surreal

I have a paper due tomorrow. It's almost 11:30pm and I'm still not done.

Surprise, surprise - I'm blogging!

It just strikes me as so surreal that I'm finished the first year of my doctorate. While I'm just finished the first of four years, the coursework only lasts two years, and the work I'll do on my thesis will hopefully be like what I'll be doing after graduating, so really, I'm pretty much halfway through the university part of it...

Ok, wishful thinking aside, time is going by so quickly!

Anyway, the front yard is filled with tulips and greenery, I see more and more people wearing shorts every day - summer seems to be upon Vancouver!

This should be a fun one!

Official Apology

I should be more careful to not offend my readers..

I apologize for any comments I may have made that might imply anything untoward about any singers who occasionally read my blog. You know I love you all - heck, you make up 60% of my readership!

When speaking of effervescence, I surely was not thinking of pet wolves, more along the lines of large birds... In a sea of singers of all types, I miss the level-headedness, cool nature, laugh, humour, wisdom, and of course great voice of you, pet wolfe. Ain't no one howls better than you at Karaoke!

Can I be forgiven?

Pleeeeease...

Self-Review

So, as I mentioned, today I made my premiere as a baritone, haha!

Generally, the performance went quite well. One case of the giggles caused a small pause in the performance, but we regained our footing and got to the end relatively unscathed.

The piece itself was a success; the story was clear and people found it quite entertaining. I had been worried because the audience only hears half of the text. Everyone who has looked at the piece (myself, the bassoonist, and profs) have had the benefit of reading the full text, so I'm glad that I did a good enough job of doubling/implying the underlying text.

As a singer, I think I pulled it off. I'll be interested to hear the recording... I've never actually heard a recording of me singing, so it will be very... um... ya...

Hopefully there will be some salvageable bits that I can post on here and/or my website. I know that I wrote the piece, but that was way back in October; one week wasn't really enough to learn it. However, there's always the magic of character voices! I'm not a trained singer, so character voices gave me an excuse to not obsess about tone quality, etc.

As a baritone, some of those A's were awful low-feeling. I'll be interested to hear how those sound on the recording.

Long story short, this was phenomenally fun! I love performing, I love laughing, and I love making people laugh; this had all of those things in perfect harmony!

yearning for a simpler time

You may be surprised to hear this, but I'm not exactly a manly man...

One of the few vestiges of manliness I can boast is the fact that from the end of high school through my university years in Winnipeg, I went to a barber.

It was right next to the pharmacy where I worked. It had a traditional spinning barber thingy, and kitschy signage indicating the name - "Nick the Fiddling Barber's". Nick was long since retired; the barber's name was Phil and he helped me through some of the worst hair disasters of my life: 2 drunken haircut escapades where I let friends play with scissors, as well as the day I let some co-workers dye my hair blond with the expired "Blondissimo" we had pulled off the shelves.

Phil was a master at barbering. I never doubted his skill, never was disappointed with his work, and was never uncomfortable in his chair. If I needed to be chatty, he had stories and friends in all walks of life and professions. If I was pensive, he has philosophical queries and ideas to ponder - all of which could be resolved with a witty one-liner before standing up out of the chair. If I wasn't particularly sociable, he could shoot the shit about the weather like the best of them, or he could make a silence completely comfortable.

Since leaving Winnipeg, I've never really been satisfied with my hair-shortening experiences. Most stylists are baffled by the concept of tapering the back; 'why on earth would he want that?', 'how the heck are you supposed to do that?!?'

I could continue complaining, but that take too much effort. Long story short, I've been yearning for that simpler time... so when I realized that there is a barbershop called John and Nick's Barber Shop less than a 5 minute walk from my house, I needed to give it a try.

I sat at Nick's chair. He looked almost exactly like the young barber in that Seinfeld episode. I appreciated the efficiency of the cut, the sterile coldness of the barbershop, the olde-style chair. The cut was classic and good, but the experience wasn't like home.

In the end, no complaints, but I'll continue my search for the hair-shortening method that is right for me. I might go back to that Future Hair Training Centre I went to last time around; it's hard to beat a 7 dollar haircut...

My début as a chanteur...

I've always sung in choirs, taken some singing lessons, and in undergrad I spent most of my time with the singers. Their quirky ways, the high drama, the loudness, and the effervescent airheadedness make me feel at home.

(you know I love you all)

But other than choirs, I've never really sang on my own for a recital or something. Well, that will be changing on Wednesday.

Gramps Ain't No Namby-Pamby is a duet I wrote for Bassoon and Baritone earlier this year. It's been finished since first term and I've had a bunch of baritones willing and interested in singing it, but the actual performance date has taken far too long to materialized. It wasn't until last week that the April 21'st performance date was confirmed.

On a week and a bit's notice, I got a mezzo soprano to agree...

[the two roles in the piece are grandfather and grandson, so this was kind of a gender-bending version]

long story short, a week and a bit was not enough time, so as of last night I will be performing the piece. I ran it through with my bassoonist and we're confident it will be pretty spectacular!

With any luck, Wednesday will be recorded and I can put up a recording. This is going to be a gong show, but in the best way imaginable!

The animals that punctuate our lives and blogs

I just heard a noise in the living room...

who or what could it be?

OSCAR!

My long-time blog readers may remember Oscar from Christmas of 2006 when I housesat for my friend, Binky. Oscar is her cat and he is pretty awesome. As you can tell from the picture, he doesn't like the camera flash.

Growing up, there was always a pet in the house, be it a dog, cat, or budgie. Living on my own, I haven't had the time or money to take care of a pet; I've survived, but I was happy to have the chance to cat-sit for a few weeks. My roommate and I have been enjoying his antics since he arrived earlier this morning and he seems to be adjusting well to his temporary home.

As I looked up 'Oscar' and 'cat' on my blog history, I was reminded of the different stages of my life that Oscar has been involved... [dream sequence]...

December 2006 - January 2007

I housesat for Binky. This was my first time actually living away from my parents' home, other than a summer camp type experience. Wow, it wasn't until 23 that I flew the coop... Anyway - this was a nice opportunity to experience independence. Oscar kept me on my toes, barely letting me get any knitting done without attacking!

Summer 2007, or was it 2006, ya, let's go with 2006...

Binky and I went on a road trip, drove from Winnipeg to Vancouver (how apt that he should be visiting me in Vancouver this time around). We dropped him off in Saskatchewan because he didn't like the car very much... It was during his stay in Saskatchewan that he developed his habit of spitefully shitting on beds. He only did it twice, but it was done with such malice!

Today

I suppose that's not all that many times he's appeared on my blog, but he's my favorite cat nonetheless. I took that picture about an hour ago - he was lounging atop my piano. I'm glad I had the foresight to press in the silent piano pedal.... he just plopped himself down on the entire middle register of the piano!

Surviving and flourishing

So, I survived a rather full week of practicing and performing.

Not just survived, it was actually pretty successful.

A mixture of brutal honesty and high standards for myself mean that I feel like I could have played better, but I'm happy with my level of performance and so were others.

The whole experience taught me a lot and gave me a bunch of constructive experience. It was wonderful experience working with some highly skilled musicians. Few rehearsals meant that we had to get the most out of each time we met. As a performer, I experienced the full gamut of composer interactions - from the composer I only met on the night of the concert after we had played, to the composer that attended multiple rehearsals and wanted to be involved at every step of the learning.

As I played in my own piece, I was happy with the balance we struck within rehearsals. Not that there was any real chance, but I wasn't a control freak; I was open to critique and interpretations, and the other players were happy to join in that creative collaboration that is music making.

With all that said, I look forward to doing this again in the future. I love playing new music and I really enjoyed the process of premiering some new works. While it was great to play my own piece, in the future, I will prefer for my works to be played by other performers; the more people who play it, the wider the spread of that music. I don't think I'll ever want to premiere my own piece, but this had been performed before, so it was nice to have stepped into that other role this time around.

Today's the day of the big concert. My dress rehearsals went quite well and I'm feeling prepared for tonight. Since they started so early and I went to bed quite late, I came home and napped. I'm going to practice a little bit more to secure up some sections.

I still haven't decided if I'm really one of those performers that practices right up to the last minute, or if I need to leave things a bit to breath before the performance. It all depends on how prepared I am to begin with. Part of me wants to relax for the rest of the afternoon, but I shan't allow it!

Tomorrow I only have one piece to preform in a concert, same thing on Saturday; I feel like the year is starting to wind down.

Almost feels like autopilot

This weekend was almost thoughtless in terms of dedicated practicing. I had a couple hundred pages of ballet music to review/learn for the workshop I played today, as well as rehearsals and a creative meeting with an artistic collaborator of mine. I plugged away at the work I needed to do and I got it done.

Today was the ballet workshop. It went well, though it ran overtime through my breaks. My arms and brain are tired, so I won't be practicing tonight.

At the same time, I need to start doing some reading and research for a final paper.

Oh ya - I never updated, because nothing happened...

That string of bad luck my quartet was having.... well, it ended before it got to me. I suppose bad things do come in threes, so I'm lucky to be the fourth member of that ensemble!

Wow, I'm really scatterbrained right now - probably shouldn't be trying to blog, but oh well!

Good night!

I must have a lesson tomorrow, I'm procrastinating like nobody's business!

Website update:

the dot-com is out the door and the new version is available here:

www.michaelpark.ca

Short and sweet! The website has some more information on it - a bunch of the formatting stuff is fixed and it's a lot easier for me to work with, meaning I'll keep it more up-to-date.

Really, as if I didn't complain enough about the one 9am appointment I had....

They booked me for a diabetic retinopathy check-up tomorrow at 9:15 am. I have a lesson tomorrow and I'd really like to pull an all-nighter... Tomorrow is going to suck eitherway. If I stay up and get lots of work done, I'll be tired for a super long day tomorrow filled with pupil dilation, lesson, rehearsals and teaching OR reveal to my teacher just how little I've been focusing on composition lately...

Both are horrible options.

The scariest part is that I don't have money for diet coke - my paycheck still hasn't come through and it's almost 24 hours late. I will have to eat 2 meals on the go tomorrow, it would be much much much easier if at least one of those could be bought - so I'm really hoping that the money is there when I wake up. Actually, I'll sleep much better if it's there before I go to sleep.

Anyway - time to work!

Yesterday morning, I had a first appointment with my new Vancouver endocrinologist. The only complaint I have is that it was at 9 in the morning!

Obviously they don't know me very well. Really - first thing in the morning? hours before I normally wake up? What silly scheduling!

He was super nice and our diabetes aesthetic approaches are in line - something I've lost sight of recently:

Diabetes should be something that is incorporated into one's daily life. Considering it is something that you'll live with for the rest of your life, obsessing over it will cause more stress than it will benefit.

Over these last few years, I've been getting more and more caught up in the diabetes blogosphere which seems to be characterized by the control-obsessed minority if diabetics out there (no offense intended). I'm certainly not defending the considerable portion of the diabetic population who are ignorant of their own condition and don't put in the effort to make any improvements whatsoever, but I notice myself obsessing and it leads me - not to improvements, but apathy.

There are many routes to success in life and diabetes. At this point in the road, it's good to remind myself that the obsessive route isn't the one for me. The route of regularity is also not mine, at least not at this point in my life... I'll continue to search out my route; maybe I've already found it and just need the words to describe it. Who knows?!

Am I Superstitious?

I'm not really a superstitious person.

With that said, I'm sure that some great tragedy is going to befall me next Sunday.

For Sonic Boom, I'm playing in a quartet - piano, violin, cello, and clarinet. Slowly, each member of the ensemble has been picked off with an instance of bad luck.

Rehearsal One:

Violinist arrives frazzled, having rushed to find a replacement instrument after their violin mysteriously went missing.

Rehearsal Two:

Cancelled the morning of; cellist goes to hospital with severe stomach pain.

Rehearsal Three:

Clarinetist arrives frazzled, having been in a mild-to-moderate car accident earlier that day.

Rehearsal Four:

To be continued...

Pianotastic!

Here is the promotional poster for Sonic Boom 2010.

The festival is fast approaching and I am excited to be a part of it in different capacities - I will have one of my own pieces performed, as well as I will be playing in 4 pieces as a pianist.

April 8th is the day to remember, so if you're in Vancouver, come on out to The Western Front.

The first 2 weeks of April will be very intense for me - a full-day ballet workshop, Sonic Boom, and accompanying a violin recital, but I'm up for the challenge!

The rest of the month doesn't really calm down much. A final student composer concert to help organize, the premiere of my new choral pieces, and wrapping up the academic year will keep me on my toes.

In other news, I have an appointment with my new endocrinologist on Monday at 9am. First off - why so early?!?!?! Second, I almost forgot. The bloodwork is from a while ago, so good thing I didn't have to do fresh stuff. 2 days of sugar/food records will just have to be enough. in all honest, diabetes apathy is at an all-time high - I haven't seen a diabetic counsellor or social worker in a long time and I think it's about time I change that. I WANT diabetes to be more or a priority than I've let it be lately, I just need help to make that happen.

I'm sorry I haven't been blogging as much as I would like lately... I'll try to have little updates more often.

Two new additions to the living room.

1)The long-awaited piano.

It makes me incredibly happy! The silent feature is awesome and there are not enough words to describe how helpful it is and will be.

It looks super shiny, but it's actually 32 years old - I checked the serial number and it was made sometime in 1978. Nevertheless, it sounds good and the action is clean and responsive. With a big concert only 2 and a half weeks away, it could not wait any longer.

Sitting on the music stand is the newest knit creation. His name, in my mind, shall be Teddy Chach. I made him for a friend who is expecting a baby any day now. It was a bit of a fiasco getting the stuffing... I called about 5 or 6 craft places within reasonable travel distance, but they were all sold out and waiting on backorders for the last 2 or 3 weeks. I imagine that there was some kind of trade embargo on polyester, probably stemming all the way from the 60's, something to do with leisure suits...

Anyway, I finally got a call from one of the stores, informing me that they had finally gotten the shipment in, but it was too late. My mother solved the situation. She sent me an Easter care package which was tenderly packed with polyfil stuffing! It was the perfect amount to stuff Teddy Chach and some left over for my next project!

Anyway, things are going well and my roommate and I are both excited to have the piano in the apartment, though it means we have to redecorate/shift furniture around, but that's not much of an inconvenience!

excitement!

So, this had better be the last post I have to write about being excited for my piano....

I finally have the money put in the right places.

Despite my schedule running almost straight through from 11am-8pm, I'm going to try to squeeze half an hour in at the piano store so that I can get the paperwork done for the rental. Hopefully, I'll be able to get it delivered by the end of the week, or weekend.

Minestrone Soup

So, I mentioned that I was going to make Minestrone soup a while ago. It took me a while to get around to it, but I did it today!

Actually, instead of using my big soup pot, I used the other toy I bought from the thrift shop that day - my slow cooker!

Here's the recipe, to start.

I made a few changes... well, a lot... but it turned out super delicious!

I used a different brand of Italian dressing, sorry Kraft.

I didn't have celery at all, so I left it out.

For carrots, I picked them out of my frozen California mixed vegetables.

I used chicken broth instead of vegetable, and I got confused as to whether all broth is concentrated, which I've concluded it is if it comes from a can.

I used egg noodles instead of pasta and I completely forgot the parmesan cheese and Italian seasoning, though I have some parmesan that I can add into it when I eat it.

The biggest problem though, was that the recipe was meant for a much larger slow cooker... there was actually no room for any water. I cooked it anyway and then I just added water when I served myself a bowl.

I'm actually happy it turned out that way; it tasted great AND now it will be easier to store - it's like a canned soup, just add water and heat!

In conclusion - the recipe was SUPER EASY and tastes great.

I'm super glad my slow cooker didn't start a fire - you never know what you're getting from the thrift shop...

In another conclusion, slow cookers are the greatest thing ever - The soup literally only took 15-20 minutes of prep and then it was delicious the next time I opened it up! Best investment ever!

a weekend for resting

So, last weekend, I did 90% of the work for my choral piece - I had set the deadline as Monday. Saturday night, I was up until 8am before sleeping and then I finished the piece around 4am Sunday night/Monday morning.

Next on my list was a paper due on Thursday. It took me all of Monday and Tuesday to do the readings. I figured I had all day Wednesday to write the paper, but surprise, I had classes and teaching in the evening. I got a wee bit done, but it wasn't until around 9 or 10 that I started writing. It wasn't that long of a paper, but it took me until 10 am to finish. I gave it a quick once-over to make sure it made sense, printed it.

I set every alarm I had in my room and went to sleep, knowing I could get 2 hours of sleep before class at 1:30. The class was very long, I drank a lot of coffee and I made it through the day, going to bed at a normal time.

I slept for 11 hours and it was great!

Even though I'm not tired tired, I'm feeling a little worn down.

(oops, started writing this hours ago and forgot to publish, so I'm publishing now and not finishing this train of thought...)

I was up until 8am last night. I then slept into the afternoon and started working again. It is 1am right now and I feel very close to being finished. This has been an intense end of the weekend, but I feel enlivened. I need to remember to not get myself caught up in writer's block or procrastination - it's much more rewarding to just ignore them. Let's hope I can remember that when I don't have deadlines looming.

Tonight will see a much earlier pillow-time, but the deadlines aren't gone for another few days. Once this piece is finished, there are many articles to read and a paper to write, as well as piano pieces to learn, etc.

Good night!

I'm actually getting work done tonight and I think I can get the piece finished this weekend.

In other news, I got lightbulbs today.

Normally, this wouldn't be newsworthy, but I had been without switch-operated lighting for over a week. Just days before the ceiling light burnt out, I had bought a floor lamp for my room; because of this, I did not treat the light burning out as the tragedy it truly was. For a short while, since we had an electrician staying on our couch, I debated the possibility of changing the wiring so that the light switch would control my lamp as a viable alternative to getting new light bulbs. Laziness prevented this from actually occurring.

Since going off the pump, I've been using Lantus from the 10ml vials. While the syringes were a nice reminiscence for a bit, I've been missing my fancy Eli Lilly pen that I was using for Lantus when I was in Ontario. I hope I just left this in Winnipeg during the move, and didn't throw it out. Anyway, I can't make sense of why, because I store it in the fridge, but the vials of Lantus seem to be expiring or losing efficacy near the end of each vial... after 2 days of high sugars, I finally switch bottles and my sugars magically return to normal. Long story short, they now have the Lantus in prefilled pens - 5*3ml - and I got those yesterday. They actually include a disposable pen with each cartridge - seems a little wasteful, but then again, what isn't wasteful about prescription packaging! While these pens aren't as nice as the Lily one, they're decent - a big step up from the previous Solo star pen I used a few years back!

Oops, I got distracted - back to work with me!

Procrastination has been high lately, mostly because I have to finish a choral piece this weekend... ie by tomorrow. It's a monumental amount of work, but I'll make it happen. I'm already a week behind my personal deadline for this piece, and I'm not willing to postpone again!

I went with my roommate and a friend to Costco today. I bought lots of diet coke, so all-nighters will be fueled this weekend.

Piano rental shopping was a little ridiculous. Last year, my roommate and I paid for delivery in advance and then paid a monthly rental rate, ca 35$/month. At the first place I went, the rate for the piano I wanted was 59$/month, but they had a 500$ non-negotiable deposit. I was not expecting this, so I couldn't just go ahead. At the second place I looked, they had no deposit, but the rental rate was a whopping 180$/month for a similar piano. I called a few other places to find out that they mostly all have similar deposits, so I will suck it up and rent from the first place.

Now, about the piano:

Yamaha Silent Piano, google it!

Apparently, the technology has been around for 20 years, but no-one really knows or talks about it. There are tons of forums online for people looking for a good quality digital piano because they need it to be silent, but they're unsatisfied with the action/feel. For a long time, 'apartment pianos' have a mechanism that puts a felt cloth between the hammers and the strings so that it sounds a lot quieter, but this slows down the hammer movement and it's still audible.

The piano I will be getting is actually SILENT! With the silent pedal engaged, the hammers stop a few millimeters short of the keys - you get the same feel of the piano action, but none of the sound. At the same time, there are optical sensors underneath, translating the key and pedal motions into midi information. It has midi in/out so I can make the piano sound however I like through the speakers, but more importantly I can hook it up to do notation on my computer. Basically, the piano has everything I could want. When I get my next paycheck, I'll be acquiring said piano!

Ok, back to composing...!