The Great Mango Tree of Life
Monday, February 19, 2007
Thursday, February 15, 2007
"Night in Vienna" is over as well as the Ed concerts, so I wanted to make sure I recorded the good things from them.
Friday night I wore my bridesmaid's dress from M's wedding. As it turns out, it works well enough as a harp dress (enough skirt) but I don't think I'll wear it for a concert again. Music takes alot of air and the boning in the dress makes breathing difficult. I looked fabulous, but I thought I was going to pass out at the end of the evening. The general concensus music-wise was that there "was alot of positive energy." I think some people got distracted by the dancers (hence the confusion in the first waltz that fortunately fixed itself) but other than that it was great fun. All the guys got boutonnieres and the ladies got roses. I got two -- one for playing harp, and one for playing violin. The Grisettes were a big hit with the guys in the room, but the male kick-line definitely outdid them that night. Also, thanks to GC, I got free wine and chocolate sachertorte, to make up for me having to be there so early and staying so late.
Mom and dad came up on Saturday to see the show. (It was MotivatedTea's and my Christmas present to them.) Mom brought several tops up with her, but decided at the last minute that she didn't want to wear them and borrowed one of mine instead. I got my hair done up, which was supposed to take 1 hour but actually took 2 1/2! I also wore the new dress (e-mail me if you want a picture). I could breath in it, but couldn't play the harp. lol. Obviously, I planned things really well this year. The best part of the night was having mom and dad there, but as an added bonus, there was a table of musicians from KSO including the conductor, all of whom got quite drunk and had a great time dancing. I was so nervous about them being there to hear me play the harp that I was too afraid to play wrong notes and I played all of them the best I ever have. Fortunately, the whole orchestra was provided with food and drinks after the show. Unfortunately, no one saved me any cake, so I didn't get any chocolate. :( The overall consensus was that the energy level was higher on Friday, but there were fewer mistakes on Saturday. Personally, I enjoyed both nights and would have been happy to do a third show.
To keep this short, the best stories from the Ed concerts are:
1) the fact that I was playing 2nd violin and didn't have to work nearly as hard as I would have if I had been playing 1st. (I didn't really have the energy or time for practicing this week.)
2) playing the Pink Panther theme was fun!
3) watching the conductor sing and dance while demonstrating things to the kids
4) the questions that the kids asked were as funny as they always are. For example, "Can you play Starwars?" "Is it hard to play loud like that?" "Why are you all wearing black?" *indicating the conductor* "Is it hard to do what you do?" *behind him, all the musicians shake their heads vigorously*
Friday, February 09, 2007
Look out everyone! These mangos are on the road!
So I had my first driving lesson today. The instructor drove me to a parking lot and I practiced some stuff and thought, "This is nice, just cruising around the parking lot." And then the instructor said, "Ok. Drive home." Ack!! So I drove home. Four-lane intersection left-turns, 60km/hour speed limit street, stop signs, other cars. All of that stuff. (Incidentally, before that four-lane intersection, I had never made a left turn before. lol). Except for one bit of confusion with lane changing (mostly because I was confused about where we were going, since he said to drive home and then he got mixed up about where "home" was and gave me the wrong directions), everything went ok. I'm not exactly professional yet, and I'm still figuring out exactly how much you have to do everything (press the gas, turn the wheel, etc), but I got home and didn't break any laws or scare any other drivers. Pretty good for never having operated any vehicle ever before.
Oh, my other fun moment. Pulling up to the stop sign to turn right to go out of the parking lot, the instructor says "Signal." and I have a momentary freak out because... "You didn't teach me how to do that!" lol. That was a quick lesson. ("Push the lever up." "What lever?!" "The one on the left." "This one?!" "On the left." "This one?" "Yes, that one." "Push it where?" "Up for right turns." "Up? Now?" "Yes now." *grin*)
Sunday, February 04, 2007
You may not know this, but mangos are allergic to research libraries. As a result, they avoid going into libraries for purposes other than reading for fun at all costs. Despite this, I have been spending alot of time in the library lately. (My mom will be thrilled.) I'm not entirely sure why, but labour courses seem to require longer library hours than any other law course. Every other type of course I have managed to do most, if not all, of my research online, and any library time is restricted to 15 minutes while I find books and check them out so that I can work at home. My collective agreements course, on the other hand, has resulted in me logging in more in-library hours in the past month than all four years of my undergraduate degree put together. Fortunately, the course will be over in two weeks. Unfortunately, between now and then I will probably be logging in more hours sitting in the stacks going through the LACs. Note to self: bring pillows. Library chairs are not condusive to long periods of reading.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
That was CRAZY. Today started out as a fairly normal day, with people coming over to view the apartment and so on. The snow was a little heavy, but nothing I haven't seen before. At 4, I went to rehearsal with a string group as a favour to YY. We ran through two of the pieces and headed out early to the venue due to the heavy snow conditions. It turns out that we were playing for an engineering event during the dinner hour. We ran through the gig book, which probably took about 45 minutes to an hour, and finished exactly at the right time. Afterwards, we were given complimentary wine, so the ten of us went into a seperate room to enjoy that. Even better, it turns out they had lots of extra dinners left over, so we all got free dinner! It was nice to have a chance to sit and talk, and get to know the musicians. (I only met them at the rehearsal today.)
The crazy part comes in when we tried to go home. I have _never_ seen whiteout conditions that bad. The snow was unbelievable! Just stepping out of the building meant I was literally covered in snow from head to foot. Despite my black clothes, boots and coat, I was a solid white figure in under 2 seconds. It was even impossible to see the road, so everyone just followed the car in front and hoped they weren't about to drive into a ditch. Then, halfway back to my place, there was this huge flash of lightening! It was a very surreal experience. 20 minutes later, the snow stopped dead. Very strange. Hopefully the snow will remain stopped long enough for YY to get home safely.
