Lapsura

10,000 days

2012-01-07T16:20:00.002-08:00

Today is the day I turn 10,000 days old. I had originally planned to do a whole big thing; but, after all, this has been the year of plans going awry. But spontaneity has turned out just fine too. Ten thousand days in the fire is long enough.

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Christmas was a trip back to Saskatchewan, where the snow was minimal and the weather mild. It did snow on the last day or so that I was there, but fortunately that didn't slow air travel this time around.

And my sound-making buddy has a new buddy!

New Year's started things off on the right track. The main thing is that 2011 is over, because, on the whole, it was a pretty terrible year. There was Cuba way back in January, but things kind of fell apart after that.

But this feels like it could be a good year. It just needs a little encouragement.

Thanksgiving weekend in pictures

2011-10-10T21:10:00.004-07:00

It was a rather lonely Thanksgiving, and I spent much of it feeling the effects of the Office Plague catching up with me. I'd estimate that I slept through 65% of the weekend's daylight hours.

My new friend (actually, it is neither new nor mine) kept me company:

I made really awesome canned cherries this summer. Supplies are dwindling.

I had the good fortune of having not one but two Thanksgiving meals this weekend: a Thanksgiving burger (pictured below) and a Thanksgiving sub.

2011-10-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

[It's slightly past the opportune time for some birthday stories, but I found this draft post from 2006 while trawling through my unpublished posts. Commence obligatory birthday post.]

The first story takes place on my 18th birthday back in 2002, while I was in Quebec on a 4-H exchange trip. I had been staying with my exchange family for about a week, and since they smoked in the house all the time you have to imagine me in a state of being unable to talk out loud, and being unable to inhale without coughing violently. For a week. [Editor's note: I was able to recreate the sensation using only Cuban-grown mold and pestilent travelmates this past winter.]

Now imagine me having spent two days sitting in a barn in Quebec City waiting while all the French people walked around in a circle, pulling cattle around on ropes. But not just any cattle. First, there was an elaborate ritual that involved clipping their hair in such a way as to make them look bonier, then painting the black spots black. Then carting them to Quebec City and pulling them around on ropes in circles.

Then they made me pull one around in a circle, in front of a lot of people. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Did I mention that these people all spoke French and I don't speak French? All that my exchange person was able to communicate with me was something about a "Joooje" (judge). Whatever.

So the first night in Quebec City we stayed in a hotel. The second night (the night of my birthday), we stayed in a pig barn. Oh yes, a pig barn. But not just any pig barn. This one had some stalls (for lack of a better term) containing bunk beds with festering mattresses on them and garbage all over the floors. Apparently you were supposed to pay to sleep there, but as I said they were no more than stalls, and the walls didn't go all the way up to the ceiling, so we climbed over the wall and commandeered some more "rooms." Very early in the morning, all you could hear was the BEEP BEEP BEEP of tractors cleaning out the pig-portion of the barn. There was another 4-H exchange person from Manitoba there too, and we sat around waiting and joking about how slow these French people were, and I said something about how I bet one of us would miss our flights back home two days later. Yes, good joke Megan.

This wasn't part of my birthday-day, but they dropped me off at the airport in Montreal half an hour before my plane was scheduled to leave (keep in mind that this was the summer of 2002, still in the wake of the whole 9/11 deal, and people were supposed to be at airports at least an hour or two in advance). So I did miss my plane, and they gave me a ticket for the next flight and told me to go through the express line, but the lady wouldn't let me go through it and refused to speak English to me. So I missed the next flight, and by that time I was getting very uneasy because I had to make a connection to get to Saskatoon, and that flight only goes once a day. Finally I got on a flight and very fortunately the connection to Saskatoon was delayed.

I am never going to Quebec again.

Now let's fastforward to my 21st birthday (last year [Editor's note: gosh this is an old post]). I had been working at camp for a week, and the last day of camp happened to be my birthday. So, there was the traditional last-day-of-camp party, which was extra big because it was also the last camp of the summer. The idea was to drink a lot, but it was also a Sunday and all the refreshment stores were closed. So, we got me about 8 of those Red Bull type drinks.... I can't imagine why. I drank 3 of them and got too sleepy and had to go home (and also had to stop for several naps along the way [Editor's note: I realize now that what I interpreted as sleepy episodes throughout that summer were actually the first rumblings of my migraine problem]).

So those are my two most memorable birthdays. Growing up, every birthday was quiet, spent at my parents' farm, because nobody remembers summer birthdays.

[Editor's note: this concludes the original draft, and a slight updation is in order. Here follows this year's birthday story.]

I have a self-defeating personality to uphold, and part of the upkeep involves insisting that I don't want my birthday acknowledged. At work, this sentiment is sincere; I don't want the whole office to gather round the glow of a lighted cake and sing happy birthday to me (impatiently, because the sooner the song is over the sooner CAKE TIME). Fortunately, almost nobody actually knows my birthdate, except one single person whose own birthday happens to be the day before mine (and to whom I am quite certain I'd expounded at length about my dislike of birthdays).

I feel somewhat secure in the fact that my birthday falls upon a Sunday this year. But the Friday before, there is an evil plot afoot. I begin to worry when a good friend lets slip that she knows it's a special day. The next time I see the person who knows my birthday is pending (let's call him Banjo), I quietly ask him to kindly not tell anybody. To my surprise, he becomes suddenly angry and stalks off. About two minutes later, Banjo comes in the office with a card that he's secretly gotten everyone in the office to sign, along with the dreaded candle-lit cake. I manage to choke back my fury fairly well.

The great joke in all this, of course, is that it's not actually my birthday until Sunday; in fact, it will be Banjo's birthday sooner than it will be my own.

Concerning Music

2011-07-16T01:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a relentless two weeks, and even though I spent a good twelve hours in a makeshift office at the university on this last day of Summer Piano Academy—and subsequently spent a good two hours recording piano pieces only to discover that the quality was terrible—I wanted to complete these thoughts concerning music that I've been collecting for the past several months.

Not too many years ago I had high hopes of being a musician and composer; now my role is largely to facilitate other people's musical endeavors. While my work at the VCM keeps me within the musical world, it also feeds my own regret and disappointment at how time seems to have drained itself away. (N.B. This is not a blog post about work; it just happens that my workplace features prominently.) Each year brings a new class of hopeful students who are living my dream—one that I briefly lived but woke myself from for a now forgotten reason. I still like to think of myself as a composer, though I've been stuck on the same piece after only a few bars for... well literally years.

What ultimately discouraged me from finishing my composition/theory ARCT? Well, it's not that I was entirely unsuccessful. My song cycle was performed at the VCM, for one thing. The last competition I entered, my Anglo-Saxon choral piece was a finalist and only didn't make the very final cut; more than anything else, I would have loved (and still would) to hear that piece performed. And that's the ultimate discouragement: my composition instructor told me in one of our last lessons that as a composer, I'd have to get used to hearing my music only in my head; that the pieces I wrote simply wouldn't be performed. Of course that isn't entirely true; in fact, both times I entered that competition, I have been eligible to apply for a recording grant. But, I'm perceptive enough to realize that it would be true for me, given my self-defeating personality. Anyway, that was the day I walked out of that endless fugue class and decided I was wasting my time, along with what little money I had.

I can't write a post about music without mentioning my biggest musical inspiration. One of the people I admire the most (in pretty much every way, and particularly musically) is Melissa Dunphy. (I highly recommend checking out her What do you think I fought for at Omaha Beach?—and I'm totally in love with Tesla's Pigeon; I wish I were still studying voice just for the chance to perform this song cycle! While I'm making asides, I also love this video.) Very often at the conservatory I feel that the musical environment that we perpetuate is increasingly irrelevant: stodgy rules about harmonic progressions; centuries-old pieces that now seem to have obligatory positions in every performer's repertoire. I just wish there was more excitement built around new music in my city; I think works like the Gonzales Cantata are fantastic for the place they have in the society we live in today.

At any rate, this is what I wanted to create in life: beautiful, transcendent choral music. I wanted that since the summer I sang in National Youth Choir, when for two weeks we were a single instrument and the small rehearsal hall would fill with tangible waves of sound. It's what I tried to achieve in the few choral pieces I completed and the Missa Brevis I left hanging after the Kyrie. And now I'm surrounded by musicians pursuing all their dreams and more. How could things turn out this way in a music conservatory?

Three times since Christmas, I've woken in the night, delirious with perpetual poor health, seized with some idea that impressed itself upon my fevered mind as being the most important thing in life. In morning light they always turn out to be dumb ideas, but there's one idea that I think someone should take on in this conservatory, even if I'm totally unqualified. So here was my fevered dream: wouldn't it be the best idea in the world, if I get myself into a conducting class at the consesrvatory (in my delirium, a semester was all I would need). Then I would get a group of some of these fantastic musicians I've come to know over time at work, and we would create a new music ensemble to perform the works of us student composers. For several nocturnal hours, this was the best idea in the world.

But it gnaws at me—why doesn't the conservatory do something like this? It doesn't have to be a large ensemble. It doesn't have to offer a wide range of instrumentation. People like me will take anything with eternal gratitude. My new-found passion for new music is so strong that I start to seethe a little when I have to sit through too much Bach, or arias from Italian operas (do they not go in the most predictable direction imaginable?). And the almost single-minded emphasis on Baroque music in the vocal department has me rethinking my decision to finish my ARCT in voice performance. I can't see the relevance anymore.

This excerpt from Anti Social Music's website really sums up my thoughts:

Frustrated?
We get it.

We started this whole thing because we were a handful of young composers sending scores into the black, thankless void of competitions, open calls, grant applications...the Kinko's fees add up and the postage is crushing, and for what? A one-line rejection, if that. So we got together and started performing and recording our own damn pieces.

My greatest wish in the world is to be able to hear my work performed. The greatest dissuasion from composing, for me, is the crushing defeat of watching yourself age and your compositional output cease, and all of it be swallowed up silently, the pieces you agonized over for months and years to slowly turn to dust.

Canada votes (wrong)

2011-05-02T20:38:00.001-07:00

I don't even know how to verbalize my frustration about elections.

If you think smart voting is dumb, then may I suggest that you're dumb you don't really understand our flawed voting system. If you think the only truly important thing about democracy is simply voting, and it doesn't matter who you vote for, well you're plain wrong. IMO, splitting the vote is worse than not voting.

We all know the cliche: desperate times call for desperate measures. If you think these aren't desperate times for Canada, think again. Sometimes, you have to contemplate what is really important. Do you like having a Prime Minister who, in a sensible world, ought to be tried for crimes against Canada? Can you explain why the first government in the entire history of Canada to be found in contempt of parliament merits any support (because I sure can't figure that one out)? Aren't you sick of being humiliated by how your Prime Minister acts in the international community?

I remember when Canada used to be the best place in the world to live. We tend to feel safe and secure, even when elections turn out contrary to our own wishes, because in the end (so we think) "democracy worked." We all voted (if only!), the people have spoken, and the result is Canada's will. Or even if we're more indignant at how the flaws cause bad results, we have to seethe to ourselves or fruitlessly complain to one another. We don't even consider putting our collective foot down and simply demanding that people like Stephen Harper be held accountable for the things they do. Why? Because we figure we have no choice but to let democracy run its course. Maybe we don't. Maybe our world has turned into one where we simply have to play by the rules that those in charge provide for us. Maybe the people don't have any real power.

Sometimes, what's most important is preventing something horrible. Coming across party lines for the greater good. Not just casting your ballot, but using it to actually achieve change. Put the right people in charge, and maybe they'll fix the rules we all play by.

Just ranting. Just seething. Unfortunately I don't have any answers, only a deep sadness at how the country I love has been abused.

Tales from Cuba

2011-03-23T19:20:00.000-07:00

I spent the last two weeks of January in Cuba, on a continuing education tour with the University of Saskatchewan. The group (16 of us in all) was primarily birders, and despite the fact that I am not a birder (or wasn't, previously)—and that I was approximately 30 years younger than everyone else except my sister—it was unequivocally the best experience of my life yet (far surpassing National Youth Choir, which had until now been the best—I guess great things come in two-week chunks). We were guided by the fabulous Juan Carlos (one of my most favourite people in the world) through cities and countryside.

As always, my first concern was migraines. I had been weaning off my daily medication so that by the time the trip came around, I would be finished with it. I worried that the withdrawal would trigger headaches while I was away, but I packed a lot of Maxalt along with regular tylenol and advil. If there was one thing I was prepared for, it was headaches!

I didn't actually get any headaches the whole trip until the second last day. Instead, somehow a fair number of us got sick about a week into the trip (not pointing any fingers, but perhaps next time *someone* might consider not traveling with untreated viral pneumonia). This I was not prepared for. Going through my scrawled notes, a particular theme becomes apparent: "Things to bring next time: cough syrup, lozenges, cold medicine ..." During a lunch stop in Cienfuegos City, I went into a pharmacy but they said they had nothing resembling an antihistamine.

In addition to the virus, I reacted unexpectedly strongly to the mold (and every single place we stayed—except the military resort at Topes de Collantes, which was immaculate—was so saturated with mold that it seeped from the curtains and out of the air conditioner). I only have allergy problems during the spring cherry blossom season here at home, so I didn't take along any allergy medication at all. Amy miraculously didn't have a mold-reaction, and kindly shared her medication wealth with me. We referred to the whole rotten virus-mold deal as "plague."

Eventually, my coughing became worse than the time a couple winters ago when the doctor gave me narcotics in an effort to spare my lungs. Using every single antihistamine-type pill that my entire family had brought along (very good thing that none of them needed the pills), I was able to ration it out so as to last until the departure day. There wasn't enough to be comfortable or allow for a proper night's sleep, but it was far better than nothing.

That last week was more miserable and unpleasant than I can really explain. One evening I skipped supper and stayed in my hut coughing, until a terribly sharp pain started in my abdomen. For the rest of the night, it felt like something might burst with every cough, but that was about the worst. We went on a 6-hour catamaran ride while at Cayo Las Brujas, which I mostly spent in a fit of unstoppable coughing; since I couldn't even breathe above water, I didn't dare try snorkeling, though the corals and fish were reportedly spectacular. I did enjoy the delightful dolphins on that catamaran trip, though; one of them wouldn't stop kissing me.

The last couple nights were in Havana, in Hotel Ambos Mundas ("where Ernest Hemingway stayed" is its claim to fame). Piano music drifted up through the lacy wooden shutters from the lobby below at most hours of the day/night, but the mold was worse there than anywhere previously. Between that and too much sun during a city stroll, my head gave in and I had to spend an afternoon/evening writhing in bed. Maxalt to the rescue! By the time we had to leave for the airport the next morning, I was able to stand without throwing up. Anyway, I think that just about satisfies my need to wallow about the plague aspect of the trip.

There was so much so see and experience in Cuba, but I don't feel that I could do it justice. The unique warbly call of the Cuban crow. The 60-km causeway to the cayos that looks like an endless highway stretching into the sea with no particular destination. The young boys who want to sell you their pesos (which have Che Guevara's face on them) for your more valuable convertible pesos (which don't). Scattered flamingos wading through the swamp as far as the eye can see. Fossilized corals all along the path to a series of caves. Narrow cobblestone city streets filled with people and a few carts drawn by a thin horse. People napping inside their old-fashioned automobiles at the seaside resorts (automobiles which are always bright and completely rust-free, despite the salty humidity). A man with a chicken tethered to his straw hat, as a means to make money off photo-taking tourists. Throngs of Cubans milling around at highway junctions, holding pesos in the air and trying to hitch a ride to work (days in advance). The ceremonial parade of colonial-attired soldiers performing the nightly cannon shoot in La Cabana castle. Beachcombing Cubans trying to sell you conch shells (which we were advised were illegal to bring back to Canada), and striking up conversations in broken English ("Which province you from? Quebec? Saskatchewan? Winnipeg?"). The fading sunset over Zapata swamp, and the lengthy bus wait inside its closed iron gate as our guide walked to the gatekeeper's home so we could escape. Weather-worn apartment buildings streaked with black from the humidity, always with clothing hanging on the balconies in an attempt to dry. Seashores of sharp limestone pocked by centuries of erosion. Warm salty waves lapping around your ankles as the clear blue sea crawls up the limitless white sand beach (and not a single person is suntanning). Palm trees growing on sheer cliff faces. Lone, tethered livestock grazing by the roadsides. The flash of bat wings as they silently flit in and out of lamplight as dusk sets in, drawn by the mosquitos hovering around a table of tourists (drawn by the mojitos). Hotel towels and blankets folded each morning to resemble animals, complete with flower petal facial features. Cubans standing in the meridian of the highway (or right in one of the lanes) holding up blocks of cheese for sale, miles and miles away from anywhere. The unapologetic bump of a Soviet truck's bare metal seats up a windy mountain trail. The sinus-clearing sting of jincila, a concoction made of ginger, honey, water, lemon, rum (mine without), and pure fire. Guava jam and cheese.

Blue-headed quail dove, Cuban trogon, parakeet, Cuban parrot, Cuban crow, bee hummingbird, flamingo, Cuban pygmy owl, strigid owl, screech owl, roseate spoonbill, wood stork, cattle egret, great blue heron, Cuban tody, ovenbird, Zenaida dove, great lizard cuckoo, brown pelican, Cuban bullfinch, Cuban green woodpecker, pied-billed grebe, stripe-headed tanager, American coot, yellow-headed warbler, nutcatcher, caracara, emerald hummingbird, turkey vulture, black hawk, ibis, reddish egret, frigatebird, kingfisher, peregrine falcon, cormorant.

What impressed me most about Cuba was the complete lack of Americanization. And although Cubans would undoubtedly like to do things like use the internet, have more than the bare minimum of amenities, or listen to non-80s pop music (or maybe that's me)—still, there's a purity to Cuba now that I'm very glad I got to experience. I have no doubt that all that will change, and Starbucks will drop down its spreading roots into that beautiful country (much like its native mangroves). I realize that it's easy for a tourist to say that it's a shame Cuba will have to succumb to capitalism, since at the end of the day I got to go home to simple luxuries like ballpoint pens and flushable toilet paper, but there you have it.

Things I will remember most from Cuba:

the unspoiled natural beauty: being a nature-oriented tour, we got to see a lot of it. Nobody documents Cuba's nature better than Juan Carlos—his photos are amazing.
the food: they served us the most fantastic soups imaginable. We were warned that we would find the food bland and repetitive; I didn't find it at all bland, but it was basically always the same meal (vegetables, an unreasonable amount of rice, and your choice of fish/chicken/pork/beef).
the dogs: there were stray dogs everywhere, really dainty little things that quietly and hungrily watched you eat, or lay baking in the sun in the city squares. Sometimes they're wearing clothes.
the music: every day a new group of musicians would set up in whatever restaurant we were eating at, play music, and gather tips. There were at least a couple particular songs that every group played.

Victoria. Saskatoon. Varadero. Havana. Vinales Valley. Zapata Swamp; Playa Larga, Las Salinas, Bermejas. Guajimico. Cienfuegos City. Trinidad. Topes de Collantes. Hanabanilla dam; Rio Negro. Cayo Las Brujas. Jardines del Rey Archipelago. Havana. Varadero. Saskatoon. Victoria.

Pi Moment

2011-03-14T01:59:00.000-07:00

Wishing everybody not just a happy Pi Day, but a happy Pi Moment.

2010-11-15T15:23:00.000-08:00

I remember a classmate once arguing that "English" was a misnomer for what we do. She suggested that "Literature" would be a much better term, since literary students will find themselves faced with other languages and translations all the time. Heck, the most epic literary works we know were written in Greek and we deal with translations (except the semester I spent translating Book 6 of the Aeneid for advanced Latin. Good stuff! And also all my coursework in Anglo Saxon). But if "English" is a term fraught with peril, I'd say "Literature" is equally bad if not worse. What about the linguistic side of our studies? Surely that deserves some recognition.

Granted, many people I know assume that English is all about reading books.
And honestly, you really don't always need a primary source (in the traditional sense of the word) (also, I love ITED). My MA research has no primary literary text, strictly speaking. But that's where "English" becomes a hazy label that I can't easily explain to civilians. The best I can do is to say that it's one of many angles that Humanities scholars can take, though I think I'll always have trouble explaining what literary theory is, and why. Perhaps the boundaries between the different departments are dissipating as time goes on, particularly with shifts in media.

On the other hand, for many years I've just taken it for granted that Academia accepted that we all "read" our environments, media, etc. every day of our lives. Trying to explain what my master's essay was about to anyone is truly painful, yet people unfortunately find it necessary to keep probing after I say "well it would be totally meaningless/uninteresting to you."

At any rate, it's all officially done now:

Another Year Older

2010-08-29T15:00:00.000-07:00

Looking back on yesteryear's birthday post, it seems that I've accomplished one of my birthday resolutions. I am officially Magister Artium. The essay itself shaped up into something pretty interesting, but I'm happy to be done with it. The defense seemed to be much less of a big deal than it's built up to be, but for all that it was plenty nerve-wracking.

Speaking of birthday posts, I guess this would be it. Despite being an excessively stressful week, this year's birthday was the best in many years: we went to see the ducks at the pond; perused the plant shop; and went for a surprise birthday dinner at a fine French restaurant. A bit of a shame much of the day was wasted at the office (alone, on a Saturday, which I'm becoming thoroughly sick of) and being inwardly gnawed by anxiety about my looming MA defense.

Earlier this summer, I spent a couple weeks back home in Saskatchewan reuniting with family and camping with friends. Epic thunderstorms.

Now with school out of the way, I will be working nearly-full-time. Same old job, but more of it. I wish someone would pay me to draw cartoons or grow zucchini or something, the way they're so eager to pay people to play hockey.

Salty Sunday Morning

2010-06-13T14:18:00.005-07:00

Victoria was host to the International Fleet Review this weekend, in celebration of the Canadian navy's 100th anniversary. One area of town seems to have taken up the opportunity to invent an awesome new annual celebration called Buccaneer Days. We went searching for boats at the harbour, but didn't see any (except for a model ship gathering that we passed). The optimal ship-viewing time would have been yesterday (during the actual fleet review), but Sunday morning is really the only available adventure time I can manage on weekends.

We walked along the Ogden Point breakwater, though, which I hadn't been to before.

Workynge week-ends ys a thynge of muche wo

2010-05-30T15:30:00.002-07:00

I don't know why I hadn't come across Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog before now, seeing as I spent several years as a dedicated medievalist. It's all kinds of awesome. Having just read a wealth of Margery Kempe for a recent course, and having attended a 'helpful' seminar on what to expect and how to attend/prepare for the MLA (which I have no intention of ever doing), I especially loved this entry. Middle English is so great.

In other academic news, Cary Wolfe—one of the bigger names in my field—recently came to the island and gave some talks, which was pretty exciting.

Weekend work schedule means I wasn't able to tag along to the Massive Attack concert on the mainland this weekend. Boourns. To add insult to injury, all day today the building is throbbing with drums, dancing, bare feet, dreadlocks, wailing-cheering, and vinegar.

The organ in the performance hall at work is finally being restored after 10 years of disuse. The console has been sitting in the lobby for years, and intrigues me with its dark wood paneling, four manuals, and dozens of stops. The restored organ will be controlled digitally, and thus the console will be replaced to reflect that, which is a little disappointing. Pipe organs are something of a mystery to me, but as it happens I will have to learn how to compose for organ—and thus how they work—in order to enter a specific composition competition this winter. The first year I entered I made it to semi-finals, then last year I made it past quarter-finals, so if it weren't for the organ requirement this year I'd have a pretty good feeling.

random updation

2010-05-02T15:47:00.003-07:00

The plethora of new (and continuing daily) drawings are not really my ideas. Almost all of this batch are adapted from great finds in a couple different "Overheard" forums. I love overheard gems; people say the most random things. With rare exceptions, most of my drawings archive is made up of giggleworthy things other people have said.

Here's a pro-childfree (anti-child?) article.

Of races and food

2010-04-22T15:20:00.000-07:00

Good luck to all my coworkers in the TC10k; know that I'm thinking of you as I eat chocolate pizza at work. (Just kidding, I'm not actually eating it, and I'd much rather be outside anyway (though not necessarily running a 10k).) From Overheard at UVic group: "it's not run for the cure, its just run for no apparent reason!"—this may or may not refer to the TC10k, and may or may not be accurate, but at any rate it kind of sums up my thoughts on the matter.

I've been doing a lot of cooking and baking lately, which follows upon the heels of reading a lot of food blogs. I even went out and bought some canning jars expressly to make a batch of delicious lemon curd, but fortunately the Tigress' can jam challenge will be churning out great recipes all year.

Lemon Curd

3/4 c lemon juice
1 T lemon zest
3/4 c sugar
1/2 c butter
2 T cornstarch
1/2 t salt
2 eggs
2 egg yolks

Simmer and whisk the first 6 ingredients for 1 minute.
Beat the eggs, then add to the stovetop mixture; whisk.
Reduce heat; cook whisking constantly for 2 minutes.

No more classes

2010-04-18T16:30:00.000-07:00

As of last week, I'm totally done classes for my program (and that's a wonderful feeling after 7 years of post-secondary schooling!). This just leaves my final essay, which is roughly half finished and which I'll be defending in August. It's exciting stuff, but my motivation has been lacking of late. One thing I will say for university is that it provides a wealth of drawings ideas, and as soon as I can forage another battery for my camera I'll be back in business. (Actually, there are a lot of great things about university.)

I've been harbouring thoughts, recently (again), about going into Pharmacy like I had considered several years ago, but if it seemed grievous to embark on a 5-year degree at that time, it's an even bigger problem now with 3 more years of schooling under my belt.

The bad thing about working on weekends (actually, there are a lot of bad things about working on weekends) is that I'll almost certainly miss out on this year's Oak Bay Tea Party, among other things. Summer in Victoria is fantastic, but it would be nice if our schedules were more coordinated so we have more than Sunday mornings to enjoy it.

Cherry blossoms

2010-02-21T16:50:00.000-08:00

It's cherry tree season. Some people get jazzed about rhododendron season, but streets lined with cottony blossoming trees in varying hues of pinkness and paved with snow-like drifts of petals are far more glorious. The sky has been absolutely clear and blue for days now, for the first time since last fall.

I've found the perfect walking route: it takes me past numerous blossoming trees; past that decaying cafe that remains untouched inside, like Miss Havisham's cafe if she ever chose to open one; past a house where a cat lives and sometimes perches near the sidewalk (sigh... how I wish I had a cat); past a yard with a few well-mannered and silent chickens; past an enormous abandoned house, surrounded by rusting and rotting things, that reminds me of an old farmhouse on some of Dad's land that we used to explore as kids, and I was always terrified of being attacked by raccoons in the upper storeys; past a huge blackberry patch grown out of control; down a silent residential street where the heavy traffic and ambulance sirens of the main road are strangely absent; up a wide street without sidewalks, but it's a dead-end anyway so you just walk along the middle of the road while people languidly stroll from house to house, chatting with other people leaning on fenceposts just enjoying the day. It feels like a small town with hints of a ghost town.

My schedule lends itself to a strange illusion of depopulation, for lack of a better way to describe it in a word. On Saturdays the morning sidewalks are still quiet, though as the year wears on they will fill; the same handful of people (my Saturday friends and nemeses) come by, with the occasional external event appearing unexpectedly (and predictably) early. On Sundays, almost no traffic goes by on the main road, the noon bus is virtually empty, the sunny sidewalks are also largely empty, and the day at work might pass with no more than a few familiar faces dropping by. On weekdays, much of the world seems to be at work or out of sight, and since I alternate between researching/writing at home and strolling around the neighborhood, I have little reason to go to more populous areas of town. Occasionally I'll wander around the grocery store, shoot the breeze with the affable cashier at till #4 (we have a bit of a rapport), wander on homeward through the silent hospital parking lot (where you rarely see people hanging out). Then on Thursdays when I go to my morning class, there are so many people jammed into the bus that it soon gives up and blazes right by the bus-stops while the waiting students look on forlornly and resentfully, and are obliged to wait for the next bus, or the next.

Christmas and everything after

2010-01-27T15:53:00.003-08:00

I had intended to say a few words for Christmas, but apparently haven't gotten around to it (and now it seems rather late). In a word, it was wonderful. The only bad thing about going home for Christmas is coming back to people who say things like "How was your holiday? Cold?" Yeah cold, that describes it perfectly, I don't think anything else could quite capture the essence of Christmas holidays. (I have learned, via my current class, that I ought to type "/sarcasm" at this juncture.)

I'm now partway through my very last class for my M.A. It is very different from every other class I've taken in this program, and very interesting, but all the same I won't be sorry to have coursework completely behind me. I've also been working on my M.A. essay in a more focused way, and finally have a good idea what the terms I'm defining mean... somewhat.

Weekends are still spent working at the Conservatory, and what with Ryan working full-time during the week I've started to realize that weekend work really, really sucks—not to mention the regular suckiness that most work entails. We rarely get to hang out together in daylight anymore, which is entirely maddening.

It's about the time of year when I should be starting to work in earnest on a choral composition—third time just could be the charm. I really don't have any ideas, though, so we'll see what happens.

I like hot water

2009-12-05T14:37:00.000-08:00

A few days ago the water heater in our apartment finally gave out, and water got into its electrical wiring. I hate that smell. Cloistered myself in the bedroom as best I could for a day and a half. Luckily the plumbers were prompt and we now have a new non-rusted heater. Between the lingering smell, a slight cold, and getting the H1N1 shot the other day, I've been achey and lightheaded the last couple days but now on the mend.

My class has wrapped up for the year, with only the final paper yet remaining. This class has been particularly rich in drawings ideas, so hopefully I'll get some new ones up soon. It's not like I'm too busy to do new ones or anything; it's just that I'm lazy and by the time I get through thinking about how I'll have to draw them, then photograph them, then put them on my computer, then tweak them in photoshop, then upload them, then add them all to the main page... well I'm usually asleep by then.

It's only a week and a half until we fly back to Saskatchewan!

It's a slow day at work

2009-11-28T10:02:00.002-08:00

Wow, time flies and nothing really happens. I've been filling in at work this past week, so I haven't had a real day off since last Friday. Just a couple more days to go.

I've stopped taking my composition lessons. There seems no point when I can't devote enough time to them to prepare for an exam, and they're too expensive to take just for fun... though I really miss my teacher's stories and tangents.

Progress has slowed to a bit of a stop, essaywise. At this point, I'm just tired of school and assignments. I would love to just go home from work and not feel like I should be reading or researching or writing. I'm just about finished my current class, then next term I'll be taking a Humanities Computing course as my final course requirement. I'm pretty excited about it (check out the syllabus), especially because it seems like I could easily fit in a project on Year Zero into my coursework. I haven't revisited it since my talk at the UCLA conference a year and a half ago.

Lately I've been daydreaming a lot about having a garden (probably because I'm usually hungry, and the grocery store by my place isn't big on produce).

The Migraine Post

2009-10-23T22:28:00.000-07:00

In which I expound upon my migraines, including their causes, effects, attempted treatments, and proposed treatment through lifestyle alteration, with much verbosity.

This post is for my own sake. Maybe there are migraineurs out there who can derive some use from it as well, but primarily this is for me to try to track, make sense of, and deal with what has become the primary feature of my life. I came across this quotation in an issue of Scientific American, from Didion's "In Bed": "For I had no brain tumor, no eyestrain, no high blood pressure, nothing wrong with me at all: I simply had migraine headaches, and migraine headaches were, as everyone who did not have them knew, imaginary." I've had both the phrases "just a headache" and "just a migraine" tossed my way. I know I've written what seem—even to me—like whiny, self-pitying posts over the years. If you were annoyed by them then, I advise you to stop reading; this is going to be exhaustive.

The History

I never used to get headaches, migraine or otherwise. Some time in the summer before my final year of undergrad (the summer of 2005), I started having to pull over on the side of the road during the hour-long drive home, and take a quick nap. It wasn't tiredness, it was nausea; I had no headache-type pain, just this nausea that made my body want to shut down and sleep until it subsided. It wasn't frequent, and I didn't think much about it.

In the fall, the pain started too. Every single day. Sometimes I would go to my morning class and then pop some ibuprofen and go straight to bed. More often, I'd skip the class part. Sometimes my cafeteria meal would consist of some packets of crackers and ice cream. Sometimes I would work my shift in the library with the office lights turned off and my head on the desk.

A friend of mine was into reiki, and offered to try to help. I didn't set much store by it, but eventually I caved—no harm in trying— and asked him to do his thing. He seemed physically affected when he touched my head, and said "you've got a lot of pain, kid." I borrowed one of his energy crystals—you'll try anything when you're desperate—and later when I gave it back he handled it like a hot potato and ran to the sink to cool it down. Another friend gave allegedly great massages; when she tried to work on my neck, she quickly became reluctant to touch me because of the immense pain she sensed.

I didn't even think of getting medical help until that winter; I wrote one of my final exams with my head lying on the desk, handed my paper in after half an hour, walked out the classroom door and into the nearest washroom, and promptly threw up. That night, I called my Mom (who was conveniently in town for a conference) in tears, and she took me to the emergency room. They gave me a triptan through IV, and diagnosed me with migraine. The nurse also suffered from migraines; we asked her what she did for hers, and I think of her words often: "I die. Every time, I die."

When I went to see my family doctor with my new diagnosis, she advised me to just go to the emergency whenever I got a migraine. Later, in the university clinic, the doctor on duty started me on my first preventative medication: amitriptyline. It did wonders, almost immediately! It was incredible to feel the evening coming on and have no pain. It didn't last, though. Another doctor gave me a prescription for Maxalt, which the doctor in ER had recommended I look into. He also referred me to a neurologist.

The neurologist's eyes boggled a little when I told him how frequent my migraines were, and again when I told him what my family doctor had "prescribed." I began on topiramate, and it too worked for a little while, though it had terrible side effects, primarily the deepest depression I have ever known. I changed to propranolol, which did help, even if it didn't "cure" me entirely. It helped so well, in fact, that he thought it safe to wean off, and said he was glad to have helped me. This was after quite a few visits, trials, and errors, and by this time I had graduated with my BA and had moved to another province to commence my MA. And it wasn't without its side-effects: I had trouble searching for words; I couldn't think quickly (and am well aware that I came across as a fool in my seminars).

So I weaned off, but the headaches became more frequent. Moreover, the nausea became a huge problem. I had a bad first year in grad school, so by this time I had temporarily withdrawn. But I was planning to return, and there was no way I'd be able to do so in that state. So I went back to the neurologist, and resumed the propranolol. That's where I am today.

Dealing With Pain

Before I was diagnosed, I dealt with the pain by sleeping until it went away. I took copious amounts of ibuprofen—four 200mg tablets at a time, sometimes 16 of them in a day. Of course I could never break the cycle; I'd wake up feeling well but the pain would inevitably return later that evening, or the next morning.

Once things were a little more in control, my method of dealing with my migraines was (and currently is) as follows:

take daily preventative medication
wear earplugs whenever humanly possible
sleep with an icepack for a pillow
get fresh air by walking to Starbucks for a blended drink (curiously, the only thing I can stomach when nauseated)
hide in a fetal position in bed and shirk coursework for the day
try taking a couple acetaminophen, or a Sudafed if it feels like my sinuses are involved
take a triptan if I need it to get through night-class
never go out for fun, ever; if it's necessary to do so, make sure I have a holiday the next day so that I can recuperate

When I imagine that I'm one of the world's lucky migraine-free inhabitants, I don't think I could conceive that a head pain could honestly have such a big impact on a migraineur. Such a pointless pain. Truly, it is unfathomable just how much it impacts one's life. Everything in my life is weighed around my headaches. Want to go out to a movie? Want to go out to a pub? Want to get together with friends for board games? Want to go to a concert? And yes, I play MMOs; Want to go on a quick adventure with gaming friends? —I usually decline all of these.

Because I know the next day will find me wallowing in bed, the blinds closed and the lights off, earplugs shoved in my ears, my hands clamped around my temples, an icepack caressing the crown of my head, interrupted by the occasional mad dash for the washroom when the nausea gets to be too much. I know I will die the entire day long. I know that a few gulps of water will be enough to violently upset my stomach. Heck, it'll probably happen regardless of whether I go out or not, but I'm not about to aggravate an already unstable head.

If I may indulge in a π-type moment, here are my failed treatments to date: high-dose ibuprofen, massage, caffeine, antidepressants, reiki, marijuana, beta-blockers, feverfew. No results.

My Own Triggers

Migraine diary? What am I supposed to write in it? The fact that I can't identify any common thread to my migraines? Tracking triggers has seemed like a fruitless endeavor, but here are some of them:

Foods: certain foods could be triggers for me, though I don't know what at this point. I'll expound more on diet a little later.
Pressure changes: I'm fairly certain this is one of mine. When the barometric pressure changes, my head gets angry.
Hormonal changes: again, pretty certain. I can't really predict this, because for some reason I don't follow the lunar calendar.
Muscle tension: my neck and shoulders seem to be in an unsolveable knot. Whenever I stop to think about it, I become aware of this enormous tension.
Eyestrain: I now wear glasses whenever I'm at my computer at home, and occasionally at work. They are probably the subtlest prescription possible since I have better-than-perfect vision, but they are supposed to save my eyes from doing all the work.
Bright lights: not so much a trigger as an aggravation. I wear sunglasses even when it's cloudy.
Noise: like I mentioned, I wear earplugs very often. Even the tiny physical pressure it exerts can relieve a bit of pain.
Stress: most of the time, I'm a very stress-free person; I don't have a lot of the responsibilities (e.g. work-related, etc) that most people have. I do occasionally get severely upset/stressed, but I'm not sure how to measure the impact.
Dehydration: I know I should drink more water. I know that nausea can erase all my efforts to drink more. It's gross, but water actually induces vomiting if I'm already nauseated.
Irregular sleeping habits: as a rule, I'm a poor sleeper. This is high on my priority list.
Irregular eating habits: I also need to work on this. Sometimes I find myself in night-class without having eaten a proper supper. Other times I find myself at home without having eaten a proper supper. Totally preventable.
Sinus problems: to my surprise, I recently found that a Sudafed relieved some of my headache pain when my other standbys had failed. We had mold in our apartment over the summer, and I suspect it aggravated my sinuses (which now feel permanently 'fuzzy').

And then there are the other well-known triggers like smoking and alcohol consumption, neither of which really come into my life.

Eradicating Pain?

The top migraine medications can only take me so far, and perhaps I'm as far as they'll go even now. The number of things that can be triggers is pretty disheartening. Jane McGonigal recently described her experience of conquering a concussion through a game, and I was inspired to take on my own Nemesis in a more proactive way than previously. It comes down to a complete lifestyle revamp.

It appears that, at this point, I need to set myself a very strict daily schedule. What time to get up, what time to eat meals and what to eat, how many glasses of water to drink and when to drink them by, what vitamins to take, when to take some time to exercise and how long, when to do homework, when to go to sleep. Something practical.

So here's my plan, and I'll evaluate it as I go along.

Diet: I'm starting off by primarily following the guidelines here as closely as possible; this means avoiding caffeine, MSG, foods containing tyramine. Cutting out as many potential triggers as possible, then eventually reintroducing things 1 or 2 at a time to figure out which (if any) are my specific triggers.

Water: to start with, I've scheduled in 3 glasses of water throughout my day. Sadly, that is a start for me. I don't like the taste of water, and it's all too easy to postpone it, so I need to force myself into this habit.

Exercise: I used to do pilates every day, and I'm going to resume that in the mornings. Running is a bit too strenuous and has triggered headaches in the past.

Other: I'm going to invest in some top-notch sunglasses to replace the near-disposable ones I currently use. A massage to unkink my shoulders and neck would probably be beneficial. I really want to try to solve my sinus problem, but I have not heard favourable reports about having them unblocked at a clinic. I hope to try reflexology within the year. Acupuncture is also on the list. Everything is fair game when you're desperate: meditation, prayer. Maybe even hypnosis.

I dream of a life where pain doesn't rule. If this new approach doesn't work, I can only hope that I will eventually outgrow my headaches.

Everyone loves pumpkins

2009-10-12T17:20:00.006-07:00

Thanksgiving is probably my favourite day of the year. Everything about it is straight from my list of favourites: pumpkins, roasted fowlbeasts (or something equally delicious), cranberries, garden vegetables, the colour of the leaves, the perfect autumn weather, the harvest atmosphere, cats... etc.

Thanksgiving dinner yesterday was relatively small—only 6 of us—but delicious! There's something intrinsically cozy about my relatives' heritage home. I stumbled across this recipe for pumpkin loaf while browsing (and drooling) through Tastespotting, and 3/4 of one of the loaves was eaten in the couple hours before we left for dinner.

drawings only nominally from the library

2009-09-19T17:59:00.002-07:00

I finally got around to uploading a new batch of drawings, but I also created a Facebook page (cmon, be a fan!) that now has all recent drawings (recent = starting February 2007). For the archives, you still have to trawl through the drawings website.

The whole MA essay thing is shaping itself up rather nicely, and things are no longer in the hypothetical, will-think-about-looking-into-it stage. So, I'm now working through all kinds of books on virtuality and animality. Pretty slow going, since I've always hidden from theory. I'm sure it must be possible to write theory books in an accessible manner... the point almost seems to thoroughly muddify an already obfuscated concept. I'm a bit at a loss about how to start searching for serious work on digital animals; delicious.com is pretty much my hero.

No summer should really go by without some sort of birthday rant. In addition to New Year's ~~Resolutions~~ Hypotheticals every year, I usually make a sort of Birthday Resolutions. Things that I hope to have accomplished by the time I'm 25, or 26, or whatever. Things like, you know, it would be nice to not be in the exact same spot come next year. This past birthday cycle turned out to not yield any accomplishments whatsoever X( Oh yeah, something about someone's birthday, somewhat recently. My birthday has historically been a lowpoint in my year, like the time I didn't see or hear a single human during the whole day. Or the time I turned 18 while sleeping on a metal slab in a pig barn with a bunch of Frenchmen in Quebec (only days before I was abandoned at the airport after my plane had already departed). Or the time I turned 21 on the last day of counselling at camp (during which time a teenager inadvertently stomped on my ribs and I couldn't stand up straight for a month afterward) and the liquor stores weren't open so we got me a handful of Red Bulls for the staff party, and then I had to keep pulling over on the way home to nap because they made me so drowsy. Great birthday memories... Anyway, Birthday Resolutions 2009 include a good deal of composing, as well as finally becoming Master of Arts (I will of course refer to myself as Magister Artium).

Going home, and going to school

2009-08-09T21:56:00.000-07:00

In mid-July I took a 2-week trip back to Saskatchewan. It was wonderful. Something about the landscape there is just easier on the eyes, and I felt a strange sort of relaxation washing over me even as we drove away from the airport. I didn't get a hint of headache during the whole two weeks. (Of course, the second day back on the island I was bedridden with nausea and pain >< ) I saw my neurologist again and I've started back on the medication I had weaned off of. Hopefully it will work. Hopefully I won't get so drowsy this time around.

I got to do some great family bonding while at home, and play with all my nephews and nieces—up to 3 of each, now, one of which I had not seen in person before. It's tough being so far away from everyone, but every time I go back it's like I haven't been away.

The cabby who drove me to the airport gave me the ol' Victoria-is-awesome-I-bet-Sask-is-crappy speech (alongside a speech on how I should help him find new boarders). I'm so sick of hearing that. It now makes me form an insta-grudge against the person.

This summer I reawakened the notion of going into Pharmacy. I had thought about it when I finished up my B.A. (and even applied to U of S, who took my application fee but otherwise didn't acknowledge me) but then the SSHRC kind of decided my route. I'm tired of being poor and unsuccessful and having no real career expectations, so Pharmacy is very alluring (other than the prospect of 5 more years of school). But just when I figured I'd apply as an undergrad to do some pre-pharm classes, I finally got my supervisory committee for my M.A. (almost) sorted out. At least, I have my supervisor and department reader lined up. The rest will hopefully sort itself out come September when things get back underway. In the fall I'll be taking on my second-last grad class (then the last will come in the spring). As always, I worry that my health will get in the way of everything else. I very rarely feel truly well, but maybe nobody does (I wouldn't know).

Can it be?? A new drawing!

The pocket of bad news (and other things)

2009-07-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

A little over a week ago, my uncle (and godfather) Paul died. Here are links to articles in the Leader Post and CBC news, and a CBC podcast from the day after. For some reason, the accident gave me a little bit of existential clarification: I've spent so much time trying to "figure out" existence, and I feel quite certain now that it never was a riddle. Just is, I guess.

Back in April, I entered a choral piece I had spent some two years ~~writing~~ avoiding (but ultimately completing) into a big competition in the US. When I say big, I mean winning would have involved a $5000 prize, flights and hotels in New York paid for, sessions with the conductor/choir to talk about interpretation, a performance at Carnegie Hall, an archival recording, a big gala event—and no entry fee, even. After not hearing for months, I figured my entry must have miraculously gone astray or missed the deadline despite my ExpressPost precaution, but lo and behold I finally got a congratulatory email saying I'd made it to semifinals (and still going strong). I guess I got my hopes up a little too much, but it seemed pretty optimistic at the time. Anyway, the follow-up email said I got through semifinals again, but missed the very final cut. The final cut! Well, that in itself is pretty encouraging, considering my expectations in my last blog post, but at the same time the biggest letdown. Because I got so far, I do have the option of applying for their $10,000 recording grant (which is not really an option for me). Better luck next year, perhaps.

In grad school news, I am not nearly as on top of my MA committee/paper as I ought to be (or ought to already have been 2 years ago). I've always felt like I'm bothering profs by asking them anything, which has made me pretty self-reliant but out of touch with the department (and, needless to say, completely unknown to them). But honestly, a single email got the ball rolling in a matter of days and things are looking like they're at least moving forwards (none too soon, since I'm supposed to have my committee and topic mapped out and submitted for scrutiny by the end of August (which is about a year's extension already)). I've been getting headaches more often, accompanied by the worst nausea yet, which makes me even more leery about keeping up my studies. I found it very hard, in the first year, to think with the quickness and profoundness required in seminars, and speak with the eloquence that seems to come so naturally to everybody else. Depending on how (or if) my next headache-inspection goes, I might be on some equally thought-obfuscating medication this time around, as well. At least I can turn out "exceptionally well written" papers, even if they don't really have anything new to say. Sigh.

But despite these troubles, life is good; I just have a tendency to obsess about the same old concerns-of-the-moment (probably because they're so chronic). In a little over a week, I'm going back to Saskatchewan for a two-week vacation, which I'm looking so forward to.

On a completely unrelated tangent, the most popular page on my website—by a very large margin—is I am awesome. People like to use it as their forum avatars/signatures, hehe. Lot of awesome people out there.

Updation

2009-05-01T15:06:00.007-07:00

According to my calculations, it's about time for an update.

My song cycle was indeed performed during Canada Music Week (way back in November, gosh) and they did a great job. I finally finished a choral setting of an Anglo-Saxon poem, but am told that although there's much to admire in it, it just doesn't work. Recently I've been thinking more about Tintinnabulation (because Arvo Part is my compositional hero, hands down), but figure that anything I try will probably be a repeat of the Anglo-Saxon thing. It's pretty disheartening, but maybe I'll wise up someday and learn how to write 'properly' or something.

In December, we went to see Nine Inch Nails again (non-festival this time), which was superlative. It was neat to see how the show had changed over the months since we saw that very first one. You know it will be awesome when there's a marimba on stage. I still marvel at Year Zero every few months when I remember to give it a listen. Year Zero also makes me feverishly want to continue working on my conference paper.

Speaking of which: I can't say I had an overwhelmingly great grad experience last year (despite a couple awesome classes) so I withdrew for the fall term to think things over. Ideally, I'd like to develop the paper I did for the UCLA conference into a Masters-Essay-worthy piece, but that doesn't look too promising. This past spring, though, I took a fantastic zoo-texts (generally multidisciplinary) class and could envision my final paper as my Masters project... if only I wasn't forbidden to elaborate on it when anybody asks ):<

At Christmas I flew back home, and I had fully intended to recount the horrors of the trip. I ended up stuck in Calgary airport for some 13 hours with nothing but Charles Dickens' Dombey and Son and a blank notebook. Charles Dickens. For thirteen hours. I halfheartedly started doing some Drawings from the Airport, but have let drawings slip as well.

I have the best intentions of doing the Aphex Twin transcriptions that people keep asking about, maybe over the summer. Who can say.

Autumn

2008-11-19T15:47:00.002-08:00

It's been a mild autumn so far, and reminds me of late September back home right now. And that reminds me of all the things that remind me of home. I'm missing home.

The violin is far too awkward—actually, I'm far too awkward for the violin. In a little less than a month I'll write another comp ARCT exam, and then in January I'll be resuming voice lessons. Who knows whether any of this is leading anywhere. I'm still mulling over my grad school decisions, and don't think I'll be able to come up with a satisfactory solution. The worst thing about everything is that I'll probably always regret something.

With any luck, my song cycle will be performed on Saturday during one of the Canada Music Week concerts. With a little more luck, I'll actually be there to hear it, since Saturday is one of my work days and the concert is in the afternoon.

Christmas and snow! It will be glorious.

2008-09-28T17:05:00.002-07:00

Something about fall here reminds me of spring back home. The same fresh/crisp edge to the air; the way afternoon light slants through windows; the ground dampened by rain that could easily pass for new-melted snow. As glorious as the ultimate mildness of this city is, I miss the optimistic, happy feeling of seeing life begin, like new blades of grass or crocuses emerging.

Here, there is no such thing as the awakening of life. There's a perpetual green instead of greening. The closest thing is when the trees bud out, but springtime here doesn't feel like springtime as I've come to know it. The air, the light, the ground; this place has just got its seasons mixed up, I guess.

Down the street is a derelict cafe with its curtains closed, but you can still see through in the evening to the disaster within. It's clearly been abandoned for years, but for some reason the lights are always on inside. The neon sign above the door turned on every night, too, until quite recently. A sign in the door says that the cafe has been in the same location since some year in the 1930s. It's always been autumn on the side-street by that cafe, since I've lived here. The leaves were fallen and crisp in early summer, and something about the sidewalk is just... autumnal. I've ranted before about pavement/sidewalks, though, so I'll leave it at that.

Been thinking about getting back into singing, soon. It's not a long walk to an ARCT.

to sum up

2008-09-19T22:30:00.002-07:00

Oh look, 3 months to the day since I last updated.

NIN was fantastic live in Pemberton, though Pemberton itself was severely marred by fatal levels of toxic dust and inconceivably horrible traffic jams. So, NIN will be even more fantastic *AGAIN* in December, right in town! Pre-sale tickets sold out within minutes, but we got some later during the general sale. Also, Radiohead was fantastic as well.

I started working at the music conservatory, and am back at my studies now. This year I'll be trying violin for the first time, too. Best of all, I won first place in the open category of the conservatory's composition competition, as well as second place in the province's Registered Music Teachers Association contest.

And no, I don't have a Flim transcription. Time has been in short supply.

Writerly Updation

2008-06-19T20:48:00.001-07:00

There are a few writerly things I've been keeping under my hat, but I think I'm finally in a position to talk about them.

Firstly, ScribeFarm has launched a newsletter, and it includes comics by "Poorly-Drawn is my Middle Name"... i.e. me. Except the characters are supposed to resemble people, which takes me quite out of my element (i.e. Poorly-Drawn is my middle name). You can catch issue 1 here.

Secondly, I have a new freelance "gig" as a Contributing Writer for an online magazine, and my first article has been published. I don't know if I'll make much money at all on it, but I'll be better off for the experience. Though I have to write 40 articles in the next year...

Because blogging jobs require you to show your experience in, well, blogging, I've started up a new blog. It's what you'd call "topical," I guess, or at least that's the plan. I'm going to try to write almost-daily there, and that might even become possible in the future.

I have some sort of vague hope to develop my conference paper into an article, but I think time is running out on that one.

Return

2008-06-02T13:37:00.000-07:00

I had a good time at the conference, and enjoyed my too-short stay in L.A.

Saskatchewan involved a kite-flying day, walk in the creek, and miscellaneous events:

Since then, we've moved to a new apartment. Goodbye, Clover Point:

the coming week

2008-05-12T23:25:00.003-07:00

Tuesday: first summer class starts
Wednesday: finalize conference/travel stuff
Thursday: fly to Los Angeles
Friday: conference
Saturday: fly to Regina
Sunday-Monday: quality family time
Tuesday: long-awaited neurologist appointment, then regular doctor appointment
Wednesday: fly to Victoria
Thursday: resume summer class
Friday: try to catch up in new seminar class and composition
Saturday: finally, finally, Ryan returns

2008-05-08T13:41:00.002-07:00

One week from now, I'll be in Los Angeles. I'll have most of a day to kill before my conference, too.

So if you happen to live in Los Angeles, and you want to hang out or come to the conference and, you know, listen to me talk about Year Zero (in ways that literary/cyberculture people might find interesting), please do.

hint hint

pmogging stuff

2008-05-07T00:27:00.002-07:00

Take my freaking awesome new PMOG mission, Reznor Off The Label. (Why not take my three-part Year Zero mission series while you're at it?) What? Not a pmogger? Sounds like you should request an invite from me.

This is the most amazing laptop I've ever seen. The sound holes are truly delightful. I love the video where he turns it on and off. I never actually knew there was such a thing as steampunk before I started pmogging, but it's pretty pervasive there.

The Slip

2008-05-05T00:39:00.004-07:00

It's May 5, and you know what that means: follow those mp3 tags to nin.com. In a shocking display of punctuality, the mystery was actually revealed at midnight. To quote:

as a thank you to our fans for your continued support, we are giving away the new nine inch nails album one hundred percent free, exclusively via nin.com.
the music is available in a variety of formats including high-quality MP3, FLAC or M4A lossless at CD quality and even higher-than-CD quality 24/96 WAVE. your link will include all options - all free. all downloads include a PDF with artwork and credits.

So get over to nin.com and get The Slip. CDs and vinyls will be available in July, too. Can ya Digg it?

Thank you, Mr. Reznor.

Three people up to something

2008-04-25T14:49:00.000-07:00

Now I feel official over at ScribeFarm:

My associates Mathmission and Riscy:

Why are we cartoon characters, anyway? Weird...

2008-04-24T14:43:00.003-07:00

Spend the day with NIN: watch this video 2500 times

After you've done that, listen to the brand new NIN single called Discipline, which hit radiowaves across the U.S. on Tuesday (to everybody's surprise). Later that evening, it was available for free download on nin.com, and the multitrack is on the remix site as well.

total incoherence

2008-04-09T18:38:00.003-07:00

Just got back from a conference ("just" means several days ago). I like Twitter. And my other blog. Here's a few seconds of a song I made a terrible recording of two summers ago.

More of the same

2008-04-02T20:40:00.000-07:00

Radiohead recently set up radioheadremix.com for listeners to remix their latest single, Nude. Not an April Fool's joke, as some readers believed. The thing about radioheadremix.com is that you have to buy each of the five multitrack components through iTunes if you want to remix it. This is a far cry from remix.nin.com, where Reznor not only lets you post anything NIN-related (so long as it doesn't infringe on the copyright of other artists), but he has provided (or will provide) multitracks for all of his recent music (in a variety of formats) and moreover has used the remix site to provide instrumental versions of all the NIN catalogue of vocal music. You don't have to pay a dime to use remix.nin.com, where you can get a good choice of Year Zero, Ghosts, and even a few Niggy Tardust multitracks. So you can vote for your favourite Nude remixes—so what? Like this article says:

What's sort of unclear is what actually happens to remixers who get the most votes. According to iTunes' New Music Tuesday e-mail, "Select mixes will be made available on iTunes later this year." Uh, OK. Then what? Do the creators get a portion of the sales revenue? A "thank you" e-mail from Thom Yorke and Co.? The glory of saying, "You love me! You really love me!"? Or perhaps some American Apparel back-warmer emblazoned with "I Won a Radiohead Remix Contest and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt."

People have been rating and commenting remixes on remix.nin.com since its inception; it at least has a community feel. Why does Radiohead take every good NIN idea and turn it into some commercialized contest? Reznor is revolutionizing music in making it an artist-community conversation; while Radiohead has the appearance of doing the same thing, it doesn't seem to me that they have that same intent.

assorted stuff

2008-03-29T12:48:00.003-07:00

Since this year's Easter drawing sucked (because I was in a very bad mood that weekend) and since I haven't gotten around to uploading it yet anyway, Happy Belated Easter.

Don't forget Earth Hour today. Google.ca scared me late last night, I thought my computer had screwed up.

Chord Geometries software for visualizing chord changes. Check out their three demonstration videos of a Chopin piece.

American Psycho: Business Card Scene. I finally came across this (through PMOG, as it happens) but I heard about this particular scene back in a grad class last semester. One of the students was passing around handouts for his presentation and everyone was feeling up the paper (which he described as the "lingerie of the stationery store"), when the professor remarked on the similarity to this scene in American Psycho.

Freerice.com: donate rice while testing/expanding your vocabulary.

Spamusement: cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines. Some of my favourites: Your Dog Will Love It! | HELLO ME NOT DEAD | Guess Who Is Coming To Town | can't beat this...ox | Bad Bunny. Bad, Bad, Bad Bunny | Just 15 minutes and it will be hard as ROCK! | Don't Miss Neil Diamond | I have to get this off my chest before I explode | Better late than never

pmog pmog pmog ask me for an invitation!

Trent Reznor recently wrote something approximately like "Thanks for the great response to Ghosts. Let's all go for a coffee. My treat!" on nin.com. Thanks to the Hotline's Meathead, we can all experience virtual coffee with TR. You can say anything you want by typing in the blue text field, and TR will respond in the way he sees fit. You have as much time as it takes him to finish his coffee (number of sips left is shown).

Heading South

2008-03-26T23:22:00.001-07:00

My conference proposal has been accepted, so I will be speaking at the UCLA Southland Graduate Students Conference in May. I've never been to the U.S. before. Nothing sets a plan in stone like booking flights. This is truly exciting, because it is a giant step in the direction I had been hesitantly hoping for a while back.

[I just spent a little over an hour reading my entire blog since last February, searching for a post I could have sworn I'd written so that I could link to it in reference... Did I not write, at one point, about how I hoped to introduce cyberculture studies into my MA program somehow because I wanted to focus my MA essay on it? I distinctly recall writing it, at any rate, whether or not I posted it. As a sidenote, my blog used to be a lot more interesting than it is now.]

Anyway, take my word for it that it's exciting times, indeed. As fate would have it, I'll be in Los Angeles talking about "Unlocking Year Zero: Temporal Dynamics in a New Type of Immersive Text" on the day before Trent Reznor's birthday.

Please don't boycott us - we'll give you an ARG

2008-03-25T08:42:00.006-07:00

Jane McGonigal (key game designer in I Love Bees) officially announced her newest ARG, The Lost Ring, in a recent blog post on her Avant Games website. I hadn't really paid attention to The Lost Ring before now, but I find a lot of things curious about that post, and about this ARG in general.

First of all, I find an official announcement of an ARG pretty surprising. Granted, the ARG wasn't revealed in this way; it was revealed in the usual ARG-type manner via "strange packages" that were delivered to various people around the world (mainly USA, from what I gather). But in the past, puppetmasters have taken a silent, no-comment approach instead of an in-your-face "here are the steps I recommend you take if you want to get involved." Seriously, she actually gives you steps. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

What's really so odd about this ARG is that it was co-sponsored by the International Olympic Committee. The first sentence in McGonigal's blog post states that the ARG was created for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Well, pretty cool break for Avant Games, to be honest. As McGonigal says, the Olympics brings the world together through sports, and this is a chance for her to make a truly global ARG—this one spans five continents, and all ARG content is going to be translated into eight different languages. That's huger than anything to date. So, as far as ARGs go, this is spectacular. But the fact that the IOC and McDonalds and an interactive marketing company called AKQA are among the big co-sponsors makes this ARG look like a "Come to Beijing! Don't boycott us!" gimmick. Even moreso when we look a little futher...

Those "strange packages" obviously weren't enough. McGonigal said that they soon had 1,000 players, but that they wanted millions. ("They"?) I suppose this is why the puppetmasters spoke out, flashing the big "ARG ALERT" sign. I've seen ads for The Lost Ring on various social networking sites now. Step 1, as it happens, is to watch the ARG's trailer, which is truly cinematic. There is something wrong with the phrase "ARG's trailer." You can't even look at The Lost Ring's website (where a lot of ARG content is located) without first either watching or bypassing the trailer. Watch that trailer, and then compare it to the Year Zero trailer, which was more game content than anything else.

Having said all that, I think all the advertising is just a way to make people aware of the game and bring people to the main site where they can learn more. I've got no head for collective discovery, myself, and there is truly a lot to the game. Trailers and ads aren't part of the game, they're just gimmicks to bring you to the game. And, what do you know, maybe this game is a gimmick to bring you to the Olympics. Funny old world.

What's the matter? Low marker intake?

2008-03-21T12:15:00.003-07:00

Two new transcriptions: The Fragile (Bridge School version) and 12 Ghosts II. The latter would be best if I waited for the multitracks, but (uncharacteristically) I actually got a request for it. So, the best I can do is post it with a caveat.

Low marker intake? The picture (without my added words, that is) makes me laugh every time. I'm tittering right now, just thinking about it.

In other NIN news, Trent Reznor recently announced the Ghosts Film Festival. Never lacking in innovation, that one. Incidentally, Radiohead announced a similar deal soon afterward, except theirs is quite clearly a competition with a big prize. It's not that I find it amusing, how the striking similarities in the way NIN and Radiohead are going about things lately highlight their striking differences in values (Radiohead seems to be going to great lengths to maintain their dependence on the "old" model while NIN is very outspoken against that model). I just don't know a better word for it than "amusing."

NIN is also playing at the Pemberton Festival this summer. So far it's their only 2008 show listed on nin.com. And it's in Pemberton. How random is that? You can bet I'm going.

The Passively Multiplayer Online Game. Not really fun, or game-y. But it's fascinating that once you download the plugin this previously invisible world is revealed, and it's everywhere on the entire web. You find things—crates that other players have stashed, portals to other websites, "lightposts" that other players have put up from which you can take dumb "missions" that are rarely interesting—on many webpages you normally visit. (p.s. if you're interested, drop me a comment and I'll drop you an invitation. You don't need one to join, but this way I can earn a badge... or even three badges, if I invite enough people. And after all, it is a game, and I've got to keep one step ahead of *certain* opponents.)

What a crappy week.

ScribeFarm's 3rd Contest... and GO!

2008-03-06T20:32:00.004-08:00

Fun Fact: ScribeFarm's 3rd contest is running as of today, and it's highly fast-paced. The deadline: this Monday! No prompt this time, and hardly any limitations. Take a chance, have some fun. Here are the rules:

1) Work must be original; no scouring the net for something someone else wrote!

2) If you submit a piece of poetry, try to keep it fewer than 1.2 million words. We don’t mind reading what ‘cha got, especially if it’ll win. But try to limit yourself to the length of 3 encyclopedias.

3) If you’re writing prose, well… the same thing applies. Don’t kill the mods!

4) We’re not going to officially state that humor pieces will do better, but the mods tossed around the idea of making this a contest of humor. So…yeah…nudge nudge…

5) The deadline, folks, is THIS MONDAY, the 10th of March, 2008.

6) You can submit up to 3 pieces, and must be sent to scribefarm@gmail.com

7) Lastly, and SRSLY, don’t forget this…you must have your Scribefarm/Fictionpost username at the top of your entry / email / whatever. YOU MUST HAVE IT THERE, and MUST BE A MEMBER OF ONE OF THESE TWO SITES.

1 Ghosts I 7 hours 10 attempts 0 downloads = mobius album

2008-03-03T01:41:00.007-08:00

Well, it only took an hour and a half for the Ghosts order page to load, and it's been five hours since then, during which time I've tried to download the album roughly 10 times using the download link I received (which was a "one-time-only" link, and which maxed out once during that time, but the NIN camp had to reactivate everybody's links so that everybody will be able to get the music once the site is stabilized after the addition of more servers). But who's counting, really? I'm sure it will all work out "soon."

In the meantime, I've transcribed 1 Ghosts I. (Ghosts tracks don't actually have names, they're just called "5 Ghosts I" or "15 Ghosts II" or "36 Ghosts IV." It really helps you remember all the songs, I suppose. I wouldn't know. I can't hear them, can I?)

Edit: there's now a 9 Ghosts I transcription up as well.

Edit #2: How I imagine it's going, about now

Ghosts I-IV

2008-03-02T18:50:00.004-08:00

Nine Inch Nails self-released a new album today, Ghosts I-IV. 36 instrumental tracks, obtainable in a variety of ways. The site seems to be tragically overworked, and I've been unable to get a download yet.

leap year festivities

2008-02-29T23:30:00.003-08:00

Merry Femandnesday! I hope everyone has celebrated appropriately.

In other news, I need to invest in a scanner. It took me all day to get a workable image of that drawing.

Swiss Rendezvous

2008-02-26T14:35:00.010-08:00

I've just returned from spending a spectacular week in Switzerland, visiting Ryan.

I got to stay in the beautiful Swiss countryside, explore Geneva, wander around Meyrin. I got to tour ATLAS (and eat rabbits at CERN). We went to the Roman capital of Helvetica (now Nyon). We went to Montreux, and then up into the mountains. And we ate all sorts of tasty things. I had run-ins with the bus police ("The Swiss Bus Police: Never Around When There's a Riot, But Always There to Give You a Fine ☺"), and with customs. It was one of those surreal experiences in which I saw the world happening and myself happening in it, living in it. My god, it was a fantastic trip. Some of my pictures are on Facebook.

I recommend that everyone able to go to the English Idol at U of R definitely check it out (Thursday, Feb. 28). I went in 2006, and gushed about it as soon as I got home.

2008-02-11T00:52:00.000-08:00

I'll tell you what's truly fascinating. The dimensions of our modern page were finalized in the 12th century. Before that, it was a gradual shift from the square pages of the scroll to the familiar rectangular ones we have in our books now. In a sense, then, the page as we know it has been around since the 12th century, and it hasn't changed significantly since then.

Now the fascinating part. Fibonacci lived from the late 12th to early 13th centuries. He, and other Medieval mathematicians and architects and scribes, had a rekindled interest in Classical Greek geometry, such as the Golden Section. The ratio of the page that was born in the 12th century is about 0.7:1, which is almost the perfect rectangle produced by the Golden Section. The shape of our paper is governed by ancient geometry. The spiral really is everywhere.

(P.S. I might be speculating a little.)

2008-02-08T23:33:00.001-08:00

The "Interactive Fiction" of Year Zero

Edit: I have edited this post, because apparently I jump to conclusions too quickly. It's all good, we're still in business.

New Beginnings

2008-02-06T02:10:00.001-08:00

Talked to a prof today about new research directions.

Exciting times, indeed.

Edit: I forgot to mention. Grain Magazine 35.2 "Look Around! / Short Grain" Oh hell yes.

My Fabulous Past

2008-02-04T22:28:00.002-08:00

So it had been a long day of researching—abnormally long, because I had been procrastinating on starting these two big projects, which I have a feeling might be momentous in my academic career if I can get them off the ground. And I came across a link to a website that had gone offline years ago, but the link still worked. The miracle of The Internet Archives. And, being the narcissist that I am, I delved into the snapshots of my own website's history, if available. Turns out the only two archives they made were of a css stylesheet and the day my drawings page got hacked. There's a lot to be said for quality hosting.

(Even if I did scuttle my own website recently.)

(Several times.)

Scribefarm

2008-01-12T00:11:00.002-08:00

If you're at all into the world of the writerly, I encourage you to check out the contest we're running over at ScribeFarm this month. It's open to members of both ScribeFarm and FictionPost, and you have the option of writing either a prose or poetry entry based on the image chosen by staff for this contest.

Even if you're not into contests or are too busy, I hope all you writer(s) reading this consider joining ScribeFarm. The forum is, at this point, mostly not about the contests and rather more about the content members bring on a daily basis. Note: only registered members have access to the poetry/prose that is posted.

2008-01-08T20:03:00.000-08:00

I'm back into classes. Spending these days rapidly coughing out my lungs, for which I've been prescribed narcotics to counter the effect. It's not helping.

Ryan's gone again for four months.

The Non-Bleak Midwinter

2007-12-02T13:07:00.002-08:00

Kiwi, via Kevin. This chokes me up more and more every time I watch it. I think I can relate.

The other day I finally made it to Butchart Gardens, though I didn't actually see any foliage. We went at night for the staff family Christmas evening, and saw all the lights which had finally been juuust about perfected for the opening of the Christmas lights show. It was pretty darn impressive. I liked the Three French Hens--they were chickens, eating a meal of chicken, with the Eiffel Tower in the background. The Eleven Pipers Piping kind of creeped me out... nearly full-sized puppets with those glassy taxidermy eyes, dancing on strings according to some mechanization, while eerie flute music piped through the colonnade. Some of their fingers moved. Very impressive, though. The best part about it being staff night (aside from the fact that no tourists were allowed) was that people were fiddling with things here and there, hopping over fences (to fix a taxidermy eye that was awry, for example). Not me, mind you. Just staff. Very blurry pictures on Facebook.

I finally found out the order of my music exams. Orchestration will be out of the way first, fortunately, so that I can go to Winter Harp and hear some music performed by a range of harps, modern instruments, and obsolete instruments including "the ethereal-sounding bass psaltery (the only one like it in the world), the 12th century organistrum (the other one like it in Canada is in the Museum of Man in Ottawa) and the nyckelharpa." It will take up the evening in between exams... so I have to just trust to fate for Baroque, I guess.

The end is in sight. I just have to finish my extra Codicology paper (which, much to my well-hidden dismay, was upgraded from 7-9 pages to 15 pages on Friday... just 4 days before its deadline). Then the music exams, then the hefty final English paper.

Ryan comes back from CERN today! Yay!

snip snip

2007-11-25T19:47:00.001-08:00

My composition teacher employs a teaching method that I can only describe as "snipping." Like this. It amuses me to no end.

I've only just discovered that I didn't know what C-Score meant. And that I can't reliably transpose transposing instruments from written to sounding and vice versa; the problem is that I hadn't really been exposed to orchestral—or even band—instruments until I started this Orchestration class in September. Not having had any sort of music program whatsoever in all my years of schooling is coming back to haunt me. Unfortunately, I have less than three weeks to sort this and other problems out.

I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, a sports fan. In fact, every time I walk home and the Basement Dweller happens to be in his suite, I have to stifle a wave of rage at his blaring TV which always has some sort of sports game playing. But, I'm happy (and proud) the Roughriders won the Grey Cup today. I even secretly checked the status of the game online (and by "secretly," I of course mean that I'm blogging about it for the world to know). There's a vast chasm between wanting to know how the score ends up, and being willing to watch a game, though.

Sweet Life

2007-11-24T00:12:00.002-08:00

For some reason, everything always comes back to Starbucks. Or caramel frappucinos, if you want to get really fundamental. Sitting in Starbucks, morosely sipping a caramel frappucino and seeing that Hiring Baristas, February 13 sign across the street. Incorrectly answering "I'm partial to frappucinos" when asked what my favourite coffee shop drink was during my interview (frappucino is a failproof identifier of a Starbucks customer). Ducking into Starbucks on lunchbreak, feeling mortified when the head barista there outright asked me where I worked and triumphantly cried "I knew it!!" upon my answer.

The coffee shop has been in my mind a lot lately. Perhaps because I pass by there once in a while these days, and try to peer inside from the opposite side of the street without having them see me. Mostly, I see the owner grinding espresso beans, making the shot, doing the milk, pouring the drink, grinding espresso beans, making the shot, doing the milk, pouring the drink... and I think how awful it must be to do that job for the rest of your life. All he's really doing is taking pride in making the most beautiful drink in the world so that some Joe Cool can take one glance at it before gulping it down. Over and over and over every day. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of sweet Mrs. K and wonder how she's doing, and if she'll ever retire. Lots of times I wonder where my coffee-brother coworker went; I'd like to see him again. It was good times, even if the rest of it wasn't.

I stopped going to that Starbucks after I quit at the coffee shop, and I haven't really gone back there until today. But today I did go back there, and even though it was freezing outside I ordered my usual caramel frappucino and muffin. And the same old barista was there. I tried to remember his name while I stood in line, but since it had been 6 months since I'd been there, and I wasn't wearing my old uniform, I didn't expect him to recognize me anyway.

So I sat at my little round table, eating my muffin and sipping morosely at my caramel frappucino, wondering where all the time goes. Where all the people go, who slip in and out of your life. If they remember you, like you remember them. "Hey, do you work over at Dolce?"

All About Exams

2007-11-15T00:08:00.001-08:00

I've been on Reading Break for the past three days, which has been hypothetically excellent. I didn't really think about school, except for today when I had to meet with a professor. I've been trying to learn as much Orchestration as I can, in preparation for the exams in December, which, as it turns out, I seem to maybe be registered for.

In the first place, I couldn't register for the exams online, which really confused me. They had all sorts of exams listed that you could register for, but not the ones I wanted. So I had to phone them up in Toronto and actually ask them how to register. Turns out you have to do it on paper for those ones. At my last lesson, my teacher explained that this is because these exams are so uncommon that I'll probably be the only person in the country taking them this year. RCM will probably have to make the exams just for me. For some reason, that doesn't comfort me.

So today I checked online to see if my old-fashioned paper application went through all right by fax, and that I was registered. Apparently, I am registered to write one exam in Subject description not found on December 7, and another exam in Subject description not found on December 8. I hope a) they know what they're doing and send out the right exams; b) they let me know which exam I'm writing on which day ahead of time; and c) I don't find out at the last minute that one of those Subject descriptions involves something alarming like history or something.

The guy who owns my aquarium told me they're relaxing and cut down on stress. This one does nothing but give me grief. I usually feel like hurling my laptop at it.

pineapple

2007-11-10T17:42:00.000-08:00

This video is hilarious!

2007-10-18T02:57:00.000-07:00

You know what I love about this newfound drawings fame? This, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this, for one. It's so rewarding to see a single drawing quoted eight times by a single person on a single forum! I think I should join and point out that I am awesome. Or maybe I should change the jpg so that the drawing says "Sade totally sucks!" "Oh man, I know!"

I'm pretty much overwhelmed with school. There was a hysterically complicated personal-governmental situation that came up just in time to ruin Thanksgiving weekend and the ensuing days. Between that and a week of being sick, not much progress has been made of late. I'm starting to wonder if it's physically possible to finish everything in time. I can't understand how two grad classes can be so much more work than five undergrad classes.

Music class is as awesome as ever; the homework I have been neglecting. Class is great because we'll be looking at my works next week; we looked at two of them briefly a few weeks ago, and after listening to my choral piece he gave me Arvo Pärt's Berliner Messe to mull over. Now I'm to write a Kyrie, but all I can think about is Pärt's Kyrie (which is devastatingly beautiful, and possibly the awesomest Kyrie ever written in the history of music). I could do without all of this at the moment, though; with two music exams coming up in December there is by far enough to concentrate on with just Orchestration and Baroque.

I need to go write 4 papers and prepare a presentation by November 5 now. And start writing a Mass.

2007-10-04T22:18:00.000-07:00

Happy 50th Anniversary, Sputnik.

Scientists Ask Congress to Fund $50 Billion Science Thing "The scientists spoke for approximately three hours about the complicated science machine, which is expensive, and large, telling members of the House Committee on Science and Technology that the tubular, gamma-ray-using mechanism is vital in some big way..."

2007-09-23T20:50:00.000-07:00

Here we have a graph depicting the visitors to my alphabetized drawings page since everything went online in June:

Today there were 53 unique visitors. 53. With 136 pageloads. That's freaking insane. Notice (it's a small picture, so you probably can't) that it's always been 1 before, and on one occasion 2. This is baffling me.

Nutella Dreams

2007-09-22T14:59:00.001-07:00

Last night I dreamed I met TR. He had this weird East German accent and I asked him about two songs in my iTunes library that I don't know the names of, and he suggested that we watch Live Earth. So then we all watched a music video of Sarah Jessica Parker lip synching some jazz song about her love for a transvestite named "Bingo" (because at that point a few more people appeared and we were sitting on a grassy slope, looking at a giant TV that was standing in the middle of nowhere).

The best part was when he accidentally touched my face. When he was handing something to me... handing it to my face... sure, I'll just grasp that sheaf of papers with my face, Trent.

It's all very... enigmatic. I don't usually dream.

Turning Back History

2007-09-15T21:36:00.000-07:00

I took a year of Voice Performance in University. The summer after, I was fortunate enough to be chosen as the Saskatchewan soprano for the National Youth Choir. I recognized at the time that NYC was the single most important, most worthwhile, most lifechanging event I had ever participated in, and I felt that it set me in my musical life course. I prepared to return to classes in the fall with no doubt in my mind.

Three days before classes were to begin, I was at the University volunteering for First Year Orientation. After I had given my tour for the day, I wandered over to my college, asked to speak with the adviser... and then and there I formulated and carried out a plan to switch faculties, change classes, exit music and enter English. I can't remember, now, if I had had any premeditations on the idea beyond a few days prior to that day.

I mention this because it seems very fitting that I should now be doing almost the very opposite procedure, if not in fact at least in spirit.

2007-09-08T01:19:00.000-07:00

Well, everything has changed. I'm now in my new place on the beach, which is right across from a park that is very dogs, if you know what I mean. The photos below are my new place (I live in the triangle), my rented pet prawn (who likes to molt and then play with his corpse), the view from my window, a view of Ryan playing our new digital piano (which is pretty darn awesome), and a freaking awesome Soliton-type cloud (also see this Strangequarks thread for some links on Morning Glory clouds and other Soliton discussions) we saw one day.

I shall go beachcombing every day. My collection of beach glass will be astounding.

But I won't, because classes also started this week, and the workload—even the reading list for a single class alone—is terrifyingly intensive. I feel like nothing has prepared me for what I need to put into these classes, and I have very little to contribute. I think I'll just sit there and say "For shizzle!" whenever a prof asks my opinion. Seriously, I haven't even heard of any of the theorists the other students toss around in class, much less read them, so I sure can't use them in discussion without doing a whole lot of extra reading and research, which I simply can't do.

Added to all this is music, for which I must finish writing my fugue by Monday night's first lesson. Yikes.

Biggest change of the day: Ryan is gone to CERN for three months :(

I am going to read Chaucer and Gower straight until Tuesday.

Fyre Fyre

2007-08-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

Greece is burning. The whole darn southern part of the county. How much can this world take? How much can it rebuild? I just read an article on how they're rebuilding New Orleans. While it's sinking, and while the ocean's rising, and while hurricanes like Katrina will become more frequent. I quote the U.S.Army Corps of Engineers, when advised by John S. Hoffman of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1984 of the long-range threat of rising sea level due to global warming: "Given the uncertainty of projections of sea level changes, an attempt to accommodate such changes in the design of the project...would represent a very poor use of funds." Ah well, I'm taking this to the Obsolete Forum.

Lest You Forgot

2007-08-25T11:21:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me. Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthDAY TO ME. I would go into a birthday rant, but I've already done that elsewhere. I must say, my birthday was utter crap, not having seen any humans the entire day. But right now everything is right where it belongs, and I couldn't ask for much more than that.

Well, summer's trips to Saskatchewan are over. My brother's wedding was luverly (many congrats to him and Lisette). Here's the audio for the song Amy and I sang at it, complete with all the authentic background wedding noises. Sounds like they're searching for the rings again or something. I arranged the love theme from The Godfather with an added voice and in a major key so that it wouldn't be so mournful. It's remarkable how many songs marketed as "wedding songs" are singularly inappropriate for weddings in some way or another.

Have I mentioned how amazing Ryan is? He's devised and implemented scripts for the Music Encyclopedia that make it so that I no longer have to do nearly anything for it. Woot! That's not why he's amazing, though; it's just indicative of his amazingness. (psst... you're awesome!)

The Britons race is now over, since I finally got rid of my cellphone. I'll assume I won, since they seem to have given up.

Join the Pickwick Club!

Everybody cuss at Banjo for a little while

2007-08-12T00:54:00.000-07:00

I did it. For all my despairing on Facebook yesterday, it was really only about an hour's fiddling this morning to reconstruct the search engine for both the Lapsionary and the new Music Encyclopedia (which is still in very early stages). Go ahead. Give it a try. Look up "note value" or "just intonation," or (my favourite), "cluster," or even try "Pythag" or "Lmiz" and see what turns up. Now aren't you impressed? But the database only has up to "C" or so, other than what's on the actual mainpage right now. I could just make it entirely search-based, but then nobody would ever look up anything, and all my work would be for nothing. This way, at least, I can go browse it once in a while.

Can you believe, Banjo had 58 separate emails of Lapsionary pages as backups, but no backup of the search script that made all those pages obsolete? (I'm referring to Banjo, the person, whom I put in charge of backing up my old site. Stop looking at me funny.) Pages and pages of wandals and mandals and femankeys. What on earth am I even saving those for? Fortunately, he also had the Lapsionary database, which was how I was able to reconstruct the script. My mind was working after all. But Banjo really is awesome. Everybody loves Banjo. The best thing about Banjo is that so many people are aware of him. I used to use him in my writing all the time during my undergrad. Probably one of my greatest ideas ever. Tee hee, tee hee. The memory of it is making me titter.

If you've been attentive (which you probably haven't been), you might have noticed I've been more active than usual on all my accounts. Feel free to join in; it's how you participate in the Pickwick Club. It's also my answer to the infuriating conflict between being incredibly drowsy, unable to sleep, unable to wake up in the morning, and having restless, dream-filled sleep. It's highly annoying that everybody else doesn't have 7 blogs that they update at 2 am to entertain me. What do you people expect me to do now? There are still 36 hours until I board my flight.

I Musici

2007-08-11T00:39:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I attended a cello masterclass, where the best student played the first movement of a Shostakovich sonata. I never knew which sonata it was at the time, and because I'm so completely unknown within the Conservatory, I didn't dare ask anybody what it was. But it was the most beautiful piece I'd ever heard. Tonight the Master himself, the fabulous Yuli Turovsky, played the entire Sonata (in D minor, Op. 40, if you're interested). Shostakovich fascinates me. I wouldn't even have known what his music sounded like before this week; I might have guessed he was something like Shoenberg.

At one point during the masterclass (at many points, in fact, but this one in particular) Mr. Turovsky stopped the cellist and said, "In Russia, there is a profession among women who go to funerals, and cry." Those words gave way to a demonstration of how the cello should simulate this (a sung demonstration). It is absolutely impossible for any instrument to be more heart-rendingly beautiful than the cello. I simply must learn to play it.

The concert was fantastic, and Mr. Turovsky is amazing. And Shostakovich is entrancing. And, although it's a little excessive of me to insist on learning to play every instrument after hearing a piece played particularly well on it, the cello is an exception.

Symphony Splash 2007

2007-08-06T21:49:00.001-07:00

40,000 spectators spill over the land fronting the parliament building in front of the inner harbour, into the water in canoes, dragonboats, and barges that now jostle for the best position from which to view the stage. Those who have water permits have been there all afternoon, as have the people who have staked claims on the best chair locations all afternoon.

Rich people in black suit coats and white gowns lounge on a rooftop patio on the Empress, which stands grandly facing the inner harbour across the road which is just starting to rumble with the drums of the Canadian Scottish First Regiment Piper Band as it starts to march towards the parliament building. A radio personality suggests that the patio people in black suit coats and white gowns rattle their jewelry so that the pipers may perhaps hear them, but they pay no mind.

The stage is a barge anchored in the inner harbour, and on it various bands and radio personalities have whiled away the afternoon in anticipation of the main attraction of the evening, which has finally (almost) arrived. The pipers pass along and are gone. Now the stage is dominated by the Symphony Orchestra.

Fast forward: the greater part of the two-hour concert is over, the sun has finally sunk out of sight and the water has stopped glaring at me, and then it begins. Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture starts with the old Czarist Russian National Anthem, "God Preserve Thy People." Then the French and Russian National Anthems are heard in conflict with each other. Suddenly, the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets set off their cannons, and five shots ring out, smoke rising over the water to the left of the stage barge. All eyes are on the spot where the smoke is now disappearing, when suddenly bells begin pealing out along with the symphony from behind the audience where the carillon tower stands near the parliament building, which is now aglow in its nightly lighting. All heads turn, and murmers of "the carillon" run through the crowd. The music builds, builds, then explodes in a shower of fireworks at the climax. It is exactly V for Vendetta, without the destruction of the parliament building.

It isn't quite over; the Canadian Scottish First Regiment Piper Band has stealthily been boarding the barge for some time, and now they take the stage and play two encores along with the orchestra.

It is the most spectacular symphonic event I have ever witnessed. And they do this every single year, they have done this for 18 years without fail. It is certainly this city's greatest tradition.

***
Not much is new in my life since I last wrote anything of substance, but in many ways there is not much that is unchanged. It's another time of upheaval, and I don't quite know how to deal with it.

One thing that is most definitely different from my last post (actually, it changed the following day) is that I did receive my violin after all. As foreseen, I do indeed bring out the worst in it.

I spent a week back in Saskatchewan and had a great time at the traditional St. Swithin's Day Picnic (the first annual traditional St. Swithin's Day Picnic, I should say). Many a photo on Facebook. I got a new camera. I slacked off in music theory a lot and ended up frantically writing fugue expositions the day before my final lesson, then got there and he only had time to go through one of them but he said it was such a good effort that I'm to spend August reworking it into a full fugue. I return to Saskatchewan for my brother's wedding, at my favourite time of year. I hope my new camera can accurately capture my favourite colours of autumn: pea stubble, aspen groves. I suppose I missed that magical moment of a field of brown caraway swaths lying on the green stubble beneath.

And then it's back in time to move houses, then starting up classes, then arranging composition lessons, and possibly instrument lessons. Then saying goodbye, for now.

Kippers for Breakfast

2007-07-15T11:57:00.001-07:00

HAPPY ST. SWITHIN'S DAY!!!!!

My violin is stuck in a mobius belt

2007-06-30T01:00:00.000-07:00

Somewhere, right now, someone is enjoying a free violin. Damn them. Damn them all. It's probably the same person who is raising a toast to bacon double cheeseburgers. And they live in Langford. For some reason, my kindly seller is opting to let Bacon Double-Cheeseburger keep my violin, and is going to have a new one sent to me, even though UPS is in the wrong for delivering it to the wrong address. Meh, just so long as I get a violin out of all of this. Interesting, though, how everything I attempt goes awry, even when I'm barely involved as in this case. And by gosh, if they give this violin to Banjo Double-Bacon...

"Overall, [Lapsura] received 1 comments, while she commented 0 times, making about 0 comments per day since she joined DA. This means that she received Infinity comments for every 10 that she gave." That's right, I wear the mobius belt. I am master of Infinity.

And the secrets of the universe are laid bare for all to see.

Deathly Hallows

2007-06-26T22:33:00.000-07:00

One of the major bus stops is right in front of Chapters. Chapters' doors are always propped open, just so that I can wistfully gaze in through the bus windows.

Today, the open doors were a portal displaying an entire pallet of boxes, with "CAUTION" yellow security tape wrapped around the entirety. Boxes and boxes and boxes.

Written on them with a sharpie: "HP 7"

Chapters is just taunting me.

In other news, I bought a fantastic book called "Inventing English" by Seth Lerer. My theory teacher had been saving all the excerpts printed in the newspaper for me, and I got fascinated. It's rekindling my interest in Anglo-Saxon as well as my anticipation of beginning my M.A. in the fall.

you make me touch your hands for stupid reasons

2007-06-23T23:57:00.000-07:00

Turn your speakers on. Right now! And now, a dramatic reading of a real break-up letter by a real person.

Even more transcriptions.

what the dickens?

2007-06-20T23:09:00.000-07:00

I bought a violin today! Now to wait for it to arrive. I fully expect that it will not be a great instrument, and that I will bring out the worst in it. I also bought a hat, to shield myself from the cruel, cruel sun.

There are finally a few new drawings up.

Fun fact: The phrase "the dickens" was coined by Shakespeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

To do this summer:

delve further into Orchestration I, Baroque I, and History I
wield my super-pass and go watch music lectures/masterclasses/concerts
fiddle around on violin (great pun there)
do 1 more interview/article for Luther
wander around the city a lot
go back to Saskatchewan, twice
- July: 1 wedding; 1 giant family gathering; 3 doctor appointments; visit family and friends; eat raspberries/saskatoons/hazelnuts/whatever else I can forage from the ol' orchard
- August: 1 wedding (my brother's! at which I will be singing a duet), collect useful textbooks and transport them to BC; visit family; forage some more; possible school reunion
find place to move to; move
do some composing and transcribing
finish website

ow, my stomach hurts

2007-06-19T23:29:00.000-07:00

My theory teacher is so awesome. "Are you sure you don't play a string instrument?" That's pretty flattering, since orchestration is unknown territory to me. Also, last week: "Why do you know how to do this?" I should have said I'm a prodigy or something.

EastWest Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra. This sounds fantastic. Apparently, if you spend enough time programming every single note, it's almost indistinguishable from a live performance.

This is a neat site; there's lots of things to click. Like a maze, kind of.

My god, this would be beyond awful.

the lineup

2007-06-18T13:33:00.001-07:00

First Class Honours in Analysis V!

I'm temporarily looking forward to grad classes. Here's my lineup:

FALL/WINTER

1. Studies in Literary Theory: The Subject and Postmodern Culture
"...focuses on the impact of deconstructive, (neo-)marxist, and psychoanalytic theories on postmodern self-understanding of decentered and commodified subject. Blah blah blah paradigm shift." I'm contemplating substituting University-course-teaching class with this, but probably not since the idea of a teaching internship frightens me.

2. Studies in Middle English Literature: Moral Fictions—Ethics, Aesthetics, and Medieval Texts.
Most likely to be an awesome class involving a lot of Chaucer.

3. Studies in 19th Century Literature: Film and the 19th-Century Novel.
Good books, good movies, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen... and some crappy novels, but you win some and you lose some.

SPRING

1. Introduction to Textual Studies and Methods of Research
A required course, but one that doesn't involve giving presentations. Basically a class on library sleuthing and making annotated bibliographies and such.

2. Old English Poetry
The class designed for me, involving continuous translation and Anglo-Saxon verse. And Beowulf, but that was self-evident.

3. Studies in 17th Century Literature: Poetry and Protestant Culture in 17th-Century England.
My introduction to Milton.

Hopefully I'll also be doing some sort of grad-research-related work, or working in the Writing Clinic or something.

Meanwhile, I will be continuing with Orchestration I and Baroque I, though I'll be taking it at an easier pace next year.

Also, I'm going to start learning cello so that I can hopefully take an exam at the end of the year, so that I'll be eligible to join the cello orchestra (and possibly the First Level regular orchestra, though I have a feeling that would be me and a bunch of little kids) when I really start cracking on my ARCT. Plus there are two choirs I can join when I start it: Conservatory Chorale ensemble for adults which does Baroque to Contemporary, and Ensemble Laude which is a Medieval/Renaissance women's choir.

Ooh, I just discovered a Conducting class... add that to the list. ARCT days will be busy. And it would appear that the ARCT might just qualify as full-time post-secondary studies, despite being entirely private-lesson-based. It would also appear that I was supposed to talk to the Registrar of Post-Secondary Programs prior to registering ):< I'll get around to that next year.

The VCM music festival kicks off tonight with some guitar works by Beethoven.

online once more

2007-06-15T23:31:00.000-07:00

fixed

and then a masked cat crawled in the window and graffiti'd my domain

2007-06-07T06:36:00.000-07:00

New transcriptions on my music page: Nanou 2 in the Aphex Twin section (which is completely playable as a duet! but not so much otherwise) and, my preciousss, The Frail (version) from Things Falling Apart in the NIN section. It's a string sextet! God I wish I were a string sextet, or soloist or something. The cello has got to be the most beautiful sound in the world. So, transcriptions are there at any rate.

Except, they won't be there for long. Because guess who now completely owns her own domain! (me.) Gosh, it was so easy to wrest it from the grip of that loathsome Autumn character; I don't know why I didn't do it before. Be sure to thank the Sun Gods if you've never had dealings with him/her/it. Anyways, I'm getting me a *real* host, pretty soon.

Facebook is getting too cluttered... but I love the new graffiti!

Oh, and BEST THEORY LESSON EVER.

And now it is time to go to sleep. It's a pretty rare thing that will motivate me to stay up all night, though I'm not a bit tired for some reason. I think it's because I'm sleeping less these days... the more I sleep, the more tired I get. I should just give it up entirely. More time to do stuff!

That and I have to stay up and ward zombie cat burglars off. Or the little dog next door that followed me right down to my door.

Music definitions you won't find in Grove's

2007-06-06T14:51:00.000-07:00

Music definitions you won't find in Grove's

OBBLIGATO: being forced to practice
CON MOTO: yeah baby, I have a car
ALLEGRO: a little car
METRONOME: short, city musician who can fit into a Honda Civic
LENTO: the days leading up to Easto
LARGO: beer brewed in Germany for the Florida Keys
PIU ANIMATO: clean out the cat's litter box
CON SPIRITO: drunk again
COLLA VOCE: this shirt is so tight I can't sing
IMPROVISATION: what you do when the music falls down
PRELUDE: warm-up before the clever stuff
FLATS: English apartments
CHORDS: things organists play with one finger
DISCORDS: thing that organists play with two fingers
SUSPENDED CHORDS: useful for lynching the vocalist
TIME SIGNATURES: things for drummers to ignore
MELODY: an ancient, now almost extinct art in songwriting
KLAVIERSTUCJ: A term used by German furniture movers attempting to get a piano through a narrow doorway
MUSIC STAND: An intricate device used to hold music. Comes in two sizes - too high or too low - always broken.
TONIC: A medicinal drink consumed in great quantity before a performance, and in greater quantity afterwards.
DOMINANT: What parents must be if they expect their children to practice.
CONCERT HALL: A place where large audiences gather, for the sole purpose of removing paper wrappings from candy and gum.
SOTTO VOCE: singing while drunk
AGOGIC: playing high enough on an oboe to make the eyes bulge.
CADENZA: slapping noise on office furniture
FANDANGO: grabbing the pull chain on the ceiling fan
PRIMA VOLTA: jump start with a battery
REFRAIN: proper technique for playing bagpipes
SMORZANDO: with melted chocolate and marshmallow
MINOR SECOND: two oboists playing concert A

TDWWA (still)

2007-06-03T23:22:00.000-07:00

Expanding my horizons. I really don't know what the proper procedure is for scoring guitar. Suggestions?

It is now June 3, the day lapsura.com expires. Soon it will be mine. All mine... why isn't it expiring yet, gosh. It's June 4 already in the rest of the world. Anyway, heads up for approaching moving.

Drukqs

2007-05-30T10:29:00.000-07:00

Introducing... my new project: Aphex Twin transcriptions! [thanks Ryan :) ] I need to clean up my website, and/or redesign it. So disorganized. So many pages that need updating/link-fixing.

In other news, I had a whole hour theory lesson yesterday! It was awesome. He even busted out a recorder and I got a tonguing lesson. Although, when he was assigning some orchestration homework, he said "of course, you'll never hear it. That's the thing about composing: usually you only get to hear it in your head."

Also, my string quartet is now on my music page in its present entirety, if you care to have a listen. Remember, it's all at uniform dynamics because I'm lazy and don't want to re-Reason the whole thing. Comments? Please?

DONE

2007-05-28T11:24:00.000-07:00

I FINISHED MY STRING QUARTET IN TIME!! In a last-minute effort to pull it together in time (after completely giving up for too many days) I went through all 9 variations x 4 instruments = 36 files (er—2 more files and it'll be good enough) multiple, multiple times, and finished the final variation. Took me all freaking day, but it's done in time to print off and hand in tomorrow. Well, it's missing the second-last variation, but I'm submitting it anyway. I almost gave up on it, and was going to submit my choral piece instead... but now I'll just submit them both :)

Here is the final variation (or, failing that link, just go here: http://www.freewebs.com/meganmain2/TheRoseQuartet%2DVariation8.mp3). It's the only one I wrote knowing anything about strings, which is why it involves double stops and artificial harmonics while none of my other variations do (and why some notes in my other variations are unplayable). Except, Lilypond typesets harmonics great but doesn't know how to render them in MIDI, so it just sounds like shrill piercingness in my audio file. Try to imagine it. That's all I can do, too, since I don't have a great idea of what harmonics sound like anyway. And, Reason has pretty decent strings samples, but also no harmonics. And no dynamics on the audio, I don't feel like fighting with Reason; Lilypond sapped all my energy. If you don't understand why Lilypond is such a headache, then you should be informed that it's purely programming that bears no resemblance whatsoever to a score; here are 8 measures of 1st Violin:

r2 f8\mf-.^\markup { \italic {pizz.} } r f-. r
f2\downbow\<^\markup { \italic {arco} } ges4\!\f( bes)
c8\downbow( bes) f-.\upbow r ges-.\mf^\markup { \italic {pizz.} } r aes-. r
aes4\f(^\markup { \italic {arco} } ges) f( ees)

ees8( f) aes-. r f-.\mf^\markup { \italic {pizz.} } r f-. r
aes2^\markup { \italic {arco} } f
r4 ges8-.^\markup { \italic {pizz.} } r r4 c8-. r
c-. r bes-. r r4 f8-. r

Now it is time to watch Corner Gas until I run out of episodes.

The new Chad Vader episode is possibly my favourite one yet. [Edit: my mistake, that's not the newest one; episode 8 is newly out.] Although... you should still watch the first 3. They're awesome. On a related note, episode 6 reminds me of PRIMUS: "I will go ahead and switch your long distance service for you." Ha, actually that whole phone conversation sounds like the one I had with PRIMUS... except they actually did switch mine over. Blasted jerks. They actually told me that it wasn't optional.

shut down all the elevators, lock up all the knives

2007-05-26T22:01:00.000-07:00

So I was battling with Lilypond again, and finally got frustrated enough to email them asking why their blasted documentation told me to do things that Lilypond says are impossible... and then two minutes later, it dawned on me that I've been using the documentation for a slightly older version of Lilypond than I have. Ahhhh[choir of angels singing]! Things are unsurprisingly much easier when you do things the program's designed to do.

I brought all my Tales From the Bean home on my last day of work (that's the Awfully Waffley version of Drawings From the Library), but my camera cord has gone the way of my entire acrylic paint collection (i.e. wayward), so I'll have to get a new one before I can post them. Or the guy I lent it to could return it. Either way. My "lending" stuff always turns into me buying a replacement.

VCM festival passes are still $99.

This site is hilarious, especially the testimonials.

Oh yes, I am phycic. And yes, I meant to say "phycic"... my Corner Gas DVDs are so far away :(

I love this remix of The Hand That Feeds! It makes me happy :)

I need a project. Something big that I can accomplish and feel proud of. Something other than vacuuming the house. Like, taking a pile of broken clam shells, some twine, five staples, assorted ivy leaves... and building an authentic Stradivarius out of them or something. Or something realistic but equally rewarding.

Happy AIR Day

2007-05-17T14:51:00.000-07:00

HAPPY AIR DAY! It's also Trent Reznor's birthday. Actually, it's AIR day because it's Trent's birthday.

Q. What is this AIR thing anyway?
A. It stands for Art Is Resistance.

Q. What is it resisting?
A. Apathy in general. Anything you want, in particular. (That site is fairly new, not sure how great it will turn out, but it's a start, it's not unwieldily full of info that people are likely to skip over, and it links to some other good sites.)

It's been quite a while since I last posted... lots has changed since then.

1. Work: last Sunday was my last day at the Awfully Waffley. I left on good terms, surprisingly. Xetch was not so lucky, and actually got fired for no reason (is that even legal?). Mrs. Cuttlebort said the nicest thing anyone could possibly say to me: "I will miss you." I'll miss her too.

2. Analysis: last Saturday was my exam. I was the only one writing it, so I was in a room full of noisy little kids writing Rudiments. Thankfully they left after an hour. My exam envelope was roughly 35x thicker than theirs. The exam itself was pretty lengthy, and they had way too much harmonic analysis on it—the hard kind, too, where the chord changes every bloody eighth-note, with French sixths and all kinds of C.T. chords and what appeared to be cluster chords in a freaking Beethoven sonata. Oh Beethoven, my bane and my hero. Sonata analysis is time-consuming enough without having to symbolize the entire introduction. The exam wasn't overly tough, just tiiiime-consuming, and requiring fast and furious cogitation. I rushed like mad the entire 3 hours and, not only did I have NO time to look anything over at the end, I didn't have time to peruse the fugue and sonata in search of some 1-mark answers. I was sorely tempted to write "this question is dumb" on the 20th-c section, but left it blank instead. Goodbye, anticipated 90s.

3. ARCT: my half-hour Analysis lesson has morphed into three classes. In one half hour. Two of those being ARCT classes, and ARCT being "more work than a Master's but less than a PhD." One class is History 5, the single remaining theory exam I need to take in order to get an ARCT in voice performance. I'll do most of that on my own and maybe even get the exam out of the way in August. The ARCT courses are Orchestration I and Baroque Counterpoint & Analysis I. I am going to love Orchestration! Though, I know he doesn't teach during the summer, so I don't know what will happen with this... maybe wait until the fall, maybe put it off a year while I do the English interlude. But the ARCT is my life's purpose (found it!)... I don't want to put it off.

4. University: Officially starting in September. They've admitted; I've accepted; it's all settled. Which means, come September I will be working on two master's-level degrees simultaneously. Won't I be quite the educated one when all this is finished? I'm hoping I'll be far too busy to wallow in loneliness next year, though I could just as easily be far too busy wallowing and obsessing to do homework.

5. Composing: my first-ever choral piece only made it to quarter-final status in the competition I submitted it to, which is still something to be happy about I guess. I've got 2 variations to go on my string quartet, so I could realistically finish it by the June 1 deadline, though it will be far less polished than I should like. And god damn Lilypond; I spend hours writing the variation and then typing in the PERFECTLY GOOD code in Lilypond, and it spits out this, and I have to spend another hour going through the bloody thing and tweaking. This was by far the most extreme example, though, and at least it actually makes the score rather than saying "I can't do it! You must fix it first!" so I can see where it went awry.

6. Writing: having a few articles under my belt has translated into a raise to 15¢/word, which doesn't sound like much but is 50% more than last time. I only took on one article this time, which needs to have been approved by the interviewee, edited, and in to the magazine by the end of May. Oh, and yet another magazine rejected my poetry. I guess the world is just not ready for rhyme schemes involving mathematical symbols.

7. Random Facts:

I have a sudden and strange desire to play croquet

I need to take T'ai Chi, or Chai Tea, or something relaxing. I'm getting way too uptight and snappy and anxious and whatnot. Trying harder.

I'm rattling around in an empty house for a few days, and pretty much at loose ends as to what to do with myself.

the killer tortoise. titter titter... I was waiting for it to eat the cat's face off.

You know Harry Potter is big when it has its own entire tab on the Chapters website.

Megan Nell --

[noun]:

A poltergeist sent back in time to change the course of history forever

How will you be defined in the dictionary?

typing this instead of being at work

2007-05-04T11:29:00.000-07:00

I called in sick for the first time today. Actually, I didn't call in, I made my miserable way to the store, looked green for a while, and then asked politely if I could go home. I didn't think I'd make the bus ride home. So glad for the day off, because the next two days will be grueling. How I'd love to request all weekends off for the next month. I already booked next weekend off for my exam, so maybe that will fix the glitch in the schedule that currently has me working EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND CLOSING SHIFT.

I've finally gotten around to playing with the Year Zero garageband files. Besides stripping away the vocals to varying degrees upon request by macless ETSers (strange... people don't like Trent's voice?) I made a very brief remix of My Violent Heart and a decent mashup of Zero Sum.

But further fiddling must wait, because the VCM composers' competition is fast approaching its deadline.

I dyed my hair a little bit again, this time bright red (but just part of it) and yellow. Needs more yellow.

I got good news on the Composition/Theory deal, and will hopefully be starting Baroque and Orchestration (or more likely one of those) next fall, when I also start my Master's. Violin lessons for the summer are also a go, though Mr. Brown sometimes has derisive comments about the Susuki method going on next door during my lesson. Mr. Brown's so awesome.

But what's really awesome is that I snagged an all-access pass to the music festival on the day before the price doubled. So, for a mere $99 I get to go to lectures, masterclasses, and concerts every day for nearly 2 months! <sarcasm>Unfortunately</sarcasm>, this means I must quit my job, which I plan on doing at the beginning of June.

p.s. May the fourth be with you

impeaching season

2007-05-02T16:30:00.000-07:00

Everyone should call this number right now and say that you support the impeachment of Bush/Cheney: 1.202.225.0100. Maybe do it twice. Or thrice. It's anonymous, you don't need to be American, and it's legit. Nancy Pelosi (Speaker for House of Representatives) is hosting a phone survey to gauge public support for it.

Reasons to Impeach the President

A much more restrained post than originally planned

2007-04-29T23:56:00.000-07:00

We went to Don Giovanni yesterday, the "greatest opera ever written" according to some. I'm inclined to disagree; it was pretty good, but there are a lot of pretty good operas out there (probably).

I've been getting terribly irritated and angry at just about everything lately (especially ties, people with babies on the bus, the bus, hot panini, my alarm clock, the sun glaring into the bar, the rain in general, the cold, work people... I've got a whole angry post about it all but am not about to post it. But I get the next couple days off work so it's all good for now.

I haven't had anything to do with music for three weeks. That's another thing I'm unwontedly angry and irritated about, though it's entirely my own fault. I don't mind not doing Analysis homework, but I want to be composing, playing piano, transcribing music (oh so angry), learning new instruments, attending lectures and masterclasses. Instead I tend to fall asleep after work. And my exam is in less than 2 weeks. And I haven't had a lesson in 3.

I'm now officially going to do my Master's here in September.

Well look at that, I'm on the Subversive Network #2 (24.24.2.1631)... and apparently deceased.

Question of the Week

2007-04-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

At the bottom of the "Things We Desperately Need" chalkboard at work is the "Question of the Week." It used to simply pit two characters against each other, who wouldn't normally be in a dueling situation, so to speak. Like Elmer Fudd vs Fred Flinstone. Old School Ozzy Osbourne vs Old School Alice Cooper. A buffalo with a shark tied to its back vs an eagle clutching a crocodile. At least, there used to be a question of the week, back when there used to be a manager who invented the concept and devised the questions. In recent weeks, the Question of the Day has remained blank.

The owner's mother now works at the new store. She is the one whom all us old-school employees trained with. Somehow, she manages to instill the strictest sense of loyalty and discipline just by being present. You address her as Mrs. K——. You do what she says. I've actually bowed to her on occasion. Seriously, bowed; subtly, yet undeniably. She sometimes struggles with English, but if you even think about sneaking a look to a coworker for a little translation aid, you're doomed. I love her to bits.

I was cutting up a baguette the other day, after being enlisted to do so by Mrs. K——, except we don't refer to her as Mrs. K—— unless we're actually talking to her. Let's pretend her name is Judy. There is one other fulltime employee who, along with me, is the last surviving member of our particular training group. Work is terribly dull, long, and tiresome when he's not there, but an endless series of jokes (practical and otherwise) and laughing when he is. "Do you understand the desire to break things into the smallest possible pieces and stuff them into cups?" he asked, glancing over from where he stood rinsing dishes two feet away. Actually, I do. Luther. I replied in the negative. "What are you doing?" "I was told to do this," I replied. There was no need to specify who had told me to do so. "If someone told you to... eat whatever's in this sink drain," he said, fitting gestures to words, "would you do it?" That's an easy question. "If Judy told you to eat it, would you?" I hesitated for a full 10 seconds before honestly saying, "I don't know."

It's not written on the chalkboard, nor is likely to ever be. But, the best question of the week to date is, "What wouldn't you do for Judy?"

musicless

2007-04-23T20:45:00.000-07:00

Gosh, this is the second week in a row that my Analysis class is canceled. Analysis is the one regular thing in my schedule these days, and it's also one of the most calming things in my schedule. I'm going to start on a new composition; it's been too long. It's also been far too long since I've even seen a piano, much less played one. ...actually, I just saw ~20 pianos in the music store the other day... but that doesn't really count.

It's harder to walk up the hill to the bus stop when it's sunny out, like today. I just feel like lying down on the grass and dozing. I'm thinking, blue next, soon.

Wake up and give a shit

2007-04-23T17:22:00.000-07:00

AAAAHHHHH!!!! no WAY! Why on earth would you sell that??? Some of those contained cell phones, and last Wednesday the lucky people who got those cellphones experienced this. That is so freaking, freaking awesome; I severely wish that I were part of it. Although, it seems to me that it would be all too easy for some crazy fanatics to turn this into something nasty. All those people who went to the surprise concert signed waivers and gave up all forms of communication with the outside world. I guess people are willing to go pretty deep into this. Open Source Resistance describes it thusly:

On April 18, 2007, Open Source Resistance hosted a gathering in LA. Musicians, artists, and ordinary people gathered in support of a simple message: speak up to defend the things that matter to you. The concert planned to end the evening was broken up by police.

If They stop you from speaking, they’re killing freedom. If you just can’t be bothered to speak, freedom will
die just the same.

Wake up and give a shit.

Year Zero has every potential to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, if only because of fanatics. Not that that's bad; I'm a fanatic myself. I think the line between the ARG and reality is blurring. I mean, have you seen all those AIR posters plastered everywhere? (I haven't; I wish I had.) Look at this:
(I swiped that from an ETS thread.) That's the tv tower at Alexanderplatz! In Berlin! And that's just one example. You should also check out the artwork that people have submitted to OSR, here. I notice a lot of them say things like "you have a voice; use it." I don't really believe this. I've never felt as though I had a voice, at least not as an individual. Individuals don't have voices; it's only when we band together that it makes a difference. Or maybe I'm wrong. I hope so.

Happy Earth Day

2007-04-22T23:17:00.000-07:00

Oops, apparently today was Earth Day. I celebrated Earth Day by working an 8.5-hour-shift and then eating some crackers. I don't go to Starbucks anymore, I just sit in a corner at the Awfully Waffley and read Pickwick.

Fun Fact: UVic's English Grad Studies department has ~80% SSHRC students this year, or something crazy like that. The Graduate Chair is trying to entice me by saying it's "the most lucrative department in Canada" and by adding another thousand to my fellowship. I'll be meeting with him on Tuesday, to "discuss" things like "funding" and "research." I expect their idea of research is translating old moldy Latin or (much worse) Anglo Saxon. I'm still undecided on this whole grad studies dl.

(almost) all about work

2007-04-18T18:25:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was a great day at work. I poured a near-perfect rosette; wish I'd had a camera. Haven't so much as practiced with water since then, though. I'm starting to get a barista hand; all that remains is to get espresso grounds permanently worked into the cracks.

But the really great part, which was even more of a personal triumph than the rosette, was when The Frail started playing on the ipod, though I was the only person in the store who could hear it since I was lounging right in front of the only speaker (the sound system having been previously croasted at the staff party). I got all excited and incredulous at that first chord (for a generally deaf person, I pick up some things pretty quick), and started babbling at my coworker [who had never listened to NIN before :0] about Year Zero, which, I might add, is express-posting itself to me as we speak!

The owner is away on a 3-day holiday, which means his brother is acting in his stead, which means I got to listen to Radiohead all morning. So much better than the Verve Remixed, though that returned in the afternoon.

I think the Awfully Waffley's suspicious about where I go on my breaks. The owner remarked that I always look like I'm going to a top-secret location. My co asked me where I ate lunch, and I (truthfully) told him I don't really eat lunch. I think of a muffin more as second breakfast than a lunch. Today the Starbucks people called me a traitor, but they're pretty proud that I go there. Yesterday they asked me if I needed more hours, and if I'd come work there too. I don't dare tell them that I'm the supervisor.

I'm hatching a plan to get the screever to come draw on our walls... I don't think it'll go down too well, even though he's an incredible artist.

The VCM is having a 55-day, first-ever, annual music festival. So many great masterclasses; I wish I were taking an instrument. Hopefully I can take violin lessons this summer.

My online grad studies application still says "refused" :( I'd really like them to change that soon.

Breathing easier

2007-04-16T16:49:00.000-07:00

This weekend was terribly stressful, but things are starting to get ironed out now.

UVic initially refused my application(!), which worried me all week. But then I told them that must be a mistake, and they agreed that it must be, and would I please do my Master's there if they gave me $4000 on top of my SSHRC. The Master's program there will only take 12 months to do (it's course-based), so maybe I can look forward to doing my ARCT sooner than expected. But, I should really become semi-proficient in Anglo Saxon and Latin before September.

Work is getting crazy. Due to some political maneuvers and fatal errors, the ex-manager is now banished to the old store. This means I have been thrown into baristaing. It may also mean they will need me during the week rather than on weekends, which suits me just fine. But, for some reason I've been sliding steeply downward in all areas at work, and am no longer good at anything. It's very embarrassing.

Analysis exam is fast approaching.

I think I'm going deaf. Or maybe my hearing is too sensitive. One of the two.
- Deafness: I can't hear what anybody says most of the time, which has caused me to pretty much be under order-taking-probation as of yesterday, which means I get severe flac(k) whenever I ring in drinks wrong. It would help immensely if people didn't have accents. I mean, if you ask me for "skeeeem meeelk," is it any wonder I give you steamed milk?
- Sensitivity: I haven't been able to steam milk into proper microfoam consistency at all lately, because I can't tell when it "sounds" the right consistency. It's not the deafness, this time, it's quite the opposite. The owner keeps telling me that you can tell the milk is right when you hear the pitch change. Then, when he's demonstrating, he stops it at a certain point and says "there, did you hear the pitch change just then?" Actually, I hear the pitch changing the entire time. It doesn't just suddenly drop a pitch, it's a continual downward glissando from the moment you stop chirping. Like, beeeeeaaaaaaauuuuuuuoooooooooo-p, except much longer.

Anyway, all of this has sucked out any fun that was ever in work, and I'm afraid to do anything other than grill panini there. Although, I did make a London Fog for someone who said it was "the best London Fog [she'd] ever had."

I'm glad I got accepted to UVic, but that won't make September any easier.

Waiting (probably until Year Zero rolls around)

2007-04-09T23:19:00.001-07:00

What is frustrating? This and this, and there's nothing to do about either except wait.

I'm on 5-day weekend until Wednesday, after which time I'll be training on weekends.

Year Zero makes me want to write a book like 1984, except set in the present. Maybe they'll let me put my SSHRC towards comparing dystopian literature/media; that would be awesome. All these great ideas I have just happen to be already done or in progress. The writer in me marvels at the creative genius behind this; I mean, all these clues that nobody knows what they're about have some place in the world of Year Zero, and will come to light in their proper place. It's like a novel that's currently going on, in real life, and that elapses at the same rate that we do. But much more involved and intriguing.

The Road to Baristaship

2007-04-06T23:55:00.001-07:00

I was trying to stay out of the Year Zero conspiracy (or whatever you call it). At first I thought it was probably stupid, just a marketing scheme or something and definite time-waster; then I thought it looked pretty interesting but still would require a lot of time to catch up on. But now I've finally listened to the album (which I LOVE and will probably keep on an endless loop for a long time) and perused some of the websites, and it's definitely awesome, creepy, and yes, it will take me weeks to catch up and explore everything that's been discovered so far, not to mention everything that isn't yet well understood or is still to come. If dystopian worlds interest you, you should check it out. The whole thing makes me feel slightly sick, though; I always get confused when I get caught up in dystopian worlds, and start thinking the real world is actually kind of like that, and get all anxious and worried. Same thing happened after I read 1984 and watched V for Vendetta.

The rest of this post is part of what I was going to post yesterday:

Bah crap, today has been a pretty horrid day. First off it took 2 rounds to get rid of a worser sort of migraine, which probably made me look like I was totally stoned at work, which is probably why the owner asked me if I was bored with my duties ("You look like you're bored") and wouldn't I like to try something else? How about culinary? No? Barista, then. We need a weekend barista, so why don't they just go ahead and schedule me in for next weekend, and I can feel free to come on my own time to practice.

Oh, but I forgot the first two parts, where I got in trouble first for using the wrong coat hanger, and second for stacking two identical dish covers.

Two hours of steaming milk. Two hours, I tell you, in which I went through roughly 8 litres of milk in the pursuit of perfectly concocted microfoam. So frustrating at first, because it all turned out the same, and it always looked the same to me, but it was too thick, or too thin, or my "vortex was too violent", but I had to "ok, try again" time after time until the end of my shift.

At any rate, apparently I've mastered 2% and skim microfoam on my first day, whoopdido. All I was able/allowed to turn out were one chai latte ("that last one was much too thick... oh look, there's an order for a chai latte; that needs to be thicker, so try to remember what you did last time and do it again") and some skim microfoam for a latte (which someone else poured). And brought on the second half of the migraine. The right side doesn't make me quite so nauseous, but it does make everything between my eyebrow and chin go numb.

So why was I thrown into barista traineeship in the first place? It's rather comical. The owner has been hinting for a few weeks that I should have a meeting with him to decide where my future with the Awfully Waffley should lie. Today he kind of tricked me into suggesting an answer (I said something to the effect that I'd much rather be a barista than build saucy cold potatoes all day) and proclaimed that I would henceforth train to be the weekend head barista manager person. Well, I don't want to work weekends, blast it all. Plus, the girl who started with me has been training to be weekend barista for over a week now. I said, well she really wants to be barista, I know, so why don't I try something else? That's not on weekends? He said, well, I think it would be good to have a little competition, to see who will become weekend barista fastest, plus she's a student and won't always be available on weekends. I said, oh ok, but I'd like to sit down and talk with you sometime anyway, about my future here. He said, no, we'll try you as barista, it's a good skill to have anyway, and if you decide it's not for you you can try something else after.

I'll give it a week, or maybe a little more, then break the news to him that I shall also soon be a student who is required not to take full-time employment. And that I will definitely not be working weekends while I'm a student. And might not even be here anymore by then anyway. And that I wasn't bored, I was just having a bad day. And if my weeriness is well-founded, medical concerns will force me to not be a barista. The steaming makes my eye pound and temple throb; I also can't handle the caffeine involved in the job. A barista has to keep tasting the shots every day to make the necessary adjustments. "You're not a coffee drinker, are you? You'll have to start tasting the espresso." It all tastes the same to me anyway (bad; like alcohol which tastes bad no matter what the drink is but you just have to pour it down your throat so as to avoid the tastebuds, that's why people always laugh at me for guzzling drinks so quickly). How should I know if it's sour, or if the shot was 4 seconds too long, or whatever?

The only good part of the day was when my nemesis trainee came in and asked me if I would take her Sunday shift. I have never been so firm or unhesitating as when I replied "NO." And my muffin at Starbucks was pretty awesome.

More Wednesday Medley-ing

2007-04-04T15:52:00.000-07:00

I don't know what's worse: the consistency of cold potatoes; cold potatoes that are coated in sauce; being obliged to forgo one's daily Starbucks ritual in order to stay and "try" a heaping helping of cold potatoes coated in sauce, or; being obliged to praise said cold potatoes coated in sauce. I guess it would be good if one liked potato salad. I couldn't quite bring myself to finish them. Don't you just hate chewing and chewing on something you really don't want to swallow? But the Atlantic salmon grilled in lime juice and coated in basil, crab, and shrimp was delicious. The owner had concocted a variety of new lunch items, and insisted that I stay and try them all for lunch. Woot for free lunch!

He also insisted that I crack down on lousy newbies. If I weren't weery of being hated (even more) by all the new people, I'd have a lot of tongue-lashing to do. I have an unfortunate habit of smiling excessively when I tell people to do some blasted work for a change (or that they're doing things wrong), usually just to make it seem like I'm cool with their negligence. I'm pretty certain that I could get away with being harsh if English wasn't my first language, because then I could at least pretend that I don't know how to word criticisms in any nicer a way. I wish I had adopted a German accent from the very start. "Vaht you are doing? You may not stop for a beeah! You must vork at all times." Everybody likes to stand around chatting and laughing all the time, while I clench my teeth and place silent hexes on them as I clean up the mess they leave even though there's a sign that clearly says "Clean yer slab or yer scrubbin' the grill." Right by the "Thar be pitchers that need a-washin', yo ho." Yep, it's almost universally pirate-themed, except for the coffee maker instructions which are Star Wars-themed. But about the accent: I could be harsh with a German accent. Nobody expects smiles and niceties from a Goerman.

Tangentially-Related Sidenote:

Doesn't matter if you sing out of tune,
So long as you're German;
Doesn't matter if you can hardly croon,
So long as you're German;
So if you haven't got a note in your head,
Put on a silly accent instead,
And people will stop wishing you were dead—So long as you're German.

Doesn't matter if the notes are all wrong
And people are squirmin',
Just make the tune up as you go along;
Pretend you're German;
And if your voice sounds like it's coming through a strainer,
Sing it out of synch, like Marlene;
And soon you'll be compared to Lotte Lenya
Who was German.

Nich hin auf slene sprech gesang Zauberflöte wunderbar Johnny!
Viener Schnitzel Bundesbank Helmut Kohl Eurostar Johnny!

So, if you ever wonder what you have to do
To sound like a Hun;
Just chain-smoke from the tender age of two;
That's how it's done;
And if the audience is all walking out,
Just make believe that you're a Kraut,
And open you're mouth and shout
In German.
In German.
In German.
Auf Deutsche.
Jawohl.

I saw that song performed at a musical theatre class in the Regina Festival once; it was so freaking awesome.

Back to DV: I'm so highly esteemed in the management, it's awesome. The old store wants me back quite badly, and it would sure mean less work for me if I did go back there. I think I'm also currently winning some sort of competition with the manager. That's just my (well-founded) opinion. I'll reserve details of the competition for new drawings, of which I have some great new ideas but am still lacking unlined paper.

I'm going to start saying "Welcome to the Vaguely Bagelly."

I can't believe how rude people can be. So very, very rude. Personal attacks, too. Gosh, it's just coffee; you wouldn't catch me drinking the stuff. Though I do drink entirely too much hot chocolate. It's probably time to do up some dieting :S

Analysis lessons have resumed. I'm almost ready to ace the exam, provided I can complete it in the necessary time.

Nothing to fear and nothing to doubt

2007-03-28T22:08:00.000-07:00

I jumped in the river and what did I see?
Black-eyed angels swam with me
A moon full of stars and astral cars
All the figures I used to see
All my lovers were there with me
All my past and future
And we all went to heaven in a little row boat
There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt

I jumped into the river
Black-eyed angels swam with me
A moon full of stars and astral cars
And all the figures I used to see
All my lovers were there with me
All my past and future
And we all went to heaven in a little row boat
There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt

There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt
There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt

—Radiohead Pyramid Song
aka my new favourite song. It's one of ~10 songs on a perpetual loop on the ipod at work. In my sleep-deprived state, I tear up a little (a lot actually) every time [see Wednesday Thoughts on Facebook]. Now that I know the words I love it even more. I've been informed that my future at work is wide open: I can be a cook, barista, weekend manager. The reason: because I'm "so awesome," in the owner's words. I'm tempted to go into management just so that I can control the ipod. That would be the awesomest perk imaginable. Details on Facebook.

I wish there was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt. Life seems to be headed toward infinite fear and doubt. The final path must soon be forged, and I'm afraid I'll fail (as usual) to make my dreams happen.

Where have all the weekends gone?

2007-03-24T19:59:00.001-07:00

Today was the Pacific Festival of the Book. I was supposed to be volunteering from 8:30—6:00, but I managed to duck out a little after 3:00. I need to stop being so flexible. "Sure, I can start volunteering any time that day, and I can stay as long as you need me!"

There were a few very interesting things at the festival. My favourite part was when Herman Melville (a.k.a. Roderick) was roving around the Lobby and came and entertained us at the Registration Table for a while. He also told us about I Spy Craigdarroch Castle, March 17—April 1. That's where you get to go sneak around Craigdarroch pretending you're a spy, possibly accompanied by a chimney sweep (though the webpage would indicate that there is in fact only one chimney sweep). I'm not too sure how that differs from what you regularly do at Craigdarroch (excepting the chimney sweep, of course, but I doubt it will be an authentic one anyway; probably won't be a speck of coal dust in sight).

I didn't get a chance to go to any of the workshops, which is too bad because there were some self-publishing workshops that I would have found highly interesting and potentially useful. I caught the end of a book-making demo, though, so now I'll be able to make some awesome chapbooks. Not like those crappy chapbooks that I can't even get rid of for free. I'm thinking that all my new chapbooks will be originals (like, each book is different in both architecture and content). Details at eleven. Wolves are making a comeback.

The most hilarious part of the festival was when some crazy lady took the open stage (she was one of the roving performers, I think) and yelled vowels into the microphone. Many of the exhibitors chose to take cigarette breaks at that time, and one lady came out of the room exaggeratedly plugging her ears. An Irish-accented guy kept having to come back to check if the vowel lady was gone before he returned to his exhibit ("She's not married, that's for sure. Otherwise she'd be dead.") That was during my 2-hour vigil in the empty hallway, guarding the door. I should have just gone to the festival as a civilian.

I hate closing shifts; they're a whole hour of manual labour, plus it seems to take me five times longer than everyone else to sweep or mop the place. I know why, too: I sweep it as though it's a granary. Far too meticulous. It's just a cafe, it's not like we're storing grain on the floor or anything. (I haven't taken that mandatory food safety course yet, by the way. It's probably an optional mandatory course.) I've discovered that pretty much nobody at the new store has a work ethic on par with me, which makes me secretly seethe a little whenever I see something that obviously needs to be done and the newbies just say "ho hum, I think I'll have a cup of coffee." (Back in my trainee days, we didn't dream of helping ourselves to free coffee.) There's really only one trainee who would last more than five minutes at the old store. As it is, the guy who trained with me almost got fired from the old store (he now has a raise ):< ). I think everybody should be trained there, because that's where weeding out and pruning seems to get done, if you know what I mean. I have one untrainable trainee right now, and I don't quite know what to do about it. She's untrainable in the sense that she ignores what I tell her, and even decided that she could grill a panino (fun fact: panini is a plural; panino is the singular) well enough on her second day on the job to train someone how to do it. I ended up getting to tell her, "Oh, by the way, whenever you ruin food like that, you need to put it in the kitchen with a note saying how it happened, with your name and the date." She also butchered the brand new grill that the owner was so adamant that we treat well. And, she touched the new espresso bar, the one that was handmade in Italy, the one that nobody but baristas are allowed near. The barista had to come stop the burst of steam that she set going. I have plenty of other complaints, but it's probably bad form to blog about work in the first place. We'll just pretend I've been talking about school, that's perfectly permissible.

Tomorrow I agreed (again, too readily) to pick up a shift someone canceled at the old store, so it's two solid weeks of early mornings and not enough downtime. Plus, I don't have Analysis this week, so not having a weekend today and tomorrow pretty much makes this a 12-day workweek for me.

I've decided that weekends will henceforth be Megan times. No more of this non-weekend, non-sleeping-in nonsense. After all, I'm pretty sure that two of my top three biggest regrets in life will end up being 1) not spending as much time as humanly possible with the people who matter most, and 2) not sleeping in nearly enough.

The purple haze in Hogwarts

2007-03-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

Boy, do I ever love Analysis class. The Conservatory looks like Hogwarts, and there's always a medley of music floating down from the windows. Perhaps some day I will teach in just such a conservatory, or at least sit in it and write music. Mr. Brown was playing Purple Haze on the piano to demonstrate chords. But then he said "You don't need me anymore," and that we'd only have a few more lessons :'( How tragic.

The new store opened almost on time yesterday, and the pace picked up some more today. My job is now much more like the ideal coffee-place job I had always envisioned, but training people really sucks. Mostly I tell them how to do something, then I show them how to do it, then I notice that they never do it or even check if it needs doing again, then I ask them to do it while I'm out on break, then I come back and do it myself instead. I had to cover up for so many mistakes and general negligences today that by the time I left I felt like the grumpy snappy lady who occasionally takes my bus. I also hate closing; today was the first time I had ever been there for closing, and did one heck of a lot of mopping. The day also felt 5 hours longer than usual. I much prefer interacting with customers (shockingly!). The new store is extremely beautiful, and I like it a lot, but I acutely miss working with the old-store crew.

Prescription: 1 Caramel Frappucino

2007-03-19T22:53:00.001-07:00

The grand opening is now set for Wednesday, and as of today I am the new supervisor (woot phoot). Of the entire staff in the new store, I am older than everybody except the owner and the manager. I also kicked a migraine using only scones, pineapple, and a caramel frappucino (because I wasted my last migraine-stopper on a regular headache, blast it all), plus I will get paid for orientation as well as my regular shift today; it's been a decent day all round. And to top it all off... I don't have to wake up tomorrow morning! Phootacular.

The new store has ample wallspace, so the management is proposing to use it to showcase local art. If I had my paints, I'd claim a wall tomorrow. I think there's enough room for a baby grand, but I doubt if anyone else would agree.

There would be new drawings now if I had any more paper, but they will have to wait.

The rural horror brewery

2007-03-18T19:48:00.001-07:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day from yesterday! There seem to be so many days to celebrate recently. Yesterday also happened to be my great uncle & aunt's 62nd anniversary, so we had a small gathering for that at my first cousin twice removed's place (I don't know what removed means, but it sounds neat so that's what I call her). Their house is so awesome, it's a heritage home built in 1913-14 and almost everything in it dates from that era, or is at least antique-y. It's like a museum where you're allowed to sit in the furniture, play with the grammophone, and touch things! And dining feels like High Tea at the Gatsby. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't touch things, but their cats have been known to sharpen their claws on the rugs and vinyl records and spray the bronze statues.

Between Thai food there (food poisoning?), and perhaps a touch too many refreshments for St. Paddy's day in the evening elsewhere (hangover :S), I've been feeling terribly ill all day. The only time I've ever felt worse is when I had a 48-hour stomach flu in university; I foolishly tried to go to class and it ended up taking me 2 hours to get back to Luther from the Ad Hum building, mostly because I had to stop and take a nap in the restrooms to build up strength for the next leg of the journey every so often. But then Jacenta took care of me so it was all good.

I had been waiting for St. Patrick's Day to roll around so that I could debunk it (kind of like my Lest We Forget rant) but I can't remember what that was all about, and the book that does know is back in Saskatchewan. Oh well, I'll just look forward to St. Swithin's Day instead.