4th String

   I did my fourth sting test today and got 100 :) yay. I want to start learning some popular songs now. I've done a few and I played the Lion King song (In The Jungle) Mr. B showed us. I learned some more of it after class because it was pretty easy to figure out. I have actually been trying to grow my nails...unfortunately that doesn't work with the guitar because your nail gets stuck on the string! Ugh oh well. Maybe I'll start using a pick.

   Everyday Mr. Bautista has been showing us new chords. I always try to play them in different ways to come up with songs I know. I want to learn how to solo randomly in different parts of songs. I'm going to try to play a lot on my own so I can learn how to do that. It's really cool to play randomly and to make it sound good. It has a lot to do with knowing what notes play the sound you want, and I'm relatively good at that when I go slow. Hopefully if I practice I'll become good enough to do it quicker.

Progress!

   Skipping a day of guitar class actually slows you down more than you'd think. I caught up with the rest of the class but it took more focus than usual. Mr. Bautista is teaching us the 4th string songs. I only learned one of them out of the three. I like feeling the challenge though. The songs that we have to play are a lot harder than the ones before because we even have to learn how to read chords. The chords on a staff are hard to read because you have to process all three notes in your mind before you can play it. It's interesting though, and I feel like I'm learning something.
   Today I have to do my Historical Newsletter. I looked up the history of guitar and I found this article on http://www.guyguitars.com/eng/handbook/BriefHistory.html. It says that guitar can be traced back to about 4000 years ago. Of course the standard model has changed multiple times throughout history, but the basic mechanism has been used for a very long time.

Free Dayyyy

   Ok senior skip days aren't really fun if you have NOTHING to do! I actually considered going to school a lot last night but that's when I realized something was wrong with me, so I needed to do this. Welllll I've just been watching T.V, because old shows are on at times like this (like the RUGRATS), and playing guitar. No one's here so I recorded myself on Photo Booth to see how I sound to other people.....TERRIBLE. Ok just kidding but still. I sang a bunch of songs while playing the guitar. It's fun and I'm going to continue to do that for a while until I have to leave for dual enrollment.
   I'm playing songs off of the Ultimate Guitar website and I've able to play most of the chords...maybe I should try to read tab now. Yea I will...
   Hmmm tabs aren't as hard as they seem :D I'll probably work on them a lot more now haha. As long as I know the song, it's pretty easy to play but it takes some time depending on how hard the song is. I;m going to start off with some easy ones for sure. I hope it becomes easy for me haha but that won't happen for now.

Long Day

   Today I didn't do much with guitar other than the regular playing for fun. Since we didn't have school today, it was kind of like my break day from guitar. I went to Gulfstream Park to go support my family friends. I watched my friend Rajiv ride in about 5 races, it was fun to watch. Even though he didn't win any races it's always fun to see him ride :). We stayed at Gulfstream for about 2 hours and then I played some volleyball at the Y. I'm so tired from being active all day haha.
   Yesterday I actually applied for a scholarship. It was to write about an activity/talent that we have and how it's significantly in our lives. I wrote about music and how I'm doing it about everyday for the WISE program :). I thought it was something cool that I could write about and before I knew it, I went overboard on the words and I had to take out a lot of what I wrote :P.
   Alsoooo, tomorrow is another Senior Skip Day that I won't be skipping (as usual). Ugh if only we were actually allowed to skip.....then MAYYYBE my mom would let me. Hmmmm, let me ask her right now just in case!!!............................

SHE SAID YEEEEEEESSSSSS! ...maybe it's cuz my dad's not here but still! She said no first but I persuaded her. Hmmm should I go though. :S ok I think I'm going to take this opportunity because I have a feeling it won't happen again any time soon. WOO I still have to go to dual enrollment class at 11:00am but at least I get to wake up late :)))) ok a good end to my day :D.

Busy Day

   It stinks that I have a busy day today because I wanted to play some guitar! But no...I have to babysit. I mean, I played guitar earlier but I like playing on my own everyday too just for fun. Usually I get to leave school early but today was a full day. I hope i have more free time tomorrow which I know I will :). I kind of want to get a new guitar for myself but I don't want to waste my money since I already have one :P. Plus I'm going to college and I don't think I'd bring it with me. Maybe I could buy one when I go to live there :) who knows. 
   We're still playing the same songs in class and i can play them without reading the notes, but unfortunately i get nervous when I have to be tested. I'm going to take my test tomorrow I think. Hopefully I get 100% :P. I want to learn new songs so badly right now but i have to go to Publix and do so much stuff and it's really bugging me -_-. Oh well...I hope I get some good sleep tonight though because I don't want to be too grumpy to play guitar tomorrow. I also happen to be sick today which is great. Blehh tomorrow's going to be a bad day haha. I just want it to be Friday already.
   

Getting Better :)

   My chords have gotten so much better. I never thought that I'd learn how to do bar chords as quickly as I did because I always thought my fingers were to small. Luckily the chords sound fine. It's really good that I'm learning them because I can play sooooo many more songs now. It's kind of late so I can't try them too much tonight :(. Tomorrow I have to babysit two girls and their baby brother until 11:00 p.m. so I don't want to be tired for that.

   Ugh I really feel like playing now but i can't, oh well. I'll play tomorrow anyways. Today made me like guitar more again because it's letting me play so many more songs :D like the 90's rock songs that Mr. Bautista is showing us. I think I'm going to go on ultimate-guitar.com on Thursday to try out new songs. I don't think I'll have enough time tomorrow but I'll probably be too tired for it anyway. Plus i have my WISE mentor meeting tomorrow so I'm going to have a long day. I wonder what Mrs. Hurst is going to say about my hair! We'll see :P.

New Hair

   Ok so I got my new haircut from Locks of Love today. It looks good but I still like my hair better longer :P. I like it anyway though, except the hairdresser messed up! Kinda...it looks fine anyways but I didn't want it soooo, I don't know what to call it. Either way it's fine. I should put a picture up of it. Hmm fine! I'll go load one...............

   Well I haven't played guitar since last Friday so when I started to play today my fingers felt sore. They do that sometimes from playing too much but i guess that this time they just weren't prepared for the strings. The strings are actually a lot harder to play than people think. That's what turned me off about guitar when I was little, but then I got over it :). We aren't really doing anything new in class, just a new list of songs. 


   Oh! I also forgot to say that I got into UF on Friday :D ugh...I don't want to leave so soon but I'm going for Summer B. My mom is super excited, it's pretty funny. I'm really nervous and excited but more nervous :P. I'm just hoping that i like the school when I go to visit the campus and I'm going really soon. I'll be sure to write about that!

The other day I was just bored trying to figure out different chords on the guitar and I learned the chords for the song, "Kiss Me" by Sixpence. I like that song a lot and apparently it is very easy to play :P. I like learning songs on my own because it feels good to know I can do it. 
I tried to make a song today but it I lost interest too quickly. I couldn't think of anything but my mentor showed me this singer, Francesca Battistelli, who sings about her everyday life. It's almost like a journal kind of thing. I want to try doing that some time.
Maybe this weekend I'll feel some inspiration :P.

I'm pretty nervous for this Monday because I signed up to have my hair chopped off for Locks of Love! Ugh I don't know what I was thinking...I have never cut my hair short so I'm pretty crazy right now. But whatever, life is about trying new things anyways. It'll grow back eventually :P at least I'm doing it for a good cause...otherwise this would not be happening. This doesn't really have to do with guitar but it's been on my mind. Maybe the short hair will give me an edgy look haha. Maybe my inspiration to write a song could kick in! Well, that's wishful thinking.

Wooooo!

   Ok well I JUST got finished jamming with my dad rock onnnn woo....ok not really rock on (I'm not much of a rocker) haha. Anyway I actually played guitar with him today and it was really fun. It must have been a good ten minutes :P not much but that's about ten times the usual. I could totally feel myself getting better in the moment haha. I even learnt part of a reggae song called "Stir It Up"Stir It Up". It all started because I wanted him to here me play the guitar with this weird noise that Mr. B taught us how to play today. He didn't want to hear it but too bad! I made him and then he just started playing with my acoustic guitar because I was using his electric. It was pretty fun because we play at the same level in most ways. Maybe we can form our own band....haha nahhh. But it's stll fun to play with other people.
   Up until now, nothing much happened today other than learning the weird noise maker thing :P and learning how to play power chords. Power chords are when you bar your whole index finger on the fret and you play different chords. I'm not fully sure on the topic yet but I'm slowly learning it. Today I also got kind of nervous about my project because I saw another girl's journal and she's really good. She's doing almost the exact same thing as me but.....she's actually good! Ugh now I'm even more nervous to do my presentation. But whatever, maybe I'll get as good as she :P. But it was a bit scary haha and she wrote a song in a day! I mean come onnnn ugh I can't do that. I guess I'll just have to work on it :).

Facing My Fears....Maybe

   Right now no one's home except my little sister Gabriella, so I was just playing the guitar really loud and singing with her. I don't like being so expressive when others are around :P it's too embarrassing. I'm kind of dreading the day I have to play for my WISE project. I know the day has to come sometime ugh maybe I can avoid it somehow! Maybe I could record myself and play it throughout my presentation. Mehh who knows :P I think it would probably be best if I actually played in front of other people haha but I'm too nervous. Hopefully I get good enough to play with enough confidence. Blablablablaaa I don't want to think about it anymore :P. Moving on...

   I realized that I've been playing guitar practically everyday now and I have noticed that I've gotten better. Some songs that were almost impossible for me to play are becoming playable :P. I could almost say easy, but not yetttt because I haven't done them perfectly. I could perfect it really soon if I wanted, I probably will too because I've been playing the songs over and over again in free time in Mr. Bautista's class :P. It's good to have a lot of time to practice guitar but I hope I don't give up. Hopefully my friends will help me out because they're amaaaazing guitarists. I need their help for sure if I'm going to get really good :).

Boooo

   Today I was supposed to meet with my mentor but I guess she thought I forgot because I came late, or she just forgot hehe :P because she wasn't in her class. Boohoo. Either way I'm lucky I have two more days I can meet with her this week so it's no problem :). 

   Another bad thing about today was that I realized how much my journals were going to be monitored and it kind of makes me blehh. I want to be able to write how I'm feeling without having to watch my way of expression. That kind of defeats the purpose of this journal being a personal thing. If other people read my journal and are judging me for my grammar then....oh well. As long as I know that other people can understand what I'm trying to say (without me looking too incompetent) then it's fine with me. It's not like I write in a bad way anyway but just because it's being checked I feel restricted on what to say. But I'll just write how I feel unless it becomes a problem for whatever reason. 

   Well on the bright side, instead of seeing Mrs. Hurst today, I went to the Guitar 4 class. The students there played amazingly so I decided to use one of them for my interview that I had to do for class. I interviewed Daniel Taveras and he even taught me a new song :). At least I learned to play something new today. Yeaaahh I play Guitar 4 level! Woohoo!....Well one song but still! That's something :P.

Reading Music

   Today Mr. Bautista taught us how to read three more notes. Now I know how to read the C, D, B, G, E, and F notes. I have been trying to actually read the music rather than memorizing the sound and I think I have been doing it right. I've been thinking ahead on how the chords would look on a staff. I think it would look so complex.......Ok I just looked and it seems just like I thought it would be...hard. I guess if I want to get really good at playing, I should start to try reading those now.

   I played the song I was trying to play yesterday and I actually got it, for a second anyway. But that's something :P. I guess after practicing it and sleeping, I got better :). Mr. Bautista taught us how to play an F chord today too. I could never play it but today I tried it and I did it :D. I was surprised but I guess I never really know what I can do if I don't try.

   A couple of days ago, my mom asked what I was doing for my WISE project. I'm pretty sure she thinks guitar is a waste of time, but maybe she doesn't know  how good I want to be. She's already heard me play basic things so I don't know if she thinks that's all I'm going to be doing. Blehh oh well...I'm just going to keep trying unless I get bored of it.