23 I 2002 - 22:27 - trivialis19

It looks rather as if I've fallen into my old habits of writing as a way to put off doing homework. Except this is really bad for me this time, because if I get my homework done, then I can spend a couple of hours on things I enjoy (like the terrible fiction I'm writing and coming up with a second theme for an exposition) before I have to go to bed. I am, of course, ignoring the common sense that tells me I will be much happier if I close Diaryland now, turn off the computer, and get cracking.

It may also be because I have no real wish to gain a greater understanding of the hyperbola.

Tomorrow: I have no third period class because, well, third period will be devoted to basic music theory, and I'm allowed to skip that, yay, I suppose seven years of Saturday morning classes has to pay off at some point. It means, however, that I will be spending it with Al, trying to reconcile the wildly different fragments we have: I have an opening movement that starts and should if all goes well end in g-sharp minor; she has the beginning of an inner movement - perhaps the fourth - which is in g-phrygian mode. These are not closely related keys. The seed of the idea that it may be better if we keep writing, but as different pieces, has been planted in my head. For some reason, I've begun to hear snatches of themes in terrible keys - c-flat minor, for instance. This would be one example of how having perfect pitch throws me off: I hear the theme and I know what key it's in, and it feels incredibly right, as if it was made specifically for that key - after that, transposing it feels... wrong. Which means that I'm stuck with a host of double-flats and double-sharps and God knows what else.

But, you know, I wrote another letter today, to a friend in Japan, and I have ideas for another letter I should send to a friend at Yale in return for the postcard she sent me. It's sort of nice to take time out from homework and practicing to - sit down and write a letter in which I invariably mention homework and practicing. All right, letter-writing as break from ordinary life: probably a failure. But it feels good, and to feel the thick packet of airmail paper in my hands, or the almost cottony, springy feel of my regular paper beneath my fingers - ah, that's fulfillment, and it's so neat to think that I might have written something that will appear in someone else's mailbox. And then the recipient goes to open their mailbox and they get all excited when they see it's not junk mail - and their face falls when they see it's from me. But at least it's something, right?

In-class essay on "themes of the Bible" tomorrow, must go and prepare for that. I'll be back.