega has this on his [Ipod?] xD. I have sheet music to this too.
13. Where Eagles Soar – Found this song while looking for Jennifer Thomas songs. No story, next!
14. Change of Heart – Hm, Jim Brickman song, I like his piano playing and songs with lyrics. I don’t like that many songs with lyrics so that’s saying something. Nothing particular about this song.
15. Sundial Dreams – Found this song while looking for the Forrest Gump song (which I can play on piano xD), isn’t it interesting what I find when I’m not looking for them?
16. Il Fiume – Result of many Ludovido songs being added.
17. Congratulations Everyone – Matt sent it to me once and it ended up on my Zune (very efficient file gatherer thingy they have xD) It’s short and happy so I kept it there, defies all laws of the songs I listen to though so it stands out. Go torrent it if you want to hear the mp3. I can’t find it on the web right now.
18. Giorni Dispari – My favorite Ludovido Einaudi song. I played this at my last recital. Surprised everyone probably who was expecting me to burst out in another classical piece. Kinda symbolic of me changing and not playing harder songs but playing nonclassical songs… well and with emotion? Something like that
19. Moonlit Techno – Milkman_dan’s only techno song, I’m sad more of his songs didn’t come out on the random 20. He is my favorite Newgrounds composer, has a good singing voice and puts emotion into his songs. His songs tell me their story and also aren’t all… professional? Just by the way they’re put together, which only makes them better. His songs are great.
20. Home – Another David Nevue song=soothing piano.