Blessing vs curse

So I went on tour with Lena, one of my best friends from school, and was the drummer for her Wizard Rock Band (music about Harry Potter) The Butterbeer Experience (youtube us. there are videos from our gig at the venom club in Boston!!). I've decided to call it the Cursed tour '09 (though for lena and graceface it's the "Parking ticket tour") It was tons of fun and a great experience, if for no other reason than now I know what that kind of a tour is like. Parts of it, like Perkins after the Bethlehem show and hanging out in NYC with my alumni friends and hanging out in Boston with friends from Ithaca and Larry were SOOOOOOOOOOO fun and wonderful and awesome and I was so grateful that this tour provided me with those opportunities. And the parts when we were playing were excellent also. Other parts, however, were not so sunshine and daisies.

Have you driven in NYC? It's actually not as bad as I was expecting. Yes, people drive absolutely STUIPD but the good news is that they do it really slowly. It's like when you're learning a really difficult lick but it's totally manageable when you take it really slow. It's TOTALLY possible to manage the stupid driving because everyone's traveling under 10mph. so THAT part of driving was a relief. the part that was not so great was not knowing how to get where I was going. thankfully, Susan had enough internet to find me on a map and talk me through how to get where I was going. Lena and I got separated before the holland tunnel and it turned out she didn't get there with her directions anyway. epic freaked out quote of that drive "I'M ON A BRIDGE" (for those of you on the Creation '08 trip, it was in a tone quite akin to "I DROVE INTO A FIELD") So the stress of getting there behind me Lena helps me find a parking space and now my only worry is for the safety of my drumset in the back of my car. Lena and Grace (another wrocker) both got parking tickets, though I was spared. 

there were other parts of the tour that I was grumpy about, such as rain while I was bringing my drumset in in Boston. and being in the wrong place in Boston. and random other small things, but the thing that struck me most was when we arrived in NYC and we got the go ahead from Lena to set up and everything then someone walked in and the sound guy came in and started flipping out that the drumset was on the stage because supposedly they had told everyone not to put anything on stage till the sound guy got there. they were very rude and much more upset than they needed to be. later on they calmed down and were perfectly pleasant to us and even really enjoying our playing, but to me I felt that if they had been leading God centered lives they probably wouldn't have gotten so worked up about something so easily ameliorated. The only kind of (rock/pop) band I ever imagined myself touring with was a Christian band. I can't help but think that should I ever be in a band that does a lot of touring it would have to be a christian band because then I'll be mostly encountering and working with other christians. I know that's not guarantee, but I think it would be better anyway. I'm hoping for a Blessed tour someday.

My visit to Boston University last week looking into grad school only reinforced this hypothesis. We had an appointment at the School of Music and the School of Theology. while they were perfectly friendly and inviting at the School of Music I couldn't help but feel more comfortable with the admissions counsellor at the school of Theology. I didn't realize it right away but as our conversation went on I realized it was because we weren't just talking about a school but a place in which people grow spiritually. And it was evident that we were both people who seek spiritual growth. the atmosphere surrounding that conversation and tour was drastically different than that in the music school, even though a music school is where I feel most comfortable with having lived in one for the past 3 years :-)

I really like the idea of surrounding myself with christians, which segues nicely into my next post actually...