Tonight, I went to the first of what will soon be many back-to-school shindigs. As tomorrow is Labour day and meetings start early next week, summer is almost officially over.

I had such grand ideas and plans and expectations for this summer - I'm trying to think of even one area of my life where I even came close to those expectations. Whether it be work, productivity, health and exercise, socializing or anything else - this summer was a blatant failure.
As I claim far too often, I'm going to use this as a chance for a fresh start.

I definitely got into a bad rut during the summer. Things are different enough now that I will try to shift everything rather than little by little.

I'm excited to sell/pawn my crappy keyboard. All keyboards are crappy, so the prospect of getting a piano really excites me. Also, living right downtown, there are 2 pawnshops that I can go to within a minute walk! I can't even remember what I paid for the keyboard so I'd be happy to get anything more than fifty bucks. Of course I'll haggle with them - that's the fun part!

Things are really up in the air still, and boxes are a'clutterd, but I'm officially at home here in the new apartment.
I'm getting along great with the new roommate. We're currently looking into renting a piano for the year. This would make me beyond happy!
I'm ready in mind to get the new school year started, but not in preparation... Anyway It will be good to get the year started.

I'm moved into the new apartment and I love it!
There are still a lot of boxes in the way of feeling completely moved in, but it already felt odd going to my other apartment to clean.
It only took me 15 seconds of outside time to get to work yesterday. I could have made it last 1 or 2 minutes by going to the lights to cross, but that seemed excessive.
Once again - free cable. I'm less excited about it this time; I was actually hoping I wouldn't have it so that I could focus on work. I guess I'll have to be my own motivation this year and not get suckered into sloth.

This is my last post from my first apartment in London.
I moved a fair bit of stuff today with the help of my friend Judles and tomorrow morning I pick up the rental van. By tomorrow evening/night, I will be officially moved into the new apartment. Tomorrow is going to be a long day!
I'm very glad I have this extra week or so to move, rather than having to do everything on September 1'st. I'll have time if I forgot to pack something, or to come back and clean.

I've enjoyed this apartment, but it's time to move on. I'm convinced that the change in venue and surroundings will be exactly what I need for this next year.

Moving reminds me of how much stuff I have - I wish I had less. I'm going to donate a bunch of clothes to the goodwill - uprooting things gives the opportunity to see what you haven't worn all year.

Oh yes, I'm definitely going to enjoy the central air tomorrow night in my new apartment!

Ooopsie, I need to go to bed... staying up too late won't be good for tomorrow.

goodnight and goodbye from quaint little Cartwright St.

Today was a very productive day - and it's only 2pm!

I went and got the keys to my new apartment. Included with the apartment are a couch, a chair, and a nice round, wooden dining room table. Can you believe that every wireless network within range was secured?!? At least people are learning their lessons - but I wish there were more trusting people who like to share their networks...

I bought deodorant. The brand I use has a new flavour - I'm very excited to try it out!

I got a membership at the YMCA on my way home. I'm realizing that going back to school this year won't really give me any schedule, as I have no classes, so I'm going to use swimming in the mornings to impose some kind of daily routine. Also, the goal is to be somewhat less fat and lazy this year.

I'm up too late considering the next few days/weekend.
Tomorrow I have a meeting with my department head - nothing major, just the beginning of the year thingy to make sure I have everything covered.
Friday is the day I get possession of the new apartment. I wrote out the post-dated cheques today - it took longer than I expected. I can't seem to find a car to borrow, so I don't think I'll end up doing any moving this weekend. I'll spend all of Sunday putting things in boxes and then I have a rental cargo van for Monday. So much organizing to do.

I got an email yesterday saying that I will get to coach a chamber group in improv next year, but they don't know if it will be for credit or not. Either way (possibly dependant on...) I need to come up with a projected course outline stating how I will approach the learning and implementation of improvisation and what my goals would be for the ensemble. I need to get this done quick, so I can go back to the other things on the list - compositions and thesis proposals and whatever else...

Oh my gosh, next week is the last full week of summer! School starts on the fourth, and while I know that doesn't realy have a bearing on me, it's putting things in perspective.
Yikes!

Almost a whole week...

Time seems to be moving so quickly these days.
By next weekend, I will have possession of my new apartment and I'll start to move some boxes over little by little.
In a little over 2 weeks, school will be starting.
In about 2 months, I will be fully into my thesis as well as SSHRC, and doctoral applications.
In a little over 8 months, I will be finished my Master's degree.

It's all a little much to think about at this point. I'm taking things one-thing-at-a-time - first I'll be overwhelmed by the apartment move, then with the rush to be productive in the last weeks before school, and then everything else will fall into place.

Especially after the last few weekends in Toronto, I'm thinking that I will more than likely move there in the near future. I'll apply to a few programs for DMA studies. I'll go wherever I get in, but if I don't get in anywhere, I could see myself just moving to Toronto and working there for a while. Once again, I state my complete lack of any idea of where my life is headed at this point!

Toronto this weekend was exactly what I needed.
I was mainly going to visit my friend Chris and even though he was super busy and tuckered out from excessive opera preparations, it was great to visit! I met some new friends, other singers in the same production as him. I helped him find a very decent apartment in downtown Toronto - I'm glad to know that he now has a place to live next year, and there's one more floor in Toronto that I can sleep on if need be!

I also had two separate meetings with my thesis adviser and second reader. I got some really good tips and guidance as to what I need to change, and further address in my thesis proposal.
Also, I've been given a short term deadline to start getting some musical examples underway.

It's official, I signed the lease on the awesome new apartment downtown.
The location and rent are better than I ever could have hoped! Both of the apartments were still available so we took a look at the front one with the big windows. A(u)nt fell in love with it. I was not immediately sold on it because the smaller bedroom is only a little larger than the one in which I am currently living. After a short discussion, we agreed that I'd have my workspace out in the common area - right by the beautiful big windows! That means that I will have a slightly larger bedroom to house even less stuff - I'm confident that I will be comfortable with the living arrangements.
The lease starts September first, but the landlord said we can move in as soon as the hydro is in our name - so that should happen in about a week or so!

In other news, I bought a cell phone today. It's a talk-and-pay one from Telus. I wasn't completely sold on any of the plans from any of the companies - All I want is call display and voice mail, but you have to buy an add on for any of the rate plans. The one I got includes both of those and I can keep the number active for only 10 bucks a month. If I find I'm spending enough money on calls to warrant it, I can just switch into a Telus rate plan at any time, without a contract. More than likely, I'll end up doing that in a few months - that way I'll have saved 150$ on the phone, and I won't have to pay the one-time activation fee. I guess it all depends how much I'll be using it.

I'm going to Toronto this weekend to visit my favourite new Torontonian, Chris! I also have meetings with both of my thesis advisers/readers. I'm excited to not have to work or go to church this weekend - yay!

Tomorrow at noon - Lease Signing. I'm meeting my roommate for breakfast before that.

This weekend - going to Toronto. Mostly, I'm going to visit my friend who is doing an opera program. I will also be meeting with my second reader for my thesis.

Work makes me somewhat happy - not the actual work, though it isn't terrible, but the state of having work to do. The money aspect of it is important, but there's also the fact that it gives me a schedule - albeit a bad one - which actually helps me to be productive on my writing.

Everything moves at its own pace.

It's August. Summer has gone far too quickly. I have so much writing to get done while it's still summer. All of the projects I've been working on are far behind schedule - I am going to have to buckle down right about now.

It's August. I submitted a permissions request for a set of poems last year in about June - I intended to use them for Andrea's song cycle. They told me the process would take between 8-10 weeks. By this time last year I was already expecting to hear a response. After my emails received responses but not action, by the time September rolled around, I gave up on getting the rights, so I tossed the poems aside.

Today, my parents received a 6 page contract from the publisher detailing their claim to performance and publications rights and my rights and this and that! Long story short, I'm glad I didn't wait for the response. There is a huge variation in the restrictions of a permissions agreement- sometimes they want just a token fee and you can use it like you want [One of the poems I used was this case], sometimes they only want a percentage of the profit you make [for art music, this is possibly the best], but the worst case scenario is that they want both money upfront and a cut of your profit. Although I will read it over for details, this publisher wants one-hundred pounds upfront and then 50% of any profit made owing to the use of that text.

In conclusion 8-10 weeks equals 10-14 months!