Apologies, Weddings, and Videos

Hey guys. I have been very busy with my new job. I started last Tuesday and then this weekend I spent three days without internet and in Atlanta for a wedding. I posted a new video a week ago and I will be posting a new one tonight as well.
Last Week's video:

This week's video:
(not up yet, sorry)

My cousin got married on Saturday, so I got to see a bunch of family and friends. Many of which I haven't seen in years, especially since before I went off to school. I learned that a bunch of my family. Way more than I thought reads my blog. Hi guys!

I am kind of taking a break from working right now, but I wanted to give you all my thoughts on weddings. My dad has promised to either pay for my wedding or pay the down payment on my first house. When he first told me this many, many years ago it seemed like a no brainer. Why would I want a big fancy single day, when I could get a house and many years? The economics of the choice is simple, but emotionally a wedding just seems awesome. There is a ton of stress in the planning and beforehand, but on the day of it just looks like fun. I won't have to decide between these two for many years, but every wedding makes me think. Do I want a house or a wedding? I have argued each side a countless number of times and I will most definitely decide and redecide before the actually decision is made.

That is what is going on with me right now. I am super busy working 12 days and busy, busy weekends. This is Alora getting back on schedule and signing off.

Love,
Alora

The Skunk Adventure

I am going to begin this adventure by asking you all to imagine skunk smell. All of you have probably smelt it in passing a one time or another. So think of that smell and then forget it. That is far away skunk smell. Up close skunk is so much worse it does not compare. It smells like burning rubber, onions, and gas and chemicals. It burns your nose and your eyes. Every theory you have about it is wrong. It is so much worsethan that. If you hav smelled a skunk up close before or even been sprayed I am sorry. I'm so so sorry. We can hide together. Nothing can keep out the smell. We went to the store to gt cleaning supplies and the car smelled like skunk from our clothes. It is so completely disgusting.

So now that you are maybe imagining the correct smell I will tell you the story.  So Hops really wants to touch a skunk, so she sends Zinny in to touch it while standing a safe distance away. Zinny gets sprayed and Hops is safe. The both ran into the house before we found out what had happened. Zinny went to every single floor before we found out it was her and sent her outside. We all hid in our rooms and Mom and Dad did research on skunk smell. The grossness permeated the whole house no matter how much we tried to hide from it. We reached the Publix approximately ten minutes before it closed. We manage to get all of the stuff and mom is currently washing Zinny with peroxide, hand soap, something else. I really hope we don't have to go find somewhere that sells tomato juice at eleven pm.

Try not to get sprayed by a skunk.

Love,
Alora

100th Post! *Band (that you should be in) Plays Fanfare*

(I only technically have 95 published posts, but I have five drafts that will one day be posts, so they count.)

          Yesterday, I had band practice. As most of you know, I play the alto saxophone in my school's band. The school year is technically over, but the entire band, corps of cadets and senior class has to stay until Saturday or Sunday. Graduation is technically on Sunday, but on Saturday we have commissioning and the VWIL change of command parade. In commissioning, from what I understand, the graduating seniors that have been commissioned to the Army, Marine Corps, etc. are recognized. I am not entirely sure if this is true. Feel free to correct me and I will correct myself on Saturday if need be. Change of command speaks for itself.
          In band practice on Wednesday we had fourteen people show up. The full band is slightly larger than that, but not by much. We should be bigger on a campus of 1,000 people. The fact that our numbers are so small is very sad. I love band with all of my heart and I wish that more people participated in it. I started playing when I was in third grade and I have loved band ever since. I know that all of the music nerds who read this are wondering about my views on choir and orchestra. I love choir too. I have never been in orchestra, but from what I have heard it is just as awesome as band and choir. I am mainly pushing band right now, but any music group that you love works too. I say band because it is my favorite, but you can substitute orchestra or choir if you want.
          Band is awesome. First of all, band equals music. You and your friends spend hours making and perfecting music. At the end of a song, right after the conductor cuts you off, if you are lucky, and you listen close, you can here an echo of the last note you just played. The cymbals still ringing and the epic song dying as you listen. It is a fantastic feeling. Second reason band is awesome: social opportunities. I have made wonderful friends in the musical world. Band pushes people together and makes them cooperate. Band is like free friend land. A group of people spend a lot of time together and just from familiarity become great friends. Third reason, satisfaction. I get a lot of satisfaction from band; there is a lot to be gotten. I have been playing for almost six years and the satisfaction at the end of every performance has not decreased. The satisfaction that comes from the applause of your audience is unparalleled. You just sit there as the echo of the song dies and the audience claps and cheers. It is one of the best feelings ever.
          I could go on for hours and hours with pros of band, but I want to address your inevitable cons. The point of this post is to convince you to give band, or chorus, or orchestra a try. I have been trying to convince people to join band for years, so I am very familiar with the excuses people give for not trying band/orchestra/chorus. They say that they do not have enough time, or they will be no good. They can't read music. They can't sing. They don't know how to play an instrument. In response to this I say:

SO?

It does not matter whether you can or can't sing. If you know how to read music. Whether or not you can play an instrument. The learning curve has to start somewhere. You are no good? That is because you haven't tried. Practice more. Give it your all. Band is not my "way of life" per se, but I still love it. I still try to push it on other people. Band is a great way to meet new people, learn new things, relieve stress, and be happy.

          Band is something that I plan on doing my whole life. It is a wonderful hobby. I encourage every single one of you reading this post to go try something. You don't necessarily have to do band, but try something new. I hope you join me in the band, but sometimes you honestly just don't want to. I understand if you do not like music, but please try something else. Join a dance team, a fencing club, a gamer's guild. Try something new. It does not matter whether you are good or not. Do it for the fun and satisfaction that doing it brings. That is why I am in band. I love it. 

Find something that you love.

Love,

Alora

P.S. Sorry I didn't post this yesterday. Tumblr and season finales ate my face.

P.P.S (I am such a child. :P) Also, I edited this one, so any mistakes are on me.

Happy Mother's Day and Roller Coasters

Happy Mother's Day to all moms. I went to Kings Dominion in Dosewell, VA yesterday as part of a school trip and I made this video for you guys. It will not embed, but you can watch it here.

This blog is going to be short today because I am not feeling so hot. I rode a bunch of rides yesterday and I vlogged about it so once I am feeling better I will put that up. I am doing an end of the year video on Tuesday so look forward to that and I should be all caught up on stuff by Wednesday.

Ride on.

Love,
Alora

Prospective Student = Fun Times

         Last night Cassie hosted a prospective student. Her name is Edlene and she is pretty awesome. She showed up yesterday around three and went on a tour of the building. After her mom took her out to dinner she came back to the building and we (Brittan, Cassie, Edlene and me) all hung out in Cassie's room. I was working on my homework, Cassie was editing a video, and Brittan was on tumblr. I do believe that Edlene was playing around on Youtube. Around nine o' clock Chanelle came in and the five of us headed downtown to Split Banana. It was a very amusing trip. I filmed parts of it which, once edited, will be linked to. After ice cream we walked back to the dorm and I hung out with just Cassie and Edlene. It was nice. I got some quality roommate time with Cassie. The next morning, Brittan and I took Edlene to breakfast and then dropped her off at her first class and then picked her up for her second class. She came to ECON today to join us for the "fun part."
         In class today I was strangely excited. I still am. Today is a good day and I am just happy and full of energy. We were doing an economic experiment where we separated into groups and each group had to choose how much to contribute to research in development to possibly win a 150 million dollar patent. The paper said that we were looking for cancer vaccines, so I decided that we were making zombies and got really excited. It was super fun! Edlene got to play with us. She was pretty quiet, but she seemed to have fun. After class we headed up to lunch. There was a group of PEG's already up there and we sat with them.
          There were two juniors, two sophomores, Brittan and I, and Edlene. They were all really excited about meeting a prospective so we had a pretty fun time. After lunch, Britt and I dropped her off with her mom and Margie (PEG staff) and came back to the dorm.
         She is gone now. I will hopefully see her next year. She seems like a good PEG. This is the story of what happened, but it really isn't all that interesting. I kind of skimmed through it. Mainly I want to talk about the things that experienced people do to noobs. I am not going to address major hazing, just little pranks. I recently watched an episode of Merlin where Arthur had a new knight and it was his first patrol. The king and his knights were teasing him by making him ride his horse backwards. He was so eager to please them. It was adorable.
          I think that this is an interesting phenomenon  The newbies always want to impress their elders. It can be very funny to see and everyone goes through it. We all understand coming into a place and trying desperately to impress our elders. Then, the next year, we are the elders and we play pranks on the newbies. It is an interesting cycle. Consider the psychological roots of this reaction to elders. Evolutionarily,  it was probably adaptive to impress elders because they will protect you from predators or maybe teach you how to protect yourself. Socially, it is definitely worth it to try and impress your elders. They can help you make new social connections and having a good relationship with them can be useful too. I do not know anything about the possible biological side of this. Although psychologically, it probably boosts your self esteem to have your elders like you.

          So those are my thoughts for the day. Granted I have taken one psychology course and done no research on the subject.

Have a nice weekend everyone. Talk to you on Sunday.

Love,
Alora

Reader Appreciation and Catch-Up

Hey guys.
          First of all I want to thank all of you for reading my blog and putting up with my gaps between posts. I know that most of you probably know me in the real world and this is just an update for you. However, for those of you who have never met me, thank you. Seriously, I really appreciate all of the views. I am trying to bring my YouTube channel up in viewers, but I know that if that fails I have all of you guys to be here for me. So I am just wondering, I have some demographic data about who reads my blog, but not much. Also, I don't have much feedback on my posts besides page views. So, if you guys would take a minute to tell me why you read my blog and what you would want me to post about, that would be really, really awesome.

          Now, update time. I know that I posted yesterday and then promised to post last night, but I didn't get a chance. I put up a video today that has more information on my YouTube enterprise. Also, it is a look into why I do not have that many stories on my channel.

Here it is for your viewing:

          So, that is pretty cool. As I say in my video I am going home soon because Mayterm is ending. Mayterm is a short three week mini-semester that my college does. After spring semester, we tack three weeks of Mayterm on. It is almost over, but I have to stay a few days afterward because of band. The band is playing at commissioning and the change of command parade. This is for The Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership. I sort of explained it earlier, but the link takes you to their about page on Mary Baldwin's website.
          That's what is happening after Mayterm, but right now I am enrolled in Experimental economics. It is pretty sweet. It is every single day of the week from nine to noon, but it is my only class. My days go like this:
I get up and eat breakfast.
Then I go to class and we go over last night's homework.
Then we do an experiment.
Then we go over how to do tonight's homework.

          It is really, rather awesome and we usually get out early. After class I go to lunch, then work, and then I do homework and hang out until bed. The next day it starts all over again. Tomorrow class is delayed until ten thirty because we are only working on our group projects. Speaking of which.

I have to go. Good night and I hope you find good YouTubers.

Love,
Alora

P.S. My favorite YouTubers are: Danisnotonfire, AmazingPhil, GeekandSundry, ItsWayPastMyBedTime, KickthePJ, JacksGap, Jenna Marbles, Meekakitty, Nanalew, and many other webshows and vloggers. I just found a bunch more funny vloggers to watch. Check out my channel feed to see what I am up to in YouTubeLand. Bye for real this time.

Quick Update: Youtube, Tumblr, and Schedules

Hey, guys. I haven't been blogging much recently. I have really missed it and I am going to try and post more, but I have also started to work more with other social media. I got a Tumblr, and as you know I have started making Youtube videos again. Last Tuesday I posted a video about hive and allergies:

I have started an official video schedule. Every Tuesday, and probably some other days, I will post a new video. I think I am going to try a blog schedule too. Lets try a new post every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday. This is at the very least. I am trying to get back in the habit of blogging. I miss talking to you guys.

I have to finish my Economics homework. I will try to do a fill in blog tonight. Please check out my Youtube channel.

Keep Daydreaming.

Love,
Alora