a day in the life

okay, so i'm on what is about Day 11 or so of the Keynote summer project... with about zero blog posts to show for it. MY B! please believe me when i say that i have been kuh-RAZY busy. don't believe me? check out my day today. it's a pretty good representative of most of the days i've had here.

6:55 am || my alarm clock goes off. snooze is hit immediately.

7:00 am || i actually get up. commence hair-teasing, fake-up, and otherwise getting girl-ified for the day.

8:17 am || hannah, myself, and my overstuffed messenger bag make it down the stairs... okay, ELEVATOR... for a quick bite of breakfast.

8:39 am || i head out for keynote with some of the guys. arrive 15 minutes later.

9:10 am || i attend a quick meeting to train me in my band job - "Communication Liaison." essentially, a really glorious term for "Sender of E-mails." this means that, once my band [Young Isaac] hits the road, yours truly will be responsible for sending updates out to the rest of the project and Keynote HQ every 3-4 days. it sounds pretty dry, but i'm actually really excited about it. i get to semi-capture some of the really cool moments we experience as a band, and get to tell our stories! let's just hope i do a better job with this than with my blogging...

9:17 am || the meeting ends... very quickly. i grab my ipod and head out for a walk. a relatively rare moment of solitude.

10:35 am || we had another communication class, this one on the topic of voice. vocal inflection, tone, rate, volume, all that good stuff. we've had several of these kinds of classes, since one of Keynote's big goals is to make us all rockstar-league communicators by the end of the summer, ranging on topics from gestures, to movement, to eye contact, et cetera.

11:15 am || classes finish up a little early today, and we're released for lunch or whatever until 12:45. i hang in my band's rehearsal room, talking to bandmates, etc., and at some point realize that there are some things that i reeeally should practice before rehearsal starts. i grab my guitar and shut myself up in a smaller practice room for awhile, focusing on areas i'm not super confident about. since that encompasses MANY areas, i obviously don't get to all of them...

12:36 pm || i realize what time it is.

12:43 pm || i choke down a yogurt. lunch is definitely the most neglected meal these days.

12:45 pm || Comm Drill #7 starts. comm drills (short for communication drills... in case you weren't sure...) are designed to help us develop the communication skills they're teaching us in class (again, big shock, i'm sure). since we talked about voice today, for our drill, we had to read selections of books and be critiqued on our speaking. i had to read a section from a book i'd never heard of that had a lot of creepy crawlies in it. spiders and scorpions and centipedes and such. comm drills are really stop-and-go because of all the corrections our comm coaches make, so it took me about 6 1/2 minutes to get through the page. all of our drills are video-recorded and we have to watch them immediately afterward. it's a good way to learn, but i don't always like seeing myself on camera. and by "not always," i mean "pretty much never."

2:30 pm || rehearsal finally begins! today is a review day to go back over the 8 songs we learned this week. i was kind of frustrated cause i didn't feel like i was quite on my game, and i was also mad at myself for blowing out my voice at the end of practice. but. there were some good moments. oh, and did i mention that my band is SOLID? seriously, such a talented group of musicians. i feel so fortunate to get to play music with them... and they don't even throw rotten tomatoes at me or anything. (so obviously they're really patient, too!) i don't really wanna list ALL the songs we're doing, but we're doing stuff by peeps like Kris Allen, Matt Wertz, the Script, Kings of Leon, even Doobie Brothers. it's all a lot of fun. even when i feel like i'm having an off day, like today, rehearsal is definitely the highlight of most days here.

5:34 pm || we call it quits. natasha rubs my back. thank goodness. my left shoulder has been knotting up so bad, i think from my guitar. guess that's something i'll get used to as rehearsals get longer.

6:15 pm || dinnertime! baked potato bar. i sort of eat. haven't had much appetite lately. i think i'm just too excited about everything else going on, food is such an afterthought. i do get to eat with my brother though, which is pretty sweet. he's come in to run the camera for the online feed for the concert later tonight.

7:30 pm || Blue Sky Nine performs! they may be an "acoustic" band, but let me just say that they rock harder than most. and besides (obviously) being incredible musicians, they're pretty fabulous people. three of the five members are involved with my team, Young Isaac, in some capacity or another. i can't even express how freaking lucky/blessed/honored/excited i am to get to work with them. um, SO COOL! not something i take for granted.

9:30 pm || open mic ensues. we get everything from rap to songs to worship stuff to jerk culture... there is such a ridiculous amount of creativity on this project. the night ends with a little stevie wonder. rock and roll.

10:17 pm || finally leaving the keynote building, heading back to the hotel, bag and guitar in tow. i know it's friday night and i'm supposed to want to party or something, but i am pooped. so are a lot of the other kids on the project. it was a big week, and i know we're all relieved to get a little time off this weekend (at least for most of us).

10:33 pm || back at the homestead. good convos with lizzy and alesha, then hannah a little later.

11:40 pm || i take on the blog monster.

12:56 pm || i start to feel bad that i've been tip-tappiting away on my mac while my poor exhausted roommate is trying to sleep.

... so there it is, sports fans. THIS is why i haven't posted earlier. here you've got a decent idea of what my schedj is usually like... and how i'm doing personally? well, cliffnotes version... 1] i'm having the best time ever, 2] god is starting to challenge me, not only with project stuff, but with some old lies i've been hanging on to... which isn't easy... but is certainly good. i can feel i'm growing. which is always a little uncomfortable... but it is what i want. and a big part of why i'm here.

1:05 am || i call it quits. good night!