* tiny but powerful *

I am way way excited about our alto hangout tonight. There will much hilarity. And meeping.

So what exactly have I been up to for the past few weeks? Mostly a lot of class, reading, problem sets, Testimony, Opening, fellowship meetings, and church. I'm in the middle of midterms, but that's an unfun topic so we won't talk about that. Classes have been bulldozing along at full speed, and I'm still recovering from a blow earlier in the month, but if I keep working hard I should be okay for finals (a very important deadline).

Testimony is awesome, as always. This year's group has an amazing amount of energy. We've already had two big performances (the Alumni Show and the Mendicants' Anniv. Show, the past two Saturdays), and they both went really well. The Mendicants' Show was a lot of fun to watch, too -- it was interesting to see each "cohort" of Mendicants alumni perform their numbers and see how the styles/arrangements changed as we went further and further back. Then all 100+ Mendicants sang together for the two closing numbers, conducted by two different directors of the Founding Fathers era. I want to learn to direct like them! Very, very cool. Anyway, now that those big performances are over (as exciting as they were!), now we can buckle down and do some serious song-learning for our upcoming Christmas Show. December 6th sounds like it's far away, but it's really not. We have a lot of fun music planned, so I'm looking forward to putting on the first big show of our own with the new group. Before then, we also have lined up a dorm show at Zapata, and a brief appearance at Worlds AIDS Day. I'm very happy with how well Testimony has adjusted to the new year.

Opening is going well, too. We've been making promising progress on teaching the waltz choreography. We haven't started any of the polka yet, but that'll probably wait until awhile later after we're sure the waltz is in good shape. The annoying rehearsal times have turned out okay so far for learning and retention, which is a relief. I'm very pleased with all our dancers (they're enthusiastic and hard-working), and I'm looking forward to getting to know them better as people, too.

It's really nice to be consistently present at Crusade this year. Unfortunately, the past few weeks our weekly meetings have been exceedingly small, but the intimacy is also good in its own way. I feel very secure with the girls in my small group -- I guess that's the benefit of continuing with the same group from last year. It's also one of the few places where I interact with girls my age; we're all seniors (except Annie, who graduated last year), and we're all either currently or previously involved in some kind of ministry leadership. Even though I'm not the best of friends with all of the girls and I wouldn't necessarily say I'm "close" to them, I still feel very comfortable being vulnerable around them and having them be a part of God's plan to grow me and challenge me.

I've also visited RUF (Reformed University Fellowship, a new campus group) several times this year. Adam was very involved in getting it started up, so I wanted to check it out and see what it was like. I was surprised to find that it's more like a Bible study than any of the other campus fellowship meetings -- and I really liked it, so I've been going back whenever I can spare the time on a Tuesday evening. Part of it is because I think I get something from RUF meetings that I don't get elsewhere -- my Crusade women's action group has become less of a "Bible study," strictly speaking (we're working through "A Spiritual Formation Workbook: Small-Group Resources for Nurturing Christian Growth" which, of course, involves studying scripture, but is not solely focused on a particular passage); Crusade large group has more of a speaker-audience dynamic than a discussion (which is great too); and church is, well, church (even less of people-people interaction).

The other reason why I've been somewhat curious about RUF is that I want to learn more about Grace Presbyterian Church (here in Palo Alto), and the RUF campus leader is one of the pastors at Grace. About a month ago, Testimony attended a service at Grace Pres. the Sunday morning after our post-audition retreat, and the strong teaching I saw there really caught my attention. Not just because of the teaching itself, but because towards the end of the summer I had already been getting the sense that God is leading me into a period of re-evaluation about my church community. I've been attending The River regularly for almost three years, and I don't doubt that it's been the right place for me for those three years, but things are slightly different now than they were then -- both for the church, and for me personally. When I was first making church decisions, I chose The River mainly because Pastor Keith's teaching really stood out. Of the three factors that I consider important for choosing a church (teaching, worship, and fellowship), the first two are great, but the last has been really lacking. For the time that I'm at Stanford, I think that's actually okay, because I find community in campus fellowship. I'm sort of nearing a time when I'll have to revisit that judgement call, though -- once this year's seniors graduate without me (especially the girls in my small group), my fellowship connection-gauge will take a big hit. I think that next year, during my fifth year, since I will likely be living off-campus and many of the closest people to me may no longer be around, I'll have to be especially careful in making sure that I deliberately place myself into communities where God leads me.

There are several reasons why I think I don't connect with The River's congregational community. First, it's just a really big church. Any of you who have been there know what I'm talking about. I think there are a lot of benefits to the way The River runs its services, but it's not very conducive to getting to know individual people. Even though I serve in the kids ministry every week, I feel like I know a very small cross-section of The River's community. Part of this is that it's hard to connect with people my own age: I know a handful of adults, lots of the children, but none of the college students except for the Stanford people who go (mostly from InterVarsity) and we're just speckles in the crowd. I don't really fellowship with those Stanford people, since I'm not in IV, and I'm pretty sure the Stanford posse as a whole does not really mingle with the rest of The River. This is due in large part, I think, to the fact that The River is so far away from Stanford. Which brings me to my second point: San Jose is not my community, no matter how you cut it. The River moved to San Jose about a year and a half ago, and at the time I decided to move with them. But in the larger picture, I can't serve (or be served by) a community located so far away from where I live. So this is all part of why I'm re-evaluating my church situation.

That all said, I'm not at all considering leaving Crusade. Not this year, anyway. It's been pretty clear to me that God has led me to the Crusade community for a reason, and I intend to stay committed to Crusade. RUF is just a window of opportunity for me to peek at what Grace Presbyterian Church is like. I do feel that I should find out more about Grace, but that's difficult given the current commitment I have to Kids Community at The River. And since I know KC is an area of ministry that God has placed on my heart, there must be some other way God wants me to learn and grow if He is indeed calling me to reconsider my church situation, and His plans for me never subvert themselves.

Hrm. This turned much more serious than I had intended. Well, I guess I would have written about it sooner or later. The altos will be arriving soon, so I should get going. :) Have a great Halloween, everyone!

Current Music:: FFH - "Where You Are"
I think it's time for another JoEllen-esque entry. Even during hard times, there are things for which to be thankful. (I edited that sentence just for you, Kari.) So here we go...

1) Friends who give me good advice and encouragement.
2) That my Music 40 professor gave me extra time to finish the midterm this morning.
3) That I have the weekend to work on my music theory midterm.
4) That my professors have been so understanding with giving me time/help to get caught up.
5) Prayer buddies.
6) Having time to eat & pray with Rob and Tony, even though my midterm went over and Rob's class went over and Tony had no idea where we were.
7) Hot showers after being out in the cold.
8) It's Friday!
9) Fun weekend things to look forward to.
10) ALTOS! We (last year's on-campus altos: Chi-En, Jenn, Jenny, and I) are having a reunion sleepover tonight. I am super excited. :-D

And it's only 1:45 in the afternoon. Maybe I'll make another list later. Or maybe I'll write a more substantial entry. We'll see.

Current Music:: Caedmon's Call - "Faith My Eyes"
So it appears to be Oct. 30. Which means it's finally been as long since then as it was during. Don't worry, I'm fine; it's just interesting to ponder time and all the changes it brings.

Sorry my blog has been so neglected lately. I'm just busy and I rarely feel like writing. This morning we received our music theory take-home midterm (due Monday), and I have a music history midterm tomorrow morning which I'm rather worried about. And then my ChemE150 midterm is next week. Lovely time for a TSF session, don't you think? At least Tmony was granted fewer letters than in previous quarters, so I only have to write a total of 7 letters (which is a mixed blessing, since we also get less money). Opening has TSF this quarter, too, but Steering members don't have to write, so that's nice. Anyway, I'm hoping to make a better update before October ends...which basically means tomorrow afternoon after my Music 40 midterm. Take care, all, and good luck on your own midterms/papers/projects. It's a busy time, but God is faithful.

Stars are amazing.

Stress sucks. Blah.

JuKa828 (9:46:07 PM): so jeff and i came up with a good name for lag if we're ever RAs there
JuKa828 (9:46:10 PM): "natural lag"
JuKa828 (9:46:12 PM): HAHAHAAHAH
TPiglette (9:46:15 PM): oh dear
JuKa828 (9:46:20 PM): and we could decorate it as a nature theme
JuKa828 (9:46:24 PM): but it would really be ln
JuKa828 (9:46:25 PM): HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
TPiglette (9:46:27 PM): oh dear...
JuKa828 (9:46:41 PM): we're so clever!

Testimony's first performance as the new group (and only the new group) will be tonight, opening for the Mendicants' 40th Anniversary Show. We and (almost) all the a cappella groups will be giving guest performances of two songs per group. So the program looks great, and everyone should come! :) The show order will be as follows::

Happy Birthday, Chris!
Happy Birthday, Megan!

Aww... Mike (Lin) just stopped by to give me more cinnamon friendship bread, after already having brought me some over the weekend. Yum - good study food. :)

Sigh. Speaking of studying, I'm still in the black hole of Getting Caught Up. I'm really exhausted - thank goodness it's Friday tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, Qi!
(not that he reads this or anything)

In musicianship section for Music 23, it is very evident that my strengths are different than those of the other four students in my section -- namely, that I direct an a cappella group, whereas the others are more (currently) practiced pianists than I. This has been clear for the following reasons::
1) They can sightread figured bass exercises more fluently than I can,
but
2) I can clap to keep tempo (even through time signature changes) and vocalize a rhythm at the same time, and
3) I can sightsing the tenor line while playing the other three parts on the piano.

Haha...yeah. Figured bass accompaniment is fun, though. If I can get better at it, that would be very cool.

TPiglette (5:30:38 PM): yo
JuKa828 (5:30:46 PM): yo?
JuKa828 (5:30:48 PM): sup, dog
JuKa828 (5:30:53 PM): pardon me
JuKa828 (5:30:56 PM): sup, dawg
TPiglette (5:32:06 PM): HAHAHA

Chi-En + Tina = hahahahaha heeheehee hahahaha *collapse*

I love my kids. And worship was awesome at church today.

"Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing you pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say...

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be your name."

God is sooo awesome! The Alumni Show tonight totally rocked! All the a cappella groups did a great job, and as usual I particularly enjoyed Fleet Street and Talisman (we didn't get to hear Mendicants very well because they were right before us in the program). But...wow. God totally rocked me with how much Testimony rocked tonight! We sang Heaven's Heart with just the old group, and then added in all the new members for Testify (with choreography!) and TLBY. Conglomerate Testimony really was HUGE (no kidding -- 25 total!), but having so many people on stage really enhanced our performance. I didn't expect to wow everyone like we did, but evidently our fullness and togetherness really impressed everyone, especially the other a cappella groups.

Some particularly notable comments we received tonight::
- from two (big important) Harmonics alumni: "That was the best we've ever heard Testimony! Your sound was amazing!"
- from the Mendicants director: "Your bass sound was great! And your group sound in general...I was totally enjoying it! I wanted to spread it on bread and eat it!" (yeah...I'm not really sure what that means, but evidently it was a compliment)
- several Fleet Street guys kept insisting that we rock
- from someone in Talisman: "Testify is like my favorite song! I always want to sing along with you guys!"
- from the current Harmonics business manager: "I have NEVER heard Testimony sound as good as you guys did tonight!"

Seriously. I was totally blown away by the response we got tonight. Testimony would never be where it is today without God's faithfulness in growing us on so many levels. Many thanks go to old Tmony for one last hurrah, and big congrats to the new members on their first performance! Yay God! Yay Testimony! Yay!! May all the glory be to God. :) :) :)

Whew. It's been a crazy week. I'm really behind in my classes, due to the stuff that was going on earlier in the week, so I have a lot to catch up on this weekend. I'm thankful that my professors have been very understanding. I've also nearly (but not quite) conquered this nagging cold.

Opening had our first rehearsal on Wednesday night, but it was a short one, so our first real chunk of time will be tomorrow morning -- bright and early, starting at 9am. Yeah, getting rehearsal space was "exciting" (I don't know why, but that has become the choice adjective for describing our logistical woes), so rehearsals have to be Saturday mornings 9:00am to 12noon, and Wednesday nights 9:55-11:00pm. Annoying, yes, but better than not rehearsing enough (which had been a very real danger). I'm quite pleased with the 18 couples we're privileged to have on Opening Committee this year (including two past choreographers! what an honor), and I think things are going well so far.

Tomorrow night is also the Homecoming Reunion A Cappella Show for all the Stanford alumni who are on campus for Homecoming Weekend. It's like Orientation Show, except not. We'll be performing as Huge Conglomerate Testimony -- that is, all of last year's group *plus* this year's new members. It'll be their first gig! It should be a lot of fun; I'm looking forward to it. The show is open to the Stanford public, so come on out and hear yet another gathering of all 8 a cappella groups! "A Celebration of Stanford Singing" -- Sat. Oct. 18 (tomorrow), 8:00-10:00pm @ MemAud.

Sadly, I am missing Crusade's Fall Retreat tonight. But there really was no way I could go, seeing as I've got so much work to do and Opening rehearsal starts super early in the morning. I'm really happy that I've at least been able to attend every large group meeting so far this year (excepting the first one, during which we were holding Tmony auditions). This past Wednesday, we had some fun games and skits. The girls beat the guys in a Battle of the Sexes! Woohoo!

Branner is being really loud right now...

Happy Birthday, Karl!

Happy Birthday, Jeff Lee!

There is so much tough stuff going on right now - not just for me but also in the lives of people I care about. Where would we be without God's gift of prayer, if we couldn't bring ourselves into His presence whenever we needed to? I cannot even fathom it. God is good, all the time.

I'm still in the cough-cough-blownose-cough-blownose-blowwwwagain-cough-cough stage of being sick. Whatever this bug is, it's taking over the Stanford campus, including half of Testimony. Boooo. Sickness sucks.

We/I could still really use your prayers.

Thank you to everyone for your amazing support. Especially Testimony. That's love.

Please pray for my mom.

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes..., so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests." - Ephesians 6:10-18.

I had really wanted to go home this weekend. I haven't been home since the weekend before moving back to campus, and I probably won't be able to for another few weeks because Testimony has performances both the next two Saturdays. But I'm really feeling icky, and I don't have the energy to make the drive. The whole day has been taken up by Opening auditions and deliberations so far, and now I'm drained. I'd had such high hopes for a productive weekend, too. Sigh.

I think I'm getting sick. Actually, I'm fairly certain I'm getting sick. BLARG. I noticed during alto sectional this afternoon that my throat was feeling scratchy, and it got progressively worse over the course of the evening. Then, at Jammix, my energy level took a huge nosedive around 11pm, rendering me not very dancy for the remainder of the night. And I think I would have been tired anyway, even without feeling under the weather. So I probably won't be doing much of the talking for running Opening auditions (2nd round) tomorrow morning. I hope I'll at least have some semblance of a voice by the time Tmony rehearsal rolls around on Sunday. But Sunday seems very far away right now. I'm going to bed.

I got an A- on my first mini-paper! Tee hee! :-D

Full Moon on the Quad = frightening Stanford tradition. I will most definitely be here safely in my room tonight. No going out to the Quad to kiss random freshmen for me. (Yes, that's the tradition. On the night of the first full moon of the school year, Stanford freshmen and seniors go out to the main quad to have a kissing fest at midnight. It's very, very peculiar. And frightening.) Unlike freshman year, this time I'm not even going just to spectate. I guess three years ago I was 1) in need of some major distraction after just having had a huge fight with my then-boyfriend, and 2) called upon to be my roommate's bodyguard, because she was sick with mono (yes, already) but still wanted to see what the hubbub was all about. Suffice it to say that that night was memorable for less than great reasons.

Today was a very long day. I left my room before 9:00am and didn't get back until 7:00pm. I had music class, Core meeting, girldate lunch with Chi-En, Social Dance II, ChemE150 lecture, ChemE150 discussion section, and ChemE150A computer lab. It's annoying that lecture, section, and lab are all scheduled back to back, because they're really hard to get through. The professor set up an in-class demo of an E.coli fermentation machine, which ran for the entire hour and fifteen minutes. It stank. Blech. I was super-antsy by the time we migrated over to Meyer for computer lab, but fortunately we were let out a little early. And then Justin and I had dinner at Wilbur. (I've realized that I generally prefer Wilbur Dining over Manzanita Dining. Go figure.)

In general, things are going quite well. I love my music classes. Music 23 (Elements of Theory III) is somewhat challenging since I'm jumping into the series, but I'm meeting with the professor tomorrow afternoon so he can teach me some things I've been missing. Music 40 (Music History to 1600) isn't even boring -- who'd've thought? We're studying ancient chants and the evolution of early notation and musical modes. I actually have to write mini-papers for that class, which is significantly scary since I haven't written papers since IHUM (no, I'm not kidding - it's been pure techie classes for me since then), but the first one I turned in on Monday wasn't too bad.

I still haven't quite settled into the new year, though. I have, at least, finally managed to conquer most of the clutter that had been plaguing my room, which provided me much emotional relief (I literally feel calmer when my desk is organized). But I still need to retrieve some things from home before I can finish decorating and setting up. I haven't really found a good routine for myself yet, but I hope I will soon. At least life is much more sane now than it was two weeks ago.

That's about as much of an update as I can muster at the moment. I seem to have completely fallen out of my blogging groove. But this appears to disquiet my mom, so I'll do my best to start updating more. Goodnight for now.

E.coli smells yucky.

(I'm in 150A lab. Justin, sitting next to me, says: "Meep." (He's confused.) )

My desk is clean! My desk is clean! I feel so much better now!!

Happy Birthday, Jenny!

Braun 105 is quickly becoming the top contender for The Room In Which Tina Will Have Spent The Most Cumulative Time While At Stanford. It used to be a toss-up between TCSEQ (Bio core, Physics core, etc.), Mudd Chem (ALL those fun chem classes, plus E25 and E20), and the ChemE Gazebo (remember those fun 3-hr lectures for 120A?). But now that I have both music theory and music history (plus the sections for both classes) in Braun 105 -- in addition to the past two years of Tmony rehearsals, violin sectionals when I was in SSO, and the coming year of another 5 hrs/week for Testimony -- yeah, Braun 105 is definitely moving right up there.

Happy Birthday, Annie!

I went to bed at 10:30 last night. Yes, seriously. Woohoo!

Happy Birthday, Meggy!

Oh yeah. I had my first violin lesson today. It was...interesting. To say the least. Let's just say that this particular professor (and he acknowledges that he's different than the other three faculty members) is going to challenge my entire way of thinking about playing the violin and almost everything I was taught during my 7 years of lessons before Stanford. He's trying to get me to change things of which I had absolutely no conception in my violinist vocabulary. Yes, this is definitely going to be interesting. And hard.

I suppose it's not a surprise, though, that the first thing he did was stop me after 3 beats and ask me to play it over and over again until I was loud enough. :-P

It was SO GOOD to be back at Crusade tonight! I was, seriously, bouncing up and down. I'm really looking forward to being *present* at Crusade weekly meetings this year. I'm glad I had promised myself to make Crusade a high priority, because when Richard's History of Waltz class switched times to Wednesday nights, it wasn't even a hard decision to make. Tonight's meeting was really good. I'm totally excited about Crusade (and my action group). YAY :)

I got switched into the more advanced ear-training section for Music 23 today! Yay! Originally they had just split people into two groups randomly, but today the TA's said that there's too much range within each group and they wanted to regroup people. So I got moved to the harder section. I like this one much better. Before, we were just doing stuff like "Name this interval" and "What kind of chord is this and what inversion is it in?" Today, we dictated portions of a couple chorales, and sightread some rhythms that were nicely more challenging. Also, since it turns out that all five of us are pianists, the TA says he can give us more difficult figured bass exercises. Ear-training is fun! I'm happy. :)