I'm surviving so far!

Hi again!
So I love performing and I love concert season and I am grateful that I have all these opportunities. Still, it leaves little room for error and I was so proud of myself when I didn't sprain my ankle (huge accomplishment for me by the way) anyway so I thought everything was fine and then we got into a small accident. at first it seemed like no one got hurt so it was kind of like okay we can live with that. Three days after the accident (Wednesday morning) I couldn't move my arm. now this has happened before, I hyper-extended something in my shoulder while reaching for my french horn from a high shelf. So we went to get it looked at and found out that I didn't hyper-extend anything and it's not dislocated. Technically, as far as the doctors know, there's nothing wrong with me. Obviously something is wrong but they don't know what. Anyhow enough about my arm, I wrote to tell you about my busy life lately.
So as I have said multiple times, I love performing. More than that though, I love the people I perform with. Clearly i won't say much about them other than to say that they are amazing and talented people and some of them are the reason I do what I do. Thanks everyone! So this year I have decided that to thank them for their hard work this concert season and for all their help and kind words, I will give them a yummy holiday treat. Candy cane bark is amazing but I will always say that you can't have really tasted it until you've had it homemade. I am making as much bark as I can and I'm giving it to a good part of my friends to thank them. If you don't know what it is, real candy cane bark is made from chocolate (usually white) and crushed candy canes. Now, the store bought stuff is chocolate and artificial flavoring. but if it's really handmade you can tell. I just spent 5 hours peeling 500 candy canes so that my friends will get the authentic taste they deserve. Also, if I was to go really far I would spend about 3 hours crushing the candy canes with a hammer. But i am not my grandmother and therefore I use a food processor. Either way my friends will love their present (I think).
So I told you I would tell you about my crazy life and I got side-tracked by my amazing friends. Like I told you, the 21st was an interesting day to say the least. All I can really say is that we had so much fun and I wouldn't trade that memory for anything. Since then I've had school sometimes but not too much homework, my teachers are pretty nice about the whole no time and clumsiness thing. Also, since the 21st i've had only one concert. It was a few days ago and it was a lot of fun but I never got to play my french horn because of the accident. Still fun though cuz there was still choir and lot's of amazing music. And I have another concert tomorrow. It is going to be the best concert of the whole season. It's the annual holiday candlelight concert and it will be amazing. Not only do I have the chance to be in 2 of the choirs, but I have the honor of being in the choir considered to be very talented and I am very proud of that. So I may not really be having the best week ever but I know that I will have fun and my friends will always be there for me as will I for them.

I hope all of you have a wonderful rest of the year and a great holiday no matter what you celebrate. Most of all I wish everyone was as lucky as me to have such amazing friends.

Rick Allen

Hi again!
My latest project is in my social studies class. It's a lot of fun and I think it's entertaining us all to learn about pop- culture through the decades.
My group ended up with the 80's automatically I assigned myself the music section. I listen to a lot of music from the 80's so it wasn't very hard. I did get some interesting information though.
Have any of you ever heard of Rick Allen? If you haven't he is the drummer for Def Leppard and you should search him up when you have the chance. He's really a very interesting person. but why is he special and how did I find him? Well I remember heard about him watching switched at birth earlier today and he caught my attention because I am a huge fan of the drums because I play a little bit and I know how talented you have to be to play really well and it's amazing what people can do. Also, a drummer with one arm? What isn't interesting about that? So the little geek inside me decided to investigate further. I snooped around online, asked some people who knew about tons of bands and other people who had been to a Def Leppard concert. What I found was truly amazing. So this drummer only has one arm but why? and how can he play? that's what I wanted know. So here's the story I finally came up with.
Rick Allen was driving impaired (what is with rock stars!!?) and he got into an accident. The result of that accident was the loss of his left arm. 3 or 4 months after he got out of the hospital, his band mates came to visit him at home. They stood outside for a moment before coming in and heard someone drumming to one of their songs. They went into the house prepared to Fire him politely (come on the guy lost his arm! how could they expect him to play?) and saw that he was the one playing the drums so well. Needless to say they didn't fire him and he still plays at their gigs today. Now he plays the drums barefoot so he can feel the difference of the pedals beneath his feet. He can play the drums so well one-handed because of the way his drumkit is set up so he uses a pedal instead of actually striking a splash or a snare or whatever.

I just wanted to share that with you because I found it so interesting and It's the coolest homework I've had this year to put up.
See Ya Later!