15 IX 2001 - 14:15 - sed2

So.

Today was my first day at the Conservatory. This will mean nothing to anyone but mwarren, but it was nice to see people I haven't seen for the summer. There are some new faces in my class, too. It looks as if this class is going to be harder than music history was last year; instead of being counterpoint, it's form and analysis, which means that we'll be getting more homework and more analysis. I've completely forgotten my analysis.

And I got a group that I'm not sure I like - seems sort of weird, talking about this, I have a tendency to discount everything I say even in the best of times - but I don't know. I'm loath to drop chamber music because I know they'll be put out without a cellist to work with, and not only that, but I'm inclined to give them some slack for the first week anyway, just because I know that I am lucky and am not too bad at sightreading. There are plenty of fine musicians who are lousy sightreaders (right, and I just have to keep telling myself that...) The problem is, I won't find out whether they played the way they did because they're bad musicians or they're bad sightreaders until it's too late to drop the course. Plus if I do drop it, I will forever be on the head of the chamber music department's list of persona non grata, which is something I can live with now, but what if I want to go into music? (All right, so she's not *that* important. I'm just a little paranoid.)

Talking about school... on Wednesday, we had discussions in a lot of classes about what happened on Tuesday. It seems I was lucky - some of my friends' teachers refused to open up the class for discussion. It's odd - the memory seems to be fading for the people who initially reacted strongly, but for me and my friends, the general unease seems only to be growing. We're all really touchy people in the best of times, and now, we're in a state of heightened irritability. Almost every conversation becomes a contest of wills - whether it's about the draft (which will not affect us for three years but will affect many of our other friends) or the weather. It's dicey there.

Plus I seem to be having a weird physical reaction... muscles will clench uncontrollably as I lie awake in bed or type at the computer, and I just have to wait that out; when I sleep, I cycle through periods of feeling too hot and freezing (shivering in the sweat of ten minutes ago). I don't know. Some people (well, one person) has said that I'm doing this to myself subconsciously because I'd feel guilty if I weren't reacting somehow, and we all know my capacity for excess. I wish I could dismiss this out of hand, but it seems possible...

Focus has been hard, in terms of homework (like memorizing a billion Latin phrases). It's never really been easy for me to focus for long periods of time, but it's just gotten worse. Why am I whining again?

My sister came in this morning at 3 AM from New York.

Hearing reports of mosques threatened... one of my friends is Iranian Muslim, and things are starting to feel a little... close for her. It's not fair how easy it is to turn the public against a minority - it was easy to bring the Japanese-Americans into internment camps then, and it's easy now to turn people against anyone who looks vaguely Middle Eastern.

*sigh*

Which you all knew, I just thought I'd say it.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

Wish I could believe it.

J

tristitia, tristitiae f. sorrow, sadness