Swanee River

I find myself thinking throughout the day of so many good things to blog about, and then when I back to my room I get distracted or something and by the time I actually have time to sit down and type out an entry, I have no idea what to write anymore.I think that perhaps my best bet is to get in entries on wednesday and friday when I have time between EDU 107 and Quartet.

The second book of Otherland is already good, and I’m only on chapter 2. Monica and I were talking about reading at lunch, and we both wish we had more time for it.

crap, i got distracted again

*edit*

then i decided to come back and write some more

NO SHAVE NOVEMBER

In response to the multiple people inviting me to NO SHAVE NOVEMBER: If I were to not shave at all for an entire month, I think my face would be lost amongst all the hair growing on it, not to mention incredibly itchy… so no, I won’t participate in that.

The saxophone update

I started working on both 6 Rumanian dances and The Celtic, both of which I am supposed to play for Nichol at my next lesson. I really like both of them, perhaps because they are more folk-tune based than most… and I really like folk music (one thing I’ve learned about myself in the last year). Spectrum Sax quartet is doing well. We have MTNA coming up, and while we probably won’t come close to winning, we are all pretty excited about it, and getting new music after it is over

Fantastic Contraption

PLAY IT

http://fantasticcontraption.com/

brought to you from the MRC

Today I realized that I have another pet peeve.

My history midterm grade was 98, which was one question wrong, and the grade I got on the paper that was returned to us today in EDU today was 54/55. I really hate missing just one point. I would rather miss two points or none, there’s just something about having one wrong that irks me to no end.
Ok, today’s post is short because I need to warm up before my lesson.

I wonder if Dufay got to wear the pope hat.

Since my last post, I have had many nights that I really wanted to write something in here about my day, but knew that if i were to write it right then that it would have sounded all emo or whiny.

So here’s some updates.

Relationships

Things with Ryan have taken a step down in intensity, but in the long run that will be good. We still hang out about 4 or 5 nights a week and have a great time doing it. We’ve also taken to openly communicating about things, and this has really eased my mind quite a few times. We’ll see what happens to this in the future, but I think that no matter the outcome, it will prove to be positive.

Massive Migraine

So last week found me more often than not lying in my bed with a pillow over my eyes, or in quartet rehearsal with sunglasses on. Yay Migraines! It was perhaps the most intense on Monday and Tuesday and was still lingering up until about midday Thursday. Lots of excedrin kept me functional, which is always a good thing.

A short word about friends

I’ve come to realize just how much value i place in my friends up here. I really enjoy being around people such as Cassie, Kelsey, Jon, Greg, Jordan, Tracey, Liz, Ryan, Kristi, Monica, Charlie, and Jessi (and the list continues) (wow i actually did keep that short)

The Saxophone

I AM giving a recital next semester sometime. The literature on it will include Mai, the Mucyznski Sonata, Maybe the Cheetham Sonata, a Soprano piece, hopefully a duet with Jordan, and Spectrum Saxophone Quartet playing a piece.

A couple of things lately have been… negative (not the best word for it) regarding myself and professor nichol. The first instance of this was when he was talking in studio about how we at night should think about what we’ve done today to be a good person and to continue making progress in our art, and not about if we made it to the next level in a video game… then he said “right Jon?” and not only is that inaccurate about me, i think that even if it was accurate it is totally inappropriate.

Next, my lesson on monday was not one of my better ones, however it was far from being a bad lesson. The only things we did in my lesson were Minor scales, Mai, and Bach #42. Minor scales were going rather well until i skipped a note in G# minor, but really… until then and even after that, they were really pretty good. We worked a lot on movement during Mai and he kept complimenting my playing on it, and said that he liked some of the fingerings i was using better than the ones he showed me. Then with about 10 minutes left in the lesson we went to Bach (he asked me what i wanted to play and i picked it because i really was proud of the work i had done on this movement the past week and wanted to see what he thought of the articulations i chose for it). I got done with it, and it wasn’t the best peformance of it in the world, i did miss a couple of notes on the second page, but i thought that it was a decent play of it. He told me a couple of things afterward to watch out for style-wise, then we listened to a flutist playing it and then it was time to go.

The next morning in my email i get this: Jon,

You didn’t have a very good lesson, in that I thought you were sightreading again.  Why not practice and prepare a lesson?

J. Nichol
CMU

So this kind of hit me out of nowhere, and as such provided quite a crappy start to my day yesterday. Then in studio he lectured us on how some of us needed to practice more and kept looking at either myself or Andrea (we were sitting next to us and it was hard to tell) he pointed at me when he said that we can never be sightreading in our lessons and at liz about the 4th mvt of something, then asked if we all understood, we all shook our heads, he kept staring at me, and said nod if you understand, so i nodded and he kept looking at me… it was very unnerving. I just don’t see how he can honestly think that i was sightreading, and am quite confused on why he seems so mad at me at the moment.

Later Chelsea said that he mentioned me in her lesson and (i had cancelled my lesson the week before due to the migraine) told her that he thought i was faking a headache to skip my lesson.

I just don’t understand

‘Everybody was dancin in the moonlight’

It’s been interesting since my last entry, for sure.

Things still seem to be progressing with Ryan, even if we are taking things really slow. I started to overthink a few things, but within hours was disproven. So, yay for that.

I had a great time with Liz and Tracey this weekend, i hope that things like that continue to happen. Plus 42cents for 4 books is always good.

I feel like i should write something deep… but i don’t have anything at the moment, my life really has taken more of a philosophical turn (again) recently, but this entry is not reflecting that at all

well… maybe i’ll make a better post later.

and that’s how we’ll begin, the wizard and I

So things with Ryan have been going really well. I think that we’ll make it a long way and as a good team. I’ve been spending time with him every day and I’ve been loving life.

Tonight we walked to Lil’ Chef and back holding hands. We were both a little nervous about what people might think when they saw us, but it was worth the one weird look we got. We’ve also been pretty productive, working on homework when we hang out and stuff like that.

I’m really happy with life right now