No Words To Describe An Emotion

The definition of music is the following, "vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion".

But to me, music is more than that. Music isn't only a sound, it's a feeling, a way of life. A really amazing song can make you feel something that cannot be described by words, cannot be understood unless experienced.


I have been singing my entire life, and I don't intend to stop. As I say to myself when I doubt this, "I will never shut up." (Sorry Mrs. Joyner, I know I shall not ever say that. :) )

If I tell somebody repeatedly that I like a song, I don't like the song. It means that I am living the song. "What does that even mean?" You may ask. When I am "living"music, I feel as though I am somehow connected to the song. I am constantly singing, and when I'm not singing out loud, I'm playing the music over and over in my head.

 You may think you have experienced this obsession, but you probably haven't. I don't mean that in an exclusive way, I'm just trying to explain this feeling to the best of my ability. Usually this is most common in musicians.

My current music lifestyle revolves around Dear Evan Hansen. It's an amazing musical currently on Broadway, and here are the reasons, that I can put into words, why it's wonderful.

1. Ben Platt is amazing. (He also went to Camp Ramah. I go to Camp Ramah. We're practically best friends.)
2. The voices are indescribably phenomenal.
3. The story is inspiring and the song lyrics are something many teens can relate to.

I'm running out of adjectives.

I wish the tickets weren't so expensive so I could see the show!

Anyway, music is pretty cool. :)

Tweet Less, Think More

Many people hate President Donald Trump. For this blog post, many people are going to criticize his every move. My blog post isn't going to be like that because insults won't improve anything. My criticism will be as constructive as possible. These are a few do's and don't's for our new president.

 The first thing that President Trump should do is think more. Some of his ideas make sense, but they all go wrong because he forgets to add a certain guideline, or doesn't think the whole thing through thoroughly enough. 

 Apologize! If you recognize that you have done or said something wrong, it is important to apologize. Apologies do not show weakness. In fact, apologies are a sign of maturity. Please, at least pretend to be mature.

The last "do" is to be informed. If you appear to be intelligent, more people will take you seriously. There are two resources I highly recommend. The first is the Ben Shapiro show. It is a podcast with conservative Ben Shapiro, an extremely intelligent person who is also phenomenal at debating. (Click here to listen to his podcasts.) The second is Prager University. This is a YouTube channel with educational videos from a conservative point of view. You may not be able to view them if you have restricted mode on your device, but there is nothing inappropriate about them. They are perfect for anybody wanting to learn more about political issues. (Click here for the PragerU website.) 

One "don't" for Donald Trump relates to Twitter. There is no need to tweet whenever somebody insults you. There is absolutely no reason to respond to every tiny comment you receive. When you're famous, people will hate you, that's just how it is. Responding to all of them is only escalating the issue.

   

Ukuleles Are Tiny Guitars

Imagine yourself sitting on green grass on a warm, sunny day under a big, shady, green tree. You are gently strumming the strings of a ukulele as you lightly sing along. You are happy.

This is how I felt at camp this past summer, as I tried out this beautiful instrument for the first time. I had heard about people I knew trying it the year before, but I hadn't had the courage to try out this instrument until then. I loved playing the uke. I don't like calling it that though. I don't know why.

This is a gift I wanted this year. The only gift on my mind was my very own ukulele with a case, capo, finger picks, and some way of learning it. Although I began to learn it at camp, I only had two weeks of lessons.

I have had my ukulele for four days already and I can't stop playing it. I have been practicing for around an hour each day I have had it and I just can't get enough.

There are two reasons that I think may explain why I love playing my tiny guitar so much.

The first is the reason I had kept in mind all along: playing an instrument is fun and it lets me finally escape from singing a cappella. (Though I do love a cappella)

But another amazing benefit is something I hadn't realized going into it.

I am not taking ukulele lessons. I'm teaching myself. It's very surprising how easy it is. I just print out the chords to a song, and look up how to play the chords on my chord chart. Then I know four chords, which can potentially lead me to hundreds of songs. I can only imagine how much I will know when I learn more chords. It is a very rewarding experience to be able to teach yourself a certain skill and figure it out all by yourself.

I love my ukulele and I'm very excited to learn as much as I can!

A-B-I-G-A-I-WHAT? (The real one)

AHHH! I posted the wrong version of this! Sorry! I fixed the one with the bullet points, but I never saved it, so here is the good post.

I know you want me to say, "My name is the Southwest Northern-eastern European language for peace, and it symbolizes the long journey my Great-great-grandmother made from Mauilahanolili, a small town in the country of Hoobidyshlabidy on Mars."

But unfortunately, that's not quite what happened.

My great-grandmother. I would have liked to know her. A kind, compassionate woman who loved her grandchildren more than anything else in the world.

Betty was her name. My middle name, Bayla, came from her name.

At school, some people say it like it's garbage. They say it as if they were holding it with their index finger and thumb as they carried it to the trash can to try to rid themselves of the overwhelming stench.

But in my house, my name is a song, a wonderful word to describe myself, a good thing. I like to focus on this one. :)

I like my name, and I have no interest in changing it even if I could. If I had to I would change it to Emily, but that would only be if there was no other option, and I couldn't find any loopholes. If I was a boy I would be Ben. If I wasn't Abby I would be Rachel. But, I like my name and I'm proud of it, too. :)

How Does A Homework DOING Machine Turn Into A Homework GIVING Machine?

I have been asked to write about what job in a school I would be best at. This post will be a bit similar to my "Where I see myself in 10 years" post.

     I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, (I think I have) but I want to be an elementary school teacher when I grow up. I have known this ever since I started going to school, and I recently narrowed it down to either third or fifth grade.

     I want to do this because I love to help people, spend time around little kids, and help others learn.

     We recently took a quiz in class about what strengths, or gifts, we had, and how we could use them. We rated how much we liked a specific activity from one to five, and we added our scores up at the end.

     My lowest score for a category was 8 out of 15, and my highest was 14. I had four categories that got either a fourteen or thirteen, and they all are important traits of a teacher. I will share them with you now.


Interpersonal (people):  This is definitely important for a teacher, since I would be interacting with a lot of people daily

Body-Kinesthetic: Being a teacher, especially an elementary school teacher, I need to move around a lot, so this is very important.

Musical-Rhythmic: This one is a bit of a stretch, but some teachers use songs to help their students remember information.

Verbal-Linguistic: Teachers talk a lot, so good speaking and communication skills are important.

     

It's Not Happy People Who Are Thankful, It's Thankful People Who Are Happy

I'm sitting on a blue blanket, watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade with my family, and I realize how grateful I am for such a wonderful life.

Thanksgiving is coming up, and especially around this time of year, I think about all that I'm grateful for. There are a lot of people in this world who don't have as much as I do, which motivates me for all of my favorite things/people/places in life.
 This gratitude list is not complete. There is not enough time in the world to list every single thing I'm grateful for, or even everything I can think of. I will try to be as general as I can.

1. My Wonderful Family  From my parents who support me, to my sister who hangs out with me, to my cousins who I look up to, or who look up to me, to everybody else who I love. I would not have such a long list if it wasn't for you. (I know this list isn't that long, but the list in my head that I can't put into words is. 😊)
2. Eden  I am thankful for my best friend in the whole entire world, who has helped and supported my since I was six years old. She's the type of person who I can be laughing until my stomach hurts with one minute, and having a deep conversation with the next. Love you tin can!
3. My School Friends Although small but mighty, my school friends have been standing (or sitting, I mean our legs get tired sometimes) by me through everything I have gone through, as you might know, I can't keep my mouth shut, so I talk to them about every tiny thing that happens to me (from "I got a solo!" to "Melissa jumped out the window!" (by the way, here's a link to Melissa's blog.) ) but that's not the only reason they now are experts on my life. They are so supportive and easy to talk to that I know I can tell them everything. 
4. My Camp Friends I love my camp friends more than I could possibly say. They know me better than I know myself. There's something about living together for eight weeks that creates this special bond that you can't get anywhere else. At camp, there is no judgment. Another thing about living together, you can put on a smile for a few hours a day, but you can't fake it all summer. So, there are times when all those negative emotions kick in, and everybody id right there next to you...LITERALLY! One night, I was really stressed out about our play, and my entire cabin got out of bed to stay with me until I felt better.
5. My Dance Friends At the beginning of last year, I joined Starbound Dance Company. I was very excited to be a part of the group that I had been watching since I was 4. But, I felt very out of place. I had never really had friends at dance before. Everybody was just kind of there. It felt weird to be a part of a group that had such a strong bond and I felt out of place being "the new girl". But that didn't last long, because all of the people at dance helped me feel like part of the team, and now I talk to some dancers up to four years older than me like I have known them all my life.
6. My Teachers As I frequently say to my friends, "I like school, but not all the stuff that comes with it." This basically means that I love to learn new things (if that makes me a nerd then I'm proud of it!) and I love art class, and chorus. But, I don't like all of the other things that come with school. (The judgy people, the fads, the tests) Without my teachers, the bad parts of school would take over, and I'm very thankful for the people that teach me new things every day.
7. Food, Water, Shelter, And All That Stuff  These are usually the only thing on people's gratitude lists because "you can't survive without them", but I like to think more deeply than that. Don't get me wrong, I'm very thankful for these essential resources. I wouldn't be here without them, but I'm saying I like to focus on the less obvious things.
8. The Ability To Help Others I don't think I need to explain this, but I will. This is really hard to put into words, but helping other people is very important to me. One time, my sister asked me what the goal of life is. It may have been worded differently, but that's beside the point. I responded with, "to help others". Not just random acts of kindness, but also normal acts of kindness. I'm thankful for my ability to help my sister with her homework, open a door for my dog when he's trying to go somewhere, and all of the other everyday things that I do.
9. Words Speaking is very important. In our society words are used a communication, and as art. When I am feeling sad, I sing, when I'm extremely irate, I sing. Words are a way of life for me, and I'm very grateful for my ability to speak, sing, and write.

Coca Cola + Wisconsin Dells = A Really Funny Blog Post

  Hmmm. Where should I start? Well, I'll start by giving a shout out to my blog buddy Jessica for the awesome post about blogging tips. I tried to make my title more interesting this time. Also, before I begin I would like to apologize for the delay on my posts for my Wow! Really? page. It has said "Coming Soon" for a couple of months now....whoops. I'll get to it as soon as I can. Make sure you keep commenting on it!

Okay, okay, I'll start now. It was January 1, 2016 and I was in the Wisconsin Dells with my friend Eden, her sister Kayla, her parents, and my family.

Some important back round:

1.   When I was little, my parents wouldn't let me have pop because they wanted me to hate it when I finally did try it. (They didn't want me to like it because it is super unhealthy.)
2.   It worked.

      Kayla was drinking coke, which I hadn't had before because of my deep hatred of carbonation. (It feels like my tongue is being poked with a million needles!) I mentioned that I hadn't had it before, so she asked me if I wanted some. I said, "Sure."

     Well, I sipped the drink while standing on the floor of the water park. (Don't worry. I wasn't in the pool.) I was so disgusted by it that I didn't even think about my location or common sense or any of that. All I knew was that this brown, fizzy drink was causing great pain to my tongue. So, I followed my instinct. Well, no. I didn't follow it. My instincts took over me, and without thinking, I spit the liquid pain onto the wet floor next to the concession stand. 

     I don't exactly remember how we cleaned it up, but both of our families laughed hysterically, and I have been offered many cans of cokes since then as a joke.