A Typical Night

The ground is wet to the point of being marshland. I navigate my way around small lakes as I walk across the loop. It's just another late-night practice session at the music building (Alcatraz, the giant tetris block, the asylum for the mentally insane, whatever you want to call it). How can I express how much I hate these walks?

When it's foggy I don't mind so much. It's like London. When it's snowy out it's like Narnia. (Lampposts people). And in the spring and early fall it's warm enough to be enjoyable. But even with these things, there's something about forcing yourself out into the cruel world so you can struggle over a few measures of Bach or ii-V-I progressions. It's just not pleasant.

Some nights, as I said, it is fairly enjoyable. You get a little peace from dorm life and from the 2-students per square meter population ratio here. Some nights I can even make out a few stars. Those are the nights when I'm confident and at peace with the world and my professors and have no major homework pending. Then I can stroll through campus at my liesure, eagerly anticipating the joys of piano. On the way back I can play "dodge the sprinkler system," which seems to be the college's intensive secret-agent preparation course.

Then there are nights like tonight. Oh February you are the most dismal of months. What I wouldn't give for some clear blue sky and a little sun! It's all grey and soggy and dead. I don't always mind grey. I'll take soggy too. But the dead part. That I don't like. And like I said, there's something about feeling "done" with homework only to walk all the way across campus and sequester yourself in your cell, er, practice room. My professors can't say I'm not dedicated.