This is me… at leadership camp… (Don’t judge!!! I was having fun posing!!!). So anyway, while at leadership camp, I was sitting in the cafeteria area place with some other clarinets. There were those bottles of honey on the table. You know, like the ones that are shaped like bears? Well, we all thought that was pretty funny. (cause we’re the Baylor bears and these were the honey bears?!)

Okay. So somebody said (I really don’t remember who) that a spoonful of honey will give you energy. Anybody who knows me really well knows that I don’t really need “help” with the amount of energy I contain. (Just ask my pledge class… but that’s another story). But I thought it would be entertaining to eat a spoonful of honey. So I did; let’s just say that honey is REALLY sweet. Especially when you get a spoonful of it all at once. It was funny, but it was just a one time thing (so I thought), so I ate my honey, got a real sugar rush of energy, smiled, and moved on with the rest of my day.

Part 2 of my story continues during band week. During band week, the individual sections of the band tend to eat lunch together somewhere off campus. Well, this one day, the clarinets decided to go to Rosa’s Café, which is a little Mexican restaurant that is known for their amazing homemade tortillas. And they, too, have the yummy bear shaped honey (to put on your tortillas and eat them alone… So so good). So I was sitting a table of freshmen and a few upperclassmen. And somehow it came up in conversation that I ate a spoonful of honey at leadership camp to “give me energy” (since I really need more!!!). Then one of the freshman said, “I’ll take a spoonful of honey with you, Lynn.” It’s not like I was saying we do it, it just happened. After about 2 minutes, the entire table decided that we would all take a spoonful of honey together. And on the count of 3, we all did. It was hysterical! Again, a spoonful of honey is SO sweet (and you won’t actually realize this unless you do it yourself). So these freshmen said to me, “This is so much fun! I like traditions!” And even though it wasn’t a tradition, it kind of turned into one. After some prodding from the freshmen, I agreed to bring a few jugs of honey (bear-shaped, of course) to the football game and some of the clarinets all took a spoonful of honey together. But first, please realize this. We can’t just eat honey together without first singing our song (to the tune of Mary Poppins’ “Just a Spoonful of Sugar”):

Just a spoonful of honey makes the clarinets so loud, the clarinets so loud, the clarinets so loud. Just a spoonful of honey makes the clarinets so loud, in the most delightful way.

And then, on the next beat, we all eat our honey.

For that first game, we decided to “talk” to Dr. Odajima (he’s the head marching band director), Dr. Espinosa (he does a lot: TBS sponsor, head of courtside players band, and assistant marching band director), and Dr. Wilson (he’s the head director of all bands) about our honey. We wanted them to enjoy it with us. So, we walked up to the table where the three of them were sitting. And I asked, “Would you all like to join in part of a new clarinet tradition?” Nervously they smiled and asked what. I showed them the bear-honey and said that we take a spoonful of honey together. Dr. Odajima literally got up and almost RAN away. Apparently, he does not like honey. He did say “No thanks” before he ran off though. Both Dr. Wilson (excitedly) and Dr. Espinosa (nervously) agreed to take part in our spoonful of honey with us. Here’s a picture of Dr. E’s face as he “enjoyed” our honey with us. 

Here he is, licking his spoon (to make sure he doesn’t miss a drop of honey!).

The next part of my story is also at the football game, this was parents’ weekend. This game, we decided that we wanted to involve our parents in this lovely tradition as well. Any parents and family members of clarinet players were allowed to enjoy a spoonful of honey with us too!!!!!!!!!

Here I am in the middle of the circle (with my back to the picture) introducing our tradition to the parents.

So welcome to the official part 3 of my story. This section also requires a bit of background. So every week, Tau Beta tries to “please” the directors and music staff members that provide so much for our organization. Sometimes we bake them cookies, or send them e-cards, or put really big posters on their door, or even just go into their office and talk to them to tell them how much we appreciate them. These directors do so much for us, and we like for them to realize that we are grateful for all that they do to help our sisterhood run smoothly. So, last week, I volunteered to please Dr. Odajima. I brought him a plate of cookies and sat in his office for about half an hour talking to him about everything that was going on in band. It was a great talk. I joked with him about how he ran away from us when we tried to give him honey. He laughed and said that it was really funny about that. Dr. Wilson, apparently, REALLY loves honey, especially with biscuits… Although Dr. O didn’t realize this, he gave me a brilliant idea.

This brings me the final chapter of my lengthy saga. So, Dr. Wilson really loves biscuits and honey, eh? I’ll give you one guess as to who volunteered (extremely excitedly) to please Dr. Wilson this week!!! So first I had to make the biscuits. Here are the some of the biscuits I made. Don’t they look yummy?

Here’s part of the one I was taste-testing… with honey… Just to make sure they were perfect.

(It was really good!) I got 2 brown paper sacks and some small paper plates. I put 2 biscuits on each plate and then stuck one plate in each bag. One bag, I labeled “For Now!” and the other bag I labeled, “For Later!” So, I got in my truck and drove over to McCrary Music Building, where Dr. Wilson’s office is located.

I approached his door.

Knocked on his door… And he wasn’t there. I was so sad.

So I went and sat on the couch upstairs and waited for him with his bag of goodies.

After about 30 minutes, I figured I’d try again. I knocked and he still wasn’t there. But, his next door neighbor, Dr. Odajima, was there with his office door open. Lo and behold, both Dr. O and Dr. Espinosa were in there. I told them my plan. Dr. O and Dr. E both found it rather funny and invited me to wait for a few minutes because Dr. Wilson should be back soon. So I sat on Dr. O’s office couch. Here’s a picture of my friends while I waited for Dr. Wilson. (They didn’t know I was taking the picture.)

And finally, after a while of waiting (really, it was only like 45 minutes total), I see Dr. Wilson from down the hallway! Excited, I jump up to greet him. He says “Hi Lynn” and I tell him I have a surprise for him. He invites me into his office and I hand him the bag of biscuits (which he does not know are biscuits). He opens the bag “For now!” and gets really happy.

Before you laugh, I want you to realize that this picture was his REAL facial expression. He was ACTUALLY this excited about the biscuits. I told him Dr. O gave me the idea and he started laughing. And THEN, I gave him the bottle of honey. And that’s when he really starts laughing…

Hysterically! See the bottle of honey in his right hand? He was pretty excited.

So, I got a hug and let him return back to work, with a promise to give him a link to this page. Hope you enjoyed your biscuits and honey, Dr. Wilson!

MLITB and MOTS, 
Lynn!!!!!!!!!

The new theme for this year is "careful what you do in front of the camera because it might end up on the blog."  Especially the directors. 

This is Dr. O playing with a new tuba cover after telling all the tubas not to touch the new tuba covers.  Who else is planning on being this for halloween this year now?  

In other news... 


Indoor rehearsal today!  Pros - It's NOT outside! No getting there early to fill up water coolers, no constantly filling up water coolers during rehearsal, no bugs, no having to ask for water breaks, and so on and so forth.  The list goes on and on.  Cons - The novelty of an indoor rehearsal is gone in about 15 seconds or less... And striking the stage. 


<3 

Iota 

PS - OUR FIRST RUSH EVENT IS TODAY!  We gon' get our tye-dye on! 

Band week started yesterday and to celebrate I'm going to post videos from leadership retreat (I'll have a post about band week later today, but we are traveling back in time for now *plays twilight zone theme song*)!

This first one is Brenna jumping from the leap of faith. 

Note: She is fearless.

This next one is Dr. O.  I love the contrast of watching it next to Brennas video.  It's awesome.  

Note: He is a winner.
Also Note: The types of encouragement the leadership is giving him (what are we even saying?!), and how obvious it is that he wants it silent when he's on the pole.  You can see it in his face. c:

This last one is Dr. E.  He is also the best and it's an awesome video.

Note:  Fail. 

Thanks for reading/watching!


<3

Iota

The highlight of today was definitely the high ropes corse.  Here are just a bunch of pictures of us having a blast being at "summer camp."

Are these next two pictures of Dr. O?  Why yes, yes they are!  And, there will be wildly entertaining videos of both him and Dr. E tackling the ropes corse activities going on the blog tomorrow! 

We also did some music and marching, but is that what's really important?

Then we played some kick ball and Erin cheered like a beast while Brenna ran like a beast.

Oh, and Dr. O began his twirling career.  He will be famous one day.  It all started here folks. 

This was short and sweet, but we are having a blast (if you can't tell by all the pictures).  We'll be updating a lot more as the season really gets rolling.  Retreat is getting everybody excited for the new season, so bring it on band week! 


<3 

Iota