Backup
Yo, I’m feeling a little happier now. Part of that is because I booked my annual flight back to England without my supervisor freaking out, so that’s a huge relief. It was also fairly cheap, despite being about to happen in 4 weeks. I guess this recession has some advatanges… Another reason for feeling better: I made an unexpected 20 bucks helping some parents fix a flat tire, while they were trying to perform the annual extrication of their daughter from her residence hall. Then I spent it on a set of oil pastels. Oh, and I started taking fish oil capsules again. PRODUCTIVITY!
Back to the real-world weekly work experience tomorrow though. Whaaa.
The Drain
There are some weeks where graduate school saps away almost every grain of remaining enthusiasm I have. I spent the last three days trying to duplicate a result from several months ago, which is only a minor precursor to everything else I have to do before my supervisor will even consider letting me graduate. It’s terrifying thinking about all the things I haven’t done yet, and those thoughts seem to swim particularly strongly in the upstream of falling asleep. It makes a year seem like such a short time. It’s so little time to accomplish anything.
If I had stayed in England I would have graduated two years ago…
Must. Not. Whatif.
One Below B
This. This is the link of today, not quite really writing properly. It’s collaborative AND in B flat. I think… I still can’t determine keys without plinky plonking on a keyboard, or (if it’s in C major) blowing down the harmonica I found in my bottom desk drawer a few days ago. I’ll trust the wisdom of the URL.
This is a beautiful step. With all of the interconnection in the internet, I don’t think we’ve had a really killer appy collaborative music web 2.0/3.0/n+1 site yet. This isn’t IT, exactly, and IT might not exactly exist; but this is a pillar under the pyramid. A stepladder.
Aaaahh screw the postulating. It’s just pretty neat.
An old favorite – Saint Saens PC4
Here is one of my oldest favorites: the stunning two-movement piano concerto #4 by Saint Saens, with Stephen Hough performing. Protip: it gets (a bit) louder after the first ten seconds or so:
Part 1 (beginning of 1st movement):
Part 2 (end of first movement, beginning of second):
Part 3 (end of 2nd movement):
Your Mileage Varies
What really, really puts me in the mood to listen to my music is being forced to listen to someone elses music. Like, if I am at over at a friends house and they have some experimental neo-electro folk falling out of the speakers (which actually sounds kinda intriguing, post typing). That’s when I want to go back home and concentrate all my attention on aurally devouring Prokofiev PC 2, or Shosty 15, or the Grosse Fugue. It’s a bit of a “my music is better than yours” kneejerk, except it’s more of a slo-mo Matrix timefreeze knee extension than a jerk. The more the electro-folk plays, the stronger the urge gets.
The MMIBTY bias is a really strong one, and it seems pretty universal. It’s the same with movies. I’m consistently stunned into little bits and pieces when someone who I think I know pretty well turns out to have a freakin’ bizarre taste in music or film. Of course, it’s only freakin’ bizarre by my own blinkered standards. They’re are probably feeling just as WTFey about MY taste.
And sometimes it happens even when a huge amount of your tastes overlap, I think it’s a law:
No matter how much you have in common with someone there will be at least one thing they love which will make you want to commit violence.
Well maybe violence is a bit too strong. Perhaps light battery. You know, like when you saute instead of deep fry.
I know I know, variety is the spice of life, blah blah. It’s the differences which make us unique and special, and liable to frolic with rainbows and unicorns and crap.