My First Orchestra Concert at FSU

September 21st, 2012

One of my favorite parts of Florida State University is the University Symphony Orchestra.  Directed by Dr. Alexander Jimenez, the orchestra consists of Doctoral, Master's, and upperclassmen Undergrad students.  One of the things I love the most about this orchestra is that it is quite professionally run and the orchestra members are rotated around for every concert so that there's not the feeling that any musician is better than the other.

For our first concert we played Beethoven's 3rd Symphony "Eroica" along with a new piece  composed by a local violinist and a Debussy Rhapsody performed by a Doctoral Clarinet student.  Here's the poster from the concert:

What made the concert even better was the support of people from my ward.  Here are some pictures they took from the evening:

 

As you can see, we had a great time!  And I think they really enjoyed the concert.  And it made me feel so loved knowing that even though I have no family close by, there are still people here to love and support me!

Jumping Into Institute Activities

August 31st, 2012

One of the wonderful things about Florida State is the LDS Institute Center.  On the edge of campus lies the Tallahassee Stake Center with a little Institute building behind it.  I can tell you that going to that building has been a spiritual lifeline for me this semester.  Without it, I don't know where I would be.

On Mondays, when I don't have orchestra rehearsal, I go to Family Home Evening there.

On Tuesdays and sometimes Wednesdays, I go to Institute there.

On Friday at 12:30 we have what is called Forum.  This is like the BYU equivalent of Devotional.  We have a speaker come and speak at the Institute center and following it we have an amazing lunch provided by the senior missionary couple, Brother and Sister Johnson.  The Johnsons are wonderful people and remind me of what my parents are like constantly helping others.  I could definitely see my Mom and Dad being a senior missionary couple someday cooking big meals on a weekly basis for an Institute Center somewhere in the world :)

Here is a picture of me doing promo pictures at Friday Forum for an upcoming Institute Tennis activity.

Later that Friday night we had an Ice Cream Social where we played some interesting games such as

Do You Love Your Neighbor?

 A game where you sit in a circle with a person in the middle.  That person goes up to a person of their choice and asks them if they love their neighbor.  If they say yes then the two people on each side of them have to trade places while the person in the middle tries to take one of their spots.  If the person says no, they say that they love everyone if the circle that have a certain characteristic such as having a blue shirt or being from out of the state of Florida and so forth.  It's a simple game that is really fun.

To end the activity, we played something I have never done before:

A Flour Snowball Fight!

 What we did was fill pantyhose with flour and hit each other with it.  It was actually very fun!  And man were we covered!

This is one of my roommates: Edgar Gomez

After the activity, we went to a swimming pool and jumped in fully clothed.  I went swimming for over an hour in jeans.  I loved it somehow!  

This was a great start to my Institute experience!  And started me on the road to falling in love with Tallahassee!