woopsiedaisy

so i forgot to renew my license... I think i did that last year too...
it's just hard to keep track of the things I need to do. Especailly when I no longer have the car onm days off, I can't just up and go to the lincensing bureau... so i'm gonna make sure I do it this tuesday...
I also need to do tons and tons of composing tomorrow for my lesson which is monday morning. Eep, I seem to have not been productive again this week.... uh oh.
I made a pact with Lacey from school that neither of us will swear until wednesday morning..... at which point we will go drinking to celebrate!

so, I wasn't really pissy today. I was a little mumbly if people brought up the ticket topic, but other than that, I was sunshiney.
I made myself special hot chocolate, and the thermos kept it hot until after my piano lesson.
Piano lesson went very well. It was short, but we covered the Bach first movement. The intro section was good. I know the notes securely, but now I have to change it quite a bit to allow for the proper double dotting of the rhythms... the notes don't even closely line up as they look like they should on the page... oh wel! The fugue - David has always said he'd perfer to hear things perfect at a slower tempo.... but when I tried to play the fuge at about 2/3rds tempo, he stopped me and told me there woulnd't be anything he could say about it if it was that slow.... so I played the end of it much faster than I had learned it accurately - it wasn't overly sloppy actually. He excused the mistakes because he knew what point I had them learned to (tempowise) but this way he could hear the musical intentions and thoughts. There is a lot of reworking I have to do in this piece in terms of articulations... GARH! Nevertheless, it should be reasonable to change them now that I have somewhat securely learned the notes.
We also talked about the Diana McIntosh piece I'm playing. He played through all the different sections, which was good, now I have a certain aural image to go by. I hadn't even started learning notes enough to play it in a lesson, so it was a conceptual lesson taught on the piece. I'm super excited for this piece... it will be such fun. He doesn't want me to put the piece off, but he's not worried about me learning it. While it is fully notated, it is improvisatory in nature so the figurations don't require as much thought and effort as would compositionally sculpted musical fragments.
Luckily my special hotchocolate helped me through the pedagogy class....gah it was boring and I don't like the class. Choir went remarkably well, the conductor was in a good mood!
After choir, some friends and I went to the bar on campus for some drinks and nachos! yummy! good time!
I then bought my orchestration workbook, bought a bus pass, worked a few hours and went for dinner with my parents, came home and hung out with fi for a short short whle, and nw I'm here.
I have to still do some reading for an orchestration test tomorrow, so I'll leave you there...
All in all, a very good birthday!

Worst Present Ever!

FUCK!!!!!!!!
Stupid ass-faced piece of crab-ridden monkey cunt oozing puss and scabies!
Who actually gives out a speeding ticket less than an hour before someone's birthday?!?
fucking 250$ ?!?! ARGH!
add that to the 175$ one from the photo radar... and I officially can't afford to live..... I certainly can't afford to speed anymore... therefore, I can't afford to drive anymore. I'm going to cut myself off. I'm going to stop going to the school to practice at night, my parents will have to live with me practicing. Either that or I will just spend more time at the school instead of bussing home and then comign back later.
I also can't afford to have spent 20$ at moxies tonight - bastard!! fuck! if I hadn't gone, then I wouldn't have been in a rush to get to school, and I woud have been there 2 hours earlier and most likely wouldn't have gotten a ticket at all.
It's doubtful whether there was any benefit to even going to practice tonight. I was far too pissy to concentrate well. I'm far too pissy right now, and I still have to sleep before my fucking twat-ass early lesson tomoroww fucking morning at fuck fuck rfuck fuck fuck 9 fucking a!M
my special hot chocolate better fuckin well make me happytomorrow.
GAH MUMBLY!
I'm going to be pissy tomorrow, there's no way around it.
Be Warned!
PMS at its finest!

I just took a glance at the list I made myself yesterday, and it wasn't a very successful day. I did a little bit of practicing in the afternoon, but I didn't end up finishing my assignment until midnight at the school - where I had intended on practicing.. but nope.
I completely forgot about the speeding ticket.
Today the composer of that piece I want to talk to is performing at the school, so I will track her down there and either talk about it then, or set up a time to meet and discuss it later.
I also have only a few days left to renew my license..... eeep, I don't think I have time to get there during their dumb-ass business hours.
I did go to that diabetic meeting thing, which was fun. And since it's a sponsored event, the tea I had and whatever everyone else had was free!
Nevertheless, I'm off to save the world again! or go to school... I'll decide while I'm on the bus!

Today is my day off and Idon't have anything to leave the house for today until about 7pm. I also don't have a vehicle during the day, so that limits what I can do, or rather what I'm willing to take the bus to.
As per usual, I have lots to get done on my productivity tuesday -

Orchestration assignment - I actually did a bit of thinking about this already while helping a friend, and playing through it. It's now just a matter of sitting at the computer and making it happen. This time it's a 20 bar segment... far longer than the previous 8 bars!

I need to remember to phone and pay my photo radar ticket today. Thats right, I was speeding, and as can and should be expected as a citizen using the PUBLIC roadways of Winnipeg, my actions were recorded and I am thusly punished. While I am not happy about the excessive cost of the ticket, I will pay it because that is my social responsibility.

Practice, practice, practice! I've been working lots on my Bach, it would be nice to be able to play through the entire first movement, but I'm not sure if I'm quite there yet. Actually, I know that I'm not there yet, but the question is whether I can learn the rest of it for thursday. At the same time, I haven't done any work on the other pieces since my last lesson, and 2 hours is too much time to spend exclusively on Bach...

I also want to call the composer of the modern piece I'm playing at my recital - there are two different versions of her piece and I want to know if she is partial to either or if there are any considerations I should use in choosing which to play, or which parts of whichever I play.

Tonight at 7, there is a group of diabetics that get together for coffee/whatnot. I have avoided it for a couple years now, but I think I might go to try it out tonight.

Anyway, enough of this typing, it's taking up valuable productivity time!!

wallet shopping

I bought a new wallet today.
This is a big deal to me, I had grown quite attached to my previous one. Nevertheless, when my deputy sherriff badge finally ended its long standing partnership with my wallet, I know it was time to say adieu.
Even shopping for it was complicated, there are so many options in terms of sections, see through compartments, bill section separators and coin sections. Then theres the type of leather/finish and colour...I made the decision to no longer have a coin section in my wallet, it takes up too much of my ass room and thats usually the first part of the wallet to show wear and develop holes.
Now I have two options: I have a little coin pouch that I could use that also has room for keys, then I would have all my pocket contents in one location,but I'm not sure if that is effeminate....even for me.... The other option is to avoid change in general. I've given this a little thought and it would be a mix of giving more to charity, tipping that little bit more generously as well as keeping a piggy bank at home, I might actually save up a little money.
So, I ask your advice, should I be willing to be more effeminate, or should I say nay to loose change...?

The new wallet is pretty darned cool. Similar to my old wallet, it has a section for my student card and bus pass - but it's removable!! If I didn't need everything in my wallet, or if my bottom were feeling particulary sensitive, I could considerably downsize and just carry around the mini wallet... but I'm not sure how much I want to diversify quite yet, it could be dangerous.

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my tongue hurts

mmmmm jello shooters!!
last night kyle made about 160 jello shooters spanning all the colours of the rainbow and then an extra red colour. I had mentioned that last night, but I left out one aspect.
In order to get a jello shooter out of the little plastic cup, you need to either use your finger to go around the inside edge or else it sticks. The other method is to use your tongue. This was the method I chose and I was quite good at it. The problem was that I have a short tongue and I'm partially tongue tied. The distance between the tip of my tongue and the skin thing that connects the bottom of your tongue to the bootom of your mouth is smaller than the height of a shot glass. As a result, that connector thingy really hurts today. Oh well, a small price to pay for delicousness!

I still haven't taken theplastic protective cover off of my laptop,
I still haven't decided if or when this will happen.
Apparently they tried to deliver a package to me today, but I was not home, so it will be available to me after 1 pm tomorrow at the local post office. I think it is a new blood glucose meter.
I love new blood glucose meters - I have kept up-to-date on all the developments over the past 10 years. I think I have had almost every new one that has been available to diabetics in Canada. They make fun of me at the pharmacy. I also keep all of my old meters so that I can one day donate them to a museum for a display on the development of blood glucose testing since michael was in his mid teens.
This new one is what I have been waiting for for a long time. The biggest problem for me is their portability... it would be easier if I had a purse. You need to have the meter, the strips as well as the lancer (aka make-finger-bleed machine)in order to test your blood. Most of them have carying cases so you can keep them all together, but the case is too bulky to fit in a pocket. Therefore, I either have to carry a backpack with me or I just don't bring my tester... This is obnoxious for going to restaurants because who wants to take a backpack to anywhere nice,,, and it's important to know your blood sugar before eating... so I never win. It's better in the fall or the winter when I have a jacket with pockets. Otherwise my pants are heavily weighed down with the testing machine, the strips, the lancer, the insulin pen, the needle caps for the insulin, my keys, my wallet and my cellphone.
Eventually, I want them to make a cell phone that doubles as a meter, but I'm not holding my breath.
This new machine that is hopefully waiting for me at the post office has strip cartridges, so you don't have to carry them separately, and the lancer is either built into the side of the machine, or it attaches securely, so it is essentially a one piece contration. It's a theory...
Well, so much for not writing long posts....
Good Night Again.

Tonight was delightful. I had far too many jello shooters and far too much spinach dip. I am home quite early, but that is a good thing considering the long day I always have on saturdays.
I got caught up with a few friends and had a jolly good time all around.
In regards to my blogging, I am going to continue to post -for the good of the nation- however...
I will aim to be concise in my posts. I will not let myself waste the time typing for half an hour and filling up pages and pages of internet space. The majority of people who read this see me regularly anyway, and I end up explaining things on here as well as in person, so I will figure out what things will be coming up in regular conversation and limit the scope of those topics here.
Good Night.

An open letter to anyone

Hmm,
I'm thinking of giving up on this blog.
I have been rather obsessive in posting and it seems that noone reads or cares except for maybe Tiffy, my only faithful commenter.
If I spent the time/resource that I spend on here doing other more productive things, I would have so much more to show than a random snippet of the internet which really makes no difference in the world of interwebgarble.
Let me know what you all think...

Partay tonight!

Tonight will mark the end of an era.
(haha, i accidentally wrote 'ear'-slightly less profound)
For years and years and years my friend Kyle has been having parties. big extravagent parties with decorations and lots and lots of food. He would always invite the whole gang from high school (note- I was not involved with gang activities in high school). It was always a nice thing to catch up with some people you wouldn't otherwise see.
Tonight will be the last of these parties. Kyle is leaving very soon to move semi-permanantly to Germany. Even if he does come back in a few years, he most likely wouldn't be living with his parents and having parties in their house. Plus, many of the people who have moved away, and I'm not planning on still living in Winnipeg when he comes back...
Tonight, I will eat spinach dip like I have at (almost) everyone of Kyle's parties...... sooooo delicious!

Crunch crunch crunch go the leaves

I love this time of year for so many reasons; leaves of fall colours on the ground are one of those reasons.
I forgot to mention international talk like a pirate day yesterday, but rest assured that I talked like a pirate.
I believe tomorrow is going to be my first piano lesson with my new student! She is a friend of mine and I'm going to help her with learning the piano accompaniment to her vocal repertoire.
Tomorrow is also a lesson day. I need to learn just 8 more bars tonight - David had told me to learn the first 2 pages of the second movement of Beethoven Op. 101, and I didn't think I would get it done... but I just might; depending on how well these 8 bars go- they are of course the most difficult of the movement..... so of course I left them til the end!!! Anyway, I should be able to get them to work tonight... but there's no saying how much of it will stick succesfully for my lesson.
Also, tomorrow is one week until the anniversary of my birthing!

It's been a while since I let myself go four days without posting - aside from being out of town.
now, a few random blurbs about the past, present and future.
-Chris's birthday on thursday inspired partying on friday = lots of fun.
-First composition lesson on monday. He labelled me a conceptual composer, the first of which he's worked with here at the university.
-I'm finding the subject matter of the piece I'm composing at the moment to be having more of an emotional toll on me than I would have expected, I am trying to make use of those feelings in a creative way, while avoiding the negative impact it can have on my mood and relations with other people.
-My sister's wedding is going to be in either Jamaica or the Dominican Republic at an all-inclusive resort. It will be a 7-day trip over reading week. That means that I can eat and drink all I want - the liquor is included in that "all"!!!! It will be a wonderful opportunity to spend time with my sister and family and her finace's family. I haven't met any of them besides his father, so this will be exciing.
-I'm pondering the idea of not building in a back-up plan for next year. If I did apply to U of M, I might enter that program, failing acceptance into others simply because it's available whereas it might actually be better for me to take a year to work and study privately so that I can get into a better program the following year.
-Now that the year is getting into full or semi-full swing, I'm getting a glimpse of how busy and full it is going to be..... for now, I'll say I'm excited!!!

Long days

So today marked the end of the first official week back at school. These last 2 days were long.
Yesterday, I started with a piano lesson at 10:15 then classes and choir and then working. After that, it was 7pm and I was going to just head home, but I ended up actually getting a call from my friends from the Lodge this summer. We went for food and drinks and it was really nice to see them again.
Today also started with a piano lesson at 9:30. I am not a morning person. After the lesson, I had pancakes made by our student counsel! Delicious, and I got one that was shaped like a panda - hardcore pancake chef! Then, to celebrate my dear friend Chris's birthday which was yesterday, we went to the campus bar for drinks. We got Chris drunk before noon! So then there were a bunch of randomly drunk people in our choir rehearsal, oh well... it was great fun. I had some more classes and then meetings and thenI practiced for a bit. In the evening, I went out with Chris and some people for food and drinks, although none of the tequilla shooters of the late-morning. Now, I am home.
A note on lessons - it is a good sign that David hasn't mentioned anything about progress or whatnot. We have basically just jumped back into the flow of our lessons. The difference is that we are at the beginning stages of my pieces. A good thing about that is that for my first two lessons, we've only made it through a bit of the Liszt and the first movement of the Beethoven. I will have many more first-impression lessons where he will see the progress that I had all summer to make. On the serious side of the same comment, it's great to have some input after working all summer on my own. So many questions have been popping up as for how to learn/practice/play/think about certain aspects of the pieces. So ya, I feel that I'm at a good place for the beginning of the year.
Lessons have also changed from the twice weekly to the once weekly.... good thing is that I only have to wake up early once a week, bad news is that I have to be there for 9am... earlier than I would like, but oh well, it's only once a week, and I really can't change it...phooey
On Monday, I have my first composition lesson. I'm excited, and I'm going to use a lot of my time this weekend to get even more ready for it. I still haven't finished that composition, but I hope to have it done soon... I do have to have it and another one which I haven't started yet done for december sometime..... as in early december. The big thing about this composition is that I have to get it to the pianist who I am going to get to play it in enough time to learn it so I can get it performed/recorded for that deadline. I also have to pick a pianist to play it. Because of the subject topic, I wan't a really genuine emotional player who is technically clean... I basicall want it all. I realize that I'm probably the best one to play it the way I want, but I think there are cleaner players out there, and I don't think I'm emotionally strong enough to perform the piece in front of an audience at school. Regardless, I know I will get some great advice at my lesson and I hope to wrap it up soon.
I'm going to take my laptop to work tomorrow in hopes that I might get some work done on my lunchbreak, albeit short.
With that said,I am going to go to bed now. That's right - before midnight. I definately don't want a repeat of last week on to little sleep. A long day becomes endless when you are tired. Tonight, I'm gettin me my full eight hours!!! Yippee!

I was informed the other night that I type on a computer funny... When I pressed the insulter further, he specified that I actually use the proper technique for holding my wrists up when I type, but it looks funny because few people actually do so.
A similar situation happened in one of the ballet classes I played for on Saturday. The daughter of a prominent voice teacher, and accomplished pianist was in the class. She was young, and it was her first time at a ballet barre. The teacher told everyone to put their hands gently on the barre. She was correcting their hands, because a lot of children will either not be relaxed or will be leaning on the barre. When she came to this girl, she lifted her forearm to show that it should be relaxed. The teacher was surprised to see that it flopped in a very relaxed fashion - she was deceived by the elevated wrists. My heart warmed a little when the teacher explained to the child that it's different than playing the piano, she should relax her wrists.
Hooray for the testaments to good piano technique!
Today was a good day for my blood sugars!
Tomorrow will not be a good day. It starts far too early in the morning with a piano lesson at 10:15 am. I didn't practice at all today and tomorrow it will be too early in the morning to get anything done, so it's a good thing that this is lesson number one of the year, such that I have a blank slate to start from. Tomorrow is also a very long day, lasting til 7pm. On the up side, I might be meeting with some people from the summer, I ran into Jonno from the lodge who is at school now, and he said his mom(who I also worked with) is coming in town tomorrow so we might get together for drinks or something.
Alas, I have to finish my first assignment of the year now! Yay, it's actually almost done already, but ya, I need sleep for tomorrow.

Doctor Kerfuful

Gah Fucker, another surprise at my supposed appointment. Or lack thereof. Apparently I didn't have an appointment today and I didn't have the sheet of paper to show that I had in fact booked one. And now I can't find it at home, but we won't even address the possibility that I made it up. So in the end, no doctor.
Rather, I was asking the nursing station if I could at least get a copy of my test results so I could see just how bad I'm doing and self-diagnose my estimate on x-years to live. I ended up booking the very next available appointment - Friday October 27'th at 9:30am (for the record). I wanted to get a new requisition for more bloodwork which I can do before that appointment, but one of the nurses was telling me that I didn't need to, the current bloodwork was fine. I was getting a little bothered about the whole situation, specifically being told that I wasn't going to get a second chance to improve my HA1C result. [Please take the time to read this little blurb and inform yourself of my terminology]
The nurse took control of the situation and grabbed my file and told me to follow and she would see what exactly the requisition was for. She then mentioned that it wouldn't be too important to get it redone for my appointment (since I haven't had it done in a year anyway) but she offered to go over the results with me. All of the normal blood tests were ... surprisingly normal. Blood counts are good and my cholesterol was fine- I was expecting that to be high due to fatness and inactivity. My HA1C was 8.3. This was an increase from the previous time I had the test done. The nurse was happy with the positive direction of the change, and only commented that while it was not an ideal number, it was a beneficial change. According to a table of absolute risk related to HA1C and diabetes complications, I am now 10% less at risk for serious complications than I was last year. Conversely, I am 13% more at risk for complications than someone who's diabetes would be considered 'under control'.
While she was happy with the positive change, I am certainly not happy with these figures. I am 23% at higher risk of .. hmm let's see - amputation, blindness and kidney failure than someone in ideal control of their condition (the CDA aims for diabetics to have an HA1C of 6%). That means that if the average diabetic in good control doesn't lose a limb... I'm guarunteed to lose one! eek!
While I exaggerate, the concern is still there.
The nurse and I actually talked for about half an hour. She was the nicest person ever. We didn't even have an appointment, but she gave me her time and advice and was more helpful than I could have expected. She reinforced that I need to take the time to understand how my body and metabolism work. She suggested my first step to be to take a few weeks or a month and be SUPER regulated and organized and write down everything I eat, my insulin levels, and my sugars before and after I eat and anything else that can effect my metabolism. This way I will be able to analyze trends in my sugars. With these trends and info, I can calculate how much insulin I need to take for the amount of carbs I eat. Mumbly mumbly, there's a lot to calculate over the next while.
She convinced me that I should just use the bloodwork I got done for my appointment in October, and then after that i will get a 3-month A1C, whether I have an appointment or not so that I can see how effective my efforts have been. My personal goal is to have that result be at 7.1. I won't expect myself to be in normal control range, but I want to see a significant improvement. I plan to have an appointment with the Doctor in the summer, before I leave for wherever I hope to be moving to. The goal/requirement for that appointment is to be well within the normal control range so that I can feel good about starting a new section of my life, in which I will have my health in check!

In a few hours I have a doctor's appointment. I wonder how bad my health has actually gotten. I know my control is shit. While I know how bad things will get if I continue as I am, I can't seem to muster up the will power to do something about it. I hope today will be an appointment where my doctor shows genuine concern for me- maybe that would be enough to inspire some change.
The sad thing is that I know this all rests on me, and there really isn't anything anyone else can or should do to make a difference, but something in my head isn't allowing me to take that responsibility.
And while I'm open an honest about things now, I'm sure I'll find some way of justifying things later on, so let's see how my next update looks.

followup on yesterday

I forgot to do a little followup on my first day back to work. Where I left off, we were halfway through the day and it wasn't seeming too bad.
In reality the day was interminably long. It's ridiculous, I start at 9am and didn't leave until close to 5m yet I only get paid for 6.25 of those hours. But it's not like the other years where I've had those 1.75 hours right in the middle to do nothing. This year I only have an hour lunch break which I thought was going to be great according to last year's boredom during the 2 hours break, but now I miss that extra time. The afternoon runs from 1-4:40 and it's in the same room with the same teacher sitting on the same hard piano bench. I love the teacher and we work very well together, bu it would be nice to have at least just a little variety.
In terms of the ballet classes I'm playing, I'm a little unsatisfied - they are all in the middle age range. The young classes are not inexperienced enough to allow me to enjoy their honest reactions to the music and any cuteness that children might have; The older classes aren't quite high enough in experience to allow me to make use of the finesse of dance musicality. In the end, I am improvising nothing music so that the dancers can have a glorified metronome - in other words, a normal ballet pianist.
Anyway, I have the opportunity to play some of the higher level professional division classes during the weeks if I want. The only problem is that they are at 8:30 am. I certainly don't want that to become a regular aspect of my life this year.
On the other hand, the modern classes I will be playing for are generally more advanced, and in addition to that, my freshness to the movements will continue to hold my attention and allow me to build a stronger relation between the music and those movements.
Between the components of modern dance I will be experiencing, I think I can justify to myself and others that I am satisfied as a dance musician, but I fear to say that I no longer enjoy playing for ballet classes. Of course I will continue to do it at present, because it is a job and it will always be available to me as not many people can do it.
For the rest of today, I have one isolated primary ballet class to accompany. In the evening there is another dance jam that I will be going to. I will try and get something productive done between the one and the other.

Officially gone wireless

While, I've had my wireless network set up for a while in my house, it just didn't seem remarkable that I could use the internet from my laptop even though it did giveme added mobility to use the internet on the couch or at the piano. Today however, I crossed the line and became a technological person. I am sitting in a downtown cafe eating lunch on break from work and using the internet. There's like 3 or 4 available internet wireless connections available to me right now. There's the ballet as wel as the two coffee shops across the street from each other. Craziness!
So, I'm halfway through(ish) my first day back at the ballet school. The classes I'm playing for are all regular ballet classes, and while I hated doing a whole afternoon of Musical Theatre last year, a class would be nice to change up the monotony of ballet all day. Oh well. Things are going really well so far.
Anyway, enough of this for my lunch break. I'm going to try and get some school work done while I have a moment.
MMM this lunch is so yummy!

So, as many of you know, if there was one substance that I would live off of for the rest of my life (if it actually had any nutritional value) it would be the honey mustard sauce from Perkins.
Tonight I made my own, and it tasted pretty damn exactly the same. Interestingly enough, I did so without the actual use of honey.

School is now back in, and starting monday, we will be in full regular class mode. This week was very much all about getting organized - which I will never actually be, but ya. I caught up with a bunch of people, and I got to meet with both my teachers for this year. My composition teacher and I didn't really talk much, but it was the officialness of setting up some lesson options that makes me feel good.
Talking to my piano teacher was interesting. He stressed the importance of organization and planning this year. I told him about plans for masters in composition and how my first half of the year would be split between composition and piano. He was worried about the fact that piano was not going to be my sole focus in life, and then suggested that the option exists to switch to the general program and just not do the recital.
This option had never even occurred to me. Nevertheless, it is not an option. I told David that I definately want to finish what I have started and I'm looking very forward to my recital. He accepted my reasoning and once again stressed the importance of getting as much preparation done early on as possible. I feel that I am well prepared for the beginning of this year and feel confident that things will be great and I will keep on track with everything.

Anyway, I don't want to ramble too much about school cause it's just beginning, but everything looks good for the year. I feel quite welcomed into the composition community at the school already and I'm prepared to learn a lot.

and for now, that is all

yay casino!

what a wonderful way to spend an evening.... gambling is wonderful!
I think I am about ready to take that next step towards becoming a professional blackjack player. Tonight I made a profit of $10.50. Now I know that might seem a little low for a first night, but keep in mind I was only there for an hour or 2 and I was only investing 35$ into the table. Now, that's a thirty percent profit. While ten bucks might now seem worthwhile, it would be foolish of me to say no if I was to use say, a hundred dollars in an evening to make 30$...
Of course I'm not silly.. I realize that I can't always make 30% profit... there might be nights where I only make say... 25% profit, but at the same time, today could have been my off night. Therefore, it is safe to say that the lowest profit nights I will see is 35%( tonight was a really bad night) and the high end possibilities are endless! So in the end, the average works out to about an average daily profit of 100%.
'But Michael, what about your dream of being a musician? won't this take away time from that lifestyle?"
Yes, indeed little Billy, it would - which is why I have decided not to spend all my time at the casino every evening; rather, I will make this a one-time profit maker. With the calculations I have done - based on an average of 100% profit, the addition of several luck-enhancers will raise the one-time profit to about 500%.
As it stands, the plan is to take out a small loan of about 10,000$ and to play blackjack. My foolproof math calculations have shown that I will end up with 60,000$ by the end of the evening. That should be quite enough to live off for a few years at least, especially if I continue trips to the casino every once in a while.
Let me know what you all think!

In other news, I'm quite excited about going back to school. I've had the chance to spend time with school friends over the last few days and it's good to start catchin up with people. Aside from STILL not knowing who my composition teacher will be officially, I feel prepared for school and I'm happy with the way the schedule is looking. My small ensemble is preslotted, so i don't have to worry about communicating with the other members in order to set up rehearsal times (it was a little troublesome last year with a quartet - everyone was in different years, and it was terrible trying to find a common time that we were available). The only things not in a spot on my schedule yet are composition and piano lessons. The best aspect of my schedule is that, so far, my earliest class is at 11:30 on one day a week... others it starts at 1:30! yippee! This doesn't mean that I will be a lazy bastard though, rather, I will be able to stay up til 2am on school nights without missing out on my 8 hours of sleep a night.
I neeeeeed to get some serious composing and practicing done STAT! I so didn't get the one composition even close to structurally complete. But, today I actually played part of one of the variaions on a real piano - so much more beautiful than hte midi I have been living with. It is definately one of those pieces that electronics will never be able to make up for the real accoustic sonorities of a well made grand piano!
And that is all I have to say about that. Tomorrow is the first day officially back to school! here I come!

wow, I never thought of myself as a packrat until today!
since I got a laptop and will probably be using that the majority of the time, my dad claimed the desktop computer as his so we were moving it downstairs so he can use it in his 'soccer office'.
This led us both to figuring out what we wanted and what we could change to make everything better. I decided I wanted the old desk from the basement. i wanted to put it in the closet alcove of my old bedroom (currently my office), but my moog synthesizer organ was there.... but it's been broken for a while, and I've given up on both organ as well as the idea of owning an antique piece of electronic music development history.
With that said... if someone feels very passionately about the 1960/70's development of keyboard synths, then get in touch. It's only 200/300 some pounds of clunky goodness.... so dad and I had fun dragging it out to the garage. Once that was out of the way, I had to remove all of my junk from the desk that was to move downstairs.... this was the beginning. so many reciepts from the past 5 years, high school grad pictures, business cards, phone numbers and phone messages written down to be ignored for many years, kinder surprise toys, elastic bands... you name it... there was so much shit there and it felt great to throw it all out/recycle. Even before that, the organ and the desk were also piled up with piles and piles of paper. I kid you not, random printed out sheet music (everything from the given sonatas and etudes all the way to lead sheets from when I went to Jazz camp in grade 10). Paperwork that I didn't care about, but knew was too important to throw out at the time - application papers for university of winnipeg and manitoba, high school transcripts... wow, flyers, pamphlets, phone lists... messages again... but this time its all in 8.5/11 size..
I must have filled up 5 shopping bags of paper to be recycled. I actually found a stack of xmas cards from 2001 that I was supposed to deliver for a friend of mine that was in Germany at the time.... Oopsie, sorry Kyle.
Anyway, I made huge progress on the room today, but there is still tons that I can clean out of there. It was so cathardic to throw away so much stuff - I'm not sure if I'm moved more by the symbolism of getting rid of the things in the past I was unwilling to let go of... or more realistically the fact that I have so much more space available and I can feel organized now. It is a good feeling to know that I've gone through everything that is now in that desk and decided that it is worth keeping and deciding where to put it to best serve it's purpose. Other times, when I move things around, I would just shift piles of that paper and hope it was still important.
Now, with the old desk gone, and anothe roller thingy gone... I have a lot more room in there and it looks like it. Right now it is incredibly badly laid out, lopsided... so I am going to shift things around tomorrow. My wide bookshelf is going to be in the centre of the long wall, and the two smaller bookshelves are going to be angled in two corners of the room . The computer and desk are in the alcove and I have the keyboard just outside the alcove so I can get to it when I am composing. I think I'm going to bring in a chair that I can sit in and read in what will now be my office/ library! Ooh, I'm far too excited about this!
Thus, the moral of the story is that I cleaned a lot and while it might be good to keep a check on my life and clean things out as they go along, I enjoy the experience of mass disposal!

Now, other things of the weekend. This was the official weekend where my sister and her fiancé Gareth showed us the ring and spent a lot of time with us as a family. They took us out to Ichiban for Japanese Tepanyaki cooked food! I actually ate some raw fish and lived to tell, and the food in general was wonderful, and Sake!!!!! OMG i love it! It was a great evening and it was wonderful to see Heather and Gareth together, they are soo happy and they make a wonderful couple, I could not be happier for them!

Last night was Fiona's birthday and that was wonderful also.
All in all, a wonderful long weekend! I'm excited to get on with this week and start back at school.
Tomorrow I have to get blood tests done at the HSC and get a bus pass from school and then buy a wireless router so I can set up my wireless network tomorrow! yaya!

I bought a laptop

Yay,
I bought my laptop today. It's pretty much super duper!
only problem is that I don't have any of the installation disks for the programs I usually use on my computer, so i need to find those or get new ones or something.... there's so much to do to set it up with my settings and personalize it! yay!
anyway, fun fun fun!

I think all is well in the world right now.
I had my piano audition for ... hmm I'm not sure exactly what it is for, but I played for the piano faculty nonetheless. It went quite well. I can't remember ever feeling so prepared for something that I didn't really give a rat's ass about. I remember in first year it was such a big deal, I was playing for people that I didn't know and it was their chance to make first impressions of my playing.... EEK! As the years go by, they know my pianism inside out so it doesn't matter what I present to them at the end of the summer. Aside from that, I played well. I did however make an ass of myself in front of them.... I didn't know how old I was. I told them 23, then I paused and wondered, (outloud) 'am I?.... maybe I'm only 22, I have a birthday" to which they replied "oh, good, did you have it already? In the end, I was too confused to specify my age, so some of them think I am 22, some 23...
That same day, I had a voice lesson with a friend from school. I learned a lot.
I also had a massage, deep tissue, very therapeutic. I hurt a lot.
Ok, so last night I went to a folk/bluesy show featuring an old friend from high school. I don't see her much or really keep in touch, but I try to see a show of hers once in a while(about once every 2 years...) It was good to see her again, and even better to hear her. She didn't pick an easy road but she's doing great!
SO ya, I've decided that I'm going to buy myself a laptop. I was supposed to be able to buy the one my dad uses at work at a discount when he retires, but I guess his laptop is too new, so I'm gonna buy a laptop for myself anyway. Buying it now will help me out a whole lot. All the notation I've been doing for compositions and whatnot is on computer, and its a little frustrating a) trying to write it on the printed out copies from my computer with the rests in the bars and 2)having to run to another room to play something on a piano to see if it works the way I think it should. This way, I will have a computer that I can plunk right on the piano. In theory it will allow me to be much more productive. There's a lot of things to think about in terms of buying a laptop.... they're a fairly chunky investment in terms of my budget at least. I do want something that's portable, but I want something that can be my only computer when I move away. At the same time, I'm fricking cheap.
But ya, Heather and Gareth are going to take me laptop shopping tomorrow, so I can have people who know about things to advise me. Heather is also financially conservative, so she won't let me overspend!
Yay for my sister being engaged!