Wow, this will probably be a LONG blog post, cuz I haven't blogged in awhile. You better grab some popcorn and get comfortable. lol :)
California is wonderful! I love it here. I miss home very much, and I especially miss my family, but this is where I'm meant to be for now.
Redding is beautiful. There are two great lakes (Shasta and Whiskeytown). I haven't been to them yet, but Joe and Jesse go really often. Gina is planning on taking Andrea and I to the Sundial Bridge sometime soon. I should post a picture or something. :) There are mountains in the distance, but they're a bit hazy. It's because there's alot of smoke in the air, and there's smoke because there's fires ALL the time, and there's fires cuz it doesn't rain AT ALL for a long time, and it's very dry here. You know how when you wake up in the morning everything outside is wet with dew? It's so dry here, there's no dew. lol It's nice, cuz you hardly get sweaty, but it's not nice when there are forest fires all the time.
No, I haven't experienced any earthquakes yet. lol
School started last Tuesday, so tonight is the official end of my first week. Yay! I love this school. It is just like church except there's more stuff to do and we have homework. lol We do worship everyday, and this week it's been Brian Johnson (a really awesome, famous person) and some others that have lead worship, but starting soon we will have our own worship teams.
Kathy Vallotton, the lady in charge of worship music in my school, held auditions for the worship teams on Thursday night. I went and auditioned for keys and background vocals. It was really hard. There are more than 750 students in the school, and only about seven or eight spots available for each instrument or vocal part. So basically Kathy had to pick eight lead vocalists, eight background vocalists, eight drummers, etc. (In case you're confused, she picks enough people for about eight different teams, that way they can take turns leading worship instead of one team having to do it every single day.) Anyway, it was VERY competitive and intimidating. Just being on the stage was terrifying. It's not like our stage at our church in Crickhollow, it's much much bigger. And nicer. How nice? Hmmm.... Let's just say that it's extremely huge, there are actual theater curtains, and the lighting and decor is set up so it's worthy of being on film. They literally video tape all the sermons at this church and everything. It's a BIG church, so it's a BIG stage.
When I went up to do my audition for keys, I couldn't even figure out which keyboard they wanted me to play! There were like four or five different ones up there. So I picked one (lol) and grabbed my music sheet. I was like "Oh no!" cuz when I saw it I realize it was a song I didn't know. It was See His Love or something like that. The rest of the band started playing, so I just tossed the paper on a keyboard in front of me where I could see it and started playing. I was now being watched by Kathy Vallotton and Kia Chadwick. Important people in the school, and pretty much in the world. Ugh. I didn't know the song, but it seemed easy enough to figure out as I went. Still, the pressure was on big time.
All through the first verse I'm like, "Why can't I hear what I'm playing?" I look over and, sitting on another keyboard, is a set of headphones. "Oh great..." A played the next chord, held the sustain pedal to keep it playing, and quickly slipped the headphones on, all in just enough time to catch the next chord without missing it. "Yay, I can hear..." But at this point I'm freaking out, cuz I now know I pretty much ruined my audition. I was the ONLY keyboardist that didn't realize I was supposed to put the headphones on. Stupid mistake.
My audition for background vocals went a little better, because I did know the song, but when you consider the fact there were about 87 people auditioning for those 8 spaces, I never had much hope to begin with. lol
Jesse auditioned for lead vocals while playing guitar. He did pretty well, but not super well. He got a bit of stage fright, and I don't blame him. Joe auditioned for background vocals. He didn't know the song they assigned him to, and he had to sing harmony for goodness sake. lol Still, he did rather well considering.
My roommate, Andrea, auditioned for lead vocals and everything went absolutely perfect! She was so good that when she was finished the whole group of people standing in line to audition cheered. My other roommate, Tony (well, he's not really my roommate, but he lives next door and me and my roommates are always hanging out with him and his roommates, so he feels like a roommate lol), auditioned for guitar. I didn't get to hear much of it cuz he was going at the same time I was on keyboard. lol
So, we got the results today.
Joe - didn't make it. But hey, the odds were against him.
Jesse - didn't make it. He's cool with it though.
Tony - Made it as an electric guitarist. Woo! I was surprised. He's really good, but there were ALOT of people auditioning for guitar.
Andrea - Made it as a lead vocalist. The hardest position to get. I knew she would though. lol
Me - Made it as a keyboardist!!! Yeah! I'm not sure how, but I did! lol
I don't think Tony's ever been on a worship team before, so this is gonna be a great experience for him. Andrea knows how to lead a team, she's done it for a couple years at her small church back home. She has an incredible voice as well. Me, I'm just happy I got on. lol And I am soooo excited about standing on the fancy stage and playing the church's AWESOME keyboards. Yamaha! Weighted keys! Omg! Heaven! lol And we have the privilege of leading a group of 750 hungry Revivalists (our class) in worship on a regular basis. This is so cool!
Another thing that happened Thursday night was I applied to be on the school's film crew. (!) Gabriel (another one of my "roommates" lol) signed up as well. We're still waiting to hear if we've been accepted or not. It would be totally awesome if we are, and there seems to be a good shot for us. They said they needed like ten to fifteen people on the crew, and only about ten to fifteen people applied. lol If I'm accepted, I'll get professional training with cameras, lighting, storyboarding, the works, and they say it looks really, really good on a resume.
Wow, this post has gotten LONG. Oops. lol But hey, I haven't posted in awhile. It's hard to get on the internet here. Jesse said he'd come over and fix our internet thing, but hasn't yet, of course. lol
I'll have to tell you guys more about school and California, but I bet your popcorn is gone by now, so I'll just have to save it for another blog post. lol
I love you guys soooo much!!!!
Your sis,
Mirabella
