27 I 2002 - 16:25 - trivialis20

So I'm going through a bunch of CDs, burning them for myself and for a couple of friends, and this is something to do as I wait for the burning to occur. I've taken care of events up to 13 February, although I don't know whether my father would like a CD for his birthday. I'm guessing he wouldn't like a CD of my music, at any rate, because I doubt he'd like the Indigo Girls, he compares my CD of Bulgarian a capella songs to Buddhist chanting - not favorably, either -, scoffs at my Hildgard von Bingen antiphons, and falls asleep during the pretty bits of my classical collection. Sigh.

On the other hand, dymphna changed her layout, Adam updated, Adam-as-Ian updated, and both my in-class essay on the Bible and my music theory final are over. Thos are good things, but the completion of those tests leaves roughly a billion tests to get through before the end of the year, or the week even: Monday, book II of the Aeneid, Tuesday, hyperbolas, ellipses, and parabolas, Thursday, European music and history from 1600-1750. We're rapidly approaching my comfort zone; I'm loath to read the section on the partition of Poland because I'd much rather look at the pretty maps and read the captions in my other books.

I'm writing more letters, which is a good thing, and I figure it's time to send another round of postcards to my sisters. And Opal. Drat. I started writing a postcard to her and then forgot in the excitement of actually having a second theme for my exposition. Which sounds cheesy, but the past five times my themes have sounded like something lifted from Disney. So I'm not complaining too much. I wish I could write major themes that didn't sound dippy to me. I wish I didn't think in minor keys all the time. I wish I didn't think in minor keys with more than five sharps all the time. Darn, none of those wishes came true.

Wow, Alchera is taking a while to load today, but that isn't too surprising, because my computer is rather temperamental where my wishes are concerned. I just found ampersand again, but am at a loss about what to write - any entry I write on the topic "Valentine's" is bound to be pissy and moany, in great part because I never had one and end up feeling even more isolated than I usually do. And speaking of isolation:

My school is wonderful, but I think the day of the "Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Multicultural Assembly" might as well be called "White Guilt Day." It seems like everything is made at making the white people in the audience feel guilty for their Repressive Society which, you know, great, but it's not all that productive, and what happens is that for the past two years at least we have had a giant orgy of guilt and then nothing for the rest of the year. There are good reasons for a mandatory class on Western civilization, and there is a good reason for the mandatory US History AP class. This is making perhaps no sense to those of you who didn't hear the talk. But I'm sort of sick of this all and I am articulate because I have been schooled in Western thought and I'm still thinking about this.

What I did take away from it, though, aside from a little bit of resentment and disgust, was the feeling that the second speaker was right: that the whole concept of the "student diversity panel," where students of color are pulled up ON A STAGE and asked questions by the rest of the students about how they'd like to be treated, may merely make the feelings of Otherness worse...

I don't know. I discussed this with mwarren on the way to SFSYO from the Conservatory, and I was much more articulate about it then, despite the fact that my annoying, I-know-not-whence-it-comes accent kicked in. Annoying, because it lilts in funny ways, and oh God, I have no idea where it came from because I don't know anyone around me who talks the way I do. It's an unconscious affect, and those are the worst kind because, well, one can never stop in time.

It was almost 4:30 when I began to type this. Now it's almost 5:00. I have a feeling that I need to get a life. I got to sit third stand outside at SFSYO the other day, which meant that I got to play one harmonic in the Takemitsu which I don't usually play (oh joy of joys), and we managed to avoid rehearsing the "random crazy stuff," our conductor called it. Rachmaninoff went all right, but I can't wait for the pianist to come. I think the sectional coach for the celli is actively trying to embarrass me, though, or at the very least turn the rest of my section against me, by praising how observant I am (it's not being observant, it's being neurotic about misprints and mute markings!) On the other hand, maybe she'll bust me back to seventh stand on the next seating audition, so I'm not going to say anything. Most of the excerpts (seven in all, although we were told yesterday that we'd only have to play a selection) were managable, and I can get through them with my reach (wider now) and technique (better now); the problem is the last Hindemith one, which wouldn't be so troublesome if it weren't so darned fast (a combination of triplets and sixteenth notes at half note = anywhere from 98 to 108). No no, I'm not happy about that one at all, and with my luck, I'm going to get that one.

Edwin at least doesn't seem to have it in for me yet, although I was late once to a rehearsal at the beginning of the year.

Oh, chamber music: I got put in a group with a nice pianist, as in B.-type nice, and with less of an abrasive personality. Which is not to say that B.'s personality is particularly abrasive, it's just that sometimes, he can be rather trying. Look at me, talking about him as if he weren't my senior by three years. The tradeoff (isn't there always one?) is that this pianist is, well, slightly more than slightly into videogames. Which are not my bag. But *shrug* why am I weighing that as a factor against him when - wait - he's not gay? Al is laughing right now because I've already gone into how disturbing this is: already multiple people who I see every week, more or less, who are incredibly wrong for me in some way. *sigh* I'm babbling, I make no sense, but still I should press on. Right, and just to up the disturbing: he's the younger brother of one of my sisters' best friends. He read the piano part to the Debussy Sonata and the Haydn D with me since our violinist was gone (this was yesterday, by the way), which was nice of him, and we had a good time. At least, I think he did.

That teenage fear that everyone secretly hates you? Coming into full force right about now. So I'm going to go do some homework and maybe some practicing so I can feel better about myself. Cheers.

Tiff? I'm sorry I can't speed up time for you...

J