Hello Seattle

I made it to the west coast! I know thousands of people do that every day, but this trip was not easy. A blizzard was on its way to the east coast, closing every airport in its path. It was supposed to hit Connecticut at 3pm yesterday. My plane was supposed to take off at 2:15. Kind of  a small window. So I get to the airport around 11:30am and by noon, I was at my gate. I'm looking out the window and the snow starting to fall and I get really nervous. If I miss this flight, it'd be a couple days at least until the airports were cleared enough for me to get out again. A flight to Chicago (my connecting city) was taking off at my gate when I got there. All of a sudden everyone starts getting off the plane and they start asking people if they'd like their money back. Me and this girl sitting near me look at each other and start talking about how badly we need this flight, and how awful the current sight looks. The flight crew guy was talking to this lady about how he's uncomfortable with anything taking off in this weather. About ten minutes later, they tell everyone to get back on the plane as quickly as possible because there was a break in the weather. All the passengers ran in and the plane took off. Every flight after 3pm then got cancelled. So me, the girl I was sitting near and this other lady all became weather experts to make ourselves feel better, analyzing snow accumulation, the crystalline structure of the flakes and drift caused by the wind, saying it wasn't that bad and we'd be off for sure. 30 minutes later, they boarded our plane early and ours was the last flight out that day. We had made it by minutes! Now I'm hearing that airports are either backed up or cancelled until this Friday, so I'm thanking my lucky stars for that flight. Everything from there went better than smooth. I got to Chicago no problem, and my flight from there to Seattle got in an hour early. I met up with Lauren and it was so good to see her again. She drove me to her house and I settled in. We exchanged Christmas gifts that night and all is now well with the world. So now I'm simply enjoying my time here, gearing up for my trip ahead.

Tonight I was showing some of my music and films to her dad, who is a businessman and extremely good painter so it's always good to hear his opinion. He's also someone known for being brutally honest, so I know he won't tell me my music is good to make his daughter happy. We had this wonderful talk about my music and how he knows I'm ready for my shot. He gave me the same advice as my dad did: be a sponge and take in everything that you can. He also added that he's quite sure I'm done with Connecticut in terms of my talent. He thinks I'm not being challenged anymore so there's no more growth to be had there. He told me I need projects from people at my level in order for me to grow and that's such a nice thing for him to say. I'm starting to agree with him. I'm ready to see what I can do with a big project. Something that people in the business are working on. I'm ready to see if I can do it, even if I can't. So these two weeks will be about psyching myself up for this. Lauren's dad told me that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. He said I have done the preparation and this is the opportunity, and for me to get it at this age, is quite something. I intend to make the most of it. I don't plan on waiting for another opportunity to come around.