But The Truth Will Always Find A Way, To Shine Through And Force Only Dismay

Done. Over. Finished. Concluded. Completed. No more. No return. Yahtzee! You see that picture to the left? No more will I take that road at 7:45am to school. No more will I weave all around those roads on my way to school. Obviously I'll take the road again some day because Corpus is Corpus, but I won't be a student of Del Mar. I finished up with finals at Del Mar this past Wednesday and I'm pretty excited to say the least. How did finals go? So so I guess. I wasn't too worried about any of them because I have to take entrance exams for theory, aural skills and piano when I get up to San Francisco. Theory final went ok. I studied with Shawn and Christy at a Starbucks and got a good amount done. The test was ok. I did struggle a little bit with the Sonata form though. Sonata form is ridiculous. If your interpretation of where the transition is ends up being wrong, then the pretty much the rest of your answers will be wrong. Second theme group, re-transition blah blah blah. I missed a lot of class this semester due to out of town auditions and competitions. I think I missed up 7 or 8 days of theory total. People who take theory will know that that is a crime. Aural skills went ok. I have made an A on every dictation and skills exam this semester which naturally made me a little bit cocky seeing as to how this was the "hardest" of all aural skills classes. Well, the final dictation and skills exam were not all that easy. I didn't get a measure of rhythm for the first time in 2 semesters and I know I missed a chord on the harmonic dictation. Oh well. Piano final went ok but I could have and should have practiced more.

I look back on this past year of Del Mar. What a time it was man. From the months of August-December, I went nuts with practicing. I was practicing 5 or 6 hours a day and then with at the time unfortunate (it later became to be the best thing that ever happened to me) events in October-December, I pushed up the practicing to 7 sometimes 8 hours a day. In those months, I also won the Del Mar Honors Commencement for the 2nd year in a row by playing BWV 996-Prelude and Presto, Gigue. I also got the once in a life time opportunity to have a master class with one of the best guitarist to ever live, Pepe Romero. The second semester was really something. Guitar department turned into the Choir department. The day before my first audition, I went up to Mr. Hii and told him everything and the guitar department wasn't the same after that. My trips to College Station, Austin, Denton, Providence and New York City were some of the best times of my life. Getting into 3 of 4 schools. Then there was the trio. With a month and a few days before competition day, a member of the quartet left us so we were left with no choice but to do a trio. We learned 3 new pieces and practiced 4 hours a day 6 days a week and fucking killed the competition. My instructor told me he was done with me, talked shit about me to other students, put my goals and ambitions down. 7 students including myself went to the chairman of the department to complain. The ensemble was a mess. There were snitches every where. People were called out during lab or yelled at in the halls. It really was a soap opera for a while. I'll never forget in April 2008, I told my good friend Jimmy Buck, "This time next year, Mr. Hii will not want anything to do with me." I was right. I also put on a guitar recital with Josh.

Will I miss Del Mar? Well you know, I never liked going to Del Mar. I hated the school. The campus was boring. Always construction. But I did enjoy the music program. I felt the teachers there were top notch. The people? Will I miss the people? Well it's always nice to be looked at as the guitar player. There were many times this past semester to where I'd meet people and they would say something like "Oh, your Raziel? I was referred to as the celebrity of Del Mar Music by a girl haha. So I guess it's nice to be looked at with that kind of respect. So maybe I'll miss that. But I will for sure miss my guitar friends. I've developed some solid friendships with most of them. My piano 4 class which consisted of 6 or 7 guitar players would sit at our specific spot every day for 2 hours talking about stuff and scoping the ladies. It's just kind of a weird feeling, because after the triple B(Beers, Bitches and Booze) party on May 16th, I may never see some of those guys again.

After my last final, I walked outside to my car. I stood up by my car and stared at the school for a couple seconds. Looked around the parking lot that I would circle non stop for a parking spot even if I was late because I was too stubborn to park anywhere else. All the memories really of just the parking lot. People I've talked to, people I've hung out with etc. I got in my car, had Potemkin City Limits ready to play and sped off in excitement. I'm done with Del Mar College.

I mentioned in a post last month how there are albums I just refuse to listen to due to the memories they carry. A few songs came up on my ipod shuffle and well damn, I forgot a few.

1. Lagwagon-I Think My Older Brother Used To Listen To Lagwagon
2. Good Riddance-My Republic
3. Near Miss-Testing The Ends Of What They'll Put Up With

Lagwagon-Fallen

My favorite song off their latest EP. I really do miss Lagwagon even though they released the EP above this past August. It was solid. I think 3 or 4 of the songs could have passed as Bad Astronaut songs. I miss Bad Astronaut even more since I know they are never coming back. While I'm always obsessed with Joey Cape, it got to be pretty heavy around January through March of this past year which isn't very healthy. He was heavily influenced by Elliot Smith and we all know how that ended. When I would lazily(is that a word) not practice my piano assignments, I would play tons of Bad Astronaut/Lagwagon/Joey Cape/No Use For A Name/Tony Sly songs. Not the full out song. Just the chords on the left hand and the vocal melody with the right.

I'm getting kind of tired of playing Starbucks open mic. There has been new people to see me there each time, but it's getting kind of old. I need to find another place to play.

Much The Same reunion please?