Schruted

It's been a great week.

The Performance Groups I'm involved in on campus are as follows:
Symphony Band
Percussion Ensemble
Campus Drummline

This semester there were only six people up for the Drummline so we're forming a small marhing bass ensemble, or having a small drum circle for the concert in late March. However, yours truly, offered to write a 3-man marching tenor ensemble, and Bro. Taylor went for it! I'm really excited!

Whenever I get nostalgic about past marching years I always cue this up on Youtube:



I'll never forget when I got to see these guys live in Cheney! So, so good. Having missed my window to perform in a drum corp, I'm really looking forward to helping a local high school's drumline out! Maybe this fall, maybe Madison High School. Maybe.

My deciding to write something for the Percussion Ensemble Concert was seriously the high point of my week. Yesterday I spent (no joke) four staight hours getting acquainted with BYUI's marching tenors and writing a little. Why is writing something original so hard to do? It's gonna be amazing though, visually and musically. Actually, I feel more confident in the saying it will be visually amazing, musically.... we'll see. I'm trying to incorporate a lot of different rhythm styles, rudiments and dynamics, but I've never done anything like this before! Not a lot of water to draw out of the well, if you know what I mean. I need a catchy name for it, I may call it "Schruted". (Office reference)


My kid sister just put in her application to BYUI! I have no doubt she'll get in, she's such a bright girl. And she's going to LOVE it here, she better bring a stick to beat all the guys off with! I've been missing my family a lot lately, the last time I saw them was in November for the Open House we had in Spokane. It was a quick two days that didn't last.

Come to think if it, I don't have any pictures of them on here.



My dad. CTU as in "Counter Terrorist Unit" from 24.



My mom, apparently doing a rap for the youth of our ward. Honestly, what mom has the vision and courage to do this?



My big brother Jared, and his wife Kimbo. The game? Cheeto head.



My little sister, Kate. See what I mean about the boy-beating-stick?



Scotty. High on life.



Jared's little boy, my nephew, Monty. I call him the Count of Monty Cristo.



I am positive that everyone says this about their families, but I truly believe we share a bond uncommon to most. When we get together, we always have fun. I miss Sunday nights at home playing board games and holding Monty. I miss sitting out in the hot tub having conversations with my dad. I miss watching movies with Jare. I miss sitting together at church, trying to focus on the speaker and not fall victim to the dizzyingly-cute Montgomery. Without a doubt, my most cherished memories with my family are yearly summer trips to camp at Grand Coulee Dam. THAT is an entire blog's worth of memories. Another blog, another day. I would love, to settle down in Spokane and stay close to them, but with me going after Seminary and teaching music it's a gamble. Spokane is a great place to raise a family. The Church is strong there, the members are great, we experience all four seasons, there's two beautiful lakes within twenty minutes, plenty of places to camp, release-time seminary, a Temple right in the valley, and downtown Spokane is only a half hour away. If I do get into Seminary, the Church could send me to teach anywhere in the Western states. But if I go into Music, if I had my choice I'd finish my Master's at Eastern and teach in the Valley. "If wishes were fishes", right?

Annoying

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's people who don't give musicians the credit they deserve. ESPECIALLY when it's coming from someone who is not a musician. Every Tuesday and Thursday, this is my schedule:

8:00 am - Wake up.
9:00 to 10:00 am - Musicianship class.
10:15 to 11:15 am - Music Explorations class.
11:30 to 1:45 pm - Symphony Band practice.
2:00 to 5:00 pm - Percussion ensemble practice.
5:00 to 6:00 pm - Campus Drumline practice.
6:00 to 7:00 pm - Social Dance class.

By the time I walk out of Social Dance, I've been on that freakin' campus for 10 1/2 hours. When do I eat? Well, between the time my Explorations class ends and Symphony Band begins, I'm hauling heavy percussion equipment from the percussion room to the rehearsal room. And then I'm taking down that equipment at 1:45 pm, but I also need to set up equipment for Percussion Ensemble practice in fifteen minutes. So guess what I do? Somewhere in the middle of Symphony Band practice, I excuse myself for a moment to go to the bathroom, I walk out into the hallway, pull a ham sandwich from behind my back and wolf it down in about 45 seconds!

Any Music Major can comprehend the mental and physical toll learning and rehearsing music is. Your brain is dissecting a piece of music's tones, rhythms, harmonies, tempo, phrasing, dynamics, and tambour. And somehow this data has to travel from your brain to your hands instantly. Music Majors can appreciate this, no else can. So the next time you want to criticize an exhausted musician for complaining, don't. You just don't get it.

Funeral Arrangements

Here's a random note I found on my facebook dated November 9th, 2007:

What started as a Health 101 assignment at Spokane Falls Community College, soon became a work of art.

LIVING WILL

My name is Randy Harward and this is a Living Will concerning affairs that should be dealt with in the case of my sudden and tragic death. I would like to make a specific gift of cash to my brother, Jared Harward of $500 to cover my funeral costs. If Jared is unavailable then I would have my youngest brother Scott Harward be in charge of the arrangements. All of the remainder of my estate will go to my children as the primary heirs either in equal shares or in trust. My primary executor of this will should be my brother Jared Harward, if he is not available then I would like my friend Brett Ehlert be in charge. If I should have any minor children at the time of my death, my wish is for them to be in custody of my sister Katelyn Harward. If Katelyn is not available then I would have my friend Brett Ehlert assume custody. Concerning the disposition of my remains, I would like to be buried in the wheat fields of northern Idaho. I have not made arrangements with any funeral home or cemetery. My wishes for my funeral are as follows: the event will begin by my brother Jared lighting fifty bottle rockets simultaneously in different directions. My mother/sister will then read a short eulogy concerning my contributions to society and my domination at Halo 2. A musical item will then be given by a Creedance Clearwater Revival Tribute band. I would prefer them to play “Run through the Jungle” but “Bad Moon Rising” will also suffice. At the concluding note of the song, I would like a fifty-gun salute followed by a six-plane fly-by courtesy of the U.S. Air Force. My coffin will then be elevated by a crane, set on fire, then dumped into a fourteen-foot hole. The fourteen feet are essential in case my corpse becomes a possessed zombie. The funeral will close by everyone taking turns shoveling rose petals into the hole, with a layer of fresh top-soil for the surface. The after-party will be held at Shari’s on Sullivan.

Go Down Moses

Uncontrollable laughter tears.

Plasma - the end of an era

OCTOBER 2008: Randy Harward finds an easy way to score cash. Donating, plasma.

Actually, donating is kind of generous term. You see, in order for it to be a donation you give of yourself freely, like donating blood, or donating your body to science after you die. With plasma, you go twice a week and you're fifty bucks richer.
It's hard to believe I actually did this for a year and a half. But I did. And with the idea that I actually did it twice a week religiously for that long, theoretically I made about $3600 off my bodily fluids.

Not a bad way to make half the value of my car.

But, you must understand this is not an enjoyable experience. After a primary mini-physical, you walk into the center, put your name on a roll, then sit about twenty minutes to a half-hour in a packed lobby. In Spokane, it was really bad because it was filled with homeless people and bums unwiling to get jobs. When your name is called you're led into a small room and are asked a lengthy list of pretty awkward questions: "Have you in the last six months, been incarcerated for more than 48 hours?" "Have you received a smallpox vaccine or been within a smallpox vaccine site of anyone else in the past three months?" After the interrogation, you walk into a large room, which is kept very cold (something about keeping the plasma at certain termperature), you sit down, are stuck with the biggest needle you've ever seen, and sit there for an hour to an hour and a half while blood is sucked out of you, rid of its plasma and then put back into you. The things about the blood returning process is after running through the machine and the seperation, it comes back in extremely cold, so you start to shiver if you don't have a heavy coat or blanket. (My friend Brett, after his first donation, walked out of the room shivering so bad he couldn't put the code into an ATM to get his cash!) Afterwards you walk up to a window, and they hand you 20$ cash (then 30 the second time in the week).

It's easy.

It's a quick way to earn some cash.

It's probably not the healthiest thing to do your system.
And I did for a year and a half.

As luck would have it, I go to donate (err... sell) my plasma this last week, and they tell me after a thorough test, that they've found too many antibodies in my plasma and it's now completely unusuable. And since Ellie and I live together, she would no longer be able to sell plasma either. Ever.
This came at a hard time for Elle and I. We'd been waiting for our financial aid to come through for about a month, and with our busy school schedule we haven't been putting in many hours at our jobs. With the end of the month would come a stack of bills that, realistically, we had no income to pay for. Selling plasma was bringing us $400 a month, enough to cover the rent of our apartment. How on earth were we going to make up for that in our hectic school schedule?
We came home, we got our knees, and said a prayer through tears. We'd felt like we had been doing everything the Lord asked of us, paying tithing, going to church, honoring our callings, working hard in school. Why was this happening now? When our financial situation was dire as it is? No answer came that night. We went to bed feeling lost and hopeless. Depressing thoughts like moving into Ellie's parents place crept into my mind, along with getting night jobs that would take away our time for homework and each other.

The very next day, Ellie opens her school email and finds a message from the Financial Aid Department. It finally came. We had heard horror stories of couples that had been late in getting their FAFSA in, and having to wait until the next semester to receive it. Had that been the case, we probably would have taken out a loan just to get by! God works in mysterious ways: He somehow got us to stop selling our bodily fluids for money, gave us a taste of what financial struggle is like, AND provided for our needs, ALL without affecting the agency of one single person on this earth. How does He do it?!

LESSONS LEARNED:

#1 God doesn't want you selling the plumbing in the temple you call a body. We worked so hard for them in the pre-existence! It's not worth it!

#2 Don't get into debt. Yeah we hear this one all the time. But any addiction is against the Word of Wisdom, to be high in debt is to be low in agency.

#3 Do what's right, God's got your back.