emi

Tonight while I was studying I turned on Trans-Siberian Orchestra. They’re an incredible group - they write rock Christmas songs. I love Christmas, but more importantly, I love the how the songs remind me of what happens at home during Christmastime.

When I hear the soft but clear piano mix with guitars and drums, I think of being home. 

I’m in the living room, the colored lights on the tree are blinking, the ornaments are sparkling, there is a low buzz from the motors of the ornament spinners. 

I’m eating a christmas cookie, one of 1,000+ that we make every year with my grandma and my aunts. 

It’s dark outside and there’s snow on the ground.

Music is playing, Dad’s in the basement blasting some tunes of his own, Will’s playing on his DS, Mom’s reading a book on the couch.

I remember baking the cookies listening to TSO, as we run up and down the stairs transferring freshly decorated cookies to the bedrooms for them to cool.

Grandma’s telling me to turn down the music a little, Will and I are jamming / dancing around and Will’s barely decorating anything.

My aunt is making amazingly creative designs on the cookies, something I’ve never even thought of before, and we eat all the ones that break. 

We’re wearing warm sweaters, the TV’s on in the background, we’re talking and laughing and I feel perfectly comfortable.

We hug each other before we leave with tins filled with cookies.

.

I miss being home. I miss my family. I miss having it feel like Christmas; it’s not completely about the religious aspect or the presents, it’s about people you love all being in the same place, happy, lit by colorful lights, and seeing everyone getting into the spirit. 

21 days left!

Our terrible week of tests/lab reports/etc. is over, and it’s been a wonderful, restful, past day and a half. 

We made cookies, went on the swing, played piano and guitar, walked around the reservoir, and even saw swans! I feel like I can breathe again. And then, tomorrow, I will see my family! I am so thankful to have been able to decompress and to have such awesome friends that take care of me and make me laugh. 

I am so excited for tomorrow - I will finally feel at home. Where my family is, I am home. 

<3

I think I’m a little overly happy about it. 

But there’s just something so peaceful and free-feeling about swinging. When I feel upset at home, I just go outside and swing in the backyard. It makes me more relaxed and gives me time to think. While you’re concentrating on physically moving your legs to make yourself swing higher, you get distracted from being unhappy and start to think about other things.  

I miss my swing at home. I miss my dog. I miss my family.

threemoredaysthreemoredaysthreemoredays

And then I will see my family! I can’t wait until 12:30pm tomorrow. I will finally be done with everything that needs to be done before break.

…and then I can go swing :)

Why do I have to be so shy sometimes? How hard is it to just speak up and say “Hi?” Especially when you have absolutely nothing to lose?

Hmph. 

My communication skills are a work in progress, apparently. 

Tonight Mairead and I went into Boston to see Matt Nathanson at the House of Blues. It was an AWESOME concert! I absolutely loved it and we had so much fun. Panera’s for dinner, wandering around the streets near Fenway, and Mairead even saw some of her friends from high school waiting behind us in line. 

The concert itself was great for a million reasons. I love the House of Blues already from when I saw Sara Bareilles there, but being on the floor is much better than being up in the seats. We were very close to the stage and I got some great pictures. We were there plenty early enough; even though there was an enormous line all the way up the street outside, we were able to get near the front. 

Vanessa Carlton opened right at 7. (Timing of everything was excellent tonight.) She is…hmm. An interesting person. She likes words like “apocolyptic,” uhhh other words I can’t think of. [MN called her music “transcendent” at the end haha.] She was extremely excited to be playing, although her stage presence didn’t show it very well. She’s kind of awkward and kind of weird. But she seems like a nice person and someone you’d be friends with…just not go to their concerts. Her new album is weird; I don’t particularly like it. She was proud of the fact that it was recorded on tape and can be sold on vinyl. She talked about working in “Lord of the Rings” with “hobbits” and whatnot to make the album…mmhmm. She had a violin player with her, Sky, and he was great. The violin made a perfect accompaniment to her, it added balance and sounded so good with the piano. VC finally played 1000 miles and everyone cheered…but then she FORGOT the lyrics! Sheesh! It was more than a little weird. Oh well. Everyone clapped for her but most people weren’t really into it, her music was too mellow for what everyone was expecting to be a rock concert. 

After 40 minutes of Vanessa and another 15 minutes of set up:

Matt Nathanson came onstage to a lot of screaming…and to the soundtrack you hear when a superhero is announced! haha. He is just such a great performer. He seems like he’s genuinely a good person and cares about all the songs he writes. When he sang “Kiss Quick,” he was so seriously concentrated on it, you could tell how much it meant to him. Everyone was especially quiet for that one. I love it, it’s a beautiful but sad song. When he played “Drop to Hold You,” almost at the end of his set (we actually thought it was the end), he sounded so perfectly happy, you could just see the joy pouring out of him as he sang it, smiling hard the whole time. “This is for all the people who have found someone [great]. And to all of you who haven’t found that person yet, sometimes it takes a really long time, but when you finally find them it’s wonderful.” Or something like that. He put it better than I quote him. He played “All We Are” at the end of his encore, and even though he kept getting distracted and going off on tangents about Kim Kardashian, his message was simple and genuine. We live in a world where everyone wants to just be famous, not do any work, and not actually DO anything great. But he wants us to do someone great, to work at some kind of craft. 

He talked a little bit about every single song, I think. He is so funny in his dialouge between songs, Mairead and I were laughing almost the whole time. I have never had so much fun at a concert before. I left being so perfectly happy, even though we literally ran two blocks to catch the bus back, it was worth every minute. Biology studying will happen more tomorrow. Tonight was more important for music that thumps through your whole body, songs that make you really feel something, and a great concert buddy to experience it all with.

^_^