I'm glad I checked the Manitoba Arts Council website - if I hadn't I would have missed the Student Bursary Program deadline. Not that I'm relying on the money, but another 3 grand would sure be nice!
Another part of me wishes (not really) that I missed it, because whipping together a grant application in a night is not fun, ever. Luckily, I did the same application last year, so I don't have nearly as many questions and/or confusions as last year.

Tomorrow morning is church - I like the hymns from this week better than I did from last week, although I'm not quite as comfortable with the communion service music, but that's why the choir rehearses before the service, YAY!

updates

I went to see the apartment. I liked it, it was very funky. The main problem was lack of windows - the windows all faced the building nextdoor... 2 feet away. The rooms did have a skylight and a fire escape which provided light, but my roommate can't live without natural light windows in his room.
The search continues.

Much earlier this year, my chair broke and since then I have been mumbling about getting a new one. Today on my walk home, there was a pile of things left out with the trash - vacuum, lamp, clothes rack, chair, etc. - obviously being thrown out. I walked on, then returned to take a look; I left again, and half a block later I came back and wheeled the chair home. It was very noisy, but worth it. The chair is a little water logged from having spent the day in the rain, but once it dries out, it will be perfect (and free)!
The search is over.

I had a job interview today. Aside from being waterlogged myself, it went very well and was told that I would get a call when there comes and opening. I am not terribly worried, because it is telephone work, so the turnover is high, but I was really wanting to have a job right away. I will continue handing out resumes and looking for work in the interim.
This search is in limbo.

more positive news:

I'm going to check out an apartment today; from the description, it sounds perfect. 2br with 2 levels, right downtown. My roommate for next year is in Toronto, so I'm going to email him pictures as soon as I can today.

I'm going to Toronto tonight to see the performance of a friend's opera. A few friends are carpooling, so it will be a good social event.

job search updates

I got a call back from a job as a medical delivery driver. We did a telephone interview and I was kicking some serious butt and she was noticeably impressed with my answers. Then she started asking simple official questions. There presented no problems until the last one, 'just a formality' she said.
'Because of the nature of the job, we can only hire people who qualify for our insurance policy, so can you just verify that you are 25 years old?"
DAMNIT!
Part of my wishes that they had put that in the job description, or as the first question of the interview, but the other is happy that I got a call back and did the interview - they definitely made me feel better about the job hunt.

On some friends' advice, I ended up calling someone about a high turnover telephone solicitation job; I have an interview on Saturday. I may be overly cocky, but I have the feeling that I'll just be walking into this job - I interview well, and it's high turnover anyway, I'm sure they'd take anyone willing.
The problem with the job is that it is five four-hour evening shifts a week. It's good because I'll be done by 9:15 pm, so it won't hurt the lack of socializing that is my life, but their calling hours limit the amount of hours I can work, and therefore money I can make.
At this point, I'll take what I can get!

Earlier this year, I let it slip that I'm a thong-knitter. Since then, a few Londoners have requested to see pictures, so yesterday I finally searched out my thong model pictures and posted some of them on facebook. So far, it's been lots of happy, positive feedback, although I haven't heard much from the Londoners.

The job search sucks. I put in a fair bit of effort for the first bit, but then I became bitter and not as willing to go door-to-door, whoring myself out to employers. I haven't stopped altogether; I actually applied at the knitting shop 15 minutes walk from my place. It wouldn't be the best paying, but I think this could be a damn good summer job. Actually, at this point any job would be damn good.

The weather here has been beautiful lately, except for today. Today it was too hot, 28C, feeling like 31C was just too much - it felt like I was back in Orlando. The few days before were sunny and clear and about 13-17 degrees, my happy temperature!

I've been sporting parts of my new wardrobe lately, but I realized, it's been a waste - my contact with people since getting back to London has been minimal. Now that school is out, there are so few students here, and the non-students of London are generally even less fashionable than the wannabe-Toronto fashion sense of the students... Actually, I'm certainly not one to talk, but I'm missing the school year right now, even if only because there is no-one to notice my feeble attempts at being stylish-ish.

A day filled with not-so-exciting news

I'm now an organist again - it reminded me of how difficult playing organ can be, as well as how surprisingly hard I have to work on playing what should be simple 4 part harmony. I went with the organist I'm subbing for to the church today and he walked me through their service formats and general things. I have a key to the church and organ = I really really wish I had a car so I could go and practise there, but it just out of the city and awkward to get to.
Finding an organ to practise on is proving difficult - organists in this town are very possessive of their church organs and none of them in my area are open to letting me practise.

The buses in London are techno-upgrading - the bus I rode today had a ladies electronic voice announcing the next stops. It's a big step forward in the right direction, but there were some problems. Mainly the stop is not announced with sufficient time before the actual next stop - it should follow European practises and announce the next stop AS it is leaving the previous stop. The bus driver was treating things like nothing had changed, but once, a passenger heard the stop they wanted, pulled the string, but it was too late, so they ended up at the next stop. The bus stops are too close together to make it worthwhile, the voice is yelling at you every 10 seconds, literally.

I now have an office - on the basement floor of Talbot College. I'll be sharing with about 2 other people (there are 2 other desks). I know there is at least one other person currently(ish) occupying the office, but there's nothing on the desks to indicate which are taken - I don't want to invade anyone's territory, but I want to start decorating - there's a gnome head that needs to be hung on an office wall! Also, the more books and paperwork I move there, the less I will have cluttering up my bedroom. There are lots of shelves there, so I can store lots of paperwork. It's perfect, I have a place where I can leave books locked up at the school so I don't have to carry them back and forth from home.

Finished my travels for a while.

Yuck, I wrote a long post about my travels, and then the browser froze and it's all gone.

To Summarize

Orlando - good family time, love my sister. Weather was perfect, although too hot for my taste.

Today I need to do so much: laundry, groceries, job search.
My laundry is in the wash cycle, and I just finished editing/updating my non-music resume...It's been a while since I was looking for a non-music job, so it took a fair bit of touching up. I'm going to shower, then put my laundry in the dryer. Then I will drop off resumes between here and the grocery store. I think I have things fairly under control.
I should also spend some more time seeing what jobs are on the internet.

Ok, byebye for now.
If you have any questions about the trip, ask them and I'll post about that. I went to Universal Studios, not Disney, so don't ask about Mickey.

byebye Winnipeg

Zippidy-doo!

My time in Winnipeg went by so quickly and now I'm leaving for Orlando in a few hours - after a week there, I will be back to my life in London, trying to find a job and actually starting to work on my thesis.
But let's not talk about that now, a few highlights from my time in Winnipeg:

Chris's recital last night - amazing; also, hanging out with Chris after his recital was exactly what I needed before leaving town. Thanks Chris for coming out even though you were exhausted and famished.

Puppy-niece - I need to post pictures; she is delightful and so cute. Such a bundle of energy. She was a little much to handle, at times when you didn't want a flailing crazy dog jumping on/around you, but I love her so much. I am such a proud uncle.

Thompson in general - Visiting my sister and brother-in-law was awesome. I wish I could see them more often.

Parents - I'm glad to see them doing so well in their retirement! Sitting in the passenger seat with my mom driving... there is no experience more delightful or nauseating - so much swearing and picking on each other; I wouldn't trade it for the world!

Wine night - hanging out with some of the U of M composers was great, such fun exciting people!

Dance Research - it sounds too academic, all it was was watching, and chit-chatting with some people I've worked with in the past. I got some great insights and advice, plus I got to see a wonderfully moving dance piece that integrated dance, music and text. I'm excited to get home and get to work on my own collaboration.

Mumbly, mumbly, off I go!

Interesting, I'm not sure if my thinking has changed as a result of it - I'll let it simmer for a while, but today I had a wonderful experience. I've been making appointments to meet with some choreographers this week to talk about their experiences with music and whatnot. Today I watched a late-stage rehearsal for a collaborative piece with a live musician and dancers. It was great and enlightening in several ways.

1) I was excited to see the collaborative process at work.
The music was not classical art music, so it wasn't terribly anal about form - timing and many elements seemed to be very free to change based on the practicality. This is something that I have often used in my music, but I'm weary of going too far within the realm of my thesis.
Because choreography doesn't have a set written language, it was very open to change as well - almost improvised in some senses, within established guidelines.
The give and take nature of how they were working was exactly what got me interested in collaboration in the first place.

b) First off, I love the choreographer's movement style! I remember loving it when I played for some of her classes a year or two back - things haven't changed.
Secondly, they did a run of the piece at the end of the rehearsal. It was spectacular. I was amazed with the structure and form of the piece as it revealed itself. It was the wonderful kind of unwinding of a structural ball, where the key elements of characters was presented at the outset and they were elaborated upon throughout and especially in each character's solo.
It was completely moving. On the whole, it provided a strong sense of delight - it literally made me feel warm and happy inside. Throughout, it took me on a journey to a place of discomfort, which made the return of the delight that much more heartwarming. If it were the performance and dark, I would have let tears flow, but they were welling up nonetheless.
I can't remember the last time I was moved that much by an artistic creation, and it reminds me that I don't really think of any one art form as complete. My love of collaboration comes from these experiences, where you can see how one mode of expression enlivens and enriches another.

Long Story Short - I had a good day!
I'm definitely glad I've been persistent in getting these meetings to happen.

All year, I didn't really drink much. I drank sparsely and certainly not to excess - for a moment, I thought I was maturing. Alas, I haven't!
I am getting older though, and I can tell that because this morning was rather unpleasant. My stomach wasn't finished spiting me until tonight at about 6pm, when I had a granola bar.
Anyway, the wedding and social and general socializing yesterday were all delightful.

I went to a dance show tonight - they showed the film for which I wrote the music. It seemed to be much better received by those in attendance than some of my own friends to whom I showed it, haha! Not that I don't value the opinions of my friends, but they are not the ones who might be commissioning me at some point!

While this week shouldn't be as busy as last, there is still a lot to do and my schedule is once again filling up. So far, I am meeting with 2 dance professionals to talk about how they've worked with musicians - quasi research for my thesis next year. It actually is very much research, but it also doubles as a chance for me to get some suggestions and advice for my own career.

Zippidy-doo.
I went to a friebds's wedding tonight. Super fun!
I drank a little, I rode a bike home, to Sals, then they didn't give me a cinnabon bun
good night!

I gots drunkded tonight!
It was not one of my better nights.
I was totally trashed and ran into the old high school band prof who was just starting out his career when I was ending high school. We've always been on good terms, and tonight was good, but I have a feeling I may have made an ass of myself.
I danced, and it was a little skank-a-licious... ok more than a little... most of you know me when I drink....
When I got in tonight, there's a lot of random, possibly wine related spills on my clothes... anyway, time for sleep.
Good Night!

I got in town on Monday and it's already Thursday. Time goes so quickly. Today - Saturday are my really busy days, so I most likely won't have time to blog until after that.
Anyway, there's nothing really major to report - everything is going well.
Ya - this is really a pointless blog entry, so there you have it.