Spring Break

So if I were a "normal" maladjusted college student I'd have gone down to California, or Florida, or Mexico, or simply to my local pub and get smashed. At least I think that's the right expression. But I am most definitely not normal. So what did I do?

Well, I read a 700 page novel from the 1860's. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell. It took me 2 and a half days. And when I'd finished that one I picked up "The Undomestic Goddess," a book a la Bridget Jones' Diary, and polished that off in my remaining free afternoon. Take THAT Harry Potter nerds! *Heidi, they're like 12, you're trying to compete with 12-year-olds by comparing how much you can read in a week...* Hmmm. Well never mind. I haven't started on Inkspell yet, or the biography on Johann Sebastian Bach, and I'm only a third of the way through "The World is Flat." This is FUN for me. Something's wrong here.

Of course this after I went to a Lord of the Rings party at Karen's house... *Heidi, you do realize people can access this blog from your Facebook account. You do have a link up. What if someone who THINKS you're normal suddenly realizes... Realizes... How much of a dork you really are!* Oh shut up. The voices are louder today than usual. It's a good thing I'll be going back to college soon and then I'll be busy enough to look as normal as a music major can. I'm NOT going into how bad of a music major I am. Nothing more needs to be said on THAT topic.

I read that my generation is extremely narcissistic (oh goodness that's hard to spell) compared to others. *GASP!* I don't know WHY! I mean, our parents flock around us and dote attention on us and make us the center of the universe. And then everyone starts scratching their heads saying "why do these kids think they're the center of the universe?" Okay, so maybe not all kids are so... lucky... Some are neglected, shuffled from foster home to foster home or coming home to an empty house while dad's at work, trying to meet the status quo. Bottom line is the article had a point. We have blogs and MySpace pages and Facebook accounts and all of these glorious "social networking" tools generally promote Me! I like my blog. I like reading over past entries and seeing where I was in my life. I'm too lazy to keep a journal. But I hope I don't become so self-centrered as to forget the value of others. God comes first, others second. This is what I was taught growing up and it still seems like an admirable philosophy still. So I'm hoping to be less self-centered on this blog and use it as a tool for communication. Not just about me, but about life and others and God too. We'll see how it works.

2 Random Things (or maybe more than that)

Cripes Mondays are busy. I try to get up at 6:00, sometimes it ends up being 7:00... I WILL do devotions! *sigh* I have classes from 8:00 until 10:30. Then I go to the Fitness Center (I am just not created to be sedentary. That's one thing that's been driving me crazy at college.) After that I do homework and get lunch etc. Then I have class again at 2:00 until 3:00. I have half an hour or so to prepare for piano lessons then I teach Grace and Grant for about an hour. Then I usually stay and practice for an hour. Then IDEALLY I would eat dinner and go back and practice for another hour but this generally doesn't happen because I usually eat dinner and then pass out on the couch. So now I have to practice still plus do more homework...

Mark Levine is giving a clinic and concert tomorrow. Super excited. Or I would be if I wasn't so groggy.

Now what I was originally going to post about. Keith's senior recital. Keith is well-loved. I've never seen the recital hall that full. They had to add an extra row of chairs in the front as well as along the aisle on either side. And people were standing in the back. In the words of one prof "we need that new recital hall yesterday." The music building's been on the top of list for rennovation for a while now. If they could only make it look less like a prison...

Secondly, with regards to Keith's recital, everyone should hear "The Dead Moth Tango" at least once. Too bad I can't remember who wrote it.

The Music Building Calls to Me...

Wow a lot has happened.

Let's see, my last post was on the 7th. Since then Karen and I went to an AMAZING Symphony concert. Thank You Karen. Hmmm, no point really posting about that though I suppose.

My parents are back from Israel. I can't believe that they went there, but it's very cool that they did. So I went home last weekend and looked at pictures and heard their stories. My mom's always wanted to go so I'm glad she got to. We're just becoming regular world travelers in my family and that's fine with me. :-)

This week was just really, really weird. I only got an hour and a half of sleep Thursday night because I had so much stuff to do. It all happens at once, I swear. And it's not like I was slacking off earlier in the week either. I just had a lot of work to do. So I did homework until 4:00 am and then I slept until 5:30 and then I finished my homework and went to breakfast and to class. After class I had a super-important job interview. I'm really hoping I'll get this job as a summer conference assistant at the college. Room and board are payed for, there's no commute, it would look great on a resume and it's definitely way better than harvest. Parts of the interview went really well but I definitely gave some really dorky answers to some of the questions. Way to be professional. And I'm sure I was a little, um, "mellow" as I'd only had an hour and a half of sleep.

So that was crazy. I slept so much after that.

Also, I went to 4 student recitals this weekend. There were so many. I would have gone to Nathaniel's on Thursday but that was the day I got an hour and a half of sleep. Even so, Shawn, who lives in my dorm, had a junior composition recital at 2:00 on Saturday. Then Keith, a super-amazing pianist, had his senior recital at 4:00. Then today Greg "don't hassle the" Hoff had his senior jazz trombone recital. Really really good. I thought I was done after that and was off to the library to listen to MORE music for classical piano lessons (I love college sometimes) when I realized my brother had called me while I was at Greg's recital. I'd forgotten that Jeff Wirth's senior composition recital was at 4:00 today as well. My brother doesn't know Jeff, but apparently he watches the college's website for any interesting events and decided he'd come. It was 10 after four when I got the message but I decided to go. I only missed the first piece and it was fun to see my brother and chat with him and Brent and Judith. It brought back memories of my brother's senior composition recital... *ooohh, I feel a flashback coming on!*

I might have been a freshman in highschool and I was starting to get really into music. My brother wrote some pretty contemporary stuff, but I tried to pretend I understood it. I remember though that I didn't consider myself a musician really (not much has changed... :-) ) I remember meeting one of Eric's professors (I think it was Michael Young). Eric said something about me having creative tendencies and I very distinctly remember thinking to myself "yeah but there's no way I'm ever going to get stuck as a music major." Ha. Ha. Ha.

Between that and practicing I'd estimate I spent a little under 10 hours in the music building this weekend. I am NOT a performance major dang it. I REFUSE to... do... this... *sigh* Do what you love I guess. I don't love practicing though. I am not a performance major. I am not a performance major. I am not a performance major.

Student recitals are cool in that you get to see these people you interact with every day showing what amazing musicians they are. There was a point when I thought "hm, I don't really belong anywhere within 50 yards of the music building. I'm totally wasting my professors' time." But I got over that jealous thought pretty quickly and just sat back and admired the accomplishments of my peers. The very least I can do is let them inspire me instead of getting bitter about it. They're generally so nice anyways. So that was a really good thing for me. Plus the music was amazing.

Well, I'd better go I have a German test tomorrow.

Please enjoy Albinoni's Adagio. Funnily enough it was mostly written by an "Albinoni scholar" who tried to salvage the work after the bombing of Dresden. He tried to piece together like 6 measures that he found. Still good though. :-)

Who says fanfiction has to stink?

"What's in the punch?"
"Lemons and melons and pears."
"Oh my!"
~Galinda and Fiyero

"I happen to be genuinely self-absorbed and deeply shallow."
~Fiyero

"Listen, I've been thinking..."
"Yes, I've heard."
~Fiyero and Elphaba

So whenever I try to get ahead in schoolwork, I fail. This time it started with iTunes. Since everyone in the dorm is hooked up to the same network I have access to a lot of music.

I've never really cared for the musical "Wicked." I'm not a huge "Wizard of Oz" fan, even so I don't like people messing with other people's stories, AND the idea of what is essentially fanfiction making money is weird to me. Not only that, but it just looked really dumb. I sang "No One Mourns the Wicked" in an advanced voice class at CYT once, and I was impressed with the music, but I didn't feel the actual musical worth my time.

But I got listening to someone's copy of the soundtrack on iTunes and discovered, to my surprise, that "Wicked" is a really intelligent musical. Okay, it's also kinda cheesy, but behind the fluff there's something substantial. It's based on a book, which partially explains it. But still, the book is essentially fanfiction! Who'd have thought? There are developed characters, an interesting plot, and serious themes. Weird.

So, I'm not certain I should post this as they took down the Scarlet Pimpernel videos... but... *looks around* *whispers* The ENTIRE show, start to finish, is on YouTube. :-) For a limited time only of course. You'll have to search for it yourself because I'm not linking.

Petar Jankovic!

So, I missed the first few minutes of this AMAZING FREE CONCERT by PETAR JANKOVIC and I'm kicking myself for it! WHY wasn't everyone on campus at this recital!? It was one of the best musical experiences I have ever had in my life. All 19 years of it.

I've been a mediocre student this weekend. Three-day weekends will do that. I've been entirely unmotivated. So I have a bunch of homework to do still and I need to get on it, but people have been going in and out of my room so I thought I'd post this real quick.

I went to the Scholarship Dinner tonight. Apparently I'm a Marketta Whitlow Buckler scholar, whatever that means. I'm appreciative though and while my donors weren't there I figured I'd better go. And the food was good. But it did cause me to miss the beginning of the amazing concert that trumps the entirety of the weekend.

So, first of all I recommend you check out this amazing musican's website. www.petarjankovic.net

Classical guitar is amazing. I'm really just going to sound like a dithering idiot on this post so I may as well shut up and do homework. But it was amazing. The recital hall was packed to standing room only as it should have been. This guy is internationally recognized and I hope we at least made his visit slightly worth his while. He was selling CDs after the concert, 2 for $20. I had to give in, but I didn't have the money on me. So I ran all the way across campus and back and managed to get the LAST PAIR of CDs. He autographed them too, which was cool. I wish I knew more about classical guitar I could have at least asked an intelligent question. As it was I just stood there in awe. Genuinely nice guy too it seemed like. That's rare in the music world.

So I'm putting up some classical guitar music, although it's not Petar Jankovic. Listen to the music samples on his website or something. Mmmmmm.