Ode to a Love Struck Bench

Bittersweet

Watch as my tears fall to the beat
While I wait it out just to make ends meet
Can't say that I'm with you
When I'm not with you
Isn't love so bittersweet?

Watch as my tears fall to the beat
While I try my hardest to be discreet.
Don't you know that it's hard
When we're so far apart
Divided by asphalt and cold concrete.

Watch as my tears fall with the words
To the most beautiful song that you've ever heard
They drip on the table
Ever so graceful
To the harmonies of the fifths and thirds.

Watch as my tears fall from my face
And land where they seem the most out of place
They quietly roll,
Undisturbed, uncontrolled
And finally vanish to interstellar space.

Watch as my tears sit on my cheeks
And reflect how I look and you act so bleak
Don't you know that it hurts
When it all reverts
And the two of us rarely speak.

Watch as my tears fall offbeat
The song ends suddenly and feels incomplete
It resembles us two
With our bond all askew
Isn't love so bittersweet?

A (radically) makeshift (and uncomfortable) home dance studio (in my garage).

It's a dance studio... I think... Right?
This is where I'll be dancing for the next few months. At least until we can make a better one with a floor that isn't painful and a mirror. Oh well. It works.

The (Very) Grand Plan

If I'm getting into Juilliard, I'm going to need a structured plan. That's why I've come up with a very grand one.

1.  Stay with the band. Our name is Seeking The Atlantic. My boyfriend/bass player in Seeking the Atlantic has a brother who has a friend who seriously knows how to use a soundboard. He's going to record some thing like five songs with us. Right now, only one has been accomplished, and that's Little Tree. We have a kind of indie rock vibe that fits us all pretty well. Follow the band on tumblr and I'll love you forever. seekingtheatlantic.tumblr.com
2. Start piano lessons... again. This should be the fifth time I'm switching piano teachers. I started pretty young, but I got too good for camp lessons. My first real piano teacher moved to Idaho to take care of her grandfather. She sent me to a lady that didn't teach me what I wanted to learn. I quit that and started taking from a dude piano teacher, but he ate too many cookies and was generally very creepy so I quit for a guitar teacher. I eventually quit that too. But I've gotten very good at teaching myself.
3. Voice lessons. People say I don't need them, but I want them ever so badly. This is very important for Juilliard. I'm going to learn to sing opera, and being a fast learner, hopefully four years will be enough experience for the school. I'll be singing opera at Juilliard too. I don't really mind the idea of singing opera, I just like singing. Which vocal coach to choose, though, is something to take into consideration. Some coaches train their kids for the theater, teaching them to push their sound a little too far and be annoyingly loud. That, unfortunately, blows the vocal chords and some kids lose their singing voice at sixteen or seventeen. That's not even old enough to legally watch an R-rated movie. So I have to be careful about that.
4. Build a (healthy) dancer's body. Yeah, I did quit a little more than a month ago. I also quit piano and guitar lessons, and look where I am now! If I can teach myself five different instruments, I can teach myself lyrical and modern dance. That's mostly all they do at Juilliard anyway. I stayed with dance lessons far longer than any instrument lesson. Building a happy medium balance of flexibility, strength, and emotion shouldn't be too difficult. 
5. Kick some big booty in high school. Not just booty- BIG booty. And by this I mean, straight A's in every single class. Well...except calculus... I'll accept a B for that... But everybody knows that to get into any college, good grades are mandatory. So even if Juilliard rejects me, I'll still have kick-butt grades and can get into my second choice school, which I haven't really chosen yet. With Juilliard being such a good school, I'll have to have awesome grades just as well as talent.
6. Participate in musicals and/or plays at Cary High School. Drama is a huge department at Juilliard, so having experience in said department is necessary. I'm pretty sure they have two every year at Cary, a spring and fall play/musical. If I make a part in every play (hopefully a lead role once or twice), then that should add up to about eight school plays. Decent, right? Then I'll have some solid experience and I'm not walking into Juilliard blind.
7. Create a blog to publish my poems, songs, compositions, symphonies, etc. Maybe not symphonies. I'm not that awesome (yet). But after I download some good recording software and some transcribing software, it won't be hard at all. If music composition is a major at Juilliard, that's what I'll be majoring in. So if someone, ANYONE happens to see some of my work, maybe I'll have a better chance of getting into the school.
8. YouTube. If I have enough good videos, there should be a decent amount of views and subscribers. There's some popularity already. I'm fairly certain Lauren O'Connell and Tiffany Alvord got their popularity from YouTube. And with said good recording software (mentioned above) and talent, maybe even people that don't know me will like me!
9. Apply for Juilliard. You have to apply like, two and a half years before you even start. That's why I'm planning this even before freshman year.
10. Get accepted into The Juilliard School! Being a singer, dancer, actress, pianist, and a songwriter with excellent grades, why wouldn't they take me? I'm not sure where I'll find the money for school, I know my parents will help but I'm not sure how much. I can always get some money from the bank, though.
11. Go to law school. It's only two years. I need to know how to read a contract before I sign a record deal. I'd rather not have them steal all my money. I'm not sure what school I want to go to for this, but I still have time to figure it out. 
12. Record indie rock with the/a band in my free time, like when I'm not in class, studying, sleeping, or eating. Hopefully I'll have some decent time. Radio play would be great, even though no one would actually listen to me if I were to get radio play. But I would love to be a known indie music artist. 
13. Publicity. Publish poems, songs, books, choral music, chamber music, piano compositions,show choir music, etc. And not just on my blog. Contests and shows, money and recognition. I promised myself when I was seven that I would sing at every talent show I come across in my life time. And I plan to keep that promise.
14. There really isn't a number fourteen. I just don't like ending on a number thirteen. It's bad luck. Superstitious? Yes. But just so this one counts and I'm not technically ending on thirteen, the last step of the (very) grand plan is: 

Happiness.  Some people go to great schools and get a great job and succeed and have their every wish come true and they're still unhappy. I hope I'm not one of those people.

The (Very) Grand Plan turned out to be more grand than I thought. That's why I had to add the very in parenthesis. But hopefully you get the idea. It's not in chronological order, though. I'll be taking every step into consideration with each decision I make. I've totally got the next twelve or so years planned out. Maybe a bit strange for a fourteen year old. And if my very grand plan does turn out to fail me, I suppose I'll go into journalism, maybe at East Carolina University. Or live with my parents.

Actually, no.
That's a horrible idea.