Today, I've been doing a mix of packing and cleaning. Damn, there's a lot of cleaning to be done!
I am generally a stereotypical composer/musician in terms of my organizational method - stacks and piles of papers and things everywhere, while being strangely aware of where everything is amidst the apparent disorganization. In a word, I'm justifiably messy
I finally realized that while my suitcase was too tall to fit under the my bedframe, I could simply life the frame and the suitcase now fits comfortably under my bed. I've learnt that an accordian takes up twice as much space when it is stored out of its case.
These fits of cleaning/organizing don't happen too often, so I just figured I'd mention it. I've also been compiling printed out googlemaps of where my Montreal friends live in relation to the bus depot/university so I will not be too lost when I get there. As it stands, I'm completely organized for the Montreal segment of the trip, but there are people in Toronto that I want to see tomorrow - and the problem lies with not having contact with one of them, and not being sure of when and where I will be seeing them.
I will nail down those details tonight. Also, I need to transfer readings, PDFs, and sound files of some of the things I've been working on, just in case I get inspired while there.
At some point, I actually thought I would have been able to spend this evening catching up on work.... Nope, apparently there's too much to do in preparation for a trip.
Oooh, LAUNDRY NIGHT!
I probably will, but just in case I don't blog again before or during my trip, happy reading week everyone!

I have a feeling that that short bout of knitting will be the last for a while... Tomorrow is the last day before reading week; once we return to classes thereafter, it will be high-gear to the end of the year. I don't really want to think about that, so I won't.

Tonight there was a fairly informal performance of the student composers. I showed the film which I worked on earlier this year, and while technical difficulties prevented me from being able to show it on the projector, my laptop screen sufficed and I got some very positive feedback. Nevertheless, it was something completely different that gave me a gentle little ego-rub tonight.
While talking over beverages after the concert, it became clear that one of the profs had mentioned one of my pieces in his lecture as an example of successful treatment of an extramusical idea. The piece was my Alzheimer's Variations. It's always nice for someone to acknowledge that a piece of yours is successful, but for a prof to do that in front of a class, thats something special. Also, it's not like I wrote this piece for an assignment for him, or even while studying with him.. in fact the only time he would have seen this piece was in my audition portfolio. I wondered for a long time whether this piece was truly successful, or if it just rested on the title, but I think I'm now willing to accept that it is a success on its own merit.

So, reading week is starting soon. I am so unorganized, I need to figure out when I am actually leaving for Montreal. There's also a fair bit to get done over reading week... but without deadlines fast approaching, I'm setting myself free into the land of the French, haha! Anyway, even just being in a different city will make doing homework fun, if it comes to that... All of my friends in Montreal are university grad students, so I'll be around the university, and I'm sure I'll see a piano if I'm anywhere near the school of music.

Hello everyone, I'd like to introduce you to two of my newest friends.

I think I will name the pig Pigette in honour of my old friend Piggy. I'm not sure what I will name the penguin.
I didn't give them eyes; I'm not sure if I should buy some bobbly eyes, or just sew some eye-type thing on them... They're a little ragged because I only have a paring knife with which to cut the loose strings. I stuffed them with plastic bags. If I had gone with the fibrefill stuffing, they would be a lot smoother and softer, but I had so many damned plastic bags filling the cupboards - I figure this would be a good way to solve that problem.

It's been a long time since I had time to knit, so I made sure to spend some time doing my favourite pastime this weekend . These stuffed animals are a great project because they take relatively little time (a few hours, or an evening) and you have something very concrete to show what you've done. Bigger projects seem to take forever.

These are also a little more involved in terms of the pattern. You do something a little different each row, so you don't get stuck in a routine. That is both good and bad - when I work on scarves or thongs, or things that I don't need to think about too much, I can do something else, like talk or watch a movie, but because you're not as actively involved, it's easy to forget where you are in the pattern, or what you're doing. With these toys, I found it difficult to do while watching t.v.
This was the first time I brought out my knitting box since the trip out here... it reminded me that I had started a blanket, or something on the drive up, so now I'm going to continue it. There's something about knitting a big project in winter which just makes you feel warm and cozy.

Hmm, I guess that's it. It was a good weekend. I went to Toronto yesterday to see my friend's Opera shorts performed. It was very enjoyable and I'm glad to have actually made it to Toronto. Good times all around.

Last night was two events:

Accompanying - I played for my double bass friend. It went quite well. There was a rocky start at our first rehearsal, which was in the same hour as our first playing for his prof. The prof was quite apprehensive, suffice it to say, he was very happy with how things improved in a few days time.

Side note, I picked up some more accompanying work. I will be playing for a visiting Erhuist. The Erhu is the Chinese violin type instrument; it is a wonderful instrument and I'm excited to get to play for it!

I was most impressed with the Opera last night. From the very first notes, I was impressed with even the calibre of the orchestra. [Side note, a fairly large orchestra can fit in the pit, so I know that there will be no practical problems with that for my dance piece thesis.]
The calibre of singing was varied, but generally very high. My friend Judy was singing one of the leads - it was wonderful to hear her singing so beautifully!
Generally, the opera itself is delightful in a dark kind of way.
If I had to point out a weakness, it would be the acting element of the show. It's not a true opera, because lots of the dialogue was spoken, and it showed that the Opera specialists are just not used to delivering dialogue unless they are singing it. Nevertheless, I thought some of the smaller role characters did a spectacular job at bringing out the 'characters' even in non-spoken/sung aspects.
In the end, any weaknesses were overshadowed by the strength of the cast/musicians. I'm very glad to have gone.
For student-opera, I can't really compare this to anything, because I've only seen students doing opera either in the chorus of professional stuff, or in excerpts. While I might say that some scenes could have been tighter (in comparison to the calibre of some scenes I've seen), I have a great respect for the work that everyone did to bring a whole opera to the stage, and to life.

Tonight, I'm going to the school to work on Electroacoustic stuff. I've been putting it on the back burner for a while now, and it's time to get on top of it. I have a lot to get done tonight, I hope I can get to all of it.

Tomorrow, we're leaving early to get to Toronto in time to meet a friend for lunch before going to the Tapestry New Opera Works show.

OOh OOh
Newsflash!
I'm back to knitting.
I seem to have more time now that the piano trio is done. While I may not actually have as much time as I think, I've been taking that time to knit. I'll put pics up later, but I knit a pig that I shall name Pigette, and I'm knitting a Penguin! They are both stuffed toys, the pig turned out quite well. I am stuffing them with plastic bags, because we have acquired SO many of them, and this seems as good a use as any for them.

Yesterday evening, I handed my piece over to the ensemble and walked them through it and answered any questions they had. It was well received and got some good feedback, even from just a first glance. They are going to start to work on their own parts and then work on it as an ensemble over reading week and I will hear the first reading after reading week.

Now is the exciting time of the year, where I've finished my work and I start to get some feedback from the performers, and I get to hear the works actually performed.

This weekend will be full of opera - Street Scene (UWO Opera) on Friday and then Tapestry New Opera Works in Toronto on Sunday.

I need to get myself organized for Reading Week. I know I want to go to Toronto and Montreal and visit with people, but I need to find out how long I'll be in each place and where I can stay and whatnot.

I slept until 1pm today; it felt great! No big plans for today, and I'm going to ignore school a bit today. I should go out and get my mom something for her birthday coming up. Yes, that will be my plan.

Ballet piano is over for another while. The day was quite long - just after 8am until about 4:45ish, most of that sitting on a wooden chair which slanted backwards = bad for back in general, and super bad for any kind of decent piano posture. Nevertheless, I'm not terribly achy.
It was nice to be treated about on par with the examiner - we were both caffeinated and watered at breaks, fed at lunch and generally pampered.
Everything went well. There were no major catastrophes - at least none that I was responsible for. A few little girls seemed to have completely forgotten just about everything they were supposed to do for the exam, but that just happens sometimes (and from my view, it's delightfully cute and/or hilarious).
The most important part for me, is that I can now afford my plans for reading week (Toronto and Montreal)!

Oooh, in exactly 24 hours, I will be handing over and presenting my piece to my Piano Trio ensemble and answering any questions they might have so that I can officially release the reigns. I got a nice chunk of the work done yesterday and I will still get a lot done tonight. I will ignore the fact that this was supposed to be done for Friday, and I'll just feel good about my progress and accomplishment.

I'm not excited about having to, yet again, wake up early tomorrow to teach. That will be a 4 day stint of early mornings (Thurs-Mon), almost like I was in the working world... completely unacceptable! Luckily, I have no plans for Tuesday other than a whole lot of sleeping, haha!

Tomorrow is my Sister's One Year wedding anniversary, which means that one year ago, I was on a plane from Winnipeg to Las Vegas. I would love to go back... it was a spectacular little vacation.

And there I end my tales of pianism and jollity for the night.

Productive day in many a way:

Rehearsal this morning went well. I dislike the morning, and I was a few minutes late because I stopped to get a timmy ho cappuccino; as I predicted, they were running behind anyway.
We covered the remaining 2 grades of students today - this music was easier and while I was sightreading everything today, I concluded that there was nothing that I couldn't play well enough or fake my way through if need be.
Nevertheless, after my lesson today, I practised piano like I haven't practised in ages... wait - I haven't practised in ages! Anyway, a few hours of metronome practising and I think I'm good to go. I basically had to make a judgement call on my professionalism. My call was to not spend every waking hour of today at a piano - the result is that I spent enough time to learn things to about 80% - the remaining 20%, I will supply tomorrow!
That number is pretty made up, I don't know how I got it - the ones I was most worried about, I tried to learn as close to the tempo marking as possible. There is one piece that just isn't possible to learn accurately with the time an resources given: I practised it so I could play it PERFECTLY at maybe two-thirds tempo. With that as a basis to which I kept going back, I was also practising it up to full tempo using some tricks of the trade - aka faking it. I think I've finally gotten over some of my modesty (whether that be a good thing or bad) and realized that some of the things that I do - improvising, recomposing music at sight (usually to make it more playable) are skills that most other pianists can't or don't do. I'm still not convinced that others CAN'T do improv, but I'm accepting that it is one of my highly marketable skills and I need to treat it like that. I still embrace my altruistic goals of getting the whole classical world to improvise, but ya, I need to take advantage of my skills when I can.

Anyway, the exams are EARLY tomorrow, I have to be there for 8:15ish. Yuck. They run until the late afternoon!! = Long day.

My lesson today was good. He gave me a few more suggestions, therefore there's lots of work still remaining before Monday when I take the piece to the players. Tomorrow evening will be intense with finalizing the piece. Monday, I will have time to final edit, make sure formatting is perfect, then take it to get bound and printed and all that fun.

I am looking forward to this weekend being over.

Also, the chair I sit in at the studio is uncomfortable - I am going to have back pain tomorrow, I know it!

Thanks to my new diabetic friend reader, K2!
I don't blog nearly enough about my diabetes, so now I have a reason to include some of that on here.
I think my diabetes control has been getting consistently better over the past few years and currently it is pretty darned good. At the same time, stress and general disorganization are reeking occasional havoc. I woke up this morning and my sugar was relatively high, it didn't feel like I had an overnight low, and I was struck with the possible realization that I didn't take my long acting the night before. My sugars should have been higher if I went all night without insulin, but I don't know. Generally, I was unsure as to whether I should take the long acting right away... which I ended up doing. Knowing there was a slight chance I might have double dosed, I made different choices all day, tested more regularly and well- it was an odd day. In the end, I'm sure I didn't take it last night.
This all serves as a reminder to not be stressed and disorganized. Missing my long acting insulin is a bummer, cause the math is difficult to figure out - however many hours late you are... that becomes the overlap where the next day, you will have double your dose. I'm sure I could figure a way to juggle doses so I wouldn't have any extra drug, but that would take over a week... the solution is to run my sugars high tonight, I can calculate just how high or what food will cover the extra 12 units of insulin which will be in my blood overnight.

Rehearsal number one went alright today. My playing was QUITE as bad as I was expecting. As I expected, the teacher didn't seem worried about my playing at all, so that's a good thing. Nevertheless, there are 3 or 4 of the exercises that I absolutely have to just plain practice before the exam on Sunday.
Tomorrow morning, I have rehearsals for the other exams - yuck to 9am on a Saturday morning... Damn Ballet!!!! For the last 4 years, ballet has been the demon that ruins my Saturday mornings.
Tomorrow afternoon, I also have a final lesson with my prof for the Piano Trio - hopefully I will get the final blessing on the piece.

I had been thinking of going to Quebec for Carnival next weekend, but then I would have to miss out on both the Opera at Western and a friend's Short Opera premiere in Toronto. I will stay here and enjoy both of those events, save myself some money, and try and do some low key relaxing and socializing.
The following weekend is the start of Reading Week, and I'll be going to Toronto/Montreal during that time, so I won't be missing out on the travel.
AND with this work I'm doing this weekend, I might actually be able to afford some random fun for reading week!

Updates left and right

The little son-of-a-bitch is gone. Good riddance I say. I love dogs, but for the life of me, I can not justify that creature's existence as a dog. It remained afraid of me until my roommate took him home in his little dog carrying bag.
Tomorrow is Friday, the due date for my Piano Trio. On my prof's advisory, I got a short extension until Monday. I could be ready for tomorrow, but he wanted to see me again. This means I will have time this weekend to make it look good and pay attention to finalizing details - those things I might have glossed over if I needed to submit it by tomorrow.

I am working this weekend - I got work as a last minute accompanist for some Royal Academy of Dance exams this Sunday. It is probably not in my best interest to do this - 14 hours over the weekend will surely get in the way of the Piano Trio and school work, but not enough to have a negative effect on my school work. The reason it's not in my best interest is because it comes to about 80 pages of music which I will be damn close to sight-reading. Even if I had nothing else to do, that's a little much to try and polish over a weekend. RAD music is BAD - terrible music. I think it was written by random dance pianists. The music is weak, lacking compositional craft. Written in odd keys with awkward hand positions and whatnot - the kind of music on needs to practise = great for long time dance accompanists who are in need of something to involve themselves in their trade, but in the end - not good for the musicality of the dancers or the pianist.
Anyway, for each of the three exam sets I will be accompanying, I will get a few hours of rehearsal with the dancers = time to play through the pieces and make notes of which I need to practise before the exam. One thing I've learnt from accompanying dance is - while I will hear my mistakes and imperfections, the teacher and dancers will hear the musicality that live accompaniment brings. Still, I will be spending far too much time playing the piano this weekend.
I am also going to accompany my Double Bass playing friend for a concerto movement. Also fairly bad music- written by a bassist to display the instrument, not the musicality, but oh well. It's very Romantic and fun to play, so it works out!

I was planning on being done the trio and wasting away the weekend, but my how the tables have turned....

In response to Jon,
Thank you for your regular commentary. Perhaps I shouldn't paint such a picture of myself as a lazy unproductive jackass, jackass.
I think my comments are generally slanted with a bit of modesty, but they also give insight into my own creative process. Some people need to lock themselves away with their compositions and they are incredibly productive during that time. That is generally the type of student that profs are used to dealing with, from what I gather. As for myself, I point out the lack of productivity, because that is the most apparent comparison that I can make between myself and others around me. As it happens, the creative process has been running constantly, and it's a series of dry spells between the times that I can pull together that which develops itself sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, in my head.
Tonight is one of those moments - and perfectly timed. My lesson is tomorrow, so I am pulling everything together tonight as it is finally making sense.
I was starting to get worried that I might not have a completed piece in time, but now I am confident that I will.

In regards to the dog, I forgot to mention the breed....
hold on to your panties....
it's a "Chinese Crested Powder Puff"
that's right, easily the most pathetic name for a breed ever!
I've concluded that it is also the most pathetic dog ever. It cowers constantly at noises it hears, and mostly me. Basically, it doesn't seem like the dog had been properly socialized and therefore has issues with dominance. Anyway, I'm losing patience quickly and quite frankly, I find myself reacting more emotionally than I should to the fact that it fears me.
Animals have odd affects on people, even those who don't overtly desire the acceptance of others, can be hurt by the lack of acceptance by a stupid little son-of-a-bitch!

My lesson is tomorrow, lessons are productive, therefore I will report back tomorrow about how PRODUCTIVE and NOTLAZY I will have been.... Happy Jon?!?

I have a puppy!

My roommate's parents are on vacation, so we get to look after their dog for a little while.
It's tiny... like not even the size of a house cat. Super scrawny and the most timid dog I've ever met, but that's ok, it's a dog!
It's only been here an hour, so it needs to get used to it's new surroundings anyway, but it will be nice to have around the apartment.
In conclusion, it's 10pm Sunday night and I did not get enough work done this weekend.
I'll work as much as I can up to about midnight, but I need to get sleep tonight especially after what happened on Friday...
Oh wait, I never mentioned - crazy - how could I not have mentioned it!
I slept in Friday morning - until 9:20-something. The problem was that I was teaching at 9:30, and I need to leave 30 minutes before I need to be at the school. I didn't waste a second, I called a cab and brushed my teeth and threw on some clothes, gathered my stuff in just enough time to see the cab outside my window. I was 10 minutes late for class, and I felt terrible about it.
This will sound bad, but it actually worked in my favour: Luckily, It was a test on that day, so the students were coming spaced out and not on time anyway. All of the students showed up and did their tests - I was worried about the odd chance that a student showed up in the first 10 minutes and then left before I got there, but luckily everything worked out.
I think I did get caught up on sleep this weekend, but it generally sucks staying up until 2am when I need to wake up for 7:30ish; it's just under my 6 hour comfort zone of sleep.
Ok, back to work!

Damnit, I'm TRYING to be super productive this weekend, but failing miserably.
The only project I have to work on is my piano trio. For the last few weeks, I've been able to go between projects and have a sense of being productive on something at any time. There seemed to be a natural flow to things.
That flow has slowed to a puddle.
I'm getting some stuff done, but I was hoping/needing the creative stuff to just be flowing out of me this weekend. Anyway, the good thing about staring at my sketches and the computer screen for hours without actually producing anything new is that I'm getting to know my own work quite well. I'm starting to see how it is all going to fit together. I'm not terribly worried because this is how it usually happens - I take an inordinate amount of time to piece things together internally and then I am able to sort that out in the real world (well, as real as the computer or manuscript is). The problem is that I can't rely on that time having elapsed early enough for me to get all my work done, so I'll just force myself to do what I can so that it will get finished by the weekend. My lesson is on Tuesday, but I do want to have some sense of finality going in there. My goal is to have it in some form of completion by tomorrow night so that I can just work on the finesse of the piece.

I am excited to think ahead to ... well anything other than this weekend. Next weekend, I will be done all of my immediately pressing projects - it's been a LONG time since I haven't had some kind of deadline looming over me... probably since November.
Also, the weekend after next weekend, I am going to Quebec for Carnival! I've been feeling stupid/lazy/uncultured lately - thinking about the fact that I live 2 hours from Toronto, yet I still haven't gone. This area of the country has a lot of opportunities available, so I need to take advantage of them. I think I'm also going with some grad student friends to see the TSO playing Mahler next weekend.

When I was deciding on grad schools, I convinced myself that it would be more advantageous to live somewhere(London) close to a big big city with lots of culture(Toronto) than to live in a moderately big city with moderate culture(Edmonton). I think I was wrong. The arts and cultural influence has to be right around you. I'm going to start forcing myself to go to Toronto more because, let's face it, London is not good for my artistic soul. School is great and I'm learning a lot and I love it, but there's also all of that stuff that people learn outside of class.
In conclusion, wherever I go after this degree, that choice will be driven by the desire to live within a strong artistic community.
I hope I don't sound too negative, the other side of that is my plan to make the most out of London. Once my piano trio is done, I will have time to start working with the choreographer on some kind of project for the end of this term as a precursor/ research into my thesis project for next year. I am also going to put efforts into starting that improvised music group at Western.

Ok, too much time typing on the computer... back to work!