Guys I am the worst. I’m sorry for taking so long to update, but I just finished school and my life has kind of just been go, go, go, for the past two weeks. After studying and taking all of my final exams, and stage managing my school’s production of The Laramie Project I hopped on a plane to Colorado where I am starting my second week of interning with The Vail Jazz Foundation.

My school does this thing called Senior Project and it is where seniors take the last month of school to work as an intern and create a presentation about it. I had no clue what I wanted to do for my project and my only option seemed to be working at my school’s pre-school until my family in Colorado called and said that the Vail Jazz Foundation was looking for an intern! I was a little worried going into it, but I really love working with them!

The Vail Jazz Foundation was created in 1995 when Howard Stone was inspired to host a Labor Day Weekend Jazz Party in Vail, Colorado. When that party was a success he got the idea to turn the festival into an organization that is “dedicated to the perpetuation of jazz music with a specific emphasis on young musicians and young audiences.” (Mission Statement) The foundation has since grown and added Jazz Workshops to it’s agenda which offers high school musicians in Eagle County a free concert series, educational programs, and collaboration opportunities with other jazz musicians. The Jazz Festival is now a whopping five concert series that continues throughout the summer.

I have been kept plenty busy while working and I still have one more week left. So far I have transferred event information into website calendars, burned, labeled, and packaged Jazz Workshop CDs, saved photos of performing artists for the organization’s program, and written a blogpost that will be published later this summer! This adventure has been one that has taught me things about myself and about the world around me.

Now, on May 13 I posted a photo to Instagram hoping for my favorite band, Sleeping With Sirens, to notice me and maybe like my photo. The band was doing a sort of promotion for their new music video for their song, The Strays, off their new album, Madness. All you had to do was write “Strays” on your hand and use the hashtag #thestrays and your photo could be liked or reposted by the band. I posted the photo in the morning and every so often I would check to see who liked it and every time I checked there were about 3 more people who liked it and they were all my friends.

I took my lunch break around 12:30 and when I opened Instagram I had a TON of notifications. I was like “Huh who are all these random people liking my picture?” Then I saw Sleeping With Sirens has tagged you in a comment and my heart stopped. My photo had been reposted by my favorite band and I didn’t know how to deal with it! I almost cried at work and I’m not even kidding. This happened after I had a pretty stressful morning and instantly my stress was gone and I was so happy. I feel as though the band knows I exist now-I’m not just another fan in the crowd, and as cliché as that may seem I like the possibility.

I’m so sorry for not updating earlier, but I can promise you that I have some really exciting things planned for the summer!!! I hope you enjoyed this blogpost as much as I enjoyed writing it! Until next weekend!

-Swaggie Maggie