-Four exams.
-86 pages of music.
-Lots of coffee.
-A proportional decrease in actual food intake.
-An exponentially related amount of sleep loss.
I've lost 8 lbs in the last 6 days.
...not that I'm complaining.
Feeling woozy,
-dubs
Friday, February 13, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Crimson Toes, Happy Faces, and... a Freudian Slip?
This morning, I was really good and made all my food for the day because on Mondays, I go nonstop from about 9AM to 10PM. For breakfast, cheese grits with turkey bacon and egg whites, green tea to drink. Lunch was going to be tuna on wheat with a side of lima beans and dinner was going to be chicken salad with raspberry vinaigrette. I had already prepared the tuna sandwich and the chicken for the salad by the time I'd realized something was horribly, horribly wrong.
My lettuce had expired.
Of course, my entire groove for the morning was thrown off- where would I get my starches and vegetables for the evening? How can I possibly claim to have three balanced meals today if I don't have salad? The catastrophe had thrust upon me a level of stress so great that it would have crushed the entirety of Washington D.C. from the weight of it had it been a physical entity and maliciously anti-American. Instead, it settled to allow searing hot water to splash onto my left foot (pain), forcing a very delayed jerk reaction that caused me to kick back into the refrigerator (more pain).
Despite having the world turn against me as if I had unflinchingly propositioned her ex-boyfriend who lives in New Hampshire so it would never work out in the first place, I had a stroke of genius. Why not just make it into a sandwich? So I did. And I had made way too many lima beans for just lunch, so I scooped half into my "dinner" tupperware.
Thirty minutes later, as I was putting on my socks, I found some dried blood on my foot from when I kicked the fridge, but I left it there because it kind of looked like Indian War Paint. In retrospect, that might have been gross.
Today has not been a good day, but I'm wearing my "Youbetchücan!" shirt from shirt woot and it's impossible to be unhappy wearing this:
Keeping the dream alive,
-dubs
My lettuce had expired.
Of course, my entire groove for the morning was thrown off- where would I get my starches and vegetables for the evening? How can I possibly claim to have three balanced meals today if I don't have salad? The catastrophe had thrust upon me a level of stress so great that it would have crushed the entirety of Washington D.C. from the weight of it had it been a physical entity and maliciously anti-American. Instead, it settled to allow searing hot water to splash onto my left foot (pain), forcing a very delayed jerk reaction that caused me to kick back into the refrigerator (more pain).
Despite having the world turn against me as if I had unflinchingly propositioned her ex-boyfriend who lives in New Hampshire so it would never work out in the first place, I had a stroke of genius. Why not just make it into a sandwich? So I did. And I had made way too many lima beans for just lunch, so I scooped half into my "dinner" tupperware.
Thirty minutes later, as I was putting on my socks, I found some dried blood on my foot from when I kicked the fridge, but I left it there because it kind of looked like Indian War Paint. In retrospect, that might have been gross.
Today has not been a good day, but I'm wearing my "Youbetchücan!" shirt from shirt woot and it's impossible to be unhappy wearing this:
Keeping the dream alive,
-dubs
Sunday, February 1, 2009
The Drunken City of Music and Collegiate Polytheism
I just took a sip of some super brassy green tea. (I picked up that little bit of lingo from a friend/Teavana sampler.) It just means I was dumb and let it steep too long. Noted.
The Savannah trip was a success. The choir sang better than it ever has before. Even including having to babysit a drunkard for the lot of Thursday night, I can't say I didn't have an awesome time.
I got the OK from the director to leave before everybody else (avoiding the dreaded Colquitt ordeal altogether) in order to get my I.D. card renewed Wednesday morning. It took 6 hours. Granted, it was 6 hours of me getting coordinate phone calls which is apparently something I secretly enjoy doing, and I got to test out some acting skills by being Mr. Pleasant towards the ladies at I.D. Services and GSU's Office of the Registrar when really, deep down inside they were giving me ulcers in every significant section of my digestive tract from stress. We finally got everything straightened out and I was permitted to take a new I.D. photo. I look like an obese child molester (that is, an obese man who molests children as opposed to a man who molests obese children) because they had the contrast set waaaaay too high and every shadow extends about three feet beyond its natural jurisdiction.
I'm already laughing about it. (Ha. Ha. Haaaaaa.)
Thursday's concert went really well. There were four really cute guys in the center of the 6th row and I wanted to pour acid on their faces for being so beautiful when I couldn't appropriately check them out because A) I was supposed to be looking at the conductor and B) my parents were there and they are bigger attention whores than I am, so-help-me-God-if-I'm-not-waving-to-them-with-my-eyebrows-every-time-I-get-a-free-moment.
After the concert, a few people went to local bars. I joined them at about 1AM, sybarite that I am, and drank what in retrospect was too much to drink for how quickly I drank it. Sure, I can handle a few shots of 151, an Irish Car Bomb, and a couple of Liquid Cocaines; unfortunately, I cannot handle 5 heavy shots of liquor and a chug drink in forty-seven minutes. At least I was completely aware of my surroundings and retained full memory of the night, I just had a really difficult time walking around and pronouncing more than three words per ten seconds correctly.
Not like W.O. He went into a narcoleptic stupor. I'd never seen a narcoleptic stupor before. W.O. and I had joined a few strangers at a table for no better reason than they had beckoned for our company and while we were talking, I heard a tremendous thud. I looked around for the source of the sound but could not find it until I realized that something should have been blocking my view. Something around the shape and size of W.O., which I found on the floor of the bar, thoroughly unconscious.
W.O. is underage.
A few companions and I hoisted him up on our shoulders, prepared to carry him back to the hotel, praying to any merciful higher power (Drunk College Kid God?) that nobody would notice us. And W.O. woke up.
"Whauhtghg sooo colldd and wheignadstidd..guh?" he sputtered. Being equally as drunk but without a chronic sleep habit, I experienced this dialogue a bit differently.
"Why are we outside?" he inquired.
"Yosau'rree junnnkkkaa frukaa, annnuuhheed. Oh-TELLmmm, warrddrrrbriihds," I responded in as much of a matter-of-fact tone I could muster. ("You're a drunk motherfucker and need to get back to the hotel for some water and bread.")
And then he went unconscious again. He woke up in time to make it up the stairs, then collapsed. Up. Down. Up. Down. His caretaker, the beautiful and generously-chested Z.H., was doing her best not to seem as opprobrious as she was feeling and managed to nurse him to sleep. I slept on a chair and woke up on the floor with a bruised knee.
Around 11AM, I'd just finished packing, I realized that 1) the choir had already checked out and that 2) I was severely hungover. I called my parents to let them know I would not be home until 3PM ("The choir's still here and decided they all want to grab lunch before they leave so I want to go with them!") and slept it off. I went home with a bloodshot eye, nasty smelling clothes, and a megalith of a headache, but at least now I could eat food and drink Gatorade. By 5PM, I'd gotten rid of most of the hangover and prepared myself for the piano recital.
My mother and I arrived at the convention center at about 6:20PM, just enough time for me to get in there and warm up. Yamaha. Stiff keys, very bottom-register heavy, no real difference with the soft pedal; still a decent piano. I looked at the program and realized I was the closing performer in a recital presenting 27 winners and was suddenly very nervous for the first time in years about performing publicly. If there is one thing that I have never been satisfied by with my piece, it has been the ending, and it's often because I butcher literally the last four measures. They're all really dramatic, vulnerable notes, and I've never gotten the accuracy or the sound integrity I've wanted and everyone would hate me if I screwed up their final impressions of a two-hour long piano recital.
So, while I watched everyone play, I fed my carpal tunnel syndrome by incessantly twiddling my thumbs. My hands were sweating so profusely that I had to stop wiping them on my pants because it was making a noticeably wet spot. Some kid in 9th grade went and played a song I thought sounded harder than mine. Then some kid in 11th grade played something that was much harder than my piece. Why why why why why. One of my colleagues went up and played beautifully. The other followed her act with just as much grace and beauty.
And then it was my turn. And I'd been sitting down for two hours and my hands were no longer warmed up. And now I had to close the show. Maurice Ravel, Alborada del Gracioso, here I go.
Thoughts: The beginning. I'm so nervous I'm going to play too fast or too slow that I force myself to auralize the first four measures before I allow myself to play. 1,, 2,, 1,, 2,, 1,, 2,, 1,, 2,,- GO. Shit, too loud too loud, bring it down. No, it'll sound lame, wait for the decrescendo coming up in two measures. There. Quit speeding up, tap your foot, keep yourself in control. Oh shit oh shit, the first run, don't screw this updon'tscrewitupdon'tscre.... dammit. Keep going. Gather yourself. DAMMIT. I always mess that part up why don't I ever fix it augh. Slow down. Quiet. quiet. quiet. annnnnnnnd EXPLODE. YES. NAILED IT. QUIT THINKING SO MUCH.
Music.
Oh thank you Jesus, the cadenza. Relax. Just, make it sound Spanish. Picture Carlos plucking at the strings of a guitar while riding on a white stallion- trotting through shallow waves. Put in a little breeze and take off his shirt annnnnnd perfect. If this doesn't sound authentically ethnic, I don't know what does. Quit humming idiot, the audience will hear you and you are NOT a Glenn Gould. Just breathe and listen to what's coming out of the piano... just a deeep... breath... in... and...
Ahhhhhh.
Fuck, it's the coda. Alright, take it slow. Slow-ly. Just because you're in your own head doesn't mean you get to sacrifice grammar. Remember your practice with E.M. She said it sounded better when you put an ebb and flow on it and you liked it better that way anyways. Alright, you always, always mess up here... just slow down tastefully and no one will know that you just can't do it up to tempo. YES. MADE IT. ALRIGHT. GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO! FOUR MORE MEASURES! E.M. counted this for me, two on three, come on, YES! Alright cheat here, play an octave, it's safer that way... NICE. Just this one lassssst chord. FUCK. WRONG POSITION ABORT. FAIL. Hurry, just fix it! YES! STILL IN TIME! AHHHHHHHH-----
Applause. And suddenly, I feel like a music major again.
It was easily the best performance I'd ever had of that piece and, as it's the most difficult piece in my rep so far, my best performance, ever. It's time to show everyone that yes, I'm capable of being extremely musical, and it's time to give myself the courage to believe that I deserve to do so without crossing that tiny line that separates confidence from cockiness. So, on to more projects and competitions- on to a new line of work ethic and progress the likes of which I haven't seen for a good three years of lazy college-dom. Thank you, Drunk College Kid God for your supervision, wisdom, and for introducing me to Overachieving Manic Person God, with whom I hope to become well acquainted with the passing of each day.
Dear blog,
I'm a neurotic little spaz. I really do try to focus on living in the moment and enjoying every bit of conscious life I'm granted, my mind just takes over every now and then and I can't help it that I overanalyze and just think too much in general. I never mean to be insecure or bitchy, they're just reflections of passing thoughts, vulnerable or judgmental as they may be, I'm just trying to illustrate myself as it happens as truthfully as I can remember it. Please, please don't hate me.
Yours always,
-dubs
The Savannah trip was a success. The choir sang better than it ever has before. Even including having to babysit a drunkard for the lot of Thursday night, I can't say I didn't have an awesome time.
I got the OK from the director to leave before everybody else (avoiding the dreaded Colquitt ordeal altogether) in order to get my I.D. card renewed Wednesday morning. It took 6 hours. Granted, it was 6 hours of me getting coordinate phone calls which is apparently something I secretly enjoy doing, and I got to test out some acting skills by being Mr. Pleasant towards the ladies at I.D. Services and GSU's Office of the Registrar when really, deep down inside they were giving me ulcers in every significant section of my digestive tract from stress. We finally got everything straightened out and I was permitted to take a new I.D. photo. I look like an obese child molester (that is, an obese man who molests children as opposed to a man who molests obese children) because they had the contrast set waaaaay too high and every shadow extends about three feet beyond its natural jurisdiction.
I'm already laughing about it. (Ha. Ha. Haaaaaa.)
Thursday's concert went really well. There were four really cute guys in the center of the 6th row and I wanted to pour acid on their faces for being so beautiful when I couldn't appropriately check them out because A) I was supposed to be looking at the conductor and B) my parents were there and they are bigger attention whores than I am, so-help-me-God-if-I'm-not-waving-to-them-with-my-eyebrows-every-time-I-get-a-free-moment.
After the concert, a few people went to local bars. I joined them at about 1AM, sybarite that I am, and drank what in retrospect was too much to drink for how quickly I drank it. Sure, I can handle a few shots of 151, an Irish Car Bomb, and a couple of Liquid Cocaines; unfortunately, I cannot handle 5 heavy shots of liquor and a chug drink in forty-seven minutes. At least I was completely aware of my surroundings and retained full memory of the night, I just had a really difficult time walking around and pronouncing more than three words per ten seconds correctly.
Not like W.O. He went into a narcoleptic stupor. I'd never seen a narcoleptic stupor before. W.O. and I had joined a few strangers at a table for no better reason than they had beckoned for our company and while we were talking, I heard a tremendous thud. I looked around for the source of the sound but could not find it until I realized that something should have been blocking my view. Something around the shape and size of W.O., which I found on the floor of the bar, thoroughly unconscious.
W.O. is underage.
A few companions and I hoisted him up on our shoulders, prepared to carry him back to the hotel, praying to any merciful higher power (Drunk College Kid God?) that nobody would notice us. And W.O. woke up.
"Whauhtghg sooo colldd and wheignadstidd..guh?" he sputtered. Being equally as drunk but without a chronic sleep habit, I experienced this dialogue a bit differently.
"Why are we outside?" he inquired.
"Yosau'rree junnnkkkaa frukaa, annnuuhheed. Oh-TELLmmm, warrddrrrbriihds," I responded in as much of a matter-of-fact tone I could muster. ("You're a drunk motherfucker and need to get back to the hotel for some water and bread.")
And then he went unconscious again. He woke up in time to make it up the stairs, then collapsed. Up. Down. Up. Down. His caretaker, the beautiful and generously-chested Z.H., was doing her best not to seem as opprobrious as she was feeling and managed to nurse him to sleep. I slept on a chair and woke up on the floor with a bruised knee.
Around 11AM, I'd just finished packing, I realized that 1) the choir had already checked out and that 2) I was severely hungover. I called my parents to let them know I would not be home until 3PM ("The choir's still here and decided they all want to grab lunch before they leave so I want to go with them!") and slept it off. I went home with a bloodshot eye, nasty smelling clothes, and a megalith of a headache, but at least now I could eat food and drink Gatorade. By 5PM, I'd gotten rid of most of the hangover and prepared myself for the piano recital.
My mother and I arrived at the convention center at about 6:20PM, just enough time for me to get in there and warm up. Yamaha. Stiff keys, very bottom-register heavy, no real difference with the soft pedal; still a decent piano. I looked at the program and realized I was the closing performer in a recital presenting 27 winners and was suddenly very nervous for the first time in years about performing publicly. If there is one thing that I have never been satisfied by with my piece, it has been the ending, and it's often because I butcher literally the last four measures. They're all really dramatic, vulnerable notes, and I've never gotten the accuracy or the sound integrity I've wanted and everyone would hate me if I screwed up their final impressions of a two-hour long piano recital.
So, while I watched everyone play, I fed my carpal tunnel syndrome by incessantly twiddling my thumbs. My hands were sweating so profusely that I had to stop wiping them on my pants because it was making a noticeably wet spot. Some kid in 9th grade went and played a song I thought sounded harder than mine. Then some kid in 11th grade played something that was much harder than my piece. Why why why why why. One of my colleagues went up and played beautifully. The other followed her act with just as much grace and beauty.
And then it was my turn. And I'd been sitting down for two hours and my hands were no longer warmed up. And now I had to close the show. Maurice Ravel, Alborada del Gracioso, here I go.
Thoughts: The beginning. I'm so nervous I'm going to play too fast or too slow that I force myself to auralize the first four measures before I allow myself to play. 1,, 2,, 1,, 2,, 1,, 2,, 1,, 2,,- GO. Shit, too loud too loud, bring it down. No, it'll sound lame, wait for the decrescendo coming up in two measures. There. Quit speeding up, tap your foot, keep yourself in control. Oh shit oh shit, the first run, don't screw this updon'tscrewitupdon'tscre.... dammit. Keep going. Gather yourself. DAMMIT. I always mess that part up why don't I ever fix it augh. Slow down. Quiet. quiet. quiet. annnnnnnnd EXPLODE. YES. NAILED IT. QUIT THINKING SO MUCH.
Music.
Oh thank you Jesus, the cadenza. Relax. Just, make it sound Spanish. Picture Carlos plucking at the strings of a guitar while riding on a white stallion- trotting through shallow waves. Put in a little breeze and take off his shirt annnnnnd perfect. If this doesn't sound authentically ethnic, I don't know what does. Quit humming idiot, the audience will hear you and you are NOT a Glenn Gould. Just breathe and listen to what's coming out of the piano... just a deeep... breath... in... and...
Ahhhhhh.
Fuck, it's the coda. Alright, take it slow. Slow-ly. Just because you're in your own head doesn't mean you get to sacrifice grammar. Remember your practice with E.M. She said it sounded better when you put an ebb and flow on it and you liked it better that way anyways. Alright, you always, always mess up here... just slow down tastefully and no one will know that you just can't do it up to tempo. YES. MADE IT. ALRIGHT. GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO! FOUR MORE MEASURES! E.M. counted this for me, two on three, come on, YES! Alright cheat here, play an octave, it's safer that way... NICE. Just this one lassssst chord. FUCK. WRONG POSITION ABORT. FAIL. Hurry, just fix it! YES! STILL IN TIME! AHHHHHHHH-----
Applause. And suddenly, I feel like a music major again.
It was easily the best performance I'd ever had of that piece and, as it's the most difficult piece in my rep so far, my best performance, ever. It's time to show everyone that yes, I'm capable of being extremely musical, and it's time to give myself the courage to believe that I deserve to do so without crossing that tiny line that separates confidence from cockiness. So, on to more projects and competitions- on to a new line of work ethic and progress the likes of which I haven't seen for a good three years of lazy college-dom. Thank you, Drunk College Kid God for your supervision, wisdom, and for introducing me to Overachieving Manic Person God, with whom I hope to become well acquainted with the passing of each day.
Dear blog,
I'm a neurotic little spaz. I really do try to focus on living in the moment and enjoying every bit of conscious life I'm granted, my mind just takes over every now and then and I can't help it that I overanalyze and just think too much in general. I never mean to be insecure or bitchy, they're just reflections of passing thoughts, vulnerable or judgmental as they may be, I'm just trying to illustrate myself as it happens as truthfully as I can remember it. Please, please don't hate me.
Yours always,
-dubs
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