feeling run down

judging from lack of blog posts lately and the fact that everyone I actually do see around school lately is busy, I trust that I'm not the only one feeling run down lately.
the collection of late nights that I have been having lately had caught up with me. Add to that the fact that my day today ran pretty much straight through from leaving my house at 8 am until I returned home at 7:30 pm. When I got home, I was two things: hungry and tired. I ate, and then went to bed. Now that I have had my 3.5 hour nap, I'm feeling almost awake enough to function. I think I will try and do a little composition and then go back to bed for a full night's rest!
Some say great minds think alike... well, I like to say great thumbs think alike.... today at least. I guess with not being rested enough and trying to raise the intensity of myu practicing, I was not relaxed enough and I was not keeping an eye on my arm tension... as a result I've been feeling a little sprain in my left thumb. It's nothing too serious, and it's something I've had before- it's one of the first things that happens when I am tense. I just need to ice it a lot and lay back on the playing for a bit- today I played dance classes for 2 and a bit hours, and I tried my best to not use my thumb at all...- it worked surprisingly well for marches and waltzes(oom-pas and oom-pas-pas) Anyway, back to the opening of this paragraph.....
After getting a call last night from my teacher to pre-warn me that he might have to possibly cancel/arrive late/ end my lesson early depending ont he time of his physiotherapy appointment this morning, which he was waiting to hear about... medium length story short, we had a one hour lesson and when I saw him later in the day, the diagnosis was a sprained thumb.
what a coinkidink!

it's still cold out like yesterday, BUT the sun is shining in theres a beautiful blue sky drizzled with clouds right now. There is only a sprinkling of snow on the ground to remind us of yesterday's.
As I may have mentioned, my dad will be retiring from his job of 40 some years in December. For as long as I can remember, every couple of months, he would be 'on-call' meaning that at any time they could call him up and tell him to go work at some station. For the family, this meant that we'd often get calls at 3am, but also that dad had unlimited use of his work vehicle. In recent years, this was of the utmost importance, because when he was on call, it all those complications of being a one-car family with 4 drivers all wanting to go places dissappeared. And let's face it, since Heather moved out, it has meant that I can use the car whenever I want because my mom doesn't go out on her own much during the week.
Now, tomorrow is going the be the last day that my dad will ever be on-call. To celebrate, I will be taking the family car to school today and certainly tomorrow (I am still not accepting the fact that I might someday have to take the bus to my 9am lessons.... gah!)
Hmm, piano practicing is still not at the desired level, but composition is coming along. I have the ending of the fourth variation fully notated and I made some executive decisions about developing the form of the final section of the other piece I am working on(ensemble).
Anyway, I should be off to school soon.... it's hard to get back into the swing of things after a four-day weekend.... not that I'm complaining at all.... YAY LONGLONG WEEKENDS!

It's SNOWING!!!!
Yay, I'm going to wear a toque and a scarf and mittens when I leave the house today! YAY!

In other news, I watched a movie today. IL POSTINO it was suggested to us by the conductor for this last WSO concert. The poem in the piece we sang was by Pablo Neruda, and this movie was about Pablo and his mailman, Mario. The movie was very good and i enjoyed it very much ,but... io non parlo l'italiano....
I did fairly well with following the movie and understanding what they were saying in general (thank you for good acting), but the main character Mario was so mumbly in his speech that it was especially difficult to understand him... and the nasality of his voice was obnoxious.
Anyway, the music in this one did the same thing as Brokeback mountain. Essentially one or two themes throughout the movie that just keep coming back, with barely any variation. It's kind of like the Leitmotif idea, hmm, not really, more like the love theme from La Boheme.. but there, Puccini does it SO MUCH BETTER. Oh well.
All in all, good movie; I just wish I understood Italian (or had downloaded the version with subtitles) so that I might have understood the intricacies of the movie.

So ya, this afternoon has been a throwaway for productivity. I woke up, ate and watched a movie... now I leave to work in less than an hour. I think I might get in a half an hour of practicing before I leave. Nevertheless, after I work, I'm heading to the school for the evening to get in some good practicing, and maybe even do some writing of that fourth variation.
Ooh, I'm also going to take back some library books today!! I realize that I've had some of them since the middle of second term last year....eep!

I just finished printing out the theme and four variations that I have completed of my set of piano variations. For those of you counting, I only have one more variation to do.
Yesterday and today, I spent quite a bit of time using photoshop to graphically edit some of the scores. Wow, it takes a lot of effort! I'm just doing simplistic stuff, but its very finnicky. Nevertheless, I think I did rather well and I'm very happy with the way they look.
This last variation (number 4 of 5) still needs to be written down on paper. I have some conceptual ideas and musical fragments, but I need to get it in a tangible form from which I can be more specific. Now that I have the printed forms of the other ones and they're edited and whatnot, I can focus just on this one, and practicing piano.
I am happy with the productivity I achieved this weekend, but I'm not going to stop yet. It's only 8 pm and that gives me time to practice some more as well as get started on the fourth variation. I wish I could have spent a little more time with my sister while she was in town, but we were both busy with either those concerts and work on my part, and shopping and travel arrangements on the part of my sister.
Hmm, maybe I should take a look at my academic courses and see if I have any assignments coming up.

In other news, I'm out of money for a while, but things aren't that bad... I already paid off my computer and one of the speeding tickets, now I just have to worry about the big speeding ticket and a little bit of random expenses on my credit card. Still, this will probably take me a few pay periods to clear up, but by Christmas, I should be good and ready to get back into debt, YAY!

I think I just read one of the most difficult phrases I've ever seen in french :
'trente autre retraites' - I'm sure a native french speaker would probably not have as much trouble as I, but still... wowee!

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
While I won't be as corny as one of my friends (not that there's anything wrong with that), I would like to say thanks to everyone:
I am thankful for everyone who reads my blog.
I am thankful for those who comment on my blog
I am thankful for cutting and pasting so I don't have to type "I am thankful for" a billion times
I am thankful for great friends who accept, understand, and improve me; each in their own way
I am thankful for a wonderful family that is supportive and loving
I am thankful for some of the lowest tuition fees in the world
I am thankful for music as a means of personal expression
I am thankful for music as a means of creative outlet
I am thankful for being able to study music and always learn more
I am thankful for all my experiences in the past which have led me to become the person I am today.

Thank you!

So, that piano lesson didn't go badly at all. He was quite happy with the fugue, and seeing how thats the big movement of the entire Bach, he's not worried about me getting the whole piece together at all. Being able to maintain concentration through 30 minutes of Bach is another issue...
That wil be the big challenge of my recital this year.... all my pieces are signifigantly long! and the comment on my recital last year was that I lost concentration on my mozart which was only 20 minutes... this year, I have 2 pieces longer than that....
the bach portion of the lesson did last about 40 minutes... and then I suggested that we do intensive practicing on the hard sections of my music. He said he'd need a little break before that so he made tea and went to the washroom while I was to choose what section we'd work on. I chose the passage of parallel fourths in the middle of the fugue in the fourth movement of Beethoven. We worked on it for just over an hour - 4 bars of music. It was a great refresher of how to approach practicing. It was incredibly productive....we basically got the prep work done so now I can practice that section in the same way as I practice everything else.
Lessons this year are going well!

I haven't posted much lately cause it's a busy life at the moment. Mostly, I have been practicing at the school at nights despite my hope to avoid doing that... But it's been good.
The theory is that if I do my practicing during normal waking hours - ie the day - then I can do my composition work at home at night. Most of the work is with the computer anyway, so I don't have to worry about the time or waking people up. Thus, I can work at home and not have to spend extra gas money. The problem with this theory is that I haven't had time during the days to practice, so I've had to do it at night. The other shortfalling was that I didn't practice all last weekend, or really during the week either.... oops.
This week will be different. I'm going to come earlier to school and make use of my reserved practice room time to get my practicing done during the day and then I will have my nights for composition.
I've been busy with a performance with the WSO this last week. Tonight is the last performance, and then I can have my life back. It has been an interesting experience, New Music and the like. Great piece and it's been fun performing it, though vocally tiring.

I REALLY NEED TO FINISH THE PIANO VARIATIONS, ARGH!!!!!!!!
I should have them done by the end of the week if I reasonably want Diane to learn them for November sometime. The theme and last variation are done, and she has them to start learning. Two fo the variations just need to be photoshopped a little and then I will have them done this weekend. One of them, I need to figure out an approach to doing it in photoshop... so just basically decisions and then doing the actual editing. The other one, I need to actually write... I have monday off... so I'm going to do a heck of a lot of work this weekend!!!

wow, when I decided to do this post, I was in a worried state. but I will end the post in a better mood because of the little walk I just took...
I'm worried because I only have one piece that has made enough progress since it's last appearance in lesson that I can play for my lesson tomorrow. The reason is poor prioritzing both of practicing itself as well as the work I did during the practicing. The Bach. While there was a large section in the middle which I had not touched as of last week, I now have the whole fugue learned and 10 metronome markings faster than the bulk of it was last week. This was a good accomplishment, BUT it translates into at the most - half an hour of lesson time- if I'm lucky.
I haven't had a full 2 hour lesson since I started back, because I just don't have enough of the rep under my fingers yet, to work on for that long of a lesson... but I do this forever... I want to be taking advantage of my lesson time. Even though it is neither David nor my favorite thing to do, I think I will have him do guided practicing with me tomorrow on the most difficult parts of the pieces. This way I know I have a secure and good start on those sections - also there is a theory that it will give me incentive to do the work on my own in the future, so I won't have to do that at my lessons.

Now, for the happy news... I found eggnog in my fridge!!!
I didn't even know they made it this time of year, but it suppose it is close enough to thanksgiving... regardless, YUMMY

more good news. I have picked my pianist to premiere my piano variations!
Diane!
I had wanted to hear a few of my colleagues play it and make a decision of who I wanted. I heard one and then one of the people told me today that he wouldn't be able to do it...I was a little worried because I had a preconception that he would be the best to play it (pretty much unfounded). Anyway, I had my Korean sister Diane play it for me tonight -
She had the character and the phrasing down perfect - just as I felt them, but I hadn't notated those things or told her. I also had her play it in a few different manners - using the music as a shell and expecting openness to change and some kind of improvisation. Needless to say, I was very impressed with her playing of my piece and I am excited to work with her on this project! Now, I need to really buckle down and get the music finished up so she can start learning the rest of it.

ANyway, off to bed with me, it's an early morning and a very long day ahead of me!

good times all around

today is my day off.
woke up early, drove parents to work (ie. slept in car until we got to my dad's work and I had to drive home) then paid my license and came home and went back to sleep. Slept the rest of the morning away and part of the afternoon. Did some practicing, and editing of my composition(I'll get to that in a bit)
ok, time to talk about it.... (it was a little bit) Composition lesson yesterday was very good. He mentioned that I should carry on with the graphic editing I was doing in some of the other movements, and how it was applicable to the newer ones.... it will be fun, but more work, but more room for creativity.. although I'm definately not a visual artist.... and I don't know how to make the music program do what I want it to do... so I will be doing it in Photoshop.
I had a talk with a friend last night - it had been long enough communicating only through small talk. From what I gather, we are now in a place where we can be comfortable around each other and actually have a friendship. I do believe this is a happy ending, or a happy beginning... Either way, I think things are now in a healthy place.
Tonight my sister is coming into town until next monday..... yay! except she is having wisdom teeth out, so some of these days will be less than pleasant for her, but at least it will be a nice opportunity to visit and spend time with her.
Oops, time to go pick up my dad from work, I'll write more later perhaps.

it's always good to have feedback on things that we create:
-compliments on performances are nice
-it's great to see someone enjoying a dinner or baking that you made
today I got some constructive comments on my thongs. Apparently, they should not be worn in a hottub. The new material I have started to use tends to stretch to about 4 times the regular size.
A friendly reminder that thongs made and distributed by MH2YC designs should only be handwashed in cold water.

I totally missed out on productivity this weekend. I had great fun, but both friday and saturday, I was out having fun. It is the beginning of the year, and I should be able to excuse myself, but I really wanted to get a lot done this weekend, and as it turns out, I haven't practiced piano since thursday.... eek!
I think I'm going to not go to the dance jam tonight, rather I will stay home and force myself to finish up some parts of this composition for piano variations and maybe go to the school to practice later. Or maybe I'll practice this evening at home some time in the middle.

woopsiedaisy

so i forgot to renew my license... I think i did that last year too...
it's just hard to keep track of the things I need to do. Especailly when I no longer have the car onm days off, I can't just up and go to the lincensing bureau... so i'm gonna make sure I do it this tuesday...
I also need to do tons and tons of composing tomorrow for my lesson which is monday morning. Eep, I seem to have not been productive again this week.... uh oh.
I made a pact with Lacey from school that neither of us will swear until wednesday morning..... at which point we will go drinking to celebrate!

so, I wasn't really pissy today. I was a little mumbly if people brought up the ticket topic, but other than that, I was sunshiney.
I made myself special hot chocolate, and the thermos kept it hot until after my piano lesson.
Piano lesson went very well. It was short, but we covered the Bach first movement. The intro section was good. I know the notes securely, but now I have to change it quite a bit to allow for the proper double dotting of the rhythms... the notes don't even closely line up as they look like they should on the page... oh wel! The fugue - David has always said he'd perfer to hear things perfect at a slower tempo.... but when I tried to play the fuge at about 2/3rds tempo, he stopped me and told me there woulnd't be anything he could say about it if it was that slow.... so I played the end of it much faster than I had learned it accurately - it wasn't overly sloppy actually. He excused the mistakes because he knew what point I had them learned to (tempowise) but this way he could hear the musical intentions and thoughts. There is a lot of reworking I have to do in this piece in terms of articulations... GARH! Nevertheless, it should be reasonable to change them now that I have somewhat securely learned the notes.
We also talked about the Diana McIntosh piece I'm playing. He played through all the different sections, which was good, now I have a certain aural image to go by. I hadn't even started learning notes enough to play it in a lesson, so it was a conceptual lesson taught on the piece. I'm super excited for this piece... it will be such fun. He doesn't want me to put the piece off, but he's not worried about me learning it. While it is fully notated, it is improvisatory in nature so the figurations don't require as much thought and effort as would compositionally sculpted musical fragments.
Luckily my special hotchocolate helped me through the pedagogy class....gah it was boring and I don't like the class. Choir went remarkably well, the conductor was in a good mood!
After choir, some friends and I went to the bar on campus for some drinks and nachos! yummy! good time!
I then bought my orchestration workbook, bought a bus pass, worked a few hours and went for dinner with my parents, came home and hung out with fi for a short short whle, and nw I'm here.
I have to still do some reading for an orchestration test tomorrow, so I'll leave you there...
All in all, a very good birthday!

Worst Present Ever!

FUCK!!!!!!!!
Stupid ass-faced piece of crab-ridden monkey cunt oozing puss and scabies!
Who actually gives out a speeding ticket less than an hour before someone's birthday?!?
fucking 250$ ?!?! ARGH!
add that to the 175$ one from the photo radar... and I officially can't afford to live..... I certainly can't afford to speed anymore... therefore, I can't afford to drive anymore. I'm going to cut myself off. I'm going to stop going to the school to practice at night, my parents will have to live with me practicing. Either that or I will just spend more time at the school instead of bussing home and then comign back later.
I also can't afford to have spent 20$ at moxies tonight - bastard!! fuck! if I hadn't gone, then I wouldn't have been in a rush to get to school, and I woud have been there 2 hours earlier and most likely wouldn't have gotten a ticket at all.
It's doubtful whether there was any benefit to even going to practice tonight. I was far too pissy to concentrate well. I'm far too pissy right now, and I still have to sleep before my fucking twat-ass early lesson tomoroww fucking morning at fuck fuck rfuck fuck fuck 9 fucking a!M
my special hot chocolate better fuckin well make me happytomorrow.
GAH MUMBLY!
I'm going to be pissy tomorrow, there's no way around it.
Be Warned!
PMS at its finest!

I just took a glance at the list I made myself yesterday, and it wasn't a very successful day. I did a little bit of practicing in the afternoon, but I didn't end up finishing my assignment until midnight at the school - where I had intended on practicing.. but nope.
I completely forgot about the speeding ticket.
Today the composer of that piece I want to talk to is performing at the school, so I will track her down there and either talk about it then, or set up a time to meet and discuss it later.
I also have only a few days left to renew my license..... eeep, I don't think I have time to get there during their dumb-ass business hours.
I did go to that diabetic meeting thing, which was fun. And since it's a sponsored event, the tea I had and whatever everyone else had was free!
Nevertheless, I'm off to save the world again! or go to school... I'll decide while I'm on the bus!

Today is my day off and Idon't have anything to leave the house for today until about 7pm. I also don't have a vehicle during the day, so that limits what I can do, or rather what I'm willing to take the bus to.
As per usual, I have lots to get done on my productivity tuesday -

Orchestration assignment - I actually did a bit of thinking about this already while helping a friend, and playing through it. It's now just a matter of sitting at the computer and making it happen. This time it's a 20 bar segment... far longer than the previous 8 bars!

I need to remember to phone and pay my photo radar ticket today. Thats right, I was speeding, and as can and should be expected as a citizen using the PUBLIC roadways of Winnipeg, my actions were recorded and I am thusly punished. While I am not happy about the excessive cost of the ticket, I will pay it because that is my social responsibility.

Practice, practice, practice! I've been working lots on my Bach, it would be nice to be able to play through the entire first movement, but I'm not sure if I'm quite there yet. Actually, I know that I'm not there yet, but the question is whether I can learn the rest of it for thursday. At the same time, I haven't done any work on the other pieces since my last lesson, and 2 hours is too much time to spend exclusively on Bach...

I also want to call the composer of the modern piece I'm playing at my recital - there are two different versions of her piece and I want to know if she is partial to either or if there are any considerations I should use in choosing which to play, or which parts of whichever I play.

Tonight at 7, there is a group of diabetics that get together for coffee/whatnot. I have avoided it for a couple years now, but I think I might go to try it out tonight.

Anyway, enough of this typing, it's taking up valuable productivity time!!

wallet shopping

I bought a new wallet today.
This is a big deal to me, I had grown quite attached to my previous one. Nevertheless, when my deputy sherriff badge finally ended its long standing partnership with my wallet, I know it was time to say adieu.
Even shopping for it was complicated, there are so many options in terms of sections, see through compartments, bill section separators and coin sections. Then theres the type of leather/finish and colour...I made the decision to no longer have a coin section in my wallet, it takes up too much of my ass room and thats usually the first part of the wallet to show wear and develop holes.
Now I have two options: I have a little coin pouch that I could use that also has room for keys, then I would have all my pocket contents in one location,but I'm not sure if that is effeminate....even for me.... The other option is to avoid change in general. I've given this a little thought and it would be a mix of giving more to charity, tipping that little bit more generously as well as keeping a piggy bank at home, I might actually save up a little money.
So, I ask your advice, should I be willing to be more effeminate, or should I say nay to loose change...?

The new wallet is pretty darned cool. Similar to my old wallet, it has a section for my student card and bus pass - but it's removable!! If I didn't need everything in my wallet, or if my bottom were feeling particulary sensitive, I could considerably downsize and just carry around the mini wallet... but I'm not sure how much I want to diversify quite yet, it could be dangerous.

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my tongue hurts

mmmmm jello shooters!!
last night kyle made about 160 jello shooters spanning all the colours of the rainbow and then an extra red colour. I had mentioned that last night, but I left out one aspect.
In order to get a jello shooter out of the little plastic cup, you need to either use your finger to go around the inside edge or else it sticks. The other method is to use your tongue. This was the method I chose and I was quite good at it. The problem was that I have a short tongue and I'm partially tongue tied. The distance between the tip of my tongue and the skin thing that connects the bottom of your tongue to the bootom of your mouth is smaller than the height of a shot glass. As a result, that connector thingy really hurts today. Oh well, a small price to pay for delicousness!

I still haven't taken theplastic protective cover off of my laptop,
I still haven't decided if or when this will happen.
Apparently they tried to deliver a package to me today, but I was not home, so it will be available to me after 1 pm tomorrow at the local post office. I think it is a new blood glucose meter.
I love new blood glucose meters - I have kept up-to-date on all the developments over the past 10 years. I think I have had almost every new one that has been available to diabetics in Canada. They make fun of me at the pharmacy. I also keep all of my old meters so that I can one day donate them to a museum for a display on the development of blood glucose testing since michael was in his mid teens.
This new one is what I have been waiting for for a long time. The biggest problem for me is their portability... it would be easier if I had a purse. You need to have the meter, the strips as well as the lancer (aka make-finger-bleed machine)in order to test your blood. Most of them have carying cases so you can keep them all together, but the case is too bulky to fit in a pocket. Therefore, I either have to carry a backpack with me or I just don't bring my tester... This is obnoxious for going to restaurants because who wants to take a backpack to anywhere nice,,, and it's important to know your blood sugar before eating... so I never win. It's better in the fall or the winter when I have a jacket with pockets. Otherwise my pants are heavily weighed down with the testing machine, the strips, the lancer, the insulin pen, the needle caps for the insulin, my keys, my wallet and my cellphone.
Eventually, I want them to make a cell phone that doubles as a meter, but I'm not holding my breath.
This new machine that is hopefully waiting for me at the post office has strip cartridges, so you don't have to carry them separately, and the lancer is either built into the side of the machine, or it attaches securely, so it is essentially a one piece contration. It's a theory...
Well, so much for not writing long posts....
Good Night Again.

Tonight was delightful. I had far too many jello shooters and far too much spinach dip. I am home quite early, but that is a good thing considering the long day I always have on saturdays.
I got caught up with a few friends and had a jolly good time all around.
In regards to my blogging, I am going to continue to post -for the good of the nation- however...
I will aim to be concise in my posts. I will not let myself waste the time typing for half an hour and filling up pages and pages of internet space. The majority of people who read this see me regularly anyway, and I end up explaining things on here as well as in person, so I will figure out what things will be coming up in regular conversation and limit the scope of those topics here.
Good Night.

An open letter to anyone

Hmm,
I'm thinking of giving up on this blog.
I have been rather obsessive in posting and it seems that noone reads or cares except for maybe Tiffy, my only faithful commenter.
If I spent the time/resource that I spend on here doing other more productive things, I would have so much more to show than a random snippet of the internet which really makes no difference in the world of interwebgarble.
Let me know what you all think...

Partay tonight!

Tonight will mark the end of an era.
(haha, i accidentally wrote 'ear'-slightly less profound)
For years and years and years my friend Kyle has been having parties. big extravagent parties with decorations and lots and lots of food. He would always invite the whole gang from high school (note- I was not involved with gang activities in high school). It was always a nice thing to catch up with some people you wouldn't otherwise see.
Tonight will be the last of these parties. Kyle is leaving very soon to move semi-permanantly to Germany. Even if he does come back in a few years, he most likely wouldn't be living with his parents and having parties in their house. Plus, many of the people who have moved away, and I'm not planning on still living in Winnipeg when he comes back...
Tonight, I will eat spinach dip like I have at (almost) everyone of Kyle's parties...... sooooo delicious!

Crunch crunch crunch go the leaves

I love this time of year for so many reasons; leaves of fall colours on the ground are one of those reasons.
I forgot to mention international talk like a pirate day yesterday, but rest assured that I talked like a pirate.
I believe tomorrow is going to be my first piano lesson with my new student! She is a friend of mine and I'm going to help her with learning the piano accompaniment to her vocal repertoire.
Tomorrow is also a lesson day. I need to learn just 8 more bars tonight - David had told me to learn the first 2 pages of the second movement of Beethoven Op. 101, and I didn't think I would get it done... but I just might; depending on how well these 8 bars go- they are of course the most difficult of the movement..... so of course I left them til the end!!! Anyway, I should be able to get them to work tonight... but there's no saying how much of it will stick succesfully for my lesson.
Also, tomorrow is one week until the anniversary of my birthing!

It's been a while since I let myself go four days without posting - aside from being out of town.
now, a few random blurbs about the past, present and future.
-Chris's birthday on thursday inspired partying on friday = lots of fun.
-First composition lesson on monday. He labelled me a conceptual composer, the first of which he's worked with here at the university.
-I'm finding the subject matter of the piece I'm composing at the moment to be having more of an emotional toll on me than I would have expected, I am trying to make use of those feelings in a creative way, while avoiding the negative impact it can have on my mood and relations with other people.
-My sister's wedding is going to be in either Jamaica or the Dominican Republic at an all-inclusive resort. It will be a 7-day trip over reading week. That means that I can eat and drink all I want - the liquor is included in that "all"!!!! It will be a wonderful opportunity to spend time with my sister and family and her finace's family. I haven't met any of them besides his father, so this will be exciing.
-I'm pondering the idea of not building in a back-up plan for next year. If I did apply to U of M, I might enter that program, failing acceptance into others simply because it's available whereas it might actually be better for me to take a year to work and study privately so that I can get into a better program the following year.
-Now that the year is getting into full or semi-full swing, I'm getting a glimpse of how busy and full it is going to be..... for now, I'll say I'm excited!!!

Long days

So today marked the end of the first official week back at school. These last 2 days were long.
Yesterday, I started with a piano lesson at 10:15 then classes and choir and then working. After that, it was 7pm and I was going to just head home, but I ended up actually getting a call from my friends from the Lodge this summer. We went for food and drinks and it was really nice to see them again.
Today also started with a piano lesson at 9:30. I am not a morning person. After the lesson, I had pancakes made by our student counsel! Delicious, and I got one that was shaped like a panda - hardcore pancake chef! Then, to celebrate my dear friend Chris's birthday which was yesterday, we went to the campus bar for drinks. We got Chris drunk before noon! So then there were a bunch of randomly drunk people in our choir rehearsal, oh well... it was great fun. I had some more classes and then meetings and thenI practiced for a bit. In the evening, I went out with Chris and some people for food and drinks, although none of the tequilla shooters of the late-morning. Now, I am home.
A note on lessons - it is a good sign that David hasn't mentioned anything about progress or whatnot. We have basically just jumped back into the flow of our lessons. The difference is that we are at the beginning stages of my pieces. A good thing about that is that for my first two lessons, we've only made it through a bit of the Liszt and the first movement of the Beethoven. I will have many more first-impression lessons where he will see the progress that I had all summer to make. On the serious side of the same comment, it's great to have some input after working all summer on my own. So many questions have been popping up as for how to learn/practice/play/think about certain aspects of the pieces. So ya, I feel that I'm at a good place for the beginning of the year.
Lessons have also changed from the twice weekly to the once weekly.... good thing is that I only have to wake up early once a week, bad news is that I have to be there for 9am... earlier than I would like, but oh well, it's only once a week, and I really can't change it...phooey
On Monday, I have my first composition lesson. I'm excited, and I'm going to use a lot of my time this weekend to get even more ready for it. I still haven't finished that composition, but I hope to have it done soon... I do have to have it and another one which I haven't started yet done for december sometime..... as in early december. The big thing about this composition is that I have to get it to the pianist who I am going to get to play it in enough time to learn it so I can get it performed/recorded for that deadline. I also have to pick a pianist to play it. Because of the subject topic, I wan't a really genuine emotional player who is technically clean... I basicall want it all. I realize that I'm probably the best one to play it the way I want, but I think there are cleaner players out there, and I don't think I'm emotionally strong enough to perform the piece in front of an audience at school. Regardless, I know I will get some great advice at my lesson and I hope to wrap it up soon.
I'm going to take my laptop to work tomorrow in hopes that I might get some work done on my lunchbreak, albeit short.
With that said,I am going to go to bed now. That's right - before midnight. I definately don't want a repeat of last week on to little sleep. A long day becomes endless when you are tired. Tonight, I'm gettin me my full eight hours!!! Yippee!

I was informed the other night that I type on a computer funny... When I pressed the insulter further, he specified that I actually use the proper technique for holding my wrists up when I type, but it looks funny because few people actually do so.
A similar situation happened in one of the ballet classes I played for on Saturday. The daughter of a prominent voice teacher, and accomplished pianist was in the class. She was young, and it was her first time at a ballet barre. The teacher told everyone to put their hands gently on the barre. She was correcting their hands, because a lot of children will either not be relaxed or will be leaning on the barre. When she came to this girl, she lifted her forearm to show that it should be relaxed. The teacher was surprised to see that it flopped in a very relaxed fashion - she was deceived by the elevated wrists. My heart warmed a little when the teacher explained to the child that it's different than playing the piano, she should relax her wrists.
Hooray for the testaments to good piano technique!
Today was a good day for my blood sugars!
Tomorrow will not be a good day. It starts far too early in the morning with a piano lesson at 10:15 am. I didn't practice at all today and tomorrow it will be too early in the morning to get anything done, so it's a good thing that this is lesson number one of the year, such that I have a blank slate to start from. Tomorrow is also a very long day, lasting til 7pm. On the up side, I might be meeting with some people from the summer, I ran into Jonno from the lodge who is at school now, and he said his mom(who I also worked with) is coming in town tomorrow so we might get together for drinks or something.
Alas, I have to finish my first assignment of the year now! Yay, it's actually almost done already, but ya, I need sleep for tomorrow.

Doctor Kerfuful

Gah Fucker, another surprise at my supposed appointment. Or lack thereof. Apparently I didn't have an appointment today and I didn't have the sheet of paper to show that I had in fact booked one. And now I can't find it at home, but we won't even address the possibility that I made it up. So in the end, no doctor.
Rather, I was asking the nursing station if I could at least get a copy of my test results so I could see just how bad I'm doing and self-diagnose my estimate on x-years to live. I ended up booking the very next available appointment - Friday October 27'th at 9:30am (for the record). I wanted to get a new requisition for more bloodwork which I can do before that appointment, but one of the nurses was telling me that I didn't need to, the current bloodwork was fine. I was getting a little bothered about the whole situation, specifically being told that I wasn't going to get a second chance to improve my HA1C result. [Please take the time to read this little blurb and inform yourself of my terminology]
The nurse took control of the situation and grabbed my file and told me to follow and she would see what exactly the requisition was for. She then mentioned that it wouldn't be too important to get it redone for my appointment (since I haven't had it done in a year anyway) but she offered to go over the results with me. All of the normal blood tests were ... surprisingly normal. Blood counts are good and my cholesterol was fine- I was expecting that to be high due to fatness and inactivity. My HA1C was 8.3. This was an increase from the previous time I had the test done. The nurse was happy with the positive direction of the change, and only commented that while it was not an ideal number, it was a beneficial change. According to a table of absolute risk related to HA1C and diabetes complications, I am now 10% less at risk for serious complications than I was last year. Conversely, I am 13% more at risk for complications than someone who's diabetes would be considered 'under control'.
While she was happy with the positive change, I am certainly not happy with these figures. I am 23% at higher risk of .. hmm let's see - amputation, blindness and kidney failure than someone in ideal control of their condition (the CDA aims for diabetics to have an HA1C of 6%). That means that if the average diabetic in good control doesn't lose a limb... I'm guarunteed to lose one! eek!
While I exaggerate, the concern is still there.
The nurse and I actually talked for about half an hour. She was the nicest person ever. We didn't even have an appointment, but she gave me her time and advice and was more helpful than I could have expected. She reinforced that I need to take the time to understand how my body and metabolism work. She suggested my first step to be to take a few weeks or a month and be SUPER regulated and organized and write down everything I eat, my insulin levels, and my sugars before and after I eat and anything else that can effect my metabolism. This way I will be able to analyze trends in my sugars. With these trends and info, I can calculate how much insulin I need to take for the amount of carbs I eat. Mumbly mumbly, there's a lot to calculate over the next while.
She convinced me that I should just use the bloodwork I got done for my appointment in October, and then after that i will get a 3-month A1C, whether I have an appointment or not so that I can see how effective my efforts have been. My personal goal is to have that result be at 7.1. I won't expect myself to be in normal control range, but I want to see a significant improvement. I plan to have an appointment with the Doctor in the summer, before I leave for wherever I hope to be moving to. The goal/requirement for that appointment is to be well within the normal control range so that I can feel good about starting a new section of my life, in which I will have my health in check!

In a few hours I have a doctor's appointment. I wonder how bad my health has actually gotten. I know my control is shit. While I know how bad things will get if I continue as I am, I can't seem to muster up the will power to do something about it. I hope today will be an appointment where my doctor shows genuine concern for me- maybe that would be enough to inspire some change.
The sad thing is that I know this all rests on me, and there really isn't anything anyone else can or should do to make a difference, but something in my head isn't allowing me to take that responsibility.
And while I'm open an honest about things now, I'm sure I'll find some way of justifying things later on, so let's see how my next update looks.

followup on yesterday

I forgot to do a little followup on my first day back to work. Where I left off, we were halfway through the day and it wasn't seeming too bad.
In reality the day was interminably long. It's ridiculous, I start at 9am and didn't leave until close to 5m yet I only get paid for 6.25 of those hours. But it's not like the other years where I've had those 1.75 hours right in the middle to do nothing. This year I only have an hour lunch break which I thought was going to be great according to last year's boredom during the 2 hours break, but now I miss that extra time. The afternoon runs from 1-4:40 and it's in the same room with the same teacher sitting on the same hard piano bench. I love the teacher and we work very well together, bu it would be nice to have at least just a little variety.
In terms of the ballet classes I'm playing, I'm a little unsatisfied - they are all in the middle age range. The young classes are not inexperienced enough to allow me to enjoy their honest reactions to the music and any cuteness that children might have; The older classes aren't quite high enough in experience to allow me to make use of the finesse of dance musicality. In the end, I am improvising nothing music so that the dancers can have a glorified metronome - in other words, a normal ballet pianist.
Anyway, I have the opportunity to play some of the higher level professional division classes during the weeks if I want. The only problem is that they are at 8:30 am. I certainly don't want that to become a regular aspect of my life this year.
On the other hand, the modern classes I will be playing for are generally more advanced, and in addition to that, my freshness to the movements will continue to hold my attention and allow me to build a stronger relation between the music and those movements.
Between the components of modern dance I will be experiencing, I think I can justify to myself and others that I am satisfied as a dance musician, but I fear to say that I no longer enjoy playing for ballet classes. Of course I will continue to do it at present, because it is a job and it will always be available to me as not many people can do it.
For the rest of today, I have one isolated primary ballet class to accompany. In the evening there is another dance jam that I will be going to. I will try and get something productive done between the one and the other.

Officially gone wireless

While, I've had my wireless network set up for a while in my house, it just didn't seem remarkable that I could use the internet from my laptop even though it did giveme added mobility to use the internet on the couch or at the piano. Today however, I crossed the line and became a technological person. I am sitting in a downtown cafe eating lunch on break from work and using the internet. There's like 3 or 4 available internet wireless connections available to me right now. There's the ballet as wel as the two coffee shops across the street from each other. Craziness!
So, I'm halfway through(ish) my first day back at the ballet school. The classes I'm playing for are all regular ballet classes, and while I hated doing a whole afternoon of Musical Theatre last year, a class would be nice to change up the monotony of ballet all day. Oh well. Things are going really well so far.
Anyway, enough of this for my lunch break. I'm going to try and get some school work done while I have a moment.
MMM this lunch is so yummy!

So, as many of you know, if there was one substance that I would live off of for the rest of my life (if it actually had any nutritional value) it would be the honey mustard sauce from Perkins.
Tonight I made my own, and it tasted pretty damn exactly the same. Interestingly enough, I did so without the actual use of honey.

School is now back in, and starting monday, we will be in full regular class mode. This week was very much all about getting organized - which I will never actually be, but ya. I caught up with a bunch of people, and I got to meet with both my teachers for this year. My composition teacher and I didn't really talk much, but it was the officialness of setting up some lesson options that makes me feel good.
Talking to my piano teacher was interesting. He stressed the importance of organization and planning this year. I told him about plans for masters in composition and how my first half of the year would be split between composition and piano. He was worried about the fact that piano was not going to be my sole focus in life, and then suggested that the option exists to switch to the general program and just not do the recital.
This option had never even occurred to me. Nevertheless, it is not an option. I told David that I definately want to finish what I have started and I'm looking very forward to my recital. He accepted my reasoning and once again stressed the importance of getting as much preparation done early on as possible. I feel that I am well prepared for the beginning of this year and feel confident that things will be great and I will keep on track with everything.

Anyway, I don't want to ramble too much about school cause it's just beginning, but everything looks good for the year. I feel quite welcomed into the composition community at the school already and I'm prepared to learn a lot.

and for now, that is all

yay casino!

what a wonderful way to spend an evening.... gambling is wonderful!
I think I am about ready to take that next step towards becoming a professional blackjack player. Tonight I made a profit of $10.50. Now I know that might seem a little low for a first night, but keep in mind I was only there for an hour or 2 and I was only investing 35$ into the table. Now, that's a thirty percent profit. While ten bucks might now seem worthwhile, it would be foolish of me to say no if I was to use say, a hundred dollars in an evening to make 30$...
Of course I'm not silly.. I realize that I can't always make 30% profit... there might be nights where I only make say... 25% profit, but at the same time, today could have been my off night. Therefore, it is safe to say that the lowest profit nights I will see is 35%( tonight was a really bad night) and the high end possibilities are endless! So in the end, the average works out to about an average daily profit of 100%.
'But Michael, what about your dream of being a musician? won't this take away time from that lifestyle?"
Yes, indeed little Billy, it would - which is why I have decided not to spend all my time at the casino every evening; rather, I will make this a one-time profit maker. With the calculations I have done - based on an average of 100% profit, the addition of several luck-enhancers will raise the one-time profit to about 500%.
As it stands, the plan is to take out a small loan of about 10,000$ and to play blackjack. My foolproof math calculations have shown that I will end up with 60,000$ by the end of the evening. That should be quite enough to live off for a few years at least, especially if I continue trips to the casino every once in a while.
Let me know what you all think!

In other news, I'm quite excited about going back to school. I've had the chance to spend time with school friends over the last few days and it's good to start catchin up with people. Aside from STILL not knowing who my composition teacher will be officially, I feel prepared for school and I'm happy with the way the schedule is looking. My small ensemble is preslotted, so i don't have to worry about communicating with the other members in order to set up rehearsal times (it was a little troublesome last year with a quartet - everyone was in different years, and it was terrible trying to find a common time that we were available). The only things not in a spot on my schedule yet are composition and piano lessons. The best aspect of my schedule is that, so far, my earliest class is at 11:30 on one day a week... others it starts at 1:30! yippee! This doesn't mean that I will be a lazy bastard though, rather, I will be able to stay up til 2am on school nights without missing out on my 8 hours of sleep a night.
I neeeeeed to get some serious composing and practicing done STAT! I so didn't get the one composition even close to structurally complete. But, today I actually played part of one of the variaions on a real piano - so much more beautiful than hte midi I have been living with. It is definately one of those pieces that electronics will never be able to make up for the real accoustic sonorities of a well made grand piano!
And that is all I have to say about that. Tomorrow is the first day officially back to school! here I come!

wow, I never thought of myself as a packrat until today!
since I got a laptop and will probably be using that the majority of the time, my dad claimed the desktop computer as his so we were moving it downstairs so he can use it in his 'soccer office'.
This led us both to figuring out what we wanted and what we could change to make everything better. I decided I wanted the old desk from the basement. i wanted to put it in the closet alcove of my old bedroom (currently my office), but my moog synthesizer organ was there.... but it's been broken for a while, and I've given up on both organ as well as the idea of owning an antique piece of electronic music development history.
With that said... if someone feels very passionately about the 1960/70's development of keyboard synths, then get in touch. It's only 200/300 some pounds of clunky goodness.... so dad and I had fun dragging it out to the garage. Once that was out of the way, I had to remove all of my junk from the desk that was to move downstairs.... this was the beginning. so many reciepts from the past 5 years, high school grad pictures, business cards, phone numbers and phone messages written down to be ignored for many years, kinder surprise toys, elastic bands... you name it... there was so much shit there and it felt great to throw it all out/recycle. Even before that, the organ and the desk were also piled up with piles and piles of paper. I kid you not, random printed out sheet music (everything from the given sonatas and etudes all the way to lead sheets from when I went to Jazz camp in grade 10). Paperwork that I didn't care about, but knew was too important to throw out at the time - application papers for university of winnipeg and manitoba, high school transcripts... wow, flyers, pamphlets, phone lists... messages again... but this time its all in 8.5/11 size..
I must have filled up 5 shopping bags of paper to be recycled. I actually found a stack of xmas cards from 2001 that I was supposed to deliver for a friend of mine that was in Germany at the time.... Oopsie, sorry Kyle.
Anyway, I made huge progress on the room today, but there is still tons that I can clean out of there. It was so cathardic to throw away so much stuff - I'm not sure if I'm moved more by the symbolism of getting rid of the things in the past I was unwilling to let go of... or more realistically the fact that I have so much more space available and I can feel organized now. It is a good feeling to know that I've gone through everything that is now in that desk and decided that it is worth keeping and deciding where to put it to best serve it's purpose. Other times, when I move things around, I would just shift piles of that paper and hope it was still important.
Now, with the old desk gone, and anothe roller thingy gone... I have a lot more room in there and it looks like it. Right now it is incredibly badly laid out, lopsided... so I am going to shift things around tomorrow. My wide bookshelf is going to be in the centre of the long wall, and the two smaller bookshelves are going to be angled in two corners of the room . The computer and desk are in the alcove and I have the keyboard just outside the alcove so I can get to it when I am composing. I think I'm going to bring in a chair that I can sit in and read in what will now be my office/ library! Ooh, I'm far too excited about this!
Thus, the moral of the story is that I cleaned a lot and while it might be good to keep a check on my life and clean things out as they go along, I enjoy the experience of mass disposal!

Now, other things of the weekend. This was the official weekend where my sister and her fiancé Gareth showed us the ring and spent a lot of time with us as a family. They took us out to Ichiban for Japanese Tepanyaki cooked food! I actually ate some raw fish and lived to tell, and the food in general was wonderful, and Sake!!!!! OMG i love it! It was a great evening and it was wonderful to see Heather and Gareth together, they are soo happy and they make a wonderful couple, I could not be happier for them!

Last night was Fiona's birthday and that was wonderful also.
All in all, a wonderful long weekend! I'm excited to get on with this week and start back at school.
Tomorrow I have to get blood tests done at the HSC and get a bus pass from school and then buy a wireless router so I can set up my wireless network tomorrow! yaya!

I bought a laptop

Yay,
I bought my laptop today. It's pretty much super duper!
only problem is that I don't have any of the installation disks for the programs I usually use on my computer, so i need to find those or get new ones or something.... there's so much to do to set it up with my settings and personalize it! yay!
anyway, fun fun fun!

I think all is well in the world right now.
I had my piano audition for ... hmm I'm not sure exactly what it is for, but I played for the piano faculty nonetheless. It went quite well. I can't remember ever feeling so prepared for something that I didn't really give a rat's ass about. I remember in first year it was such a big deal, I was playing for people that I didn't know and it was their chance to make first impressions of my playing.... EEK! As the years go by, they know my pianism inside out so it doesn't matter what I present to them at the end of the summer. Aside from that, I played well. I did however make an ass of myself in front of them.... I didn't know how old I was. I told them 23, then I paused and wondered, (outloud) 'am I?.... maybe I'm only 22, I have a birthday" to which they replied "oh, good, did you have it already? In the end, I was too confused to specify my age, so some of them think I am 22, some 23...
That same day, I had a voice lesson with a friend from school. I learned a lot.
I also had a massage, deep tissue, very therapeutic. I hurt a lot.
Ok, so last night I went to a folk/bluesy show featuring an old friend from high school. I don't see her much or really keep in touch, but I try to see a show of hers once in a while(about once every 2 years...) It was good to see her again, and even better to hear her. She didn't pick an easy road but she's doing great!
SO ya, I've decided that I'm going to buy myself a laptop. I was supposed to be able to buy the one my dad uses at work at a discount when he retires, but I guess his laptop is too new, so I'm gonna buy a laptop for myself anyway. Buying it now will help me out a whole lot. All the notation I've been doing for compositions and whatnot is on computer, and its a little frustrating a) trying to write it on the printed out copies from my computer with the rests in the bars and 2)having to run to another room to play something on a piano to see if it works the way I think it should. This way, I will have a computer that I can plunk right on the piano. In theory it will allow me to be much more productive. There's a lot of things to think about in terms of buying a laptop.... they're a fairly chunky investment in terms of my budget at least. I do want something that's portable, but I want something that can be my only computer when I move away. At the same time, I'm fricking cheap.
But ya, Heather and Gareth are going to take me laptop shopping tomorrow, so I can have people who know about things to advise me. Heather is also financially conservative, so she won't let me overspend!
Yay for my sister being engaged!

Well, this is my friend Ogor. I pass by him everytime I go downstairs.
Hmm, I've never looked this closely to the darned crappy plaster job... oh well. You are getting a glimpse into my dwelling!
So I have officially said my good byes to the three close friends of mine that are moving away and leaving me for substantial periods of time. It will probably hit me later this year when I realize how far away they are, but for now I am excited for them, and admiring their accomplishments and success in making it out of the Peg.
I'm very excited to be moving on in my life - hopefully in another city as of next year. Fortunately I have lots still to do in Winnipeg, so it's not like I'm dying to get out of here.
I'm interested to wait and find out where my sister is going to have her wedding... or any of the details really.... She's from Winnipeg, he's from Montreal, well Guatemala originally... but ya. His family is religious, Heather all but refuses to set foot into a church. Nevertheless, we know that there will be a wedding social in Winnipeg, because really... where else has socials!
Everyone out there reading this, or otherwise is invited to the social!!! I will have details when they start coming in!

so yay, I'm still super happy about my sister's engagement.
I have so much happening in the next little while. I have ensemble auditions for school, I have appointments for massage and doctor.
Eeep, I'm fretting my diabetes appointment in just over a week. I know that my control has gone to shit. So I'm taking the initiative to figure out what I'm doing wrong now, before the appointment so that I can forego the sitting there saying I'll try to improve. It always seems pointless that way, and it is because there's not enough time to explain what exactly I should do, and I don't have details for him as to what I've been doing wrong. So the solution is that I'm starting to actually keep track in a booklet what my sugars are, what I'm eating and what I'm taking for insulin. There's a long standing theory that it might actually improve my control....which won't be noticeable at the appointment, but at least it's a start...

I'm so happy!!!

YAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My sister is engaged!
Fiona and I have been waiting for this moment for such a long time.
Ooooh golly, I don't even know what to say, but ya, I'm super excited!

Also, My spider friend has reappeared..... theres a long line of spider friends.... there were quite a few Egors, then I started calling them Igor, and now this one will be Ogor. As usual, he looks scary, but he's still my friend...

So many of my friends are leaving me this week. I spent some time with my soon to be german friend, and my Chinese friend left on monday, and my french friend is leaving on thursday....

The government almost made a worthwhile improvement...

So, it's getting close to my birthmonth which means that thegovernment is getting ready to rape me for driving again.... But apparently this is the last time the government is going to acknowlege that they aware of my birthday. They are switching over to a new system where everyone in manitoba renews their licenses at the same time!!!! gah! oh well, they seem convinced that it won't cause backlogging and general stupidity, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt.
Once immediate benefit is that I only have to pay 18$ at the end of Sept!! Yay me!
I got SO excited when they pamphlet they handed out started talking about this new photocard that you will be getting. I allowed myself to believe that they were switching to a one-piece driver id system... But after checking the website and double checking with a phone rep, it's clear that it will still be a 2-piece id system - just as inconvenient as ever. Especially since they are putting so much effort into this new photocard, it should at least be able to stand as a single piece of id. I understand that for licensing people and police and whatnot, I'll give them 2 pieces, but in terms of just a photo id, I've never understood why you need to give them both parts to be a valid piece of id. Gah, oh well.
It really won't make any difference to me - just another one of Manitoba's gimmicks to make people think they we are effecting real change.... Conveniently, the new picture card has the same ugly Manitoba font that puts it in line with the Spirited Energy branding campaign.

Now on to better stuff. Yesterday I got a haircut... AGAIN! I know, it's getting ridiculous, but I have not enough hair left to get a haircut for quite a while. "So Mikey, why did you get one?" Well Billy, yesterday they were having a fundraiser for both the Humane Society and the Juvenile Diabetes Association - two wonderful causes that are close to my heart and pancreas respectively. With a donation you could get a free haircut by a stylist and a mini massage. I took full advantage of these opportunities and now I have styling hair!!! tee hee I went for lunch with my friend Sandra, and we discovered these flyers so that how we spent our post-luncheon time.

Ooh, I'm applying for a T.A. position at the university. It is for the theory 1 and 2 courses, so it will last the year. And, what better way is there to prepare for grad school entrance exams than relearning the first half of the theory text?!? It will also look good on grad school applications and whatnot.
YAY!

Wow, amazing experience!

I am so happy!
The two things I love most about music and performing are:

Sense of enesemble between performers and
Improvisation

Tonight I had those two in spades!

I remember once having a random improv session with someone that I strongly disliked. While it was happening and for a short while after, I had respect for him and enjoyed the experience.....

Tonight, I was having an experience like that but with skilled improvisers who are good nice and enjoyable people! I can barely describe how elated that left me feeling. This was the group I had mentioned before - primarily dancers but also a few musicians who get together for Jams. In theory it could be scary - 10 dancers, a pianist, bongo player, guitarist, random percussionist and a painter/sketch artist getting together and each improvising something.
I was amazed at how much cohesion there was within the group. Musicians were all doing a great job of communicating within themselves and the music as a whole was speaking to the dancers. At the same time, the dancers were speaking to the musicians and there was a conversation between individuals. Sometimes the dancers were individual, sometimes they came together in similar movements and formed one entity. The sketch artist was drawing images of what he was seeing the dancers were doing and then other dancers would see/dance with the pictures and bring them into the organism that was developing. It must have been about 45 minutes long, but it barely felt that long - every change was organic and it felt like one idea that changed and morphed as the jam went on.

In order to warm up / get everyone to open themselves up we played a game/exercise which was amazing and fun! There were 2 versions which we did and they made everyone feel at ease and laugh.
First - We all stood in a circle so we could see everyone. The game was about passing and recieving. Someone would 'throw' and action and a noise across the circle to another person. The other person would recieve the action by mimicking the motion and the noise. They would then pass another action and noise to someone else.....etc. Quickly, people were laughing and losing their inhibitions and then it was getting too fast for people to realise what was going on and it ended up in a pool of laughter.
Next - A more serious version of the game where you passed the 'tone'. The starting person would hold a note/pitch/sound and then pass it to someone. To recieve the note, you had to emotionally connect with the other person by imitating the gesture and sound along with that person until they felt you were inline with them. Once you had recieved the tone, you would transform it by some emotional reaction in terms of sound and body and then pass it along to someone else.
Both of these activities were amazing. It necessiated direct eye contact in order to communicate who was being sent the action. The second activity also made it so you would try and understand the other person and then take the time to reinterpret the sound.
As you can guess, these were a great starter to get people into the realm of non verbal communication and from the jam that came after, I feel it was very effective.

I'm very excited to do this again next week, and hopefully throughout the year. I'm so glad to have stumbled upon this group!

My sister came in last night from Thompson. I'm so proud of her, she is doing the MS bike tour from Stonewall to Gimli today, and then the return trip tomorrow. She raised about 600$ for such a great cause! And also the fact that she's doing a bike marathon - that's no easy feat.
I got to hang out with her a little last night, and finally got to hear some things about her road trip this summer. My parents also went to Gimli to volunteer for the bike tour.
It is so quiet in the house, and I love that! Since getting back for the summer, my dad has had a lot of days off and my mom's work situation is a little unstable to say the least, so I haven't had many days with the house to myself.
This is nice, but it means I have no car for the weekend. Therefore I had to turn down an accompanying gig at the same church, because I'm not going to wake up super early to bus across the city. I would have liked to have been able to drive tonight, so Jon could be free to celebrate his last few days in Winnipeg/Canada, but I guess we'll have to make do. Other than that, I'm used to the bus, so it's not a big deal.
Tomorrow evening, I'm going to a dance improvisation thing! I met with a couple people from a Winnipeg Dance collaboration group and it went very well. We talked vaguely about the dance community, performing arts in Winnipeg. They're open to having me take part in the jams and some collaboration opportunities too. As I'm sure I have mentioned, I'm very excited about this opportunity for learning and experience.
Yippee

Who the frick decided mornings should start so early?!?

So, it's gawd-damned 8 am in the morning and I don't want to be awake. Nevertheless I realize school will be starting soon and I will have to be up this early on a quasi regular basis....
It's just so hard!! I'm really not a morning person.
To top it off, ten minutes ago, I decided I wanted to have some fruit and I was led to believe that there were bananas in my kitchen...
My mother has gone to a new extreme in her selection of small bananas... If I hold it up to the keyboard, one end on "A", the other end rests on "k" - and those are the outer extremities!!! This is like an uber-contra-plantain!!
This is a sad sad day, in a sad sad world where I hope and pray to golly-gosh that a man's manness is not reflected by the size of his fruit....
On the bright side, today is my last working day of the summer, and I get paid for the last 2 weeks of working - yippee!

I don't want to be a tenor

So ya, this is how I feel right now.
Aside from the personality defects related to being a tenor, I don't like the range thing. I want to go back to being a high baritone.
I wish I had thought of this plan... but it seems like more of a reality than anything... - I should go into my audition for vocal ensembles and just crack all of my high notes, and then they'll realize that I'm really not a tenor... I'm a fucking pianist!!! Why the hell can't I just get credit for playing piano for the ensemble! Oooh, choral accompanimnet - so much better than having to do choral singing. Then I don't have to put so much effort into being insistant about TUNING in the tenor section.
Oh, I'm also hating Photoshop and the fuckness of stupid! argh oh man does it make me angry!
I hate technology with the bloody passion of a thousand fiery corpses!

Well, I had the day off from work and it was very nice and relaxing. Not to say that work is at all stressful, cause it really isn't but today was a very nice day so far. I slept in, which was very nice after last night, and then went for a late lunch with Scotty and Fiona and then came home to knit for a bit. Tonight I'm going to head to the school to take care of some major productivity!
Last night, I went drinking for Scotty's birthday. We went to a local little lounge where they have free unlimited popcorn and then we went for karaoke at the sals, which if I had been sober, I would have been morally opposed to. The only downside to the evening was that even though fiona and I started drinking before going out in an attempt to save money, I still spent about 50 dollars on booze... I can't afford this lifestyle! It was a delightful time with the karaoke... I sang my two standard karaoke numbers:
Tina Turner - Private Dancer
Celine Dion - My Heart Will Go On
of course, liquor makes my performance even raunchier than one might expect, but that's all part of the fun. I dedicated both of the songs to Scotty for his birthday and I think he really enjoyed them... maybe even as much as I enjoyed singing them for him. One thing did strike a chord of sadness in me.... As per tradition dating back to my 18'th birthday, I sing the Celine song in her octave. But ever since I started singing tenor 2 or 3 years ago I've noticed little signs that my falsetto is decreasing. Sadly, I have to admit that I can no longer use my falsetto; my dreams of being a countertenor have been ended.
Anyway, the moral of the story is that I had a wonderful time last night. I woke up this morning with a very minimal hangover, and then we went to the Olive Garden for the all you can eat breadsticks, salad and soup combo - quite resaonably priced and very filling.

Well, I seem to be in much better spirits lately. It seems I have been having bad cases of PMS (Pissy Michael Syndrome, for those who aren't familiar) lately.
As a result, I have neglected to mention some things.
- I am really enjoying my work over the last week and a bit. It is such a contrast to what I do with musical theatre during the year. Previously I had only worked with very young kids who are pretty much only interested in the dance aspect, and they can't really sing and they are obnoxious little hellians. Well, at this camp, the kids are old enough to be there because they want to. For the most part they are reasonably musical and they are really interested in the music and lyrics. It is whole different world when we can move beyond simply trying to sing through the song. These kids pick up so quickly and they have great ears on them. Often they don't even need the sheet music, they hear the melody once and it's in them! Not to say that they're challenging melodies, but its still wonderful, it's just a matter of memorizing the words. Plus, the music they are working with is more challenging, beautiful, interesting... whatever.

-Composing is actually starting to get in motion. It had been very slow moving, not to say it still isn't, but now I'm able to work out specifically what I want for certain effects rather than doing a lot of the brainstorming I had been doing in starting out each of these variations.

hmm, tonight I got my Beethoven sheet music - my sonata in the Henle edition. It's so pretty! well, not really but ya!

Oh, God DAMN am I ever in a pissy mood.
I was fine most of today, but then on my way home after work I got on the bus and I go soo angry!
Nothing specifically happened really. The bus was full, so I had to stand.. but that was fine, I was still happy up til then. I was happy to stand, as sitting on a piano bench for 3 hours isn't my idea of heaven. What got me was the guy in front of me. We were the only 2 standing on the whole bus, so you'd figure he would take his own space.. .but NO!!! the fucker!
I was standing sideways so I could hold onto the yellow bar and look out the back door windows. Those of you who know me well, know that I can get a little clausterphobic in crowds or around people, and today was certainly not an exception. Fuck, he was so obnoxious - standing there- and he actually was inching backwards as time went by. Gah, I just wanted to push him! Add to this the fact that rush hour traffic was moving nowhere so the downtown leg of the bus ride was taking FOREVER!
Finally we got to Polo park and a spot opened up for me in the front row of the upper level on those new fucking busses (don't even get me started on those badly designed chunks of shit-box horse-ass). So the guy I sat beside had his legs spread so much that I couldn't sit full on the seat. Nevertheless, it was still better than standing by that other assy dumb-head.
In my attempt to put my legs/feet somewhere where I could both be comfortable and maintain a sitting balance, I accidentally nudged the leg of this lady who was sitting in the sideways-sitting seat across the back door. She gave me the most heinous bitch face look I've ever gotten.I mumbled "i'm sorry" to her, but that didn't do much.
Finally, I got home, and I just can't stop being a bitch, I have my shit all in a knot because there were tomato seeds in my salad and Canadian Idol is on tv, which naturally makes me angry and gah gah agh!
Anyway, enough ranting, I should stop typing cause mumbly, who cares!
BUT, I'm still fucking waiting for someone to justify to me how red-light cameras are a violation of privacy rights.... I don't care if they are morally right or wrong... I just want to know why and how they violate privacy rights. I simply want to hear a well formulated argument that follows logically.

Oh, God DAMN am I ever in a pissy mood.
I was fine most of today, but then on my way home after work I got on the bus and I go soo angry!
Nothing specifically happened really. The bus was full, so I had to stand.. but that was fine, I was still happy up til then. I was happy to stand, as sitting on a piano bench for 3 hours isn't my idea of heaven. What got me was the guy in front of me. We were the only 2 standing on the whole bus, so you'd figure he would take his own space.. .but NO!!! the fucker!
I was standing sideways so I could hold onto the yellow bar and look out the back door windows. Those of you who know me well, know that I can get a little clausterphobic in crowds or around people, and today was certainly not an exception. Fuck, he was so obnoxious - standing there- and he actually was inching backwards as time went by. Gah, I just wanted to push him! Add to this the fact that rush hour traffic was moving nowhere so the downtown leg of the bus ride was taking FOREVER!
Finally we got to Polo park and a spot opened up for me in the front row of the upper level on those new fucking busses (don't even get me started on those badly designed chunks of shit-box horse-ass). So the guy I sat beside had his legs spread so much that I couldn't sit full on the seat. Nevertheless, it was still better than standing by that other assy dumb-head.
In my attempt to put my legs/feet somewhere where I could both be comfortable and maintain a sitting balance, I accidentally nudged the leg of this lady who was sitting in the sideways-sitting seat across the back door. She gave me the most heinous bitch face look I've ever gotten.I mumbled "i'm sorry" to her, but that didn't do much.
Finally, I got home, and I just can't stop being a bitch, I have my shit all in a knot because there were tomato seeds in my salad and Canadian Idol is on tv, which naturally makes me angry and gah gah agh!
Anyway, enough ranting, I should stop typing cause mumbly, who cares!
BUT, I'm still fucking waiting for someone to justify to me how red-light cameras are a violation of privacy rights.... I don't care if they are morally right or wrong... I just want to know why and how they violate privacy rights. I simply want to hear a well formulated argument that follows logically.

so full of Indian food goodness

First of all, a reminder to Fork that I still expect that response as to why photoradar is an invasion of privacy....

I went for an Indian food buffet tonight with a friend from school. It was good not only because of the food, but cause I haven't seen him all summer and it was good to catch up.

This morning I played a church service. I could get used to this kind of work - not in the sense that I want to work for a church.. cause we all know how I felt about that the first time... Rather, I quite enjoyed the aspect of walking in there 15 minutes before the service, looking over the hymns to play, then starting the service and then leaving. The service was only about an hour long and as I was leaving, I was thanked by many of the little old ladies and other people of the congregation who value the musical element of the service. The work pays very well and isn't all that taxing whatsoever. When I was playing at one specific church and that was my job, I put effort into learning preludes and postludes. Today I simply improvised the preludes and the postlude, and the hymns didn't involve the kind of practice I used to put into learning them for the organ. It's so appealing because I'm getting paid well by the hour for the time that I put in....
In terms of accompanying singers or instrumentalists, they pay you for the time you spend with them and then the performance, but what about the time you have to spend learning the music and rehearsing it on your own, before the other person enters the picture. To do this job dilligently, one might spend 8 hours of their own time and only be paid for maybe just 2 hours that the singer uses you for. As you become a better pianist and gain experience as an accompanist, or even having previosuly learned a piece, the amount of time you need to spend to prepare yourself for the rehearsals and performance decreases - therefore your time becomes more valuable as the years go by.
I'd like to think that this is the stage I have come to in terms of accompanying church services, where it takes me far less time to prepare than it did previously.

Hmm, what else did I do today.... Oh yes, I knit a hat. I'm very impressed with how it turned out and I might wear it as part of my back to school fashion outfit (HA!). Hmm, that reminds me that I should get some new clothes for back to school. Not that it should be time specific, but it is a justifiable time to buy new stuff for meself. Time for Value Village!! Oh and while I was knitting, fiona was eating chocolate and reading excerpts of Cosmo to me! what a life! that magazine is so funny and as if some of the articles aren't risqué enough, but Fi reading them takes them that extra little level of dirty.

Before we knit, Fi and I went to Wallymart to buy a birthday card. I ran into someone who I thought I might never have seen again, and it brightened my day to no end! His name is Regent, and I can easily say that he was the most influential part of my mid-late teenage years. In high school and for a bit after, I worked at a local pharmacy every weekend and a few evenings a week and Regent was one of our regulars. Every saturday and sunday morning all through high school, I would see and talk to Regent. In the summers, I would sometimes see him everyday. He was old, blunt, opionated, stubborn, smelly, funny, knowledgable, and certainly inappropriate at the best of times. As a retired man, he rarely had anything pressing going on so he would always spend sometimes upwards of an hour visiting the staff and customers. While many of the girls I worked with didn't enjoy his company, I always found something enjoyable about crazy ol Regent. I think my favorite quote that I heard so many times, and he probably still says, was "I'm the nicest guy you'll ever meet, and I'll beat the shit out of anyone who says different" or something like that. Anyway, he was an endless source of stories and lessons - even when they repeated themselves over again - during that time in my life. He taught me so much about life and it was great to run into him and chit chat for a very short time.

Hmm, tomorrow it's back to musical theatre! Unfortunately, this sightreading won't be as relaxing as the hymns, but I look forward to the challenge.

Today made me feel very valued as a pianist/musician. When I awoke from my sleeping in today, I had two messages on my voicemail - almost making me regret having turned my cellphone off last night.

Message 1 was from a woman who needed an emergency vocal coaching before going off to Toronto for an audition. Her normal coach was unavailable. This woman had called up the musical theatre goddess with whom I've been working this last week (and this week coming up) and asked who she could call, and she gave her MY number.
There could not be a nicer hint that I've been doing a good job this week.
Unfortunately, by the time I called her back, she had been able to find someone else to do it, but I still felt honoured. The woman did however want to know if I was available in general as her regular coach will be moving away this year, I told her of course!

Message 2 was from my favorite pianist/fluter who wanted to know if I could substitute at a church tomorrow morning. I called her back and was able to do it. Yay for extra business. I haven't done a church service in a while, so it seems about time I go and visit the United version of God.
This message also made me realize that my voicemail message was still set to my 'out of town' greeting - oopsie! I fixed it right away. I wonder how many opportunities I missed because my message has been telling people I was unavailable all summer. I know I had (thought I had) changed it even before I came back to the city.... I guess I didn't select the new message as my current outgoing message or something silly like that.

Hmm, what else to say. I'm not quite as ranty today as last night, but I would like to address the comment I recieved.
The commenter stated that the redlight cameras are a violation of privacy. I was quite dissappointed that she was too lazy to give reasons, as I would be quite interested to hear such a justification. Nevertheless, I would like to present my thoughts on why they are not as such, a violation of privacy.
Firstly, is driving a private action? Perhaps the conversations you have within your vehicle could be deemed private, but I hold that the act of driving is indeed quite the public event. When you drive, you are controlling a large chunk of metal which is maneuvered around public and private property as well as people; out in public. This is why there are laws governing driving.
I struggle to see how the speed cameras are at all involving privacy. They simply measure an action and record those items that take part in said action.
Looking up the word private, there are several definitions that make reference to being 'out of sight', 'intended for one's exclusive use', or ' not available for public use'. I can not logically apply any of these definitions to the act of driving.

In terms of the choice to speed or break any other traffic law, I don't understand how the presence or absence of a person/police official makes a difference as to a driver's relation to the laws. When someone speeds, it is undeniable that there could be a police officer with a radar gun at any point. Is this a violation of privacy?
If so, then why do we have these laws? Or are you only breaking the law if a police officer sees it happening? Does a tree make a sound if it falls in the woods and a police officer isn't there to hear it? Better yet, is a police officer still vegetarian if they don't realize that they've been eating meat in something all along?!?

Once again, I plea to my readers, and especially my commenters, do tell me if I am wrong. but don't simply do it to gloat or to put me down, I am here to learn. I want explanations and reasons for what you think. I do want to know why these cameras are a violation of privacy. Please Please tell me why!

little rant....

so, I've been seeing ads lately that piss me off and disgust me.
-Impaired Driving-
they basically are advertising... if you were drinking and decided to drive, then don't worry about the tons of time and effort that have been put into 'don't drink and drive' ads.... we'll make sure that you can keep your license so that next time you can do some real damage!!
now, before you get all defensive on me, I realize that sometimes machines do make mistakes and it is possible that the breathalizer may yield a higher result than what alcohol was actually present in the blood. BUT - I also realize that at some points, I can drink a few drinks and feel right tipsy, yet my blood alcohol would be within the legal limit.... just as easily as you can have a few too many yet feel more sober than you are.
Nevertheless, I don't want to be a bitch about the technicalities. I'm here to bitch about the fact that it is advertised.
"so what if it's advertised, shouldn't those who are wronged by the injustice of our faulty judicial system have the right to find a qualified specialist who can assure that their innocence is upheld to the full extent of the law?!?"
Why yes Billy, of course they should! BUT if this were aimed at the few instances in which people were wronged, the advertisements would not be warranted, there wouldn't be enough cases in order for the lawyers to go this much outof their way to make themselves known.
Nevertheless, these ads do exist implying that there is a larger target audience - which I am certain are those who are looking for a way out of paying the fine or losing their license and vehicle.
Once again, I realize the fault of my passion on this topic (bitching, that is) and see that I have no proof that all the clients are guilty, and I shouldn't jump to such outlandish conclusions, no siree bob!
Nevertheless, I stand by my disgust at the mere fact that there are advertisements for "Impaired Driving". and why, why does it matter that there are advertisements/!

THE ANSWER-
Do we actually believe that fast food advertisements exist solely for those who are already hungry for that mouthwatering juicy beef slapped between two hot toasty buns leaving you hungry for.... oops, a little off topic... tee hee hee, anyway, are those advertisements only there for those who already know what they want, and perhaps just forgot that they can go out and get it?!? ... I think not!
Advertisements serve many purposes, one of those is to inform the market of what is available from the company paying for the ads. Another equally important purpose, and of more interest to the business sector, is the goal of increasing the client base.
The aim of those advertisements is to reach out to those people who don't even know they want something, and to convince them that there is a want where there was no need before.
This is why I am disgusted. Whether it be the primary intention or not, the advertisers are putting into effect incentives for people to drink and drive, countering the 'dont drink and drive' ads which came before. Where someone should think "I've had 3 drinks in 2 hours, I might be close to the legal limit; perhaps I will call a cab to play it safe", they might think "I've had 3 drinks in 2 hours, I might be close to the legal limit; close enough that I could probably fight my way around the charges thanks to my friends - the pro-drinking-and-driving-lawfirm".

I find this situation quite similar to the traffic ticket specialists who blatantly advertise that they get you off scott-free from speeding tickets. Once again, aside from the possibility that the radar gun was off by however many klicks... mumbly mumbly, it all boils down to people not wanting to accept the punishment for the crime. I'm not here to debate the value of speed limits or safety concerns because I speed just like the next person, BUT... We all know that there are speed limits and we know that there are fines for speeding,at the same time, mostly all of us gamble now and then. The majority of the time we don't get caught and we break the law openly and feel pretty good about it. Then, you get caught and boom it's an outrage and you have been violated. Or even worse those pussy ass fuckheads who claim that red-light cameras are a violation of privacy and shouldn't be legal.... FUCK YOU ASS TWAT! suck it up and pay the ticket.
Oy, now I've gone from mildly ranty, to just plain pissy.
oh well, that should be enough for tonight... I haven't writtena long entry in a while, I hope it has been as delightful to read as it has been to write.

worky worky worky

It feels good to be back to some kind of work. It's getting me back into some kind of a schedule as well as into productive mode for school.
Also the fact that I usually only work in the afternoons is a good schedule for me to be on. Tomorrow though, I work in the morning which means that I will be able to get to the school and the library. I'm not sure exactly what I need to do, but I will find something productive when I get there. Oh yes that's it, I need to take out music for a song to sing for auditions and also book a time for auditions.
Ok, thats a fair bit of stuff to get done tomorrow, yay!

Hiatus is over!

I think the last thong I knit was last summer some time (probably over a year ago).
I'm not sure what happened, but I lost my way, I lost the inspiration that had seen me through making dozens of them.
Today not only did I finish making one, but I taught my friend Fiona how to knit a thong.
I feel like I have made the world a much better place.
However, I need to make sure that my artistic creation of thongs does not interfere with my artistic creation of other things like music.... therefore, once school starts I will limit my thong knitting to the time I spend on the bus or in class.
I need to decide whether I should try to sell this thong on the internet. The last time I tried, I only sold one and it went for such a low price that it almost wasn't worth the effort. Although, I can say that I have officially sold thongs on ebay - which is a redeeming factor.

ok, normally I don't post random dribble like this, but it was too funny to pass up.
You can try it, just go to google or any search engine and type in "(your name) looks like" and see what your results are.
Here are mine.

Michael looks like drag queen in one of Pauls porn videos.
In some of those photos, Michael looks like he's playing naked.
Michael looks like a penguin.

Those were really the only ones that made sense/complete sentances on the first page, but those alone were enough to brighten my day!

I've stopped washing my hair

No, I'm not going for dreadlocks or anything like that. It's not even that I want dirty hair. Rather, I have stopped shampooing my hair, although I still wet it in the shower so that I don't get chunks of say,... birdnest in it. The reason is that my hair is very oily so it can get quite greasy if I don't wash it within 24hours of its previous shampooing, or even sooner. My theory is that if I let the oils build up for a while, my scalp will slow down the rate of oil production so I won't need to shampoo the oils out every day(as I have for the past many years).
Once again, this is just a theory - I'm going to try and last as long as I can before the oily hair drives me insane. But ya, I have relatively short hair at the moment; I certainly couldn't do this with longer hair. I don't think I ever want to have long hair again. Seeing some pictures of me with long hair, and I'm not a fan. I'm enjoying the plyability of my hair with the slight excess of oil though at the moment... I don't even really need gel to make it into a fauxhawk or make the front stand up.
Ok, enough about my sexy sexy hair. I've started reading again, after having given up on that over the summer. I went to bed last night reading some Shostakovich. Not exactly relaxing reading, but it was good. It actually got me riled up about the idea that music and creating music should do some good for the world. All great art should have something to do with the common themes of humanity. He also wrote about the ill of american society and the trend that the arts should entertain and nothing more. It's a little concerning that so much music currently treats entertainment as the only purpose for music. Instances he used as examples are of how Orchestra concerts lose their variety and quality when the programmes are decided by the same people who are concerned with the finances - what they present is dictated by the dollar which is influenced, nay dictated by the flippant desires of how the audience wants to be entertained. His stance is that every programme, ever concert should have something that challanges the audience/listener - it is not a bad thing for the audience even to hate a small portion of the concert....
I agree! If you go to a concert and you like everything, then how can you qualitatively compare one thing to the next... Then you become Mr.Winnipeg and you stand up to give a standing ovation at the end of every performance because everything was good, nothing was bad; but at the same time, nothing was exceptional.
I love this, reading and thinking about the thoughts and ideas of the authors, especially when they are composers and are writing about what I want to do with my life. Yippee!
Anyway, I want to hear some thoughts on the idea of music as a means of purely entertainment.... feel free to comment.