The Great Mango Tree of Life
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
So, I've been promising some good news (in my comments) for a few days, and didn't get around to it (sorry!). Here it is now. Back in January, the KSO premiered Istvan Anhalt's new work The Tents of Abraham, and we did a live recording of the performance, just for archival purposes. However, CBC has heard it, and wants to do a late-release! If that happens, I'll be selling cds to everyone. *grin* Unfortunately, there are some contract issues, so it might not happen. Cross your fingers, everyone. If it all works out, I'm back on the radio! Well... plus the piece is amazing and deserves recognition, which is probably more important than my ego, but hey. Bonus!
Monday, March 29, 2004
An interesting piece of news: I wrote my 100th cheque today since getting my account. Fittingly, it was for my law school deposit. I wonder what an appropriate way to celebrate would be? (*note: ideas welcome)
Saturday, March 27, 2004
Today is the official announcement. Just one quick rule. No "I told you so"s allowed. :)
As of Monday, I will be declining my law school offers everywhere else, and accepting the one for Queen's.
My last concert as a Queen's Commerce student is done, and I even have some orchestra stories to go with it. Poor Stefan -- they mostly have to do with him. First, I steal his solo... which was beautiful, if I do say so myself. (Fortunately, other people have also said so, so it's not just my ego talking.) Then Gordon had Van be concertmaster for the two arias, since Stefan didn't show up for the dress rehearsal. However, even all the fun we have annoying "Steffi" comes at a price. The first three stands of violins spent the warm-up doing Stefan impressions of one particular shift in the string concerto, and Van got so caught up in it that she cracked up laughing when we had to actually play it in the concert! Then there was Stefan's response to my questioning his unbelievably out of tune high note (it was supposed to be an A, but he played it a third up): "I couldn't find the note, but I figured it sounded nice and dissonant. It's a modern piece. Not like anyone can tell, and I didn't want to have to look for the right note." Yeesh. As for a non-Stefan orchestra story, Emily (who played the horn solo and was amazingly good) took the ending a bit faster than Gordon was expecting. The second the piece finished, he says, very audibly "Wow!" Got a few laughs out of the audience, but we all felt the same way. Anyway, I played everything well, even the impossible parts on the harp (that's what you get when you actually practice before the concert), so the whole thing was a success. The party after was great, too, especially because so many strings (including the entire cello section) came, and even Gordon stayed later than he usually does -- which is nice, because he's my ride back, and I always have to leave just when the party gets started. But not this time!
Ok, note to self. Never blog about concerts while still coming down off the adrenaline. :)
Monday, March 22, 2004
There were birds singing outside my window this morning! So nice. Makes me think it's really going to be spring soon. Now, if only the birds would try singing a little later - 6:30 is a bit too early for me for a Monday morning. :)
Sunday, March 21, 2004
Thursday, March 18, 2004
I GET A SOLO IN THE NEXT QUEEN'S CONCERT! Actually, I get two, but only one of them is good. lol. The not good one is the harp one that I can't play yet, even though the concert is a week Friday. The good one, however, is a violin solo, which means Stephan is supposed to play it (refer to post in Feb re: the last QS concert) BUT Gordon decided today in orchestra that he wants me to play it. And then he muttered something very uncomplimentary about Stephan under his breath. *gloats happily* I suppose it's mean of me to be happy that I stole his solo... but I'm not the Evil One for nothing, right? And, darn it all, he plays out of tune! Besides, he's not even coming to the dress rehearsal, so blah to him and yay for me. I'm just going to be happy. (Bet I'll cop another flower out of it, too! *grin*)
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
I had a kind of up-and down day today. First off, the concert last night went very well. The Beethoven sounded nice, I thought, and the duets (thanks MT for coming up to play them with me!!!) were really amazing. We all (MT and dad and Barb and Van and Andrew and I) went to the grad club for non-al drinks and conversation after, which turned into a great evening of music stories. I have more of those to tell now. (yay!)
Today started with my violin lesson, because I slept in -- first chance for that in ages. My lesson went surprisingly well for one following a studio. Gisele said some very nice things about the Beethoven, and going over the rest of the things to work on were more like the friendly, encouraging post-concert talks I used to have with my teacher back home. Then we worked on Bach, and I sounded good for that, too. Juries are coming up, so it's nice to know I only have to worry about my Bartok.
Mailed some stuff express to MT, who left things in my room by accident. Getting out of the house was actually nice, despite the cold, so I guess the walk was good for me.
Then comes the down part. Went out to grab some wings with my Commerce Buddy at Shoeless, and ran into someone there. Well, sort of ran into someone, because the someone in question basically walked right past me and said absolutely nothing. Surprisingly crushing, which caused me to think that getting alcohol with dinner was a good idea after all, even though I haven't had enough sleep lately to tolerate it well. Nevertheless, I will recover from the alcohol-buzz shortly, so I suppose all-in-all, things are ok. Meanwhile I have to think up something else to do, because attempting transposing parts for orchestration is not a good idea in my current state. :)
Saturday, March 13, 2004
Research librarians are the most amazing and under-appreciated people on the face of the earth. Also, it's criminal that QuickLaw is not available to non-law students who are, nevertheless, required to do the same research that is requested of law students.
Now that I finally have research material, I need to go work on my submissions for Monday. Wish me luck.
Thursday, March 11, 2004
Finally a geek quiz that got me in the right category. Thanks for the link, Karen.
| You are 43% geek | You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator.
|
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Aaaaaaaaaagh! I had a million rehearsals today, and I have a concert tomorrow, but I just got the music for it at 4pm today, so I have a million rehearsals tomorrow, too. I think I'm going insane. Either that or I really desperately need a personal assistant who can intercept people looking for musicians before they get near enough to ask me if I'll do it. I even volunteered to create a quartet for the commerce formal, since they can't find one - although I did say that if I end up doing it, I expect to get my money back for the ticket. lol. That's only if I can't find anyone else, though, and even then I think I might not end up doing it, because it's my formal. (And they never feed the musicians!) Of course, it is only 1 1/2 hours during dinner, and I would get paid... Ok. Someone talk me out of this RIGHT NOW before I get any worse. Please. *sigh*
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
I haven't blogged in awhile. Fortunately, that means I have actual things to blog about (although the cookie-dough blog got more comments than my updates usually do... hmmm... must think about this). On Friday, before the shoe-shopping, was a masterclass with the soloist for Sunday's concert. That put me on a fairly long music-high, which I didn't recover from before Saturday's rehearsal - five more hours of my favourite music. Basically I stayed on the ceiling right up until the concert, which my mom and aunt came to see. Audiences, naturally, increase the regular concert adrenaline and music-high, so I basically didn't sleep all weekend. Did alot of humming, though. Would've driven MT up the wall. :)
Unfortunately, the lack of sleep gave me an incredible headache on Monday, so I didn't get much done. Managed to watch the Rick Mercer Queen's show, and then had a nap. Slept in today to get rid of the last of the headache. Had a really great violin lesson (surprising, since usually they're the opposite of "really great"). My plan for the rest of the day is to take another nap, go to class, go grocery shopping, and then get some work done. I have two TA assignments to finish, an orchestration assignment to edit and write parts for, a 384 assignment due Monday, and a concert on Monday. Not too bad in the grand scheme of things, especially since I don't have any KSO rehearsals this week.
Friday, March 05, 2004
My shoes are so pretty! They're new, and black, and kind of cute-looking. Thanks for the car-ride, M. The only problem I have today is that I counted, and I have 16 pairs of shoes. Not including boots. In Kingston. You don't think that's too many, do you?
Thursday, March 04, 2004
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Topic-specific comments requested: It has recently been brought to this Mango's attention that she may be a "closet romantic." It has even been suggested that she is not just a CR, but also potentially a traditionalist! *gasp*
Arguments in favour of this theory include: love of chocolate, enjoyment in flowers, fancy dinners, opera (or classical music in general) and guys who can dance.
Arguments against include: complete hatred of all sappy compliments, pet-names, cutsy voices, and a strong fear of any male even considering getting down on one knee EVER, under ANY circumstances. Also, this mango has a tendency to buy her own flowers, and finds people to go to concerts/dance with whenever she wants, and never (she doesn't think) whines about not having them offered to her.
Please post your opinion and reasons for same. (It'll be interesting to have this decided one and for all.)
First things first. It's not my fault I haven't blogged in ages. Resnet has been all but down every since my last one, and I couldn't get on the site.
So, since then the major highlights are all cousin-related. Concert Fri night went well (although it was _very_ long - 3 1/2 hours). The play was a bit weird, as was the music for it, but the Planets was great! Ate dinner before the concert at the Copper Penny, and ran into a fellow musician in the next booth. After the concert we went to Megalos for ice cream and very nearly fell asleep over dessert. Sat included waffles and peaches for breakfast, a brief tour of campus, rehearsal in the afternoon which ended early, dinner at Saigon Delights, a walk down Princess, dessert at Windmills (mmmmm... Zuccotta for two), and a trip to Indigos at which I bought TWO new books. One was a Nora Roberts reprint of two books I have been trying to get out of the library for five years (LONG waiting list)!!! The final two in the series will probably be out next month! So exciting! Also a very funny book on Etiquette which, as I mentioned to Bubbles, includes the word "defenestration" used correctly in a sentence. :) Sunday we slept in, ran into M on a brief walk, ate some Timbits in the JDUC, went for a walk by the water, read some plaques, ate some leftovers, had a brief nap, and then went to the bus station. I did my work Sun night, if anyone is wondering about homework etc. All in all, a good week, and I have tons of leftovers, which is always nice. (It wasn't even an expensive weekend, surprisingly. $35, not including books, which don't count because I read them a million times.)
