Sunday, April 27, 2008

Just like the few days before I went home for Christmas, the time just flew by and I didn't really get anything done. I packed today, pretty much. And I organized all the papers that I had collected over the year.
I have to do some cleaning tomorrow before I leave for most of a month...
This is going to be an exciting/interesting trip.

I will be welcoming a relatively new member into my extended family - Olive, the puppy.
I will be visiting a college friend and a friend of the family / 'aunt' who have terminal cancer.
I will be watching a friend start a new life with her husband, as they celebrate their wedding.
I will be seeing lots of friends and family.
I will be revisiting my old jobs that treated me well in my formative years.
I will be meeting with people to pave the way to my future career.
I will be investing time and money into new clothes / wardrobe.
I will be heading into the Florida sun.

It's quite a varied list. I don't know how to compare them or prepare myself for them. At the same time, I don't think I need to. I will let everything happen and see how it goes.

I know the next few weeks will go by even faster than I am prepared for, so I'll just hop on my plane and brace myself for it.
I'm sure I will be posting during the trip, so stay tuned.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

I remember last time my schedule filled up in Winnipeg quickly, but this is ridiculous. I have at least one thing written into my schedule Monday-Sunday: recitals, weddings, work, wine evening.
That's right, I will be working... I told both of my dance studios that I would be back in town for the week, and both of them have taken me up for some subbing - it doesn't even add up to a total of 4 hours, so the money won't be huge, a) it's a good way to keep my job prospects just in case I ever move back to Winnipeg and 2)I kinda miss playing for dance classes... I haven't played piano much this year.

Anyway, I haven't really written in any time for friends in this schedule.. although a lot of it is friend related, but I need to make sure I get my time with close friends.

I sat in a park yesterday for about 45 minutes. It was delightfully sunny and there were people walking dogs - one dog delightfully mauled me. It was the funniest thing. It was really far away, and then it ran towards me... it took at least 10 seconds of full gale running, but the whole time, I could tell it was friendly excited running, not angry. The dog was so playful, it just wanted a hug. The dogs owner was apologetic, but there was no need.
Anyway, I was doing some beginning reading/planning work on some poems I'm setting this summer. It was a good time until I saw a really large bumble bee. It must have been a queen, it was so round and fat. I was scared, so I left.

I don't leave until Monday, but I'll probably spend the entire weekend cleaning. I haven't cleaned my room at all this term... oopsie. Actually, it's not terrible, I just need to organize the piles of papers. I kind of enjoy organizing things! I need to make sure that my financial paper work is in order, and then I will organize my school papers and file them away.

Ok, time to get started on that!

Thursday, April 24, 2008

I changed my return flight from Wpg-London into Wpg-Orlando. I'm going to Disney World! My sister and I are going to hang out in the beautiful Florida sun. My plan is to super-relax and do some writing while she is busy doing her course, then when she's done, we'll party it up!

I also found out I can get a little bit of funding for the Vancouver Summer Program.

I'm almost done this paper! I'm not sure if I'll actually hand it in tomorrow or if I'll take some more time over the weekend. Either way, the end is in sight!

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Super Happy!

I know it's probably vain, but seeing all the comments on my blog made me very happy right now!
Thanks to Mai and Jon, my Chinese friends, and Tiffy!
Mai - if you come to London, sure I'll give you a super organ concert adn teach you how to be awesome too, haha, I will also eat well and be healthy - just for you! I'd say I'd do it for myself, but obviously that hasn't been working.
Jon- good thinking on the whoring.. I'll get around to that, I'll have to double check with performers and get permission, but we'll see...
Tiffy - I really hope to see you at some recitals when I'm in town.. are you going to Carrie's?

Other Happy -
I got a greeting card from Fi in the mail, and I couldn't help but smile ridiculously.. It had a penguin giving me a hug!
I have a roommate for next year, and we're going to start looking into a decently cheap apartment downtown! Boo for both of us not getting OGS, but yay to the opportunity it brings us!
I'm finally starting to feel like this paper is coming along. 3 more days and nights to finish it.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Oh my lord, I hurt!

I always think the same thing, but damn it, I never want pizza again in my life.
I don't even like it that much, but my roommate was ordering last night and asked me if I wanted to go in on an order, so I said yes.
It hurts me.
Pizza is incredibly high in carbohydrates, but it takes a long time to be absorbed into the bloodstream. When I eat pizza, I take 2 thirds of my dose before and then the rest a little later. When I get doing things like working on an essay and I wait a little too long to take the second part... then the carbs get absorbed and my sugars jump up high. The other possibility is that if I've taken too much insulin for the amount of carbs in my system, then the sugars drop too low and my body shoots out glucose so the sugars jump up high. I think today was the second one... but either way, I end up feeling like shit. Sometimes I can successfully eat pizza, but not today.
In conclusion, pizza is too complicated a food to eat.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

I'm thinking the logistics of this trip to Winnipeg are going to be a bit much. I need to bring my suit for a wedding. I was thinking of bringing two suitcases, but if I'm going to Orlando, then I'll need to bring everything with me to Orlando so I can fly direct home thereafter.

Procrastination has had far too much of it's clutch on me lately. I will switch what I hoped to be today's goal to tomorrow - finish analysis and start writing. I did get a fair bit of analysis done today, but still not finished. Only once I have that done will I be able to understand what my paper will specifically be about.
I leave in a week and a day. So much to get done in this week!
My hair is getting long, and it's driving me a little crazy, but I can't afford the time to get it cut until I'm done my paper. If I don't rip it out, I'll wait til I'm in Winnipeg and get it cut by Phil.... it's been too long!

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Boo!
I didn't get my Ontario Graduate Scholarship. Nothing to worry about, it just means that next year I will have the same funding from UWO as I had this year.
In conclusion, I will be in debt after this degree, unless I find some amazing job this summer.
I'm fine with this.

I sent emails yesterday and today to find out if UWO might be able to help me with the cost of the summer program in Vancouver. I got the response - an apologetic no.
In conclusion, I have to rethink it, but I'm pretty sure I will be doing the program anyway - I will just be in debt after the program, unless I find some amazing job this summer.
I'm fine with this.

I got an 'offer that you can't refuse' - basically I can have a trip to Disney World, and all I have to
pay for is my flight. I think I'll be able to work it so that instead of flying home from Winnipeg, I'll go to Orlando, then I'll just have to pay the 40$ change fee, plus the difference of the ticket, and then a flight from Orlando to Toronto - so, I get to go to Disney World for about 500$.
In conclusion, I will be in debt after this trip, unless I find some amazing job this summer.
I'm fine with this.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Happy Post!

I'm a little on edge - really wanting to know if I got the Ontario Graduate Scholarship or not - they were supposed to inform us a few days ago, but then rescheduled the unveiling for friday.
----but that is the end of my negativity------

I found out that I got accepted into one of my summer programs today. It is a full week of improvising in Vancouver during June. Mmm, summer in Vancouver - I'm very excited.
I've sent some emails, in hopes that I will get some funding to make it happen, because registration for the program + flight to Vancouver + hostel + food = expensive , but it will be worth it!

Even if I don't get funding, my finances will even out because I got a job ish. I will be a substitute organist at a church just outside of London for about 9 weeks this summer. It's been a while, but I'm going back to the Anglican Church!
[Those of you who've been reading since the very beginning of this blog... I doubt that there are any... will remember that I used to be an Organ Scholar at an Anglican Church in Winnipeg. That was ages and ages ago.]

Oops, I got distracted from blogging and that was a few hours ago. Now I end this post - still in a bonnie good mood. Hopefully I will have good news from OGS in the next day or so!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

A Post for Chris

So, around Christmas break, I bought a new calendar.
This was a huge event for me. For the last about 6 years, my dad has gotten these little free fake-leather pocket calendars to which I had become addicted. My dad is now retired, so he no longer gets these calendars and thus, I had to buy my own.
Chris and I went to a few places looking for our respective perfect pocket planners.
I'm assuming everyone who reads this knows how bad I am with decisions and changing my mind repeatedly.
Partially through the convincing of Chris (motivated by the 'damnit Michael, pick one already' feeling) I picked a rather large hard cover calendar, which was beautifully leather covered. I spent this whole year carrying it with me in my bag, but it has been problematic:
1)I don't use it as often for a few reasons:
a)due to size, I've opted to either remember (ie forget) things rather than taking the book out of my bag.
b)My schedule is nowhere near as busy as it was in previous years, so my calendar is pretty bare anyway.

In the end, I've grown resentful of this calendar.

Today I was on a mission to get a new calendar. I was even willing to just go to hallmark and buy one of those floppy plastic covered crappy ones, but they were sold out.
I went back to Chapters - and as fate would have it, I fell in love.
I bought a small moleskin calendar which has the same format as my old one, though shaped slightly differently.
Bottom line - I am immediately happier with how I organize my life, and therefore, my life!

Nevertheless, I still mourn the loss of my planner from years gone by...
My best memory was that there was a section at the beginning labelled "To Do", on which I always enjoyed writing the names and phone numbers of people I was supposed 'to do'.

So, I'm done with trying to shorten my blog posts - it's just not me! I've found that I've been writing unnecessarily longer emails/correspondence and generally being more anxious. I will continue to try and streamline what I have to say, but I shan't limit myself on my blog!

In other news, I've been listening to podcasts from www.german-podcast.de and I think it's helping to improve my german vocabulary and comprehension!

I'm playing my own piano piece this Thursday - my Alzheimer Variations. I need to re-thank Diane, who premiered the piece at U of M, because there is one particular movement which is much more difficult to perform convincingly than I had thought. She played a very convincing and respectful performance, and I hope that mine is also.
In my practising, I have focused on the technical difficulties and now they are secure, now it's about my interpretation and personal involvement. I'd like to say that I will go all out, but the piece is highly personal, and I'm not sure to what extent I should open myself up while performing this in public. It might be good to have a hardcore emotional experience, quasi-music-therapy while playing this piece in a practise room, but that might not communicate most effectively to an audience. I'll play around with that and then make my decisions in the next few days.

I handed in my marking today, now I'm officially finished teaching for the year. All that remains is this performance - though not related to school directly- and my essay, which I hope to finish in about a week.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Ok, the first two songs on my myspace page are my piano trio and my second term electroacoustic piece.
It looks like everyone has been just rushing over to listen to music... cough cough. I'll assume that, even though no-one shows it, I have a wonderful supportive online community.
The job search has pretty much been a flop, but I will continue, because I need to. As it is, I'll end up finding a job after my Winnipeg trip.
The results of OGS are supposed to be available after today... but I want them now... they probably won't be online anyway.. grr!
I've been doing readings/research into my paper. It's due before the end of the month. I'm learning a lot as I just do the preliminary research - I'm going to do more reading like this during the summer and always.
Sandra and I have agreed on a text, so I'm ready to start on my first summer project, yay! It's going to be a set of miniatures, in some sense inspired by the Kurtag that I'm looking at. Kurtag wrote/writes almost exclusively in small/miniature forms - I hope I can be anywhere near as successful as he has been - in general, as well as with small forms...

Saturday, April 12, 2008

I appear to be suffering from a case of impatience:
I want the recording of my autumn songs to be here now.
I want to start my summer soprano song cycle project, but I need the singer's choice of poetry first.
I want people to listen to and comment on my piano trio, but no-one has even visited the website.
I want supper now, but I have to wait for it to cook.
I want to start on my thesis, but I need to finish previous things first, then do some planning.

Speaking of my thesis, I had a good talk with my choreographer which left us both in a state of excitement at some of the possibilities. I think the theme of the work will be the Zodiac Signs. I had thought about it earlier, but 12 was too many movements, but it was pointed out that they divide into categories of the 4 elements - another subject I had thought about, but decided it was too vague. Now, by combining the two, we have a decent subject that will allow us to be suitably vague, but also specific!

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Der Frohliche Hoppelnde Hase

I finally got my hands on the recording of the student composer concert from last month after much impatience. After waiting what I and most others felt was far too long, the recording was put in the library -in the form of a DVD, which makes getting the audio from it much more difficult.
At first, I was able to copy the audio part of one of the chapters onto my flash drive, but I was frustrated to find out that that chapter cut off the last 10 seconds of the piece.... ARGH.
One of my colleagues ended up using his DVD ripping software to make me a copy of the audio so all is well!
Long story short - go here:
http://www.myspace.com/mikeyjpark
it's my myspace page and I've added the file so you can listen to it.
Enjoy, and I'd love to hear feedback!
The piece is called "Der Frohliche Hoppelnde Hase", but don't look it up yet. Listen to the piece without knowing the title, as it has nothing to do with the piece. I will provide the translation in the comment section.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

I've been relishing this year in the fact that performances have not required my involvement.. I'm more a part of the audience.
That has changed over the last few days.

For the electro concert, I was a performer, and add to that the fact that it was not piano -not my speciality in terms of performing. I hope the performance was recorded, or else I will never have a true knowledge of how the pieces went.

Andrea's recital - I know it happened tonight, but I wasn't there. I was very involved with the performer and explaining it over the phone, but I was very disconnected from the rehearsals and completely absent from the performance. I won't even get to hear the recording for another couple of weeks at best, most likely not until I am back in Winnipeg. Basically tonight, I was very aware that I really wanted to be there tonight...
If any of my readers were there tonight, please give me feedback - but I don't want ego-buffing, please only post honest reactions to the pieces. I expect the same curtness and judgement that I dish forth on this blog!
Moral - Performances involving you in anyway are never supposed to be easy - now I'm starting to tune into my true reactions to my role in recitals and performances as a composer.

Monday, April 07, 2008

Electro Day

The performance was today. Setup started at 9am, and tear down ended about 10:15pm. Even with technical glitches left and right, from unnoticeable to quasi disastrous, I think I'm rather satisfied with what happened in the end, and I've learnt so much from the experience.

As of last night, I have a website.
http://www.michael-park.com
Right now there is no real content and it's blazingly templaterrific, but I'm going to get around to making it at least somewhat decent during the summer. As I don't have much to put on it anyway, I will be keeping it fairly low key, but very professional - something I can put on business cards as I work my way from student life to the professional world, eventually.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

After an in-class electro performances on Friday, I got comments that my Witch piece didn't really have a climax, and some of the text wasn't clear when played back.
I got my singer to record some things yesterday (took all of 7 minutes) and now I have added a layer which will solve all those problems. Basically, my pieces are finished, and I find myself wondering what to do now.
Maybe I'll go to the library and start some research for my paper. I also need to print out a score for a competition I'm entering. Then there's some orchestration and composition work to do.
Excellent, now I'm no longer wondering what to do, I'm avoiding it!

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Good updates:
I had fallen out of touch with my choreographer - turns out that things were crazy this term for her as well as the dancers, so rehearsals just didn't really happen. She is still definitely interested. After classes end, I will have a meeting with her and we will discuss plan of attack for next year and the project as a whole.
I will also have a meeting with one of the music profs after classes end so that we can discuss the possibility of a credit improvisation ensemble, and what involvement I could have in it.

I hate decisions, and there's a big one I have to make, that I've put off for long enough. Thesis adviser. The choice is down to 2; one will be my adviser and the other will be my second reader. I've talked to other people and they are both great choices and I could work with either one. I just don't know. Hmmm...

Ok, the other good news I have is that I talked to my roommate and he pointed out that I'm technically only subletting the place from him, so I'm not locked into the lease right up until September. That means that I can look for a place earlier in the summer and not worry about having to find a subletter! Obviously, I'm not going to just up and leave, and he's very flexible about everything so basically we'll just agree on a date when I'll move and then we can both work with that. I'm thinking maybe July ish. That way, I won't be moving at the back-to-school time. Although that necessitates moving to somewhere with air-conditioning.

I'm sorry, I've been long-winded again. I'll stop.
I really feel like rambling, but I'll try to stop myself... maybe spread this into a few short posts.

Tonight, I spent a few hours in the electro lab, and I think I'm pretty much done - the piece from this term is in the final stage, now it's just a matter of practising the coordination and tightening up some things that come across in rehearsal... ie the once that we will perform it tomorrow before the concert on Monday. The piece from last term was a little bit of work as well - I haven't played it in months, and I needed to reintroduce myself to it.

I find this exciting; I am totally on the ball as the term ends.
There still remains a major research paper that I need to get started on, but the date for that is not pressing.

Ok, I'm going to start another short blog entry...
I bought an ipod yesterday: an 8giggle-bite Nano.
Despite the spending guilt, I think I love it already.
As I walked home from school at 2am yesterday, I listened to a Schumann Cello Concerto and some of Richard Strauss's orchestral works.
I have felt guilty for not listening to enough music this year, simply the time to devote to listening has been difficult to find. I realized last night that while walking home, I can devote that time - not with a score, but listening anyway. This will be my motivation both to listen and walk more.

My presentation yesterday went ok, I felt like I did a bit of incoherent rambling, but I'll find out how I did next week. School is still intensely busy, I've found that I've been working on my compositions in my sleep, and my music has been staying with me at all times. I wouldn't quite saw it's creepy, but it will motivate me to finish the works...