I'm going to try to touch very briefly on all the things that have been going on:

Bionic - the CGM has been pretty nifty so far. I'm going to the conference tomorrow and I'll enjoy Lake Muskoka for the weekend. When I get back, I will have some specific comments on my experience.

Composition - I had Auskultu Bonvolu performed last night. It was quite different than the reading in Winnipeg. I was generally quite impressed with the players here at UWO. They had the piece for about 3-4 days and they pulled off a very respectable performance.

Scholarships, pleeeeeease! - I'm in the process of applying for SSHRC and OGS funding = kill me now. I hate paperwork and trying to sum up what I will be planning on doing for my thesis into a succinct little writeup. Two pages should NOT take this long.

Birthday - I am now 24 years old. It really doesn't feel any different. The phone was ringing off the hook all evening and my roommate didn't know why until a certain fun friend couldn't hold in her excitement and wished his a birthday as soon as he answered the phone. My parents had sent me a care package - a 20-some-odd pound, rather large box with no handles which I got to awkwardly carry through downtown. Nevertheless, it was filled with lots of good things, so I will forgive them.

Composition (version 2) - I found out that I will be writing for a piano trio this year. I get to write for piano AND strings, yay! I have to have the piece finished by the end of this term so the ensemble learns and performs it next term. This weekend, I get to work on sketching out the general framework of the piece and its textures and whatnot. I should probably get around to that. Maybe the beautiful lake this weekend will inspire me.

I'm bionic!
I currently have a Continuous Blood Glucose sensor poked into my right oblique.... who am I kidding, lovehandle. CGM technology has been something that I have followed rather closely for a while and it was on my list of things that I would love to try out for a while if I had the money. The problem is that all things in diabetes management technology are rather costly in the beginning stages. As a result, I had put thoughts of this and pumping out of my mind...
< End Tangent>>
...out of my mind since I was have been happy with my control via regular injections. A few days ago, a diabetic friend of mine called me up and mentioned that Medtronic (one of the leader's in insulin pumps and CGM technology) was looking for someone to be a guinea pig for their new Guardian CGM system. Long story short, I am now wearing a sensor and I'm hooked up to an insulin pump (not actually connected to it though) and they are going to present my results at a conference this weekend on Lake Muskoka.
The immediate benefits are that for the next 4 days, I get a peek into how exactly my sugars react to everything - food, exercise, stress, bitching - all I have to do is press a button and look at the screen. On a more surface level, I get to go to the conference meaning that they are putting me up in a resort for a night and feeding me some nice food. I was originally under the impression that I would actually be given the Guardian CGM system with some supplies, but I shan't be one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

I won't make any real comments tonight because the sensor isn't even transmitting information yet, that starts early tomorrow morning.

New information - A piece of mine is being performed tomorrow night. One of the other comp students was quite helpful in getting together players for my ensemble piece "Auskultu Bonvolu".

I'm done writing, I need to get laundry into the dryer before it gets any later... I'm already past laundry curfew...
I'll post about both of those topics tomorrow.

So, since this first month had a bunch of random costs which won't reoccur on a monthly basis, I haven't really been able to make or assess my budget. Nevertheless, I think that I can say that I haven't really had any problems cutting back on expenditures.
I haven't eaten at a restaurant since I moved here; well, I ate Wendy's for lunch one day when I was craving a frosty(but it wasn't a very good frosty), and we ordered Thai food delivery one night. Other than those two times, I've made all of my meals and my idea of a treat was to buy myself a samosa for 1.29$ at the local deli the other day.
Anyone who knows anything about my 'social' life in Winnipeg knows that it basically revolved around restaurants. I'm not at all surprised that I am having no problem with this new restaurant-free living. It is much cheaper when socializing involves bringing a bag of chips or a cheap bottle of wine over to a friend's place.

Anyway, I'm not writing any of this to brag, rather I just wanted to set up for the main point of this blog entry. So here we are, set up; I am comfortable with not spending much money.

Point of this blog entry: When I returned my cds to the library today and was informed that they were overdue... 3 days, 3 cds, 2$ a day = 18 bucks! I could have bought one of those cds for that amount; but in more tangible terms, I could go to 2 barbecue/potluck/wine and cheese evenings; I could have bought 14 samosas!
I realize that it's not a huge amount of money, and I don't really even think about it like that, but it just depicts the point I am at in terms of financial thinking and budgeting. Last year, I would never have been similarly affected by that amount of money.


New Topic!
I'm very close to finishing my piece. I'm just applying some editing to it while I'm not blogging. I have just over an hour before I leave here for my classes tonight, so it's about that close to being finished.
It's odd, yesterday at around this time, I was frustrated that this piece was going to turn out a total piece of crap. Later on, I left it for the evening - almost having lost hope- and went for what is becoming a weekly tradition, Sunday evening dinner/hanging out with Judy O. I had printed out a copy before I left and I ended up reviewing and editing it as I walked home; making use of those 7 steps where I could actually use the light between street lamps. Maybe it was the wine, maybe walking by my favorite 'castle' house (I'll post a picture eventually), or maybe it was having taken a few hours away from the piece, but I actually had some good ideas. When I got home, I poured another glass of wine and fixed/changed those areas of the piece with which I was particularly unhappy and then I actually had something to work with. Earlier this afternoon, I sat down and marked up the score with details I needed to fix up and now here I am - Happy with my piece.
I am also pretty sure that I don't need to present my piece today, more likely tomorrow sometime, so I will be able to apply even further improvements tonight if I still want.

I'm excited for this evening - my first Orchestration class as well as first Composition Lecture. A total of 5 hours of lecture.... but I'm sure it will be amazing!

I will post later about how it went!

I sometimes wonder whether or not I am a good communicator. I do listen and pay attention to people when they are talking, but I wonder to what degree I truly understand them. This comes up because I was delighted yesterday by a statement by Allen Forte yesterday when he was doing his lecture.
I paraphrase, 'Do you like octatonic scales? I usually like to play one first thing in the morning; to clear my head of tonality.'
The statement he made was absolutely delightful and I was immediately moved to get my notepad and write it down. The problem is that in those 10 seconds between his statement and my writing it down, all that remained certain was the idea of the statement.
I am not sure whether he actually said 'usually'; whether he referred to the scale as 'one' or 'them' or 'it'; whether it was 'first thing', or just 'in the morning'; and he may have even thrown a colour word into the last phrase.
For the longest time, I have used active listening. Therapists and counsellors use this in order to validate and verify the things that another person had said:

Jack- "so like, um, when she was there, I was like, ahh!"
Dr. Johnson - "I see, so her presence made you feel uneasy"

I'm not sure whether or not it is a problem, but I think I do this all the time. Most of the time, it works well; I remember things better if they fit logically into the way that I think, but therein lies the problem - when the topic is something that I don't understand easily like politics or philosophy, I don't hold on to the information effectively. Even more scary is the fact that I can easily misunderstand concepts when I am trying to translate them for myself.
I think I am going to hereby add this to my list of things I want to improve about myself. I am going to try to understand concepts in the context in which they are told to me before I try and apply them to my own life and thoughts.

Anyway, that's enough rambling for tonight. Back to work for me! [My piece is coming along, slowly but surely. I have plans tomorrow evening, so I will need to get it finished by tomorrow cause I sure don't want to leave it until late late Sunday night. Basically there are 2 more sections that I need to finish, and then I will probably tidy up how they connect together. I'm aiming to get at least one of those two sections done today.]

I've been bad. Starting my master's is my chance to take the boat by the oars and really get things moving, but I've caught myself procrastinating again. This composition - I haven't really touched it since the last time I blogged, and I should have been spending every spare moment on it. Now, I will have to spend pretty much the entirety of my weekend working on it. I shouldn't say that though, that gives me the excuse to waste a whole weekend on something that shouldn't take that long. I'll rephrase - I will have it done by tomorrow evening so that I can go out tomorrow and spend Sunday doing whatever I please. I also have to keep in mind that I have some reading and listening to do for my first Orchestration class and Composition lecture.

Another thing I noticed myself doing is walking on the left side of the sidewalk. I hate this; I have told people off in Winnipeg for walking on the left side of the sidewalk. Here, they may drive on the right side of the road, but I swear the pedestrians think they're in jolly old England, and it's starting to rub off on me. I will keep my eye on it and try to rectify this mistake.

Today we had a guest lecturer at school. Allen Forte is credited as being the man to have brought the Second Viennese School of music over to North America and revolutionized how we organize pitch content. Long story short, he is a hugely popular and respected music theorist and he came to our school. At lunch, we were treated to a lecture recital of the three Petrarch Sonnets by Liszt, played by his wife Madeleine Forte. In undergrad, I had played the vocal version of Sonnet 104, so having listened to quite a few recordings of the solo and vocal versions, I can easily say that hers was my favorite interpretation. How do I put this nicely... She is not a young woman, which made her incredible technique and pianism that much more impressive.
Later in the afternoon, I attended Allen Forte's presentation of a recent research paper on a short piece by Schoenberg. It was fascinating how he presented the many instances of referencing himself and his students through the use of the musical alphabet within a piece that was under a minute in length. There was so much more substance to his lecture, which I cannot even begin to try and explain here.

Ok, back to procrastination... I will do so by speaking more of procrastination - I've been avoiding dishes since yesterday afternoon. I certainly need to have those done before my roommate gets back from Toronto, but I'll set myself a goal - I should have them done before going out tomorrow. Maybe the dishes will help me to avoid working on my composition.

On a positive note, I finally got around to going to the percussion department today. I found some random percussionists in the hallway and they showed me some of the ins and outs of cymbals. In all of the textbooks I have and some online resources I consulted, nothing could answer the questions I had about them. They all told me about the fact that a cymbal can sound very different based on where you hit it, but they didn't really attempt to qualify that with descriptions. Basically all I wanted to know was if the harmonics increased as you move outwards on the cymbal or if it was the inverse; also what were the sonorous qualities of hitting the dome. Basically, those questions were answered simply enough by just hearing it played at different points of the cymbal. Harmonics are not the same in the cymbal as they are with other instruments. Rather than the number of audible overtones being different based on where you strike, it's the organization of the multiple sets of overtones. Hit at the outside rim, the overtones are quite spread out giving the sound a full body, whereas the inside renders a sound more compact at the high end of overtones. Hitting the dome gives a dead(ish) sound almost exclusively made up of the upper partials. Now I have the information about the cymbal that I needed in order to feel comfortable developing a piece based on the acoustic qualities of it as an instrument.

Now I will stop blogging and maybe even get some work done.

After the kerfuffle this morning, things got better. Ish, but there's still things to bitch about.
Towels - what's the purpose if they don't absorb anything?!? I used the most cheap-ass non-absorbent towel this morning/afternoon when I took my shower and it did nothing. After I started using it, it was trying to put the wetness back onto me; what a silly towel! I have about 5 towels just for my own use, BUT only one of them actually performs it's function properly. Make note people, if you plan on visiting me, I will be kind and pleasant, but I am not going to offer you my only good towel; you can either bring your own, or suffer the wrath of the pointless sopping wet towel! I swear that even the humidity in the bathroom was enough to soak the bloody towel.
Now that I've been sidetracked from my explanation of how today got better, I will continue.
I got a fair bit of stuff done today: I cleaned my room a bit; I moved into the apartment enough to be functional, but I haven't really made good decisions about where to store things on a more permanent level - now at least some things are in better places. I made myself a pretty kick-ass delicious dinner - penne with vegetables in alfredo sauce. I drank some nice red wine with it although I found out, when searching online for the sweetness of the wine, that I should have paired it with a tomato based pasta sauce... oopsie, I guess I'll know for next time.
I was thinking tonight that it is high maintenance to know which kind of wine goes with what food... you basically have to know what you're going to eat before you order your drink, unless you have a drink to start and then a wine with your meal, then you should probably have a liqueur or dessert wine after the meal, and you actually probably should have started with an apertif... geez with all the liquor involved, maybe it's the life for me.
The other day I walked across downtown 2.5 kilometers to the liquor store and that was perfectly fine, but the walk home with 4 bottles of liquor in my backpack was perhaps not the best idea. Nevertheless, I saw some new parts of the city and if it weren't for that, I might not have done any significant amount of walking over the weekend. Actually, that's a lie, but oh well.
Now, where was I? Oh yes, after dinner, I went to a café because I was not being terribly productive at home. I actually wrote some music finally. I'm working on a piece for 2 instruments and my prof gave me some guidance as to how to go about writing the piece, so I had been doing mostly thinking and planning for the last week and today I actually wrote something, yay! I have now finished the first 2 steps of the 4 or 5 step process; I wrote the climax of the piece. Now, all that remains is to write the beginning, the end, and I suppose I should fill in those blanks in the middle. I really hope that the good start of this project continues. This is my first composition of my Master's and I should hope it turns out well. Nevertheless, I believe that this is going to be our starting point; it will give my prof an idea of what I do well and what I need to do better. His reaction to the piece will also teach me a lot about what he is looking for. Not that I'm going to tailor my music to what he wants specifically, but it will give me an idea of where he is coming from.
Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to lock myself in the electroacoustic lab and learn myself another electro gadget! I still have about 20 some-odd pages of a owner's manual to read before I'm prepared for that.
Goodnight!

Gah Mumbly Poo!

I hate computers! My laptop is once again not letting me connect to the internet! Yesterday evening it was fine, and then right before i went to bed it stopped. It's connected to the wireless router, but not getting internet. Worse is the fact that my roommate's computer is still getting internet, so I know that it's something purely in my laptop that has gone awry.
I hate these stupid technical problems.
I have officially decided that as soon as I am in the financial position, I am switching to Macintosh. Every prof and classical music person in any way involved in the university uses a Mac of some sort. I'm told that the programs interface better on mac system and they don't have the techno glitches that I am experiencing more and more often on my computer.
At some points, I had prided myself on being able to fix the myriad of problems that I have with computers. Now I'm just to the point where it is taking up too much of my time. Maybe I didn't value my own time enough, but I know that I'm not a computer expert and I don't want to be.
Fuck it!
I wish I had a few grand right now so I could just buy a nice iMac and macbook to pair together, but alas I don't.
Why the hell does all of this stuff have to be so complicated?!? The internet was working perfectly yesterday and then suddenly, I didn't change any settings or add any new programs; nothing. It just stopped working for no reason. BLARGH!

I'll spend a maximum of 20 minutes on it now and then I'm going to shower and work on composing.


UPDATE:
I got ahold of tech support, she told me to unplug the router and modem, so I did, but that disconnected the phone so I was mad a bit, but then when I powered them back up again, all was well. At least I know what to do next time, but there'd better not be a next time!

My used chair just broke. The metal plate that sits under the chair snapped in half... kinda jagged-like. That will teach Michael to buy a used office chair that looks like it's from the 70's. Fortunately, it seems to still be usable, the mechanism that keeps me from spilling out when I lean back is still working so it's safe (I think).

The first week of my school activities is now over. I taught 4 sections of sight singing and they all went pretty well. I found things went slower in the smaller sections because I was able to tailor to their specific needs/weaknesses. At the same time, I shouldn't let them fall further behind on that account, but really, the difference is tiny, my classes are all fairly strong. Since some of the sections are only 2 people, I'm going to try to combine them so that a) there are more people in one class, so they are more comfortable and we can sing full chorales and 2) I might be able to find a way out of waking up three days a week for 9:30 am... that would be nice!
Today was a fairly full day. I taught at 9:30, then listened to some cd's in the library, then watched a short opera over the lunch hour, then taught another section at 1:30 and then had my own electroacoustic music class at 2:30. It's still a little bit overwhelming how early on I am in the learning curve of the electronic music studio. SO much to learn, I'm excited!
My goal for this weekend is to get my dance film soundtrack rough draft done. If I had been on the ball, I probably could have finished it tonight, but that's not looking likely at this point, unless I want to keep neighbours up late with accordion noise. I should, however, be able to get a little bit done tonight, so I leave you my friends.
Toodles for now.

I know it's been a while, donc il faut que je bitche; I need to bitch!

Today, I finally have phone and internet working. The modems and stuff had arrived on monday, but it took until now to get it working. I won't name names, but I warn others to be careful when dealing with companies that don't offer telephone technical support. Tech support for the phone line as only available via email; via phone (9am - 6pm) for DSL. Nevertheless, there were times that neither of these services were working for me. If we weren't 'borrowing' internet from a wireless neighbour and phone from the previous tennant, I would have long since found a post office and sent things back. Instead, I have spent the majority of my waking time on tuesday, wednesday, and then this morning banging my head on the table, trying to make things work.
The tech support I received always led me to believe that I had to get the right passwords in the right place and try a billion different wire connections and re-set all the devices to make sure that they were each connected properly, even though I knew from the outset (as well as some help from my main computer tech man, K) that it was set up properly. Finally, this morning, I said screw it and just got rid of the passwords from my routers. If I didn't need a password to even connect to my modem, why would i need it for my other devices to connect to it. Magic, things were communicating and all was almost well.
There was some more stuff today when I realized that the phone wouldn't actually receive phone calls and then I had to choose between the multiple configurations that the same company offered and after the whole ordeal, I now have everything working as it should be. Chances are that if you want to communicate with me, I have already sent you my new contact info, but if not then please email me and I can send you that info. I have free long distance in Canada and the US so I can call pretty much anyone... except for my Chinese and German friends.

Anyway, I'm pissy because I'm not good with computers and I spent so much frikkin time doing this. Those who know me know that I can be a bit obsessive, and I totally have been about this. Ya, so 2 or 3 days are now down the drain; not exactly the way I wanted to be spending my time, but at least I can say that I have a better understanding of PPPoe, Routers in general, Wireless systems, DSL, and VOIP protocols. I would rather not have learned all of that, but I might as well be proud of it! The good thing is that now (knock on wood), I should be able to just ignore phone and internet aside from using them; we prepaid the yearly contract so we don't get monthly bills. I guess it works out then, rather than people having to pay their bills every month, I just spend my time worrying about it upfront and now I just enjoy the service until next year.

Ok, time for some good news. I looked at my bank account and my student loan money was deposited! YAY! I have been avoiding paying off my credit card (racked up with set-up costs) because that payment would pretty much wipe out my bank account. Financially, I now feel good. That loan money is certainly enough to last at least a few months, and it had better not take that long for my paycheques to start coming in from the university for my teaching. Also, I managed to earn eleven dollars in reward points from my PC financial MC this month! I don't know what you guys think, but I think that's amazing!

Now that I've wasted even more time blogging, I need to go get some work done before I see another day gone down the drain in the name of this bloody phone/internet fiasco!

Today was a bland day... I don't even think I left the apartment. It was raining for the first bit and then, well I didn't have anything to go out for. I unpacked most of my clothes, so now I actually have shirts hanging in my closet. I also did some prep work for my first composition assignment/piece. Ooh, and I also got a bunch of reading done in my electroacoustic music text/owner's manual for the Ramsa mixing board.
Anyway, since I didn't do anything today, I'm not really tired yet, but I know I need to sleep now or else I will not do well for my first teaching tomorrow. Hopefully, if I am able to wake up and leave the apartment early enough, I can also take out the scores and recordings I need from the library before teaching.
Good night all!

Apparently I have been in London for a week already. It feels both like I have just arrived, but also that I've been here a while. Everything is still very fresh and new, but at the same time I have gotten a lot of stuff accomplished:
Apartment is pretty much home now. It's decorated and stuff and I feel at home here. All of my school paperwork is out of the way.
I am completely finished my part of the process for both Canada Student Loan and Manitoba Arts Council Grant; now, I just wait for the money to come flooding in.
I have met with both of my profs for this term and received my initial assignments.
I'm getting to know the geography of the city. When people mention areas of the city and street names, I have a pretty solid understanding of where they are talking about. I'm starting to get acquainted with the bus system and I've walked home a few times from school.

Now, some more detail and perspective:
School - Initial meetings with my composition prof were both intimidating and exciting. We're basically going to ignore anything I've done before and start afresh. This is very exciting for me, although a large undertaking, but that's what grad school is supposed to be. Between comp course and orchestration, I get to have a chamber piece and a short orchestral piece performed, without any organizational effort of my own; I just write the piece and they play it! My first meeting for Electroacoustics was overwhelming... I have no experience at all. There was a stack of 8-12 electronic machines which I need to become familiar - and that's the starting point for where I can begin the course. First assignment was/is to read the manual and learn how to use the basic functions of the 32-channel digital mixing board. There is so much to learn, but I guess I've avoided the high-tech side of music for long enough. Now that I actually saw the studio and got the tour of what kind of magic I can make happen, I'm really interested to learn as much as I can.

Social - The other grad students in the music department are great; so friendly and nice! The MMus in Composition is small, only 5 of us so I was hoping that I would get along with them... I just came from a barbecue at the house where a few of them live (that's right, there is actually house with 3 composers living in it). I've also been invited out a few times with some of the masters voice students. My roommate is great, social enough, but we both know that we're here to learn and be serious students.

The moral is that, after the first week, things are going just fine! I can tell already that school is going to keep me quite busy, but I know I won't be at a loss if I feel I need to take a night to be social.
Phone and internet of our own are en route, so once I have it all set up, I will know what my phone number is and then I will send out my new contact information to all my friends and family back in Winnipeg.

Anyway, I'm going to bed, I'll sleep most of tomorrow away and then on monday, the madness begins - I teach my first class of sight singing!

Today was the start of official business at school. Orientation was 2 hours of my morning. Lots of information that was somewhat relevant. The lines were too long to wait for a student card or bus pass, so I'll avoid that as long as I can.
My program consultation and TA meeting were at the same time today, I figured that I could do the first quickly and then make it to the meeting. The consultation was only 15-20 minutes, but by the time I got to the meeting, I was left with the only 4 remaining teaching slots-
I am teaching sight singing to second year undergrad students. We are using the same textbook as I did for Basic Skills.
-9:30am Mon, wed and fri and then another slot on friday... Yuck.. I don't like mornings.
I had intended to be so efficient with registering and getting paperwork filled out, but I completely forgot. I need to get papers signed for Manitoba Student Loan and the Manitoba Arts Council bursary. Those two are the bulk of my funding for the year, so I need to get on that ASAP. It will still be 2 weeks before I even get the cheque/money. My funds are already starting to dwindle, so that is kinda priority.
I don't have classes or anything tomorrow, so I will get all my paperwork done and student card and bus pass. Aside from a meeting with my composition prof, I don't really have anything until next week. I start teaching my class before I actually take my own classes... haha

It was a rather social day for me. After the TA meeting, I should have remembered to get my forms signed, but I got distracted by people and went to a welcome back little get together thingy at one of the singer's apartments. Then we went to a music grad student thing at the grad bar on campus. I hung out with all of the 5 people in the MMus Composition program. They are super nice and really friendly. We are going to have a composer night next week, so things are starting off well already!

I'm excited to see my friend Brandy play a concert. I looked it up and it's only 2 blocks from my apartment so I can just walk over. That is friday night after my composition teacher meeting.

Zippidy-doo, I'm here

I'm here, and now living in my new apartment.
The last few days were a bit of a whirlwind, but they went surprisingly smoothly. The drive was long, cramped, and generally uneventful; good news.
Yesterday, we got in town just before dinner so after checking into the bed and breakfast my parents had booked for their time here, we went for dinner and finished with just enough time to get to my apartment to see the place and sign the lease; which we did.
We then moved all of my stuff from the car into the apartment, leaving it all packed in boxes. Today was shopping day - we had to buy the furniture that we didn't have room in the car to bring. The bare minimum was a bed, desk, and chair. We went to about 5 or 6 used furniture places, from the second, I got a comfy wheely chair. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find the kind of desk I wanted, and the kind of desk I wanted wouldn't fit anyway; the room is smaller than I had expected/hoped. It took us pretty much the whole day, but eventually I got my desk from Jysk - metal frame with glass workspace; and a bed (box and mattress and frame) from some direct from warehouse type places with a mismatching sale deal. I will sleep on it tonight, and see if it was a smart buy. Nevertheless, I needed the bed and it was the only one I could afford haha.
We also shopped for groceries. My parents took me to the grocery store and bought me a massive chunk of groceries so that I have something to start from. I am so grateful for that and all that they have done to help me with this move. The evening consisted of some cleaning, putting groceries away, organizing my kitchen, putting the desk together - my dad and I are not good at these type of things... but it got done and it's all good!
Anyway, tomorrow is the last day of family fun. We are going to another city in southern Ontario to visit my uncle. I should sleep.
I still haven't met my roommate. Some of his stuff is here, but I guess he's waiting til school starts before he moves in. Once he gets here we will decide on phone and internet. For now, there are mysteriously unsecured wireless connections. I feel a little guilty about using them, but it's only until I get my own set up.
Good night.